Chapter 9 - Memories and Memorials

Summary

A Journal of the Plague Year defeats any attempt at generic classification. It is a scientific survey of the plague’s possible physical causes but it includes considerations of the plague’s allegorical significance; the story interweaves the prose forms of history, journalism and anecdote with governmental proclamations and astrological predictions; and the main narrative constitutes a fictional memoir, spiced with eyewitness narrative and logical argument, documents, religious adjuration, and practical advice. Throughout, the perspective of a frightened but acute observer lends it a remarkable verisimilitude that challenges modern readers to expand their idea of what a novel actually does – or is. This chapter maps Defoe’s remarkable generic mixture in a gripping story both ’Publick’ and ’Private’ that is still relevant today.