Jane Spencer
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199262960
- eISBN:
- 9780191718731
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199262960.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
While paternal metaphors befit stories of the transmission of literary tradition, fraternal metaphors predominate at times of literary innovation. Through case studies of two sets of triangular ...
More
While paternal metaphors befit stories of the transmission of literary tradition, fraternal metaphors predominate at times of literary innovation. Through case studies of two sets of triangular literary relations - between Henry and Sarah Fielding and Samuel Richardson, and between William and Dorothy Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge - this chapter argues that both the establishment of the novel as a serious genre and the inauguration of the Romantic revolution were events shaped by relationships combining biological brother-sister relations and literary brotherhood and sisterhood. It contrasts the place accorded the sister in the early novel tradition, as feminine fellow-practitioner and as weapon deployed by rival males, with her place within early Romantic discourse as a link to Nature and a source of matter to be shaped by a masculine poetic spirit.Less
While paternal metaphors befit stories of the transmission of literary tradition, fraternal metaphors predominate at times of literary innovation. Through case studies of two sets of triangular literary relations - between Henry and Sarah Fielding and Samuel Richardson, and between William and Dorothy Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge - this chapter argues that both the establishment of the novel as a serious genre and the inauguration of the Romantic revolution were events shaped by relationships combining biological brother-sister relations and literary brotherhood and sisterhood. It contrasts the place accorded the sister in the early novel tradition, as feminine fellow-practitioner and as weapon deployed by rival males, with her place within early Romantic discourse as a link to Nature and a source of matter to be shaped by a masculine poetic spirit.
J. M. Beattie
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199695164
- eISBN:
- 9780191738746
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199695164.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History
This is the first intensive study of the Bow Street runners, a group of men established by Henry Fielding, in the middle of the eighteenth century with the financial support of the government to ...
More
This is the first intensive study of the Bow Street runners, a group of men established by Henry Fielding, in the middle of the eighteenth century with the financial support of the government to confront violent offenders on the streets and highways around London. They were developed over the following decades by his half‐brother, John Fielding, into what became a well-known and stable group of officers who acquired skill and expertise in investigating crime, tracking and arresting offenders, and in presenting evidence at the Old Bailey, the main criminal court in London. They were, I argue, detectives in all but name. At the same time, Fielding created a magistrates’ court that for the first time was open to the public at stated times every day. A second, intimately related theme in the book concerns attitudes and ideas about the policing of London more broadly, particularly from the 1780s, when the detective and prosecutorial work of the runners came to be increasingly opposed by arguments in favour of the prevention of crime by surveillance and other means. The last three chapters of the book continue to follow the runners’ work, but at the same time they are concerned with discussions of the larger structure of policing in London – in parliament, in the Home Office, and in the press. These discussions were to intensify after 1815, in the face of a sharp increase in criminal prosecutions. They led – in a far from straightforward way – to a fundamental reconstitution of the basis of policing in the capital by Robert Peel’s Metropolitan Police act of 1829. The runners were not immediately affected by the creation of the New Police, but indirectly it led to their disbandment a decade later.Less
This is the first intensive study of the Bow Street runners, a group of men established by Henry Fielding, in the middle of the eighteenth century with the financial support of the government to confront violent offenders on the streets and highways around London. They were developed over the following decades by his half‐brother, John Fielding, into what became a well-known and stable group of officers who acquired skill and expertise in investigating crime, tracking and arresting offenders, and in presenting evidence at the Old Bailey, the main criminal court in London. They were, I argue, detectives in all but name. At the same time, Fielding created a magistrates’ court that for the first time was open to the public at stated times every day. A second, intimately related theme in the book concerns attitudes and ideas about the policing of London more broadly, particularly from the 1780s, when the detective and prosecutorial work of the runners came to be increasingly opposed by arguments in favour of the prevention of crime by surveillance and other means. The last three chapters of the book continue to follow the runners’ work, but at the same time they are concerned with discussions of the larger structure of policing in London – in parliament, in the Home Office, and in the press. These discussions were to intensify after 1815, in the face of a sharp increase in criminal prosecutions. They led – in a far from straightforward way – to a fundamental reconstitution of the basis of policing in the capital by Robert Peel’s Metropolitan Police act of 1829. The runners were not immediately affected by the creation of the New Police, but indirectly it led to their disbandment a decade later.
