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1 This Copy of the Thesis Has Been Supplied on Condition That Anyone University of Plymouth PEARL https://pearl.plymouth.ac.uk 04 University of Plymouth Research Theses 01 Research Theses Main Collection 2018 Character on Trial: Reading and Judgement in Henry Fielding's Works Mace, Rachel Kathryn http://hdl.handle.net/10026.1/10893 University of Plymouth All content in PEARL is protected by copyright law. Author manuscripts are made available in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite only the published version using the details provided on the item record or document. In the absence of an open licence (e.g. Creative Commons), permissions for further reuse of content should be sought from the publisher or author. This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with its author and that no quotation from the thesis and no information derived from it may be published without the author’s prior consent. 1 2 CHARACTER ON TRIAL: READING AND JUDGEMENT IN HENRY FIELDING’S WORKS by R. K. Mace A thesis submitted to Plymouth University in partial fulfilment for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Arts and Humanities Doctoral Training Centre 2018 3 Author’s Declaration At no time during the registration for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy has the author been registered for any other University award without prior agreement of the Graduate Sub-Committee. Work submitted for this research degree at Plymouth University has not formed part of any other degree either at Plymouth University or at another establishment. This study was financed with the aid of a HuMPA Research studentship from Plymouth University. A programme of advanced study was undertaken, which included modules focusing on Research Skills, Effective Reading, Archival Research, Presenting at Conferences, Career Planning, Getting Published in Journals, Preparing for the Viva and Graduate Teacher Training. Relevant seminars and conferences were regularly attended at which work was often presented. Presentations and Conferences Attended: • Paper presented at ‘BSECS Postgraduate Conference’, Queen’s University, Belfast, July 2015 • Conference organiser for ‘Museums of Memory: Narratives of Remembrance in the Arts and Humanities’, Plymouth University, June 2014 • Paper Presented at ‘University of Sheffield Postgraduate Colloquium: Identity’, University of Sheffield, May 2014 Word count of main body of thesis: 90,771 Signed…………….……………………………… Date……………………………………………… 4 Acknowledgements I would like to express my appreciation and thanks to my Director of Studies, Dr Bonnie Latimer, for her continuous and unwavering support throughout this PhD. Her knowledge, insights and guidance have been invaluable in shaping this research. She has also encouraged me to develop my skills beyond the scope of this PhD, giving me the opportunity to teach at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. Her patient guidance has helped me to develop as both a researcher and an academic. My sincere thanks also goes to the other members of my supervisory team, Dr Min Wild and Dr Annika Bautz, for their insightful comments, suggestions and encouragement. Their enthusiasm and energy throughout my studies has been boundless and has given me the confidence I needed to complete this work. I would also like to thank Min for taking the reins of Director of Studies during Bonnie’s period of leave and allowing me the space to explore new ideas. This thesis would not have been possible without the HuMPA Research Scholarship which I received from Plymouth University. This funding has given me the space and resources to complete this research. I would also like to thank Dr Kathryn Gray and Dr David Sergeant for their helpful insights and suggestions during the early stages of this project. Finally, I would like to thank my friends and family who have supported me throughout my studies. In particular, special thanks goes to my partner, Phillip Lower, for his understanding, love and support, and for providing copious cups of tea. 5 Character on Trial: Reading and Judgement in Henry Fielding’s Works by Rachel Kathryn Mace Abstract To be placed above the Reach of Deceit is to be placed above the Rank of a human Being - Henry Fielding, A Clear State of the Case of Elizabeth Canning, 1753 Throughout his literary and legal careers, Fielding was concerned with the difficulties of reading and judging character accurately. He saw society as being rife with deceptive and duplicitous individuals and articulated his concerns in his writing, offering various advices to his readers. This thesis examines Fielding’s changing approaches to characterization and his proposed methods for judging character. There is a strong tradition within Fielding criticism, particularly prevalent in the mid-twentieth century, of seeing Fielding’s characters as ‘essential’, that is to say, innate and unchanging: the product of his theory of ‘Conservation of Character’. As such, his characters are often deemed easy-to-read and lacking fully-determined