Interrupting the Illusion in the Closet: Literary Tableaux of Contemplation in Henry Fielding’s Novel Tom Jones
Interrupting the Illusion in the Closet: Literary Tableaux of Contemplation in Henry Fielding’s Novel Tom Jones

Summary/Abstract: The tableau, an art form originating from theatres and the visual arts, is also a literary phenomenon. Literary tableaux are short scenic interruptions or pictorial compositions arresting the narrative flow and serving as highlighted moments where time stands still. Either they are scenes of intense emotion, or they occur at a crucial point in the plot.This paper distinguishes between two modes of writing that are at work in literary tableaux, which I will call absorption and contemplation. Absorption is a mode of writing and reading related to formal realism. In his theory about tableaux, Denis Diderot advocates for a realist art and literature that can create the illusion of a close relationship between the work of art and the reader/beholder. Focusing on the 18th-century English writer, Henry Fielding, this paper provides a close reading of selected scenes from the novel Tom Jones, arguing that Fielding created his own tableaux of contemplation. These instances are metafictional moments in which the narrator interrupts the narrative to converse with the reader about an event or a character in the novel. Often, they contain references to classical art and are a mix of epic, tragic and comic elements. Fielding’s tableaux explicitly present their own fictionality, consulting with the reader about the difference between art and life.

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