Rachel Bowlby
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199607945
- eISBN:
- 9780191760518
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199607945.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
Among the elementary human stories, parenthood has tended to go untold. Compared to the spectacular attachments of romantic love, it is only the predictable sequel. Compared to the passions of ...
More
Among the elementary human stories, parenthood has tended to go untold. Compared to the spectacular attachments of romantic love, it is only the predictable sequel. Compared to the passions of childhood, it is just a background. In reality, parenthood has quite distinctive stories of desire and grief, anxiety and hatred embodied in the foundlings of abandonment and the ‘seeklings’ of parental longing. In recent decades, too, far-reaching changes in typical family forms and in procreative possibilities (through reproductive technologies) have engendered new stories and questions. Why do people want (or not want, or want not) to be parents? How has the ‘choice’ first enabled by contraception changed the meaning of parenthood? The first half of the book looks at the implications of changing modes of biological parenthood and pre-parenthood (through reproductive technologies); at the multiplication of new parental parts and some older divisions; and at various historical antecedents to contemporary ways of thinking about parenthood, from choice to surrogacy. The second half then discovers a more complex history to the literary representation of parents and parenthood than may at first appear. It looks at how parental stories in literature may be present but obscured by the louder forms of love that claim the reader's first attention, and traces stories of parenthood back through well-known works (by Euripides, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, George Moore, and Edith Wharton). These stories have taken many forms, through diverse and paradigmatic orientations to parenthood: rejection, acceptance, or (sometimes all-encompassing) desire; with their corresponding responses in abandonment, recognition, adoption, or just plain ‘having’ children.Less
Among the elementary human stories, parenthood has tended to go untold. Compared to the spectacular attachments of romantic love, it is only the predictable sequel. Compared to the passions of childhood, it is just a background. In reality, parenthood has quite distinctive stories of desire and grief, anxiety and hatred embodied in the foundlings of abandonment and the ‘seeklings’ of parental longing. In recent decades, too, far-reaching changes in typical family forms and in procreative possibilities (through reproductive technologies) have engendered new stories and questions. Why do people want (or not want, or want not) to be parents? How has the ‘choice’ first enabled by contraception changed the meaning of parenthood? The first half of the book looks at the implications of changing modes of biological parenthood and pre-parenthood (through reproductive technologies); at the multiplication of new parental parts and some older divisions; and at various historical antecedents to contemporary ways of thinking about parenthood, from choice to surrogacy. The second half then discovers a more complex history to the literary representation of parents and parenthood than may at first appear. It looks at how parental stories in literature may be present but obscured by the louder forms of love that claim the reader's first attention, and traces stories of parenthood back through well-known works (by Euripides, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, George Moore, and Edith Wharton). These stories have taken many forms, through diverse and paradigmatic orientations to parenthood: rejection, acceptance, or (sometimes all-encompassing) desire; with their corresponding responses in abandonment, recognition, adoption, or just plain ‘having’ children.
David Thomas, David Carlton, and Anne Etienne
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199260287
- eISBN:
- 9780191717390
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199260287.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama
This chapter provides an account of the historical and theatrical context of the 1730s, emphasizing in particular Henry Fielding's satirical attacks on Walpole and George II. It explains why ...
More
This chapter provides an account of the historical and theatrical context of the 1730s, emphasizing in particular Henry Fielding's satirical attacks on Walpole and George II. It explains why statutory theatre censorship was introduced in 1737 and why Walpole chose the particular form of statutory control specified in the Licensing Act. After a detailed exposition of the censorship and theatre licensing provisions in the Act, the chapter moves on to explore why no attempt was made to abolish statutory theatre censorship during the 19th century even though three parliamentary Select Committees made some reference to the topic in 1832, 1866, and 1892. In addition, the chapter gives an overview of the political context in which reform of theatre licensing in London was first discussed in 1832 and subsequently implemented in the 1843 Theatres Act. This Act confirmed the censorship powers given to the Lord Chamberlain and was to provide the statutory framework for the exercise of theatre censorship until 1968.Less
This chapter provides an account of the historical and theatrical context of the 1730s, emphasizing in particular Henry Fielding's satirical attacks on Walpole and George II. It explains why statutory theatre censorship was introduced in 1737 and why Walpole chose the particular form of statutory control specified in the Licensing Act. After a detailed exposition of the censorship and theatre licensing provisions in the Act, the chapter moves on to explore why no attempt was made to abolish statutory theatre censorship during the 19th century even though three parliamentary Select Committees made some reference to the topic in 1832, 1866, and 1892. In addition, the chapter gives an overview of the political context in which reform of theatre licensing in London was first discussed in 1832 and subsequently implemented in the 1843 Theatres Act. This Act confirmed the censorship powers given to the Lord Chamberlain and was to provide the statutory framework for the exercise of theatre censorship until 1968.
