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1、Henry Fielding (1707-1754) British writer, playwright and journalist, founder of the English Realistic school in literature with Samuel Richardson. Fieldings career as a dramatist has been shadowed by his career as a novelist. His aim as a novelist was to write comic epic poems in prose - he once de
2、scribed himself as “great, tattered bard.“When Im not thanked at all, Im thanked enough; Ive done my duty, and Ive done no more.“ (from Tom Thumb the Great, 1730) Henry Fielding was born at Sharpham Park, Somerset. He was by birth a gentleman, close allied to the aristocracy. His father was a nephew
3、 of the 3th Earl of Denbigha, and mother was from a prominent family of lawyers. Fielding grew up on his parents farm at East Stour, Dotset. His mother died when Fielding was eleven, and when his father remarried, Henry was sent to Eton. He studied at Eton College (1719-1724), where he learned to lo
4、ve ancient Greek and Roman literature. Encouraged by his cousin, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Fielding started his career as a writer in London. In 1728 he wrote two plays, of which LOVE IN SEVERAL MASQUES was successfully performed at Drury Lane. In the same year he went to the University of Leiden i
5、n the Netherlands, enlarging his knowledge of classical literature. After returning to England, he devoted himself to writing for the stage. Fielding also became a manager of the Little Theatre in the Haymarket. In 1730 he had four plays produced, among them TOM THUMB, which is his most famous and p
6、opular drama. According to a story, it made Swift laugh for the second time in his life. In 1736 Fielding took over the management of the New Theatre, writing for it among others the satirical comedy PASQUIN. For several years Fieldings life was happy and prosperous. However, Fieldings sharp burlesq
7、ues satirizing the government gained the attention of the prime minister Sir Robert Walpole and Fieldings career in theater was ended by Theatrical Licensing Act - directed primarily at him. In search for an alternative career he became editor of the magazine Champion, an opposition journal. After s
8、tudies of law Fielding was called in 1740 to the bar. Because of increasing illness - he suffered from gout and asthma - Fielding was unable to pursue his legal career with any consistency. Between the years 1729 and 1737 Fielding wrote 25 plays but he acclaimed critical notice with his novels. The
9、best known are THE HISTORY OF TOM JONES, A FOUNDLING (1749), in which the tangled comedies of coincidence are offset by the neat, architectonic structure of the story, and THE HISTORY OF THE ADVENTURES OF JOSEPH ANDREWS (1742), a parody of Richardsons Pamela (1740). Although Fielding wrote in Tom Jo
10、nes “That monstrous animal, a husband and wife“, he married in 1734 Charlotte Cradock, who became his model for Sophia Western in Tom Jones and for the heroine of AMELIA, the authors last novel. It was written according to Fielding “to promote the cause of virtue and to expose some of the most glari
11、ng evils, as well public as private, which at present infect the country.“ In the story an army officer is imprisoned. His virtuous wife resists all temptations and stays faithful to him. With Charlotte Fielding enjoyed ten years of happiness until her death in 1744. Fieldings improvidence led to lo
12、ng periods of considerable poverty, but he was greatly assisted at various periods of his life by his friend R. Allen, who was the model for Allworthy in Tom Jones. “What is commonly called love, namely the desire of satisfying a voracious appetite with a certain quantity of delicate white human fle
13、sh.“ (from Tom Jones) In 1747 Fielding caused some scandal by marrying his wifes maid and friend Mary Daniel - he was condemned by every snob in England. Actually she was about to bear his child, and Fielding wished to save her from disgrace. After Walpole had been replaced by another prime minister
14、, Fielding came to the defense of the Establishment. As a reward for his governmental journalism he was made justice of the peace for the City of Westminster in 1748 and for the county of Middlesex in 1749. Together with his half brother Sir John Fielding, he established a new tradition of justice a
15、nd suppression of crime in London, organizing a detective force that later developed into Scotland Yard. Fieldings writings became more socially orientated - he opposed among others public hangings. From the court in Bow Street he continued his struggle against corruption and and saw successfully im
16、plemented a plan for breaking up the criminal gangs who were then flourishing in London. When the authors health was failing and he was forced to use crutches, he went with his wife and one of his daughters to Portugal to recuperate. Fielding died on October 8, 1754 in Lisbon. His travel book, THE JOURNAL OF A VOYAGE TO LISBON, appeared posthumously in 1755. The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling was enthusiastically revived by the
