ABSTRACT
This chapter explores Henry Fielding’s sustained attention to courtship and marital practices in Shamela (1741) and Joseph Andrews (1742), with particular emphasis on his approach to the marriage plot and the wedding ceremony in these novels. While the conventional story asserts that the immense popularity of Samuel Richardson’s Pamela (1740) prompted Fielding to express his objections in print, first with a direct parody in Shamela and then with an alternative version of morality and novel writing in Joseph Andrews, my analysis seeks to complicate this critical commonplace. I suggest that Fielding’s reaction to the Pamela phenomenon was more significantly inspired by the themes that fuelled his career as a playwright than by a deeply entrenched rivalry with Richardson. All of this is closely linked to Fielding’s overall interest in marriage and the marriage plot as sources for the reformation of moral and literary standards.
