ABSTRACT
This chapter explores Henry Fielding's sustained attention to courtship and marital practices in Shamela and Joseph Andrews, with particular emphasis on his approach to the marriage plot and the wedding ceremony in these novels. It suggests that Fielding's reaction to the Pamela phenomenon was more significantly inspired by the themes that fuelled his career as a playwright than by a deeply entrenched rivalry with Richardson. Much has been written on Shamela and Joseph Andrews as parodic responses to Richardson. Scarlett Bowen, for instance, reads the anti-Pamelist novels of Fielding and Haywood as conservative critiques of Richardson's more socially liberal agenda. The chapter explains that the marriage plotline of Fielding's first two novels evidences a tangible link with the drama of his time. Taking the critical prompts as cue, the readings of Shamela and Joseph Andrews are contextualized by Fielding's work as a dramatist as well as by his recurrent concerns as a writer.
