Reading Crusoe Reading Providence

Abstract

READING CRUSOE READING PROVIDENCE CAMERON McFARLANE University of Western Ontario J.N his study of the cultural contexts of early fiction, Before Novels, J. Paul Hunter devotes a short section to Providence books, situating them within the convergence of two cultural movements: One is the empiricism that had, for a century, been changing the ground for authority in the whole Western world through its claims that meaning derived only from the observation of data. The second involves the vali­ dation of individuals, not necessarily trained individuals, as observers and interpreters. It manifested itself everywhere; it is the essence of Protes­ tantism. (197) The convergence of these two movements, according to Hunter, resulted in the conceptualization of the world as a kind of “text” that anyone who had a mind to do so could read. As the act of reading the world became cultur­ ally central, it came to involve not simply the interpretation of such large “public” events as natural disasters and political crises, but also the interpre­ tation of the minutiae of daily life. Within this context, Providence books sought to read events in a specific manner, their aim being “to persuade readers that God was still . . . directly involved in human events. Comets and earthquakes became warnings and judgments, wonderful rescues at sea became divine deliverances, and all kinds of unusual, unexplained events became tinged with meanings that illustrated God’s continuing interven­ tion” (Hunter, Before Novels 217). The function of Providence books, in theory, would seem straightforward; yet, in practice, their function could be more ambiguous. As Hunter notes, it was not uncommon for a single event to generate a multitude of interpretations that would then compete for pre-eminence, and few “were above party or sectarian strife in their in­ terpretations” (Before Novels 221). While conceding that there were “risks” in arguing over a particular meaning, Hunter nevertheless sees even debate as affirmative of the cultural project: “if Anglicans often battled Dissenters and Whigs Tories over details of providential intervention . . . there was still a strong cultural bias . . . that God was still active in human affairs, how­ ever doctors might disagree about when, where, and why” (Before Novels 221). This seems to be a sensible conclusion, but only if one maintains a disjunction between the act of reading and its possible results. 257 One can, however, read the relation between the theory and the practice of Providence books reflexively rather than affirmatively. For if, in the­ ory, Providence books were concerned with positing a divine “Author” who manifested his intentions for all to read, in practice, the proliferation of in­ terpretations had the effect of shifting emphasis onto the reader as the locus of meaning, raising the question of whether the reader of the world’s text was not, in fact, also the author of its meaning. Certainly Swift, for one, was led to reflect upon the need to subject such acts of reading themselves to scrutiny; in A Discourse Concerning the Mechanical Operation of the Spirit (1704) he observes: it is a Sketch of Human Vanity, for every Individual, to imagine the whole Universe is interess’d in his meanest Concern. If he hath got cleanly over a Kennel, some Angel, unseen, descended on purpose to help him by the Hand; if he hath knockt his Head against a Post, it was the Devil, for his Sins, let loose from Hell, on purpose to buffet him. Who, that sees a little paultry Mortal, . . . can think it agreeable to common good Sense, that either Heaven or Hell should be put to the Trouble of Influence or Inspection upon what he is about? (198) While specifically targeting those who would invoke a divine explanation for everyday personal events, Swift here seems to make the whole project of providential reading an uncertain one by urging his readers to recognize that the interpretation of events in the world may have more to do with the desires of the interpreter than with the intentions of their supposed “Author.” In what follows, I shall suggest that the tension that exists in the space between theory and practice in Providence books gets reproduced in Robinson Crusoe (1719) in the space between what we might...