CHAPTER 1 Realism and the Novel Form‘nvolving a break with the old-fishioned romances; but neither they nor their contemporaries provide us with the kind of characterisation of the new genre that we need; indeed they did not even canonise the changed nature of their fiction by a ‘change in nomenclature—our usage of the term ‘novel’ was not fully established until the end of the eighteenth century. \ With the help of ther larger perspective the historians of the novel have been able to do much more to determine the idio- syneratic features of the new form. Briefly, they have seen ‘realism’ as the defining characteristic which diffzrentiates the work of the early cighteenth-century novelists fom previous fiction. With their picture—that of weiter otherwive diferent but alike in this quality of ‘realism’—one’s initial rexervati ‘must surely be that the term itself needs further explanation, ‘only because to use it without qualification as a defining charse- teristic ofthe novel might otherwise carry the invidious sugges- tion that all previous writers and literary forms pursued the ‘unreal. ‘The main critical astociations of the term ‘realism’ are with the French school of Realists. “Réalisme’ was apparently first used as an aesthetic description in 1835 to denote the ‘vérité humaine’ of Rembrandt as opposed to the ‘idéalité poétique’ ‘of neo-classical painting; it was later consecrated asa specifically literary term by the foundation in 1836 of Réalisns, a journal edited by Duranty.! Unfortunately much of the usefulness of the word was soon lost in the bitter controversies over the ‘low’ subjects and allegedly immoral tendencies of Flaubert and his successors. As result, ‘realism’ came to be used primarily as the antonym of lealism’, and this sense, which is actually a refection of the position taken by the enemies of the French Realist, has in fact coloured much critical and historical writing about the novel. ‘The prehistory of the form has commonly been envisaged as a ‘matter of tracing the continuity between al earliefiction which portrayed low life: the story ofthe Ephesian matron is realistic" cause it shows that sexual appetite is stronger than wifely, sorrow; and the fabliau or the picaresque tale are “realistic” because economic or carnal motives are given pride of place their presentation of human behaviour. By the sme implicit 5 Su Bernard Weinberg, Fh Ram: ita Raion 109-18 Lendo, ‘amp ite REALISM AND THE NOVEL Fon mise, the English eighteenth-century novelists, together with Furedire, Sarron and Lesage in France, are netic a a eventual climax ofthis tradiaon: the ‘realism’ ofthe novels of Dein Rihardion and Fielding i clay acted withthe fact that Moll Flanders is a thief Pamela & hypocrite, and Tore Jones 2 fornicator. ‘This use of ‘realism’, however, has the grave defect ofobscur) ing what is probably te mes original feature ofthe novel frm, I.the novel were realistic merely because it saw life Rom i scamy side, it would only be an inverted romance; but in fat i aurely attempts to portray all the vatites of human exper nce, and not merely than sulted Wo one parte Kees, perspective: the novel's realism docs not reside in the kind cr Hg present but in he way prea This, of course, is very dlote to the position ofthe French Reality themselves, who anertd that if thee novels tended to differ from the mote Aatering pictures of humanity preseated by many established ethical, Socal, and literary codes it wat merely because they were the product of a more dspasionate and scientific scrutiny of life than had ever been stempted oS of the new genre to Become critcally aware offs ios aoa methods the French Rel soul have drawn tenon an {ssue which the novel raises more sharply then any other Ie form—the problem ofthe correspondence between the licen, work and the reality which it imitates: This ewentaly Epistemologcal problem, and it therefore seems Uikly thay oe ‘ature ofthe novel's realism, whether inthe eatly eighteenth century ot ltr, can bet be clanfed by the help otic fexionally concerned with the analysis of concep the ehicc sophes. I By a paradox that will surprise only the neophyte, the term ‘realism’ in philosophy is most strictly applied toa view of realty diametrically opposed to that of common usage-to the view held by the scholastic Realist of the Middle Ages that its universals, classes or abstractions, and not the particular, com, rete objects of sense-perception, which are the true ‘realities, +‘This, at fist sight, appears unhelpful, since in the novel, more than in any other genre, general truths only exist post res; but the very unfamiliarity of the point of view of scholastic Realism at Jeast serves to draw attention to a characteristic of the hovel which is analogous to the changed philosophical meaning of “realism? today: the novel arose in the modern period, S period "whose general intellectual orientation was most decisively separated from its classical and mediaeval heritage by its rejection—or at least its attempted rejection—of uni- ‘Modern realism, of courte, begins from the position that truth ‘can be discovered by the individual through his senses: it has {ts origins in Descartes and Locke, and received its frst full for- mulation by Thomas Reid in the middle of the eighteenth cen- ‘tury? But the view that the external world is real, and that our senses give us a true report of it, obviously docs not in itself throw much light on literary realism; since almost everyone, in all ages, has in one way or another been forced wo some such ‘conclusion about the external world by his own experience, Titerature has always been to some extent exposed to the same epistemological naiveté, Further, the distinctive tenets of realist ‘epistemology, and the controversies associated with them, are for the most part much too specialised in nature to have much Dearing on literature. What is important to the novel in philo- (ere ‘realism is much less specific; it is rather the general ‘ehper of realist thought, the metbods of investigation it has ted and the hinds of probleme it has raed. he general agro ppc eal Bs ben cea, “otdional ane igavating ts method has been the stad Pipa of ipeiens by the individual nvesignor, tho, deal a les, ee from the body of past sasumptions hd ‘radiional belles and ithas given a pecular importance tosemantc, othe problem af the nature ofthe correspondence Between words and reality. All of these eatre of pilosophieal eal have. analogis to disinetwe features of the novel form, analogies whch draw attention 10 the characteristic Lind’ of comespondence between if and erature. which has obtained in prow fiction since the novels of Defoe and Richardson. * See Ro, The ef Unive (Oxkrd, 1092), p18. “See sh2"Harn, Rel (Cambridge Ste» 12 @) ‘The greatness of Descartes was primarily one of method, of the thoroughness of his determination to accept nothing’ on aun trust; and his Discourse on Method (1637) and his Meditations did “2x suit of truth is conceived of as a wholly individual matter, logic- ‘much to bring about the modern assumption whereby the al aehip “ly independent of the tradition of past thought, and ined as inate likely to be arrived at by a departure from it “The novel i the form of literature which most fully reflects shi avis an Tanoaingsonetatin on Previous Be Shy ohms had reflected the general tendency oftheir cultures to ies contri to wadonal prac the major oath the plow of clasical and renaissance epic, for example, were eee ccathiney or able, and ihe ments ofthe ators treatment were judged largely according to a view of Hterary Ge ccorum derived from the accepted models in the gem. Thi {iesranytradionaliom wae fst and most filly challenged by the novel, whose primary criterion was truth to individual expert= tnce- individual experience which i always unique and there- fore new, The novel is thus the logical ltrary vehide of j culture which, inthe last few centyrjs, has set an unprecedented Value on originality, on the novel; and it is therefore well named. "This emphasis on the new accounts for some of the critical difficulties which the novel is widely agreed to present. When wwe judge a work in another genre, a recognition ofits iterary models often important and sometimes essential; our evalua- depends to a large extent on our analysis of the author's Skill in handling the appropriate formal conventions. On the other hand, it is surely very damaging for a novel to be in any Sense an imitation of another literary work: and the reison for this seems to be that since the novelis’s primary task is to con- ‘vey the impression of fidelity to human experience, attetion to any pre-established formal conventions can only endarger his success. What is often felt as the formlessness of the novel, a Compared, say, with tragedy or the ode, probably follows from. this: the poverty of the novel's formal conventions would seem, to be the price it must pay for its realism. But the absence of formal conventions in the novel is unim= portant compared to its rejection of traditional plots. Plot, of 13 &‘rue Rise oF THE NOVEL cours, isnot a simple matter, and the degree ofits originality or thc never easy fo determing; never & broad fand necessarily summary comparison between the novel previous literary forms reveals an important difference: Defoe land Richardson are the fist great writers in our literature who {id not take their plots from mythology, history, legend or pre- vious literature. In this they differ from Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare and Milton, for instance, who, like the writers of Greece and Rome, habitually used traditional plots; and who did eo, in the last analysis, because they accepted the general premise of their times tha, since Nature is esentially complete nd unchanging, its records, whether scriptural, legendary oF historical, constitute a definitive repertoire of human experience. “This point of view continued to be expressed until the nine- teenth century; the opponents of Balzac, for example, used it to erie his preoccupation with contemporary and, in their view, ephemeral reality. But at the same time, from the Renaissance ‘onwards, there was a growing tendency for individual experi- fence to replace collective tradition as the ultimate arbiter of reality; and this transition would seem to constitute an import- fat pir of he general cultural background ofthese of the Tt is significant that the trend in favour of originality found its first powerful expression in England, and in the eighteenth century; the very word ‘original’ took on its modern meaning i this time, by 4 semantic Feversal which is a parallel to the Change in the meaning of ‘realism’. We have seen that, from the mediacval belie in the reality of universals, ‘realism’ had ‘ome to denote a belief in the individual apprehension of reality fhrough the senses: similarly the term ‘original’ which in the Middle Ages had meant ‘having existed from the first came to inean ‘underived, independent, frstchand’; and by the time that award Young ni pac maling Grete on Original ‘Compestion (1759) hailed Richardson as ‘a genius as well moral fs original’! the word could be used asa term of praise meaning novel or fresh in character or style’. ‘The novel's use of non-traditional plots isan early and prob- ably independent manifestation of this emphasis, When Defoe, + Wont (x7a) V1; se ao Max Scher, ene ct Sil du Wi (qdanchen 2 Leia pp on a Bane Man The Problem of iE Bert Cty geo PQ, SEV 159) 9708 4 REALISM AND THE NOVEL FORM for example, began to write fiction he took little notice of the dominant critical theory ofthe day, which still inclined towards, the use of traditional plots; instead, he merely allowed hhis nar- rative order to flow spontaneously from his own sense of what his protagonists might plausibly do next. Tn 20 doing Defoe initiated an important new tendency in fiction: his total sub- ‘ordination of the plot to the pattern of the autobiographical ‘memoir is as defiant an assertion of the primacy of individual experience in the novel as Descartes’s cegito ergo sum was in philosophy. "After Defoe, Richardson and Fielding in their very different ways continued what was to become the novel's usual practice, the ase of non-traditional plot, either wholly invented or based in part on a contemporary incident. It cannot be claimed that tither of them completely achieved that interpenetration cf plot, ‘character and emergent moral theme which is found in the highest examples of the art of the novel. But it must be remem bered that the task was not an easy one, particularly at a time ‘when the established literary outlet for the creative imagination, ‘in eliciting an individual pattern and a contemporary nificance from a plot that was not itself novel. ) ‘Much else besides the plot had to be changed in the tradition of fiction before the novel could embody the individual appre- hension of reality as freely as the method of Descartes and Locke allowed their thought to spring from the immediate facts of, consciousness. To begin with, the actors in the plot and the Scene of their actions had to be placed in a new literary per- Spective: the plot had to be acted out by particular people in farticular circumstances, rather than, as had been common in Rie pese by general Ruma type againet a background primar ily determined by the appropriate literary convention. ‘This literary change was analogous to the rejection of uni- versals and the emphasis on particulars which characterises Philosophic realism. Aristotle might have agreed with Locke's Primary assumption, that it was the senses which ‘at first let in Particular ideas, and furnish the empty cabinet’ of the mind.* But he would have gone on to insist thatthe scrutiny of particu Tar cases was of litle value in itself the proper intellectual task Bin Cowen Hana Undertndng( 90), Bly ch. 2 2 15‘rue RISE OF THE NOVEL fof man was to rally against the meaningless flux of sensation, land achieve a knowledge of the universals which alone consti= tuted the ultimate and immutable reality. Its this generalising, emphasis which gives most Western thought until the seven- teenth century a strong enough family resemblance to outweigh all its other multifarious differences: similarly when in 1713 Berkeley's Philonous affirmed that ‘itis an universally received Tiaxim, that eorything which exits is particular’? he was stating the opposite modern tendency which im turn gives modern thought since Descartes a certain unity of outlook and method. Here, again, both the new trendsin philosophy and the related formal characteristics of the novel were contrary to the domin- ant literary outlook. For the critical tradition in the early eight- ‘eenth century was still governed by the strong classical prefer- ‘ence for the general and universal: the proper object of Fiterature emained qued semper quod ubigue 2b omnibus creditom est. Thi preference was particularly pronounced in the neo-Platonist Tendency, which had always been strong in the romance, and which was becoming of increasing importance in Literary dsm and aesthetics generally. Shaftesbury, for instance, in his ‘Essay onthe Freedom of Wit and Hour (1708), expressed the dis- taste of this school of thought for particularity in literature and art very emphatically: “The variety of Nature is such, as to dis- tinguish every thing she forms, by a peclir original character; which, ifstretly observed, will make the subject appear unlike to anything extant in the world besides. But this effect the ‘good poct and painter seck industriously to prevent. They hate Iminatenest, and are affraid of singulariy." He continued: ‘The ‘mere Face-Painter, indeed, has litle in common with the Poet; but, like the mere Historian, copies what he secs, and minutely traces every feature, and odd mark’; and concluded confidently that "Tis otherwise with men of invention and design’. ‘Despite Shaftesbury's engaging finality, however, a contrary aesthetic tendeney in favour of particularity soon began to assert itself, largely at a result of the application to literary problems of the psychological approach of Hobbes and Locke. Lord Kames was perhaps the most forthright early spokesman of this tendency. In his Elements of Criticism (1762) he declared "See Prin Ati Ble Ie 245 Be Ho 1 Sip la ee fa at Pllc, 3 (ere, Wore Lace and Jewcy Uhanot, i) He a) SRC sec 3 16 whe wood REALISM AND TIE NOVEL FORM tion for amusement; because itis only of particular odject| hat images ean be formed’;! and Kames went on to claim that Contrary to general opinion, Shakespeare's appeal layin the fact {hat “every article in his description is particular, a8 in nature’ Tn this matter, asin that of originality, Defoe and. oe] that ‘abstract or general terms have no good effect in any com- | establuhed the characterise itera direction of the novel form {ong before it could count on any support fom critical theory. Not al wil agree with Kames that ‘every article” in Shake~ Tpeur’s descriptions is particular; but pardcularity of descrip- Toahas always been considered typical ofthe narrative manner St'Rehison Cruse and Pancla, Richardson’s frst biographer, Ghdeea My Barbauld, descibed his genius in terms of an halogy which ‘has continually figured in the controversy Peowch neoclasial generality and realinie particulary. Sit ‘lata Reynolds, for temple, cxprened his neo-lasicalrtho- Jety'by pretering the "grt snd. general ideas” of Tallan $oiang othe slieral truth and.» = minute exactness inthe Buna ot nature modified by accident” of the Dutch school itreas the French Reality it will be remembered, had fol- Towed the “verte humaine’ of Rembrandy rather than the {Real pottque? of the clasteal chool. Mr. Barbauld accu sly indicated Richardson's positon inthis conflict when she trol that he had “the accutacy of nish of Dutch painter wots Sntent to produce effects by the patent labour & min dienes? Both he and Defoe in fact were heedles of Shaft En scom, and lite Rembrandt were content to be “mere flee painter and bistoran’. “Fi Concept of realise particularity in Wterature is ie somewhat to general tobe capable of concrete demonstation: (rin demonsraton ie pie the adore crdealaiy to some specie aspect of narrauve tecsnigue par Rt by exabihed Two suck aspects nugget themsdvs 33 ‘respect importance in the novel—charactersaton, aud pre- Sislon of acre the novel srl itnguhed fs pfs ey I, abso SHEERS. Wy sh ee ato Seat Bdge, “The Buckround and Deveop- smectite cif eft Tore of Ceneralty snd Parlay, PLA, © Sind ead ibd a cme sini ome couerpetary Fach reader, me Joseph Testy Joncas Reser Simple Spt Liman (Loon, 1859), BE THIS 7‘THE RISE OF THE NOVEL “other genres and from. previous forms of fiction by the amount ‘of attention it habitually accords both tothe individualisation of its characters and to the detailed presentation of their environ- ‘ment. (9) Dodwibenl + PPhilosophically the particularsing approach to character resolves ite nto the problem of defining the individual person, ‘Once Descartes had given the thought procestes within the indi viduals conscoumes supreme importance, the philosophical (iss connected with personal identity naturaly aerated 4 great deal of attention. In England, for example, Locke, Bishop Butler, Berkeley, Hume and Reid all debated the ise, and the controversy even reached the pages ofthe Spectator. ‘The parallel here between the tradition of realist thought and the formal innovating of the early novelist is obvious: both ilotophers and novelists paid greater attention tothe particu. EPialaival tan fad teen Common bere, Dut die pres attention paid in the novel tothe particuariaation of character ‘sitelfsuch a large question that we will consider only one ofits more manageable aspects: the way that the novelist typically {indicates his intention of presenting a character as a particular individual by naming him in exactly the same way as particular dividuals are named in ordinary ie. ‘Logically the problem of individual identity is closely related to the epistemological status of proper names; fer, in the words ot Hebe, “roper names bring mind one tng oly wi. ‘ersals recall any one of many’.