notes: Samuel Richardson, Clarissa

[heresluck]

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?

Comments

[ex_truepenn]

ObRandomIrrelevancy:

Sinclair also gives you a French-English bilingual pun: clear sin. An appropriate name for a brothel keeper.

[heresluck]

You are so right! And had I had a scrap of French at the time, I might even have noticed that myself -- but probably not, so thanks for the addenda. *g*

[ex_truepenn]

V. welcome. I figure, as long as my brain is going to sit around noticing this sort of thing, I might as well inflict it on share it with the world.

[coffeeandink]

Thank you!

In my Richardson seminar, one of my classmates hadn't read any overviews of Richardson before reading the novel, and she'd read a lot of romance novels, so she was utterly shocked and appalled by the rape. She'd expected the usual reform plot, you see. It was a glimpse of how the novel must have read to contemporaries -- I'd read about Clarissa before reading it, so I hadn't even thought to approach it with the usual romance reading protocols, or even the same protocols as Pamela.

What I found terribly, terribly interesting was that the letters, though endless and overinvolved, were much more effective at creating the kind of psychological interiority that defines the novel from the 19th c. onwards than the same technique in Pamela was--partly because Richardson just plain improved in characterization, but also because multiplying the narrators really does create a more convincing illusion of depth.

[heresluck]

She'd expected the usual reform plot, you see. It was a glimpse of how the novel must have read to contemporaries...

Yeah, exactly. It sets you right up for that, and then... everything goes kablooey.

...the letters, though endless and overinvolved, were much more effective at creating the kind of psychological interiority that defines the novel from the 19th c. onwards...

Yes; although I'd actually quibble with the notion that the novel as a genre is defined by psychological interiority. It's certainly true that *lots* of novels aim in that direction, but not all

*poke*

[coffeeandink]

Also, now that that's up, you can get back to writing up part two of your history with romance novels.

Re: *poke*

[heresluck]

Indeed. And my post on Firefly as anti-Western, and my 2004 obsesso-songs and CD acquisitions posts, and my notes about YA fiction and mixes vs playlists, and...

*g*

[heresluck]

Hee -- enjoy!

[lnhammer]

Once a year, I take the unabridged Clarissa off my shelf and hefting it, thinking maybe soon I'll finally read it. I liked an abridgement rather more than I expected. Maybe this will spur me to it, once I get over the current lump of research reading.

I suppose comparisons with Dangerous Liasons are staples of term papers?

---L.

[heresluck]

Comparisons get made informally all the time -- my post being one example. Term papers I don't know about, but I'm inclined to say it's probably not a common topic, unless in a comparative literature class. I've never taken an English class that included French literature.

[lnhammer]

A good point about the balkanization of class subjects. Ah, well.

---L.