Selasa, 30 November 2010

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Penampilan pertama

Mereka ditampilkan pertama kali dalam acara M! Countdown, 29 Maret 2007, membawakan lagu "Break It". Dari album perdana mereka, The First Blooming, dibuat dua buah video musik, "Break It" dan "If U Wanna". Album kedua mereka dijadwalkan pada Maret 2008, namun akhirnya dibatalkan. Salah seorang anggota, Kim Sunghee tiba-tiba mengundurkan diri. Ia gagal dalam tes masuk perguruan tinggi dan diminta kedua orang tuanya untuk berhenti. Sebagai akibatnya, album kedua Kara dibatalkan, dan dimulai audisi untuk memilih anggota baru.[3][4]
Dua anggota baru didapat dari hasil audisi, Gu Ha Ra dan Kang Ji-young. Kembalinya Kara sebagai berlima ditandai penampilan mereka di M! Countdown membawakan lagu "Rock U", 24 Juli 2008. Ketika masih berempat, Kara ditampilkan sebagai penyanyi wanita yang dewasa. Namun setelah menjadi berlima, Kara diubah menjadi grup yang lincah. Masih pada bulan yang sama, mereka merilis album EP pertama diikuti singel digital "Good Day: Season 2" (13 Oktober 2008) yang merupakan pembuatan ulang lagu berjudul sama dari EP mereka.

[sunting] Album mini kedua

DSP Entertainment merilis video perkenalan untuk lagu "Pretty Girl" pada [5] sebelum merilis videonya secara lengkap pada 2 Desember 2008 di situs web mereka.[6] Album EP "Pretty Girl" dirilis pada 4 Desember 2008, dan mereka mulai promosi dengan tampil di M.Net Countdown, 4 Desember 2008.[7]
Setelah "Pretty Girl", Kara mulai masuk ke dalam daftar istilah populer yang sering dicari di situs-situs portal berbahasa Korea. Park Gyu-ri disebut sebagai pendorong kepopuleran mereka karena "manis tapi alami",[8] sehingga disenangi penggemar pria dari kalangan berusia dewasa.[9]
Akibat jadwal promosi yang ketat, setelah latihan untuk acara Music Bank di KBS, sebagian anggota Kara masuk rumah sakit karena terlalu lelah.[10]

[sunting] Singel nomor satu: "Honey"

Pada akhir Januari 2009, DSP Entertainment mengumumkan sayembara di situs web mereka. Penggemar diminta memilih singel berikut dari Kara setelah "Pretty Girl".[11] Pada penutupan sayembara, 2 Februari 2009, lagu "Honey" menerima suara terbanyak, 60% dari total suara.[11][12] Setelah merilis video musik "Honey" pada 16 Februari 2009, mereka tampil dalam acara Music Bank di KBS (13 Februari 2009), diikuti album mini pada 19 Februari 2009.[11][12]
Dalam M Countdown di M.Net, "Honey" sukses sebagai singel nomor satu menyingkirkan "Gee" dari Girls' Generation.[2] Lagu yang sama memenangi penghargaan "Mutizen" ("music netizen") di acara SBS 인기가요 ("Popular Songs").[13]

[sunting] Anggot

persahabatan islam

     





 
 
Istilah sahabat dalam Islam sedemikian popular. Nabi memiliki banyak sahabat dalam mengembangkan Islam. Ada empat sahabat nabi yang amat dikenal, yang kemudian memimpin masyarakat Islam sepeninggal Nabi, yaitu Abu Bakar, Umar, Ustman dan Ali. Ke empat sahabat nabi ini, menurut tarekhnya, mereka sedemikian tulus dan dekat dengan nabi.

Para sahabat itu memiliki komitmen yang amat tinggi dalam memperjuangkan Islam. Apa saja ynag dilakukan oleh nabi, mereka ikuti dan kerjakan. Hubungan mereka dijalin bukan atas kepentingan, melainkan atas dasar cinta terhadap ajaran Islam yang sedemikian mulia. Atas dasar itu maka hidup dan atau mati mereka, hanya diperuntukkan bagi perjuangan agama Allah itu. Sebaliknya, antara sahabat dengan nabi tidak pernah terjadi konflik, salah paham, dan sejenisnya.

Mereka itu semua adalah orang-orang yang setia, sehingga pada saat nabi masih hidup, sekalipun sedemikian berat, perjuangan nabi selalu berhasil dengan gemilang. Kiranya tidak bisaa dibayangkan, andaikan para sahabat tersebut, tidak memiliki komitmen dan atau hati mereka tidak diikat oleh tali kasih sayang yang mendalam. Mungkin nabi akan disibukkan oleh persoalan-persoalan internal di lingkungan sahabat sendiri.

