Brian Eckert is a graduate of the Master’s of Liberal Arts program at Johns Hopkins University and will start a PhD in English at the University of Arkansas in August 2025. Brian’s résumé includes bartending, landscaping, teaching middle school, gravedigging, farming, and cooking. Brian is a poet, an avid hiker, and lover of books and bookstores. He hopes to pursue a career in academia.
The Artist’s Novel: Defining the Künstlerroman
Brian Eckert, Johns Hopkins University
Both the bildungsroman genre and the künstlerroman subgenre are difficult to define, but through an analysis of the terms themselves, multiple novels, and some phenomenological aesthetics, I will show the subtle but important differences between an artist’s coming-of-age process and that of a more traditional, non-artist’s bildungsroman. Although protagonists in both genres undergo similar or even parallel experiences and development, the way an artist observes, interprets, and understands these specific events sets them apart from other protagonists. Artists frequently feel alienated from their peers, their families, and society more broadly, which leads them to seek comfort, inspiration, and a new identity in the work of other artists and their own creative expression. The artist’s creativity, unique perspectives, and skepticism of authority only exacerbate the alienation they experience. The artists typically have spiritual experiences but also deeply rooted skepticism about the validity or proof of what they are taught, which causes their spiritual quest to be demanding. The artist questions, challenges, and struggles to obey “thou shalt” commands from parents, authority figures, or socio-cultural traditions. Although the traditional bildungsroman protagonist will struggle and rebel, they typically arrive at a point at which they have found their place or learned how to fit in, whereas in the künstlerroman, the artist learns that their natural state is out of place, obtuse, non-conformist. The artist’s life is defined by a continuous bildung that not only never ends but also is vitally linked to the process of artistic creation.
To begin any discussion of the bildungsroman genre, readers first need to understand the term and the arguments surrounding it. For English speakers, it may sound like a false cognate of “building,” but Bild (n) is defined as “picture, painting, portrait, image, idea;” bilden (v) is defined as “(to) form, (to) shape, (to) cultivate (the mind);” and Bildung is defined as “formation; education (mind), culture; knowledge, learning, accomplishments.”[1] These definitions may not clarify the genre in literal terms, but they give the sense that not only is the genre defined by personal development, it is also endowed with a subtle idealistic view of the end goal that the protagonist must ultimately accept as unattainable. However, for an artist, there is no finished product; their development is unceasing and constantly striving for that unattainable ideal, placed just out of reach.
In his introduction to Reflection and Action: Essays on the Bildungsroman, James Hardin contends that one issue for the genre is that there is no consensus on a definition.[2] Some argue that it should include any novel that covers even some of a character’s personal development, whereas others take a stricter view; Hardin points out that much of this debate comes from the difficulty in translating the word Bildung on its own, as noted above.[3] He provides the following definition from Jürgen Jacobs and Markus Krause:
[T]he term Bildung as it applies to the novel could be used in a broad sense linking it to the intellectual and social development of a central figure who, after going out into the world and experiencing both defeats and triumphs, comes to a better understanding of self and to a generally affirmative view of the world.[4]
The present paper will use a more inclusive definition for the genre, but it’s important to understand the various debates over the genre boundaries. This definition uses “generally affirmative,” which I disagree with for both the bildungsroman and künstlerroman because the artist never reaches an affirmative view, unless they affirm their difference from others. For non-artists, they begin with an idealistic view and through experience come to realize their views are too idealistic and recede back to their expected role in the family business, social traditions, and domestication. In English, bildungsroman is frequently translated as the “coming-of-age novel,” but this can be restrictive as well because it indicates a limitation to adolescent protagonists.
