Misplaced Pages

A Journal of the Plague Year: Difference between revisions

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
Browse history interactively← Previous editNext edit →Content deleted Content addedVisualWikitext
Revision as of 15:17, 5 July 2023 editButterCashier (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users, Rollbackers33,229 edits Reverting edit(s) by 90.242.187.73 (talk) to rev. 1146221977 by Onel5969: non-constructive (RW 16.1)Tags: RW Undo← Previous edit Revision as of 15:17, 5 July 2023 edit undo90.242.187.73 (talk) fTag: RevertedNext edit →
Line 1: Line 1:

{{short description|1722 novel by Daniel Defoe}}
{{about|the eighteenth-century novel|the twentieth-century novel|Journals of the Plague Years|the Tom Rapp album|A Journal of the Plague Year (album)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2020}}
{{EngvarB|date=September 2020}}
<!-- FAIR USE of A Journal of the Plague Year.JPG: see image description page at http://en.wikipedia.org/File:A Journal of the Plague Year.JPG for rationale -->
{{Infobox book|
| name = A Journal of the Plague Year
| title_orig =
| translator =
| image = File:Defoe Journal of the Plague Year.jpg
| caption = Title page of the original edition in 1722
| author = ]
| cover_artist =
| country = ]
| language = English
| series =
| genre = ]
| publisher = E. Nutt<br>J. Roberts<br>A. Dodd<br>J. Graves
| release_date = 1722
| media_type = Print
| pages =287
| isbn = <!-- First released before ISBN system implemented -->
| preceded_by =
| followed_by =
|dewey=823.5 |dewey=823.5
|congress=PR3404 .J6 |congress=PR3404 .J6
|wikisource=Index:A Journal of the Plague Year (1722).djvu |wikisource=Index:A Journal of the Plague Year (1722).djvu
⚫ |set_inhe plague in the diary of ]. Defoe's account, which appears to include much research, is far more systematic and detailed than Pepys's first-person account.
|set_in=], 1665
| orig_lang_code = en
}}

'''''A Journal of the Plague Year: Being Observations or Memorials, Of the most Remarkable Occurrences, As well Publick as Private, which happened in London During the last Great Visitation In 1665''''', commonly called '''''A Journal of the Plague Year''''', is a book by ], first published in March 1722. It is an account of one man's experiences of the year 1665, in which the ] struck the city of London in what became known as the ], the last epidemic of plague in that city. The book is told somewhat chronologically, though without sections or chapter headings, and with frequent digressions and repetitions.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ford-Smith |first1=Alice |date=January 2012 |title=Book Review: A Journal of the Plague Year |journal=Med Hist |volume=56 |issue=1 |pages=98–99 |doi=10.1017/S0025727300000338 |pmc=3314902 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

Presented as an eyewitness account of the events at the time, it was written in the years just prior to the book's first publication in March 1722. Defoe was only five years old in 1665 when the Great Plague took place, and the book itself was published under the initials ''H. F.'' and is probably based on the journals of Defoe's uncle, Henry Foe, who, like 'H. F.', was a ]r who lived in the ] district of ].

In the book, Defoe goes to great pains to achieve an effect of ], identifying specific neighbourhoods, streets, and even houses in which events took place. Additionally, it provides tables of casualty figures and discusses the credibility of various accounts and anecdotes received by the narrator.

⚫ The book is often compared to the actual, contemporary accounts of the plague in the diary of ]. Defoe's account, which appears to include much research, is far more systematic and detailed than Pepys's first-person account.
]]] ]]]


