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SAMUEL RICHARDSON (1689-1761)

SAMUEL RICHARDSON (1689-1761). Born in Derbyshire in 1689. Belonged to a lower middle-class family. His father was a joiner( a type of carpenter) and his family were farmers. A n established printer in London. Became a novelist thanks to his skill as a letter-writer.

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SAMUEL RICHARDSON (1689-1761)

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  1. SAMUEL RICHARDSON(1689-1761)

  2. Born in Derbyshire in 1689. • Belonged to a lower middle-class family. • His father was a joiner( a type of carpenter) and his family were farmers. • An establishedprinter in London. • Became a novelist thanks to his skill as a letter-writer. • His first novel is “Pamela or Virtue Rewarded” (1740). • Married his employer’s daughter Martha and they had six children but all of them died in childhood. • His other most popular works are “Clarissa or History of Young Lady….” (1747-1748). • His last novel is “The History of Sir Charles Grandison” (1753). • Printed almost 500 different works, including magazines and journals. • Died in London in 1761

  3. PAMELA

  4. Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded is an epistolary novel, first published in 1740 . • It is one of the most famous stories ever written of male stratagems to seduce a young girl thwarted by female prudence. • It relates a squire’s repeated attempts on the virtue of one of his mother’s servants, and is told entirely in letters, written largely by Pamelaherself. • Pamela displays such a perfection in resisting her master’s advances that he ends by marrying her.

  5. WHAT IS AN EPISTOLARY NOVEL? • An Epistolary Novel is one written as a series of letters. • Extremely popular during the eighteenth century and it was Richardson's “Pamela” that made them so. • Richardson and other novelists of his time argued that …. • on the one hand, the letter allowed the reader greater access to a character's thoughts, • on the other, it allowed the writer to analyse the character’s psychological development • Richardson claimed that he was writing "to the moment", that is, that Pamela's thoughts were recorded nearly simultaneously with her actions.

  6. ABOUT “PAMELA” • Published in two volumes in 1740. • A second volume to the novel was published some time later in 1742. • The first epistolary novel by Samuel Richardson. • In “Pamela”, the letters are almost exclusively written by the heroine, restricting the reader's access to the other characters; we see them only through Pamela's point of view. • Detailed picture of English domestic life in the early part of eighteenth century. • In particular, Pamela’s “zeal for housewifery” is presented as a proper role of women in society. • “ Richardson’s insistence upon well-defined feminine roles” was part of a common fear held during the 18th century that women were “ too bold”.

  7. LITERARY SIGNIFICANCE • Pamela was the bestseller of its time. • It was read by countless buyers of the novel and was also read aloud in groups. • The novel was also integrated into sermons as an example. • It was even an early “multimedia” event, producing Pamela-themed cultural artifacts such as prints, paintings, and a set of playing cards decorated with lines from Richardson's works.

  8. RICHARDSON'S REVISIONS • The popularity of Richardson’s novel led to much public debate over its message and style ( there were two factions: Pamelists and anti-Pamelists). • Richardson responded to some of the criticisms by revising the novel for each new edition; he even created a “reading group” of women to advise him. • Some of the most significant changes that he made were his alterations to Pamela’s vocabulary. • In the first edition her diction is that of a lower-class maid, but in later editions Richardson made her more linguistically middle-class by removing the lower-class idioms from her speech. • In this way, he made her marriage to Mr. B less scandalous as she appeared to be more his equal in education.

  9. THE SUCCESS OF “ PAMELA” • Richardson’s readers were enchanted by … • the close identification the epistolary novel induced with the heroine in her distress, • the unparalleled attention Richardson paid to the details of daily life • while the pervasive tone of moral rectitude provided a convenient and much-needed justification for the otherwise dubious taste for prose fiction. • Pamela was a huge success and became something of a cult novel. • By May 1741 it reached a fourth edition and was dramatized in Italy by Goldoni, as well as in England.

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