PREFACE.
AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
As it is possible the mere English reader may have a different idea of
romance from the author of these little[A] volumes, and may consequently
expect a kind of entertainment not to be found, nor which was even
intended, in the following pages, it may not be improper to premise a
few words concerning this kind of writing, which I do not remember to
have seen hitherto attempted in our language.
[A] Joseph Andrews was originally published in 2 vols. duodecimo.
The EPIC, as well as the DRAMA, is divided into tragedy and comedy.
HOMER, who was the father of this species of poetry, gave us a pattern
of both these, though that of the latter kind is entirely lost; which
Aristotle tells us, bore the same relation to comedy which his Iliad
bears to tragedy. And perhaps, that we have no more instances of it
among the writers of antiquity, is owing to the loss of this great
pattern, which, had it survived, would have found its imitators equally
with the other poems of this great original.
And farther, as this poetry may be tragic or comic, I will not scruple
to say it may be likewise either in verse or prose: for though it wants
one particular, which the critic enumerates in the constituent parts of
an epic poem, namely metre; yet, when any kind of writing contains all
its other parts, such as fable, action, characters, sentiments, and
diction, and is deficient in metre only, it seems, I think, reasonable
to refer it to the epic; at least, as no critic hath thought proper to
range it under any other head, or to assign it a particular name
to itself.
Thus the Telemachus of the archbishop of Cambray appears to me of the
epic kind, as well as the Odyssey of Homer; indeed, it is much fairer
and more reasonable to give it a name common with that species from
which it differs only in a single instance, than to confound it with
those which it resembles in no other. Such are those voluminous works,
commonly called Romances, namely, Clelia, Cleopatra, Astraea, Cassandra,
the Grand Cyrus, and innumerable others, which contain, as I apprehend,
very little instruction or entertainment.
Now, a comic romance is a comic epic poem in prose; differing from
comedy, as the serious epic from tragedy: its action being more extended
and comprehensive; containing a much larger circle of incidents, and
introducing a greater variety of characters. It differs from the serious
romance in its fable and action, in this; that as in the one these are
grave and solemn, so in the other they are light and ridiculous: it
differs in its characters by introducing persons of inferior rank, and
consequently, of inferior manners, whereas the grave romance sets the
highest before us: lastly, in its sentiments and diction; by preserving
the ludicrous instead of the sublime. In the diction, I think,
burlesque itself may be sometimes admitted; of which many instances
will occur in this work, as in the description of the battles, and some
other places, not necessary to be pointed out to the classical reader,
for whose entertainment those parodies or burlesque imitations are
chiefly calculated.
But though we have sometimes admitted this in our diction, we have
carefully excluded it from our sentiments and characters; for there it
is never properly introduced, unless in writings of the burlesque kind,