Homosociality in Tristram Shandy (?) - Jesse Colin

I noticed in recent passages, that the most tender moments of connection between two people are those between Toby and Trim.  Tristram seems to view homo-social relationships much more positively than he does romantic relationships.  The affair between Widow Wadman and Toby is difficult, largely because Toby is so slow to pick up on Mrs. Wadman’s affection.  Also, the way she goes about seducing him is compared, openly, to battlefield combat.  On the contrary, Toby and Trim’s dialogue is never characterized by that same combative win/loss approach. 

                The relationship between Tristram’s father and mother is a difficult one as well.  His father blames his mother for the supposedly botched conception of Tristram and he is always speaking apparently without consideration for the feelings of his wife—who seems to be always sitting in the corner of the room biting her lip. 

                Trim’s amour with the fair Beguine seems like a more romantic one but understanding it as so gets complicated.  First, the woman claims that she is taking care of Trim out of her love for Christ.  This replaces Trim as the actual object of her affection.  Also, (though the passage is somewhat cryptic and censored) Toby says outright “It was not love.”  (pp519)

                The interactions between Toby and Trim are the most amicable ones in the story and they seem to have the most genuine affection for each other.  In fact, the two are a highly functional household and something like a family unit.  In Volume VIII, Trim says he thinks that he was meant to be wounded in battle so that he would wind up in the service of Toby “where I should be taken so much better care of in my old age.”  Toby replies, “It shall never, Trim, be construed otherwise.”  Tristram then notes, “The heart, both of the master and the man, were alike subject to sudden overflowings.”  (pp 115).

                The novel’s attitude towards romantic relationships can be called cautious at best.  But it does provide an alternative where men can find life-long companionship and even something functioning less like a master-servant relationship and more like a traditional family.  Do you think it is a major concern for Sterne to make a statement about the nature of relationships?  If so, what do you think is his general attitude toward them? 

Public Service Announcement: Study Advice

Okay, this link is not without its offensive and patronizing elements (it is, after all, from Cracked.com), but it delivers some excellent advice.  I suspect most of you are not in need of it, being (a) smart people who probably know this stuff already and (b) mostly upper-level English majors beyond the kind of gateway courses that rely on final exams, but I pass it along anyway.

Gothic Novels

Out of the novels that we have read so far, The Castle of Otranto has been my favorite, and I've been very curious about this genre of novel for a while now. As stated on the back of the book, it is regarded as one of the founding novels of Gothic fiction. Walpole set the stage for novels such as Dracula, Carmilla, and The Blood of the Vampire. If you've read any of these novels, you'll know that they each have the same supernatural feel to them as The Castle of Otranto has. My question is: what function did Gothic fiction have? Why do you think Walpole wrote a novel such as The Castle of Otranto?

For Credit: Thanksgiving Bonus Bloggery

C18 feast being authentically prepared at Colonial Williamsburg.

Because a number of people are still struggling to get their blog scores up, I'm adding an extra week of blogging over the Thanksgiving Break.

The catch is, I won't be posting any questions.  You will need to post the questions, in the same ways that you posted your required blog posts.

You can get up to five additional blog points for posting a question for your classmates, and up to three additional points for responding to a question.  You can only post two questions but you can respond to as many as you like.  The bonus week runs from midnight Saturday (11/19)  until midnight Saturday (11/26)--after which Week 14 blogging (on Vathek begins).

Some ground rules:

1.  Questions MUST require answers that are grounded in the reading.  So, for example, "Would you date Uncle Toby/Widow Wadman?" will get ZERO credit.   "Does Sterne mean for you to find Toby's final reaction to Widow Wadman unfortunate, or not?  What makes you think so?" is a credit-worthy question.

2.  Questions MUST ask for non-obvious, non-yes/no answers.  So, for example, "Is Uncle Toby a good guy?" will get zero credit.  "Sir Walter is clearly very different from Uncle Toby; in what ways does Sterne characterize Sir Walter morally?  Is he a good guy or a bad guy?  What makes you think so?" is more credit-worthy.

3.  Answers that essentially repeat or simply agree with a classmate's response will get zero credit, but you may respond to a single post more than once if the conversation develops in ways that give you more to say.

