Universität Hamburg, Institut für Amerikanistik und Anglistik
Seminar Ib: “Classics re-written? Pamela and Jane Eyre”
Wintersemester 2004/2005

Henry Fielding’s ′Joseph Andrews′ in terms of parody

von

Lena Wandschneider

Content

Introduction  2

1. Background Knowledge  3

1.1 Intertextuality 3

2. Parody 6

2.1 General definition of the term parody  6
2.2 Historical development of the term parody and related forms  6
2.3 Definitions of parody by Gérard Genette and Simon Dentith  9

3. Analysis of Henry Fielding’s ‘Joseph Andrews’  16

Conclusion 28

Bibliography  30

Introduction

This paper deals with the analysis of Henry Fielding’s ‘Joseph Andrews’ (published in 1972) in relation to Samuel Richardson’s ‘Pamela’ (published in 1740). It has been claimed that Fielding wrote his novel as a response to ‘Pamela’, according to several allusions included in his novel ‘Joseph Andrews’. To describe the relationship between these two texts, the notion of transtextuality, coined by the French literary scholar Gérard Genette, will be used. Here the focus will lie on the so called hypertextuality, which describes the ‘overlapping’ of two different texts.
The aim of this paper is to analyse ‘Joseph Andrews’ in terms of parody, which is one of the possible hypertextual operations that occur in literature. In order to do so, the notion of parody will be defined, mostly by opposing and comparing two recent accounts of the term. With the help of the knowledge of hypertextuality and parody, Fielding’s novel will be examined in detail. The main purpose is to find out whether Fielding parodied ‘Pamela’ or not. Therefore structural and functional criteria of ‘Joseph Andrews’ will be taken into account.
The first two chapters will provide the fundamental knowledge that is necessary for the analysis of the novel in the end. The important literary terms and their definitions will be introduced. Afterwards Henry Fielding’s ‘Joseph Andrews’ will be analysed.

1. Background Knowledge

1.1 Intertextuality

Before the notion of parody will be defined and discussed, it is necessary to take a look at the notion of intertextuality, since these terms often appear in connection with each other. Since the 70’s intertextuality has become a central issue in literary studies and in narratology¹.

There are two different approaches to intertextuality. The first one is more theoretical and includes a rather broad concept of the term. This approach focuses on the process which lies behind literature itself and goes back to the literary scholar and philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin and his theory of dialogue (“Dialogizität”)². From his point of view, which is based on spoken language, the words we use are part of a chain of utterances. These utterances are always influenced by the evaluative attitude adopted by every interlocutor in that chain³. This means that no speaker can ever be without the influence of allusions and intentions of preceding speakers. Julia Kristeva followed Bakhtin’s idea and developed it. In her opinion every text is to be considered as a composition of several quotations (“Mosaik von Zitaten”)⁴. She argues that in each text we find different statements, which go back to other texts and which interfere with each other⁵. This theory of intertextuality thus focuses on features of texts in general. In contrast to that, the second approach to intertextuality is based upon the analysis of the relationship between specific texts. The aim is to systematize these relationships. Gérard Genette, the French literary scholar, tries to systematize these relationships between different texts and tries to explain them. His generic term of transtextuality includes five different forms of transtextual relationships:

1.) The first one is intertextuality in its narrow sense, which is defined as the “actual presence of a text in another text”⁶. According to Genette this presence includes three different forms:
a) quotation: the simplest form, often word-for-word quotation, with quotation marks and with or without bibliography.
b) plagiarism: word-for-word borrowing, but not declared.
c) allusion: the least explicit form of intertextuality is characterized as a statement, which can only be totally understood, if one realizes the relationship to the statement to which it is referred.
2.) The second form of transtextuality is paratextuality (Greek: para = along(side), beside). The paratext comments the real text by adding information which guides the reading, for instance: title, subtitle, preface and footnotes.
3.) The third form according to Genette is metatextuality (Greek: meta = between, behind, after). This form of transtextuality refers to the critical relationship between texts. Such a relation can for instance exist in form of literary criticism.
4.) The fourth form is hypertextuality, which describes the relationship between text B (according to Genette hypertext: “[…] the secondary text itself”⁷, being created through transformation or imitation of another preceding text8) and text A (according to Genette hypotext: “[…] the text upon which secondary writing is modelled”⁹) in which text B overlaps text A in a certain manner¹⁰. This overlapping can derive from two different techniques, namely transformation and imitation. Transformation stands for the change of the style, whereas the content stays the same (as an example Genette mentions the transformation of Homer’s Odyssee into Joyce’s Ulysses)¹¹. In addition to that Genette emphasizes that in order to transform a text it is sufficient to carry out a “simple mechanical intervention” ¹² such as tearing out a page. Imitation is defined as a more complex and more indirect technique than transformation, since it requires first of all the detailed analysis of the hypotext.

[...]

1 http://www.uni-essen.de/literaturwissenschaft-aktiv/Vorlesungen/epik/intertext.htm 7.03.2005

2 Ibid.

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.

6 Gérard Genette, Palimpseste. Die Literatur auf zweiter Stufe, Suhrkamp Verlag, 1993, p.10

7 Simon Dentith, Parody, Routledge, 2000, p.191

8 Gérard Genette, Palimpseste. Die Literatur auf zweiter Stufe, Suhrkamp Verlag, 1993, p.18

9 Simon Dentith, Parody, Routledge, 2000, p.191

10 Gérard Genette, Palimpseste. Die Literatur auf zweiter Stufe, Suhrkamp Verlag, 1993, p.14/15

11 Gérard Genette, Palimpseste. Die Literatur auf zweiter Stufe, Suhrkamp Verlag, 1993, p.15

12 Ibid., p.16