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Xerox University Microfilms 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 I 75-3194 SIDDENS, James Michael, 1943- DEFOE'S ROGUE NOVELS AND THE PICARESQUE TRADITION: A READING OF CAPTAIN SINGLETON, MOLL FLANDERS, COLONEL JACK',"AND ROXANA'.' The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1974 Language and Literature, modern Xerox University Microfilms,Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED. DEFOE'S ROGUE NOVELS AND THE PICARESQUE TRADITION: A READING OF CAPTAIN SINGLETON, MOLL FLANDERS, COLONEL JACK, AND ROXANA DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By James Michael Siddens, B.A., M.A. * * * * * The Ohio State University 1974- Reading Committee: Approved By Daniel R. Barnes Edward P. J. Corbett A, E, Wallace Maurer (a) l-c-c, lA-'i-' Adviser Department of English ACKNOWLEDGMENT I wish to thank my adviser, Doctor A. E. Wallace Maurer, for his help in directing my dissertation. VITA May 15, 194-3 . • Born - Minneapolis, Minnesota 1965 ............ B.A., Kansas State University Manhattan, Kansas 1965-1967 . Teaching Assistant, English Department The Ohio State University Columbus, Ohio 1967 ............ M.A., The Ohio State University Columbus, Ohio 1967-1968 . Lecturer, English Department The Ohio State University, Marion Branch Marion, Ohio 1968-1970 . Military Service 1970-1974 . Teaching Associate, English Department The Ohio State University Columbus, Ohio FIELD OF STUDY Eighteenth-Century English Literature iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENT . ............................... ii VITA ............................................... iii INTRODUCTION....................................... 1 Chapter I. DEFOE AND PICARESQUE EXPERIENCE............ 23 II. CAPTAIN SINGLETON.......................... 94 III. MOLL FLANDERS................ 132 IV. COLONEL J A C K .............................. 193 V. R O X A N A .................................... 227 CONCLUSION......................................... 259 WORKS CONSULTED ................................... 262 Introduction Several recent critics of Defoe's rogue novels, seek­ ing to align Captain Singleton, Moll Flanders, Colonel Jack, and Roxana with the picaresque tradition, have seized upon incidental conventions and other features of plot which De­ foe uses in common with the picaresque authors. The ten­ dency has been to isolate such features and to locate in them the essence of the picaresque; Defoe, such critics say, is a picaresque author because his works also embody the conventions of picaresque fiction. Another tendency has been to identify the "formlessness" of the picaresque (a term that variously means episodic in structure or.deficient in meaning) as its remarkable characteristic and to point to a similar quality in Defoe. Neither approach does justice either to the picaresque or to Defoe because neither gets at what makes the two orders of fiction unique and at the same time vastly different from each other: their respective at­ titudes toward experience and the formal expression of those attitudes in individual novels themselves. Symptomatic of the impulse to look for "picaresqueness" in easily identifiable features is D. J. Dooley's observa­ tion that "Almost automatically we classify The History of Colonel Jacque. Moll Flanders, and Roxana as picaresque works. Defoe's peripatetic hero or heroine is usually en- 2 gaged in a series of adventures which take him through high society and low; he describes his exploits with gusto and frequently with some pride in his ability to outwit others; and if deception is succeeded by repentance, the same was true of Guzman de Alfarache."^ Similarly, Stuart Miller in­ cludes Moll Flanders in The Picaresque Novel, remarking on two classes of features— those of plot and those of charac­ ter— that make it picaresque: in the first class are the conventional "rhythm," the pervasiveness of "fortune," and the reliance on "accident" as a plot device; in the second are Moll's picaresque "origins," her "picaresque education," her ability to assume "protean form," and her capacity for 2 "loneliness and love." In Literature and the Delinquent, Alexander A. Parker finds "three elements in the subject mat­ ter [of Moll Flanders] that ally it closely with its prede­ cessors." These turn out to be Moll's "disreputable ori­ gins," her "desire to be a gentlewoman," and her redemption by a "religious conversion."^ Finally, a recent disserta­ tion proposes "an investigation of certain arbitrary ele­ ments of the picaresque tradition which Defoe included in Roxana" as a means of proving that "Roxana can be seen as lL the final development of Defoe’s picaresque leanings All four critics just surveyed find the essence of pica­ resque fiction in the incidents and conventions of its plot and characterization rather than in its fundamental atti­ tudes toward experience, where I would say its essence re­ sides. Their impulse is harmful because it distracts us from what makes the picaresque genre unique. Furthermore, by calling Captain Singleton. Moll Flanders. Colonel Jack, and Roxana picaresque because they incorporate ''picaresque" incidents and conventions, such critics fail to define pre­ cisely Defoe's relationship to the literature of roguery. Certainly one can go through Defoe's novels and find coun­ terparts to the standard furniture of the picaresque— the audacious crimes, the harsh punishment, the variety of hu­ man types; Defoe uses them all at one time or another. In­ deed, it would be surprising if he did not, since he chose to write about the criminal underworld of the eighteenth century, where we know such elements were commonplace. We must remember, incidentally, that many of the same features are present in romances, adventure stories, travel narra­ tives, and criminal autobiographies— all of which influenced Defoe to some degree— as well as in picaresque novels. The critical question is whether these "picaresque" elements mean the same in Defoe as they do in the picaresque novel. I will argue that, to the extent that we can infer Defoe's attitudes from his fiction, they do not. The other impulse, to condemn picaresque fiction as formless and meaningless— and, implicitly or overtly, to con­ demn Defoe as well— receives classic expression in Arnold Kettle's Introduction to the English Novel: "what places Defoe in the picaresque tradition," says Kettle, "is . • his lack of pattern." Like Defoe's works, according to Ket­ tle, such picaresque classics as Lazarillo de Tormes. The Rogue, and The Unfortunate Traveller "are without pattern."^ Kettle does, it is true, later qualify and modify his views on Moll Flanders, hut he does not, so far as I can tell, sig- nificantly alter his remarks on the picaresque tradition. 6 Like Kettle, Shiv K. Kumar (in his introduction to the Ox­ ford English Novels edition of Captain Singleton) sees in Captain Bob "something of a picaro." but unlike Kettle he re­ jects the application of the picaresque to the criticism of Defoe in favor of "a more rewarding approach to the under­ standing" of the novel, namely "an assessment of Defoe's 7 concern with moral, ethical, and religious values."' We do an injustice to the picaresque tradition as well as to Defoe when we say, as Kettle does, that Defoe's works are pica­ resque because they lack pattern. By the same token, we ig­ nore the: clearly defined meaning of the picaresque when we imply, as Kumar does, that the picaresque has no bearing up­ on "Defoe's concern with moral, ethical, and religious val­ ues." For one thing, the picaresque novel is demonstrably not "without pattern"; to argue that it is so is to ignore its carefully controlled attitude toward experience, usually sinful experience, which gives form to an otherwise diverse subject matter. For another, while it may be true that De­ foe does not "formulate this ] sense of life in generalized Q terms," it is not necessarily true that he inherited the practice from the picaresque writers. It is far more likely a result of his peculiar way of looking at the lives of the characters he presents, whose stories share many of the sur­ face details but few of the basic impulses of their pica­ resque forerunners.