The Visitation: Defoe's A Journal of the Plague Year The Visitation: Defoe's A Journal of the Plague Year

Defoe begins his story with an account of the discovery of a few cases of the plague in St. Giles parish in the winter of 1664-65.  The slow and close-grained way in which he describes the alternating terror and relief caused by the reporting of new cases followed by periods of abatement builds dramatic tension very effectively.  One of the highlights of this episode is the little editorializing he does about the ability of the media to both report rumors and to embellish them for effect.   This, along with his remarks about the speed at which news traveled in the author’s day—"instantly over the whole nation,”—lend a faint irony to the account, as they are pretty much how we would describe our situation today.  Defoe concludes the episode with descriptions of the mass exodus from the city of those who were wealthy enough and of rumors of restrictions on travel soon to come.




For an account of a modern-day exodus, see https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/15/upshot/who-left-new-york-coronavirus.html



Credits: 
Podcast produced by Sam Brelsfoard
Music from Funeral Sentences of Henry Purcell (1659-1695), performed by the Choir of Clare College at the University of Cambridge, Timothy Brown conducting.  Used by permission. 
Visit our website: www.londonplague.com
© 2020 Mark Cummings

With the plague now beginning to spread and intensify, and having witnessed so many of his neighbors fleeing the city, the author realizes that he must soon decide whether to stay or go himself, and he offers his reflections and decision-making process as a guide to others who might find themselves in similar circumstances.  Like many of us would be, he is torn between the desire to protect his belongings and property or to flee and perhaps save his life.  In a particularly interesting conversation with his more well-traveled brother, he considers whether his fate is foreordained and thus not affected at all by any decision he might make. 



In the end, after a series of incidents prevents him from leaving, he settles on considering what we might call the “preponderance of the evidence” as a method for making such a decision.  By this he means that we should look upon the entirety of opportunities and obstacles that present themselves, to view them “complexly” as being “intimations from Heaven.”  Finding guidance and solace in the 91st Psalm, and after a brief bout of some minor but worrisome illness, he is confirmed in his resolve to stay in London, placing his fate in God’s hands.



[For notes on the main themes of the novel, visit https://londonplague.com/postscript/. To see some ways in which our reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic are anticipated in the Journal, see https://londonplague.com/concordance/.]



Credits: 
Podcast produced by Sam Brelsfoard
Music from Funeral Sentences of Henry Purcell (1659-1695), performed by the Choir of Clare College at the University of Cambridge, Timothy Brown conducting.  Used by permission. 
Visit our website: www.londonplague.com
© 2020 Mark Cummings

As much as anything, this episode is a meditation on the mood of the city as the plague swept over it.  His mind made up to stay, the author now settles into the daily routine of his business, helped in part by the fact that the plague still spared his part of town from the worst of its virulence.  Meanwhile, however, further to the west, the death toll mounted steadily through the summer of 1665.  As the impact of the plague began to affect a larger area, the author notes that the face of the city was much altered—“sorrow and sadness sat upon every face,” he says—and that the city seemed to be all in tears.  In walks through the city, he remarks on how deserted the streets had become, and how frequent the cries and screams coming from the houses of the sick.  And he observes that the restoration of the monarchy a scant five years earlier had led to a rapid increase in the population of London, which in turn meant that many more died than might have even a few years before.



[For notes on the main themes of the novel, visit https://londonplague.com/postscript/. To see some ways in which our reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic are anticipated in the Journal, see https://londonplague.com/concordance/.]