Richard Scholar
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199274406
- eISBN:
- 9780191706448
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199274406.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
This chapter examines uses of the je-ne-sais-quoi in polite literature, particularly Bouhours and his contemporary the Chevalier de Méré, to refer to an imperceptible sign of social quality and ...
More
This chapter examines uses of the je-ne-sais-quoi in polite literature, particularly Bouhours and his contemporary the Chevalier de Méré, to refer to an imperceptible sign of social quality and distinction. It argues that the ruling class under Louis XIV in the third quarter of the 17th-century comes to cultivate ever subtler signs of cultural quality in order to distinguish itself from those it wishes to exclude, and that the je-ne-sais-quoi encapsulates this élitist process. The polite circle makes and distributes the je-ne-sais-quoi as an inherent quality among its members and their works. The term settles in late 17th-century culture, neither as a force of nature nor as a stroke of passion, but as a collective fabrication. It lends itself, as a result, to ridicule and satire in Congreve, Fielding, and other English authors of the late 17th and early 18th centuries, as well as their French contemporaries.Less
This chapter examines uses of the je-ne-sais-quoi in polite literature, particularly Bouhours and his contemporary the Chevalier de Méré, to refer to an imperceptible sign of social quality and distinction. It argues that the ruling class under Louis XIV in the third quarter of the 17th-century comes to cultivate ever subtler signs of cultural quality in order to distinguish itself from those it wishes to exclude, and that the je-ne-sais-quoi encapsulates this élitist process. The polite circle makes and distributes the je-ne-sais-quoi as an inherent quality among its members and their works. The term settles in late 17th-century culture, neither as a force of nature nor as a stroke of passion, but as a collective fabrication. It lends itself, as a result, to ridicule and satire in Congreve, Fielding, and other English authors of the late 17th and early 18th centuries, as well as their French contemporaries.
John J. Richetti
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198112631
- eISBN:
- 9780191670824
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198112631.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature
This is a study of those narratives which were written and widely read in England during the first 40 years of the eighteenth century, but which have been hitherto neglected or despised by historians ...
More
This is a study of those narratives which were written and widely read in England during the first 40 years of the eighteenth century, but which have been hitherto neglected or despised by historians of the novel. The author makes no claims for these works as literary achievements. They are seen, rather, as vigorous and highly successful commercial exploitations of enduring stereotypes such as the criminal, the traveller-merchant, the persecuted maiden, and the aristocratic seducer. Placing them against the background of the age, the book sets out to account for the attractiveness of such figures and their characteristic adventures, and to evaluate the importance of these narratives in providing a set of conventional and meaningful characters and situations for the mid-eighteenth-century masters of the novel such as Richardson and Fielding.Less
This is a study of those narratives which were written and widely read in England during the first 40 years of the eighteenth century, but which have been hitherto neglected or despised by historians of the novel. The author makes no claims for these works as literary achievements. They are seen, rather, as vigorous and highly successful commercial exploitations of enduring stereotypes such as the criminal, the traveller-merchant, the persecuted maiden, and the aristocratic seducer. Placing them against the background of the age, the book sets out to account for the attractiveness of such figures and their characteristic adventures, and to evaluate the importance of these narratives in providing a set of conventional and meaningful characters and situations for the mid-eighteenth-century masters of the novel such as Richardson and Fielding.
Jonathan Lamb
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198182641
- eISBN:
- 9780191673849
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198182641.003.0012
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature
Fielding's comic talent for exhibiting the weakness of precepts often extends to examples themselves, whose singularity is frequently so marked, private, and ungeneralizable as to skirt, and ...
