Week 9: an essay

Author Intent and Reader Response

“If behind the erratic gunfire of the press the author felt that there was another kind of criticism, the opinion of people reading for the love of reading, slowly and unprofessionally, and judging with great sympathy and yet with great severity, might this not improve the quality of his work? And if by our means books were to become stronger, richer, and more varied, that would be an end worth reaching.” -Virginia Woolf

Throughout my time at MSU, I discovered my intrigue with the construction of different pieces of literature and how they interact with the reader. I believe that the authorial voice of the novel affects how we interpret and interact with the novel. In the 18^th Century, as the novel was becoming a cannon, people read Pamela by Samuel Richardson and reacted in different ways. There are readers that responded to Pamela by classify themselves as “Pamelists” or “Antipamilists”. The wide range of reactions to a text pushes me to question how authorial voice in the text affects readers. Many reader-response theorists argue that either the author controls the communication or controls the ambiguity that the reader takes from the text, but I think that the how the author composes the text affects the interpretation of the text. My exposure to Joseph Andrews, by Henry Fielding, a novel written in response to Pamela, raises questions about reader-response criticism and how it plays a role in the construction of the novel.  The different voices that Fielding uses in the text to tell the story play different roles in portraying meaning to the reader. The change in voice allows Fielding to critic Richardson’s heavy handed authorial intent. I believe that Henry Fielding, an Antipamilist, constructs his novel to simultaneously critiques author’s voice in the text and societal constructions found in Pamela, and the critique of intent and society help shape the cannon of the novel.

The opening chapter of the novel introduces the reader formally to the content of the novel through a direct address from the author. The address to the readers, reader-response theorists like Wolfgang Iser would say is necessary to initiate communication and control it (Iser 1526).   Fielding states that:

What the readers are taught from Mrs. Andrews is so well set forth in the excellent essays or letters prefixed to the second and subsequent editions of that work, that it would be here in needless repetition. The authentic history that I now present the public is an instance of the great good that book is likely to do, and of the prevalence of example that I have observed: since it will appear that by keeping this excellent pattern of his sister’s virtues before his eyes, that Joseph Andrews was chiefly enabled to preserve his purity in the midst of great temptation (2).  

From the beginning of the novel, Fielding addresses Richardson's readership as too brainwashed and controlled to understand the subsequent editions of that work (i.e., his writing of Joseph Andrews). Fielding separates the two works by asserting his novel as more “authentic” than Pamela. These assertions from Fielding controls the reader’s first impressions of the novel, and lands par-to-par with the same authorial voice that Richardson uses. Wolfgang Iser argues, “If communication between text and reader is to be successful, clearly the reader’s activity must be controlled in some way by the text” (1526). Fielding's introduction capitalizes the experience for the reader by guiding with an authorial voice from the story of Pamela to Joseph Andrews. The reader would start the novel with the same controlled authorial intent that Iser argues is necessary to spur the readers into action, but also to control what is revealed to the reader (Iser 1527). The introduction appears to buy into the constructions that Pamela embodies by embracing the same authorial voice.

The next time that Fielding introduces his voice as author is at the beginning of the second book in Joseph Andrews. Fielding holds onto the controlling role as author, and attempts to explain to the reader why they should appreciate the form in which he writes. Fielding states that, “it is becoming of an author generally to divide a book, as it does a butcher to joint his meat, for such assistance is great help to both reader and the carver” (55). The chapter analyzes the author’s form, arguing that when he separates the novel by chapter he is able to better serve the reader. The chapter appears to be another example of the heavy handed author that indulges in controlling the reader’s interpretation of the text, but attempts to explain his decision as author by analyzing other ways authors attempt to write novels. I read the explanation as rather comical because the analogies Fielding uses is accurate but a little over the top. After reading this chapter, I believe that Fielding was mocking the way that many authors try to control reader response by embracing the form and pushing it to its limit.

The controlled from the second book leads the readers to the third book where Fielding twists the definition of biography to make the reader believe that the novel is a true tale of Joseph Andrews. Fielding asserts: “with us biographers the case is different; the facts we deliver may be relied on, often we mistake the age and the country wherein they happen...will anyone doubt that such a fellow hath really existed?” (126). There are two different things that are happening in this portion of the book, first the assertion of Fielding as a biographer, and the assertion that simple “mistakes” of age and location can happen, but it’s still a “true history” (Fielding 129). The first assertion Fielding makes twists the definition of biography because a biography is a retelling of someone’s life. While Joseph Andrews does retell Joseph’s life, Joseph must be a real person, not a fictional one, to fit in the definition. Fielding claims himself a biographer of a fictional character, but then states that the story may have incorrect facts. By twisting the meaning of biography Fielding complicates the role text and his role in the reader-response criticism. As he asserts the story of Joseph as fact, and says that the facts might not be perfect opens up this text to be discuss as fiction in novel form. Fielding tries to answer problems he has with society by asserting true facts through fiction.

