In order to characterize the role of Henry Fielding’s novels during his age, it is necessary to remember, first of all, the general scene of narrative literature at the moment, when the author appeared at the sky of English novel, and to characterize those aspects turning him into a person, upon whose works the 19th century realistic novel was developed.
R. Carter and John McRae (2001) tell about the background of the period as a period of interest in “other worlds and cultures, ways of living and believing, became a main characteristic of fiction through the Elizabethan age” (ibid.) giving way to travel stories or fantasies, for example, Thomas More’s Utopia - “an influential in ‘fictionalising travel’” (ibid.). Also the classical Roman and Greek literature was read and influenced the major trends of European literature, also Cervantes’ Don Quixote, as the product of the Restoration) and Samuel Butlers’ satire Hudibras (1663) in the form of a mock romance (Carter, McRae, 2001: 163). …