More
Fielding's comic talent for exhibiting the weakness of precepts often extends to examples themselves, whose singularity is frequently so marked, private, and ungeneralizable as to skirt, and sometimes quite to diverge from the public norms of right and justice they were meant to enforce. This chapter argues that the meshing of the plausible example with the useful moral, driven by the circumstantial chain of a narrative, is one that seldom occurs smoothly in Fielding's fiction or, for that matter, in his reflections upon the law, and for the same reason, namely, that his imagination is dogged by the counterfactuals — the odd particulars, unruly exceptions, and barely possible other cases that refuse to be connected or put into train — which are provoked by his very insistence on the exemplarity of tidy fables. The more he wants to enforce an example, the more he is overwhelmed by the recalcitrant particularity of circumstances.Less
Fielding's comic talent for exhibiting the weakness of precepts often extends to examples themselves, whose singularity is frequently so marked, private, and ungeneralizable as to skirt, and sometimes quite to diverge from the public norms of right and justice they were meant to enforce. This chapter argues that the meshing of the plausible example with the useful moral, driven by the circumstantial chain of a narrative, is one that seldom occurs smoothly in Fielding's fiction or, for that matter, in his reflections upon the law, and for the same reason, namely, that his imagination is dogged by the counterfactuals — the odd particulars, unruly exceptions, and barely possible other cases that refuse to be connected or put into train — which are provoked by his very insistence on the exemplarity of tidy fables. The more he wants to enforce an example, the more he is overwhelmed by the recalcitrant particularity of circumstances.
Nicholas Hudson
- Published in print:
- 1990
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198112143
- eISBN:
- 9780191670671
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198112143.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature
This chapter discusses Samuel Johnson's rather different approach to the theory and practice of charity. His ideals of charity are not nearly so lofty or exacting as those of writers such as ...
More
This chapter discusses Samuel Johnson's rather different approach to the theory and practice of charity. His ideals of charity are not nearly so lofty or exacting as those of writers such as Fielding, and his conclusions leave individuals with considerable freedom concerning the choice and extent of his beneficence and good will. An examination of the Christian theory of charity is also included in this chapter.Less
This chapter discusses Samuel Johnson's rather different approach to the theory and practice of charity. His ideals of charity are not nearly so lofty or exacting as those of writers such as Fielding, and his conclusions leave individuals with considerable freedom concerning the choice and extent of his beneficence and good will. An examination of the Christian theory of charity is also included in this chapter.
J. M. Beattie
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199695164
- eISBN:
- 9780191738746
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199695164.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History
Examines the crime wave after the conclusion of a war in 1748, particularly the extent of violent offences on the streets of the capital and on the highways on the outskirts. The chapter goes on to ...
More
Examines the crime wave after the conclusion of a war in 1748, particularly the extent of violent offences on the streets of the capital and on the highways on the outskirts. The chapter goes on to discuss Henry Fielding’s magisterial practice at his house in Bow Street and his ideas about the causes of crime and the need for a more effective response – principally more active prosecution. It explains the national government’s previous efforts to contain violence by paying large rewards for the conviction of felons, the failure of which led to the government’s agreement to supply Fielding with money to support the group of men he was assembling at his magisterial office to detect, prosecute, and give evidence against violent offenders.Less
Examines the crime wave after the conclusion of a war in 1748, particularly the extent of violent offences on the streets of the capital and on the highways on the outskirts. The chapter goes on to discuss Henry Fielding’s magisterial practice at his house in Bow Street and his ideas about the causes of crime and the need for a more effective response – principally more active prosecution. It explains the national government’s previous efforts to contain violence by paying large rewards for the conviction of felons, the failure of which led to the government’s agreement to supply Fielding with money to support the group of men he was assembling at his magisterial office to detect, prosecute, and give evidence against violent offenders.
J. M. Beattie
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199695164
- eISBN:
- 9780191738746
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199695164.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History
The subject is the process of prosecution and the role of the runners as witnesses at the commitment hearing before magistrates – the link between victims of crimes and the trial before judge and ...
