Autonomous Voices

The novels of Samuel Richardson are the essential topic of this book. Its main aim is to use Bakhtin’s definition of polyphony as a way into Richardson’s work and, in turn, to provide a basis from which to revise Bakhtin.<BR> After tracing the development of psychological realism in the eighteenth-century novel and the growing potential for autonomy in the fictional character in general, the book goes on to examine the potential for polyphony which first emerges in <I>Pamela </I>and reaches its height in <I>Clarissa</I>.<BR> Between editions of this momentous novel, Richardson felt compelled to make frantic attempts to control the reader’s interpretation of the text. Lovelace – the villain of <I>Clarissa</I> – acquires a degree of autonomy that bears startlingly vivid testimony to the plurality of human identity itself. <I>Sir Charles Grandison</I>, Richardson’s last novel, is a vivid retreat from the powerful effect of Lovelace.