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publishers to reach out to a wider reading public. In addition the specialisation of professions, which narrowed the everyday experiences of this new reading public, created a market for portrayals of a greater array of different classes, peoples, ages, sexes, etc. (Writing intended for women, and writing by women, is an important trend of 18th century literature.) Such detailed writings of the experiences of different people can be seen in the novels Watt examines, and had rarely been seen before. Watt presents many statistical details in this section of the book in support of his argument.
196:. Watt criticised both the book and the film for the liberties they took with the historical details of the prisoner of war experience and, more subtly, their refusal to acknowledge the moral complexities of the situation. More than 12,000 prisoners died during the building of the railway, most of them from disease, and Watt was critically ill from malnutrition for several years. "There was a period when I expected to die", Watt told
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247:, and many others who followed them, and the scientific, social and economic developments of this period, began to have ever greater impact. In place of the older classical idealism, a realistic, pragmatic, empirical understanding of life and human behaviour, which recognised human individuality and conscious experience, began to emerge. This was reflected in the novels of
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A second major trend that Watt studies is the "rise of the reading public" and the growth of professional publishing during this period. Publishers at this time "occupied a strategic position between author and printer, and between both of these and the public". The growth of profit concerns impelled
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has written that such literature can literally be read front to back, or back to front, with no significant difference in effect.) These philosophical beliefs began to be replaced perhaps in the later
Renaissance, into the
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in a 1979 interview. "But I didn't know how sick I was until they gave me some of the vitamin pills that had just come into the camp. I remember being very surprised that I was considered sick enough to receive vitamins."
289:. The book traces the rise of the modern novel to philosophical, economic and social trends and conditions that become prominent in the early 18th century. He is the subject of an intellectual biography by Marina MacKay,
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A key element Watt explores is the decline in importance of the philosophy of classical antiquity, with its various strains of idealistic thought that viewed human experience as composed of universal
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130:(9 March 1917 – 13 December 1999) was a literary critic, literary historian and professor of English at
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Watt joined the
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468:"Review of The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding"
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Myths of Modern
Individualism: Faust, Don Quixote, Don Juan, Robinson Crusoe
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150:, in England, Watt was educated at the Dover County School for Boys and at
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in
February 1942 and listed as "missing, presumed killed in action".
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until 1945, working with other prisoners on the construction of the
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as an infantry lieutenant from 1939 to 1946. He was wounded in the
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The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and
Fielding
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The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and
Fielding
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He had been taken prisoner by the
Japanese and remained at the
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281:(1957) is an important work in the history of the genre.
210:, after a long illness and a spell in a nursing home.
419:"Literary critic Ian Watt dies after a long illness"
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The
Victorian Novel: Modern Essays in Criticism, ed.
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The Life and
Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
55:. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
354:Conrad criticism and The Nigger of the 'Narcissus'
154:, where he earned first-class honours in English.
589:Stanford University Department of English faculty
176:which crossed Thailand, a feat that inspired the
534:; University of California Press (4 June 2001);
450:Watt, Ian (1957; 2nd American edition 2001).
350:(The Grace A. Tanner Lecture in human values)
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372:The Secret Sharer: An Episode from the Coast
649:World War II prisoners of war held by Japan
532:: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding
318:Essays on The Social Function Of Literature
584:University of California, Berkeley faculty
579:Academics of the University of East Anglia
547:Ian Watt: The Novel and the Wartime Critic
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291:Ian Watt: The Novel and the Wartime Critic
115:Learn how and when to remove this message
380:by Ian P. Watt, edited by Bruce Thompson
378:The Literal Imagination: Selected Essays
359:The Literal Imagination: selected essays
614:Writers from the San Francisco Bay Area
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639:British Army personnel of World War II
574:Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge
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644:British World War II prisoners of war
338:Jane Austen, ed. (20th Century Views)
16:For other people named Ian Watt, see
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53:adding citations to reliable sources
456:. University of California Press.
323:Conrad's "Secret Agent" (Casebook)
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348:The humanities on the River Kwai
328:Conrad in the Nineteenth Century
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629:Military personnel from Cumbria
619:20th-century English historians
604:People from Windermere, Cumbria
549:(Oxford University Press, 2018)
40:needs additional citations for
599:Literacy and society theorists
183:The Bridge over the River Kwai
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517:Stanford University obituary
384:The Consequences of Literacy
189:The Bridge on the River Kwai
152:St John's College, Cambridge
609:English literary historians
186:, and the film adaptation,
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466:McKillop, Alan D. (1958).
199:The San Francisco Examiner
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18:Ian Watt (disambiguation)
594:English literary critics
624:Burma Railway prisoners
522:6 December 2020 at the
271:Impact and significance
365:Editor and with others
208:Menlo Park, California
142:Born 9 March 1917, in
634:British Army officers
530:The Rise of the Novel
423:Stanford News Service
303:The Rise of the Novel
283:The Rise of the Novel
49:improve this article
163:Battle of Singapore
132:Stanford University
429:on 6 December 2020
393:by Laurence Sterne
214:Literary criticism
386:(with Jack Goody)
333:Conrad: Nostromo
253:Samuel Richardson
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569:1999 deaths
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224:Renaissance
148:Westmorland
558:Categories
511:References
237:John Locke
194:David Lean
144:Windermere
105:March 2010
75:newspapers
64:"Ian Watt"
492:0026-8232
261:Husserl's
241:Descartes
138:Biography
545:MacKay,
520:Archived
433:8 August
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293:(2018).
220:Platonic
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