More
The subject is the process of prosecution and the role of the runners as witnesses at the commitment hearing before magistrates – the link between victims of crimes and the trial before judge and jury. The chapter begins with Fielding’s innovations at Bow Street – the public character of sessions, his invention of a re-examination process to strengthen prosecution evidence, and his use of the press to publicize his work. The principal subject is an analysis of the runners as witnesses for the prosecution at Old Bailey trials, and the way they fared against the cross-examining techniques of lawyers just then beginning to act in defence of prisoners. I take the fact that their credibility was not often questioned by the more aggressive of the defence counsel to suggest that by the end of the eighteenth century the runners had established a reputation for honesty and integrity.Less
The subject is the process of prosecution and the role of the runners as witnesses at the commitment hearing before magistrates – the link between victims of crimes and the trial before judge and jury. The chapter begins with Fielding’s innovations at Bow Street – the public character of sessions, his invention of a re-examination process to strengthen prosecution evidence, and his use of the press to publicize his work. The principal subject is an analysis of the runners as witnesses for the prosecution at Old Bailey trials, and the way they fared against the cross-examining techniques of lawyers just then beginning to act in defence of prisoners. I take the fact that their credibility was not often questioned by the more aggressive of the defence counsel to suggest that by the end of the eighteenth century the runners had established a reputation for honesty and integrity.
Jerry Holt
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780813178141
- eISBN:
- 9780813178134
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813178141.003.0004
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Jerry Holt’s essay focuses on the function of music in The Wild Bunch, with particular attention to how the film’s Spanish corridos, chief among them “La Golondrina,” subtly underscore the dramatic ...
More
Jerry Holt’s essay focuses on the function of music in The Wild Bunch, with particular attention to how the film’s Spanish corridos, chief among them “La Golondrina,” subtly underscore the dramatic action and add a new dimension to the film’s combination of romanticism, violence, and drama.Less
Jerry Holt’s essay focuses on the function of music in The Wild Bunch, with particular attention to how the film’s Spanish corridos, chief among them “La Golondrina,” subtly underscore the dramatic action and add a new dimension to the film’s combination of romanticism, violence, and drama.
George C. Thomas III and Richard A. Leo
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780195338935
- eISBN:
- 9780199933303
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195338935.003.0003
- Subject:
- Law, Criminal Law and Criminology
English criminal cases in the late seventeenth century began to show hints of concern about out-of-court confessions produced by fear or promises. Hale’s Pleas of the Crown, published in 1736, was ...
More
English criminal cases in the late seventeenth century began to show hints of concern about out-of-court confessions produced by fear or promises. Hale’s Pleas of the Crown, published in 1736, was the first treatise to mention this concern, but the most vivid expression appears in Hawkins’s 1787 treatise: Even the slightest “flattery of hope” or “impressions of fear” made a confession inadmissible. This exquisite concern about pressure on the accused to confess arose as magistrates, led by John Fielding, sought to combat crime by conducting examinations in much more forceful ways. The Hawkins “no pressure” principle dominated English interrogation law for a century. There were countercurrents during the century of dominance, however, including an 1848 act of Parliament that required magistrates to warn the accused that he need not answer questions but provided that any statements made after the warning would be introduced in court “without further Proof thereof.”Less
English criminal cases in the late seventeenth century began to show hints of concern about out-of-court confessions produced by fear or promises. Hale’s Pleas of the Crown, published in 1736, was the first treatise to mention this concern, but the most vivid expression appears in Hawkins’s 1787 treatise: Even the slightest “flattery of hope” or “impressions of fear” made a confession inadmissible. This exquisite concern about pressure on the accused to confess arose as magistrates, led by John Fielding, sought to combat crime by conducting examinations in much more forceful ways. The Hawkins “no pressure” principle dominated English interrogation law for a century. There were countercurrents during the century of dominance, however, including an 1848 act of Parliament that required magistrates to warn the accused that he need not answer questions but provided that any statements made after the warning would be introduced in court “without further Proof thereof.”
Donna T. Andrew and Randall McGowen
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520220621
- eISBN:
- 9780520923706
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520220621.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
This section discusses the coverage of the book which attempts to provide an explanation to the fascination that the affair of Mrs. Rudd and the Perreaus exerted over England. It offers a glimpse ...
