The History of Tom Jones [antikvár]

GENERAL INTRODUCTION Wordsworth Classics are inexpensive editions designed to appeal to the general reader and students. We commissioned teachers and speciaHsts to write broad-ranging, jargon-free Introductions and to provide Notes that would assist the understanding of our readers, rather than interpret the stories for them. In the same spirit, because the pleasures of reading are inseparable from the surprises, secrets and revelations that all narratives contain, we strongly advise you to enjoy this book before turning to the Introduction. General Advisor Keith Carabine Rutherford College University of Kent at Canterbury INTRODUCTION In his third and greatest novel, which appeared ahnost exactly at mid-century (1749), Fielding made a crucial contribution to the development of the novel as a unified narrative structure held together by a coherent authorial vision, and ordered by a consistent and intelligible system of values to which the characters and actions could be referred. Although he otherwise has little in common with Jane Austen, he pioneered the kind of novel in which the author's understanding of his created world is as important a part of the reader's experience as the tale in itself. That this was a major achievement in the earlier eighteenth century can be seen from the examples of Defoe and Smollett. Few readers of Defoe have come away from his novels xmpuzzled by their apparent lack of aesthetic distance and authorial self-awareness. How far has Defoe reflected on the nature of Robinson Crusoe's motives and guiding assumptions about people? Has he registered his hero's psychological oddness? Is he aware that Crusoe's insistence on his narrative as a story of spiritual salvation sits oddly with the continuing emphasis on material