Joseph Andrews: Fielding, the Magistrate Who Wrote Novels
Chapter Fifteen
Syllabus topic 1.2, "Joseph Andrews - Henry Fielding"
Pages 79 to 82 of 406
In one line
Joseph Andrews is a comic novel about a young footman who refuses his mistress, is dismissed, and walks home across England with an absent-minded parson, meeting on the road every kind of person who fails to help a stranger.
In the wording a student can write in an examination: Joseph Andrews, published in 1742, is Henry Fielding's first novel, which he described in his own preface as a comic epic poem in prose, and which follows Joseph and Parson Adams on a journey from London to their country parish, satirising hypocrisy, the clergy, the magistracy and the law of settlement along the way.
Why a law syllabus sets it
Fielding is the only novelist on this paper who was also a working judge. He was a barrister of the Middle Temple and, later, the magistrate at Bow Street in London, where he and his blind half-brother Sir John Fielding effectively organised the first professional police force in England. He wrote about crime and the poor because he spent his working life dealing with both.
The novel shows that experience directly. A young man is robbed, stripped and left in a ditch, and a coachful of respectable people argue about the legal risk of helping him. A parson and a girl are hauled before a country justice who commits them without hearing a word. Two people are sent to Bridewell on a deposition about a hazel twig worth three halfpence. None of these is a set piece invented for effect; they are the kind of thing that crossed a magistrate's desk.
The quarrel with Pamela, which the first chapter is about
In 1740 Samuel Richardson published Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, a novel in letters about a servant girl who resists her master's attempts to seduce her and is rewarded by his marrying her. It was enormously popular, and Fielding thought it dishonest: it made chastity look like a good investment.
Joseph Andrews begins as a parody of it. Joseph is Pamela's brother, a footman whose mistress, Lady Booby, tries to seduce him, and who refuses her on the same principles his sister made famous. Fielding then lets the joke go and writes something much larger, but the opening survives, and a student should be able to say what it is doing.
What "a comic epic poem in prose" means
Fielding's preface is the source of the phrase, and it is worth quoting exactly.
Now, a comic romance is a comic epic poem in prose; differing from comedy, as the serious epic from tragedy: its action being more extended and comprehensive; containing a much larger circle of incidents, and introducing a greater variety of characters.
Break the definition into its four parts, because that is how the question is set.
Joseph Andrews: Fielding, the Magistrate Who Wrote Novels
| Part | What Fielding means |
|---|---|
| Epic | A long work with a wide action, many incidents and many characters, unlike a stage comedy which is short and narrow |
| In prose | It has everything an epic has except metre, so it belongs to the epic kind though it is not in verse |
| Comic | Its fable and action are light and ridiculous rather than grave and solemn |
| Of low people | It introduces persons of inferior rank, where the serious romance sets the highest before us |
One distinction Fielding insists on, and examiners like it. He separates the comic from the burlesque. Burlesque, he says, exhibits what is monstrous and unnatural, and its pleasure comes from surprising absurdity, such as giving the manners of the highest to the lowest. The comic writer must confine himself strictly to nature. He admits burlesque in his diction, in the mock-heroic battle descriptions, but excludes it from his characters and sentiments.
The point for a student. Adams is funny, but he is not a caricature. He is a real man with real learning, real poverty and real courage, and Fielding's claim is that the comedy comes from observing him accurately, not from exaggerating him.
The shape of the book
Four books. Book I is London and the beginning of the journey. Book II is the road, the inns and the coach. Book III is Wilson's story and the roasting squire. Book IV is the return to the parish, where Lady Booby uses the law against the couple, and where Joseph's parentage is discovered.
The structure is a journey with interruptions, and Fielding uses two devices repeatedly. Every book opens with a chapter of the author talking directly to the reader, about writing lives, about divisions in authors, in praise of biography. And the journey is interrupted by inset stories told by people the travellers meet, most importantly the history of Leonora in Book II and the history of Mr Wilson in Book III.
The vocabulary you need
Curate. A clergyman who does the work of a parish for a small salary, usually paid by whoever holds the living. Adams is one, with a wife and six children on twenty-three pounds a year.
Living. A parish appointment with an income attached. Who gives it out is decided by the local landowner, which is why Adams cannot afford to offend Lady Booby.
