The Tragedy of Tragedies

It is an expanded and reworked version of one of his earlier plays, Tom Thumb, and tells the story of a character who is small in stature and status, yet is granted the hand of a princess in marriage; the infuriated queen and another member of the court subsequently attempt to destroy the marriage.

In adapting his earlier work Fielding incorporated significant plot changes; he also made the play more focused, and unified the type of satire by narrowing its critique of the abuses of language.

Additionally, in a reaction to the view that Tom Thumb was a burlesque, Fielding replaced some of the humour in favour of biting satire.

He completely removed a scene in which two doctors discuss Tom Thumb's death, and in doing so unified the type of satire that he was working on.

Though Fielding was happy to share in some of the fame and power of Pope and Swift at their peak, and to borrow some of their themes and techniques, he never agreed wholeheartedly with their cultural or political aims.

Swift reportedly praised Fielding as a wit, saying that he had laughed only twice in his life, the second instance being the Circumstance of Tom Thumb's killing the Ghost in the quick accumulation of corpses that closes the play.

[12] The previous version, according to Fielding, was criticised as "a Burlesque on the loftiest Parts of Tragedy, and designed to banish what we generally call Fine Things, from the Stage.

"[13] This idea is developed by the focus of the tragedy being on a low-class citizen of the kingdom, even smaller in stature than a regular commoner.

Tragedies normally deal with royalty and high-class families, so the focus on little Tom Thumb establishes the satirical nature from the beginning.

In addition, the over the top nature of the plot, the intricacies of the characters' relationships, and the littering of bodies at the end of the play all serve to further mock and burlesque eighteenth century tragedies.

This condensing serves as Tom's rejection of the linguistic flourishes found within King Arthur's court that harm the English language as a whole.

[17] Besides critiquing various theatrical traditions, there are gender implications in the dispute between King Arthur and his wife, Queen Dollallolla over which of the females should have Tom as her own.

Ultimately, gender was a way to comment on economics, literature, politics, and society as a whole along with reinforcing the mock-heroic nature of the play.