How The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling drew on Don Quixote
A documented line of influence: Henry Fielding demonstrably engaged Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
Don Quixote
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra · 1605
RenaissanceThe influenced
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
Henry Fielding · 1749
EnlightenmentRelevance
8/10
On The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling’s page
- Tom Jones is Fielding's English answer to Don Quixote — he admired Cervantes openly and set out to copy him
- He'd already declared the debt on the title page of Joseph Andrews ("in Imitation of the Manner of Cervantes"); here it shows in the Jones/Partridge travel pairing, modeled directly on Quixote and Sancho
- Read the Don first and the comic-epic shape — the rogue's progress, the master-and-servant double act — arrives already familiar
On Don Quixote’s page
- Don Quixote gave the English novel its founding model — Fielding worshipped Cervantes openly
- His earlier Joseph Andrews announces it on the title page: "Written in Imitation of the Manner of Cervantes, author of Don Quixote"
- The deluded master and his earthy companion become, in Tom Jones, the pairing of Jones and Partridge — the Quixote-and-Sancho dynamic carried onto the English road