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Samuel Richardson's Clarissa - Lecture on Letters 229-361 (Patreon)

Published:
2022-08-27 16:39:48
Imported:
2026-06
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Downloads

  • Clarissa Letters 229 to 361.mp3

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Content

"I can go no farther. The affair is over. Clarissa lives."

We have reached the pivotal point of Samuel Richardson's Clarissa.

And today we're discussing the battle between light and dark, evil as hindering another, transcending our fallen world, proving non-consent, and much more.

Timestamps:

  • 0:00 Clarissa and the novel
  • 3:00 the battle between light & dark
  • 5:00 Blake, Aristotle & Lovelacian evil
  • 9:30 the death-impulse in a fallen world
  • 10:00 enduring the Jobean test of God
  • 11:05 tyrant-victim symbiosis destroyed
  • 12:30 Clarissa as allegorical morality drama
  • 15:00 Lovelace’s plots unravel
  • 18:00 victim-blaming in criticism
  • 24:00 “I can go no further… Clarissa lives.”
  • 27:00 the overall effect of Clarissa
  • 30:00 on proving non-consent
  • 34:00 Lovelace after the assault
  • 36:00 when marriage meant consent
  • 38:00 Belford’s ‘savage-hearted monster’
  • 39:30 Clarissa’s mad-papers
  • 43:00 mutilation of sense, syntax & self
  • 47:30 the imprisonment of Clarissa
  • 59:00 Belford’s view of Clarissa
  • 50:40 ‘No coward soul is mine’ (Brontë)
  • 53:00 Belford as Clarissa’s executor
  • 54:45 on moving towards the end of the novel

Questions to consider:

1) Why is the pivotal moment of the novel hardly described?

2) What is the overall effect of Clarissa? In years to come, what will you remember from this reading experience?

Happy reading, everybody!

Files

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Comments

Joe Beaulieu

Richardson is amazing with the psychology. Perhaps, others more expert can chime in, but it seems to me that Lovelace checks all the boxes of a pathological narcissist. His deflection of responsibility and his (if we take can take it at face value) nice treatment of "Rosebud" strikes me as someone desperately justifying himself. I forget if it's in the section under discussion or in part IV, but there's a great version of this self delusion from the Aunt who writes that they were going to give in to Clarissa and bring her home shortly before the further disastrous decisions were made. (There's I think another version of this in Part I.) I call BS on this, that it's all ex-post rationalizations, a memory rewriting history, that it must have been this way because we're good people and so did not intend things to evolve as such and therefore were all set to make the right decision, so it's not our fault. That is S-level psychology right there,.

Heather Reed

My copy of Clarissa arrived today! I was hoping to find a nice edition of the 4 volume Everyman set, but I ended up settling on the Penguin one volume (need to save some money). Along with getting caught up with the reading of Clarissa, I can use this volume for weighted workouts, a door stop for windy days, and, if I take it to school, I can use it to clobber and knockout any intruder in the building. It really is the all-in-one novel! :-) Happy reading everyone...can't wait to dive into this.

hardcoreliterature
>>90571733

I think 'pathological narcissist' is the best description of Lovelace, Joe. Psychologists could definitely study him because he seems textbook to me!

hardcoreliterature
>>90738131

That hefty Penguin one definitely has many uses beyond literary appreciation/escapism! I think my battered copy is currently propping open the backdoor... :)