Henry Fielding (1707 – 1754)

Henry Fielding was born in 1707 into an aristocratic family. Fielding lost his mother in 1718, and his father remarried just a year later and began immediately to raise a new family. That same year Fielding began his education at Eton.

Fielding started his career in drama. His first play, Love in Several Masques, was produced in February of 1728 at the Drury Lane Theater, with encouraging results. Fielding would go on to write over twenty plays and farces, the most successful of which was The Tragedy of Tragedies, or, The Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great. In the meantime, however, Fielding spent some time between 1728 and 1729 in Holland at the University of Leyden as a law student.

In 1734 Fielding married Charlotte Craddock of Salisbury. He later modeled the heroine of Tom Jones, Sophia Western, on his wife. In 1740 he was called to the bar. He began to earn a living as a barrister, supplementing this work with extensive writings for political journals such as The Champion and later, the Jacobite's Journal.

His true talent emerged however when he turned to novel writing. His first novel is a parody of S. Richardson’r Pamela. Fielding attacked the sentimentality, hypocrisy and middle class moralizing of Richardson’s work. In his novel The Apology for the life of Mrs Shamela Andrews (1741) he depicts Richardson’s central heroine not as a virtuous girl but as a scheming social climber. His second novel was The Adventures of Joseph Andrews and his Friend, Mr. Abraham Adams. It was published in 1742. It tells the story of Pamela’s good and modest brother who has to defend his virtue from the attacks of his mistress. The novel was also making fun of  Pamela. But its characters and plot developed independently of that text.

The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling was published in 1749. Almost every aspect of Fielding's own life is apparent in the novel, from the love and reverence he had for his first wife to his extensive knowledge of the Southwestern part of England. Even Tom Jones himself clearly shows the markings of Fielding, exhibiting the same careless good nature as well as a deeply entrenched awareness of poverty and the reversals of fortune.

Tom Jones is theaccount of the fall and rise of a vital but imprudent (неблагоразумный) young man. Tom is 'a foundling,' with a generous heart but a weak will. Several features of his novel mark it out as a clear development of the works of Defoe and Richardson:

1. The plot is no longer a serious of episodes or a single storey; it involves a large cast of characters of various social ranks. The episodes are interwoven in a structured and orgnised way.

2. Each of the novels 18^th books is prefaced by an introductory chapter. In which the reader is remained that what he is reading is fiction. Instructions are given on how to approach what was a new literary form.

3. An omniscient 3^rd person narrator is used to comment on the action. The reader is not asked to identified with protagonists and the detachment allows to appreciate the comic effects.

4. The storey is not used as a vehicle for Puritan moralizing.

Fielding’s classical education and aristocratic family background distinguished him from other novelists like Defoe and Richardson. He considered the novel to be a comic epic in prose. It dealt not with heroic actions but with events of everyday life.

Fielding published his last novel, Amelia, in 1751. Although it is considered inferior to Fielding's two earlier novels, Amelia was an immediate commercial success.

In an attempt to regain his health, he set out for Lisbon in 1754 with his wife and daughter. Unfortunately, either the change of climate came too late or did him no good, and he died there Oct. 8, 1754. The journey is recorded with good humor and charm in his final work, Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon, which was published in 1755.

5. Second half of the 18^th century: a period of transition in poetry

The second half of the eighteenth century was a time of changing standards in church, state and literature. The philosophy of the time was changing. In France Jean Jacques Rousseau questioned the importance of reason. For him emotions and imagination were of primary importance. There began to be a revolt against the narrow classical standards in literature. Rationalism and elevated sentiments of the early part of the century gave way to a simple more genuine form of expression. A longing gradually manifested itself for more freedom of imagination. There was a departure from hackneyed forms and subjects of the preceding age. There was a renewed interest in nature and the simple rural life.