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This study is an examination of Henry Fielding's attitude toward the uses and abuses of language in the four newspapers which he edited: The Champion (1739-40), The True Patriot (1745-46), The Jacobite's Journal (1747-48), The Covent Garden Journal (1752). This exploration begins with a consideration of Fielding's attitude toward the corrupting and corruptible word and the relationship which he saw between the corruption and decline in language and the corruption and decline in ethics and morality. It focuses on these four journals largely neglected by previous Fielding critics, searching them for references to language uses and abuses and for the social theory underlying these remarks. This study moreover traces and investigates Fielding's seventeenth-century philosophical forerunners-Thomas Hobbes, Bernard de Mandeville, Anthony Ashley Cooper Third Earl of Shaftesbury, John Locke--and their profound effect on Fielding's ethos and ethics in particular and on those of the eighteenth century in general. Locke is discussed in most detail because he directly shaped Fielding's attitude toward language.Because language is a major tool of certain learned professions, three chapters examine Fielding's position in his journals on the uses and abuses of language as related to three groups of professionals: the clergy, writers and critics, and lawyers and doctors.This study suggests further areas needing investigation: (1) critical editions of The Champion and The Covent Garden Journal, (2) a comparative study of Fielding's journalistic efforts with those of Addison, Steele, Defoe, and especially Swift, (3) an examination of Fielding's attitude toward women in the four journals, (4) an exploration of the philosophical relationship between Fielding and Locke, (5) a comparison of Fielding's theories of language and society with those of two modern linguistphilosophers--George Orwell and Walter Ong.Fielding attempted in his four journals to restore a language that he saw as fallen into corruption and abuse. Language, he thought, often becomes corrupt first; then the corruptions in society follow. Fielding's four journals provide particularly useful indications of how seriously he took language, how prevalent he found its abuses in the professions of mid-eighteenth-century England, and how he hoped through purifying language to reform society itself in his own time. / Department of English

Reproduction de : Thèse de doctorat : Etudes anglophones : Lyon 2 : 2004. / Titre provenant de l'écran-titre. Bibliogr. Notes bibliogr. Index.

An examination of the plays which Henry Fielding wrote before becoming one of England's greatest novelists has revealed that they possess strong comic merit and are worthy of serious critical attention. Before turning to the plays themselves, the critical corpus on Fielding's plays has been considered, and the nature and purpose of Fielding's dramatic burlesque has been defined.Fielding's burlesque embodies the serious comic purpose of exposing vice and folly in the theater. Specifically, Fielding objects to the restrictions imposed on playwrights by dramatic conventions as well as by the critics and theater managers; furthermore, he criticizes the rude behavior and insipid taste of contemporary playgoers.This theatrical criticism has illuminated Fielding’s comic craft, displaying the ways in which he uses the vehicle of vice and folly in the theater to expose these flaws in social, political, and professional institutions as well.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of English, 1993. / "Submitted as Ph. D thesis." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 468-493).

Zugleich: Diss. Münster (Westfalen), 2007. / Register. Literaturverz.

In 1651, Thomas Hobbes published his Leviathan. In it he analyses the passions and behaviour of men in an emerging market or competitive society. By posing his hypothetical "state of nature," he draws the conclusion that man is essentially a self-motivated creature. Lord Ashley Cooper, the third Earl of Shaftesbury, reacted to the picture of man drawn by Hobbes. In Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, and Times, first published in 1709, Shaftesbury analyses the affections or passions and concludes that man is essentially benevolent. Unlike the Hobbesian picture, the Shaftesburian analysis shows man as outward-oriented, seeking the good and company of others. These theories or the doctrines of the heart (as I call them for the purpose of this thesis) were current in the eighteenth century and at a time when Fielding and Sterne wrote Tom Jones and The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman respectively. The doctrines are reflected substantially in both novels. In Tom Jones, for example, Tom becomes the epitome of the doctrine of benevolence in his persistent performance of good works; Blifil, in his selfish attempts to supplant Tom, displays Hobbesian egocentricity. Uncle Toby and Mr. Walter Shandy each reflect aspects of both doctrines in Tristram Shandy. It is my intention to show in this thesis that the doctrines of egocentricity and benevolence inform both Tom Jones and Tristram Shandy, and that Fielding and Sterne react critically to the teaching of Hobbes and Shaftesbury in the process of their artistic creation. I shall approach the discussion chiefly by way of character analysis thus showing how the behaviour of the main figures in the novels suggests the thoughts of the philosophers. But the novelists' vision becomes clearer to the reader when it is seen in direct relation to the style of their works. In addition to the character analysis , therefore, I shall emphasize the narrative technique of each author, such as, the "comic- epic prose" of Fielding, the digressions as well as the "Shandean rhetoric" of Sterne, and attempt to illustrate how the style strengthens the awareness of the artistic vision. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

This thesis examines the philosophy of Henry Fielding as expressed in his novel, Tom Jones as it relates to the prevailing philosophical thought of eighteenth-century England.

Zürich, Univ., Phil. Fak. I, Diss. von 1976. / Vollst. Ausg.: Europäische Hochschulschriften; Reihe XVIII. 9.

Thesis (M.A.) -- University of Adelaide, Dept. of English, 1965. / [Typescript]. Includes bibliography.