Henry Fielding's novels and the classical tradition

the long version

In this study, author Nancy A. Mace rectifies the lack of scholarly attention given Henry Fielding's use of the classical tradition in his novels, periodical essays, and miscellaneous writings. Although scholars have extensively studied the affinities between Henry Fielding's novels and such modern genres as the romance, travel literature, and criminal biography, they have paid surprisingly little attention to his use of the classical tradition in developing both his narrative theory and practice. The book assesses Fielding's classical allusions and quotations within the context of the eighteenth-century canon of classical literature and the types of classical training available to Fielding's readers. It includes an analysis of classical editions and anthologies appearing in the Eighteenth-Century Short Title Catalogue and an examination of school curricula, handbooks, and library records, all of which reveal the classical authors with whom Fielding's audience was most familiar and the different levels of classical learning that Fielding might expect in his audience. The survey details which ancient authors were best known and underscores the heterogeneous nature of the reading public in this period.