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The Rise of the Novel in England in the 18th century/ 2: Defoe, Swift, Richardson, Fielding
(Andrea Timár)
Canon: originally: authoritative list of books accepted as Holy Scripture  literary canon: works
frequently discussed by literary critics and historians, included in anthologies – either in their own time,
or by posterity  canon changes, reflects the interests of the age
Daniel Defoe (1660-1731)
London merchant class, Presbyterian dissenter (separated from Church of England)
writes: political pamphlets, sociological treaties, satirical poems, newspapers, one of the earliest
English science fiction: “A Letter from the Man in the Moon” (1706), one of the first ghost stories: “A
True Relation of the Apparition of Mrs Veal”” (1706)
Robinson Crusoe (1719): considered to be the fist English novel (unlike: Aphra Behn’s romance: Love
Letters between a Nobleman and His Sister, 1684-7)  Robinson becomes a proto-novel
(Bildungsroman) -> other novels of the time rewrite, and reflect upon its form and its themes
Autobiography: the shape of the novel is determined by the shape of the individual life + the shape of
the novel gives shape to the individual life. <- emerging concept of individuality + authorship (copyright
<- business + law punishing seditious works, i.e. authors)
First person singular retrospective narration  diff. points of view to interpret the events: narrating
present self + narrated past self + implied author + reader (i.e. complex system of points of views).
Yet, gives the illusion of confession: 1 point of view.
“themes”: economic individualism” (18th c rise of the middle classes), “confession”: fall, conversion,
redemption (<-- spiritual autobiography via St. Augustine), colonisation  intertext for J.M. Coetzee:
Foe (1996)
A Journal of the Plague Year (1722) –> Albert Camus: The Plague (1947), Michel Foucault: Discipline
and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1975)
Moll Flanders (1722) female version of the male Bildungsroman
Full title: The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, Etc. Who was born in Newgate,
and during a life of continu'd Variety for Threescore Years, besides her Childhood, was Twelve Year a
Whore, five times a Wife (whereof once to her own brother), Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a
Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv'd Honest and died a Penitent. Written from her own
Memorandums.
questioning of narrative reliability (“sincerity”, “good intentions”, appropriate interpretation of events) <1st person narration of the story of younger Moll, related by the seventy-year-old Moll, editorially
shaped by Defoe (because of the “Levity and the Looseness that was in it”.) -> Can we believe that
Moll dies as a “penitent”? Who is responsible for Moll’s fate? (the Devil?, Moll herself?, Society?)
<- the text is manifold, but its “truth”, “morality”: simple -> the text undermines the message
situation of women in the 18th century: Does society offer Moll any other choice if she wants to become
a gentlewoman? Plus: Moll is almost like a man <- freedom to shape her own life by her own means:
prostitution (moneymaking) + storytelling -> proto-feminist
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) poet, pamphleter, novelist, satirist
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Born in Dublin, Ireland, as Protestant, Trinity College, settles down in England
A Tale of a Tub (1699)
The Battle of Books (1704): quarrel of “ancients” and “moderns” -> intertext for Matthew Arnold:
Culture and Anarchy, Ch. “Sweetness and Light” (1869)
A Modest Proposal (1829): let’s eat up Irish children - model of irony: saying >-< meaning
Gulliver’s Travels (1726) (original t:Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, publ.
anonymously)? satirises the many stupidities of the British + ironic commentary on Robinson Crusoe:
Gulliver ends up preferring his horse to his fellow men.
“Satire is a sort of glass wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own,
which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are
offended with it” (Swift) (-> satirist: self-appointed guardian of standards, satire a form of protest)
-- satire upon 18th c. Engl. soc + on theme and form of Robinson Crusoe
Samuel Richardson (1689-1761): “father of the English novel” (A. L. Barbauld, ed. of R’s letters +
famous critique of S.T. Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner)
<- focus on private, generally female, subjectivity -> not outside, but inner world.
Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1740), Clarissa, or the History of a Young Lady (1747-48), Sir Charles
Grandison (1753-54).
