Tom Thumb (play)

To combat this problem, Fielding added other components, including footnotes, prefaces, and prologues, to the second edition of the written version.

[4] Cast according to the printed billing:[5] Fielding, writing as Scriblerus Secondus, prefaces the play by explaining his choice of Tom Thumb as his subject: It is with great Concern that I have observed several of our (the Grubstreet) Tragical Writers, to Celebrate in their Immortal Lines the Actions of Heroes recorded in Historians and Poets, such as Homer or Virgil, Livy or Plutarch, the Propagation of whose Works is so apparently against the Interest of our Society; when the Romances, Novels, and Histories vulgo call'd Story-Books, of our own People, furnish such abundance and proper Themes for their Pens, such are Tom Tram, Hickathrift &c.[8]Fielding reverses the tragic plot by focusing on a character who is small in both size and status.

The play is a low tragedy that describes Tom Thumb arriving at King Arthur's court showing off giants that he defeated.

As a reward, Arthur grants Tom the hand of princess Huncamunca, which upsets both his wife, Dollalolla, and a member of the court, Grizzle.

[12] Tom Thumb incorporates part of the satire found within The Author's Farce: the mocking of the heroic tragedy that has little substance beyond dramatic cliche.

[14] The satire of Tom Thumb reveals that the problem with contemporary tragedy is its unconscious mixture of farcical elements.

This results from the tragedians lacking a connection to the tradition of tragedy and their incorporation of absurd details or fanciful elements that remove any realism within the plot.

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

[17] J. Paul Hunter argues that the whole play "depends primarily on one joke", which is the diminutive size of the main character.

[19] Albert Rivero points out that the ignoring of Tom Thumb for its expanded and transformed version, Tragedy of Tragedies, "is a regrettable oversight because Tom Thumb constitutes a vital link in Fielding's dramatic career, its importance lying not so much in its later expansion into Scriblerian complexity as in its debt to, and departure from, the play it followed on stage for thirty-three nights in 1730.