12/ What are Defoe’s contribution to English literature?

Daniel Defoe is rightly considered the father of the English and the European novel, for it was due to him that the genre became once and for ever established in European literature.

Defoe wrote his novels in the form of memories, which made them look like stories about real people. Defoe’s books were written in the living tongue of the epoch. He addressed the wide public and tried to make himself understood by the readers of all the layers of society. As a true Enlighteners, he sets himself the task of improving people’s morals; that was why he provided his books with a moralizing comment.

The influence of his works on the literary process as well as on the minds of the readers can hardly be overestimated. An English critic once said that without him, we should all he different from what we are.