Ethical Concepts and their Realisation in Fanny Burney's Evelina

Literary works can hardly ever be separated from the ethical concepts of the time. This is even more the case for the 18thcentury novel, which as a genre appeared at the beginning of that century.1The social-historic and economic changes, the consequently following rise of the middle class and radical alteration of the patronage system can be held responsible for the prevailing conditions of a more realistic approach to prose works. While Clive T. Probyn calls the time after the epoch of the “big four” the “novelistic vacuum”4Joyce Tompkins even goes so far as to say that whereas the quantity of the output rose the quality decreased. But although many critics make disparaging remarks about the authors of the period between the fathers of the novel and the generation of Austen, Scott and others - to neglect the last quarter of the 18thcentury and its writers would be a terrible mistake. There were writers, called the “transitional novelists” by Lilian D. and Edward Bloom whose main goals were to imitate their idols, to mix the existing types of novels and integrate other (also foreign) influences. These authors included among others Fanny Burney and Maria Edgeworth, who were and are recognised for not only imitating but also for having invented a new type.
Generally speaking the authors of 18thcentury novels knew that they, more than merely entertaining their readership, had to invent heroes and heroines who were supposed to offer an ethical and moral pattern.9In this paper, after having established a common ground of the fundamental concepts of the 18thcentury, these aspects will be examined in Fanny Burney’s Evelina. First of all it has to be shown what kind of process of education the heroine goes through and why. But equally important it will be in which way the novel masters its didactic task towards educating the 18thcentury reader. In the following these two features will be discussed with the help of references to Fanny Burney’s life as well as examples from the novel itself.