* Proper names have exactly the [Sine funtion isl lies they 22 ee expreston ofthe particular identity ofeach individual person. In literature, how- Eve thi anton ot proper names wast fly abled in nove ‘Characters in previous forms of literature, of course, were usually given proper names; but the kind of names actually used showed that the author was not trying to establish his, characters as completely individualised entities. The precepts of classical and renaissance criticism agreed with the practice oftheir literature in preferring either historical names or type hames, In either case, the names st the characters inthe cone text ofa large body of expectations primarily formed from past Noss 179) Ln (0651, Py hg 18 literature, rather than ftom the context of contemporary ie Even in comedy, where charsctrs were not ually historical fut invented, tre names were supposed tobe ‘character’, Eriol tells un? and they tended to emain so unl long Sher the te ofthe novel —— Earlier types of prose fiction had alo tended to use proper nares that vere character or non-pardclar and unreaie Income other way, names that citer, like thse of Rabelais, Sidney or Bunyan, denoted paricular quale, or bike those of Eyly, Aphra Behn or Mrs, Manley, eared orig, archaic or] Tera connotations which excluded any suggeston of real and onterporary lie. ‘The privaily literary and. conventonal] Srentaton ofthese proper names wae farther attned by the fact that there wae usally only one of them=—Mi. Badman oF Euphucs;unlle people in ordinary if, the characters of fetion aid not have both given name and suro "The ea evi Taade an extremely significant break with Wadiion, and named tr characters in such aay sto suggest that they were © be regarded as particular indi duals inthe contemporary cal environment. Defocs use of proper names casual and somelimes contradictory; but he ery rarely gives names that are conventional or fancfal—one pouible exception, Rorana, #3 pseudonym whichis fully cx- Fisined; and most ofthe matin characters such as Robinson Erusoe or Moll Flanders have complete and vealitic names or Blase, Richardson continued ths practice but was much more farefal and gave all of hs major characters, and even mott of fis minor one, both a given mime anda surname. He alo ac 2 minor but not unimportant problem in novel writing, that of giving names that are subly appropriate and suggestive, yet Sound lke ordinary veaitieonex Thus the romance-connot- tions of Pamela are conrlled by the commonplace family name f Andrews; both Clara Harlowe and Robert Lovelace ae in many waye appropriately named; and indeed. nearly all KRichardeon's proper names, fom Mrs. Salar to Sir Chatles Grandson, sound authentic and re yet suited tothe personal ities ofthe bearers : Fielding, 2 an anonymous contemporary cic pointed out, christened his characters "mot with fantastic highsounding ‘Names, bot uch a, tho they sometimes had some reference to "Pah 9the Character, had a more modern termination’.! Such names as Heartiee, Allworthy and Square are certainly modernised ‘versions ofthe type name, although they are just crecible; even ‘Western or Tom Jones suggest very strongly that Fielding had his eye as much on the general type as on the particular indi vidual. This however, doesnotcontovert the present rgument, for it will surely be generally agreed that Fielding’s practice in the naming, and indeed in the whole portrayal of his characters, is a departure from the usual treatment of these matters in the rel. Not, as we have seen in Richardson's case, that there is no place in the novel for proper names that are in some way ‘appropriate to the character concerned: but that thi appropri- Jateness must not be such as to impair the primary function of the name, which isto symbolise the fact that the character isto be regarded as though he were a particular person and not a o jelding, indeed, seems to have realised this by the time hé came to write his last novel, Amalia: there his neo-classical pre- ference for type-names finds expression only in such minor characters as Justice Thrasher and Bondum the bailiff, and all the main characters—the Booths, Miss Matthews, Dr. Harrison, Colonel James, Sergeant Atkinton, Captain Trent and Mrs. Bennet, for example—have ordinary and contemporary names. ‘There is, indeed, some evidence that Fielding, like some modern novelists, tok these names somewhat at random from a printed list of contemporary persons-—all the surnames giver. above are _ in the list of subscribers to the 1724 folio edition of Gilbert Burner's History of His Own Tine, an edition which Fielding is known to have owned.* ‘Whether this is 0 or not, it is certain that Fielding made considerable and increasing concessions to the custom initiated by Defoe and Richardson of using ordinary contemporary proper names for their characters. Although this custom was not lways followed by some of the later eighteenth-century novel- such as Smollett and Sterne, it was later established as part of the tradition of the form; and, as Henry James pointed out with respect to Trollope’s fecund cleric Mr. Quiverful the * gy nth Ne Sia of Weng Fane by Mr Fling 175 18. Tis whle quoted id wey tn Tae Ra cai Neng of ascii Richard novelist can only break with the tradition atthe cost of destroy- Fin the literal reality of the character @ Locke had defined persona identity 2 an identity of con- sciousness through duratior the individual wasin touch ‘with his own continuing idenGty through memory of his past thoughts and actions. This location of the source of personal identity in the repertoire of its memories was continued by Hume: ‘Had we no memory, we never should have any notion of causation, nor consequently of that chain of causes and effects, which constitute our self or person’.* Such a point of jew is characteristic of the novel; many novelists, from Sterne to Proust, have made their subject the exploration ofthe person- ality asit is defined in the interpenetration of ts past and present selfawareness. ‘Time is an essential category in another related but more ‘external approach to the problem of defining the individuality fof any object. The ‘principle of individuation’ accepted by ‘Locke was that of existence at a particular locus in space and time! since, as he wrote, ‘ideas become general by separating from them the circumstances of time and place’) so they become particular only when both these circumstances are specified, In the same way the characters ofthe novel can only De individualised if they are act in a background of par ized time and place. ‘Both the philosophy and the literature of Greece and Rome were deeply influenced by Plato's view that the Forms or Ideas ‘were the ultimate realities behind the concrete objects of the temporal world. These forms were conceived as timeless an ‘unchanging,+ and thus reflected the basic premise of ther c ination in general that nothing happened or could happen whose fundamental meaning was not independent of the flux of time, ‘This premise is diametrically opposed to the outlook which has established itself since the Renaissance, and which views time, Hoan Undetndig, Be. 1 Frat of Honan New, shih dates em Art (Muay, Bel, ch 6 nde he whole sere ‘Sl thnught wi which hey are mite.Ting, 04 prior So Soy Tue Rise OF THE NovEL not only as a crucial dimension ofthe physical world, but asthe Shaping force of man's individual and collective history. “The novel isin nothing so characteristic of our culture as in ‘the way that i refleeu th characteristic orientation of modern thought. E. M. Forster sees the portrayal of “life by time’ as the distingtive vole which the novel has add to iterates more ancient preoccupation with portraying ‘life by values Spenglert penpectve for the rise of te nove the ned of Siltahistorieal’ modern man for a literary form eapable of dealing with ‘the whole of life';+ while more recently Northrop Frye has seen the “alliance of time and Western man’ as the acing characte of th noel compared wi ter genes je have already considered one aspect of the importance wich the novel allow the time dimension: Break with the taille Hterary tradition of sing timeles stories to mirror the finchanging moral verte, The novels plots also distinguished from mott previous fiction by its use of past experience as the cause of presen actin: gata connection operating tough ime replaces the reliance of earlier narrative on disguises a {auncdanes, and this tends fo ive the novel a much more SGheave sitcture. Even more important perhaps, i the effect {upon characterisation of the novels insistence on the time pro- teas, The most obvious and extreme example ofthis isthe stream. ‘ot consciousness novel which purpars to presenta direct quota~ Gon of what occurs in the individual mind under the impact of the temporal flux; but the novel in general has interested tet fisch wore than any other teary form inthe development of {ts characters in the course of time, Finally, the novels detailed depiction ofthe concerns of everyday lie also depends upon its ppoler over the time dimension: ‘T. H. Green pointed out that Tnuch of man’s life had tended to be almost unavailable to Iiterary representation merely as a result of its slownes* the novels closeness to the texture of daily experience directly depends upon its employment of a much more minutely dis- cciminated timescale than had previously been employed in narrative. ‘The role of ime in ancient, mediaeval and renaissance + Aa of te Mot Landon, 94) B29. 1 ie fe We eae Ry ec a, 3 1 Pier erat of on etn Re, eS {Bila fhe Vas ad facts of Wars of Penta Modes Ti" (ah Wot Neti (London 85, 3 titerature is certainly very different from that in the novel. The restriction of the action of tragedy to twenty-four hours, for example, the celebrated unity of time, is really a denial of the fmportance of the temporal dimension in human life; for, in ‘accord with the classical world’s view of reality as subsisting in imeless universals, it implies thatthe truth about existence can be as filly unfolded in the space of @ day as in the space ofa time. The equally celebrated personifications of time as the winged chariot or the grim reaper reveal an essentially similar utlook. They focus attention, not on the temporal flux, but on tthe supremely timeless fact of death; their role isto overwhelm ur awareness of daily life so that we shall be prepared to face ‘eternity, Both these personifications, in fact, resemble the doc- frine of the unity of time in that they are fundamentally a- historical, and are therefore equally typical of the very minor importance accorded to the temporal dimension in most litera- ture previous to the novel. ‘Shakespeare's sense of the historical past, for example, is very different from the modern one. Troy and Rome, the Planta- ggenets and the ‘Tudors, none of them are far enough back w be Nery different from the presentor from each other. In this Shake- Speare reflects the view of his age: he had been dead for thirty ‘ears before the word ‘anachronism’ first appeared in English,’ nd he was stil very close to the mediaeval conception of history by which, whatever the period, the wheel of time churns out the same eternally applicable exenpa. “This a-historical outlook is associated with a striking lack of interest in the minute-by-minute and day-to-day temporal set- ting, a lack of interest which has caused the time scheme of so ‘matty plays both by Shakespeare and by most of his predecessors from Aeschylus onwards, to baffle later editors and critics. ‘The atsnude to time in early fetion is very similar; the sequence of events i set in a very abstract continuum of time and space, and allows very litte importance to time as a factor in human Felationships. Coleridge noted the ‘marvellous independence and true imaginative absence of all particular space or time in the "Faerie Queene” ";# and the temporal dimension of Bun- ‘yan’s allegories or the heroic romances is equally vague and ‘unparticularised. + See Herman J, Ebeling, "The Word Anahroniam’, MLV, LI (1637), 120+ sa ' Siead Weed Poser (Lando, 19g). 39% 23\ Soon, however, the modern sense of time began to permeate many areas of thought. The late seventeenth century witnessed the rise of a more objective study of history and therefore of a deeper sense of the difference between the past and the present.* At the same time Newton and Locke presented a new analysis of the temporal process? it became a slower and more mechan- ical sense of duration which was minutely enough discriminated to measure the falling of objects or the succession of thoughts in the mind. "These new emphases are reflected in the novels of Defoe. His fiction is the first which presents us with a picture both of the ‘individual life in its larger perspective as a historical process, and in its closer view which shows the process being acted out against the background of the most ephemeral thoughts and actions. Itis true that the time scales of his novels are sometimes jth contradictory in themselves, and inconsistent with their retended historical setting, but the mere fact that such objec- fions arise is surely a tribute to the way the characters are felt by the reader to be rooted in the temporal dimension. We ob ‘ously could not think of making such objections seriously to Sidney's Arcadia or ‘The Pilgrim's Progress; there is not enough evidence of the reality of time for any sense of discrepancies (0 be possible, Defoe docs give us such evidence. At his best, he convinces us completely that his narrative is occurring at a par- ticular place and at a particular time, and our memory of his novels consists largely of these vividly realised moments in the lives of his characters, moments which are loosely strung to gether to form a convincing biographical perspective. We have f sense of personal identity subsisting through duration and yet being changed by the flow of experience. ‘This impression is much more strongly and completely fealised in Richardson. He was very careful to locate all his events of his narrative in an unprecedentedly detailed time- fcheme: the superscription of each letter gives us the day of the ‘week, and often the time of the day; and this in turn acts as an ‘objective framework for the even greater temporal detail of the letters themsclves—we are told, for example, that Clarissa died 1 See GN. Clark, Th Late Sar, 160-1714 (Oued 19a) np 36-365: end Wit Te eof Bal Lay uy (Sapa tl oe} ee Sse cpecy mst Corer, "Raum and a Dar Enkeanprlon forces) Hh aso-are oy { i | at 6.40 Paw, on Thursday, 7th September. Richardson’s use of the letter form also induced in the reader a continual sense of Sctual participation in the action which was until then unparal- {dled in its completeness and intensity. He knew, as he wrote in the ‘Preface’ to Clarisra, that it was ‘Critical situations . . . with what may be called instantaneous descriptions and reflec- ons” that engaged the attention best; and in many scenes the pace of the narrative was slowed down by minute deseription Fomething very near that of actual experience. In these scenes Richardson achieved for the novel what D. W. Griffith’ tech~ nique of the “elose-up’ did for the film: added a new dimension to the representation of reality. Fielding approached the problem of time in his novels from fa more external and traditional point of view. In Shamela he joured scorn on Richardson's use of the present tense: *Mi Jervis and I are just in bed, and the door unlocked; if my master ‘should come—Ode-bobs! I hear him just coming in at the door. You see I write in the present tense, as Parson William says ‘Wel, he is in bed between us . . ."" In Tam jones he indicated his intention of being much more selective than Richardson in his handling ofthe ume dimension: ‘We intend . . . rather to pursue the method of those writers who profess to disclose the Fevolutions of countries, than to imitate the painful and volum- Inous historian, who, to preserve the regularity of his series, thinks himself obliged to fil up as much paper with the detail of months and years in which nothing semarkable happened, a3 he employs upon those notable eras when the greatest scenes have ‘been transacted on the human stage’.