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Henry Fielding Literary and Theological Misplacement Robertson, Scott (2008) Henry Fielding : literary and theological misplacement. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/497/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] Henry Fielding Literary and Theological Misplacement Scott Robertson PhD University of Glasgow Faculty of Arts August 2008 Copyright © Scott Robertson 2008 Abstract This study is intended as a dialogue between literature and theology, utilizing selected works of the playwright and novelist, Henry Fielding (1707-54). While historical studies of Fielding have clearly yielded much of importance, a broader and less deterministic assessment concerning the latent ambivalences of this, one of the earliest novelists, has yet to be explored. Such an assessment has implications for the current relationship between, and the separate study of, literature and theology. The methodology is informed by an awareness of human frailty (what Fielding described as HUMAN NATURE) and centres upon the use of a specific interpretative tool that I call misplacement. By this, I mean the continuous parting with the ineffable – the perpetual recognition that, in writing, there is always a sense of the other, be that an alternative path not taken, the nagging sense of the numinous, or the coming to terms with the ludicrous nature of the human condition. Such fragile, comedic alterity provides a weak metaphysical root which is shared by both literature and theology. To illustrate the effects of such misplacement, this thesis sets the novels of Henry Fielding alongside works of contemporary philosophical theology such as the post onto-theological critique of Gianni Vattimo and John Caputo, as well as alongside postmodern works of fiction, such as those of Vonnegut and Calvino. In so doing, common critical zones such as epistemology, ethics, mimesis, canonicity, and revelation are investigated. The result of this analysis is that, in all these areas, the novel form, in Fielding’s hands, displays a powerful comic resonance with a theology which seeks to move beyond a strictly deterministic approach. Thus, we discover that Fielding’s work, rather than simply being expressive of proto-Enlightenment principles, actually subverts those assumed securities regarding the status of the individual and his place in the world, before God. In its conclusion, this study reveals the challenge of recognising the inescapably theological nature of the novel and that theology itself, is fictive. This assessment points to a greater need for further shared exploration of the relationship between theology and literature - to their mutual benefit. 2 To the memory of my father, Robert Bain Robertson (1936-2007) 3 I compared you with a little bird of the heavens, created for the pleasure of men and the adornment of nature. And then, Varenka, I thought that we too, people who live in care and worry, should also envy the carefree and innocent happiness of the birds of the heavens – well, and all the rest likewise, and the same; that is, I kept making such remote comparisons. I’ve got this book, Varenka, and it’s got the same stuff in it, all the same things described in real detail. Why I’m writing is that there are different dreams, you know my dear. And now it’s spring, so my ideas too are always so nice, sharp, inventive, and the dreams I have are tender; everything is rose-coloured. That’s why I’ve written all this; but actually I got all this from the book. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Poor People ‘Tis better to write of laughter than of tears, Since laughter is the property of Man. Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel 4 Contents List of Illustrations 7 Acknowledgements 8 Introduction Overture 9 Dialogue, Compassion and Unknowing: Marking the Theological and Literary Terrain 14 Overcoming the Separation Anxiety: Frailty, Imagination and Comedy 25 Why Fielding? 29 Chapter One History, Hiddenness and Misplacement – The Historical Constriction of Henry Fielding 33 Henry Fielding: Deconstructivist? 44 Hiddenness 51 Misplacement 59 Chapter Two Henry Fielding: Subversive Comedian – Some Theories of Comedy 68 Comedy and Balance 79 Comedy and Mask 81 Pharmakomedy 94 Poisoning Plato 96 Parable, Metaphor and Meaning 101 Fielding’s Good Samaritan 107 Happy Endings? 