Fielding and Haywood Hate Pamela

Well, what horrible people Eliza Haywood and Henry Fielding have lampooned of poor Pamela. I mean really, I never would have expected such behavior in titles such as Anti-Pamela and Shamela. It does seem quite terrible that a mother and daughter would go to such great lengths to ensure an easy living, and yet for some reason all the more entertaining. With Pamela I found myself rooting that she might get away from Mr. B and getting back to her parents, if only because there was never any indication that she had intended to manipulate Mr. B into any sort of arrangement. She seemed to be truly the victim and helpless to the point of despairing of ever receiving her freedom before relinquishing her 'vartue.'
And yet, in the end how much of a stretch is it to assume she had planned it from the start, and had every intention of ensnaring Mr. B into a long term commitment based on mutual affection and respect? The hussy! Also, sawcy chops. (Which I will hopefully be able to enjoy as a phrase for a long time.) The seething reactionary writing of Haywood and Fielding seems to be saying in a phrase: No virtuous women would hold out for marriage above her station. What stands out as a major diversion from Richardson's work is the larger role that the mother plays in the narrative. In Pamela, the is little back and forth between the parents, and what there is seems strictly cautionary. Then we have in Anti-Pamela, a character in the mother that goes so far as to have her daughter abuse herself in order, not to win over Mr. L, but to trap him in a situation where his confusion would only serve to deepen his appearance of guilt. How horrifically does Eliza Haywood portray the women in her writings?
Haywood's language between how women and men pursue the opposite sex shows a great rift, if not necessarily in itself privileging one or the other, between the sexes.  on Page 76, Haywood is describing the scene where Vardine is attempting to force Syrena to drink enough wine to make some poor decisions. Granted she only sees it as a poor decision as Vardine is not rich enough to warrant the later fake rape gifted toward Mr. L. Haywood describes a battle, "the young Officer perceiving the Ground he gain'd, did not fail pursuing the Attack, and bombarded her... with speeches... pressures, kisses... and the Juice of the Grape, that at length the Town was wholly his." While the plans of Syrena and her mother are referred to as 'plots' or 'tricks' and 'stratagems' as if playing a game rather than fighting a war to achieve the most favorable terms.
Haywood seems to have a dimmer view of women even than Fielding, given that Fielding was attempting a satire of Richardson, while Haywood's work, while still critical of Richardson, seems to be more serious. There is less of the scandalous language involved in Anti-Pamela that makes Shamela more entertaining to read, and yet a great deal more detail involved describing how cunning and deceitful the main character and her mother are.

Pamela Continued

I must confess that I do not understand quite how Pamela turned out the way it did. The turns of emotion just don't make all that much sense. Even if you trace back the actions of the Squire throughout the novel, and can think, "Perhaps he really did love her and was just incredibly confused at feeling this way," why, or how, does Pamela just forget all of the events of the novel as soon as Squire B proposes to make her his wife in an honest fashion? The common strain of 'love' between Haywood's Love in Excess and Pamela suggests an idea of love  as uncontrollable, irrational, and confusing. For Haywood, at least, there were examples where love is depicted as being somewhat constant, but then the main character, in both novels, seems only to be truly in love with the one woman that continues to reject them.
Still, I found "Pamela Censured" a great deal more disturbing. From this vantage point a few hundred years later, I found the criticisms of Richardson's form of advertising to be rather flat, and somewhat nonsensical. It just seems to be common sense to have only good things about your novel printed inside of the actual novel, regardless of whether or not they are real. Who is going to print their own criticism (except in those rare circumstances where it might help sales)? Which is part of the reason that I found the article disturbing, as from where I am standing the criticism is written in just such a way as to amount to a teaser of the actual novel, including several of the more racy bits of prose, all in a show for just how immoral the novel is. The author himself even seems to be secretly delighting in the scene where Squire B molests Pamela, putting his hand inside of her shirt, while condemning the scene as putting impure thoughts into the readers head that they should never have had otherwise, and now young girls will be running around attempting to concoct ways of putting themselves into similar situations. If indeed a scene like this is so damaging to the morals of youth, why then are you reprinting it nearly in full, in a letter to the editor? Were I think of effective forms of censorship or protest of a work, this is nearly the exact opposite of a book burning.
How effective is a censorship that shows what is deemed to be the worst aspects of the novel? The article reads more as a free advertisement to any not so morally outraged that a teenage girl would behave in a fashion as to drive her master to such lengths to possess her. Which in itself is ignored as a no win situation for Pamela. If she relents, she is shameful, if she resists, she is shameful. I find it quite wondrous that the book could be read as a great 'how-to' guide for ensnaring your employer to enable class jumping, and that this might be portrayed as the most reprehensible part of the story. Sure, the author of "Pamela Censured" addresses that the squire should have known better, but with a 'wink and a nod' he couldn't help himself in his desire. The true moral problem with the novel, is not the attempted rapes, the kidnapping, or the plans for sham marriages. What is morally askew is that a serving girl was allowed, and accepted, as a member of the upper class,and if this becomes a common place who will bring the dinner?

