The Cry: A New Dramatic Fable by Sarah Fielding and Jane Collier (review)

Fielding and Collier’s 1754 “Dramatic Fable” features two heroines, Portia and Cylinda, who appear before Una (Truth) and an assembly called the Cry to relate their life stories. The Cry use language as a weapon—to mask their egocentrism, build their self-esteem, and put others down. Ever critical, the Cry challenge, mock, and willfully misinterpret Portia’s words even as she uses language to communicate honestly and “to unfold the labyrinths of the human mind.” The narrator advises readers to avoid the Cry’s knee-jerk criticism of novelty and to approach the work with open minds, giving its ideas thorough consideration and “a fair examination.” Structured in five parts akin to dramatic acts in a play, each is introduced with a Prologue, and the whole work ends with an Epilogue. The Cry merges philosophy, fiction, and allegory, and encourages readers not only to use their imagination but also to engage critically with the oddly constructed work.

It is because of The Cry’s explicit concern with how one reads and interprets the words of others that reviewing Carolyn Woodward’s long-awaited edition of this experimental work is so difficult. One becomes, as the authors intended, self-conscious of how one judges others’ words and uses one’s own. A modern edition of The Cry is certainly needed. With its translations of the Latin epigraphs, identifications of the many quotations and allusions, and its critical introduction tracing the collaborative relationship of its authors, this edition demonstrates Fielding and Collier’s wide-ranging knowledge and deeply learned engagement with literature. However, this edition is not without shortcomings.

Woodward presents The Cry as “a story about the story-making female subject” and an interrogation about “what constitutes truth in narrative,” themes also found in Fielding’s The Governess, The Lives of Cleopatra and Octavia, and The Countess of Dellwyn. Fielding and Collier’s interest in how narrative is written and how readers must read responsibly emerges in The Cry not only through the heroines’ stories and their densely allusive accounts, but in the narrator’s commentary, prologues, and footnotes. The Cry is a metafiction that insists readers be aware that narrative artificiality only purports to relate truth. For me, this epistemological dimension of The Cry is the most fascinating and I would have liked Woodward to pursue it further; however, her interest lies in the collaborative nature of its composition.

Of the introduction’s four sections—“Sarah Fielding with Jane Collier and James Harris: A Working Friendship”; “History and Reception of the Text”; “The Cry: A Reading”; and “Women, Domestic Values, and the Public Sphere”—the longest section is the first, concerned with collaboration. Because Fielding accepted payment for only half the copyright to The Cry but included “written by me” on her signed receipt, scholars have long questioned whether she is the sole or half author. Collier’s commonplace book, discovered in 2004, includes “Sallys and Jennys Emblem (1754) concerning The Cry” which describes how two friends make a dress: Sally weaves a brocade piecemeal, and Jenny cuts, fits, and joins the pieces together according to Sally’s original plan. This seems to be the crucial evidence that confirms Fielding and Collier’s collaboration. In fact, Woodward asserts, it describes how Collier “hunt[ed] up more allusions—literary, musical, fairy-tale, philosophical” to flesh out Fielding’s idea; but Woodward offers no specific examples as proof.

Woodward traces the coterie-like relationship among Fielding, Collier, and Harris from 1751, when Fielding and Collier were co-habiting in London. In 1751 Harris sent the women a copy of his Hermes; Collier wrote a preface in 1753 for Fielding’s Volume the Last; and Harris commented on drafts of Collier’s Essay on the Art of Ingeniously Tormenting (1753). Based primarily on the styles of the work they published as individuals, Woodward concludes that “Fielding imbued [The Cry] with psychological probing, the use of dialogue as a form of...