Evelina

The Romantic novel strikes me as very hard to define; Romantic English literature includes the works of Austen, Burney, Scott... Each of these authors had written so differently from the others that, at times, the only common ground of their works is their era. Burney was a contemporary of Austen; yet the two had been concerned with very different issues. Burney, for one, had focused on the "entrance into the world," that is to say on the social debut of her heroines, and their progress in society. Evelina is an epistolary novel written in this vein. It focuses on the progress of its eponymous heroine from rural to urban spheres, and from obscurity to wealth and rank. Evelina's own naivete can be quite enervating at times. So many of her scruples had been caused by her own needless passivity. But the reader must make allowances for the English social guidelines of another age. After all, some of the acts and behavioral patterns of the characters may seem absurd to the reader today, but were quite ordinary then. The epistolary style, for instance, may add a little difficulty to the perusal of this book. It's not in fashion anymore, and there exists more entertaining literary techniques today. But such a structure was very popular at the time. Writing letters, in the first place, was a matter of great importance. Therefore, including some in a work of fiction had been an ingenious touch which thrilled the readers and left them desirous of more. If a little bit of antiquated language is your cup of tea, the book can be quite entertaining, for Burney had thrown into it several flavors. It has tragic episodes as well as hilarious situations. It dwells on romance and pure love as well as on deception, greed, and callousness. The novel examines minutely the social machinery of its time by means of a set of different characters. Lord Orville, for instance, is the paragon of nobility and goodness, but just to make sure that his rank would not get the credit for such merits, the novel introduces us to Sir Clement Willoughby and Lord Merton; they too are noblemen, but of a very different and base kind. Mr. Villars is all goodness and generosity to Evelina though the latter is not a true relation of his. Madame Duval, on the other had, is her own grandmother but is stingy and quite heartless. Lady Howard is very humble and generous, Mrs. Beaumont on the other hand is vain of her rank and family. In this manner, Burney had went beyond the female sphere by remaining in it; this might sound paradoxical but such is the case. By focusing on Evelina and her progress in the world, she had also supplied a subtle criticism of her community.