+ At the same time, how- fever, Tom Jones introduced one interesting innovation in the fictional treatment of time. Fielding seems to have used an almanac, that symbol of the diffusion of an objective sense of time by the printing press: with slight exceptions, nearly all the vents of his novel are chronologically consistent, not only in Felation to each other, and to the Gime that each stage of the journey of the various characters from the West Country to London would actually have taken, but also in relation to such external considerations asthe proper phases of the moon and the Umeable of the Jacobite rebellion in 174, the sapped year of the action? Leer 6, * Be che 1 Aaya shown by F 5 Dehn (Cros Hey Fling, UH, 189-198). 25THE RISE OF THE NOVEL () ages) pile: js the neces- In the present context, as in many other, sary correlative of time. Logically the jual, particular ase is defined by reference to two Co-ordinates, space and time. chet,’ Prychologically, as Coleridge pointed out, our idea of time is ‘always Blended with the idea of space" ‘The ewo dimensions, indeed, are for many practical purposes inseparable, as is suggested by the fact thatthe words ‘present’ and ‘minute? can reler to either dimension; while intospection shows that we cannot easily visualise any particular moment of existence with- Cut setting it in its spatial context also. Place was traditionally almost as general and vague as time in tragedy, comedy and romance. Shakespeare, as Johnson tells us, ‘had no regard to distinction of time or place’? and Sidney's Arcadia was as unlocalized as the Bohemian limos of the Elizabethan Sage. In the picareque novel, it uc, and in Bunyan, there are many patuages of vivid and partcularised physical description; but they are incidental and fragmentary. Defoe would seem to be the first of our writers who visualised the whole of his narrative as though i occurred in an actual physical environment. His attention tothe description of milieu [ssl intermittent; but occasional vivid details supplement the continual implication of his narrative and make us attach Robinson Grusoe and Moll Flanders much more completely to their environments than is the case with previous fictional characters. Charactersticlly, ths solidity of setting is particu larly noticeable in Defoe's treatment of movable objects in the physical world: in Mol! Flandos there is much linen and gold to Ee counted, while Robinson Grusoe's island is fll of memor- able pieces of clothing and hardware. ‘Richardson, once again occupying the central place in the development of the technique of narrative realism, carried the process much further. There is lite description of natural fcenery, but considerable attention is paid to interiors through ‘out his novels, Pamela's residences in Lincolachire and Bedford thire are real enough prisons; we are given a highly detailed description of Grandson Hall; and some ofthe descriptions in psa, Sho (Landon, 1907), 387, Trees” (insgy Stuns ov Sua, 2 Raa onda, 1900, 2 6 the. REALISM AND THE NOVEL FORM Clarissa anticipate Balzac’s skill in making the setting of the novel a pervasive operating force—the Harlowe mansion be- ‘comes a terrfyingly real physical and moral environment. Here, t00, Fielding is some way from Richardson’s particu- larity. He gives us no full interiors, and his frequent land- scape descriptions are very corventionalised. Nevertheless Tom Genes features the first Gothic mansion in the history of the ‘ovel:t and Fielding is as eareful about the topography of his, ction as he is about its chrono'ogy; many of the places on | Jones's route to London are given by name, and the exact Tocation of the others is implied by various other kinds of evidence. ‘In general, then, although there is nothing in the eighteenth- century novel which equals th: opening chapters of Le Rouge et le noir or Le Pire Gort, chapters which at once indicate the importance which Stendhal and Balzac attach to the environ- ‘ment in their total picture of life, there is no doubt that the pursuit of veriimilitude led Defoe, Richardson and Fielding to {initiate that power of ‘putting man wholly into his physical setting? which constitutes for Allen Tate the distinctive capacity of the novel form;? and the ccnsiderable extent to which they succeeded is not the least of the factors which differentiate them from previous writers of fiction and which explain their import- ance in the tradition of the new form. 0 d "the various technic tlrcteritics ofthe novel deeribed above all seem to contribute tothe furthering of an aim whic the novel shares with the philosopher—the production of what purports be an authertc account of the actual experi- nes oficial THe stn invaled many other depart from the traditions of fiction besides those already mentioned, ‘What is perhape the most important of them, the adaptation of prove sje to give an airof complete authenticity is also closely Felated to one of the distinctive methodological emphases of Philosophical realism. MJort as it was the Nominalist septic about language , * See Warten Hunting Smith, Arise ie Enlh Fain (New Haven, 1934), PS * rchniques of Flin’ in Cts and sys ox Modem Fae, 192-198, co. Alige (Now York, 1959, 4h ‘8 7Te Ris oF THE NovEL which began to undermine the attitude to universals held by the scholastic Realists, so modern realism soon found itself faced with the semantic problem. Words did not all stand for real objects, or did not stand for them in the same way, and philosophy was therefore faced with the problem of discovering their rationale. Locke's chapters at the end of the third Book of the Essay Concerning Human Understanding are probably the most important evidence of this trend in the seventeenth century. Much of what is said there about the proper use of words would ‘exclude the great bulk of literature, since, as Locke sadly dis- covers, ‘eloquence, like the fair sex’, involves a pleasurable ‘deceit! On the other hand, itis interesting to note that although me of the ‘abuses of language’ which Locke specifies, such as, figurative language, had been a regular feature ofthe romances, they are much rarer in the prose of Defoe and Richardson than in that of any previous writer of fiction. ‘The previous stylistic tradition for fiction was not primarily concerned with the correspondence of words to things, but rather with the extrinsic beauties which could be bestowed upon escription and action by the use of rhetoric. Heliodorus's Cairns (Landon, 1868,» #75 37 edge’ Lia, 4h et IIE aneh P45:In the towns, however, is likely that semislteracy was much commoner than toalliteracy. In London especially: the general spread of shop-names instead of signs, which struck a Swiss Visitor, Gar! Philipp Moritz, as unusualy in r782,! surely implies that it was being increasingly assumed that writen communica- tions would be understood by a large enough proportion even of the denizens of Gin Lane to be worth addressing to them. ‘Opportunites for learning to read seem to have been fairly widely available, although the evidence strongly suggests that popular schooling was at best casual and intermittent. An Educational sytem az such hardly existed; but a miscellaneous network of old endowed grammar schools and English school, charity schools and. non-endowed schools of various kinds, notably dame schools, covered the country, with the exception fof some outlying rural areas and some of the new industria towns of the north. In 1786, the first year for which adequate figures are available, about a quarter ofthe parishes of England had no school at al, and nearly a half had no endowed schools? ‘The coverage earlier in the century was probably a litle, but not much, greater. ‘Attendance at these schools was usually too short and irregu- lar to give the poor anything but the rudiments of reading ‘Children ofthe lower clatses often left school at the age of sx or seven, and i they contiaued, it was only fora few months in the {year when there was no work in the felds or the factories, The Tes of ad, to 6d. a week charged at the commonest type ofele- mentary school, the dame schools, would be a considerable drain on many’ incomes, and completely beyond the normal range ofthe million or more persons who were regularly on poor lief throughout the century.? For some of these, especially in mndon and the larger towns, Charity Schools provided free educational facilites: but their main emphasis was on religious ‘education and social discipline; the teaching of reading, writing land arithmetic—the ‘three R's'—was a secondary aim and it was rarely purgued with much expectation of success: for this land other reasons itis very unlikely that the Charity School ‘movement made any considerable contribution to the effective 1 Reena ta et an 1 Boswil Sais Wr tis Por sige Cs (ond namie ieee ele 38 a6), oe HE READING PUBLIC AND THE RISE OF THE NOVEL titeracy of the poor, much les to the growth of the reading lic Pere was in any case no general agreement that this would be desirable. Throughout the eighteenth century utilitarian and be feantlist objections to giving the poor a literate education Pecfeased. ‘The current attitude was expressed by Bernard ‘Mandeville with his usual forthrightness in his say on Chariy eM Oharty School (1725): ‘Reading, writing and arithmetic, are ae yery pernicious to the Poor « » . Men who are to remain ‘and end their days in a laborious, tiresome and painful station ttt, the sooner they are put upon tat Rist, the more patiently {they'll submit to it forever after” ‘This point of view was widely held, not only by employers and economic theorist, but by many’ of the poor themselves, oth in the town and the country. Stephen Duck, the thresher poet, for example, was taken away from school at the age of Bourteen by his mother ‘lest he become too fine a gentleman for the family that produced him’; and many other children of the Country poor attended school only when they were not needed for work inthe fields, In the towns there was one factor atleast ‘which was even more hostile to popular education: the increas- ng employment of children from the age of five onwards to foffet the shortage of industrial labour. Factory work was not {subject to seasonal factors, and the long hours left lite fr no time or schooling) and ares is ily that fm some textile and olier manufacturing areas the level fof popular literacy tended to fall throughout the eighteenth century. ‘There were then, as is shown by th lives of the uneducated poets and selimade men, such at Duck, James Lackington, William Hatton and Joha Clare, many serious obstaces in the way of those members of the labouring classes who wanted to be able to read and write; while the most pervasive factor ofall in restricting literacy was probably the lack of positive induce- tment to learn, Being able to read was a necessary accomplish- tment only for those destined to the middleclass occupations— ‘commerce, administration and the professions; and since reading Sips Be Jones, Cherity School Movement, watt ‘L. and ‘Barbara Hammond, The Ta Cees Betas Conlon aA fb Sesa ee 39is inherently a difficult psychological and one which requires continual practice, itis likely that only a small pro- portion of the labouring classes who were technically literate developed into active members of the reading public, and further, that the majority of these were concentrated in those ‘employments where reading and writing was a vocational necessity. Many other factors tended to restrict the reading public. Perhaps the most significant of them ftom the writer's point of view was the economic one. “Fo ofthe mt reliable cima ofthe average income of the main social group, those of Gregory King in 1696* an Dei in #709, show that more than haf ofthe population was short of the bare neceasties of life. King specifies that some 2,825,000 people out of a total population of 5,550,500, con- Stitated an ‘unprofitable majority” who were "decreasing the ‘wealth of the Kingdom’. This majority of the population was Inainly composed of cotiagers, pauper, labouring people and utservants; and King estimated that their average incomes fanged fom £6 to 20 per annum per family. All these groups, itis clear, lived so close to subsistence level that they Ean have had litle to spare for such luxuries as books and ‘newspapers. Both King and Defoe speak of an intermediate class, between the poor and the well-to-do. King lists 1,990,000 people with family incomes of between £98 and £60 per annum. They com- pesed: 1,410,000 “fecholders of the leer sort, and farmers With anna incomes of £55 and £42:10s.; 225,000 ‘shopkeepers land tradesmen’, at £45 per anim and 240,000 ‘artans and handicrafts’, with average incomes of £38 year, None of theae incomes would allow a large surplus for book-buying, expecially then one considers that the income given is for a whole family; But some money would be available among the richer farmers, shopkeepers and tradesmen; and itis probable that changes ‘within this intermediate clas account for the main increases in the eighteenth-century reading public. “This increase was probably most marked inthe towns, fr the umber of small yeoman farmers i thought to have diminished 1 tm lad Pita! Oban an Cnc on te Stand Codi of eh $F ee No 9 ° i dering he peso and ti coe probaly ce aye ao ete hes ed oa ate a eels and weno shoptrper dependent ce ern sbminataive and Ce ples oun Be epee anys Eh ean cee potty celtic win eo oie miadedan cata pre vite reat afa tales not of weto-d9 mechan, Setters ann. prota fom en moPU met tapalndn oe oa byng pa se dw he han one ingore ajay oe rinse Fh igh oo ok in heheh cnr cmp’ sel stesma hc a ecg te resng pe Pica rughy compare whe tay hee ‘be! ncn wee ong he onetcth of ee post Hoey ale i iors on avenge abu wag a 7 eek temo cone rll fm or Sega Ghar Gio ere at coees 8a wobanlnt cang oe peo at un arr Bovey Me teow jor womes io wba gat elton vs copy the wars mach great a tan on ewe nem f itet cain 0 ere vara meh ener settee pest pes ok Magic HEE Bee beta ofthe genty aed the ach merctant ttl uses sue See water gases peta he ane sous ealg raped rm coe ‘ROVER Pepe ae une ct ond thence ay nema eb big pie ba Sor pened Bet diene and ote heaps verso Wo pl tr tegen how were mp ire way cul a gc atir oy aft dr Su nt have Sn abe ard ang Feo hero romance analy plied in epee Shae" Bieapaeandynch ete he me pce nag Lt Oni ie Bae is X gun sa tah ee ere re a eat te ho, (Cambridge, Mas, 1034), pp. 144 ee cant ae BPE ous Gn erate 4ange, They gradually came wo be pled i e400 0 nec pre errs ra eta appease in eves and late gh ls, Fee eset of wove, then, ough modern Sst goog ag Soy of Ton Jor net ey ee Oi asourert average week wage Te eeaiy yg, str te th opener so dso fo ee oPooey an for cramp that ofthe Ble see eaeseeteh arte deste bad btn able oar a Bethan dra dy cosad i the ptt the Globes vas no cea era ade quart ef ae The poet of nove, On Fen aa Poe als fly fora ek o wos This poe a woul in the egncem century was cet ere Te ae efi lecas addons ote ea a eee many of the esabianed sod rapecable ia ae holt, bait was not sty pee sc tr era ems Ce eter conomi inges ofthe book buying Lr Pa cats at's alpen ora penny, chapboks SS ca aera otexreondon'y eves at pce ranging Seren tad ve evap a eff alae ee ——— [ntl '¥97, and eventually to threepence after 1776. Many of an re eecained thon sets novel nse srs a ,rr———s oe een harkens For out parca purpate howe aaa eecer pug not very important the nove with rrCS——SC wees a See gnc snd publahers who specaaed in in ind amano hse nad dread been publahed in more ware erm ten without payment ‘The extent to which economic factors retarded the expansion of the reading public, and especially that for the nove, is suggested by the rapid success of the non-proprietary or circu Tating Libraries, as they were called after 1742 when the term 2 THE READING PUBLIC AND THE RISE OF THE NOVEL ‘was invented." A few such libraries are recorded earlier, espe- Cally after #725, but the rapid spread of the movement came ‘after 1740, when the fist cirealating library was established in London, to be followed by'at last seven others within a decade. ‘Subscriptions were moderate: the usual charge was between halt ‘2 guinea and a guinea a year, and there were often facilites for borrowing books at the rate 0! penny a volume or threepence for the ustal three-volume novel "Most circulating libraries socked all types of literature, but novels were widely regarded at their main attraction: and there le doubt that they led to the most notable increase in the reading public for fiction which occurred during the century. ‘They certainly provoked the greatest volume of contemporary comment about the spread of reading to the lower orders. These ‘Slop-shopein literature'2 were said to have debauched the minds, of schoolboys, ploughboys, ‘servant women of the better sort’, fand even of “every butcher and baker, cobbler and tinker, throughout the three kingdoms’. eis kel, therefore, that until 1740 2 substantial marginal section of the reading public was held back from afull participation inthe literaryscene by the high, price of books; and further, thet this marginal section was largely Composed of potential novel readers, many of them women. “The distribution of lesre inthe period supports and amy fey the pieare already given othe composition of the reading Public; and also supplle the best evidence avallabe o explain the increasing par in t played by women readers. Fr, while any ofthe nobility and geity condnued thie cultural regres Tom the Bizabethan courte’ to Arnold's “Barbarian, there var parallel tendency for iterate to become a primarily Feminine pursuit Two ohn, Addison is an cetly spokesman ofa new end. He wrote in the Guodian (07191: ‘There are some feaons why Testing is more adapted tothe female world than tothe mal. ‘Ar inthe fiat place, Because they have more spare ime onl Hand, and lead a’more sedentary hfe... There is another se EES MMi hs ay Cin Lwin li ay Ba py el 1S enna, Ba Spin We git Mo! (ew Yr, “ahaa So ey, Dip Mach 68 8‘THs RISE OF THE NOVEL reason why those especially who are women of quality, should 2pply themselves to letters namely, because thet husbands are generally strangers to them." For the most part quite un- shamed strangers, if we can judge by Goldsmith's bury man of affairs, Mr. Lofty, in The Good Natu’d Man (1768), who pro- claims that ‘poetry is pretty thing enough for our wives and daughters; but not for us'* "Women of the upper and middle classes could partake in few ofthe activities of their menfolk, whether of busines or pleasure. {Te was not usual for them to engage in politics, busines or the ‘administration of their estates, while the main masculine leisure pursuits such as hunting and’ drinking were also barred; Such Women, therefore, had a great deal of leisure, and this leisure wwas often occupied by ommniverous reading, ‘Lady Mary ‘Wortley Montagu, for example, was an avid novel reader, aking her daughter to send a list of novels copied ‘down from newspaper advertisements, and adding: ‘T doubt not thatat least the greater part ofthese are trash, lumber, ete. How- fever, they will gerve to pass away the idle time. . 