The Pennsylvania State University the Graduate School College of The

The Pennsylvania State University

The Graduate School

College of the Liberal Arts

THE SATIRIC NOVEL FROM FIELDING TO HOGG

A Dissertation in

English

Julian Fung

Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

August 2015 ii

The dissertation of Julian Fung was reviewed and approved* by the following:

Robert D. Hume Evan Pugh Professor of English Dissertation Adviser Chair of Committee

John T. Harwood Associate Professor of English and Information Sciences and Technology

Philip Jenkins Edwin Erle Sparks Professor Emeritus of the Humanities

Nicholas A. Joukovsky Professor of English

Debra Hawhee Professor of English and Communication Arts and Sciences Director of Graduate Studies

*Signatures are on file in the Graduate School.

iii

ABSTRACT

This dissertation is an overview of the British novel c. 1740–1830 from the perspective of a scholar interested in narrative satire. Many of the major novels in this period were considered by contemporary readers to be satires or at least to contain strong satiric elements, yet few scholars have attempted to explain how these novels use satire. Critics of individual novelists have, to varying degrees, treated their subjects as satirists—Smollett is frequently read as a satirist, as is

Peacock. But these studies often do not give a sense of the sheer variety and diversity of this period’s novelistic satire. Though many works were thought to be satiric, they use satire in vastly different ways for various purposes. How much of a relationship exists between the satire of

Smollett, Burney, and Bage, for instance? These novelists all write works containing satire, but they diverge in both tone and aim. In this study I want to provide a map of possibilities for narrative satire in this period, describing both the kinds of distinct satiric goals novelists pursue and the range of techniques they use to achieve them.

Besides demonstrating variance in satiric aim and method, I also want to argue against the notion that satire and the novel are antithetical forms, and that novelistic satire declines after the mid-eighteenth century. Scholars of satire and the eighteenth-century novel have tended to argue that as the novel form grows in popularity, satire decays. The novel is often said to be incompatible with satire; critics have argued that novelists are too concerned with developing the realism of their plots and characters to make effective satiric attacks. The problem here is that these scholars have conceived of satire in narrow ways, not taking into account the breadth of satiric techniques novelists employ throughout this period. Just because few novelists in the late eighteenth century attempt to write novels similar to Smollett’s or Fielding’s does not mean that novelistic satire declines. iv

In the first part of my study I discuss how satire has been conceived both by modern scholars and eighteenth-century readers, and I make the case that satire can have varying aims. I also develop a rhetorical approach to novelistic satire, focusing especially on how novelists attempt to control the judgments of their readers. In the four chapters of the second part, I focus on four major satiric aims: entertainment, instruction, pessimistic expression, and attack. As the examples in each chapter demonstrate, each of these satiric aims is a distinct enterprise.

As satire is so often a central element of the novels of the period, understanding the multifarious ways in which it operates is important for our interpretations of these works. Where my predecessors see satire as a very specific genre that declines as the novel grows in popularity,

I see a vibrant mode that is incorporated into the novel for a wide array of purposes. My goal is to give my readers a sense of this diverse and exciting range.

TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ...... vii PREFACE ...... viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... xv PART I: AN APPROACH TO NOVELISTIC SATIRE ...... 1 CHAPTER ONE: SATIRE AND THE NOVEL FORM ...... 2 I. Satire Theory and the Novel ...... 4 II. What is a Satiric Novel? The Definitional Issue ...... 12 III. The Variety of Satiric Aims ...... 22 IV. Some Dogmas about Satire in the Novel ...... 34 V. Towards an Approach to Satiric Fiction ...... 54 CHAPTER TWO: DEDUCING AUTHORIAL AIM ...... 60 I. Reading in Search of a Novel’s Purpose ...... 61 II. Arabella and the Problem of The Female Quixote ...... 84 PART II: THE AIMS OF SATIRE ...... 106 CHAPTER THREE: SATIRE AS ENTERTAINMENT: SMOLLETT, STERNE, AND PEACOCK...... 107 I. Peregrine Pickle: Humor and Satire ...... 109 II. Tristram Shandy: The Performance of Satire ...... 138 III. The Various Uses of Satire in Peacock’s Novels...... 157 CHAPTER FOUR: INSTRUCTIVE SATIRE: FIELDING, GRAVES, AND BAGE ...... 178 I. Characteristics and Varieties of Instructive Satire ...... 179 II. Types of Satiric Instruction in Fielding’s Novels ...... 190 III. Sympathetic Satire in The Spiritual Quixote ...... 212 IV. Irony as Satiric Instruction in Bage’s Hermsprong ...... 233 CHAPTER FIVE: PESSIMISTIC SATIRE: COVENTRY, BURNEY, AND EDGEWORTH ...... 258 I. The Possibilities of Pessimistic Satire ...... 260 II. Pessimistic Satire in Pompey the Little ...... 270 III. The Power of Social Custom in Burney’s Cecilia ...... 280 IV. Castle Rackrent and Negative Uncertainty ...... 295 CHAPTER SIX: ATTACK SATIRE: INCHBALD, HAMILTON, AND HOGG ...... 313 I. Attack vs. Instruction: Psychological Realism in Inchbald’s Nature and Art ...... 320 II. Mixed Aims in Memoirs of Modern Philosophers...... 332 III. Attack and Provocation of Thought in Hogg’s Confessions of a Justified Sinner ...... 353 vi

CONCLUSION: SATIRE IN THE NOVEL, 1740–1830 ...... 379 I. The Rhetoric of Satire...... 380 II. Satire and the Form of the Novel, 1740–1830 ...... 384 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 397

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. Types of Satire in the Novels of Tobias Smollett ...... 137

Table 2. Different Methods of Attack ...... 316

viii

PREFACE

This is a study of the various ways in which satire is practiced in the novel c. 1740–1830. Many of the major novels of this time period employ satire in varying ways, and were thought to do so by contemporary writers and readers. Tobias Smollett thought of himself as a satiric novelist, declaring in Roderick Random (1748) that “of all kinds of satire, there is none so entertaining, and universally improving, as that which is introduced, as it were, occasionally, in the course of an interesting story.”1 Astraea and Minerva Hill, writing to Samuel Richardson, claim that for all its faults Fielding’s Tom Jones (1749) contains “just and pointed Satire”; Edmund Burke famously declared that Tristram Shandy (1759–67) was a “vehicle for satire on a great variety of subjects.” Later in the period, Samuel Hoole’s poem Aurelia (1783) describes Frances Burney as a satirist lashing the vices of avarice and pride.2 Satire continues to be written in novel form into the nineteenth century: an 1829 article in the Monthly Magazine on “Novels by the Author of

Headlong Hall” does not hesitate to discuss Peacock’s satire, and a review of James Hogg’s The

Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824) in the Literary Gazette declares that the main object of the book is to “satirize the excess” of Calvinism.3 Looking further into the nineteenth century, we can find novelists like Dickens and Trollope who deploy satire regularly.

Clearly, eighteenth-century (and nineteenth-century) readers thought of novels as potential vehicles for satire.

Despite the satiric nature of these and other important works, relatively little has been written about satire in the eighteenth-century novel. Ronald Paulson’s Satire and the Novel in

1 Tobias Smollett, The Adventures of Roderick Random, ed. O M Brack, Jr. (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2012), 3. 2 Henry Fielding: The Critical Heritage, ed. Ronald Paulson and Thomas Lockwood (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969), 173; Sterne: The Critical Heritage, ed. Alan B. Howes (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974), 106; Samuel Hoole, Aurelia; or, the Contest: An Heroi-Comic Poem; In Four Cantos. By the Author of Modern Manners (London, 1783), 62–63. 3 “Novels by the Author of Headlong Hall,” Monthly Magazine, April 1829, 381–92; The Literary Gazette, July 17, 1824, 449. ix

Eighteenth-Century England (1967) and Frank Palmeri’s Satire, History, Novel (2003) both address the subject directly, but in each case only a few novelists are discussed in detail. Both studies view the novel as inimical to satire, such that as the novel becomes more popular, satire becomes less so. Paulson primarily focuses on the novels of Fielding and Smollett, arguing that they make heavy use of satiric conventions. But he posits that as the eighteenth century progresses, novels become less centrally satiric, as the satiric novel evolves into the unsatiric novel of manners—a genre he describes as the “most interesting product” of the various

“novelistic transformations” of satire.4 Palmeri discusses a wider range of works, but usually to describe how novelists such as Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne “moved away from satire and toward other, novelistic forms.” He acknowledges the satiric output of later novelists like

Burney, Bage, Holcroft, D’Israeli, and Hamilton, but he does not analyze their satire at length, and he maintains that “the history of narrative forms in the eighteenth century indicates a long- term pressure to modify satiric energies and redirect them into non-satiric forms.”5 Though both of these studies are helpful in theorizing how satire operates in the novel, the narrative that they promote of satire declining as the novel rises rests uneasily with the fact that satiric novels continue to be published well into the nineteenth century.

Turning to studies of the eighteenth-century novel can help us to understand how satire is used in them, but few such studies extend into the nineteenth century. Books on the eighteenth- century novel often end with Fielding, sometimes with brief mentions of Smollett and Sterne—

Ian Watt takes this approach in The Rise of the Novel, and other scholars like Michael McKeon and Leopold Damrosch have followed his lead. Robert Alan Donovan’s The Shaping Vision

4 Ronald Paulson, Satire and the Novel in Eighteenth-Century England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967), 266. 5 Frank Palmeri, Satire, History, Novel: Narrative Forms, 1665–1815 (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2003), 178, 181–82. x examines the novel from Defoe to Dickens, but jumps from Humphry Clinker (1771) to

Mansfield Park (1814) with little attention to anything in between. John Richetti’s The English

Novel in History stops at 1780. Studies of individual novelists or groups of novelists within this period, such as Melvyn New’s Laurence Sterne as Satirist and Gary Kelly’s The English Jacobin

Novel, 1780–1805 treat their subjects as satirists, but these works do not provide us with a broader view of how satire is used in the novel more generally.

Given that satiric novels are written throughout the mid-eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, why has the subject of satire in the eighteenth-century novel received so little attention? Part of the problem is definitional. Satire theorists have long struggled to define satire, and have often offered narrow definitions that exclude some works which both modern and contemporary readers might deem satiric. For instance, Palmeri defines narrative satire as a form that “sets against each other opposed points of view” without providing some sort of middle way between them.6 If so, what are we to make of Richard Graves’s The Spiritual Quixote (1773), which is quite clearly intended to be a satire on Methodism but offers a middle ground between religious extremism and impiousness? Even if we define satire more broadly as some sort of literary attack, how well does “attack,” with all the violence that it implies, describe the aim of a novel like Peacock’s Headlong Hall (1816), in which many ideas are laughed at and mocked, but none are savaged or brutally excoriated? If we adopt a very limited definition of satire, we might be tempted to declare triumphantly that novelistic satire is indeed dead by the late eighteenth century. But in doing so, we would be ignoring the perspectives of actual eighteenth-century authors and readers.

One of my major goals in this study is to propose that we broaden our sense of what constitutes satire in general, and novelistic satire in particular. I want to avoid falling into the

6 Palmeri, Satire, History, Novel, 11. xi definitional trap: my aim is not to propose a foolproof definition that will somehow encompass all works which have been deemed satiric and simultaneously exclude obviously non-satiric works. Such a definition, I would wager, is impossible to devise. Rather, I want to examine a number of novels from the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries that were regarded as satiric in their time in order to describe some possible ways in which satire can be written in novel form. We will find that novelistic satire is a diverse enterprise that can be written in a number of different ways. Headlong Hall, which is lightly plotted and employs heavily exaggerated and unrealistic characters, is clearly satiric—but so is Burney’s Evelina (1778), whose plot is much more intricate and whose characters are more realistic. We need a means of understanding satire that allows for the diversity of ways in which it was practiced in the eighteenth- and nineteenth- century novel.

Looking at the satiric novels of this period shows us that satire can have aims other than attack. Some novels do indeed seem to attack a particular target; Elizabeth Inchbald’s Nature and Art (1796), for instance, seems designed to derogate harshly the abuse of wealth and power in late eighteenth-century England. But some novels, such as Tristram Shandy, feel satiric yet seem largely designed to entertain. Others, like Bage’s Hermsprong (1796), use satire to convey serious lessons to their audience, but are more focused on providing positive instruction than on destroying a target. Still other novels, such as Maria Edgeworth’s Castle Rackrent (1800), seem designed to convey pessimism to the reader: they employ satire to expose the serious problems of some situation, but without offering any kind of solution or even suggesting that reformation and improvement are possible. Recognizing a diversity in the aims of satiric novels allows us better to describe individual works than if we were to assume that satire is monolithic. xii

I want not only to outline a taxonomy of aims that novelists use satire to achieve, but also to provide us with a vocabulary for discussing how satire functions in the novel. To do so, I will draw upon rhetorical theories of narrative. Satire is ultimately a rhetorical act in which the satirist attempts to cause some kind of negative emotion—ranging from mild derision to savage indignation—against some target. Rhetorical narratologists such as Wayne C. Booth and Sheldon

Sacks have long contended that novelists infuse their values (or those of an implied author) into their works and transmit these values by inviting the reader to make a series of judgments about the events and characters in the narrative. Authors lead readers to these ethical decisions through various techniques. Booth, for instance, demonstrates convincingly how Emma’s effect depends on Austen’s control of narrative distance between the heroine and the reader—we must be able to identify Emma’s faults to appreciate the work’s humor, yet we must also retain a general sympathy for her in order to gain satisfaction from the novel’s conclusion.7 Likewise, the authors of satiric fiction use various techniques to lead their readers to negative judgments of their targets. By discussing some of the rhetorical techniques of novelistic satire, I hope to sensitize my readers to the manifold ways satire can be practiced in the novel.

In order both to give us a sense of the diversity of satiric aims in novels c. 1740–1830 and also to demonstrate how approaching these novels rhetorically can yield helpful readings, I have decided to discuss in depth the works of twelve authors who practice novelistic satire.

Focusing on more texts would allow me to provide a more comprehensive account of the satiric novel in this period, but at the expense of detailed exploration of how individual works function rhetorically as satires. That said, I also do not want to focus on only a few major authors. If I were only to examine how satire operates in the most significant novelists of the period—

Fielding, Smollett, Sterne, and Burney, say—I would end up with a severely distorted sense of

7 Wayne C. Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), 243–66. xiii the satiric novels of the period. I have therefore attempted to discuss canonical authors as well as less-studied figures, such as Richard Graves and Francis Coventry. While I am not attempting to provide a comprehensive history or overview of the eighteenth-century satiric novel, I hope that by discussing a range of authors writing about a variety of different subjects, I can provide my readers with a good sense of what kinds of satiric novels were being written in this period.

This study is divided into two parts. Part One is devoted to discussing the relationship between satire and the novel on a theoretical level. In Chapter 1, I discuss how satire has been conceived both by modern scholars and contemporary readers, and I describe the various aims that satirists can attempt to achieve. I also explain what I mean by “satire,” though I avoid constricting and inflexible definitions. Chapter 2 lays out a method for deducing the satiric aim of a novel, using Charlotte Lennox’s The Female Quixote (1752) as a test case. Though the theories and methods I discuss in these chapters have been derived from reading the works I examine in Part Two, I have chosen to explain them first, so that the interpretations I offer later make more sense. Part Two comprises four chapters, each focusing on one of the four major satiric aims I identify—entertainment, instruction, pessimistic statement, and attack—and analyzing three novels in which that aim is primary. I have chosen to organize my analysis by aim rather than chronology because I do not believe one can identify a tidy evolution of satire from the mid-eighteenth to the early nineteenth century. These satiric aims all co-exist throughout the period, and I am less interested in chronological trends than in similarities and differences of satiric method.

Ultimately, I intend to describe a spectrum of the possible designs satiric fiction can take in this period. As satire is so often a central element of eighteenth-century novels, understanding the multifarious ways in which it operates is important for our interpretations of these works. xiv

Part of this understanding is the realization that novelistic satire does not dwindle after Fielding and Smollett, as critics like Paulson and Palmeri suggest—rather, it flourishes in a multitude of varied forms. Where my predecessors see satire as a very specific genre that decays as the novel grows in popularity, I see a vibrant mode that is incorporated into the novel for a wide array of authorial purposes. My goal is to give my readers a sense of the diverse and exciting ways in which novelists use satire to achieve their aims.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

For invaluable advice and assistance on this project I am grateful to John T. Harwood, Robert D.

Hume, Philip Jenkins, Nicholas A. Joukovsky, and Laura Lunger Knoppers. I would also like to thank Patricia Gael, Ashley Marshall, Leah Orr, Jonathan Pritchard, and David Wallace

Spielman for their help and support.

PART I: AN APPROACH TO NOVELISTIC SATIRE

CHAPTER ONE: SATIRE AND THE NOVEL FORM

What is the relationship between satire and the novels of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries? We can approach this question from either of two angles. Scholars who mainly focus on satire theory have found the novel to be inimical to satire. For a long time the standard narrative has been that the first half of the eighteenth century was the great age of satire, but around the middle of the century satire gave up the ghost. The imaginative energy that had been dedicated to satire was channeled into other venues, the most prominent of which was the novel.

As Thomas Lockwood points out, “the subject of verse satire, according to Juvenal, is ‘whatever men do,’” but after Pope “most of the writers who take up society and the doings of men as their subject are novelists.”1 According to this perspective, though the novel shares some elements in common with satire, the two forms are ultimately opposed to each other. Even those critics who acknowledge that satire can exist within novels claim that novels became less and less recognizably satiric as the century progressed. By the time of Austen, “satire has been successfully sublimated” into the novel form, or so Ronald Paulson claims.2 To some degree this explanation of the death of satire is attractive; after all, the works of Austen seem quite far removed from those of Pope or Swift.

To critics who focus on specific eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century novelists, this perspective may seem strange. Few would deny that Tobias Smollett or that Thomas Love

Peacock employ satire heavily in their novels. The Jacobin novelists are often described as satirizing conservative positions, and even some novelists who are not generally thought of as satirists—Frances Burney and Charles Maturin, for instance—have been analyzed as such by

1 Thomas Lockwood, Post-Augustan Satire: Charles Churchill and Satirical Poetry, 1750–1800 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1979), 182. 2 Ronald Paulson, Satire and the Novel, 291. 3

some critics.3 But while individual novelists have been discussed as satirists, no attempt has been made to describe how satire functions more broadly in the novels of this period. Describing

Caleb Williams (1794) as satiric is helpful in some ways, but how much does this descriptor tell us when we can also describe Tristram Shandy as a satire? How much common ground can we find between the satire in Burney’s Evelina and Peacock’s Melincourt (1817)? Or between Maria

Edgeworth’s Castle Rackrent and Smollett’s Humphry Clinker? While scholars of the period may acknowledge that satire and the novel are not incompatible, how satire functions in novels has not been adequately theorized.

What we need is a way of understanding satire that both acknowledges that satire is not inimical to the novel form and is able also to describe the relationship between works as disparate as Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews (1742) and James Hogg’s Private Memoirs and

Confessions of a Justified Sinner. We need to re-examine the old narrative of the novel superseding satire and also broaden our sense of how satire functions in the novel. In this chapter

I will first examine assumptions made by satire theorists about the opposition between satire and the novel. I will then argue that in order to conceptualize novelistic satire of this period, we must move away from restrictive definitions of satire and recognize that satire has multiple forms, tones, and possibilities. If we acknowledge the diversity of satire, we will see that different satires are written with different aims in mind. Understanding that not all satires are best described as “attack” will allow us to dispel some long-held dogmas about satire’s relationship to the novel. Finally, I will propose a rhetorical approach to novelistic satire—one that sees satiric novels as purposive, and which can help us to account for the difference in style, tone, and technique in many eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century novels that have been deemed

3 See Julian Fung, “Frances Burney as Satirist,” Modern Language Review 106, no. 4 (2011): 937–53; Ashley Marshall, “Melmoth Affirmed: Maturin’s Defense of Sacred History,” Studies in Romanticism 47, no. 2 (2008): 121–45. 4

satiric. I hope both to make the case that satire survives and thrives in the novel form and to suggest that the satiric novels of the period are best analyzed by identifying their specific satiric objectives.

I. Satire Theory and the Novel

Let us begin by confronting the assumption made by satire theorists that the novel is inimical to satire. The problem tends to arise from the numerous attempts made by theorists to define satire.

Based on a limited view of what satire is and what novelists attempt to accomplish in their narratives, the idea that the novel and satire are incompatible forms appears plausible. Given the evidence that both eighteenth-century and modern readers believe that novels can and do contain satire, however, these definitions need to be rethought.

To start with a basic definitional issue: I will be treating satire as a mode in this study, not as a genre. One can refer to satire as a specific genre—that is, one can assume that “satire” refers to a particular kind of literary work that follows certain conventions of content and form. When critics discuss the genre of formal verse satire, as practiced by Juvenal, Horace, and their eighteenth-century imitators, they generally mean a specific type of poem, written in the form of a complaint, usually exposing some kind of personal or social flaw. But I am referring to satire as a mode—a method of literary expression that can take multiple forms. While a specific genre, like the novel, cannot contain such forms as television shows or films, most people would not balk at describing plays, movies, or New Yorker cartoons as satiric. A number of recent critics have put forward the idea that satire is best treated as a mode, or at least something that is not limited to a single genre. Ashley Marshall, for instance, describes satire as a mode that can be employed in drama and fiction as well as in poetry; likewise, George A. Test writes about satire 5

as a kind of “bent” or temperament that can inform different kinds of works.4 In this belief, modern critics agree with eighteenth-century commentators, who also discuss satire as an enterprise that can be performed in the genre of the novel. A review of Fielding’s Amelia (1751) in The Ladies Magazine claims that the author has “in this Piece very justly exposed some of the private Vices and Follies of the present Age” and hopes that “next he will direct his Satire against those who . . . oppose every new Law that could be thought of for preventing Bribery and

Corruption.”5 The author of an article entitled “The Novel Writers” in La Belle Assemblée states that “we can find the happy mixture of satire and moral tendency in the Spiritual Quixote and

Cecilia.”6 Eighteenth-century novel readers took seriously the idea that novels could convey satire—suggesting that even in the so-called Age of Satire, “satire” did not just refer to the genre of the formal verse satire.

The point that satire is a mode and not a genre may seem an obvious one, but the distinction is important. If satire is not a mode but a genre, we might expect that the writer of a satiric novel faces a dilemma: as a satirist he would be drawn to the conventions, techniques, and objectives of his genre—making a scathing critique of some target, for instance, or inviting the reader to laugh at it—while as a novelist he would have a different set of goals and techniques at his disposal. Crafting a satiric novel would become something of a balancing act, as the writer would be attempting two divergent enterprises in the same work. At best, the resultant novel would be heavily satiric while making only slight use of novelistic techniques, or vice versa. At worst, the work would be incoherent or disjointed. This situation describes some narratives

4 Ashley Marshall, The Practice of Satire in England, 1658–1770 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013), 5; George A. Test, Satire: Spirit and Art (Tampa: University of South Florida Press, 1991), 12. 5 “Conclusion of an Account of a Novel Lately Published, Intitled, Amelia,” The Ladies Magazine, April 4, 1752, 148. 6 “The Novel Writers,” La Belle Assemblée: or Court and Fashionable Magazine, February 1809, 35–36, at 36. 6

adequately; the early novels of Peacock, for instance, are heavily satiric, but are minimally novelistic insofar as their plots are thin and their characters not heavily developed. But the model functions less well when applied to a work like Tom Jones, which is undoubtedly satiric and yet is generally recognized to be an intricately-plotted novel. The problem is resolved if we consider satire as a mode expressed in the novel form. Fielding does not choose between employing satiric techniques and novelistic techniques. He uses novelistic techniques for satiric ends. Just as the writer of a satiric poem uses rhyme, meter, alliteration, and other poetic techniques in order to convey and intensify a satiric message, the satiric novelist may utilize plots, characters, internal or external focalization, unreliable narrators, polyphony, digressions, and other devices we associate with the novel to fulfill his satiric objective.

If, as we have seen, some modern satire theorists conceive of satire as a mode, whence comes the idea that the novel form is hostile to satire? One source is the belief that satire must necessarily be an indignant attack of some kind. Over half a century ago, Northrop Frye defined satire as an attack made upon a specific object through wit or humor.7 Following in this vein, theorists of satire often emphasize the violence and anger underlying the satiric enterprise. As

Brian A. Connery and Kirk Combe put the point, satirists engage in “mercilessly savage attack on some person or thing that, frequently for private reasons, displeases them.”8 Ronald Paulson similarly asserts that the objective of satire can be described as attack, and claims that satire tends to operate through a “central symbol of violence”: it often shows the vicious either being punished or punishing innocent characters.9 Given this idea of satire as attack involving images of violence, we can see why one might find the novel to be a form antithetical to satire. After all,

7 Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957), 224. 8 Brian A. Connery and Kirk Combe, “Theorizing Satire: A Retrospective and Introduction,” in Theorizing Satire: Essays in Literary Criticism, ed. Brian A. Connery and Kirk Combe (New York: St. Martin’s, 1995), 1–15, at 2. 9 Ronald Paulson, The Fictions of Satire (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967), 3, 9–11. 7

the kinds of violent images Paulson discusses—the eating of babies in Swift’s Modest Proposal or the dismemberment of Pitkin in West’s A Cool Million—do not appear with great frequency in the eighteenth- or early nineteenth-century novel, and certainly would seem out of place in

Richardson’s Clarissa (1748) or Burney’s Evelina. The satire of a poet like Pope often involves direct denunciation of a target; this kind of attack is not often (though by no means never) found in the novels of the second half of the eighteenth century or those of the early nineteenth century.

Though some novels of the period do in fact contain extreme violence and could be characterized as attacks—Hogg’s Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, for instance—yet we would likely not consider most novels to be attacks or denunciations.

A related idea about satire that puts it in opposition to the novel is that satire must offer a stern and straightforward judgment. Its target must be shown clearly to be evil and repulsive; any kind of moderation or complication of judgment would weaken the satiric effect. Matthew

Hodgart, for instance, claims that “whereas the novelist aims at understanding the complexities of life, satire aims at simplification, at a pretence of misunderstanding and at denunciation.”10

The implication here is that the satirist seeks to make clear-cut condemnations of his targets, while the novelist avoids such straightforward delineation of good and evil. Likewise, Charles A.

Knight writes that in the novel, “focus upon individual characters and individual consciousness sits uneasily with the satiric incitement to social judgment.”11 Paulson makes a similar point in suggesting that Tom Jones takes a significant step away from satire. He reads Fielding’s novel as a work illustrating the difficulty of judging people accurately, stating that Fielding “has reached a conclusion that is essentially alien to the classical, and so to the satiric, tradition—that

10 Matthew Hodgart, Satire (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1969), 214. 11 Charles A. Knight, The Literature of Satire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 204. Knight does acknowledge that novels are “inherently satiric,” insofar as “the individual is set in an antagonistic relation to the surrounding society” in the novel (206). 8

judgment is only possible when made of a whole being and not of an individual action.”12 For

Paulson, a fictional work that presents life and human character as too complex for uncomplicated judgment is antithetical to satire.

If we a) see satire purely as attack or denunciation, and b) conceive of the novel purely as a form devoted to portraying the complexities, nuances, and psychological details of life, then the two seem opposed. But both of these assumptions are questionable. Though the idea that satire is attack is long-standing and still influential, recent critics have begun to suggest that satire can do much more than bash a target. As Marshall has demonstrated in her study of the practice of satire in the eighteenth-century, for many works “‘attack’ is a crude oversimplification or simply not true.” Marshall points out that besides attacking the wicked, satire may also hold up good examples of positive behavior or provoke thought about an issue.

She also notes that some satire, while harsh, is better described as “glum” than angry; these satires expose serious vices but do not suggest that reform or change is a possibility.13 Dustin

Griffin argues that satire can encompass purposes other than pure attack: it may be an inquiry into some truth, the provocation of thought, the display of wit, or a playful exercise.14 Griffin is here discussing only poetic satire, but his insights seem to apply to narrative satire as well. As these scholars show, satire cannot accurately be defined only as the literary lashing of some target.

The idea that the novel is, as Paulson claims, “ultimately concerned with understanding rather than judging” is also suspect.15 Yes, some eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century novels do in fact attempt to portray complex interior states and social relationships in ways that do not

12 Paulson, Satire and the Novel, 149. 13 Marshall, The Practice of Satire in England, 3, 31, 146–48. 14 Dustin Griffin, Satire: A Critical Reintroduction (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1994), 39. 15 Paulson, Satire and the Novel, 18. 9

invite strict judgment of vice. Yet many do not aim for deep psychological realism or the expounding of social intricacies. Take, for instance, Smollett’s Humphry Clinker. Though the novel is written from the viewpoints of several different characters, one cannot miss the novel’s fairly straightforward judgments against such characters as Tabitha Bramble or Micklewhimmen.

Granted, Smollett is hardly a novelist interested in individual consciousness, but how interested is Fielding or Lennox in presenting the inner workings of their characters’ minds? Even in novels that provide relatively realistic psychological portraits of their protagonists, characters that are to be judged negatively are not always given the same level of detail. Burney’s The Wanderer

(1814) presents the heroine’s inner turmoil vividly, but does not attempt to explore thoroughly the motives of Miss Arbe or Mrs. Maple. Matthew Lewis’s The Monk (1796) never tries to justify or explain the cruelty of the evil Prioress.

The idea that the novel simply presents a realistic image of life without introducing any kind of judgment has been refuted by practitioners of the rhetorical approach to fiction. Wayne

C. Booth’s seminal work in this field, The Rhetoric of Fiction, argues persuasively that novelists embed their values into their works and invite readers to make ethical judgments. Booth claims that “the implied author of each novel is someone with whose beliefs on all subjects I must largely agree if I am to enjoy his work”—or at least, as he goes on to explain, we must agree with the beliefs of the implied author to obtain maximal enjoyment from the work.16 A militant atheist may appreciate Brideshead Revisited, but he is unlikely to enjoy it as much as a reader sharing Waugh’s Catholic sensibilities. This idea that novels transmit values is developed by

Sheldon Sacks, who argues that a novel’s artistic merit depends “on how successful its creator was in controlling our sympathy and antipathy toward, our approval and disapproval of,

16 Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction, 137. 10

characters, thoughts, and actions at every stage of his work.”17 Novelists require readers to make judgments if we are to be at all invested in the characters or the actions. In order to appreciate the plot and characters of Bage’s Hermsprong, we must make certain kinds of judgments about how the wealthy ought to treat the poor and what kind of power fathers should have over their daughters. To sympathize with Booth in Fielding’s Amelia, we need to hold certain beliefs about the abuse of power. Nothing about the novel of this period is inherently inimical to judgment.

One other belief that leads to the perception of opposition between satire and the novel is that narrative satire tends to focus on extremes of behavior or ideology, whereas novels examine moderate positions between these extremes. This theory of narrative satire is advanced by Frank

Palmeri, who finds that “narrative satire sets against each other opposed points of view.”18 For instance, Swift’s Tale of a Tub (1704) satirizes the religious extremes of Catholicism and Dissent in the characters of Peter and Jack, but does not present as exemplary any kind of middle position between the two; Martin, though seeming to represent a moderate position, fails to remedy the excesses of his brothers. Part 4 of Gulliver’s Travels as another example of the attack on two polar opposites Palmeri describes: as he reads the text, both the base bestiality of the

Yahoos and the emotionless rationality of the Houyhnhnms are satirized. The novel, he argues, is about moderation and finding reasonable middle grounds, and thus is distinct from narrative satire. By this theory, Humphry Clinker “moves away from satire” because Matthew Bramble learns over the course of the novel to moderate his irascible complaints about British society.19

Though some narrative satires do indeed attack two opposed extremes without endorsing some kind of moderate position, this definition of narrative satire seems arbitrarily limiting to

17 Sheldon Sacks, Fiction and the Shape of Belief: A Study of Henry Fielding with Glances at Swift, Johnson and Richardson (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964), 249. 18 Palmeri, Satire, History, Novel, 11. 19 Palmeri, Satire, History, Novel, 117–20, 200. 11

me, and would likely have been foreign to eighteenth and early nineteenth-century writers themselves. Take, for instance, Elizabeth Inchbald’s Nature and Art. An earlier draft of the work was entitled “A Satire Upon the Times,” indicating that at least for Inchbald, the work was significantly satiric.20 Palmeri himself acknowledges the work to be one of the few novelistic satires written in the late eighteenth century.21 Yet the work does not in any meaningful way criticize two opposing vices. Its satire falls squarely upon the aristocrats and high-ranking clergymen of late eighteenth-century society, who are revealed to be cruel, selfish, and hypocritical. The elder and younger Henrys, who are set up to be the foils of the elder and younger Williams, are not censured but valorized. The same problem arises when we consider the various anti-Jacobin narratives written around the 1790s: they too aim their critique mainly at one target—yet classifying them as non-satiric novels seems misguided. Clearly this definition of narrative satire does not adequately encompass all narratives we deem satiric, and so we should not allow it to hinder us from recognizing the obviously satiric elements in many eighteenth- century novels.

The idea that satire and the novel are incompatible is founded on a number of suspect assumptions and definitions. If we broaden our conception of what satire can accomplish, as recent satire theorists have suggested we should do, we will find no reason to suggest that the novel kills or displaces satire. Certainly verse satire declines in the second half of the eighteenth century, but the goals of formal verse satirists—attack, instruction, provocation of thought, and so forth—are the same goals that the satiric novelists of the period achieve. Satire survives and thrives in the novel form, and the multifarious satiric aims and techniques novelists employ deserve our critical attention.

20 James Boaden, Memoirs of Mrs. Inchbald, 2 vols. (London, 1833), 1:328. 21 Palmeri, Satire, History, Novel, 229. 12

II. What is a Satiric Novel? The Definitional Issue

Many readers no doubt agree with my assertion in the previous section: the novel and satire are not incompatible. To some, the idea that satire can be written in the form of a novel may even be glaringly obvious. Satire theory has not stopped modern critics from reading a number of eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century novels as satires. If the topic of satire in the novel is controversial only to a handful of satire theorists, why bother thinking and writing about the subject at all?

The acknowledgement that satire can exist in the novel form does not get us very far in terms of explaining the relationship between satire and the novels of this period. A host of questions remain before us. For instance, if some eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century novels are satiric, which ones? Can we draw a line between satiric and non-satiric novels, and if so, then where, and on what basis? Few scholars would deny that Roderick Random or Peregrine Pickle

(1751) are predominantly satiric, or that Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764) is not. But wherein lies the difference? Some novels clearly contain satiric elements—Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (1813), for instance, employs social satire on the class system and the position of women in the marriage market. But is it satiric to the same degree as a novel like Thomas

Holcroft’s Hugh Trevor (1794–97), which stridently denounces the abuse of wealth and power?

Even when we discuss novels that are alike in the degree of their satire, we need a vocabulary to distinguish between them. Roderick Random has often been described as the work of a nasty, misanthropic author, and it uses violence and grotesque caricature to fulfill its satiric aims. Tristram Shandy is, conversely, the work of a playful and whimsical author, also prone to caricature and images of violence, but decidedly more cheerful than Smollett. If we say that both 13

of these novels are heavily satiric, do we mean the same thing in each case? What does it mean to say that Burney’s The Wanderer is a satiric novel, given that its characters are much more realistic than the exaggerated figures in both Roderick Random and Tristram Shandy, and that it employs much less humor than either of those novels? Without some theorization of novelistic satire, describing eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century novels as satiric is not helpful.

What does satire theory offer to help us distinguish satiric novels from non-satiric ones?

Many satire theorists have offered definitions of satire that purport to delineate with precision what does and does not count as satire. Some of these definitions are very specific, even problematically so. Edward Rosenheim, for instance, argues that all satire is “attack upon discernible, historically authentic particulars.”22 This is well and good for some novels we like to think of as satiric—Edgeworth’s Castle Rackrent, for instance, is concerned with the specific historical situation of Ireland at the turn of the nineteenth century. But what to make of Tom

Jones, which is described as satiric by some eighteenth-century readers because its events

“punish and expose Hypocrisy”?23 This non-historical, general target seems to defy Rosenheim’s definition. Or consider Gilbert Highet’s dictum that satire requires “a blend of amusement and contempt” on the part of the satirist towards his or her subject.24 This idea is indeed true of many of the novels I will discuss in this study, but how much amusement does James Hogg feel towards Calvinism in Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner? Given the protagonist’s murderous tendencies, the point seems to be more horror than amusement. What we are seeing is that satire is difficult to define; for every restrictive definition we can find counterexamples. Ruben Quintero’s opinion about definitions of satire in general—that “surely

22 Edward W. Rosenheim, Jr., Swift and the Satirist’s Art (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), 25. 23 Astraea Hill and Minerva Hill to Samuel Richardson, 27 July 1749, in Paulson and Lockwood, Henry Fielding, 172–74, at 173. 24 Gilbert Highet, The Anatomy of Satire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1962), 21. 14

no omnibus definition can ever pigeonhole all types of satire”—is just as apt when applied more specifically to the satiric novel.25

Yet without some kind of definition of the satiric novel, we risk devaluing the term completely. Howard D. Weinbrot justly points out that this phenomenon has occurred to the term

“Menippean satire,” which has been applied so broadly by various critics as to encompass a congeries of works as disparate as Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, Johnson’s Dictionary of the

English Language, and Melville’s Moby-Dick.26 Many novels contain at least some elements which could be deemed satiric, even if those elements are not predominant. Knight claims that though novels and satires are opposed in many ways, in a broad sense all novels are inherently satiric, as they tend to concern the conflict between an individual and society (206). Though this assertion may be true in a general sense, it is less helpful when trying to explain how satire functions in specific works. We seem to be caught in a conundrum: we need some idea of what constitutes a satiric novel, but any strict definition risks excluding works which readers both eighteenth-century and modern feel to be satiric.

Without providing a stringent definition, I believe we can still identify some qualities common to novels generally recognized to be satiric. I am not asserting that a novel must possess all of these qualities in order to be deemed satiric, or that a novel that possesses one of these qualities necessarily has a strong satiric flavor. Instead I offer a Wittgensteinian family- resemblance model similar to that advanced by Kathryn Hume. In a discussion of satire in contemporary fiction, Hume considers satire as “a family defined by a bundle of features”—the more satiric features a work contains, the more likely it is to feel satiric. She lists a number of

25 Ruben Quintero, “Introduction: Understanding Satire,” in A Companion to Satire, ed. Ruben Quintero (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), 1–11, at 9. 26 Howard D. Weinbrot, Menippean Satire Reconsidered: From Antiquity to the Eighteenth Century (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005), 1. 15

common features present in most satires, including attack, humor or wit, righteous indignation, and elements of distortion, exaggeration, or fantasy.27 These are qualities that most satire theorists would agree to be present in most satires, even though not every contemporary novel that feels satiric contains all of them. The same, I think, can be said of the eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century novel, and this concept can clarify what I mean by novelistic satire.

What might some of the most important identifying traits be? The first and most significant is some manner of negative judgment against a target. I use “negative judgment” instead of “attack” because attack implies aggression or malice evident in an author’s tone. Many satiric novels—and indeed, many satires in general—are not particularly vehement or violent in their treatment of their targets, though nearly all display the satirized objects in a negative way.

The nature and intensity of the negative judgment can vary greatly, from amusement at a target’s folly to wariness at its potential danger to outright hatred of its repulsive vices. Targets are also variable: some satiric novels provoke negative feelings toward specific historical figures, but more often the novels of the period deride or critique more general social problems. A few satiric novels are even broader in their critiques, pointing out universal flaws in human nature. The vast majority of satiric novels contain at least a modicum of negative judgment. For this reason we can safely say that the presence of negative judgment is the characteristic that most closely approaches a sine qua non of novelistic satire, although negative judgment alone is not enough to provide a novel with a distinct satiric flavor.

When we look for negative judgment in texts, we should also be careful to discriminate between judgments against targets which seem to have some sort of real-life analogue and those that do not. Most narratives invite the audience to make at least some degree of negative

27 Kathryn Hume, “Diffused Satire in Contemporary American Fiction,” Modern Philology 105, no. 2 (2007): 300–25, at 303–06. 16

judgment about some of the characters or situations, but not all of these judgments feel particularly satiric. In the tale of The Three Little Pigs, the audience is certainly invited to make negative ethical assessments of the Big Bad Wolf, and we may even condemn the failure of the first two pigs to construct sufficiently sturdy domiciles. Given that the story’s premise has little bearing on reality, however, we are unlikely to feel that it satirizes wolves generally, the eating of pork, straw houses, or the like. When we read The Spiritual Quixote, however, we feel that

Graves is directing our judgment against the very real phenomenon of Methodism; the cruelty practiced by Captain Oakum and Mr. Mackshane in Roderick Random suggests the existence of actual cruelty on board naval ships. I do not mean to say that satiric novels must be realistic; though the talking animals of The Three Little Pigs may diminish greatly the story’s satiric flavor, this issue does not arise in Animal Farm, as the animals are clearly stand-ins for real-life communists. But negative judgment only contributes to the satiric flavor of a work if the things being judged represent some person, behavior, attitude, or institution to be found in the world of the readers.

Humor is another common, though non-essential, quality found in eighteenth and early nineteenth-century satiric novels. This observation may seem rather obvious, since for many satire theorists humor or wit is a fundamental ingredient of satire. Test, for instance, argues that

“the presence of laughter-inducing devices and techniques is virtually a certainty in satire,” while

Highet considers the “combination of jest and earnest” to be “the central method of satire.”28 Yet we should note that not all satiric novels of the period in question employ humor as a primary satiric technique. Burney’s novels undoubtedly contain humor, but much of their satire is dependent on disturbing and violent scenes, especially in Cecilia (1782) and The Wanderer.

Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner has a strong satiric flavor, yet it is more

28 Test, Satire, 26; Highet, The Anatomy of Satire, 233. 17

terrifying than amusing. As with negative judgment, humor varies greatly, from the controlled irony of the narrator in Tom Jones to the much more biting sarcasm of the narrator in Memoirs of

Modern Philosophers (1800) to the ribald slapstick of Peregrine Pickle.

Some element of distortion or exaggeration can often convey the sense that a novel is performing a negative critique. Leonard Feinberg goes so far as to claim that “the basic technique of satire is distortion,” and while this assertion may be overstated it contains some truth.29 After all, if one is to point out the undesirable nature of some behavior, one might play up that behavior’s absurdity or the potential harm it might cause so as to guide the reader to the proper negative assessment of the target. When the narrator of Roderick Random tells us that Mr.

Lavement possesses features resembling “the alforjas of a baboon” and that his only teeth are

“four yellow fangs,” we know from this grotesque exaggeration that Lavement is to be a target of our ridicule and disgust.30 As always, however, there are significant exceptions, and in some cases a lack of distortion—which is to say, a greater commitment to realism—can be a powerful satiric tool. If a work exaggerates or distorts its target too much, the satire risks losing relevance to reality. Much of Amelia’s satiric effect derives from the fact that it is more realistic than

Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones; the evils that Booth and Amelia encounter are more likely to plague us flesh-and-blood readers than the trials that befall Joseph or Parson Adams. Yet even in this work we find some degree of distortion: Justice Thrasher is a caricature, for instance, and the prison in which Booth finds himself at the beginning of the narrative is full of exaggeratedly grotesque individuals. The relationship between the satiric novel and realism is important—and I will discuss it in more detail later in this chapter—but in general, the presence of distortion or exaggeration in a novel leads us to suspect that the work might be satiric.

29 Leonard Feinberg, Introduction to Satire (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1967), 4. 30 Smollett, Roderick Random, 95. 18

Many of the satiric novels of the period go beyond critique and promote positive ideals; often, these ideals, embodied in exemplary characters, increase the degree of negative judgment we feel at the target’s expense through contrast. Edward and Lillian Bloom have argued that satire has an implicit moral purpose; it tries to improve the behavior of its readers.31 While certainly not true of all or even most eighteenth-century satires, this idea is useful when applied to satiric novels. Many novelists claim to instruct their audiences, and though in some cases these assertions feel like hollow boilerplate, often their works do indeed seem to be written with a moral intent. Marshall terms “distributive” those satires which present “positive as well as negative examples” or “exemplary critique.”32 The term could easily be applied to an obviously satiric novel like Memoirs of Modern Philosophers, which severely attacks radical Godwinian philosophy, but also includes several devoutly Christian characters who are clearly to be emulated. Of course, one would be hard-pressed to find positive exemplars in works like

Headlong Hall, but many of the satiric novels of the period are distributive, making clear the moral standard by which judgment is to be executed.

We should keep in mind that the occasional presence of these qualities is not enough to lend a particularly strong satiric flavor to a novel; they must be found with some consistency throughout the work. The fiction of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries tend to be long, and they can encompass many different moods and aims. A novel may contain a few humorous moments without being predominantly satiric; Lewis’s The Monk, for instance, contains several old superstitious Catholic women who function as comic relief, yet the novel does not read like a mocking satire of Catholicism or of old women. A work may invoke negative judgments upon some behavior at a few points in the narrative without being primarily dedicated to critique of

31 Edward A. Bloom and Lillian D. Bloom, Satire’s Persuasive Voice (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1979), 18–19. 32 Marshall, The Practice of Satire in England, 31. 19

that behavior. To sympathize with Harley in Mackenzie’s The Man of Feeling (1771) we must disapprove of the card-sharper who cheats him, which is easy enough to do, but the work as a whole is hardly an indictment of card-sharpers in general. In Chapter 3, when we examine the novels of Thomas Love Peacock, we will see some examples of novels that include moments of satire but in which satire does not seem central to the main effect of the whole; examination of those works should help us distinguish novels containing diffused satire and those that are primarily satiric. For now, suffice it to say that these satiric qualities ought to be present in more than trace amounts in order to give a novel a satiric feel.

Let us apply these indicators of novelistic satire to some specific texts. If we examine a novel that is undoubtedly satiric, we would imagine that it encompasses most or all of these qualities to a significant degree. That the novels of Smollett are satiric is a mostly uncontroversial claim; Knight treats Roderick Random as such in his discussion of satire and the novel, and even Palmeri, who argues that Smollett moves away from satire in Humphry Clinker, acknowledges the earlier works to be manifestly satiric.33 Roderick Random, then, is a good test case. In this work Smollett leads the reader to negative appraisals of many different targets.

While the judgment is not particularly focused or directed—the satire touches multiple social levels and numerous types of individual, from school-teachers to theatre managers—it is to be found throughout the work. The negative judgment encouraged by the narrative is easily applied to people, types, and institutions outside the world of the story. We feel, for instance, that the cowardice and duplicity of a character like Gawky can easily be found in the real world. Though some of the novel’s critique operates through horrific scenes of violence, much of its effect is also generated from its crude slapstick humor. Contributing to the humor, and to the sense of satire in general, is Smollett’s tendency to employ exaggerated caricatures, as we have seen. His

33 Knight, The Literature of Satire, 207–212; Palmeri, Satire, History, Novel, 194. 20

nasty physical descriptions give us the sense that Smollett enjoys creating monsters for our disapproval. The one indicator largely lacking in the work is a strong moral standard against which Smollett critiques society; Roderick does not embody a virtue to any significant degree, in the way that other novelistic heroes might be moral exemplars (Tom Jones embodies good- nature, for example). But because of the frequency with which the novel demands readers to form negative judgments, the abundance of humor, and the extreme nature of the distortion, it is quite plainly satiric.

Conversely, we would expect a novel that is not a satire to possess few satiric markers.

Take, for instance, Richardson’s Pamela (1740). A quirky reader might argue that the novel is a satire on the lusts of country gentlemen, but I believe that most readers would find the novel mildly satiric, if at all. Why should we react in this way? The text certainly contains some negative judgments—we are clearly meant to condemn Mr. B’s behavior in the first portion of the novel, and we must find Lady Davers’s scorn for Pamela mean-spirited if we are to enjoy the work. Yet these negative judgments seem to be means to an end rather than ends in themselves.

More attention is given to Pamela’s psychological state and her virtuous behavior than to the odiousness of the various oppositional figures she encounters. Mr. B’s lust for Pamela allows the narrative to show Pamela exercising her virtue, which is duly rewarded—the focus is not on illustrating the many wrongs of Mr. B. The negative characters are reformed before the end of the novel, further mitigating the judgments we form against them. The novel also lacks significant humor, and while it is not a completely realistic work, it also does not contain many obvious distortions or exaggerations. True, the novel rewards Pamela’s exemplary behavior and makes its moral standards clear—but this marker of satire alone cannot lend significant satiric flavor to the novel in the absence of significant negative judgment, humor, or exaggeration. The 21

lack of these indicators suggests that the work is not heavily satiric—a conclusion that accords with our general perceptions of the work.

Now consider Tristram Shandy. This novel is problematic, in that it does not appear to fit many common definitions of satire. If we conceive of satire primarily as attack, we may have trouble accommodating Sterne, as the work hardly seems biting or aggressive. Walter, Uncle

Toby, and Tristram may be ridiculous figures, but they are also endearing. If the work were a clear attack or denunciation against a specific target, we would expect the identity of the target to be fairly obvious. But eighteenth-century readers disagreed about the work’s subject; women, politics, and religion were all proposed as targets.34 To these potential butts of satire, modern critics have added the moderns (of the kind satirized in A Tale of a Tub), the novel, Lockean epistemology, masculinity, and others.35 One might be inclined to survey the multifarious critical opinions of the work and conclude that the novel cannot be satiric, for lack of a clear satirized target. Yet the work clearly felt satiric to at least some eighteenth-century readers, and it continues to seem so today.

One way to approach this paradox is to acknowledge that the novel does not provide much in the way of negative judgment, but that its satiric flavor derives from the presence of the other qualities. The negative judgments we are asked to make of the characters are indeed mild: we recognize that Uncle Toby is overly sentimental, that Walter is excessively pedantic, and that

Tristram’s quest to narrate his own life is quixotic, but the novel seems to promote tolerance for these foibles rather than condemnation. Tristram Shandy is undoubtedly rich in humor, however,

34 See Howes, Sterne, 85; 66; 64. 35 See Melvyn New, Laurence Sterne as Satirist: A Reading of “Tristram Shandy” (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1969); Thomas Keymer, Sterne, the Moderns, and the Novel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002); John Traugott, Tristram Shandy’s World: Sterne’s Philosophical Rhetoric (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1954); Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, “Of Forceps, Patents, and Paternity: Tristram Shandy,” Eighteenth- Century Studies 23, no. 4 (1990): 522–543. 22

and much of its comic effect derives from the exaggeration of the characters’ mannerisms: Uncle

Toby, Walter, and Tristram are as fully dominated by their various hobby-horses as Squire

Western is by his passion for hunting or Commodore Trunnion is by his tendency to discuss everything in nautical terms. The novel’s manner of characterization puts us in mind of other satiric novels, even if the work is not attack, strictly speaking. Furthermore, while the novel does not hold up a clear exemplary model of conduct, it does advance a positive virtue insofar as it leads readers to accept eccentricity. From these qualities, rather than from negative judgment, do we get the sense that the novel is significantly satiric.

This system is admittedly somewhat messy, but it should give us some sense of what kinds of novels we can usefully discuss as predominantly satiric. It can also help us explain why some works include satiric elements but seem less intensely satiric than others. Though a family- resemblance method of identifying satiric novels is unable to draw a clear line between satiric and non-satiric novels, it at least allows us some way to determine why a specific novel seems satiric or otherwise. Ultimately, no magical new definition of satire which will decisively separate the satiric from the non-satiric novels is likely to appear. Absent such a one-size-fits-all definition, however, the best we can do is dispense with precision and embrace a more flexible method of describing novelistic satire.

III. The Variety of Satiric Aims

Though we may have an answer to the question of which novels count as predominantly satiric, we still must address the issue of how two very different novels—such as Burney’s Cecilia and

Peacock’s Nightmare Abbey (1818), for instance—can both be satiric. In both works, we can find most of the indicators of satire, lending each a strong satiric flavor. Yet in many ways the novels 23

are wildly different: Cecilia is a long and complex narrative involving realistic characters in which serious incidents, such as the suicide of one of the main characters and the near death of the heroine, occur. Nightmare Abbey is a short, relatively light-hearted narrative involving ridiculous characters in which nothing particularly serious happens. Identifying novels as satiric is not enough: what we need is a flexible model that can account for the divergences between these works while recognizing them both as satiric novels. In short, we need to classify different kinds of satiric novels—both by identifying works that are similar to each other and distinguishing disparate sub-groups.

I want to propose that we base our taxonomy on aim: we can better understand the way these novels operate if we acknowledge that not all satiric novelists intend to achieve the same goals. Categorizing satiric novels by aim can help us to understand why novelists use different tones and techniques. Burney’s use of realistic characters and tragic events suggests that she is trying to do something different with her satire than Peacock is. Differences in the kind of impact the author intends the novel to make on the reader can help us to account for disparities in characterization, plot structure, and style. Of course, two novelists might very well use different means to achieve the same ends; one satirist may rely on the voice of the narrator to create a light tone or poke fun at his targets, while another might use physical comedy to convey ridicule. We still need to respect the diversity of individual works. Yet classifying works by their satiric aims is useful in determining why a novelist chooses to use certain techniques and what effect they have on the reader.

One might object that basing our categorizations on the aims of the satirist is unwise, as we have no access to the minds of the authors. In some cases we do have statements of the author’s intent, as in the case of Roderick Random, whose preface proclaims that Smollett has 24

“attempted to represent modest merit struggling with every difficulty to which a friendless orphan is exposed, from his own want of experience, as well as from the selfishness, envy, malice, and base indifference of mankind” (4). Yet even when we have some evidence of the satirist’s goals, authorial statements do not always match our experience of the work itself.

Fielding’s assertion in Joseph Andrews that he eschews caricature and exaggeration in his characters, for instance, appears suspect once we consider such figures as Mrs. Slipslop and

Parson Trulliber. Furthermore, authorial claims are not always helpful to the critic interested in interpreting the work or understanding how the novel’s satire functions. Even when authors lay out broadly what they attempt to achieve in their work, they do not often explain the methods they use to achieve their ends.

These objections are reasonable and not to be taken lightly, yet I do not think them fatal to my enterprise. True, we can never know for certain what an author is trying to accomplish in any given work. But often we can infer something of an intention, at least in a broad sense, from the work itself. To take a modern example, we may not know exactly what Upton Sinclair intended to convey in The Jungle (1906). But given the nature of the text itself, the novel would be quite strange indeed if it were not written with at least some intention of exposing the vices of the Chicago meat-packing industry specifically and capitalism more generally. Moreover, we can say with some confidence that Sinclair thought the best way to do so was through caustic attack.

The possibility exists that Sinclair intended merely to ridicule lightly the woeful conditions of impoverished immigrants, but the probability is strongly on the side of attack upon capitalism, and the existence of alternative possibilities does not change our sense that Sinclair’s artistic decisions are best explained by this intention. 25

The “aim” that I discuss, then, is something that is found in the work itself: in most novels we can identify some intention that best explains each work’s particular features. Wayne

Booth has famously argued that works of fiction encode the values and beliefs of their authors; even if we cannot always reliably determine what the flesh-and-blood author of a novel believes, we can still discover the values the work promotes, and thus learn about the “implied author” of the work.36 For Booth, the implied author is separate from both the actual author and the narrator: the question is not what the narrator “believes,” or what the actual author intended, but what we can conjecture the author of the work of fiction must have believed in order to have written the work as he or she did. If we did not know anything about the author of Hermsprong, we would still be able to infer from the novel itself that its author held radical political principles; he must needs have been a hypocrite to write that narrative without holding such beliefs. The choices Bage makes in constructing the narrative—giving Lord Grondale and Dr.