Virtue is not so much rewarded as kidnapped...

Pamela - a teenage girl is sexually molested, but displays the strength to fight off her attacker and shame him with her speech. Unused to rejection as the finest and most powerful man around, he stoops to such great lengths as kidnapping her and holding her ransom to his own demands of while simultaneously employing people to either look the other way, or to AGREE that she is the sort that you just don't let go. And of course, if she would just submit to his wishes, everything would be fine.
And it makes for such great fiction (I do hope it is fiction...) that I am not surprised at all of the anecdotal blacksmith in the introduction reading the copy on long summer nights to the gathered villagers. Yet, what I find most compelling is that Pamela's main argument seems to be closer to an economic one than one of love, or age, or even proper behavior as Richardson seems to have written so many conduct manuals. Before she is kidnapped to Lincolnshire, the character ominously referred to as Mr. B offers her a literal sack load of money, and a yearly sackful to her father as well as gainful employment. While Mr. B never fully names the price of this, which I assumed at this point would make Pamela a mistress or even a wife, her argument against acceptance is as much for her father as it is for her. She seems to be stating that her father rejecting the money is as much a matter of virtue as it is for rejecting becoming a mistress. She asks, "How many ways are there to undo poor creatures?" on page 84, but she does not seem to be referring only the assumed loss of innocence from sexual behavior.
There is definitely a connection between the hard work and poverty of her parents, and her idea of a virtuous life as evidenced by her repeated embrace of their poverty (My poor parents, with their poor house...) and by their willingness to borrow money in order to pay back a gift to a man that continually attempts harm to their daughter. I wonder if there is not a connection here as well to the life of Robinson Crusoe and his finding God, and therefore the supposed virtuous life that accompanies it, only when he has no room for considerations other than his very survival. It seems that the idea stretching between them is that money and power bring with them wicked diversions, and abuses of power through money. While the opposite is the idea of virtue and innocence through poverty and labor.  It seems that what Mr. B could not take by force, he was more than willing to buy what was not for sale, but is unable to understand why poor people might reject wanting to be made rich. So I wonder, is Mr B. not a similar case to D'elmont, in that he seems to want only those things that reject him? If Pamela, like Melliora, had been less conscious of their virtue, would the interests of their respected crazy men have persisted?

Poor Little Robin

For a man that moaned so much at being alone and marooned on an island, I find it incredible that his first reaction to finding some evidence of another human is an irrational panicked flight back to his 'castle.'  I readily grant that the person could have been unfriendly and violent, and it would have been prudent to make sure that Robinson sees the intruder to his 'kingdom' before the stranger sees him. Ironically, as we have just spent a significant amount of time having Robinson's newfound faith expounded to us, he immediately thinks the devil must have set foot on the island. Really? You can spend years developing a system of creating clay pots without any prior knowledge, but you spend those same years diligently studying the bible and automatically the devil has come to test your faith?
In all honesty Robinson seems almost reluctant to leave his solitary life. As he notes earlier, "I was removed from all the wickedness of the world here.... for I had all that I was no capable of enjoying." Indeed, he has food to eat, a dry shelter, and pets for company, all painstakingly earned with hard labor and sweat. For all his initial rage that he might die in the storm, or starve on the shore, Crusoe has found that this life suits him better than civilization. Going back to his conversations with his father about finding happiness in life in the lower middle class of people, his father tells him that in this group he should have income enough to pursue any diversion he should desire, but without the jealousy, envy, and greed so common to the upper class. Clearly, Robinson finds this unappealing, and I wonder if, in becoming an archetypal self sufficient pioneer, has he not found the 'class' that his father told him of?
He is told that only the truly adventurous rich man, or the truly desperate peasant, strike out into the new world. Those in the middle stay right where they are at, beause they have no enough to gain, and too much to lose in a gamble like that. Think of the many times that Robinson mentions the money he saved from the ship and how uttlerly useless it is to him on his island. I wonder at the meaning of the passage where he talks about how much he would pay for some of the smallest conveniences of the old world, and yet how he manages to eventually make the pipe that he wanted to badly, or the clothes that he was missing. It is as if, given enough time, and nothing else to divert the attention span, a person might well teach to themselve any number of useful skills and can in fact be an island unto themself. I am wondering if Defoe here is intimating that civilization might produce more out of its people, but a sort of law of diminishing returns goes into effect as each person needs to produce less to survive, then they will. Now I recognize that Crusoe eventually has companions, but how telling is his initial reaction to evidence of another human? How much has he grown to love that he is niether high, low, nor middle in the strata of humans?

