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The political power of Samuel Richardson and "Clarissa"
Abstract
Although Richardson cannot be considered a politician in an official sense of the word--he never ran for a formal political office--he created a different type of political role for himself which he considered more urgent and more appropriate to the survival of his community. We know from his letters, and references in his novels, that he read widely in Locke, whose definition of political power is "a Right of making Laws ... and of employing the force of the Community" (Second Treatise ... 269). Richardson's unique type of political power builds upon these Lockean concepts: he creates his own communities of correspondents and readers. He earns the right to make laws for, and employs the force of, communities who exist through shared mental exercise: "interpretive communities" by Stanley Fish's definition. This dissertation makes a case for Richardson's political power in two parts. The first section will center on Richardson himself; the second section will show how his novel Clarissa helped him to achieve his own political power through a female heroine who was politically powerful herself. Richardson reacts against traditional methods of gaining political power whereby social position rather than merit guarantees access to power. He provides for another type of political power than that of those who hold formal political office: by sending communities of readers who have responded emotionally to Clarissa back out into the world full of questions about the social and political systems of which they are a part, Richardson is a catalyst in the creation of a public sphere which will eventually affect political policy.
Subject Area
British and Irish literature
Recommended Citation
Tripp, Deborah Allen, "The political power of Samuel Richardson and "Clarissa"" (1992). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI9305911.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9305911