<p>By exploring the relationship between the idea of Nature and the idea of Art in the period from 1660-1760, this study attempts to account for the distinctive quality of the 'Augustan mode' in literature in arts. Before what Pope envisioned as the apocalypse of modernism occurred, artists and aestheticians shared the faith of Newton and the divines in providential order, and, refining the neoclassical doctrine of mimesis, they expressed that faith in theory and practice. In shaping his own ideal forms, the Augustan artist took as paradigm the fiat of Genesis. Showing that theories of 'pure form' in the period rest upon the mutually dependent assumptions of ethnology and aesthetics, Professor Battestin first discusses the ways in which ideas of Nature's harmony, symmetry, and variety affected the doctrine of mimesis in the abstract arts of music, architecture, and gardening. Against the background he next examines the idea of Art and the relationship between form and meaning in the poetry of Pope and Gay and the fiction of Fielding and Godlsmith. THe final chapter, focusing on the deliberate violation of these formal principles in  A Tale of Tub and Tristram Shandy, distinguishes between the Augustan and Modern modes by contrasting Swift's implicit acceptance of the ideals of his age with Sterne's sense that they are no logner relevant either to life or to art.</p>

The Providence of Wit: Aspects of Form in Augustan Literature and the Arts

Literature & Fiction

Battestin, Martin C.

British & Irish

University of Virginia Press

Best remembered as the author of Joseph Andrews (1742), Tom Jones (1749) and Amelia (1751), Henry Fielding was one of the most important pioneering English novelists of the eighteenth century, and his works continue to occupy a central place in the literary canon. During the 1730s he was the most dominant playwright in London since John Dryden; and in his official capacity as a magistrate, he addressed serious social problems and invented the modern metropolitan police. This reference book makes essential information available to readers interested in Fielding, his life, and his works.The volume is organized in sections devoted to such topics as Fielding's residences; his family members and household; historical persons, including authors who influenced him; his works; themes and topics important to his writings; and characters in his plays and prose fiction. Each section contains numerous entries on particular items, and many entries provide brief bibliographical information. While the sectional organization of the volume invites the reader to explore broad areas of interest, a thorough index provides convenient alphabetical access to the entries. A brief introductory essay and chronology begin the volume, and the book concludes with an extensive bibliography.

A Henry Fielding Companion

Biographies & Memoirs

Greenwood

Moral Basis of Fielding's Art: A Study of Joseph Andrews

Wesleyan University Press

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