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Article: "Clarissa"'s Plots.
- Article from:
- Studies in the Novel
- Article date:
- March 22, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 University of North Texas. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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BUEHLER, LOIS E. (Newwark: University of Delaware Press; London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1994). 183 pp. $33.50.
Lois E. Bueler's "Clarissa"'s Plots, 1992 winner of the University of Delaware Press Manuscript Award for Eighteenth-Century Studies, considers the influences of three fundamental plots structures on Samuel Richardson's master-work: the Tested Woman Plot; the Don Juan Plot; and the Prudence Plot.
Drawing upon Biblical sources and examples from Renaissance drama, Bueler considers the first of these plots as a two-part sequence, the Test and the Trial. The woman faces a moral dilemma and must act; her actions are then judged by ...