UNIVERSITA’ DEGLI STUDI DI VERONA DIPARTIMENTO DI Lingue e Letterature Straniere SCUOLA DI DOTTORATO DI Scienze Umanistiche DOTTORATO DI RICERCA IN Lingue, Letterature e Culture Straniere Moderne CICLO XXIX/ANNO 2014 TITOLO DELLA TESI DI DOTTORATO A Triple-Faced Janus: Tom Jones as Bastard, Pretender, and Cowan S.S.D. L-LIN/10 Coordinatore: Prof. ssa Rosanna Gorris Tutor: Prof. ssa Yvonne Bezrucka Dottorando: Dott. Luigi D’Agnone SOMMARIO Attraverso la mia ricerca ho l’obiettivo di fornire un’interpretazione di Tom Jones fondata su tre livelli. Dal punto di vista narrativo, l’intreccio è in larga parte basato sul tema della legittimità, così come sulla prudenza necessaria per acquisire l’eredità e uno status sociale tramite il matrimonio. Questi aspetti funzionano come corrispettivo di un secondo livello riferito all’attualità storica, ovvero, la rivolta del 1745: la figura di Tom è costruita sul modello di Charles Edward Stuart, la sua futura moglie Sophia Western viene scambiata per Jenny Cameron, amante del pretendente Stuart, e il viaggio stesso del protagonista riecheggia le avventure eroiche di quest’ultimo. Si innesta infine un livello simbolico, che conferisce un taglio specifico al mio lavoro: le voci del tempo vogliono che Charles Edward fosse una sorta di “hidden Grand-Master,” capo universale della Massoneria (organizzazione spesso legata alla cultura giacobita in senso più ampio). Il viaggio di Tom dopo la cacciata da Paradise Hall, il suo cammino sotto una pioggia ricorrente, la sua incarcerazione a Londra per poi rinascere e sposare Sophia Western (sapienza occidentale), riflettono una tradizione tipicamente massonica, ossia la punizione del cowan. Così era definito un massone non iniziato regolarmente, un intruso che origliava i segreti della loggia, il quale veniva posto sotto una grondaia in un giorno di pioggia fino ad avere le scarpe piene di acqua. Alla luce di questo, metto in risalto il legame diretto fra l’idea di bastardo come individuo impropriamente introdotto in casa, l’idea di pretendente come colui che finge di vantare un diritto, e l’idea di cowan come intruso e spia. Dunque, si evidenzia come il percorso di Tom divenga un riscatto e un conseguente ritorno all’ordine, rispetto a una condizione di triplice illegittimità. ABSTRACT The main aim of this research is to carry out a three-level analysis of The History of Tom Jones; a Foundling (1749) by Henry Fielding, following and explaining its peculiar layering of various narrative lines. Firstly, the plot is largely centred on both the theme of Tom’s legitimacy as heir to Allworthy’s estate and his much needed prudence to enter into possession of it, by means of his final marriage. Secondly, these issues widely reflect the historical background in which the novel took shape, that is, the rebellion of 1745. Indeed, Tom’s image is based on Charles Edward Stuart, the so-called Young Pretender; his wife-to-be Sophia is mistaken for Jenny Cameron, the Pretender’s Scottish lover; Tom’s travels have much in common with the wanderings of the notorious claimant to the British throne. Thirdly, a symbolic level encompasses the preceding ones: contemporary rumours had it that Charles Edward Stuart was the universal leader of Freemasonry, probably the “hidden Grand-Master” (Marsha Keith Schuchard). From this perspective, Tom’s wanderings after being turned out from Paradise Hall, his adventures in the “country section” under the falling rain, his imprisonment in London and gradual inner rebirth leading to his marriage with Sophia Western, describe a sort of ritual initiation following a typically masonic punishment for cowans, this latter being the name for a mason who has not been regularly bred, an intruder overhearing the secrets of a lodge, and therefore “placed under the eaves of the house in rainy weather, till the water runs in at his shoulders and out at his heels” (Albert Mackey). Therefore, my aim is to underscore the aspects which link the “bastard,” the individual improperly introduced into a household, to the figure of the pretender, the improper claimant to the throne, and to the cowan, the irregularly trained mason. Only following this line of thought, Tom’s progress can eventually be interpreted as a successful attempt to restore order amid various forms of illegitimacy. Moreover, such state of things portrays a rather different mid- eighteenth-century Britain, where the Stuarts regain their power and the Hanoverian monarchy is called into question. “A TRIPLE-FACED JANUS: TOM JONES AS BASTARD, PRETENDER, AND COWAN” TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION p. 5 CHAPTER ONE Henry Fielding Over Time: An Assessment of His Critical Reception 1.1 Questions of Morality: Eighteenth-Century Critical Reactions p. 20 1.2 Fielding’s Art in the Nineteenth Century p. 50 1.3 Fielding and the History of the Novel: Criticism in the Twentieth and Twenty- First Centuries p. 59 CHAPTER TWO Henry Fielding and William