notes: Samuel Richardson, Clarissa
After I mentioned my notes on Clarissa in the closing tag to a completely unrelated post, coffee_and_ink, batwrangler, and redredshoes all said they wanted to see the notes.
Never let it be said that I don't post things I promise to post; it just takes me a while. Sometimes an extremely long while.
Let's move on, shall we?
I put together these notes many long years ago when studying for the MA exam in my graduate program; they were intended only for myself and my study group. In the ensuing years, they have found their way into department lore, not so much because they're brilliant or even useful (a debatable claim if ever there was one) as because at the time of writing I had quite recently read the entire unabridged Clarissa, something that many MA students seem oddly reluctant (...heh) to do, and thus wrote from a position of perceived, if dubious, authority. The notes were therefore written under very particular circumstances; they're a user's guide, not substantive analysis.
That said, here's what we've got:
Clarissa (Samuel Richardson), 1747-48
"carries...epistolary method, moral instruction, and sexual titillation to new heights." - Norton Anthology of English Literature, 6th ed., vol. 1, p. 1784
"Anyone who read Clarissa for the plot would hang himself." - Samuel Johnson
plot
NB: see character list at front of Penguin unabridged edition.
Clarissa's being courted by Lovelace. She's not particularly interested in him (he has a rakish reputation). Her family hates Lovelace, doesn't believe she isn't interested in him, and attempts to marry her off to a loathsome old illiterate but very wealthy miser. She refuses and gets locked in her room, whence she pens illicit epistles to her friend Anna. Lovelace says he'll help Clarissa escape; she vacillates, decides not to leave with him but eventually does so anyway. They end up in London, staying in a brothel, which the virtuous Clarissa doesn't even realize is a brothel. Lovelace pressures her to marry him, all the while plotting to "test her virtue" before the wedding (he doesn't believe she can really be as chaste as she seems). Various escape-attempt-related antics ensue. Eventually he rapes her; she's emotionally and psychologically shattered but manages to escape. She wastes away and finally dies three months later. Lovelace is killed by Clarissa's cousin Morden in a duel.
genre
Richardson modeled his novels on tragedy, a moral genre. (Fielding, by way of contrast, modeled his on the epic.) Richardson's moral, however, isn't necessarily what one might expect: he doesn't advocate Clarissa's giving in to her family; rather, he shows exactly what results from the family's being so damn inflexible, not to mention what results from giving young girls the stupid idea that they can reform rakes.
Lovelace is modeled on the rake of Restoration comedy; like Romeo and Juliet, we get some weird mileage out of the fact that the text's structure is, or at least starts out, basically comic. Restoration comedy structure: lead couple = rakish man and virtuous woman (Lovelace and Clarissa); subplot = coquettish woman and meek man (Anna Howe and Mr. Hickman). In the comic version, the rake is reformed and both pairs marry. Clarissa, obviously, is the tragic version.
The epistolary tradition has its roots in Ovid's Heroides (passionate letters from abandoned women to their abandoners); as a result, it's associated with women, passion, love affairs. In earlier epistolary novels (including Richardson's own Pamela), the important letters were frequently from just one person, one point of view (although there may be other letters as well, like Pamela's from her parents). The single-viewpoint strategy wasn't very effective for a variety of reasons (the genre's contrived enough as it is, you can imagine the strain...). Clarissa modifies this tradition by using two main sets of correspondents, with letters going both ways, and then of course there's the auxiliary letters as well.
The transparency of the fiction of the letters is one of the reasons that epistolary novels went out of fashion. But in Clarissa, the conceit works as well as it ever did because - like Les Liasons Dangereuses and Evelina, two other effective epistolary novels - the novel is to a great extent about perceptions, self-perceptions, mis-perceptions, epistemological confusion galore; letters allow the reader to know a lot more than the characters do and to watch them generate their perceptions. As in many epistolary novels, the point is not so much the action as the characters' accounts of their responses to the action. Hence Samuel Johnson's famous witticism about the novel's plot.
