Moll Flanders to Moll Hackabout: Daniel Defoe's Impact on A Harlot's Progress

Gough, Nicole E.

Thesis (B.F.A.) -- Art History

Savannah College of Art and Design -- Department of Art History

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"This thesis examines the importance of the explicit impact that Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders (1722) had on the creation of William Hogarth's sequential series, A Harlot's Progress (1732). It accomplishes this by studying the fine details portrayed within both works and querying the motivation behind the similarities and differences Hogarth produces in relation to Daniel Defoe's novel. Many aspects of early eighteenth-century English culture were influential to the creation of both Hogarth's and Defoe's works. These aspects include the growth in prostitution and the public's changed perception of it during this time. By midcentury, 'prostitution has become the target of practical religious reform…and the figure of the prostitute has developed sympathetic contours.' To assess literary and pictorial content and symbolism in, respectively, Moll Flanders and A Harlot's Progress, the different laws that were created about prostitution and the many popular figures of the day who were influential in this realm are explored. For instance, this thesis discusses A Harlot's Progress as Hogarth related it to prostitution, theft, and morality by including real-life figures such as, Mother Needham, Colonel Charteris, James Dalton, and Dr. Sacheveral. Due to Hogarth's use of imagery to convey content and symbolism similar to that Defoe presents through text, an iconographic approach is the best method to examine A Harlot's Progress and its debt to Moll Flanders. The main characteristics of and connections between Defoe's and Hogarth's works represent similar responses to early eighteenth-century English culture. The main elements explored throughout Hogarth's and Defoe's stories can be organized into the following categories: Motherly figures, man’s influence, theft, money/poverty, death/disease, prostitution, and true name/origin. Each of these categories is analyzed using the available scholarship and iconographic method. The scholarship has been collected from archives, books, reviews, and published articles. The main authors used were Ronald Paulson and Mark Hallett, among others. William Hogarth and Daniel Defoe lived similar lives in their ambitions and prolific output and were motivated by their surrounding, similar environments. By presenting a cogent argument concerning the impact that Daniel Defoe had on William Hogarth, this thesis helps elucidate how Hogarth was brought to the point of creating A Harlot's Progress. The link between Daniel Defoe and William Hogarth is essential to the core of Hogarth's storytelling, as Hogarth's representation of a harlot is immensely similar to Defoe's representation." --Abstract

Keywords: A Harlots Progress, connectivity, Daniel Defoe, eighteenth-century, engraving, fate, influence, Moll Flanders, money, motherly figures, William Hogarth

Savannah, Georgia: Savannah College of Art and Design

2020-05

1 online resource: 1 PDF (Thesis, 65 pages, color illustrations)