Martin Swales, in The German Bildungsroman from Wieland to Hesse, gives a variety of definitions of the bildungsroman to provide both a more complete understanding of the genre, and the various, popular critical perspectives. He includes an older definition from Wilhelm Dilthey based on J. W. von Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship and Friedrich Hölderlin’s Hyperion, but it focuses on subject matter and indicates a harmonious conclusion.[5] More recent analyses focus on the self-reflective development of the character instead of the influence of external events on the character. Swales claims that one primary debate today is between “thematic” and “aesthetic” interpretations: “[the bildungsroman genre] has been seen as both the vehicle for a massively referential artistic concern, and as a highly structured and durchkomponiert aesthetic construct…. The novel should, it has been claimed, recreate an existing world, and it should also create its own artistic totality.”[6] Swales also notes the related debate between Marxists and Structuralists—or, in reductive terms, those for whom the work is “about life” or “about itself”—but Swales argues they can be both.[7]
Swales adds that Goethe himself felt somewhat uncertain about the novel after he had completed it, quoting several exchanges between the author and his contemporaries. Goethe wrote “People look for a center, and that is hard—and not even good”; in another letter, he regarded a “subtle flaw” in the work: “the flaw which you quite rightly notice comes from my innermost nature—from a certain realistic tic.”[8] However, Swales also quotes Friedrich von Schiller’s praise for Goethe’s novel and specifically this “tic” Goethe described: “[Wilhelm] achieves definiteness, without losing his lovely openness to redefinition,” and that the “idea of mastery cannot and may not stand as his purpose and goal before him… rather it must stand as leader behind him.”[9] Although Wilhelm remains open to redefinition, he does not pursue it as the artist in a künstlerroman, he seeks some state of completeness, he must “master” something, and to be an artist is to be a perpetual student. Despite his early artistic pursuits, Wilhelm gives into social pressure in the end, better explained through Swales’ extended quote from G. W. F. Hegel’s Aesthetics.
This novelistic quality is born when the knightly existence is again taken seriously, is filled out with real substance. The contingency of outward, actual existence has been transformed into the firm, secure order of bourgeois society and the state, so that now the police, the law courts, the army occupy the position of those chimerical goals which the knight used to set himself. Thereby the knightly character of those heroes whose deeds fill recent novels is transformed. They stand as individuals with their subjective goals of love, honor, ambition or with their ideals of improving the world, over against the existing order and prose of reality which from all sides places obstacles in their path… Especially young men are these new knights… These struggles are, however, in the modern world nothing but the apprenticeship, the education of the individual at the hands of the given reality… For the conclusion of such an apprenticeship usually amounts to the hero getting the corners knocked off him… In the last analysis he usually gets his girl and some kind of job, marries and becomes a philistine just like the others.[10]
This is almost precisely what happens to Wilhelm. He begins with an idealistic view of the world, determined to make a name for himself and achieve great things. He informally adopts Mignon, lends money against his better judgment, and goes out of his way to be virtuous, yet in the end he succumbs to the social pressure of traditional expectations and domestication.
In contrast to Wilhelm are both Eugene Gant and Stephen Dedalus, of Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward, Angel and James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, respectively, which will serve as my primary examples of the künstlerroman. Both Gene and Stephen share the characteristics of artists in künstlerromane, but Gene will be the first focus. Wolfe establishes the literary theme of the novel through the title, the section titled “To the Reader,” and prologue, referencing other literary figures before him, such as John Milton.[11] Gene also starts his deep connection to language early on in life, highlighted in several scenes, but especially the following:
[H]is eyes intent upon great wooden blocks piled chaotically on the floor. They had belonged to his brother Luke: all the letters of the alphabet, in bright multicolored carving, were engraved upon them.
Holding them clumsily in his tiny hands, he studied for hours the symbols of speech, knowing that he had here the stones of the temple of languages, and striving desperately to find the key that would draw order and intelligence from this anarchy.[12]
For Gene, the figurative barrier between himself and language was much more substantial than the physical barrier of his crib walls that he climbed over to reach the blocks.[13] Yet, even from this age, he realizes language is the key to understanding and being in the world. However, Gene feels near-constant pressure to suppress or hide this urge and propensity for language from his parents, siblings, and other friends or adults in his life, and as an extension, his desire to create.
In addition to language, silence is another prominent theme throughout Look Homeward, Angel, contrasting and emphasizing Gene’s love and desire for language. Dixieland (the name of the family home) is constantly shrouded in silence, further contrasted by the borders and abundance of people filtering in and out of the house. Gene feels the full weight of this contrast which ultimately pulls him away from his family and Dixieland in the end:
“The first move I ever made, after the cradle, was to crawl for the door, and every move I have made since has been an effort to escape. And now at last I am free from you all, although you may hold me for a few years more. If I am not free, I am at least locked up in my own prison, but I shall get me some beauty, I shall get me some order out of this jungle of my life: I shall find my way out of it yet, though it take me twenty years more—alone.”
