Lovelace as Tragic Hero

LOVELACE AS TRAGIC HERO JOHN CARROLL Samuel Richardson once remarked that when he was working O n Clarissa he tried Lovelace's character 'as it was lirst drawn, and his last Exit, on a young Lady of Seventeen. She shewed me by her Tears at the latter that he was not very odious to her for his Vagaries and Inventions. I was surprized ; and for fear such a Wretch should induce Pity, I threw into his Character some deeper Shades. And as he nOw stands, I verily think that had I made him a WOrse Man, he must have been a Devil." Happily, Richardson's anxieties as a moralist did not overwhelm his instincts as a novelist. Lovelace emerges not only as a highly complex but an extraordinarily magnetic character. Nearly a century after the publication of Clarissa, Honore de Balzac was to ask, rhetorically, 'Qui de nous pourrait prononcer entre Clarisse et Lovelace?" Richardson might well have thrown up his handsin despair at such a question - and then produced a rhetorical question himself: What can one expect of a Frenchman - who is a novelist to boot? At the same time, I suspect that in the act of creating Lovelace and Clarissa, Richardson would have known precisely what Balzac meant. On an occasion when someone claimed that Lovelace was too wicked to be credible, Richardson was at pains to point out the good qualities the hero possessed. In fact, Richardson could not have induced what he called 'Historical Faith' in the reader had Lovelace been painted only in dark shades. For Clarissa's enemy-lover must have qualities which draw the heroine to him despite his evil reputation. Like many doomed lovers in literature, Lovelace and Clarissa deline each other; they are necessary complements. Their strengths and weaknesses create a unique strife, a rhythm of destructive conllict such as neither could have known without the other. At the beginning of the novel Clarissa, in the eyes of her &iends and parents, is the Gloriana of her age - an eighteen-year-Qld who is holy, wise, and fair. Her weakness is really that she is over·confident of herself ; she is too certain, without any real experience of evil, that by continuing her correspondence with Lovelace she Can stop warfare between her family and her suitor. And when Clarissa eventually considers the pOSSibility of fleeing with Lovelace, she quite mistakenly thinks that she UTQ, Volume XLTI, NU1nber 1, Fall 1972 LOVELACE AS TRAGIC HERO 15 can be mistress of her destiny. Later she is to attribute her downfall to pride and a 'busy prescience,' Lovelace, of course, preys on these weaknesses and also exploits her love of punctilio; once he has her beyond the walls of her garden he always manages to propose in a way that violates her sense of decorum. And what is the nature of this man who vows that he will relieve Clarissa of her virginity? Lovelace is courageous (his duel with James Harlowe , which frightens Clarissa so badly at the start of the novel, proves that); he has a winning address and is very much aware that his handsome appearance eases his rakish progress. But there are other important qualities that appeal to Clarissa. At college Mr Lovelace was noted not only for his vivacity and daring but also 'for the swift and surprising progress he made in all parts of literature,'" He is no languid man of pleasure. From her Aunt Hervey, Clarissa learns that he is a generous, conscientious landlord who 'sparers] nothing for solid and lasting improvements on his estate' that benefit his tenants (r, 22). Clarissa, with her strong sense of obligation and her passion for charity, respects these merits in Lovelace. In a later report, Anna Howe says that whenever Lovelace sets his heart on anything he is the most industrious and persevering man under the sun. 'He rests, it seems not above six hours in the twenty-four.... [andl delightsin writing' (r, 67). For Clarissa, herself an early riser and indefatigable correspondent, these are very good portents indeed. Near the end of her gossipy letter, Anna remarks, 'A person Willing to think favourably of him would hope that a brave, a...