Blick various unpleasant traits, for instance—would seem incoherent and internally contradictory if the author were a staunch believer in the authority of the landed nobility and the Church of

England. Similarly, an examination of the techniques and rhetorical choices employed in a satiric novel can yield a sense of what kind of satire the author is trying to write and what he intended to achieve. If we can identify the characteristics of implied authors, surely we can make reasonable conjectures about their implied aims.

The validity of taxonomizing satiric novels by implied aim being granted, the next issue facing us is determining what kinds of aims these novels are designed to fulfill. While each novel has its own aim, I believe that the objectives of most satiric novels fall somewhere within four broad categories. A satirist may intend to entertain, to instruct, to express pessimism, or to attack. Some novels have multiple aims: a work may be amusing while putting forth a message

36 Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction, 71. 26

of pessimism, as is the case with Burney’s The Wanderer, which contains several characters who provide comic relief, or Coventry’s Pompey the Little (1751), in which the narrator makes darkly sarcastic remarks about the corrupt world of the novel. But in general, one can identify a primary or overarching aim running through the narrative, which may be supplemented by secondary aims. Even though The Wanderer is at times entertaining, its overall effect is grim; in Pompey the Little, the narrator’s black comedy contributes to the sense of pessimism the work promotes.

The point is not to identify the purpose of individual components of texts, but to describe their overall ends.

What do these categories of satiric aim look like? I will discuss each in detail in the second part of this study, but for now a brief overview may be useful.

Entertainment

Though many satirists claim to have noble purposes—the punishing of villains, the reforming of society, and the like—we should not forget that satire is often entertaining and meant to be so.

Though humor is not necessary to satire, it is often an integral component: what would the experience of reading Smollett or Sterne be like without the frequent jokes and comic scenes that dot their works? In some satires, the use of humor is so prominent as to characterize the satire.

These works do not attempt to bring about social change or expose to the vicious the wrongness of their ways: the reader of Eaton Stannard Barrett’s The Heroine (1813) might find humor in its satire on gothic novels, but in all likelihood would not be roused to act against them. Nor are these novels especially nasty or virulent in their satiric judgments. Upon reading such a work, one gets the sense that the author chooses to satirize his or her particular targets not because of some grave moral objection to them, but because their foibles are good material for jests. 27

Few novelists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries claim that their works serve no purpose beyond mere amusement; often, they assert (as Smollett does in Roderick Random and

Burney does in The Wanderer) some version of Horace’s dulce et utile formula. These statements cannot be discounted; some works do indeed use entertainment as a vehicle to deliver moral instruction. Joseph Andrews provides a good example of this type of novel. That novel includes numerous moments of humor, deriving both from the various ridiculous figures Joseph and Adams encounter and from the protagonists themselves. These jokes do more than just entertain: together, they work to convey a coherent and identifiable moral point about selfishness and affectation. I would not go so far as to argue, as Martin C. Battestin does, that Joseph

Andrews advances an orthodox latitudinarian Anglican point of view, but I would concur with him that the novel attempts to communicate a system of moral values to its readers.37 The work’s comic moments generally portray avarice and rampant self-interest as ridiculous and absurd.

In contrast, a novel like Smollett’s Peregrine Pickle seems more focused on providing a humorous and pleasurable reading experience than on conveying some kind of message. As we will see in more detail in Chapter 3, the novel contains many moments of satire, but no single target or set of targets is singled out for critique, making the satire seem scattershot. Nor does the novel seem to be making a general point about the evil and cruelty of humanity at large; its tone is too light for such a glum worldview to be conveyed effectively. Furthermore, while Joseph

Andrews upholds a number of positive virtues, Peregrine Pickle does not strongly encourage any sort of behavior on the part of the reader. The satire found in novels in this category is generally mild—but as I shall argue, these works are predominantly satiric nonetheless, even if the satire is not meant to bring about altered behavior on the part of the reader.

37 For Battestin’s reading of Joseph Andrews as a latitudinarian Anglican text, see Martin C. Battestin, The Moral Basis of Fielding’s Art: A Study of Joseph Andrews (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1959). 28

Instruction

Some satire attempts to effect change in its audience or impart a didactic message. Satirists often claim that their art is able to reform the vicious.38 This claim is questionable; one doubts that a committed conservative High-Church prelate would read Hermsprong and be convinced of the error of his ways, for instance. Yet the unlikelihood of a satiric novel actually reforming hostile targets does not mean that such works cannot offer meaningful instruction to its readers.

Sometimes, satiric novels serve as warnings against some particular behavior or group of people, encouraging readers either to be on guard for or to avoid imitating certain kinds of rogues.

Sometimes, they may communicate an ideology to a neutral audience or reinforce the beliefs of a sympathetic one. Satires that attempt broadly to fulfill these aims I term “instructive satires.”

Instructive satires do not simply critique some folly; they also typically uphold a positive ideal. In such a novel we can infer that the author attempts both to expose the folly or danger of a certain idea or behavior and to promote an alternative to the things he satirizes. The satire of

Graves’s The Spiritual Quixote is clearly directed against the excesses of Methodism, especially of the type practiced by George Whitefield. Yet Graves is not content only to derive humor from

Wildgoose’s religious fanaticism, as he might be if he intended to write an entertaining satire.

Instead, he includes several examples of proper religious devotion, including the vicar of

Wildgoose’s parish and John Wesley, whom Graves presents as a devout Christian who is unwilling to separate from the Church of England. These characters were likely of little use in

38 Defoe, for instance, begins his preface to The True-Born Englishman (1701) with the claim that “the End of Satyr is Reformation.” See Daniel Defoe, “The True-Born Englishman: A Satyr,” in Satire, Fantasy and Writings on the Supernatural by Daniel Defoe, vol. 1, The True-Born Englishman and Other Poems, ed. W. R. Owens (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2003), 77–122, at 83. Later in the century, William Combe writes in his preface to The Justification (London, 1777) that “there are many examples, where the salutary exposure of Satire has fitted the mind for the reception of religious impressions” (ii). 29

swaying devoted Methodists away from their faith, but they might very well shift a neutral reader’s values toward Graves’s conception of Christian practice. Contrast this novel to Roderick

Random; in Smollett’s work, no positive moral standard is upheld. Though we sympathize with

Roderick, he is hardly a paragon of virtue, and we never get the sense that Smollett is attempting to move the reader to espouse a worldview or act in a certain way.

Because instructive satires tend to endorse positive values, they take an optimistic attitude toward change and reform. Evil individuals are typically presented as people that can improve their behavior, or at least can be avoided if one takes the necessary precautions. After all, why attempt to instruct an audience if the world is incorrigibly corrupt and confrontations with evil are inescapable? Joseph Andrews gives us the example of Wilson, who (among other transgressions) corrupts an innocent girl, breaks up her intended marriage, and causes her to become a prostitute who dies in prison. These acts are easily the most depraved transgressions depicted in the novel; no other character behaves in such a way as to cause the ruin and death of another. Yet Wilson manages to escape from his life of vice and find happiness in the country.

Even though many of the characters of Joseph Andrews are self-serving and avaricious, the existence of such generally good characters as Wilson contributes to a sense that the world of the novel is not inimical to virtue and decent behavior. Such sanguine outlooks toward the possibilities of reform and avoidance are important indicators that distinguish instructive satires from those works which use satire to express gloom.

Pessimism

When satire is used to entertain or instruct, it typically takes on a lighter tone. But not all satire is light, optimistic, or cheerful. In some cases, the satirist may be attempting simply to expose the 30

problems of society or humanity without advancing any solutions or even suggesting that the problems ever could be resolved. In these cases the novel does not typically focus upon provoking outrage; instead, the satirist may appear glumly resigned to the status quo. These works I refer to as pessimistic satires.

Pessimistic satires often (though not always) convey a sense that real harm is done to the sufferers of vice. We are likely not inclined to adopt a pessimistic attitude toward the world when we read of Parson Adams having a firecracker lit underneath his seat or being ducked in a tub; while these incidents convey effectively the sense that Adams is the victim of an uncouth squire, he is not significantly or permanently harmed. When serious injury befalls the characters about whom we care, however, we are more likely to feel that the evil being targeted is oppressive and dangerous. The torments that befall the protagonist in a novel like Caleb

Williams are serious; his plight far removed from the triviality of the Roasting Squire’s slapstick comedy. Likewise, Burney’s Cecilia contains many instances of individuals experiencing considerable harm. Mr. Harrel blows his brains out with a pistol; one of Mrs. Delvile’s arguments with her son about marrying Cecilia causes her to burst a blood vessel; and of course,

Cecilia herself is driven mad and nearly dies at the climax of the narrative. The gravity of these situations raises our concern for the fates of the characters involved, and consequently increases our sense of the power of the social system Burney satirizes.

Related to this sense of the seriousness of the ills that are satirized is the ending which leaves a sense that the main problems have not been solved. Rarely do satiric novels end in utter tragedy for their protagonists; such a conclusion would likely be unsatisfying, as we no doubt generally hope for the protagonists’ success. Yet “happy” endings can still suggest a sense of pessimism. The conclusion of Fielding’s Amelia is nominally positive: Booth and Amelia pay 31

their debts, move to the country, and settle into a halcyon retirement. The ending, however, stops short of offering any sense that the novel’s rogues have been reformed, or that the vices of high society have been extirpated. Colonel James separates from his wife and lives unhappily with

Miss Mathews. The Noble Lord and Mrs. Ellison die from venereal disease and alcoholism, respectively. Colonel Bath, who, despite his faults, is a sympathetic character, is killed in a duel.

Most depressingly, Robinson “for some Time seemed to reform his Life, and received a small

Pension from Booth ; after which he returned to vicious Courses, took a Purse on the Highway, was detected and taken, and followed the last Steps of his old Master.” Though the protagonists have escaped the clutches of their tormentors, no hope is given for the improvement of society, or even of those guilty of evil: “So apt are Men, whose Manners have been once thoroughly corrupted, to return, from any Dawn of an Amendment, into the dark Paths of Vice.”39

Not all satiric novels of pessimism are alike, however. Some do not rely on showing that a single egregious vice can never be remedied; instead, they express pessimism about human nature as a whole by demonstrating that mankind is universally corrupt at all levels of society.

An example of such a narrative is Francis Coventry’s Pompey the Little, as we will see in

Chapter 5. Though the premise of the narrative is ridiculous—the novel follows the life of a lapdog—the work paints a bleak picture of English society at all levels. Far from trivializing the novel’s satire, the device of the canine observer allows Coventry to illustrate the vices of a wide variety of characters, as ownership of the dog changes. Fops, ladies of fashion, servants, beggars, and even children are exposed as vicious. Granted, the harm caused by these figures is not as serious as that done to Cecilia; the evils exposed are not horrifying. Yet the sheer prevalence and variety of moral turpitude is disturbing. The pessimism is not mitigated by the action of the narrative: whereas a hero like Peregrine Pickle fights against the world’s evils, often to

39 Henry Fielding, Amelia, ed. Linda Bree (Peterborough: Broadview, 2010), 515. 32

humorous and entertaining effect, Pompey merely witnesses them. The result is a grim exposure of the problems of every level of society.

Regardless of how these novelists create a sense of gloom about the world, their novels maintain in common the exposure of a problem without any means of resolving it and a relatively dark tone. The worldviews they promote are bleak, and they imply authors who are upset but resigned to the existence of the vices they target. When authors seem instead to be angry and unwilling to accept the status quo, and attempt to incite the reader to hatred or contempt of their target, the satire moves towards attack.

Attack

I have argued that not all satire is attack; while most satires expose beliefs and actions that the author presumably deems immoral and invites the reader to judge them negatively, not all satires aggressively denounce their targets. Hermsprong, for instance, is undoubtedly satiric, but the implied author of that work never seems to hate politicians and clergymen with a personal, visceral hatred. He objects to their worldview and points out their faults, but he seems reasonable and cheerful rather than infuriated. In contrast, some satiric novels fit the label of attack, aiming to harm, insult, or degrade their targets, or to inspire abhorrence toward them in the reader.

What most distinguishes satires aiming to attack from the other kinds of satiric novels is a primary focus on the target. Novels that are not intended to attack, like Sir Launcelot Greaves

(1760–62) or Hugh Trevor, are mainly concerned with the adventures of their protagonists;

Launcelot and Hugh encounter numerous antagonists over the course of their narratives, but none of these antagonists is dwelt on at great length. As a result, while we may make negative judgments of the candidates for election that Launcelot meets or the bishop to whom Hugh 33

attaches himself, we are not exposed to them enough to develop hatred for those characters and the values they represent. In contradistinction, Hogg’s Private Memoirs and Confessions of a

Justified Sinner focuses on the actions of the titular sinner, Robert Wringhim; the second half of the novel is narrated from Robert’s perspective, so that we can receive in his own words the perverted doctrines that lead him to commit murder. Because we follow the actions and thoughts of odious figure for a significant portion of the narrative, and are exposed through his own narration to his arrogance and his certitude of salvation, we come to despise him.

We can see the same principle of focus applied in Hamilton’s Memoirs of Modern

Philosophers. The novel follows the stories of three women, but much of the narrative is centered on Bridgetina, the squint-eyed, hapless devotee of Godwin’s philosophy. Often, she is depicted making ridiculous statements about the perfectibility of humanity, or engaging in debates in which we learn that her ideas are simply memorized by rote, not arrived at through critical deliberation. These exposures of the flaws of modern philosophy are not enough, in themselves, to convey the sense that Hamilton means to attack the English Jacobins; similar tactics are used in less aggressive works, such as Graves’s The Spiritual Quixote. But when to these scenes displaying the wrongness of her ideas is added gratuitous humor at the expense of her physical deformities and clumsiness—as when she is surrounded by pigs, pushed into the ground by one of them, and reduced to tears—we feel that Hamilton takes pleasure in degrading her radical heroine. Because we follow Bridgetina’s story and know that numerous cruel jokes are made at her expense, these scenes represent more than slapstick comedy; the constant exposure of Bridgetina to embarrassment and abuse suggests that those who hold Godwinian ideas deserve to be made miserable. 34

Many attack satires share with instructive satires the desire to motivate the reader to action. But whereas instructive satire attempts to inspire beneficial behavior, attack satire often urges the reader to work against and destroy whatever vice is being targeted. In this way attack satire differs from pessimistic satire. Were Inchbald’s Nature and Art a pessimistic satire, it would suggest that the wealthy and powerful could never be defeated, and that fair treatment for the poor and oppressed is an unattainable dream. In fact, the narrative does not suggest that struggle against the powers that be is futile. Given the way in which rich aristocrats are depicted in Inchbald’s novel, readers are more likely to fight against the abuses of wealth, motivated by a sense of righteous indignation, rather than to accept glumly that the status quo is unchangeable.

In describing these four aims I do not mean to pigeonhole all satiric novels, or to suggest that each novelist consciously set out to write one of these types of works. Satirists can write with multiple aims in mind; sometimes they write with a single aim, but one that exists somewhere between two categories. As we will see in Chapter 6, Hamilton’s Memoirs of Modern

Philosophers attempts both to instruct and attack. The goal here is not to insist strictly that any particular novel must belong to one category or another, but to suggest ways of approaching these works, recognizing that not all satiric novels are alike. If we acknowledge that authors have different aims, that not all attempt to attack their targets or advance a bleak, gloomy worldview, we are in a better position to understand how each individual work operates.

IV. Some Dogmas about Satire in the Novel

Broadening our conception of what constitutes a satiric novel and what such works may attempt to accomplish forces us to rethink some beliefs about how satire operates in the novel form.

Because satire theorists have often thought of the novel and satire as opposed forms, they have 35

drawn some limiting conclusions about what happens when novelists attempt to write satire. And given that few scholars of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries have bothered to study the actual practice of novelistic satire in the period, these conclusions have gone largely unchallenged, despite examples from the period which seem to refute them. Hodgart, for instance, claims that only two kinds of novels can be satiric: the Quixotic and the picaresque, in part because he believes realism in the novel is necessarily inimical to satire (216–18). Yet some satiric novels do not fit comfortably in either category. Hermsprong is satiric, but is not properly speaking a picaresque novel—the eponymous hero is not a rogue, and the narrative does not focus on his perambulations. Calling him a Quixotic figure is a stretch; he is “spiritually superior to the rest of the world,” as Hodgart requires the Quixotic hero to be, but he is no fool or madman (218). Knight likewise identifies two kinds of satiric novels, the Lucianic and the

Quixotic (218). While these are broad categories, what are we to do with a novel like Evelina, which is neither primarily dialogic (as Lucianic satire is) nor organized around “a confusing and meaningless quest,” as Knight argues Quixotic novels are (223)? If we are generating our theory of how satire and the novel interact only from picaresque works, or from novels with a Quixotic figure, or from heavily dialogic novels, our system will inevitably fail to explain works which fit none of these categories and yet are unquestionably satiric. What we must do, then, is examine some of the dogmas we hold about satire operating in novels with a critical eye, questioning their validity and usefulness when applied to a more diverse range of works.

Can the Satiric Novel Accommodate Psychological Realism?

Some critics writing about the satiric novel have claimed that psychologically realistic and complex characters necessarily detract from a narrative’s satiric effect. Griffin notes that “in 36

traditional accounts, satire in fiction is said to be detectable in a certain flattening of character toward caricature” (3–4). Highet provides an instance of this kind of attitude, stating: “Have you ever read a novel which started out as a realistic study of a small community or of a single social problem or of one interesting individual, and then, at intervals, veered backward and forward between straight analysis and grotesque distortion? . . . You have seen the work of a writer who wanted to be two different, and disparate, things at once: a novelist and a satirist.”40 We can see this dogma applied in criticism of specific works. Paulson, discussing Joseph Andrews, states that one of the ways Fielding moves away from satire in his first novel is through a concern with

“‘character’ rather than ‘caricature,’” suggesting that realistic characters detract from a work’s satire.41 Joseph F. Bartolomeo writes of Tom Jones that the presence of complex or “mixed” characters “runs counter to the more categorical judgments demanded by satire”; he goes on to argue that “the relative complexity of [Sophia’s] character, like Tom’s, is antithetical to satire.”42

These kinds of observations imply that characters in an effective satiric novel must inevitably be simple and flat.

This dogma stems from the ideas that satire requires harsh judgments against the vicious characters depicted, and that the requisite negative emotions are difficult to sustain against fully- realized individuals—concepts which contain some truth. After all, as we have seen, unrealistic exaggeration is one of the common qualities which can indicate the presence of satire in a novel.

If a villain’s vicious qualities are exaggerated and if he appears to have no redeeming traits, we can easily identify him as someone we should detest. Giving such a figure a more detailed background or a richer psychological profile might in some cases complicate our negative

40 Highet, The Anatomy of Satire, 156. 41 Paulson, Satire and the Novel, 108. 42 Joseph F. Bartolomeo, “Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Satiric Fiction,” in A Companion to Satire, ed. Ruben Quintero (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), 257–75, at 263–64. 37

judgment, and might even cause us to develop some sympathy for him. As Booth astutely observes, “a prolonged intimate view of a character works against our capacity for judgment.”43

Consider Midshipman Crampley of Roderick Random, who is never described as anything other than a wretch and monster. His sole purpose, as far as the narrative is concerned, is to oppose and torment Roderick. Were we to be given details about his motivations, fears, or goals, he would seem more like a flesh-and-blood person; though he would remain a malicious individual, we might at least recognize that his behavior is not without some understandable cause. Our judgment against him would consequently be less intensely negative.

Flat and unrealized characters also have their uses when a satirist is attempting briefly to critique a wide variety of targets. This technique is often employed in picaresque narratives or similar works in which the protagonist travels through society encountering many episodic adventures. Joseph Andrews, for instance, is full of characters who exist solely to invite negative judgment upon some behavior. Often, as in the case of the man who makes false promises of assistance to Parson Adams, these characters are not named. For the satire to be effective, they must be unmistakably evocative of the target of satire, and so traits which do not connect the character to the satirized target are irrelevant. To borrow James Phelan’s terms, these characters have prominent “thematic” components—traits that suggest a character stands in for a larger class—while lacking developed “mimetic” components, or those attributes which identify a character as a particularized individual.44 They are often what Sacks refers to as “species characters” (164). We need know little about the gentleman in David Simple who attempts to convince the hero to buy a sinking stock, for instance, to understand the satiric point Sarah

43 Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction, 322. 44 James Phelan, Reading People, Reading Plots: Character, Progression, and the Interpretation of Narrative (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 2–3. 38

Fielding attempts to convey, and details about his background or psychological profile would only distract us from what he does.

Though characters lacking in psychological complexity have their uses in certain kinds of satire, the notion that including realistic characters to whom we can relate necessarily decreases satiric impact is flawed. While exaggeration can indicate that we ought to judge a character negatively, if the satire is to make a serious point applicable to real life, then some degree of realism can be useful. If the satirist’s goal is to create rage against actual individuals, institutions, or ideas, caricatures are of limited value, as they generally do not correspond to lived experience.

Parson Adams is an entertaining character, but his abuse at the hands of the Roasting Squire does not enrage us against those who would dare disrespect the clergy; as Simon Dickie points out,

“one cannot avoid a sense that Fielding is enjoying knocking Adams around.”45 Neither Adams nor the Roasting Squire are psychologically deep; Adams is unrealistically naïve, while the

Squire has little interiority. As a result, the scene may induce us to view the Squire’s inhospitable behavior as absurd, but it is unlikely to rouse our ire or concern.

If, unlike Parson Adams, the victim of vicious behavior in a novelistic satire is presented as a psychologically complex character with whom we can sympathize and identify, we are more likely to have a more serious negative reaction—outrage, fear, despair, and so forth—to the target. Elder Olson’s theory of comedy is applicable here. Olson gives some sensible criteria for any represented event or person to be taken seriously (and not comically). For instance, one tends to take seriously “anything that seems to him good or evil,” “in proportion as it seems to him certain or likely or possible.” One also takes seriously not merely what pertains to oneself, but also to “those for whom he has some concern,” “those who resemble him,” and those “whose

45 Simon Dickie, Cruelty and Laughter: Forgotten Comic Literature and the Unsentimental Eighteenth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011), 160. 39

fortunes resemble those likely to befall him.”46 In order for satire to convey a serious message through the representation of fictional characters and events, the events must seem “certain or likely or possible,” and they must threaten to do harm to characters who resemble us or others for whom we have concern. Otherwise, we might feel amusement but not anger or loathing.

One such more serious satire is Burney’s Evelina. Like Adams, Evelina is naïve, but her innocence is presented in a realistic way: having been raised in the country, she is naturally ignorant of the manners of London society. While we find some amusement in Adams’s foolish assertion that book learning is superior to lived experience, we are never invited to laugh at

Burney’s heroine. Rather, we are made aware of her awkwardness and the shame it causes her; the humiliation she feels when she breaks a rule of dancing etiquette is a realistic approximation of the embarrassment we might undergo if we were to commit a graceless social blunder.

Because we are party to her thoughts, feelings, and desires, Evelina more closely resembles an actual human being, perhaps one not unlike ourselves. Consequently, when she faces various dangers and trials throughout the novel—as when she is molested by Sir Clement Willoughby— the satire is more likely to cause concern than it would were she to be a flat character to whom we could not relate. Not every character in this novel is characterized with great complexity, but because the heroine is more like us, or like real people we care about, the problems she endures seem more realistic and applicable to our lives—and consequently worthy of a more serious negative reaction than derision or ridicule. The satire in Evelina is relatively pessimistic, and the greater realism furthers Burney’s satiric aim.

Even the creation of vicious characters who are also realistic and relatable does not always weaken the impact of a novel’s satire. If we understand why a villain engages in immoral behavior, we may feel more sympathy for him and lessen our judgment, but if the cause of his

46 Elder Olson, The Theory of Comedy (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1968), 13–14. 40

behavior is a larger evil—a corrupt institution, say, or a perverse society—our blame is only redirected, not weakened. Mr. Harrel of Burney’s Cecilia provides an example. In the first half of the novel, he seems a character devoid of complexity: he appears to be the type of the carefree spendthrift, and he makes use of Cecilia’s money in order to finance his hedonistic entertainments. Halfway through the novel, however, he commits suicide, and we learn that his lightheartedness is a mask behind which he hides intense depression caused in part by a gambling addiction and a loveless marriage. We are clearly meant to judge him negatively, yet his wrenching suicide note makes him more sympathetic than he appeared before his death: he conveys the “shame and dread” which has haunted his life, expresses profound horror of divine judgment, and begs that the people he has wronged pray for his soul.47 Granted, Mr. Harrel is not characterized with the complexity one finds in, say, the novels of Dostoevsky, but we feel that he is not simply a representative of a larger species. His attempt to conceal his problems through an extravagant lifestyle is quite human, and his final act of suicide contributes to our sense of his individuality: after all, how many of the stock gamesters in novels like Roderick Random take their own lives in desperation? Yet despite the relative complexity of Mr. Harrel, the satire is not diminished; rather, it is intensified. Our pity does not translate into sympathy or exoneration for his obviously vicious actions. Instead, we feel greater horror at both his prodigal ways and the circumstances that drive him to such behavior. One of the potential purposes of satire is to warn the reader away from vice, and Mr. Harrel effectively fulfills this purpose as well as, if not better than, a cartoonish wastrel with no psychological complexity would.

Some novels combine superficial stock characters with more complicated ones to achieve their satiric effects. Hamilton’s Memoirs of Modern Philosophers operates in this fashion. The

47 Frances Burney, Cecilia, or Memoirs of an Heiress, ed. Peter Sabor and Margaret Anne Doody (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 432. 41

novel contains a number of ridiculously exaggerated characters. Bridgetina Botherim is the most obvious example; others include Mr. Glib and Mr. Myope. These characters serve as caricatures of the English radicals of the period, and through them Hamilton derogates Godwin’s political philosophy. The character of Julia, however, is more detailed and realistic: she has a generally good nature, but is led astray through reading too many novels, and easily falls under the influence of the radicals. As an imitation of a flesh-and-blood individual, Julia is relatively convincing; we are privy to her inner thoughts and turmoils. The effect is to make her seduction by Vallaton all the more odious, because it is more plausible. Julia’s plot also enhances the satire against Bridgetina. Because we know Godwinian philosophy to be a considerable threat that deserves our hatred, we have fewer qualms about enjoying the various cruel but comic misfortunes that occur to Bridgetina. The combination of realistic and exaggerated characters is crucial to Hamilton’s attack on radicalism.

The assumption that flat characters without any psychological complexity are the only kind that can be used in effective satiric novels inherently limits our sense of the range of methods authors can use to make satiric points. Caricatured figures are effective for specific kinds of satire; if a novelist is attempting to ridicule some absurd concept of fault, more realistic characters would be detrimental to his efforts. Not all satire operates through ridicule, however, and if the satirist’s goal is to inspire more serious negative emotions, realistic characters might be more useful to his purposes than flat ones. If we accept that satire has diverse purposes and possibilities, we should also acknowledge that satires with different objectives tend to use different satiric techniques.

Are Linear Plots Incompatible with Narrative Satire?

Just as some critics have made assumptions about the kinds of characters that can be used effectively in satire, so have they also argued that only certain kinds of plot are suited to satiric narratives. The general assumption is that while most narratives employ linear plots, such plots are not conducive to satire. By linear plot, I mean the kind in which 1) the various actions are causally related to each other, and 2) significant change occurs in the status of the characters or the world of the novel between the initiation of the plot and its conclusion. This two-pronged definition of the linear plot is essentially the one offered by Alvin Kernan in The Plot of Satire, and it has led to two kinds of claims about satire’s relationship to plot.48 The first is that satiric narratives tend not to focus on the causal connections between actions. For instance, Knight argues that “Roderick Random is driven by conflicting impulses. At its beginning and end it follows a romantic formula . . . But this conventional plot is set against the lack of direction that runs through most of the novel” (208). Implied here is the assumption that a “conventional plot”—that is, a novelistic plot—is a unidirectional causal chain of events culminating in a conclusion, in this case marriage. Conversely, satiric plots are characterized by a “lack of direction,” or the failure of Roderick Random’s various episodes to move toward a single end. To be fair, Knight is discussing a single work and not the satiric novel in general, but he considers

Roderick Random to be a “locus classicus for the overlapping of novels and satire,” and he gives no indication that in other satiric novels the plot is anything other than a frame to tie together otherwise unrelated satiric episodes (207).

The second claim about satire and the linear plot is that satiric narratives do not tend to portray change or improvement upon the plot’s initial state. When Kernan claims that “satire never offers that direct, linear progression which is ordinarily taken as plot,” he means that

48 Alvin B. Kernan, The Plot of Satire (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965), 95. 43

satiric plots do not depict significant alteration of the status quo (100). Instead, he argues, satire tends to make use of circular plots in which no significant change occurs between the beginning and end of the narrative, and in which the conclusion offers no sense of resolution. He gives the example of Golding’s The Lord of the Flies: the boys on the island descend into barbarism, only to be rescued at the novel’s conclusion by a naval ship. But the ship’s weapons are “merely more effective instruments of the old-brain forces which on the island have found expression in fists, teeth, sharpened sticks, and heavy rocks” (100). Hodgart, discussing Waugh’s Decline and Fall, makes the related claim that the plot “has a perfect circular form: it ends just where it begins, having moved with an absurd inevitability which is the satiric equivalent of tragic fate. This circularity of plot which appears in so many good satiric narratives (compare Flaubert’s Bouvard et Pécuchet) is the ideal embodiment of the stoic resignation of the picaresque satirists” (221). A similar sentiment may motivate Bartolomeo’s claims that in Joseph Andrews “the progress toward a happy ending, again with providential overtones, contributes to a move from the satiric to the comic,” and that the plot of Tom Jones “diminishes the satiric thrust as it tends toward a celebratory comic resolution that . . . perfectly punishes vice and rewards virtue” (262–63). The assumption is that in satiric narratives no progress is made from the opening situation, and that any move towards resolution of problems decreases the narrative’s satiric effect.

Let us take these two claims in turn, beginning with the idea that satiric plots lack the connectedness of episodes to be found in most novels. We should note that in all narratives the events have at least some causal connection. Indeed, many narratologists would agree that causation is one of the main criteria for determining whether the relation of a series of events counts as a narrative.49 Even in a fairly episodic narrative such as Roderick Random, the episodes

49 See, for instance, Seymour Chatman, Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978), 45–48. 44

are not entirely unrelated to each other. For instance, Roderick is impressed into the navy while searching for work because of his poverty, which is caused by his failure to find steady employment with Lavement, which is in turn caused by his earlier treatment of Gawky, and so on; in a basic sense, all of the novel’s events stem from Roderick’s initial situation of being disowned by his grandfather. What seems to be at issue is not, properly speaking, whether the events of a satiric narrative are connected, but what prominence is given to the movement from beginning to end. Are the connections between the novel’s events superficial, or are they central to the experience of the narrative? Paulson describes the “convention of a beginning and an end” as “one of the intractable materials with which the satirist who would embody his satire in a prose narrative must deal,” suggesting that a general movement of the action towards some definite end is largely an inconvenience to the satirist.50 Plot, thus conceived, is merely a frame to contain various distinct satiric episodes; the connections between the episodes and the general progression of the narrative have nothing to do with the satire itself.

Paulson’s and Knight’s ideas about the role of linear plot moving toward resolution are understandable if we limit our attention to certain specific types of satiric novels, such as the picaresque narratives of Smollett or the works of Peacock. The technique of stringing together diverse episodes with little concern for narrative direction or unity is useful for producing some particular satiric effects. As I have suggested, some novels use satire primarily to entertain the reader through the mockery of ideas or social types, and adopt as their main method the use of exaggerated characters whose interactions are invariably comic. An example is Peacock’s

Headlong Hall. The novel pokes fun at various philosophies through its absurd and caricatured figures. Here, the plot is merely a backdrop that allows those characters to interact in risible ways. The events of the novel move toward the marriage of several pairs of lovers, but their

50 Paulson, Fictions of Satire, 72. 45

romances are not the main focus of the plot. Dickens’s The Pickwick Papers also fits this model.

The novel contains more in the way of plot than Headlong Hall, but even so, much of its satire is found in the episodic adventures of the ridiculous Pickwickians.

Yet some novelistic satires derive their effect largely from the movement of the action toward resolution. Linear plots can be of value insofar as they tend to intensify and compound the difficulties of the protagonist. Consider, for instance, Caleb Williams, a work in which

Godwin pessimistically satirizes the injustices of British law. Caleb, a servant of the honorable gentleman Falkland, discovers that his employer is a murderer. Caleb escapes from Falkland’s grasp, only to be pursued and harassed wherever he goes. He is several times arrested, and his name and reputation are blackened despite his innocence. All the actions of the story have a strong causal connection to each other: Caleb’s difficulties stem from Falkland’s pursuit of him, which itself stems from Caleb’s discovery of Falkland’s secret. The plot moves steadily toward the final confrontation between the protagonist and his tormentor; the ending and the events leading to it are not merely conventions separate from the work’s satire. Every time Caleb extracts himself from a dangerous situation or seems to have escaped Falkland’s reach, a new complication arises, and Caleb is once more threatened. With each new danger the extent of

Falkland’s tyrannical power is increasingly disclosed. The novel’s satire—which leads us to feel that the law is a cruel and malignant institution that cannot be defeated—depends precisely on the plot’s continuous escalation. Without the narrative’s unidirectional movement and mounting intensity that heightens at every turn our feeling that Caleb is trapped and helpless, the novel’s critique of legal power would be less effective.

The reason that linear plots can make for effective satire is that if a novel follows a single, strongly-connected chain of events, we are more likely to care about what happens to the 46

characters, and will thus be more emotionally invested in the narrative. Because the romance plots of Headlong Hall are not the most prominent part of the novel, we do not greatly care if

Mr. Escot manages to wed Miss Cephalis. By contrast, we care about Miss Milner and Matilda in

Inchbald’s A Simple Story (1791) due to the novel’s focus on their romances. The novel’s satire on female education is effective because the work employs what Knight or Paulson might consider a traditional novelistic plot structure: the heroines fall in love, are faced with various complications, overcome these obstacles, and marry. But Inchbald manages to direct negative judgment against Miss Milner’s undisciplined upbringing by making clear that it is the cause of the heroines’ difficulties. The work’s power lies in our concern for Miss Milner and Matilda, our shock at Miss Milner’s fall and on our pleasure at Matilda eventually winning the esteem of Lord

Elmwood. The satiric effect would be greatly diminished if the novel were not a coherent account of a series of closely-connected events but a loose collection of episodes.

What of the claim that satiric narratives are necessarily circular? Here the heart of the issue is not so much on the interconnectedness of the plot or the prominence of progress toward a clear and logical conclusion, but on the nature of the conclusion itself: the argument seems to be that endings in which the narrative’s problems and complications are resolved are inimical to satire. Some satirists do in fact attempt to promote a sense of pessimism, as I have argued: they express disgust at the vices of the world or of human nature, but they offer no solutions to the problems they present. They may go so far as to suggest that no solution is possible. In such a case, the satirist might well choose a plot structure in which little has changed by the narrative’s conclusion in order to emphasize the impossibility of reform. Gulliver’s Travels employs this sort of plot. By the end of the fourth part, Gulliver has hardly grown as an individual; he has in 47

fact regressed into a misanthropic state. Were one to espouse the “hard” reading of that text, one might read Gulliver’s withdrawal from society as an indicator that mankind is unredeemable.51

Other types of satire, however, allow for the possibility of reform, and in these cases a circular plot in which no reform or progress occurs might be counterproductive. Consider

Lennox’s The Female Quixote. Arabella’s obsession with romances leads her into a number of scrapes, but at the novel’s denouement she learns to separate romance from reality and arrives at a happy ending. Were The Female Quixote to employ a circular plot in which she continually brings harm to the people she cares about because of her romance obsession—if, for instance, she were to get Glanville killed in a duel over her honor—the novel’s satire on romance-reading would be quite grim. But the aim of Lennox’s satire is not to suggest that romances are a terrifying and utterly destructive force; the topic of satire demands more light-hearted critique.

Though Lennox’s novel ends cheerfully, its satiric message is clear, and we should not view the work as a failed satire because it does not employ a circular plot. The Female Quixote simply conveys a different attitude about the nature of its target and what can be done about the problem.

Satiric narratives are not restricted to a single plot type or structure. Depending on what satirists aim to accomplish, they may write narratives in which the connectedness and progression of the action toward resolution is featured prominently, or in which the movement from beginning to end is simply a device to frame individual satiric scenes. They may choose to write conclusions that offer hope for meaningful change, with the idea of urging readers to take action against the vices portrayed. Or they may decide instead to end their novels on a pessimistic note to demonstrate the futility of reform efforts. None of these choices make a

51 For more on the “hard” interpretation of Gulliver’s Travels, see James L. Clifford, “Gulliver’s Fourth Voyage: ‘Hard’ and ‘Soft’ Schools of Interpretation,” in Quick Springs of Sense: Studies in the Eighteenth Century, ed. Larry S. Champion (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1974), 33–49. 48

particular work inherently more or less satiric than others. Circular or disjointed plots are merely tools that a novelist can use to convey satire, just as linear, cohesive plots are. If we fail to recognize that satiric narratives can utilize linear plots, we risk misunderstanding how many linear satiric novels function.

Do Non-Satiric Episodes Dilute Satire?

In most satiric novels, not every passage or episode serves directly to make a satiric point. This fact has led some critics to adopt the position that the satire conveyed in novels is necessarily weaker or more diluted than that conveyed in other genres, such as the formal verse satire—or to the related idea that satiric novels are not satires at all because they include parts that are not directly satiric. Marshall, for instance, discusses the “dilution of satiric impact” caused in novels that focus on represented real life.52 A more hard-line position—narratives that include non- satiric episodes are not satires—is put forth by Sacks, who treats novels as “represented actions” rather than as satires. For a narrative to qualify as a satire in his definition, “all the elements of a work” must be devoted to the ridiculing of targets; a true satire cannot include extraneous elements that do not ridicule individuals or institutions and remain a coherent work.53 The implication in each case seems to be that works entirely devoted to critiquing their targets are more fully satiric than a satiric novel could ever be. To be fair, Marshall rightly acknowledges that the diluted satire found in novels is “not necessarily softer satire.”54 I would like to push this claim a step further, however: in many cases, including episodes and passages that do not directly perform critique makes narrative satire more effective.

52 Marshall, The Practice of Satire in England, 274. 53 Sacks, Fiction and the Shape of Belief, 15, 7. 54 Marshall, The Practice of Satire in England, 7. 49

I admit that in some novels satire seems largely ancillary: a work that contains only one or two satiric scenes will most likely make less of a cogent satiric point than a work in which the majority of the scenes are devoted to critique. As Marshall argues, “a novel that is 90 percent satire we can safely label a satire, and a novel that is 20 percent satire is only incidentally satiric.”55 In itself, this is a sensible and valid idea, and it works well in extreme cases (that is, novels that contain barely any satiric content and those that are mostly comprised of it). One problem, however, is that determining how much of a work is satiric with any degree of precision is impossible. This kind of logic assumes that we can divide novels into satiric and non-satiric segments. While plausible on a theoretical level, how would this division work in practice? Take, for instance, Book III, Chapter II of Tom Jones, in which Tom and Black George are caught poaching on Squire Western’s territory. Knowing that Allworthy would fire George if the gamekeeper were to be discovered trespassing, Tom claims to be alone. Whether this chapter, as a whole, is directly satiric is not obvious. Some negative judgment is delivered throughout the episode: clearly we are meant to have a negative opinion of Squire Western here, who reacts “as if his House had been broken open, and the most valuable Furniture stole out of it.”56 Likewise,

Thwackum’s beating of Tom, though not dwelt upon at length, exposes Thwackum’s violent nature. Yet the passage does not lead us to make particularly harsh or intense judgments against these characters, and much of it is spent describing Tom’s actions. The next chapter, in which

Square and Thwackum debate about honor, is more satiric, in that the whole of it is devoted to displaying the characteristic follies of each figure. If we were trying to determine how diluted the satire in Tom Jones is, would we count Book III, Chapter II as a whole chapter’s worth of satire?

Only half a chapter’s worth? This way madness lies.

55 Marshall, The Practice of Satire in England, 8. 56 Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling, ed. Martin Battestin and Fredson Bowers. 2 vols. (Middlebury: Wesleyan University Press, 1975), 1:121. 50

Furthermore, if we consider the chapter in question in a larger context, we can see that while it does not seem particularly satiric in itself, it provides information necessary to understand subsequent satiric passages. In a later chapter, Blifil reveals that Tom was not actually alone when he was caught poaching, and that Tom lied to save Black George’s employment; this action reveals Blifil to be a mean-spirited and ill-natured individual. The episode also results in further satire upon Thwackum and Square, who discuss Tom’s actions after his lie to protect Black George has been revealed. Allworthy, of course, deems Tom’s lie to be noble; neither Thwackum nor Square can be made to agree, increasing our negative judgment of their rigid and unfeeling doctrines. Tom’s actions also have repercussions for satiric scenes at some remove from this one. Take the instance in which Black George pockets Tom’s money after the protagonist is banished: here, we are certainly meant to judge Black George negatively.

His disloyal actions contribute to the novel’s overall satiric point about the trustworthiness of individuals. The scene’s satire is all the more effective, however, because we know that Tom has done right by George in the past: George’s actions seem all the more unforgiveable given Tom’s willingness to take the sole blame for the poaching incident, among other benevolent acts. Aside from reflecting upon this later scene, Tom’s attempt to shield George serves to reinforce our sympathy for Tom and our perception of his general good-nature. Our identification with the hero is important for the satire to function, as we are affected by the various challenges he faces only insofar as we care about his fate. Without this chapter, future satiric episodes would have less force. The point here is that looking at single scenes in isolation to determine the level of satiric dilution in a text is impractical, as often scenes that seem non-satiric nonetheless enhance the novel’s satiric scenes. 51

If we take seriously the idea that some satiric novels aim mainly to instruct their readers, we can see that parts of such novels that depict exemplary conduct contribute to the overall satiric effect even if they do not directly engage in exposing vice. Bage’s Hermsprong, for instance, is not wholly devoted to attacks upon Lord Grondale, Dr. Blick, and the novel’s other villains. We are also given information about Hermsprong’s upbringing and his good conduct.

Hermsprong is not merely an opponent of the novel’s hypocritical aristocrats and clergymen, although he certainly serves in this capacity to a degree. He also represents the Jacobin ideals that Bage attempts to convey through this work. Illustrations of Hermsprong’s ideals and practices are necessary if we are to learn from the novel’s satire. The same kind of contrast is employed in Humphry Clinker: the novel contains numerous passages of praise when the travelers move into Scotland. One could make the case that such passages constitute satiric dilution; after all, were Matthew Bramble to remain in London and complain for the entirety of the novel, the satire would be much more direct and unrelenting. But these more positive moments nonetheless contribute to Smollett’s satiric goal of promoting a certain mode of living; the novel would be impoverished as both a satire and a work of literature if it did not contain descriptions of healthier environments and happier situations.

Even when the satirist is attempting something other than instruction, descriptions of positive characters and events can nonetheless be useful. Inchbald’s Nature and Art is a radical attack on wealthy aristocrats, as we will see in Chapter 6, but it uses positive characters as foils for its negative characters in order to make the depravity of the negative characters stand out by contrast. One might be tempted to say that the descriptions of the elder Henry and his selfless love for his brother dilutes the novel’s satire, as these passages do not directly show the evils of high society. But our outrage at the elder William’s desire for wealth and status is intensified 52

when we see that these desires cause William to mistreat Henry. Our sense of Henry’s innocence and goodness strengthen our righteous anger at William’s injustice. The same is true when the narrative shifts to their children: the satire on young William would be less forceful if he were not contrasted with young Henry.

Portions of novels that are not obviously satiric may also make indirect contributions to the overall efficacy of the work’s satire, insofar as they contribute to the novel’s capacity to entertain. Smollett famously claims in the preface to Roderick Random that satire is best conveyed in a novel that, “by representing familiar scenes in an uncommon and amusing point of view, invests them with all the graces of novelty” (3). Though we might expect Smollett to be biased in favor of the genre in which he was most successful, he raises a valid point about the rhetoric of the satiric novel. Burney’s letter to her father prefacing The Wanderer makes a similar point about some degree of entertainment being necessary satire in the novel form to be effective: “What is the species of writing that offers fairer opportunities for conveying useful precepts? . . . If many may turn aside from all but mere entertainment presented under [the novel] form, many, also, may, unconsciously, be allured by it into reading the severest truths, who would not even open any work of a graver denomination.”57 A novel that mixes segments of entertainment with its satire is more likely to be read (and to have some impact on the reader than a work unrelenting in its satiric attacks; readers might find its single-mindedness and lack of variety dull. Even obviously satiric fictions, such as Gulliver’s Travels, contain passages which seem calculated more to entertain than to make some point about the state of Britain or the perversity of human nature. Furthermore, satiric novels may contain passages that do not entertain but otherwise stimulate the reader’s emotions. An active, invested reader is much more

57 Frances Burney, The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties, ed. by Margaret Anne Doody, Robert L. Mack, and Peter Sabor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 7. 53

likely to be receptive to a work’s satiric message than a reader without significant emotional involvement in the work’s action. For this reason, passages in satiric novels that do not directly contribute to directing the audience’s critique may nonetheless play important roles; satire is more, not less, effective when conveyed through an entertaining and moving medium.

What of the problem that some novels seem clearly more satiric than others? That satire in a novel can be diluted and weak is undeniable. The amount of satire in Austen’s novels, for instance, is not negligible, but their primary focus tends to be the representation of romance. Our response to this state of affairs, however, should not be to assume that satire is diluted merely by virtue of being delivered in the novel form, or that passages not directly contributing to critique of some target always diminish a novel’s satiric impact. Ultimately, determining exactly what degree of a novel is devoted to satire is impractical; because novels are most often cohesive entities, we cannot single out the satiric parts as if they had no relation to the work as a whole.

Nor should we ignore those parts of novels that do not include explicit satiric critique; they cannot be read in isolation from more straightforwardly satiric passages. In our zeal to separate satiric from non-satiric novels—a vexed and ultimately unrewarding enterprise—we risk missing how all parts of a novel, satiric or otherwise, contribute to its total effect.

Questioning and refuting these three dogmas shows us the advantages of recognizing that many types of satire exist. The common thread motivating these ideas is the inclination to conceive of satire, or the satiric novel, as a monolithic form. If we assume that all satiric novels attempt the same goal, we might come to the conclusion that flat, exaggerated satiric butts are preferable to well-developed round characters, or that complicated plots would only get in the way of the novel’s mockery. If we assume that satiric novels primarily aim to attack, we might miss the ways in which seeming non-satiric elements of these novels a crucial to the satirist’s 54

ends. If, however, we allow that satiric novels are written with a variety of potential aims, and that considerable diversity exists within the form, we can free ourselves of these dogmas and arrive at a better understanding of the various tones, objectives, and techniques employed by satiric novelists.

V. Towards an Approach to Satiric Fiction

If satiric novels can have vastly different effects on readers—that is, if they diverge greatly in implied aim—then one of our tasks as critics is to determine the manifold ways in which these aims can be achieved. To gain a better understanding of satiric novels in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, we should investigate the various techniques novelists used to communicate their satiric messages. To this end, I will be approaching the satirical novels I discuss from a rhetorical perspective, focusing on how these works attempt to influence the judgments, emotions, and perceptions of their readers.

In stating that my approach to satiric novels is rhetorical, I have likely called to the mind of the reader such critics as Wayne Booth, Sheldon Sacks, Peter J. Rabinowitz, and James

Phelan. Indeed, these scholars have influenced my approach and are useful for our purposes because all of them would agree that we can read novels as purposive texts in which the author attempts to achieve certain reactions from the reader. This insight is helpful, as I believe satiric narratives attempt to lead readers to negative judgments or emotions for the variety of purposes outlined above. Rhetorical critics also tend to focus on the ethical dimension of narratives: as

Booth noted in his discussion of “the morality of impersonal narration,” narratives have a power to shape the ethical values of their audiences.58 As many satiric novels claim to shape the values

58 Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction, 377. Phelan similarly discusses the ethical effects of literature in much of his scholarship; see, for instance, his discussion of Toni Morrison’s Beloved in Experiencing Fiction: Judgments, 55

of their audiences in an ethical manner—think of Fielding’s claim in Tom Jones that he has endeavored “to laugh Mankind out of their favourite Follies and Vices”—paying attention to the ethical effects of these works may bring us to a fuller appreciation of their artistry (1:8).

Some specific concepts developed by rhetorical scholars of narrative are particularly important to my enterprise. One of the most foundational is the distinction among three different types of author figures: the narrator present in the text, the implied author of that text, and the flesh-and-blood author, as known from biographical materials.59 I have already mentioned the concept of the implied author, the hypothetical personage whose traits can be deduced from the work itself, and who is separate from the narrator. This term has been controversial since Booth introduced it over half a century ago; as recently as 2011, an issue of the journal Style was dedicated to waging a debate over the term.60 The strongest objection is that the notion of the

“implied author” as the author’s version of himself that he has placed in the text undervalues the role readers play in constructing this figure; two people may read the same text and arrive at different conclusions about the values and beliefs of the implied author.61 I do not intend here to engage in a theoretical defense of the implied author; I am comfortable using the term because, like Seymour Chatman, I find Booth’s concept pragmatic. As Chatman argues, “narratology— and text theory generally—needs the implied author (and its counterpart, the implied reader) to

Progressions, and the Rhetorical Theory of Narrative (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2007): 51–78. For other examples of ethical criticism see Adam Zachary Newton, Narrative Ethics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995) and Leona Toker, Towards the Ethics of Form in Fiction: Narratives of Cultural Remission (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2010). 59 Chatman, Story and Discourse, 151. 60 See Brian Richardson, “Introduction. The Implied Author: Back from the Grave or Simply Dead Again?” Style 45, no. 1 (2011): 1–10. 61 See Mieke Bal, Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative, 3rd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), 17; Susan S. Lanser, “The Implied Author: An Agnostic Manifesto,” Style 45, no. 1 (2011): 153–60, at 154. 56

account for features that would otherwise remain unexplained, or unsatisfactorily explained.”62 I acknowledge that to some degree the implied authors I will discuss are my own construction, that my version of the author of Tristram Shandy or Peregrine Pickle or Evelina might be different from those of other readers. Yet I believe that we will be able to find some measure of common ground and make reasonable assertions about the kind of authors who could produce those novels. If we are to read satiric novels rhetorically—that is, as a communication between a rhetor and an audience—we must assume the existence of an authorial figure, one who is not only created by the reader but who steers the reader’s experience of the work.

The existence of the implied author separate from the actual author and the narrator suggests that we may also posit the existence of a hypothetical audience, the ideal reader of any particular work. Rabinowitz argues convincingly for the existence of the “authorial audience,” distinct from actual flesh-and-blood readers and from the narratee (the figure to whom the narrator speaks).63 Authors expected their readers to react to their works in certain ways and to possess certain values; we can presume, for instance, that Graves expects the reader of The

Spiritual Quixote to be a Christian. Even if we are not Christians ourselves (and are therefore not the authorial audience Graves had in mind), we can attempt to read authorially—that is, to construct a sense of what ideas Graves thought his ideal reader would possess from the text itself. I believe we may also gain valuable insight into the authorial audience by examining reception and the historical contexts of each novel, although in some cases evidence of contemporary reader responses is limited. This concept of the authorial audience can be important to our understanding of a novel’s satiric techniques; as I will argue in Chapter 3, many

62 Seymour Chatman, Coming to Terms: The Rhetoric of Narrative in Fiction and Film (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990), 74. 63 Peter J. Rabinowitz, Before Reading: Narrative Conventions and the Politics of Interpretation (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987), 21. 57

twentieth-century critics hold vastly different beliefs from those of the authorial audience of

Peregrine Pickle, which has led us to treat Smollett’s satire as much harsher and more pessimistic than is actually the case.

Also worth noting is Phelan’s assertion that narratives “explicitly or more often implicitly establish their own ethical standards in order to guide their audiences to particular ethical judgments”—that is, that a text itself contains an implied system of values, and that we are not to apply external ethical systems to our reading of fiction.64 This idea that texts steer readers to adopt certain ethical positions or values is important, as crucial to the analysis of a satiric novel is how the author leads readers towards negative opinions of his or her targets. A novel like

Nature and Art inevitably conveys a different worldview and contains a different system of values from those of something like The Spiritual Quixote, and we need to understand how each author encodes his or her own specific set of values into the text. I will not be applying an outside system of ethics to the novels I will be analyzing—such questions as whether the protagonist of Roderick Random is insidious based on our modern conceptions of ethics are not my concern here. To Phelan’s point I would add, however, that attempting to ascertain (broadly speaking) the ethical values of contemporary readers, even if not obvious from the text, can aid us in our attempts to understand the ethical judgments an author intends the authorial audience to make. For example, considering how readers may have felt about the moral value of the French

Revolution in 1800 is useful in deducing the ethics promoted by Hamilton’s Memoirs of Modern

Philosophers. While we should attempt to discover the system of ethics intrinsic to any novel, we should also recognize the usefulness of external evidence that can help us reconstruct the moral values of the authorial audience.

64 Phelan, Experiencing Fiction, 10. 58

Though my enterprise makes use of these critical concepts advanced by rhetorical narratologists, and though these scholars have influenced my thinking in other ways, I have taken care not to include too many narratological terms in this work, for two reasons. First, I am not primarily trying to produce a work of narratology. My aim is to change the way both satire theorists and scholars of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries think about how satire is used in the novels of this period, not to develop a detailed poetics of narrative satire generally.

As my primary audience may not be familiar with narratological theory, I want to avoid weighing the reader down with jargon. Second, some rhetorical narratologists, such as Phelan, tend to develop vocabularies to describe with great precision each aspect of any possible narrative; thus he will distinguish between a narrative’s closure, its farewell, and its completion.

Such superfine discriminations are no doubt useful in some cases, but this technical precision is not absolutely necessary for the purposes of demonstrating the variety and diversity of satirical novels in this period. I believe I can convey a sense of how satire functions in each of the novels

I will examine without needing to refer to a work’s “intermediate configuration.”

What might my approach entail in practice? In the subsequent chapters, I will be focusing on the how the satirist attempts to control the relationship between himself and the audience in the various novels I discuss. Specifically, I will attempt to determine what the implied author is attempting to accomplish and what techniques are used to convince the audience of the satirist’s vision. By “technique” I mean a broad array of methods: narrative structures, the use and rejection of narrative conventions, characters and characterization, different types of focalization, reliable and unreliable narrators, and so forth. I cannot dwell exhaustively on every technique used in each of the novels I discuss, but I hope to illuminate some of the main means by which authors influence their readers. For instance, in discussing Tom Jones I will focus much of my 59

attention on the role of the narrator, as much of the novel’s effect depends on the narrator’s unreliability. As I will argue in Chapter 4, understanding the narrator allows us to see that in some parts of Tom Jones the novel’s satiric tone is darker than is generally acknowledged.

Cecilia’s exploitation of the contrast between the caricatured characters and the more realistic ones is crucial to that work’s pessimism, just as the narrative structure of Confessions of a

Justified Sinner, in which Robert’s memoir is embedded within the larger narrative, has significant rhetorical effects on the reader.

Ultimately, by paying attention to how eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century satiric novels operate in a rhetorical way, I hope to shed new light on how satire can inhabit the novel and what strategies novelists of the period used to adopt the medium of the novel to satiric ends.

This project may strike some of my readers as very old-fashioned, because at the heart of this study lie the basic questions of “what is this author trying to say in this work?” and “how does he or she go about saying it?” In an age of cultural and identity criticism, such questions may seem naïve. Yet I believe that such a study has value for the way we interpret the novels in question.

