SOURCE: "Classical Epic and the 'New Species of Writing,"' in her Henry Fielding's Novels and the Classical Tradition, University of Delaware Press; Associated University Presses, 1996, pp. 61-76

In the following chapter from her book Henry Fielding's Novels and the Classical Tradition, Mace details the specific classical influences on Fielding's major novels and his use of the epic tradition. Mace includes a special section on Fielding's Amelia as a revision of Virgil's Aeneid.

Now a comic Romance is a comic Epic-Poem in Prose;

—Preface to Joseph Andrews

when any kind of Writing contains all its other Parts, such as Fable, Action, Characters, Sentiments, and Diction, and is deficient in Metre only; it seems, I think, reasonable to refer it to the Epic,

—Preface to Joseph Andrews

I have attempted in my Preface to Joseph Andrews to prove, that every Work of this kind is in its Nature a...