Elements of bildungsroman (novel of development) and spiritual autobiography: Clarissa, by the end, has been elevated to almost saintlike status. She's evolved into a highly religious being, forgiving everyone who's wronged her, etc. It's a little saccharine for most modern tastes, but it's totally sincere. Lovelace's development runs in reverse: after the rape he gets physically sick and falls apart mentally, even as Clarissa, recovering from the initial shock, begins to rely wholly on God for her strength. She undergoes a sort of spiritual purification (and then, of course, she dies). Clarissa develops psychologically as a result of her isolation and her perpetual self-reflection and self-explanation; the letters are crucial to this development. Belford renounces his rakish ways and acquaintances as he develops sympathy for Clarissa.
On spirituality: note that Clarissa does not fully embody the conventional exemplary precepts of Christian behavior; rather, she is guided by a more personal, even secular, virtue at the beginning of the novel, and moves toward the religious after the rape.
Allegorical elements: few and minor, limited mostly to Clarissa's letter about going to her father's house, and various names: Lovelace's assumed names, Mrs. Sinclair (false name of brothel proprietor; Sinclair = St. Clair = parody of Clarissa), Morden (= German for "murder" ).
the role of women
A case could be made that Richardson intended not merely to represent but to critique the status of women at the time. Clarissa's tragedy happens largely because of the abuse of patriarchal power; Clarissa is systematically shown to be at the bottom of the family hierarchy, and to be at the mercy of those further up (the older males and the son-and-heir). Although Richardson's main point is arguably that if you're going to oppress your daughters you should at least protect them, he also presents Clarissa as surprisingly resourceful (if annoyingly guillible).
Like many 18th century novelists, Richardson regards money-motivated arranged marriages as a form of prostitution: bodies exchanged for money.
Anna is the character who represents a significant challenge to the prescribed role of women, at least in her rhetoric. This challenge is safe because she's not the main character; we get to see her perspective on things, her legitimate complaints, but she can ultimately be corrected or dismissed (usually by Clarissa). Clarissa talks a lot about wanting to be able to submit to her father, but being unable to reconcile his demands with what she knows to be fair.
metatextuality
The fact that Clarissa is an epistolary novel (complete with forged letters, enclosed letters from other correspondents, references to drafts, etc.), calls attention to the text-iness of the novel. The letters constitute a phenomenological filter, a formal feature that prevents us from experiencing the (fictional) world directly: we see action as recollected, not as enacted, except insofar as the letters themselves constitute action. We experience the narrative both as process (the unfolding story) and as artifact (letters as signs of a story that's already over).
The characters themselves are as subject to this filter as the reader. Neither Lovelace nor Clarissa get at what is real - Clarissa because Lovelace is deceiving her, Lovelace because he refuses to believe that Clarissa is as pure as she seems. The intentional deceit of Clarissa by Lovelace mirrors the distancing of the reader from the text: we can only know what we're told, we can't see what's "really" going on. The text puts us in Clarissa's place, even though we get to see Lovelace's letters to Belford, etc.
miscellany
On class: the Harlowes are landed and wealthy, but not aristocratic. Mrs. Harlowe is the daughter of an earl, but her husband is strictly merchant class (the two uncles are a sailor and a merchant). Their values are very middle-class. They are therefore suspicious of Lovelace's aristocratic connections, and anxious to marry Clarissa off to someone with money even though he has no class: this is the era in which money is starting to eclipse older markers of class (think Jane Austen, especially Persuasion). The contrasts here are established very quickly, in the duel between James and Lovelace; Lovelace is cool, deft, gracious, solicitous after the fight; James is aggressive, hasty, inept, generally an awkward interloper and something of a clod.
Lovelace and Clarissa represent differing lines of development of modernity: Lovelace is the modernity of fashion and change, but, being male, of age, educated, wealthy, experienced, and generally supported by the social system in every way, he never runs the risk of actual instability. Clarissa, on the other hand, is young and female, and her position is thus very unstable; her major sources of stability (family, law, church) all fail her, and so she turns to an inner spirituality (radical Protestantism - think Defoe) and, metatextually, to the novel (her own) for stability.
