Fielding's Rape Jokes

Abstract

Rape jokes, trials for rape and comic attempted rapes recur in large numbers throughout Fielding’s career—from his earliest Haymarket comedies to his final months as a Middlesex justice. With just one exception, modern critics have been silent on the issue; even the most extended studies of Fielding and gender have little to say. This article pays close attention to the repeated rape attempts in Fielding’s fiction (Joseph Andrews, Tom Jones, Jonathan Wild), and explores two texts that Fielding scholars have consistently preferred to ignore: the farce Rape upon Rape (1730) and his boorish translation of Ovid’s Ars Amatoria (1747). Three major themes emerge. First, Fielding’s ongoing dialogue with Richardson and sentimental representations of rape. Second, Fielding’s career-long engagement with his culture’s inherited misogyny—the ‘woman question’, as it is sometimes called. Third, Fielding’s repeated scenes of sexual violence compel us to re-evaluate critical commonplaces about the legal metaphors and forensic reasoning of Fielding’s later work. Sexual violence emerges as one of a handful of endlessly problematic issues for Fielding.