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26
ChapterOne
particulareventsarrangedinsuccession,whilepoetryofferedanaccount
thatwaspurgedofdetailsnotrelevanttotheunifiedwhole.Thequestion
oftruthinliterature(andhistory)rosetothesurfacewiththegrowthof
empiricismintheseventeenthcentury,whenwhatMcKeoncalled“ro-
manceidealism”,understoodasa“narrativeepistemologyinvolve[ing]a
dependenceonreceivedauthoritiesandaprioritraditions”waschal-
lengedby“naïveempiricism”(2000:384).Gradually,factuality(asop-
posedtofictionality)grewtobecomeanimportantcategoryfordistin-
guishingbetweendifferentformsofwriting.
AconcernwiththetruthisevidentintheearlyEnglishnovels,which
posedas“truehistories”.Theydistancedthemselvesfromromances
which,bytheendoftheseventeenthcentury,hadcome“tostandfora
speciesofdeceitthatundiscriminatinglyincludeslyingandfictionaliz-
ing”(McKeon2000:385)andaffiliatedthemselveswithhistoryrather
thanotherformsofliterature,groundingtheirclaimtohistoricityinthe
assertionthatwhattheydescribedreallyhappened(McKeon2000:386).
BothDefoeandRichardsoninsistedontheveracityoftheirnarratives,
goingsofarastoclaimthattheyweremerelytheeditorsofauthentic
documentsratherthantheauthorsoffictionalstories.However,ifDefoe
neverexplicitlyadmittedthathisstorieswerefictional,henevertheless
agreedthatsomepartsofhistextscouldbereadasallegoriesand,inhis
laterwritings,confessedthathewasrewritingearliertextsorthathissto-
rieswerebasedonfact,butwerenotthemselvesauthenticdocuments
(Davis,L.[1983]1996:166),sothat“thereisamovementinDefoe’s
writingthatwecandescribeasashifttowardthefictional”(Davis,L.
[1983]1996:156).
ItwasFieldingwhoopenlydeclaredhisnovelstobefictional,which
doesnotmeanthatheconsideredthemuntrue.Rather,heabandonedone
conceptoftruthinfavourofanother,andmovedawayfromhistoricity
andliteraltruthtoprobabilityandtheideaofessentialtruth.Fielding,
whoconsideredhimself“theFounderofthenewProvinceofWriting”
(TJ,53),definedhistextsinoppositiontohistory.Ifhistorywasaslaveto
facts,eventhosewhichmightperhaps“besacrificedtoOblivioninCom-
plaisancetotheScepticismofaReader”(TJ,259),anovel(or“acomic
epic-poeminprose”(JosephAndrews,25))hadtoobeytherulesofprob-
abilityratherthanfactuality.Paradoxically,therelativefreedomofanov-
elisttoinventorselecteventstonarratemakesthenovelsuperiortohis-
toryasfarasthedepictionofprivatelivesareconcerned.Fieldingwrites: