SOURCE: "'Words and Ideas': Fielding and the Augustan Critique of Language," in his Henry Fielding and the Language of Irony, University of Chicago Press, 1968, pp. 28-53.
In the following excerpt from his book Henry Fielding and the Language of Irony, Hatfield examines Fielding's moral vision in the context of early eighteenth-century concerns about the increasing discontinuity between words and the things they were intended to represent. Taking into account Fielding's occasional prose as well as his major novels, Hatfield focuses on Fielding's pessimism with respect to the potential for clear and coherent communication.
This is a free excerpt of 93 words. There are 10,170 words (approx.
34 pages at 300 words per page) in the full critical essay.
Read the rest of this Criticism with our Henry Fielding 1701-1754: Critical Essay by Glenn W. Hatfield Access Pass.
