Introduction to Henry Fielding
and His Work ‘Joseph Andrews’
Dr. Sarwet Rasul
Summary of the Previous Session
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General Introduction to Novel
Novel as a Genre
English Novel
Tracing the History of English Novel
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This Session
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Introduction to Henry Fielding
His birth, life, education, career etc.
Fielding’s Response to Pamela
Tragic part of Fielding’s life
Influence of Richardson
Characters in Joseph Andrews
Major Themes
Introduction and analysis of PREFACE
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Henry Fielding - Biography
• Henry Fielding was born in 1707 into a family that was
essentially aristocratic.
• As far as his place of birth is concerned, he was born near
Glastonbury in Southern England, and grew up on his
parents’ farm in Dorset.
• His father was a colonel (and later a general) in the army.
• His mother's father was a justice of the Queen's Bench,
while his paternal grandfather was an archdeacon of
Salisbury.
• These two men played a vital role in influencing Fielding to
be interested in law, to have great love of learning, and
above all to have a firm sense of Christian morality.
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Cont… Henry Fielding - Biography
• Fielding's father, Sir Edmund Fielding, a colonel of
aristocratic descent, married Sarah Gould in 1706. As
it was a "runaway" marriage, and the father of the girl
excluded Sir Edmund from the estate which he left
his daughter. When Sarah died in 1718, Fielding's
father entered into a long battle with the maternal
side of the family over the estate.
• Tom Jones, reflects a lot of influence of this episode
in Fielding’s life. It also reflects the early death of
Fielding's mother and the ensuing divisions in the
family. Both his works (Joseph Andrews and Tom
Jones) depict a young man on the move until he is
brought to a secure standstill by the revelation of his
true identity.
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Fielding’s Education and Career
• After attending Eton College, where he was exposed to the
classical authors he developed interest in literature and
writing.
• He joined his father in London and, in 1728, wrote his first
play
• Almost thirty more plays were written by him in the next
nine years.
• This was the period when the rake was to the fore in his
character; the dismal account of Mr. Wilson's dissipations
in London (Joseph Andrews, Book III, Chapter 3)
represents a stern warning from an experienced Fielding
about the dangers of city life. Before the city completely
enveloped him, however, Fielding spent a short spell
abroad at the University of Leiden in Holland.
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Fielding’s Education and Career
• He returned to London in the fall of 1729.
• It was not a time of great theatre, but there was
much material for parody and satire. In this context
Fielding used his potential for writing with such a
vigour particularly in the political field, that in 1737
the harassed Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole,
introduced a Theatrical Licensing Act.
• Fielding wrote no more for the stage, but his
experience as a playwright has affected his novels
in a very positive way.
• It is due to his theatrical background that perfection
of dialogue and authentic patterns of conversations
are found in his novels. Again the incidents of
burlesque humour in Joseph Andrews, are a
reflection of his experience as a playwright.
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Fielding’s Education and Career
• Since Fielding had married Charlotte Craddock
in 1734 ; and they were passing through a
financial crisis.
• It was his need for job that made Fielding
change his profession.
• He took up the study of law at the Middle
Temple five months after the passage of
Walpole's Licensing Act.
• As far as the influence of Charlotte on him is
concerned, critics believe that she was almost
certainly the model for Fielding's portraits of
the ideal woman: Amelia, Sophia, and, from
Joseph Andrews, possibly Fanny Goodwill and
Mrs. Wilson are examples of it.
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Fielding as a Journalist
• From playwriting Fielding turned to
journalism.
• As a journalist he worked with some
newspapers. For example from 1739 to
1741 he edited a satirically political
newspaper, The Champion.
• His job as an editor is quite admirable.
• This experience matured Fielding and we
can see a more serious Fielding
emerging as a writer as the issues of the
day come under his scrutiny.
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The Course of Fielding’s Life Changes
• In 1740, Fielding was called to the Bar, but success as a
magistrate was still something in far off future.
• Fate played an important role at this stage of his life.
Chance joined hands with Fielding's rich experience as a
dramatist and a journalist to change the course both of
his own life and that of the novel. It was in 1740, Samuel
Richardson published Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded. The
novel was an immediate success; however, Fielding
criticized it.
