Yes, this!

She is specifically talking about English novels. How did you miss this?

@@tananario Because the video title is very general. It doesn't specifically address English novels, even though the content of the video itself does.

Dion Quixote isn’t English either

Cool. While I have this book in my collection, I have yet to read it. Thanks for the reminder!

I agree that if the book's defamatory statements about Sarah Churchill were true statements, and if Churchill were suing Delarivier Manley for libel, then Churchill would have been playing a dangerous game of chicken with Manley. And, your comment is funny. :) A few small things change the perspective. First, Manley was not being sued in civil court for libel (defamation). She was charged in criminal court with the crime of seditious libel. If she were found liable for libel in a civil law suit, the court could only take away Manley's property: i.e., order her to pay money to the plaintiff and order the destruction of the books. If she were found guilty of the crime of seditious libel, however, the court could take away her property and her freedom. The charges were supposedly only concerned with the false statements (defamation) that incited insurrection. The prosecutor charged libel by claiming Manley's books had "many false, malitious [sic] and scandalous" statements. He charged it as seditious libel because the allegedly defamatory statements were allegedly about people in the government ("Several of the Queen’s Liege Subjects") and because the books allegedly caused unlawful rebellion against the government ("Disturbance of the publick [sic] Peace and Quiet of Her Majesty’s Government"). Because this was a criminal case, Sarah Churchill could not control whether or not charges were initiated, and she could not control whether or not the charges were withdrawn without trial. To prove that a satirical book with fictionalized names was defamatory, the prosecutor would need to prove that the damaging statements were false and that the other (non-damaging) statements were so similar to the truth that the fictional characters were describing a real person. It's a difficult balance. If the prosecutor had all of the actual facts and he had proved them at trial, then, under the law of the time, she might have been convicted. (The law was an unjust law, it was only about politics, the prosector would have had to bend some truths, the jury (if there was a jury) might have voted in her favor, and the judge might have had to misapply the seditious libel law, which regularly happened at that time and for the next 100 years.) But, the prosecutor didn't have strong evidence and seems to have assumed that Delarivier Manley, a woman, would confess everything after being arrested and interrogated. He was very wrong. The court "discharged without conviction" the charges. (That's close to, but not the equivalent of, not-guilty in the contemporary world, especially because the court could, and did, impose a fine on her.) [I thought, "I'll just quickly write a short comment." I was very wrong.]

@@HunterHogan Thanks for that much needed nuance

Yes! Was looking for this! This and The Pillow Book, written by a contemporary. More of a diary, but also one of the oldest surviving manuscripts. These books are so old, they need to be translated by a specialist.

@@lyndsaybrown8471 The Tale of Genji has an excellent translation by Royall Tyler that goes to great lengths to preserve the original writing style. Proper names are seldom actually used in the novel (it was considered disrespectful to do so, so only titles were used, and this goes for her name too, which means Lady Murasaki), whereas previous translations had made use of the traditional “fan names” for characters. Earlier translations had been abridged as well.

Same here!

Yes, but that's why Lindsay qualified she's talking about the first *modern* novel.

A manga I read in high school that was a retelling of that actually taught me that, but I’m glad I’m not the only one who pointed that out!

And now I am too...

What’s even more hilarious is that, according to Today I Found Out, chivalry never even existed. Whenever a Knight went out and “rescued” a woman from danger, odds are that in reality he was raping her.

@@GabyGeorge1996 Surely you are forgetting the flower and crown jewel of knighthood who assuages grievances, repels wickedness, and is an emissary of light and righteousness to all. El Quixote is the most chaste and chivalrous knight in history!

I never thought of it that way but you're SO right!

But don Quixote is funny

Was it composition or literature?

Two possible explanations. "Good stuff is never forgotten, so if it's forgotten it must be objectively garbage." "There's no accounting for taste, and great works of the past are continually lost and rediscovered. The subset of English novels you learned for your degree are a somewhat arbitrary part to the complete history of the English novel, possibly with a bit of identity-sensitive censorship with its thumb on the scales."

Then you should have your degree taken away.

@@briancundiff5282 oh, I suppose undergrad students are now responsible for designing their own curriculums? Don't be an idiot. If it wasn't taught, that's hardly my fault.