== Classification == == Classification ==


How the 'yhjgfkxgchhgcghhhmayer /> At least one modern literary critic, ], has agreed that "the invented detail is ... small and inessential" and that the ''Journal'' "stands closer to our idea of history than to that of fiction", and that "any doubts that remain whether to label it "fiction" or "history" arise from the ambiguities inherent in those words."<ref name=mayer />
How the ''Journal'' is to be classified has been disputed.<ref>{{Cite journal | last1 = Brown | first1 = H. | title = The Institution of the English Novel: Defoe's Contribution | journal = Novel: A Forum on Fiction | volume = 29 | issue = 3 | pages = 299–318 | doi = 10.2307/1345591 | year = 1996 | jstor = 1345591 }}, p. 311.</ref> It was initially presented and read as a work of nonfiction,<ref name=bastian>{{Cite journal | last1 = Bastian | first1 = F. | title = Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year Reconsidered | journal = The Review of English Studies | volume = 16 | issue = 62 | pages = 151–173 | doi = 10.1093/res/xvi.62.151| year = 1965 }}</ref> but by the 1780s the work's fictional status was accepted. Debate continued as to whether Defoe could be regarded as the work's author rather than merely its editor.<ref name=bastian /> Edward Wedlake Brayley wrote in 1835 that the ''Journal'' is "emphatically, not a fiction, not based on fiction ... great injustice is done to memory so to represent it." Brayley takes pains to compare Defoe's account with known ''bona fide'' accounts such as '']'' by ] (1672), the diary of ], and ]'s ''God's Terrible Voice in the City by Plague and Fire'' (1667), as well as primary sources.<ref name=mayer>{{cite journal |last1=Mayer |first1=Robert |date=Autumn 1990 |title=The Reception of a Journal of the Plague Year and the Nexus of Fiction and History in the Novel |journal=ELH |volume=57 |issue=3 |pages=529–555 |doi=10.2307/2873233 |jstor=2873233 }}</ref> This view was also held by Watson Nicholson – writing in 1919 – who argued that "there is not one single statement in the ''Journal'', pertinent to the history of the Great Plague in London, that has not been verified during the course of this investigation," and "we are compelled to class the ''Journal of the Plague Year'' with authentic histories." It is, according to Nicholson, "a faithful record of historical facts ... was so intended by the author."<ref>Nicholson, Watson (1919). ''The Historical Sources of Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year'', Boston: The Stratford Co., pp. 97, 100.</ref><ref>{{Cite journal | last1 = Zimmerman | first1 = E. | title = H. F.'s Meditations: A Journal of the Plague Year | journal = PMLA | volume = 87 | issue = 3 | pages = 417–423 | doi = 10.2307/460900 | year = 1972 | jstor = 460900 }}</ref><ref name=bastian /><ref name=mayer /> At least one modern literary critic, ], has agreed that "the invented detail is ... small and inessential" and that the ''Journal'' "stands closer to our idea of history than to that of fiction", and that "any doubts that remain whether to label it "fiction" or "history" arise from the ambiguities inherent in those words."<ref name=mayer />
jj

Other literary critics have argued that the work should be regarded as a work of imaginative fiction, and thus can justifiably be described as an "historical novel".<ref name=bastian /> This view was held by Everett Zimmerman, who wrote that "It is the intensity of the focus on the narrator that makes ''A Journal of the Plague Year'' more like a novel than like ... history." Indeed, Defoe's use of the narrator "H.F.", and his initial presentation of the ''Journal'' as being the recollections of an eye-witness to the plague, is the major sticking point for critics who consider it more of a "romance" &ndash; "one of the peculiar class of compositions which hovers between romance and history" as it was described by ] &ndash; than a historical account.<ref name=mayer /> Walter George Bell, a historian of the plague, noted that Defoe should not be considered to be a historian because he uses his sources uncritically.<ref name=mayer /> Other literary critics have argued that the work should be regarded as a work of imaginative fiction, and thus can justifiably be described as an "historical novel".<ref name=bastian /> This view was held by Everett Zimmerman, who wrote that "It is the intensity of the focus on the narrator that makes ''A Journal of the Plague Year'' more like a novel than like ... history." Indeed, Defoe's use of the narrator "H.F.", and his initialjchgpresentation of the ''Journal'' as being the recollections of an eye-witness to the plague, is the major sticking point for critics who consider it more of a "romance" &ndash; "one of the peculiar xass of compositions which hohot be considered to be a historian because he uses his sources uncritically.<ref name=mayer />
mhcm

Scott's somewhat ambiguous view of the nature of the ''Journal'' was shared by Defoe's first major biographer, ], who wrote in ''Memoir of the Life and Times of Daniel De Foe'' (1830) about it that " has contrived to mix up so much that is authentic with the fabrications of his own brain, that it is impossible to distinguish one from the other; and he has given the whole such a likeness to the dreadful original, as to confound the sceptic, and encircle him in his enchantments." In Wilson's view the work is an "alliance between history and fiction" in which one continually morphs into the other and back again. This view is shared by John Richetti who calls the ''Journal'' a type of "pseudohistory", a "thickly factual, even grossly truthful book" in which "the imagination ... flares up occasionally and dominates those facts."<ref name=mayer /> Scott's somewhat ambiguous view of the nature of the ''Journal'' was shared by Defoe's first major biographer, ], who wrote in ''Memoir of the Life and Times of Daniel De Foe'' (1830) about it that " has contrived to mix up so much that is authentic with the fabrications of his own brain, that it is impossible to distinguish one from the other; and he has given the whole such a likeness to the dreadful original, as to confound the sceptic, and encircle him in his enchantments." In Wilson's view the work is an "alliance between history and fiction" in which one continually morphs into the other and back again. This view is shared by John Richetti who calls the ''Journal'' a type of "pseudohistory", a "thickly factual, even grossly truthful book" in which "the imagination ... flares up occasionally and dominates those facts."<ref name=mayer />


Revision as of 15:17, 5 July 2023

|dewey=823.5 |congress=PR3404 .J6 |wikisource=Index:A Journal of the Plague Year (1722).djvu |set_inhe plague in the diary of Samuel Pepys. Defoe's account, which appears to include much research, is far more systematic and detailed than Pepys's first-person account.

