Question: Consider Joseph Andrews as a comic epic in prose.
Or,
Fielding's Joseph Andrews is a breezy comedy.
Or,
Fielding calls Joseph Andrews, a comic epic poem in prose. To what extent is this an apt description of the novel? Give examples to support your answer.
Answer: Henry Fielding occupies a place of distinction in the history of literature in general and of English literature in particular. This greatness lies in his achievement as a writer of comic prose epic in English literature. He was a great master of English novels.
Fielding's claim that he was founding a new genre of writing was not entirely accurate. There was a long tradition of such writing before him, though it was not completely developed or established. Aristotle said that Homer had produced a comic epic that bore the same sort of relation to comedy as his serious epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, which bore tragedy. Nor was the idea of a prose epic unfamiliar. Apparently, if a literary piece had all other ingredients of an epic, namely, fable, action, character, sentiment, and diction, and merely differed in the medium from the conventional epic, it would justifiably be called a prose epic. Aristotle himself says that verse is not really the main criterion for poetry. Fielding combined the ideas of the comic epic and the prose epic, to produce what he termed as a 'comic epic poem in prose'. He differentiates the genre from other forms of writing and tries to evolve a theory about it.
Fielding's label of "a comic epic poem in prose" for his novel Joseph Andrews would be perfectly acceptable to us but for the use of the word "poem" in it. We fail to understand what Fielding means by describing this novel as an epic "poem" in prose. How can a poem be written in prose? The use of the word "poem" in this phrase is absolutely preposterous, and we have no hesitation in rejecting it entirely. We have here a bit of utter nonsense. However, if we delete the word "poem" from this phrase, it would then aptly describe this novel. In other words, Joseph Andrews may justly be described as a comic epic in prose.
While Fielding follows certain epic conventions in a most natural manner, he also adapts to the comic purpose of his own. He declared that the comic would expose affectation to ridicule. It is what would make the epic get comic dimensions. As he has remarked in the preface, the sources of affectation are vanity and hypocrisy. There are several examples of both, with the resulting amusement, in Joseph Andrews. Each character, typical or individual, exhibits a streak of vanity or hypocrisy. Even the good Parson Adams is not spared by Fielding. Adams is childishly vain about his sermon against vanity. The irony is obvious and provokes our laughter. "I have never been a greater enemy to any passion than that silly one of vanity" declares Adams in the same breath in which he expresses his confidence that Mr. Wilson would admire his sermon against vanity.
The scene of seduction in which Lady Booby attempts to overcome Joseph's resistance to her passion is a skillful presentation of hypocrisy at work. Lady Booby puts on prose that is the very opposite of what she really is and intends. Under the grab of placing herself at the mercy of Joseph, she is mercilessly trying to make him succumb to her wiles. Pamela, the virtuous sister of Joseph embodies hypocrisy as well as vanity. We have a gamut of hypocritical characters in Parson Trulliber, Parson Barnabas, the anonymous passengers in the stage-coach, Mrs. Two-Wouse, Mrs. Slipslop, Peter Pounce, and the various squires whom Adams and Joseph met on their way. The surgeon, the lawyer, and the magistrate are other examples of hypocrisy and vanity. Each of these characters provides amusement. Each of these is a comic character with a comic purpose.
Another epic convention, which, however, is unpalatable to a modern critic who demands greater coherence in novel plots is the use of interpolations in the narrative. There are two major interpolations in Joseph Andrews. Seemingly irrelevant, the interpolated stories of Leonara and Mr. Wilson's account belong to the conventions of the epic. The devices were used to introduce variety into the narrative. Epic writers considered them as embellishments. Fielding, however, makes the interpolations thematically relevant. As such, they are not irrelevant in reality.
Amusing as they are, the comic incidents and characters are not merely there to produce entertainment. Fielding's purpose was didactic. He had no intention of providing laughter for immoral ends. His end was to expose affection to ridicule and hence correct mankind of its follies and foibles. He would use the 'comic epic in prose' as a vehicle for making an impact on the human mind. Joseph Andrews, by attacking folly, vanity, and hypocrisy, and exposing them to ridicule, embodies a serious purpose of correction, behind the comedy and horseplay.
But why does Fielding call this novel an epic instead of merely calling it a novel? The serious epic is a long story containing a large number of heroic episodes and incidents and also containing the element of romance in the form of love affairs. But Joseph Andrews is a comic epic because it makes us laugh from beginning to end, and because it too contains a long story in which many incidents and events occur, and in which a love affair of a serious kind has an important place. An epic has weight and substance. An epic is not a trivial or flimsy affair. Even a comic epic is not something trivial or flimsy. It has weight. The weight in the case of Joseph Andrews lies in its satire. A satire has always a corrective function. This novel exposes certain human absurdities, follies, and vices to ridicule, the author's object being reform. Inn-keepers, lawyers, clergymen, justices, squires, and wanton women are all depicted as suffering from various deficiencies, shortcomings, and faults, and they are made to look ridiculous. The epic quality of this novel lies in its vast scope as a social document and in its broad, panoramic view of 18th-century English life.
The theory of the 'comic epic in prose' as propounded by Fielding, in the preface of Joseph Andrews, manifests itself in the novel. It is to Fielding's credit that we are never made aware of a labored or conscious application of the rules in practice. He has assimilated the rules and adapted them to his way of writing so well that we are not consciously aware of the formal principles which give unity to his materials. Here, indeed, is the "art which conceals art, but is the art of a conscious artist", as Thornbury so aptly points out. It is true that in Joseph Andrews, the scale is not as large as one can expect in an epic, though it incorporates all other elements of the theory propounded by Fielding. For a more comprehensive and complete application of the theory to the art, we will have to go through Tom Jones.
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