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Fielding’s Response to Pamela
• Fielding objected to the discrepancy between the
expressed morality of "virtue rewarded" and the
sexual content in the novel.
• Perhaps because he was poor and was in a
financial crisis, in order to provide bread for his two
young children, he decided to try and make some
money with a parody of Pamela.
• However, whatsoever the reason, in 1741, he
published his riotous and bawdy An Apology for the
Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews. In it, Shamela is a
fortune hunter who uses her virtue in a thoroughly
lecherous and mercenary way.
• As far as the theme of Shamela is concerned, it is of
disguise and pretence.
• Just the same theme is continued in his next work
Joseph Andrews, published in 1742.
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• The times when Joseph Andrews was
published were hard times for Fielding. The
death of his father in June 1741, left him
sorrowful.
• His financial crisis increased and in March of
1742 his favourite daughter died.
• In June 1741, Fielding also severed his
connection with The Champion; his
disaffection with the Patriots, as they were
called, is perhaps reflected in his comments
on "patriotism" in Joseph Andrews (Book II,
Chapter 9).
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Tragic part of Fielding’s life
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The kind of literary and political reputation he carried, it was
difficult for Fielding to continue in the legal profession.
His last two novels, Tom Jones and Amelia also mirror this.
The natural result of financial problems created by this
affected his family, and these novels show the suffering of a
man who knows that he has brought problems and poverty
to the woman he loves.
Yet if Fielding could not get money by practicing law, he did
use the subject of law in his writing his works.
His Jonathan Wild, which was published in 1743, is filled
with biting accounts of the grotesque malpractices in the
system of criminal law.
In 1744, Fielding's wife died and, for a time, Fielding's
friends thought that he would lose his mind. But he took up
his political pen again and wrote for the anti-Jacobite
journal, The True Patriot.
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• In 1747, he married Mary Daniel, who had
been a maid to his wife and had shared his
grief when Charlotte died. From this time,
his fortunes began to brighten.
• In 1748, he was appointed Justice of the
Peace for Westminster and, subsequently,
he was made magistrate of all Middlesex,
and in 1749 Tom Jones appeared. The
concept of good nature which played such
an important part in Joseph Andrews is also
central to this novel.
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• This optimism is hardly the case with
Captain and Mrs. Booth in Amelia (1751).
• Fielding's health was not good; he was
terribly overworked and, in the summer of
1754, he went by sea to Lisbon with his
wife and daughter. Though the voyage
resulted in a diary published posthumously
as A Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon, the
quest for good health was in vain; he died
on October 8, 1754, at the age of fortyseven.
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Influence of Richardson
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Richardson’s controversial Pamela (1740) was one of the great
popular phenomena of British literary history.
It is the story of a teenage servant-girl, Pamela Andrews.
She withstands the unwanted attentions of her Master, squire Mr.
B., and maintains her purity against all the odds.
Near the midpoint of the novel Mr. B. recognizes her moral worth,
reforms himself, and marries her.
The second half of the story presents Pamela’s triumphant
acclimation to her new exalted condition, her conquering of the
snobbish upper class by the sheer force of her goodness.
Form and Structure of Pamela and its influence on Fielding’s
Joseph Andrews: The entire novel comprises a series of letters
and journal entries, a few of which (near the beginning) are written
by other characters but the vast majority of which are the work of
Pamela herself; this epistolary format is part of the Richardson’s
revolutionary contribution to the development of the novel in
English, for the first-person narration of events, in nearly real-time,
allows the novelist to explore, quite naturalistically, the depths and
nuances of Pamela’s psyche.
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Characters in Joseph Andrews: Major Characters
• Joseph Andrews A handsome young fellow who tries to
safeguard his honour throughout the novel.
• Gaffar and Gammar Andrews Parents of Pamela and, it is
believed, of Joseph.
• Mr. Booby The nephew of Sir Thomas Booby.
• Sir Thomas Booby The deceased husband of Lady Booby.
• Lady Booby A hot-blooded young widow who tries every way
possible to seduce Joseph.
• Mrs. Slipslop A repulsive servant woman who also pursues
Joseph.
• Peter Pounce The steward to Lady Booby.