We need a better understanding of the relationship between satire and the novel. Our current explanations—based on the notion that satirists generally attempt one aim, attack, while novelists generally attempt another, the depiction of realistic lived experience—do not account for our sense that many of the novels I have discussed seem satiric, and were deemed to be so by their contemporary readers. Where should we go from here? One answer is to broaden our sense of what the writers of satiric novels intended to do, and what the aims of satire can be. By recognizing the diversity of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century satiric novels, in terms of both aims and methods, we may arrive at a better appreciation of specific novels and of satire in the novel more generally. CHAPTER TWO: DEDUCING AUTHORIAL AIM

If we are to discriminate the kinds of satiric novels written in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, we immediately face a problem: how are we to deduce with confidence what individual works seem designed to accomplish? Some satires have fairly obvious purposes: nobody would disagree that Voltaire attacks Leibnizian philosophy in Candide, or that a novel like Hermsprong is written to satirize the aristocracy and the Church of England. Others, however, are less straightforward. James Hogg’s Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified

Sinner was thought in its time to be a satire on Calvinism, but modern critics have suggested that such a reading is simplistic and have proposed several other targets, including the practice of historiography and book reviewers.1 Maria Edgeworth’s Castle Rackrent has generated little more consensus, as critics have conceived of the novel variously as either critiquing the native

Irish of the late eighteenth century or their Anglo-Irish landlords.2 Determining the goals of satires is not always easy.

In this chapter I will propose some steps we can take to determine the aim of any given satiric novel. We will need to consider a number of questions: what types of evidence can we use to determine satiric purpose, for instance, and how do authors steer their readers towards judgments of their targets? First, I will attempt to provide some general answers to these questions and others we may encounter during the reading process. Then, I will turn to a specific work, Charlotte Lennox’s The Female Quixote, in order to demonstrate the method in action. The

1 See, for instance, Ismael Velasco, “Paradoxical Readings: Reason, Religion and Tradition in James Hogg’s Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner,” Scottish Studies Review 7, no. 1 (2006): 38–52; Kelly E. Battles, “Bad Taste, Gothic Bodies, and Subversive Aesthetics in Hogg’s Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner,” Essays in Romanticism 19, no. 1 (2012): 49–64. 2 For an example of a reading of Castle Rackrent as a progressive novel written against Anglo-Irish colonialism, see Joanne Cordon, “Revising Stereotypes of Nationality and Gender: Why Maria Edgeworth Did Not Write Castle Belinda,” in New Essays on Maria Edgeworth, ed. Julie Nash (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 131–160, at 137–47. Contrariwise, such critics as Susan B. Egenolf see the text as a tool of colonial power. See Susan B. Egenolf, The Art of Political Fiction in Hamilton, Edgeworth, and Owenson (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2009), 46–47. 61

Female Quixote is a good test case because its satire has been variously interpreted. It seems to be a clear-cut mockery on romance-reading, in which the heroine is an object of ridicule. But such recent critics as Patricia Meyer Spacks and Mary Anne Schofield have argued that the novel

“provides satiric perspective on a society that deprives women of significant action” or “explores whether female power is possible in real life,” suggesting that Arabella is not to be laughed at but admired for resisting patriarchal power or pitied for ultimately succumbing to it.3 We ought to be able to arrive at a convincing account of what Lennox is trying to achieve and the techniques she uses to further her goals.

I. Reading in Search of a Novel’s Purpose

Perhaps the first question that suggests itself to anybody attempting to discover the purpose of a satiric novel is whether such an enterprise is even possible. A reader might object that assuming a work of literature has any single “purpose” is naïve, given the “death of the author.” The meaning of a particular text is not determined solely by the words on the page, our skeptic argues, but by each individual reader; therefore, whatever the author intended by the work is irrelevant and cannot be perceived. The objection holds some weight: Tom Jones or Evelina probably mean something different to me than they do to an undergraduate forced to read the work for a class, and these divergent experiences of the text may be in turn dissimilar to what an eighteenth-century reader of Fielding or Burney would have felt. To a significant degree, meaning is generated by the reader’s values. But the possible range of responses is at least somewhat determined by the words of the text itself, which were in turn chosen and organized by the author. Wolfgang Iser writes of Tom Jones that “certain controls are essential to prevent [the

3 Patricia Meyer Spacks, Desire and Truth: Functions of Plot in Eighteenth-Century English Novels (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 23; Mary Anne Schofield, Masking and Unmasking the Female Mind: Disguising Romances in Feminine Fiction, 1713–1799 (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1990), 132. 62

reader’s] subjectivity from playing too dominant a part” in the making of meaning of the novel.4

This observation is true of most works: though the reader may discover what meanings he or she likes, the author may attempt to steer the reader towards particular readings. Our method, then, should focus on the text and the reasoning behind its design.

An implicit assumption here is that authors write in order to have some effect on their readers, whether that effect be the production of laughter, the inculcation of virtue, or the provocation of thought about some issue. One might possibly write a novel without paying much attention to how it will be received—perhaps some novelists write for therapeutic reasons of self- expression without caring about whether or not their works are actually read. For our purposes, however, the assumption is valid in most cases. I am not aware that any of the major eighteenth- century novelists wrote from purely solipsistic intentions; some, such as Richardson and

Godwin, almost certainly intended to promote their values in their fiction. That authors attempt to affect their audiences seems even truer of satirists; as I have argued in the previous chapter, satire is primarily a rhetorical enterprise by which the satirist attempts to lead a reader to negative judgments of a target.

Granting that novels have purposes which can be deduced from an examination of the text, we are then faced with the problem of how the purpose is to be found. In order to read for a novel’s purpose, we must first identify the kinds of evidence that we can use to support our interpretations.

4 Wolfgang Iser, The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974), 46. 63

Types of Evidence

I believe four types of evidence can be of use in determining what an author aims his or her novel to accomplish, and (in the case of satiric novels) the kind and intensity of negative judgment the author encourages readers to make: 1) authorial commentary on a text’s purpose from outside the text; 2) authorial opinions as expressed directly within a text, as in prefaces or chapter titles; 3) external contexts of various kinds, including biographical information about the author and historical particulars; and 4) the intrinsic evidence of the narrative itself, including the structure of the plot and the types of characters employed.

1. External Authorial Commentary. Statements from authors about their own intent can be illuminating to readers trying to understand the design of their novels. Unfortunately for us, authors seldom make explicit statements explaining their satiric goals and how they are achieved.

Nonetheless, commentary from authors that does not directly touch on satiric purpose can be useful. Smollett’s denial that Roderick Random is autobiographical in a letter, for instance, might make us less inclined to believe that the primary aim of that novel is to savage specific individuals who had harmed Smollett in his youth.5 Elizabeth Inchbald’s letter to Godwin about the composition of Nature and Art states that she revised some passages of the novel “having

Newgate before my eyes” and was thus concerned about the political import of her satire.6 This statement does not tell us precisely what we are to make of the novel, but it at least tells us something about how intense Inchbald expected her readers to believe her satire was.

Two difficulties arise, however, when attempting to establish the purpose of an author from authorial statements. The first is that, as I have said, such statements are not always to be

5 Tobias Smollett, The Letters of Tobias Smollett, ed. Lewis M. Knapp (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), 112. 6 The letter is undated, and can be found in Appendix A of the Broadview edition of Nature and Art. See Elizabeth Inchbald, Nature and Art, ed. Shawn Lisa Maurer (Peterborough: Broadview, 2005), 159. All references to Nature and Art are to this edition. 64

had, and indeed are infrequently found in the eighteenth century. We are unlikely to obtain any authorial statements about just what Sterne meant by the conclusion of A Sentimental Journey without recourse to a Ouija board or a spirit medium. The second is that authorial statements of intent are not always reliable. An author’s statement about what he or she intends can be useful, but when it contradicts the evidence of the text itself, we ought to privilege the text. Our goal is not to determine what the actual author thought he or she was doing, but what the text itself seems intended to accomplish.

2. Internal Authorial Commentary. Sometimes an author’s commentary on a work will come from within the work itself. The most common example of this phenomenon is through discussions of the main text in various paratexts, such as prefaces and dedications. These are often more informative than external authorial commentary because they tend more directly to discuss the nature of the enterprise, as when Burney writes in the preface to Evelina that “to draw characters from nature, though not from life, and to mark the manners of the times, is the attempted plan of the following letters.”7 Of course, this statement is rather general, and we might perhaps deduce just as much information about the text from an actual reading of the novel. Authors can, however, be more specific about their intentions; the prefaces to both

Roderick Random and Ferdinand Count Fathom, for instance, both provide insight into

Smollett’s theory of what the novel (or at least his novels) should try to accomplish. From the former we learn that Smollett intends readers not only to feel “generous indignation” against the world, but also to “find entertainment in viewing those parts of life, where the humours and passions are undisguised by affectation, ceremony, or education; and the whimsical peculiarities

7 Frances Burney, Evelina: Or the History of a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World, ed. Edward A. Bloom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 9. 65

of disposition appear as nature has implanted them.”8 We may read Roderick Random as a largely misanthropic and pessimistic satire, but this comment implies that Smollett thought himself to be taking a more balanced approach, or at least wanted to claim that he did.

As with external authorial commentary, however, internal authorial commentary can sometimes be suspect. In the preface to Moll Flanders we find the assertion that “All possible

Care however has been taken to give no leud Ideas,” and that the novel on the whole has a moral tendency.9 Given the crime and immorality contained in the narrative itself, and the substantial profit Moll generates from these behaviors, the preface seems to apply to the novel only snarkily.

Likewise, Fielding claims in the preface of Joseph Andrews that he ridicules only those guilty of affectation, and that Parson Adams is “designed a Character of perfect Simplicity,” but we find that these statements are not totally borne out in the novel.10 In these kinds of cases we should treat paratexts with appropriate skepticism.

Not all internal authorial commentary is to be found in prefaces or dedications, however.

Some narratives will feature undramatized narrators who seem to stand in for the implied author.

One clear non-satiric example is the third edition of Clarissa, in which Richardson inserts footnotes that allow him to include narratorial commentary in his epistolary novel. These footnotes often comment on the values the readers should possess and the kinds of judgments they ought to make: at one point, responding to our potential opinion that Clarissa treats

Lovelace too coldly, the narratorial voice reminds us that Clarissa “is proposed as an Example; and therefore in her trials and distresses must not be allowed to dispense with those Rules which

8 Smollett, Roderick Random, 4. 9 The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders (London, 1722), v. Though traditionally attributed to Daniel Defoe, recent scholarship has suggested that this attribution is questionable, and so I have not listed Defoe as the author. See Ashley Marshall, “Did Defoe Write Moll Flanders and Roxana?” Philological Quarterly 89, no. 2–3 (2010): 209–41. 10 Henry Fielding, Joseph Andrews, ed. Martin C. Battestin (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1967), 7, 10. 66

perhaps some others of her Sex, in her delicate situation, would not have thought themselves so strictly bound to observe.”11 The implied author tells the reader bluntly and in no uncertain terms what values the reader ought to hold. Fielding’s prefatory chapters to each book of Tom Jones are not nearly as unsubtle as Richardson’s notes, but they too provide insights about what

Fielding thought he was doing. Of course, the statements of the narrator are not always those of the author. The narrator may be intradiegetic, a character in the narrative itself, like Esther

Summerson of Bleak House. Such narrators can be unreliable, as the unnamed narrator of

Palahniuk’s Fight Club is. But in many cases the narrative voice stands in for the author’s, and we can treat its statements about how to read the text as evidence of the author’s beliefs.

3. Contextual Evidence. Besides authorial commentary, some other kinds of information may help us to determine the nature of a satiric novel. Knowledge about the author’s biography and beliefs, for instance, can be helpful. As with authorial statements, useful biographical information is not always available, but in some cases it is indispensable. I do not mean that we should be engaging primarily in biographical criticism, but to read Caleb Williams without considering Godwin’s political beliefs as expressed in his other writings would be foolish. In some cases we have information about the way in which the work in question was produced. The first edition of Peregrine Pickle was probably written hastily, as O M Brack, Jr. has argued.12

This fact in itself does not reveal to us the aim of the novel, but it might inform and refine the conclusions we draw from the evidence of the text itself.

We should also be attentive to contemporary reception. Book reviews and accounts of novels from contemporary readers are not always available, and even when available they are not necessarily representative; just because we find evidence that a particular reader interpreted a

11 Samuel Richardson, Clarissa, or, The History of a Young Lady, 3rd ed., 8 vols. (London: 1751), 4:107. 12 O M Brack, Jr., “Smollett’s Peregrine Pickle Revisited,” Studies in the Novel 27, no. 3 (1995): 260–72, at 262. 67

work in a certain way does not mean that such an interpretation was common. Nonetheless, even limited evidence of how a work was received in its own time can be valuable for suggesting possibilities of how a work was meant to be interpreted. It is especially valuable when contemporary receptions differ drastically from modern critical interpretations. For example, we may be surprised at a 1751 review of Peregrine Pickle’s claim that the novel’s hero is a character

“too natural to be perfect, but in which the gentle shades serve only to raise the lights of the picture.”13 To modern readers, the novel seems to be a loosely-connected series of violent satiric pranks—certainly not a work in which much attention should be paid to his “gentle shades.”14

The existence of a contemporary response that differs from our own does not necessarily mean that our readings are misguided or incorrect. But this commentary might cause us at least to re- examine our conclusions and see if we can explain how the sentimental scenes of the narrative, which we largely ignore, might have caused an impact on the anonymous reviewer.

Contemporary responses that differ from our own may sometimes lead us to interpretations we might not otherwise have conceived of.

We can also draw upon what historical contexts are available in order to understand more fully the audiences for which authors were writing and the society in which they lived. No twenty-first-century reader can read exactly as an eighteenth-century reader would have done; the temporal and cultural distance between us and the audiences of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries is too large to be able to bridge with confidence. That said, we can attempt to close this gap at least somewhat through research into the immediate contexts in which any

13 Tobias Smollett: The Critical Heritage, ed. Lionel Kelly (London: Routledge, 1987), 48. The review is unsigned. It appeared in The Monthly Review, March 1751, iv, 355–64. 14 For instance, Jerry C. Beasley asserts that Peregrine’s “occasional acts of kindness and generosity do not balance against his frequent cruelties,” and that therefore “it is simply impossible to believe Smollett’s narrator when he tells us—as he repeatedly does—that Perry is, after all, good in his heart, but misguided.” See Jerry C. Beasley, Tobias Smollett: Novelist (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1998), 80. 68

given novel was written. Many kinds of contexts exist for each novel: what other kinds of novels were being written and read around the same time, how much the work cost and who might have been able to purchase it, and what other kinds of literature were popular at the time, among other kinds of useful contextual information. For instance, an awareness that jestbooks containing violent, grotesque, and scatological humor were popular during the mid-eighteenth century, as

Simon Dickie has recently demonstrated, might affect how we interpret the satiric impact of the physical humor to be found in the works of Smollett, Fielding, Graves, or Burney.15 Knowing how much money was worth in the eighteenth century can change kinds of judgments we make about characters and events in the period’s novels: as David Wallace Spielman has argued,

Robinson Crusoe reads much more like a fantastic fable than a work of great realism when we realize that, at novel’s end, Crusoe winds up with an amount of money equivalent to over

£14,000,000 in present-day pounds.16 Historical context cannot provide anything like certainty to our interpretations, but it can inform and improve our understanding of the judgments authors lead readers to make.

4. Evidence Intrinsic to the Narrative. Authorial commentary and contextual information are useful to have, but the problem we are trying to solve is how to determine what particular novels themselves seem designed to accomplish. For this reason, I believe the components of the narrative itself—the plot, the tone, the characters, and so forth—provide the most important evidence for our purposes. Yet deducing a novel’s import from the narrative itself seems much trickier than reading what an author has to say about his or her purpose. How do authors construct narratives in ways that steer readers towards particular values and judgments? Or, more broadly, what can authors do to attempt to alter the reader’s values?

15 Dickie, Cruelty and Laughter. See especially Chapters 1, 2, and 3. 16 David Wallace Spielman, “The Value of Money in Robinson Crusoe, Moll Flanders, and Roxana,” Modern Language Review 107, no. 1 (2012): 65–87, at 76. 69

The practice of reading novels at anything other than the most passive level necessarily involves making judgments and forming emotional attachments. Whenever characters are introduced into the narrative, we do not simply register their presence but determine what we think of them and how we feel about them. These judgments are made in much the same way that we would make valuations of people we meet in real life. When we are introduced to Pip in

Great Expectations, we are likely to do more than note that some character is describing his childhood to us—we decide what to make of the child Pip, likely arriving at an emotion of pity and sympathy due to Pip’s status as a cold, shivering orphan alone in a churchyard. When

Magwitch is first introduced, we probably make a negative assessment of him because of the way he threatens Pip. Likewise, we are likely to judge the events of a narrative based on how they affect characters. In Bleak House, we are led strongly to disapprove of the lawsuit of

Jarndyce and Jarndyce, and of the Court of Chancery by extension, based on the toxic effects it has on the principal figures of the narrative.

Our judgments and sympathies are not set in stone at the first introduction of a character or the advent of an event, however. An understanding of narrative structure may help us to understand how our judgments develop. Most narratives begin with an initial state or situation, which is then complicated or disturbed such that the narrative state changes. These shifts continue until the plot’s complications are resolved and a different, stable state is reached at the conclusion. Mieke Bal rightly contends that narratives must contain a series of “events,” which she defines as “the transition from one state to another state.”17 A girl lives in humble circumstances oppressed by her stepmother [initial state], she receives aid from a fairy godmother and becomes magically wealthy [change of state], goes to a ball [another change of state], and ends by marrying the prince [concluding state]. This narrative is simple, but most

17 Bal, Narratology, 5, 6. 70

novels, though with many more events, likewise lead the reader from an initial state through various changes of state until arriving at a conclusion. When we begin a narrative, we make an assessment of the characters and situations we are introduced to in the initial state. Then, with each change of state, we have an opportunity to revisit our judgments. Once we reach the end of the narrative, we will have developed and refined our judgments, and should be able to ascertain what kinds of values the author is leading the reader to accept. For instance, when we are introduced to Becky Sharp in the first chapter of Vanity Fair, we may be inclined to sympathize with her on account of her poverty and the coldness with which Miss Pinkerton treats her. As the narrative unfolds, however, our opinions toward her are likely to change for the worse; her actions begin to harm innocent victims, as when she beats her son. Each event involving Becky invites us to reassess how we feel about her.

Given that readers naturally make judgments about characters and events, authors can take advantage of those judgments to lead readers towards certain values. One way authors may attempt to influence the values of readers is through characters who serve as authorial spokespeople—characters who express opinions that seem to be consonant with the author’s.

These characters tend to be ones about whom we make positive judgments, often because they aid the protagonist. When we read narratives, we tend to identify with or at least desire success for the protagonist, of whom we are given a “sustained inside view,” to borrow Wayne Booth’s term.18 Consequently, when characters who help the protagonist succeed offer statements about values, we are subtly urged to accept those values. Turl in Holcroft’s Hugh Trevor serves precisely this function, lecturing Hugh on diverse topics ranging from the vice of pride to the hypocrisy of bishops; we feel that Turl’s values are those which Holcroft desires us to adopt.

Sometimes the authorial spokesperson is the protagonist himself or herself, as is the case in

18 Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction, 246. 71

Hermsprong. Bage leads us to positive judgments of his hero, and consequently we are likely to view favorably the ideas that Hermsprong advances in his many speeches. When these kinds of characters critique some individual, behavior, or institution, they are likely expressing beliefs the author would like the reader to agree with.

Characters may represent values without articulating them as authorial spokespeople do.

Some characters are caricatures whose only function is to embody some sort of idea; Sheldon

Sacks terms them “walking concepts.”19 Mr. Briggs of Cecilia desires nothing but the accumulation of wealth, and all of his character traits contribute to our sense that he represents miserly greed; he possesses no other interests or motivations. Dr. Blick of Hermsprong is never depicted except in ways that emphasize clerical pretentiousness. Our opinions of the values these characters embody shift based on their relationships to the protagonist, or to other characters with whom we sympathize. Thus when Mr. Briggs’s miserliness causes Cecilia great embarrassment and fails to protect her from losing her fortune, we may question the worth of the worldview he represents. Even characters who are more complex than walking concepts may be driven primarily by certain values, and our opinions of those values will shift as our identification with them changes. Tom Jones is not a walking concept, but one of the dominant features of his character is his good-natured benevolence. Our affinity with Tom nudges us towards an acceptance of his worldview and an admiration for the virtue of generosity. Key to our positive judgment of Tom’s values is that his actions benefit characters with whom we sympathize. Conceivably some author could create an extremely benevolent character whose actions nonetheless end up harming other characters that we care about; in such a case we might adopt a less cheerful attitude towards liberality.

19 Sacks, Fiction and the Shape of Belief, 163. 72

Even characters that do not a have predominant trait can nonetheless play significant roles in affecting the values of the audience. Austen’s Elizabeth Bennet has no single predominant character trait, unlike Tom Jones. She is a “rounder” character than Tom, and as a character who approximates an actual flesh-and-blood individual, she possesses many traits and values. Through her experiences over the course of Pride and Prejudice, however, the readers are invited to imagine the situation of a young woman whose fortunes depend on marriage, potentially to a dull and contemptible individual like Mr. Collins. If Austen succeeds in making us sympathize with Elizabeth, we recognize the tenuous position she, and other women on the marriage market, are placed in by social custom. The novel may consequently help to form readers’ opinions of money, marriage, and the role of women in society. In this type of narrative, readers’ values may be swayed through the situations characters find themselves in, regardless of whether or not those characters are walking concepts or otherwise representative of some specific worldview.

Sometimes narratives convey values not only through specific characters but through the impression we get of the world in which the narrative exists. As we read a novel, we become aware of the rules that govern its fictional setting. The more we read Amelia, for instance, the more we are convinced that in the world of that novel, almost nobody is entirely honest or straightforward. This conception does not arise from the actions of a single walking concept, but from the sheer multitude of instances in which Booth or Amelia are deceived or misled. Because we are immersed in this fictional world, we are invited to believe that the real world functions in this way and that naïve innocence is not a virtue. One could write a narrative set in a radically different world in which trust is a virtue and cynicism is a vice, perhaps arriving at something like C. S. Lewis’s Narnia books. If a trusting and artless character were to be introduced to us in 73

a narrative similar to Amelia, we might condemn him as stupid or gullible; if the same character were to be introduced into a more idealistic fictional world, we might judge him more favorably.

A caveat: just because the world of a narrative operates according to a certain logic does not mean readers automatically apply that logic to their own lives. We may read and understand

Amelia and yet feel that in real life some people, or even most people, are generally decent and honest. Amelia, after all, is a work of fiction, and the world it depicts—one in which Booth and

Amelia exist—is not the real world. But readers of fiction, especially realistic fiction, tend to assume that the fictional world operates like the real world except when explicitly told the contrary.20 We might read a fantastic tale like Matthew Lewis’s The Monk, in which demons manifest themselves in the world of the novel (a departure from the real world), but still assume that in all other respects the world of The Monk approximates our own—we take for granted, for instance, that the Catholicism Lewis depicts has the same basic beliefs and tenets as actual

Catholicism in the real world. Given this tendency of readers to find the worlds of novels— especially realistic novels—analogous to the real world, readers of Amelia would likely feel that the darkness of Fielding’s fictional world at least somewhat reflects the nature of the real world.

The rules of a believably-portrayed fictional world will guide us in assessing the characters and events of the narrative, possibly nudging our values closer to those promoted by the text.

As we are primarily interested here in satiric novels, we need to determine not only the ways in which satiric novelists attempt to affect the values of their audiences, but also the intensity of the (generally negative) judgments they lead readers to make. An author may choose between various intensities of critique, from mild ridicule to blistering invective. The satirist may fully commit to the idea that the target is a real danger to be exterminated; alternatively, he or

20 Marie-Laure Ryan refers to this idea as the “principle of minimal departure.” See Ryan, Possible Worlds, Artificial Intelligence, and Narrative Theory (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), 51. 74

she may suggest that it is a folly to be checked gently. He or she may even simply be attacking a harmless stock target for laughs. The novel’s tone is often a reliable indicator of intensity. If the narrative is light-hearted—if it employs amiable humor, for instance, and if the characters are not particularly realistic—then the satire is likely to be less intense. Dickens’s The Pickwick Papers is, for the most part, bouncy and cheerful, and while it exposes some human foibles it hardly fills one with antipathy towards humanity. Contrariwise, if the novel employs dark humor (or little humor at all), if the crisis seems plausible, or if the resolution is not positive, the tone will be darker and the satire will consequently seem more intense. A novel in which serious harm is done to the protagonists or characters we care about, as in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, is more likely to move readers to disgust or hatred. A novel with a relatively pessimistic conclusion, like

Godwin’s Caleb Williams, is likely to appear glum and lead us to believe that Godwin is truly committed to his critique of legal power.

Tone is not the only indicator of the harshness of satiric critique. A novel might have a relatively light tone and yet convey a harsh satiric message. We need to keep in mind the subject matter of the work and the overall outlook on life it conveys. To consider a twentieth-century example: what are we to make of Jaroslav Hašek’s The Good Soldier Schweik (1921–23)? The novel contains many jokes, absurd situations, and funny characters, lending it a light tone.

Hašek’s setting, however, is World War I, and the novel’s humor takes place against the backdrop of great human tragedy. Though the satire pokes fun at war and the military, the novel ultimately takes a grim view of its subject: Hašek’s reminders that great loss of life results from the stupid decisions of those who valorize war turn our judgment quite harshly against the idea that war is a glorious endeavor. 75

Determining what a satiric novel seems designed to critique and how forceful it is intended to be is not always easy. Interpreting the satire may be tricky if we do not share values with the implied author. If someone espousing orthodox Anglican beliefs were to read Hugh

Trevor, he or she would probably not be convinced to adopt the text’s values—although he or she would understand what kind of judgments Holcroft is trying to convince the reader to make.

The difficulties would increase if the reader’s values were even farther from Holcroft’s, for instance if the reader did not agree that truth or honesty are essentially desirable virtues. In most cases, however, we share enough in common with the author that we are able at least to understand the values a text invites us to adopt, even if we do not subscribe to them. We may indeed have good reasons actively to reject the values encoded in a text. Judith Fetterley famously argues that we ought to refuse reading American fictional texts as they were intended to be read, on the grounds that they tend to make female readers occupy male subject positions and thus promote a phallocentric system of values.21 But though we may object to a text’s overall message, we should still be able to characterize its satiric aims and methods.

We should also keep in mind that not all texts are designed to lead the readers to a single point of view or elicit only one response. Here Umberto Eco’s distinction between “closed” and

“open” texts may be of use. For Eco, closed texts “obsessively aim at arousing a precise response” from the reader; they “seem to be structured according to an inflexible project.” By contrast, a relatively open work demands the “theoretical, mental collaboration of the consumer, who must freely interpret an artistic datum, a product which has already been organized in its structural entirety.”22 Works that are wide open may even require the reader to complete the

21 Judith Fetterley, The Resisting Reader: A Feminist Approach to American Fiction (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978), xx–xxii. 22 Umberto Eco, The Role of the Reader: Explorations in the Semiotics of Texts (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1979), 8, 56. 76

work—as is the case with modern-day interactive fiction. Some eighteenth- and nineteenth- century novels seem clearly intended to produce a single interpretation (as we have seen in the example of the later editions of Clarissa). Others are more open. While no novel from this period approaches the kind of openness in which readers control the formation of the text itself, some offer the reader a wider range of interpretation. Dickens famously revised the ending of Great

Expectations to allow for the possibility of a positive resolution for Pip and Estella; the text does not indicate whether the original or the revision is to be preferred. Nineteenth-century readers would of course not know about the original ending, but modern readers may legitimately disagree, suggesting that—at least for us—the text is fairly open. We may not always be able to discover exactly which values an author means to communicate in a work. That said, by paying attention to the judgments we form of characters and events, we often can get a sense of what a text seems designed to achieve.

As we attempt to determine how authors lead readers to certain kinds of judgments and values, we need to remember to take account of the other types of evidence—various types of authorial commentary and contexts. Our sense of what an author intends us to make of a particular character or event may be affected by what the author says about the character, or by contextual information that allows us to understand more clearly the significance of that character’s actions. But we should also keep in mind that information from outside the text aids us only insofar as it improves our ability to find and interpret the evidence of the text itself.

Ultimately, to understand a novel’s satiric aim, we need to read with sensitivity to the judgments the author leads the reader to make and the techniques through which the reader is influenced.

Reading Procedure

If these four types of evidence can help us determine what a satiric novel seems designed to achieve, how should we go about the process of interpretation? We should start with the evidence of the text itself, reading it carefully in order to arrive at an initial hypothesis of what kinds of judgments the author leads us to make, paying special attention to negative judgments, as these will help us to determine the novelist’s primary satiric target. Once we have determined what we think of the narrative, we can then use external evidence to test our conclusions.

When we begin reading, we should be aware of specific parts of narrative that demand more attention than others. Peter J. Rabinowitz has argued for the existence of “rules of notice,” principles which govern which parts of a narrative receive the most attention and tend to have the most impact on readers. First sentences, for example, are particularly memorable and often tend to carry increased significance.23 In a similar way, the opening of any narrative is particularly important for forming the reader’s judgments. Typically, the central characters are introduced here, and so we need to make initial assessments of them based on how they are characterized.

When the narrator is not also a character in the world of the story, we should also determine what we think of him or her. Most important, we need to gain an initial sense of the values the text is trying to promote. Our conception of a text’s values is likely to change and develop the more we read, but we are likely to form some sort of working hypothesis from the beginning of a novel.

As we make assessments, we should keep in mind the importance of sympathy in forming our judgments. The opening of a narrative usually provides us with a character or characters to whom we can develop an attachment. The first chapter of Tom Jones introduces the narrator, whose urbane manner gains our trust. He seems to be a decent individual, and, absent any evidence to the contrary, his values and judgments appear to be trustworthy. Thus, when he

23 Rabinowitz, Before Reading, 43, 58. 78

introduces Allworthy as a good man, we are likely to agree with his assessment. In the third chapter, when Allworthy’s goodwill towards the young Tom is contrasted with the hard- heartedness of Mrs. Wilkins, we know whose opinion is to be trusted: only a very perverse reader would side with Mrs. Wilkins’s point of view. Of course, our sympathies may change over the course of the novel, and we may decide that Allworthy is not as wise as he is made to appear, but our initial assessment is critical for establishing the benchmarks by which we will evaluate other characters and events. And our first impression is strong enough that even when

Allworthy banishes Tom, we never waver in our belief that he is a generally good man.

Once we have established opinions about the initial characters, we should note the various changes of state as they occur. Each new event alters the narrative situation, giving us new information and perspective. We can therefore use events as opportunities to re-evaluate our judgments of the characters, ideas, or situations depicted. Sometimes we may find that our opinions are justified or even intensified by new situations. We may believe that Ferdinand

Count Fathom is a wretch, and each subsequent villainous action he commits may serve to confirm that opinion of him and increase our distaste. Other changes in the narrative may cause us to reverse our opinions. At the beginning of Joseph Andrews, we find Joseph and his insistence upon male chastity absurd. Over the course of the narrative, however, various events cause us to revise our assessment of him, until “Joseph is finally admirable as the instance of chastity and good sense that he early claims to be,” as Paul Hunter argues.24 Our judgments need not be limited to characters, but can also extend to ideas or concepts. Characters like the Noble

Lord and Miss Mathews in Amelia may increasingly lead us to feel that corruption is ubiquitous throughout society. We may also assess social institutions: we may find, for instance, that our

24 J. Paul Hunter, Occasional Form: Henry Fielding and the Chains of Circumstance (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975), 96. 79

opinions of organized religion grow more negative as we encounter Parsons Barnabas and

Trulliber. By paying attention to the changing states of the plot, we can perceive how authors attempt to control the beliefs and attitudes of their readers.

There are several parts of the narrative besides the opening that deserve special attention.

Whenever a new character is introduced, for instance, we must investigate what kinds of values they represent and make a judgment of their characters. Moments when the narrative surprises us—when an event occurs contrary to our expectations—are also likely to be particularly important. The narrator of Tom Jones is usually reliable in his characterization of the individuals

Tom meets—making the moments when he deceives us especially jarring (more on how this surprise affects the novel’s satire in Chapter 4). The conclusions of novels are also important for deducing an author’s attitude towards his characters, as here we are typically informed of what rewards or punishments characters reap for their actions. Villainous characters may repent, convincingly or otherwise, or they may suffer some gruesome fate. Virtuous characters may come to good ends, or, particularly in darker satiric novels like Burney’s Cecilia, remain scarred due to the machinations of the villains. What happens to the characters at the end of a narrative

(and how plausible those fates are) are key for measuring a novel’s satiric tone.

Having come to the end of the narrative and made numerous judgments about various characters, ideas, and institutions, we may draw some conclusions about the author’s design. If we are often led to evaluate something positively, then the novel is likely intended to promote it.

Conversely, if many of our negative assessments have consistently been directed against a few ideas or institutions, we are probably reading a work in which the author aimed to satirize those concepts. If we are focused on satiric novels, as I am in this study, we will be most (though not solely) interested in those things which are portrayed negatively. We must keep in mind here that 80

our judgments should not be reduced simplistically to good or bad, positive or negatively.

Different kinds of positive and negative judgments exist—grudging tolerance is distinct from contempt, which is distinct from outright hatred. Keeping in mind the nuances of judgment, we may attempt to categorize the novel by its satiric aim.

Our conclusions should then be tested against any external evidence that we have managed to collect. If our characterization of the novel is vastly different from contemporary reactions, for instance, or if some historical contexts suggest that we have been misinterpreting the text, then we should step back and examine other possibilities. If we feel, on reading Evelina, that Captain Mirvan is a monster who commits unjustifiable violence against the targets of his pranks, we might at least consider why a review of the novel in the Critical Review refers to

Mirvan approvingly as “an honest English sailor.”25 We should likewise reassess our conclusions if they are egregiously out of sync with modern criticism of the novel, or if we produce readings that seem to us strange or doubtful. I do not mean to say that our interpretation is invalid if it conflicts with the general critical consensus or our own instincts. We should, however, be cautious whenever our readings turn up oddities. If, after reading Holcroft’s Anna St. Ives, we find Frank Henley and his values insufferable—and believe that the character is designed to be so—we have likely erred. Returning to the text itself and checking for the textual evidence supporting our interpretation can increase our confidence in our reading—or it may give us a chance to correct, refine, or modify our assessment of the novel. We might also attempt to find evidence for alternative readings or try to explain why other readers have disagreed with our own assessments, all the while maintaining a willingness to change our opinions should the need arise.

25 “Evelina,” Critical Review 46 (September 1778): 202–04, at 203. 81

We can also consider counterfactual possibilities as a way of refining and testing our conclusions. Using counterfactuals can help us see what novelists did not intend to do. For example, if we hypothesize that Burney designed Camilla to be a hard-hitting satire on patriarchal power in the same vein as Cecilia, we might consider whether she could have structured the novel differently in order better to achieve that aim. Our thinking might lead us to ask whether the ending of Camilla might have been darkened, along the lines of Cecilia (in which the novel’s main antagonists fail to reform, and the heroine can hardly be said to attain happiness). A similar type of ending in Camilla would intensify our negative judgments of Dr.

Marchmont. As the text is written, however, the ending is much more cheerful, and Marchmont comes off much better than the various father-figures in Cecilia—fallible, yes, but in an understandably human way, as I have argued elsewhere.26 If we find other instances in the text in which Burney might plausibly have made her satire harsher but did not, we might decide to revise or qualify our initial hypothesis. Of course, counterfactuals should be used with caution.

We cannot know exactly what (for example) Roderick Random might have looked like if

Smollett had decided to make the protagonist a woman, or what values Tom Jones would convey if Sophia married Blifil. Even minor changes to the beginning of a narrative could create dramatic (and unpredictable) changes. We must work with the texts we have and avoid wild speculation. That said, if we limit our claims, we should be able to consider how certain elements of a text, if changed, would impact our understanding of the satire—and gain insights that could help us see what an author did or did not intend.

The process of reading the text, testing conclusions against external evidence and alternate possibilities, and then refining those conclusions should be repeated until we are satisfied with the interpretations we have drawn. In most cases we will arrive at a relatively clear

26 Fung, “Frances Burney as Satirist,” 948. 82

sense of what a novel’s author wishes to accomplish in the text, what is being satirized, and what kind of satire is being employed. This method works reasonably well with most eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century satiric novels, and should allow us to categorize those works with some confidence.

Some Potential Problems

One difficulty we may encounter when trying to understand a novel’s satire is the distance between the reader’s values and the author’s, which I have touched upon earlier. A reader who disagrees greatly with the author is likely to come to an interpretation of the novel extremely divergent from what the author intended. We may, for instance, decide that Peregrine Pickle’s homophobia makes him an unsympathetic and unpleasant character; the critic who feels this way will likely have a more difficult time assessing what Peregrine Pickle seems designed to do and what rhetorical techniques Smollett uses in the novel. Our own values and beliefs may limit our ability effectively to read for the author’s purpose. As we make judgments and discriminations, we should ask whether or not these judgments are likely to have been made by the original readers. Peregrine Pickle might strike us as terribly intolerant, but it was unlikely to have been read that way by eighteenth-century readers, and the text was probably not designed to promote such a reaction. Here knowledge of historical context is important: we must take into account what we know of the likely beliefs and prejudices of a work’s intended audience. Feminist theory may sensitize us to the ways in which Mr. Tyrold of Camilla is misogynist and controlling—but eighteenth-century readers might not have thought him so.

Even if we manage to keep our own biases in check, we might not always obtain satisfactory results. Sometimes, we will find that the evidence of the text contradicts itself: that 83

some parts of a text suggest one aim, while other parts suggest a contradictory aim. For instance, part of a work may seem to use satire primarily for the purposes of entertainment, but other parts may be quite harsh in directing the reader’s judgments. Roderick Random contains much humor, but it also contains a horrifying depiction of the Battle of Cartagena de Indias, which is described in a considerably grimmer tone. In such a case, we should reconsider the evidence of the text and try to find external evidence that will help us reconcile the contradictory scenes. We may conclude that we have been misinterpreting portions of the text, or that the contrast between different tones is itself a meaningful rhetorical technique. A productive synthesis is not always possible, however. If we have exhausted our attempts to discover a unified aim for the text, we might be led to conclude that the text embodies two different aims in roughly equal proportions.

As I will discuss in Chapter 6, we can find this kind of mixture in Elizabeth Hamilton’s Memoirs of Modern Philosophers. Admitting such a conclusion is not always easy; as critics, we may naturally prefer to pinpoint a text’s purpose than to admit the impossibility of doing so. This impulse is particularly strong if we are attempting to classify or taxonomize texts. But we are better off acknowledging that the text does not seem to embody one overarching aim than to distort our interpretations in the name of neat categorization.

In certain satires, the author may not be attempting to lead readers to a specific set of judgments. A satirist may attempt to call attention to a state of affairs or provoke thought about some subject without necessarily promoting a definite opinion about it. Gulliver’s Travels is an instructive non-novelistic example. As Ashley Marshall has argued, Swift does not offer a clear sense of how he feels about humanity, leaving us to answer the question of whether or not humanity is essentially bestial and evil for ourselves. We are unlikely to break the critical stalemate over whether or not Swift intends to castigate all of humanity for being vicious and 84

irrational brutes in the voyage to Houyhnhnmland. Swift’s intent is not clear: at times the narrative seems to justify a hard reading of the satire, while at other times it suggests that mankind is not universally depraved. I find Marshall’s suggestion that the effect of Gulliver’s

Travels may be “sheer bewilderment” to be helpful here.27 In this case, and in similar cases, we might be unable convincingly to indicate what kinds of judgments authors desire their readers to make simply because those judgments do not exist. This type of narrative is not often encountered in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries—few authors possess Swift’s mastery of irony and misdirection—but we should not assume that every narrative contains a clear-cut position to be communicated to the reader.

Despite these limitations, attempting to determine the purposes of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century satiric novels is a worthwhile endeavor. We will find great variations in the tones of satiric novels, and discriminating between different types of satire will improve our understanding of the form. And while exceptions exist, in most cases satirists do have discernible attitudes and beliefs that they embed in their texts. In the following sections, I hope to show the feasibility of determining satiric purpose and technique by analyzing Lennox’s A Female

Quixote. By paying attention to the judgments readers are induced to make by the text, we may resolve some of the interpretive problems that have arisen about the nature of that novel’s satire.

II. Arabella and the Problem of The Female Quixote

Determining Lennox’s satiric objective in The Female Quixote is surprisingly difficult. The target may seem obvious: clearly, the novel satirizes the reading of chivalric romances to some degree. Critics have explicitly or implicitly suggested a multitude of other satiric purposes,

27 Ashley Marshall, “Gulliver, Gulliveriana, and the Problem of Swiftian Satire,” Philological Quarterly 84, no. 2 (2005): 211–39, at 234. 85

however, showing that the work is not so straightforward. The variety of interpretations is bewildering, but they can be categorized into two basic groups. Critics of the novel tend either to find that the novel criticizes Arabella’s flaws or to believe that Arabella is a generally admirable character whose quixotism reveals the errors of the characters around her. Crucial to determining the satiric purpose of the novel, then, is what we make of Arabella.

Textual evidence for reading Arabella as the target of satire is easy to find. After all, the protagonists of Quixote narratives tend to be mad, and the humor of these kinds of works derives from the failure of the Quixote figure accurately to grasp reality. But is Arabella’s only fault her love of romance, and if not, what is Lennox targeting? Critics have suggested several different possibilities. For some, Arabella’s problem lies in her self-centeredness. Arabella’s insistence that reality ought to conform to the individual’s desires is “egotistical,” according to Elaine M.

Kauvar.28 Similarly, Ronald Paulson refers to Arabella as “a monster of egotism and self- sufficiency.”29 Other critics have argued that Arabella’s problem is her desire for sexual attention. Though she goes to great lengths to defend her chastity, she nonetheless conceives of herself as a figure of irresistible sexual attractiveness. Laurie Langbauer points out that “romance is associated with women and, as the pun on romance (a love affair) suggests, with women’s sexuality—a sexuality that, because it is women’s, is necessarily ‘improper.’”30 Janet Todd argues that Arabella’s cure by the clergyman “allows a firm statement of patriarchal and sentimental doctrine combined”; The Female Quixote consequently serves “as conduct book, colluding with the new ideology of femininity and teaching the sentimental image of

28 Elaine M. Kauvar, “Jane Austen and The Female Quixote,” Studies in the Novel 2, no. 2 (1970): 211–21, at 218. 29 Ronald Paulson, Don Quixote in England: The Aesthetics of Laughter (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 173. 30 Laurie Langbauer, Women and Romance: The Consolations of Gender in the English Novel (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990), 79. 86

womanhood.”31 The mockery of Arabella’s delusions is by this reading actually satire on female sexuality, and so the work ultimately affirms patriarchal power and upholds the idea that women should be chaste, well-behaved, and focused on the domestic sphere. What the Arabella-as- egotist and Arabella-as-promiscuous woman interpretations have in common is a conviction that

Lennox wants readers to disapprove strongly of Arabella’s actions, as her delusional behavior is wrong.

Yet many critics have interpreted The Female Quixote in such a way as to suggest that the target of satire is some aspect of eighteenth-century social custom or thought, and that

Arabella, by acting as a counter-cultural force, reveals the flaws of and implicitly criticizes the society in which she lives. In these readings Arabella is not so much a butt of satire as an exemplary figure whom we ought to admire. The most common way to view Arabella as a commendable character is to interpret her as a proto-feminist whose eccentric worldview allows her to escape from the oppression of patriarchal custom. The advent of feminist criticism in the late twentieth century, and the resulting surge of interest in Lennox, has made this reading popular since the late 1980s. Margaret Anne Doody’s introduction to the novel notes that

Arabella is “truly strong-minded,” and as such is an admirable figure.32 Romance provides her a space to speak and to exercise power. Her obsession with romance allows her to live a richer and fuller life than those lived by the women she meets at Bath, who have a mind only for gossip and trivial entertainments. As Arabella herself puts the point, “What room, I pray you, does a Lady give for high and noble Adventures, who consumes her Days in Dressing, Dancing, listening to

31 Janet Todd, The Sign of Angellica: Women, Writing, and Fiction 1660–1800 (London: Virago, 1989), 153, 160. 32 Margaret Anne Doody, introduction to The Female Quixote, by Charlotte Lennox, ed. Margaret Dalziel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), xi–xxxii, at xxiv. 87

Songs, and ranging the Walks with People as thoughtless as herself?”33 The fact that such insipid activities constitute normal female behavior, as defined by a patriarchal society—and that the only way a woman can escape from these norms is through a denial of reality—leads some critics to read The Female Quixote as a satire on patriarchy. Spacks argues that though the novel ridicules romances, it shows that they are also necessary because “women need alternatives to their socially-defined state of meaningless and powerless activity” (14). John Richetti notes that the novel depicts a world in which “wealthy women are thought to fulfill themselves by collecting the erotic attention of men of their class,” and that this depiction is “implicitly satiric of the moral deformation of such a prelude to serious life in marriage and reproduction.”34 From the position of these critics, Arabella’s quixotism is not wrong-headed but revolutionary.

Given the complex and problematic nature of the novel, what should our reading of The

Female Quixote aim to accomplish? A successful interpretation should not only identify

Lennox’s satiric aim, but explain why the novel has been so conducive to wildly divergent interpretations. If Arabella is indeed a butt of satire, why does Lennox design the text in such a way as to invite reading her as a genuine heroine whose values are to be accepted? Conversely, if the novel celebrates Arabella’s use of romance to escape the constraints of patriarchal society, then how are we to explain the passages where ridicule seems to be directed at the heroine?

Reading the novel for its purpose ought to shed some light on these questions. In order to answer the question of what Lennox intends in The Female Quixote and how its satire functions, we will need to pay attention to the judgments Lennox leads her readers towards. While the judgments we make of other characters, such as Glanville, the Countess, and the Clergyman, are important, our sense of the novel’s satiric aim is dependent primarily on how we are to assess Arabella—not

33 Charlotte Lennox, The Female Quixote, ed. Margaret Dalziel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 279. All references to The Female Quixote are to this edition. 34 John Richetti, The English Novel in History 1700–1780 (London: Routledge, 1999), 206. 88

just whether she is meant to be judged positively or negatively, but what specific attitude or attitudes we should take towards her. Is she terrible, ridiculous but mostly harmless, endearingly odd, or heroically admirable? Let us, then, turn to the techniques Lennox uses to guide our judgment of her heroine.

How Lennox Controls Judgment of Arabella: Three Techniques

How we view Arabella will depend on a number of factors, some of which are outside the control of the author. For instance, a reader who greatly enjoys reading romances might easily sympathize with Arabella—so much so that he or she misses or willfully ignores the satire on romance-reading. The responses of individual readers to this text (or to any given text) is determined at least in part by the beliefs they hold prior to reading. Nonetheless, we can see that

Lennox attempts to control the reactions of the audience to her heroine. To do so, she relies heavily upon three techniques: 1) characterizing Arabella unrealistically and with humor; 2) showing that Arabella’s behavior has potentially damaging consequences but finding some way to avoid any actual harm; and 3) introducing a number of characters who act as foils to Arabella.

Lennox employs the first technique as soon as the heroine is introduced in Chapter 1.

Once we learn the most relevant facts about Arabella’s character, namely that she believes romances are real but that in all other respects she is reasonable, we can make an assessment about whether or not the character approximates an actual person. James Phelan’s idea of the components of fictional characters may be useful here: the “thematic” component (the way a character represents an idea or a larger class of people) of Arabella is emphasized, while the

“mimetic” component (how a character imitates a flesh-and-blood individual) is less 89

pronounced.35 In all likelihood we will never meet and individual who has arrived at the age of seventeen and is still unable to differentiate fantastic fiction from reality. We can understand, however, that the character of Arabella is meant to represent, through the technique of caricature, readers of romance more broadly.

The idea that Arabella does not closely resemble an actual individual we might meet may seem to be an obvious point. This fact does, however, have a significant impact upon the kinds of judgments the text invites us to make. By employing an unrealistic and caricatured heroine,

Lennox is signaling that the tone of the novel is light and that its content will be primarily humorous. Most readers tend to identify more strongly with protagonists who are described as being something like an actual individual. The events that occur to her do not invite as strong an emotional reaction as they might if she were more realistic. Consider a novel with a more realistic protagonist—Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles, for instance. The power of that novel would be diminished for many readers if Tess were to be less realistically characterized—the impact of Tess’s tragic fate relies on a sense that a real life has been ruined. By using a caricatured protagonist, Lennox aims to lower the emotional stakes. The judgments we make of

Arabella, positive or negative, are not supposed to be of great intensity.

I do not mean to suggest that, just because Arabella is an exaggerated character, we do not care about what happens to her. Even though she is a caricature, we nonetheless form judgments of her and become emotionally attached to her, just as we would a more realistic character. Indeed, Lennox seems to desire us to sympathize with her heroine. The first chapter makes clear that she is to be the heroine of the narrative; we are told that “Nature had indeed given her a most charming Face, a Shape easy and delicate, a sweet and insinuating Voice, and an Air so full of Dignity and Grace, as drew the Admiration of all that saw her” (6–7). Though

35 Phelan, Reading People, Reading Plots, 2–3. 90

her romance reading is an obvious fault, she is not entirely to blame for it. The text presents this preoccupation as arising from Arabella’s seclusion from the world; romance-reading is her only form of entertainment. These details suggest that we are supposed to like her. Further contributing to this effect is the fact that readers are generally predisposed to sympathize with the focal character of a story because of narrative convention. Some narratives employ focal characters who are not entirely sympathetic—part of Hogg’s Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner is narrated by a self-righteous murderer—but for the most part we tend to hope that the main character succeeds. Arabella, then, while hardly realistic, is nonetheless a character to whom we are supposed to wish well.

The effect of Arabella’s caricatured characterization, however, is that we are unlikely to find that Lennox is attempting to make a serious satiric statement about a major social problem.

We may, of course, read The Female Quixote in such a way as to emphasize its commentary on important ideological or moral issues, as critics like George E. Haggerty and Spacks have done.36

But the characterization of Arabella suggests that Lennox herself did not intend the novel to be a hard-hitting takedown of patriarchal culture, or a grave condemnation of egotism. I do not mean that literary works employing exaggerated and unrealistic characters cannot convey scathing social criticism—The Beggar’s Opera, for instance, can arguably be interpreted as a nihilistic satire, even though the characters are hardly mimetic. By suggesting that low criminals are analogous to politicians, the play nonetheless invites its audience to draw direct parallels between the fictional events and grim real-life problems. But nothing in the text of The Female

Quixote suggests that we should look past the novel’s light tone and caricatured characterization of Arabella to find darker commentary on a pressing social issue.

36 George E. Haggerty, Unnatural Affections: Women and Fiction in the Later Eighteenth Century (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998). For Haggerty, Lennox only outwardly conforms to the marriage plot, while actually subverting patriarchal norms and given “voice to female desire” (136). 91

Lennox extends her blithely exaggerated characterization of Arabella in the third chapter, when the heroine speaks for the first time. Here, she commands Lucy not to be “accessary to the

Conveying his presumptuous Thoughts to me either by Letters or Messages; nor suffer him to corrupt your Fidelity with the Presents he will very probably offer you,” all the while hoping that

Lucy will disobey her orders and bring her love letters from Hervey (11). Arabella’s frustration grows as a week elapses without any sign that Hervey has attempted to corrupt Lucy. This marks the first episode in which Lennox creates humor out of the incongruity between Arabella’s perceptions and reality. At this point Lennox dispels any doubt that Arabella’s quixotism will be played for laughs, and sets up the probability that the novel will contain many such comic episodes. Prior to this point, Lennox could hypothetically have taken the text in a darker direction, even while employing a quixotic protagonist. Consider, for instance, a possible narrative in which Arabella is deemed well and truly mad by her acquaintances, who are not nearly as tolerant of her as they are in the actual story. Consequently, she is thrown into an asylum—perhaps something like the one that appears in Smollett’s Sir Launcelot Greaves—and endures great mental anguish before finally escaping. This sequence of events could plausibly follow from the first two chapters of the novel, before Lennox indicates the comic direction of the story, but it would seem jarring and abrupt after she has shown that Arabella is mainly a source of humor. Given the general absurdity of Arabella’s character, Lennox seems to be establishing the novel’s light tone, all the while suggesting that the heroine is not exemplary.

If Arabella is intended to be a butt of satire, her flaws cannot always be harmless.

Otherwise readers would not desire her to change and grow, and her reform would be unsatisfactory. Once Lennox establishes the expectation that no dire catastrophes will arise from

Arabella’s actions, she intensifies the negative consequences of her heroine’s quixotism. If we 92

are paying attention to changes of narrative state, we will notice a pattern. Often, a complication will ensue that will invite us to look critically upon Arabella’s behavior. Typically it will involve potentially hurting somebody whom we are supposed to care about. But then, the situation improves; the harm that was threatened does not come to pass, or at least is not as extreme as it might have been. The clearest example of this technique is when Arabella refuses to visit

Glanville when he is ill and in danger of death. If Lennox has succeeded in making us sympathize with Arabella, we are likely to approve of Glanville as well. Glanville, unlike

Hervey, does not pursue Arabella for her money, but appreciates her for the person she is; furthermore, Arabella herself recognizes that Glanville “had a great deal of Merit” (30). To be sure, some readers do not find Glanville appealing—of which more later—but clearly Lennox aims for us to find him sympathetic. The result is that when Arabella does not aid Glanville in his distress, we are invited to find more fault with her behavior than when she thwarts Hervey or some other unsympathetic character. In this way Lennox tries to lead us to a more negative judgment of Arabella than we have held up to this point.

Glanville’s illness, of course, does not prove fatal. Such a development would be inconsistent with the light and cheery tone Lennox has already established. Glanville’s death would not only be jarring, but it would also introduce a seriousness into the narrative which might cause readers to intensify their negative judgments of Arabella. Her refusal to comfort him would seem much crueler. Furthermore, because Arabella’s quixotism has largely been harmless prior to this point, we might feel betrayed, shocked, or otherwise angry that Arabella has behaved in such a way to a dying person. By having Glanville recover, Lennox attempts to mitigate our criticism of her heroine. While she shows that Arabella’s quixotism can possibly cause distress to others, the actual distress is averted. Here we should keep in mind the varying 93

kinds of negative judgments we can develop about characters. Lennox seems to be steering us away from viewing Arabella as an utter wretch, inviting us instead to assess her as a flawed and inexperienced youth who does not act out of malice or ill-will. She is not a character who should be thwarted and overcome, but rather one who needs mainly to grow and mature.

For some readers, however, Lennox’s technique of avoiding the potential consequences of Arabella’s delusions might not be effective in keeping the heroine likeable. Such a character would be quite annoying in real life, at least for some readers, and even though Arabella does not represent a flesh-and-blood individual, they might find her grating. We are told often that, aside from her obsession with romance, Arabella is a normal and reasonable individual, but we never see her act in this manner. In order to reinforce the idea that we should in fact wish for Arabella’s success, Lennox creates several situations by which we can contrast Arabella’s behavior with that of other characters. In doing so, she seems to be emphasizing that though Arabella is flawed, she is nonetheless good-natured. The most obvious example here is Charlotte Glanville, whose

“self-centeredness, pride, and insincerity,” as Paulson puts the point, are presented as more serious offenses than Arabella’s quixotism.37 Though Arabella acts in ways that seem cold and impolite given social conventions, she does so out of genuine misunderstanding. By contrast,

Charlotte acts intentionally out of self-interest. As always, the values of individual readers ultimately determine the effectiveness of this juxtaposition—a reader who did not object to aggressive self-advancement might fail to find Arabella more sympathetic than Charlotte. But clearly Lennox intends Charlotte to be a foil that will improve our opinion of the heroine.

