E-Book Content
l^JP *
x
,v
The Moral
A
Basis of Fielding's Art
Study of Joseph Andrews
bv
MARTIN
C.
BATTESTIN
wmy-
V IM.
s
XV. 4Z
M ?£S
%
m&
1
-^v-
* $3^
K•
Fielding's Ethics
moral To grasp mind two the
implications of satire,
we must
hold
distinct thematic layers that function
in
concomitantly: a thesis attacking vice and
folly,
and an
antithesis comprising a positive ethical alternative, the
standard against which the satirized are measured.
The
Joseph Andrews, called to our
satiric thesis of
may be
attention in the author's Preface,
true Ridiculous" in society— affectation
vanity and hypocrisy.
defined as "the its
was simply
various manifestations, a quality that
usually
synonymous with
sense than
its
twin causes,
In practice, however, the object
of Fielding's savage indignation its
and
selfishness in
was
vanity, understood in a darker
use in the Preface would imply.
remarks Mr. Wilson,
"is
him
for
"Vanity,"
the worst of Passions, and
more
Mind than any other: for, as Selfishmuch more general than we please to allow it, so
apt to contaminate the ness
is
natural to hate and envy those who stand between us and the Good we desire" ( III, 3 ) And in The Champion (April 15, 1740), Fielding had declared that "vanity is
it is
.
the true source of ridicule";
"No passion hath
ascendant in the composition of which, in
its
worst form,
is
human
so
much
the
nature as vanity,"
"at the bottom of most villainy,
and the cause of most human miseries." 1 But perhaps the significance of the term to Fielding's satiric rationale is 52
Fielding's Ethics best revealed in a burlesque apostrophe in Joseph An-
much more than merely
drews; here vanity connotes
meaning
fecting false Characters" or "Ostentation," the to
which Fielding apparently confines
O
Vanity!
How
it
"af-
in his Preface:
little is
thy Force acknowledged, or thy
How
wantonly dost thou deceive Man-
Operations discerned!
kind under different Disguises! Sometimes thou dost wear the
Face of
Pity,
sometimes of Generosity: nay, thou hast the
Assurance even to put on those glorious Ornaments which belong only to heroick Virtue. Thou odious, deformed Monster!
whom
Priests
Poets ridiculed.
Is
have railed there a
thee for an Acquaintance in to enjoy thee in private?
Men
through their Lives.
at,
Philosophers despised, and
Wretch
abandoned publick?— yet, how few so
as to
own
will refuse
nay, thou are the Pursuit of most
The
practised to please thee; nor
is
greatest Villanies are daily
the meanest Thief below, or
Thy Embraces are often Reward of the private Robbery and the plundered Province. It is to pamper up thee, thou Harlot, that we attempt to withdraw from others what we do not want, or to withhold from them what they do. All our Passions are thy Slaves. Avarice itself is often no more than thy Handmaid, and even Lust t