Joseph Andrews: A Satire of Modern Times

144 Pages·1990·17.98 MB·English

by  Simon Varey

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Joseph
Andrews
A
Satire
of Modern Times
Simon Varey
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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
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Joseph Andrews
Allen County Public Library
Ft. Wayne, Indiana
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JOSEPH
ANDREW^
A
Modern
Satire of Times
Twayne's Masterwork Studies
Robert Lecker, General Editor
EPH
DREW^
A
Modern
Satire of Times
Varey
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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