The same technique of contrasting Arabella to others around her is the reason why

Arabella must leave her country residence and journey to Bath and London. In these places,

Arabella is surrounded by other women, and we can compare their behavior to hers. Lennox

37 Paulson, Don Quixote in England, 176. 94

suggests that Arabella, for all her flaws, lives a fuller life than her “normal” counterparts— though she is deluded, her desires and pursuits are more intellectually stimulating than card- playing or idle gossip. For Paulson, the journey to Bath is a flaw in the novel’s construction. He writes that “the intense psychological scrutiny of Arabella made possible by the small circle [of acquaintances] and the single locale is replaced by a rather clumsy attempt at the rapid satiric survey of society,” which Lennox includes “as if she remembered it was expected of her.”38 But this critique misses the effect that these chapters have on our overall assessment of Arabella.

These scenes provide us with rare moments in which Arabella appears sensible and intelligent.

Lennox is trying to show that her heroine has redeeming virtues as well as oddities, and that we should therefore desire her cure.

We should, however, avoid the mistake of viewing Arabella’s quixotism as a positive trait in itself simply because it provides Arabella the perspective needed to condemn the trivial pursuits of others. Lennox surely does intend to satirize women who spend their time in meaningless activities—the chapter in which Arabella discusses the pointlessness of these pursuits is entitled “Being a Chapter of the Satyrical Kind”—but that Lennox extends her critique to the structure of society as a whole is unclear (278). If Lennox were aiming to hold up

Arabella’s romance obsession, and the sexual power it entails, as an object of admiration, why is it mocked throughout the rest of the narrative? And what are we to make of the Countess, who does not believe romances are real but nonetheless “hates Cards, keeps no Assembly, is seen but seldom at Publick Places,” and in general refuses to live a vapid life (333)? Through her, Lennox seems to indicate that women can possess meaningful existences without overturning society or radically changing the way they perceive the world. One might argue that Lennox is merely

“paying lip service” to patriarchal ideals while actually subverting them, as Haggerty does (136).

38 Paulson, Satire and the Novel, 277. 95

But how would her readers tell the difference between a work that actually upholds patriarchal ideas and one that pretends to? Lennox could not reasonably have hoped that her readers would have been able to see through the mockery of Arabella’s ideas to find a hidden proto-feminist message at the work’s core.

The techniques we have discussed—characterizing Arabella in an exaggerated and unrealistic way, showing that her quixotism is potentially harmful without actualizing the harm, and employing contrasts to make Arabella appear wise in some instances—suggest that Lennox is attempting to steer the reader between two extremes. Given that the novel depicts Arabella acting in clearly erroneous and inconsiderate ways, we have reason to read her as a butt of satire, as critics like Paulson and Todd have done. Yet we cannot ignore the fact that despite the emotional pain she causes to those around her, Lennox also attempts to characterize Arabella as lively, intelligent, and sympathetic. We are free to interpret Arabella as an “often tiresome and irritating” character, as Paulson does, or as a positive exemplar of a woman who refuses to live silently and submissively, as Doody does—but Lennox seems to intend neither of these readings.39 Instead, she wants us to see the problems inherent in Arabella’s worldview without feeling animosity or disgruntlement for the character, reactions that would destroy our pleasure in the novel.

The Nature of Lennox’s Satire in “The Female Quixote”

Arabella is clearly meant to be a butt of satire, but what about Arabella’s behavior, precisely, does Lennox intend to satirize? Of course, part of the novel’s satire is on romance-reading, as this is Arabella’s most prominent and obvious trait. But I do not believe that the satire falls purely, or even primarily, on the reading of French romances. Both Henry Fielding and Clara

39 Paulson, Don Quixote in England, 173; Doody, introduction to The Female Quixote, xxv. 96

Reeve comment that the taste for romance-reading had significantly diminished by 1752.40 While a satirist can certainly mock a target after its vogue has passed, other signs also point to the idea that romance-reading is not the only fault Lennox satirizes. As we have seen, Lennox critiques other characters who are not obsessed with romance, like Charlotte. Lennox might simply be satirizing a variety of different targets, but let us see if we can find a common thread between the satire on Arabella and that on other figures.

As our judgments are largely directed by how events and behaviors affect the characters we view positively, we might consider what, exactly, harms the novel’s sympathetic figures or keeps them from their goals. Ultimately, Arabella’s problem is not simply that she misinterprets the real world, as when she mistakes highwaymen for knights or horse-races for the Olympic

Games. These mistakes, while amusing, harm nobody. When we consider the episodes in which she actually causes harm or comes close to doing so, however, we can see that Lennox is targeting another aspect of her character. At one point in the novel Arabella develops the idea that Sir Charles harbors an incestuous lust for her (161). Up to this point Lennox has drawn Sir

Charles as a fairly sympathetic character. He often misunderstands Arabella, to comic effect; he thus functions as a sort of likeable clown. He also genuinely wishes the best for his son. If

Lennox succeeds in making us like him (or at least making us not dislike him), we will probably feel that Arabella’s insinuations of incest are rude and ungrateful. Given that the accusation is unjust, Sir Charles certainly has every right to feel offended. The problem here is not simply that

Arabella misinterprets the world around her, but that she does so in a self-centered way. Were

40 In a review of The Female Quixote in The Covent Garden Journal issue dated Tuesday, March 24, 1752, Fielding writes that “the Humour of Romance” is “not at present greatly in fashion in this Kingdom.” See Fielding, The Covent-Garden Journal and A Plan of the Universal Register-Office, ed. Bertrand A. Goldgar (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1988), 161. Clara Reeve makes the same point in The Progress of Romance. See Clara Reeve, The Progress of Romance, Through Times, Countries, and Manners, with Remarks on the Good and Bad Effects of It, on them Respectively, in a Course of Evening Conversation (Colchester, 1785), 2:6. 97

she merely to believe that knights and deeds of chivalry still existed, she would be quirky but generally harmless. What causes harm is the belief that she is the focal point of the attention of everyone around her, and that others exist in order for her to perform deeds worthy of a heroine.

Of course, the novel suggests that Arabella is literally unable to perceive the world as it is, which makes her conduct somewhat more justifiable. She is not conscious of the harm that she is causing to others. Even so, her refusal to listen to the remonstrations of her friends, who are clearly discomfited by her behavior, suggests a stubborn insistence on using others for her own ends.

We might think that, as Arabella’s solipsism is linked to her desire to be a romance heroine, that Lennox is simply showing the dangerous effects of romance-reading on an impressionable woman. But our examination of the other central characters suggests that a tendency to use others as tools does not arise from romance-reading alone. What most turns our readerly judgment against Charlotte is her desire for vengeance against Arabella, for whom we have sympathy—and her subsequent use of Sir George as an implement of revenge. When

Arabella’s comments on giving favors to lovers strikes Charlotte as mockery of herself, she chooses to “appear still to be her Friend, that she might have the more Opportunities of revengeing herself” (90). Her desire to steal Sir George’s attentions away from Arabella is in part motivated by this manipulative plan. Sir George himself, of course, is hardly innocent. If

Arabella uses the men around her to live out a romance fantasy, the baronet pursues her as a means to live out a fantasy of wealth. Initially, Sir George notices Arabella because of her beauty, but we later learn that while he is “a little enamoured” of her person, he is “a great deal more” attracted to her fortune (129). Both Charlotte and Sir George, though not sharing 98

Arabella’s romantic delusions, are nonetheless similar to the heroine in their willingness to use other people for their own ends.

The only major character who views his or her love interest honestly and without selfishness is Glanville. His assessment of Arabella is similar to what Lennox tries to direct us toward: he realizes that his cousin is generally sensible and good-natured, as we do, but also justifiably objects to her quixotism. He does not pursue her for her fortune, as Sir George and

Hervey do; instead, he sees her for who she is. Contrary to Todd’s assertions that Glanville is

“first of all smitten with her because of her beauty,” and that he only desires her cure because her romance obsession “would affect his standing in society and cause him endless embarrassment,” we are given no cause to believe he adores Arabella solely for her physical appearance (157).

Indeed, Lennox at several points suggests that Glanville is just as captivated by his cousin’s intellect. When Arabella writes Glanville a letter commanding him to return to the Marquis’s castle, Glanville believes that he would have grounds for thinking her mad “if she had not more

Wit than her whole Sex besides” (41). Given that Arabella’s intelligence and good-nature are praised several times in the text, we can plausibly believe that Glanville finds her attractive for these reasons as well as for her beauty. Nor does he seem to desire Arabella’s cure solely to avoid embarrassment for himself. True, as Todd points out, Arabella herself is never embarrassed by her own behavior. But her actions cause damage to her reputation, as when

Hervey tells Glanville that she is “fit for a Mad-house” (157). Attempting to defend or protect another’s character, even when that person does not know it is under attack, is not necessarily selfish behavior. Indeed, his fight with Hervey is an instance of selflessness: if Glanville were merely concerned about his own social standing, he need not have fought with Hervey, as the latter does not know who Glanville is or that he is in love with Arabella. 99

What The Female Quixote seems designed to satirize, then, is the self-centered impulse to use others as objects to achieve one’s own ends. But what kind of satire is Lennox employing?

The intensity with which this target is critiqued is relatively mild. The tone is light, as we have seen; while this particular vice is shown to have harmful effects, nothing catastrophic arises from the petty self-centeredness of Sir George or the delusional self-absorption of Arabella. Lennox does not employ shock, violence, or horror to convey her point. As a result, she does not seem greatly incensed or depressed about the selfishness of humanity. This is not splenetic attack or dour pessimism. Yet the novel also contains a clear satiric point; it is meant to amuse, but it is not purely a romp that ridicules various targets only to elicit laughter. The technique of continually threatening serious harm and then averting it suggests that Lennox has a point to make with her satire, but wants to make it gently. The Female Quixote reads like a mildly instructive satire that gently prods the reader towards less selfish relationships with others.

Readerly Resistance to “The Female Quixote”

In arguing that Lennox uses various techniques to direct the reader’s judgment against Arabella in an attempt to write an amiably instructive satire on selfishness, I do not mean to say that

Lennox succeeds in her objectives for all readers. Though I believe that Lennox’s intentions are deducible from the text, The Female Quixote can clearly be read in other ways, as critics who interpret Arabella positively do. Some readers find aspects of the narrative to be unsatisfactory and thus resist Lennox’s rhetorical techniques. I want here to discuss the most prominent ways in which readers can diverge from what The Female Quixote seems designed to convey.

As we have established, the way one reads The Female Quixote depends primarily on how one interprets Arabella. For many modern readers, however, reading Arabella as Lennox 100

seems to have intended—as the target of satire—can be unfulfilling. Reading her as a proto- feminist heroine is, for us modern readers, almost natural. Arabella possesses many traits of an empowered woman: a determination to decide her own destiny, a refusal to allow the male authority figures in her life to control her, and a willingness to debate (and defeat) those who try to argue with her. Furthermore, she manages, through her obsession with romance, to avoid some oppressive situations, including an arranged marriage (Arabella’s father has planned her marriage to Glanville since her youth) and a mercenary alliance to Hervey. If Arabella is intended to be a butt of satire, then the novel seems to be critiquing our feminist principles by implication. Therefore, our values lead us to resist Lennox’s directives and read the novel as a subversive anti-patriarchal text. This reading is certainly valid—but if our goal is to determine the nature of the satire the text seems designed to accomplish, it is not entirely helpful. As Scott

Paul Gordon states, “in heroizing Arabella to recover a subversive text, recent readings necessarily ignore or obscure the steady ridicule that the novel directs at [her] quixotism.”41 In noticing how her delusions allow her to resist the Marquis and Sir Charles, we may miss how they also allow her to be easily manipulated by Sir George. This novel provides a case where being aware of our own biases is helpful when attempting to discover a narrative’s satiric objectives.

How we assess Arabella is not the only factor that controls our overall assessment of The

Female Quixote, however. Our reactions to Glanville are also important, as they affect how we feel about the novel’s resolution. We have already discussed how Glanville serves as a positive exemplar in contrast to the other characters, who are self-centered. Yet his marriage to Arabella is unsatisfactory to some readers. One reason for this reaction may lie in the narrative’s focus on

41 Scott Paul Gordon, The Practice of Quixotism: Postmodern Theory and Eighteenth-Century Women’s Writing (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 53. 101

Arabella’s actions rather than Glanville’s, which risks making Glanville appear to be a milquetoast. Doody, for instance, sees Glanville committing “inarticulate blunderings” in his attempts to woo Arabella, and ultimately finds him “rather weak.”42 Langbauer notes that almost all the male characters in the novel are “ailing,” pointing to Glanville’s illness as an example that

Lennox “weakens the men around Arabella in order to give her strength” (87). This interpretation makes sense insofar as Arabella is by far the more active of the two: she gets into scrapes, while Glanville is generally either a victim of or a bystander to her “adventures.” Even

Glanville’s most active moments, as when he fights Hervey over the latter’s insulting of

Arabella, are provoked by the heroine. Whether Lennox intended Glanville to seem a weak character is questionable, however. His passivity is a result of the narrative’s structure, as the novel is largely constructed around a single source of humor: Arabella’s delusions and others’ responses to them. For this reason every character is relatively passive compared to her, with the possible exception of Sir George, who actively schemes against her. Evidently Lennox wanted to keep the focus on her heroine’s antics, which necessarily leads Glanville to appear somewhat weak.

The conclusion of the novel seems designed to address this problem. Glanville fights and wounds Sir George, whom he believes to be running off with Arabella. In doing so he demonstrates that he is no pushover; this development invites us to increase our esteem of him and consider him a more worthy match for Arabella. If nothing else, we are assured that

Glanville cares enough about Arabella to risk his life for her, and that he can be passionate when provoked. That said, this episode comes almost at the very end of the narrative, and it may not be enough to sway a reader who has up to this point developed an ingrained dislike for Glanville and his passivity. Such a reader might very well prefer that Arabella remain unmarried than unite

42 Doody, introduction to The Female Quixote, xxvii, xxxii. 102

herself with a milksop, notwithstanding Lennox’s suggestion that the two lead happy lives together.

The other complaint one might be likely to make about Glanville is his constant desire to change and “perfect” Arabella. Here we might run into the problem of the dissonance between our values and Lennox’s. At several points in the novel Glanville discusses Arabella as if she is something to be modified at will. For instance, he tells Sir George that for Arabella “to be absolutely perfect,” he “must cure her of that Singularity” of romance-reading (197). Readers today are likely to be put off by such a statement—Glanville seems to be objectifying Arabella here and denying her right to live as she pleases. This reaction is likely due to a modern belief in the inviolability of individual liberty and personhood. Somebody attempting radically to change another’s lifestyle for his or her own purposes is liable to be treated as a bigot or, at the very least, viewed as rude—and rightly so. Not surprisingly, readers have felt that Glanville is odious for his desire to change Arabella. Todd, for instance, argues that Glanville “wishes to manipulate” Arabella for his own purposes (157). Haggerty notes that Glanville’s declarations that Arabella is driving him mad arise from “his own inability to control his cousin’s behavior,” and that his frustration with Arabella’s quixotism suggests “that he is no candidate for the reader’s unqualified sympathy” (129–30). We may, from this perspective, read Glanville as just as self-centered as Arabella, Charlotte, and Sir George.

While this objection has some merit, a number of factors mitigate our sense that Glanville is an objectionable character. First is our own sense that Arabella is flawed. If we read Arabella’s quixotism as admirable, resisting Lennox’s attempts to lead us to an opposite conclusion,

Glanville will naturally appear an oppositional figure. But if we see Arabella as a character who has the potential to harm others with her self-centered behavior, we find Glanville’s desire to 103

change her less offensive. Second, though Glanville wants Arabella to change, he himself also grows and develops in his ability to appreciate her positive traits. As Brian McCrea persuasively argues, Glanville develops the “capacity both to understand and to value” Arabella’s misinterpretations of reality.43 He obviously still desires Arabella’s reform, but he is certainly much more tolerant of her than Sir Charles or Hervey, who both state at various points that she should be put into a madhouse. His tolerance of her antics, which other characters find— justifiably—annoying and disturbing, suggest that his desire to change her arises out of an admiration for her, not a selfish desire to mold her to his own will. Though reading Glanville as a twisted manipulator is understandable, this reading is in all likelihood not what Lennox designs her text to produce.

Some readers may object to the “cure” of Arabella in the penultimate chapter by a clergyman whom critics have often treated as a stand-in for Samuel Johnson. As Deborah Ross writes, “the cure of Arabella is as much to be mourned as the death of Don Quixote.”44 If one interprets Arabella’s romance-reading as a means by which the heroine can gain power and defy patriarchal expectations, then one is likely to feel that the clergyman’s success represents a triumph for male oppression. As we have seen, however, Lennox employs several techniques that attempt to steer readers away from this interpretation, making clear that Arabella is flawed and that her reform is to be desired. Some objections to the conversion, however, seem to find issue with the means by which Arabella is cured. As Wendy Motooka puts the point, “Why is

Arabella, formerly so resistant to the arguments of her quotidian companions, suddenly swayed

43 Brian McCrea, Impotent Fathers: Patriarchy and Demographic Crisis in the Eighteenth-Century Novel (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1998), 166. 44 Deborah Ross, “Mirror, Mirror: The Didactic Dilemma of The Female Quixote,” Studies in English Literature 1500–1900 27, no. 3 (1987): 455–73, at 470. 104

by a sentimental sermon? Why is there a clergyman at all?”45 Here Lennox does seem to run into a narrative problem: she must reform Arabella for the ending to be satisfactory, but thus far

Arabella has stubbornly ignored the attempts of others to change her. For Arabella to suddenly come to her senses would be abrupt.

Lennox attempts to resolve this problem in a couple of ways, although her degree of success varies from reader to reader. First, when the Countess is introduced in Book VIII, we see that Arabella is not quite as stubborn as she seemed; she is at least somewhat open to having her mind changed, if approached in the right way by someone whom she respects. This makes her eventual conversion by the clergyman a little less abrupt. Second, in the actual debate between

Arabella and the clergyman, the heroine holds her own until the end. At several points she manages to confound or trap her adversary, as when she gets him to argue that romances “vitiate the Mind” and then presents herself as a counterexample (374). She clearly enjoys the debate, joking with the clergyman that he must prove the fictitiousness and absurdity of romances as penance for insulting her. Their disputation thus confirms that Arabella is witty and intelligent when not attempting to act romance tropes; she is hardly a submissive figure yielding to the divine’s male authority. The choices to introduce the Countess and to have Arabella intelligently argue with the clergyman seem to be attempts to make the ending less sudden and more satisfying. Yet for some readers, these steps may not be enough from preventing the denouement from being disappointing, especially if one believes that Arabella is interesting and admirable because of her romance obsession.

The point I am making here is not that readers who read Arabella positively or find the ending of the novel unsatisfactory are wrong. Nor am I trying to accuse Lennox of incompetence

45 Wendy Motooka, The Age of Reasons: Quixotism, Sentimentalism and Political Economy in Eighteenth- Century Britain (London: Routledge, 1998), 136. 105

because readers are able to resist her attempts to steer interpretation of the text. What I think we can learn from the numerous ways in which readers can read The Female Quixote contrary to

Lennox’s apparent intentions is that no amount of rhetorical skill on the part of an author can guarantee complete acceptance from all readers, and that sometimes the shape and premise of the narrative itself can pose problems for interpretation that cannot be easily solved. Lennox is hardly alone in this regard: Richardson’s problems with readers viewing Lovelace favorably in

Clarissa are well-documented. As we move forward in our attempt to understand the various kinds of satire practiced in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century novels, we should keep in mind that these are open texts, and that the reactions of other readers will not always match our own interpretations.

Nonetheless, I hope I have shown is that if we pay attention to the techniques an author uses to affect readers’ judgments, we can in many cases reasonably determine what he or she was attempting to do, while also acknowledging the reality that readers will differ—sometimes wildly—in their interpretations. Considering how we assess characters, events, and situations in a narrative does not yield the “right” reading: no such thing exists. But doing so can help us to determine the objectives and nature of a novel’s satire. We can see what Lennox seemed to be trying to do and how she attempted to do it, even as we also understand why some readers might not be swayed. This realization should give us confidence that we can differentiate among different satiric goals and intensities, as I mean to do in the next four chapters.

PART II: THE AIMS OF SATIRE CHAPTER THREE: SATIRE AS ENTERTAINMENT: SMOLLETT, STERNE, AND PEACOCK

Some readers will no doubt blink at the novelists mentioned in the chapter title, as they are not generally thought to be similar. Smollett is most often treated as a harsh, misanthropic satirist; the violence and physical humor that characterizes his novels leads many modern critics to believe Smollett’s goal is to attack those he finds objectionable. Ronald Paulson, for instance, argues that the hero of Roderick Random “clearly owes a great deal to the humorless, malcontent satirist of the Elizabethans who metaphorically beats, bastinadoes, bleeds, and purges his enemies.”1 Sterne’s Tristram Shandy is typically taken to be not nearly as bitter as Smollett’s novels; John Richetti asserts that the novel’s characters are to be viewed “both satirically and comically”—that is, with some degree of indulgent sympathy.2 Stuart M. Tave describes Uncle

Toby as “the most remarkable of amiable humorists” whose “every act is an odd little parable teaching a practical lesson of universal good will.”3 Peacock’s satiric novels are read as flippant mockery of the philosophical ideas of the Romantic period. Clearly the works of these three different novelists are generally understood as radically distinct enterprises.

In considering these novelists in the same chapter, I am not trying to suggest that they are similar in all respects. Each of these three authors differs from the others in significant ways, not least in what they satirize. These divergences are to be expected, given the diversity of novelistic satire. But if we compare Peregrine Pickle, Tristram Shandy, and Headlong Hall, we will find that these novels share a common aim, one that we are not likely to see if we presume that satire is primarily the demolition of a target. I believe that satire in these works serves primarily to

1 Paulson, Satire and the Novel, 173. 2 Richetti, The English Novel in History, 272. 3 Stuart M. Tave, The Amiable Humorist: A Study in the Comic Theory and Criticism of the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960), 148–49. 108 amuse or entertain the reader. It may perform other functions as well—we may, if we desire, elect to read Peregrine Pickle as a gloomy commentary on the depravity of the world, or

Tristram Shandy as a serious critique of modern pretensions. But if we read these novels for their chief aims, we will find that they differ considerably from novels whose satire is meant to instruct, express pessimism, or attack—purposes we will examine in later chapters.

The concept of a satirist writing primarily to amuse his or her audience may seem strange in light of modern satire theory. Most scholars would acknowledge that satire often employs humor and that some satires can be great fun to read. But if satire is mainly the attacking of something to be disapproved of—if, as Michael Seidel posits, the satirist is mainly concerned with “the degenerative spirit in human nature” and attempts to “sustain the impression that the monstrous is different from him”—then whatever humor or enjoyment the satirist creates is merely a means to a grim and depressing end.4 Reading satire as inherently concerned with degeneration and death is limiting, however; such a perspective does little to explain how satire functions in Peregrine Pickle or Headlong Hall, as we shall see. Broadening our conception of what satire in the novel can accomplish sensitizes us to elements of satiric novels that we may have otherwise ignored and allows us to see similarities between novels by authors as apparently dissimilar as Smollett, Sterne, and Peacock.

How, then, can we tell which novels should be understood as employing satire primarily to entertain? How do we distinguish these novels from those with a more serious purpose, especially when many satiric novelists loudly claim a moral function for their works, as Smollett does? No distinct formula exists, and the borders delineating “satire as entertainment” are, like those of all my categories, somewhat flexible. A vital part of answering these questions,

4 Michael Seidel, Satiric Inheritance: Rabelais to Sterne (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), 11– 12. 109 however, is assessing the kind of negative judgments these authors ask us to make of their targets. Does the author seem committed to an identifiable ideological position? Is judgment concentrated against a few related targets, or is it more scattershot? How intensely negative are we to feel about the targets? Besides determining the kinds of judgments these novelists attempt to lead readers to make, we should also pay attention to the role of humor in these works. We need to determine to what extent the humor in these novels is used to provoke serious thought.

Considering these questions will, I believe, give us at least some sense of whether a novel’s satire is intended principally to amuse and entertain its audience.

I. Peregrine Pickle: Humor and Satire

Smollett specialists have often argued that his novels make important statements about the world in which he lived. Paul-Gabriel Boucé, defending Smollett against the charge of immorality, writes that through the episodes of both Roderick Random and Peregrine Pickle run recurring

“moral themes,” most prominently “the problem of Good and Evil.”5 He states more specifically that “Peregrine Pickle is the story of a struggle between the forces of Evil, symbolized by . . . pride, and the forces of Good. This ‘dubious battle’ is sometimes interior, sometimes it involves the society in which the hero moves” (127). The novel, for Boucé, is therefore a story of moral development and reform in which the hero both punishes the pride of those around him and learns to master his own arrogance. Implicit in this reading is a harsh condemnation of the immorality of the world, which seduces Peregrine to moral downfall. For G. S. Rousseau,

Smollett’s “most private set of beliefs about man and the universe” is that “the world of man is an awful place: perilous, fraught with horror and terror, ultimately without honour or integrity of

5 Paul-Gabriel Boucé, The Novels of Tobias Smollett, trans. Antonia White (London: Longman, 1976), 103. 110 any sort.”6 Both of these viewpoints suggest that Smollett’s novels are bitter repudiations of a detestable universe.

These claims are understandable when applied to Roderick Random. Smollett’s first novel contains several memorably horrific passages, most notably the vivid description of

Roderick’s experiences fighting in the Battle of Cartagena. Roderick is always an outsider struggling to make his way through society, and while his adventures are often humorous, one could plausibly read the work as a representation of the world’s evils. The conception of

Smollett’s satire as harsh and misanthropic, however, fits much less well when applied to

Peregrine Pickle. As John Skinner has pointed out, Smollett’s second novel differs from its predecessor in important ways, especially in the socioeconomic status of the protagonist.7

Whereas Roderick is often victimized by those around him, Peregrine is hardly ever in dire straits until the last quarter of the novel, when various misfortunes and poor decisions reduce him to penury. The world is certainly shown to be full of rogues and scoundrels willing to prey on the unwary, but often Peregrine is the punisher of these villains instead of their dupe. The vices of the world seem less horrific when they are ingeniously overcome.

Peregrine Pickle is also an interesting object of study because of critical complaints about its formlessness. Jerry C. Beasley argues that “Peregrine Pickle is so diffuse, so unregulated, that it is unable to achieve the concentration of effect created by the more efficient compression of incident in Roderick Random.”8 Rousseau laments the fact that the novel

“rambles in prodigious disorganization.”9 While the narrative follows the basic shape of

6 G. S. Rousseau, “Beef and Bouillon: Smollett’s Achievement as a Thinker,” in G. S. Rousseau, Tobias Smollett: Essays of Two Decades (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1982), 80–123, at 97–98. 7 John Skinner, Constructions of Smollett: A Study of Genre and Gender (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1996), 67. 8 Beasley, Tobias Smollett, 77–78. 9 G. S. Rousseau, “Tobias Smollett and Laurence Sterne: A Revaluation,” in G. S. Rousseau, Tobias Smollett: Essays of Two Decades (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1982), 10–20, at 17. 111

Peregrine’s maturation from a child to a reckless young man to a more responsible one fit for matrimony, many parts of the novel do not contribute to this progression. Incident follows upon incident, with the direction of the narrative shifting abruptly from chapter to chapter. In one moment Peregrine may be attempting to woo Emilia; in the next he may be playing some nasty prank upon an unsuspecting victim. Attempts have been made to ascribe some kind of structure to the novel. Boucé theorizes that the novel is shaped like the letter “V,” with Peregrine descending to a nadir when he is imprisoned and then rising out of it again as he regains his fortune (143). But such a scheme seems too neat to capture the wide digressions in the novel’s focus, to say nothing of the lengthy interpolated narratives of Lady Vane and MacKercher.

The lack of narrative focus poses a problem for anybody intent on reading Peregrine

Pickle as an attack upon a definable target. Because of the variety of the novel’s episodes,

Smollett does not seem to be attacking one main idea or institution. Some themes recur through the narrative: there are a number of cruel and incompetent teachers, for instance, and many of the novel’s women are shown to be licentious and unfaithful. But one never feels that the point of the novel is to castigate pompous pedagogues or lewd women. One might argue that the novel is a generalized satire upon the evil of the world, as Boucé does, but many of the episodes do not contribute to the punishment of vice. When Peregrine, Hatchway, and Pipes drill holes in Mrs.

Trunnion’s chamber pot, for instance, no point seems to be made about the viciousness of the world.10 Mrs. Trunnion is an eccentric character not without faults, but she is hardly evil. Nor are we led to believe that the conspirators are particularly cruel for executing their design. The upshot is that Peregrine Pickle never reads like a concentrated attack upon anything.

10 Tobias Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, ed. O M Brack, Jr., and W. H. Keithley (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2014), 76. All references to Peregrine Pickle are to this edition. 112

Peregrine Pickle’s lack of focus has led some critics to deny outright the satiric nature of the novel. Rousseau finds that the novel is not “essentially satiric,” noting that it contains “satire even less specific and pointed than in Roderick Random.”11 For Paulson, Peregrine Pickle is

“less a satire than a novel about satire.” That is, rather than making satiric attacks, the novel depicts a satirist in action. By this reading Peregrine is the satirist, and Smollett shows him in both a positive and a negative light: he mistreats vicious individuals who deserve to be punished but also takes advantage of merely foolish people. Because “the episodes that illustrate

Peregrine’s character and those that reveal the sins of society fail to coalesce,” the novel is not wholly satiric.12 Yet other critics maintain that, even if the novel is not a satire, it contains strong satiric elements. Beasley points out that the novel’s conclusion “affirms an essentially satiric view of human life in a world of action,” insofar as it insists upon the need to withdraw from the world in order to escape its villainy (115). Marshall finds that “the authorial position reflected in

Peregrine Pickle is not so unlike that reflected in his verse satires,” which she reads as attack upon a corrupt society.13

The problem, then, is that in many ways Peregrine Pickle feels like a satire, but does not conform to a restrictive conception of satiric aim. As I argue in Chapter 1, a number of factors provide novels with a satiric flavor, including negative judgment, humor, distortion, and a positive value standard. Peregrine Pickle certainly contains a significant amount of negative judgment against all manner of character types, including rakes, card sharpers, and politicians.

The work is also patently funny. Not all modern readers may find pranks involving chamber pots, equestrian baboons, or phosphorus-coated cows to be the stuff of high humor, but these episodes are at least clearly intended to be amusing. The novel does not vigorously uphold a

11 Rousseau, “Beef and Bouillon,” 83–84. 12 Paulson, Satire in the Novel, 181, 185. 13 Marshall, The Practice of Satire in England, 274. 113 standard of conduct, but it is chock-full of distortion: Smollett is, after all, a master of grotesque verbal caricature. For these reasons, large portions of Peregrine Pickle seem to be satiric. Yet the satire does not coalesce into a focused attack.

One way of making sense of Peregrine Pickle is to acknowledge that the work is significantly satiric, but that Smollett’s primary satiric purpose is not to make a weighty moral statement attacking some vice or even to depict the world in a gloomy way. Rather, his satire serves primarily to entertain. The case for Peregrine Pickle as an entertainment satire is based mainly on its type of humor (and the tone which it fosters) and its rambling, episodic structure.

Physical Humor and Tone

One of the reasons that Smollett is often deemed to be harsh and misanthropic is because much of his humor is physical, based on violence or scatological defilement. As Aileen Douglas writes,

“much of what happens in Peregrine Pickle pivots on the hero’s ability to protect his own body from exposure, while he subjects those of his satiric victims to discomfort and pain.”14 We are told that Peregrine has a talent for hurting others from a young age: he takes “great pleasure,” for instance, in treading upon Commodore Trunnion’s gouty toe (67). As he grows older the harm he does to those around him intensifies, as when he beats the town curate so badly he is bedridden for a fortnight. Nor is he satisfied with purely physical harm. Some of the novel’s most memorable humorous episodes involve Peregrine inducing fear or other psychological trauma upon his victims, as when he induces Pallet and the physician, both of them cowards, to duel with each other.

14 Aileen Douglas, Uneasy Sensations: Smollett and the Body (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 79. 114

From our twenty-first-century perspective, Peregrine’s behavior in these episodes is likely to appear cruel and unwarranted. Some readers may find their distaste at the novel’s violence to be so strong as to overcome any humor that can be derived from these scenes.

Rousseau quotes an anonymous “distinguished eighteenth-century scholar” who claims to be unable to stomach Smollett’s humor: “For no reason at all people are hurt and humiliated, even skinned . . . Can you honestly say there is one moment of pleasure in the whole of Smollett?”15

To be sure, many of Peregrine’s victims are in fact guilty of some vice or folly, as Paulson remarks.16 But we may very naturally feel that even though Pallet is a fool whose pretentions to artistic skill and connoisseurship are ridiculous, these faults do not make him deserving of the horse-whipping he receives from Peregrine at the inn at Alost (265–66). Yet Smollett delights in such scenes, and evidently intends his audience to be amused. The narrator never suggests that we are to condemn Peregrine for drubbing Pallet, or even that the painter is to be pitied. From these kinds of scenes we might be tempted to draw the conclusion that Smollett hates humanity, as he seems to find the brutal abuse of others amusing. Consequently, we may feel that this kind of humor gives the novel a dark tone: Smollett has created a world in which cruelty is normative and even commendable.

Smollett was not, however, writing for a twenty-first-century audience. Humor was very different in the mid-eighteenth century, and things that might horrify us today evidently did not have the same effect on many of Smollett’s readers. Simon Dickie has recently argued that, far from being sentimental and good-natured, eighteenth-century humor was crude and nasty. From examining over two hundred of the period’s jestbooks, Dickie finds many of them to be full of violent and scatological jokes. In these books hunchbacks are mercilessly ridiculed, rape is an

15 Rousseau, “Beef and Bouillon,” 89. 16 Paulson, Satire and the Novel, 184. 115 occasion for laughter, and the infliction of pain or humiliation upon others is a prime source of comedy. One joke, for instance, involves a wife pissing on her husband in bed; another describes schoolboys smearing a staircase with feces in order to begrime their schoolmaster.17 Dickie points out that “modern readers will be struck by the callousness of these jokes, their frank delight in human misery. All take it for granted that one laughed at illness, disability, hunger, and domestic violence” (17). These jestbooks were not confined to the lower classes, but found their way into “polite” society as well (20). They suggest that what passed for humor in Smollett’s time varies dramatically from what we tolerate today.

The kind of humor found in these jestbooks is, of course, the same as that found in many of the episodes of Peregrine Pickle. A number of the novel’s villainous characters are hunchbacks, including Peregrine’s schoolmaster Mr. Keypstick and his brother Gam. The jestbooks of the time often contain jokes at the expense of the lower classes; we can see this same conceit (combined with mockery of upper-class ladies) in the episode in which Peregrine buys a beggar’s daughter and dresses her like a lady. Peregrine and Gauntlet’s plan to humiliate a farmer’s wife by breaking into her house and exposing her naked posteriors out the window is likewise the sort of prank that would apparently have been amusing to jestbook readers. The point here is that we should not automatically assume that the presence of cruel humor in

Peregrine Pickle (or, indeed, in Smollett’s other novels) necessarily implies that the author is attempting to make a statement about the depravity of the world. When they appear as isolated jokes, these kinds of pranks do not convey dark satire; placing them in a novel does not automatically indicate that the text has a weighty moral message.

Aside from considering the context provided by eighteenth-century jestbooks, we should also keep in mind the sheer ridiculousness of some of the episodes which we might consider to

17 Dickie, Cruelty and Laughter, 28–29. 116 be depraved and misanthropic. Take, for example, the duel between the physician and Pallet.

One could make a case for the episode being an instance of Peregrine’s cruelty, as he sets up this duel for his own amusement. But much of the humor of the scene derives not from the psychological trauma of the duelists but from the incongruous ways in which their fears manifest themselves. The physician, an avid enthusiast of the classics, attempts to escape the duel by dismissing dueling as a practice of “the barbarous Huns and Longobards”; when he is actually made to fight, he recites part of Pindar’s Pythia to intimidate his foe (296). The scene is funny because even when in mortal danger of his life, the physician’s actions are governed by one of his idées fixes. Our attention is drawn not to Peregrine’s cruelty in executing this scheme but to the absurdity of the physician’s behavior. This scene, in short, works badly as a moment of serious satire; as a joke it functions admirably.

For all that Peregrine Pickle is known for episodes involving some kind of violence or trauma, there are other scenes of humor that do not depend upon such devices. Perhaps the most memorable of these is Trunnion’s attempt to reach his own wedding; when the wind blows against him, he decides he needs to proceed by tacking and thus zigzags upon his horse along the road (52). The image of the commodore attempting to apply the methods of nautical navigation to land travel is, as Beasley recognizes, “sublimely funny” (93). But the scene is hardly cruel; we can find ridicule of Trunnion’s peculiarity, but it is ridicule of a mild and affectionate sort. Other such moments of good-natured humor exist, as when Peregrine’s father sends a “love letter” to the future Mrs. Pickle using the language of commerce: “Understanding you have a parcel of heart, warranted sound, to be disposed of, shall be willing to treat for said commodity, on reasonable terms” (33). The implied author of this novel is not an absolute misanthrope relying solely on the reader’s sense of Schadenfreude. Smollett can clearly create what Tave termed 117

“amiable humorists,” characters whose “little peculiarities are . . . objects of delight and love”

(viii).

What, then, are we to make of the humor of Peregrine Pickle and the tone it creates? The combination of scenes employing cruel humor and those relying more on amiable laughter suggest that Smollett was primarily trying to entertain his audience, not make some kind of point about the darkness of society. People are beaten, maimed, and terrified in this world because

Smollett’s readers would have found such things the amusing stuff of jestbooks, not because they would have been shocked at the viciousness on display. And when Smollett can achieve hilarity through means other than brutal violence, he does so. We might see the world of the story as one populated by strange, exaggerated eccentrics, in which absurd occurrences happen on a regular basis. These occurrences sometimes involve the infliction of pain, but the focus is on the inventiveness and incongruousness of the incidents rather than on the injuries sustained by the victims. Strange as this kind of humor may seem to modern readers, it likely created for many contemporary readers a world in which the events are not to be taken seriously. Just as Wile E.

Coyote regularly falling off cliffs or being crushed flat does not darken the tone of Road Runner cartoons, the violence that occurs in Peregrine Pickle does not suggest a bleak or angry outlook on life.

By discussing the comedy of Peregrine Pickle in this way, I am not trying to suggest that the novel contains no satire. On the contrary, the negative judgment found in satire is important for many of Smollett’s comic effects. The targets, however, are recognizable stock figures. The satire on the jealous husband Hornbeck is hardly original, nor is Smollett’s portrait of the greedy capuchin friar. The lasciviousness and faithlessness of women is a common topic of satire long 118 before the mid-eighteenth century, as Felicity A. Nussbaum has pointed out.18 Smollett is not trying to change the opinions of his readers towards the figures he ridicules; he is not trying to correct vices or cure follies. Rather, his use of stock targets facilitates the humor, as we are more ready to laugh at an idiotic schoolmaster or quack physician than at some less-often-ridiculed figure. These are character types against whom Smollett already expects us to harbor negative judgments. When Trunnion assaults a lawyer and threatens him with a turkey, Smollett does not need to characterize the lawyer to show that he is villainous; rather, he relies upon the pre- existing bias of the reader, which renders the lawyer an acceptable target of Trunnion’s wrath

(80). The role of negative judgments in Peregrine Pickle is to make laughing at the victims of

Smollett’s jokes easier.

Nor are the judgments we are asked to make particularly intense in their negativity.

Because Smollett constantly moves from target to target, we do not have time to develop a deep hatred or antipathy towards any single individual. Peregrine’s mother and his brother Gam perform some terrible acts, but they are hardly the focus of the narrative, and so one does not get the sense that Smollett is making a serious point about familial discord. Pallet and the physician are given extended narrative attention, but while their oddities and follies mark them out as acceptable butts of Peregrine’s jokes, nothing they do inspires anger or loathing. As for the stock figures Smollett employs—the lawyers, the rude French gentlemen, the card sharpers—the focus is most often not on what they do, but on what Peregrine does to them. Thus we hardly ever get a detailed and sustained description of their villainous behavior. The joke is the point, not the justness of Peregrine’s satiric punishment.

18 Felicity A. Nussbaum, The Brink of All We Hate: English Satires on Women, 1660–1750 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984), 20. 119

The idea that Smollett uses stock satiric targets in order to provide easy fodder for

Peregrine’s inventive pranks explains the scattershot nature of the novel’s satire. Satirists who have axes to grind tend to home in on a specific character type or behavior. We have seen, for instance, how Lennox focuses on only a few characters in The Female Quixote, most of whom are guilty of some form of potentially harmful self-interest. This kind of emphasis signals to readers that some sort of sustained critique is likely being made. If the purpose of the satire is to entertain, however, then a greater diversity of targets can be helpful for adding variety and keeping the jokes fresh. If Peregrine spent the majority of the novel executing pranks exclusively on high-society women or card-sharpers, the novel might have a coherent point to make, but the hero’s escapades would likely get somewhat old. But because the novel critiques an abundance of different types and groups, it retains interest. Rousseau’s complaint about the novel’s lack of specificity in its satire is justified if we assume Smollett wanted to make a severe criticism of the world, but the range of the novel’s satiric targets suggests that severe criticism was far from the author’s intent.

Readers of Peregrine Pickle are of course free to feel that Smollett’s humor is particularly mean-spirited, especially as the jokes are at times misogynistic, classist, and homophobic. A reader reacting in this way would probably not find the novel entertaining, and would instead be more likely to read the work as the incoherent revenge fantasies of a grumpy hater of mankind. Our goal, however, should be to discover how Smollett seems to have wanted his original readers to react. If we attempt to read as Smollett’s authorial audience would, the humor of the novel makes more sense if Smollett is attempting to write light entertainment and not hard-hitting attack. Of course, not all parts of Peregrine Pickle are funny: Lady Vane’s memoir is not particularly risible, for instance, nor is the description of Peregrine’s downfall and 120 bankruptcy. We need to determine how these other segments of the novel function in relation to the comic scenes.

The Structure of “Peregrine Pickle”

Does the structure of Peregrine Pickle further the novel’s satiric aim? To answer this question we must first determine whether or not the novel has any structure to speak of. Rufus Putney long ago attempted to chart the shape of the novel’s plot and found that it is “composed of eleven major divisions,” each of which serves a crucial function in the development of the overall narrative.19 This attempt to impose structure on the novel is at times forced, however. Trunnion must die, Putney argues, in order that Peregrine may be independent, but he cannot die immediately because of Smollett’s “realism” (sudden and unexpected deaths being, apparently, the stuff of fantasy), and so Smollett must “fill up the interim” with Peregrine’s adventures at

Bath (1062). Because of the strained reading of the text it promotes, this model has never caught on.20 A case could be made for some other structural models. S. Ortiz Taylor, for instance, theorizes that the episodic narrative that characterizes the picaresque novel is circular: each episode does not cause fundamental change in the protagonist’s status, and he ends where he begins.21 This reading is reminiscent of Kernan’s claim about the circular plots of satire, in which “we get collections of loosely related scenes and busyness which curls back on itself— darkness never really moves on to daylight but only to intensified darkness.”22 By this argument, while other narratives follow a linear structure, in which some significant change occurs between

19 Rufus Putney, “The Plan of Peregrine Pickle,” PMLA 60, no. 4 (1945): 1051–1065, at 1060. 20 Beasley, for instance, notes that Putney’s efforts “cannot rescue Peregrine Pickle from the just charge that it is a flawed performance.” See Beasley, Tobias Smollett, 78–79. 21 S. Ortiz Taylor, “Episodic Structure and the Picaresque Novel,” The Journal of Narrative Technique 7, no. 3 (1977): 218–225, at 223. 22 Kernan, The Plot of Satire, 100. 121 the beginning and ending states, in satire bad situations never improve; the narrative ends in the same state where it began. Explaining Peregrine Pickle as a circular text may be appealing, but this interpretation of the novel’s structure also has flaws, as it does not account for the fact that

Peregrine changes and matures throughout the narrative.

If we were to consider the novel to be an expression of disgust at mankind, we might consider the episodes to be held together by a thematic idea, perhaps approaching the form of what Northrop Frye termed the “anatomy.”23 Anatomies, Frye argues, employ “a loose-jointed narrative form” and are concerned with presenting “a vision of the world in terms of a single intellectual pattern” (309–310). While the episodes of an anatomy are not connected logically, they all work towards conveying a specific worldview. But this model, too, does not fit

Peregrine Pickle neatly. Besides the question of whether or not the novel’s episodes actually attempt to advance a uniform worldview, which we have addressed above, not all of the novel’s episodes contribute to the portrayal of the world as a violent and vicious place. As David L.

Evans has pointed out, the novel’s “skeleton of romantic conventions” is at odds with any sort of

“chastening vision of the satirist’s world.”24 The difference between Peregrine Pickle and what

Frye describes is especially pronounced when we compare the work to Coventry’s Pompey the

Little. As we will see in Chapter 5, nearly every chapter of Coventry’s work exposes the follies of mankind, whereas Peregrine Pickle contains many chapters that are sentimental.

Barring the unlikely advent of some brilliant new exposition of the structure of the novel, we are likely to conclude that Peregrine Pickle does not cohere, at least when judged by the standards we apply to most narratives. Our feeling of disjointedness arises from two sources. The first is that in several cases, the events that follow each other chronologically have a loose and

23 Frye, Anatomy of Criticism, 311–12. 24 David L. Evans, “Peregrine Pickle: The Complete Satirist,” Studies in the Novel 3, no. 3 (1971): 258–74, at 259–60. 122 superficial causal connection. For instance, when Peregrine and his companions arrive in

Rotterdam, they go out upon the river in a pleasure-yacht and are subsequently overturned in a squall (298–99). Nothing preceding this episode suggests that this event ought to happen by necessity, and it has no consequences for future events. I do not go so far as to say that the event is wholly causally unrelated to the rest of the novel—this scene would not occur, for instance, if

Peregrine were not travelling through Europe—but it seems mostly unrelated to the novel’s other events. Seymour Chatman argues that in typical pre-modernist texts, “events occur in distributions: they are linked to each other as cause to effect, effects in turn causing other effects, until the final effect.”25 The yachting incident, like many other moments in Peregrine Pickle, violates our sense that a narrative’s events ought to be closely interrelated. The other source of disjointedness is the juxtaposition of scenes that evoke completely different emotional responses.

Consider the moment when Peregrine pursues a young couple through the country, believing his quarry to be Emilia and an attendant (355–60). This scene, in which we see Peregrine act in a villainous way, is immediately followed by a moment of sentiment, Peregrine’s erecting of

Trunnion’s monument. From this fond remembrance of a lovable character we turn to scatological humor: in the next episode Cadwallader recounts a wife emptying a piss-filled leather bladder on her husband. In the span of a few pages we have moved from a scene of romantic tension to a more tender-hearted moment to a ribald joke. This sort of mixing detracts from the novel’s sense of unity.

Yet we would be mistaken, I think, to assume that the elements of the narrative that evoke sentimental feelings or excitement rather than humor work at cross-purposes with the novel’s satire. If we believe that Smollett was trying to advance a grim worldview, then certainly the inclusion of the romance plot works to undermine this goal. But if Smollett’s satire is meant

25 Chatman, Story and Discourse, 46. 123 primarily to entertain, then the seemingly hodge-podge arrangement of the episodes actually works to promote the author’s ends. While the satiric episodes of the novel are not circular in the sense that Kernan means, they are somewhat repetitive: they hinge around some character falling victim to some kind of physical prank in which the character’s folly is exposed or punished. The problem with this kind of joke is that, for all of Smollett’s genius in inventing different kinds of pranks, the formula can grow stale, and certainly cannot be sustained throughout the entirety of a novel the length of Peregrine Pickle. One-note novels like The Female Quixote tend to be short for a reason.

The novel’s rapid switching between different kinds of scenes, then, serves to keep the humor of the novel fresh. We cannot know certainly whether or not the shifts in tone were deliberately made for this purpose, but the novel seems to be designed according to the principle that some variation in the emotions evoked is desirable. We may take issue with this manner of structuring a novel because we value tight plotting and logical development of events, but if we consider Smollett’s own theory of the novel, the diversity of episodes in Peregrine Pickle makes sense. In the preface to Ferdinand Count Fathom, Smollett famously declares that “A Novel is a large diffused picture, comprehending the characters of life, disposed in different groupes, and exhibited in various attitudes, for the purposes of an uniform plan, and general occurrence, to which every individual figure is subservient.”26 While Peregrine Pickle does not appear to have

“an uniform plan” in terms of conveying a coherent satiric critique, it does contain characters “in various attitudes”: Peregrine is at different moments a prankster, a rake, a lover, a good friend, and a victim of the world’s vice. The conveyance of a range of emotional responses seems to be the point, rather than the unfortunate consequence of Smollett’s lack of narrative control. Humor

26 Tobias Smollett, The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, ed. O M Brack, Jr. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1988), 4. All references to the text are to this edition. 124 still seems to be the primary goal, but the inclusion of romance and action scenes prevents the humor from cloying.

The idea of the romance scenes having some sort of significance to the novel may seem strange, as they are often regarded as merely obligatory. Evans, for instance, states that “the conventional romance plot” gives the novel “a semblance of dramatic movement,” but does not contribute to the overall goal of the novel, which is satire (259). Skinner, speaking of Smollett’s novels generally, states that Smollett used romance merely “as a frame on which to hang satire”

(137). Yet in order for the romance scenes to provide an effective contrast from the novel’s humorous scenes, they must successfully engage the reader’s emotions; otherwise, the reader might simply skip them over to get to the next comic prank. If we are to believe the reviewer who found that the “gentle shades” of Peregrine’s character “serve only to raise the lights of the picture,” at least some readers did not find his romance with Emilia entirely unconvincing.27 That we do not find the descriptions of Peregrine’s love for Emilia convincing is perhaps not surprising; after all, we have read authors like Stendhal or the Brontës, who present the psychology of romance in a much more vivid way. But how much deeper and more realistic than the romance of Peregrine Pickle is the relationship between Joseph Andrews and Fanny, or Tom

Jones and Sophia? If these engaged the emotions of eighteenth-century readers, why might not the portrayal of Peregrine and Emilia?

Evidence exists to suggest that readers also found other parts of Peregrine Pickle to be important as well. As I have shown elsewhere, eighteenth-century illustrations of the novel tend not to depict the violently humorous scenes or the grotesque caricatures that we associate with

Smollett’s satire, but instead focus on action scenes (such as Pipes fighting with the gardener) or

27 Kelly, Tobias Smollett, 48. 125 scenes of friendship (Pipes reconciling Peregrine and Hatchway, for instance).28 While these illustrations cannot tell us with certainty how Peregrine Pickle was read in Smollett’s time, they do indicate that, at least for the illustrators, these other kinds of scenes were worth focusing on.

We might also consider that the “Memoirs of a Lady of Quality,” which seems to us to disrupt the narrative without adding much of interest or amusement, in fact was more meaningful for

Smollett’s original readers because it described a real scandal. Indeed, the full title of the novel contains “in which are included, Memoirs of a Lady of Quality,” suggesting that Lady Vane’s narrative was expected to be a draw. In a letter to Sarah Scott, Elizabeth Montagu recommends

Peregrine Pickle because “Lady Vane’s story is well told.”29 Other writers were not thrilled by the moral import of the “Memoirs,” but found them at least worth responding to, as the anonymous author of A Letter to the Right Honourable the Lady V——ss V— did.30 The parts of the novel that we deem to be inartistic interruptions of Smollett’s satire may actually have been appreciated in their own right by Smollett’s contemporaries.

Aside from eliciting sentimental emotions, excitement at scenes of action, and scandalous curiosity about Lady Vane, some parts of Peregrine Pickle seem to supply a kind of pornographic wish-fulfillment. One such episode occurs in Chapter LXVI, when Peregrine seduces a young woman in a convent (284–86). Unlike Peregrine’s pursuit of the fair Fleming at

Alost, the point of the scene is not some comic mishap by which the hero fails to consummate his desire; though Peregrine’s dalliances with the woman are eventually discovered and put to an end, he manages to infiltrate the convent and enjoy his beloved. While one can find a degree of

28 Julian Fung, “Eighteenth-Century Illustrations of the Novels of Tobias Smollett,” Eighteenth-Century Life 38, no. 1 (2014): 18–62, at 41–42. 29 Elizabeth Montagu, The Queen of the Blue-Stockings: Her Correspondence from 1720 to 1761, ed. Emily J. Climenson, 2 vols. (London: John Murray, 1906), 2:2. 30 A Letter to the Right Honourable the Lady V——ss V—. Occasioned by the Publication of her Memoirs in the Adventures of Peregrine Pickle (London, 1751). 126 both anti-Catholic and misogynistic satire here, the point of this scene seems to be sexual titillation. The text is not explicit, but it does not condemn Peregrine for pursuing his amours, and absent any condemnation we are led to sympathize with him and desire his success. The scene functions as a fantasy of sexual wish-fulfillment in which a desirable but ostensibly off- limits woman is successfully obtained.

In discussing the ability of other parts of the novel to evoke some kind of response from the reader, I am not trying to argue that at its core Peregrine Pickle is a novel of romance, or action, or scandal, or sexual fantasy. I believe that the satiric humor dominates, even though it is not the only part of the novel worth paying attention to. The majority of the novel’s events are given to the kind of physical jokes that we have already discussed. Yet these non-humorous parts serve an important role in keeping the satire amusing. In this novel Smollett presents a potpourri of experiences. Humorous satire dominates, but when the reader desires something different, he or she can find it in the text. That Smollett should see fit to provide variance is not entirely surprising, given that many eighteenth-century narratives contain a variety of digressions and self-contained episodes that differ in tone from the main plot. As Kevin L. Cope points out, “the abundance of bric-a-brac in long-eighteenth-century fiction demonstrates that eighteenth-century readers reveled in distractions.”31 We cannot assume that Peregrine Pickle is unsatiric, or even only mildly satiric, just because it lacks tonal uniformity and attempts to provoke a diverse range of emotional reactions.

The only point at which the main plot of the novel feels like pure convention is towards the end of the narrative, where the satire darkens slightly and becomes less entertaining. When he decides to enter politics, Peregrine shifts from being the clever punisher of folly to the victim

31 Kevin L. Cope, In and After the Beginning: Inaugural Moments and Literary Institutions in the Long Eighteenth Century (New York: AMS Press, 2007), 233. 127 of vicious men. We do not ever believe that the protagonist is in real danger of suffering a permanent reverse in fortune, even as he loses all his money and is thrown into prison; such an ending would be completely incongruent with the mood of the preceding pages. But the satire is less light and funny. The minister who jails Peregrine, for instance, is never presented as a figure of humor. The slight darkening of the satire also coincides with an increased plot coherence, as the events in this section of the novel have a stronger causal connection. Peregrine loses his money and is cheated by the minister, logically leading him to write political satire, which directly causes his imprisonment. One gets the sense that Smollett needed to bring his narrative to a close, and so saw fit to plunge his hero into a climactic difficulty in order that he might be rescued and a happy ending ensue. The result is satire that more closely fits our critical commonplaces of misanthropic complaint against the world.