4.  Questions that cover material issues already addressed on the blog will get no credit (although questions that productively allude to or build on earlier conversations are credit-worthy).

5.  Questions that duplicate a classmate's question will get no credit.

6. Vathek is off limits, but you can blog about anything else covered in the course readings.

Enjoy, and have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

'Good Cursed, Bouncing Losses': Masculinity, Sentimental Irony, and Exuberance in Tristram Shandy -- Secondary Lit Post by Nora Ellis

For my secondary lit post, I read “ ‘good cursed, bouncing losses’: Masculinity, Sentimental Irony, and Exuberance in Tristram Shandy” by James Kim. The article largely focused on the idea of masculinity and emotional expression within Tristram Shandy. Kim looked at Tristram’s reaction to death, as well as focusing on the “veritable encyclopedia of phallic injury” (Kim 9) that describes the book for him. Finally, he discusses the idea of the book as being both satirical and sensitive, something he by no means believes to be true only for Tristram Shandy but that he believes to be a rising theme of eighteenth century literature. Finally, he determines that the desire for both man and woman, satire and sensitivity, are a part of the desire for excess which seized control of the entire novel genre.

The way that Kim examined Tristram’s reaction to death was really interesting. In what can only called the introduction to the article, Kim describes in great detail the black page in volume 1, chapter 12 of Tristram Shandy. One wouldn’t think it possible to describe a black page in great detail, but James Kim sees a great deal in it. For one thing, he takes it as being Tristram’s way of expressing what he feels about Yorick’s death. He says, “An overflow of ink, the black page seems to record Tristram’s overflow of feeling at Yorick’s death. It is as if, overwhelmed by the task of conveying his sentiments on Yorick’s demise, Tristram tries to say everything at once—and therefore can say nothing at all” (Kim, 4). He adds that it is also Tristram’s way of attempting to put down everything malicious that was ever said about Yorick.

He writes next about whether Tristram Shandy is satiric or sentimental, ultimately deciding that, not only is it both, that is not the point of the piece. The way that sentimentality and satire work together, says Kim, enables the depiction of a man that is both masculine and melancholy. The next section begins to focus on the idea of the multi-natured man. Here, Kim discusses the idea of a man as being both masculine and feminine, as well as the repercussions that would have upon the women of the eighteenth century. He here declares that, “For its part, Tristram Shandy faces sentimental masculinity and its concomitant sense of effeminacy with an attitude of loss and nostalgia” (Kim 8). This returns to the way that Kim interprets Tristram’s voice as being emotional, at the beginning of the paper. This emotion, to Kim, is not a masculine feeling to express. Tristram’s expression makes him effeminate, yet strengthens him as a character.

Part of Kim’s exploration of manliness is the question of whether behavior or sensibility is what makes a person male or female. He wisely does not assume that gender stereotypes are concrete, but does recognize the necessity of some differentiation between the two sexes. He finishes off the section by saying, “I think it would be a mistake to draw any conclusions simply from the air of phallic loss that saturates the novel, for the phenomenology of loss is itself a deeply ambiguous thing, capable of fostering a variety of complex attitudes and conflicted responses” (Kim 9). He is speaking particularly of Uncle Toby’s groin wound and the conversation revolving around Tristram’s father setting the clock, here.

Unlike Kim, I don’t read this as being a poem mourning the penis so much as an expression of the fear of castration. However loathed Freud might be, that phrase (fear of castration) is difficult to avoid using. After all, this book is almost entirely about genitals, however much it might pretend not to be. Most literally read, the book focuses a great deal on the fear associated with manliness and the loss thereof being associated with genitalia and the loss thereof. The desperation with which the Widow desperately tries to find out if Uncle Toby is, in fact, intact strengthens this claim.

It is interesting to combine the ideas of the feminine masculinity and the fear of castration. In a book that is, as Kim argues, both sensible and satirical, how much is the fear of the loss of manhood to be taken seriously? Is that one of the most satirized aspects of the novel, or is that something that is actually to be taken seriously? And, how closely does Tristram Shandy relate genitalia to sex? That is, does having a penis make you manly in the world of Shandy?

