At 15:45 20/03/99 -0800, you wrote:
>Hello,
>My classmates and I are doing a radio show on John Cleland's FANNY HILL.
>Would anyone like to offer any profound advice on the book? All
>comments are welcome and will be acknowledged if referred to in the
>program on Trent Radio, here in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada.
>Cheers,
>Paulette Lachambre
>Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
>
The key joke in the book is probably the dig at Richardson's Pamela - the
laughable little moral tailpiece at the end illustrates how virtue needs
material resources - Fanny can afford virtue, having profited from a life of
sin.
Other things? The metaphors are extraordinary at a times - especially where
the masculine instrument is concerned - they tend towards botanical
descriptions of the flaccid member to mechanical, almost industrial
descriptions of the erectile engine. From Nature to Industry in one 'bound'?
Also, note the voyeuristic yet sharply homophobic description of the gay
tryst half way through? Why is it so important to Fanny/Cleland that
certain things remain 'beyond the pale'. The homophobia expressed deserved
comparison with similar homophobic reflections in Smollett's Roderick
Random, Charles Churchill's 'The Times' and John Armstrong's 'The Oeconomy
of Love' - the fear is of some infection, some foreign implantation -
homophobia and xenophobia are closely linked.
Hope this is of some use...
Dr Conrad Brunstrom
Dept of English
University of Ireland Maynooth
Maynooth,
Co. Kildare
Republic of Ireland
TEL + 708 3543
TEL + 628 9676
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