At this point in the novel, as the plot moves towards its conclusion and denouement,

Smollett nonetheless seems eager to include some lighter satiric episodes that are more amusing than judgmental. In the chapters discussing the college of authors, for instance, Peregrine temporarily resumes the mantle of satiric observer and punisher, and the authors make buffoons of themselves. Even in the penultimate chapter, after Peregrine has been rescued and his fortune restored, Smollett includes a scene that mocks the philistinism of a country squire which adds nothing to the plot but provides some more satire of entertainment. What happens here may remind us of Peter Brooks’s idea that even as plots move towards a definite end, they tend to involve “deviance” and “detour.”32 Here, however, the light satire does seem to be at odds with the tone of the plot, in a way that does not occur at any other point in the novel. The episode with the country squire, for instance, seems to be tacked on; at this point, with the novel so close to its

32 Peter Brooks, Reading for the Plot: Design and Intention in Narrative (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), 104. 128 conclusion, a reader may wish that the plot simply pushed on towards the expected happy ending. The scene therefore feels forced. We are given little detail about the country squire, and so he never develops into the kind of robust comic butt that Pallet or Trunnion is.

For the majority of the novel, however, the formlessness of the plot allows Smollett to introduce an entertaining variety of satiric scenes while also breaking them up with other kinds of episodes in order to keep the jokes from becoming tired. Whether this narrative strategy works well depends on the individual reader; I suspect that most modern readers, used to the tight plots and relative tonal uniformity to be found in more recent novels, find the technique of varying the tone and type of episode to be disorienting and unnecessary. Nonetheless, the point remains that the disjointed way in which Peregrine Pickle is plotted makes no sense if the aim of the novel’s satire is to castigate society, but seems to be a logical rhetorical choice if the goal is to use satire for the purposes of entertainment.

Satire in Smollett’s Other Novels

I have discussed several indicators suggesting that the satire of Peregrine Pickle is best considered as entertainment. But if we apply our rhetorical method to Smollett’s other novels, what will we find? Not all of the satire employed in Smollett’s novels falls as neatly into the category of entertainment satire. This is not a chapter on Smollett, and so I cannot give detailed analyses of all of his novels, but I want here to touch briefly on each to determine how well the idea of satire as entertainment applies to them.

Most satiric episodes in Smollett’s novels tend to fall into one of two types: the comic— often violent—punishment of some knave, or the illustration of an unchangeable social evil. The former type of episode we have already discussed. When we see the follies of Mr. Hornbeck and 129 his subsequent cuckolding at Peregrine’s hands, we feel neither hopelessness nor outrage.

Rather, our negative assessment of him results in a smug superiority that allows us to enjoy

Peregrine’s assignations with his wife. We judge the victims of these incidents, laugh at their comeuppance, and move on; we never dwell on any single fool or knave long enough for our feelings against them to intensify into hatred. A novel in which this kind of satiric episode predominates is more likely to seem lighter in tone; the implied author will not appear to be airing serious grievances.

Contrariwise, episodes that illustrate larger social evils tend to express gloom about the world. Consider, for instance, the tale of the playwright Melopoyn in Roderick Random. In his failed attempt to get his tragedy staged, Melopoyn is mistreated and deceived by a number of individuals, until he is finally thrown into prison for debt. His story is a depressing complaint about the duplicity of the world. We never get the sense that this state of affairs can change; while Roderick does what he can to relieve Melopoyn’s poverty, the villains of his tale suffer no ill consequences from their actions. In a letter to Alexander Carlyle, Smollett claimed to have taken “revenge” upon playhouse managers in Roderick Random, but this episode does not seem to be aggressive attack.33 The managers are shown to be wicked, but are never insulted or punished. The result is an episode that conveys more despair than vehement rage. The prevalence of this kind of episode moves a novel’s overall satiric aim closer to that of pessimistic warning, in which the implied author has a depressing point to make about the state of the world.

Besides Melopoyn’s interpolated narrative, Roderick Random contains a number of episodes in which Smollett seems to be complaining about real social problems. One of the most memorable of these scenes is the depiction of the Battle of Cartagena de Indias. Roderick complains with bitter sarcasm of the conduct of the British commanders, whose “generosity”

33 Smollett, The Letters of Tobias Smollett, 8. The letter is dated 7 June 1748. 130 causes them to scorn taking “any advantage that fortune might give them, even over an enemy”

(157). His description of the din of the battle itself and the terror it occasions among Roderick’s shipmates is horrifying. Here the evils Smollett exposes are real, and they have no obvious solutions. Smollett also satirizes the vices of urban life; soon after Roderick and Strap first arrive in London, for instance, they are cheated by card sharpers. Naturally, Roderick never manages to punish these rogues; we are likely to imagine that they continue unchecked to impose upon the inexperienced. Such passages convey the sense that the world of Roderick Random is full of real and incorrigible dangers. For this reason Roderick Random is the text on which we draw most heavily for our notions of Smollett as misanthropic satirist. Whereas Peregrine is almost never a victim until the end of the novel, Roderick is an outcast from the beginning and consequently exposed to evils that he cannot defeat.

Nevertheless, Roderick Random is not entirely bleak. The novel also contains some of the more comic type of satiric scenes. Despite the existence of true monsters like Crampley and

Mackshane, the novel’s world also contains many ridiculous and absurd characters who pose no real threat to the hero. Take, for instance, Captain Weazel. When he is first introduced, Roderick and Strap cannot see him and conceive from his loud booming voice that he is a formidable and terrifying man. Later, of course, they discover that he is “a little thin creature” with a face “very much resembling that of a baboon,” who causes no greater harm than emptying a chamber pot on

Strap’s head (55–56). The episode involving him turns out to be of the comic variety. Because the novel includes this kind of humorous episode, the reader is less inclined to believe that

Smollett is making an utterly pessimistic statement about the evil nature of the world.

What, then, are we to make of the satire in Roderick Random? In some ways the tone of this novel fluctuates much more than that of Peregrine Pickle. In the later novel, Smollett 131 presents the readers with a hodgepodge of different kinds of scenes, but most seem to entertain the audience in some way without making serious points. Roderick Random contains much pessimistic satire, but it is interspersed with some more comic satiric scenes that seem designed to amuse, such as Roderick tying down and flogging his schoolmaster or Captain Whiffle being offended at the smell of Morgan. What Smollett seems to be trying to achieve is to communicate some complaints about the unfairness of the world without making the reader too depressed or disgusted to enjoy reading the novel. Were Smollett to focus only on portraying Roderick as a victim of a cruel world, the novel might be a depressing, one-note affair. By including some scenes of entertainment satire, Smollett is able to make the novel more digestible and less disagreeable. On the whole the novel’s satire is pessimistic, and the scenes of satiric entertainment do not cancel out the fact of the world’s potential viciousness. But these episodes nonetheless serve the important role of adding some vivacity to a potentially depressing narrative.

If Roderick Random contains a mixture of glum and entertaining satire, Smollett’s next two novels seem to be experiments in employing only one or the other type through a single work. We have already seen how most of the satire in Peregrine Pickle is meant primarily to entertain. Ferdinand Count Fathom is almost the direct reverse, as almost all of the satire in that work is pessimistic. Absent from this work are many of the traits that made the satire in

Peregrine Pickle primarily entertaining. Humorous scenes employing violence or excrement are far less common. No amiably comic characters like Trunnion or Pipes lighten the mood. Instead, much of the work is devoted to Fathom’s schemes and machinations, which are mostly not amusing. We find nothing funny, for example, about Fathom stealing Don Diego’s jewels.

Fathom engages in numerous sexual intrigues and seductions, as Peregrine does, but where 132

Peregrine’s dalliances are implicitly condoned by the narrator, Fathom’s are explicitly condemned. When, for instance, Ferdinand seduces Celinda, the narrator moralistically comments that “the gradations towards vice are almost imperceptible, and an experienced seducer can strew them with such inticing and agreeable flowers, as will lead the young sinner on insensibly, even to the most profligate stages of guilt” (161). The object of the novel’s glum satire is to issue a stern warning about the world’s evildoers: they are potent and malicious, with the power to lead even virtuous people astray. Ferdinand Count Fathom is darker and more pessimistic even than Roderick Random, as Smollett’s first novel is leavened with humor.

Roderick Random shows readers that mankind is generally vicious while still affirming the

(albeit rare) existence of love, friendship, and generosity, but Ferdinand Count Fathom immerses the reader totally in a world of darkness. True, the novel’s dark worldview is somewhat lightened by the shift in focus from Fathom to Count Melvile towards the end of the novel, but the example of good conduct comes too late to shake our sense that truly dangerous and evil individuals terrorize the world unchecked, doing great harm to the unsuspecting.

Whereas Ferdinand Count Fathom contains little humor, Sir Launcelot Greaves includes many moments in which negative judgments made about characters are meant mainly to allow the reader to appreciate fully the comically violent punishments they receive. When Launcelot and Crabshaw encounter a party of recruits, the recruits are portrayed as a pack of impertinent rascals so that we can enjoy the violent combat that follows. One never gets the sense that a larger point is being made here about recruits or even the impudence of humanity generally; unlike Fathom, these soldiers never do much harm. Not all of the novel’s episodes are similarly light, however. When Launcelot is captured and thrown into a madhouse at the novel’s climax, he reflects upon the precariousness of freedom in a country where “a man of rank and property 133 may be thus kidnapped even in the midst of the capital” and conveyed to a prison “from which there seems to be no possibility of escape.”34 We get the sense here that Launcelot’s despair is justified: he lives in a world in which abuses of power occur, often with disastrous results upon the lives of the innocent and powerless.

Given this mix of light-hearted and dark episodes, we might not be surprised to find that critics have disagreed over the nature of the novel’s satire. Frank Palmeri, for instance, suggests that Smollett moderates his satire in this novel, as unlike Smollett’s other heroes, “Greaves is not motivated by a desire to obtain revenge on the rest of those who live in society.”35 Contrariwise,

Beasley finds that the novel expresses something close to “the bitterness and intolerance of

Juvenalian satire” (161). Marshall finds the novel “in many ways [Smollett’s] darkest,” largely because it does not depict social reformation.36 These views notwithstanding, I do not find Sir

Launcelot Greaves, on the whole, to be a pessimistically satiric work, for two main reasons: the novel’s humor and the fact that the wrongs depicted are mostly redressed.

Consider the extended episode involving Justice Gobble. Daniel Punday, who argues that the novel satirizes the way social roles suppress individuality and personal relationships, finds that this adventure is “the novel’s clearest example of this disjunction of personality and role.”37

But though we see the wrongs that Gobble commits through his abuse of the law, any pessimism conveyed is ameliorated by the climax of the episode, in which Gobble himself appears. The

Justice’s bumpkinish dialect and malapropisms make him seem a ridiculous clown to be laughed at, not a personage to be feared. Perhaps, as Punday suggests, Smollett is attempting here to

34 Tobias Smollett, The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves, ed. Barbara Laning Fitzpatrick (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2002), 179. All references to Sir Launcelot Greaves are to this text. 35 Palmeri, Satire, History, Novel, 198. 36 Marshall, The Practice of Satire in England, 276. 37 Daniel Punday, “Satiric Method and the Reader in Sir Launcelot Greaves,” Eighteenth-Century Fiction 6, no. 2 (1994): 169–88, at 171. 134 make an important point about the harmful effects of societal roles, but how likely would readers have been to take the scene seriously enough to perceive and be convinced of this opinion?

Furthermore, Gobble cannot at last escape the justice of the law, and he is ultimately punished.

Though the episode shows that the law can be abused, it also demonstrates that the law can be used for the protection of the innocent. The relatively cheerful and optimistic satire practiced here can be found throughout the whole novel. The satire of Sir Launcelot Greaves, then, appears to be more didactic than gloomy. The novel indicates that abuses of power exist, but it makes this point gently, and teaches its readers that such abuses can and should be redressed through the legal system.

The Adventures of an Atom is not often thought of as one of Smollett’s novels, and for good reason. The work hardly has any plot or characters; the focus is purely on attack. The bulk of the narrative consists of the titular atom relating the history of the island of Japan; this is a thinly-veiled commentary on English politics. Of all of Smollett’s prose fictions, this is the one best described of as attack. Smollett is slamming real individuals hard. In other works his scatological humor is primarily funny, but when he uses it to describe actual politicians, it becomes insulting. This work, as Marshall puts the point, “represents Smollett at his most irascible, obscene, and ferocious.”38 It shows us that Smollett was certainly capable of writing vicious and stinging satire. The harshness of the Atom’s satire contrasts with the relatively milder and more humorous satire of the novels; for all the cruel characters and violent situations of

Roderick Random or Ferdinand Count Fathom, the satire in those novels never approaches the sharpness of that found here.

Humphry Clinker is Smollett’s mildest novel, as many critics have observed. Palmeri, for instance, sees the novel as a move away from satire: Matthew Bramble is a satiric figure who

38 Marshall, The Practice of Satire in England, 276. 135

“decries the corruptions of modern urban society,” but over the course of the narrative he learns to moderate his diatribes.39 This description of the novel is basically accurate. While Bramble makes some harsh satiric criticisms of London and Bath, the novel as a whole does not lead the reader into many intensely negative judgments. Humphry Clinker has often been seen as a major departure from Smollett’s earlier works, and in many ways this perception is true. It is Smollett’s first epistolary novel, and it does not follow the adventures of a sole protagonist. The plot is more linear, following Bramble’s family along a journey through England and Scotland. But the novel’s humor is not so different in kind from that of Peregrine Pickle. The same kind of delight in deformity and pain can be found here, as when Bramble’s old friend Balderick accidentally steps with his wooden leg on Bramble’s gouty toe.40 We can find violent scenes as well, as when

Bramble drubs two black musicians who have been playing the French horn in the stair-case

(32). Even towards the end of the narrative, we can find cruel humor. Take, for instance,

Lismahago’s treatment at the hands of Lord Oxmington: his sword is “passed through a close- stool” and he himself is thrown into a horse-pond (272). These examples reinforce the point that violent or scatological humor is not incompatible with mild satire.

What separates Humphry Clinker from the pessimism of Roderick Random or the entertaining potpourri of Peregrine Pickle is not the nature of the humor it employs but the presence of a positive standard of behavior. The novel celebrates generosity and communal fellow-feeling. As Beasley points out, Clinker “possesses a natural simplicity of heart and nobility of character,” and these virtues “draw the Bramble family together in a union of spirit and human feeling” (190). Roderick Random is largely pessimistic without upholding many virtues, while Peregrine Pickle is a romp largely unconcerned with promoting any kind of

39 Palmeri, Satire, History, Novel, 198–99. 40 Tobias Smollett, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, ed. O M Brack, Jr. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1990), 54. All references are to this edition. 136 behavior. But Humphry Clinker’s satire condemns selfish behavior and attempts to steer the reader towards the kind of charitable sentimentality that Bramble possesses beneath his cranky exterior. For this reason, satire in Humphry Clinker serves primarily neither to express pessimism or to provide entertainment, but to educate the reader in a gentle and humorous way.

In terms of aim, it is in the same vein as Sir Launcelot Greaves, but the satire is even milder: while Humphry Clinker contains some legitimately grumpy complaints about such things as the quality of food in London, the novel does not contain any truly bleak moments comparable to the imprisonment of Sir Launcelot.

What we can see is that Smollett’s satiric fictions vary in the kinds of satire they employ and the ends they seem designed to achieve (see Table 1). He was capable of writing nasty attacking satire, as Adventures of an Atom demonstrates. He was also able to produce entertaining satire, as he does in Peregrine Pickle. In some cases Smollett seems to be complaining about the viciousness of the world without suggesting that anything can be done about it, as in Roderick Random and Ferdinand Count Fathom. At other times Smollett suggests that the evils of the world can be overcome or at least offset by virtuous behavior, as in Sir

Launcelot Greaves and Humphry Clinker. I cannot see a clear trajectory in the way Smollett uses satire across his fictions, and his letters shed little light on his creative process. Perhaps Smollett decided to include more entertaining satire in Peregrine Pickle than in Roderick Random believing that the popularity of his first novel was a result of its comic moments. On finding

Peregrine Pickle to be less successful, he might have tried to recapture the pessimism of his first work with Ferdinand Count Fathom. When that novel, too, was not a success, he may have decided that milder, more didactic satire would be more popular. These speculations cannot be verified, however. We cannot know for sure why Smollett decided to vary his satiric practice so 137 much. We can only say that in terms of integrating satire with fiction, Smollett was a bold experimenter.

Table 1. Types of Satire in the Novels of Tobias Smollett Work Kinds of Satire Used Aim Comments Roderick Random Many pessimistic episodes Pessimism The world of this novel is full of showing Roderick as victim scoundrels, many of whom are of malicious individuals; unpunished. Not as dark as some lighter humor to Ferdinand Count Fathom, however; prevent an utterly bleak Roderick triumphs, and along the portrayal of the world way the humor serves to make the novel more palatable. Peregrine Pickle Physical comedy using Entertainment A potpourri. The physical humor is many stock satiric targets the stuff of jestbooks. But so that the humor is not cloying, the novel mixes in various other kinds of scenes, including sentimental ones. The episodes do not cohere into a single satiric critique, suggesting that the satire is primarily for the sake of humor. Ferdinand Count Fathom Episodes of Fathom or Pessimism The satire shows that evil people can other rascals taking do great harm to others, even those advantage of innocents who are virtuous. Darker than Roderick Random. The story of Melvile at the end of the novel suggests the possibility that good can overcome evil, but this message is delivered fairly late, after we have already seen the depths of villainy of which Fathom (and others) are capable. Sir Launcelot Greaves Some pessimistic episodes, Instruction The world of the novel contains but mostly exaggerated and evildoers, but ultimately the work violent satiric comedy suggests that the innocent can be protected through proper application of the law. Most of the vicious characters are at least somewhat comic, making this novel’s depiction of evil much less grim than that of Ferdinand Count Fathom or Roderick Random. Adventures of an Atom Vehement insult and Attack This work contains much more scatological attack against personal satire than any of the other British politicians, fictions, which contributes to its represented by the court of harsh and abrasive tone. Japan Humphry Clinker Many humorous episodes Instruction The novel promotes charity and existing alongside scenes of communal affection. It is lighter than sentiment. Sir Launcelot Greaves; Matthew’s family are never in the kind of desperate circumstances Launcelot finds himself in.

138

Appreciating Smollett’s satiric range requires that we do not view him solely as an irascible misanthrope. If we take Smollett to be a creator only of grumpy, angry satire, we will miss how he uses physical humor against stock targets and a non-uniform structure to create entertainment satire in Peregrine Pickle. Not all entertainment satire is created in this way, however. I want now to turn to Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, which makes use of a variety of different techniques to generate its satire.

II. Tristram Shandy: The Performance of Satire

Most critics acknowledge that Smollett is a satirist. The case of Laurence Sterne is different, as scholars have doubted whether Tristram Shandy can rightly be considered satiric. Several decades ago Melvyn New contended in Laurence Sterne as Satirist that Tristram Shandy is a satire in the vein of Swift’s A Tale of a Tub,41 but this argument has not been widely accepted.

Responding directly to New, Michael V. DePorte claims that New’s reading results in “serious distortions of the text,” and argues that “there is never the suggestion with Toby, or with Walter either, of willful folly . . . and without this suggestion one does not really have satire.”42 Others have similarly denied that Sterne’s goal is essentially satiric. Helene Moglen, for instance, notes that while the novel contains some satiric portions, “Sterne did not write principally as a satirist.”43 Howard D. Weinbrot, in his study of Menippean satire, disqualifies Tristram Shandy: the novel is only “mildly satiric,” as Sterne is “having too much fun to be gloomy.”44 For many readers, Tristram Shandy is barely, if at all, satiric.

41 New, Laurence Sterne as Satirist, 55. 42 Michael V. DePorte, review of Laurence Sterne as Satirist, by Melvyn New, Modern Philology 69, no. 3 (1972): 258–61, at 259. 43 Helene Moglen, The Philosophical Irony of Laurence Sterne (Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1975), 29. 44 Weinbrot, Menippean Satire Reconsidered, 11. 139

If we are to study how satire operates in Tristram Shandy, then, we need to answer two questions. First, is satire a significant component of the novel? If not, then we need proceed no further in our investigation. But if we do have reason to believe that satire is integral to the work, then we must also address a second issue: why have modern scholars been so reluctant to acknowledge the work’s satiric qualities? I do believe satire is an important part of Tristram

Shandy. Sterne’s contemporary readers evidently thought that they were reading a satiric work, and the indicators of satire that I discuss in Chapter 1 can be found here. But Sterne’s satiric purpose is not attack; the follies that he exposes do not come across as particularly threatening.

The point of Sterne’s satire is not the punishing or correcting of vices but what I term

“performance.” As Dustin Griffin has pointed out, some satire can be thought of “as a kind of rhetorical performance”; in these cases satire is “designed to win the admiration and applause of a reading audience not for the ardor or acuteness of its moral concern but for the brilliant wit and force of the satirist as rhetorician.”45 Tristram Shandy is best thought of in this way. By pointing out the ridiculousness of his characters, Sterne creates opportunities to showcase his wit and inventiveness. The novel’s satire may not be vehement or stinging, but it is brilliantly crafted and cleverly executed. Because the point is not punitive, scholars who conceive of satire primarily as attack downplay the work’s satiric content. But a broader concept of satire helps us to understand why the work was understood as satiric in its own time.

How Satiric is “Tristram Shandy”?

In his monograph on Tristram Shandy, John M. Stedmond draws a distinction between satire and comedy. Satire, he argues, “characteristically implies an ideal and often attacks this world (and perhaps its Maker) because it cannot conceivably ever attain to such ideality. This accounts for

45 Griffin, Satire, 71. 140 the savagery of much satire.” Comedy, by contrast, “implies acceptance of the world—not as ideal, certainly, but as necessary . . . seeing man as by nature ungodlike, unheroic, and his salvation as lying in his ability to recognize and accept, perhaps even welcome, his human limitations.” 46 Stedmond finds Tristram Shandy to be more of a comedy than a satire, concluding that “the comic view which accepts man’s flawed nature as part of his essence . . . is the one which Tristram adopts” (131). Stedmond’s reasoning—that the novel promotes tolerance of folly, and thus is not satiric—is likely shared by a significant number of modern readers.

Many of the denials that the novel is essentially satiric revolve around the fact that Sterne’s characters, while obviously flawed, are nonetheless lovable. Uncle Toby is the clearest example here: Tave finds Uncle Toby to be one of the most significant amiable humorists of the eighteenth century, and thus one of the characters who epitomizes the shift from nasty satiric humor to sympathetic sentimental humor (148–49). Despite Toby’s manifest quirks, many readers have found his gentle nature and simplicity endearing, leading them to conclude that the novel does not treat him satirically.

If we consider the reactions of Sterne’s contemporaries, however, Tristram Shandy appears to have been read as significantly satiric. The author of a 1760 letter in Lloyd’s Evening

Post states that he is “entirely convinced ’tis a smart satirical piece on the vices of the age, particularly of that part of the Creation, which were designed for the pleasure and happiness of man.” An article in the Imperial Magazine, also published in 1760, states that “Mr. Sterne doubtless possesses in the highest degree the art of ridiculing the ruling passions, or hobby horses, as well as the vices and follies of mankind.” This description, of course, invokes the conventional notion of satire exposing vice and folly. Edmund Burke, writing in the Annual

46 John M. Stedmond, The Comic Art of Laurence Sterne: Convention and Innovation in Tristram Shandy and A Sentimental Journey (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1967), 66. 141

Register, states that “the satire with which this work abounds, though not always happily introduced, is spirited, poignant, and often extremely just . . . the author possesses in an high degree, the talent of catching the ridiculous in every thing that comes before him.”47

Sterne himself seems to have believed that his project was satiric in nature. He famously describes his objectives to his publisher, Robert Dodsley, in terms that suggest satire: “The Plan, as you will percieve [sic], is a most extensive one,—taking in, not only, the Weak part of the

Sciences, in wch the true point of Ridicule lies—but every Thing else, which I find Laugh-at-able in my way.” In a later letter to Dodsley, Sterne writes that “All Locality is taken out of the

Book—the Satyr general.”48 Evidently, Sterne originally intended the work to contain specific satire upon real individuals, but then revised to make his targets less identifiable. The fact that both Sterne and his original readers seemed to have found Tristram Shandy satiric suggests that we ought at least to reevaluate the idea that the novel is too tolerant to include much satire.

We should turn, then, to the indicators of satire that I have discussed in Chapter 1 to see how frequently they can be found in the novel. No reader would deny that the work abounds with humor, and that the characters Sterne creates are funny. Along with, and contributing to, this humor is a strong degree of distortion. Though we do not find here the exaggerated physical features or grotesques present in Smollett, Sterne creates characters who are exaggeratedly extreme in their modes of thinking and behavior. Sterne’s characters are sometimes described as realistic. Henri Fluchère, for instance, states that they are “like real people in the eyes of the imagination, friendly, persuasive, men and women we should like to be on familiar terms with,

47 Howes, Sterne, 85, 105, 106. 48 The Letters, Part I: 1739–1764, vol. 7 of The Florida Edition of the Works of Laurence Sterne, ed. Melvyn New and Peter de Voogd (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2009), 80, 97. The first letter is dated May 23, 1759; the second is dated October 5, 1759. 142 forgetting that they are not creatures of flesh and blood but pure creations of the mind.”49 But in many ways Sterne’s characters are quite unlike real people: Uncle Toby’s unwillingness to hurt a fly is an instance of hyperbolized sentimentality, and his utter innocence is hardly realistic.

Likewise, Walter’s pedantry and over-intellectualism are completely incongruous with reality.

Clearly Sterne employs a kind of distortion in his novel.

Humor and distortion are not, however, the only factors that confer a satiric feel to a narrative. Does the novel lead its readers to make negative judgments of these humorous and distorted characters? Some critics have denied that we are to view the oddities of the novel’s characters in a negative way. Stedmond, for instance, in discussing the humor arising from

Tristram’s folly, asserts that “this is sympathetic laughter, rather than derisive” (89). Certainly the presence of humor in Tristram Shandy does not by itself imply that the novel leads readers to make negative judgments. Many works include humor that does not rely on characters we are meant to critique. Take, for instance, Wodehouse’s short story “The Great Sermon Handicap.”

When the protagonists bet on the length of the various local clergy’s sermons, the humor largely derives from the incongruity between the high seriousness of preaching and the low mundanity of gambling, not from any particular negative judgments about characters or values. The humor of Tristram Shandy, however, is different, relying much more on individuals or groups who deviate from a norm than on the incongruousness of events. When Sterne inserts the treatise of the doctors of the Sorbonne on baptizing infants in the womb, we are clearly supposed to be judging their scholastic reasoning negatively as unnatural and absurd. The same kind of judgment is invoked numerous times when Walter expounds his strange theories. Even Tristram acknowledges that Walter possesses “the oddest way of thinking” that lays him open to “some of

49 Henri Fluchère, Laurence Sterne: From Tristram to Yorick: An Interpretation of Tristram Shandy, trans. Barbara Bray (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), 272. 143 the oddest and most whimsical distresses,” thus calling attention to the negative effects of his father’s bizarre philosophical reasoning.50 One might object that for all of Walter’s strange ideas, he never becomes utterly contemptible; indeed, because we see him involved in several instances of misfortune, we are likely to pity him. That the text does not encourage us to dislike Walter is true. Our pity and sympathy for him, however, co-exists with the realization that his ideas are non-normative, harmful, and ultimately foolish. Tristram Shandy is genial throughout, but geniality is not incompatible with negative assessment and critique. Just because we do not abhor

Walter does not mean we cannot criticize his way of interpreting the world.

Uncle Toby, too, seems clearly to be the target of some kind of critique, even though some parts of his character are admirable. Certainly nothing in the text condemns the real benevolence Toby exercises on some occasions, as when he tends the dying Le Fever and cares for his son, or his simple faith in Christianity (especially when contrasted to Walter’s belief in abstract and nonsensical systems). These character traits are the reason why Toby was so beloved by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century readers. Yet the text contains too many indications of the limitations of Toby’s sentimentality to ignore. New is correct in drawing attention to Toby’s inability to sympathize with the pains of Mrs. Shandy’s labor (105). And

Toby’s defense of the practice of soldiering when he is accused by Walter of being disappointed at the Treaty of Utrecht is hopelessly illogical. As Richard A. Lanham points out, if warfare is merely “the getting together of quiet and harmless people, with their swords in their hands, to keep the ambitious and the turbulent within bounds,” then should not Toby rejoice that the war is

50 Laurence Sterne, The Florida Edition of the Works of Laurence Sterne, ed. Melvyn New and Peter de Voogd, vols. 1–3, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, ed. Melvyn New and Joan New (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1978), 1:256. All references to Tristram Shandy are to this edition. 144 over and that the ambitions of aggressors have been curbed?51 Had Sterne intended his readers to interpret Toby in a purely uncritical way, he might not have included these moments in which

Toby’s weaknesses are made manifest. Their inclusion suggests that we are to apply some negative—albeit mild—judgment to Toby.

We should note, as well, that aside from Walter and Toby, the novel also contains characters and groups about whom we are invited to make harsher negative judgments, and who are almost entirely unsympathetic. The most prominent of these is Doctor Slop, who is clearly meant to be judged as a pompous fool; he is the subject of one of the few grotesque caricatures in the novel. When he is introduced, we are told to “imagine to yourself a little, squat, uncourtly figure of a Doctor Slop, of about four feet and a half perpendicular height, with a breadth of back, and a sesquipedality of belly” (1:121). This figure is soon after cast from his horse and dumped into the mud, an episode which seems, as Paulson suggests, to belong in Peregrine

Pickle.52 We see him further injured at several points in the narrative, as when he slices open his thumb in cutting the knot of his bag (1:199), and when Susannah sets his wig on fire (2:495).

These incidents do not arouse pity, as the misfortunes of Walter do; rather, they seem to be moments of cruel humor that aim to arouse laughter at Slop’s pain. Neither are we invited to feel great sympathy for some of the other targets of Sterne’s satire. The learned doctors of divinity to whom Walter goes to discuss the matter of Tristram’s christening are depicted as being ridiculous, legalistic, and ultimately unhelpful. Nothing about these characters makes us feel for them; when Phutatorius has a hot chestnut dropped onto his genitals, he is unlikely to induce compassion from the reader. Though critics such as Moglen have argued that Sterne promotes

51 Richard A. Lanham, Tristram Shandy: The Games of Pleasure (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), 81–82; Sterne, Tristram Shandy, 2:557. 52 Paulson, Satire and the Novel, 248. 145

“the wise acceptance of absurdity” in Tristram Shandy (160), these characters suggest that at least some kinds of absurdity are meant to be laughed at derisively rather than tolerated.

The point, then, is that Tristram Shandy does indeed encourage its readers to judge many of its characters negatively, even though the intensity of the judgment invoked is almost never fierce. Even though the Shandy family is eminently likeable, their hobby-horsical propensities represent clear and sometimes harmful deviations from normal behavior. The negative judgments we make about various characters in the novel, when combined with the liberal use of humor and distortion, confer on the work a satiric nature. These three indicators of satire are not only present in the work, but frequent, as almost the entirety of the work revolves around a small group of flawed, funny, and exaggerated characters. The fourth indicator of satire—the upholding of some sort of positive standard of behavior—is present, but to a lesser degree. In some passages Tristram articulates positive values, as when he discusses the benefits of laughter in claiming that the book is written against spleen (1:360), but on the whole the work does not provide frequent preachment. Even the sermon on conscience is punctuated by amusing digressions. The contrast between Tristram Shandy and a novel like Hamilton’s Memoirs of

Modern Philosophers, which clearly and heavy-handedly promotes the practice of Christianity as an alternative to radical thought, is obvious. But because the other indicators of satire are present,

Tristram Shandy still feels very much like a satiric novel.

Though I believe we should treat Tristram Shandy as a novel in which satire is crucial, we should not make the mistake of reading the novel’s satire as particularly intense or vehement.

Those critics who have found the novel satiric have often interpreted it as a serious and biting condemnation of the problems it portrays. New reads the novel as an attack on “the attitude of pride and self-sufficiency with which men offer, from their frail bodies and pitiable minds, 146 solutions to the universe,” and believes Sterne’s worldview to be similar to that promoted by Part

IV of Gulliver’s Travels (83, 28). James E. Swearingen suggests that the work’s satire is even more serious: for him, the problems of the Shandy family are emblematic of “a general crisis of modern western life” leading to “the demise of Christian culture.”53 Clearly Walter, Toby, and various others are satirized, but the satire is not intense enough to suggest that Sterne is making a solemn warning or fierce attack. The collective delusions of the Shandy circle may harm a few individuals—Toby’s obsession with war games indirectly results in Tristram’s circumcision, and

Walter’s preference for Doctor Slop over the midwife leads to the crushing of Tristram’s nose.

But Tristram appears to have survived these problems, and in any case society at large is unaffected. We are far removed from the world of Ferdinand Count Fathom, in which Fathom’s numerous depredations have the potential to ruin utterly the lives of many victims. If a satiric work does not show us that the vice or behavior it targets has devastating results on characters whom we care about or at least sympathize with, we are unlikely to feel that the target is being harshly castigated.

If the point of the satire is not to attack a serious vice, then what might its objective be?

Pessimistic complaint seems just as unlikely as attack. The tone of the novel is mostly light, even though we are from time to time reminded of Tristram’s illness and impending death, and the reader is not warned against any grave dangers. Instruction might seem to be more plausible, especially as Tristram claims that he writes “to instruct” (1:98). But what is the lesson to be learned here? We might interpret the novel as an exhortation to tolerance, but as we have seen, not all of the novel’s flawed characters are treated in such a way as to promote our tolerance of their behaviors. One is unlikely to read Tristram Shandy and take away from it the idea that

53 James E. Swearingen, Reflexivity in Tristram Shandy: An Essay in Phenomenological Criticism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), 201–03. 147

Catholicism (for example) is a harmless fault deserving of sympathy. Tristram Shandy does not urge the punishment of folly, but neither does the novel staunchly insist upon the embracing of it.

Instead, I believe that the novel’s satire aims mainly to entertain its readers by providing a means for Sterne to exercise his virtuoso wit. An analogy may be helpful here. Pope’s The

Rape of the Lock is often considered to be a satire, but, as Marshall has pointed out, the critiques the poem makes on high society are too light and gentle to bring about reform or change. Its point is more to entertain its audience with its humor and technical genius than to teach proper behavior. The poem is, by this reading, “a brilliantly crafted diversion, the effort of an artist rather than a social reformer” (175). While Tristram Shandy obviously differs from The Rape of the Lock in many significant ways, this framework may help us understand Sterne’s satiric objective. How, then, can we tell if Sterne’s primary goal is to provide an entertaining performance to his readers? And if this is his aim, how does he achieve it?

Satire as Display

The character of Tristram is crucial to our understanding of how satire functions in Tristram

Shandy. His most salient quality is his tendency to intrude into the narrative and interact with his readers. Fielding’s narrator in Tom Jones, with his theoretical chapters at the beginning of each book, somewhat approaches the banter achieved between Tristram and his readers, but even he is not nearly as conscious a showman as Tristram. We are likely to feel that Tristram is performing—not in the sense of establishing an identity through action that Judith Butler describes, but simply in that, like a masterful musician, he is displaying his skill to the audience.

Other characters who narrate their own novels, such as David Copperfield or Jane Eyre, seem interested primarily in transmitting their narratives clearly and compellingly. The same could 148 hardly be said of Tristram: in no way does he attempt to tell a logical sequence of events in an orderly fashion. Tristram himself asserts that “Digressions, incontestably, are the sun-shine;—— they are the life, the soul of reading.” He embraces the fact that his narrative is not straightforward, as it allows him to introduce “variety” into the work and display his “dexterity” in “the good cookery and management” of his digressions (1:81).

From Tristram’s devotion to digression, and from his frequent interjection of humor, we get a sense of the narrator’s playfulness. Far from taking himself and his ideas “more seriously than either warrants,” as New asserts, Tristram seems more intent on making jokes and cultivating a cordial relationship with his readers than on telling his story (83). We are, after all, dealing with a narrator who rebukes the fictional “Madam” for not realizing that “my mother was not a papist,” and who then sends the reader off to read the previous chapter again (1:64–65).

Likewise, he is willing to tease the reader by refusing to reveal the identity of his “dear, dear,

Jenny,” and then to chide “Madam” for believing Tristram is going to make a bawdy comment about friendships between men and women (56–57). New reads this last scene as one of

“Sterne’s efforts to implicate us, as readers, in this satiric attack,” revealing our penchant for finding sexual suggestiveness in innocuous passages (86–87). But this scene lacks any indication that Sterne is making an attack, unless we strongly identify ourselves with the prudish “Madam.”

Tristram is more likely to be making a sly jest than a serious comment on our overly sexualized imaginations.

Our sense of Tristram’s delight in play that shows off his cleverness is reinforced by his willingness to break conventional typographical rules. Thomas Keymer has argued that the games Tristram plays with typography—the missing chapter in Volume IV, for instance, or the liberal use of asterisks in place of words—demonstrate the failure of language to communicate 149 ideas and represent the world. He finds an “undertow of desperation to [Tristram’s] most celebrated moments of resort to the visual,” including the black page marking Yorick’s death and the blank page on which the reader is invited to draw the Widow Wadman.54 Sterne may indeed be gesturing in these moments to the inadequacy of words, but he is also providing instances of pleasant surprise for the reader. Although some of these devices have been used in previous novels, as Keymer demonstrates, others “are almost certainly unprecedented,” and in any case they are far from conventional (74). Where we expect a standard description of Widow

Wadman’s beauty, of the kind Fielding employs to describe Sophia in Tom Jones, we are instead given a blank page on which to sketch her ourselves. The incongruity between what we expect and what is actually presented in the text appears cheeky because unanticipated. As with

Tristram’s friendly banter with his imagined audience, the bizarre textual features convey the sense that the narrator is not entirely serious in his stated enterprise of writing his life and opinions.

Tristram does not maintain his jokiness at all times—Tristram Shandy is hardly a one- note work. At some points Tristram is patently sentimental, as when he describes Toby’s funeral, at which “all my father’s systems shall be baffled by his sorrows; and, in spight of his philosophy, I shall behold him, as he inspects the lackered plate, twice taking his spectacles from off his nose, to wipe away the dew which nature has shed upon them” (2:545). Here Walter is transformed from a distorted caricature to someone who experiences grief in a realistic way, just as we might do, signaling that Tristram is no longer writing in a purely jocular register. At other times Tristram seems not merely sentimental but somberly philosophical, as when he discusses with Jenny the swift passage of time and the transience of human life (2:754). Once again,

Tristram does not describe an exaggerated situation but a condition common to humanity,

54 Keymer, Sterne, the Moderns, and the Novel, 75. 150 indicating a change in key. From time to time Tristram refers to his own growing ill-health, nowhere more directly than in Volume VII, in which he attempts literally to flee from Death.

Though we can see an element of playfulness here, we are at a remove from the Tristram who delights in scolding his readers jokingly for their inattention.

These moments, however, are deviations from the norm. As Keymer has rightly pointed out, “the ominous notes grow louder as the work proceeds,” but in the earlier books—when we make our first assessments of Tristram’s character—the concern with displaying an aptitude for wits and wisecracks predominates (138). Nor does Tristram cease displaying his cleverness late in the narrative, as when he works the innuendo-laden tale of the abbess of Andoüillets into

Volume VII, or when he displaces Chapters XVIII and XIX of Volume IX. The passages in which he employs a sentimental or somber register demonstrate that Tristram can be serious at times, but they also suggest that Tristram’s typical comic approach to the work he writes is a deliberate choice on his part. He is clearly capable of providing sober reflection and writing effectively on the vicissitudes of life, but instead he elects to present himself the majority of the time as a charming entertainer. The occasional changes in tone show us the range and variety of

Tristram’s skill, and remind us that for the most part he chooses to be cheerful, genial, and clever despite having good reason to dwell on the hardships of his life.

What does Tristram’s playfulness have to do with the novel’s satire? First, it suggests to us that Tristram is not a target of satire in the same way that the narrator of A Tale of a Tub is.

New takes Tristram’s unwillingness to follow the rules of conventional narrative as a sign of his mental degeneracy, arguing that Tristram is “clearly being overwhelmed by his freedom,” and that “his work assumes more and more the chaotic form associated with satiric representations of the uncreating mind” (120). By this reading, we are meant to take Tristram’s failure to produce a 151 structured story as an indication that his values are being satirized by Sterne. Indeed, Tristram at times appears worried about the impossibility of actually getting through his life story, as when he acknowledges that “write as I will, and rush as I may into the middle of things, as Horace advises,—I shall never overtake myself . . . at the worst I shall have one day the start of my pen”

(1:342). If, however, we know that Tristram is playful and inclined to fill his story with jokes, we have no reason to believe that he is not calling attention to the impossibility of his task as yet another of his quips about authorship. The passage, then, is not a serious complaint that displays

Tristram’s foolishness, but a joking observation made to surprise and delight the reader. Because we know Tristram tends to seize opportunities for showcasing his wit, we are more likely to read the parts of the text in which he appears laughable as conscious self-mockery than unconscious revelation of mental deficiency.

A second, more important consequence of Tristram’s persona for our understanding of the work’s satire is that we are more likely to feel that the novel’s satiric depictions of absurd characters like Walter, Toby, and Slop are introduced not to make a point about the follies they represent but to provide Tristram more opportunities to show off to the reader. When Tristram describes the Shandy circle, we make negative judgments about their beliefs and behaviors—we cannot help but see them as hapless deviations from the norm—but we also perceive that these characters are vibrantly and skillfully drawn, much more so than (for instance) most of the characters in Peregrine Pickle. The consequences of their foolishness are developed far more fully. Walter is a character dominated by a single flaw—his irrational pedantry—but this one trait has an entertaining variety of manifestations, such as his belief in the power of names and his creation of the Tristrapædia. The satiric characterization of Walter seems more like a means than an end in itself: it allows Tristram to exercise his wit by displaying to us a wide range of 152 humorous satiric scenes. The point is not the judgment we are to make against Walter, but the array of ways in which his deficiencies can be exposed to entertaining effect.

One of the clearest examples of satire used as a means for entertainment is the depiction of Uncle Toby, whose extreme sensibility has the unfortunate effect of leading to a “total ignorance of the [female] sex” (1:117). This complete lack of understanding of women is presented satirically as a deviation from the norm; Tristram, with all his bawdry, obviously finds knowledge of women to be no bad thing and expects the reader to be attuned to his sexual jokes.

Toby’s innocence is a ridiculous distortion of delicacy. Indeed, this trait is so extreme that Toby can hardly serve as a serious warning against the dangers of sentimentalism. What Tristram’s discussion of Toby’s incomprehension of women allows him to do, however, is to introduce a number of puns and witticisms calling attention to this fault. For instance, the scene in which

Walter attempts to explain to Toby the right end of a woman ensues directly from Toby’s admission of ignorance. Likewise, it provides the background Tristram uses to launch into the story of how Trim breaks the drawbridge in the course of his seduction of Bridget, and all the attendant siege-related double entendres that follow (1:246–49). The crowning example of entertainment resulting from Toby’s satirized delicacy is his abortive courtship of the Widow

Wadman. If we are intent on reading the novel as a hard satire, we might see Toby’s failure as an example of how “the Shandean hopes of creation collapse in dissolution, destruction, and death,” as New puts the point (203). But this seems too serious a message to convey through an episode which, after much build-up, culminates in a pun. Toby is in the wrong—the widow, after all, has the right to expect sex from a potential new husband and is justifiably concerned about Toby’s sexual potency. The point of the episode, however, is not the failure of Toby to propagate his 153 line, but his humorous misunderstanding of the Widow Wadman’s inquiry about where Toby received his wound. Satire is being used here to set up a witty joke.

Even when Tristram mocks groups or institutions instead of individuals, he does so in large part to create opportunities to display his cleverness. Consider, for instance, the incident in

Volume VII in which Tristram decides to travel to Avignon by water, but is nonetheless obliged by the commissary to pay the fee for travelling by post. This scene is an instance of some of the satire against the French to be found at various points throughout the book. Though the critique we are invited to make is mild, we cannot help but see the absurdity of the law the commissary enforces in this case. While negative judgment is clearly invoked, however, the commissary seems to be a curious oddity rather than a figure Sterne uses to make a specific lesson. The scene also allows for several opportunities for Tristram to exhibit his wit, as when, having been asked whether he is in need of extreme unction, he makes the pun about “going by OYL” (636). He follows this joke with another in the next chapter when he complains that the commissary has torn Tristram’s breeches and then emptied his pocket, contrary to the customary method of emptying the pocket and leaving the person “bare a—’d after,” “as you do with your own people” (2:637). Tristram even calls attention to the fact that this encounter with the commissary has allowed him to utter a number of witticisms, telling us that he “had said as many clever things to the commissary as came to six livres four sous” (2:638). We get the sense that the satiric portrayal of the commissary and his absurd demand functions primarily to give Tristram a chance to make a number of jests.

We should not forget that, even as these scenes seem aimed mainly to showcase

Tristram’s wit, a degree of negative judgment is crucial to making them function. We need to see that Walter, Toby, Slop, and the other characters and institutions that Tristram makes fun of are 154 to some degree deserving of ridicule if the jokes made at their expense are to be fully effective.

Some truly terrible events are turned into occasions for laughter, most notably Walter’s reaction at hearing of the death of his son Bobby. This moment can become an amusing illustration of

Walter’s oddity precisely because his typical behavior is so far from what we understand to be ordinary and realistic. The distortion of reality allows us to react to a scene of death and grieving with more levity than we would in real life. Walter is sometimes portrayed in a more true-to-life way, as we have seen in Tristram’s description of Toby’s funeral. In this case he seems much more human and therefore deserving of sympathy. But when Walter responds to Bobby’s demise by exercising his knowledge of classical orations about mortality, we are being presented with a fool deserving of derision, and we respond accordingly. Much of Tristram’s showcasing of his cleverness would seem inappropriate were the characters he describes not presented as targets of ridicule.

One might question whether we can conceive of the humorous occurrences Tristram relates about his family to be a display of his own skill and ingenuity. After all, in the world of the narrative, Tristram is merely recording events that have already occurred, not inventing stories wholesale. Yet Tristram’s manner of relating these events to us is as important as the content of the events themselves. Consider Tristram’s discussion of why Walter is uneasy about having a midwife deliver Tristram. The reasons for his father’s worry escalate gradually from the reasonable to the preposterous. At first, Tristram describes Walter’s “yearnings of parental and connubial love, all which prompted him to leave as little to hazard as possible in a case of this kind,” a completely normal anxiety. Next, Tristram cites Walter’s fear that others would blame him if something were to go wrong—a more selfish motive, but still understandable. From here, however, having provided reasonable rationales, Tristram surprises us by listing and elaborating 155 upon Walter’s more absurd justifications for objecting to the midwife, ending finally with a discussion of Sir Robert Filmer’s argument for divine-right monarchy (1:51–55). The satirical presentation of Walter’s absurd ideas is skillfully done: by making Walter’s desire seem normal at first and then only gradually revealing the extremity of his notions, Tristram manages to surprise us pleasantly with his father’s oddity. Tristram not only records details about his family, but does so in an artful manner that delights the reader.

Ultimately, of course, Tristram is merely a creation of the implied author Sterne, who himself is created by the actual Sterne. I have thus far discussed the idea that Tristram is something of a showman, skillfully using satiric descriptions and techniques in order to display his own wit. The same, however, can be said of Sterne himself, or at least of the implied version of Sterne that we can deduce from the text. Sterne, as Tristram’s creator, seems as much as

Tristram to delight in puns, innuendoes, ridiculous uses of language, and other forms of wit that can be found in abundance in Tristram Shandy. In many satiric works we can perceive a clear distance between the narrator and the implied author, especially when the narrator is the subject of satiric critique. When Gulliver describes the wonders of gunpowder to the King of

Brobdingnag, for instance, we know that he does not reflect the views of the implied Swift. But distinguishing Tristram from Sterne can be quite difficult, given that Tristram at times appears to speak in Sterne’s voice. When, for example, Tristram describes reviewers of previous installments of the work as “Jack Asses,” we cannot help but feel that Sterne is responding to his actual critics (2:491). Because of these moments, Tristram in many ways feels like an extension of Sterne, and we are likely to think that Sterne, as a satirist, is a performer interested in displaying his own genius. 156

In describing Tristram Shandy as using satire primarily to entertain through a display of wit and technical skill, I do not mean to devalue or trivialize the work. Much recent criticism of the book has tended to suggest that it makes serious commentary on important issues of the time, such as Britain’s imperialist expansion or the role of machines in disturbing the Cartesian body/mind duality.55 But though parts of Tristram Shandy can certainly be taken seriously, focusing on its use of satire for the purposes of entertainment is not contrary to the spirit of the work. When Tristram tells us that Yorick had “an invincible dislike and opposition in his nature to gravity,” he appears to be describing a preference held by the author as well (1:28). We should not be so grave, the work seems to suggest, as to ignore its potential to delight its readers. For

Sterne, the entertainment of the reader is no inconsequential thing. As Tristram states in one of his more philosophical moments, he would have “a kingdom of hearty laughing subjects” whose merriment would protect them from the “disorders in the blood and humours” brought about by

“the bilious and more saturnine passions” (1:402). This conception of the utility and importance of laughter fits well in a work whose satire is firmly of the light and humorous variety. The book is not “mere” entertainment, but a masterpiece that promotes healthy, soul-warming mirth.

Approaching Tristram Shandy as a satire that allows Sterne to perform the role of clever and skillful entertainer makes sense. If we conceive of it as a work of satiric entertainment, we can reconcile the clear use of satiric techniques with the lack of harsh negative judgment. Sterne is not writing the same kind of satire as Swift; Tristram Shandy is not a sharp critique of human vanity. But neither is it devoid of satiric critique. What we are to appreciate, however, is not the

55 See, for instance, Carol Watts, The Cultural Work of Empire: The Seven Years’ War and the Imagining of the Shandean State (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007); and William C. Mottolese, “Tristram Cyborg and Toby Toolmaker: Body, Tools, and Hobbyhorse in Tristram Shandy,” Studies in English Literature 1500–1900 47, no. 3 (2007): 679–701. 157 wrong-headedness of Sterne’s satiric targets but the technical brilliance with which he exposes them.

III. The Various Uses of Satire in Peacock’s Novels

In the previous section, we have seen that some critics of Sterne have argued that Tristram

Shandy uses satire, but is not truly satiric because it does not seem to demand that readers take action against the various follies displayed in the novel. I have shown that Tristram Shandy was in fact taken as satiric by its earliest audiences, and that the negative judgments it invites readers to make give the work a satiric feel. The claim that Tristram Shandy is not satiric, however, is indicative of a larger issue, the perception that novels that do not provoke some kind of serious thought about an issue are not truly satiric. Christian Gutleben, though writing primarily about twentieth-century novels, illustrates this idea well: in describing novels which he finds to be more comic than satiric, he claims that “the desire to charm appears stronger than the will to challenge, the propensity to entertain outweighs the need to disquiet, the urge to provoke laughter prevails over the ambition to arouse thought.” Satire is present in these works, but is kept “on the thematic periphery.”56 The problem is one of dilution or marginalization: satire that does not communicate an idea to readers or persuade them of some position—in Gutleben’s terms, to challenge or arouse thought—is diluted or weakened.

Clearly I do not subscribe to this idea, as I believe that novels can use satire to charm, entertain, and provoke laughter. The problem of dilution, however, is nonetheless significant: some novels do indeed contain some satiric episodes, but are not strongly satiric because the satire is not central to the work. In the first chapter, I touched briefly on satiric dilution, arguing

56 Christian Gutleben, “English Academic Satire from the Middle Ages to Postmodernism: Distinguishing the Comic from the Satiric,” in Theorizing Satire: Essays in Literary Criticism, ed. Brian A. Connery and Kirk Combe (New York: St. Martin’s, 1995), 133–47, at 145. 158 that satire is not necessarily weakened or diminished when incorporated into a novel. But in some cases, satire is indeed merely incidental to a narrative. If our goal is to determine what the purpose of satire is in any given novel, we need to be able to distinguish between those novels in which satire is crucial to the author’s aim and those in which satire is peripheral. In doing so, we will see that what I term the satiric novel of entertainment is distinct in aim both from other types of predominantly satiric novels and from novels containing diffused satire.

Examining the novels of Thomas Love Peacock may help provide us with some clarity on this issue. I have chosen Peacock because he employs satire in different ways in his seven novels. As I will argue, his first novel, Headlong Hall, is a satiric novel of entertainment. In terms of aim, it is similar to Peregrine Pickle and Tristram Shandy, although Peacock uses different techniques to achieve his goal. Some of his other novels, however, are instructive satires: they use satire mainly to make some kind of coherent point. Still others are novels that do not feel particularly satiric at all. These works contain diffused satire—they include satiric episodes, but these episodes are not central to the works’ effects. Comparing Headlong Hall to

Peacock’s later works will show us that a novel can use satire without either trying to teach readers a lesson or weakening the satire by dilution.

Entertainment or Instruction? The Importance of Authorial Position

Headlong Hall is a good work with which to begin our investigation, not only because it is

Peacock’s first novel but also because of the conflicting interpretations of it put forward by critics. Some, like Carl Dawson, have tended to read the work as only barely satiric. While he admits that the novel contains satire, he believes it is overshadowed by comedy. The characters in the novel advance ridiculous opinions, but the “absurdity” of their reasoning “makes judgment 159 impossible.”57 Satire is present, but Peacock “relieves the satire” with merriment (188). What he is describing is a novel in which satire is diluted or diffused. Other readers, such as Marilyn

Butler, have argued contrariwise that Peacock is trying to make a coherent satiric point in the novel. For Butler, the novel is an indictment of the “all-pervading complacency” of those who believe that humanity moves inevitably towards a state of perfection. Such an attitude “leads progressives to expect political change to come naturally, without the actual intervention of individuals on the political scene.”58 As she interprets it, Headlong Hall is a satiric novel of instruction trying to make a point about the dangers of progressive optimism. I believe that neither position fully explains the aim of Peacock’s satire in this work.

The novel’s satire is achieved mainly through dialogue, which takes up much of the text.

The premise is that the hard-drinking, boorish Squire Headlong has gathered a bunch of philosophers and dilettantes together at his country estate, and that these characters engage each other in debate. Each character is absurdly fixated on some idea or topic: Mr. Foster, for instance, believes in the inevitability of progress, while Mr. Escot holds the opposite opinion and thinks that mankind is ever degenerating. Mr. Cranium maintains that men’s destinies are determined by the shape of their skulls, Mr. Milestone is obsessed with landscape gardening, and so forth. In their discussions, each character reveals the folly of his particular mode of thinking by making patently ludicrous assertions, as with Cranium’s statement that the skull of Sir

Christopher Wren resembles that of a beaver, or Escot’s claim that the discovery of fire was harmful to the human race. The debates between the various characters are never won decisively; more often than not, they are interrupted before they can reach a natural conclusion. The result is

57 Carl Dawson, His Fine Wit: A Study of Thomas Love Peacock (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970), 185. 58 Marilyn Butler, Peacock Displayed: A Satirist in his Context (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979), 50–51. 160 that no philosophical position appears more valid than any of the others, as all appear foolish when taken to their absurd logical extremes.