Persahabatan seperti itu, memang seharusnya bisa dicontoh oleh umatnya. Persahabatan dalam Islam diikat oleh tali keimanan dan kasih sayang di antara mereka. Iman selalu bersemayam di hati dan bukan hanya terletak di alam pikiran. Iman berbeda dengan sebatas pemahaman. Jika iman berada di hati maka pemahaman dan kesepakatan atau komitmen selalu berada di alam pikiran. Suara hati agaknya memang berbeda dengan suara akal. Suara hati selalu didasari oleh nilai-nilai luhur kasih sayang, sedangkan kesepakatan dan komitmen didasari oleh kepentingan-kepentingan.

Ikatan keseimanan dan kasih sayang, tidak mengenal transaksi, pertimbangan untung atau rugi, dan siapa mendapatkan apa. Berbeda dengan itu adalah hubungan-hubungan rasional dan kesepahaman yang biasanya diikat oleh janji atau MoU, maka berkemungkinan pihak-pihak tertentu, setelah mempertimbangkan untung atau rugi, apalagi ditengarai telah terjadi suasana tidak jujur dan tidak adil, maka kesepakatanm itu akan dibatalkan dan bahkan saling menggugat dan membatalkan kerjasama itu.

Islam sebagaimana yang telah dilakukan oleh Rasulullah, dalam membangu persahabatan didasari oleh kecintaan pada Allah dan rasulnya. Oleh karenanya, ikatan itu lebih konstan, mantap dan istiqomah. Persahabatan dalam Islam dibina sepanjang waktu, baik dalam kegiatan spiritual maupun dalam kegiatan social. Dalam kegiatan spiritual misalnya, setiap sholat selalu bacaannya diakhiri dengan mengucap salam ke kanan dan ke kiri. Ucapan salam itu berisi doa, memohon agar keselamatan dan rakhmat Allah selalu melimpah kepada saudaranya sesama muslim.

Dalam kegiatan ritual, seperti dalam sholat tergambar bahwa seorang muslim tidak hanya berharap mendapatkan keselamatan bagi dirinya sendiri dan keluarganya, melainkan keselamatan bagi seluruh kaum muslimin. Demikian pula, dalam berbagai doa’ yang diucapkan, kaum muslimin selalu menyempurnakan doanya terhadap seluruh kaum muslimin dan muslimat, mukminin dan mukminat, baik yang masih hidup maupun yang sudah mati. Persahabatan kaum muslimin, sesungguhnya secara doktriner, diikat secara kokoh dalam waktu yang amat panjang, baik di dunia maupun akherat. Hubungan sesame kaum muslimin, dibangun sebagaimana sebuah bangunan rumah, antara bagian satu dengan bagian lainnya saling memperkukuh. Selain itu juga diumpamakan bagaikan tubuh, maka jika sebagian sakit maka yang lainnya akan merasa sakit, dan demikian juga sebaliknya.

Hanya sayangnya konsep yang sedemikian luhur itu belum bisa direalisasikan sepenuhnya dalam kehidupan nyata. Di antara kaum muslimin seringkali masih saling bercerai berai. Berbagai organisasi Islam yang muncul di mana-mana, yang semestinya antara satu dan lainnya saling memperkukuh, namun pada kenyaannya justru sebaliknya. Antar berbagai organisasi terjadi saling berkompetisi, konflik dan bahkan juga saling menyerang dan menjatuhkan. Lebih ironi lagi, konflik itu tidak saja terjadi antar organisasi Islam, tetapi justru terjadi pula di antara internal organisasi.

Sedemikian rentannya persahabatan di antara kaum muslimin, sehingga seringkali terdengar joke, bahwa agar para iblis tidak terlalu capek menggoda manusia, maka makhluk Allah yang dianggap paling mulia tersebut didorong saja mendirikan organisasi dan syukur kalau organisasi yang bernuansa politik. Jika organisasi atau partai politik itu sudah berhasil berdiri, maka sekalipun setan tidak bekerja, maka mereka dengan sendirinya sehari-hari akan konflik dan saling menyerang dan menjatuhkan satu dengan lainnya.

Anekdot tersebut rasanya tidak sulit dipahami dari kalangan umat Islam. Selama ini seolah-olah ajaran Islam tidak memiliki konsep tentang persatuan umat. Selain itu seolah-olah Islam belum menjadi faktor pemersatu, dan sebaliknya, justru menjadi kekuatan pemecah belah umat manusia. Padahal kenyataannya tidak begitu. Banyak hadits nabi menegaskan bahwa antara sesame kaum muslimin adalah bagaikan saudara. Persatuan hendaknya diperkokoh. Sesama kaum muslimin harus saling mencintai. Demikian pula al Qur’an secara tegas melarang saling bercerai berai di antara kaum muslimin.

