Cοurse paper Theme: Henry Fielding parodies on Samuel Richardson's novels

II.3. Analysis of "Pamela" novel.

This Day is published (Price bound 6s) In two neat Pocket Volumes The Second Edition (to which are prefix'd Extracts from numerous curious Letters written to the Editor on the Subject) of Pamela: or, Virtue rewarded. In a Series of Familiar Letters From A Beautiful Young Damsel, To Her Parents. Now first Published In order to domesticate the Principles of Virtue and Religion in the Minds of the Youth of Both Sexes. A Narrative which has its Foundation in Truth and Nature; and at the same time that it agreeably entertains, through a Variety of curious and affecting Incidents, is intirely divested of all those Images, which, in too many Pieces calculated for Amusement only, tend to inflame the Minds they ought to instruct.(8).Since this 2d edition was once known as for. only three months after the appearance of a massive first edition on November 6, 1740, it looked as although booksellers Rivington and OsbOrn had a fine seller on their hands. The nameless creator of this piece, which

scrupulously prevented the title of novel, was a positive Mr. Samuel Richardson, a printer of about fifty years of age, who already had performed some small editing, indexing, and writing stints, however of whom very little had been heard until the appearance of Pamela.(9). As one end result of the book's crashing success, Richardson emerged from his anonymity to grow to be a predominant figure on the London scene. Pamela souvenirs endured to be offered to the public for a· good many years. In 1744 Joseph Highmore achieved a series of twelve illustrations of Pamela, which, engraved by way of Truchy and Benoist, had been delivered to subscribers.(10).In 1745 some sensible showman marketed a three-d Pamela: This is to acquaint all Gentlemen and Ladies, That there is to be seen, besides Loss of Time, at the corner of Shoe Lane, going through Salisbury Court Fleet-Street, Pamela; or Virtue Rewarded. Even more indicative of Pamela's reputation was once the tribute paid to her early in her profession by means of the Grub Street hacks. These gentlemen have been quick to make capital of Richardson's success, and on May 28, 1741, there regarded Pamela's Conduct in High Life, a spurious continuation now attributed to one John Kelly. Aware of this Grub Street endeavor and considerably vexed by using Kelly's illegitimate offspring, Richardson set to work and produced his own "true" sequel, which came out on December 7, 174l. By this time there had been published a 2d fraudulent continuation, whose title used to be an obvious try to draw on both Kelly and Richardson: Pamela in High Life; or, Virtue Rewarded. And as if this have been now not enough, hard on the heels of Richardson's personal continuation accompanied a third fake, Life of ýPamela, which retold Pamela's epistolary first-person narrative in straight third-person style.(1.Apparently it was once felt that one could not have too lots of a good thing; at any rate, the proliferation of Pamelas had solely begun. By the stop of 1742 there were three dramatic versions in England alone: Pamela, A Comedy, by using Henry Giffard; Pamela: or, Virtue Triumphant, possibly by using James Dance,.(12)and Pamela: An Opera, through Mr. Edge. Before long there were also Pamela The Second; Pamela Censured; Anti-Pamela, or Feign'd Innocence Detected; The True Anti-Pamela; Pamela Versified; Pamela: au La Vertu recompensee, a French translation; The Virgin in Eden . .. To which are introducedPamela's Letters; Memoirs of the Life of Lady H-, the celebrated Pamela; Lettre Sur Pamela; and Pamela: or The Fair Impostor. Across the channel in France an nearly identical Pamela vogue was in full swing. Dottin files the observation that to be in fashion one should own a Pamela; and that except Pamela there used to be nothing to talk about.(13).As properly as the translation of Richardson's authentic work, the contemporary Pamela literature included Boissy's Pamela en France; Memoires de Pamela; La Chausee's stage version, Pamela; Antipamela au Memoires de M.D ... ·; La Deroute des Pamela via Godard d' Aucour; and in the contemporary periodicals quite a few letters about Pamela barring the traditional analyses. On the continent, Goldoni's Italian play, Pamela nubile, grew to be even greater famous than the parent work, and over the subsequent few years used to be translated into more European languages than Richardson's novel.