Q1 / Discuss briefly chapter one

Fielding makes ironic reference to Horace in Chapter I when, having listed a number of popular tales available in cheap pamphlet form, he remarks, "In all these, Delight is mixed with Instruction, and the Reader is almost as much improved as entertained." The target of his irony here is not the classical principle itself but the modern works that fail to live up to that principle. In outlining his own "utile et dulce" approach to the novel, Fielding rejects burlesque and caricature because he wants to inspire laughter not for its own sake but constructively, with humor being the vehicle of moral commentary. His target, therefore, will not be "what is monstrous and unnatural," what never really occurs in life and thus, in being exposed, cannot edify readers; rather, he will "confine [himself] strictly to Nature," exposing "the true Ridiculous" as it exists in everyday life, thereby performing a corrective function for the morals of the age.