Henry Fielding's Novels and the Classical Tradition by Nancy A. Mace (review)

Book Reviews47 attempt to appropriate high culture so as to come to know itselfbetter as a public—and, ultimately, as a class" (112). Shelley's ongoing dialogue with Italian writers such as Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Tasso is no surprise to readers, but Lilla Maria Crisafulli Jones examines how Shelley's revolutionary work was a source ofinspiration to great nineteenth-century Italian writers such as Carducci, Pascoli, and D'Annunzio, who identified with his views on the supremacy of poetry, his identification with nature, and his love ofliberty. Devotees of Shelley from undergraduate students to professors will find much for discussion and debate in this important work. The reader engages with first-rate thinkers and writers who bring the latest critical theories to bear on the study ofShelley's political thought. Providing cultural, feminist, reader-response, and new historical readings ofShelley, the collection makes a useful addition to a valuable earlier volume of essays, The New Shelley (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991), which emphasizes post-structural linguistics. Shelley: Poet and Legislator of the World can best be described as wise, humane, and profoundly reflective. PAULETTE SCOTT Eastern Washington University NANCY A. MACE. Henry Fielding's Novels and the Classical Tradition. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1996. 198p. In this book, NancyA. Mace attempts to define Fielding's place amongst the eighteenth-century "ancients" in their controversies with the "moderns."The question is a difficult one, since Fielding offers the problem of a classically minded author who produced his most important work in a genre largely shaped by "modern" impulses. Mace offers statistical analyses of Fielding's quotations from, and ' allusions to, classical writers in his novels. Although the findings are largely predictable (at least in the case ofthe most prominent writers), the intuitions of Fielding scholars are given the solid confirmation of detailed research: Latin authors are indeed cited by Fielding more often than Greek; Horace and Virgil prove to be the most frequently cited of all classical writers, although Homer is a close third (63-64). Quantitative analyses are turned to critical account as Mace also examines how Fielding actually employs his classical materials. Some ofthe conclusions are no less predictable than the results ofthe statistical surveys, but Mace again deserves credit for establishing her observations upon a new basis ofdetailed analysis. She argues that the frequent appearance ofHorace helps Fielding to define his fictional persona, articulate numerous critical and ethical positions, and establish literary authority (57-60), while allusions to Virgil and to Homer serve Fielding's attempt to align his novels with the tradition of epic, as opposed to that of romance (69-70). Less predictable, however—and far more questionable—is Mace's conclusion that 48Rocky Mountain Review Fielding's relatively few references to Lucian must disqualify the Greek satirist from being the important influence upon Fielding that scholars have long considered him to be (55). While a writer's frequent references to a predecessor might well support claims of significant influence or affinity, infrequent citation does not by itself constitute an argument against the possibility of a deep connection. The hazard ofusing statistics negatively becomes apparent when Mace must support her disqualification of Lucian, against Fielding's own contrary remarks in the Covent-Garden Journal. Mace attempts to downplay authorial testimony by questioning Fielding's proficiency at reading Greek, but this too proves a weak argument for she admits that, even if he needed the help of"translations and Greek dictionaries," Fielding could in fact read Greek (56). Confronted with the fact that the Baker sale catalogue of Fielding's library demonstrates that Fielding owned nine texts of Lucian, and that not all were in Greek (some were Latin, French, and English translations), Mace then calls into question his reading of them, due to the absence of"annotations in his hand" (54)—but this argument proves no more happy than the other arguments, for Mace acknowledges that Fielding probably collected his copies of Lucian for a projected "English edition of Lucian" (54). Whether Fielding read the particular copies of Lucian in his library or not, and whether he found Greek easy to read or not, the fact remains that Fielding was intensely interested...