Perpecahan, tidak terkecuali di antara kaum muslimin, sudah menjadi hal biasa. Maka kemudian muncul jargon-jagon pembenar terjadinya konlik, dan atau perpecahan apalagi dalam organisasi politik. Mereka mengatakan bahwa berbeda pendapat, konflik dan sejenisnya adalah syah-syah saja. Bahkan menganggap hal wajar sebuah statemen yang mengatakan bahwa, persahabatan dalam politik tidak pernah abadi. Sebaliknya, mereka mengatakan bahwa yang abadi adalah kepentingan. Sehingga, sepanjang di antara mereka masih memiliki kepentingan yang sama, maka kelompok itu masih bisa bersatu, dan sebaliknya akan bercerai jika kepentingan itu tidak didapat.

Persahabatan yang dicontohkan oleh Rasulullah sesungguhnya tidak demikian. Persahabatan itu diikat oleh kasih sayang yang mendalam, iman, dan ketaqwaan. Kasih sayang atau saling mencintai di antara kaum muslimin harus didasarkan atas motivasi karena Allah dan Rasulnya, dan bukan karena kepentingan sebagaimana dalam ikatan politik itu. Negeri yang kita cintai ini, semestinya dibangun atas dasar kecintaan kepada bangsa dan negara, dan bukan atas dasar kepentingan golongan atau partai. Dalam Islam mencintai bangsa adalah bagian dari keimanan seseorang. Jika demikian halnya, maka sesungguhnya tidak akan terjadi fenomena persaingan di antara pemimpin bangsa, yang mereka itu masih sama-sama mendapatkan amanah dari rakyat.

Memang fenomena seperti itu, menurut bahasa politik adalah syah-syah saja dilakukan oleh siapapun. Keputusan itu tidak sedikitpun menyalahi undang-undang atau peraturan yang ada. Akan tetapi, sesungguhnya jika ikatan di antara itu bukan sebatas komitmen, kesepakatan atau kepentingan, melainkan berupa tali keseimanan, kecintaan terhadap bangsa, maka semestinya para pemimpin selalu mengambil tindakan arif dan bijak. Atas dasar kecintaannya itu , maka masing-masing akan selalu menjaga persahabatan yang telah dibangun atas dasar nilai-nilai mulia itu. Islam tidak mengenal istilah persahabatan sementara, sesaat, bebas atau liberal. Tetapi dalam dunia ekonomi saja istilah seperti itu ada, yaitu ekonomi liberal, yang juga banyak orang ternyata tidak menyukainya. Wallahu a’lam.
 

Senin, 29 November 2010

sS5O1 "sudah 2000 hari,dan kami tetap satu"

Pada 28 Nop, SS501 melalui hari debut ke-2000 mereka dan menyatakan rasa terima kasihnya pada fans. Mulai dari maknae Kim HyungJun menulis di twitternya“Sekarang sudah 2000 hari~ Aku mendoakan untuk kita berlima upaya bekerja keras dan akan diisi hanya oleh hal2 indah.” Ditambahkan“Dan Green Peas yg selalu berada di sisi kami, terima kasih ^^ Mansae Mansae Mansae”
Sedangkan Lead vocal YoungSaeng menulis “Hari ini adalah hari ke 2000 ?? Ah,waktu memang berlalu~~~ Kau dan aku akan tumbuh tua bersama-sama~keke”
KyuJong menulis “Terima kasih!! Mari saling mengucapkan selamat !!^^”
Beda lagi ama Jung Min, dia sambil promosiin drama musikalnya Hyung Jun loh… “Ini adalah hari ke-2000! Sekarang aku sedang bersama Hyung Jun ketika dia menulis tweet keke, Terima kasih telah memberi kami cinta selama 2000 hari.Ingin lihat kemajuannya ! Tetap dukung ya dan beri banyak cinta pada Café-in!”
Untuk perayaan 2000 hari debutnya, banyak fans mengucapkan selamat dengan mengirimkan pesan dan harapan2 kesuksesan untuk SS501.

kim hyun joong akan berkolaborasi dengan park jin young

Baru2 ini tersebar rumor tentang SS501 Kim Hyun Joong akan berkolaborasi dengan produser JYPE’s, Park Jin Young, untuk album solonya tahun depan, dan akhirnya itu telah disangkal dan dipastikan rumor itu tidak benar!
“Laporan tentang Kim Hyun Joong akan berkerja sama dengan Park Jin Young adalah salah. Saya pikir Bae Yong Joon mengatakan tentang keinginan untuk memperkenalkan Kim Hyun Joong pada Park Jin Young telag disalahartikan, “tegas agen KeyEast.
Desas-desus tentang JYP dan Kim Hyun Joong akan mengerjakan album bersama-sama menjadi perhatian, karena faktanya bahwa JYP dan KeyEast bekerjasama untuk memproduksi KBS 2TV drama terbaru, ‘Dream High’. Namun, KeyEast kemudian menjelaskan, “Dia bahkan belum pernah bertemu dengan Park Jin Young eebelumnya, dan kami tidak membuat rencana khusus tentang hal itu.”
Selama wawancara dengan TV Daily, Kim Hyun Joong menyatakan, “Aku ingin menjadi Hallyu star yang memiliki kemampuan menari, menyanyi dan berakring. Karena saya sudah berakting dan menyanyi, aku akan menjadi bintang hallyu dengan jenis baru”

