"Formal Realism" by Amanda Burns

Formal Realism is a novelistic convention first described by Ian Watt in The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding (1957).  According to Watt, formal realism was “the narrative method whereby the novel embodies a circumstantial view of life”(32).  Therefore, what defined novel narrative was less about content and more about the particularized way in which that content was presented.  In other words, the novel presented a “full and authentic report of human experience” regardless of what that experience entailed.  Formal realism provided novel text with a sense of immediacy and individuality because it’s use of common place details allowed for the presentation of a truly “individual experience set in its temporal and spatial environment.”

Formal realism is a matter of construction over content.  Literature in the novel genre is not unified by similar subjects and settings, but rather by the attention to detail paid to all variations of characters and landscapes.  Dress, food, buildings, decorations, personalities, bizarre occurrences, weather, sounds, atmosphere, mood, scenery, personal objects, plants&animals - all were duly noted.

Roxana, by Daniel Defoe is the story of a middle class woman’s fall into near prostitution.  Pamela, by Samuel Richardson tells the tale of a servant girl preserving her modesty while falling in love with her master.  Jonathan Wild, by Henry Fielding, is the story of an infamous criminal.  A Sentimental Journey, Sterne, is about a traveler.  The Monk, Lewis, about a sinning monk.

Yet, all are a part of the novel genre because they employ the narrative technique known as formal realism.  The stories of a servant, a traveler, a monk, and a criminal all find commonality in their emphasis on detail.