Henry Fielding Criticism
Henry Fielding (1701-1754) is hailed as a pivotal figure in the evolution of the English novel, renowned for integrating elements of drama, satire, romance, and epic into a new literary genre. His works often contrast with those of his contemporary, Samuel Richardson, as Fielding preferred a comic moral vision and realism over Richardson’s didacticism.
Fielding's literary journey began in Somersetshire, where he was born to aristocratic parents. He attended Eton and later became a successful playwright in London, gaining fame for his burlesques and farces. However, his career in drama was curtailed by Prime Minister Robert Walpole’s Licensing Act. Turning to law and journalism, Fielding continued to influence social discourse through his essays and periodicals.
His major novels, including Joseph Andrews, Tom Jones, and Amelia, solidified his reputation as a novelist. Joseph Andrews critiques the superficial virtue portrayed in Richardson’s Pamela, examining sincerity and ethics. Ronald Paulson highlights Fielding's subversion of romance genres in this novel. Tom Jones is lauded for its artistic unity and depiction of 18th-century life, with a narrative interwoven by episodic adventures and themes of social realism, as noted by Martin Battestin. In contrast, Amelia explores themes of corruption and societal decay, lacking the episodic interruptions of earlier works but criticized for its didactic tone.
Fielding’s literary contributions were initially overshadowed by Richardson's piety and by negative perceptions of Fielding's personal life. However, 20th-century criticism, as discussed by Martin Price and others, has re-evaluated his complex moral vision and narrative techniques. Scholars like Alan T. McKenzie and James Thompson have probed deeper into Fielding's use of theatrical elements and his reflection of economic realities. His work remains a subject of study for its innovative blend of literary forms and its significant contribution to the development of the novel as a genre.
Contents
- Principal Works
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Essays
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The Comedy of Forms: Low and High
(summary)
In the following excerpt, originally published in 1964 and reprinted in 1970 and 1987, Price maintains that the low social status of Fielding's virtuous characters subverts both social and generic expectations.
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Fielding the Anti-Romanticist
(summary)
In the following chapter from his book-length study Satire and the Novel in Eighteenth-Century England, Paulson argues that the works of Fielding represent a transition between satire and the early English novel. Focusing mainly on Joseph Andrews, Paulson discusses Fielding's subversions of the romance genre and his disagreement with Samuel Richardson's Pamela.
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'Words and Ideas': Fielding and the Augustan Critique of Language
(summary)
In the following excerpt from his book Henry Fielding and the Language of Irony, Hatfield examines Fielding's moral vision in the context of early eighteenth-century concerns about the increasing discontinuity between words and the things they were intended to represent. Taking into account Fielding's occasional prose as well as his major novels, Hatfield focuses on Fielding's pessimism with respect to the potential for clear and coherent communication.
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Fielding's Definition of Wisdom: Some Functions of Ambiguity and Emblem in Tom Jones
(summary)
In the following excerpt, originally published in 1968 and reprinted in 1995, Battestin, one of Fielding's most important modern biographers and critics, examines Fielding's treatment of the virtues of prudence and wisdom in Tom Jones. Battestin focuses on the character of Sophia, arguing that the novel's heroine and protagonist's love interest both embodies and portrays an idealized representation of Fielding's complex moral vision.
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The Physiology of Deceit in Fielding's Works
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In the following essay, McKenzie examines Fielding's use of physiology in each of his major novels, arguing that Fielding's depictions of theatrical displays of passion offer keys to interpreting the actions of his characters.
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Fielding: The Comic Reality of Fiction
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In the following essay, noted scholar and Fielding editor Sheridan Baker offers a thorough account of Fielding's approach to quixotic comedy in both his drama and his fiction. Calling the theater 'Fielding's apprenticeship,' Baker demonstrates that Fielding's early comic plays provided the groundwork for his didactic use of comedy in the novel.
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The Institutionalization of Conflict (II): Fielding and the Instrumentality of Belief
(summary)
In the following excerpt, McKeon examines the representation of truth and the foundation of knowledge in Fielding's fiction, especially Jonathan Wild and Joseph Andrews. McKeon's book is an early and important major revision of Ian Watt's history of the eighteenth-century novel, The Rise of the Novel; in this chapter and throughout the book, McKeon emphasizes both cultural and philosophical movements as essential context for analyzing the development of this generic form.
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Patterns of Property and Possession in Fielding's Fiction
(summary)
In the following essay, originally published in 1990 and reprinted in 1998, Thompson examines the importance of money and other valued objects in the context of eighteenth-century economic history. Focusing primarily on Tom Jones, Thompson suggests that Fielding's work reflects the instability of money—specifically cash—as a mode of social relations, responding by valorizing land and estates as true and lasting forms of wealth.
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Joseph Andrews and the Failure of Authority
(summary)
In the following essay, originally published in 1992 and reprinted in 1998, Knight examines Fielding's narrative style in Joseph Andrews, arguing that the text's heterogeneous construction emphasizes the mutual relationship between author and reader made possible by the emerging genre of the novel.
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Narrative Authority and the Controlling Consciousness in Fielding's Tom Jones
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In the following chapter from her book Character and Consciousness in Eighteenth-Century Comic Fiction, Kraft examines the way in which authorial narrative interrupts and replaces the representation of the characters' consciousness in Tom Jones.
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The Meaning of a Male Parmela
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In this chapter from her book Natural Masques: Gender and Identity in Fielding's Plays and Novels, Campbell argues that Joseph Andrews not only compels us to examine assumptions about gender roles but also demonstrates the potential of the novel as a new genre to offer new modes of characterization.
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Classical Epic and the 'New Species of Writing
(summary)
In the following chapter from her book Henry Fielding's Novels and the Classical Tradition, Mace details the specific classical influences on Fielding's major novels and his use of the epic tradition. Mace includes a special section on Fielding's Amelia as a revision of Virgil's Aeneid.
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The Comedy of Forms: Low and High
(summary)
- Further Reading