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Unit 2: Joseph Andrews-I: Detailed Study of the Text

of his sermons. The thief, too, is found and brought to the inn, and Joseph is reunited with Notes
his possessions.
Joseph and Adams’ stay in the inn is capped by one of the many burlesque, slapstick digressions
in the novel. Betty, the inn’s 21-year-old chambermaid, had taken a liking to Joseph since he
arrived; a liking doomed to inevitable disappointment by Joseph’s constancy to Fanny. The
landlord, Mr Tow-wouse, had always admired Betty and saw this disappointment as an opportunity
to take advantage. Locked in an embrace, they are discovered by the choleric Mrs Tow-wouse,
who chases the maid through the house before Adams is forced to restrain her. With the
landlord promising not to transgress again, his lady allows him to make his peace at the cost
of ‘quietly and contentedly bearing to be reminded of his transgressions, as a kind of penance,
once or twice a day, during the residue of his life’.

Preface
Fielding defines and defends his chosen genre, the comic epic, or “comic Epic-Poem in Prose.”
Claiming a lost work of Homer as precedent, he explains that the comic epic differs from
comedy in having more “comprehensive” action and a greater variety of incidents and characters;
it differs from the “serious Romance” in having lower-class characters and favoring, in “Sentiments
and Diction,” the ridiculous over the sublime. Fielding is particularly concerned to differentiate
the comic epic and comedy generally, from burlesque: “no two Species of Writing can differ
more widely than the Comic and the Burlesque,” for while the writer of burlesque depicts “the
monstrous,” the writer of comedy depicts “the ridiculous.” “The Ridiculous only . . . falls
within my Province in the present Work,” and Fielding accordingly goes on to define it. “The
only Source of the true Ridiculous (as it appears to me) is Affectation,” to which Fielding
assigns two possible causes, “Vanity, or Hypocrisy.” Vanity is affecting to be better than one
is: the vain man either lacks the virtue or quality he claims to have, or else he claims to possess
it in a greater degree than he actually does. By contrast, hypocrisy is affecting to be other than
one is: the hypocritical man “is the very reverse of what he would seem to be,” and Fielding
gives the example of a greedy man pretending to be generous. The ridiculous arises from the
discovery of affectation, and as hypocrisy is a more egregious form of affectation than is
vanity, so, says Fielding, the sense of the ridiculous arising from its discovery will be stronger
than in the case of vanity.
Fielding anticipates the criticism that, in addition to affectation, he has given a great deal of
space in the novel to “Vices, and of a very black Kind.” Vices, which inspire moral revulsion
rather than amusement, are not the stuff of comedy. Fielding acknowledges the presence of
vices in his story but offers several mitigating considerations, among which is the fact that
they are not very potent, “never producing the intended Evil.”
Finally, Fielding addresses the characters of the novel, claiming that all are drawn from life
and that he has made certain alterations in order to obscure their true identities. Fielding also
conciliates his clerical readers by emphasizing that the curate Mr. Abraham Adams, though he
participates in a number of low incidents, is a credit to the cloth due to his great simplicity
and benevolence.

2.1 Book I, Chapters I through VI

Chapter I

Fielding justifies the moral agenda of his novel by observing that “Examples work more
forcibly on the Mind than Precepts”. Inspiring stories about virtuous figures will have a better
moral effect than the recital of maxims, because in them “Delight is mixed with Instruction,
and the Reader is almost as much improved as entertained”.

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