Lecture 7 samuel richardson

1681-1761

Samuel Richardson was born in Derbyshire, in the family of a joiner. In 1706 he was apprenticed to a stationer. Alter serving his time, Richardson worked for some years as a compositor and corrector of the press at a printing office, and in 1719 took up his freedom and started a printing business in I .ondon, where he lived for the rest of his life. He was employed as a printer to the House of Commons. At the request of two other printers he prepared a little volume of letters, in a common style, of such subjects as might be of use to country readers who are unable to indite for themselves. It appeared in 1741. Out of the treatment of this theme arose Richardson's first novel "Pamela", of which two volumes appeared in 1740 and 1741.

One of the subjects emphasized in this collection was the danger surrounding the position of a young woman - as a family servant.

This was followed by Richardson's second and greatest novel "Clarissa, or the History of a Young Lady", which surpassed the success of Pamela, and won Richardson European fame. It was published in 1747 and 1748.1Ъе story, which comprises the longest English novel, is told by means of 537 letters between Clarissa, the heroine and her "most intimate friend", Miss Howe and by Robert Lovelace and his "principal and confident"' John Belford. The novel, as the title-page shows, was intended as a warning of''the Distresses that may attend Misconduct both of Parents and Children in relation to Marriage", and was thus in some way a complement of Pamela. His Sir Charles Grandison (1753—1754). though it never held so high a position as "Clarissa", was also received with enthusiasm. [21] Sir Charles Grandison. a gentleman of high character and fine appearance, supposed to be the ideal embodiment of masculine character and .sentiment, as Clarissa Harlowe was of feminine. As in Richardson's previous novels, the story is told by means of letters. Judged merely as a writer of stories, Richardson would not stand high, but as we know, the novel is a story told in a special way and with a special purpose. It is Richardson's "special way" that declares his genius. The writer's strength lay in the knowledge of the human heart, in the delineation of the shades of sentiment, as they shift and change, and the cross-purposes which trouble the mind moves by emotion. Content with his humble servants and his middle-class figures, Richardson evoked the minute incidents of their lives, through which their emotions were realized, with absolute clarity of a master.

Richardson is the father of the novel of sentimental analysis. As Walter Scott has said, no one before had dived so deeply into the human heart. No one, moreover, had brought to the study of feminine character so much prolonged research, so much patience of observation, so much interested and indulgent, apprehension.

His three works had a marked influence on subsequent writers of fiction, both England and abroad.

Check yourself

1. When and where was Samuel Richardson born?

2. Where did he work?

3. When and why did Richardson print his first volume of letters?

4. What was his first novel?

5. What brought Richardson European fame?

6. What kind of novel was "Clarissa"? What was it told by?

7. Who were the main heroes of the story?

8. Where can we find writer's strength?

9. Why is Richardson called "the father of sentimental analysis"?

10. What did his work influence on? [22]