Selasa, 09 November 2010

gambar lucu

Giant Panda Bears Facts



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Probably no animal in history has gone so far toward capturing the hearts of human beings as the plumpish, clumsy, but loveable looking creature called the Giant Panda and many debates have taken place as to whether pandas were really bears, or were in fact raccoons, which they also resemble in many aspects. Genetic analyses recently carried out has indicated that the giant panda is closer genetically to bears whereas the red panda is closer to raccoons....
The panda bear has been loved by children and toy makers worldwide, and sought after by photographers, zoologists and hunters everywhere. Since its official discovery in the remote, mountainous regions of western China over a century ago, the Giant Panda has intrigued and baffled naturalists like no other animal .
The giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca), sometimes referred to as the black-and-white cat-foot, is a mammal belonging to the bear family, or Ursidae. The Ailuropodinae is the oldest family of the most primitive lineage of bears and the fossils of the oldest ancestral panda, Ailuropoda lufengensesis, which are found in southern China, are about 8 million years old. Comparative blood-protein tests and recent molecular-genetic analysis have indicated that, while the giant panda branched off independently on the evolutionary tree, it is indeed closer to the bear family than to the raccoon. The Giant Panda is believed to be not only a genuine member of the bear family, but also the only living representative of the family Ailuropoda that is known to exist.
Although the panda bear lives wild in a very restricted geographical area of China, it is the symbol of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and also an internationally protected species. The existence of this puzzling animal was first revealed in 1869 when a French missionary naturalist, Pere Jean Pierre Armand David, astonished fellow scientists by sending back to Paris a description, pelt and skeleton of a new species he named Ursus melanoleucus or "black white bear". He concluded that they more closely resembled those of a much smaller animal known to occupy the same territory: the red panda which looked like a cross between a raccoon and a fox, but revealed its primary ancestry with a raccoon-like body and facial stripes and long ringed tail. The stronghold of the Giant Panda is the formidable vastness of the Easter Himalayas close to the Chinese-Tibetan border, a vast wilderness of jagged peaks thrusting 20,000 feet in the air above cavernous valleys and torrential mountain streams.


Panda Bears Facts


Like bears, giant pandas are basically heavy ponderous land creatures. The giant panda reaches a length from 120 to 190 centimeters and the adult weight varies from 75 to 130 kilograms. Like many bears, panda bears can climb trees to escape danger or for a quick nap, and are particularly adept at climbing when young.

Although it had long been believed that bamboo shoot comprised the entire panda diet, this was proved to be false by animal bones found in the digestive system of dead animals. In fact, the giant panda will consume small animals and birds, and also carrion that it might come across. It is not the cuddly creature that most believe it to be.

Panda Bears live alone except when breeding and the female generally produces one offspring in winter although twins are not uncommon. The panda's odd markings are still something of a mystery. According to one theory, under certain conditions of contrasting light and shadow on winter snow, the black and white markings act as camouflage, though "beishung" has few enemies to fear in its mountain retreat. Although it was once thought that the giant panda population did not exceed 150 to 200 individuals, more recent estimates have put the figure at several thousand animals.

What is black and white and black and white and black and white?

Pandas symbolize the diversity and tenacity of life and they does not realize that are on the brink of extinction. Just as humans are the cause of its decline, only humans can now prevent it from ceasing to exist altogether.


 
Panda Bear Picture

Pandas Facts
Since there are so few captive pandas, the Chinese government has officially banned hunting them and only rarely permits their export. The panda bear remains one of the world's most mysterious creatures, almost as baffling a subject of investigation in captivity as when free.
The panda bears are relatively safe from the guns of the hunters due to the remote and almost inaccessible Himalayan habitat in which they live, and the protection provided by the Chinese government is also an effective safeguard.

There have been no scientifically significant studies made on giant pandas in the wild, current knowledge of their behavior having been attained as a result of observations made on animals captive in zoos.

Panda baby
The mating time of the Giant Panda falls between March and May and as with many animal species that have specific mating periods, the panda males can fight for the females.
Most births occur in August or September, with mothers having one or two babies, and sometime three.
They weigh only approximately 90 to 130 gram and are covered with pouring rem white skin. With approximately one month young animals have the typical skin design, with 40 to 60 days open them the eyes and with five to six months take them for the first time solid food to itself. With eight to nine months the young animals are cured finally and leave the mother with approximately 18 months.

The baby pandas are very small, with a weight of around 90 to 130 grams (3.5 5 ounces). Within around a month their white skin has taken on the normal appearance, and their open within around 1.5 to 2 months. They are able to leave their mothers within around 1.5 to 2 years.

Within 5 - 7 years they baby pandas have reached puberty and life expectancy for a wild giant panda is around 25 years. It is frequently difficult to persuade captive pandas to mate since they appear to require a degree of social interaction prior to mating - just like humans!

Probably the best known example of this was the situation of Chi-Chi and An-An in London. Chi-Chi was a female giant panda held in London Zoo, and An-An was a female in Moscow Zoo. Two attempts to mate them ended in failure, even though the Peking Zoo had had two successful mating attempts resulting in two baby pandas.

The main problem appeared to be too little social interaction between the two pandas.
Perhaps a few more candle-lit dinners of bamboo . . .
Panda Bear Facts
Panda
  • Name: Panda Bear (Ailuropoda melanoleuca)
  • Kingdom: Animalia
  • Phylum: Chordata
  • Subphylum: Vertebrata
  • Class: Mammalia
  • Subclass: Theria
  • Order: Carnivora
  • Family: Ursidae
  • Age at Maturity: 5 to 6 years
  • Length of life: 30 years in captivity. Unknown in the wild.
  • Size: 160 to 190 cm
  • Weight: 75 to 130 kg males
  • Habitat: Mountain forest
  • Diet: Bamboo, wild plants
  • Gestation: 4 to 6 months in the wild. Average 5 months.
    In the captivity 3 to 5 months.
  • Cubs: 1 to 2 cubs, rarely 3
  • SubFamily: Ursinae
  • Genus: Ailuropoda
  • Distribution: China

novel

A novel is a long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century.
Further definition of the genre is historically difficult. The construction of the narrative, the plot, the way reality is created in the works of fiction, the fascination of the character study, and the use of language are usually discussed to show a novel's artistic merits. Most of these requirements were introduced in the 16th and 17th centuries in order to give fiction a justification outside the field of factual history. The individualism of the presentation makes the personal memoir and the autobiography the two closest relatives among the genres of modern histories.

Contents

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[edit] Definition

Gerard ter Borch, young man reading a book c.1680, the format is that of a French period novel.
Madame de Pompadour spending her afternoon with a book, 1756 – religious and scientific reading has a different iconography.
Winslow Homer, The New Novel (1877), again reading in a relaxed position
Urban commuter reading a novel, Berlin 2009.
The fictional narrative, the novel's distinct "literary" prose, specific media requirements (the use of paper and print), a characteristic subject matter that creates both intimacy and a typical epic depth can be seen as features that developed with the Western (and modern) market of fiction. The separation of a field of histories from a field of literary fiction fueled the evolution of these features in the last 400 years.

[edit] A fictional narrative

Fictionality and the presentation in a narrative are the two features most commonly invoked to distinguish novels from histories. In a historical perspective they are problematic criteria. Histories were supposed to be narrative projects throughout the early modern period. Their authors could include inventions as long as they were rooted in traditional knowledge or in order to orchestrate a certain passage. Historians would thus invent and compose speeches for didactic purposes. Novels can, on the other hand, depict the social, political, and personal realities of a place and period with a clarity and detail historians would not dare to explore.
The line between history and novel is eventually drawn between the debates novelists and historians are supposed to address in the West and wherever the Western pattern of debates has been introduced: Novels are supposed to show qualities of literature and art. Histories are by contrast supposed to be written in order to fuel a public debate over historical responsibilities. A novel can hence deal with history. It will be analyzed, however, with a look at the almost timeless value it is supposed to show in the hands of private readers as a work of art.
The critical demand is a source of constant argument: Does the specific novel have these "eternal qualities" of art, this "deeper meaning" an interpretation tries to reveal? The debate itself had positive effects. It allowed critics to cherish fictions that are clearly marked as such. The novel is not a historical forgery, it does not hide the fact that it was made with a certain design. The word novel can appear on book covers and title pages; the artistic effort or the sheer suspense created can find a remark in a preface or on the blurb. Once it is stated that this is a text whose craftsmanship we should acknowledge literary critics will be responsible for the further discussion. The new responsibility (historians were the only qualified critics up into the 1750s) made it possible to publicly disqualify much of the previous fictional production: Both the early 18th-century roman a clef and its fashionable counterpart, the nouvelle historique, had offered narratives with – by and large scandalous – historical implications. Historians had discussed them with a look at facts they had related. The modern literary critic who became responsible for fictions in the 1750s offered a less scandalous debate: A work is "literature", art, if it has a personal narrative, heroes to identify with, fictional inventions, style and suspense – in short anything that might be handled with the rather personal ventures of creativity and artistic freedom. It may relate facts with scandalous accuracy, or distort them; yet one can ignore any such work as worthless if it does not try to be an achievement in the new field of literary works[1] – it has to compete with works of art and invention, not with true histories. The new scandal is if it fails to offer literary merits.
Historians reacted and left much of their own previous "medieval" and "early modern" production to the evaluation of literary critics. New histories discussed public perceptions of the past – the decision that turned them into the perfect platform on which one can question historical liabilities in the West. Fictions, allegedly an essentially personal subject matter, became, on the other hand, a field of materials that call for a public interpretation: they became a field of cultural significance to be explored with a critical and (in the school system) didactic interest in the subjective perceptions both of artists and their readers.

