The life of Henry Fielding : a critical biography / Ronald Paulson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Paulson, Ronald, 1930-2024.

Series:

Blackwell critical biographies ; 13.

Blackwell critical biographies ; [13]

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Fielding, Henry, 1707-1754.

Fielding, Henry.

Authors, English--18th century--Biography.

Authors, English.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xiii, 400 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; Malden, Mass. : Blackwell, 2000.

Summary:

This new biography argues that the writings of Henry Fielding are organized according to his shifting sense of career and experiments with various professions. Although he is best known for his novel Tom Jones, it is not sufficient to say that Fielding moved inexorably from one literary genre to the next -- from drama to essay, from satire to novel. When he was a playwright and theater manager, he thematized the theater and its workings in his writings, and he carried the trope on into his later works, though modifying it as other tropes crossed its path, in the professions of journalist, barrister, and finally magistrate.

Author Ronald Paulson also addresses the autobiographical character of Fielding's work: the figure of Tom Jones as a self-projection of some sort, seen from the perspective of a barrister or advocate for the defense; of Billy Booth as a conflation of Fielding and his father, seen now from the perspective of a grim but just magistrate. For Fielding, "storytelling" in the most general sense -- whether in play, essay, or novel -- is a covert means of expressing his own experiences, while the genre in which he recounts his memories derives from the givens of his time.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [380]-388) and index.

ISBN:

0631191461

OCLC:

42072268