Prose(1st Lec)
(Notes)
*Methods used by the writer when he writes:
(1) Novel: Narration
(2) Drama: Dialogue
(3) Poetry: Rhyme
- Dialogue: Method of narration used by the writer.
- Up to the close… = Until the end of…
- Panoramic in scope = Give a comprehensive look
- Pale = not clear enough
- Gaiety = pleasure
- Lifelike = Similar to people we meet them in our life
- Affectation = pretending to appear with artificial manners
Ridiculous = provocative of laughter(comic)-
(Fielding's contribution to the English novel)
(1) Reality of setting and character:
His Characters are similar to people whom we meet in our
daily life. i.e They are Flesh and blood (similar to actual
people)
Through Fielding's genius the settings and the characters of
the novel are vivid, alive, and breathing. The reader actually
participates in the bustling life of the novel, and he feels that
he knows the characters. The Reverend Abraham Adams is a
good deal more real than half the parsons who preached last
Sunday, and a good deal more personal. This quality is not
confined to him alone, but he certainly has the most of it.
(2) Dialogue:
Perhaps this - the vivification of dialogue-was Fielding's
greatest contribution to the English novel. Before his time,
dialogue had been the weakest of all the weaknesses of almost
all the English novels up to the close of the first quarter of the
eighteenth (18th) century.
(CHARACTERIZATION)
Joseph Andrews is panoramic in scope. We have all kinds of
characters in the society of the eighteenth century, from the
highest to the lowest social planes; almost each new page
introduces a new character as the novel moves from the Booby
parish to London and back again. Generally speaking, all the
characters, no matter how brief their appearance, are vital and
serve to complement the main curve of the action and the
progress of the main characters.
The novel essentially revolves around five characters; Parson
Adams, Joseph Andrews; Fanny Goodwill; Mrs. Slipslop; Lady.
Booby. Of these, Fanny and Joseph are the least important.
The reader is concerned with their fate, true enough, but he is
less concerned with them as characters than he is with the
other three. They are rather pale, and are more or less pawns
in the main course of the action. Actually, Fielding keeps the
reader's attention focused on, in order of importance, Adams,
Slipslop, and Lady Booby.
Fielding's method of characterizing Lady Booby is slightly
different. All the main characters reveal themselves through
their actions, but they are more or less formally introduced, so
to speak, at the occasion of their first appearance in the novel.
Lady Booby, however, is given only the briefest introductions.
The characters in Joseph Andrews are boldly drawn, even
the most minor of them appearing lifelike. Broadly they can be
divided into 'pleasant' and 'unpleasant', the majority belonging
to the latter category. Of this large group all have a weakness.
Some affectation or vanity which makes them ridiculous or
even ludicrous. The pleasant ones all suffer because of their
virtue; they are at times pathetic or comic, but never ridiculous.