“Alone?” said Eliza, with the old suspicion. “Where are you going?”
“Ah,” [Gene] said, “you were not looking, were you? I’ve gone.”[14]
Eugene’s life is steeped in a desire to escape and get away, which also emphasizes the figurative prisons Wolfe constructs throughout the novel from Gene’s crib, to Dixieland, to Altamont, as well as the figurative social expectations of career and family. In “‘Look Homeward Angel’ as Autobiography and Artist Novel,” Philip Snyder writes:
The generic codes of the künstlerroman always prescribe an initiation interruptus, or one in continuous process, rather than a completed developmental pattern, because the artist cannot ever reach a harmonic mode of being or expression without losing everything that makes that being or expression possible. Artists must be engaged in a constant process of reinvention.[15]
Eugene cannot exist in silence because he is an artist, specifically a literary artist, which necessitates that he continuously create in order to continue developing and becoming himself. Snyder points out a passage in which Eugene rediscovers his old baby photos and feels revolted; he is unable to recognize the person in the photo as himself.[16] The artist is in a state of constant development, so an old photo truly represents a different identity that no longer exists, outside of the photographic representation and memories.
In addition to his changing personal identity, Eugene also struggles to identify himself within his own family, which contributes to his isolation, alienation, and desire to escape. On multiple occasions, Gene’s siblings tease him about being the odd member of the family, not fitting nicely into either side of the Gant/Pentland family dichotomy; he is frequently compared with Greely Pentland, the ‘weird one’ in the family.[17]This manifests later in Gene’s use of writers’ names when checking in various places such as “Ben Jonson; Robert Browning; William Wordsworth.”[18] This reinforces the literary nature of the novel, both Wolfe as the author, filling the novel with reference, homage, and even quotes from previous authors, and Eugene as an artist, assuming the identity of his literary idols in addition to his studies of their work. This is another common theme across the künstlerroman genre because the artist frequently experiences rejection and alienation from not only their biological family, but also their other relatives and friends, either being an orphan, losing parents, or simply being incompatible with others, like in Eugene’s case, although he does lose some of his siblings relatively early in life also. This also happens to Stephen in Joyce’s novel; although Stephen and Gene both have parents, their parents fail to understand or support their artistic pursuits. However, both characters find some sense of familial connection or artistic heritage with artists they idolize through their creative pursuits. This connection encourages their drive to create and recreate themselves continuously through art. Unlike a traditional bildungsroman, in which the protagonist searches for and typically finds some “affirmation”[19] of their identity to satiate the developmental urge, artists are constantly seeking reinforcement and re-confirmation, but the artist ultimately seeks a new identity when they are unable to connect with their traditional sources of inherited identity, either cultural, familial, national, or some combination.
Joyce uses many similar themes and techniques as those found in Wolfe’s novel, but the relationship between language and the Bildung process goes beyond Eugene’s and his development. Joyce, like Wolfe, establishes the literary theme of this novel through references to other works of literature throughout his novel, in addition to more subtle themes. For example, the name Stephen Dedalus makes reference to both the myth of Daedalus, who constructed both the mythical labyrinth to house the Minotaur and waxen wings for himself and Icarus, as well as St. Stephen, the first martyr of Christianity who was accused of blasphemy, with the name Stephen coming from the Greek word for “wreath, crown” or “reward, honor, fame.”[20] The novel covers Stephen’s life from childhood, through adolescence, and up to his departure from home. The reader meets Stephen at an early age, in a similar state to Eugene, when the mysteries of language are still unfolding for the protagonist. However, Joyce’s narrative technique makes this künstlerroman distinctive from Wolfe and others that I considered for this project.
Minodora Simion divides Joyce’s novel into three sections, delineating the aforementioned three stages of Stephen’s development. The first section consists of Stephen’s childhood and early development.[21] This includes the parallel, pre-linguistic stage in which the reader meets Eugene in Wolfe’s novel. In the second section, Stephen struggles to decide what to do with his life, before being frightened away from priesthood by “Father Arnall‘s brutal series of tirades about hell triggering Stephen‘s religious crisis.”[22] Stephen experiences skepticism and hopelessness in the face of losing his childhood, “His childhood was dead or lost and with it his soul capable of simple joys, and he was drifting amid life like the barren shell of the moon.”[23] In the third section, Stephen finally takes over the narration for himself, indicating he is also taking over control of his life and his identity.[24] In the final chapter, Joyce switches to first-person narration in the form of Stephen’s diary entries before he leaves for Paris.[25] This signifies that Joyce, the author, and Stephen, Joyce’s artistic creation, have effectively become one in the same.[26] Joyce continues with his creation, or work—the novel—while simultaneously writing and entering into the work himself, merging the self and work, both becoming and imparting himself in the earth/world tension of the work.
This merging can be better understood through Martin Heidegger’s analysis and explanation of the “work of art” in his essay The Origin of the Work of Art. Although he claims poetry is the highest form of artistic expression, he begins with the example[27] of Vincent van Gogh’s painting of a peasant’s shoes, entitled Shoes.[28] Heidegger scholars argue about which painting of which pair of shoes that Heidegger was referring to, but it actually doesn’t matter, which will become clear shortly.[29] Heidegger defines a work of art in several parts to better understand what makes something art, or to discover the essence of art. He defines a painting as composed of the “earth” and the “world,” the earth being the physical, material, painted and finished canvas on display, whereas the world of the work is the meaning, understanding, or symbolism that is reflected by the painting or interpreted by the viewer from the earth.[30] However, this earth–world tension in a finished work of art does not exist until the artist has finished creating it and discloses the earth to the viewing public, at which point the completed world of the work originally created by the artist recedes back into itself and becomes “undisclosed.”[31] Viewers will never necessarily know what ‘earth’ served as the model for the painting or the ‘world’ that inspired van Gogh to paint it in the first place, which is not all that important because each viewer, through their viewing, interpreting, and understanding of the finished work, creates or uncovers their own unique world of the painting through their unique perspective. Once van Gogh finished his painting, the true earth–world tension that inspired the work became undisclosed but also opened the potential for indefinite new, continued creation by viewers through their interpretation.
For linguistic art, this relationship becomes even more important because a written text has literal meaning in addition to any nuanced, symbolic, earth–world tension created by specifically artistic language. Heidegger’s argument emphasizes the importance of symbolism, figurative language, and other literary devices, but his point is that these elements can reveal deeper truths about existence that wouldn’t otherwise be coherent, discoverable, or able to be articulated in literal language. He states: “To be sure, the poet, too, uses words, not, however, like ordinary speakers and writers who must use them up, but rather in such a way that only now does the word become and remain truly a word.”[32] The artist does not use words as tools for communication or expressing literal meaning but rather as the true pieces of the temple of language that they are, further glorifying and honoring each word as an individual stone or brick through the unified whole, opposed to treading over them to get somewhere else. He continues:
Truth happens in the temple's standing there. This does not mean that something is correctly portrayed and reproduced here but rather that that which is as a whole is brought into unconcealment and held there. “To hold” originally means “to watch over [hüten].” Truth happens in van Gogh's painting. That does not mean that something present is correctly portrayed; it means, rather, that in the manifestation of the equipmental being of the shoe-equipment, that which is as a whole—world and earth in their counterplay—achieves unconcealment.[33]
Heidegger also acknowledges that this simultaneous, intrinsically linked process of creation and self-creation for the artist must be a continuous process, pointed out earlier by Snyder.[34] Heidegger writes:
The point is not that the created work be certified as a product of ability so as thereby to raise the public profile of the producer. What is announced is not “N.N. fecit” (passive: make, do, accomplish). Rather, “factum est” (it is done) is what is to be held forth into the open by the work: in other words this, that an unconcealment of beings has happened here and, as this happening, happens here for the first time; or this, that this work is rather than is not. The thrust that the work, as this work, is and the unceasingness of this inconspicuous thrust constitute the constancy of the self-subsistence of the work. Precisely where the artist and the process and circumstances of the work's coming into being remain unknown, this thrust, this “that [dass]” of createdness, steps into view at its purest form out of the work.[35]
Once the work is created and put forth, the “thrust” of its existence continues in a self-sustaining process. These novels continue their “thrust” today, long after their original inception as an idea or even their original writing and publication. In some ways, over time they come closer to being fully disclosed through research into their symbolism, the author’s biography, and further critical analysis, but that approach is asymptotic and these works will never fully achieve their pre-undisclosed state as they were in the hands of their authors. The “thrust” of the work, however, continues despite the fact that they will never complete their undisclosure.
