SOURCE: "Fielding: The Comic Reality of Fiction," in The First English Novelists: Essays in Understanding, edited by J. M. Armistead, Tennessee Studies in Literature, Vol. 29, University of Tennessee Press, 1985, pp. 109-42.
In the following essay, noted scholar and Fielding editor Sheridan Baker offers a thorough account of Fielding's approach to quixotic comedy in both his drama and his fiction. Calling the theater "Fielding's apprenticeship," Baker demonstrates that Fielding's early comic plays provided the groundwork for his didactic use of comedy in the novel.
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