Consequently, Headlong Hall does not appear to be an instructive satire. Determining the position the satirist would like the reader to adopt is difficult. Butler argues that Escot is

“eloquent” even as he is laughable, and that thus we can see that Peacock has at least some sympathy for the deteriorationist position and wants to “challeng[e] contemporary complacency.”59 Indeed, some of Escot’s complaints about modern society do seem reasonable, and he advances some ideas that Peacock argues for in later novels. But what valid points he makes are undercut by his more extreme statements, and his general pessimistic philosophy is belied by the fact that the world of the novel contains many examples of happy individuals unafflicted by the misery Escot believes is inherent to the modern condition. Yet we cannot be sure that the novel contains “a strong sense . . . of the inevitability of progress for the better,” as

James D. Mulvihill has claimed.60 The novel ends happily with several marriages, but as we have little investment in the characters being married we are not likely to find these unions ideologically significant. Nor does Peacock seem to be directing readers away from philosophy in general, as even the non-intellectual characters, like Dr. Gaster and the ignorant sexton from whom Escot obtains Cadwallader’s skull, are satirized. Gaster does not bother to think for himself, instead blindly affirming the Church’s orthodoxy, while the sexton is stupid and superstitious; like the other characters, both are played for laughs, and neither seems to represent a serious problem. Because all points of view are mocked, we are unlikely to find a clearly- endorsed positive position here.

59 Butler, Peacock Displayed, 46. 60 James D. Mulvihill, “Peacock and Perfectibility in Headlong Hall,” CLIO 13, no. 3 (1984): 227–46, at 243. 161

A comparison with Peacock’s next novel, Melincourt, illustrates the difference between satire used for instruction and satire as it appears in Headlong Hall. Melincourt uses some of the same satiric methods as the earlier novel. Characters with absurd opinions once again expose their own folly through conversation. But whereas almost no character in Headlong Hall escapes ridicule, Melincourt contains a clear hero who serves as a satiric mouthpiece for the author.

Sylvan Forester does much of the speaking in the novel, but he never reaches absurd conclusions. As Butler writes, he “stands for an ideal” and is thus contrasted against the novel’s other thinkers.61 When, for instance, he argues early in the novel that “individual example has in many instances produced great moral effects on the practice of society,” this opinion is never shown to be wrong; indeed, it is confirmed insofar as Forester manages to convince a number of other characters to boycott slave-produced sugar.62 Because he does not appear ridiculous and because his opinions are seldom undermined by the events of the narrative, we are likely to feel that his thoughts concerning such topics as the education of women, the use of paper money, and the practice of virtual representation are shared by the author. The satirized characters’ beliefs are not only bizarre but also morally wrong insofar as they contradict with the values of Forester and his friends. Statements such as Mr. Killthedead’s assertion that “the members for rotten boroughs are the most independent members in the Honourable House, and the representatives of most constituents least so” represent opinions against which the novel plainly protests (1:318).

The satire, then, attempts to persuade the reader of a position in calling for the reform of corrupt and broken social institutions.

The presence of an authorial spokesman, however, is not the only way that the satiric technique of Melincourt differs from that of Headlong Hall. The novel’s satiric point is made not

61 Butler, Peacock Displayed, 97. 62 Thomas Love Peacock, The Novels of Thomas Love Peacock, ed. David Garnett, 2 vols. (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1963), 1:125. All references to Peacock’s novels are to this edition. 162 only through dialogue but through the events of the narrative as well. The most obvious example is the election of Sir Oran Haut-ton to parliament. The lesson here is clear: something is wrong with a political system in which electoral victories are easily bought and through which even a mute orangutan can become an MP. A more forceful example occurs when Forester and his friends reach the town of Gullgudgeon, where the residents have all been cheated by a pack of fraudulent bankers (1:269). The description of their sufferings serves no other purpose than to illustrate the evils of paper money. Once again, the position of the satirist is readily deducible from the text, as he is trying to persuade his readers of an idea. None of the events of Headlong

Hall functions in quite the same way. The most memorable, that in which Cranium is startled by an explosion caused by Milestone and consequently leaps into a lake, seems designed to elicit laughter but does not serve as an indictment of craniology. Given that Headlong Hall contains neither a satiric spokesman nor events that illustrate the truth of some principle, its satiric aim seems substantially different from that of Melincourt.

Nightmare Abbey is not as heavy-handed as Melincourt, but it too differs from Headlong

Hall in that it attempts to make a point through its satire. In this case, Peacock takes a position against the gloominess popular in the literature of the time. The melancholy and pessimism of characters like Mr. Flosky and Mr. Toobad are clearly meant to be laughed at, as are Scythrop

Glowry’s transcendental ideas. Mr. Hilary serves as an authorial spokesperson, whose insistence that there are “such things as sunshine and music in the world” is never shown to be foolish

(1:384). True, Mr. Hilary does not dominate the text in the way that Forester does in Melincourt, as Robert Kiely points out.63 But the events of the novel vindicate his cheerful attitude towards life. When, at the conclusion of the narrative, Scythrop learns that both of his lovers have married other men, he chooses not to take his life in despair; the novel ends with his call for

63 Robert Kiely, The Romantic Novel in England (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972), 180. 163 wine. Scythrop’s Werther-like desire for suicide is an object of mockery, and his ultimate rejection of it suggests that the satirist promotes a life-affirming and cheerful worldview over and against the fashionable despondency he satirizes. Nightmare Abbey is not an overtly didactic work, but its humor is deployed in such a way as to indicate the wrong-headedness of romantic gloom. Peacock’s satire induces the reader to reject this melancholia, and thus the narrative functions as a satiric novel of instruction.

Melincourt and Nightmare Abbey both demonstrate that Peacock was capable of using satire in his novels for the purposes of instructing his reader. The differences between these two novels and Headlong Hall, however, indicate that his first novel is not an instructive satire.

Peacock’s decision to ridicule a wide range of ideas and philosophies without including any implicit authorial position makes little sense if he is attempting to convince his readers of an idea. The issue here is not one of judgment: in all three novels, the readers make negative assessments of those characters Peacock offers up for mockery. The difference is the position from which the judgment is made, or lack thereof. When we make negative judgments of (for instance) the turncoat poet Mr. Feathernest in Melincourt, we simultaneously affirm the liberal values that Feathernest betrays. But when we feel that Mr. Foster’s optimism is worthy of ridicule in Headlong Hall, we cannot do so from a position of general pessimism about humanity, as this position too is satirized. The general distribution of gentle ridicule is an ineffective technique for critiquing a specific political or cultural idea.

If, however, we read Headlong Hall as a satiric novel of entertainment, this technique makes much more sense. What makes the novel enjoyable is the humor that arises from the incongruity between the seriousness with which the thinkers profess their ideas and the silliness of the ideas themselves, as well as from each character’s almost mechanical rigidity of thought 164 that transforms every situation, however mundane, into an opportunity to discuss his idée fixe.

By ridiculing a range of opinions, Peacock introduces variety into the novel and increases the opportunities for moments of humor. And because the novel lacks the heavy-handed moral preachment that Forester so often delivers in Melincourt, we can enjoy the whimsical jokes without feeling obligated to digest a lesson in politics or ethics. The novel provides a purely entertaining experience.

Diffused Satire in Peacock’s Later Novels

I have argued that Headlong Hall is not an instructive satire because it does not call for any particular action or affirm some specific belief. But is the satire so diluted that the work is thus not really satiric? At issue is how central satire is to the novel’s effect. By comparing Headlong

Hall with Peacock’s Maid Marian (1822) and Gryll Grange (1860), we can see the difference between a satiric novel of entertainment and a novel which contains trace amounts of satire diffused throughout. In these latter two works, satire is present but seems to be a secondary concern, which cannot be said of Headlong Hall.

Peacock claimed in a letter to Percy Bysshe Shelley that Maid Marian would contain

“much oblique satire on all the oppressions that are done under the sun.”64 The novel certainly has satiric moments, but these do not dominate the text, and when they do appear they are indeed

“oblique,” not direct as the satire in Melincourt or even Headlong Hall is. The work is set in medieval England and describes the various adventures of Robin Hood, Maid Marian, and their band of outlaws. Most of the satire is delivered by means of brief offhand narratorial comments, often comparing the older world of Robin Hood’s England with that of the nineteenth century.

64 Thomas Love Peacock, The Letters of Thomas Love Peacock, ed. Nicholas A. Joukovsky, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 2001), 1:156. 165

For instance, when the narrator states that Matilda had “an obsolete habit of always telling the truth,” he adds ironically that it is a practice “which our enlightened age has discarded with other barbarisms” (2:480). Likewise, when he describes how in the time of the narrative “social order” meant “the preservation of the privileges of the few who happened to have any, at the expense of the swinish multitude who happened to have none,” he adds that this “is obviously not the meaning of social order in our more enlightened times,” again with heavy irony (2:489).

Throughout the work we do find a few longer passages of satiric commentary, but these are rare and generally outweighed by non-satiric material.

A page-count analysis of Maid Marian is an imperfect means to determine how satire is used in a work for reasons I discussed in the first chapter, but it can at least provide us with a rough sense of how diffused the use of direct satiric commentary is. In only one of the novel’s eighteen chapters does extended satiric statement take up about as much space as non-satiric elements. Chapter IX contains a lengthy discussion of Richard the First in which the narrator dubs him “the very type, flower, cream, pink, symbol, and mirror of all the Holy Alliances that have ever existed on earth” (2:490). This passage is followed by another exposing the uncharitable behavior of the Bishop of Ely, and a third mocking the servility of Prince John’s minstrel. Combined, these critiques of monarchs, churchmen, and time-serving poets occupy about two pages of text, a majority of the three and a half pages found in the chapter. In Chapters

I, XI, and XII, we can find similarly long passages of satiric critique, but in these chapters they are outweighed by non-satiric material. Consider Chapter XI. The satire in this chapter is mostly concentrated into a speech made by Friar Tuck comparing Robin to William the Conqueror, both of whom rule “by right of conquest and force of arms” (2:498). This speech takes up somewhere between one and a half to two pages of text. The rest of the chapter, however, is largely non- 166 satiric. Matilda is named queen of the forest and rechristened Marian, Matilda’s father agrees grudgingly to allow her marriage to Robin, Friar Tuck makes a clever pun on punning, the foresters celebrate the marriage with a feast, and the chapter concludes in a song extolling the virtues of the various members of Robin’s band. The non-satiric portions occupy three and a half to four pages, clearly outstripping Tuck’s discussion of the right of might.

The satire in the other chapters of the novel is even sparser. Chapter V, for instance, contains very little satiric commentary. The chapter is primarily devoted to recounting Sir

Ralph’s attempt to hunt down Robin and his arrival at Gamwell Hall. Peacock takes a jab at one of his favorite targets, paper money, but otherwise the chapter is mainly devoted to advancing the plot. Some chapters do not even contain passing satiric quips. Chapter VII describes the

King’s men attempting to arrest Matilda at Arlingford Castle, and Brother Michael’s leave- taking of Rubygill Abbey. Chapter XV is entirely devoted to describing Sir Ralph’s assault on the cottage in which Robin and his companions are lodging, and to the knight’s subsequent defeat and surrender. In neither case does the narrator or any character seeming to speak on the author’s behalf deliver any sort of barbed joke about arbitrary power or the decay of modern society. These types of chapters, in which satire is minimal or even non-existent, make up the majority of the work.

One might argue that, while the novel contains little in the way of direct satiric critique, the plot functions as an implicit critique of the tyranny of absolute monarchy. The events do, after all, contain instances of arbitrary power being used unjustly, as when Robin is outlawed for poaching the King’s deer or when Prince John attempts to capture Arlingford Castle.

Furthermore, Robin’s band robs the rich and rights social injustices, which could be read as a kind of satire on wealth. Yet the narration of these occurrences do not feel particularly satiric, in 167 part because the characters and actions described—Prince John, for instance, or the actions of Sir

Ralph—do not map clearly onto nineteenth-century institutions. When Robin despoils rich abbots, we do not feel that the abbots stand in for some nineteenth-century target; perhaps

Peacock is attacking the Church of England of his own time, but he makes few attempts explicitly to connect the medieval clergymen with the modern-day institution. And while the

Holy Alliance is mentioned twice, the connection between twelfth-century monarchs and their nineteenth-century counterparts is not stressed. In some cases the satire does seem to apply, as when Robin prevents the marriage between a young woman and a rich but elderly knight. This is a satiric knock against marriages made for money, and the reader could reasonably be able to see in this episode a commentary upon contemporary life. But for the most part, the characters depicted in the novel are not allegorical depictions of nineteenth-century targets of satire.

Without many instances in which our negative judgment is directed against real-life targets, we are not likely to find the plot to be a major vehicle of satire.

Some readers, such as Dawson, have argued that the work contains an implicit critique of monarchy by portraying Robin as the king of Sherwood. Dawson asserts that the work functions similarly to The Beggar’s Opera: like Gay, who draws parallels between the corruption of

London criminals and that of politicians, Peacock satirizes “theories of might, of wealth, of justice” by having a band of outlaws set up their own kingdom in Sherwood (232). By this reading, Robin’s spurious claims to legitimate kingship of Sherwood mirror Richard’s claims to the kingship of England—thus calling into question the idea of monarchy itself. The problem is that, unlike the criminals of The Beggar’s Opera, Robin Hood and his band are not presented as rogues and scoundrels. True, Chapter XII, in which Little John explains Robin’s laws to

Matilda’s father, contains some satire on the abuse of power. But notwithstanding Butler’s claim 168 that Peacock “stresses that [Robin] is a robber and a bandit,” more often than not Robin appears as a helpful character.65 Many of the narrative’s episodes show him not merely robbing the rich but also helping those in need, as when he helps Allen marry his true love, or when he saves

William Gamwell from execution. As the Sheriff of Nottingham says of Robin, “he holds that in giving to boors and old women what he takes from priests and peers, he does but restore to the former what the latter had taken from them” (2:478). Given the positive portrayal of Matilda and

Robin, we are not invited to see them as satiric stand-ins for absolute tyrants.

Maid Marian is thus a novel in which satire plays a limited role. This is not to say that the satire has no function; what satire the novel contains contributes to the overall humor and liveliness of the work. Were all of the narrator’s ironic quips to be removed, the novel would lose some of its charm. In this work, however, Peacock relies more on non-satiric scenes in order to entertain his audience. Many of the novel’s events are humorous without being particularly satiric. Consider, for instance, the scene in which Friar Tuck claims to see a ghostly apparition asking for passage over the river (2:527). In this episode the joke is on Tuck, as Marian perceives that the “ghost” is more likely Tuck’s lover than a spirit, but we would be hard-pressed to find some kind of satiric import in it. Other moments in the text are not comic or satiric in any way, but are nonetheless scenes of excitement and action, as when Matilda splits Robin’s arrow with her own in an archery competition. Based on the evidence of the text, Peacock seems to relish the legends of Robin Hood in and of themselves, not because they serve as good vehicles for satire. Satiric commentary is present, but it hardly dominates.

When we compare Headlong Hall with Maid Marian, we can see that the satire in

Peacock’s first novel is in no way diffuse or diluted. Almost the entirety of the novel consists of scenes which poke fun at Squire Headlong’s various guests. The humor depends on our negative

65 Butler, Peacock Displayed, 147. 169 assessment of the characters and our recognition that they are foolish, even though our judgment is never harsh or intense. We cannot appreciate the novel without acknowledging that the philosophers and dilettantes depicted are illogical blockheads. To be sure, Headlong Hall contains some episodes which have little satiric import—the depiction of Squire Headlong’s long-suffering butler, for instance, is comic without being satirical. But these scenes are vastly outnumbered by those which mock the extremes of philosophical thought. If one were to remove all of the satiric scenes from the novel, precious little would remain. The development of the plot outweighs the satire in Maid Marian; in Headlong Hall, the plot is minimal, and the interactions of Peacock’s satiric caricatures takes center stage. Consequently, Headlong Hall has a strong satiric feel that Maid Marian lacks.

Gryll Grange offers us another useful comparison with Headlong Hall. On the surface,

Peacock’s last novel appears more similar to Headlong Hall than to Maid Marian. It is set in the nineteenth century, and it involves a group of thinkers meeting in a country house. Yet the work does not rely on satire for its effects nearly as much as Headlong Hall does. Whereas the visitors at Headlong Hall take their opinions to extremes and thus expose their own folly, the people who assemble at Gryll Grange are odd but reasonable. At first, Lord Curryfin appears to be the kind of character who is satirized in Peacock’s other works: he seems to be a representative of the man of science, as he travels to fashionable places delivering lectures on fish. When he actually arrives at Gryll Grange, however, he seems a reasonable individual—a bit impetuous, perhaps, but not someone to be dismissed as a dunce. Mr. MacBorrowdale, though a philosopher, bears little resemblance to the philosophers of Headlong Hall, as he prefers a good dinner and jovial company to philosophic dispute. Instead of being distorted and extremist butts of ridicule, they seem more like actual human beings, and genial ones at that; for this reason they are likeable 170 characters, and thus we do not feel that satire is being directed against them. They are less satirized than even the amiable humorists of Tristram Shandy. The effect is that the work does not lead the reader to make the kind of negative judgments of characters and ideas upon which satire relies. This is not to say that the work contains no satire at all—the flaws of such targets as competitive examination are exposed in several scenes throughout the narrative. But Gryll

Grange does not invite satiric judgment with nearly as much frequency as Headlong Hall does, giving us the sense that its satire is diffuse.

Furthermore, the two romance plots of Gryll Grange are much more central to the novel than those of Headlong Hall. In Peacock’s first novel, the love relationships are barely developed; we learn very little about the characters of Miss Cephalis and Miss Caprioletta. The scene in which Escot obtains the consent of Mr. Cranium to marry his daughter in exchange for the skull of Cadwallader is amusing, but the time devoted to discussing his romantic challenges pales in comparison to that spent on satirizing Squire Headlong’s various guests. By contrast, the romances of Gryll Grange occupy a much larger proportion of the narrative. The challenges are much more complex: Algernon loves Morgana but is unwilling to give up the domestic bliss of his bachelor life with his seven maids; Morgana loves Algernon but could also envision herself happily married to Lord Curryfin; Lord Curryfin loves Miss Niphet but has already asked

Morgana to marry him, and thus feels unable to reveal his love for Miss Niphet before Morgana gives him a reply. The complication and resolution of the various couples’ difficulties comprise the majority of the plot. At its most basic level, the story of Gryll Grange is about Algernon’s transition from determined bachelor to married man. The events have little to do with the novel’s satiric points about foolish modern innovations; the satire and the story are distinct and 171 separable. Because the novel’s satire is peripheral, Gryll Grange feels much less satiric than

Headlong Hall.

The two Peacock novels I have not yet discussed, The Misfortunes of Elphin (1829) and

Crotchet Castle (1831), are harder to pin down, and represent borderline cases between satiric novels and novels in which satire is diffused. Both works contain greater amounts of satire than can be found in Maid Marian and Gryll Grange. The satire of Elphin is largely political; the novel’s main antagonists are either incompetent administrators (Seithynyn) or tyrannical rulers

(Maelgon and Melvas). As Butler has convincingly argued, the criticism here is topical, as these flawed figures implicitly criticize the practice of the Tory politicians of Peacock’s time.66

Crotchet Castle is more philosophical in its concerns, exposing the follies of the “march of mind.” Yet the satire in these works is more diffuse than in Headlong Hall, Melincourt, or

Nightmare Abbey. Though conveying a point about modern politics is certainly one of Peacock’s aims in Elphin, one cannot help but sense that he also intends the reader to enjoy his presentation of Welsh mythology. And the two love plots of Crotchet Castle take on a prominence not found in the love plots of Melincourt or Nightmare Abbey; though they are skillfully developed, they do not much contribute to the overall satiric point. Consequently, these works do not feel as satiric as Peacock’s first three novels, in which satire is clearly central.

If we compare and contrast Peacock’s seven novels, we can see that they seem to be written with a variety of aims in mind. I do not claim to see a clear trajectory or development in the way he uses satire. Certainly his last novel is much less satiric than his early ones, but given that Elphin and Crotchet Castle are more satiric than Maid Marian, we cannot claim that

Peacock simply relied less and less on satire in his narratives over the course of his career.

Looking briefly at Peacock’s novelistic career, however, allows us to see two things: first, it

66 Butler, Peacock Displayed, 160. 172 clarifies the distinction between entertainment and instructive satire. Second, it demonstrates that just because a satiric novel is written primarily to entertain, its satire is not necessarily diffused.

As the examples of Elphin and Crotchet Castle demonstrate, one cannot easily draw an exact dividing line between predominantly satiric novels and those which contain only small amounts of satire. Nonetheless, valid distinctions can be made. Headlong Hall uses satire for a different purpose than Nightmare Abbey. Maid Marian is not nearly as satiric as Melincourt. These novels provide us useful case studies that can help us better understand how satire is being used in other works.

* * *

We have seen that Peregrine Pickle, Tristram Shandy, and Headlong Hall, despite being very different novels, use satire to entertain. The variation in the techniques employed by Smollett,

Sterne, and Peacock in these works demonstrates that satiric novels of entertainment do not all adhere to a single formula. Novelists might write satire involving slapstick comedy against a range of largely conventional satiric targets, or they might choose to deploy wittier and more intellectual satire against a few targets—in each case with the end goal of providing the reader with an enjoyable reading experience. Given the differences between the works I have examined in this chapter, what conclusions can we draw about the general interaction of satire and entertainment in the novel form?

To answer this question we should first consider the ways in which a novel can entertain its readers. To compile an exhaustive list of why novel-reading is enjoyable is beyond the scope of my argument, but I believe that we can identify some of the most common possibilities. For instance, a novel may entertain in part by providing some type of wish-fulfillment for the reader: 173 a narrative in which the protagonist becomes fabulously rich, for instance, may appeal to those readers who desire wealth. Even in cases in which we do not desire to experience the exact events and outcomes that happen to the protagonists, we may find enjoyment from seeing characters that we like grow or develop. Novels can also serve as a form of escapism, drawing readers into a world more exciting, interesting, or desirable to live in than reality. In some cases, the unfolding of the plot is central to the pleasure we might gain from a novel; mystery novels, for instance, entertain chiefly by providing the reader with the experience of trying to discover the culprit of the crime. Still other novels entertain through humor, whether it be the kind caused by Hobbesian glory in one’s superiority over others, or that arising from the juxtaposition of incongruous ideas.

The novels we have considered in this chapter can present us with some idea of how satire entertains. The use of satire is unlikely to give us pleasure from the development of likeable characters, or from the revelation of a much-anticipated plot point, as neither of these occurrences depends upon negative judgment. The other ways by which a novel can entertain, however, are achievable through satire. Humor is the most obvious means by which satire provides enjoyment, as the pointing out of flaws and failings can often be done in such a way as to elicit laughter. In Peregrine Pickle we find some incongruity humor—for instance, the physician’s chanting of a Pindaric ode in the midst of his duel with Pallet is hilariously out of place. Furthermore, we can find amusement from the physical humor and slapstick comedy with which the work abounds. At the least we must admit that Smollett expected his readers to laugh at his depictions of satiric violence. Tristram Shandy and Headlong Hall both contain a more sophisticated kind of humor, as the characters’ irrational devotion to an idea or worldview gives rise to actions completely incongruous with the circumstances that trigger them. We laugh 174 whenever Uncle Toby inappropriately brings up the topic of siege-craft, or when a seemingly innocuous circumstance like eating breakfast leads to debate amongst the philosophers of

Headlong Hall. The humorous ridicule of folly is in large part how satire entertains.

But satiric novels of entertainment can also amuse in other ways. A satiric novel in which the protagonist punishes a variety of deserving transgressors can contain a degree of wish- fulfillment. As I have suggested earlier, Peregrine Pickle may function in this regard for some readers. Peregrine is—at least for most of the novel—a successful character who obtains his goals and bests his adversaries. The satiric judgment functions in part to show us that the victims of Peregrine’s pranks deserve to be punished, so that we can relish his triumphs without feeling pity for those he injures. The novel allows us to experience a kind of power fantasy through

Peregrine’s adventures. Satiric novels of entertainment may also provide a degree of escapism, as the worlds of these novels can be more harmless and benign than the real world. Dawson has argued, for instance, that Headlong Hall is “in a sense an other-worldly novel” because the characters are “remote from daily toils” and without any worries or responsibilities (189). Injury and death are present in Tristram Shandy, but the novel’s wit, puns, and gentle ridicule of

Tristram and his family show that, in the world of this novel, cheerfulness is possible despite life’s hardships. Even Peregrine Pickle, for all its violence, presents a world in which characters have interesting adventures and real harm never comes to anyone who does not deserve it. The satire in these works—by addressing relatively minor follies and flaws, and by laughing at them rather than presenting them as dangerous—promote a vision of existence in which problems are easily solved or at least able to be laughed at.

If the novels I have discussed provide us with a sense of how narrative satire can be used to entertain, they also allow us to hypothesize some common traits which satiric novels of 175 entertainment are likely to possess. As we have seen, the most important of these is a lightness of tone. Humor seems out of place in works with a serious tone, and novels taking a grim worldview are unlikely to provide much in the way of amusement by other means. Satiric novels of entertainment are also likely to contain mild judgments of the flaws they expose, as harsh or high-handed judgment tends to interfere with the aim of providing amusement. Finally, these novels tend to contain great variety, either in terms of the range of targets satirized or in the diversity of ways in which their faults are exposed. In the case of Peregrine Pickle and Headlong

Hall, the targets of satire represent all manner of faults, such that we do not feel that the satirist is singling out any individual type, institution, or behavior. Tristram Shandy contains comparatively fewer targets, but the number of ingenious ways in which Sterne derives humor from this small group suggests that he is more interested in displaying his wit than in instructing his readers about the types of foolishness represented by the Shandy family. In each case, the variety of target or method of exposure contributes to a sense that the reader is not supposed to take some lesson away from the work, but rather to enjoy the mélange of humorous satire it presents. Looking for these traits will help us to distinguish satiric novels of entertainment from other types of satiric novels.

Besides paying attention to these traits, we should also keep in mind that many works do not seem written purely for a single purpose. In truth, most works seem to be written with a mixture of aims in mind. In all satiric works we are likely to find some combination of aims; even the most virulent satires can contain elements meant to amuse, and even satiric novels of entertainment may contain parts meant to instruct, express pessimism, or attack. The challenge is even more difficult when attempting to determine whether or not a novel’s main aim is to entertain, as many satiric novels entertain in addition to fulfilling some other purpose. Bage’s 176

Hermsprong, to name one example, employs some entertaining satire, even as the work’s main goal is to make a radical political point. Even in the three novels I have discussed we find a blend of satiric aims. Peregrine Pickle, for instance, contains a scene of personal satire meant to savage

Garrick’s acting. This does not mean, however, that distinctions are meaningless. Clearly, the majority of Peregrine Pickle is not written as a screed; the presence of a satiric episode that functions as attack does not outweigh the copious amounts of satiric jokes made without any obvious purpose other than to amuse. Smollett seems to have intended parts of his novel to attack persons and institutions he opposed, but the flavor of entertainment is dominant. We may encounter satiric novels that are quite entertaining but which ultimately attempt to instruct; after all, instruction is often made more palatable when combined with humor. We may likewise encounter works in which we find some didactic satire, but which do not seem on the whole to be satires of instruction. The point is that we need to pay attention to which aims the author of a given work appears to be trying to achieve most consistently.

Besides calling attention to some of the techniques novelists use to write entertaining satiric novels, I hope I have also shown that we should not be too quick to assume that satiric novels must make serious arguments. Trying to find earnest and sober commentary in these works is tempting, as scholars may dismiss literary works that are “mere” entertainment as unimportant. For this reason, I believe, arguments are made that apparently entertaining satiric novels in fact have profound meanings. Thus Peregrine Pickle is construed to be a misanthropic statement about the world’s evils and Headlong Hall is read as a warning against progressive optimism. I do not mean to discourage critics from interpreting texts in innovative ways that bring to light meanings which other readers have not perceived. We should, however, do so with caution and an acceptance that sometimes authors do write mainly to entertain their readers. 177

We also ought not to feel that satiric novels of entertainment are inferior by virtue of their aim to other types of satiric novels. I suspect that most of us enjoy being entertained and can appreciate such things as humor and laughter on their own merits. Mirth, even when derived from a recognition of folly, can be healthy and mentally sanative, and so we should not deem works that provide us with it trivial or pointless. Furthermore, besides providing momentary amusement, satiric novels of entertainment may subtly convey an outlook on life that has value.

By poking fun at various elements of human nature—at the ignorance of a Pallet or the erudition of a Walter Shandy, for instance—these works implicitly urge us to treat ourselves and others with a degree of levity. To be able to find the lighter side of folly and human unsuccess is no mean feat, and doing so is likely to result in a fuller and richer life. These novels do not necessarily advocate complete tolerance and forgiveness of faults and foolishness; readers of

Peregrine Pickle are unlikely to feel more approving of pretentiousness or pettiness. But satiric novels of entertainment do suggest that even these kinds of folly need not be causes for rage or despair, and may even be occasions for laughter. CHAPTER FOUR: INSTRUCTIVE SATIRE: FIELDING, GRAVES, AND BAGE

Though we have seen some examples of satire written to entertain, much satire is not written for this purpose, but to instruct its audience by showing examples of bad behavior and providing models of good behavior to emulate. Eighteenth-century satirists often make this sort of claim for their works. Besides Smollett’s famous assertion that his satire is not only “entertaining” but also “universally improving,” such declarations as Fielding’s that Tom Jones is written “to recommend Goodness and Innocence” or Bage’s that he desires to instruct the English people “in the best manner possible” in Man as He Is (1792) spring to mind.1 Eighteenth-century theorists of satire, too, believed that satire could instruct. Charles Abbott, in An Essay on the Use and

Abuse of Satire (1786), claims that satire “infuses truth into the mind.”2 An anonymous 1771 poem entitled The Satirist exhorts satirists to “conduct mankind” through “life’s dark sea, where folly’s tempests rise,” suggesting that satire can serve as a kind of instructional guide to living.3

And though modern satire theorists tend not to write about satire as instruction, preferring to treat it mainly as attack, most readers would probably agree that satire can make beneficial attitudes or behaviors attractive.

If we want to study how instructive satiric novels operate, however, we are faced with a number of problems. First, how do we differentiate satire that aims to instruct from the other kinds of satire I posit in Chapter 1: entertainment, pessimism, and attack? Second, what are the different varieties of instructive satire? Third, what common characteristics can we find in satiric novels of instruction? Answering these questions will broaden our sense of satiric possibilities and help us more easily to identify this type of satiric novel.

1 Smollett, Roderick Random, 3; Fielding, Tom Jones, 1:7; Robert Bage, Man as He Is, 4 vols., (London, 1792), 1:i. 2 Charles Abbott, An Essay on the Use and Abuse of Satire ([Oxford?], 1786), 2. 3 The Satirist: A Poem (London, 1771), 39. 179

In the first section of this chapter, I will provide some general answers. In doing so, I hope to provide a clearer and more specific sense of what I mean by “instructive satire,” as well as to demonstrate that the concept is a useful critical tool. In the later sections of this chapter, I will examine a number of novels that fall into this category, showing that conceiving of them as satiric novels of profitable instruction can change and improve the way we read these texts.

I. Characteristics and Varieties of Instructive Satire

If we are to analyze instructive satiric novels, we need to be aware of some of the characteristics commonly found in such works. Identifying these generic characteristics will not only allow us to distinguish instructive satire from other types of satire but also help us to make distinctions between individual novels in this category and give us a better sense of the range of techniques available to novelists writing this kind of satire. We need to understand what makes a novel that contains instructive satire—Hermsprong, for instance—different from a novel with some other satiric objective, such as Peregrine Pickle. But we also need to understand what separates different types of instructive satire—how Hermsprong differs from Tom Jones or The Spiritual

Quixote or Camilla. The characteristics of instructive satire I discuss here are not intended to be an exhaustive list; likewise, the varieties of instruction I identify are only some of the most common types. The following discussion will not cover every possibility, but should at least give us some ways of identifying and classifying instructive satiric novels.

First, a brief discussion of the term itself: what is instructive satire? The defining characteristic here is that the satirist is primarily attempting to convey a lesson that will improve either the audience’s life or the world at large in some way. The audience ought to be able to glean beneficial information or advice from instructive satire—whether that advice is 180 to adopt certain practices or reject others (as in The Female Quixote), to avoid certain types of individuals (as in Tom Jones), or to embrace some political or religious worldview (as in Anna

St. Ives). This characteristic sets instruction satire apart from pessimistic and attack satire, in which giving helpful advice to the reader is not the primary concern. Pessimistic satire may attempt some kind of suasion, but it typically does not leave the reader with a clear course of action to pursue. The reader may be convinced of a point of view, but it is not one that will profit or benefit him. Pessimistic satire raises questions without answering them, or describes problems to which the satirist offers no solution. In some cases the satirist may even suggest that the problems he or she depicts are entirely insoluble, as is the case with Evelyn Waugh’s A Handful of Dust (1934). In that novel, Waugh shows us the vapidity of 1930s English society. The conclusion, in which the new heirs of Hetton dream of returning it to its glory days—the same ambition that was held by the ill-fated protagonist—suggests that nothing has improved from the beginning of the novel to the end, and that nothing will improve in the future. Attack satire differs from pessimistic satire—here the goal is to inspire anger, indignation, or contempt at a target, or to reinforce and capitalize upon these emotions—but again the aim is not to teach its readers. What is to be learned from the drubbing of Marlborough in The Fable of Midas?

Readers of attack satire may feel hatred towards something and may even be roused to action by that hatred, but the heaping of insult upon a personal enemy or the scathing denunciation of an ideological foe is unlikely to produce a lesson from which most readers are likely to profit.

Some well-known non-novelistic examples may help to clarify what constitutes instruction satire. Consider, for instance, Samuel Johnson’s The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749).

Johnson exhorts his reader not to be ensnared by harmful desires for wealth, beauty, and fame, inter alia, and instead to “Still raise for good the supplicating voice, / But leave to heav’n the 181 measure and the choice.”4 This is clearly a satire that aims to provide profitable instruction: the satirist critiques a number of follies—in this case dangerous hopes—and provides a moral that will improve the lives of those who accept it. Or we may examine Richard Steele’s The

Conscious Lovers (1722), which promotes the importance of such beneficial values as filial piety and patience. Marshall describes the play as a “reformative satire” and a “thoroughgoing attempt to instruct the audience in proper social mores.”5 Daniel Defoe’s The True-Born Englishman

(1701) is harsher than The Conscious Lovers in its tone, but the aim of the poem is nevertheless instruction. Defoe sets out to push the reader away from a xenophobic worldview and towards gratitude for William III, a lesson which might not cause obvious personal benefits but would be helpful to the nation as a whole. The poem concludes with an exhortation to good behavior: the satirist states that “’Tis Personal Virtue only makes us great.”6 Once again, we can see an instance of a satire that offers useful advice to its readers.

Most novels of satiric instruction do not tend to state as explicitly what they are trying to teach as poems like The Vanity of Human Wishes or The True-Born Englishman, but we can still deduce their lessons. As we have seen in Chapter 2, Lennox’s The Female Quixote presents us with several characters who act in self-centered ways, harming others and making themselves ridiculous in the process. We are also given an exemplar of selfless and generous behavior in

Glanville (provided we do not read him as primarily an embodiment of patriarchal forces that repress Arabella). The novel’s satire, besides mocking chivalric romances, gently nudges its readers away from selfishness. In doing so, it provides useful instruction. We may also consider

Smollett’s Humphry Clinker, which advocates both the benefits of non-metropolitan life and a

4 Samuel Johnson, “The Vanity of Human Wishes,” in The Yale Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson, vol. 6, Poems, ed. E. L. McAdam, Jr., with George Milne (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964), 90–109, at 108. 5 Marshall, The Practice of Satire, 169–70. 6 Defoe, “The True-Born Englishman,” 118. 182 sentimental good-nature towards others. Over the course of the narrative, Matthew Bramble moves away from crankiness and irascibility, until he attains a pleasant and cheerful outlook on life at the novel’s conclusion. His health and mood steadily improve as he moves away from southern England into Scotland. The novel seems to suggest that happiness may be found in living in rural simplicity and in benevolent community with others. Here again we see satiric critique being used to persuade the reader of beneficial values.

These examples clarify, I hope, what I mean by instructive satire and help us to identify other satiric novels of this type. Not all satiric novels with the aim of instruction operate in similar ways, but this description ought to give us a sense of what kind of novel falls into this category.

Some Common Characteristics of Instructive Satiric Novels

Having examined the term itself, I want to turn now to some common traits found in satiric novels of instruction that might further help us to recognize this kind of work. While novels in this category are fairly diverse, we can identify a number of characteristics that appear in them with some frequency: moral certitude, optimism, relatively narrow scope, and mildness of tone.

(1) Moral Certitude. In satiric novels of instruction, the satirist tends to be fairly certain of his or her moral position. Works of this category are not the kind of satire in which the author tends to be ambiguous about the values he or she espouses. The satirist’s stance is much clearer in these works than in, say, A Tale of a Tub. Ambiguity or uncertainty would work against the aim of delivering a lesson to the reader, as it would make the message more difficult to understand. When we read Tom Jones, for instance, we are never led to believe that the scheming and deception of Blifil or the cruelty and hypocrisy of Thwackum are anything but odious, or 183 that benevolence towards the poor is anything but virtuous. I do not mean to say that Tom Jones is merely an exercise in pointing out basic and obvious moral truths—as we will see in the next section, the satire in Tom Jones delivers a more complicated lesson. But the novel contains clear moral standards that the audience is expected to accept: we are unlikely to appreciate the work’s satire if we believe that greed and hypocrisy are virtues. Likewise, Holcroft’s Hugh Trevor is not an inquiry into whether or not the behavior of the lords and High-Church divines presented is moral; they are unquestioningly condemned.

The tendency of satiric novels of instruction to contain clear moral standards should not lead us to think that this type of novel cannot contain complex and multi-faceted characters. To use a nineteenth-century example, the character of Lopez in Trollope’s The Prime Minister is not altogether without sympathy; at least the narrator gives us an understanding of his motivations and outlook on life. He by no means a flat or uninteresting character. But The Prime Minister is not morally ambiguous in presenting Lopez’s actions: even though we may understand the man and his rationales, we are never encouraged to applaud his treatment of his wife. A novel may employ complex characterization while still suggesting that some actions, values, or ideas are clearly and unambiguously wrong.

(2) Optimism. Besides moral certitude, satiric novels of instruction tend to suggest that the problems they present can often be overcome or avoided. If the satirist does not believe that the vices he or she critiques can be thwarted or evaded, providing advice to the reader would be a pointless exercise—the reader would be unable to benefit from the satiric lesson. Hugh Trevor, for instance, suggests that the world can be improved, and that ignorance and vice can be successfully combatted; otherwise, the novel’s suggestion that we ought to work for the good of society as a whole would be meaningless. For this reason, satiric novels of instruction tend to 184 provide their readers with a sense of sanguine closure and resolution at their conclusions. A novel that ends on a depressing note is more likely to cause despair and gloom than the adoption of beneficial values. We may ask ourselves, hypothetically, what a novel with a positive ending would read like if the happy resolution were not brought about. If, for instance, in Trollope’s

Barchester Towers, Eleanor were never reconciled with her friends and married to Mr. Arabin, the novel’s satire on ecclesiastical politics would be much harsher. The novel would seem to suggest that human pettiness, especially when fired by the disagreement between the High and

Low factions of the Church of England, inevitably leads to the dissolution of personal relationships and the destruction of community. The satire would not provide beneficial advice; rather, it would assert the impossibility of solving the problem it illustrates.

Recognizing the optimism of satiric novels of instruction can help us to categorize novels that aim to warn readers of some danger. Novels that use satire to warn can be difficult to classify. Warning seems to fall under the category of instruction, as warnings are a form of beneficial advice. Yet some pessimistic satires also warn readers about dangers. I have argued elsewhere that Burney’s The Wanderer is a gloomily pessimistic satire on societal treatment of women.7 The heroine, Juliet, faces numerous difficulties as she attempts to become self- sufficient and escape from her tyrannical French husband. We may, therefore, be inclined to read the novel as a kind of warning against various threats that women can encounter. What makes the novel’s satire pessimistic, however, is its suggestion that these dangers cannot be avoided, and that social reform is impossible—the best one can hope for is to survive the evils of the world as unscathed as possible. The key is to recognize that “warning” itself is not a monolithic category; warnings can differ from each other dramatically in terms of severity. The doomsday prophet wielding a sign proclaiming the world’s imminent destruction is giving a warning, but it

7 Fung, “Frances Burney as Satirist,” 949–53. 185 is a warning of a very different sort from the caution on beverage cup lids announcing that the liquids contained therein are hot. In the former case the fate described is unavoidable, and the audience can do nothing but prepare for the inevitable. In the latter, sensible action can be taken to avoid a negative outcome. Satire that warns but contains a degree of optimism comes off as helpful instruction; satire that warns against dangers portrayed as inevitable and unescapable seems much more negative.

(3) Narrow Scope. Satiric novels of instruction tend to limit the scope of their critique.

By “scope of critique” I mean the range of targets and vices that the novel satirizes. Peregrine

Pickle, for instance, has a wide scope of targets: it mocks bad artists, hack poets, the French, incompetent pedagogues, lying politicians, Catholics, homosexuals, and many other classes of people. By contrast, Graves’s The Spiritual Quixote is narrower in scope, as much of its satire is focused on Methodism and religious enthusiasm. The narrative follows the adventures of

Geoffry Wildgoose and Jeremiah Tugwell, both of whom are converts to Methodism, and so the problems caused by Methodist zeal are ever before us. Because satiric novels of instruction are trying to convey specific values and ideas to the reader, they tend to focus on a narrow set of targets. The lesson conveyed by The Spiritual Quixote’s satire would be greatly weakened if

Graves were also to attack personal enemies, complain about political problems, mock hairdressers, and critique mercantilism to the same degree that he discusses the follies of

Methodism.

By describing narrow scope as a characteristic common to many satiric novels of profitable instruction, I do not mean that these novels never include moments of satire against targets unrelated to the main point, or that multiple lessons cannot conveyed in the same novel.

Indeed, novels of this type often contain some incidental satire. The majority of the satire in 186

Frances Burney’s Camilla is devoted to warning the reader against expecting perfection in a potential romantic partner. Burney nonetheless makes satiric sallies at other targets. For instance, she brilliantly satirizes pedantry in the character of Dr. Orkborne. Despite the inclusion of this character, however, we do not feel that the novel is mainly designed to instruct the reader about the dangers of pointless scholarship. We can still find a strong degree of satiric focus in Camilla even though not every single satiric episode works directly to convey the main point.

(4) Relatively mild tone. This characteristic is distinct from optimism. Relative mildness of satiric tone is a trait that separates satiric novels of instruction from satiric novels of attack.

Attack satire can be optimistic in many cases, insofar as the satirist hopes for the destruction of his or her target. But attack almost always must include some harshness and sting to be effective; satiric novels of instruction are generally less intense. The satirist often seems more wise than angry. When we read The Spiritual Quixote, we do not get the sense that the implied author hates

Methodists and wishes their destruction, though we certainly feel that he disapproves of

Methodism. The tone of the novel’s satire is mild when compared to something like William

Combe’s The Saints (1778), an anti-Methodist poetical satire. Each line of Combe’s poem conveys the satirist’s contempt and hatred of the Methodists: as he states of Methodist tabernacles, “There Precepts flow from Workshop, Sew’r, and Sink, / And, like the Teachers, all their Doctrines stink.”8 The Spiritual Quixote lacks this sort of vehemence, as we will see later in the chapter. Considered as an attack, it is much weaker than The Saints, but the milder tone better suits the purpose of instruction. Not all satiric novels of positive instruction are as mild in tone as

The Spiritual Quixote, but even harsher novels of this type, such as Hugh Trevor, are not as hard- hitting as some of the novels I will examine in Chapter 6, such as Hamilton’s Memoirs of

Modern Philosophers.

8 William Combe, The Saints: A Satire (London, 1778), 29. 187

Examining these common characteristics should help us better understand what satiric novels of instruction are like and distinguish them from other types of satiric novels. The general aim of instruction can be achieved in a number of ways, however, leading to great diversity within this broad category. Let us now look at some varieties of instruction.

Varieties of Instructive Satire

How can novelists convey instruction to their readers? Satiric instruction can be delivered directly, with some kind of satiric spokesman explicitly teaching the reader (as Matt Bramble does when he describes the food of London in Humphry Clinker). Or it can be delivered indirectly, with the audience left to glean the satiric lesson from the actions of the narrative (as is the case in Camilla, where we learn from observing what happens to the heroine). The satirist can seem relatively uncommitted to the message, as Fielding is in Joseph Andrews, not seeming to care hugely about conveying it—or he can be ardently committed to winning the reader over to his values and point of view, as Bage is in Hermsprong. While each satiric novel of instruction ought to be taken on its own merits, we can identify some of the major kinds of instruction these novels can attempt.

Gentle Ridicule: The satirist attempts to affect the values of the reader, but not forcefully.

We find relatively little authorial commitment in works of this type. This kind of novel naturally uses humor for its effects. Joseph Andrews, for instance, falls into this category. As we will see, the novel’s satire operates through ridicule: characters guilty of affectation and selfishness are roundly mocked. Appreciating the novel’s humor, however, requires that we make judgments against these characters’ follies, thus gently reinforcing our sense that affectation and selfishness are wrong. The implied Fielding of Joseph Andrews does not, however, push his values onto the 188 reader with great urgency. Because of the low level of commitment in novels attempting gentle ridicule, they come close to satiric novels of entertainment; they amuse and instruct, but the instruction is not insisted upon.

Sympathetic Satire: Sympathetic satire works by showing the effects of some vice or frailty while withholding harsh judgment. Because the satirist treats the satirized characters with some compassion, the lesson is easier to accept than if he or she were angrily to denounce or vilify them. As Marshall writes of this kind of satire, it “involves the amiable and generous representation of those characters who are not paragons but ‘real’ human beings, complete with foibles and flaws.”9 Camilla provides an example of this type of instruction. Mr. Tyrold and Dr.

Marchmont give Camilla and Edgar advice that harms their relationship—in particular, Edgar is advised by Dr. Marchmont to scrutinize Camilla for any sign of imperfection. But the two are not portrayed as terrible villains. Mr. Tyrold clearly loves Camilla, and Dr. Marchmont acts out of a desire to protect Edgar from disappointment; their actions, while harmful, are understandable.

Camilla clearly critiques rashly judging people by unrealistic standards, but acknowledges the natural human impulse to make such judgments. Later in this chapter, we will see an example of sympathetic satire discussed at length: Graves’s Spiritual Quixote.

Optimistic Warning: In this kind of profitable instruction, the satirist cautions the reader against some danger but shows that it can be avoided. The vices and problems satirized are presented as somewhat more threatening and serious than in a novel that attempts only gentle ridicule—and therefore the authorial commitment seems somewhat stronger. But these works are not gloomy. Tom Jones, as I will argue in greater detail, falls into this category: the novel warns readers to be cautious in assessing the moral worth of others, but ultimately suggests that accurate judgments are possible if made carefully.

9 Marshall, The Practice of Satire in England, 234. 189

Preachment of Ideology: The satirist holds some sort of philosophy or ideology and tries to inculcate it directly in the reader. Naturally, authorial commitment to the satiric message is high: typically, the satirist firmly believes in the ideas presented. Hugh Trevor fits clearly into this category, as Holcroft is clearly committed to promulgating radical ideas in the novel. His philosophy is delivered directly, through the character of Turl, who serves as a satiric spokesman. When Turl states that “ignorance is the source of all evil,” and that therefore “the communication of knowledge” ought to be the highest end in life, we can see that the satirist is attempting directly to encourage a specific positive behavior.10 Peacock’s Melincourt functions in a similar way, as we have seen: the author attempts to promote a philosophy through its hero,

Forester.

Emphasis of Moral Ideal: The satirist portrays some character or set of characters as representing ideal behavior that the reader ought to emulate. Sarah Scott’s Millenium Hall (1762) functions in this way: the various women living in the utopian community described in the novel hold values and express ideas that the author valorizes. Though Scott does not go so far as to suggest that such a community could actually be implemented in real life, the novel strongly encourages a belief in such things as the importance of female education and philanthropy.

Critique is present, but these novels focus heavily on positive values that the reader is to adopt.

We can find novels that employ several different kinds of instruction. For instance,

Bage’s Hermsprong combines elements of ideological preachment and emphasis of moral ideal.

The eponymous hero embodies values that Bage attempts to convey to his readers, but the novel’s ideas are also conveyed through preachment, as the work contains a number of conversations in which Hermsprong directly expounds the satirist’s point of view. Camilla uses

10 Thomas Holcroft, The Novels and Selected Plays of Thomas Holcroft, ed. W. M. Verhoeven, vol. 3, The Adventures of Hugh Trevor (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2007), 218. 190 sympathetic satire, but also contains elements of warning: the novel demonstrates vividly that seemingly affable rogues as Bellamy are not to be trusted. My point is that these types of instruction are not rigid categories into which we should pigeonhole the works we analyze, but rather concepts that can help us understand the specific rhetorical strategies used in individual satiric novels of instruction. They also can help us account for the dissimilarities between novels in this category: a novel that mainly uses gentle ridicule will likely read differently from one that relies more on ideological preachment.

Though the kinds of satiric instruction are various, I believe the concept of instructive satire is useful, as it can give us a new perspective from which to read some satiric novels. Let us now turn to some case studies to see what we gain from approaching individual works as instructive satires.

II. Types of Satiric Instruction in Fielding’s Novels

I want to begin with Fielding’s novels because, when examined together, they can give us a better sense of what instructive satire is and how subtypes of instructive satire can differ. Joseph

Andrews and Tom Jones both employ instructive satire, and comparing them with Amelia (a pessimistic satire) should give us a better sense of what makes instructive satire distinct. But contrasting Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones is also helpful: while both of these novels use satire to instruct, the kind of instruction they engage in is quite different.

This idea may seem odd to Fielding scholars, as a fairly standard assessment of

Fielding’s novels is that Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones are works of a similar nature, at least in comparison to Amelia. Robert Alter long ago asserted that “the idea of the novel as Fielding conceived it must finally be seen in the fulfilled art of just two books—Joseph Andrews and Tom 191

Jones. Fielding’s last novel, Amelia, is an only partly realized experiment in a different mode of fiction.”11 Alter’s point has gone largely unchallenged, with some justification. When compared to Amelia, Fielding’s first two novels appear quite similar, as neither are as dour and grim. But a close examination of satiric technique suggests that Tom Jones is not as similar to Joseph

Andrews—and not as dissimilar to Amelia—as we might think. As we shall see, Joseph Andrews gently communicates a light-hearted lesson, whereas Tom Jones provides a more forceful warning.

First, I want to compare how satire functions in Joseph Andrews and Amelia. Then, we will see how techniques from both novels are used in Tom Jones, creating satire that is a significant departure from that of Fielding’s first novel. The satire of Tom Jones, I will argue, is still instructive, but it is considerably darker than that of Joseph Andrews—at times, especially when Tom arrives in London, the satire even approaches the grimness of Amelia.

Satire in “Joseph Andrews” and “Amelia”

If Joseph Andrews is a satiric novel, what is the object of Fielding’s satire? In one sense, we can all agree that the novel is in part a satiric jab at Richardson’s Pamela. But critics have tended to read the novel as more than a send-up of Richardson, proposing a number of other targets for the novel’s satire. Some scholars have even gone so far as to suggest that the novel is an angry attack on social problems. Martin C. Battestin’s argument that in Joseph Andrews Fielding turns his

“savage indignation” against “selfishness in its various manifestations” remains influential to this day.12 Likewise, Michael McKeon claims that Joseph Andrews lays bare a society “whose complacency, hypocrisy, and downright viciousness announce, again and again, the absence of

11 Robert Alter, Fielding and the Nature of the Novel (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968), viii. 12 Battestin, The Moral Basis, 52. 192 charity in the modern world.”13 For Judith Frank, Joseph Andrews is an attack upon the lower classes. The preface’s rejection of burlesque, she argues, shows Fielding’s suspicion of low cultural forms (Fielding’s own use of dramatic burlesque notwithstanding). Her argument suggests that Fielding does not merely find the lower classes amusing, but that he considers their imitation of the upper classes “a disastrous social problem,” and their entertainments as “threats to morality and industry.”14 Though these critics do not always agree on what Fielding is targeting, they hold in common the suggestion that Fielding is delivering scathing criticism of society—something quite different from the instructive satire that I have been discussing.

Battestin and McKeon are on the right track in their identification of Fielding’s targets: the novel does in fact satirize hypocrites and those who lack charity. But in terms of aim, the satirist appears to be providing gentle instruction rather than savaging society at large. He points out that affectation and selfishness exist in the world, but does not present them as particularly distressing or threatening problems. The novel’s light tone and positive resolution do not suggest that the novel is meant to elicit fear or anger, nor do we get the sense that the satirist feels passionately about convincing the reader of his ideology. Instead, Fielding subtly but surely guides his readers away from avarice, and towards honesty and generosity.

We can see that Joseph Andrews is gentle instruction and not caustic critique most clearly by considering how the novel portrays evil. If, as Battestin claims, Fielding is using the novel to express “savage indignation” against the problems of the world, we would expect the novel’s vicious characters to be menacing and odious. In fact, while we certainly judge characters like the Roasting Squire and Beau Didapper negatively, they hardly ever seem dangerous enough to

13 Michael McKeon, The Origins of the English Novel, 1600–1740 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987), 400. 14 Judith Frank, Common Ground: Eighteenth-Century English Satiric Fiction and the Poor (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), 42. 193 deserve our hatred. Such figures harm Adams, Joseph, and Fanny in various ways, but because the protagonists are comic, unrealistic characters, we do not take seriously the injuries that befall them. When Adams hurts himself—when he loses his footing and tumbles down a hill, for instance, we are clearly not meant to fear that he has broken his arm or sprained his ankle in the process (194). We are not meant to interpret Adams as approximating a real-life individual: he is a comic clown, and taking his fall seriously would ruin the joke. In the same way, whenever

Adams, or any of the other protagonists, is harmed or threatened by one of the novel’s vicious characters, we are unlikely to be greatly incensed.

Because we do not worry about the harm they inflict upon the protagonists, the novel’s negative figures seem much less threatening. Any argument that Fielding is making a scathing denunciation of society in this novel tends to arise from the treatment the protagonists receive from the various malicious and hypocritical characters they encounter. Perhaps the most memorable tribulation that Adams undergoes is his treatment at the hands of the Roasting Squire and his companions. For Battestin the scene is “a vivid dramatization of that unjustified contempt of the clergy that was undermining the cause of religion” (148). Jill Campbell dubs the

Squire’s manor a “dark House of Satire, a space in which the possibility that satiric aggression is continuous with crude physical abuse can be explored.”15 But we ourselves are invited to laugh at Adams’s plight, just as we laugh at Adams falling down the hill, and so we are unlikely to feel that Fielding is making a savage condemnation of the Squire. Likewise, the scene in which

Joseph is beaten by robbers does not make us feel great anger at the evils of the world. Though we may be surprised at Joseph’s suffering, his injuries are not dwelt on at length, and we never feel that he is in danger of death. As Paul Hunter rightly observes, “Fielding carefully directs our

15 Jill Campbell, Natural Masques: Gender and Identity in Fielding’s Plays and Novels (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), 103. 194 attention away from [Joseph] and toward the various spectators on his misery.”16 As neither of these scenes greatly distresses us, they do not seem indicative of harsh, attacking satire.

In arguing that we are not seriously concerned by the various misfortunes of Adams,

Joseph, and Fanny, I am not trying to suggest that we do not view their tormentors negatively.