Kim, James. "'Good Cursed, Bouncing Losses': Masculinity, Sentimental Irony, And Exuberance In Tristram Shandy." Eighteenth Century: Theory And Interpretation48.1 (2007): 3-
24. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 18 Nov. 2011.

Sterne, Laurence, and Graham Petrie. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman.
Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin, 1967. Print.

For Credit: Follow-Up to Thursday's Class

Final thoughts on Tristram Shandy?  Feel free to post them here.

Deadline: Saturday (11/19), midnight.

Matt G.: Tristram Shandy and Conversation (Secondary Lit. Blog Post)

For my secondary literature blog post I read, Pope to Burney, 1714-1779, by Moyra Haslett.  In her work Haslett argues that the “presiding motif for eighteenth-century literature [is] the idea of conversation…which links…different aspects of the eighteenth-century literature, it is not in any sense a single label.  It generates a range of associated ideas, rather than necessarily imposing a determinist narrative upon the period” (Haslett 1).  Her premise is that a defining feature of the eighteenth century novel is the conversational aspect that the books take with the reader.  This idea can be seen throughout the novels we have read in the course, from Robinson Crusoe to Evelina to The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman.  And it is upon the last that I will focus on here.  Do you see the motif of “conversation” as one present in many of the novels we have read in class?

            Haslett argues a number of eighteenth-century “literary texts articulate or imply a self-consciousness about their own status as texts.  Often this takes the from of direct addresses to the reader” (78-79).  This is certainly true of Shandy in many places throughout the novel.  For example, Shandy continual calls the reader “my dear friend and companion” and tells us “as you proceed further with me, the slight acquaintance which is now beginning betwixt us, will grow into familiarity; and that, unless one of us is in fault, will terminate in friendship” (Sterne, 11).  Seen here is the conversational tone that Haslett argues, it is the creation of an intimate relationship with the reader.  “The relationship between writer and reader is explicitly modelled on one of friendship and sociability.  This friendship, and the reader’s increasing intimacy with Tristram himself, offers a way of overcoming the solipsism so obvious in all of the novel’s characters” (79).   Solipsim, for those who are unfamiliar, is the idea of the self as the only reality.  So what Haslett suggests is that this intimacy allows for one to read this, and other novels, in a way that makes them much more so real to us the reader.  Do you agree with this idea, does this intimacy offered by Tristram overcome the solipsism of the novel’s characters? 

            Another aspect of Shandy that Heslett sheds let upon is how “it draws its readers into happy complicity with its own playfulness and moral seriousness.  Readers are asked to meet the narrator halfway, by bringing their own understanding and imaginations into play” (80).  This very idea can be seen on page 423 of Tristram Shandy when he offers the reader a blank page to write in their own description of Mrs. Wadman.  He asks the reader to “paint her to your own mind” (422).  This again invokes the conversation motif offered, but she goes further here on Shandy to argue that “in giving the readers so much freedom to form their own opinions and judgments, Sterne wrote a book which would be radically individualistic” (80).  Is this true, or are we pigeonholed into reading it in a much particularized way by Sterne, despite the perceived individualizations?  Heslett ends by stating that eighteenth century texts “constantly interrogate the nature of the relationship between author and reader” (81).  Certainly this may be seen in Tristram Shandy in the way he speaks directly to the reader, as well as in Evelina and Pamela by their intimate epistolary form, but to what extent do you see it as a defining aspect of eighteenth century literature? 

Haslett, Moyra. Pope to Burney: 1714 - 1779 : Scriblerians to Bluestockings. Basingstoke.

Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Print.

Sterne, Laurence, and Graham Petrie. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman.

Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin, 1967. Print.

James Scholar Post 3: Sterne, Fictional Structure, and Character Identification

In James Cruise’s critical book Governing Consumption: Needs and Wants, Suspended Characters, and the ‘Origins’ of Eighteenth-Century English Novels, Cruise explores the characteristics of eighteenth-century novels, and the ways in which these novels sought to fulfill the needs of the eighteenth-century novel consumer.  In his book, Cruise critiques the concept of “fiction” by drawing a comparison between the reader of the novel, and the characters themselves: “The same principles that apply to readers apply also to the representation of character” (178). Cruise explains one of the pivotal moments of “fictional” character identification as the moment of “the fly” in Laurence Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentlemen. He explains this unusual representation of character in relation to the reader; “We learn it through incidental acts or remarks- Toby’s unwillingness to kill a fly, for example, cues us into his moral character...Tristram is forever throwing obstacles in the way to block direct apprehension of character” (178). Cruise explains that Sterne’s original presentation of “morality” in the novel, undoes the already established universal moral outline that prior eighteenth-century novels created. 