Justice of the peace. A local magistrate, usually a country gentleman with no legal training, who could examine suspects, take depositions and commit them to gaol.
Mittimus. The warrant by which a justice commits a person to prison. It appears three times in this novel and is worth knowing.
Joseph Andrews: Fielding, the Magistrate Who Wrote Novels
Bridewell. A house of correction, where people were sent for short periods with hard labour.
Settlement. The parish that was legally obliged to relieve a pauper. The whole plot of Book IV turns on it.
Benefit of clergy. An old rule by which a person who could read was spared the death penalty for certain offences. By Fielding's time it survived mostly as a joke, and the justice makes one about it.
What beginners get wrong
They call it a parody of Pamela and stop. It starts as one and becomes something else by Book I chapter XI, when Joseph takes to the road and Adams takes over the book.
They think Joseph is the hero. He is the title character. Parson Adams is the centre of the novel and every reader knows it, including Fielding.
They give the definition without the distinction. "A comic epic poem in prose" earns half a mark. Explaining why it is epic, why prose, why comic, and how it differs from burlesque earns the rest.
A worked answer
Question. "What did Fielding mean by calling Joseph Andrews a comic epic poem in prose?"
A model answer. In his preface Fielding writes that a comic romance is a comic epic poem in prose, differing from comedy as the serious epic differs from tragedy. He calls it EPIC because its action is extended and comprehensive, containing a much larger circle of incidents and a greater variety of characters than a stage comedy can hold. He calls it IN PROSE because it has every part of an epic, namely fable, action, characters, sentiments and diction, and wants only metre, so it should be classed with the kind it differs from in one particular rather than with romances it resembles in none. He calls it COMIC because its fable and action are light and ridiculous where the serious romance is grave and solemn, and because it introduces persons of inferior rank where the grave romance sets the highest before us. He then separates the comic from the BURLESQUE: burlesque exhibits what is monstrous and unnatural and delights by surprising absurdity, while the comic writer must confine himself strictly to nature, and Fielding admits burlesque in his diction but excludes it from his characters and sentiments.
Why this scores. Four terms defined and one distinction made, each attributed to the preface, in the order Fielding uses them.
Quick revision
Published 1742, Henry Fielding's first novel, in four books.
Fielding was a barrister and later the Bow Street magistrate; the legal scenes come from that experience.
It begins as a parody of Richardson's Pamela, whose heroine is Joseph's sister.
Fielding's own description, from his preface: "a comic romance is a comic epic poem in prose", epic in the width of its action, prose because it lacks only metre, comic in its light action and low characters.
Joseph Andrews: Fielding, the Magistrate Who Wrote Novels
Comic is not burlesque: burlesque exhibits the monstrous and unnatural, the comic confines itself strictly to nature.
Book I London and the road; Book II the inns and the justice; Book III Wilson and the roasting squire; Book IV the parish, the law, and the discovery.
Test yourself
1. Give Fielding's own definition of the form and explain each part. "A comic romance is a comic epic poem in prose." Epic because its action is extended and comprehensive with many incidents and characters; in prose because it has every part of an epic except metre; comic because its fable and action are light and ridiculous rather than grave; and it introduces persons of inferior rank where a serious romance sets the highest before us.
2. What is the difference between the comic and the burlesque, according to Fielding? The burlesque exhibits what is monstrous and unnatural, and its pleasure comes from surprising absurdity, such as giving the manners of the highest to the lowest. The comic confines itself strictly to nature, and Fielding allows burlesque in his diction but excludes it from his characters and sentiments.
3. How is the novel connected to Pamela? Joseph is presented as Pamela's brother, and the opening parodies Richardson's novel by making a footman resist his mistress on the same principles of chastity that made Pamela famous.
4. Why is Fielding's biography relevant to this novel? Because he was a barrister and later the Bow Street magistrate, and the novel's justices, constables, depositions and settlement disputes are drawn from what he saw in that work rather than invented.
5. What is a mittimus, and why does it matter in this book? The warrant by which a justice commits a person to prison. It matters because the novel shows a mittimus being ordered before the accused has been heard, and later burnt the moment a squire asks for the prisoners.
The rest of this subject
These notes are cut from the University's printed syllabus. Open the syllabus itself, or the past papers, for the same subject.