[edit] Distinct literary prose

The first so called "romances" had been verse epics in the Romance language of southern France. Novel(la)s as those Geoffrey Chaucer presented in his Canterbury Tales appeared in verse much later. A number of famous 19th-century fictional narratives such as Lord Byron's Don Juan (1824) and Alexander Pushkin's Yevgeniy Onegin (1833) competed with the moderne prose novels of their time and employed verse. It is hence problematic to call prose a dicisive criterion.[2] Prose did, however, become the standard of the modern novel – thanks to a number of advantages it had over verse once the question of the carrier medium was solved.
Prose is easy to translate and unlike verse pleasant to read in private silence. As rather initimate and informal language prose won the market of European fiction in the 15th century and immediately developed a special style with models both in Greek and Roman histories and the traditions of verse narratives wherever an elevated style was needed. The development of a distinct fictional language was crucial for the genre that did not aim at forging history but at works readers would actually identify and appreciate as fictions.
The style that became characteristic of the modern novel is for the early modern period closely connected to the development of elegance in the belles lettres. With the beginning of the 16th century the printed market had created a special demand for books that were neither simply published for the non academic audience nor explicitly scientific literature – but a production of style, of elegance and of class as long as class was rather defined by fashionable behaviour than by a distinct social status. The belles lettres became this field as a compound of genres including modern history and science in the vernaculars, personal memoirs, present political scandal, fiction and poetry. Prose fiction was in this wider spectrum soon the driving force creating the distinct style as it allowed the artistic experiment and the personal touch of the author who could market his or her style as a fashion. Verse, rhetoric and science were by contrast highly restricted areas. Fictional prose remained close to everyday language, to the private letter, to the art of "gallant" conversation, to the personal memoir and travelogue.[3]
18th-century authors eventually criticized the French ideals of elegance the belles lettres had promoted. A less aristocratic style of English reformed novels became the ideal in the 1740s. The requirements of style changed again in the 1760s when prose fiction became part of the newly formed literary production. The more normal it became to open novels with a simple statement of their fictionality (for example by labelling them as "a novel"), the less interesting it became to imitate true histories with an additional touch of style. Novels of the 1760s such as Sterne's Tristram Shandy began to explore prose fiction as an experimental field. Novels of the ensuing romantic period played with the fragment and open-endedness. Modern late 19th century and early 20th century fiction continued the deconstruction attacking the clear author-reader communication and developing models of texts to be evaluated as such. Modern literary criticism acted in the experimental field as a constant provider of historical models. Authors who write fiction gain critical attention as soon as they search a position in future histories of literature, whether as innovators or traditionalists. The situation is – in a historical perspective – new: An awareness of traditions has only grown after the publication of Huet's Treatise on the Origin of Romances (1670). It has reached the public only with greater impact since the 1830s.

[edit] Media requirements: Paper and print

The evolution of prose fiction required cheap carrier media. Unlike verse, prose can hardly be remembered with precision. Oral traditions had helped prose narrators with stock narrative patterns as employed in fairy tales[4] and with complex plot structures, whose point they could only reach if they told the story correctly (the novels of Boccaccio and Chaucer share this mode of construction with modern jokes, the shortest form of prose narratives still circulating in oral traditions).
Extended prose fictions needed paper to preserve their complex compositions. Parchment had been available before the 1450s, but remained too expensive to be used for histories one would read as a private diversion. Parchment was used for prestigious and presentable volumes of verse epics their owners would have recited on festive occasions (see the Troilus and Criseyde illustration below). Prose was otherwise the language of scientific books. Parchments would in their case be bought by libraries. The situation changed in the course of the 14th and 15th centuries when prose legends became fashionable among the female urban elite. The fact that the new audience would read these books again and again for inspirational purposes legitimated the use of parchment in the private context.
The availability of paper as a carrier medium changed the situation for prose fiction. Paper allowed the production of cheap books one would not necessarily read twice, books one would buy exclusively for one's private diversion. The modern novel developed with the new carrier medium in Europe in the course of the 15th and 16th centuries. The arrival of the printed book pushed the generic development as it created a special tension between the privacy of the reading act and the publicity of the reading material that was sold in larger editions. The formats duodecimo and octavo (or small quarto in the case of chapbooks) immediately created books one could read privately at home or in public without the support of a table. To read novels in coffee houses or on journeys became part of the early modern reading culture.[5] The reader who immerses him- or herself in the novel with the wish to stay undisturbed (or to be disturbed only with a look at his or her present reading) is here an early modern precursor of the modern commuter reading a novel or putting on head phones with the intention to stay private in the public. A special content matter immediately explored the new reading situations.