The way in which Tristram presents his story is the same window into which we see his characters, scattered non-sequentially in a way that makes the most sense to the author himself. Cruise explains that Sterne “rejects the evidentiary standards of morally typed character to propose instead that the true characters lie scattered in bits and fragments beneath what is immediately apparent” (179).  In addition, Cruise attributes this fragmentation of narrative, missing fragments of words, and pages left blank for “doodling and sketching” to be elements of fictionality; a characteristic that Sterne knowingly portrayed to his readers.

We see Cruise represent Tristram in a way that eighteenth-century readers have never seen with a character before. According to Cruise, Tristram Shandy encouraged readers to seek character motivation through “outside experiences”. Through the way in which Sterne presents character, does the reader get a better sense of “moral realism” from this overly-fictional work, in comparison to its contemporaries? Cruises argument holds that structure, and presentation of character, have a profound impact on the lessons that readers take away from books.

I think that Sterne tries to get the reader to understand character from a completely original lens. The reader is forced to create their own assumptions about fictionality, morals, and character, since there is no boundary or lines for them to follow. I wonder, however, if this causes the reader to walk away with a individual and possibly “scewed” version of what universal morals are. I also wonder if Sterne’s novel distorts the idea of a uniform society, that follows the same moral instructions.

Do you think that Tristram intended to portray a sense of moral realism through his fictional work, or does his work serve as a parody to other novels of the time? Do you think that the way in which Tristram tells his story teaches character and moral lessons more effectively than a “less-fictional” work like Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe? What aspects of the novel do you find to be most essential to serving the didactic/pedagogical thinking? Is there a certain structure that best serves this purpose?

Cruise, James. Governing Consumption: Needs and Wants, Suspended Characters, and the "Origins" of Eighteenth-century English Novels. Lewisburg [Pa.: Bucknell UP, 1999. Print. 

For Credit: Key-holes and wickedness

In ch. 1 of book IX, Tristram dwells on his father's calling out his mother for spying on Toby's romance through a keyhole, supposedly trying to satisfy her "curiosity." Tristram concludes that

The mistake of my father, was in attacking my mother's motive, instead of the act itself: for certainly key-holes were made for other purposes; and considering the act, as an act which interfered with a true proposition, and denied a key-hole to be what it was-----it became a violation of nature; and was so far, you see, criminal. It is for this reason, an' please your Reverences, That key-holes are the occasions of more sin and wickedness, than all other holes in the world put together. (546-7)

Keeping in mind all of the other references to holes, valleys, etc. as discussed last class, are key-holes just another straightforward sexual allusion to be added in to this category, or is the metaphor more complex than that? What do you believe to be the implications for the sinfulness of 'key-holes' as compared with 'all of the other holes in the world put together?' Given emphasis on the 'criminal violations of nature' and 'occasions of sin and wickedness' brought about specifically by the misuse of 'key-holes,' what can we say about their correct use?

NOT for credit, just community: thoughts about Penn State? (BUMPED)

[It's receded from the headlines, but the repercussions continue to ripple, so I'm bumping this up....]

It's been on my mind a lot these days.  In fact, we ended up talking about it for the first ten minutes of my other class on Thursday (which meets after ours--so I'd gotten caught up on the news over lunch).   Here's a space to offer your reflections, if you would like.  Keep it collegial.

Not for Credit: Reason #2,547 Why You Should Not Cite Wikipedia

For Credit: Follow-Up to Discussion Today

Uncle Toby and the Widow Wadman, as pictured by Hollywood

Please feel free to post here with any questions, reflections, or further thoughts from class today.

Cara Leo's Required Blog Post

For this section of Tristram Shandy, we are presented with the concept of love. From the relationship between Uncle Toby and the widow, how does Uncle Toby, the widow, and Tristram characterize love? Why are the interactions between the widow and Uncle Toby called "attacks"? What does this say about love? What do you think Sterne felt of love and feelings?

