Fielding, Henry (sh) and Maponos (sh)

Fielding, Henry (sh)

born April 22, 1707, Sharpham Park, Somerset, Eng.
died Oct. 8, 1754, Lisbon, Port.

British novelist and playwright.

Fielding attended Eton College but left early and lost his family's support. In his 25 plays, all written early, he was essentially a satirist of political corruption; because of his sharp commentary he was eventually effectively banished from the theatre, whereupon he took up the study of law. In 1748 he was appointed a magistrate, in which role he established a new tradition of justice and suppression of crime in London. He probably wrote Shamela (1741), a burlesque of Samuel Richardson's Pamela that he never claimed. In the Entertaining and original Joseph Andrews (1742) he also parodies Richardson's novel. Tom Jones (1749), his most popular work, is noted for its great comic gusto, vast gallery of characters, and contrasted scenes of high-and lowlife. The more sober Amelia (1751) anticipates the Victorian domestic novel. In these works he helped develop the English novel as a planned, realistic narrative genre surveying contemporary society.

Maponos (sh)

or Mac ind og or Oenghus

In Celtic Religion, a god similar to Apollo who is often associated with healing.

He appears in Welsh mythology as Mabon, who was carried off from his divine mother when he was three nights old. In Irish mythology he is said to be the son of Dagda and of Boann, the personified sacred river of Irish tradition. He lived in the great Neolithic (and therefore pre-Celtic) passage grave of Newgrange.

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