The novel was born with the Modern Era, which made man, to quote Heidegger, the "only real subject, " the ground for everything. It is largely through the novel that man as an individual was established on the European scene. Away from the novel, in our real lives, we know very little about our parents as they were before our birth; we have only fragmentary knowledge of the people close to us: we see them come and go and scarcely have they vanished than their place is taken over by others: they form a long line of replaceable beings. Only the novel separates out an individual, trains a light on his biography, his ideas, his feelings, makes him irreplaceable: makes him the center of everything. . Milan Kundera
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The novel has been called the "greatest literary work of the Modern Era," and in many ways it is. The novel was born in the 1800s in England, where it was considered to be a form of entertainment that was meant for the masses. It is in this era that the idea of the individual became a reality, with novels revealing more about one's life than their own. The novel also played an important role in the development of modern society by showing people what kind of person they could become if they were willing to put in the effort.

Source: Encounter

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