Looking back over these notes with a critical eye, I want very badly to re-read the novel so I can revise them; but that is a project for another day year.
Never let it be said that I don't post things I promise to post; it just takes me a while. Sometimes an extremely long while.
Let's move on, shall we?
I put together these notes many long years ago when studying for the MA exam in my graduate program; they were intended only for myself and my study group. In the ensuing years, they have found their way into department lore, not so much because they're brilliant or even useful (a debatable claim if ever there was one) as because at the time of writing I had quite recently read the entire unabridged Clarissa, something that many MA students seem oddly reluctant (...heh) to do, and thus wrote from a position of perceived, if dubious, authority. The notes were therefore written under very particular circumstances; they're a user's guide, not substantive analysis.
That said, here's what we've got:
Clarissa (Samuel Richardson), 1747-48
"carries...epistolary method, moral instruction, and sexual titillation to new heights." - Norton Anthology of English Literature, 6th ed., vol. 1, p. 1784
"Anyone who read Clarissa for the plot would hang himself." - Samuel Johnson
plot
NB: see character list at front of Penguin unabridged edition.
Clarissa's being courted by Lovelace. She's not particularly interested in him (he has a rakish reputation). Her family hates Lovelace, doesn't believe she isn't interested in him, and attempts to marry her off to a loathsome old illiterate but very wealthy miser. She refuses and gets locked in her room, whence she pens illicit epistles to her friend Anna. Lovelace says he'll help Clarissa escape; she vacillates, decides not to leave with him but eventually does so anyway. They end up in London, staying in a brothel, which the virtuous Clarissa doesn't even realize is a brothel. Lovelace pressures her to marry him, all the while plotting to "test her virtue" before the wedding (he doesn't believe she can really be as chaste as she seems). Various escape-attempt-related antics ensue. Eventually he rapes her; she's emotionally and psychologically shattered but manages to escape. She wastes away and finally dies three months later. Lovelace is killed by Clarissa's cousin Morden in a duel.
genre
Richardson modeled his novels on tragedy, a moral genre. (Fielding, by way of contrast, modeled his on the epic.) Richardson's moral, however, isn't necessarily what one might expect: he doesn't advocate Clarissa's giving in to her family; rather, he shows exactly what results from the family's being so damn inflexible, not to mention what results from giving young girls the stupid idea that they can reform rakes.
Lovelace is modeled on the rake of Restoration comedy; like Romeo and Juliet, we get some weird mileage out of the fact that the text's structure is, or at least starts out, basically comic. Restoration comedy structure: lead couple = rakish man and virtuous woman (Lovelace and Clarissa); subplot = coquettish woman and meek man (Anna Howe and Mr. Hickman). In the comic version, the rake is reformed and both pairs marry. Clarissa, obviously, is the tragic version.
The epistolary tradition has its roots in Ovid's Heroides (passionate letters from abandoned women to their abandoners); as a result, it's associated with women, passion, love affairs. In earlier epistolary novels (including Richardson's own Pamela), the important letters were frequently from just one person, one point of view (although there may be other letters as well, like Pamela's from her parents). The single-viewpoint strategy wasn't very effective for a variety of reasons (the genre's contrived enough as it is, you can imagine the strain...). Clarissa modifies this tradition by using two main sets of correspondents, with letters going both ways, and then of course there's the auxiliary letters as well.
The transparency of the fiction of the letters is one of the reasons that epistolary novels went out of fashion. But in Clarissa, the conceit works as well as it ever did because - like Les Liasons Dangereuses and Evelina, two other effective epistolary novels - the novel is to a great extent about perceptions, self-perceptions, mis-perceptions, epistemological confusion galore; letters allow the reader to know a lot more than the characters do and to watch them generate their perceptions. As in many epistolary novels, the point is not so much the action as the characters' accounts of their responses to the action. Hence Samuel Johnson's famous witticism about the novel's plot.
