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Henry Fielding and the Writers of Heroic Romance
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
When Fielding advanced his theory of the comic prose epic, he took particular occasion to denounce “those voluminous works, commonly called romances, namely Clelia, Cleopatra, Astrea, Cassandra, the Grand Cyrus, and innumerable others, which contain, as I apprehend, very little instruction or entertainment.”1 He was quite explicit in drawing a sharp distinction between such narratives and his own works. Yet, although he frequently referred to the heroic romances, he made no mention whatsoever of the rather elaborate theory of prose fiction which the writers of these romances had set forth during the preceding century. This omission is somewhat surprising, not only because the principles of the heroic romance constituted the most detailed theory of prose fiction prior to his own day, but also because those principles were in many instances strikingly similar to the theories which Fielding himself advanced. In view of the tremendous difference between Clelia and Tom Jones, one would hardly expect to find much resemblance between the critical theories upon which the two works were based; yet as a matter of fact, the two theories had quite a number of points in common; and it is rather strange that neither Fielding nor his modern critics should have noted the fact.2
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1947
References
1 Works, ed. William Ernest Henley, 16 vols. (New York, 1902), i, 18.
2 The French heroic romances had been popular in England even up until Fielding's own time. All the better known romances had been translated into English shortly after their appearance in France : Gomberville's Polexandre was translated in 1647; Scudéry's Ibrahim in 1652; the Grand Cyrus in 1653-55; Clélie in 1656-61 ; Almahide in 1677; La Calprenède's Cleopatra, 1652-65; and Pharamond in 1662, 1677, and 1684.
That these works were popular is attested by the frequent references to them in the memoirs and other literature of the times: Pepys purchased copies of them for his wife and was irritated by “her long stories out of Grand Cyrus, which she would tell, though nothing to the purpose, nor in any good manner”; Pope sent five volumes of them to Martha Blount to “feed and indulge that melancholy which is occasioned by the want of a lover”; Dorothy Osborne read them in the rural solitude of Chicksands and wrote of them to her absent lover William Temple; Addison described Leonora's library, which included “the Grand Cyrus; with a pin stuck in one of the middle leaves,” and “Clelia: which opened of itself in the place that describes two lovers in a bower.”
Even as late as 1752, Mrs. Charlotte Lennox in her Female Quixote describes the sad effects which the reading of these romances had on young girls. By this time, however, the vogue of the genre was evidently declining. Fielding himself, who reviewed Mrs. Lennox's work in The Covent Garden Journal (March 24, 1752), remarked that this type of romance was “not at present greatly in fashion in this kingdom,” but added that the book would “afford very useful lessons to all those young ladies who will peruse it with proper attention.”
For a detailed account of the popularity of the heroic romances in England see Thomas P. Haviland, The Roman de Longue Haleine on English Soil (Philadelphia, 1931).
3 Works, i, 18. For a study of Fielding's indebtedness to epic theory see Ethel M. Thornbury, Henry Fielding's Theory of the Comic Prose Epic, University of Wisconsin Studies in Language and Literature, no. 30 (Madison, 1931).
4 Madeleine de Scudéry, Ibrahim, or the Illustrious Bassa, tr. Henry Cogan (London, 1652), preface (no page numbering).
5 That the other writers of heroic romance also imitated the epic is evidenced by Bishop Pierre Daniel Huet's statement (The History of Romances, tr. Stephen Lewis, London, 1715, p. 83): “… I distinguish the Regular Romances, from those which are not so. I call those Regular which are composed after the Rules of an Heroic Poem.” Huet's work was first published in France in 1670.
6 Works, iv, 156.
7 Gaultier de Coste, Seigneur de La Calprenède, Faramond, ou l'histoire de France, 6 vols. (Paris, 1664), preface (no page numbering).
8 It must be admitted, of course, that many writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries made a common practice of insisting that their works were “histories.” Fielding and La Calprenède were both following a widespread literary custom of their time. Nevertheless, the parallel between the two passages quoted above remains an interesting one.
9 Works, i, 19.
10 iv, 62.
11 iv, 65-66.
12 For example, in Joseph Andrews Fielding writes (i, 213-214) : “… for I would by no means be thought to comprehend those persons of surprising genius, the authors of immense romances, or the modern novel and Atalantis writers, who, without any assistance from nature or history, record persons who never were, or will be, and facts which never did, nor possibly can, happen; whose heroes are of their own creation, and their brains the chaos whence all the materials are selected.”
13 Scudéry, op. cit., preface.
14 Ibid.
16 Ibid. For evidence that the English romance writers took the same attitude toward probability, see the preface to John Bulteel's Birinthea, London, 1664.
16 Madeleine de Scudéry, Conversations upon Several Subjects, tr. F. Spence, 2 vols. (London, 1683), i, 39. The dialogue “Of the Way to Invent a Fable,” first appeared as a conversation among the characters in Clélie.
17 Jean Desmarets de Saint Sorlin, Clovis, ou la France chrestienne (Paris, 1666), “Advis” (no page numbering).
18 Scudéry, Conversations upon Several Subjects, i, 42.
19 One must admit, however, that there may have been considerable diSerence of opinion between Fielding and the romance writers with regard to the exact location of “the bounds of probability.” Both insisted that the writer of fiction must follow nature; but, if we may judge from their own respective writings, they would not have agreed as to just what was natural and what was not. This disagreement in the interpretation of the same critical terms largely accounts for the obvious differences between the actual works of Fielding and the romance writers. It is not possible here to trace the gradual changes in the concept of probability during the century from 1650 to 1750. It can only be said that in general there was a constant tendency toward a stricter interpretation of the term: see, for instance, the critical controversy in France over the probability of Mme. de La Fayette's La Princesse de Clèves (1678).
20 Scudéry, Ibrahim, Preface.
21 Fielding, Works, xvi, 11.
22 iii, 22. That Fielding carried out this principle in practice is evidenced by such episodic stories as the tale of the Man of the Hill in Tom Jones, and that of “Leonora, or the Unfortunate Jilt” in Joseph Andrews.
23 iv, 193.
24 See Aristotle's Poetics, tr. Ingram Bywater, Modern Reader's Series (New York, 1930), pp. 41-43. Here too, however, it seems that here may have been considerable difference in the exact interpretation of “unity,” just as there was in the interpretation of “probability”: the concept of both terms becomes more and more strict during the period 1650-1750. Thus, although Fielding admits episodes which are not very well related to his main plot, there are far fewer such examples in his works than in those of Scudéry.
25 i, 18.
26 iv, 195.
27 Scudéry, Conversations upon Several Subjects, i, 39.
28 iv, 194.
29 Scudéry, Conversations, i, 44.
30 Ibid., i, 43.
31 Fielding, i, 24.
32 Nicolas Lenglet Dufresnoy, De l'usage des romans, 2 vols. (Amsterdam, 1734), i, 285.
33 xiv, 112.
34 i, 215.
35 Huet, 'op. cit., p. 4.
36 Scudéry, Conversations, i, 49.
37 Fielding, iv, 157-159.
38 Scudéry, Conversations, i, 47-49.
39 Fielding, iii, 66.