Clarissa and the Tragic Traditions

Clarissa jihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA and the Tragic Traditions Sheldon Sacks I EXPLORATION OF general principles realized in unique liter­ ary works, always difficult, is at worst an innocuous pursuit. It is somewhat unjust, then, that any critic who interprets a favorite convention as if it were a permanent principle of literary construcundue frustration in his own day. On the morning of May 17th, 1712, John Dennis went into "a strange and deplorable frenzy.” According to Pope he entered Lintot ’s shop and “opening one of the Volumes of the Spectator, in the large Paper, did suddenly, without the least provocation, tear out that of No. 40 where the author [Addison] treats of Poetical Justice, and cast it into the street.”1 E. N. Hooker suggests that Dennis’ public deviation from Neoclassic decorum on this occa­ sion was the consequence of his belief that “Steele was conducting a campaign to undermine his reputation” and that personal resent­ ment rather than philosophical rage impelled the advocate of Poet­ ical Justice to reply in terms that sometimes seem closer to one of the dramatic rants moderately condemned in the offending Spec­ tator than to reasoned criticism.”2 There are, writes Dennis: as many Bulls and Blunders, and Contradictions in it almost as there are Lines, and all delivered with that insolent and that blust’tring Air, which usually attends upon Error, and Delusion, while Truth, like the Deity that inspires it, comes calmly and without noise.... But what will this dogmatick Person say now, 195 Ir r a t io n a l is m in t h e Eig h t e e n t h Ce n t u r y when we shew him that this contemptible Doctrine of Poetical Justice is not only founded in Reason and Nature, but is it self the Foundation of all the Rules, and ev’n of Tragedy itself? For what Tragedy can there be without a Fable? or what Fable with­ out a Moral? or what Moral without poetical Justice? What Moral, where the Good and the Bad are confounded by Des­ tiny ?3 That ’‘dogmatick person” did have more to say about the prob­ lem, and indeed did so in Spectator 548, in a letter which, together with the offending No. 40, supplied Samuel Richardson, both in his Postscript to jihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Clarissa and in his voluminous correspondence, with the bulk of his arguments for sending his heroine victoriously to heaven rather than delicately into the arms of a converted Love­ lace. Yet, as R. F. Brissenden has suggested, Richardson’s atti­ tude towards poetical justice was far more ambivalent than might be implied by his defense of Clarissa’s death.4 In fact, precisely as recommended by Spectator 548, every villainous character in Clar­ issa is punished so severely, though psychologically and morally rather than physically, that Rymer himself—though surely he would have protested against the heroine’s death—might well have rejoiced in the everlasting torments of her enemies; furthermore Richardson takes reiterated pains in his correspondence to show that his punishments are aesthetically as well as morally just. In 1748 he wrote to Edward Moore, for example: Methinks I would be above justifying a Fault merely because it is past & irretrievable. But have I not dealt in Death & Ter-, rors? Was it not time I shd. hasten to an end of my tedious Work ? Was not Story, Story, Story the continual demand upon me. I did not desire that the Reader sh’d pity Lovelace: but I w’d not punish more than was necessary in his person., a poor Wretch whom I had tortured in Conscience (the punishment I always chose for my punishable Characters.)5 Again in 1749, in a letter castigating Frances Grainger, I have made Clarissa shew a great regard to [parental author­ ity.] Why? Because there is much more Likelihood that Chil­ dren should think too lowly than too highly of it: And because 196 Clarissa jihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA and the Tragic Traditions she had to reflect, that for 18 out of 19 Years of her Life, she had the Love, the Admiration, and almost the Adoration of her Parents and Uncles. And if for that one year they...