112 Chapter Three The Word Made Strange: Fielding, the Novel and the Misplacement of Meaning – Fielding’s Knowing Ignorance 116 Fielding’s Subversive Creation 121 Fielding, the word and the Word 129 Fielding and ‘Pop Scripture’ 138 5 Chapter Four The Art of Blasphemy: Fielding’s Comi/C/ritique – Artful Criticism 143 The Misplaced Heart of Blasphemy 148 True Lies: Blasphemy and the Novel 156 Fielding and Criticism 166 The ‘Problem’ of Amelia 172 Chapter Five Prudence, Providence and Jurisprudence: Fielding’s Moral Misplacement – Walking Away With The Nail 179 Prudence 181 Providence 187 Jurisprudence 194 Chapter Six Measuring Mimesis and Misplacement: Realism, Rule and Revelation in Fielding – The Mimetic Heritage 208 Fielding’s Mischievous Mimesis 211 Literary Misplacement 220 Rule 230 Revelation 238 Fictional Transcendence – Fielding’s Misplaced God 247 Conclusion Fictional Theology 253 Bibliography 263 6 List of Illustrations Fig. 1. Henry Fielding, frontispiece to Fielding's Works (1st ed., 1762), engraving by James Basire after a drawing by William Hogarth 84 Fig. 2. Credulity, Superstition and Fanaticism (1762) (detail) by William Hogarth 92 Fig. 3. Credulity, Superstition and Fanaticism (1762) by William Hogarth 169 "Fielding, Henry." Online Photograph. Britannica Student Encyclopædia. 12 June 2008 <http://student.britannica.com/eb/art-10669>. 7 Acknowledgements I wish to record my thanks to Professor David Jasper and to Dr. Donald MacKenzie for their support over the period I have been preparing this study. Their breadth of knowledge, coupled with their generosity of spirit, has been both a specific source of intellectual encouragement and of great personal benefit. With them as guides, the whole process has been all the more enriching. At the same time, I am aware of the value of attending the Literature and Theology Seminars in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Glasgow. Under the direction of Professor Jasper and Dr. Heather Walton, the seminars frequently provided many useful avenues of exploration. These came to light through the contributions of, not only guest lecturers, but also fellow students. My thanks to all of them. Outwith my immediate academic environment, I am grateful to the Warden and staff of St. Deiniol’s Library in north Wales, not only for their astonishing literary resource at Hawarden, but for their kindness to me over the two weeks I spent there during some sabbatical leave. Thanks, too, must go to Joyce and Noreen at the Coach House Retreat on the glorious Moray Firth, who looked after me and enabled me to finish in peace and quiet. To Dr. Andrew Reid, my father-in-law and avid proof-reader, I extend my thanks and recognise publicly the special debt I owe to him. Finally, I would like to thank my family who put up with it all – my sons, Stephen and Craig, who continue to humble me daily - and, of course, my dear Alison, who, through all my musings and meanderings, has been my life’s compass, and will always remain my Sophia, my Amelia, and my Heart. 8 Introduction He would […] reflect, in the manner that only literature and religion teach, on the puniness and nobility of mankind.1 Overture In this study, my aim is to present a theological response to the issues raised by the literary form known as the novel, and specifically the fiction of Henry Fielding (1707- 54). My argument is that the experience of the novel, which one scholar has described as Christianity’s ‘godchild’2, offers an analogical route into that fragile literary space which both theology and fiction ultimately occupy. The recognition of being found in this communal space can, I suggest, serve to reinvigorate the integrity of a theology which has been hitherto compromised by the enticement of determinism – an enticement which can also bedevil the work of fiction. The specific deterministic temptation, to which modern theology has succumbed, is that of closing off the questionable nature of human existence, chiefly by positing a Cartesian paradigm which elevates humanity to a reified place in which knowledge of God can be confidently appropriated.3 The same temptation can be said to affect the study of the novel. The idea that the novel is, itself, the result and confirmation of the same Enlightenment thinking which affects theology, is an enduring one. The place of the individual as a primary focus in the rise of the novel has been an obvious and long-lasting sphere of exploration. 1 Ian McEwan, Atonement (London: Jonathan Cape, 2001), p. 93. 2 Valentine Cunningham, ‘The Novel and the Protestant Fix: Between Melancholy and Ecstasy’, in Biblical Religion and the Novel 1700-2000, ed. byMark Knight and Thomas Woodman (Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate, 2006), p. 53. 3 By the term ‘determinism’, I am recalling an enduring complaint in theological enquiry. For example, one can point to Schleiermacher’s On Religion (1799) where, in contrast to those ‘who have communicated their discoveries in a more delicate – be it also more fragile – form’, he berates ‘the schools, which are nothing but the habitations and nurseries of the dead letter’.
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