Fielding on characterisation
Oct. 10th, 2005 08:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lederhosenHave been reading Fielding's Tom Jones while travelling, and although it took some getting into I'm quite enjoying it now. In particular, I very much appreciate Fielding's attitude to virtue and vice in his characters, as set out at the beginning of Book 10:
In the next place, we must admonish thee, my worthy friend, (for, perhaps, thy heart may be better than thy head) not to condemn a character as a bad one, because it is not perfectly a good one. If thou dost delight in these models of perfection, there are books enow written to gratify thy taste; but as we have not, in the course of our conversation, ever happened to meet with any such person, we have not chosen to introduce any such here. To say the truth, I a little question whether mere man ever arrived at this consummate degree of excellence, as well as whether there hath ever existed a monster bad enough to verify that
- nulla virtute redemptum
A vitiis -*
in Juvenal; nor do I, indeed, conceive the good purposes served by inserting characters of such angelic perfection, or such diabolical depravity, in any work of invention: since from contemplating either, the mind of man is more likely to be overwhelmed with sorrow and shame, than to draw any good uses from such patterns; for in the former instance he may be both concerned and ashamed to see a pattern of excellence, in his nature, which he may reasonably despair of ever arriving at; and in contemplating the latter, he may be no less affected with those uneasy sensations, at seeing the nature, of which he is a partaker, degraded into so odious and detestable a creature.
In fact, if there be enough of goodness in a character to engage the admiration and affection of a well-disposed mind, though there should appear some of those little blemishes, quas humana parum cavit natura, they will raise our compassion rather than our abhorrence. Indeed, nothing can be of more moral use than the imperfections which are seen in examples of this kind; since such form a kind of surprize, more apt to affect and dwell upon our minds, than the faults of very vicious and wicked persons. The foibles and vices of men in whom there is great mixture of good, become more glaring objects, from the virtues which contrast them, and shew their deformity; and when we find such vices attended with their evil consequence to our favourite characters, we are not only taught to shun them for our own sake, but to hate them for the mischiefs they have already brought on those we love.
*"Whose vices are not allayed with a single virtue"
(Unfortunately, Fielding doesn't always follow his own advice, which makes three of his characters somewhat duller than they could be, but there are plenty of others where he gets it right.)
In the next place, we must admonish thee, my worthy friend, (for, perhaps, thy heart may be better than thy head) not to condemn a character as a bad one, because it is not perfectly a good one. If thou dost delight in these models of perfection, there are books enow written to gratify thy taste; but as we have not, in the course of our conversation, ever happened to meet with any such person, we have not chosen to introduce any such here. To say the truth, I a little question whether mere man ever arrived at this consummate degree of excellence, as well as whether there hath ever existed a monster bad enough to verify that
A vitiis -*
in Juvenal; nor do I, indeed, conceive the good purposes served by inserting characters of such angelic perfection, or such diabolical depravity, in any work of invention: since from contemplating either, the mind of man is more likely to be overwhelmed with sorrow and shame, than to draw any good uses from such patterns; for in the former instance he may be both concerned and ashamed to see a pattern of excellence, in his nature, which he may reasonably despair of ever arriving at; and in contemplating the latter, he may be no less affected with those uneasy sensations, at seeing the nature, of which he is a partaker, degraded into so odious and detestable a creature.
In fact, if there be enough of goodness in a character to engage the admiration and affection of a well-disposed mind, though there should appear some of those little blemishes, quas humana parum cavit natura, they will raise our compassion rather than our abhorrence. Indeed, nothing can be of more moral use than the imperfections which are seen in examples of this kind; since such form a kind of surprize, more apt to affect and dwell upon our minds, than the faults of very vicious and wicked persons. The foibles and vices of men in whom there is great mixture of good, become more glaring objects, from the virtues which contrast them, and shew their deformity; and when we find such vices attended with their evil consequence to our favourite characters, we are not only taught to shun them for our own sake, but to hate them for the mischiefs they have already brought on those we love.
*"Whose vices are not allayed with a single virtue"
(Unfortunately, Fielding doesn't always follow his own advice, which makes three of his characters somewhat duller than they could be, but there are plenty of others where he gets it right.)
