Criticism > Literary Criticism (1400-1800) > The English Realist Novel - The Novel And Other Literary Forms

1. Printable Version
2. Download PDF
3. Cite this Page

THE NOVEL AND OTHER LITERARY FORMS

Terry Castle (essay date 1986)

SOURCE: "Literary Transformations: The Masquerade in English Fiction," in Masquerade and Civilization: The Carnivalesque in Eighteenth-Century English Culture and Fiction, Stanford University Press, 1986, pp. 110-29.

[In this excerpt from a study of the carnivalesque, Castle examines the relationship between the masquerade and English fiction in the eighteenth century.]

The literary history of the masquerade in England could be said to begin, not with a novelist at all, but with John Dryden. The following dialogue from Marriage a la Mode (1673) celebrates the birth of a topos:

PALAMEDE. We shall have noble sport tonight, Rhodophil; this masquerading is a most glorious invention.

RHODOPHIL. I believe it was invented first by some jealous lover to discover the haunts of his jilting mistress, or perhaps by some distressed servant to...

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass

1. Introduction
2. Representative Works
3. Overviews
4. From Romanticism To Realism
5. Women And The Novel
6. The Novel And Other Literary Forms
7. Further Reading
8. Copyright

1. British Literature