Written in the Heart: Clarissa and Scripture
Robert A. Erickson, University of California
Volume 2, no. 1, October 1989
©McMaster University, 2015. All articles published on the Eighteenth-Century Fiction website are protected by copyright held by Eighteenth-Century Fiction, a journal published by the Faculty of Humanities at McMaster University.
ABSTRACT
Discerning contemporaries who were well read in Richardson’s fiction established what has come down to us as one of the most frequently invoked clichés of eighteenth-century literary history. In his novels, Richardson provided a masterly representation of human “Nature,” and he was applauded particularly for his “delineation of the human heart.” The association of the heart and the writing process was always a close one for Richardson … The intense epistolary correspondence Richardson describes is intimately connected with the receptive and expressive nature of the hearts of the writers and readers within his fictions, and with the hearts of the outside readers of the fictions. Hence familiar letter-writing is an ongoing expression of the heart of the writer and an impression on the heart of the reader, a circulatory system of receiving, expressing, and receiving again those impressions and ideas closest to the hearts of the individual correspondents.
Other ECF articles on the topic of “Puritanism” include:
“Thou Hast Made a Rake a Preacher”: Beauty and the Beast in Richardson’s Pamela
by ARLENE FISH WILNER (ECF 13.4, July 2001)
Is Clarissa Bourgeois Art?
by DANIEL P. GUNN (ECF 10.1, October 1997)
Crusoe in the Cave: Defoe and the Semiotics of Desire
by GEOFFREY M. SILL (ECF 6.3, April 1994)
©McMaster University, 2015. This copyright covers the exclusive rights to reproduce and distribute the article, including in electronic forms, reprints, translations, photographic reproductions, or similar. While reading for personal use is encouraged, Eighteenth-Century Fiction articles may not be reproduced, broadcast, published, or re-disseminated without the prior written permission of Eighteenth-Century Fiction at McMaster University. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form, such as on a web site or in a searchable database, or other uses of this material is not allowed. The copyright in this website includes without limitation the text, computer code, artwork, photographs, images, music, audio, video, and audio-visual material on this website and is owned by McMaster University. ©McMaster University 2015.