The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding by Ian Watt
Published 1957 · 320 pages · 100,000 words · about 8 hours at an average pace · Essays & Criticism
How hard is The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding to read?
The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding scores 58 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 58 out of 100
- Scholarly but accessible; sociological and philosophical vocabulary carefully introduced.
- Sentence structure: 55 out of 100
- Abstraction: 70 out of 100
- The formal realism thesis operates at a high level of historical and philosophical abstraction.
- Information density: 74 out of 100
- Rich with historical, sociological, and textual argument.
- Narrative indirection: 12 out of 100
- Direct historical argument throughout.
- Symbolic density: 100 out of 100
- Analytical.
- Ironic distance: 100 out of 100
- Measured scholarly tone.
- Resolution withholding: 100 out of 100
- Builds to a clear historical account of the novel's emergence.
- Structural complexity: 38 out of 100
- Historical argument followed by three author studies and a chapter on the reading public.
How The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding is regarded
The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding holds a literary regard score of 48 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.