Portrait of the author, Daniel Defoe

Classification

How the 'yhjgfkxgchhgcghhhmayer /> At least one modern literary critic, Frank Bastian, has agreed that "the invented detail is ... small and inessential" and that the Journal "stands closer to our idea of history than to that of fiction", and that "any doubts that remain whether to label it "fiction" or "history" arise from the ambiguities inherent in those words." jj Other literary critics have argued that the work should be regarded as a work of imaginative fiction, and thus can justifiably be described as an "historical novel". This view was held by Everett Zimmerman, who wrote that "It is the intensity of the focus on the narrator that makes A Journal of the Plague Year more like a novel than like ... history." Indeed, Defoe's use of the narrator "H.F.", and his initialjchgpresentation of the Journal as being the recollections of an eye-witness to the plague, is the major sticking point for critics who consider it more of a "romance" – "one of the peculiar xass of compositions which hohot be considered to be a historian because he uses his sources uncritically. mhcm Scott's somewhat ambiguous view of the nature of the Journal was shared by Defoe's first major biographer, Walter Wilson, who wrote in Memoir of the Life and Times of Daniel De Foe (1830) about it that " has contrived to mix up so much that is authentic with the fabrications of his own brain, that it is impossible to distinguish one from the other; and he has given the whole such a likeness to the dreadful original, as to confound the sceptic, and encircle him in his enchantments." In Wilson's view the work is an "alliance between history and fiction" in which one continually morphs into the other and back again. This view is shared by John Richetti who calls the Journal a type of "pseudohistory", a "thickly factual, even grossly truthful book" in which "the imagination ... flares up occasionally and dominates those facts."

These alternative conceptualisations of the Journal – as fiction, history, or history-cum-fiction – continue to exist.

Adaptations

Illustration of corpse collection during the 1665 plague
  • In 1945, the syndicated radio programme The Weird Circle adapted the novel into a condensed 30-minute drama.
  • The 1979 Mexican film El Año de la Peste (The Year of the Plague), directed by Mexican director Felipe Cazals from a screenplay written by Gabriel García Márquez, was based on A Journal of the Plague Year.
  • The Oscar-nominated 1999 German stop motion animated short film Periwig Maker is based on A Journal of the Plague Year.
  • A 2016 BBC Radio 4 play adapted the novel into a 60-minute drama.

A Journal of the Plague Year also served as the initial inspiration for Anthony Clarvoe's play The Living.

In popular culture

References to the book's title have been made in Michael D. O'Brien's 1999 novel Plague Journal, where the narrator and main character chooses the title to describe the theme of the book (jokingly referring to himself as a modern-day Defoe) and Norman Spinrad's 1995 Journals of the Plague Years, a satirical novel about a sexually transmitted viral disease that cannot be defeated by vaccines, referencing how AIDS was in its earliest days known as "the gay plague".

A comparison of plague-driven behavior described by Defoe and the COVID-19 crisis of 2020 is discussed in "Persistent Patterns of Behavior: Two Infectious Disease Outbreaks 350 Years Apart," an article in the journal Economic Inquiry, and also in a commentary in The Guardian.

References

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference mayer was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. Cite error: The named reference bastian was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. Lichtenstein, Jesse "Bringing Out the Dead" The New Republic
  4. "A Journal of the Plague Year" BBC Radio 4 website
  5. Agranoff, David (6 February 2019) "Book Review: Journals of the Plague Years by Norman Spinrad " Postcards From a Dying World
  6. Dasgupta, Utteeyo; Jha, Chandan Kumar; Sarangi, Sudipta (2021). "Persistent Patterns of Behavior: Two Infectious Disease Outbreaks 350 Years Apart". Economic Inquiry. 59 (2): 848–857. doi:10.1111/ecin.12961. ISSN 1465-7295.
  7. Dasgupta, Utteeyo (December 20, 2020). "Research explains how people act in pandemics – selfishly, but often with surprising altruism". The Guardian. Retrieved January 13, 2021.

Further reading

External links

Works by Daniel Defoe
Novels
Other fiction
Non-fiction
Essays
Poems
Categories: