'JOSEPH ANDREWS' | A COMIC EPIC IN PROSE

A writer who introduces new forms of literature or develops the old ones in such a style that makes it new can be regarded as a great and pioneer writer. Henry Fielding, a prominent and dominant novelist of eighteenth century, is one of such writers whose reputation and fame lies in introducing new elements. Henry Fielding is proclaimed to be the writer of a comic epic in prose. Henry Fielding himself says;   “This kind of writing, I do not remember to have been hitherto attempted by any writer in our language.”   But this statement cannot be regarded as a perfect truth or exact and accurate statement. The idea of a comic epic in prose was not at all new. Henry Fielding was the writer of Tom Jones, Amelia, Shamela and Joseph Andrews. But he took much delight. in being known as a first writer who had attempted something new. Aristotle says that Homer had written comic epics. The comic epics bore same relation to comedy as the serious epics like ‘Odyssey’ and ‘Iliad’ bore to tr