HENRY FIELDING'S ARISTOPHANIC COMEDY Item Type text; Dissertation-Reproduction (electronic) Authors Loveday, Thomas Elliot Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 05/10/2021 18:25:42 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/298506 INFORMATION TO USERS This was produced from a copy of a document sent to us for microfilming. While the most advanced technological means to photograph and reproduce this document have been used, the quality is heavily dependent upon the quality of the material submitted. The following explanation of techniques is provided to help you understand markings or notations which may appear on this reproduction. 1. 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ZEEB ROAD, ANN ARBOR, MI 48IOE HENRY FIELDING'S ARISTOPHANIC COMEDY by Thomas Elliot Loveday A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 19 7 9 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE I hereby recommend that this dissertation prepared under my direction by Thomas Elliot Loveday entitled Henry Fielding's Aristophanic Comedy be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy c 6 ; X / / 'J 77 Dissertation ipirector Date As members of the Final Examination Committee, we certify that we have read this dissertation and agree that it may be presented for final defense. tj.]?i £ Pvl'CS)'> 1 0 Date i ,/<- 1- C-,^4 A r- r- K , <7 's K //)-'( /] i J f Date i j / t ^«•j v. <<•' '/--y (. (' Cti' -Pi £ /JU ic ,v /1 7( f}/7, / |. / - Date tlU U/sc't MA ,T/i /9y? Date Date Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent on the candidate's adequate performance and defense thereof at the final oral examination. 11/78 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at The University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the head of the major department or the Dean of the Graduate College when in his judgment the proposed use of the material is in the interests of scholarship. In all other instances, however, permission must be obtained from the author. SIGNED: ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my patient and loving family for their support and encouragement during the many years of this project. Several professors have helped me, especially Dr. J. Douglas Canfield, who diligently corrected my writing and offered many helpful suggestions; and Dr. Gerald M. McNiece, whose enthusiasm and devotion to litera­ ture are irresistibly contagious. I never would have finished without these fine people. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT V CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 1 2. DRAMATIC SATIRE 24 3. CHARACTERIZATION 74 4. PLOT STRUCTURE 104 5. ABUSE OF LANGUAGE 136 6. CONCLUSION . 155 REFERENCES 168 iv ABSTRACT Henry Fielding's dramatic satires show strong similarity to the comedies of Aristophanes. Both play­ wrights believe that the universe is ordered and that man should order his society to reflect that ultimate order. They believe that personal greed and ambition fragment society, and their plays reaffirm social unity and common interest. They write dramatic satire to chastise those people who subvert society's welfare and to correct those who misuse society's institutions. Eight of Fielding's best plays--The Author's Farce, Tom Thumb, The Tragedy of Tragedies, Don Quixote, Pasquin, The Historical Register for the Year 1736, Eurydice, and Eurydice Hissed—span his dramatic career and can be called "Aristophanic"; they ignore the romantic interest and the consequent circumvention of blocking characters by young lovers or their witty servants so typical of the New Comedy of Plautus, Terence, Shakespeare, and the Restoration. They are dramatic satire, with the emphasis on satire. Several times during his career, Fielding mentions his admiration of Aristophanes, and, in 1742, he translated and edited Aristophanes' Plutus. The main purpose of Old Comedy is social improve­ ment, not entertainment. The satire attacks popular v literary and political figures, ridiculing wrong action and recommending right. As Aristophanes criticizes Euripides and Cleon, so Fielding criticizes Colley Cibber and Robert Walpole for their abuses of public trust in the theater and in government. Both playwrights create single-trait characters, sometimes caricatures of real people, and both use per­ sonified abstractions to develop the satire rather than develop believable personalities. Both concentrate on correcting the relationships of individuals to public institutions, for these institutions—literature, politics, law, medicine, and religion--should hold society together. Personal and general welfare depend upon them. Fielding and Aristophanes use onstage choruses to guide the audience response to the stage action, and these onstage auditors often interrupt the flow of action for the sake of clarifying and sharpening the satire. The episodic plots of the plays allegorically present people and situa­ tions, humorously exaggerated, which the audience recog­ nizes as serious topical allusions. A prime target of their satire is the abuse of language by politicians, literary figures, and professional men. Both playwrights attack those who use language to achieve interests which neither reflect the truth nor promote social harmony. For both, language should reflect factual truth and the profound reality of universal order. vii Both use a stage-equals-state metaphor to impress the audience that the stage presentation relates directly to their real life experience; the audience is jarred from the passive acceptance of amusement to the active role of social criticism. Seeing Fielding's plays in the Aristophanic tradi­ tion helps us to appreciate the deep belief in Providence which his plays and novels reveal. Fielding's narrative voices in the novels are related to the choral voices of Aristophanes. Although in his later years Fielding criti­ cized Aristophanes' bawdry, his dramatic satire of the 1730's and his edition of Aristophanes' Plutus demonstrate his admiration of and indebtedness to the Greek master. CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Students of English literature occasionally note in their books about Henry Fielding that he has qualities reminiscent of Aristophanes, and classical scholars mention Henry Fielding in their books about Aristophanes. 2 Yet no one demonstrates the direct influence of Aristophanes upon Henry Fielding's play. Fielding acknowledged his indebted­ ness to the Greek master of comedy and expressed his admira- tion for him at the same time that he was writing his plays. 3 1. Arther Murphy, "An Essay on the Life of Henry Fielding," The Works of Henry Fielding, Esq. (London: A. Millar, 1762), rpt. in The Lives of Henry Fielding and Samuel Johnson, ed. Matthew Grace (Gainesville, Florida: Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1968), p. 12. See also Wilbur Cross, The History of Henry Fielding, 3 vols. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1918), I, 83, 85, 225; Ian Watt, The Rise of the Novel (Berkeley: University of Cali­ fornia Press, 1957), p. 284; and Henry Fielding, The Historical Register for the Year 1736 and Eurydice Hissed, ed. William W. Appleton, Regents Restoration Drama Series (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1967), p. xi. 2. K. J. Dover, Aristophanic Comedy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), p. 73; and Alexis Solomos, The Living Aristophanes, trans. Alexis Solomos and Marvin Felheim (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1974), p. 262. The former is hereafter cited in the text as "Dover." 3. In the Prologue to The Coffee-House Politician and in the Dedication to Don Quixote in England, Henry Fielding, The Complete Works of Henry Fielding, ed.