Studying for exams. Lots of big words.

“At the beginning of the period of our concern, the reigning narrative epistemology involves a dependence on received authorities and a priori traditions; I will call this posture “romance idealism.” In the seventeenth century it is challenged and refuted by an empirical epistemology that derives from many sources, and this I will call “naïve empiricism.” But this negation of romance, having embarked on a journey for which it has no maps, at certain points loses its way. And it becomes vulnerable, in turn, to a countercritique that has been generated by its own over-enthusiasm. I will call this countercritique “extreme skepticism.” In refuting its empiricist progenitor, I will argue, extreme skepticism inevitably recapitulates some features of the romance idealism which it is equally committed to opposing. For questions of virtue, the terms alter, but the two-stage pattern of reversal is very much the same as for questions of truth. We begin with a relatively stratified social order supported by a reigning world view that I will call “aristocratic ideology.” Spurred by social change, this ideology is attacked and subverted by its prime antagonist, “progressive ideology.” But at a certain point, progressive ideology gives birth to its own critique, which is both more radical than itself, and harks back to the common, aristocratic enemy. I will call this countercritique “conservative ideology.” . . . The novel’s ability to incorporate both Richardson and Fielding “is the clearest sign of the new genre’s triumph as an explanatory and problem-solving mode, its powerful adaptability in mediating questions of truth and virtue from opposed points of view” (21).

Michael McKeon, The Origins of the English Novel. Sigh.