Heidegger continues to explain that “the linguistic work, poetry in the narrower sense, has a privileged position among the arts as a whole. To see this all we need is the right concept of language.”[36] He claims that language is typically thought of as a means of communication, discussion, or generally to convey understanding; instead, Heidegger believes “it [language] brings beings as beings, for the first time, into the open. Where language is not present, as in the being of stones, plants, or animals, there is also no openness of beings, and consequently no openness either of that which is not a being [des Nicbtseienden] or of emptiness.”[37] He continues:
As the setting-into-work of truth, art is poetry. It is not only the creation of the work that is poetic; equally poetic, though in its own way, is the preservation of the work. For a work only actually is as a work when we transport ourselves out of the habitual and into what is opened up by the work so as to bring our essence itself to take a stand within the truth of beings.[38]
He defines poetry as “the essence of art,” but the essence of poetry is the founding [Stijtung] of truth, where he defines “founding” as the “threefold sense: as bestowing, as grounding, and as beginning. But it only becomes actual in preserving.”[39] The preservation is the continued interaction with the text or work of art, such as viewing it, thinking about it, or interpreting it.
The setting-into-work of truth thrusts up the extra-ordinary [Un-gebeure] while thrusting down the ordinary, and what one takes to be such. The truth that opens itself in the work can never be verified or derived from what went before. In its exclusive reality; what went before is refuted by the work. What art founds, therefore, can never be compensated and made good in terms of what is present and available for use. The founding is an overflowing, a bestowal.[40]
The figure of this work reflects the truth projected poetically onto it; however, this is not cast into the emptiness Heidegger frequently references but instead opens up to an historical, preserving humanity.
The truly poeticizing projection is the opening up of that in which human existence [Dasein], as historical, is already thrown [geworfen]. This is the earth (and, for a historical people, its earth), the self-closing ground on which it rests, along with everything which—though hidden from itself—it already is. It is, however, its world which prevails from out of the relationship of existence to the unconcealment of being. For this reason, everything with which man is endowed must, in the projection, be fetched forth from out of the closed ground and explicitly set upon this ground. In this way, the ground is first founded as a ground that bears.[41]
Language, and writing as an extension, not only allows humans to communicate with one another and express our understanding, but it also facilitates our ability to be, to be in the open, and to understand this being. The creative, artistic process extends beyond existence to elevate and more completely disclose truth and “the unconcealment of being,” especially through the linguistic arts.[42]
The reason these two texts, and especially Joyce’s novel, are excellent examples of the künstlerroman explained through Heidegger’s definition of the “work of art” is because of their stylistic exploration. At the time these novels were written, stream-of-consciousness was not widely popular or common as a narrative style, especially for something as long as Look Homeward, Angel.[43] However, this manner of writing is an extension of the authors’ self-creation through their writing, in addition to the characters’ development. By exploring experimental styles and themes in their writing, both Wolfe and Joyce were extending their own Bildung and forging new, unique identities as writers. Joyce took this a step beyond Wolfe in his shift to first-person narration at the end of the novel, as previously mentioned.[44] Not only did he construct the entire narrative-earth–world tension of the novel, but he also entered into the novel himself, somehow straddling the division between artist, art, and work of art.
Carl Malmgren further defines the importance of the modernist movement in “‘From Work to Text’: The Modernist and Postmodernist Künstlerroman.” Although he focuses on other texts as examples, both Eugene and Stephen share many of the same characteristics, and Wolfe and Joyce were similarly innovative in their writing. Malmgren contends that “the artist is a marked man”: their “name; appearance; and parentage” all set them apart from others and contribute to their marked-ness.[45] As shown in the examples throughout the present essay, Gene and Stephen are both different, or set apart from their family members and peers. Both of Stephen’s names are significant, while Gene is conflicted over the Gant/Pentland heritage, and both characters also have difficult relationships with their parents, to put it mildly. Malmgren also discusses the role of a “Textual Author” in the künstlerroman genre.[46] He argues that the postmodernist narrative style and “metalingual commentary” add layers of reflectivity and self-conscious commentary but make the text unreaderly.[47] This enhances the story but also challenges the reader in their attempt to understand and follow the narrative. Malmgren argues that modernist texts are much more readerly, with less complex technical experimentation.[48] Wolfe begins Eugene’s story with the story of his father, W. O. Gant, so the reader knows more about Eugene’s background and family history than he does for most, if not all, of his own story. Joyce’s shift to first-person narration at the end of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Manchallenges the reader to differentiate between author and character, or to reflect on that division in general. Their experimentation is not so intense that the texts become unreaderly like postmodernist authors as Malmgren points out, but Joyce and Wolfe both explored new narrative techniques and styles which establish the development in each character, author, and reader.
