The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling

Henry Fielding’s novels helped to shape the development of this new literary genre in the early decades of the 18th century. In the Middle Ages, when Latin was the language of learning and government, popular literature in the English language included long poems or prose narratives called romances, which often described the marvelous adventures of knights and ladies; a prime example would be Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur, written in the late 15th century. In the 16th and 17th centuries, these long tales of adventure continued to be popular elsewhere in Europe, and the style can most aptly be seen in early novels such as the picaresque Lazarillo de Tormes (1554) and Don Quixote (1605), by Miguel Cervantes. In England during that time frame, plays flourished as popular entertainment, and the most sophisticated literary forms were epic poems such as John Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667). Romances continued to be popular, but prose narratives such as Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726) began to incorporate social and political commentary. The growth of the printing press made print material more affordable, and as rates of literacy increased, prose narratives became more widely available.

Daniel Defoe’s novels Robinson Crusoe (1719) and Moll Flanders (1722), though also adventure stories, paved the way for a “new” kind of literature that depicts a history of a life with extraordinary but realistic events. Samuel Richardson’s Pamela (1740) and Clarissa (1747) introduced sympathetic, relatable characters who champion the moral virtues of the growing middle class or bourgeoisie: their primary readership. Fielding, turning his hand to this new genre, created a masterpiece in The History of Tom Jones, which is at once a portrait of ordinary life and a study in complicated and conflicted characters; the novel draws on philosophy and literary tradition while manipulating the persona of the author in innovative ways. In addition to Fielding’s widely acclaimed novel, The Adventures of Roderick Random by Tobias Smollett (1748), The History of Miss Betsey Thoughtless by Eliza Haywood (1751), and Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne (1759-1767) also influenced the emerging genre, which developed along several paths: the domestic novel that depicted household events, the novel of sentiment, Gothic novels, Romantic novels, and then the turn toward realism that swept the genre and produced the Victorian novel.

As a literary innovation, the success of the novel as an art form lies in its power not just to evoke emotions in the reader but also to examine the fate of an individual against the larger backdrop of society. This type of literature emphasizes the experience of an inner life rather than merely serving as a template for working out a philosophical or moral point, as do earlier allegories like John Buyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (1678) or Thomas More’s Utopia (1516). Although the novel format was criticized precisely for its more sensational aspects—criticism that Fielding alludes to when he shows his heroine weeping over a sentimental novel—the novel nonetheless surpassed poetry, plays, and even theology to become the most popular literary genre in English: a lofty status that it retains to this day.