E.M. Forster in Aspects of the Novel cites the definition of a Frenchman named Abel Chevalley: "a fiction in prose of a certain extent" and adds that he defines "extent" as over 50,000 words.

There are three possible points of emphasis in prose fiction. Each point can be emphasized in either a long or a short narrative.

As you can see from the above table, the novel is one form of an extended fictional prose narrative. It differs from allegory (which functions to teach some sort of moral lesson) and romance (with its emphasis on spectacular and exciting events designed to entertain) in its emphasis on character development.

The novel, however, arises from the desire to depict and interpret human character. The reader of a novel is both entertained and aided in a deeper perception of life's problems.

The roots of the novel come from a number of sources:

• Elizabethan prose fiction
• French heroic romance--vast baroque narratives about thinly disguised contemporaries (mid-17th century) who always acted nobly and spoke high-flown sentiment
• Spanish picaresque tales--strings of episodic adventures held together by the personality of the central figure; Don Quixote is the best known of these tales.

The word "novel" (which wasn't even used until the end of the 18th century) is an English transliteration of the Italian word "novella"--used to describe a short, compact, broadly realistic tale popular during the medieval period (e.g. The Decameron).

The novel deals with a human character in a social situation, man as a social being.

The novel places more emphasis on character, especially one well-rounded character, than on plot.

Another initial major characteristic of the novel is realism--a full and authentic report of human life.

The traditional novel has:

• a unified and plausible plot structure
• sharply individualized and believable characters
• a pervasive illusion of reality