Defoe's Narrative Technique in Robinson Crusoe

With the publication of Robinson Crusoe in 1719 the novel became
established as a significant literary genre. In this connection Daniel Defoe
set new standards for a long period. With his The Life and Strange
Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe he laid the foundations of the
contemporary Robinsonade. “With its common hero, pseudo-authentic
style, and focus on ideological problems of materialism and individualism,
it has been widely seen as the first modern realist novel” 1, the critic David
Fausett writes. But in the history of interpretation there are dissensions
about Defoe’s role in the development of the novel. His style although it
revolutionised the English novel, first was a topic for extensive
discussions.
From Maximillian E. Novak we get to know that “many of Defoe`s critics
have regarded his fiction as a kind of accident arising from his desperate
need to support his family and to keep off his creditors.“2 In the Rise of the
Novel Ian Watt goes so far as to say that Defoe “is perhaps a unique
example of a great writer who was very little interested in literature, and
says nothing of interest about it as literature.“3 In contrast Hammond
underlines the novel’s “lasting significance” that “surely lies in its
consummate blending of divergent literary traditions and its fruitfulness as
a source of myth.“4 Furthermore he concludes that “a story that has
achieved the status of a fable must possess considerably literary and
imaginative qualities and respond to some deep need in the human
psyche.“5
Because there must be something in Defoe’s style and narrative technique
that justifies the novel’s position in literature some critics have already
tried to find an explanation for Defoe’s role in the rise of the novel. [...]
1 Fausett, David. 1994. The Strange Surprizing Sources of ’Robinson Crusoe’. Amsterdam:
Rodopi, p. 25.
2 Novak, Maximillian E. “Defoe`s Theory of Fiction.“ In: Heidenreich, Regina und Helmut, eds.
1982. Daniel Defoe: Schriften zum Erzählwerk. (Wege der Forschung. Vol. 339). Darmstadt:
Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, p. 182.
3 Watt, Ian. 1957. The Rise of the Novel. Berkeley, p. 70.
4 Hammond, John R. 1993. A Defoe Companion. MD: Barnes & Noble, p. 67.
5 ibid., p. 67.