Epistle I: Concerning the Question of "Virtue Rewarded" in Mr. Richardson's Novel Pamela

Of Virtue Rewarded here I shall sing –
A theme of substance, no common plaything.
In double volumes Richardson addressed
This theme in Pamela, a servant blest.
One greatest poet praised her virtuous fame;
Another novelist revealed her shame.
If Reason is my muse and is my guide,
Then let her guard me through this stormy ride –
Let her examine Pamela’s rise and fall,
And indicate the ways of Man to all.

The question that supplies the critics food:
Is Pamela good, or seems to be good?
The moralist can easily present
Examples of our heroine’s ascent
To happiness: her genuine intent:
A servant girl, though poor, is rich in soul,
Resists temptations with complete control;
A pious girl who holds her morals bold,
Yet never harbours hatred in her fold.
But skeptics find her unbelievable:
Her strong virtue is unachievable –
At best she fills with biases her notes
At worst, with vanity and phony quotes.
The true debate, it seems, is not moral,
But really epistemological:
How can we know if Pamela writes truth
When all we get is writings of a youth?
“What can we reason, but from what we know?”
God may be above, but texts are below –
Reality must through languages glow.
If Man must judge, let him not speculate:
Our heroine is good without debate;
If critics find her full of arrogance,
Regard her faults as human elegance.

Perhaps a better question to impose –
A subtle point which now I can expose:
Is Pamela’s nuptial ending a reward?
Is finally happiness for her restored?
Reality unfolds in world of text;
Identity speaks in a voice perplexed.
That Pamela may have autonomy
Is through a textual economy:
By writing she boldly constructs herself –
A girl that chooses and defines herself.
Her monophonic words speak to the reader;
Her ever presence is our narrative leader.
And now she must conform to texts of others,
Those texts that defined how to be good mothers.
We see a cipher glow in virtuous height
Until it voluntarily gives up light
And then descends for the husband’s delight.
A reader, then, our heroine becomes;
A reciter of rules, resting her drums
Of angry words. No longer is she
(Although her virtue we may disagree)
A sovereign lady as a moral hero,
But loyal wife who is her husband’s zero.
Reward for Pamela’s virtue is her death:
Her entries heavily dragged to its last breath.

Despair not, friends! for Pamela at all,
For Pamela is expected to fall.
The ways of Man is one simple decree:
Respect the chain, “that draws all to agree”.
Readers are trained, and writers are suppressed,
And ideologies are always stressed.
Rewarding virtues is an action sound,
But virtuous rewards are never found.