More
This section discusses the coverage of the book which attempts to provide an explanation to the fascination that the affair of Mrs. Rudd and the Perreaus exerted over England. It offers a glimpse into neglected corners and hidden relationships within that society. It notes that the decade of the 1770s has most frequently been studied in relation to imperial concerns and their impact upon political institutions of the day. It intends to draw a different portrait of the period, making the cause célèbre the point of entry. The era is peopled by familiar figures such as John Wilkes and George III, Lord Mansfield and Sir John Fielding, and also those less well known: speculators and courtesans as well as judges and politicians.Less
This section discusses the coverage of the book which attempts to provide an explanation to the fascination that the affair of Mrs. Rudd and the Perreaus exerted over England. It offers a glimpse into neglected corners and hidden relationships within that society. It notes that the decade of the 1770s has most frequently been studied in relation to imperial concerns and their impact upon political institutions of the day. It intends to draw a different portrait of the period, making the cause célèbre the point of entry. The era is peopled by familiar figures such as John Wilkes and George III, Lord Mansfield and Sir John Fielding, and also those less well known: speculators and courtesans as well as judges and politicians.
Henry Power
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780198723875
- eISBN:
- 9780191791178
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198723875.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature, Prose (inc. letters, diaries)
This book looks at Henry Fielding’s adaptation of classical epic in the context of what he called the ‘Trade of … authoring’. Fielding stressed that his novels were modelled on classical literature. ...
More
This book looks at Henry Fielding’s adaptation of classical epic in the context of what he called the ‘Trade of … authoring’. Fielding stressed that his novels were modelled on classical literature. Equally, he was fascinated by—and wrote at length about—the fact that they were objects to be consumed. He recognized that he wrote in an age when an author had to consider himself ‘as one who keeps a public Ordinary, at which all persons are welcome for their Money’. In describing his work, he alludes both to Homeric epic and to contemporary cookery books. This tension between Fielding’s commitment to a classical tradition and his immersion in a print culture in which books were consumable commodities has gone unexplored. Fielding’s interest in the place of the ancients in a world of consumerism was inherited from the previous generation of satirists. The ‘Scriblerians’—among them Jonathan Swift, John Gay, and Alexander Pope—repeatedly suggest in their work that classical values are at odds with modern tastes and appetites. Fielding developed many of their satiric routines in his own writing. This book contains fresh readings of works by Swift, Gay, and Pope, and of Fielding’s major novels. It looks at Fielding’s engagement with various Scriblerian themes primarily the consumption of literature, but also the professionalization of scholarship, and the status of the author—and shows ultimately that Fielding broke with the Scriblerians in acknowledging and celebrating the influence of the marketplace on his work.Less
This book looks at Henry Fielding’s adaptation of classical epic in the context of what he called the ‘Trade of … authoring’. Fielding stressed that his novels were modelled on classical literature. Equally, he was fascinated by—and wrote at length about—the fact that they were objects to be consumed. He recognized that he wrote in an age when an author had to consider himself ‘as one who keeps a public Ordinary, at which all persons are welcome for their Money’. In describing his work, he alludes both to Homeric epic and to contemporary cookery books. This tension between Fielding’s commitment to a classical tradition and his immersion in a print culture in which books were consumable commodities has gone unexplored. Fielding’s interest in the place of the ancients in a world of consumerism was inherited from the previous generation of satirists. The ‘Scriblerians’—among them Jonathan Swift, John Gay, and Alexander Pope—repeatedly suggest in their work that classical values are at odds with modern tastes and appetites. Fielding developed many of their satiric routines in his own writing. This book contains fresh readings of works by Swift, Gay, and Pope, and of Fielding’s major novels. It looks at Fielding’s engagement with various Scriblerian themes primarily the consumption of literature, but also the professionalization of scholarship, and the status of the author—and shows ultimately that Fielding broke with the Scriblerians in acknowledging and celebrating the influence of the marketplace on his work.
Matthew Bevis
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780226652054
- eISBN:
- 9780226652221
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226652221.003.0013
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature
This final chapter ranges more widely across The Prelude in order to consider how forms of selving and humoring speak to one another, and how they speak to the vision (or version) of Wordsworth ...
More
This final chapter ranges more widely across The Prelude in order to consider how forms of selving and humoring speak to one another, and how they speak to the vision (or version) of Wordsworth presented by this book. When he was looking around for epic-mock-epic models for the romancing of the self, certain writings, cherished from his childhood, would have come readily to mind, ones that should be kept in mind when reading him: eighteenth-century novels (particularly those of Sterne, Fielding, and Smollett); behind them, Cervantes; and behind him, Ariosto. The chapter closes with a sustained consideration of Wordsworth's debt to Don Quixote in The Prelude, arguing that this quixotic sense is a vital part of his ambitions for both himself and his poetry.Less
This final chapter ranges more widely across The Prelude in order to consider how forms of selving and humoring speak to one another, and how they speak to the vision (or version) of Wordsworth presented by this book. When he was looking around for epic-mock-epic models for the romancing of the self, certain writings, cherished from his childhood, would have come readily to mind, ones that should be kept in mind when reading him: eighteenth-century novels (particularly those of Sterne, Fielding, and Smollett); behind them, Cervantes; and behind him, Ariosto. The chapter closes with a sustained consideration of Wordsworth's debt to Don Quixote in The Prelude, arguing that this quixotic sense is a vital part of his ambitions for both himself and his poetry.
