Richardsonian Fiction, Women’s Raillery, and Heteropessimist Humour

Abstract

The fiction of Samuel Richardson is not fundamentally humourless. This article analyzes the rich vein of humour found in Pamela in her Exalted Condition (1745) and The History of Sir Charles Grandison (1753–54) to show that Richardson was acutely aware of the interpersonal power of laughter and that he harnessed it for aesthetic and moral ends. Novelistic scenes of spontaneous conversation dramatize the various and often embodied effects of humorous performances. Using theories of gender and humour, I argue that Richardson critiques and modifies Restoration wit by using women’s raillery as the primary vehicle for novelistic humour. Richardsonian fiction thus feminizes the domineering tendencies of masculine wit and the adversarial harms of ridicule, replacing them with chaste female models of “satirical merriment.” Such pleasure does not equate to liberation or even subversion. Through Pamela and Charlotte Grandison, the novels generate a heteropessimist humour in which women’s dynamic wit ultimately promotes their marital subordination to flawed, disappointing men.