The modern novel’s simultaneous narration distinguishes it from all earlier literature

Evidence

This polyphony decisively marks off the modern novel even from so brilliant a forerunner as Petronius’s Satyricon. Its narrative proceeds single file. If Encolpius bewails his young lover’s faithlessness, we are not simultaneously shown Gito in bed with Ascyltus. — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 146

Categorization

• XREF: The polyphonic simultaneity of the novel is the formal model for the imagined simultaneity of the nation — a key scaffold. — connects to: Twentieth-century serious fiction turned inward toward the psychological; Western literature has descended socially and moved inward toward the unconscious — Janet Burroway; Elizabeth Stuckey-French; Ned Stuckey-French, Writing Fiction, Tenth Edition: A Guide…, 297; The modern novel shifts the hero’s dominant relation to reality from space to time — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 364

Broader Connections

• Twentieth-century serious fiction turned inward toward the psychological #corroborates (0.82)
• Western literature has descended socially and moved inward toward the unconscious #corroborates (0.78) — Janet Burroway; Elizabeth Stuckey-French; Ned Stuckey-French, Writing Fiction, Tenth Edition, 297