![]() ![]() That the ideal subject of the novel was unadorned reality depicted with exactitude was by no means an orthodoxy – although it would become one. Similarly, the didactic novel set impossibly unrealistic standards of personal conduct for its heroes and heroines. But in truth, the most popular early novels were gothic, which in the hands of Monk Lewis and his cronies could be a riot of angels and demons, as well as depravity. It might be argued that the Enlightenment, in its privileging of the rational over the spiritual world, influenced the new form of the novel, which expressed, as it properly should, the zeitgeist. ![]() The unseen world was not only fare for the spirit, but matter for art – and that included works of literature. Ghosts walked, holy icons linked directly to the saints they depicted, and people left milk out for the pixies. ![]() Even with the advent of the great monotheistic religions, the world of the spiritual co-existed with the mundane. Gods, monsters, spirits looked over our shoulders, went bump in the night, and progressed in pigment along the rock walls of caves. Once upon a time, the imaginary was part of the everyday. ![]()
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