Doctors debate while patient dies in Hogarth’s “Harlot’s Progress,” plate V I’ve talked several times about my friend Alan, who has been battling cancer for a while now. At present he is still alive, still working out at the gym, and still in the dark about what kind of cancer he has. He longs for […]
Tag Archives: Henry Fielding
Bridging the 18th-Century Generation Gap
Yesterday my 18th Century Couples Comedy class concluded our discussion of Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones. We spent a lot of time talking about how it was popular with youthful readers in the 18th century, an idea I owe to J. Paul Hunter, my dissertation director at Emory University. Paul explores the issue in Before Novels: […]
A Punch in the Gut of Excessive Sobriety
Punch and Judy Let’s declare another comedy Friday and celebrate again the wit of Henry Fielding. My first passage is a continuation of the mock epic encomium (expression of praise) to the book’s heroine that I posted yesterday: Reader, perhaps thou hast seen the statue of the Venus de Medicis. Perhaps, too, thou hast seen the gallery […]
Idealism Under Siege, Irony to the Rescue
The Princess Bride, True Love Triumphant In my Tom Jones class earlier this week, one of my students (Erin Hendrix) noted that one of the passages made her think of a scene in the movie The Princess Bride. This led to a discussion of how both works employ irony to help us hold on to […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Idealism, Irony, Princess Bride, Tom Jones, Umberto Eco Comments closed
Satirizing the Intolerant
Daniel Defoe My daughter-in-law sent me a wonderful poem by Daniel Defoe, “A True Born Englishman,” posted by Andrew Sullivan in response to a Patrick Buchanan editorial. Buchanan’s column was one of those hateful “they’re taking our country away from us” pieces, and Sullivan rightly asks who this “us” is. As Sullivan’s translates it, Buchanan is […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "True Born Englishman", Daniel Defoe, Nationalism, racism, Tom Jones Comments closed
Henry Fielding’s Comic Touch
I’ve just written a series of serious posts about literature and virtue, but since it’s Friday, let me go out of the week on a light note. Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones is not admired the way it once was, but one would be hard pressed to find any novel that is funnier. I share here […]
For Vice: Novels, Not Stern Lectures
William Hogarth, “The Harlot’s Progress,” plate 4. Continuing our discussion of whether literature can teach virtue, I present as an interesting case study Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, which I am currently teaching in my 18th Century Couples Comedy class. I’ve mentioned in a past post that moralist Samuel Johnson attacked Tom Jones for corrupting young people. Furthermore, the Bishop of London accused […]
Danger: Georgian Teens Reading Novels
Samuel Johnson If we need proof that adolescence has always been a difficult age, we can look at those 18th century moralists that were panicked about young people reading novels. Of course if you’re young (to build off of a comment that Barbara makes in response to Friday’s post), part of the fun of reading […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged adolescence, censorship, Novel reading, Rambler #4, Samuel Johnson, Tom Jones Comments closed
