Approaches to Teaching the Novels of Henry Fielding
- Editors: Jennifer Preston Wilson, Elizabeth Kraft
- Pages: xii & 244
- Published: 2015
- ISBN: 9781603292245 (Paperback)
- ISBN: 9781603292238 (Hardcover)
“This collection from MLA merits a prominent place in any literary scholar’s library. Fielding scholars will want to recommend it as an introduction, and others will want to read it as a series of insights into the evolution of the novel.”
—New Perspectives on the Eighteenth Century
The works of Henry Fielding, though written nearly three hundred years ago, retain their sense of comedy and innovation in the face of tradition, and they easily engage the twenty-first-century student with many aspects of eighteenth-century life: travel, inns, masquerades, political and religious factions, the ’45, prisons and the legal system, gender ideals and realities, social class.
Part 1 of this volume, “Materials,” discusses the available editions of Joseph Andrews, Tom Jones, Shamela, Jonathan Wild, and Amelia; suggests useful critical and contextual works for teaching them; and recommends helpful audiovisual and electronic resources. The essays of part 2, “Approaches,” demonstrate that many of the methods and models used for one novel—the romance tradition, Fielding’s legal and journalistic writing, his techniques as a playwright, the ideas of Machiavelli—can be adapted to others.
Stephen C. Behrendt
Scott Black
Pamela S. Bromberg
Jill Campbell
Leigh G. Dillard
J. A. Downie
James Evans
Carl Fisher
Joshua Grasso
George E. Haggerty
Anthony J. Hassall
Nicholas Hudson
Regina Janes
Christopher D. Johnson
Eric Leuschner
Nancy A. Mace
Brian McCrea
Lisa Maruca
Adam Potkay
Manushag N. Powell
Chloe Wigston Smith
Rivka Swenson
Earla Wilputte
Preface to the Volume (ix)
Part One: Materials
Texts for Teaching (3)
Visual, Audiovisual, and Electronic Resources (15)
Classroom Contexts (17)
Part Two: Approaches
Introduction (23)
Backgrounds
Social Contexts: Politics, Law, Religion, Class, and Gender (30)
Literary Contexts: Epic, Romance, Drama, and the Novel (36)
Generic Contexts: Nonrealist Traditions of the Novel (42)
Authorial Contexts: Connections between Fielding’s Novels and His Legal and Journalistic Writing (48)
Book History Contexts: The Visual Fielding (54)
Joseph Andrews
Staging the Reading Play in Joseph Andrews (64)
Teaching Fielding’s Idea of the Novel with Joseph Andrews (71)
Joseph Andrews and the European Novel (77)
Pulling the Anglican Thread: Using Parson Adams’s Torn Cassock to Teach Fielding’s Complicated Art (83)
Finding the “Mark” of the Mother: The Feminized Birth Mystery and an Approach to Teaching Fielding (89)
Joseph Andrews as Travel Literature (93)
Fielding, Print Culture, and the Pamela Media Event (100)
Tom Jones
Tom Jones as the Cornerstone in the Course The English Novel through Austen (110)
Narrative Voice in Tom Jones (116)
Fielding’s Style (123)
Formalism, Historicism, and The Author’s Farce: Making the Modern Author in Tom Jones (130)
Sophia’s Smile: Reading Jenny Cameron in the Margins of Tom Jones (138)
Tom Jones and the Comic Tradition (146)
Fielding’s Critique of Governance in Tom Jones (151)
Shamela, Jonathan Wild, and Amelia
The Sham Spirit of the Age (157)
Jonathan Wild, a Novel for all Classrooms (163)
Destined for Greatness: Hero Worship and Jonathan Wild (171)
Amelia on Trial (180)
Friendship and Marriage in Amelia (188)
Amelia and the “Choice of Life” Novel (194)
Notes on Contributors (201)
Survey Participants (205)
Works Cited (207)
Index (231)
“This is a splendid collection. . . . [A] valuable volume for anyone teaching or indeed reading Fielding’s novels.”
—Studies in English Literature 1500–1900
