英美文学导论-Chapter 3 Henry Fielding

Literary Term
Irony（反讽）： Irony（反讽）：This term derives from a ）：This character in a Greek comedy. In most of the modern critical uses of the term “irony”, there remains the root sense of irony” dissembling or hiding what is actually the case; not, however, in order to deceive, but to achieve rhetorical or artistic effects.
Comment on Henry Fielding and his Tom Jones
It is a good example of “comic epic in prose”. Fielding prose” describes the fight between Molly and the villagers and her fistfight with Goody Brown in the grand style of the Homeric epic. He first of all calls on the Muses to assist him in recounting the fight as if it were of great historical importance. Like Homer who would list names of gods involved in the battle, he lists the names of the villagers. He treats Molly as a great hero at battle, an “Amazonian heroine” heroine”. Besides, he uses a mock-epic tone and seems mockvery solemn about what he is describing. He uses formal words and refined language. Finally, he makes use of different figures of speech, particularly, irony and hyperbole.
Realistic novelists tell the reader about the ordinary people, about their thoughts; feelings and struggles. Instead of the life of kings and feudal lords, the whole life in its ordinary aspects of the middle class became a major source of interest in English literature in 18th century.
C. Fielding believed in the educational function of the novel. The object of his novels is to present a faithful picture of life, while sound teaching is woven into their very texture.
IV. Features of Fielding's Novels
A. Fielding's method of relating a story is telling the story directly by the author. B. Satire abounds everywhere in Fielding' s works.
4. Amelia 《爱米莉娅》，1751. 爱米莉娅》
III. Fielding's Important Position in English Literature
Fielding is the founder of English realistic novels. He set up the theory of realism in literary creation. The exact observation and study of the real life was the basis of his work. He gave us genuine pictures of men and women of his own age.
D. Fielding is a master of style. His style is easy, unlaboured and familiar, but extremely vivid and vigorous. His sentences are always distinguished by logic and musical rhythm. His command of language is remarkable.
He was not only a novelist, but also a dramatist, an essayist, a political pamphleteer, a learned authority on law and an able and efficient magistrate and a political economist. In a word, he was a versatile man. He has been rightly called “father of the English novel”. novel”
E. Being a great and truthful artist, he reproduced human nature faithfully and accurately. His characters were not drawn from his imagination, or from models in literature, but from the living human nature, which he observed in the people around him.
Lecture 3
Henry Fielding (1707-1754) (1707-
I. Life Read P51 para. 1
II. His Novels
1. Joseph Andrews 《约瑟夫·安德鲁》， 约瑟夫·安德鲁》
1742.
It is Fielding's first novel. He wrote this novel with the intention of ridiculing Richardson' s novel Pamela. He chose Joseph Andrews, Pamela's brother, to be the hero of the novel. The situation is contrived by reversing the situation in Pamela. The book turns out quickly a great novel of the open road, a “comic epic in prose”, whose subject is “the true ridiculous” in human nature. The comic epic is designed to furnish instruction as well as entertainment. Fielding believed in the educational function of the novel.
Novels :
The novel is the book length story in prose about either imaginary or historical character. Generally speaking, novels describe characters and incidents as they actually are in real life. A large number of modern novels describe social and economic conditions in detail and show how these conditions determine the fate of the characters. Novelists of this kind, who reflect life as it is, belong to the school of realism.
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3.
The History of Tom Jones, Foundling 《汤姆·琼斯》，1749. 汤姆·琼斯》 1749.
a
This novel is Fielding's masterpiece, which gives us a vivid and truthful panoramic picture of the 18th century England. It has touched upon all kinds of people and social problems, and shows the author's great sympathy for the poor and the oppressed, and his dislike for the wicked and deceitful persons and their bad and terrible actions.
2. Jonathan Wild the Great 《大伟人乔 纳森·瓦尔德》 纳森·瓦尔德》，1743.
It is a satirical novel, in which Fielding exposes the English bourgeois-aristocratic society and bourgeoismocks at its political system. In this novel, Fielding satirizes the English high-ranking highofficials. The thieves represent the corrupt politicians and the chief of the gang represents the English Prime Minister Walpole. Wild's band is divided into two conflicting parties, one suggests the Tories and the other represents the Whigs. It is a bitter satire on the exploiting and oppressing class. It is one of the best exposures of the corruption of the bourgeois society.
F. Most of his characters are compounded of both observation and imagination, of both experience and invention. Fielding insisted on the crucial importance of mixing with people and of personal experience.