Chapter 8 The 18th-Century Fiction Swift. Defoe. Richardson. Fielding. Sterne. Smollett

The 18th-century fiction The novel as a genre prospered not only in the? practice, but also in the theory of the craft. The novelists developed the realistic method of presentation: ? 1, story-telling closer to the real life as lived by the real people; 2, characterization approximating the behavior of the people of flesh and blood; 3, language borrowing from the common speech. Richardson’s exploration of the inner world of his characters paved the way for the birth of ? the psychological novel in the latter part of the 19th century. p137

Jonathan Swift 1667-1745 1, The Scathing satires: A tale of a Tub? is a parable attacking on the church (Christianity); The Battle of the Books? attacks on pedantry卖弄 in the literary world of the time. 2, The famous Pamphlets on Ireland: The Drapier’s Letters; A Modest Proposal. 3, As senior Editor of the journal: ? The Examiner 《考察报》 P138 4, The novel, his masterpiece:? Gulliver’s Travels

Swift’s Gulliver’sTravels It is a savage satire of four parts ? in the form of fabulous travelogue, which offered his contemporaries an opportunity of self-scrutiny. (next ppt) Why was the book able to pass as a real travelogue of a real person while both were fictional? Because the people of the 18th century knew that there existed some parts of the world they had not been to, and the editor’s note concerning the book helped a lot to make it sound like a true story.

Four parts of Gulliver’sTravels? A Voyage to Lilliput: a shipwreck in a nation of dwarfs; A Voyage to Brobdingnag: a visit to a land of giants who are good people; A Voyage to Laputa…and Japan: Laputa is a flying Island where philosophers and mathematicians live; A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms: a visit to a country of the wise horses, where the masters are the horses while the servants are the human-like creatures but behave like animals ___ the Yahoos.

Daniel Defoe 1660-1731 The Glorious Revolution found in Defoe an enthusiastic supporter. p143 As a dissenter, he defended the new political order and was imprisoned for his writings attacking the adherents of the Stuarts and the government’s religious repression. P143 A political and literary magazine/ newspaper run by him? Review His first novel as one of the forerunners of the English realistic novel ? Robinson Crusoe (Friday), a typical puritan tale of the time. Moll Flanders, another novel p144

Samuel Richardson (1689-1761) Epistolary novels:? Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded ; Clarissa Howe, his major work . 1st English psycho-analytical novel? p150 Pamela , a love story between a maid and her master, Mr. B who had and has some affairs with other women. Pamela’s virtue wins over both the man’s sister and his uncle. And Mr. B repents and stays faithful to her finally. The heroine, Pamela Andrews, is Richardson's ideal of female virtue. Yet the novel has its apparent deficiencies. ? (She too good, he too willing to change for the readers; want of tension, loose … p150)

Henry Fielding (1707-1754) the father of English novel the founder of the English realistic novel a newspaper published thrice a week, and mainly written by Fielding? The Champion 1739 in the brief space of nine years (1729-37), he wrote 26 plays. His dramatic works were mostly comedies, filled with political, theatrical and social satire.

The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749, his masterpiece) Henry Fielding (1707-1754) The four novels, for which he has been remembered: ? Joseph Andrews? (1742), the first realistic novel in E fiction, written to criticize the excessive sentimentality and poor ethics of Pamela of Richardson. In the Preface Fielding describes this novel as “a comic epic poem in prose”. Jonathan Wild (1743) The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749, his masterpiece) Amelia (1751) p150-152

Fielding’s Tom Jones Some 40 characters appear in Tom Jones Tom Jones, an illegitimate child reared by a squire Mr. Allworthy: jolly, open-hearted and handsome. Tom’s youthful folly and imprudence lead him into various love affairs and adventures, some of which endanger his very life. Blifil, the brother and antagonist of Tom, Sophia, Tom’s girlfriend, flees to London fearing the very idea of marriage to hateful Blifil. Sophia forgives Tom’s youthful mistakes and Squire Western consents to Sophia’s marriage to Tom.

Fielding’s method of relating a story Three ways in telling the story of a novel? 1)told in a series of letters, the method of Richardson 2) in the mouth of the principal character, by Defoe and Swift 3) told directly by the author, the method of Fielding

Some features of Fielding’s novel Satires abounds everywhere in his works. The educational function/moral teaching of the novel A master of style: easy, unlabored and familiar, but extremely vivid and vigorous Fielding established once for all the form of the modern novel. Thus he has been called “the father of the English novel”. “The prose Homer of Human Nature”, (by Byron)

Laurence Sterne (1713-68) Laurence Sterne, a novelist/representative of the sentimentalist school. His works?: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (formless, in stream-of-consciousness manner, one of the most original works in E L); p160 A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy by Mr. Yorick, a narrative of Sterne’s personal travel in France, which best illustrates him as a moralist. p158

Tobias Smollett (1721-71) Tobias Smollett’s picaresque novels ? 流浪汉小说 The Adventures of Roderick Random (1748); The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle(1751), contains some of his best character portrayals; The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771, his best and pleasantest, in the form of letters) p161

A quiz to test how the ss have mastered about this chapter: What is the first English psychological novel? Who wrote the first epistolary novel? Who is the father of E novel? Who is the founder of E realistic novel? What are the four parts of Gulliver’s Travels?