Samuel Richardson's New Nation Paragons of the Domestic Sphere and "Native" Virtue

Samuel Richardson's New Nation is at once a comprehensive and a concise study of the peculiar brand of nationalism in the novels of Samuel Richardson. In this relatively short volume, Ewha Chung considers Richardson's four novels chronologically, and explores the ways in which each novel presents a fuller picture of the ideal models of English virtue--male and female paragons of the domestic sphere, which function ideologically to perpetuate a separatist, exclusive, Protestant England. This reading of Richardson's nationalism finds that from Pamela and Pamela II, through Clarissa and Sir Charles Grandison, Richardson's restrictively Protestant models of English virtue strive toward the formation of domesticated communities that expel threats of foreign contamination, such as that which characterizes "Francophilic" English aristocrats, libertines, and most particularly, Catholics. Situating her perspective against prominent class and gender paradigms of recent Richardson criticism, the author finds that such studies generally undervalue Richardson's political emphasis in constructing models of "native" English virtue and domestic communities that represent a properly Protestant English nation.

Chung argues that Richardson's main objective is to set forth paragons of conduct that underlie and uphold a standard for the political sphere while punishing and excluding individuals who threaten the harmony of a unified Protestant English nation. The domestic sphere envisioned by Richardson is a site of family and community, a microcosm for the ideal English nation, where both men and women have necessary political roles. As the novels progressively shape and refine paragons of English (as opposed to British) virtue and promote the reinvigoration of biblical culture, they also advocate the exclusion of non-English elements, which threaten to contaminate the domestic (and thus political) sphere--the family and the nation. Richardson's primary targets for criticism, then, are the decadent foreign culture of the English aristocracy and the danger posed by "tainted" men and women, who are potentially destructive to the familial, national community. Thus, according to Chung, the novels serve to reflect and reinforce popular anti-Catholic, anti-foreign prejudice that "inevitably heighten[ed] the sense of English superiority so crucial to the age of imperialism"(147).

Chung's analysis explores how Richardson's paragons of the domestic sphere build upon one another, from one novel to the next, culminating in the ultimate vision of English virtue as a political exemplar for the English nation in Sir Charles Grandison. After noting the instruction Richardson had given in his conduct manuals and the stress he placed on the importance of individual behavior to the fortitude of the nation, this book analyzes the ways in which Pamela and Pamela II domesticate the English hero and valorize the "English" nation. Pamela, the domestic servant, exemplifies qualities of sincerity, purity, honesty, and moral fortitude. Mr. B. initially provides a sharp contrast as the "socially privileged yet immoral cosmopolitan libertine aristocrat," with his aversion to religion, involvement in duels, and illegitimate child. Therefore, the central conflict is between the immoral foreign culture of Mr. B. and the religious virtue of Pamela. While Pamela champions the domestication and reform of Mr. B. from a libertine to a husband, Pamela II celebrates the further transformation of Mr. B. into a man of religion and also underscores the necessity of domestic, religious education for his family. Moreover, in Pamela II we see the exile of Sally Godfrey, who endangers the sanctity of the domestic sphere.

The notion of exile and the "purging" of dangerous elements become even more important in Clarissa. Chung suggests that the novel privileges domestic education based on the Christian Bible and a Protestant work ethic above university learning, and that it defines a sacred community as one that is grounded in a common value system. In Clarissa's tragedy, where virtue is rewarded only in the hereafter, the heroine reconstructs a domesticated community when the familial one proves inadequate. Furthermore, the novel "depicts the radical elimination of impurity" from this community, as Lovelace is exiled from England and "killed off," and the contamination of Clarissa by rape is purged through her death (60). Even though Chung does not directly consider the possibility of Clarissa's pregnancy, the suggestion is clear that Lovelace's child would embody the foreign contamination against which the ideal English nation must be inoculated. Clarissa, at once angelic, tainted, and tragic, does not survive in Richardson's ideal England because she can not become a wife and produce children for the nation. Therefore, in Sir Charles Grandison, Harriet Byron is the full realization of Clarissa's potential. As the ideal domesticated English hero, Sir Charles ultimately decides to take as his bride the Protestant Harriet rather than the very Catholic, very foreign Clementina Porretta, and in so doing reasserts marriage as an investment in public, Protestant virtue. Aligning the dates of Grandison's publication with the 1744 French declaration of war on England and the last bloody Jacobite rebellion, Chung finds that Sir Charles is the "final evolution of Richardson's paragons" who "emerges to defend his community against the Catholic threat"(103). The Poretta family is properly returned to Italy, and the Protestant English Grandison family line is protected from foreign danger.

Thus, for Chung, Richardson's anglocentric novels do more than simply advocate a religious ideal; Protestantism becomes a political discourse with which Richardson promotes a radically exclusive English nationalism, where paragons of domestic education and English culture, such as Pamela, Clarissa, Harriet, and Sir Charles, survive, but Others cannot. Her argument raises important questions about the ideological implications of Richardson's novels, which she finds to be complicit in the national prejudice that was instrumental to colonialism. This book is notable for its scope, but even more remarkable for its precision and clarity in bringing some long overdue problems of Richardson's novels to our attention. Chung has done an excellent job bringing relevant historical data and detailed responses of Richardson's contemporary audience to her reading of the novels, in order to reveal what may likely have been Richardson's original ideological intentions. What I find most engaging about Richardson's novels, though, is their consistent tendency to seep beyond his instructional design and reveal the contradictions inherent in the monolith of "native" English virtue. I find it interesting to consider the ways in which we might extend Chung's analysis of Richardson's paragons into a study that explores the spaces where the novel "tells on itself" as ideology, and, perhaps unknowingly, exposes the cruelty and discrimination inherent in the nationalism that Chung has so aptly characterized. Certainly, this book does not purport to explore this terrain; it is a tight, convincing argument dedicated to mapping the landmarks of Richardson's nationalism. Samuel Richardson's New Nation successfully accomplishes this objective, and is a significant contribution to eighteenth-century studies which future readings of Richardson will want to regard.