Frank Norris on Novel Theory and the Idea of American Novel

s: Frank Norris, as one important writer at the transitional period, strongly advocates that American writers should work to form ″great American novel″. To exemplify such a deep concern, he reflects upon various possibilities of such a construction. By analyzing Norris' ideas on novel theory and ″great American novel″, the paper explores how such a theoretical concern is intimately related to the historical and the political, which recalls our memory of the old debate between national literature and world literature.