22 Later land at a definitely lower social level, Mrs. Thrale recounted that by her husband's orders she ‘was not to think of the kitchen” ‘and explained that it was asa reult ofthis enforced leisure that She was “driven . - . on iterature as (het) sole resource’. ‘Many of the les well-to-do women also had much more leisure than previously. B.L. de Muralt had already found in 1694 that ‘even among the common people the husbands seldom ‘make their wives work and another foreign visitor to England, Gésar de Saussure, observed in 1727 that tradesmen's wives were ‘rather lazy, and few do any needlework’. These reports Teflect the great increase in feminine leisure which had been ‘made. possible by an important economic change. The old household duties of spinning and weaving, making bread, beer, anales and coap, and many others, were no longer neccssary, Since most necesities were now manufactured and could be bought atshops and markets This connection between increased feminine leisure and the development of economic specialisation Nos is5. + Act IE 1 Meta ws eon (Londen, 860) 12s: 25-28, 25 1A Sladef ei ck Sexe (endon'ie) bt 1 Liter Dita te Chetan Gut f En od rch Nats, 1728, P24 ren Ven of Engl, Van Muyden (Lando, 190) 28 “ THE READING PUBLIC AND THE RISE OF THE NoveL was noted in 1748 by the Swedish traveller Per Kalm, who Sorpied to find chat in England “one hardly ever tees nan hee trouble herein the least about outdoor duties; Tren indoors, he discovered, “weaving and spinning is aio in host houwss a rare thing, because their many manufactures ‘Bee them fom the neceatiy of uch". ‘Kalm probably conveys a somewhat exaggerated impresion ofthe change, and he isin any cate speaking only of the home ountca, tn rural areas further from London the economy Canged much more slowly, and most women certainly cone mued to devote themselves almoxt entirely tothe mltfrious dodes of a hoveehold tat wat el largely seCaupporting Neverhelss a great increase in feminine’ lesure certainly fecurred in the early eighteenth century, although it was probably mainly restricted to London, it environs and the Eitger provincial towns. How mach of this increaed leisure was devoted to reading is dificult te determine. Inthe towns, and expecially in Londen, {nnumerable competing entercainments offered themselves dur: ing the seaton there were play, operas, masquerade, ridotos, stimblieg drums, while the new wateringplaces and resort, towns catered forthe eummer montis ofthe ile fr. However, even the most ardent devotees of the peatures ofthe town musi rave had some time lft for reading; and the many women who Gi ot wish to partake of them, or could not afford to, must hve had much more. or those with puritan backgrounds specially, reading would be a much more unobjecionable fetouree: Issac: Watts, avery infuealaleatly eighteenth: Century Disentr, dwelt luidly on “all the painfl and dismal onsequerces of los and wasted time’ but he encouraged his charges, very largely feminine to pas thee lesure hours in feading and literary dscusions? “Thote inthe easy eighteenth century a good deal of out raged comment about how the labouring lates were bringing ‘un upon themselves and the country by aspiring to the lesure pursuits ef thelr betters. The implications of these jeremiade, Frowever, must be largely discounted. Not only becaise genteel 5 K's de He Yi nln wan Lc Lend, ie i Ei a RS, spp ae "Pleptnt of e Mind (New Yor, 1885), 18 6Area and fashionable entertainments were much more expen- sive in relation to the standard of living than they are toeay, ‘but because avery slight increase nthe lure ofa fe fortunate or improvident members of the populace would have been tnough to arouse alarm and hostility ofa kind we find dificult to understand today. ‘The traditional view wae that clas ds tinction were the bas of social order, and that consequently leisure pursuits were only prope fr the leisure classes; and thi gute was tong eine by the economic they ofthe day which opposed anything which might keep the labouring clases aay from their task There was therefore considerable the spokesmen both of mercanligm and of onal religious and toil thought that even reading con- tuted’ a dangerous distraction from the proper pursuits of thote who worked with thei hands. Rober Bolton, Dean of Gana, for instance, in his Euaye onthe Employment of Tine (2750), mentions the posbity of reading ass pastime forthe peatant and mechani, only to reject fe summacly: “No, the Edvice to him is, Obterve what passes’ “The opportunities of the poor for any extensive impropriety in this nection were in any case very smal. Hours of werk oe Tabourers in the county included al the hours of daylight, and even in London they were from sx in the morning to eight oF ne at night. The uaval holidays were only foure-Christmay, Easter, Whitun and Michaelmas, with the addition, in London, othe eight hanging day at Tyburn. Tes rue that labourers favoured occupations especially In London, could and. did brent themacives fom work fly fely. But in the main cone Aitions of work were not such as to give appreciable leisure xcept on Sundays; and then sx days of aor uc elutes usualy Jed to the sevens being devoted to activiues more extrovert than reading. Francis Pace thought that drink was almest the only workng-clas recreation duting the eighteenth century? tnd it must be emembered that cheap gin made drunkenness Svallable for les than the cost of a newpaper. For thte few who might have liked to read there were other lificales besides lack of leisure and the cost of book. There us pevacy min London epecily, hosing was appl lingly overcrowded; and there was often not enough light to rea by, even by day. The window tax impored at the end athe "ae Care, tn i THE READING PUBLIC AND THE RISE OF THE NovEL seventeenth century had reduced windows to a minimum, and those that remained were usualy deepset, and covered’ with horn, paper or green glass. At night lighting was a serious problem, since candles, even farthing dips, were considered {uxury. Richardson was proud of the fact that as an apprentice he bought them for himsel,* but others could not, or were not allowed to, James Lackington, for example, was forbidden to hhave light in his room by his employer, a baker, and claims to have read by the light of the moon ‘There were, however, two large and important groups of relatively poor people who probably did have time and oppor- tunity to fead—apprentices and household servants, especially the latter. They would normally have leisure and light to read by; there would often be books in the house; i there were not, since they did not have to pay for their food and lodging, their ‘wages and vails could be devoted to buying them if they chose; and they were, as ever, peculiarly liable to be contaminated by the example oftheir betes, Teis certainly remarkable how many contemporary declama™ tions against the increased lesure, luxury and literary preten- sions of the lower orders specifically refer to apprentices and domestic servants, especialy footmen and waiting-maids. In assesting the literary importance of this latter group it must be remembered tha thy cnstitated avery lage and conspicuous class, which in the eighteenth century probably constituted the largest singh 3 grcup in the country, as was the c indeed, until within living ‘memory. Pamela, then, may 2] regarded as the culture-heromne of a very powerful sisterhood of literate and leisured waiting-maids. We note that her main, stipulation for the new post she envisaged taking up after leaving’ Mr. B, was that it should allow her ‘a litte Time for Reading"! This emphasis prefigured her triumph when, following a way of life rare in the class of the poor in general but lest 20 in her particular vocation, she stormed the barriers of society and of literature alike by’ her skilfil employment of what may be called conspicuous literacy, itself an eloquent tribute to the extent of her leisure, Evidence on the availabilty and use of leisure thus confirms "A.D. MeKillop, Soma chron Pri nd Nol (Chapel Hil 996 -5¢ Ment 305.65 Pana, Bregman aon, "1previous picture given of the composition of the reading public in the early eighteenth century. Despite a considerable expansion it still did not normally extend much further down the social scale than to tradesmen and shopkeepers, with the important exception of the more favoured apprentices and indoor servants. Stil, there had been additions, and they had -n mainly recruited from among the increasingly prosperous and numerous social groups concerned with commerce and ‘manufacture. This is important, for iti probable that this par- ticular change alone, even if it was of comparatively minor proportions, may have altered the centre of gravity ofthe read- ing public suficiently to place the middle class as a whole in a dominating position for the first time. In looking for the effects of this change upon literature, no very direct or dramatic manifestations of middle-class tastes and ‘capacities are to be expected, for the dominance of the middle class in the reading public had in any case been long preparing. One general eect of some inter forthe eof the mone hoe. ever, seems to follow from the change in the centre of gravity of the reading public. The fact that literature in the eighteenth century was addressed to an ever-vwidening audience must have ‘weakened the relative importance of those readers with enough education and leisure to take a professional or semi-professional interest in classical and modern letters; and in return it must have increased the relative importance of those who desired an easier form of literary entertainment, even ifit had lille prestige among the literati, People have always, presumably, read for pleasure and relaxation, among other things; but there seems to have arisen in the eighteenth century a tendency to pursue there ends more exclusively than before. Such, at least, was Steele's view, put forward in the Guardian (1719); he attacked the prevalence of: this unsettled way of reading . . . which naturally seduces ‘us into as undetermined a manner’ of thinking... That assemblage of words whichis called a style becomes utterly annie hilated. . . The common defence of these people i, that they hhave no design in reading but for pleasure, which I think should rather arise from reflection and remembrance of what one had read, than from the transient satisfaction of what one does, and ‘we should be pleased proportionately a we are profited." + No. 60. B ‘THE READING PUBLIC AND THE RISE OF THE NOVEL “The transient satisfaction of what one does” seems a peculiarly sppropriate description ofthe quality ofthe reading whieh was ied for by mort examples ofthone two new cighteenth-centary Fterary forms, the newspaper and the novel™both obviously tncourage a rapid, inattentive, almoxt unconscious kind of Scading habit. The effoesenes of the satisfaction afforded by Fetion, indeed, had been urged in a passage from Hue’ Of the ‘Origin of Romances which prefaced Samuel Croxall's Slt Calc: an of Noel and Hite (1720) 1 « those discoveries which engage and possess [the mind] most ‘effecually are such as are obtained with the least labour, wherein the imagination has the greatest share, and where the subject is sich as isobvious to our senses . . . And ofthis sort are romance ‘which are to be comprehended without any great labour of the Inind, or the enerelse of our rational faculty, and where « strong. fancy will be sufficient, with litle or "no burthen to the memory. ‘The new literary balance of power, then, probably tended to favour ease of entertainment at the expense of obedience to traditional critical standards, and itis certain that this change ‘of emphasis was an essential permissive factor for the achieve- ‘ments of Defoe and Richardson, That these achievements were also related to other and more postive features ofthe tastes and attitudes ofthe main accessions tothe reading publie during the period also seems likely: the outlook of the trading class, for fnstance, was much influenced by the economic individualism and the somewhat secularised puritanism which finds expression in the novels of Defoe; and the increasingly important feminine ‘component of the public found many of its interests expressed by Richardson. Consideration of these relationships, however, rust be deferred until we have concluded the present survey of the reading public with an account of some ofthe other changes in its taste and organisation. 1 By far the greatest single category of books published in the cighteenth century, as in previous centuries, was that composed of religious works. An average of over two hundred such works app a 49‘THE RISE OF THE NOVEL ‘was published annually throughout the century. The Pilgrim's Progrese—although little noted by polite authors, and then usually with derision—went through one hundred and sixty ditions by 17925" while at least ten devotional manuals hhad sales of over thirty editions during the eighteenth century, and many other religious and didactic works were equally popular.* __ These enormous sales, however, do not refute the view that, ighteenth-century readers had increasingly secular tastes. To begin with, the number of religious publications does not seem to have increased in proportion either to the growth of the ulation oF to the sales of other types of reading matter.) urther, the public for religious reading seems to have been rather independent of that for secular literature. ‘Nobody reads Sermons but Methodists and Dissenters’, says Smollett's Henry Davis, the London bookseller in Humphrey Clinker (1771),¢ and his view is partly supported by the paucity of references to popular works of piety in the polite letters ofthe period. On the other hand, many readers, expecially those from the les educated strata of society, began with religious reading and passed on to wider literary interests. Defoe and Richardson are Fepresentative figures in tis tend. Their forebears, and those of many of their readers, would in the seventeenth century have indulged in liede but devotional reading; but they themselves combined religious and secular interests, Defoe, of course, ‘wrote both novels and works of piety such as his Family Instruclr, while Richardson was conspicuously successful in carrying his ‘moral and religious aims into the fashionable and predomin- antly secular field of fiction. This compromise, between the wits and the less educated, between the belles-letires and religious instruction, is perhaps the most important trend in eighteenth- century literature, and finds earlier expression in the most famous literary innovations ofthe century, the establishment of the Tatler in 1709 and of the Spectator int 71 ‘These periodicals, which appeared thrice-weekly and daily ejFenk Mot Hatin, Edam a Pig's Pg’ Lary, ht, XXIL Andee then get rr WJ. Macho’ pubis decor section, “Popular Religion Wers ofthe Bightenth Century: Tacs Vogue sede an, Unive of endo, pea 19648) * Tnedcory Ltr, To the Rew. Me. Jonathan Dus 50 THE READING PUBLIC AND THE RISE OF THE NoveL ectively, contained essays on topics of general interest which ected the aim advocated by Stele in The Chriton Hor {azor): they tried to make the polite religious and the religious lite, and their ‘wholesome project of making wit useful’! Ryeceeded completely, not only withthe wits, but with other farts ofthe reading publi, The Spector and the Taller were Bruch admired in ‘Dissenting Academies? and among other rps where most other secular literature was frowned on: and Srey were often the frst pieces of cular literature encountered ‘uneicated provincial aspirants to letters. “The periodical esay did much in forming a taste thatthe novel, to, could cater for. Macaulay thought that if Addison Had written a novel it would have been “superior to any that we poset) while T. 11, Green, allading to this, describes the fator asthe frst and best representative ofthat special syle of iterature—the only really popular literature of our time— trhich consi in talking tothe public about felt Humanity Js taken as reflected in the ordinary life of men - and Copied withthe most mimute fidelity. Neverthe, the transi from the de Goverley Papers tothe novel was by no meant mediate one many cate actedingjouralit were red and failed to create a gallery of equally interesting ‘haracers; and this parGeular clonal direction was not cone, tinued inthe second great journalistic innovation