Elements of bildungsroman (novel of development) and spiritual autobiography: Clarissa, by the end, has been elevated to almost saintlike status. She's evolved into a highly religious being, forgiving everyone who's wronged her, etc. It's a little saccharine for most modern tastes, but it's totally sincere. Lovelace's development runs in reverse: after the rape he gets physically sick and falls apart mentally, even as Clarissa, recovering from the initial shock, begins to rely wholly on God for her strength. She undergoes a sort of spiritual purification (and then, of course, she dies). Clarissa develops psychologically as a result of her isolation and her perpetual self-reflection and self-explanation; the letters are crucial to this development. Belford renounces his rakish ways and acquaintances as he develops sympathy for Clarissa.
On spirituality: note that Clarissa does not fully embody the conventional exemplary precepts of Christian behavior; rather, she is guided by a more personal, even secular, virtue at the beginning of the novel, and moves toward the religious after the rape.
Allegorical elements: few and minor, limited mostly to Clarissa's letter about going to her father's house, and various names: Lovelace's assumed names, Mrs. Sinclair (false name of brothel proprietor; Sinclair = St. Clair = parody of Clarissa), Morden (= German for "murder" ).
the role of women
A case could be made that Richardson intended not merely to represent but to critique the status of women at the time. Clarissa's tragedy happens largely because of the abuse of patriarchal power; Clarissa is systematically shown to be at the bottom of the family hierarchy, and to be at the mercy of those further up (the older males and the son-and-heir). Although Richardson's main point is arguably that if you're going to oppress your daughters you should at least protect them, he also presents Clarissa as surprisingly resourceful (if annoyingly guillible).
Like many 18th century novelists, Richardson regards money-motivated arranged marriages as a form of prostitution: bodies exchanged for money.
Anna is the character who represents a significant challenge to the prescribed role of women, at least in her rhetoric. This challenge is safe because she's not the main character; we get to see her perspective on things, her legitimate complaints, but she can ultimately be corrected or dismissed (usually by Clarissa). Clarissa talks a lot about wanting to be able to submit to her father, but being unable to reconcile his demands with what she knows to be fair.
metatextuality
The fact that Clarissa is an epistolary novel (complete with forged letters, enclosed letters from other correspondents, references to drafts, etc.), calls attention to the text-iness of the novel. The letters constitute a phenomenological filter, a formal feature that prevents us from experiencing the (fictional) world directly: we see action as recollected, not as enacted, except insofar as the letters themselves constitute action. We experience the narrative both as process (the unfolding story) and as artifact (letters as signs of a story that's already over).
The characters themselves are as subject to this filter as the reader. Neither Lovelace nor Clarissa get at what is real - Clarissa because Lovelace is deceiving her, Lovelace because he refuses to believe that Clarissa is as pure as she seems. The intentional deceit of Clarissa by Lovelace mirrors the distancing of the reader from the text: we can only know what we're told, we can't see what's "really" going on. The text puts us in Clarissa's place, even though we get to see Lovelace's letters to Belford, etc.
miscellany
On class: the Harlowes are landed and wealthy, but not aristocratic. Mrs. Harlowe is the daughter of an earl, but her husband is strictly merchant class (the two uncles are a sailor and a merchant). Their values are very middle-class. They are therefore suspicious of Lovelace's aristocratic connections, and anxious to marry Clarissa off to someone with money even though he has no class: this is the era in which money is starting to eclipse older markers of class (think Jane Austen, especially Persuasion). The contrasts here are established very quickly, in the duel between James and Lovelace; Lovelace is cool, deft, gracious, solicitous after the fight; James is aggressive, hasty, inept, generally an awkward interloper and something of a clod.
Lovelace and Clarissa represent differing lines of development of modernity: Lovelace is the modernity of fashion and change, but, being male, of age, educated, wealthy, experienced, and generally supported by the social system in every way, he never runs the risk of actual instability. Clarissa, on the other hand, is young and female, and her position is thus very unstable; her major sources of stability (family, law, church) all fail her, and so she turns to an inner spirituality (radical Protestantism - think Defoe) and, metatextually, to the novel (her own) for stability.
Looking back over these notes with a critical eye, I want very badly to re-read the novel so I can revise them; but that is a project for another day year.