Home >> The Modern Language Review, Volume 103, Number 3

Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics: Epistemology and Fiction in Defoe's A Journal of the Plague Year

Author: Seager, Nicholas

Source: The Modern Language Review, Volume 103, Number 3, 1 July 2008 , pp. 639-653(15)

Publisher: Modern Humanities Research Association

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Abstract:

This article considers Defoe's use of statistical data in his historical novel A Journal of the Plague Year, a device generally considered as a means of supplying a work of fiction with verisimilitude. Re-evaluating Defoe's attitude to the science of political arithmetic and the earliest proponents of statistics, it argues that Defoe validates a subjective and novelistic account of the plague over fallacious figures that purport to be hard facts. It therefore contextualizes the emergence of the novel within shifts in epistemology, as certainty was increasingly perceived as unattainable, and probability deemed the best standard for knowledge and action.

Keywords: Defoe; historical novel; A Journal of the Plague Year; fiction; political arithmetic; statistics; plague; novel; epistemology; probability

Document Type: Research article

Affiliations: 1: University of Nottingham

Publication date: 2008-07-01

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  • The Modern Language Review, the flagship journal of the Association, is available to all individual members as part of their subscription. MLR is one of the oldest journals in its field, maintaining an unbroken publication record since its foundation in 1905, and publishing more than 3,000 articles and 20,000 book reviews.

    Each volume consists of four issues, published in January, April, July and October of each year. Its 1000+ annual pages are divided roughly equally between articles, predominantly on medieval and modern literature in the languages of Europe, and over 500 reviews of books in these areas. All contributions are in English, and each section is edited by a noted scholar in the field, under the overall supervision of the General Editor. Articles are chosen not only for their scholarly worth and originality but also, as far as possible, for their potential interest to a wider readership in other disciplines.
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