in eighteenth: entory publshing—the foundation of the Genlnan's Magacig ty Edward Cave, a journalist and boolacller, in 173 ‘substantial monthly periodical combined the function? of plea journalism withthe provision of more varied iterary fare, ranging from "An Impartal View of Various Weekly Egays" t0 ‘Select Pieces of Poetry". Cave tried to appeal t tarter even more various than thote which the Spear had éatered for; in addition to much sold information he provided Kighly miscellaneous fare that ranged from cooking recipes to Conundrums. He, too, was amazingly suocesul; Br. Johnwon tstimated the total etulation of the Magazine atten thousand] /0 K ! Eire Hime and stated that it had twenty imitators; while asserted in 1741 that it was ‘read as far as the English language Tae, No 64 (1709) 1 Diagn f Phi Desig (London, 18) 1, 982 + Bey aap 1 Feat of the Valo a ees of Worse Fon la Maden Tine’ Wont ed Nese, Hy 3extends, and. . . reprinted from several prestes in Great Britain Ireland and the Plantations’. ‘Two of the characteristic features of the Gentloman's Magozine practical information about domestic life and a combination ‘of improvement with entertainment—were later to be embodied in the novel. Further, the transition from the Spectator to the Gentleman's Mogazine demonstrates that a reading public had arisen which was largely independent of traditional literary standards, and which was therefore a potential public fora liter- ary form unsanctified by established critical canons; the news- Paper itself, as the Grub Siret Journal remarked in a satirical obituary of Defoe, was ‘an amutement altogether unknown in the age of Augustus’ But, although journalism had brought ‘many new recruits for secular literature into the reading public, that public's taste for informative, improving, entertaining and ‘easy Feading had not as yet found an appropriate fictional form, m1 ‘The Gentleman's Magazine also symbolises an important change in the organintion ofthe reading public. The Spear had been produced by the best writers of the day; it catered to middle- ‘lass taste, but by a sort of literary philanthropy; Steele and ‘Addison were for the middle-class way of life but they were not exactly of it. Less than a generation later, however, the Gentle- tans Magasin showed a vey dient wie ointadon: I ‘was directed by an enterprising but illeducated journalist and bookaeller, and its contributions were mainly provided by hacks and amateurs. This change suggests a development of which Richardson—printer and brother-in-law of James Leake, a bookseller and circulating library proprietor—is himself’ an important representative: the new prominence in the literary scene of those engaged in the trades of manufacturing and selling the products of the printing press. The main reason for this prominence is clear: the decline of literary patronage by the court and the nobility had tended to create a vacuum between ‘the author and his readers; and this vacuum had been quickly filled by the middlemen of the literary market-place, the pub- lishers, or, as they were then usually called, the booksellers, who Lennart Cuton, The Rint Magazin (Providence, BL, 1998), PP 653,77 Pie ge Wrst). 38 cspled a tzatege podon between author an pte, ened Seiveen both of these and the public. Sy he beginning of the cgheenth century, the book re bar che Gah ety, Se see Sil prominence anda trary importance tonideraly a ee r—s— CE [James Hodges, Sir Francis Gosling, Sir Charles Corbett), High Jeri (liar) Lito and Members of Fatament (Wiley Sechay and many of them uch tthe Tontons, Berard Seren Robert Dodley amt bdr Mila, conored wth he antigo of Londeg fe Togeier Bes olncd or controled all the mais chanaels of epinon So capers mugarnc ae tre review ane were eal Ma eure advertising and favourable reviewing for Ue Pa Ths rua! monotoly of te channel of option bo ie with Yea monopa af wren: For, despite heer eattndependene acces auth to he pubic mde by te Seley to te Encouragement of Learnings “The Trade: re Seseh the only itl orm of pubieaig forthe autho “The power of he booksellers inoence authors and adi enue ra undoubtedly very grat tnd siete neeary Page whether ts pow wisn any way connected wih herbs ofthe novel Connporary opinion was ceranly much concerned with ee peeing pe ep tection that it had had the efter of toning ttersure iol a mere market common, Ths view wa expres eat Social by Delos, r7tge Wing ©, is become weey conadersble Branch o the Englah Comierce The Bookslog fee the Maer Manufactures or Employer. The evra Weer, Author, Copyer,Subsweters and aoher Operant wih’ Fen and Tok oe the workman employed by the sad Mater anufactoer’s Defoe a no colette comme Saltaion, but moat ot the spokesmen of adienal Wray Standard wo emphatic erm Golda or xampl Shen’ deploed hat ial revluion. whereby weling "seg Sey Mera, Te glee Cnt ap sagighs BG Ragle Te Moy Rea Saks 195-98 (Bead ot . 2 Apple's Jounal, July 31, 1725, eit. William Lee, Life and Writings of Daniel ocean iB 53converted to a mechanic trade; and bookseller, instead of the treat become the patrons and paymattes of men of genius Filing went further, and explicly connected this ital revli- ton® wth a dnatros decline in erary standards: he ert that de! paper merchants, commonly called bookseller hate ally employed “journeymen ofthe trade” without the qualia: tons of any genius or learning" and suggested that theit pro. ‘lets had driven oot good writing by the operadon of a Kind of Gresham's Law, foreng the publ to ‘dik cider water cease they can produce no other quar’ ‘Grub Street wat bt another name fortis ‘fatal revolation’ Ssinebury and many other have no dificlty in showing that “Grub Stccet'is, in one seats, « myth, the boolaller actually supporied more authors more generously than ever patronage had: Bus in another sense Grub Stet di ext, and (or the fist times what Pope and bis biends were sell alscmed about was the mbjection of iterate to the economic nw of late 4 subjection which meant thatthe bookaclor, whatever thet mast, were forced, in a plate which Geotge Cheyne wsed inv letr to Richardon, tobe Curls by Proeston’ they had to procure from the Grub Street Dincss whatever the public might wish to buy. ‘The novel wat widely regarded ata typical example of the chased kind of writing by which the Booksclie pandered to the reading publie. Fielding’ fiend and callabotaton, fr tample, James Ralph, wrote The Case of Authors (1958) ooksnaling the manufnciue the bosliller mst thive bys he Rule of Trade oblige him to bay cheap sd sl lar as pomible, + Knowing box what Awortntat of Ware ‘rl bac ale the Mat, be gives out his Orders soaring: snd Was abeclate in prevribing the Tie of Publication, a pr= Pottening the Pay "hut wil account in a. good Degree fr the Paroxys of the prs: sagacioun Bookseller fect the Pulse ofthe mes and Kecrdg tothe soy presi no to eure, but Gate: the Diente As long atthe Btn continues tswaion he contnnes "The Distr af Med Weiter’ 176, Nay Buy ob. Cae (Chicago, sont pt * Tat Pavia Nos 743 Pee Sl gn od HD. Te and jn hc, 15, 1 aia ef acer Genre Gh to Rare, 1733-1746 Malle: (Catia, Misco ai PP Se 5t inter; nd on the Sint Syaptom oa Ns, he changes soar Coton oll Polite! Carmiatve Sod oe ren of Canaria the spe ef Tale Novel ee ae Inc howee yr anil ht he poe wa cameos after the great succes ofthe novels of Richardson Fag aed the fbaeuent peat of eelating orate, ao eer hacks had Geen sto eng novel and ane ahs Or oh ones on comnderable saleby sesh boolclers a sinng Henry proprietors as Fran and John Noble Ulthen toteer ees very He ence i he ok seltRecontrary,ifwe examine the works which the booksellers om io fave seliely promoted, we nd tat ter Bit a a i fo ange wee of plorintion such a phan Sea cou (908), Jobmons Deswnan 1743) and cai Pace (erpyybd) amd many other hore and Meds plans hich tej ommisoeon alisha sees tats to booker, Chaves Rivington and jot Osborne, who asked Richardson to produce a popalst se ea aia feces, and thus fupplied the mad Boe coahe writing of Panel But Ponda el was something rai estes Ridardson: closely touch. wa Terary lantnd ashe wn expec hs supra asnge suc sega aesttas of he copyright or tventy pounds alhough eases oer wid ha two aes novelas Not Hey at Ming crucl periment Jor dadcy ws in any way Resa otencoragemant rom te bool The waliton that Belding wis amazed when the booteler Mir fered Bete tied pounds for tne eauuscript, sd some shorter He centiny opgrt that although Nia ater the great Bisco Panels ant eipac Iege also Filings ft noel neither he nor anyone tu had provowsy encourged Fcdng te take ths new Inerary deen by teggering Mat eas ety be lerace. Tei he booed He or nothing to promate the ise of the novel recy, there are some incicatos that, a8 0 ieee esl of tei wle in removing Heratare fom the 55control of patronage and bringing itunder the control of the laws fof the market-place, they both assisted the development of one of the characteristic technical innovations of the new form—its ‘copious particularity of description and explanation—and made possible the remarkable independence of Defoe and Richardson from the classical critical tradition which was an indispensable condition of thee Iterary achievement, nce the writers primary aim was no longer to satisly the standards of patrons and the literary élite, other considerations took on a new importance. Two of them, at least, were likely toencourage the author to prolxity: fist, to write very explicitly and even tautologically might help his less educated readers to tunderstand him easly; and secondly, since it was the book- seller, not the patron who rewarded hit, speed and copiousness tended to become the supreme economic virtues, ‘This second tendency was pointed out by Goldsmith when he considered the relationship between the bookseller and the ‘author in hie Enguiry into the Prsent State of Learning (1759) There ‘cannot perhaps be imagined a combination more prejudicial to taste than this. It isthe interest of the one to allow as little for writing, and of the other to write as much, as possible." Goldsmith's view here finds some confirmation in the fact that the specific accusation that an author wrote diffusely for eco- nomic reasons became fairly common in the early eighteenth century; John Wesley, for example, suggested somewhat us charitably that Isaac Watts long-windednest was "to gel money’? The possibility that this tendeney may also have m- ffuenced the rise of the novel finds some support ia the fact that somewhat similar charges were also levelled at both Defoe and Richardson. ‘The most obvious result of the application of primarily cco nomic criteria to the production of literature was to favour prose as against verse. In Amelia (175t) Fielding’s hackn Author makes this connection very clear: ‘A sheet is a shei with the booksellers; and, whether it be in prose or verse, they make no difference’? Consequently, finding that rhymes ‘are stubborn things’, the denizen of Grub Street turns away from ‘writing poetry for the magazines and engages in the production ‘of novels. For owo reasons: because ‘romance writing isthe only * ors, ed Cunpinghaen (Nev Yor, 1508) + A.P. Davi as at Se Hark 149) Bast 36 m8 aE Nan, es ‘worth following’; and because ‘it ppeanch of our business tha PrGertainly the easiest work in the orld; you may vi ¥ ppest as fast a8 yOU can set pen to paper's ‘Defoe’s own career had long before followed this course; after using the current medium of verse satire in his early eareer he tained to an almost exclusive use of prose. This prose, of course, tutes), copious, wnpremeditated-—the very qualities that ere most consonant both with the narrative manner of his, Werels and with the maximum economic reward for his labours eth the pen, Verbal grace, complication of structure, concen ration of effect, all these ake time and are likely to require a ood deal of revision, whereas Defoe seems to have taken the sconomic implications ofthe writer's situation toan unexampled Extreme by considering revision as something to be undertaken, Gnly if extra remuneration was offered. Such, at least, was the Sesertion of the anonymous editor of the 1738 edition of Defoe’s Complete English Trademan, who wrote of Defoe's writings that they were ‘generally speaking . .. (00 verbose and cireumlocu- tory’, and added that ‘to have a complete work come off his hand, t was necessary to give him so much per shect to write tin his ov way; and half ay much afterwards to lop off its fexcrescences, or abstractiit.. . 2 “There is somewhat similar evidence in the case of Richardson, although the economic motive was prebably much less pressing. Jn 1739 his frend Dr. George Cheyne reproved him for thinking in terme of the booksellers’ practice of valuing ‘the Price to the ‘Author by the Number of Sheets’? Later, Shenstone wrote of Clarissa that Richardson had ‘needlessly spun out his Book to sn extravagant Prolixity . . . which he eould scarce have done had he not been a Priner ag well as an Author’; then—with an ‘unconscious tribute to Richardson's formal realism—he con- tinued: ‘Nothing but Fact could authorise so much particularity, and indeed not that: but in a court of Justice’? Defoe and Richardson, of course, did not break with elassieal literary criteria merely in the matter of prose style; they did so in neatly every aspect of their vision oflife, and of the tee by which it was embodied. Here, too, they are the expression of the profound changes in the social context of literature, " ghet 2 Lats to Richie Mulley 53 » Late Mall (Stina O89) B90 37changes which farther weakened the prestige of established rial standards The mideightcenth century was well aware of how the new balance of power had revolutionised the recruitment both of critics and Authors. According to Fielding the whole world of leters was becoming 'a democracy, or rather a downright anarchy"; and there wat no one to enforce the od aw since as he wrote inthe Coun Garden Journal (1952), even the Coes of criticism’ had been taken over by *a ange body of iregulas” ‘who had been admitted "into the realm of entcim without knowing one word of the ancient lav A year later Dr- Johns son suggested in the Adventurer that the iregulrs were equally ipower established Jn the fed of authorship: “The preset Age’, he wrote, ‘may be style, with great propriety, the Age of ‘Antors for, perhaps there never as ine in high men ofall degrees of ability, of every kindof education, of every profesion and employment, were posting with ardour 90 general tothe pres Then, emphasing the contras with the pest, he adds "The province of writing was Formerly ett those who, by sty or appearance of rudy, were supposed to have gained nove ledge unattainable by the bury par of mankind ‘Among the writers who could hardly have become so under the ald ispensation, and ‘wha knew Tite or sotog of she ‘ancient las" cf litratare, we mast certainly number thre representative specimens of the busy part of eightecmthccentury mankind, Defoe and Richardson. Their ideas and taining were Such that they could hardly have hoped to appeal to te old arbiters of literary destiny; but when we recall how adverse the Classical viewpoint was tothe requirements of formal realism, fe becomes apparent that their very different allegiance were probably an esental condition for thei terry innovations Mrs. Ghapone, indeed, drew this conclusion i Richardson's ase: ‘Te oaly from the ignorant that we can now have any thing original; every master copies fom those that are ofetab- lished authority, and’ doce not look at the atual objcet”? Defoe and Richardson vere certainly freer to present “the natural object” in whatever way they wished than were weiter in France, for example, where iterary culture wes sl primarily oriented to the Gourtyand it is probably for this Feasba that ‘was in England thatthe novel was able to make an earlier aud Nowa te Neatg 2 Pai Hse, 8 a ean in ie ter wed nro pets ise sy, however Qi mipereaion af ptronnge by the Ulsan, and the consequent independence of Defoe and ook a ray actly raters of ee ar ane ee one SE ee en cae can a [pgBeAGr Rice af i oulinine omen uns ree, \GuGsclling and journalism, Defoe anc Richardson were in very eee ere eee Sie ca Tata ta they hemes Ce oe rear ty cue a pieey cunt ee ee eae tae ca wa cay ea ee ace eerste aes a eva appal eaisgeeaeee Tastee See re goatee sees aan abi id the ww dominoes oe bogey i ee ease a creer inu Dae ie an en tienda tte wee bah ey Sa ee aa By Wn oul prose hae etn piyee ugt back « eres oy Ad chemes whey Fon of the non} ects betwee Pes in daly ie Heth anew subjee ‘id both. Tn hi Bec his matter seem Bipot sce. But whey fpmemorably an Love and the Novel: ‘Pamela* sg importance of Richardson's postion in the tration of Tic impel was largely due to Ins success in dealing with Matte major formal probleme hich Deloc ad If un seveFal The most important of them was probably that of plot, ‘fan episodie plot by basing his navels on a single action, xtriship. [tis no doubt odd that so fateful a literary revolu: courould have been brought about with so ancient a literary errata th te heme the present ehapler= Richardson's hands it revealed new powers I dl linked the fact that the Ancients had no povels with the fact that, largely as a result of the inferior social Srion of women, the classical world attached relatively lite Fhportance to the emotional relationships between men and fvomen.! It ig certainly true that classical Greece and Rome ew litle of romantic love in our sense, and the erotic life in general was not given anything like the importance and appro- Bition it has received in modern life and literature, Even in Buripides sexual passion is clearly considered as a violation of the human norm; while not exactly a vice, itis eertainly not a virtue; and, for the man especially, to allow it much scope is an indication of weakness rather than strength, As for Latin litera- ture, is similarly derogatory attitude issuggested by a passage in the commentary of Serviuscon the densi: he