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Romance Tradition in Eighteenth-Century Fiction : a Study of Smollett

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Romance Tradition in Eighteenth-Century Fiction : a Study of Smollett THE ROMANCE TRADITION IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION: A STUDY OF SMOLLETT By MICHAEL W. RAYMOND COUNCIL OF A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA FOR THE IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 197^ ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I wish to express heartfelt appreciation to a few of the various multitude who provided incalculable tangible and intangible assistance in bringing this quest to an ordered resolution. Professors Aubrey L. Williams and D. A. Bonneville were most generous, courteous, and dexterous in their assist- ance and encouragement. Their willing contributions in the closing stages of the journey made it less full of "toil and danger" and less "thorny and troublesome." My wife, Judith, was ever present. At once heroine, guide, and Sancho Panza, she bore my short-lived triumphs and enduring despair. She did the work, but I am most grate- ful that she came to understand what the quest meant and what it meant to me. No flights of soaring imagination or extravagant rhetoric can describe adequately my gratitude to Professor Melvyn New. He represents the objective and the signifi- cance of the quest. He always has been the complete scholar and teacher. His contributions to this work have been un- tiring and infinite. More important to me, however, has been and is Professor New's personal example. He embodies the ideal combination of scholar and teacher. Professor Melvyn New shows that the quest for this ideal can be and should be attempted and accomplished. TABLE OE CONTENTS PAGE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ±±± ABSTRACT v INTRODUCTION 1 NOTES 15 CHAPTER 1 15 I. The Enduring "Disease" of Romance ... 15 II. The Aesthetic Urge Toward Realism ... 41 III. The Movement from "Pattern" to "Life" 75 NOTES 96 CHAPTER II 105 I. Romance as the Design and Contexture of Plot 112 140 II. Romance as Order in Variety III. Romance as World View 178 NOTES 252 CHAPTER III 246 I. Smollett's Design and Contexture of Plot 250 II. Smollett's Order in Variety 316 III. Smollett's World View 344 NOTES 559 BIBLIOGRAPHY 363 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 377 iv Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate Council of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy THE ROMANCE TRADITION IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION: A STUDY OF SMOLLETT By Michael W. Raymond December, 1974- Chairman: Melvyn New- Major Department: English The modern critical concern with and celebration of the development of the realistic novel unfortunately hampers an evaluation of eighteenth-century fiction on its own merits. The twentieth century's disillusionment with the values and form of romance has been allowed to shape disproportionately most critical approaches to eighteenth-century fiction into the traditional "rise of realism" formula. Through an examination of Tobias Smol- lett's fiction in particular and eighteenth-century fic- tion in general, this study suggests that the best fiction of the age was steeped in the romance, and can be under- stood best through the conventions and intentions of the romance. Chapter One demonstrates: that romance enjoyed an enduring popularity throughout the eighteenth century; that an aesthetic urge toward realism was a long-standing v critical emphasis well before the rise of the novel in the eighteenth century, and consequently question the novel and realism equation; and that the commitment of fiction the to the authentic reporting of human experience and individual apprehension of reality was not as pervasive in the eighteenth century as has been proposed. Based upon a survey of the conventions and inten- the tions of romance since the Greeks, Chapter Two defines romance tradition in eighteenth-century England in terms and. con- of plot, structure, and world view. The design texture of romance plot is characterized as: the narra- series tion of a hero's successful progression through a love; the of adventures usually motivated and rewarded by en- testing pattern of involved complications and delaying by tanglements; the movement toward satisfaction marked final fortuitious events over expansive settings; and the punished. total resolution with virtue rewarded and vice interpo- As Order in Variety, romance structure involves authorial lations, digressions, and conscious attention to The design as it imitates an idealized ordered universe. romance presents a world view that reflects a pattern of justice order, a providential design, and a providential characteristic of a coherent Christian vision. Chapter Three documents that in the fiction of inten- Tobias Smollett there is a tangible presence of