Exercises

1. Tell the story of Henry Fielding's life.

2. What problems did Fielding deal with in his plays? What put an end to his work as a playwright?

3. What are the merits of his novels?

4. What can you say about the common man of the early bourgeois novelists? Is he a worker, a peasant or a person of good breeding with a fair chance of acquiring fortune?

5. Why was Tom Jones's character popular with contemporary readers?

6. What features of Tom are revealed in Book XII, Chapter XIV?

7. Speak about Fielding's attitude towards "the highwayman". Does he make the reader despise him?

8. Have you seen the novel filmed? What is your impression? Compare the film with the novel.

THE SENTIMENTALISTS

The optimism felt in literature during the first half of the 18^th century gave way to a certain depression as years went by. Towards the middle of the century a new literary trend, that of Sentimentalism, appeared. The first representative of the sentimental school in English literature was Samuel Richardson. His novels "Pamela or Virtue Rewarded" (1740), "Clarissa" (1748), and "The History of Sir Charles Grandison" (1754) are works in which the inner world of the characters is shown. Richardson glorifies middle-class virtues as opposed to the immorality of the aristocracy. He makes his readers sympathize with his heroes. These novels were very much admired in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. They were well known in Russia. Much in the works of the novelists of the time does not appeal to readers today; but the novels of these writers are full of humour and truthful descriptions of men and things, and as such will always be read.

Influenced by the French writer Rousseau the sentimentalists thought that civilization was harmful to humanity. They believed that man should live close to nature and be free from the corrupting influence of town life. In Oliver Goldsmith's novel "The Vicar of Wakefield" (1766) and Laurence Sterne's "Sentimental Journey", as well as in other novels of the time, the corruption of town life is contrasted to the happy patriarchal life in the country. Oliver Goldsmith was also a poet. His famous poem "The Deserted Village" shows England at the time of the expropriation of the peasants.

Exercises

1. Why did the literary trend of Sentimentalism appear towards the middle of the 18^th century?

2. What did the sentimentalists show in their novels and why?