explains that Dido's love was not a Serious enough subject for epic dignity, but that Virgil had redeemed himself by treating itin an almost comic style pane cmicus ails ect: ce miro, abi de amore tractatur "The idea that love bet supreme value of life on Madame de wen the sexes isto be regarded as the] arth is generally agreed 0 have had its) last fm mexign in th sof amr curs in eleventhcentry Provence, Gokrty love ein exence the result ofthe tanec of am atte of religious adoration from a divine to «secular objector the Virgin Mary to the lady worshipped by the Woubadour, Le modern indviduaism, therefore the rls of somantie love fae deep rots in the Ghesdan raion, and soit very appro. priate that it should be the bass of the eal pattern of seu) haviour in our solety. The most universal religion of the Fes according to Viltede arco seas the 2 elsony the novel splice t with is doce andi tals just atthe mediaeval romances had done for courly love. Gourtly lve, however, could not vel’ provide the Kind of connective ar tuctural theme which the novel request rar primarily a lorarefanary invented to gratify the noble Indy hove actual soci and economic future had already been deeded by her marriage to feudal lord; it belonged to an trmoral work, 5 social vacuum where only the individual hited and where the extra wood with fe Gra egal snd felgiou sanctions against adultery was completely forgotten Consequently the forms of mediteval erature which deal with everyday Ife pad no atention to courly love, and pres fented womankind at a species charatered by an inline fiahly copidity; while onthe other band, the verse and prose Fomances which Geale with cour love presented their heres Zs angele beings, and this dellsion fas unually extended to the payeolgy® the background sid the Language of te try. Nevonly sot fom the pont of view ot plot heroic chastity Subject fo exactly the me literary dees at inveterate p= iisculys both are poor inthe qualities of development and sur prise In the romances, therefore, whilecoury love provided the Eonventionsl beginning and end; the man interest of the narra tivelay in theadventutes which the night achieved for isla, nd noc in the development ofthe love seatonthip sl Gradually however the ode of romande lve began to accommodate it to religion, socal and paychologcal eaiy, otably to marrage andthe family. This process sem to have ccurred parculatly early in England, and the new idelogy mandate note {en age TSSOP. Can fel, ins and Pima in te Old Penh Raman (New Yr, og8h pp 41 ram. Livngtone (New York, 98), 1129 tae 136 eventual came nto being there does much explain event ti novel and the distinctive diference between on oo audios in Beton: Dens de Rouge eBags ote derlopment of oman ove, wher ean ate by theatre, sly of ti seem to be one of the most characteristic occupations of ee Pan gland wher the brea wh te Mer aan Chace ofemry ove vas complete ori Gcorge Moore was almost justified in claiming to have aha er aiultery, which didn’t exist im the English novel il 1 bear ae sigs of the reconciliation between courtly love an op pn danger eriacen ants hepa’ ar ed iin very vient in pense Fe Qgsne Late Haars cca song Speer fn tesopreme erat a ede Loa Which aogier tag te sre ic oul epic et marie es In ne Grate ae ihe Putian conten ef tariage and sexual Sp gztt i occume the eeepc code of Angsana Tessa ry koe cages inthe werd of Pre, ee dl ae clined meters cnt Laan tbe Englah have th pera bean of mariage “he Bahuenaniey of marrage at part fccastm's Se glayed an important art in eubiing th ae ae ee eS erie aoe wom of them trpormy and loca, but mot of ec ae orf modere Eogiah and American civ Shem aa ining wo mabe mage mich more important eS rec and or etme tive nck Et Fame we Tice ages ayre Richart 1b ees Se sce Gear tc tees vonoce als ik aa se aay carancous clemect of complcaton, he could ee Tite of uh tone and yet be able to expuod & ae eee int the proportions ofa novel comcrsthy eee eer or eke, bz Pte de mately th oes aee ae abectte gus of romani lovey and yet i aarralaty be wade to lnvalve many ofthe bake prodlens we me 1 Lier POs (Pai 090), “Jou Hove i af Cara hee (Londo, 1998), p73 owe Tie Fe Lay Cate (Nee York 94. 137of everyday life—coniliets between’ social classes and their different outlooks, for example, and conflicts between the sexual instinct and the moral cade. The relationship between Pamela and Mr. B,, in faet, ean carry the whole weight of the literary structure in a way that was impossible in the romances. u ‘The values of courtly love could not be combined with those of marriage until marriage was primarily the result of a free choice by the individuals concerned. This freedom of choice hhas until recently been the exteption cater dias the sue in the history of human society, especially as far as women have ‘been concerned. The rise of the novel, then, would seem to be connected with the much greater freedom of women in modem iy (Siac ais aca heats achieved earlier and more completely in England than’ else Wy | where, re In cighteenth-century France, for example, daughters were ‘customarily secluded from young men until their parents had arranged a marriage for them. The extent of women’s freedom jn England was very striking in comparison, as Montesquieu! and many other contemporaries pointed out. In Germany the position of women was considered to be even more disadvan- {ageous while Lady Mary Wortley Montagu criticised Sir Charles Grandizon on the grounds that Richardson should have Known enough about the restrictions on feminine rights in Italy to realise that his hero could never have begun his amour with CClementina in her father’s house.’ ‘The relatively great freedom’ of women in England had existed at least as far back as the Elizabethan period, but it was reinforced in the eighteenth century by some aspeets of the rite ‘of individualism. Economic individualism, we have seen, tended to weaken the ties between parents and children: and ite spread was astociated with the development of a new kind of family system which has since become the standard one in most modern By ds a Dh. XXII, ch. 8K aon such indeed to the Inte Danie Mena or slowing met read’ hi ies towards say of" Mariage Sigetele {Ti Sal, Ciel Kay Cig Maing, 05 138 tis gem can be deseibed a he ‘emery tay rea Radel Brown's termy or te conga aly, wk ele Darts fn neal ai comme ofonun, Ne so incu thee oe coo ero et fa akan tet ene: bat ale eles ss Comps ater les sly felted a he ae oF $ilenrre here, fn ee dein ve ree 2h re att demtary or conju grep none wat inte the myn ou soley; tan en fred by he sary oon of tw individu ri lad of Kms for which we wl here use Dustin's stl seme ies mechani oo pemereiae ican ly eal owns eam cena ecient ‘eee dona of oh secenn url ner gua nay fxg fori obich ny be mentoncd the lowing on atiage se Trmedatly ote up oo new fly, wally separate Seb neaepo paternal on ane on toy Oe fom tolshed pony beowesn the tale and Ena Bre f Sat aegis propery or aot, but Inesd oth ee are of equal selene cnimporans; ete Knhip Teste genre ogrnparency aus and wis, eosin, ce se ob compelingdgefeancy and ont st up, he conjuge iy srtoly esa pulonoso anit 2 eu ve traci at “Thse arangomens seem obvious enough tv tay, but they aren Bt heey now, ond thy al incre. the seorance ofthe mariage cho: This cole especially str ter the woman, bursts art er of matting dom Pecos er cocoa Bl sha threo, sient Deeapedonal toby bruger abut by captain, det Esl st cly ber het opera pel rath fi ter acal enon: and even geographical fare atu href lat modern soc hood se rmnane SS ee oe ‘tegen of tine bond tet man and ve big fbcluay ateary te replace the grey soy and sont Ghuty of the momar lot afore by tore coheve and vol T " niadution’, Ain Spoof Kini and Marin, Radel own 2 "oS Fam an pei ted Beaten in in 139cxtended family systems, and to provide the isolated conjugy [Snted cpecaly ews ath aongeprartag ec How thoroughly and how extensively the conjugal fm system was established in early eighteenthcentur? England alia to say-—systematised information onthe subjects vs hard to come by Itcertainly seems likely that in the seventeen, century the radional and patriarchal family pattern was fy far the commonest, The term family, in Gregory King 28 0, Shakespeare, refers to a whole household and oten cludes grandparents, cousins and even emoter kin, aswell sservane and other employees, as the modern term has i The family te this larger sense was the primary legal, religious and econenie unit under control of the paterfamilias: In economic afin fbr cxample, much of he food and eloting wee jn the home, and even the goods produced for the market were tainly produced by domestic industry, consequently it wat the Income ofthe family group 38 whele which mattered. and to eponl eth wage onomiealy, then, the patriarchal family stood in che wa cfindividualsm, and itis probably for this reason thatthe cone nga my ptr has tabled ie? most strongly in nd vidual and Prowstaeserees, ond that ts enol aban One of the ear indcaons of the anion tom the patracchal family and domestic industry isthe, Jacobean outes gains the decay of houshceping’'aaccy wlsch compen ates attributed tothe risen power and number of the wading and commercial classes. It funy generally agreed that the section of the community fst show its strength in the Cli War, and itis significant, therefore that Sir Robedt Filmer, the ehief theorist on the Royalist side should have showed fas Patarcha, published posthumously in 1680, that for him at eaet the new politcal and socal movement challenged nothing iss than the time-honoured basis of society and religion, te author ity ofthe father over his family which was the emblem of every other hind of authority snd order Ie is equally digpiiean tak SEE © Koihime ad Side fon (Leno, 90) TEE-n pm Lads Insacson to Finer Pade (Oxo, SEER Fr 058 SBT TAS coe mah penne nde er ge 40 nana J, the pilosopher of Whig lam, oppoted ld ete, eternal, icing some specs f the patna fare nd concen 2 efmariy» seul and contactal nssttion eg {amit onal function of looking alice children wnt they fo ofr themselves Once they could dos, he Belew cau dos of subjection” sould “drop quite of and leave 3 “tn own five posi Locke fs thus in one Snporan io thoretician ofthe conjugal aly ‘Ba the whole, however, the picture of the family in the early cggitontn entay isl one slow and confaed wari, cic rainy, & the suggestion of the works of Defoe aad Su om, nko, ay middleclass Londoner, bslonged fo the Ries lieu where the anstdonwas el tobe mos advance, ie themclves are strongly onthe traditional side ax rogue Tae hori of the father aed the wtal importance ofthe family sacs a oral and cgi entkyy of the other hand, OMe ty of their novels sezms tobe towards the atrton of serial freedom from family tes, ‘This asertion, however, was very difficult forthe heroines of Delve and Richarduon to achieve, for a variety of reaons. So gn wih te egal poston gf wen nthe eth Foren law. The ony Person inthe household who was ‘Shas wh was a legal ent, was thea, usualy the father. A orsan’s property for instance, Became her husband's bio. Tutely on marriage, although i as customary to arrange @ JPlntare for her when the marriage articles were drawn up the Jiiidren were in law the husband's oly the husband could ve for divorce; and he had dhe right to punish his wife by beating br imprisoning ker. Teh tue that this legal position wat not thought by con- temporaris to represent the reais of the situation, The 1729 Caton of Magnae Britsmiae ‘Notii,conceding that marred Sfomen with all their movable goods.» «are wholly te Joule vn’, continued that ‘otwithsandigg all whieh, their tena on defo the best ofthe world’ The legal poston, owever,cefsinly emphasised the need for women to make the 1 Tree Tien of Goverannt, (1640), “Esny concerning Civil Government’ set en ut| right marsiage and thus ensure that ‘their condition de fas should not be merely the expresion of their abject egal sate dT ppetonbuven paral an Ina tudes is shown very clearly by the fact that the patarchal le Situation of marsied women made ic impossible for theme fee the ine of economic india. As te soul expe Jefe saw this side of the question clearly, and dramatised, the gravity afte problem inthe morally desperate expadien, which Roxana is forced to adopt to.overcome the legal dat abies of women. Asa she-merthant”she realise thatthe pur suit of money cannot be combined with marriage, since “the very nature of the marrage contract was ss nothing but tiving up liberty, estas, authority, and everyiing to the mas, Sind the worman vas indeed a mete woman ever fler-thet to ay, a slave So she refuses marriage, even with «nobleman, Becatie Twa a well without the es fog as had the cstate, and while [had £2,000 a year ofmy own L was happier than {could bein being prone’ ef uate tog nobleman et took the ladies ofthat rank to be lite beter" Indeed Deo’ tconomic entharsem tats him perloutly close to proving that vena knowledge of banking and investnent, Ronana'sseanda: fos Sei cond be devped note mt urate carer “Po thre without Roxana’s peculiar combination of qualies, hosever, the achievement of economic independence outside marriage was becoming incressingly ficult inthe eighteenth entry. The decay of Comestc industry affected woaten very adversely. & large sarpis of women was created in the Iabout aarket, and ths had the result of bringing down ther wages to fn average of something Ike as. 64, a west, about quater of the average wage for men. ‘At the sume time women found it much more dificult to find ‘vinusband nls they could bring bien dowry. Thee io much exon to agg at arng brane 3 mach mor come serial matter inthe elghteentheentary thas had previously been the case. Newspapers carted. on marriage mart, with advertisements ofeing or demanding speciiet dowris and Sointuress and young gs were driven sto agrantly unsuitable 1 Mo Gi Woe Dye of Wu 6 en Cay (Londen, 1912) mgt ue | ceon pound of conomi sivantage Mit. Delany, oe ieee, thc ences ben ae he wi sist YTieaged husband when she was only fourteen. According at ee Pept, wing atthe end ofthe seventeenth to Si yy the custom of making marriages ‘just lke other come gan nls bythe mer comieration ones oF mob “without any of love or esteem” was ‘of no ancient date’ gain, woeituctore, ofcourse, had i fact always been important Boone ynging marriages; but itis likely’ that he ‘traditional power smarting’ ine paterfamilias was exercised i salty pressures of cconomie individualism. ‘© ‘xt lower social levels there is also ample evidence to support ani Relies Lat a laos ht a Si i OE ile, Wey gland (London, 1938). 300 ++ Everyman Edition, P. 279. "s See Marshall, English Poor, pp. 207-224. usrr vuntil they were twenty-one, oF until they married; many ‘employers forbade thelr servants to marry under any circum, stances}! and in fact the number of unmarried servants in Lon. don was said to be 10,000 out of a total of 25,000 in 1760. Pamela's only chance of escaping servitude until her majority ‘might well therefore have been the marriage to her employer which she actually made, an employer, incidentally, whose marriage was a supreme act of individual choice which set at naught the traditions of his family and his class ur How ag propotnof te popsation vas feted bythe crs In nae Boop htpaetape eo Dots bowers wey iets ise cigs wld ane conned hemor act many pope ceety Beteed tat te stato war pve aa Ch Sees The development which mort cary evel how widely he cry fete publ ders hc chage esa ae spared worn ees ha ead aid ws eles aotobeonin yee nc astn'n elas ay In sys Ried Ans eed Te alle that a a ugha seu races Pee car exood (and a te nea canis, Seat Siife Lacy Bue takes good del eae se ot Spb centres ee un ine trl arr cokers af nc ope chron Ira ace Tipn Ui F ay (ae tts Bae aor i Toe foe SoehitsTatate antin pee ker bly Sally, ne apmeny Sule eames tal Dlr appt to {Rene Pea ress nt, TEN a sera Ghee gy Rata ‘ag Sabian naam nse Ste eam be 4 i atari cried woman beyond the usual age for marriage’ is dated oar and occurs in the first number of a newspaper called The pg ander in fe oh Rel Wasp Sin, Thre See rou buted seca audable industry of female manufacturers’. In the cight co century, however, unmarried women were no longer posi freeconomic axes to the household because there was est eed ie car labour in spinning, weaving and other economic tasks; fr el oar nn cd wh te gente he em ae oe ee ere ay ee en eee ie nko geal oe on cea Mees Fae ea Bay ot OM Md (8), oF Sa Tne leh we selene al peter aia bp a ed See ee ee ee eee Becca Ud ain erin Sy oe Peg (eee eat tein of mating women a usc ad capt of rela, Dds we aloe 45courses’. Richardson had the idea much at heart; Claring laments the fact that she cannot take shelter in a nunnery,t While Sir Charles Grandison strongly advocates ‘Protestany Nunneries’ where ‘numbers of young women, joining their small fortunes, might . . . maintain themselves genteelly on their own income; though each singly ia the world would be distressed’ His proposal, incidentally, was the only part of the book which Lady Mary Wortley Montagu found to praise None of these plans were carried out, however, and the tragic dependence of unmarried gentlewomen continued. Tt is noticeable that many of the literary figures of the period were surrounded by a. voluble cluster” of spinsters—Swift, Pops, Richardson, Fielding, Johnson, Horace Walpole, for example fany of these were total or partial dependents; not, a8 they ht have been earlier, economically uteful members ofa large family houschold by right of birth, but recipients of voluntary individual charity, Bachelors did not excite so. much commiseration as did spinsters, but the increase oftheir number was widely regarded as socially deplorable and morally dangerous. At the end of the seventeenth century uch political economists as Petty, Davenant and Grew had suggested that bachelors should be taxed more heavily than married men; Petty, for example, argued that whoever refused to procreate ought to “repair unto the state the Thisse of another pass of lunds'.