Since we have read many novels now that deal with the concept of love, how is love represented similarly or differently from other works we have read?

Nathan Griffin: The Hobbyhorsical World (Secondary blog post)

For my secondary literature article, I read “The Hobbyhorsical World of Tristram Shandy”, by Joan Joffe Hall. In her article, she focused on how the irrelevant and the relevant seem to bare equal weight for our narrator, Tristram Shandy. This is why, as Hall argues, the characters in the novel are defined by their “hobbyhorse”, or favorite hobby. For instance, Uncle Toby’s hobby is his obsession with rebuilding fortifications. He thinks in terms of war and forts, and so there is a miscommunication when trim says that the doctor is repairing the bridge. Toby thinks that this bridge is a part of a fort, because one of his bridges had broken, when, in actuality, the doctor broke the bridge of Tristram’s nose, and had to repair it.

Hall argues that “Walter Shandy’s hobbyhorse is his love for hypotheses” (132). You’ll recall that Walter has many theories regarding raising a child, including conception of a child. A man must have complete focus when making love in order to direct the spirit animals. However, it is important to note with all of the family’s hobbyhorses that they never mean anything or allow any sort of closure for the family. Toby’s hobbyhorse creates miscommunication with people, and it also results in Tristram being accidentally circumsized because he took away the metal weights in the windows. Therefore, Toby has no control over his hobbyhorse. The birth of Tristram proves many of Walter’s hypotheses wrong, due to the fact that he could not direct the animal spirits and that Tristram seems fine even though his nose is damaged, which Walter believes is the most important part of the body. Therefore, “Walter’s hypotheses neither predict nor control real events… both men are impotent when they must confront the real world”.

Tristram’s hobbyhorse, according to Hall, is his story telling. His style of writing is what Hall refers to as “train of ideas” (139). This train of ideas, or natural progression of thought processes, is Tristram’s hobbyhorse. Tristram is obsessed with not leaving out any details, and his problem is that he cannot read through what is relevant to plot and what is irrelevant, which results in long tangents and digressions.

Sterne uses this device, the train of ideas, to point out the reader’s hobbyhorse. According to Hall, “that the reader should participate in solving novelistic problems is absurd, because it is the novelist who brings in the reader as a character, who supervises the work of the reader, and who dismisses the reader” (143). So, the reader’s hobbyhorse is trying to decipher the novel. Readers look for a climax, so they try to sort through what is relevant and what is irrelevant to try to find the meaning. Well, Hall argues, Sterne’s point is that being obsessed with this hobbyhorse is never going to lead to a completion, just like all of the shandy’s hobbyhorses never did either. It is the author’s job to lead the reader, and if there is no climax, the author did not want you to find one.

I find Hall’s argument quite compelling. If readers look at novels as a puzzle, looking for that climax, they might miss the point. How is a reader to say what’s relevant and irrelevant? Maybe at the end, everything needs to be looked at equally. This article definitely helped me appreciate Tristram Shandy a lot more.

So what do you think? Is it the author’s job to lead the reader?

Do you agree with Hall, that it is difficult to draw a line between the relevant and irrelevant in Tristram Shandy?

Do you think you’ve been looking too deeply into the novel for that “deeper” meaning?

Hall, Joan Joffe. "The Hobbyhorsical World of Tristram Shandy." Modern Language Quarterly. 24.2 (1963): 131-43. Print.

For Credit: Volume VIII of Tristram Shandy

A few things to know about this volume:

• At this point in the novel, the narrator has been promising, for hundreds of pages now, to tell the story of Uncle Toby's amours with the Widow Wadman (which took place before Tristram was born).  Now at last he can digress no longer but has to start the narrative, which will take him through to the end of the novel (we'll read Volume IX for Thursday).

• Uncle Toby lives next door to Walter Shandy, with his loyal servant, Corporal Trim.  Toby and Trim spend their days building miniature military fortifications on the grounds of the Shandy manor (you will recall that it was their need of metal to melt down that caused the weights and pulleys to be removed from the window that fell, circumcising wee Tristram).

