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Western Literary Novel Forms

Novel forms, techniques and literary-historical movements from the European and American literary tradition, grouped here because their defining fact is a formal narrative structure or a documented literary-critical movement rather than a commercial market category. Includes structural and technique-defined forms such as the epistolary, picaresque, autobiographical, biographical, collage, hybrid, parallel and nonlinear novel, narrative modes such as metafiction, postmodern fiction, hysterical realism, domestic realism and psychological fiction, and period- or movement-defined genres such as the eighteenth-century Gothic novel, the eighteenth and nineteenth century sentimental, silver fork and seduction novel, the eighteenth-century libertine and Jacobin novel, and twentieth-century movements including proletarian literature, the neo-slave narrative, the systems novel and transgressive fiction, together with their Latin American, French, Spanish, Czech, Italian, German and Australian counterparts such as the dictator novel, gaucho literature, the roman-fleuve, nivola, romanetto, romanzo d'appendice, zeitroman and grunge lit. Excludes forms defined primarily by a youth readership, an Asian literary tradition, a digital or interactive format, or a popular-market genre, each grouped separately below.

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Era of Emergence
1605 1
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Western Literary Novel Forms
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Anti-Nihilistic Novel

The Novel and Its Forms

Anti-Novel

The Novel and Its Forms
1 link

Autobiographical Novel

The Novel and Its Forms
1 link

Bildungsroman

The Novel and Its Forms
8 links

Biographical Novel

The Novel and Its Forms
1 link

Collage Novel

The Novel and Its Forms
1 link

Comic Novel

The Novel and Its Forms
1 link

Dictator Novel

The Novel and Its Forms

Domestic Realism

The Novel and Its Forms

Eighteenth-Century Gothic Novel

The Novel and Its Forms
1 link

Epistolary Novel

The Novel and Its Forms
1 link

Family Saga

The Novel and Its Forms
1 link

Feminist Literature

The Novel and Its Forms

Gaucho Literature

The Novel and Its Forms

Grunge Lit

The Novel and Its Forms

Historical Fiction

The Novel and Its Forms
19 links

Hybrid Novel

The Novel and Its Forms

Hysterical Realism

The Novel and Its Forms

Jacobin Novel

The Novel and Its Forms
1 link

Kunstlerroman

The Novel and Its Forms
1 link

Libertine Novel

The Novel and Its Forms

Mennonite Literature

The Novel and Its Forms

Metafiction

The Novel and Its Forms
1 link

Metahistorical Romance

The Novel and Its Forms
1 link

Neo-Slave Narrative

The Novel and Its Forms

Nivola

The Novel and Its Forms

Nonlinear Narrative

The Novel and Its Forms

Novel of Circulation

The Novel and Its Forms
1 link

Novel of Manners

The Novel and Its Forms
1 link

Parallel Novel

The Novel and Its Forms
1 link

Philosophical Fiction

The Novel and Its Forms
1 link

Plantation Tradition

The Novel and Its Forms

Political Fiction

The Novel and Its Forms
1 link

Popular Novel in France

The Novel and Its Forms

Postmodern Fiction

The Novel and Its Forms
3 links

Proletarian Literature

The Novel and Its Forms
1 link

Pseudotranslation

The Novel and Its Forms

Psychological Fiction

The Novel and Its Forms
2 links

Recit

The Novel and Its Forms

Rogue Literature

The Novel and Its Forms

Roman a Clef

The Novel and Its Forms
1 link

Roman a These

The Novel and Its Forms
1 link

Romanetto

The Novel and Its Forms

Roman-fleuve

The Novel and Its Forms

Romanzo d'Appendice

The Novel and Its Forms

Seduction Novel

The Novel and Its Forms

Sentimental Novel

The Novel and Its Forms
1 link

Sentimentalism

The Novel and Its Forms

Silver Fork Novel

The Novel and Its Forms
1 link

Social Novel

The Novel and Its Forms
1 link

Systems Novel

The Novel and Its Forms
1 link

The Picaresque Novel

The Novel and Its Forms
7 links

Transgressive Fiction

The Novel and Its Forms
1 link

Zeitroman

The Novel and Its Forms
Sources
1. Novel (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundation (Wikipedia)Novel, lead section, Cervantes sentence
Quote, Novel, lead section, Cervantes sentence
Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote (the first part of which was published in 1605), is frequently cited as the first significant European novelist of the modern era.
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