@@marlonmoncrieffe0728 both. English, Rhetoric and Discourse Studies, called English and Professional Writing when I first started the program. The name was changed halfway though (and not for the better, IMO)

I think the distinction being made is that the modern prose novel in Europe developed independently from the prose novel tradition of Japan due to Japan's insularity at the time. Genji wasn't known in England outside of academia until the first translation happened in the late 1800s. So once Don Quijote was published in 1605, the concept of not having to write everything in poetry exploded throughout Europe ("ya mean I don't have to think of a fancy rhyme for let's shag in the parlor? Brilliant!") and by the late 1600s in England these women were publishing prose fiction. But because slutty prostitute pens couldn't be credited with writing the first English novel, the credit goes to Defoe, who published Robinson Crusoe in 1719, and that is still how it is taught today.

@@cincocats320 Thanks for this. I also wasn't sure why Murasaki wasn't mentioned.

I was hoping Lindsay would mention Oroonoko.

One of mine too!

Yeah, they were all covered in my required undergrad classes as well. And I contrived to mainly read female novelists for the rest of my degree. Little racial diversity, but I gather that's starting to change.

Yeah, I am theatre student myself and I had heard of Aphra Behn before.

Weird! My degree is in theatre in England and Aphra Behn was never mentioned. Are you in the UK too? I wouldn't say she's especially popular here atm

@@louisee7339 no, US. I did a report on her in high school and she came up in theatre history in college, not a ton but we all knew who she was if we were doing theatre history. But that's just my experience, I'm sure lots of schools are different.

Also literally the work she is most known for. These Storied videos are honestly not very good...

Yeah I love Woolfs work but I’m reading her diary right now and I definitely noticed that. I also love Joyce (especially Ulysses) and had to raise my eyebrow at her opinions on how she referred to Joyce as a “self taught working man” in a derisive way.

@@maristiller4033 She had so many tragedies in her life that you would think it would have engendered more sympathy for others, but evidently she had a bit of a prejudice against, as you said, "workingmen".

@@falgalhutkinsmarzcal3962 Exactly! I find it so hard to believe that people like Woolf, someone who was absolutely prejudiced against as a bisexual woman could turn around and be just as prejudiced to someone else. I guess lack of class consciousness really is a disease.

@@maristiller4033 and she lost her favorite brother to a tragic early death and was sexually abused by her half-brother. Maybe she was insecure about her own standing as a writer and that insecurity manifested as classist scorn. I don't know. I still love The Waves and am able to overlook her human foibles, but it still sticks in my craw, being from a working class family myself.

@@maristiller4033 In my encounters I don't find any direct relationship between being mistreated and treating others generously. Plenty of people get bit and pay it forward however they can!

Does One Thousand and One Nights count as a novel?

I mean, she did say "modern novel"

@@rafaela00002 Regardless of what the presenter says, when the title of the video includes the line "Writers Who INVENTED the Novel" it makes the whole video willfully misleading and grossly incorrect!

@@SKH-kg1xw I'm sorry but i don't know.

@@TheGigashadow yeah that's true :/

Thanks for making me think about this.

Yes'm

Now that you mention it, yeah. Fanfic has some stigma lol

Exactly!

Was about to say that, although Chinese literature has even older novels. Plus, other Non-English language works such as La Princesse de Clèves by the French author Madame de La Fayette

Yes!

Exactly, "cumbersome" is one of the worst descriptions I've ever heard of Cervantes' work. Hard to believe anyone who's sat down with Quixote would find it so.

😳😂

You could try Project Gutenbrg. It's a public domain website for stories.

​@@sakunaruful i did a quick search there and on archive.org with no quick results. when i recommend something I like to follow up with easy access links. In person i just buy them the book and gift it out. and before you ask, the answer is "no", people do not like books as presents!

@@graphosxp I see. I'll remember to include a link next time.

@@graphosxp you need better friends. I love books as presents!

@@sakunaruful LOL! I did not mean you silly, so very sorry for the misunderstanding! I was just talking about the channel creators. since they already did the research anyways i'd appreciate the sources links, if possible and legal of course :)

Presumably, one could be smothered to death with kisses.

@@BradyPostma depends if your dealing with the spooky

And Lady Murasaki came even earlier!

Damn as someone who studied french for two years the names slaps 😂.

She’s later but also WAY under appreciated!

Anglocentric too, since the video leaves out Mme de La Fayette as well