Macrorealism: Fiction for a Networked World

Abstract

Victorian novels were, generally speaking, big. But what forms did their bigness take? Why did a "macro" aesthetic prevail in the mid-nineteenth century? And why, after losing influence in the following century, has it returned in recent years? This dissertation identifies three distinct features - one spatial, one temporal, one intellectual - crucial to that aesthetic. Moreover, it explains why that kind of fiction, which I call macrorealism, has come into fashion at two different historical moments.