LEZIONE 1 DICEMBRE 2022

Joseph Highmore (13 june- 19623 march 1780)

- An english and historical painter illustrator

- In 1744, he painted a series of 12 paintings after scenes from Samuel Richardon’s Pamela, or Virtue
Rewarded, which were engraved by Benoist and Louis Truchy.

Soon afterward Mr b. finds pamela at her needlework in a summerhouse, seizes her and kisses

Pamela decides to flee back to her parents but refuses to take with her any of the clothes Mr B. has given
her since they would be "the price of my shame". Mr B. hides in a closet and hears the conversation, whilst
to the left is the sympathetic but humorous housekeeper Mrs Jervis.

Mr B. agrees to send Pamela back to her parents in his coach but instead secretly instructs the coachman to
abduct her and take her to his estate in Lincolnshire. The B. family crest is on the side of the coach,
contrasting their noble pedigree with Mr B.'s ignoble actions. He appears at an upstairs window, whilst Mrs
Jervis weeps at Pamela's departure in an arch below.

Mr B. has concocted a cover story that he intends to marry Pamela to Mr Williams, his chaplain in
Lincolnshire. Instead Mr Williams is sympathetic to Pamela's plight and agrees to communicate secretly
with her via a dead drop under a sunflower in the garden. He later proposes marriage to her in an attempt
to save her from Mr B. but soon afterwards is assaulted by thugs and arrested at Mr B.'s instigation. In the
background is Mr B.'s Lincolnshire housekeeper Mrs Jewkes, who is rude to Pamela and party to Mr B.'s
schemes.

Mrs. Jewkes has forced Pamela to share a bed with her. In the left background is Mr.B, who in a few
moments will get into bed disguised as his own housemaid Nan and attempt to rape Pamela.

“With struggling, fright, terror” at the rape attempt, Pamela faints and Mr.B. and Mrs Jewkes think she is
dying. Mr. B. Begins to repent of his previous bad behaviour.

Mr B. becomes determined to win and marry Pamela legitimately and so summons her father without her
knowledge to assure him of his honourable intentions towards her. Pamela hears her father's voice as she
comes downstairs and rushes into the room, knocking over a table as she throws herself at his feet. To the
right the rest of the company express their surprise and confusion, whilst on the wall are paintings of Mr
B.'s ancestors.
La camera parla degli antenati, il fatto che lui decida di sposare una cameriera non è la cosa migliore da
fare, nella camera ci sono i suoi antenati e cio fa capire wual è il mondo di pamela ma anche la vergogna di
mr B.

Mr B. realises his family will disapprove of his marriage and so holds it in secret at his chapel in Lincolnshire,
witnessed by Mrs Jewkes and Mr Peters, the vicar of the parish. The service is taken by Mr Williams and
Nan keeps watch at the door.

Still not knowing of the secret marriage, Mr B.'s sister Lady Davers accuses Pamela of becoming Mr B.'s
mistress, but Pamela starts up and replies "I must tell your ladyship, I scorn your words and am as much
married as your ladyship!". To the right, Mrs Jewkes and Nan have heard the commotion and rush in
through the door. Son afterwards Lady Davers ejects the servants and locks the door, but Pamela manages
to escape through the open window (background) to a waiting coach.

Whilst Pamela's virtues quickly win over the rest of Mr B.'s snobbish relations, his uncle Sir Jacob Swinsford
continues to obstinately oppose the marriage, especially since Sir Jacob's children will inherit the estate if
Mr B. remains childless. Pamela initially pretends to be Jenny, youngest daughter of Lady C., and Sir Jacob
states that he wishes Mr B. Had married such a "charming creature" instead of a maidservant. Initially
aghast when the ruse is revealed, he soon gives in, asks her forgiveness and blesses the marriage.

In Highmore's illustrations Pamela seems an expert actress, looking down with the head gently reclined,
who seems to be always on stage to perform brilliantly the role of the angelic and virtuous maiden.
- Pamela Andrews personifies the perfect model of the "self-made woman", the middle-class heroine with a
business and mercantile mentality and a strong pride and class consciousness

The poem she writes when she is imprisoned in her master's country house :

The meanest slaves, or those who hedge and ditch,

Are useful, by their sweat, to feed the rich.
The rich, in due return, impart their store;
Which comfortably feeds the lab'ring poor.
Nor let the rich the lowest slave disdain:
He's equally a link of Nature's chain:
Labours to the same end, joins in one view;
And both alike the will divine pursue;
And, at the last, are levell'd, king and slave,
Without distinction, in the silent grave.