We are undoubtedly led to view such characters as the people in the coach who refuse to help

Joseph after his beating as morally deficient, and we disapprove of their selfish actions. But for the most part, these vicious figures are ineffectual: we never see them inflict great harm or suffering upon anybody we care about. Beau Didapper threatens Fanny with rape, but we are never led to believe he will succeed—like many of the novel’s other butts of satire, he is more ridiculous than terrifying. Joseph suffers physical injury, but his encounters with the world’s vices do little to dampen his general good-nature and his commitment to finding Fanny.

Naturally, this way of presenting evil lends itself to a much different kind of satire than that of a work like Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), in which the evil characters can and do enact terrible things to the protagonists.

Evil in Joseph Andrews is not only harmless but also easy to avoid, as it is to be found mainly in a handful of minor characters. Most of the characters Fielding uses to represent hypocrisy and uncharity appear only very briefly in the narrative. The gentleman who discusses bravery with Adams, for instance, is promptly revealed a few paragraphs later to be a coward and is not seen in the narrative again. Likewise, when Adams comes across Parson Trulliber, the encounter and its repercussions span no more than two chapters, and then the protagonists resume their journey. While these characters serve to convey satiric lessons about various kinds of selfishness and hypocrisy, they also seem to suggest that evil is easily evaded. The protagonists never seem to be surrounded by vicious figures, as they are able to emerge largely

16 Hunter, Occasional Form, 108. 195 unscathed from most of their encounters. Furthermore, the faults of the vicious characters are mainly obvious to the reader. For instance, nearly as soon as we learn Mr. Barnabas’s name, we also learn that he would rather drink tea and punch than minister to a dying man. These characters are not terrifying villains, but exaggerated buffoons meant to show us behavior that we should avoid.

The result of Fielding’s portrayal of evil is mild, instructive satire. When reading Joseph

Andrews we do not get a sense that society is irrecoverably selfish or hedonistic or affectatious, or that the few decent individuals of the world cannot escape becoming prey for the vicious majority. What we do get is a sense that these vices exist in the world, but that they are ridiculous and unproductive, and that therefore we should not engage in them. Evil is not threatening or unavoidable; it is instead obviously recognizable, easily eluded, and unable to cause serious harm.

By contrast, Amelia’s satire is much darker and grimmer than that of Joseph Andrews.

The vices Amelia targets are much the same as those Fielding critiques in his first novel— license, hypocrisy, greed, false notions of honor, and so forth. The nature and harshness of the satire on these targets, however, is radically different. Amelia does not gently urge the reader to avoid selfish and ill-natured behavior, but rather suggests that society is so rife with these things that the virtuous have little hope of escaping the clutches of the morally depraved. The way

Fielding depicts vice in Amelia is more suited to serious satire against a dangerous and invidious social problem. Whereas evil is largely harmless and easy to recognize in Joseph Andrews, in

Amelia the vicious characters cause real harm and are far more difficult to identify.

One of the major ways in which the satiric techniques of the two novels differ is that in

Amelia, the vicious characters are not obviously depraved at their initial introduction. Hunter has 196 asserted that Amelia diverges from Fielding’s earlier novels chiefly in “its emphasis on grim detail, its darkened tone, its more rigid insistence on stated moral precepts, its straightforwardness in directing judgment, and its refusal to provide a modal frame that insulates the comic resolution of events from their tragic possibilities” (207). In many ways this assessment is perceptive: Amelia does indeed contain detailed accounts of poverty and suffering, and the denouement does not in any way mitigate the novel’s darkness. But where Hunter perceives “straightforwardness in directing judgment”—presumably the reader’s—I see intentional obfuscation and deception of the reader on the part of an unreliable narrator. In

Joseph Andrews, passing judgment is easy, as characters like Trulliber or Barnabas have no redeeming qualities, and their vices are made manifest as soon as the characters appear. In

Amelia, by contrast, passing judgment is more difficult, as the vicious characters often seem benign at first.

The novel contains many cases in which we are introduced to a character who initially appears to be good but who then surprises us when he or she commits evil acts. Claude Rawson points out that Amelia’s depiction of an unpredictable society depends on scenes of “cruel surprise” in which the reader is subjected to “moral reversal or shock,” giving as an example the beautiful and innocent-looking girl in Newgate who turns out to be a foul-mouthed prostitute.17

But a more extended and subtle example of the text’s deceptiveness is Miss Mathews, who at her first appearance seems to embody the charity that Fielding promotes in his previous novels.

Notwithstanding Paulson’s assertion that Miss Mathews is “clearly not what she appears to be,” first-time readers may easily be misled by several details Fielding uses to direct our judgment of

17 Claude Rawson, Henry Fielding and the Augustan Ideal Under Stress: ‘Nature’s Dance of Death’ and Other Studies (London: Routledge, 1972), 75. 197 her.18 If we judge a character’s moral worth by his or her behavior towards the protagonists—

Miss Mathews initially seems to be an ally; she gives Booth money when he is in need and praises Amelia’s virtues (76, 98). To be sure, the text contains several hints about her true nature: for instance, the title of the chapter in which she first meets Booth claims that it will show “that it is possible for a Woman to appear to be what she really is not,” which might suggest some deception (although it might also suggest that Miss Mathews appears a criminal but is in fact good) (76). Her story, however, leads us to believe that she is much more sinned against than sinning; as Hebbers is presented as a detestable villain, we develop some sympathy for her. Miss

Mathews’s “Warning to every Woman to keep her Innocence, to resist every Temptation, since she is certain to repent of the foolish Bargain” seems to be the kind of advice which might emanate from an authorial spokesperson, not from one of the novel’s primary antagonists (86).

Only gradually, as Booth tells his story and Miss Mathews comments on it, does the reader perceive that Miss Mathews is not as she seems.

This sort of deceptive character abounds in the rest of the text. Mrs. Ellison, for instance, is at her first appearance described as a “good Woman,” possessed of “good Humour and

Complaisance” (202–03). Of course, she turns out to be anything but a good woman. When

Colonel James is first described by Booth, we learn that he is “one of the best-natured Men in the

World,” and that he saved Booth’s life (141). We may have some suspicions of his character, as he rejects the idea of religion, yet based on his conduct we might reasonably be surprised at the extent of his villainy. Likewise, Trent, who is never anything but a scoundrel during the course of the narrative, is initially said to be “naturally sensible and genteel,” and we are told that “he really behaved himself every way well enough, while he was at Gibraltar” (458). The prevalence of these characters suggests that evildoers can easily and effectively mask their intentions, and

18 Paulson, Satire and the Novel, 158. 198 that even sensible people have little hope of avoiding them. Cheryl Wanko has argued persuasively that the effect of this method of characterization is to make the reader balance emulation of Amelia’s innocence with a healthy degree of skepticism and self-preservation: we should be virtuous, but also aware of others’ faults.19 But another effect of this kind of deceptive characterization is to induce a sense of paranoia into the narrative—with so many seemingly- decent characters revealed to be insidious, we begin to doubt the existence of moral characters in this world. Consequently, we feel that Fielding’s attitude towards society is much more intensely negative in this novel than in Joseph Andrews.

The vicious characters of the narrative are not only deceptive but also capable of inflicting real harm upon the protagonists. Booth and Amelia are depicted more realistically than

Joseph and Adams are, lacking the exaggerated qualities of Joseph’s extreme chastity and

Adams’s ridiculous clumsiness and absent-mindedness. They are more like us flesh-and-blood individuals. Consequently, when they face adversity and are harmed, we may feel that we, too, could be victims of the same kinds of difficulties—making the novel’s vicious characters seem dangerous instead of absurd. We do not laugh when Booth gambles away his money; instead, we fear for his fate and that of his family. As Rawson notes, the world of Amelia is one in which

“Fortune’s unpredictabilities and men’s wickedness are not any longer outfaced by the old comic assurances” (71).

Further increasing our sense of Booth and Amelia’s peril is the fact that the problems they encounter are inescapable. The structure of the novel lends it a feeling of claustrophobia.

Whereas Adams and Joseph spend much of their narrative in motion and are thus able simply to leave behind the unscrupulous figures they meet, Amelia and Booth remain in London through

19 Cheryl Wanko, “Characterization and the Reader’s Quandary in Fielding’s Amelia,” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 90, no. 4 (1991): 505–23, at 522. 199 most of Amelia, and are thus always exposed to threats from the same vicious individuals. The protagonists are trapped—indeed, Booth’s debts lead him literally to be confined to the verge of the court, the area around Whitehall and St. James’s which provided immunity from arrest.20 Not only is Booth kept within relative physical proximity of his tormentors, he is also tied to them through his social obligations. As Lance Bertelsen points out, the only way to thrive in the world of Amelia is through “the cultivation of personal favors and interest.”21 Booth must depend upon for his own social advancement the very people who wish him harm, and is therefore constantly exposed to vice.

The result is pessimistic rather than instructive satire. When we read Amelia and encounter such characters as Colonel James, the Noble Lord, and Miss Mathews, we do not get the sense that Fielding is gently steering the reader away from various forms of immorality.

Instead, the satirist seems to be alerting the reader that the world is filled with treacherous and deceptive individuals who can cause genuine harm and who are almost impossible to avoid.

Furthermore, the novel offers no hope that this situation will change—though Amelia contains a positive resolution, we are given no suggestion that society as a whole has improved. True, many of Amelia’s villains die as a result of their own vices, as Paulson points out.22 But this is hardly a consolation, as we are given no guarantee that they do not harm others before their deaths.

Knowing Bath’s propensity for fighting, we may surmise that he continues to fight duels until he is killed. And the fact that the Noble Lord becomes “a Martyr . . . to his Amours” seems to imply that he does not cease in his sexual predation until the point of fatal excess (514). Furthermore,

20 John C. Stephens, Jr. “The Verge of the Court and Arrest for Debt in Fielding’s Amelia,” Modern Language Notes 63, no. 2 (1948): 104–109, at 106. 21 Lance Bertelsen, Henry Fielding at Work: Magistrate, Businessman, Writer (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2000), 70. 22 Ronald Paulson, “Fielding, Hogarth, and Evil: Cruelty,” in Henry Fielding (1707–1754): Novelist, Playwright, Journalist, Magistrate: A Double Anniversary Tribute, ed. Claude Rawson (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2008), 173–200, at 192. 200 the Noble Lord’s namelessness suggests that he is a representative character, and that other lecherous noble lords will continue to ensnare young women even after this particular specimen has perished. More generally, the narrator does not seem to believe that vicious people can reform. When describing the failed reform of Robinson, he declares, “so apt are Men, whose

Manners have been once thoroughly corrupted, to return, from any Dawn of an Amendment, into the dark Paths of Vice” (515). The lack of any kind of possibility of improvement makes Amelia a pessimistic warning about the depravity of the world.

Comparing Joseph Andrews and Amelia should help us to distinguish between instructive satiric novels and pessimistic satiric novels. Joseph Andrews imparts a positive lesson, depicting hypocritical behavior in ridiculous lights so that we can both avoid such behavior ourselves and evade others who would try to harm us. Amelia suggests that the corruption of society is too general to escape, and that the situation is not likely to improve. The question now before us is where Tom Jones fits on this spectrum.

Satire in “Tom Jones”

At first glance, Tom Jones seems much more similar to Joseph Andrews than to Amelia. We can find some significant structural similarities between Fielding’s first two novels. As John Richetti notes, Tom Jones is, “like Joseph Andrews, based upon a rehearsal of the pattern of comic romance overlaid on the Cervantic and picaresque model of the road narrative.”23 And, like

Joseph Andrews, Tom Jones is largely much cheerier than Amelia. Given these resemblances, we might expect Tom Jones to be an instructive satire that mainly employs gentle ridicule to convey a lesson.

23 Richetti, The English Novel in History, 136. 201

We can indeed find many moments in Tom Jones where Fielding utilizes mild ridicule to expose folly. The novel contains a number of situation characters and walking concepts who serve only to embody a vice or set of vices, and who are obviously targets of ridicule. Thwackum and Square are examples: they function much like Trulliber or Barnabas, in that all of their actions seem to be determined by their particular type of hypocrisy, and they are consequently absurd. Other characters are not quite reducible to a single dominant foible, yet are nonetheless clearly identified as exemplars of wrong behavior. Di Western, for instance, is manifestly meant to be judged negatively. She is presented as an object of laughter—she is described as having a

“masculine Person, which was near six Foot high,” which when “added to her Manner and

Learning, possibly prevented the other Sex from regarding her . . . in the Light of a Woman”

(1:273–74). The implication is that her various faults, such as her pretentions to political wisdom, are likewise absurd and risible. As with the characters in Joseph Andrews, these characters do not manage to inflict lasting harm upon the protagonists, and are not depicted as threats that we ought to fear. Rather, they seem designed to represent attitudes that the readers should reject.

Not everyone in the novel, however, is obviously and ridiculously flawed. While Tom

Jones contains many figures in the vein of Thwackum and Square, Blifil is a much more terrifying antagonist who succeeds in hoodwinking the other characters with his feigned appearance of virtue. He does not shock us quite as much as someone like Miss Mathews in

Amelia does, as we are made aware of his duplicitous nature. But the ease with which he deceives others suggests that evil is a force to be reckoned with. His calculated attempts to hide his maliciousness make him much more insidious than, say, the false promiser who offers to help

Adams in Joseph Andrews. Adams is deceived by the false promiser for a brief period, but the 202 true nature of the promiser’s pledges of friendship are quickly made clear to him; Blifil’s long- concealed treachery is on another order of magnitude. Furthermore, Blifil’s schemes against Tom are intended to cause significant harm: beyond denying Tom his rightful inheritance, he actively plots against Tom and tries to have him hanged for his duel with Mr. Fitzpatrick. As a villainous character, Blifil is much closer to somebody like Colonel James in Amelia than to, say, the

Roasting Squire in Joseph Andrews.

Other characters besides Blifil depart from the model of satiric characterization we see in

Joseph Andrews. Take Molly Seagrim. She is clearly identified as a woman whose sexual morals are suspect as soon as she is introduced: we are told that “so little had she of Modesty, that Jones had more Regard for her Virtue than she herself” (1.175). Yet she is more complex than

Thwackum or Square, insofar as she functions as an object of sympathy. For all her faults, we are led to believe that Tom really has ruined her, and that she will suffer because of their amours.

Before Tom discovers her with Square, he envisions the “Miseries of Prostitution to which she would be liable, and of which he would be doubly the Occasion; first by seducing, and then by deserting her” (1.222). These sentiments are admirable, as they are in keeping with Tom’s generous good nature. Molly becomes not just a representation of a particular moral flaw but an opportunity for Tom to demonstrate his charity. When Molly and Square are caught together, we are taken off guard: though the narrator has revealed her negative traits to us, we have been led to view her more positively. This kind of character—one who initially seems good, or at least sympathetic, but then is revealed to be less good—does not appear in Joseph Andrews, but occurs frequently in Amelia, as we have seen.

Fielding employs the same kind of characterization in describing Black George. When he is first introduced the narrator tells us that George lacks strict notions “concerning the Difference 203 of meum and tuum,” suggesting his dishonesty and allowing us to predict his behavior when he finds Tom’s lost £500 (1.119). But between George’s introduction and his theft of Tom’s money, he is described sympathetically as a poor man struggling to feed his family. As John Allen

Stevenson asserts, Fielding “seems unambiguously to create sympathy for George and contempt for those forces which conspire to injure him. The gamekeeper is hungry and powerless and the law crushes him like a fly.”24 We are affected by his plight and develop goodwill towards him, only to discover his selfish and unscrupulous nature when he does not help Tom.

Even fairly minor characters are described unreliably at first. When Tom first meets the

Quaker Broadbrim, for instance, he appears to be a helpful figure: he recognizes that Tom is lost, guides him to a public-house, and attempts to cheer him with conversation. We are given no indication of his greediness; indeed, he seems to practice the good-natured charity that Fielding celebrates in both Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones. Even after Broadbrim reveals his unwarranted anger at his daughter, he believes Tom is mad and is “moved with Compassion for his unhappy Circumstances” (1:364). We do not realize the true extent of his affectation until he learns that Tom has no fortune. The narrator, usually reliable, has here gone out of his way to mislead us, labeling Broadbrim with such epithets as “the poor Quaker” and “the honest Quaker” and concealing his satirical name until his avarice has been revealed (1:363). Because of his initial characterization, Broadbrim is in some ways more insidious than Western, who is obviously (and comically) a tyrant.

My argument here is not that Tom Jones is a statement on the impossibility of truly knowing the intentions of others. Eve Bannet has treated Tom Jones as producing

“epistemological satire” which dramatizes the uncertainty of character: throughout the work,

24 John Allen Stevenson, “Black George and the Black Act,” Eighteenth-Century Fiction 8, no. 3 (1996): 355–82, at 362. 204 various people fail to judge accurately others’ behavior based on previous actions.25 The idea that the novel is to some extent about the inability to assess true natures has been put forth by other critics, including John E. Loftis and Arlene Fish Wilner.26 These arguments contain a great deal of truth—both the characters and the reader of Tom Jones are often unable to make proper discriminations between good and evil. But knowledge of character is not impossible to attain.

After all, Thwackum is and remains a cruel and hypocritical churchman, as he appears to be from his introduction. Squire Western’s nature is simple and predictable enough, and Di Western too can hardly be said to mislead either characters or readers. We are not in the world of a pessimistic satire, in which avoiding vicious characters is all but impossible—here, accurate judgment of an individual’s moral worth can be made.

What Tom Jones suggests, however, is that while the world is full of individuals who are dangerous and evil, identifying these threats is not always easy. Tom Jones is an instructive satire, but its manner of instruction is not the gentle ridicule of Joseph Andrews but a harsher and sterner warning. Here, the satirist teaches the reader to be wary of trusting others too blindly, as not all people possess the good nature and generosity to be found in the novel’s hero.27 In conveying this message, the satire of Tom Jones represents a move towards the paranoid negativity of Amelia. In both works, evil can be hard to recognize, and we cannot fully trust the narrator. I do not mean to suggest that Tom Jones is as pessimistic as Amelia is; though Tom

Jones contains a number of deceptively vicious characters, they do not appear as often as they do

25 Eve Tavor, Skepticism, Society and the Eighteenth-Century Novel (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1987), 110. 26 John E. Loftis, “Trials and the Shaping of Identity in Tom Jones,” Studies in the Novel 34, no. 1 (2002): 1– 20, at 15; Arlene Fish Wilner, “Henry Fielding and the Knowledge of Character,” Modern Language Studies 18, no. 1 (1988): 181–94, at 182. 27 Fielding makes a similar point in his “Essay on the Knowledge of the Characters of Men,” (1743), in which he writes that “the crafty and designing Part of Mankind . . . endeavour to maintain one constant Imposition on others,” such that “the whole World becomes a vast Masquerade, where the greatest Part appear disguised under false Vizors and Habits.” See Henry Fielding, Miscellanies by Henry Fielding Esq;, vol. 1, ed. Henry Knight Miller (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972), 155. 205 in Amelia, and they do not pose Tom and Sophia quite as much harm. The humor of Tom Jones lends it a much lighter tone than that of Fielding’s last novel, and we fear less for Tom’s fate than for Booth’s. This lighter tone is what makes Tom Jones seem more like an instructive satiric novel than a pessimistic one; the comic characters and events reassure us that not all is bleak and dangerous in this world. Nonetheless, we can see a definite shift in satiric technique between

Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones, suggesting that the message Fielding attempts to convey in each novel is different. And as we will see, one portion of Tom Jones is far darker than the rest of the novel, and even approaches Amelia in the gloominess of its satire: in Books XIII through XV, when Tom arrives in London, the narrative becomes bleaker and the satire harsher, further emphasizing that Tom Jones and Joseph Andrews attempt different kinds of instruction.

Tom Jones in the City

During the middle six books of Tom Jones, which focus on Tom and Sophia’s respective adventures on the road, the novel’s plot comes closest to that of Joseph Andrews: the protagonists move from place to place, and the narrative becomes episodic. In the final six books, however, the plot more closely resembles that of Amelia: like Booth, Tom finds himself in London, attempts to navigate a complicated social scene, and contends with various people who seek to do him harm. Books XIII to XV of Tom Jones, from Tom’s arrival in the city to the moment when Squire Western saves Sophia from Lord Fellamar’s attempted rape, portray a

London society in many ways quite similar to that we find in Amelia—so much so that this section of the novel anticipates the later work’s grim tone and pessimistic depiction of human nature, and further emphasizes the distance between the instructive satiric techniques of this novel and Joseph Andrews. 206

What separates this section of Tom Jones from those that precede it is the sheer concentration of deceptive and malicious characters. When Tom is on the road, deceptive characters like the Man of the Hill are balanced with characters who are relatively straightforward in their vice, such as Ensign Northerton or the landlady of the inn at Upton. The straightforward characters, like those in Joseph Andrews, do not give us the impression that the world is full of lurking and undetectable dangers. When the narrative moves to London, however, the majority of the vicious characters we meet are initially mischaracterized by the narrator and surprise us with their villainy. The first instance is Lady Bellaston: at the end of

Book XI, the narrator assures us that Sophia is in “safe Hands” at Lady Bellaston’s house. At this point in the narrative, we know that Lady Bellaston has given Sophia a “most polite Welcome” and that she “had taken a great Fancy to [Sophia] when she had seen her formerly with her Aunt

Western” (2.618). We might expect her to be a friend and protector to Sophia, but the next time

Lady Bellaston appears in the text, she is revealed to be a possible impediment to the reunion of

Tom and Sophia, and the narrator lets on that she is beginning to lust after Tom: she begins “to conceive him to be a kind of Miracle in Nature” based on her maid’s description of him (2.695).

But even at this stage, Lady Bellaston’s true nature is not made clear. We do not know that she is a “Woman who intrigues with every Man she likes, under the Name and Appearance of Virtue” until Book XV (2.817). Like Miss Mathews in Amelia, she seems benevolent at first, and her true character is unveiled only gradually.

Lady Bellaston is hardly the only major character in these three books to be characterized in this way. Lord Fellamar is revealed to be Tom’s rival for Sophia’s affections, and he attempts to rape Sophia—yet when he is first introduced, he is a positive figure who saves Sophia from harm. We are told that when the riot breaks out at the play, Sophia is “glad to put herself under 207 the Protection of a young Gentleman, who safely conveyed her to her Chair” (2.730). The reader may surmise that Fellamar does this good deed from motives other than pure altruism, but nothing in the text suggests this possibility. The narrator does not provide any hints about

Fellamar’s true character, as he does when introducing the various vicious characters in the first two thirds of the novel. Indeed, he appears to much better advantage than the rioters who actually threaten Sophia’s safety. His actions are the kind of benevolent deed that we might envision Tom performing for someone else. Only several books later, in Book XV, chapter ii, does the narrator make clear that he is an obstacle to Tom and Sophia’s union. Even at this point the fact that

Fellamar can be incited to rape is not disclosed; the depth of his flaws are not fully displayed until Lady Bellaston convinces him to do the deed. Once again, the characterization is gradual:

Fellamar’s true character is not revealed initially, and we might even surmise that he is brave and benevolent from what we learn of him at first, contrary to what he actually is. True, Fellamar is a milksop and not the most threatening of characters, but the way in which his character is developed contributes to the sense that London is full of innocent-seeming but ultimately vicious individuals.

By far the most unexpectedly villainous character in this section of the novel is

Nightingale’s uncle. Fielding deliberately tricks us into believing that the uncle is a benevolent figure, rather like Mr. Allworthy. The key to the deception is that the uncle is introduced as an obvious foil for Nightingale’s father, who is a relatively straightforward senex iratus that

Northrop Frye describes as a common comedic trope.28 Nightingale’s father recalls such earlier characters as Mrs. Wilkins and Ensign Northerton (and most of the vicious characters of Joseph

Andrews) in that the narrator gives us a clear judgment of his nature: we are told that he

“conversed so entirely with Money, that it may be almost doubted, whether he imagined there

28 Frye, Anatomy of Criticism, 172. 208 was any other thing really existing in the World; this at least may be certainly averred, that he firmly believed nothing else to have any real Value” (2:771–72). When we are told that

Nightingale’s uncle and his father are “almost the opposites to each other,” we therefore expect the uncle to be a generous and sensible individual. Further, we learn that the uncle married a woman with “neither Beauty nor Fortune,” but with whom he had “lived a Life more resembling the Model which certain Poets ascribe to the Golden Age, than any of those Patterns which are furnished by the present Times” (2.775). The description is supported by the uncle’s actions: he seems a good father to his daughter, and he opposes Young Nightingale’s proposed marriage with Miss Harris because he understands her to be vapid and ill-natured. By any measure he seems to be a morally good individual, and we justifiably assume that he will act as a helper figure.

Because we have been so carefully misled, the uncle’s callous behavior towards Nancy is stunning—indeed, it produces the “moral reversal or shock” which Rawson finds integral to

Amelia’s effect (75). Nothing in the text allows us to anticipate the uncle’s insistence that

Nightingale break his engagement. Even when this facet of the uncle’s character is revealed, the full extent of his baseness is not made fully explicit; several chapters later we learn that his daughter has eloped, with the strong implication that he disapproves of the match because of the husband’s poverty (2.814). The uncle is much more treacherous than any rogue in Joseph

Andrews, and the extent of the deception is even greater than that we suffer from a character like

Miss Mathews. In the case of the latter, Miss Mathews is given some initial positive characterization, but her true character is hinted at and gradually revealed. But Nightingale’s uncle is presented much more clearly as a positive character, and his betrayal of Nancy comes 209 suddenly, without any clues or forewarnings. The narrator has deliberately created a false impression of virtue, only to smash it at a single blow.

The prevalence of deceit in London has the effect of making Fielding seem more strongly motivated to warn his reader about the potential viciousness of the world than in any other part of the narrative. In the earlier books, such characters as Broadbrim or Molly Seagrim suggest to us that the satirist means to convey that we ought to be on guard against deceptive personages.

But the satirist hardly seems to insist upon this message. In the London books, however, the number of vicious characters who manage to surprise both Tom and the reader makes the warning seem more urgent; the satirist seems more committed to conveying his lesson. By actively misleading the reader in the episode involving Nightingale’s uncle, Fielding seems to be confronting us forcefully with the unreliability of the people around us, including the character of the narrator. The pervasiveness of treachery in this section of the novel is difficult to ignore.

The sense that Tom is surrounded by unscrupulous individuals would be greatly mitigated if this section of the novel contained much in the way of comic relief. On the road, the moral flaws of the figures Tom meets are often presented humorously; the puppet-show master and the sagacious landlord, for instance, are largely ridiculous. By contrast, the members of

London society with whom Tom interacts are not risible. Mrs. Fitzpatrick has few defining features except for her desire to reconcile herself with the Westerns—hardly a comic trait.

Nightingale’s failings are not treated humorously; indeed, they become a serious problem which

Jones must work to resolve. Lady Bellaston does not behave in an amusing way except when she sends contradictory notes or letters to Tom, but she only does so on a few occasions. Fellamar is perhaps funny insofar as he fails to rape Sophia, but he is not treated nearly as comically as Beau

Didapper in Joseph Andrews, who plays a similar role. Because much narrative time is spent 210 discussing these characters, less is given to the comic antics of Partridge and Mrs. Honour. The scene in which Lady Bellaston hides behind the bed while Honour abuses her is a brilliant comic set-piece, but for the most part Honour is peripheral. A few jokes are made at Partridge’s expense, but his cowardice and superstition—mocked mercilessly and hilariously in the road books—are not brought up. We have departed from the livelier and bouncier humor of the earlier books.

Of course, the more downbeat tone does not last through the rest of the novel. Squire

Western’s arrival in London re-infuses comic energy into the work. He is reassuringly straightforward, and his faults are comfortingly obvious. Though he is by no means an admirable figure, his absurd hunting metaphors and ridiculously irascible nature serve to remind us that not all is bleak in the novel’s fictional world. The city remains a dangerous place—after all, in the following books Tom is threatened with impressment and execution—but the presence of lighter humor reinforces our sense that Tom will survive his difficulties after all. After Western’s arrival, the novel moves away from sentimental scenes and includes several inspired comic moments, including Squire Western offering to box with Captain Egglane and Partridge’s laughable reactions to Hamlet. But though the rest of the novel returns to the comic cheerfulness of the earlier books, the impact of glummer satire is not entirely negated. The renewed mildness of tone emphasizes by contrast the relative harshness of the early London books. Tom Jones ultimately reaffirms a positive outlook on life, but not before giving the reader a glimpse of a world in which evil is difficult to detect and suffering is real.

I want to emphasize that I am not trying to suggest a stark country/city dichotomy in which the country is a place of virtue and innocence and the city is a locus of treachery. The novel suggests that danger exists everywhere; the city books merely emphasize it more than the 211 country books. Blifil, of course, spends much of the novel in the country, and he is by far the most duplicitous and menacing character in the narrative. The lesson of the satire, then, is that whether one is in the country or the city, one must be on guard against false friends and individuals only seemingly benign. While good certainly exists (in a way it does not in the world of Amelia), accurately gauging a person’s true intentions and nature is difficult, and so one must be suspicious and discriminating. The satirist’s objective is optimistic warning: the novel suggests that evil can be found out and avoided, and that ultimately goodness prevails, but the problems and vices the novel illustrates are nonetheless threatening and must be taken seriously.

This is certainly a departure from the gentle persuasion to honesty and generosity practiced in

Joseph Andrews, and a movement towards the more pessimistic warning of Amelia.

Our examination of Fielding’s three novels illustrates the importance not only of attempting to identify the general aims of satiric novels, but also of noticing differences in technique. The divergence in satiric technique between Joseph Andrews and Amelia show us that

Fielding is not attempting in his last novel the same kind of satire that he writes in his first.

Comparing Tom Jones to both reminds us that not all instructive satiric novels are similar, and that we can find many variations within the broad aim of conveying a beneficial value or belief to the audience. If we do not take satiric aim and technique into account, we risk mischaracterizing Tom Jones and Joseph Andrews as being quite similar, and Amelia as being a strange aberration. Paying attention to the satiric techniques of these novels shows us that

Fielding’s satire becomes gradually harsher and darker as his novelistic career progressed.

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III. Sympathetic Satire in The Spiritual Quixote

In the novels of Fielding we can find several varieties of instructive satire, but what we do not find is a great degree of sympathetic satire. True, the protagonists of Fielding’s novels are not paragons of virtue, and their own flaws suggest that moral perfection is impossible, as Marshall suggests.29 Fielding seems to believe that some faults ought to be forgiven rather than punished.

But most of the characters who embody the vices that Fielding targets are never treated sympathetically. For instance, in Joseph Andrews, we are never led to believe that the selfishness of Parson Trulliber is even somewhat justifiable, nor are we invited to feel any identification with his character. Likewise, we never hold Blifil in anything but contempt and disgust, and nothing in the text suggests that we are to feel sorry for him when his schemes fail. While Tom

Jones is far from perfect, he is a much better person than Blifil is, at least by the standard of the values we find in the text. Whether Fielding is poking fun at some folly or warning against it, he is not inclined to sympathize with his target.

This satiric strategy makes sense given Fielding’s objective: making “good Men wise,” as opposed to making “bad Men good,” as he states in the dedication to Tom Jones (1:8). In his novels we identify with the basically good characters who lack wisdom—the likes of Tom and

Adams—but we rarely sympathize with the essentially malicious characters—the Noble Lords and Parson Barnabases. Fielding is not writing to real-life malicious seducers or malevolent schemers in an attempt to convince them to cease their evil ways; he is writing to an audience that shares his basic values about the importance of charity and good-nature, encouraging them to act on those values and to be on guard for villainy.

Not all satire, however, is written with the assumption that the audience will generally agree with the satirist’s values and ideas. In some cases, the satirist may be writing to an

29 Marshall, The Practice of Satire in England, 231. 213 audience that may be resistant or even hostile to his ideas. Naturally, such satire is quite different from what we find in Fielding, though it shares the same basic aim of instruction. The satirist is more likely to use sympathetic satire to achieve his goals. A strong example of this kind of case is Richard Graves’s The Spiritual Quixote. As I shall argue, this novel satirizes Methodism not to galvanize its detractors against the movement, but to sway religiously-inclined readers who might view Methodism favorably. First, however, we must attempt to conceptualize sympathetic satire: what is it, and what are its characteristics?

Sympathetic Satire

I have already touched on sympathetic satire earlier in this chapter, but a fuller discussion may be useful here, as the term may seem oxymoronic. Sympathy seems to imply a kind of toleration of a target that is incompatible with satiric judgment. In fact, sympathetic satire aims to instruct or reform its audience, not to promote toleration of the targets’ faults. Matthew Kinservik’s discussion of sympathetic satire in drama treats it as a tool for disciplining the behavior of the audience and acknowledges the importance of “the positive example of virtuous characters.”30

While the satirist does not rely so much on punishing evil characters, he nonetheless has a clear sense of right and wrong and urges his audience towards right. In Kinservik’s formulation, the sympathetic satirist does not attack the target, but nonetheless exerts “regulatory control” over the foolish and vicious, gently steering them away from immoral behavior (53).

What makes sympathetic satire different from other kinds of instructive satire is the method used to achieve the satirist’s goals. The sympathetic satirist instructs and persuades his audience away from negative behaviors and ideas by taking a stance that is not hostile to the

30 Matthew J. Kinservik, Disciplining Satire: The Censorship of Satiric Comedy on the Eighteenth-Century London Stage (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2002), 40. 214 target. He shows that he shares the concerns of those people he wishes to sway—in short, that he sympathizes with their needs and desires. This attitude makes the satirist more likely to persuade his audience. Marshall describes sympathetic satire as featuring “not denunciation or ridicule but milder, more tolerant critique.”31 This is true as long as the satirist still believes that the target’s flaws ought not to be simply accepted, but should be corrected. The satirist’s critique may be

“tolerant” insofar as he or she may see the target’s faults as products of ignorance or misguidance rather than evil, but he or she makes clear that those faults are potentially harmful and ought to be eliminated. And while the satirist acknowledges that imperfection is part of the human condition, he or she does not concede that we should not strive to improve ourselves. The sympathy the satirist extends to the target involves understanding of the target’s circumstances, pity at the target’s errors, and a desire to correct those imperfections in a kind and charitable way; it stops short of approving or encouraging wrongdoing.

Given this understanding of sympathetic satire, one of its most important characteristics is that it is typically aimed at a resistant audience. If the satirist needs to use sympathy to persuade his or her audience, the two parties must have some fundamental difference of values.

This is not to say that the satirist and the audience have no shared beliefs; indeed, one of the ways that the satirist can build sympathy is to find common ground with the reader. But if the reader agrees with the satirist on most counts, as is typically the case in Fielding, the satirist need not take special measures to win the reader to his or her point of view. Consider the satire against dueling in Steele’s The Conscious Lovers. Were Steele expecting much of his audience to agree with him about the perniciousness of dueling, he might have included a dueling character, something like Fielding’s Colonel Bath, who is presented as vicious. The way in which Steele handles the topic—Myrtle, who challenges Bevil Jr. to a duel, is not an unlikeable character and

31 Marshall, The Practice of Satire in England, 234. 215 has virtues to counterbalance this flaw—suggests that Steele thought some members of his audience might be resistant to his instruction.

Due to the audience’s potential aversion to the satirist’s message, sympathetic satire involves a closing of the moral distance between the satirist and the audience. The satirist cannot appear to be lecturing at inferior listeners from a position of moral perfection. Doing so is an easy way to gain the resentment of those being lectured to. If, instead, the satirist seems to be closer to the audience in terms of goodness, his or her message is more likely to be received.

Reducing moral distance can be accomplished in two ways. First, the satirist may admit to flaws.

As Kinservik argues, “rather than lashing vicious persons from a position of moral superiority and encouraging others to scorn the satiric target, the true satirist sympathizes with the target and insinuates that he or she shares the target’s vices” (53). Second, the satirist may point out that the target has redeeming qualities. If the target is told that they are not wholly depraved, they are more likely to seek improvement. We will see examples of both of these methods of narrowing distance in The Spiritual Quixote: Graves presents the Church of England as imperfect and acknowledges that Methodism has some merits.

Above all, the sympathetic satirist must appear to be friendly and benevolent. If the satirist merely delights in attacking and exposing some vice, and does not seem to have the good of the audience at heart, those readers who are guilty of that vice have nothing to gain from the satirist save the experience of being rubbished. In sympathetic satire, we do not get the sense that the satirist enjoys putting these characters through trials and tribulations in the same way that

Smollett enjoys humiliating such characters as Pallet or Jolter in Peregrine Pickle. Instead, the satirist takes on the role of a friend to the readers, leading them towards moral improvement.

Aristotelian rhetorical theory uses the term eunoia to signify the sense of goodwill the audience 216 receives from the speaker; the sympathetic satirist, as a type of rhetorician interested in persuasion, must be attentive to this concept. The satirist must show that he or she shares some similar goals and ideals as the reader. Burney’s The Wanderer satirizes Elinor Joddrell and her radical ideas, yet the treatment is much more sympathetic than those found in anti-Jacobin novels such as those of Elizabeth Hamilton or Robert Bisset. The reason is because Burney shows goodwill towards Wollstonecraftian feminists: while Elinor hinders Juliet’s attempt to live independently, Juliet’s experiences confirm that Elinor is right to be upset about the treatment of women. Burney seems to share some of the values that Elinor displays even though she also reproves Elinor’s behavior.

These characteristics—the anticipation of a resistant audience, a closing of the moral distance between satirist and target, and goodwill on the part of the satirist—should allow us to identify sympathetic satire. The methods used to persuade the audience may vary, but in all cases the satirist’s concern is to sway the audience to his or her point of view through appearing to be sympathetic to the readers’ needs and interested in their wellbeing. Let us now turn to Graves’s

The Spiritual Quixote in order to see the principles I have discussed in action.

Graves’s Persuasive Rhetoric

The Spiritual Quixote is an especially good example of sympathetic satire because it shows us the value of the term. Some critics have described the work as straightforward condemnation.

Michael Rymer, for instance, treats the novel as “a powerful though reasonable attack on illogical excesses and ridiculous ideas.”32 Because Rymer seems to conceive of satire purely as attack, he misses the many attempts at persuasion that make this novel more than a blunt

32 Michael Rymer, “Satiric Technique in The Spiritual Quixote,” Durham University Journal, n.s., 34, no. 1 (1972): 54–64, at 55. 217 takedown of Methodism. Similarly, Brett C. McInelly deems it “the most sustained literary attack on Methodism in the century.”33 I hope to show, on the contrary, that The Spiritual

Quixote is best described not as an attack, but as a persuasive critique of Methodism aimed at readers who might think favorably of the Methodists. The concept of sympathetic satire helps us better understand Graves’s authorial decisions. Let us, then, attempt to answer two questions: what is Graves’s satiric objective, and how does his sympathetic satire function in practice?

As the title of The Spiritual Quixote implies, the novel critiques Methodism through its protagonist, Geoffry Wildgoose, and his companion Jerry Tugwell. Wildgoose is a gentleman who, on account of a private dispute with his parish’s vicar, rejects the Established Church and becomes a Methodist. Wildgoose manages to convert Tugwell, a local cobbler, to his cause, and together the two set off to become itinerant preachers, abandoning their duties and their families.

They journey to Gloucester in the hope of finding George Whitefield and receiving instructions from him about where to spread the movement. Though Whitefield is not in Gloucester, the protagonists are nonetheless moved by their zeal to set up a Methodist congregation there. At this point in the narrative, Wildgoose meets Julia Townsend and falls in love with her, but does not allow his romantic interest to interfere with what he feels is his vocation. Having established the congregation, Wildgoose and Tugwell resume their search for Whitefield. After several adventures and a number of interpolated tales, Wildgoose and Tugwell arrive in Bristol, where they finally meet Whitefield and are enjoined to preach the Gospel to the miners of the Peak

District. A number of mishaps occur to them there, as Wildgoose’s attempts at preaching are often interrupted or greeted with mockery. Because of the ill-treatment Wildgoose receives in the

Peak, he decides to return south to preach at a horse-race at Warwick, in the hopes of seeing

33 Brett C. McInelly, “Methodists on the Move in The Spiritual Quixote,” in Theology and Literature in the Age of Johnson: Resisting Secularism, ed. Melvyn New and Gerard Reedy (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2012), 219–35, at 221. 218

Miss Townsend again. At the races, Wildgoose’s sermon against drunkenness predictably arouses hostile responses, and one of his listeners hurls a decanter that hits Wildgoose on the head. The wounded Wildgoose is subsequently taken in by a benevolent clergyman, Dr. Greville.

Under Greville’s care, Wildgoose recovers and also abandons his Methodist ideas; the implication is that the blow to the head has cured Wildgoose of his madness. He and Tugwell return to their community; Wildgoose marries Julia, and Tugwell resumes his profession.

Within this narrative structure, Graves employs several strategies of critique. One of

Graves’s methods we have already seen, employed by Smollett: slapstick humor directed at targets of ridicule. At a number of points in the narrative, the protagonists are on the receiving end of pranks or physical abuse as a result of their preaching. We seem meant to laugh at their distress. When, for instance, Wildgoose and Tugwell have a chamber pot emptied over their heads in Birmingham, we are not greatly shocked, and we hardly feel pity; the scene is more amusing than upsetting.34 Because these characters are at least partially representative of

Methodism, our feeling that they are ridiculous extends to the belief system they champion: we are encouraged to feel that Methodism, generally, is farcical and should be mocked. Though the humor is of the same type that we find in Peregrine Pickle, Graves uses it for a different end. In

Smollett’s novel the blows and dung fall upon stock targets, suggesting that the point is to enjoy the jokes themselves. But in The Spiritual Quixote, because the physical humor occurs in the context of a larger satire on Methodism, we are more likely to get the sense that the satire is meant not only to entertain but also to mock the movement of Wesley and Whitefield.

Considered in isolation, these episodes of physical humor might give us the impression that Graves is attacking Methodism, and that these scenes are meant to evoke vindictive glee in

34 Richard Graves, The Spiritual Quixote, or the Summer’s Ramble of Mr. Geoffry Wildgoose, ed. Clarence Tracy (London: Oxford University Press, 1967), 333. All references to The Spiritual Quixote are to this edition. 219 its opponents. As we will see in Chapter 6, physical humor can be used for this purpose in attack satires. Were Graves solely interested in appealing to entrenched opponents of Methodism, however, we might see much more of this type of satiric slapstick in the novel. In fact, Graves does not rely on this kind of humor to nearly the same extent that Smollett does. Instead, much of the novel’s critique arises from episodes showing the effects of Methodism upon its adherents.

Sometimes these effects are humorous, as when, at Bristol, Wildgoose is confronted with Mrs.

Placket, a devout Methodist who keeps a bawdy-house (256). Mrs. Placket, of course, sees no contradiction between the moral turpitude of her business and her professed faith, and thus serves as a reductio ad absurdum of the idea of justification by faith alone. This episode and others like it ridicule the notion that one can attain salvation simply by professing a belief in

Christ without abandoning a sinful way of life.

Not all of the effects of Methodism, however, are comic; some seem meant to be taken seriously. The distress of Wildgoose’s mother when her son abandons her is hardly funny.

Neither is the fact that Mrs. Sarsenet, one of Wildgoose’s Methodist supporters in Gloucester, is impoverished by her zeal, as she spends her money on entertaining other Methodists rather than on providing for her family. The religious enthusiasm of the barber with whom Wildgoose first lodges at Gloucester earns him the enmity of the neighboring public-house keeper, who buys up the barber’s debts, turns him out of his house, and forces him into a poverty so dire that he must take up the capital crime of highway robbery to support his family (313); this incident, too, is more likely to incite pity than laughter. By showing some of the results of Methodist devotion,

Graves suggests that Methodism is absurd, but also that it is a form of absurdity that can become dangerous when taken seriously by its adherents. 220

This device of showing the consequences of Methodist extremism suggests that Graves is trying to instruct instead of mock. The satire feels more like a cause-and-effect argument than a vitriolic slam. While some of Graves’s examples may be far-fetched, even the most egregiously wrong-headed characters, like Mrs. Placket, do nothing especially despicable, and some of the other Methodist characters, like the barber, are affecting. The point seems to be to suggest to an audience of Methodist sympathizers why Methodism can be harmful. This lesson is conveyed in a mild tone. Graves sometimes employs a bit of ridicule in showing the potential suffering caused by Methodism, but never in such a way as to provide nasty Hobbesian amusement.

As Graves is trying to instruct his audience about the shortcomings of Methodism, he does not assume that the reader will know why he finds the Methodist approach to religion wrong-headed, or what he conceives the ideal practice of Christianity to be. Instead, The

Spiritual Quixote implicitly advances a theory of why Methodism fails as a system of religion and offers in its place a more moderate conception of Christian spirituality. Graves suggests that while Methodism has many and diverse ill effects, the problem at its core is that Methodist devotion is idealistic, demanding a kind of rigid and unachievable spirituality that ignores basic human needs and desires. One example of this critique is the moment in which Wildgoose berates Tugwell for indulging in a slice of plum-pudding. Tugwell’s response, “Cannot a man have true Faith, that loves plumb-pudding?” is a commonsense reply to the extreme religious devotion demanded by Wildgoose’s zeal (335). Ultimately Tugwell is correct, or at least his pronouncement seems to be in accordance with Graves’s values: holiness does not necessitate the complete renunciation of earthly goods. As Clarence Tracy writes, the novel suggests that

“the fault in the Methodists is that they turn their backs on the world that God made, finding it 221 full of sin, and deny themselves both illegitimate and legitimate pleasures.”35 The point being made here, then, is that Methodism fails ultimately because the demands of religious fanaticism are at odds with human nature and the realities of lived experience.

The moments in which Methodism is shown to be unrealistic are numerous. When

Wildgoose meets Whitefield in Bristol, he finds that “instead of a Bible or Prayerbook (as

Wildgoose expected), [Whitefield] had a good bason of chocolate, and a plate of muffins well- buttered, before him” (229). One of the lessons of this episode is that Whitefield is a hypocrite who values physical appetites over spiritual devotion. His preaching and judgment, therefore, are not to be trusted. Yet the contrast between Wildgoose’s expectations of what Whitefield will be doing and the reality he finds also reveals how much Wildgoose’s enthusiasm leads him to dismiss physical pleasures. Wildgoose appears to practice Methodism more sincerely than the fictional Whitefield does, but this sincerity is not presented as a virtue, as it causes Wildgoose to privilege prayer or Bible study over bodily sustenance. Likewise, when the Methodist laborers on the road to Monmouth hear that Wildgoose is going to preach, they leave their tasks in order to follow him, presumably losing a good day’s work in the process and inconveniencing anybody who might need their services. They value their spiritual edification over their worldly pursuits, to the detriment of society at large. Graves suggests that Methodism causes those who practice it seriously to ignore their needs, duties, and obligations in this life in order to improve their prospects in the next.

The portrayal of Methodism as too concerned with the sacred at the expense of the mundane reinforces our sense that Graves is writing to an audience who might be resistant to his ideas. The satire on Methodism in this novel does not appear to be motivated by irrational hatred

35 Clarence Tracy, introduction to The Spiritual Quixote, by Richard Graves, ed. Clarence Tracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967), xv–xxiii, at xviii–xix. 222 or fear, but by a reasoned contemplation of Methodist theology and practice. While the reader is free to agree or disagree with Graves’s assessment, that Graves is making a considered argument is undeniable. Graves is not an enraged berserker hacking away at his target in anger, but a surgeon calmly considering what exactly about the target is flawed so that he may treat the illness. Such an approach would be unnecessary were Graves mainly writing punitive satire, but makes more sense if he is attempting persuasion.

As an alternative to the almost Gnostic denial of material concerns that Wildgoose practices, The Spiritual Quixote advances as a positive ideal a form of Christianity in which holiness is not at odds with attending to physical needs and desires. Graves’s main technique for achieving this instruction is through the use of exemplary characters. Some of the most prominent are Wildgoose’s friend Mr. Rivers and his wife. Mr. Rivers’s manner of life is presented as idyllic—he opines that he is “as happy as any one can be in this world”—and we are never given any evidence to counteract this impression (226). He is content to live simply on his farm, and he feels no need to ramble about the country in an effort to win converts. He is religious without fanatically denying the importance of the present life. Mrs. Rivers is likewise opposed to the fervor of Methodism: she “says her prayers, and takes care of her family, and does all the good in her power amongst her poor neighbours,” suggesting that a laywoman may live a perfectly respectable—even holy—life without turning to religious enthusiasm (226). As both Mr. and Mrs. Rivers show their kindness and Christian charity by letting Wildgoose and

Tugwell stay in their house on the road to Bristol, we see the practical effects of their attitude towards life, and we are inclined to regard favorably the ideas they represent.

While Graves presents the reader with exemplary laymen in Mr. and Mrs. Rivers, he also shows the reader exemplary clergymen in the characters of Mr. Griskin, whom Wildgoose meets 223 near Litchfield, and Dr. Greville. Griskin’s spirituality is one of moderation: we are told by Mr.

Rivers that he practices “an agreeable mixture of mortification and indulgence,” and that “as no man prayed more, so no man eat better. He was as hearty at his meals, as at his devotions” (225).

Later we learn that Griskin shares his bounty with his parishioners: the parish tithes “enabled him to keep a plentiful table, to which every sober honest man was welcome” (350). Greville is even more clearly an ideal clergyman than Griskin is: he is “what Mr. Wesley and his associates ought to have been.” Greville is set up in opposition to Whitefield’s doctrine of sola fide: he “had a Faith, which worked by Love,” and feels compelled by his faith to perform good works (432).

Both men clearly practice the Christian injunction to love one’s neighbor, and both work to promote pious and good behavior in their parishioners. They manage to do this, however, within the structure of the Church of England, and without motivating their flocks to religious extremes.

Through these characters Graves instructs the reader on how a good clergyman ought to behave, and reinforces the idea that piety can be practiced without leaving the Established Church.

What Graves attempts to do in The Spiritual Quixote, then, is to advocate moderation and a practical, works-based piety to his readers. But who exactly is Graves’s ideal audience? If

Graves were at all a realist, he would probably recognize that few devoted Methodists would renounce their movement simply because of reading The Spiritual Quixote. A faith that can be swayed by satire is paltry indeed. But Graves might have more success appealing to an audience of devout Christians who might not outright define themselves as Methodists, but who might be dissatisfied by the flaws of the Church of England and thus sympathetic to the Methodist movement. For such a reader, Methodism’s claims to be a truer, purer, more rigorous form of

Christian devotion would make the movement appealing. This audience, viewing Methodism positively but not yet fully embracing it, might be more likely to be swayed by Graves’s satire. 224

I do not mean to suggest that Graves appeals only to the hypothetical Methodist-leaning readers I posit. The novel contains enough ridicule of Methodism that somebody already hostile to it would find the narrative amusing. The reviewer of The Spiritual Quixote for The Critical

Review, for instance, approves of the work on the grounds that it ridicules “a species of folly which, ever since the year 1736, has infected almost every person labouring under a disorder of the brain, or impotency of understanding.”36 Similarly, a review in The Town and Country

Magazine states that “Every one who has not caught this enthusiastic infection [of Methodism], must approve of the design of this work, which is to laugh fanaticism out of doors, and restore the deluded followers of these hypocritic preachers to common sense and reason.”37 As I have said, the work contains more argument than ridicule, but Graves also evidently appeals to those who thoroughly disapprove of Methodism. The point is that Graves does not seem solely or even primarily to write with this audience in mind; rather, the satiric devices Graves uses suggest that his aim is persuasion of those who disagree with him.

Graves’s satiric objective, then, is clear. But an audience who sympathizes with

Methodism would be hostile to Graves’s message, and would require some effort to be persuaded. Someone who regards Methodism favorably is unlikely to change his or her mind simply because Graves asserts that religious enthusiasm can result in poverty or that it demands an unrealistic renunciation of mundane concerns. Graves seems to be aware of this problem and addresses it by employing the techniques of sympathetic satire.

36 The Critical Review 35 (April 1773): 275–286, at 276. 37 The Town and Country Magazine 5 (May 1773): 266. 225

Sympathy in “The Spiritual Quixote”

Sympathetic satire, as we have seen, involves the satirist adopting a stance towards his target that is critical but not hostile. The satirist is charitable towards his target, narrowing the moral distance between himself and the people he critiques. In order to show his sympathy for

Methodism, Graves includes numerous passages and scenes throughout the novel that suggest that Methodism is not entirely preposterous, and that the movement arises from a valid concern about the national decline of piety. These moments show Graves’s benevolence and signal to the audience that he is reasonable and well-meaning.

Graves’s treatment of the Church of England is balanced; at points he critiques his own religious institution, showing that he is not a blind partisan. Early in the novel Wildgoose and

Tugwell encounter Parson Pottle, who cares so little for his flock that he refuses to bury one of his parishioners simply because the corpse was not brought to him by six o’clock. Wildgoose’s critique of Pottle, that if he were a clergyman he “should consider myself, in some measure, as the servant of the public, and think myself obliged to bear with their humours” rings true (62).

This scene is not an isolated incident; the novel contains numerous scenes in which the flaws of the Established Church are discussed. When Wildgoose tells Lady Sherwood at Bath that “the most pious sentiments will affect us but little, when delivered by the lips of those who appear to have no religion in their hearts,” this statement does not sound like the ranting of a mad enthusiast, but a sensible critique of lukewarm clergymen (177). Near the novel’s conclusion, Dr.

Greville expresses a desire that the Anglican clergy take their responsibilities more seriously: he is “sorry to see them dancing or gaming at Bath or Tunbridge,” indulging in the very vices they ought to be combating. In the same scene he admits that the passion of Methodist preachers has the advantage of “rousing so many indolent drowsy Christians to a sense of Religion,” which the 226 dull sermons of some of the regular clergy fail to do (462–63). With these types of passages,

Graves reduces the distance between himself and his audience; he makes clear that he is not speaking from a position of lofty moral superiority.

Graves further reduces the moral distance between himself and his audience by admitting some of Methodism’s virtues. One way that he portrays Methodism positively is by mentioning its founders, John Wesley and George Whitefield, approvingly at various points in the text. The most prominent example is when Wildgoose meets Wesley himself. The fictional version of

Wesley, though not presented at length, seems reasonable; certainly he is not overcome with dangerous zeal. He rejects the extremes of Wildgoose’s Calvinistic doctrines and tempers

Wildgoose’s desire to seek out persecution (326). The narrator’s discussion of the origins of

Methodism likewise suggests that Wesley is reasonable: he and the other members of the Holy

Club are depicted as sincere students who prefer discussing books to drinking and who raise funds for charity (31). Even Whitefield, whose Calvinistic doctrines and wild manner of preaching are heavily critiqued, is not completely vilified. The parson of Newport, who is presented as a competent and charitable clergyman, is “persuaded of Mr. Whitfield’s good intentions,” even though he finds that Whitefield’s preaching has deleterious effects upon his parishioners (273). And at Bristol, Wildgoose and Whitefield encounter a pack of Biblical literalists, and the pair attempt “to shew them the absurdity of their principles” (241). In this case, and in the subsequent episode of Brother Slender, Whitefield acts as the voice of reason, opposing radical fanaticism. He is hardly “the real villain of the novel,” as Rymer asserts (62).

The leaders of the Methodist movement, even those Graves clearly disapproves of, are not shown to be wholly evil, but rather well-meaning and devout people whose methods of spreading religious devotion through the use of itinerant lay preachers and appeals to the emotions are 227 misguided. Consequently, Graves does not seem like an angry satirist punishing his enemies with vitriolic attacks, but rather a wise and balanced teacher willing to give praise where it is due.

Besides reducing the distance separating him from the audience, the sympathetic satirist must also appear to be fair-minded and benevolent. One way that Graves does so is in his treatment of Wildgoose. Though Wildgoose is the butt of satire, he is largely portrayed as a sympathetic character, and one never gets the sense that Graves despises him for his Methodism.

