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HENRY FIELDING
Unlike Defoe and Richardson, Fielding (1707-1754) [E1] [E2] [I1] [F1] [ES1] [ES2] was born into an aristocratic family in 1707 in Somerset, and was educated first at Eton, where he studied the classics, then at the German University of Leyden, where he studied law. Compelled to return to England by a decline in his family fortunes, and pressed by need for money, he took to playwriting, often attacking and satirizing Walpole in his plays, as he was against the social and political corruption of his time. A man of the world, high-spirited and fond of gaiety and women, in 1734 he married Miss Cradock, a beautiful woman whom he deeply loved and whose money allowed him to lead a pleasant and expensive life as a country gentleman. He also took an active part in the political controversies of his time, editing periodicals in which he always showed liberal and anti-Jacobite feelings.
When his playwriting career came to an end, because of the Licensing Act of 1737 against political satire, Fieldings decided to resume his studies of law and, in 1740, he was called to the Bar. Meanwhile he started writing novels.
After his wife’s death, and a much criticized second marriage to his wife’s maid, in 1748 he was appointed Justice of the Peace for Westminster and, in 1749, London police magistrate. This job, which he always carried on with zeal and intelligence, put him into contact with poor and criminal people of the town and, driven by a great concern for them, he did his best to improve prison conditions and reform judicial proceedings.
In the vain hope of recovering his health, ruined by work and personal problems, in 1754 he left for Portugal, where he eventually died, a few month after his arrival.
Fielding’s literary activity covered many fields:
- NEWPAPERS: he contributed to “The Champion”, “The True Patriot”, “TheJacobite’s Journal” and “The Covent Garden Journal”.
- PLAYS: he wrote a remarkable number of plays, the most popular of which were Tom Thumb (1730), in which he burlesqued heroic tragedy; Pasquin (1736) and The Historical Register for the year 1736 (1737), two political and social satires.
- NOVELS:
- An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews (1741), a parody of Richardson’s Pamela.
- The history of the adventures of Joseph Andrews and his Friend Mr. Abram Adams (1742), written in Imitation of the manner of Cervantes, author of Don Quixote” (1742), in which, reversing the parody started in the previous work, Fielding at first imagined that Pamela’s good and modest brother, Joseph, had, like his sister, to defend his virtue against the attacks of Lady Booby. But he soon dropped the original idea of writing a satire, and produced a real novel in which Joseph, after many adventures, was finally able to return home, where he married a good and beautiful girl.
- The Life of Jonathan Wild, the Great ((1743), concerning the famous highwayman hanged in 1725. This work is deeply satirical, since Wild, described in a mock-heroic way as a hero, who brilliantly ends a successful career on the scaffold, became a pretext for attacking many so-called great people, especially politicians, who were ready to put aside any moral principle in order to attain success.
- The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749) is Fielding’s most famous work. It reveals the full extent of the author’s satirical gift, telling the story of a foundling who, after many vicissitudes, manages to discover his real origin and marry the woman he loves.
- Amelia (1751), a novel about social problems. It is the story of the wife of a rather hard-up invalid soldier who, because of his love of intrigue, is eventually imprisoned. The ending is happy since Amelia inherits a fortune and her husband is converted to a moral life. Unlike the previous novels, Amelia is not satirical, but more deeply concerned with social problems.
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