Samuel Richardson:Pamelaand the Modern Individual

Abstract

Samuel Richardson's Pamela is considered one of the earliest novels of modern individualism. This chapter reexamines the argument that Richardson, echoing the theories of John Locke, instantiates a culturally and historically specific individuality. Pamela's character shares some general features with Locke's individual, but does not reflect his original and unprecedented theory of personal identity, not least because of Pamela's insistence on the integrity of body and soul, rather than on a continuous, self‐reflective consciousness. Richardson's fictionalized self is not necessarily unique to the British eighteenth century, but may be productively compared to other periods and literary traditions. One such case is the late seventeenth‐century revival of Hayy Bin Yaqzan , the medieval Islamic tale of self as soul.