At this point, I would like to propose my own definition of thekünstlerroman, based on some of those listed above and one additional definition from Simion which is “an artist‘s Bildungsroman.”[49]I would like to alter this to “an artist’s novel” because of the two definitions of the word “1. an invented prose narrative that is usually long and complex and deals especially with human experience through a usually connected sequence of events” or “2a. new and not resembling something formerly known or used; 2b. original or striking especially in conception or style.”[50]Although most would simply read over this term without picking up the secondary meaning, akünstlerromanis not simply the narrative story of an artist’s development because their development never ends. Akünstlerromanis also the creation of an artist: a new, original, striking conception, not resembling something formerly known, yet because of the referential and reusable nature of language, it’s composed entirely of unoriginal words that have been used for centuries. To repurpose and paraphrase Heidegger’s quote “Language is language”[51]; the artist’s novel is the artist’s novel, a continuous story of original self-creation and unique self-expression.
Notes
[1] H.C. Sasse, J. Horne, Charlotte Dixon, editors. Cassell’s New Compact German Dictionary (New York: Dell Publishing, 1966): 34.
[2] James Hardin. “An Introduction,” Reflection and Action: Essays on the Bildungsroman, (Columbia SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1991): x.
[3] Ibid., xi.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Martin Swales. The German Bildungsroman from Wieland to Hesse, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978): 3.
[6] Ibid., 4, 5.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid., 24-25.
[9] Ibid., 25.
[10] Ibid., 24-25.
[11] Philip A. Snyder. “‘Look Homeward Angel’ as Autobiography and Artist Novel,” The Thomas Wolfe Review, vol. 19, no. 1 (1995): 48.
[12] Thomas Wolfe. Look Homeward, Angel, (New York: Scribner, 2006, originally published 1929), 33.
[13] Snyder, 50.
[14] Wolfe, 412.
[15] Snyder, 51.
[16] Ibid., 50.
[17] Wolfe, 116; 194.
[18] Ibid., 485.
[19] Hardin, xi.
[20] Minodora Otilia Simion. “Modernist Techniques in a Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce,” Annals of the Constantin Brancusi University of Targu Jiu-Letters & Social Sciences Series, (Dec 2013): 57, 59-60.
[21] Ibid., 59-61.
[22] Ibid., 58.
[23] James Joyce. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (New York: Penguin Books, 1976): 94-100.
[24] Simion, 60-61.
[25] Joyce, 248.
[26] Simion, 60.
[27] Heidegger, 13-18.
[28] Vincent van Gogh. Shoes, 1888, oil on canvas, 18 x 21 3/4 in. (45.7 x 55.2 cm), The Met.
[29] Alexandra J. Pell, “Truth and Being: Heidegger's Turn to Poetry,” Trinity College Digital Repository, 2012: 14-15.
[30] Heidegger, 21-26.
[31] Ibid., 28.
[32] Ibid., 25.
[33] Ibid., 32.
[34] Snyder, 52.
[35] Heidegger, 39. My parentheses, B.E.
[36] Ibid., 45.
[37] Ibid., 45-46
[38] Ibid., 46.
[39] Ibid., 46.
[40] Ibid., 46.
[41] Ibid., 46.
[42] Ibid., 46.
[43] Snyder, 44-46; Simion 59-60.
[44] Simion, 58.
[45] Carl D. Malmgren. “‘From Work to Text’: The Modernist and Postmodernist Künstlerroman,” NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, Vol. 21., Duke University Press, 1987: 6.
[46] Ibid., 16-20.
[47] Ibid., 16-17, 24.
[48] Ibid., 24.
[49] Simion, 59.
[50] “Novel,” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, accessed May 7, 2021, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/novel.
[51] Pell, 21.