Joseph Andrews: A Satire of Modern Times PDF
Preview Joseph Andrews: A Satire of Modern Times
itaMii Joseph Andrews A Satire of Modern Times Simon Varey a- [- nvtrvY'V* li 1 j,n 0-80S7-9431-X Henry Fielding described his first full-length novel, Joseph Andrews, as a "comic prose epic written in the manner of Cervantes,"and like Don Quixote it is a rollicking satire ofcontempo- rary life and letters. By the time he wrote the novel in 1742, Fielding had made his name by lambasting the emerging capitalist class with scathing comic dramas and blistering political commentary. When his theatrical career was sti- fled by the censorship imposed by the Licensing Act of 1737, Fielding turned his talents to an emerging literary form: the novel. He was disgusted and outraged by the senti- mentality and hypocrisy of Samuel Richardson's 1740 epistolary novel, Pamela, and wrote a dev- astating parody, Shamela, in response. Two years later Fielding continued his attack on Richardson with Joseph Andrews, which chron- icles the adventures of its title character and his endearingly belligerent comrade. ParsonAdams, as they traverse the innyards, barnyards and bedchambers of eighteenth-century England. Simon Varey Joseph Andrews: A Satire of s Modern Times emphasizes the novels satire of the bourgeois mentality and reveals the cultural context from which it emerged. Varey stresses the novelist's concerns with the encroaching materialism of English society, and his study's themes follow those of the novel itself; popular culture, fashion, class, sex, violence, religion, and money. Varey work offers a new approach 's to Joseph Andrews by explicating Fielding's humor in terms of the novel's own time and by discussing the role of politics in the daily life of the eighteenth-century citizen. Moreover, Varey has provided a detailed glossary of terms that will prove useful to students of Fielding who are not versed in the political and cidtural vocabu- lary of the age. K VLLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02073 2084 823 F46JZV Vs Simon, 1951- r € y , Joseph Andrews Allen County Public Library Ft. Wayne, Indiana DEMCO Digitized by the Internet Archive 2010 in http://www.archive.org/details/josephandrewssatOOvare JOSEPH ANDREW^ A Modern Satire of Times Twayne's Masterwork Studies Robert Lecker, General Editor EPH DREW^ A Modern Satire of Times Varey 'imoii TWAYNE PUBLISHERS BOSTON • A Division ofG.K. Hall tf Co. Allen Ccunty Pii'jlic Library Ft. Wayne, Indiana Joseph Andre-vcs: A Satire ofModern Times Simon Varey Twayne's Masterwork Studies No. 58 & Copyright 1990 by G. K. Hall Co. All rights reserved. Published by Twayne Publishers A division ofG. K. Hall & Co. 70 Lincoln Street Boston, Massachusetts 021 1 1 Copyediting supervised by Barbara Sutton. Book production and book design by Gabrielle B. McDonald. Typeset in 10/14 Sabon by Compset, Inc., Beverly, Massachusetts. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum r—equirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. (^"^ Printed and bound in the United States of America. Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data — Varey, Simon, 1951 Joseph Andrews—: a satire of modern times / Simon Varey. p. cm. (Twayne's masterwork studies ; no. 58) Includes bibliographical references and references. 1. Fielding, Henry, 1707-1754. H—istory ofthe adventures of Joseph Andrews. 2. Satire, English History and criticism. I. Title. II. Series. PR3454.J67V37 1990 823'.5-k1c20 90-36795 CII 9876543 0-8057-943 i-X(hc) 10 9876543 2 1 0-8057-8 137-4(pbk) 10 2 1 First published 1990. 1 C^onient Note on the References andAcknowledgments vii Chronology: Henry Fieldings Life and Works ix Literary and Historical Context 1 Fielding and His Times 3 2 The Importance ofthe Work 8 3 Critical Reception 12 A Reading 4 Objects ofSatire 23 5 Humor 34 6 Ancestry, Birth, Class 46 7 Modern Times and Popular Culture 59 8 Sex 70 9 Violence, Crime, and the Law 79 10 Religion 88 1 Money 98 Appendix: British Money 107 Notes and References 111 Glossary 114 Selected Bibliography 118 Index 121
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