The Allegory of the Imagination in Henry Fielding's Tom Jones

Abstract

<p>This thesis examines the allegorical aspects of Fielding's novels, and particularly of Tom Jones. According to the view presented here, Tom Jones is a psychomachy a form of allegory in Which personified psychological .entities engage in a mental struggle. Squire Allworthy is an allegorical figure of reason, Sophia Western a figure of imagination, Tom Jones a figure of emotion, and Squire Western a figure of instinct. The action of the novel, culminating in the marriage of Sophia and Tom, symbolizes the reunification of the disunited elements of mind in an allegorical marriage of imagination with emotion. In connection with this view, the thesis deals at some length with Fielding's theory of the imagination.</p>