(1 Indeed, the "Adventures of 'Pamela' on the Continental Stage" is a story in itself,(14)and her influence on European literature in regularly occurring is attested in many studies.(15)As for the length of the Pamela vogue, possibly some thinking of it might also be gathered from the following two instances: In 1741 a bookseller trying to trade on Pamela's "sex interest" advertised: "The pleasures of conjugal love revealed. . _ . of the same Letter and Size with Pamela, and very applicable to be bound with it.(16). Twenty years later, in 1760, a comparable trick was used to push a book through John Piper, Esq., The Life of Miss Fanny Brown; or, Pamela the Second (A Clergyman's Daughter). The title depends for its effect on a vulgar play on phrases. The humans of Slough, it seems, used to collect at the neighborhood smithy to hear Pamela read aloud by the blacksmith. No story had ever absorbed them as did this one, and when in the end little Pamela was married to Squire B., there was no containing their enthusiasm: out they rushed to the parish church and celebrated the glad nuptial with a joyous pealing of bells.(17).(Mrs. Piozzi, relying on an l;mnt's memory, placed this story in "Preston in Lancashire" and even added flying flags and a holiday gaiety.(18). As for the Reverend Benjamin Slocock, quickly after the first look of Pamela this worthy divine recommended the e book from thepulpit of St. Saviour's Church, Southwark.(19). That a novel should be advocated from the pulpit in 1740 is in itself so magnificent a wonder that even the opportunity of bribery, raised through Downs,.(20).can now not totally dim its effulgence. Both the sentiment and the story are the objects of Henry Fielding's satire in Shamela;(21) indeed, Fielding commenced before the establishing and satirized the "Extracts from various curious Letters ... ," the commendatory letters which Richardson had had inserted into the second edition of Pamela.(22). For the sake of scholarly exactitude, perhaps it have to be stated that the burlesque sincerely commenced even before the commendations with the title and the identify of the "author," Conny Keyber. When he wrote his satire, Fielding was once still unaware of the genuine identity of the "editor" of Pamela though the secret should have been pretty broadly known by way of then. There follows a sequence of letters in which the surface action of Pamela is so carefully duplicated that were solely the motion dramatized, an onlooker would accept as true with he used to be viewing identical stories-one in a condensed version. The difference lies below the surface. Where Richardson has Pamela ignore her time in prayer, in softly entuned hymns, and in studying The Whole Duty of Man, Fielding takes the position that between drinks she is reciting the today's barroom ditty and Rochester's poems, and analyzing Venus in the Gloyster: or, the Nun in her Smock. Fielding has also filled out Richardson's Mr. B. to his full proportions with a identify that is almost as famous as Pamela itself-it is "Booby." Mrs. Jervis, who has been eavesdropping, is fairly amused by using the complete incident. She tells Shamela that it was extraordinary with the "Jolly Blades" of her day; and conspires to draw Booby on via giving him a view of Shammy bare in bed. Booby of direction takes the bait and Shamela helps things along by feigning sleep, but when she "awakes," her screaming and scratching cease solely as she "swoons." Booby, scared witless, begs forgiveness after Shamela "recovers": "By Heaven, I understand no longer whether or not you are a Man or a Woman, unless by your swelling Breasts. Will you ... forgive me: I forgive you! D-n you (says I)." After all he is not dealing with Pamela here, as witness Shamel a's remarks to Mrs. Jervis on the subject of his arms going no similarly than her bosom: "Hang him, ... he is now not quite so bloodless as that I guarantee you; our Hands on neither side, had been idle in the Scuffle, nor have left us any doubt of every other as to that matter." In bed, Shamela as soon as once more feigns sleep, which approves Booby to get in the ordinary preliminaries.