• Mr. Abraham Adams A charitable curate.
• Frances (Fanny) Goodwill A beautiful young country girl;
Joseph's beloved.
• The Wilsons The real parents of Joseph Andrews.
• Lady Tittle and Lady Tattle Two gossips.
• Plain Tim A good-hearted host.
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Minor Characters
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Postillion A generous person who offers Joseph an overcoat to
cover his nakedness.
Mr. Tow-wouse A bumbling, good-natured innkeeper.
Mrs. Tow-wouse The greedy wife of the innkeeper.
Betty A warm-hearted chambermaid who helps Joseph in the
inn.
Barnabas A punch-drinking clergyman.
Tom Suckbribe The constable.
Leonora A silly young girl.
Horatio A suitor who has no money but much love for Leonora.
Bellarmine A suitor who has little love for Leonora but who
hopes to inherit her father's fortune.
Lindamira A gossip.
Mrs. Grave-airs A prude.
Parson Trulliber A hypocritical country parson.
The Pedlar (peddler) The man who reveals the secret of
Joseph's parentage.
Lawyer Scout An unscrupulous lawyer.
Mrs. Adams Parson Adams' disagreeable wife.
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Major Themes
Duality of Goodness
• Goodness as a theme has always been prevalent in
literature.
• Fielding presents the Vulnerability and Power of
goodness at the same time.
• In the context of eighteenth century literature we can
say that age in which worldly authority was largely
unaccountable and tended to be corrupt, Fielding
seems to have judged that temporal power was not
compatible with goodness.
• In his novels, most of the squires, magistrates,
fashionable persons, and petty capitalists are either
morally ambiguous or corrupt. Joseph Andrews as a
novel is an example of it.
• On the other hand he presents characters from low
class as symbols of good. For example his paragon of
benevolence, Parson Adams, is quite poor and utterly
dependent for his income on the patronage of squires.
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• Interestingly Fielding shows that Adams's
extreme goodness, one ingredient of which is
ingenuous expectation of goodness in others,
makes him vulnerable and weak in the face of
odds, and he is exploited by unscrupulous
worldly and money minded characters .
• Fielding seems to enjoy humiliating his
clergyman, however, Adams remains a
transcendently vital presence whose temporal
weakness does not invalidate his moral power.
• It is important to notice that if his naïve good
nature is no antidote to the evils of hypocrisy
and unprincipled self-interest, that is precisely
because those evils are so pervasive.
• The impracticality of Adam’s laudable principles
is not a criticism or judgment on Adams or on
(his) goodness rather it mirrors the corruption
of the world.
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Major Themes
Charity and Religion
• Fielding’s novels are full of clergymen, and we find them
in Joseph Andrews as well.
• Many of them are less than exemplary; in the contrast
between the benevolent Adams and his more selfinterested brethren, Fielding draws the distinction
between the mere formal profession of Christian
doctrines and that active charity which he considers true
Christianity.
• Fielding projects the idea of religious duty in everyday
life, and emphasises its importance in daily human
interaction.
• Fielding’s concept of religion is different. For him religion
focuses on morality and ethics rather than on theology or
forms of worship.
• For example Adams as a mouth piece of Fielding says to
the greedy and uncharitable Parson Trulliber, “Whoever
therefore is void of Charity, I make no scruple of
pronouncing that he is no Christian.”
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Major Themes
Role of Providence
• If Fielding is skeptical about the efficacy of human goodness in the
corrupt world, he is nevertheless determined that it should always be
recompensed;
• When the "good" characters of Adams, Joseph, and Fanny are
helpless to engineer their own happiness, Fielding takes care to
engineer it for them.
• He as an omniscient and omnipresent writer acts as a god to make
things work out.
• Fielding's overtly stylized plots and characterizations work to call
attention to his designing hand.
• Fielding's authorly concern for his characters, then, is not meant to
encourage his readers in their everyday lives to wait on the favor of a
divine author; it should rather encourage them to make an art out of
the business of living by advancing and perfecting the work of
providence, that is, by living according to the true Christian principles
of active benevolence.