Richardson's Pamela had to be the representational model for the young, middle-class women of the
period who had to learn how to behave themselves in society in order to improve their social status as well
as their (economical) condition. In his preface, Richardson defines her as "a dutiful child, a spotless virgin,
and a modest and amable bride", representing the perfect portrait of the Eighteenth-century woman, thus
conforming to a patriarchal viewpoint. In the novel, the author is always very careful to underline that his
heroine doesn't feel any erotic urge - or, as Bradford Mudge observes, she makes a 'sacrifice of desire' – for
Mr. B, the man she says to love and from who runs away each time he tries to hug and kiss her.
I a and trembled, and was so benumbed with terror, that I sunk down, not in a fit, nd yet not myself, and I
found myself in his arms, quite void of strength; and he kissed me two or three times, with frightful
eagerness. At last I burst from him, and was getting out of the summer-house; but he held me back, and
shut the door. I would have given my life for a farthing. And he said, 'I'll do you no harm, Pamela; don't be
afraid of me. I said, 'I won't stay.' 'You won't, hussy! said he. Do you know whom you speak to? (p. 55)

• ElLA HA NO0), daughter f a London shopkepe, was probably born in 1690, probably maried Valentine
laypwood about 170, and probably let him somewhere behween 1745 and 1720.' The vaqueness of these
facds indicates the sight altention,palidthe woman who bust ike a rocket on the London literary scene in
1120 with the publication of her fist bak, love in Jrces, of he Fatal Enguiny. by 1125 that novel was in its
sixth edtion, and the author had a long list of other works as well as two four- volume collections to her
credit.
-• During the twentes, she became will known to london reader and was assoriated with the Whigs,
particulary Stele and Defue. The allegiance allenated the Tory satirists, and when her own sative, Memoirs
of a Certain Isand Adazent to the lingdom of Utopia, was published in 1125, with a ey to the identities of
the characters, she incurred the enmity of Alevander Pope.

-• in 17144 she pubishes the fernale S pendato, the fist magazine by and for women. It lasted for twenty-
four issues, no bad record in a day when most such publications lasted only a few months. When she finally
ended it;, she turned to satire once more with the weekly Parraf; but this ended atter eight months.
-• The female Spertator has been ignored, patronized, and mislabeled, but it occupies a unique place in the
history ofperiodical iterature. It is, however, quite diferent from its forbeas, which releet a man's word, and
its (female) Haywood insists that she intends no "gratifying a vicious Propensity of propagating Scandal.

-• It filows directy in the steps of ils lustrious parent, the Speadalo, alter which it was palterned, and each
issue contains can informal essay on some moral o philosophical matter. The premise is stated and
exempilified, and a condusion is drawn. Subjets are of general interest, the tone is light but underlaid with a
fundamental moral seriousnes, and the purpose is frankly dulce et utile.
• Haywood emphastes that with her experience, 'added to a Genius tolerably extensive, and an Education
more liberal than is ordinarily albowed to Persons of my Sex, l flattered myself that it might be in my Power
to be in some measure both uselul and entertaining to the Public" (|, 6)

Some differences between the two publications are to be expected. * Both are written in an easy coloquial
style, but the _spectator essays are brief and sparkle with aphoristic Augustan wit; one of Haywood's fills
sixty pages with preceptive morality suited to the mid-century taste.
• They also differ sharply in the choice of exemplary characters; quite naturaly, Addison and Steele use
male figures, Haywood uses females.
• The spectator bows gracetuly toward women, but dscusses politics, Parliament, foreign affairs, aesthetics,
art, literature and criticism-the kinds of subjerts most often considered in masculine haunts. The female
spectator potrays a word as diferent as if it had been created on another planet; altention is strictly
devoted to women's affai…

• Haywoods women are far removed from the standard heroines of contemporary fiction, where man
proposed,God disposed, and woman waited to see what would happen. legally nonexistent; culturally and
intellectually deprived, she was vulnerable to any attack and almost totally defenseless. Her life was
centered in the home, where she was treated rather like a pampered but slightly backward child, to be
humored and cosseted but not taken seriously. Not for her the universty education, the Grand tour or even
the well-bred conversation of coffeehouses. Her duty to society could be expressed in two words:
ornament and service.
-• Fist she must attrat a husband, then she must devote her lifte to him. dealy, she was plastic and passive,
without interests beside or beyand her primary domestic duty.

Even if her inteligence were equal to man's, as was sometimes grudgingly admitted, her education was not.
She was taught only enough to manage a houschold and to ask the right questions on social ocasions.
Finally, ascording to revalino masculine standards a woman's honor rested on her innate vitue, a romantic
vie that equated innocence ith ignorance.

-• Honor is a cruial point, and the word, ike 'morality, " passion,; or "nature;" was used by everyone. Its
meaning, however, was largely determined by sex he boy was born into a word that gradually
xpandedfrom home to school to society at large. He was educated with moral precepts, his experience
taught him how to use them, and he was allowed a passionate nature as long as he maintained his honor.
This could involve his good name, a gambling debt, or a promise; if his honor was impugned, his
hand went to his sword.

• for a woman, honor meant only chastity, and if it were lost, she had no way to regain it. In the battle of
the senes, the man was expected to pursue the woman, whose only defense was her innocence and her
innate virtue. The pursuit could reach an honorable conclusion only at the altar, for mariane alone
permitted her to lose her innocence and retain her vitue. Her honor, therelbe, was at stale in any coutship;
his was nat, and Haywood concentrales much of her attention on this very dlference.

her women are neither plastic or passive, but intelligent creatures eho accepting the fact that they have
been born into a world they cannot control.
• The female Spertalor has only recenty attacted significant scholarly attention. Citics have yet to come to a
consensus regarding its relationship to her ather wintings and its place within her highly prolific career. The
standard interpretation of the work has portrayed it as offering a testament to her shift away from the
audacity that distinguished her earlier writings, toward a more sober didacticis m characteristic of her later
years as a writer.
• Recenty, howere; a handful of critics has begun to complicate this approach, revealing the ways in which
The female spectator demonstrates its own sort of audacity.