The asethetics of empiricism and the origin of the novel.(Critical Essay) From: Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation | Date: June 22, 2000| Author: Loretelli, Rosamaria | COPYRIGHT 2000 Texas Tech University Press. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.Copyright information

In connecting the aesthetics of empiricism and the rise of the novel, I do not intend to put forward a new theory of how and when the novel was born. An article is hardly an appropriate place for such an enterprise. (1) What I want to do is simply to point out certain similarities, a common ground of research shared by the first novelists and by some philosophers and critics of the time. It is my intention to show how their inquiries led to the formulation of certain significant qu...