Tom Jones Excerpt

I'm very relieved to read some comedy. All the Hell books (Dante, No Exit, and The Screwtape Letters) were getting a bit depressing. I thinks the funniest part of the excerpt from Tom Jones was the contrast of style and action. It was so cartoony. I can imagine Henry Fielding watching two women cat fight from a distance. He turns to his companion, in eighteenth century garb of course, as he pretends to be a sports announcer, or as it just so happens to be, an epic poet. The men would chuckle, then Fielding, the snarky man he is, goes home and writes it all down. The narrator calls upon "the muse" to help him describe this event, as if it is a divine battle. This method is used in Oedipus, and Gilgamesh. Yet the miss match of language and action creates the effect of either confusion or comedy. At first reading this section I was a little confused. I wasn't quite sure what I was reading.

This same technique was used in Ella Enchanted when the stepmother, Dame Olga, writes a letter to her daughter. She describes a social event that was obviously boring to every one else in flowery language. It becomes even more humorous as the overly romantic language is misspelled in several places and the letter contains many grammatical mistakes. I'm trying to mimic this technique in a poem for Southwinds. It's a bit different though because I'm not going for a humorous effect, but rather looking at the daily routine (for some) of putting make up on in a new light of applying a protective mask. Perhaps you can tell me how successful it is once it's finished.


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