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1. Early life • Henry Fielding (1707 ～1754) was born at Sharpham Park, the house of his maternal grandfather in Somerset. His mother died when he was eleven, and when his father remarried Henry was sent to Eton. There he was happy, enjoying his studies. At 19 he attempted to elope with a beautiful heiress, but failed. He settled in London, determined to earn his living as a dramatist.
Somerset Eton
2. Works • 1728Love in Several Masques • In the follow years before 1737 • Tom Thumb • Pasquin • The Licensing Act of 1737 • 1739 ～40 • The Champion
1740Pamela • 1741An apology for the life of Mrs Shamela Andrews • 1742The Adventures of Joseph Andrews and his Friend, Mr Abraham Adams • 1743Miscellanies • A Journey from this World to the • The Life and Death of Jonathan Wild the Great.
1749The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling • 1751Amelia • 1753Proposal for making effective provision for the Poor • 1755The Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon, published posthumously
3. Important position in English Literature • Fielding is generally agreed to be an innovating master of the highest originality. He himself believed he was the founder of a new province of writing. Of all the eighteenth-century novelists he was the first to set out, both in theory and practice, to write specifically “comic epics in prose,” the first to give the modern novel its structure and style.
Before him, the relating of story in a novel was either in the epistolary form, as in Richardson's Pamela, or the picaresque form through the mouth of the principal character, as in Swift's Gulliver's Travels, but Fielding adopted “the third-person narration,” in which the author becomes the “all-knowing God.” Thus he can think the thought of all his characters, and he is able to present not only their external behaviors but also the activities of their inner minds.
In planning his stories, he tries to retain the grand epical form of the classical works but at the same time keeps faithful to his realistic presentation of common life as it is. His comic epics in prose are in effect the first modern novels in the history of English literature, leading straight to the works of Dickens and Thackeray.
4. Features of his works • Fielding weaves moral teaching into his writings. As an educated man, he firmly believed in the educational function of literature. He shared the contemporary view of the English enlighteners that the purpose of the novel was not just to amuse, but to instruct. The object of his novel was to present a faithful picture of life, “the just copies of human manners,” with sound teaching woven into their texture, to teach men to know themselves, their proper spheres and appropriate manners.
Fielding's language is simple and familiar, but extremely vivid and vigorous. His sentences are always distinguished by logic and rhythm, and his structure carefully planned towards an inevitable ending. His works are also noted for lively, dramatic dialogues and other theatrical devices such as suspense and coincidence.
5. Tom Jones • (1)The story • (2) The purpose of writing this novel
(2). The purpose of writing this novel • His purpose of writing this novel is to make provision “no other than human nature,” that is, to recommend goodness and innocence, and criticize greed, cruelty, selfishness, and hypocrisy. In Tom Jones, the author expresses his sympathy for the poor and unfortunate and protests strongly against social injustice and political corruption in his society. He recommends goodness and innocence embodied in Tom Jones and emphasizes the educational function of reason (ration) on Tom which makes Tom throw off his follies of youth and become mature by learning from life experience. He makes merciless attack on greed, cruelty, hypocrisy and self-centeredness of the upper class exemplified and represented by Master Blifil.