[edit] Special content: The novel's intricate intimacy

Whether in 11th-century Japan or 15th-century Europe, prose fiction tended to develop intimate reading situations. Verse epics had been recited to selected audiences (see the Troilus and Criseyde illustration below), a reception that had already allowed a greater intimacy than the performance of plays in theatres. The late medieval commercial manuscript production created a market of private books, yet it still required the customer to contact the professional copyist with the book he or she wanted to have copied (see the Melusine illustration below) – a situation that again restricted the development of more private reading experiences. The invention of the printing press anonymised the bookseller-text-reader constellation – the situation was especially interesting for prose fiction, a subject matter that remained publicly undiscussed almost throughout the early modern period. Booksellers and readers could pretend far into the 18th century not to know more about the particular title the new market of printed books provided. If one wanted to know what others read in novels one had to read them oneself. Prose fiction became in this situation the medium of open secrets, rumours, private and public gossip, a private, unscientific and irrelevant reading matter, yet one of public relevance as one could openly see that the book one was reading had reached the public as part of a larger edition.
Individualistic fashions, personal views, intimate feelings, secret anxieties, "conduct" and "gallantry" spread with novels. Love became the typical field of experience romances and novels would focus on, as Huet noted in his early definition: "I call them Fictions, to discriminate them from True Histories; and I add, of Love Adventures, because Love ought to be the Principal Subject of Romance"[6] Satirical fictions widened the range of subject matter in the 17th and 18th centuries. The reader is invited to personally identify with the novel's characters (whilst historians are supposed to aim at neutrality and a public view on whatever they discuss).
The reviewing of fiction changed the situation for the fictional work in the course of the 18th century. It created a public discussion about what people were actually reading in novels. It had at the same moment the potential to divide the market into a sphere to be discussed and a low production critics would only hint at. The subcultures of trivial fiction and of genres to be sold under the counter with pornography as its most influential field followed the arrival of literary criticism in the 1740s and 1750s.

[edit] Length and the epic depiction of life

The requirement of length is contested – in English with greater ferocity than in other languages. It rests on the consensus that the novel is today the longest genre of narrative prose, followed by the novella and the short story. The sequence has been unstable: 17th-century critics had handled the romance as the epic length performance and privileged the novel as its short rival.
The question how long a novel has to be – in order to be more than a novella – is of practical importance as most of the literary awards have developed a ranking system in which length is also a criterion of importance.[7] The Booker Prize has thus aroused a serious debate with its 2007 listing of Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach. Critics immediately stated that McEwan had at best written a novella.[8]
The requirement of length has been traditionally connected with the notion that epic length performances try to cope with the "totality of life".[9] The novella is by contrast focused on a point, the short story on a situation whose full dimensions the reader has to grasp in a complex process of interpretation.

[edit] History

[edit] Etymology

The present English (and Spanish) word derives from the Italian novella for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itself from the Latin novella, a singular noun use of the neuter plural of novellus, diminutive of novus, meaning "new".[10] Most European languages have preserved the term "romance" (as in French and German "Roman", and in Portuguese "Romance") for extended narratives.
The English and Spanish decisions came with the 17th-century fashion of shorter exemplary histories. See the chapters "Petites histoires" or "novels", 1600–1740 and The words "novel" and "romance" in the following.