• Uncle Toby was prompted to this labor in part by the number of people asking him, as he convalesced from the groin wound that ended his military service, "Where did you get wounded?"  The question is motivated by prurient curiosity: people want to know if his genitals are still whole and potent.  Toby, however, who is modest and clean-minded, interprets the question to mean "Where on the field of battle did you get wounded?"  He's found maps and diagrams inadequate to explain--hence the miniature fortifications. 

•  Note the "Reading Guide" linked to over there under "Required Reading" in the sidebar!  It has an outline of the chapter.

 Some issues to consider as you read (feel free to address any of them--just specify which):

1.  What kind of commentary is Sterne making on fiction in general and love stories in particular?
2.  What's going on with The Story of the King of Bohemia and His Seven Castles?
3.  How would you describe the advice Sir Walter give his brother in the letter he writes him on p. 536 - 538?  What does it tell you about Sir Walter?
4.  What questions do you have?
5.  Would Tristram agree with the sexist humor of the image below, which has been circulating on Facebook?

Deadline: Tuesday (11/15), start of class.

For Credit: Last Thoughts on Evelina

What would you have liked to say about Evelina in class on Thursday but didn't have a chance to?

What thoughts have occurred to you since you sat in the fishbowl?

What further thoughts have you had about how Evelina fits into the changing genre of the novel?

Post them here.

Deadline: Saturday midnight (since we need to be moving on to Tristram Shandy.

For Credit: Questions for Tomorrow's Class

I've gotten e-mail about the questions I posted on the board Tuesday from people who didn't write them down and wanted their memory jogged. I didn't write them down either, so this wording may vary from what you copied down, but:

• How does Evelina fit into the other novels we've read this semester? Are we seeing the novel develop as a genre--or just change?
• In Evelina, does Burney depict or critique the status quo as far as gender is concerned? Does the novel suggest (however subtly) that the world would be better if it were different for women, or does the novel simply accept the injustices of Evelina's world as...the way things are?
• (oh dear--I seem to be doing a Rick Perry here and totally blanking on the third thing.  I'm serious.  I'll edit this if it comes to me but in the meantime feel free to help out in the responses to this post!)
• AND, it wasn't written on the board, but...look at the footrace!  It's not that it's a hugely significant scene (it's not like the two climaxes we discussed on Tueday), but it is so magnificently strange that it's a good place to explore how Burney's world differs from our own.

We'll be talking about these issues in class tomorrow, so don't feel like you have to answer them definitively--or at all!  Feel free to take a stab at any of them if you're so inclined, but also feel free to respond by raising additional questions that you'd like to discuss.

Deadline: Thursday (11/10), start of class.

For Credit: Happily Ever After? (Roby Mitchell)

Roby asks:

When Evelina reads the falsifed letter from Lord Orville she starts to believe that he has a duality in his personality that which makes her believe that his politeness is simply an act, obviously since he did not write the letter we assume that this is to be dismissed, but it begs the question wheter or not Lord Orville is to perfect and now that Evelina has agreed to take his hand do you think that that he would either show another side that Evelina would not expect to find or if he is perfect would his over "politeness" eventually get old? OF course this is hypothetical since the book does not include an Ever After.

James Scholar Post 2: Censored Sentiments

In Barbara Zaczek's book, "Censored Sentiments: Letters and Censorship in Epistolary Novels and Conduct Material', Zaczek explores the role of epistolary novels and letters written by women as conduct material for eighteenth century readers. She explains the role of a letter as a strong indicator into the female character and as a reverent guide into the moral and societal lessons of the eighteenth century female. Zaczek explains, "'The disruptive potential of female sexuality and its associated epistolary' turned a female letter in the eighteenth century into a gauge which conduct books in conjunction with the disciplines used to probe and measure the sentiments that could hamper the construction of the new feminine identity" (23). The chapter of Zaczek's book "Female Letters in Conduct Material", deconstructs the role that the epistolary novel, a novel made of letters, had in creating the image of the "ideal" female women of the time.    She uses the tension between the public and private spheres to examine the "manipulative potential as material evidence" and the complete exposition of female thought. The aspects of secrecy and private thought create a rift between disputed purposes of the epistolary novel. Zaczek argues the role of the epistolary novel in creating a moral lesson versus being a form of entertainment.