the While tions and conventions of the romance tradition. vx recognizing other viable traditions, the inquiry into Fathom, Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle , Ferdinand Count suggests an Sir Launcelot Greaves , and Humphry Clinker observable trend in the use of romance conventions and intentions that indicates that Smollett emerges as part of the movement to rather than the culmination of the move- ment to the novelistic conceptions of fiction. Roderick Random seems most evenly divided in its reflection of various traditions. The picaresque and satire are significant influences in the shaping of the 174-8 work's plot and intentions. Clearly the romance tra- dition cannot be seen to dominate. It is as if Smollett had been introduced to a variety of traditions and had yet to decide his favorite. However, with the writing of Pere- Sir Launcelot grine Pickle . Ferdinand Count Fathom, and more clear-cut. Greaves , the favorite becomes more and In terms of plot, structure, and world view, the romance tradition is dominant. The only apparent lessening of its dominance is in the occasional satire and humor. Peregrine Pickle represents Smollett's most expansive use of the ro- mance tradition; Ferdinand Count Fathom represents the most explicit; and Sir Launcelot Greaves represents the most compact. With the publication of Humphry Clinker , there seems to be a shift in Smollett's use of the romance tra- dition. Interests in the comic exploitation of romance conventions, in the raw experience of life, and in the vn empirical exploration of individuals receive increasing emphasis. INTRODUCTION the In surveying critical commentary dealing with English novel, one apparently axiomatic assumption con- sistently asserts itself: the "growth," "development," is "advancement," or "evolution" of English prose fiction pass- inextricably related to the rise of realism and the pointed out, ing of romance. As John J. Richetti has content literary historians are for the most part simply "recording with a to document a critical distinction by progress kind of neo-Hegelian confidence the historical called from the factually careless and improbable fictions called romances to the mimetically sensitive stories 1 the novels." Twentieth-century critics have presented of an history of prose fiction as the ultimate victory the de- enlightened realism over reactionary romance and mode. velopment or evolution of a superior literary celebration This modern critical concern with and unfortunately of the development of the realistic novel on hampers an evaluation of eighteenth-century fiction aims now at an its own merits. Arguing that "fiction from the intensification of reality rather than an escape Leavis actual," critics such as Pelham Edgar and F. R. often find little of importance in eighteenth-century novelists other than that they anticipate the "great tradition" of those who, like Jane Austen, George Eliot, Henry James, and Joseph Conrad, were aware of the possi- 2 bilities of life. As an early Victorian novelist presenting his critical conception of the novel, William Makepeace Thack- eray reflects this restrictive approach as he summarizes nineteenth-century attitudes toward eighteenth-century fiction and suggests what was to be inherited as the early twentieth century's view. The notion that the best eight- eenth-century novelists represented a rise of realism and a reaction against romantic fiction is characteristic of Thackeray's expectation that the novel should be an his- torical record of the manners of a particular time, encom- passing all levels of society in an objective and consistent method of treatment. Thackeray asserts that "the Art of Novels is to represent Nature: to convey as strongly as possible the sentiment of reality"; hence his partiality for some eighteenth-century fiction is clearly based on what he sees as the author's disdain for the frivolous and his proportionate devotion to realism. This is particularly apparent in his use of Fielding and Smollett to call for greater social realism and objectivity and to attack the unnatural and sensationalistic Newgate and Silver Fork novels. I am sure that a man who, a hundred years hence, should sit down to write the history of our time, would do wrong to put that great contemporary history of "Pickwick" aside as a frivolous work. It contains true character under false names; and, like "Roderick Random" an inferior work, and "Tom Jones" (one that is immeasurably superior), gives us a "better idea of the state and ways of the people, than one could gather from any more pompous or authentic histories. His compliments for the previous century's realistic fic- tion contrast vividly with his castigation of contemporary novels as improbable, inaccurate, and unnatural. Thackeray believed the great accomplishment of the eighteenth-century novel was its endorsement of "reality against the romance."
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