Ian Watt and the figuration of the real (reading notes)

Abstract

This article aims to discuss the appropriation by Ian Watt of
some crucial theoretical contributions from Critical Theory,
which enabled the author of A ascensão do romance to incorporate to the tradition of Practical Criticism a concern with the sociohistorical processes which are formalised by the novelists he privileged in this work as a literary historian and critic. Here, Robinson Crusoe, the novel published by Daniel Defoe in 1719 is taken as a paradigmatic example.