French Predecessors Research Articles

Richardson and His French Predecessors

IT has been a debated question whether the resemblance which, with many differences, is sufficiently obvious, between the work of Marivaux in fiction, and that of Richardson, is merely a coincidence, or is due to acquaintance on the part of the English writer with La Vie de Marianne, the greater part of which was published earlier than any of Richardson's novels. The differences are obvious enough. Marianne herself is very unlike Pamela and perhaps more unlike Clarissa. She is French, and they in their several ways are English. Everyone, too, can appreciate the superiority of Marivaux in grace and lightness of touch, in good taste and in refinement, and of Richardson in depth of observation, in command of pathos and in firmness of composition. It is needless to say, moreover, that the rather heavy morality of Richardson has no counterpart in Marivaux's work. Nevertheless the resemblances are sufficiently marked. Both writers deal with the romance of every-day life essentially in the same manner, and each in his own country is the founder of a new way of writing which leads directly to the modern novel. Clarissa was on its first appearance compared with La Vie de Marianne by a foreign critic, whose review of it was translated in the Gentleman's Magazine of June and August, 1749, a review from which Richardson himself quotes in the enlarged Postscript to Clarissa; and Diderot, Richardson's greatest admirer, says: 'Les romans de M. de Marivaux ont inspire Pamdla, Clarisse et Grandisson.' This in fact was the common opinion, at least among French critics, in the eighteenth century. On the other hand, English writers on Richardson in our own time have for the most part denied that there was any obligation of this kind, laying rather undue stress upon the points of difference, and somewhat ignoring the essential likeness'. It does not appear that anyone has hitherto cited the evidence of Richardson himself on the subject: yet there is in existence an utterance of his, or at least authorised by him, which may be regarded as practically settling the question. 1 e.g. Mr Austin Dobson in his Samuel Richardson (English Men of Letters Series) and Miss Clara Thompson in her book Samuel Richardson.