HENRY FIELDING
(1707-1754)
Henry Fielding, an early and contemptuos detractor of Pamela, found himlek so overhelmed by Clarissa that he was obliged to write to Richardson in 1749 to expres his enthusiasm for its fifth volume. 'Let the overflows of a Heart which you have filled brimful speak for me', he gushed without a hint of his customary irony, 'my compassion is often moved; but I think my admiration more.'
In sharp contrast to the said, bourgeois Richardson's, the gentlemanly Fielding's literary carrer had begun in the theatre with Love in Several Masques of 1728, had continued with two adaptations from Molièr (The Mock Doctor and The Miser) and with a sucessful series of sharp comedies, notably The Author's Farce, which satirically depicts the mouldy world of hacks and booksekkers, and the sensationally titled Rape upon Rape; or, the Justice Caught in his own Trap (both 1730). His exuberant burlesque Tom Thumb: A Tragedy (1730) (a revised version of which appeared as The Tragedy of Tragedies in 1731) plays ingeniously with the effects of parody, literary allusion, irregualr blank verse, bathos, and the mannerisms of academic editing. Fielding's flirtation with the theatre came to an abrupt end in 1737 when his political satires Pasquin and The Historical Register for 1736 provoked Walpole's Government into passing a Licensing Act which introduced official censorship and restricted London performances to two approved theatres.
Fielding had, however, learned much from his practical experience of the atage. His novels reveal a grasp of idiomatic speech and dialogue, a sound understanding of the patterning of incident and a relish for a well-established denouement. His delight in burlesque also influenced the first of his two antipathetic satires on Pamela, An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews of 1741.