* There were also sttong moral objections to bachelorhood, especially among the Puritans: in [New England celibates were not allowed to live alone.* Richard son manifests the same distrust in his novels, although his chiet concern, however, was not so much for the morals of the bache- lors as for the interests of their potential spouses, as we can see from Harriet Byron’s lament that ‘chere are more bachelors now in England, by many thousands, than there were a few years ago: and, probably, the numberé of them (and of single women, of course) will every year increase”? ‘Miss Byron's alarm was prabably well grounded. ‘The pro- portion of bachelors among the literary men of the period is 1 Git Pam's Deaers .29. * claria,Everyman Eatin 1 6, 3 Ghendion (Landon, 82), 1, 195, * Lat nd Wo, 2p SEA J. Joon, Pens fim Si (Lardon, 1937) 9259. 1 Elimund 8 Sonny Yeon PayDay ah Gao 146 een hgh, Bop, Sui, fac Wate, Jet Thamen, e_Walpak Seine ong ihere een general Fae ad payin Sue put of hav" seriod, The Bachelor's Soliloquy (1744) which began, *To Be, ats he goede lane wetichardson’s solution was apparently, that of rane cents Ba ating cveody mary Ace eh fortt he men hed complied, te problem of marriage for — . eal ‘still have remained fairly grave, since the large surplus yon nd epeialy in London whieh as SS sms wen very pbs nen ee ofthc such ety we ea {HG ron sin, tebe, lee ny, 5 solygamy, to use the usual eighteenth-century term; and the a endl a goed deal of intern inthe topic Belo potas ene aed the orf tenon ba tha pray fer ncn 2 ep pesly inte devo variant 2g th alpuched othe grave ee the mew Se ae re oben legacy had een gue donned. Brit, Fa) eamy: eaters mine seventeenth a one oti Boe souls ase he na Tgcian view of marriage by pointing out that polygamy was aa a and ie pal tesco, approved by he Mote sh lume nha saw in peyeny 2 fom ae She pble of depopulation, whe ey seats sce Fe legacy Wea ea Somer contain, ‘forace * Genin 1 On At San Sey in he Bight Cnty. «(New York, 1920, Peas, “Ena on Female Wain” (Malas Worse Pin, Beside A Adds, Polygamy in Bay Fit «PAL, LXV oa tor ee 980 cag, Pygamy and Diem’, JEP, XLVI 4) 3 TE ee Mey aay and Dent caer a NT ot REA A Png NewYork gg MT pgOrthodox Christians and moraliss, of courte, attacked the proponents of polygamy vigorously. Richardson's fiend, De, Pattick Delany, for example, wrote a treatise, Reflections ypas Polygamy, whose somewhat hysterical tone suggests a deep alarm, He feared that although ‘Polygamy is indeed at present abot. ished . . . how long it may continue #0, under the presen; increase’ of infidelity and licentiousness, ie not easy {0 pro. nounce’.* His book, which Richardson printed in 1737, prob. ably supplied the material for the discussion of polygamy in the second part of Pale, where Mr. B. appropriately makes use of the arguments of the licentious Deists, although his bride eventually makes him renounce ‘that foolish topie’* Lovelace, however, continues in Mr. B.'s evil ways and proposes an inges ous and characteristic variant—an Act of Parliament for annual ‘marriages: such a practice, he argues, would stop polygamy being ‘panted after’; it would end the prevalence of the spleen or vapours’; and it would ensure that there would no longer remain a single ‘old maid in Great Britain anc all its territories) ‘There is, then, a considerable variety of evidence to support the view that the transition to an individualist social and eeo- nomic order brought with it a crisis in marriage which bore particularly hard upon the feminine part of the population, ‘Their fature depended much more completely than before on their being able to marty and on the Kind of marriage they made, while at the same time it was more and more dificult for them to find a husband. ‘The acuteness ofthis problem surely goes far to explain the fnormous contemporary success of Panel have seen, com Servant girl as we uted a fairly important part of the reading public, and they found it particularly dificult to marry: no ‘wonder, then, that Lady Mary Wortley Montagu thought that Pamela's matrimonial triumph had made her “the joy of the ‘chambermaids of all nations'# More generally, itis likely that Richardson's heroinesymbolised the aspirations ofall the women in the reading public who were subject to the difficulties re- counted above. Not only so. Somewhat similar dificulties have since become standard in modern society as a result of the comn= bined effects of economic individualism and the conjugal family; and this would seem to explain why the great majority 2 Cede dey. + Beerynan Eaton 1, 296590, | Lite al Wonk fy 0 148 wt since Pel have cotinued bi pater, of aed tat man nent upon 8 cores sige ies ue departs fom she wal pate in one Pan cs ite exude Richardns Headed importation, the narrative doesnot end with the marriage, but commu fr some two hundred pages we every deal ofthe contifage ceremony and the resulting new conjugal pattern is a Bout according to Richardson's exemplary specifications. Se a. ald tomy and gga a ek of Ba scl nov Acaly, tis robaby a god fomnter to Richardson's real intentions: in 1740 the middle- ranrconecpt of marriage was not yet completely established, Gnd ‘Richardson must have felt that his aim of producing a new aa ere rth laos between en snl omen aa ee erin many haters wich we he or Serpico jot pubes me ine historical parallel to Richardson's earnest redefinition of mone Tecnd ie sper saw ina he ar Fae ie gli of madre pee nd Ba rte Van Hanan mac me wet i one pape tans a Eos a Saeekeca Wy Hardwear Chanel. te Tic pop soem econ awh tied {USS ara valid mariage, except under certain specified and seme creas old enly be prone Oy SSruseUr ge chan af England tm he prt hrc er a te Cao dake comecate nia ead ih Pils practice was already common; but, a8 the la had stood, ee ce eae by mode tah wera ga ae a ee ce ce manage petomed OF 2rd et Pu ie ony ceri me et ce peomed by Sueptale degymen tris the bers ofthe Fleet Prison, and te other abuse, such + Chas Kh Pe iyo ag Landon, 2, VI. ea ed cd dar of ip ie, Hat (ange NLP he gee ee. 1494 the false marriage ceremonies which are often portrayed fx Restoration comedy, and which reappear in Mr Bre efforts tg dlelude Pamela with a mock marriages ‘The Marriage Bill aroused very strong Tory opposition, on the grounds thatthe cull authority had no competence in the matter, and that since the clergy were now officiating merely a agents of the state, the Whigs were subverting the orthodos stcramental view of marriage In fact, although such was cere tainly no important part ofthe intention ofthe bil, which was really a compromise between the needs ofthe law and common Feligous practice, the measure did assist the displacement of ilmer'stradidonal and religious atitude towards the family fort incorporated the extental feature of Locke's view of the family by making marrage a civil contract between individuals a view, incidentally, which Locke shared with the Puritans: whose cighteenth-century successors, the Disenter supported the bi oven thoghiemcae sie hd oe nn Aga i the time thee was considerable criticism of the claborate- ss and the publicity that was now attached to the marriage eremony. This was the view of Goldsmith,’ for example, and ‘of Shebbeare in his novel, The Marriage det (1754), which must surely be the fist work of fiction arising out of piece of legisla- tion; while Horace Walpole complained that "every Strephon and Chloe . . . would have as many impediments and fortmalie ties to undergo asa Treaty of Pe Essentially, however, the act was, inthe words of Richardson's, fiend Sir Thomas Robinson, what ‘every good man ha{d] long wished for’? It expressed in legal terms the aie of pondered contractual protocol which Richardson had already given mar- riage in Pamela, whose heroine insists on a public ceremony. Sir * See Alan D. MeKilp, “The Mock Mactnge Deve in Pane, PQ, X3SVE Coogee, ay PSC ME Merrie, Manag a Dine Iai, 1754, and etree ge a rote 60 6 s "chin Latham Powel, alk Doms Rati, r48y-16s3 (New York, Ber GE, ptimensy Hy (London, 1803), XV, 24. + Clic of he Wate ewes py tee {kates aya yt 24 75) 1 From see fo Haden fy 1a [ENE Add. MSS. seo 65.69 For Robana's radars wih Ribas ke Aun Deeon, Se ios {adam g63h p70 "ery Eaton 1355 saree Gradion appeared inthe same yer as the Morviage Bill ta ally pase into law and ls ero inrepidly suppor fe stew that 'chamber-magiages are niher “decent? nor {he iy by proclaiming that he would take ‘glory in receiving” oN Phdnd “before ten thousand witeser"" and he docssa De Nace a somevshat smaller congregation at his church wed fact deed Richardson's insistence in hs novels om a properly ing gnial attitude to. marriage. was such chat Lady Mary {yortley Montagu ironically suggested that their author must Meerome parish curate, whose chief profit depends on weddings bef ehristenings'* Iv Pomel’ succes, it has been suggested, was largely duct ts areata een of waren ade ad eh pocedig ae Turher itis perhaps necesary to consider brtly the round fr believing, nt only that women consiatd sufi cau posuble, but alo that Richardson himself was ‘actgon to eaprese ther disnctve Merry Hotere ‘We have alfeady seen that many women, epecaly those in dhe nile ranks of ie who lived in towns, had much more ire than previous, and that they sed 3 good deal of tin iecary and other altar pursuits This is reflected inthe ine tresing tendency of bookstlere and writers to addres special Sposa to the feminine audience. John Dunton founded the eR periodical avowedly addrescd to. women, the Lada” Malps in 1693: and there were many other similar effort eh s'The Feale Tatler in 1309 and Elsa Haywood's Female Seltr int 744¢ Addison, to, had set himself out plea the tdi, and Stetie had compiled The Lads Library in 1734, © fre them something more ediying than the Givlout material {> which thy were so offen alleged to rest themselves. ‘That most women read only romances and novel, as was endlesly asserted snot likely, Many were certainly devoted to Felgous iteratore Duta leat as far a scular reading is eon Cernedy its ikely that their lower educational standards made Tasca! and learned literature out of the question forthe great Imajrity, and that they therefore tended to devote much of VI sorte ange, * at ond Werks 289 151 ST eS S|hter reading was available. The fact that ‘the novel-reading girl" became an eatablished comic type early in the century,* with Biddy Tipkins in Steele's The Tenor Husband (1705), certainly suggests that fiction was the main reading of younger girls; but it is more likely that she was an, ‘extreme case, and that most women read both fiction and more serious matter. This mixture of tastes is suggested at one social level by Shamela’s Library which included various religious ‘works such as The Whale Duly of Man, a8 well as scabrous novels like Venus in the Closter; ar the Nun in Her Sreck* Ata higher social level we have the representative feminine types Matilda and Flavia in William Law's A Seriur Call to @ Devout and Holy Life (1729), whose shelves are well stocked both with piety and wit; and many of the women in Richardson's own circle com- Dbined these tastes. It is very likely, therefore, that one of the reasons for the success of Pamela was the way that it enabled readers to enjoy the attractions both of fiction and of devotional literature at the same time and in the same work. It would be very difficult to determine whether Richardson had any conscious intention of appealing to these two elements in feminine literary taste. His correspondence about his own, writings certainly shows a great and indeed almost obsessive interest in the public's reaction to them; and one of his replies fo Cheyne’s objection to the ‘fondling and gallantry" in Pamela eems to cover the present point at isue: if T were t0 be too spiritual, I doubt 1 should catch none but the grandmothers; for the granddaughters would put my Girl indeed in bester company, such 2s that of the graver writers, and there they swould leave her’.? On the other hand, there isno need to assume ‘that the profound interest in women’s problems whieh Richard- son manifests in his novels is an attempt to please feminine taste, for everything we know about his own personality and way of life shows that he shared these tastes 19 a very remarkable degree. ‘le was always happiest in feminine society, believing, as he once confided to Miss Highmore after the tedium of three meet ings with his fiend ‘the good Dr. Heberden’, that “there is nothing either improving or delightful out of the company of intelligent women’.* He was very proud both of the fact that * See Reynold, Lara Lad, pp 400-419. MG: Metin, tris po 152 6 tid ita. sesecy” of ix wena ast cal th 98S of “ihe tend Mednage with which he had been repaid; "no man, abun shas been so honoured by the fine spirits ofthe sex as Fee ev Inder, thee muh in hi eters agg a aston idntcaion with th opposes aaa eee ond socal preference or eater appar. cae ene eee hatheoneset ice, or at least confessed to the future Mrs. Chapone, that he had 2 ie or icharee's clnens othe nin pit erin pnd i the wea of minty desroed fea Piste ny coment e a cn a eafeeouse ironically wondered the Author 2 ead us the exact mumber of pins Panta bad about her Fa a Linares ang how many rove of tore eae ii penny ie Heng pared Rika tastes te a deli mare ey nang Shame oe get ine tnen mocie te can lie Jenene ee caer nye these dear ee seit ihr blir ample area meer ugeen emai ra ao erst Goel on the part of Richada’s Cn satay made an aperanecontibucon lan a Pri rany sat omc henen et Se nas eer dice Seog bn oar clice eee a ede et cntoat em wich on aed aa en Peeling sulabe tavelng wardrobe fa ae power’ Rcharios ene the nine Hin ed inne ene ears fom aan eae socal an soul isn npreceentad a ead alteagh Me snopes wi a rye NS eee seed an taoghg Ne Fe ans the deen a he lo mac oot Se etn nh 5 Gi, Mek, ps 277 153 |rageouly fates the imagination ofthe readers of one sex and Severely disciplines that ofthe othe. ere, too, Pend iniited ely constant feature inthe tr. ition ofthe novel. The marrige of the protagonists usual leads to a rise in the social and economic stats ofthe brie, not the bridegroom, Hypergamy, though nota convention ef ‘mode society, early constr convention of tae novel, and its ultimate ease ssucly the preponderance of women inthe novelzeading public, a preponderance which this crucial etal rite matrimonial mystique directly rellecs. v Richardion's Panel, then, made a particular appeal to the feminine part of his audience; and we can now Fetarn toot sain theme, and sec how thir martiage problems were such 210 provide sich Hierary resources, We have already seen that numerous forcs in the social history of Richardson's ime were tending to heighten interest in Pamela's struggle to sccure 2 mat: thete forces were alo closely related to ery sigibeast changes inthe acepted attitude atards the moral and paychon Togial roleof the sees, changes which provide he fundamen Lass for Richardson's presentation of his hevaine's character nd mode of action. Tt i becawe of these changes that ia Pons the courtship if that iy not too rable a euphemses or Sie Bs act, involves a strugel, nt only beeen tae ad idole, but Between wo opposed concepts af sal narvage held by two diferent soeal cases and Betsesa tao Jeomeeptons of thé asain and Eatae oles wich mae nei nterplay in courahipeven more complex aod problematie than it had previously been Tae "To determine what cxacly these conceptions were is not easy. Ie sone a the general dificuluesin apelying oval story to the interpretation of literature that, uncertain as out hr, ledge of any paticular socal change ay’ be, out Enowledge of is subjectveaapects, the way itallected the thoughts affects ings of the individuals concerned is even more iaceure snd liypothetiea. Vee the problem cannot altogether be avoided; however important the extemal facts about the complexes of the socal situation of women may have been, they pretented themselves to Richardson in the form ofthe largely aeconslou 9 ab) fay that his readers understood the thoughis and actions tHe characcers in Panel. Its necessary, therefore, to attempt ormgiscover what were the dominant considerations which w ae tae onan sand marge eh 2 or imi it for the heroine; but this emphasis is complemented by wravtean equal sing hooray ea aban spices trtimnrenl opr Tet 155 \th aden enters of the orginally reas bs Purltaniim was certainly particularly vigorous in enforcing the complementary atitude the sinfulnce ofall sexual activ tis outalde marriage. Wherever i achieved polieal power, iy Geneva, in Scola, in New England, in England during the Commonwealth period it made rigorous inguiy into the sexual behaviour of indvidai arraigned offenders, freed them to eonfss ther sins publicly, and punished them severely. ‘The climax of this movement x probably the Act pase in England in 6g which made adultery punishable by death. In this, a in many other matter, Putanism was merely placing a particularly heavy emphasis on ideas which are not Uhemasives peculiar to it, and which reach back tothe Paine tnd. Augustnian elements in the Christan tadtion. Max's Bhyscalnature ane Gesies were viewed ss radically evi the derneseheedites of the Falls consequently vree ite tended iccome a matter of suppresing the natural instincts. This—in Poritanis as in St. Baul at frat regarded merely as a negative step: to overcome the flesh might give the law ofthe Spira beter chance wo operate, Later, however as seculaisa tom increased, there arote a widespread! tendency 1 ctheal igor for ts own sake, a tendency which iy Putan only in the sense that Victorian morality wat Puritan esstance to the dies ofthe body became the major aim of seclar morality, and chastity, instead of being only one virtue among many, tended to become the supreme one, and plied to men as well Tis intersting to notice chat this partiular ethical tenden is peeullrly suited to an individualist society. Aristo’ ethic are largely social; potential moral eminence varies acording to the individual's capacity for ovtstanding qualities of cktzenhip Such a code, hovrever, accords ill with a civilisation, whore members are primarily oriented towards achieving their own Individual purposes tthe economic, social and religious spheres; nd it is particulary unsuitable fo the feminine sex, ‘who had ltde more opportunity in cighteenlncentury England than in fourthecencary Athens to realise the virtues of the 1 Gi May, The SiC of Sex Beatin (Landen, 190), pg See ao 1 Seige asi be Rok (Legs Bee gS pp rise 156 stn tn 94 tg yi. Cc Sy ar asl ia a ae Dean ary wih tena what gual continence, arc wholly suited to an individualist Band oe: women a ne pnbites of sei] sent 8 TT; events, very evident thatthe eighteenth century Test arcmendous narrowing of the eal seal, a rede ot in of virtue in primarily sexuel terms. Dr. Johnson, for eae re iced ented i eng the Peete ar he tape, suey oe re ae asthe peson of love's Suc, co Incase aichardson's view Sir Charles Grandion’s mentor, ily, ws Re pr ei ofa good cman was a contin Sefer hs ft paton aad Hear nov get a nel oe Ee ta fag Oe ee joing came sae, Ore rn whe tea el ns croton a eee ge ey gly net of this moral ranvormation which s particularly er ee tighcenvcentary ata on he ime Ee wocats wets pote agua he Spee eal tea acing Keene Sn i natin soot otag rete, iN en Sake aotmntoor that oo sede acti Png n oes Mort otis easel former shold be ow a iat te al ahionae asp Fe ees, Sot important or men fr women, Bem oe sepa moore! ip onion tn ct mele vartue'? and inthe mideen Cease oP alouy nage of Gal Cibber een oa conmaraion cf some of he Li ee ae ar byiniing nth eal | eae cl deg wl snsonge? ritio example, {impulses + smectetons of Mis Reynld,Jlron Mile Hilly 385 1 erate nt Mathys of nt 72 3935 Ana sons eee ee ee Ne Wands The asin py (BEF: Lan, 5037 siiypaoe ieee ont 1 Ana (7: London 1g 0), 1 Soe 1 Sees ets Lone ie, only Ue Frage Plamen, Cin Exain. i ft fy 9S Chas Grade 74? 