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Samuel Richardson's Clarissa - Lecture on Letters 362-537 (Patreon)

Published:
2022-09-24 19:30:01
Imported:
2026-06
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  • Clarissa Lecture - Letters 362-537.mp3

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Content

"He spoke inwardly so as not to be understood: at last, he distinctly pronounced these three words, Let this expiate!"

As we draw to the close of this hefty tome, we're discussing revisionism and rewrites, poetic vs divine justice, the first readers' response to the ending, Richardson's 'reality effect', devotional literature on the art of dying, and much more.

Timestamps:

  • 0:00 first reader responses to the ending
  • 1:51 congratulations on reading Clarissa
  • 3:00 questions about your reading experience
  • 5:19 on the length/prolixity of Clarissa
  • 7:13 Samuel Richardson’s revisionism
  • 8:40 on Lovelacian sympathies
  • 10:00 the reason for Restoration rewrites
  • 11:00 King Lear & Clarissa
  • 14:35 the ‘reality effect’ of Clarissa
  • 15:40 when Reader becomes Author
  • 17:00 tragic endings & moral purposes
  • 18:00 alternative endings to Clarissa
  • 18:50 Richardson’s rationale for the ending
  • 20:30 emotional contemporary responses
  • 24:30 how Clarissa changed lives
  • 25:40 literature on the art of holy dying
  • 27:30 tragic ending vs happy ending
  • 29:28 poetic vs divine justice
  • 31:00 the Book of Job & Clarissa
  • 33:00 what would a happy ending mean?
  • 34:00 marriage vs prosecution
  • 35:50 Clarissa’s erasure of ego/Self
  • 37:45 reader responses to Lovelace’s death
  • 39:18 Clarissa’s vs Lovelace’s death
  • 41:00 is Lovelace adequately punished?
  • 42:00 the last words of Lovelace
  • 44:40 ‘Let this expiate!’
  • 45:30 the last words of Clarissa
  • 47:50 how a famous rewrite ends
  • 50:00 what should a novel do?
  • 51:00 camels as horses built by committee
  • 52:00 does Clarissa’s ending feel true?
  • 54:00 Clarissa’s challenge to the reader
  • 55:40 what does reading Clarissa accomplish?

Our Clarissa Journey:

Questions to consider:

1) If you were one of Richardson’s first readers, how would you react to the final instalment? Would you weep? Would you feel compelled to change anything about your life? 

2) What did you make of the ending? Would any of the alternative endings have been more satisfactory? 

3) How would you describe your experience of reading Clarissa? 

Congratulations on reading Samuel Richardson's Clarissa, everybody!

Files

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Comments

Anonymous

I am so glad to have picked Clarissa up and made it to the end. I don't think I would have tackled it on my own, but I feel a lot of pride to have finished. In my opinion, the experience of thinking and talking about Clarissa has been better than the reading experience - the length, the language and the themes combine for a tough challenge. I didn't really enjoy it, to be honest. BUT I would love to sit in a room and talk with all of you about it. The only reason for me to recommend this to someone else would be so I have someone to talk to about it. I will never forget these characters and the story and I'm so grateful to have read it. There is a lot to say about the book, but I think what will stay with me the most - and what I remarked on in our first discussion - is how surprised I am by how well the women's lives, their friendships and experience of trauma are depicted by Richardson. I agree with others here that I think turning Clarissa into a saint by the end did get to be a little tedious. In the immediate aftermath of the rape, she triumphs in never losing her sense of self, but towards the end I feel like we kind of lose her as an individual as she becomes otherworldly. Setting aside the sanctifying aspect, Clarissa's death makes sense to me - and I think is in some ways a really accurate portrayal of trauma response. This is another aspect of the book that has really stuck with me - it is a telling story of rape culture. And while I agree we've made a lot of progress, Clarissa underscores for me how much more we have to do. On a brighter note, I LOVE Anna Howe, particularly in Letter 523 where she responds to Belford pushing her to marry - "Well do your sex contrive to bring us up fools and idiots to make us bear the yoke you lay upon our shoulders..." I just finished a re-read of Pride and Prejudice and I can definitely see her in an Austen novel. Thank you Ben for bringing Clarissa into our lives!

Vicky

I guess I’m glad to live in a time where the reaction would generally not be to want them to end up together 🤣 I loved reading Clarissa from the start . I think it’s interesting to hear he may have had another motivation to print lots of pages! But I honestly think it’s great the way it is, it never felt too long, just like the point of it was to very slowly sink into the characters heads and live it with them. I still miss Belford 🤣❤️ I just can’t get over the relevance of it to modern relationships and life and his understanding of the psychology of narcissism and abusive men.

hardcoreliterature
>>92418864

I completely agree with you on that, Vicky! As for Richardson having a printer's motivation, I think it definitely could be part of the reason why the book is so long. But having read descriptions of how he wrote the book, I think he was governed by an internal motivation and a personal attachment to the characters, story, and message. Apparently he wrote thousands of words (5,000+ at least) long into the night after work. It almost sounds like he wrote faster than many of us would have read the work! And Belford's a wonderful character. We may not have got a rake's reform with Lovelace, but at least we get it with this man!