Alan M. Wald
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807835869
- eISBN:
- 9781469601502
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807837344_wald.7
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
This chapter examines the post-Popular Front record in fiction and Alexander Saxton's The Great Midland. It also discusses the women writers of the 1940s: Fielding Burke (1869–1968), Vera Caspary ...
More
This chapter examines the post-Popular Front record in fiction and Alexander Saxton's The Great Midland. It also discusses the women writers of the 1940s: Fielding Burke (1869–1968), Vera Caspary (1899–1987), Josephine Herbst (1892–1969), Grace Lumpkin (1891–1980), Myra Page (1910–90), Mary Heaton Vorse (1874–1976), and Leane Zugsmith (1903–69).Less
This chapter examines the post-Popular Front record in fiction and Alexander Saxton's The Great Midland. It also discusses the women writers of the 1940s: Fielding Burke (1869–1968), Vera Caspary (1899–1987), Josephine Herbst (1892–1969), Grace Lumpkin (1891–1980), Myra Page (1910–90), Mary Heaton Vorse (1874–1976), and Leane Zugsmith (1903–69).
Christopher R. Miller
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801453694
- eISBN:
- 9780801455780
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801453694.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature
This chapter examines how Henry Fielding makes surprise eminently visible in his novels. It shows that Fielding's fiction incorporates the gendered forms of surprise exemplified by both Robinson ...
More
This chapter examines how Henry Fielding makes surprise eminently visible in his novels. It shows that Fielding's fiction incorporates the gendered forms of surprise exemplified by both Robinson Crusoe and Pamela: picaresque violence and eroticized shock. It argues that surprise in Fielding's fiction became almost synonymous with what Joseph Addison called the pleasures of the imagination. It also contends that surprise is an essential element in Fielding's rationale for comic ridicule; that his ethical defense of ridicule is bound up with an aesthetic justification for surprise; that he is interested not only in the narrative mechanism of surprise but also its rhetoric; and that in representing moments of astonishment, Fielding nostalgically harks back to the instantaneity of theatrical spectacle, even as he develops techniques that anticipate the narrative innovations of Laurence Sterne's novel Tristram Shandy and gothic romance. Finally, the chapter explores how the two basic forms of surprise—the physical and the cognitive—are interrelated and inflected by differences of class and gender.Less
This chapter examines how Henry Fielding makes surprise eminently visible in his novels. It shows that Fielding's fiction incorporates the gendered forms of surprise exemplified by both Robinson Crusoe and Pamela: picaresque violence and eroticized shock. It argues that surprise in Fielding's fiction became almost synonymous with what Joseph Addison called the pleasures of the imagination. It also contends that surprise is an essential element in Fielding's rationale for comic ridicule; that his ethical defense of ridicule is bound up with an aesthetic justification for surprise; that he is interested not only in the narrative mechanism of surprise but also its rhetoric; and that in representing moments of astonishment, Fielding nostalgically harks back to the instantaneity of theatrical spectacle, even as he develops techniques that anticipate the narrative innovations of Laurence Sterne's novel Tristram Shandy and gothic romance. Finally, the chapter explores how the two basic forms of surprise—the physical and the cognitive—are interrelated and inflected by differences of class and gender.
Rachel Bowlby
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199607945
- eISBN:
- 9780191760518
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199607945.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
Tom Jones's foundling status, in a novel published in the same decade as the opening of the London Foundling Hospital in 1741 (Chapter 4), has very little effect on his life: he is raised where he ...
