Samuel Richardson.

I 1689»1761

Biography . Derbyshire in 1689 into a lower

Samuel Richardson was bo~n ; a very basic education and
1
middle dass family. He receive on y d to London where he beg Was
I I mostly self-taught. In 1706, he move hard worker, a keen reade an his
Main works appre?~iceship as a printer. He hae also wrote for others whe:and
r Manuals: The Apprentice s
Vademecum (1734), Letters Written
a prolifte producer of Ietters whtc
· hts
requ1red
.
• help. In 1719, Richardson se•
. al nd magazme 5 '
!le published several 1ourn s _ a
t up his own printing ~hey
acquired a soli'd act1Vity,
reput, .
!iterar marketplace. In 1739 ~t10~
to and tor Patticular Friends on the tn the book-selling world and m e .
th y anual for letter-wr· .'
Most lmpottant Occasions (17 )
41 two fellow printers asked him to compi1e a m . Th 1ting
Novels: Pamela or, Virtue Rewarded with examples and model letters or f, 1
d'fferent occas10ns.
. l F• d ehresuJt
(17 40), Clarissa or the History of a was the book Letters Written to an d ,orç, Partlcu ar
. rzen s on t e M0st
r
Important Occasions (1741). In the meantime, ~cha <lson also worked
.Young Lady (1747), The History of Sir
Charles Grandison (1753) on h1s
. t·1rst nove1, pame za (l740) , which immed1ately proved I extrerneJY
ful H h
success . e t en pu bl.1shed two other successfu. d. d f:iove s,kand
1
. beca"'
..,e a
we11-respected novelist and public figure. He ie 0 a stro e In 1761 and
L

was buried at St Bride's church.

1. What do Richardson's fiction 'l'J.nm~.s an.d styfo .

and non-fiction works have in
common?
2. List the effects that the episto/ary
form creates.
3. List the elements that
produce the realistic quality of
Richardson 's nove/s, besides the
epistolary form.
John Everett Millais, Clarissa, 1887 (London,
Sotheby's lmages).
The main objective of Richardson's writing was mo:ral education.
According to him, the best way to teach moral lessons w~s ~o present the
reader wìth exemplary models. This is what the author d1d In both his
non-fiction and fiction works: The Apprentice's Vademecum was set out
to help create a diligent and self-denying worker; Letters Written to and
for Particular Friends on the Most Important Occasions offered practical,
socia! and moral advice on daily issues such as the duties of parents, and
the dynamics of courtship, marriage and socia! relations. His fictional
characters, Pamela, Clarissa and Sir Charles Grandison ali embody the
highest virtues of rectitude, chastity, generosity and benevolence.
Por Richardson, the novel represented the ideal genre for
bringing such worthy characters to life. By choosing the
epistolary form [»p. 17], Richardson was able to establish an
intimate relationship between his characters and his readers.
Indeed, letters create the illusion of unmediated access to the
thoughts and feelings of the protagonists. In Pamela, most
of the letters are written by the heroine. Thus the reader has
access almost exclusively to the main character's thoughts
and to her perception of events. Clarissa, on the other hand,
is constructed around letters written by four different
correspondents giving readers access to a wider range of
perspectives and points of view.
Richardson made innovations to the form of the
novel, bringing together specific details, elements
of daily life and psychological realism. The
verisimilitude of Richardson' novels is further
increased by his ability to adapt language to the
social class of his characters.

~50 I U4 The Restoration and the Augustan Age

 sterne
nce
Laure .,,
.l. >> I '/(1d
tered Jesus College
. 1713. He e3~ He took holy Orde~
. {reland' inf p.rts JO
. 17 all.paris h m
. v1orks,i., re s
BiographY 11
was born. ,nBachelor o ·car of a srn His first publication.
Sterne . d h1s . ed V1 . }ife.
'd e and rece1ve
Laurence d asa ppointI )ate in h1sdAPo l'tical
z Romance. This

J
Cambn g_~ year, an w relative~ entitle atthe demand of solll,
the roUowi to li terature. al politi<5 n burned d work on his
10 Gentleman. The
He tutr,'.:: on ecclesi~st1•;59, was sooear he starhtendy
as a sa d in me Y Sa ' d
w k hich appeare That sa f Tris tram d . London an made
boo ' w ed churchmend. Opinions o il receive in
embarrass h Life an ere we
1 What 81'\! the main 'facts of masterpiece, T e f this work w h never actually recovered
. Steme's lite? Cons1der.
• tamily first two volu~es o . - frorn which :ir daughter, Lydia. In
Sterne • celebn:-his tuberculoSIS his wife and thand Jtaly, wbich P'DVided
• education th
In orderdto curFrance t'n 1762 With toU r of Franceb ok A Sentimental Journey
• job
- he move to k a seven-mon ventional
1765 he undert~o another uncon
?
slated into
'Italian by Ugo Foscolo
him with matenal for Mr. Yorick, tran
h h France and Italy, by . l d in London, where
t roug h ett e ·t
in 1813. k to England e s ffair with the you~g WI e
When Sterne carne bac !atonie love-a h r were pubhshed as
he lived out a pass10n . ate butffcer. His Ietters to . eburied in CoxwoId'
p
of an East India Companhi: d~ath, in 1768. He I:ed 'Shandy Hall' and is
the Journal to Eliza a.fter se which he had rena
Yorkshire, dose to h1s hou '
now a famous museum.

Themes an d Style 'ft from Go d an d used it extensively

Main works
APolitica! Romance (1759); The Lite
and Opinions ot Tristram Shandy,
Gentleman (1759-67); ASentimental
Journey through France and lta/y
:1768); The Journa/ to E!iza (posth.
1904)
Are there any consistent themes
in his production? Which and
why?
time as a continuous flow ruled by individua] consciousness; like his
characters, freed from conventional representation, his 'novels' are freed
from linearity and escape traditional models.
.
Sterne cons1'dere d humour as agid'fficult1es . readers may encounter 1s,
1
1or
L h'1s satirical ends. One
. .of the
h presence of any consistent themes. andl
therefore, that of ident1fying t e h' the experience of readmg a nove
serious meaning in bis works. Por b1lm ectations by showing them the
d • mforta e exp I
had to upset the rea ers co
chaotic nature of life and reveal~ng
.
lo
and verbal coinmunication can e. s a :es . '
th m how unreliable anguage
e ult it can be claimed that the
main themes of bis production were precise!~..
> the fluid and unpredictable essence ~f r;al1ty,'
> the impossibility for men to determme Truth . . . .
As far as style is concemed, the writer's literary reputat10n_ IS b~!;"
bis ability in creating great comic characters. He not only remve
traditional forms through the 18th_century love of parody and subtle
humour, but anticipated the Romantic emphasis on instinc~s an~
sentiments as well as the 20th-century notions of time and 1dentity.
In A Sentimental Journey, Sterne's focus is not on the description of
places and people but on the feelings experienced during the journey.
Similarly, what matters in Tristram Shandy is not a chronological sequence
of adventures and events but the psychology and idiosyncrasies of the
characters. A forerunner of Bergson's modem theories, Sterne considered

I U4 The Restoration and the Auancit"n A -