 Zaczek models Samuel Richardson's view on the epistolary novel as a moral guide for eighteenth century readers; "Sententious Maxims and Moral Aphorisms, collecting into a point and concisely but strongly expressing elevated thoughts, beautiful sentiments, or instructive lessons have always been well received by the public"(25). Zaczek further explains literary fiction as an "embellishment, a mere supplement to the moral framework"(26).


As Richardson once said, the makeup of epistolary or sentimental novels has always been popular in the public sphere. We see a conjoining of moral lessons with entertaining aspects that form a novel praised by the public. In our current class reading, "Evelina", we are exposed to the common techniques of eighteenth century entertainment. The aspect of privacy, and the fact that the reader is being exposed to the inner thoughts and emotions of the writer is a common technique for literary entertainment; it's as if we are reading a diary. In addition, we see the moral lessons that Evelina learns through her exposure to upperclass society. She learns who she can trust, who she cannot, and how to emulate the most ideal version of an eighteenth century woman.


I think that Zaczek's evaluation of the epistolary novel is extremely useful to understanding the role of this genre in the eighteenth century. Throughout our class discussions, we have dissected the aspects of entertainment; what aspects of this book are supposed to keep us interested and which ones serve an important purpose? It is interesting to note how closely entwined entertainment and didactic purpose are, and I wonder what the eighteenth century public looked most for in their search for literature.


How do you think Evelina compares with the picture that Zaczek has drawn of the eighteenth century epistolary novel? Does "Evelina" fulfill the roles of being both entertaining and didactic? In an earlier post, it was mentioned that the book is "too entertaining" to create a serious moral lesson in the end. Do you think that, in this genre, the aspect of entertainment overshadows the presentation of a didactic lesson? Also, do you agree with Richardson's presentation of these novels as an "embellishment"? Do you think that this genre simply "imitates" real life? That is, are the moral lessons taught applicable to the real life lessons of eighteenth century readers, or does the aspect of entertainment ruin any chance of real life application?




Works Cited: Zaczek, Barbara Maria. Censored Sentiments: Letters and Censorship in Epistolary Novels and Conduct Material. Newark: University of Delaware, 1997. Print. 

Literary Post: Chinino

I read “Money Business: Lord Orville and the Limits of Politeness in Frances Burney’s Evelina” written by Patricia Hamilton, for my secondary literary post. Hamilton gave some insight to what Frances Burney’s motivation was in writing Evelina. It said that Burney read Letters to His Son, a collection of text written by the fourth Earl of Chesterfield to his illegitimate son. Hamilton said that after reading this text, Burney wrote a response because she was curious as to what constitutes male virtue once debating the advice that the Earl wrote in Letters to His Son. I found this interesting because female virtue has been a constant topic of conversation with the majority of our novels we have read in class. This journal entry is one of the first accounts that have dealt with male virtue.

Frances Burney’s real life concern and question regarding male virtue is shown in her text by the representation of the character ‘Lord Orville’ in Evelina. “Seemingly, her response to mankind’s disgrace was to fashion her own paragon of masculine behavior” (416).  She gave the fictional character extraordinary politeness in order to create an ‘ideal man’.

Then, Hamilton mentions that 20^th century critics disagree with the 18^th century critics. Saying that Lord Orville is not as exciting and perfect as they made him out to be. “He is sexually uninteresting”.

Regardless of the contrast in criticisms; there was a rise in politeness during the 18^th century and Hamilton says Lord Orville was proof of this. Does his ‘politeness’ (or lack their of, after reading his letter to Evelina) enrich our understanding of issues of gender and power in the 18^th century?

In class we discussed how we think Lord Orville is the suitor that Evelina will end up with at the end of this novel. Do you think this is an accurate statement? (Don’t answer if you KNOW the answer) If not, who else do you think Evelina will end up with? Also, do you feel that Lord Orville is the ‘perfect man’ or did the letter he write to Evelina scorch that opinion? Do you agree with the 18^th century critics or the 20^th century critics?

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Hamilton, Patricia. "Monkey Business: Lord Orville and the Limits of Politeness in Frances Burney’s Evelina." Eighteenth-Century Fiction (ECF) 19.4 (2007):415+. Print.