When Fielding opens up fiction as fact, I was reminded of other classes that I have taken where we discussed novels that made up a fictional character to tell a story that was a counter-narrative to the dominant society--a “true history” that may have misplaced the characters, but the story was still a true one. Toni Morrison’s novel, A Mercy tells a fictional narrative about a young slave girl. The character might have been made up, but the story of a girl born into slavery and stuck in her position because of the mentality that was beaten into her from infancy isn’t fiction. Morrison tells the narrative without the same intent that Fielding starts his novel with--the effect allows the readers to be shocked, but draw away their own opinion of the text without the author informing the reader of intent. Stanly Fish claims that, interpretation creates intention, and “the structure of the reader’s experience rather than any structure on the page should be the object of the description” (1978). Toni Morrison appears to appreciate this form of interpretation because the stories appear to be left with the reader to fill in the blanks. On the other hand, Fielding holds onto his heavy-handed introductions of the books; however, he dials-back the authorial voice in the text when he starts into Joseph's narrative. The narrative counteracts the dominant-culture’s perception on the pinnacle, virtuous woman (i.e. the story of Pamela). Fielding succeeds in writing a counter-narrative by using the opposite sex to discuss virtue and class.

The first time that Fielding asserts virtue and class is when Joseph is accosted by Lady Booby, about why ‘Joey’ refuses to sleep with her when a lady ‘honors’ him with her highest favor. Joseph says “I can’t see why her having no virtue should be the reason against me having any; or why, because I am a man, or because I am poor, my virtue must be subservient to her pleasures” (Fielding 18). Thrown into the mix Joseph complicates what would have been seen as the role of the lower-class, to appease the wealthy. He points out the flaws that Lady Booby seems to inherently believe are true about society; and by defying Lady Booby, Joseph illustrates that the construction is in fact a fallacy because Fielding gives him the agency to prove that virtue and class do not go hand-in-hand. While Fielding gives Joseph the agency to prove the construction around class and virtue Fielding portrays these flaws through the dialogue of characters. He removed himself from the same authorial voice that was seen earlier at the book chapter openings, and allows the reader to interpret the intention of the text. Lady Booby continues to cling to the societal belief that servants are subservient when she says to Slipslop, “these are delicacies which exist only in superior minds; thy course ideas cannot comprehend them. Though art a low creature, of the Andrews breed, a reptile of a lower order, a weed that grows in the common garden of the creation” (210). The dialogue between Slipslop and Lady Booby is over exaggerated and allows the reader to see the flaws in the societal construction around class and inherent superiority. The construct that higher class equals higher virtue pushes further to the surface when Joseph’s sister, Pamela, arrives and claims herself superior to Fanny through “marriage” and Joseph doesn’t see such distinctions. By breaking away from a heavy handed authorial intent Fielding allows readers to experience the narrative without a guiding hand; and it allows the reader-response to decide intention on their own, like Stanly Fish says, “intention is known when and only it is recognized; it is recognized as soon as you decide about it” (1986). Fish is implying that the reader is given agency to decide for themselves what the meaning of the text is, and I believe that the authorial voice affects how we interpret the text.

In other words, I believe that Henry Fielding constructs a novel that simultaneously critiques societal constructions and author’s voice, and the critique of intent and society help shape the cannon of the novel. How the author composes the piece, with or without authorial voice, affects the reader-response to the text. The novel begins with a very strong authorial voice, and switches to a more abstract one during the narrative. The shift allows the readers to move from a controlled reader response to a more flexible, “fill in the blank” reader response. Without reader-response, Joseph Andrews wouldn’t have become a novel, and without the criticism of a text the literary world would be sorely lacking in interest.

Works Cited

Fish, Stanley E. "Interpreting the Variorum." The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B Leitch. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2010. 1970-1992. Book.

Iser, Wolfgang. "Interaction between Text and Reader." The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B Leitch. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2010. 1524-1532. Book.

Woolf, Virginia. "How One Should Read a Book." The Common Reader, Second Series, by Virginia Woolf. The University of Adelaide Library, 16 Dec. 2014. Web. 24 Mar. 2015. <https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/w/woolf/virginia/w91c2/chapter22.html>.