Credits: 
Podcast produced by Sam Brelsfoard
Music from Funeral Sentences of Henry Purcell (1659-1695), performed by the Choir of Clare College at the University of Cambridge, Timothy Brown conducting.  Used by permission. 
Visit our website: www.londonplague.com
© 2020 Mark Cummings

The most important element in dealing with the terrible and the inexplicable is to be able to put an interpretative framework around it, to give it meaning.  Giving things meaning makes them comprehensible and perhaps even manageable, and if that doesn’t reduce our fears it at least gives us reason to hope.  It’s tempting to think that our attempts at explaining natural phenomena are better and more scientific than those of the 17th century, but while it’s certainly true that we have developed powerful mathematical and experimental tools for understanding the world, we are no less prone than our forebears to create comprehensive systems of meanings that are not dependent on empirical evidence alone.  In this chapter the author speaks of the attempts of his contemporaries to see in the heavens or in clouds, or through the interpretation of dreams, confirmation of what everyone believes, that the plague is a visitation by God and a judgement on the city. The author believes this as well, clearly, but he is openly skeptical, even scornful, of the attempts of astrologers, fortune tellers, and others to play upon peoples’ fears for their own gain.



[For notes on the main themes of the novel, visit https://londonplague.com/postscript/. To see some ways in which our reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic are anticipated in the Journal, see https://londonplague.com/concordance/.]



Credits: 
Podcast produced by Sam Brelsfoard
Music from Funeral Sentences of Henry Purcell (1659-1695), performed by the Choir of Clare College at the University of Cambridge, Timothy Brown conducting.  Used by permission. 
Visit our website: www.londonplague.com
© 2020 Mark Cummings

Resuming his comments from the last episode, the author here mounts a spirited criticism of fortune-tellers, cunning men, astrologers, conjurers, witches, and deceivers, but he doesn’t spare their audiences and followers, either, whose ignorance leads them into “a thousand weak, foolish, and wicked things.”  He’s particularly keen in observing how, despite the restoration of the Church of England, a multitude of sects continued to attract devotees and how, in their terror, the people flocked to religious leaders of all types, ignoring sectarian divisions in their overwhelming need for consolation. But when the plague abated and the terror had passed, the usual sectarian barriers were re-erected.  



A significant portion of this episode is devoted to quacks, faith-healers, and purveyors of useless and sometimes poisonous remedies against the plague, a practice that continues even today. In these matters, Defoe displays a dry sense of humor.  In one of his accounts, a woman who had been lured by false promises of free treatment by one of these quacks creates her own version of a Twitterstorm by standing outside his office for an entire day, enlarging upon his dishonesty to every passer-by until the so-called physician relents and gives her his remedy for nothing, which, the author says, “was perhaps good for nothing when she had it.” 



[For notes on the main themes of the novel, visit https://londonplague.com/postscript/. To see some ways in which our reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic are anticipated in the Journal, see https://londonplague.com/concordance/.]



Credits: 
Podcast produced by Sam Brelsfoard
Music from Funeral Sentences of Henry Purcell (1659-1695), performed by the Choir of Clare College at the University of Cambridge, Timothy Brown conducting.  Used by permission. 
Visit our website: www.londonplague.com
© 2020 Mark Cummings 

In this episode the author graphically describes the tenor of the moment, saying that death no longer seemed to be hovering overhead but was now entering into homes and staring directly into people’s faces, and he notes the spirit of repentance and confession its presence provoked.  He also continues his diatribe against quacks, pretenders, and deceivers, here mentioning what he considers an even greater madness than those previously described, the resort to magic, in the form of things like charms, amulets, and exorcisms.  “As if,” he says, “the plague was not the hand of God but a kind of possession of an evil spirit.” He concludes this portion of his narrative by describing how the Lord Mayor, seeing the way the poor, especially, were being victimized, appointed physicians and surgeons for their relief.  Of course, there was little medically that could be done for them, given the level of understanding of the disease at that time.  But there was another, deeper reason so little could be done, Defoe says again, for the plague is God’s judgment, “eminently armed from heaven from executing the errand it was sent about.” 



[For notes on the main themes of the novel, visit https://londonplague.com/postscript/. To see some ways in which our reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic are anticipated in the Journal, see https://londonplague.com/concordance/.]



Credits: 
Podcast produced by Sam Brelsfoard
Music from Funeral Sentences of Henry Purcell (1659-1695), performed by the Choir of Clare College at the University of Cambridge, Timothy Brown conducting.  Used by permission. 
Visit our website: www.londonplague.com
© 2020 Mark Cummings