The Prose of Samuel Richardson and Henry Fielding Next Generation of novelists

Samuel Richardson Love stories become important. Samuel Richardson made his way through poverty to becoming a printer. He starts writing moral stories. Samuel Richardson creates the “right” heroines for the times. His heroines are poor but virtuous.

Pamela In the case of Pamela, Richardson creates a heroine that suffers a series of attempts from Mr. B to be raped. Pamela resists these attacks strongly. She also refuses to become Mr. B’s mistress and in the end, Mr. B falls in love with her and they married.

Pamela There is a contrast between male domination and female restraint. The emphasis is on virtue symbolized in chastity. Pamela was a huge success but underscores role distinction which were to become predominant for two centuries: the male provider, strong, master and the woman as a victim and preserving virtue.

Female role/Clarissa The female role in society is established in relation with the male role and any deviation is seen as morally reprehensible. In Clarissa, his most important novel, there are four people writing letters. The male character in Clarissa is a strong, dominant man called Lovelace and he plays with her emotions in devious ways.

Clarissa In the end, Lovelace consigns Clarissa to a brothel and attempts rape. Finally, Lovelace succeeds in raping Clarissa after drugging her. Clarissa starts losing her reason and her identity. Clarissa dies in the end.

Fielding Fielding has been both admired and criticized by Coleridge, Johnson and Stern. He is considered a master but a hypocritical. Fielding remains as one of the most important writers because of the importance the novel acquired thanks to him.

Henry Fielding Henry Fielding was a very satiric dramatist. One of his first compositions was Shamela, a pastiche of Pamela. Shamela satirically attacks the hypocritical morality which the novel displayed. Joseph Andrews was also a parody of Pamela. Fielding focuses more on male characters.

Tom Jones (1749) Tom is the model of a young man enjoying his freedom (to travel, to have relationships with women, to enjoy sensual experience. When he matures, he understands the social role that he has and decides to marry. Tom is a sort of hero and the reader usually sympathises with him.

The moral code The woman Tom loves look like a medieval maiden, she has been waiting for him without ever “falling.” Female virtue has to do with waiting until the hero of the novel has become respectable. When that happens she marries him.

Moral code It would a terrible mistake for a woman to “fall” that means to yield to the sensual /sexual experiences outside marriage or with a man who is not respectable and virtues. There is an interesting trip from the innocent world of sensuality to the mature and experience world of moral reformation.