What distinguishes Clarissa from Samuel Richardson's other novels
is Richardson's unique awareness of how his plot would end. In the
inevitability of its conclusion, in its engagement with virtually
every category of human experience, and in its author's desire to
communicate religious truth, E. Derek Taylor suggests, Clarissa
truly is the Paradise Lost of the eighteenth century. Arguing that
Clarissa's cohesiveness and intellectual rigor have suffered from
the limitations of the Lockean model frequently applied to the
novel, Taylor turns to the writings of John Norris, a well-known
disciple of the theosophy of Nicolas Malebranche. Allusions to this
first of Locke's philosophical critics appear in each of the
novel's installments, and Taylor persuasively documents how
Norris's ideas provided Richardson with a usefully un-Lockean
rhetorical grounding for Clarissa. Further, the writings of early
feminists like Norris's intellectual ally Mary Astell, who viewed
her arguments on behalf of women as compatible with her
conservative and deeply held religious and political views, provide
Richardson with the combination of progressive feminism and
conservative theology that animate the novel. In a convincing
twist, Taylor offers a closely argued analysis of Lovelace's
oft-stated declaration that he will not be 'out-Norris'd' or
'out-plotted' by Clarissa, showing how the plot of the novel and
the plot of all humans exist, in the context of Richardson's grand
theological experiment, within, through, and by a concurrence of
divine energy.
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