Amelia (novel)
It contains many allusions to classical literature and focuses on the theme of marriage and feminine intelligence, but Fielding's stance on gender issues cannot be determined because of the lack of authorial commentary discussing the matter.
He turned to his own life for inspiration, and the main character, Amelia, was possibly modelled on Fielding's first wife, Charlotte, who died in November 1744.
[2] In it, Millar claimed that "to satisfy the earnest Demand of the Publick, this Work is now printing at four Presses; but the Proprietor not-withstanding finds it impossible to get them bound in Time without spoiling the Beauty of the Impression, and therefore will sell them sew'd at Half a Guinea a Sett.
In the prefatory essay, the Works editor, Arthur Murphy, claimed that "Amelia, in this edition, is printed from a copy corrected by the author's own hand.
Fielding claimed, in his 28 January The Covent Garden Journal, that there were connections of the work to both Homer and Virgil, but that the "learned Reader will see that the latter was the noble model, which I made use of on this Occasion.
To demonstrate her knowledge, she quotes from the Aeneid, an action that Fielding describes, in Book VI, Chapter 8, as her performing "with so strong an Emphasis, that she almost frightened Amelia out of her Wits.
"[12] However, Fielding follows that by claiming she spoke on "that great Absurdity, (for so she termed it,) of excluding Women from Learning; for which they were equally qualified with the Men, and in which so many had made so notable a Proficiency" and this idea was not accepted by either Amelia or Mrs. Booth.
[14] Her feminine intellect was described by Jill Campbell as a "threatening" force which her husband once reacted violently against, even though his violence was contained to him acting on it only in a dream-like state.
His lack of authorial comments seems to reinforce a possible "anxieties about gender confusion" in the plot, and the characters' sexual identities are blurred; the dispute between Mrs Atkinson and Dr Harrison continues until the very end of the novel.
[16] Fielding did not comment on the gender roles, but Richardson's friend, Anne Donnellan, did, and she asked, "must we suppose that if a woman knows a little Greek and Latin she must be a drunkard, and virago?
"[20] John Hill soon attacked Amelia in the London Daily Advertiser on 8 January 1752 where he claimed that the book's title character "could charm the World without the Help of a Nose.
[21] Fielding was quick to respond, and on 11 January 1752 in a piece published in The Covent-Garden Journal, he ironically stated: "a famous Surgeon, who absolutely cured one Mrs Amelia Booth, of a violent Hurt in her Nose, insomuch, that she had scarce a Scar left on it, intends to bring Actions against several ill-meaning and slanderous People, who have reported that the said Lady had no Nose, merely because the Author of her History, in a Hurry, forgot to inform his Readers of that Particular.
On 25 January 1752, Fielding defended his work again by bringing the novel before the imaginary "Court of Censorial Enquiry", in which the prosecutors are Hill and the other critics and it is they, not Amelia that are truly put on trial.
[25] In The Bible in Spain (1843) George Borrow, describing his first visit to Lisbon, wrote: "Let travellers devote one entire morning to inspecting the Arcos and the Mai das Agoas, after which they may repair to the English church and cemetery, Pere-la-chaise in miniature, where, if they be of England, they may well be excused if they kiss the cold tomb, as I did, of the author of Amelia, the most singular genius which their island ever produced, whose works it has long been the fashion to abuse in public and to read in secret.
"[26] In recent years, critics have examined various aspects of the novel that were previous ignored; on the Virgilian images in Amelia, Ronald Paulson claimed that they "elevate the domestic (marriage) plot and to connect it with public issues of a degenerating society and nation.