Early Modern Young and the Restless

In Love in Excess Haywood manages to create a fairly large cast of characters that encourage the reader to struggle to find redeeming factors in them. This search may very well be a wild goose chase. If they were not the one's committing or attempting to commit terrible acts, they were just slightly too quick to believe their friends/lovers/family members capable of committing them. Brillian is quick to believe D'elmont would betray him for money, which only makes even less sense of the fact that he believes D'elmont when he says his wife is just crazy through no fault of his own. Aloysa is willing to sabotage the reputation of Amena for the sole purpose of gaining D'elmont, yet is surprised when he proves to be unfaithful. Camilla arose as my personal favorite as she was willing to love anyone except Cittelini, as long as they can save her from Cittelini. What I see are a group of people so unused to being denied anything that what they are denied becomes an object of desire to be mistaken for love.

What makes this story compelling is Haywood's insistence that this is the way it ought to be. When speaking of the how we should love she writes, "When love once becomes in our power, it ceases to worthy of that name; no man really posest with it, can be master of his actions; and whatever effects it may enforce, are no more to be condemned, than poverty, sickness, deformity or any other misfortune incident to humane nature." She goes on to say that those who preach moderation do not understand what love is, and that the actions of one in love can take two forms: one exalted, and one base depending on the nature of the person in love. This is clearly evident throughout the novel, albeit with more emphasis on the "coventousness, envy, pride, revenge" than on ambition and love. Of which all actions should be forgiven by a "generous heart," as they stem from love.

I can accept that interpretation of love as a premise for a story, if it seemed that the characters in the story who professed love for another actually seemed to follow that idea. Except that they do not. They attempt to preserve first the appearance of the propriety that their character's clearly show they do not possess. In one of D'elmont's letters he expresses that he would have expected inconstancy from a character like Melantha, but does she really seem to be any less reliable than any of the other characters? If anything she gives a little more honest interpretation of her intentions. Amena seems to be more upset that D'elmont is reluctant to approach her father with honest intentions, than at being caught and disgraced. More so the 'love' is invariably a physical one, just waiting for a more desirous object to attach itself to, as evidenced by D'elmont's love for Melliora nearly being displaced at first site of Camilla, possibly only held in place by not ever having that physicality realized. Essentially, the only character that managed to keep their wits about them while lustful thoughts filled their head (Melliora) is the love object that manages to stay constant under assault from another beauty.

Oroonoko and Pop Culture

Oroonoko is a case where I think I like the criticism of the story even more than I appreciated the tale. Specifically her contemporaries ideas of criticism, in that, often, they seemed to be more personal than professional criticisms.

As from Bishop Burnet (p. 189), "Some of Ms. Behn's songs are very tender; but she is so abominably vile a woman..." The man even seems to be admitting that Behn has some skill and talent with a pen, but for nothing as she misuses 'virtue' and 'religion' for personal gain. Another finds her work entirely unsuitable for either man or woman and "she was to be look'd upon as an Hermaphrodite, & consequently not fit to enjoy the benefits... of this society." (190) And my personal favorite of the negative criticism (at least as printed in the Norton Critical edition) , is not only a criticism of Behn, but of mass literacy  where Andrew Kippis declares that the only people still reading Behn’s work are “among that unhappily too numerous class of people who devour the trash of the circulating libraries.” Clearly, Behn had no shortage of harsh criticisms, but really more directed towards the fact that she was a woman, than her skill as either writer or storyteller.

This trends into the positive direction as well. Charles Cotton seems to be as much in love with Behn as with her writing. There were some that seemed to be willing to bleed for her, and others that were willing to bleed her, so that she might not write anymore. What makes this interesting to me is that it is so very much similar to what you see today, if not of book reviews, than movies or theatre productions. More than a few of the comments if updated to the language of today sounded similar to, “I guess it was alright, but I just can’t stand anything to do with Aphra Behn.”

It might be a bit of a reach, but I think this says something about the popularity of what would later become mass popular culture in that it is driven as much by people loving not only the works of creative artists, but loving to bash those works and their creators as mercilessly as their slightly less creative minds will allow. Not because any of the works are inherently bad, but because it becomes difficult to separate the person from the work, when one sees and hears of their exploits on a regular basis.

For that matter, in Brown’s “The Romance of Empire,” a case is made that Oroonoko can serve as a stand in for the execution of Charles II. Which from the standpoint of hundreds of years later means very little to me, but for her contemporaries, some of whom most certainly would have made this connection, it would have been an issue that could easily cause such remarkable disparity between supporters and detractors. In a way it simply manages to affirm for me that any publicity is good publicity, and, sometimes, the negative is just as good as the positive.