The Novel and Prejudice

Abstract

This essay identifies a new subgenre of the novel, the novel of prejudice, which appears at the end of the eighteenth century. Modeling an awareness of prejudice as an ethical and political problem of modernity distinct from the reader identification and empathy associated with sentimental fiction, the novel of prejudice draws on Enlightenment theories of toleration to develop a narrative focus on the self-critical and complicit conscience.