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Major Themes
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Town and Country
Fielding did not choose the direction and destination of
his hero’s travels at random
Joseph moves from the country to the town and then from
the town to the country in order to illustrate, in the words
of Martin C. Battestin, “a moral pilgrimage from the vanity
and corruption of the Great City to the relative
naturalness and simplicity of the country.”
Joseph develops morally by leaving the city, site of vanity
and superficial pleasures, for the country, site of virtuous
retirement and contented domesticity.
Fielding did not have any utopian illusions about the
countryside as we can see through the presentation of
bad characters in countryside setting.
His claim for rural life derives from the pragmatic
judgment that, away from the bustle, crime, and financial
pressures of the city, there are more chances of the
development of goodness.
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Major Themes
Affectation, Vanity, and Hypocrisy
• Fielding’s Preface declares that the target of his satire is the
ridiculous, that “the only Source of the true Ridiculous” is
affectation, and that “Affectation proceeds from one of these
two Causes, Vanity, or Hypocrisy.”
• Hypocrisy, being the dissimulation of true motives, is the
more dangerous of these causes: whereas the vain man
merely considers himself better than he is, the hypocrite
pretends to be other than he is.
• Thus, Mr. Adams is vain about his learning, his sermons,
and his pedagogy, but while this vanity may occasionally
make him ridiculous, it remains entirely or virtually harmless.
By contrast, Lady Booby and Mrs. Slipslop counterfeit virtue
in order to prey on Joseph.
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Major Themes
Chastity
• Fielding has a fundamentally positive attitude
towards chastity.
• To him people’s sexual conduct be in accordance
with what they owe to God, each other, and
themselves. In the mutual attraction of Joseph
and Fanny there is nothing licentious or
exploitative, and they demonstrate the
virtuousness of their love in their eagerness to
undertake a lifetime commitment.
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Major Themes
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Social Class Differences
Joseph Andrews is full of class distinctions and concerns about high
and low birth, but Fielding is probably less interested in class
difference per se than in the vices it can lead towards.
In this regard he aims at pointing out various vices such as
corruption and affectation. Naturally, he disapproves of those who
pride themselves on their class status to the point of degrading or
exploiting those of lower birth.
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Mrs. Grave-airs, who turns her nose up at Joseph is an example of
this .
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Fielding does not consider class privileges to be evil in themselves;
rather, he seems to advocate that some people deserve social
ascendancy while others do not. This view of class difference is
evident in his use of the romance convention whereby the plot
turns on the revelation of the hero’s true birth and ancestry, which
is more prestigious than everyone had thought.
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Introduction to Fielding’s Preface
Fielding has written a preface for various
reasons:
• To introduce the work
• To explain what it is about
• To define the type and genre
• To justify his work
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Text from Preface
First Paragraph:
TEXT:
“AS IT IS POSSIBLE the mere English reader
may have a different idea of romance from
the author of these little volumes, and may
consequently expect a kind of entertainment
not to be found, nor which was even
intended, in the following pages, it may not
be improper to premise a few words
concerning this kind of writing, which I do not
remember to have seen hitherto attempted in
our language.”
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Cont… Preface
• Fielding sets out to define his terms and to
differentiate Joseph Andrews from the
"productions of romance writers on the one
hand, and burlesque writers on the other."
• He admits that he has included some elements
of burlesque in his "comic epic-poem in
prose," but excludes them from the sentiments
and the characters because burlesque in
writing, like "Caricatura" in painting, exhibits
"monsters, not men.
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Text from Preface
• “Now, a comic romance is a comic epic poem in prose;
differing from comedy, as the serious epic from tragedy:
its action being more extended and comprehensive;
containing a much larger circle of incidents, and
introducing a greater variety of characters. It differs from
the serious romance in its fable and action, in this; that
as in the one these are grave and solemn, so in the
other they are light and ridiculous: it differs in its
characters by introducing persons of inferior rank, and
consequently, of inferior manners, whereas the grave
romance sets the highest before us: lastly, in its
sentiments and diction; by preserving the ludicrous
instead of the sublime. In the diction, I think, burlesque
itself may be sometimes admitted; of which many
instances will occur in this work, as in the description of
the battles, and some other places, not necessary to be
pointed out to the classical reader, for whose
entertainment those parodies or burlesque imitations are
chiefly calculated.”