More
Tom Jones's foundling status, in a novel published in the same decade as the opening of the London Foundling Hospital in 1741 (Chapter 4), has very little effect on his life: he is raised where he would have been raised if his mother had not concealed his birth, and treated as a rightful heir. Fielding's point may be to sidestep those who would punish the children for the supposed transgressions of their parents by lightly presenting a world in which their objections—satirized at the start of the novel—do not apply. Tom Jones is also involved in a broader politics of parenthood and education, as it features a number of cases of children raised alternately by two parental figures, typically siblings. There is an evocation of the madness of parental passion. Squire Allworthy, Tom Jones's adoptive father (and actual uncle) is a tender foundling father like George Eliot's Silas Marner; but the experience is not transformative for him as it is for MarnerLess
Tom Jones's foundling status, in a novel published in the same decade as the opening of the London Foundling Hospital in 1741 (Chapter 4), has very little effect on his life: he is raised where he would have been raised if his mother had not concealed his birth, and treated as a rightful heir. Fielding's point may be to sidestep those who would punish the children for the supposed transgressions of their parents by lightly presenting a world in which their objections—satirized at the start of the novel—do not apply. Tom Jones is also involved in a broader politics of parenthood and education, as it features a number of cases of children raised alternately by two parental figures, typically siblings. There is an evocation of the madness of parental passion. Squire Allworthy, Tom Jones's adoptive father (and actual uncle) is a tender foundling father like George Eliot's Silas Marner; but the experience is not transformative for him as it is for Marner
Simon Dickie
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226146188
- eISBN:
- 9780226146201
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226146201.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature
In the spring of 1741, Henry Fielding made the decision to distance himself from his reputation for profanity, low humor, and spiteful personal satire. Joseph Andrews was the project through which he ...
More
In the spring of 1741, Henry Fielding made the decision to distance himself from his reputation for profanity, low humor, and spiteful personal satire. Joseph Andrews was the project through which he transformed himself into a literary moralist. Fielding’s work The Champion surprised his audience with its high moral tone, Fielding making a doubled effort to develop a benevolent morality. Joseph Andrews tackles in its content the ethics of laughter, stating that only affection was a proper object of laughter, not misfortune. This topic of Fielding’s brings the author to discuss the heated debate about Fielding’s changing religious views. The author takes a closer look at Fielding’s work and the themes presented in it to try and study the debates that sprung forth from Fielding’s work.Less
In the spring of 1741, Henry Fielding made the decision to distance himself from his reputation for profanity, low humor, and spiteful personal satire. Joseph Andrews was the project through which he transformed himself into a literary moralist. Fielding’s work The Champion surprised his audience with its high moral tone, Fielding making a doubled effort to develop a benevolent morality. Joseph Andrews tackles in its content the ethics of laughter, stating that only affection was a proper object of laughter, not misfortune. This topic of Fielding’s brings the author to discuss the heated debate about Fielding’s changing religious views. The author takes a closer look at Fielding’s work and the themes presented in it to try and study the debates that sprung forth from Fielding’s work.
Jayne Elizabeth Lewis
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226476698
- eISBN:
- 9780226476711
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226476711.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature
The “great Shocks” which convulsed London in the winter of 1749 caught the eye of literary scholars, especially as Anglican bishop Thomas Sherlock interpreted and announced them as a sign that God ...
More
The “great Shocks” which convulsed London in the winter of 1749 caught the eye of literary scholars, especially as Anglican bishop Thomas Sherlock interpreted and announced them as a sign that God had condemned the British book trade. Sherlock mentioned no particular author in particular, although one principal offender is often presumed to have been Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones—a fiction whose main sin was an unbecoming appetite for low life. Tom Jones contained in its pages a sense of slippery sexual politics, one of the factors that drove it from the stage with the Licensing Act of 1737. Throughout the chapter, the author examines the criticism garnered by Fielding’s work, and how its resonance in literature affected the discussion of air and atmosphere.Less
The “great Shocks” which convulsed London in the winter of 1749 caught the eye of literary scholars, especially as Anglican bishop Thomas Sherlock interpreted and announced them as a sign that God had condemned the British book trade. Sherlock mentioned no particular author in particular, although one principal offender is often presumed to have been Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones—a fiction whose main sin was an unbecoming appetite for low life. Tom Jones contained in its pages a sense of slippery sexual politics, one of the factors that drove it from the stage with the Licensing Act of 1737. Throughout the chapter, the author examines the criticism garnered by Fielding’s work, and how its resonance in literature affected the discussion of air and atmosphere.