Pamela <- grows out of a “conduct book”. -> “epistolary novel”: composed of letters written by Pamela
(servant girl in Mr. B’s aristocratic household), which tell about P’s own experience of her situation (i.e
Mr.B.’ relentless attempts to seduce her) -> complete reality effect, “the truest” confession <- narrating
self (almost!) equals narrated self
women’s writing (P. the “scribbling woman”): secrecy (P. writes in secret) + self-assertion (speaks her
own voice and becomes an agent in her own life through resisting Mr. B.) -> P’s empowerment  way
to liberation, emancipation
Battle bw. P. and B. for the possession of P’s body, then, for P’s letters
P quotes Mr: B: “I have searched every place above, and in your closet, for them [the letters],
and cannot find them; so I will know where they are. Now, said he, it is in my opinion they are
about you; and I never undressed a girl in my life; but I will now begin to strip my pretty
Pamela; and I hope I shall not go far before I find them.”
=> Mr. B. eventually reads P’s letters -> B’s “conversion” -> B. marries P.--> P. finds her “true place” in
soc. -> socially subversive. (the servant maid marries a lord)
+ Mr. B. becomes a good man of feeling (middle class virtue) because of reading P’s letters -> new
ideal of the 18th-19th c.-> the novel shapes reality
-> both female and male Bildungsroman
However: epistolary form: reality effect: narrative reliability questionable (!) ->
Henry Fielding (1707-1754): parodies of Pamela. An Apology for the life of Mrs Shamela Andrews, In
which many notorious Falsehoods and Misrepresentations of a Book called ‘Pamela’, are exposed and
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refuted (1741), The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews and of his Friend Mr. Abraham
Adams (1742)
Fielding: first a prolific and successful writer of comedies, satirical plays criticising the government of
Robert Walpole (1736–37). 1737: “Stage Licensing Act”: closes down all non-patent theatres <- partly
due to plays like Fielding’s, and John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera (1728)
-> Fielding: lawyer, journalist, novelist.
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1729), a comic epic in prose
Use of stage routines + ironic comment on the “genre” of Bildungsroman,
1. mistrust of individualism -> third person narrative
(except: episodes on Mrs Fitzpatrick and “The Man of the Hill”: 1st person narrative: parodic Robinson,
self-centred individualism, eventually, misanthropy)
->represents identity as a social fact, no introspection, character defined by actions and social
interactions -> plot defines the character (picaresque trad.)
-> no discovery of true self, but recovery of origins.
2. mistrust of autobiography -> Parabasis: interruptive, direct address to the audience/reader by the 3d
person narrator -> destroys the illusion of reality in fiction + draws attention to narrating itself -> forces
an ironic self-reflection upon the reader who is used to getting immersed into fiction and identify with
characters (cf: Reeve’s def. of novel)
V, 10. “Some of my Readers may be inclined to think this Event unnatural. However, the fact is true;
and, perhaps, may be sufficiently accounted for, by suggesting that Jones probably thought one
Woman better than none, and Molly as probably imagined two Men to be better than one. Besides, the
before-mentioned Motive assigned to the present behavior of Jones, the reader will be likewise
pleased to recollect in his Favour, that he was not at this Time perfect master of that wonderful Power
of Reason, which so well enables grave and wise Men to subdue their unruly Passions, and to decline
any of these prohibited Amusements. Wine now had totally subdued this Power in Jones.”
3. conscious construction (as opposed to the alleged confessional flow of 1 st person narratives):
Fielding is a “master of construction” (S. T. Coleridge): parallel episodes from diff. points of view,
pairings of contrasted characters  no single truth
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
i, 2 – vi, 11
vi, 12 – xii, 14
xiii, 2—xviii, 13
21 years
10 days
1 month
Country
Road
City
Paradise Hall
Upton episode
Lady Bellaston’s house
Tom and Molly Seagrim
(IX-X)
Tom and Lady Bellaston
(IV-VI)
Tom and Mrs Waters
(XIII-XV)
(IX-X)
Tom separated from Sophia
Tom rejoins Sophia
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(VI)
(XIII)
A Tale of Tub is a satire, Tub stands for Pulpit, divided up between sections of digression and “tale”.
Yet, digressions, with titles like Digression on madness, simply overwhelm the tale and the two end up
intermingling: the tale itself becomes a digression. The tale is the allegory of three brothers with
ordinary names, who try to find their way in the world. They represent the three branches of
Christianity, which are all parodied: the Dissenters, the Catholics and the English Church,. There is no
unifying narrative voice, we cannot really know the narrator’s own opinion.