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Cont… Preface
• While defining and defending his chosen
genre, the comic epic, or “comic Epic-Poem
in Prose” he claims the lost work of Homer
as precedence.
• He explains that the comic epic differs from
comedy in having more “comprehensive”
action and a greater variety of incidents and
characters; it differs from the “serious
Romance” in having lower-class characters
and favouring, in “Sentiments and Diction,”
the ridiculous over the sublime.
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Cont… Preface
• Fielding is particularly concerned to differentiate
the comic epic, and comedy generally, from
burlesque: “no two Species of Writing can differ
more widely than the Comic and the Burlesque,”
for while the writer of burlesque depicts “the
monstrous,” the writer of comedy depicts “the
ridiculous.”
• He further claims that “The Ridiculous only . . .
falls within my Province in the present Work,”
and accordingly goes on to define the
framework of his novel.
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Cont… Preface
Sources of Ridicule:
• “The only Source of the true Ridiculous (as it appears to
me) is Affectation,” to which Fielding assigns two possible
causes, “Vanity, or Hypocrisy.”
• He further defines them that vanity is affecting to be
better than one is: the vain man either lacks the virtue or
quality he claims to have, or else he claims to possess it
in a greater degree than he actually does.
• On the other hand, hypocrisy is affecting to be other than
one is: the hypocritical man “is the very Reverse of what
he would seem to be,” .
• To explain his idea Fielding gives the example of a greedy
man pretending to be generous. The ridiculous arises
from the discovery of affectation, and as hypocrisy is a
more severe form of affectation than is vanity, so,
according to Fielding, the sense of the ridiculous arising
from its discovery will be stronger than in the case of
vanity.
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Comments on Preface
• In Fielding's analysis, the outstanding moral fault of his times
which is consequently the outstanding preoccupation of
Fielding's writing is "Affectation,“ that, to him, the "only
source of the true Ridiculous."
• In this novel Fielding seeks to oppose the forces of affectation
by making vain and hypocritical people seem ridiculous, and
for doing so in the novel he uses a kind humour that
encourages solidarity among readers, who are implicitly
assumed to be on Fielding's side.
• In inspiring readers to laugh at affected people, Fielding
insinuates that society breaks down into two camps, the
affected and the genuine, and his moralizing humour supplies
readers with incentives, mainly a string of jokes and a sense of
moral superiority, to join (or remain on) the side of the
genuine.
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• Finally, Fielding addresses the characters of the
novel, claiming that all are drawn from life and
that he has made certain alterations in order to
hide their true identities.
• Fielding also conciliates his clerical readers by
emphasizing that the curate Adams, though he
participates in a number of low incidents, is a
credit to the cloth due to his great simplicity
and benevolence.
• TEXT “They will therefore excuse me,
notwithstanding the low adventures in which he
is engaged, that I have made him a clergyman;
since no other office could have given him so
many opportunities of displaying his worthy
inclinations.”
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Critical comment on Preface
• The existence of the preface, the careful definition of
terms, the reference to painting and to the "circle of
incidents," and the promise of a happy outcome all
indicate the extent to which Fielding is in control of his
novel.
• The characters may can have their own lives but it is the
essence of humanity, viewed through the lenses of
Fielding's own vision, which is presented to the reader.
• He asserts: "I describe not men, but manners; not an
individual, but a species" (Book III, Chapter 1).
• Already we are aware of his acute discernments, his
breadth of vision, his firm sense of organization, and his
belief in the essential goodness of human nature. The
vices for which he apologizes in the preface are more
than balanced by the character of Adams and by the fact
that they are "accidental consequences of some human
frailty or foible."
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Summary of the Lesson
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Introduction to Henry Fielding
His birth, life, education, career etc.
Fielding’s Response to Pamela
Tragic part of Fielding’s life
Influence of Richardson
Characters in Joseph Andrews
Major Themes
Introduction and analysis of PREFACE
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Reference list of sources
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http://www.cliffsnotes.com
www.gradesaver.com
www.enotes.com
www.bartleby.com
www.gutenberg.org
http://www.helium.com
http://www.studymode.com
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Thank you very much!
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