An experiment in literary critical appreciation, using a comparison between three nineteenth-century novels prescribed by the Cape Education Department and a random sample of Mills and Boon popular romance fiction

摘要

The novel as an art form provides writers with the opportunity of exercising their imaginative power to create a 'speaking picture' of life. Whatever form that picture may take, it is vital that it should offer relevance to real life. The literature teacher's earnest intention, therefore, should be to encourage an appreciation of literary novels among adolescent pupils in order to enrich the quality of their living and to sharpen their awareness of the human condition. Teaching adolescents to discern the essential differences between the novel of quality and the novel which exists purely to provide wish-fulfilment and sensual titillation is the aim of this dissertation. Thus a structural analysis of the literary novel is presented, asserting that certain aspects of the novel should be identified and appreciated by the developing reader. Three novels which have recently been prescribed by the Cape Education Department for pupils in standards 9 or 10 are briefly examined in order to test the itensity of their illusion of reality in conjuction with the literary skills of their creators. These novels are Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen), Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë) and Tess of the d'Urbervilles (Thomas Hardy). Each has been viewed from a different angle, but each reveals its right to be evaluated as great literature. In order to develop literary appreciation among teenage readers, and to convince them of the delights and insights to be gained, it is proposed that comparison of the 'literary' with the 'unliterary' novel should promote discernment and sound judgement. Popular romance fiction, as published by Mills & Boon, is therefore investigated. These stories enjoy immense popularity, particularly among teenage girls. Far from promoting the illusion that life has been faithfully represented, these novels are shown to reveal a world manipulated to suit both the author and the reader: life as it might have been rather than as it is. A sample of adolescent responses to this type of comparative reading is provided in the last chapter. These responses reveal that the pupils' critical faculties were engaged and literary appreciation was evident