internal lives. Since the mid-1990s, however, critics have begun to argue that his characters are more dynamic than first supposed. While critics have noted the role of judgement in Fielding’s novels, it has not yet been explored in depth in his plays. With some notable exceptions, few studies have explored the interrelation between his novels and plays in a sustained way. I argue that Fielding examines questions of discerning character in both his plays and his novels, and that the early plays are essential for understanding the concepts which are central to his theory of judgement. This thesis contributes to studies of Fielding in three ways: by intervening in long-standing discussions of Fielding’s 6 characterization; by analysing themes of good nature, perception and gossip which develop from his early dramatic work into the better-known novels; and by exploring its relationship to wider ideas about character in the eighteenth-century theatre and novel. Beginning with his plays, I consider Fielding’s presentation of the judgement of character in a range of his works from 1728-1753. I suggest that the early plays gave Fielding the space in which to experiment with the presentation of character and his relationship to his audience. His novels build upon concepts first introduced in the plays, such as good nature, perception and gossip, which he suggests are key to perceiving character. Fielding encourages his audiences and readers to engage with character as a process of discovery (as it is in life), but does not punish or mock them when they make mistakes. In doing so, he gives his audiences and readers indulgences he could ill afford in his magisterial career: time for judgement and the luxury of occasionally being proved wrong. 7 Contents Introduction 1 I. ‘The Whole World Acts the Player’: Performing Character in Fielding’s 24 Early Plays (1728 – 1730) Character on the Eighteenth-Century Stage 29 ‘Under false Vizors and Habits’: Performance in Love in Several 35 Masques (1728) Judging Degraded Taste in The Author’s Farce (1730) 48 II. The Great Man and The Great Mogul: Reading Caricatures in Fielding’s 68 Dramatic Satires (1736-1737) From Character to Caricature 70 Conflating Caricatures in The Historical Register (1736) 77 The Great Mogul of Haymarket: Eurydice Hiss’d (1737) 98 III. Fronti Nulla Fides: Reading Deception in Fielding’s Criminal Biographies 107 (1743-1746) ‘The Artful and Cunning Part of Mankind’: Detecting Deception in 112 Fielding’s 1740s Works Deconstructing ‘Greatness’ and ‘Goodness’ in Jonathan Wild (1743) 120 Reading Gender in The Female Husband (1746) 140 IV. Gossiping About Character: Storytelling and Oral Testimonies in Joseph 155 Andrews (1742) and Tom Jones (1749) Revealing Character Through Storytelling 157 Speculating on Character: Gossip and Idle Talk 172 Oral Testimonies and Errors of Judgement 190 V. On the Edge of Darkness: Malicious Gossip and the Problem of Good Nature 202 of Good Nature in Amelia (1751) Responding to Malicious Gossip 207 Ocular Demonstration and the Problem of Reading Good 221 Nature Conclusion 233 Bibliography 242 8 Figures Figure 1. Anon. c. 1753-1760. The true Pictures of Elizabeth Canning and 3 Mary Squires, [Print]. British Museum Collection Online. Figure 2. William Hogarth, 1737, The Distressed Poet [Print] British Museum 56 Collection Online. Figure 3. George Bickham the Younger, 1743, The Late P—m-r M-n----r. 82 [Print] British Museum Collection Online. Figure 4. George Bickham the Younger, 1740, The Stature of a Great Man 83 or, the English Colossus. [Print] British Museum Collection Online. Figure 5. Anon. after John Laguerre, c. 1733, The Stage Mutiny [Print] 94 British Museum Collection Online. Figure 6. William Hogarth, 1736, ‘Morning’, Four Times of Day, plate 1 199 [Print] British Museum Collection Online. Tables Table 1. Number of Publications in peer-reviewed English language journals 15 and books on Henry Fielding from 2007-2016 9 Introduction To be placed above the Reach of Deceit is to be placed above the Rank of a human being -- Henry Fielding, A Clear State of the Case of Elizabeth Canning, 1753 On 1 January 1753, an eighteen-year-old servant girl, one Elizabeth Canning, went missing on her way home from her uncle’s house. Nearly a month later she returned, emaciated, bruised and missing several items of clothing. The story that emerged of her ordeal would be one of the first causes célèbres, provoking the conviction of three people, a pamphlet war, and it would divide opinion in London spectacularly. In her testimony, given to the Justice of Westminster, Henry Fielding, on the 7 February 1753, Canning described how she had been robbed and kidnapped on her way home from her uncle’s house by two men. She was held at the house of an infamous brothel madam, Susannah Wells, and there met a gypsy woman by the name of Mary Squires, who ‘promised to give her fine Cloaths [sic] if she would go their Way, which Expression she understood to mean the becoming a Prostitute, she utterly refused to comply with’ (Fielding 1988a, 287).
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