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

Content

Introduction

1. Background Knowledge
1.1 Intertextuality

2. Parody
2.1 General Definition of the Term
2.2 Historical Development of the Term Parody and related Forms
2.3 Definitions of Parody by Gérard Genette and Simon Dentith

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

Conclusion

Bibliography

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 narratology^[1].

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 chain^[3]. 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 other^[5]. 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 hypertex t: “[…] the secondary text itself”^[7], being created through transformation or imitation of another preceding text^[8] ) 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 manner^[10]. 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. Afterwards certain stylistic elements have to be imitated. The content is changed^[13]. Thus hypertextuality stands for the total change of a literary source.

5.) The fifth form is architextuality (Greek: archein = to be the first). Genette states that this is the most abstract and most implicit type of transtextuality. Architextuality in his sense is used to refer paratextual references in form of a title (like ‘Essays’) or subtitle (like ‘novel’, ‘narration’ or ‘poems’). Texts do not necessarily contain this kind of reference. Nevertheless Genette emphasizes that the reader’s knowledge of the genre, explicitly mentioned or not, influences the reader’s horizon of expectations and in consequence the reception of the text^[14].

This approach to transtextuality offers a narrower description than the first one. The clear defined, limited forms of Genette might be very useful to analyse and to classify texts.

Now that the notion of intertextuality has been explained, the following chapter will explain and discuss the notion of parody.

2. Parody

2.1 General definition of the term parody

This chapter deals with the notion of parody and its meaning. In order to be able to analyse Henry Fielding’s ‘Joseph Andrews’ in connection to one hypertextual method, namely parody, it is first of all necessary to know what parody in general stands for.

According to the Webster Dictionary, parody is “a form of satire that imitates another work of art in order to ridicule it”^[15]. Here parody is looked upon as genre, but more recent definitions consider parody as a style of writing^[16]. This point of view refers to the notion of intertextuality^[17].

This is supposed to be a first, short definition to get an impression of the term parody. The following pages first of all include a short digression on the history of the term and two more detailed approaches to parody and its possible meanings. Later on the analysis and classification of Henry Fielding’s ‘Joseph Andrews’ will be based on them.

2.2 Historical development of the term parody and related forms

The following details about the historical development of parody and its related forms are mainly based upon Genette’s account in Palimpseste.

According to Genette the term parody goes back to Aristotle. In that time parôdia was used in connection with the term Komödie^[18]. Simon Dentith also mentions that “Aristotle’s Poetics provides the earliest use of the word parodia, where he uses it to refer to the earlier writer Hegemon”^[19]. Dentith adds a definition of the term by stating that parodia “is a narrative poem, of moderate length, in the metre and vocabulary of epic poems, but treating a light, satirical, or mock-heroic subject”^[20]. Mock-heroic means that the idiom of epic poetry is applied to everyday or ‘low’ subjects in order to achieve a comic effect. Dentith mentions that this was not the only meaning of parodia in Greek and states that Roman writers also used the term, but in connection with a “more widespread practice of quotation […] in which both writers and speakers introduce allusions to previous texts”^[21]. This use was not necessarily humorous.

Genette takes the etymological meaning of the Greek word parôdia into account (ôde = voice and para = along(side), beside) and concludes that it is very likely that the term was connected with rhapsody^[22]. Between the 4th and the 8th century rhapsodists sang epic poems and often modified their meaning in order to entertain the audience. Thus, at the beginning- according to Genette- parody was more or less a modified word for word repetition of a serious epic poem^[23]. There existed other early forms of parody, too. What they all had in common was the mockery of the epos or other narrative texts by opposing the literal form (register) to the content (mostly heroic topics)^[24]. In the 10th century Suidas, a Byzantine encyclopaedist, claimed that parody meant to create a comedy on the basis of a tragedy.

During the classical age the term parody was no longer used in poetry, but in rhetoric^[25]. Parody was defined as an imitation of another poem with changed, mocking content. Genette in this connection mentions Dumarsais, who stated that it was important not to change too many of the original words in order to make sure that one could easily recognize the original source^[26]. In short, parody was considered as a figure of speech, a seldom used embellishment of speech, rather than a term of genre. Dumarsais only accepted this understanding of the term, but there were other ideas of parody, too. Genette opposes Abbé Sallier’s idea to Dumarsais’. Sallier distinguished the following five different forms of parody^[27]:

[...]

^[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

^[13] Ibid., p.16

^[14] Ibid., p.14

^[15] http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/parody

^[16] Günther und Irmgard Schweikle (Hrsg.). Metzler Literatur Lexikon, Begriffe und Definitionen. Stuttgart: J.B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung und Carl Ernst Poeschel Verlag GmbH, 1990

^[17] Ibid.

^[18] Gérard Genette, Palimpseste. Die Literatur auf zweiter Stufe, Suhrkamp Verlag, 1993, p.21

^[19] Simon Dentith, Parody, Routledge, London & New York, 2000, p.10

^[20] Ibid., p.10

^[21] Ibid., p.10

^[22] Gérard Genette, Palimpseste. Die Literatur auf zweiter Stufe, Suhrkamp Verlag, 1993, p.21/22

^[23] Ibid., p.26

^[24] Ibid., p.23/24

^[25] Ibid., p.31

^[26] Gérard Genette, Palimpseste. Die Literatur auf zweiter Stufe, Suhrkamp Verlag, 1993, p.28

^[27] Ibid., p.32/33