Hogarth: Reflections on Their Arts 2.1 The Bases of a Mutual Exchange p. 77 2.2 Humean Background for Fielding’s Views on Liberty: Language, Politics, Religion p. 80 2.3 A “New Province” of Arts p. 99 CHAPTER THREE Born to Be Hanged: The Faces of Illegitimacy in Tom Jones 3.1 Behind the Scenes of Tom’s Identity p. 125 3.2 On the Edge of the Threshold: Tom’s Intruder Status p. 136 3.3 Two Hogarthian Models for Tom and Sophia p. 147 3.4 Keeping Bad Company: Black George, Thwackum, and Square p. 165 CHAPTER FOUR Towards the East in Pursuit of Sophia 4.1 Out in the Pouring Rain: Punishment on the Road p. 189 3 4.2 Back to Paradise: “The Pretender Shall Enjoy His Own Again” p. 200 BIBLIOGRAPHY p. 225 4 INTRODUCTION In recent years, Susan Mitchell Sommers has published a groundbreaking study containing an updated biography of Thomas Dunckerley, one of the major figures in eighteenth-century English freemasonry. As she points out, he shared with his contemporaries an outspoken need to draw materials from his own life, in order to put them together into a tailor-made narrative. As a key to reading this phenomenon, Sommers turns to cynical social climbing, a habit apparently spread like wildfire among middle-class upstarts at that time: Dunckerley felt very keenly the class boundaries and his lack of social contacts that persistently came between him and his professional ambitions. A concomitant worry was how to provide for his family. Given these twin realities, we need to understand that the primary object of his fictional biography was to secure a government position that would boost him socially. In 1763 this must have truly seemed like an insurmountable obstacle, not just for Dunckerley, but for all other social aspirants across the middling ranks. Consider how frequently actual and fictional reinventions appear in eighteenth-century literature. Two famously popular novels, The History of Tom Jones by Henry Fielding and Daniel Defoe‟s Moll Flanders, come to mind. There are particularly interesting similarities between the „hidden‟ history Dunckerley invents for himself, and the plot of Fielding‟s Tom Jones, published in 1749. Not only is Tom revealed as being of higher social standing than he previously suspected, but the virtuous characters he encounters in the novel tend to be strongly Anglican and pro-Hanoverian, like Dunckerley himself. The picaresque nature of Tom‟s journey on the way to his true position also resembles the story Dunckerley relates of his Masonic journey through the Mediterranean and France. Intended or accidental, personal reinvention was as genuine a form of social rebellion as one person could manage unaided, and the theme had broad appeal.1 Clearly, to a certain extent, this literary „self-marketing‟ engendered confusion between biographical accounts and fictional narratives. In the case mentioned in 1 Susan Mitchell Sommers, Thomas Dunckerley and English Freemasonry, London: Pickering & Chatto, 2012, pp. 53-54. 5 the passage, such worlds are totally blurred as Dunckerley‟s journey strikes our attention by showing unexpected similarity to successful works of the previous decades. And it is even more surprising, when we come to realise that it can be aligned with Henry Fielding‟s Tom Jones in terms of a masonic walk of life. At least tentatively, we can assume that Fielding‟s novel exerted great influence over Dunckerley‟s account, but then a question naturally arises: is Tom Jones to be read as a masonic novel? This is actually the main point in the analysis of Fielding‟s masterpiece that will be carried out in this thesis. But, prior to outlining its various chapters, let us have a quick overview of the outstanding approaches that have filled the critical landscape over the past few years. Though from rather different perspectives, most readings of Tom Jones have largely dwelt on social issues and formal problems arising from its contribution to the history of the novel. As John Richetti puts it: Tom Jones‟ elaborate structuring is a defensive bulwark against the vulgar simplicities of popular narrative and also a replacement for the alternative complexities of the social and historical world which Fielding, as the good classicist that he was, promises to represent in general and meaningful terms that will preserve that complexity but bring order and stability to it. Fielding finds himself in the awkward position of offering an ambitious revision of popular narrative tradition without discarding the central pleasures of such fiction – to re-present contemporary actuality for the reader‟s pleasure and curiosity and to submit to the tyranny of the literary marketplace.2 This remark typically has Fielding straddle the line between two literary forms, namely, the romance and the novel. Mid-century fiction sees a steadfast tendency to accommodate both the needs of small elites who promote long-standing classics, and the pressing demands of a fast-growing but poorly educated readership.