157al In the matter of the double standard, as in. many othee aspects of the eighteenthoentury concern with the rehome fexral morality, there were marked diferentes of atta Between clases, and it was, ofcourse, the middle class whiee displayed the greatest zal, Hor many reasons Inthe history of mankind ait iq sual slations tends to coincide with the increasing importance of private property—the bride must be chaste so that et hag, band can be sure that its his son who vil inherit This eo sideration must have been particularly important to thate whens values were primarily those of trade and commerce and i fect was elforeed by at least two lhe tures of whl clas lit. There is, fist of al, the opposition between econone and sexual goals which was well explained by Wiliaa Les ‘when he remarked! of his typical man of busines, Negodss If you askme what ts that has sceured Negotiu from afacandal cus vices tis the same thing that has kept him fom al scenes of devotion, iis his great busine | Setondy, the merchant teakcsman is ikely vo fel resentment and mistrust agate hore whote way of lie snot mainly directed toward ecotomis end and who therefore have both the legure and the Icnure seat bute which enable them to pursue the wives and daughter of the citizenry succesfilly, 28 the gallats ofthe courtand the polite end ofthe town to notoriously did. For these and many other reasons, which must certainly include along history of politcal and fligious confit sotuat Drowess and sexual Heence both tended ts be laked wits the Alstocracy and the gentry in middleclas beet Delo, for example placed the responsibility forthe immorality ofthe umes siarelyon the upper clases: "Twas the Kings and the Gentry which frst. degenerated from that stat obvenas tion of moral vires fom thence erred vie on ft legre itnow appears in... We the poor Commons. have really boen debauched into vice by thei examples= ‘The quotation is Irom The Poor Mer’s Pa (160), one of ‘Defe's main contributions tothe various moral crus begun inthe reign of William and Mary by the new Sores for he Reformation of Manners. The most signifeant listary spent of the work ofthese societies was that whore most notable exec sion Jeremy Colliers Stor Pst of ae Donon and Inmet * Sis Gls Weks clea sgeitgh Ween 156 of ike of upper-class licence should extend. the a ist expressed it, and onc result of this attitude was of par- i erecta the dewopmentofthemiddleclar staal ula any writers felt that the public should be warned not afat underlay the sentiments of Restoration drama in genet a ant mics of feminine virtue. Steele, for instance, pointed out that ‘Reon of Gallonery’ had lately been ‘sured copie re 20 th ty ean while in as Cal gy Concrning Mar Tet igus in te eo sch words 38 honour a zallantry’ in common speech. Defoe, of course, persistently ie before ‘us the realities of sexual intrigue, stripped of their Nee did aims] hat ce concealed behind what Blan Haywood Alderman ‘dtm nthe Pergo Clr" What ton generally Succ Fay te Pies ober ce ee a ind Bendy nl nie fr Retr eV 180, rear he te Laue No 2 (124 1 tate aan «pay Fags ig an + Sec J.W. Kru Pitty Cmernng Mori 40 ines 159cabled inthe early cighteenth century. Defoe's novels, for eae nd to support his stated view wn The Reva (1708) ate ea afte so the Del gqealy neu ia "Man, not the Woman'.' Exactly why the serpent’s invidious Connection | ‘with Eve should have been forgotten is not clear; coe ean only surmise that, bya devon proces not unknown 0 the psycholog’st, the very difficulties in the situation of women 6 ome ough about ane cneept of the Fie rl ‘ai jich masked their actual dependence on sexual attractiveness which mateueh more compleey than before, and strength to tno tatical poston in courthip by making their acept- ened regular a matter, not of joint personal satisfaction, but Sambar oblige the question of the origins of this new sexual ideology is sbvleasy very problematic: but theres at least very litle doubt cove ppearance of Panela marks a very notable epiphan iin hory of our caltare: che emergence of new fly n vigpel and immensely influential stereotype of the fesinine Se a sean Inter say of thi ea of womantood i ree Shyer of an excellent study, Panda's Daghts (1937), by ELE, User and GB. Needhah, Brey, they show how th fal heroine must be very young, very inexperienced, and so delicate in_physical snd mena eoeiion dae Alas at ses sexual alvance; eSeatally-pasive, she is devoid of any || (Bite one er fener unit ie garage loot te SSPE ica nd soc are rst of thc heroines of on on theend ofthe Victorian periods No “rhe natur of this new stereotype, incidentally, reflects many jas ‘the highest state of friendship that mortals can know’, The Pacer eee +, ‘! ‘expression: Pamela and her sex, however, with the exception of * a few wholly abandoned females, were reserved for higher at and the family were safe only in their hands, Since middle-class wives tended to be increasingly regarded as Ieisure exhibits engaging in no heavier economic tasks than the more delicate and supervisory operations of housewifery, a con: Spicuously weak constitution was both an astertion of a deli- Sion of the portrayal of love in our literature, from Chaucer's yoilus ond Criseyde to Shakespeare's Romeo and juliet. Even more |striking, it is directly opposed to the earlier attitudes of P anism itself, where such figures as Calvin, John Knox and ek i Milton were notoriously prone to lay more emphasis on the {goncupiscence of women than of men, A different point of view, however, was already widely {Bowe Works (Landon, 190) XE, 10 it Bay tee ed Ciepnts b Woshey (an, 1879 Conaponve 18. Grains, I 3855 VI 35 160 Bip agrred past and 2 presimpsee claim to. sar fitoe. Ts tr tat Pamelas rable birth hardy ents her tel eats but in fet he fill poseson of oly shows that enables hss been so deeply shaped by ideas above her atin that even her body exhba-to invoke the assistance of "i (78 Ne ter«a neologism for which there isin any case a regrettable needa not uncommon form of what can only be called sociosomatic snobbery. ‘The conception of the feminine role represented in Pemela is an essential feature of our civilization over the past two hundred years, Margaret Mead writes in Sex and Temperament that this sation has largely ‘relied for the ereation of rich and cone ‘wasted values upon many artifical distinctions, the most striking of which is sex’. T have no wish to suggest that this articular distinction had previously escaped notice, nor even that itis wholly artificial; butitis surely crue thatthe conception of sex we find in Richardson embodies a more complete and jcomprehensive separation between the male and female roles than had previously existe, ‘The difference between the two roles is emphasised in almost, every aspect of speech and manners, Richardson's friend, Ds. Johnson, was of “opinion that the delicacy of the sex shou'd ‘always be inviolably preserved, in eating, in exercise, in dress, in everything’;+ while Richardson himself—vho in Pamela was responsible for the first use of the word ‘indelicacy"*—was an avowed reformer in this sphere: "I would fain reduce delicacy to a standard’, he wrote to Miss Highmore, but quickly com rected himself: ‘Reduce did I say? Should not exalt be the ‘word? * Some further indication of his attitude is provided early in Pamela when Mr. B. gives the heroine some of her dead ‘mistress clothes: she is acutely embarrassed, and when he says, “Don't blush, Pamels, dost think I don’t know pretty maids should wear shoes and stockings’, she reports that “Twas 30 confounded at these words, you ‘might have beat me down with a feather’, Later, when her parents hear of Mr. B's “free expressions about the stockings’ they at once fear the worst? This linguistic sensitivity seems to be a rather new pheno- zmenon. To some extent, no doubt, the language of women and ‘of mixed company has always tended to be somewhat different from that of men, but these differences had not been so abvious before. In the late seventeenth century, however, Jeremy Collier had made much of the fact that ‘the Poets make women * Landon 195 3 * cx, metlon tin, 81,85, 162 » Ponds ik amutily! and in his Tie She-Callantr (1695) George} speak aed ven ironically indicated that a movement to Gran verbal indecency was afoot: he spoke ofa dictionary reform Coparing . . « to suit our language to the fair sex, and| tha Pe the immodest syllables in such words as begin and obscenely i eae theration Inter the taboo on biological references co have been Tally xblned Mandeile nosed hat 8 an Cicouied gy criminal fo men arnt ye company anything in plain words that is relating ths nt Suction whe among the shocking a 2 ey Edward Young had bexowed upon the unfersinine Bo ey amre "On Women’ (1938) oan that “What Phat es to giee she dares to tame’ The movement pro- Rade spat, unl by she end of the cenary even he Ter ce cinor were oud unsuited to women reader: Coleridge, and Sheethougi that they contained words “which might, in] Sur day fend te deny female cr and hock feminine | our eeysleyt and his distress wes echoed by Jane Austen in Northanger Abi : ine ‘Richardion played important par in he autment of Jnnguage tothe now feminine code. Hisrewriing of L Etrange’s sar mtg{ Aesop reveals him as one of our earliest bowdlersers Tt hp novel show a conaierabe concern fir he propricts 27the feminine linguistic code, When Pamela becomes pregnant, aaa rer ege shocked to fd hat Lady Daver “th her oi way" takes public note of the fact: but then Lady. Fee er ourse, is one of those “termagant, hermaphrodite paviy attacked in the "Introduction to the Second Edition’ * saint also aymbolof the notorious impusity of the quality tion be / What may be called the decarnalisation of the public feminine (that ay ae caplnatnn ofthe Lek that in Pele elssPhot novel the eourhip leads corse in Uh social status Tie ed 68 8 a ee ra ay Col i Rerain Cy (Cage, aeba pst a eal PP et ay “he Pane Wh 42 Fi no Slee and, 185), 7. + eSinene Five, Richardions Ae ES med Sa Pind’ Dagar 16:Siniiet t che lin Ses a Sameer ore LTE agin Sobaseoeted Tt Sin con beam Lady Dee an soy Retr ach male oes ay Da wien SE ne mls in a Seu we ule Nel bys es marae oe ee et a Beata shee te ef RSs ae en ee? ata ey bee i anh Be eee naan al oe {staan Eee ioe eat ulna a oe aan ee ining cn aeenty mut ose me SE aera ie ering at Sans gpa wa es [pare VI During Richardson's lifetime, then, many important and complex changes in the ways that the sexes oriented themeclves, to thelr roles were already far advanced, These changes are of considerable intrinsic interes, since they herald the establish- ‘ment of what is substantially the concept of courtship, marriage and the ferninine role that has obtained most widely in the last {wo centuries. The reason for our interest in them here, however, is of a more directly literary nature: it derives from the fact that these social and psychological changes go far to explain two of the major qualities posed by Pamela: its formal unity, and its [peculiar combination of moral purity and impurity. ‘Dr. Johnson, with the nezla in mind, defined a “novel? as a ‘small tale, generally of love’. When Pamela appeared it was called a “dilated novel’ because its subject was essentially the single amorous episode which previous short navels had usually 1 Gib Seong Sherburn, “The Resort so Eighcenh Gontey 2 Lary ‘sy of Bahn gh (ew are, 48, pe Bo 164 = ear Hus coach Ras tremality is made clear by the contrast with Defoe. In Defoe's Ts Ts ee ott Fe aa tac oh ae i EERE oe ge pa a: pend fant ian 1. By of coun, rgards Pamela's acceptance of ich 2 view ae eh iher Shea turned by romances nd sh dle Sa as The Weal hasty of the romance sr he oe, comely mcoported ito the Nee aad ee wes muck ware hums Herp Se ee et eed Eat many t man ban Bork ear a aed atempa, when he bas been ruled didn nigit or tro re upon the cuca slog which fuvive, one moment’ thet fatal one in which I shall See ee ce Te wa ale praia, from some Corer Book, although this time no\lterary indebtedness is cont Book HEN hemmed that Milion of gold wl seh ry moment oftelccion ons pat iespent me Spc ieeban of eee, meal se engl wale oe scsi than Mr bre five ced guise Sree en ete eat ica aoe a icath, tat gufcanty euphemin hyper SS aed ao lve her hry of ton. Se ae elegy aor i log eae tne tear er tay ana Supreme value what oral novel! » a, Aten (Lapa, 192) 190 ge 198 ah a0. 165, 1 aio Pie 78 (etwas new wat that Richardson atebuted yeh motive ‘aici for whereas romance el ect Shay, the oter forms ef eon ha at umber social orgie had tended take na of feminine achat. I th hbteree aa fans specie which makes dar the imposes of Ps ae tons novel repre theft compe convene area omy onpoted aditins in tn comers th sh tne a eve more paren postage ea Richardson tha (he Sinereny exalted fem, fh charac tated the novel's radical departure fom crucial aren of sexsalseltions: Not oeq $2: he also broke down the separation of high" and low Hien” the clas agpect of the Silene, and for the same season Te ‘movement for moral reform, we have seen, tended be eeane supported by the middleclass, who foried thelr outlook a {rOup with the assumption tha thelr social superiows woes wos moral inferior, This, ofcourse, i the situation In Pana ae fakish squire versus the humble but virtuous maid ends lends the story @ much larger signifcance than the parc. dividual matters at istue between the protayessie ‘This ute ofthe confct between social clases i typical ofthe novel in general ic literary mede is radially partcotan, bane cient of ann by mang te dn rs fepresent larger socal anes Dest Blots are not such at allow the ladorhipe Reese Characiers fo go very fain developing tht ype of eects wereas the mach greater simply of te sca at make it fr ear for the struggles ef Pamela anh See mirror larger contemporary cones betwee tne So their way of life. * sara ‘The enactment ofthe triumph of the midlets code in psu eis brings with it no only Mr. Hever of ace bu his complete re-education inthe proper stiades aoe marriage These, of couse are msinly'a tats of Sens Bevsonal values, and ther adjustment inves pee tevlaion hotghout the nove of the inner ives ee {agonins which continues unl the heros convesion yn co plete that he becomes a ‘Puan ay far an Lacy ‘Bros 1665 I a miaeh sicer peyeuclageal ate asral cootent en it - ‘between the traditional lovers in romance. The barriers sthateen them that have to be broken down are not external imal with the fact that these barriers are based on the differ bine’ in their respective class outlooks, the dialogue between on, vers is not, as it is in romance, a conventional exercise in ses Puritan senual code, and to the major sifference between anal male adored the godlike purity of the female, ad the contradiction between the two roles was absolute. In theory, fo Frovided a possible bridge between the sprit and the fest Pouible for Richardson to withhold from us any idea of Pamela's + Nagy twa the mot popular ofthe Rnb, according to Walter Gahan (Gog ay Peat Net Yor 12501190 va 167stereotype of the licentious squire but a man whose intentions may become honest, and who may quite possibly be a fit mate for Pamela. These sudden revelations of the disparity between the conventional and the actual attitudes of the lovers thus fenabled Richardson to work out their relationship in a plot of the type which Aristotle considered to be the best, 2 comple action in which the peripety and the recognition coincide. The Iramatic resolution of the plot of Panela, in fact, was ™made possible by the actual moral and social attitudes of the time, which had produced an unprecedented disparity between the conventional roles of the sexes and the actual tenor of the oracles of the heart ‘This conflict between public and private atieudes is one with hich the novel in general has been much concerned, and ‘which itis indeed peculiarly fitted to portray, There i, however, \onsiderable daubr as to how far Richardson was avare of the

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