[edit] Antecedents around the world

Paper as the essential carrier: Murasaki Shikibu writing her The Tale of Genji in the early 11th century, 17th-century depiction
A significant number of extended fictional prose works predate the novel, and have been cited as its antecedents. While these anticipate the novel in form and, to some extent, in substance, the early European novelists were unaware of most of these works; instead they were influenced by novellas and verse epics.
Early works of extended fictional prose include the 6th/7th-century Daśakumāracarita by Daṇḍin, the 7th-century Kadambari by Banabhatta, the 11th-century Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu, the 12th-century Hayy ibn Yaqdhan (or Philosophus Autodidactus, the 17th-century Latin title) by Ibn Tufail, the 13th-century Theologus Autodidactus by Ibn al-Nafis, and the 14th-century Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong.
Murasaki Shikibu's Tale of Genji (1010) shows essentially all the qualities for which works such as Marie de La Fayette's La Princesse de Clèves (1678) have been praised: individuality of perception, an interest in character development and psychological observation. Parallel European developments did not occur for centuries, and awaited the time when the availability of paper allowed similar opportunities for composition and reception, allowing explorations of individualistic subject matter. By contrast, Ibn Tufail's Hayy ibn Yaqdhan and Ibn al-Nafis' Theologus Autodidactus are works of didactic philosophy and theology rather than private reading pleasure in the style of popular Western novels. In this sense, Hayy ibn Yaqdhan would be considered an early example of a philosophical novel,[11][12] while Theologus Autodidactus would be considered an early theological novel.[13] Hayy ibn Yaqdhan is also likely to have influenced Daniel Defoe with its story of a human outcast surviving on an island (the work was available in a new edition shortly before Defoe began his composition).[14]
Western traditions of the modern novel reach back into the field of verse epics, though again not in an unbroken tradition. The Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh (1300–1000 BC), Indian epics such as the Ramayana (400 BCE and 200 CE) and Mahabharata (4th century BC) were as unknown in early modern Europe as the Anglo-Saxon epic of Beowulf (c. 750–1000 rediscovered in the late 18th century and early 19th century).
Homer's Iliad and Odyssey (9th or 8th century BC), Virgil's Aeneid (29–19 BC) were read by Western scholars since the Middle Ages. At the beginning of the 18th century, modern French prose translations brought Homer to a wider public, who accepted them as forerunners of the modern novel.[15] Ancient prose narratives[16] included a didactic strand with Plato's dialogs, a satirical with Petronius' Satyricon, the incredible stories of Lucian of Samosata, and Lucius Apuleius' proto-picaresque The Golden Ass and a heroic production with the romances of Heliodorus and Longus.
It is less easy to define the traditions of short fictions that led to the medieval novella. Jokes would fall into the broad history of the "exemplary story" that gave rise to the more complex forms of novelistic story telling. The Bible is filled with similes and stories to be interpreted. Fiction is, as Pierre Daniel Huet noted in his Traitté de l'origine des romans in 1670, a rather universal phenomenon, and at the same moment one that lacks a single cause.
The problem of roots is matched by a problem of branches: the inventions of paper and movable type helped isolated genres come together into a single market of exchange and awareness. The first languages of this new market were Spanish, French, German, Dutch and English.[citation needed] The rise of the United States, Russia, Scandinavia and Latin America broadened the spectrum in the 19th century. A later wave of new literatures brought forth Asian and African novelists. The novel has become a global medium of national awareness, surrounded and encouraged in each country by a complex of literary criticism and literary awards. The relatively late emergence of the Latin American or African novel does not necessarily indicate lagging cultural progress leading only at a late date to the individuality that brought forth the modern novel: it may just as easily reflect late arrival of such necessary material factors as print, paper, and a marketplace.

[edit] The medieval romance and its rivals of shorter works

[edit] Romances, 1000–1500

Chaucer reciting Troilus and Criseyde: early 15th-century manuscript of the work at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
The European tradition of the novel as the genre of extended prose fiction is rooted in the tradition of medieval "romances". Even today, most European languages make that clear by using the word roman roughly the way that English uses the word novel. The word novel claims roots in the European novella.[10] Yet, epic length or the focus on a central hero giving the work its name (as in Robinson Crusoe or Oliver Twist) are features derived from the tradition of "romances". The early modern novel had preferred titles that focused on curious examples of modern life, not on heroes.
The word roman or romance had become a stable generic term by the beginning of the 13th century, as in the Roman de la Rose (c. 1230), famous today in English through Geoffrey Chaucer's late 14th-century translation. The term linked fictions back to the histories that had appeared in the Romance language of 11th and 12th-century southern France. The central subject matter was initially derived from Roman and Greek historians. Works of the Chanson de geste tradition revived the memory of ancient Thebes, Dido and Aeneas, and Alexander the Great. German and Dutch adaptations of the famous histories appeared in the late 12th century and early 13th century.[17] Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde (1380–87) is a late example of this European fashion.
The subject matter which was to become the central theme of the genre in the 16th and 17th centuries was initially a branch of a broader genre. Arthurian histories became a fashion in the late 12th century thanks to their ability to glorify the northern European feudal system as an independent cultural achievement. The works of Chrétien de Troyes set an example, in that his plot construction subjected the northern European epic traditions to ancient Greek aesthetics. The typical Arthurian romance would focus on a single hero and lead him into a double course of episodes[18] in which he would prove both his prowess as an independent knight and his readiness to function as a perfect courtier under King Arthur. The mod