Part of our sympathy for Wildgoose arises from the fact that we are shown the character’s thoughts and motives. Wayne Booth has discussed the effects of an author giving readers what he calls “the sustained inside view” of a character—an understanding of their thoughts, desires, and motivations, and a filtering of the events of the narrative through that character’s eyes.38

These sustained inside views create sympathy for the character—as Booth argues, the sustained inside views we get of the heroine in Austen’s Emma make the character likeable, even though her actions are flawed. The Spiritual Quixote does not present us with as detailed a knowledge of the protagonist’s mind as Emma does, but the same general principle applies. The novel narrates

Wildgoose’s adventures, and so we are predisposed to sympathize with Wildgoose, even as we recognize that his actions are flawed.

Our sympathy for Wildgoose is further encouraged by the way he attempts to live out his faith. For all that we are told that Methodism takes hold of Wildgoose’s mind like a madness, the character seems more like a man struggling to reconcile his beliefs with his lived experience.

Contrary to Oliver Lovesey’s claim that Wildgoose is “an advocate of antinomianism,” the protagonist actually disapproves of the sinful practices of some of the Methodists he meets who

38 Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction, 246. 228 claim to be justified by faith.39 And though Wildgoose promotes the importance of faith over good works, he is generous to the various prisoners he meets in Bristol; indeed, he is “more liberal than it was prudent for him to be” (240). This characterization of Wildgoose ensures that, despite his errors, he never seems villainous. As Susan G. Auty argues, “misguidance rather than evil” is Wildgoose’s fault.40 Graves seems to be suggesting that one can be an earnest Methodist and still manage to accomplish some good. Not all Methodists are lazy reprobates seeking cheap grace; some are truly pious and desirous of living holy lives. Here Graves appears to be charitable; while he clearly depicts the problems of Methodism, he is not so unfair as to suggest that no Methodist practices a sensible and practical version of Christianity.

Where he can, Graves attempts to establish common ground with his audience. We have speculated that Graves is targeting an audience of pious people who understand the importance of Christianity and may be dissatisfied with the lack of religiosity within the Church of England.

Such readers might be drawn to the increased spiritual rigor and energy of Methodism. In order to appear sympathetic to these readers, Graves shows that he too understands the importance of sincerely-practiced Christianity. For instance, when Wildgoose is in the Peak, he learns about

Lady Forester’s father Lord B——, who is a “profest Infidel,” and who “was of Lord

Shaftsbury’s opinion, ‘that there is no necessary connexion between Religion and Virtue; and even that people may be good moral men, and good members of society, without the belief of a

God’” (366). Later in the narrative Wildgoose learns that Lord B—— is hardly a good moral man, being willing to imprison poor men for petty affronts and even going so far as to nearly starve a whole town by depriving it of coal merely “to be revenged upon them for an affront

39 Oliver Lovesey, “Divine Enthusiasm and Love Melancholy: Tristram Shandy and Eighteenth-Century Narratives of Saint Errantry,” Eighteenth-Century Fiction 16, no. 3 (2004): 373–99, at 387. 40 Susan G. Auty, The Comic Spirit of Eighteenth-Century Novels (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1975), 92. 229 which they had put upon his Lordship” (408). This episode illustrates “the precarious nature of mere human virtues, when unsupported by principles of Religion,” and assures the audience that

Graves is as fervent in his desire to promote Christianity as they are (409).

Other critics have noticed and commented upon the many moments in the text in which

Graves seems to make concessions to Methodism or builds common ground with his target.

Auty, for instance, believes that the novel is damaged by this moderate tone: “Because Graves was so anxious to show that Methodism was not wholly without merit . . . he made his quixotic figure seem not very quixotic at all,” and thus less interesting (96). For some critics, Graves’s conciliating techniques suggest that the author is not actually opposed to Methodism. Nicholas

Lyons accounts for the author’s relative mildness towards his target by suggesting that Graves’s attitude towards Methodism is ambivalent. According to Lyons, Graves “accepted Wesley’s high initial motives” but disapproved mainly of the practice of appointing itinerant preachers.41 Misty

G. Anderson goes further, suggesting that The Spiritual Quixote represents a social shift away from viewing Methodism as dangerous towards considering it as something with social value.42

For Anderson, the threat of Methodism is “reduced here to a mistaken relationship to history,” insofar as Methodist zeal would have been appropriate in pagan times but makes little sense at a point in an age when Britain has already been Christianized (222). In this reading, Graves does not promote “the old bromide of Methodist antinomianism,” but instead sees Methodist enthusiasm as community-building and tending towards “social action”; the novel suggests that

Methodism is a positive social force (231).

41 Nicholas Lyons, “Satiric Technique in The Spiritual Quixote: Some Comments,” Durham University Journal, n.s., 35, no. 3 (1974): 266–77, at 273. 42 Misty G. Anderson, Imagining Methodism in Eighteenth-Century Britain: Enthusiasm, Belief, and the Borders of the Self (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012), 202. 230

These are possible explanations for why Graves chooses to criticize the Church of

England and praise Methodists in a satire on Methodism, but they seem to ignore the very real critiques of Methodism that Graves also includes in the work. If Graves approved of Wesley’s piety but merely disapproved of itinerant preaching, why does the novel not limit its satire of

Methodism to itinerant preachers? Why would Graves suggest that Methodism itself—regardless of who is preaching it—tends toward over-righteous denial of innocent earthly pleasures? And if

Graves wanted to represent Methodism as a community-building force, why does he portray the deleterious effects of Methodism upon communities, most prominently in the way Wildgoose and Tugwell abandon their families in order to preach the Gospel? Why is community finally restored and renewed—in the protagonists’ return home, and in Wildgoose’s marriage to Julia— only after Wildgoose is cured of his fanaticism? Given these objections, I do not think plausible the idea that Graves’s tone in The Spiritual Quixote results from a positive outlook on

Methodism.

More likely is the possibility that Graves is using sympathetic satire to make his lesson more effective. Graves clearly understood the idea that wholesale opposition to an opponent’s beliefs is unlikely to result in persuasion. Towards the end of The Spiritual Quixote, Greville tells Wildgoose that “The most likely method of convincing any one, is to make our adversary some concessions. For a general opposition to his whole system, not only irritates his passion; but, finding you mistaken in some particulars, as you probably are, he concludes, at random, that you are wrong in all” (449–50). Graves’s sympathetic satire does not show that he approves of

Methodism. Rather, it is a rhetorical technique used to suggest that Graves is not wildly different from his audience. He shares many of their values, sympathizes with their complaints against the

Church of England, and even regards some aspects of Methodism as sensible and beneficial. As 231

Graves’s satiric persona is not hostile to his target, his critiques seem both reasonable and designed to aid his audience. The sympathetic satire increases the likelihood that the audience will adopt Graves’s beliefs: that, on balance, the Church of England does more good than harm, that an increase in religiosity is best brought about not by fanatical preaching but by the personal practice of piety in one’s daily life, that one can be holy while still enjoying earthly goods, and that incompetent or insincere clergymen ought to be dealt with through the proper channels of church hierarchy.

What, then, have we learned from our discussion of sympathetic satire in The Spiritual

Quixote? We can see that sympathetic satire is a distinct kind of enterprise from other types of instruction, even though the goal of teaching a lesson is the same. We have seen Fielding,

Lennox, and even Peacock try to instruct their audiences in some of their novels, but nowhere do we see anything like Graves’s solicitude towards his audience and his care to demonstrate that he is a fair, kind-hearted, and charitable satirist. The key to this difference is in the subject matter being satirized. Whereas few people would disagree with Lennox about the failure of romances to capture reality or the harm caused by selfishness, Graves is writing on a much more controversial topic, and might reasonably expect some pushback. Because he is trying to reach an audience that will likely disagree with him, he requires a different satiric strategy, and we can see the results in the techniques he adopts.

As a corollary to the previous point, we learn from The Spiritual Quixote and the way that it has been received by critics the importance of the concept of sympathetic satire.

Recognizing that satirists can adopt a stance that is not entirely hostile towards their targets allows us better to describe what Graves is attempting to achieve in this text. With a more limited understanding of satire, we are prone to misinterpreting Graves’s purpose. We might focus too 232 much on the clearly satiric critique of Methodism at the expense of Graves’s sympathy for his target and insist that the novel is an attack, as Rymer does. Contrariwise, we might overemphasize the conciliatory aspects of the novel, as Auty does, and read the work as “a pleasant novel that occasionally mocks Methodist extravagances,” missing Graves’s obvious disapproval of Methodist doctrine and practice (88). Neither position accurately describes the kind of persuasive satire that Graves uses. In order to appreciate The Spiritual Quixote and similar works more fully, we need an understanding of satire that can account for Graves’s sympathetic stance towards his target.

We have also seen in The Spiritual Quixote some basic ways in which sympathetic satire can function. Because Graves uses it so extensively, we can draw from the work examples of a number of techniques satirists might use to create sympathy. Graves not only discusses the virtues of Methodism but also points out the flaws of the Church of England, builds readerly affection for Wildgoose without denying the protagonist’s errors, and finds ways to show that he shares values with his resistant readers. Not all works use sympathetic satire as extensively as

Graves does in The Spiritual Quixote; in some works sympathetic satire may be only part of the overall satiric composition of the work. As we have seen in Burney’s The Wanderer, some of the satirized characters are treated with sympathy, but many are made to seem completely unsympathetic. Regardless of how it is being deployed, however, our examination of Graves’s techniques should help us to recognize sympathetic satire when we encounter it.

Though The Spiritual Quixote is generally considered only a minor novel, it can help us to broaden our sense of the possibilities of satire in the novel, especially satire that aims to instruct its audience. Let us now turn to Robert Bage, whose approach to the task of conveying instruction through novelistic satire is different still. 233

IV. Irony as Satiric Instruction in Bage’s Hermsprong

What is Robert Bage’s satiric aim in Hermsprong? At first glance, the answer to this question may appear obvious. Bage is generally considered an English Jacobin novelist and is therefore grouped together with such authors as William Godwin, Thomas Holcroft, and Elizabeth

Inchbald. Like the others, he takes radical positions in his novels, such as affirming the equal worth of all people and treating Christianity with skepticism. Hermsprong is no exception; it is, indeed, the most explicitly political of Bage’s novels. Critics are largely in concord about the novel’s targets: Hermsprong exposes the flaws of various radical bêtes noires, including over- proud aristocrats, tyrannical and conservative landlords, oppressive fathers, and organized religion. Thus, the issue of Bage’s satiric aim seems settled.

Yet if we examine the subject more closely, we will see that critics have hardly been in agreement over the nature of Hermsprong’s satire. That Bage targets conservative ideas and institutions is clear, but the nature and degree of Bage’s radicalism in Hermsprong has, however, been subject to debate. For some critics, Hermsprong represents Bage’s hardest-hitting satire. J.

M. S. Tompkins finds that the novel is blunt and heavy-handed in its satiric technique. She suggests that Bage writes a “diagrammatic type of novel, and the mental process behind it is akin to that behind allegory”—that is, that the novel focuses more on painting the villains and the ideas they represent as evil than on presenting the reader with morally complex and realistic characters.43 Gary Kelly likewise suggests that the satire of Hermsprong is relatively harsh, especially in comparison to Bage’s earlier novels. As he puts the point, only in this novel “did

Bage’s satire acquire the harshness found in Holcroft’s Hugh Trevor (1794–7) and Mrs.

43 J. M. S. Tompkins, The Popular Novel in England 1770–1800 (London: Constable, 1932; rpt. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1961), 198. Citations are to the Nebraska edition. 234

Inchbald’s Nature and Art (1796).”44 Yet some other readers have suggested that Hermsprong’s satire lacks real sharpness. Pam Perkins, for instance, finds the critique in Hermsprong mild.

Because Bage writes an amusing novel, it is (in her view) less effective as a didactic text than the works of other English Jacobin novelists. Instead, Hermsprong is “too intent on amusing to be whole-heartedly political.”45 Marilyn Butler is similarly disappointed with what she sees as the inadequate temerity of Bage’s satire: because of his “deficiency in intellectual daring,” the novel

“falls short of great satirical comedy.”46

The question of the nature of Hermsprong’s satire, then, is not as straightforward as it might appear. Why have some critics interpreted the novel as a harsh satiric attack on conservative values, while others have read the novel as failing to be truly radical satire? And, based on our understanding of how satire is used in the novel form, what does Hermsprong’s satire seem designed to achieve? To answer these questions, we need to understand how Bage’s satire functions. First, I will discuss Bage’s means. The techniques Bage relies upon for his satiric effects—most prominently, a cutting, witty irony—can help us explain why Bage’s satire in Hermsprong seems to have bite, at least for some readers. Then, I will turn to his ends, or at least what we can deduce about Bage’s goals from the evidence of the text. I will suggest that, while Bage’s satire could certainly have been harder-hitting than it is, his avoidance of radical extremism contributes to the novel’s satiric goal: teaching its readers to embrace, or at least tolerate, liberal ideas.

44 Gary Kelly, The English Jacobin Novel 1780–1805 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1976), 26. 45 Pam Perkins, “Playfulness of the Pen: Bage and the Politics of Comedy,” Journal of Narrative Technique 26, no. 1 (1996): 30–47, at 43. 46 Marilyn Butler, Jane Austen and the War of Ideas (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), 84. 235

The Role of Irony in “Hermsprong”

Regardless of whether one feels that Hermsprong is a heavy-handed or a light-weight satire, its critique of social problems is undeniable. To some degree, the satiric message is conveyed through the structure of the plot. A stranger named Hermsprong saves the heroine, Miss

Campinet, from a chaise accident. Her father, Lord Grondale, disapproves of Hermsprong and tries to keep his daughter away from him. Through various incidents, Hermsprong offends Lord

Grondale, who feels that Hermsprong does not pay him the respect owed to a peer of the realm.

Grondale, a tyrannical parent, attempts to arrange a marriage between Miss Campinet and a wealthy but odious baronet, Sir Philip Chestrum. In the meantime, Grondale himself attempts to marry Miss Campinet’s young friend, Maria Fluart. Through the help of Hermsprong and Miss

Fluart, Miss Campinet escapes from her father’s clutches. Grondale increases his attempts to crush Hermsprong, eventually resorting to legal measures: he accuses Hermsprong of being a

French spy and causing political unrest. In court, however, Hermsprong reveals his true identity: he is the son of Lord Grondale’s older brother and the rightful owner of Grondale’s property.

Grondale dies of illness, having repented of his errors, and Hermsprong marries Miss Campinet.

Based on this plot structure, we can see that the novel exposes the oppressive and selfish behavior of Lord Grondale. The satiric message is in part delivered through events: the villains do things that harm those characters we favor, and so we judge their values negatively.

Much of the novel’s satire, however, is not conveyed through the events of the plot, but through the characters and their utterances. Kelly has aptly pointed out that Bage’s novels work

“not by plot . . . but by character and short comments, conversations, or encounters”; James R.

Foster similarly notes that Bage’s “characterization and dialogue are generally better than his 236 plotting.”47 For instance, Dr. Blick’s impact on the plot of the novel is minimal: though he opposes Hermsprong’s principles, his actions do not greatly affect the outcome of the narrative.

Yet he is one of the characters through whom Bage most strongly critiques organized religion.

When Dr. Blick argues that keeping mistresses is not un-Christian in order to please Lord

Grondale, Bage suggests that the Christian religion is nothing more than a tool to preserve and justify the privileges of the great.48 The dialogue of the protagonists is also important for conveying Bage’s ideas. Many of his social critiques are delivered most clearly through

Hermsprong’s speeches. Hermsprong is a satiric spokesman: a character whose critiques or complaints about the world around him reflect the satirist’s own beliefs. When Hermsprong states that money produces “the pride, the vanity, the parade of life; and these . . . produce in their consequences, a tolerable quantity of the anxieties,” we are meant to take this statement as representative of Bage’s own beliefs (210).

Yet what is most distinctive about Bage’s satire in Hermsprong is not that it advances ideas through dialogue, but the ironic quality of the dialogue that is employed for this purpose.

Though Hermsprong often directly expresses the ideas of the satirist, he is by no means a dull lecturer droning on about the rights of man. Instead, Bage uses the character to deliver ironic remarks. Hermsprong is nothing if not witty, and he does not hesitate to make cutting retorts to those he holds in contempt. Consider an early exchange between Hermsprong and Dr. Blick about the reverence due to clergymen. When Blick questions whether Hermsprong will assert that the clergy have more respect than they merit, the hero responds, “Oh, no!—I have no inclination to be libeled for heresy” (84). This response is wryly ironic—though Hermsprong

47 Kelly, The English Jacobin Novel, 34; James R. Foster, History of the Pre-Romantic Novel in England (London: Oxford University Press, 1949), 229. 48 Robert Bage, Hermsprong; or Man as He is Not, ed. Pamela Perkins (Peterborough: Broadview, 2002), 153. All references to the text are to this edition. 237 refuses to contradict Dr. Blick’s high-church opinions, he nonetheless expresses his scorn of

Blick and his ideas. The humor lies in the incongruity of the intended meaning of Blick’s inquiry and the way Hermsprong interprets it in his response. Hermsprong often makes this kind of ironic quip, especially in his dealings with characters he despises such as Lord Grondale and Sir

Philip Chestrum. These moments of irony allow Bage to communicate satiric critique in a more lively and humorous way than through direct preachment.

Hermsprong is not the only character who delivers satiric critique through witty ironic statements. Characters such as Maria Fluart and Miss Campinet both have their flashes of wit.

Miss Campinet, often taken by critics as timid and passive, nonetheless mocks Sir Philip

Chestrum’s preference for the grandeur of his mother’s family, the Raioules, by declaring that the name “has more vowels in it” than Chestrum (202).49 Even more common are the sardonic statements of the narrator, Gregory Glen. Glen’s portraits of Lord Grondale and Dr. Blick early in the novel are fairly dripping with sarcasm, as when he describes Lord Grondale’s switch from the opposition party to the administration: “There he was certain of reception, for he was admirably gifted.” For a brief second we are led to think that Grondale has some personal merits, until the next sentence signals the joke: “He was not addicted to scruples, and had, besides, several Cornish boroughs” (72). Glen’s humor draws attention to the corruption inherent in politics: blind conformity, not personal merit, guarantees advancement.

One might note that the use of irony for satiric purposes is hardly unique. Indeed, many the works we have already examined in this study are not devoid of irony. Fielding, for instance, has long been recognized as a master ironist. Bage’s irony is different from others we have seen before, however, because of its caustic sarcasm. Fielding’s irony is often funny without being

49 For a typical take on Miss Campinet, see Butler, Jane Austen and the War of Ideas, 84. For Butler, Miss Campinet displays “submissiveness,” “gentleness,” and “weak-willed conformism.” 238 particularly pointed or cutting; Bage’s ironic passages often have more sting. Consider the following example from Tom Jones, describing Squire Western:

Contiguous to Mr. Allworthy’s Estate, was the Manor of one of those Gentlemen, who are called Preservers of the Game. This Species of Men, from the great Severity with which they revenge the Death of a Hare or a Partridge, might be thought to cultivate the same Superstition with the Bannians in India; many of whom, we are told, dedicate their whole Lives to the Preservation and Protection of certain Animals; was it not that our English Bannians, while they preserve them from other Enemies, will most unmercifully slaughter whole Horse-loads themselves, so that they stand clearly acquitted of any such heathenish Superstition. I have, indeed, a much better Opinion of this Kind of Men than is entertained by some, as I take them to answer the Order of Nature, and the good Purposes for which they were ordained in a more ample Manner than many others. Now, as Horace tells us, that there are a Set of human Beings, Fruges consumere nati. ‘Born to consume the Fruits of the Earth.’ So, I make no manner of Doubt but that there are others Feras consumere nati. ‘Born to consume the Beasts of the Field,’ or, as it is commonly called, the Game; and none, I believe, will deny, but that those Squires fulfil this End of their Creation. (1:119– 20)

This brief passage is a typical example of Fielding’s irony. Multiple levels of humor operate here: the mock seriousness with which Fielding’s narrator describes a low character; the incongruous connection between Hindu cattle-rearers and English country squires; and the occasion taken by the narrator to show off some classical knowledge all contribute to the passage’s ironic effect. We know the narrator does not actually feel that Squire Western is worthy of philosophical speculation, or that Horace is needed to explain Western’s character.

The irony is meant to surprise in a delightful and amusing way; it does not stray into bitterness.

Fielding’s overly-sophisticated description emphasizes Western’s lack of sophistication, but does not seem meant to suggest that Western’s hunting is odious.

Compare this passage with one from Hermsprong, describing Dr. Blick:

The next person upon the canvas, is Dr. Blick, rector of Grondale and Sithin; a man perfectly orthodox in matters of church and state, such as these bad times require; and, 239

thank heaven, we have plenty of them. Dr. Blick’s merit was indeed great; I cannot say it had been fully rewarded. Hitherto he had arisen in the church no higher than a poor canon, which, with the product of three livings; for he had one in commendam, scarce produced him 1000l. a year. But if he joins to that merit, which now leads to honours, the agreeable art of assentation, no man knows to what dignities he may arise. Dr. Blick could not accuse himself of any neglect of this art, where the application might be useful; more especially to his patron, Lord Grondale; whose peculiar merit he conceived to be such, that even a bishopric, could he be induced to ask it for a friend, would scarce be refused him by administration. He was therefore much devoted to his lordship; and, at his express desire, had qualified for a justice of peace; in which capacity he had been of use to his lordship, in those little animosities which great men do admit to their bosoms on great occasions; such as killing a hare or partridge without due qualification, or voting against a candidate whose cause they espouse. (74–75)

The irony here has much more bite than Fielding’s. Like Fielding’s narrator, Gregory Glen does not mean what he says to be taken literally, but whereas Fielding’s narrator does not attempt to impersonate another voice, Glen impersonates a High-Church conservative when he states that

Blick is a man “such as these bad times require.” The over-seriousness of Fielding’s narrator belittles Western, as it emphasizes how trivial the Squire’s pursuits actually are. But in the passage from Hermsprong, we can see the exact opposite. Glen’s ironic understatement in describing Blick’s treatment of “those little animosities” of poaching or voting contrary to a lord’s desires emphasizes the seriousness of the perversion of justice over which Blick presides.

Where Fielding’s narrator seems to be reveling in his own wit, Bage’s narrator is actively mocking his ideological opponents.

The ironic passages voiced by the protagonists of Hermsprong feel particularly sharp and taunting because they are spoken to other characters. When Fielding’s narrator describes

Western, he is speaking directly to the reader in an attempt to amuse. When Sir Philip states that he “can’t sleep o’nights for thinking of” Caroline, Maria Fluart’s rejoinder of “Oh then you want her for an opiate” is targeted at Sir Philip, and, in the context of the story, is clearly intended to insult him (278). Likewise, when Mr. Sumelin tells Mrs. Sumelin that he has a “dear industrious 240 wife who takes the department of lecturing into her own hands, and performs it so ably,” he is transparently mocking his wife’s penchant to scold (116). Bage’s protagonists do not use irony merely to entertain; they do so to signify their disapproval and disdain for the negative characters. Bage’s use of irony in dialogue thus contributes to the sense that his irony is caustic—certainly more so than Fielding’s.

These frequent moments of stinging irony help us to understand why some critics have seen Bage’s satire as hard-hitting. Through his wry remarks, Bage does not merely make his targets seem ridiculous; he thoroughly mocks them and emphasizes their perverseness. These searing witticisms are present to some degree in Bage’s earlier works, especially in his penultimate novel, Man as He Is. But they do not occur as frequently as in Hermsprong. Given the prevalence of irony in Bage’s last novel, Kelly’s suggestion that Hermsprong alone of Bage’s works contains a harshness reminiscent of Swift and Voltaire seems somewhat justified.50

Though I would not go so far as Kelly—Swift at his nastiest can be a much more brutal ironist than Bage—clearly Hermsprong is not gentle or mild satire, at least in terms of its technique.

Though Hermsprong’s irony hits its targets with force, its purpose is not outright attack but instruction. The ironic passages subtly shape our values and make the reader more tolerant of

Bage’s liberal ideas. Wayne Booth’s description of the process by which readers interpret ironic passages helps us to understand how the novel’s satire operates.51 The first step of this process involves rejecting the literal meaning of the words. When the reader of Hermsprong encounters

Glen’s assertion that “Dr. Blick’s merit was indeed great,” he or she must deny this claim in order properly to understand the statement. Having done so, the reader must then construct and explore alternative interpretations, determine the author’s beliefs, and then choose the meaning

50 Kelly, The English Jacobin Novel, 26. 51 Wayne C. Booth, A Rhetoric of Irony (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), 10–12. 241 which best fits the context of the statement. The reader comes up with the alternative possibility that Glen (and Bage) may mean the opposite of the statement about Blick’s merit, ascertains that

Bage likely disapproves of Blick, and applies the alternate meaning to the passage confident that it reflects what Bage means. This process of reconstructing Bage’s meaning occurs almost instantaneously; we need not consciously pause to construct various alternatives to the literal meaning. Nonetheless, the process of interpreting irony obliges us to dismiss the idea that Blick is actually a good man and enter into the author’s mindset. In other words, we must think as

Bage thinks and see the world as he sees it, if only temporarily.

I do not mean, of course, that reading one of Hermsprong’s many ironic passages will instantly convert the reader to the cause of radicalism. A conservative reader might well understand Bage’s ironic jabs while still disagreeing with him. But because the reader must accept that the author’s meaning is more sensible than the literal meaning, he must at least entertain Bage’s point of view. As Booth argues, the reader interpreting irony cannot avoid making some sort of value judgment about the author’s position: “he has inevitably judged it to be in some sense better, since more plausible, than the position implied by the overt statement.”

Our conservative reader may not agree with Bage’s values, but in the very act of determining what Bage believes, he must at least admit that Bage’s position is coherent or, as Booth puts the point, “humanly tenable.”52 Because Bage uses irony so frequently in Hermsprong, the reader becomes accustomed to temporarily rejecting a conservative point of view and deeming Bage’s ideas to be more plausible. The text’s constant invitations for the reader to accept the reasonableness of Bage’s position might not be strong enough to convince those firmly determined to resist Bage’s radicalism, but they might have some persuasive effect upon those who are less entrenched in their positions, or those who are apathetic.

52 Booth, A Rhetoric of Irony, 41. 242

This theory of how Bage’s irony functions to advance his satiric critiques rests upon the assumption that Bage’s reader can detect his irony and accurately construe the author’s values.

Most twenty-first century readers of Hermsprong probably know that Bage was a radical; the back cover of Perkins’ Broadview edition gives the game away, stating that Hermsprong satirizes “corrupt clergymen, grasping lawyers and wicked aristocrats.” We are therefore unlikely to miss Bage’s ironic remarks. No doubt some of Bage’s contemporary readers who had read his previous novels would also come to the work with a sense of Bage’s values. The original title page does not mention Bage’s name, but states that Hermsprong is “by the author of Man as

He Is,” and so those who had read that novel would likely not mistake the author of Hermsprong for a Tory. But what of a contemporary reader who was unaware of the author’s values? Would such a reader perceive Bage’s irony?

In fact, Bage includes a number of signals that alert the reader to his use of irony. The most important of these occur in the novel’s first chapter, in which Gregory Glen tells his life story. The role of this chapter is not obvious at first, as it is largely unconnected to the rest of the novel. Critics of Hermsprong have attempted to explain or account for the inclusion of Glen’s history. Butler finds the use of Glen as character-narrator “irremediably clumsy.”53 Perkins attempts to explain Glen’s autobiographical narrative as an attempt by Bage to mock literary conventions: we expect the novel to be a picaresque narrative along the lines of Roderick

Random, only to have our expectations overturned when Glen turns out not to be the focus of the narrative (32–34). This explanation seems improbable. We are never led to suspect that Glen will be the central figure of the novel, as indeed he tells the reader explicitly in the third paragraph that the events of the plot “relate but little to myself” (57). Consequently, when Hermsprong becomes the novel’s focus, we do not feel that Bage is “refusing to write the picaresque novel

53 Butler, Jane Austen and the War of Ideas, 84. 243 that the opening . . . seems to promise,” as Perkins asserts (33). More likely is the explanation that the first chapter conditions the reader to expect irony, so that when the reader reads the rest of the novel he or she is prepared to question the literal meanings of statements and reconstruct the author’s worldview.

How does the first chapter dispose the reader to expect irony? From the very beginning,

Glen’s account of himself is full of ironic statements, many of which are fairly obvious. Early in the chapter, for instance, Glen discusses his “valiant father” and his “chaste mother” (58). Of course, his mother is not chaste, and his father is hardly valiant. Glen’s statement that his father had “no small quantity of tenderness for my mother” is certainly untrue, as he quickly takes a dislike to his bastard son and forgets the mother after her death (59). The irony is clearly signaled by the contradiction between Glen’s epithets and the actual facts he tells us.54 To emphasize further his use of irony, Glen explicitly directs our attention to it, stating that “there may be, especially among my fair readers, some who may object to the epithet which I have given my mother; and others may suspect that of my father not applied with the most perfect propriety”

(58). This passage forces us to confront the fact that Glen’s mother is not chaste in the usual sense of the term, and that therefore what Glen says is not quite what he means. Given the obvious contradiction of facts and Glen’s statement alerting us to this contradiction, only a very obtuse reader would miss the irony here.

Similarly obvious ironic statements abound in this chapter. Very few reasonable readers would believe that, when Glen describes the “noble disdain” he has for life when he contemplates suicide, we should take the desire to kill oneself because of an unrequited teenage crush as particularly noble or admirable (64). Unless we ourselves are suicidal or have reason to

54 Booth argues that “conflicts of facts within the work” are effective signals of irony. See A Rhetoric of Irony, 61. 244 believe that Glen (the mature narrator writing to us, not the teenaged version) is an advocate of self-termination, we are more likely to view this statement as an instance of “known error proclaimed,” to borrow Booth’s term, and consequently to suspect irony.55 Because this chapter contains so many of these types of ironic comments, we are then led to conclude that

Hermsprong is narrated by a habitual ironist, and that therefore, in order to interpret the novel correctly, we must be on the alert for irony.

When we get to the next chapter, containing the character sketch of Lord Grondale, we have been prepared for the heavy irony with which Glen describes the novel’s main antagonist.

Up to this point, Glen’s ironic quips do not convey much in the way of political satire; even those not sharing Bage’s liberalism would likely snicker at the seriousness with which the teenaged Glen’s first romance is described. Once we get to the description of Lord Grondale, however, we begin to get a sense of the novel’s political values. The first sentence of Chapter II provides a clear example: “Of the animated beings of the vale, high towers above the rest, in rank and wealth, the great Lord Grondale” (71). Having been prepared in Chapter I for irony, we are likely to suspect that Glen does not mean quite what he says here. The elevated style of the sentence serves as a clue: were the sentence to read “Lord Grondale was the wealthiest and highest-ranking person in the vale,” we would probably take it as merely descriptive. But because of the statement’s style, and because we know we are dealing with an ironic narrator, we are likely to suspect that the sentence means something else—that Glen does not actually believe

Lord Grondale is great, and that he thinks rank and wealth do not confer special superiority on those individuals who possess them. As we read more such ironic passages describing Grondale and the novel’s other negative characters, we are able to form a consistent sense of Bage’s

55 Booth, A Rhetoric of Irony, 57. 245 values. In this way Bage’s irony serves as satiric instruction, encouraging the reader to understand Bage’s point of view and adopt his liberal ideas.

We have considered the question of how Bage’s satire functions in Hermsprong and why some critics describe the novel as a hard-hitting work. Now, let us turn to the question of why other critics have perceived the novel as a failed social critique. We will need to determine not just how Bage’s satire functions but what he appears to be trying to do with it. Does Bage envision his satire leading to widespread social reform? Or does he express gloom about the possibility of social change? Or, alternatively, does he primarily attempt to entertain and please his audience?

The Conclusion of “Hermsprong”: Satiric Optimism or Satiric Gloom?

Critics who are dissatisfied with the satire of Hermsprong acknowledge that the novel advances radical ideas. One cannot doubt that Bage’s principles and values are generally in line with those of the other English Jacobin novelists. Instead, the objection tends to be that Bage does not go as far as he might in his radicalism, or that he is skeptical of radicalism having any beneficial effect upon society. The ending of the novel is often singled out as being particularly unsatisfying. The instabilities of the narrative resolve neatly: Hermsprong is revealed to be Sir Charles Campinet,

Lord Grondale dies, and Caroline willingly marries the hero. The objections tend to be of two varieties. For some, Bage’s ending is pessimistic, even though the conclusion is nominally positive. Even though Hermsprong and his friends succeed, society at large remains unchanged:

Grondale may be dead, but other corrupt aristocrats continue to oppress their social inferiors. Dr.

Blick’s personal influence on the vale of Grondale may have diminished, but he and other sycophantic, High-Church clergymen still exist. As Mona Scheuermann puts the point, Bage 246

“provides no system for reform. The corruptions he has detailed throughout the book are not cleaned up because Lord Grondale dies at the end . . . Bage can only arrive at his happy ending by ignoring the larger issues he has raised.”56 The problem, from this point of view, is that the novel does not suggest that society as a whole will improve.

The other variety of objection is that Bage, for all of his stinging irony, wants to avoid upsetting his readers and thus makes his satire less harsh than it could be. Perkins argues that

Bage’s “characters neither change the world nor fall victim to ‘things as they are’; instead, they form happy communities of the redeemed, living a more politically correct version of the cozy life of country gentry” (41). The conclusion, in this line of argument, is too conventional to be truly radical: Bage cares more about delivering a pleasing ending to his fiction than about writing harsh satire. Butler takes a similar position, expressing disappointment at the revelation of

Hermsprong’s identity: “the reader cannot help feeling conned” by Bage making his hero an aristocrat.57 For her, Bage does not seem to have the courage of his convictions; he does not dare to take the radical step of allowing Caroline Campinet to marry a commoner. Because Bage wants to amuse his audience, he avoids challenging their ideas and thus dampens the novel’s satire.

Both of these objections have some merit. The ending of this work certainly could be more radical than it is. One of the ideas that Bage is trying to convey through his satire is that we should put not our trust in princes; aristocrats ought not to have special privileges over the rest of society. Yet by making the hero an aristocrat, Bage seems to undermine his own ideological point, as Hermsprong seems to triumph in the conclusion by virtue of his birth, not by his personal merit. Furthermore, in a novel arguing that children owe no obligation to their parents

56 Mona Scheuermann, Social Protest in the Eighteenth-Century English Novel (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1985), 226. 57 Butler, Jane Austen and the War of Ideas, 84. 247 simply because they are parents, Caroline Campinet does not actually marry against Lord

Grondale’s wishes. Though she denies his right to make her marry Sir Philip Chestrum, she also does not marry Hermsprong until after Lord Grondale has repented and died. One could certainly conceive of a more radical ending that Bage might have written had he decided to abandon literary conventions: Hermsprong would not be an aristocrat, but would manage to be acquitted in court on the basis of the truth and power of his testimony; Caroline would choose to marry him despite his lack of social status, against Lord Grondale’s wishes; and Lord Grondale would then repent and die. Such an ending might very well enforce the novel’s satiric critiques of society more strongly.

Despite the ways in which Bage’s ending could have been stronger, the objections to it seem overstated. Bage’s novel is neither a pessimistic complaint about a society that cannot change nor a crowd-pleaser without any real satiric bite. Let us examine each objection in turn, beginning with the idea that Hermsprong is a gloomy satire, “a criticism without a program for reform.”58 Certainly the novel does not end with society being transformed into a liberal utopia.

But depicting widespread social change would be difficult in a novel of this scope. The events mainly center on the vale of Grondale and the small circles of characters surrounding the novel’s ideological opponents, Hermsprong and Lord Grondale. An ending in which English society at large was made to see the light of reason would be incongruous with the novel’s focus on a small, local community. Of course, there might be ways for Bage to suggest that societal reform will occur without actually depicting its arrival; Lord Grondale and his sycophants might be swayed by Hermsprong’s example and become champions of the rights of man. This would be the sort of ending that occurs in Holcroft’s Anna St. Ives, whose villain, Coke Clifton, comes to see the error of his ways. Such an ending to Hermsprong would certainly convey optimism about

58 Scheuermann, Social Protest, 225. 248 the possibility of social reform. But if Grondale were to reform completely and become an advocate for reason and justice, the reader might find such a reversal unrealistic. Grondale’s deathbed contrition is somewhat believable because he knows he is going to die, but to have him reverse his outlook on life absent the threat of eternity would strain credulity. The novel’s ending suggests that Bage is not a blind and impractical optimist, but we should not therefore assume that he has no hope of social reform.

Indeed, we can read the novel’s satire as an attempt to bring about social change on a local level. Scheuermann correctly suggests that the main “social safety net” in the narrative is

“the goodness of individuals like Hermsprong.” In one sense, this is, as she states, “not tremendously reassuring,” as Hermsprong is an ideal figure representing man as he is not.59

Hermsprong’s actions may seem unattainable; he relies on his fortune to be independent and do good, and few readers would have the resources that he possesses. But Hermsprong’s fortunate circumstances do not mean, however, that his ideas and outlook on life are impossible to adopt.

Though one might lack the means to combat political corruption or save others from the abuses of aristocratic power, one could still emulate Hermsprong’s simplicity, rationalism, and tolerance. In doing so, one might find opportunities to perform small but not insignificant actions of benevolence. We have already seen that Bage uses irony to sway the reader toward a more radical point of view. The goal of this satiric instruction might well be to convince readers to act as Hermsprong acts, and thus to produce small-scale and gradual social change as readers enact local good within their communities. By this reading, Bage does not appear wildly optimistic, but neither is he pessimistic or defeatist. Bage does not expect or envision rapid social change, and given the results of the French Revolution he likely did not desire it either. But he seems to have hopes that the values he attempts to convey will have some kind of positive social impact.

59 Scheuermann, Social Protest, 225. 249

Examining the novel’s conclusion may give us a sense of whether the novel is more likely meant to be taken pessimistically or at least somewhat optimistically. David H. Richter’s concepts of closure and completeness are of use here. In Richter’s formulation, “closure” refers to our sense that the narrative’s instabilities have been adequately resolved—the separated lovers reunite and marry, the callow youth arrives at a sense of maturity, the criminal is discovered and punished, and so forth. “Completeness” is our sense that the author’s message has been successfully conveyed and requires no further explanation or example.60 Bage clearly achieves narrative closure: Hermsprong survives the attempts of Lord Grondale to have him convicted as

French spy, and in the process his mysterious identity is revealed, resolving two narrative instabilities. The romance between Hermsprong and Caroline is also resolved, as the two marry at the conclusion. So much for closure. But our sense of the novel’s completeness is more difficult to explain, especially as it depends on what we think Bage’s aim is.

If Bage were indeed writing a pessimistic novel, we might expect the conclusion to reinforce or call attention to the fact that the social problems he critiques have no solution, thus providing a sense of completeness. Bage would not necessarily need to write a conclusion in which his protagonists fail; authors of pessimistic satire are able to make nominally happy endings seem gloomy by calling the reader’s attention to the problems they are complaining about. As we have seen, Fielding seems to go out of his way to avoid any sort of festive mood at the end of Amelia and suggests that reform is impossible. The ending of Frances Burney’s The

Wanderer similarly calls attention to the problems which still prevail in society despite its positive conclusion. In the penultimate paragraph, the narrator states: “How mighty, thus circumstanced, are the DIFFICULTIES with which a FEMALE has to struggle! Her honour always in

60 David H. Richter, Fable’s End: Completeness and Closure in Rhetorical Fiction (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), 22–30. 250 danger of being assailed, her delicacy of being offended, her strength of being exhausted, and her virtue of being calumniated!” (873). Though the final paragraph suggests that these difficulties can potentially be overcome, Burney has nonetheless introduced a discordant note into the conclusion, reminding the reader that Juliet’s struggles are those of woman at large, and that not all will be as fortunate as she. As both Amelia and The Wanderer advance pessimistic statements about society, their endings provide completeness; in each, the satirist’s despair is reinforced.

The ending of Hermsprong, by contrast, does not contain anything that particularly dampens the mood or calls attention to the general viciousness of society. True, we are shown that Dr. Blick and Mrs. Sumelin do not change their ways, but this fact hardly evokes despair, as they are minor and generally comical characters. Indeed, Dr. Blick continues to be a butt of humor, as Bage includes one last example of his servile obsequiousness when the rector petitions for Hermsprong’s favor. Nor does anything seem to suggest that Hermsprong’s virtues are unrealistic or impossible to achieve. We are reminded of the conventionality of the ending when

Glen imagines his female readers clamoring for the marriage of Hermsprong and Caroline; one could argue that, were Bage presenting Hermsprong as an unattainable fantasy, this reminder is a device for signaling the narrative’s unreality. But the conventional ending is played for laughs;

Glen remains the same ironic wit as he was in the first chapter. His jokes about the marriage of his hero and heroine do not cast a pall over the ending. Rather, the tone of the conclusion is cheerful and light-hearted, and does not seem calculated to emphasize the unresolved problems of society.

If, contrariwise, Bage’s point is to sway the values of readers in the hopes that these people will manage to cause some social good, however slight, then the ending of the novel appears to offer a better sense of completeness. The novel closes with Hermsprong finally 251 putting right the wrongs that Grondale has perpetrated: he provides for Mrs. Stone, aids Mr.

Woodcock and Mrs. Garnett, and maintains his friendship with Miss Fluart and Charlotte

Sumelin. This ending gives us, in Scheuermann’s formulation, “a sunny image, indeed, of man as he is not.”61 But by focusing on positivity in the ending, Bage is not necessarily ignoring the larger problems of society; instead, he may be encouraging his reader to follow Hermsprong’s example and strive for happier and juster communities. The depiction of the virtuous attaining happiness may be more conducive to inspire imitation than an expression of pessimism or an acknowledgement of how many social problems still exist. If Bage’s point is that following

Hermsprong’s values can result in wrongs righted and lives improved on a local level, then ending with a “sunny” depiction of Hermsprong and his friends seems to reinforce this message, and thus provides a sense of completeness to the work.

Besides considering the ways in which Bage provides completeness in Hermsprong, we might also think about the plausibility of the ending. In some cases, happy endings may be so contrived and forced that we are led to question whether the author truly intends their positivity to be taken straight. One could argue that Hermsprong is such a case: the denouement occurs rather rapidly, and we may feel that a deus ex machina has occurred. If Hermsprong is pessimistic, the readers would be meant to see past the implausibility and conventionality of the ending and recognize that all is not in fact well. But while Hermsprong’s identity comes as a surprise, his ability to escape from the clutches of Lord Grondale is not; he has managed to thwart his antagonist at every turn up to this point, and for the most part the law is not shown to be so corrupt that Lord Grondale can contrive gross miscarriages of justice. While we have not been prepared for the way in which Hermsprong triumphs, his success is not entirely implausible. Certainly it seems no more implausible than the endings of other novels we have

61 Scheuermann, Social Protest, 227. 252 examined, such as Tom Jones or The Spiritual Quixote. Because, in these works, the endings seem intended to be taken straight, we have reason to believe that Bage, too, meant his ending to be taken positively.

As we have seen, critics like Perkins and Butler agree that Bage intended his ending to be bright and optimistic, and object to the conclusion of Hermsprong for precisely this reason:

Bage, in this view, has sacrificed his radical principles in order to provide a pleasant ending to his novel, thereby weakening his satire. But this claim, like the claim that Hermsprong does not envision any social change, is overstated. The effectiveness of Hermsprong’s satire is subjective; for some readers, especially those who are already strongly committed to progressive ideas,

Hermsprong may indeed appear to be wishy-washy, and its satire may seem to be watered-down.

Yet for other readers, the conventionality of the ending—and the general amiability of the implied Bage—may indeed make the satire more effective.

Perkins takes the favorable reviews that Hermsprong received as a sign of the novel’s satiric weakness. As she states, “early reviewers could not have found Bage’s radical perspective particularly offensive.” The implication here is that if Bage did not upset his audience, then his satire is too mild; his failure to enrage his readers makes his radical ideas “seem rather frivolous”

(41). Yet the appraisal of Hermsprong in the Monthly Review does not suggest that Bage is any more frivolous in his message than an obviously radical figure such as Holcroft. The reviewer writes that the character of Hermsprong is “worthy to be impressed as a model for imitation,” and that he owes his origins to “the systematic sincerity and philosophic courage of Frank

Henley in Holcroft’s Anna St. Ives.”62 This critic does not seem to have missed the point of

Hermsprong or found the novel’s message significantly weaker than that of another Jacobin

62 The Monthly Review 21 (September 1796): 21–24, at 21. 253 novelist. Just because Hermsprong did not offend him does not mean that Bage’s satire has failed.

To be fair, the appraisal of the novel in the Critical Review provides some validation for

Perkins’s point. Here, the radicalism of Hermsprong does seem to have been missed by the reviewer, who writes that “there is occasionally a little tincture of the new philosophy, as it is called, and a shade of gloom is thrown upon human life.”63 We have grounds for interpreting this statement as evidence that Hermsprong fails as a radical novel, as the critic describes the novel’s liberal sentiments as mild and occasional. But we might also regard this review as evidence that

Bage succeeded. The critic continues by stating that “the writer is not unsuccessful in his humorous attempts; and, upon the whole, the reader has a chance of becoming wiser and better by a perusal of this work.” Though the radical implications of Bage’s ideas may not have been fully appreciated by this reader, the novel has nonetheless imparted some instruction and convinced the reader that Bage’s view of life and human nature is accurate. Bage seems to have made his beliefs and opinions seem reasonable to someone who is prejudiced against the

“gloom” of the “new philosophy.”

If Bage’s goal is to annoy, offend, or anger his readers, then indeed he has written a novel that signally fails to accomplish those aims. But as I have argued, Bage appears to have been urging his readers to accept, or at least to tolerate, his liberal values. For some, this goal may be indicative of the author’s lack of the “intellectual courage” of Holcroft, or of his desire to “win friends rather than to make converts.”64 But being likeable and converting a reader to one’s point of view are hardly mutually exclusive; indeed, in many cases one is more likely to gain

“converts” if one adopts a genial, reasonable, and amusing persona than if one hurls vitriol at

63 The Critical Review 23 (June 1798): 234. 64 Butler, Jane Austen and the War of Ideas, 84; Perkins, “Playfulness of the Pen,” 43. 254 those who do not share one’s point of view. A writer like Holcroft may produce novels that seem more fully devoted to the radical cause, but at the risk of seeming shrill and unreasonable. A neutral reader might just as easily dislike the unrelenting preachment of Hugh Trevor and thus reject Holcroft’s ideas as be persuaded to Holcroft’s way of thinking. Bage attempts something different: though his plot is not as radical as it might be, he nonetheless undoubtedly attempts to sway his audience to his side through witty dialogue and commentary.

What we make of Hermsprong’s satire depends largely upon what we expect satire to be.

Hermsprong is undoubtedly satiric, as both its contemporary readers and its modern critics acknowledge. If one holds that satire must be extreme ideological attack, however, Bage looks like a tame and sorry satirist. He certainly could have made Hermsprong more ideologically pointed, and the claim that the novel does not end with a fiery call for reform is true. But if we accept that satire can instruct as well as attack, and that Bage is attempting to create social change on a smaller scale, then we can better appreciate the ways in which Bage’s satire succeeds. Through biting irony, Bage critiques his society and leads his reader towards his own worldview, which—given the hopeful and bright conclusion of Hermsprong—does not appear to be pessimistic. He may not expect his readers to become ideal individuals; Bage too well understands man as he is. But Bage’s satire may very well have been designed to urge his readers to strive towards the ideal that Hermsprong represents, even if they cannot reach it.

* * *

In this chapter we have looked at a diverse range of texts, in terms of what kind of values and ideas are conveyed. The general warning to be wary of others that Fielding delivers in Tom Jones is quite different from the more specific lesson about Methodism that Graves teaches in The 255

Spiritual Quixote; that novel, in turn, is far removed in ideology from the radical satire of Bage in Hermsprong. Yet the works I have discussed, when considered together, can tell us much about how novelists can use satire to convey instruction to their readers. What can we learn from comparing and contrasting Joseph Andrews, Tom Jones, The Spiritual Quixote, and

Hermsprong?

Our discussion has shown that the means of satiric instruction are various. Novelists have many ways to convey negative judgments and inculcate positive values. Instructive satire can be carried out through the actions of the plot, as in the case of Fielding in Joseph Andrews, or through the surprises the narrator prepares for us, as in Tom Jones, or through ironic dialogue, as in Hermsprong. The satirist may choose to include exemplary characters and satiric spokesmen, as both Graves and Bage do. These techniques can vary in abrasiveness: the instructive satire of

Hermsprong is not harsh, but it has much more bite than the satire of The Spiritual Quixote.

They also differ in their directness: the lesson in Tom Jones is conveyed subtly, whereas the critiques of Methodism Graves places into the mouth of Dr. Greville or the insights about modern European culture delivered by Hermsprong are much more direct. The point is that, even within the general category instructive satire, we should expect to find considerable diversity and variance of technique.

But despite the differences in how the aims of these novels are achieved, they all share a degree of positivity. These satirist do not merely attack targets or complain about problems.

Rather, we feel that they have a genuine belief that they can improve the lives of the audience.

Fielding’s satire in Tom Jones suggests that evil can be thwarted if one is careful; Graves firmly believes that the Church of England can become a nobler and more effective institution; and

Bage’s cheerfulness suggests that attempting to emulate Hermsprong can bring about some 256 social good, however small and localized. These novels are clearly still satiric—they expose vice and lead the reader to negative judgments—but they nonetheless contain an unmistakable optimism. This quality separates them from the satiric novels of entertainment we have seen in the previous chapter—one hardly gets the sense from reading Peregrine Pickle that Smollett has great confidence that his novel will improve his society. Optimism also distinguishes them from novels like Fielding’s Amelia, which offer little in the way of hope. Though these novels discuss different subjects, they attempt a roughly similar enterprise.

We have also seen that each of these authors employs techniques that make him persuasive to the audience. In the case of Joseph Andrews, the lesson that Fielding is trying to convey is hardly controversial. But the author nonetheless establishes an affable persona that makes the reader more likely to agree with the text’s values. We see concern with persuasion more clearly in The Spiritual Quixote, where Graves purposely employs sympathetic satire in order to appeal to those readers who might be inclined to disagree with him. And even though

Bage is hardly conciliatory in Hermsprong, he is nonetheless trying to persuade. He works through irony and humor, and even those who disagree with him are likely to get his jokes and are subtly lead to believe that his liberal worldview is at least coherent, if not downright sensible.

These satirists do not rubbish their targets with malicious glee; rather, they are more concerned with swaying readers towards their points of view.

An important corollary of the idea that these novels are fundamentally persuasive is that mild satire can be as effective as the harsher varieties, or at least that some eighteenth-century satirists thought so. We cannot be sure exactly how effective The Spiritual Quixote was as a satire for its contemporary readers, but certainly Graves appears to have believed that a gentler and more sympathetic approach was preferable to heavy-handed and strident denunciation of his 257 target. Bage and Fielding, too, could have been much more severe than they are, but they opted for genial critique instead. Expecting satire to be grim or scathing or angry can greatly distort how we approach these novels and others in their category. If we expect that all satire (or even all good satire) must involve vociferous bashing of targets, we may be led to claim that Joseph

Andrews is best described as an attack on selfishness (Fielding is undoubtedly a good satirist, and therefore he must write attack), or that The Spiritual Quixote is a literary failure, or that

Hermsprong was written by an intellectual coward. I hope that I have shown that considering satire as potentially instructive instead of punitive can lead us to stronger interpretations of these works.

I do not claim to have exhausted discussion of the satiric novel of instruction. I have identified some forms of satiric instruction, discussed some of the techniques by which such instruction can be conveyed, and examined several novels that exemplify the category. But to provide an exhaustive list of all the forms and techniques of satiric instruction is well beyond the scope of a single chapter. I hope, however, that this discussion of a few instructive satires will help us better identify and interpret other satiric novels that we encounter. If we allow that some novelists use satire to instruct—and we consider the rhetorical challenges facing writers of this type of satire—we may come to a better understanding of writers beyond the three that I have focused on here. CHAPTER FIVE: PESSIMISTIC SATIRE: COVENTRY, BURNEY, AND EDGEWORTH

Satire in the novels I have examined thus far has been relatively light and cheerful: it has been designed either to entertain the reader or to provide positive instruction of a not too solemn sort.

But satire is hardly always breezy and optimistic, as such works as Pope’s 1743 Dunciad or

Congreve’s The Way of the World (1700) remind us. While all satire is to some degree negative, in that it leads the reader to make negative judgments, some satires are distinctly harsher than others. Naturally, we find darker satire in novels as well as in poems and plays. Some novels use satire for that most familiar of satiric ends: attacking and condemning the satirist’s opponents.

Here, however, I would like to focus on novels with a different satiric goal, a class that I refer to as pessimistic satire. As the term suggests, the writers of these works seem primarily interested in exposing and describing a gloomy state of affairs without providing the reader any sense that a solution exists. Whereas the writer of attack satire focuses on castigating some individual or institution for having caused a problem, the novelist writing pessimistic satire dwells on the problem itself, not necessarily meting out blame or punishment, but forcing the reader to confront the unpleasant reality of the situation.

In theory, the idea of a type of satire best characterized as pessimistic complaint should not be difficult to accept. Some critics discuss satire as a mode that chronicles social problems instead of punishing individuals or groups. Earl Miner, for instance, considers satire as a pessimistic enterprise that presents “a vision of man, the state, arts, or the world degenerating before one’s eyes.”1 The satirist is less a scourger of the vicious than a recorder of inevitable social decay. A similar concept of satire underlies Michael Seidel’s reading of Pope’s Epistle to

1 Earl Miner, “In Satire’s Falling City,” in The Satirist’s Art, ed. H. James Jensen and Malvin R. Zirker, Jr. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1972), 3–27, at 19. 259

Arbuthnot, which he sees as containing more complaint than attack. While the poem is undoubtedly satiric, the satirist “is more worried about the mass of undifferentiated humanity claiming to like him and to be ‘like’ him than he is about scourging his enemies.”2 These descriptions of satire approach something like what I mean by pessimistic satire: the satirist shows the reader that some aspect of society, or society in general, or human nature, is irretrievably flawed, but does not seem to believe that deriding or castigating others can really change anything.

In practice, identifying pessimistic satire and distinguishing it from attack satire is not always easy. The two satiric goals can sometimes overlap: an attack satirist may at some points complain pessimistically about a problem that the target has created, or a pessimistic satirist may include some derogation of individuals. Take Smollett’s Roderick Random. For the most part, the novel expresses pessimism about the general viciousness of society, but Smollett does not entirely refrain from attacks upon specific individuals, as in his sarcastic description of Admiral

Vernon’s conduct at the Battle of Cartagena de Indias. Often, the reader attempting to characterize satiric novels that contain both pessimism and attack must determine the relative prominence of each. In the case of Roderick Random, the novel as a whole reads like a bitter commentary on the difficulty of making one’s way in the world. In other cases, the distinction is less clear.

I will begin by discussing some characteristics of pessimistic satire that may help us to identify it. Then, I will turn to a specific exemplar of the type, Francis Coventry’s Pompey the

Little. I have chosen Pompey not because it has any great artistic merit, but because it is an eighteenth-century novel that fits neatly into the archetype I am describing, and thus should help us to see more clearly what pessimistic satire looks like. Once we have a better sense of the

2 Seidel, Satiric Inheritance, 12.

260 characteristics of pessimistic satire, we can then examine some variations of the type in Frances

Burney’s Cecilia and Maria Edgeworth’s Castle Rackrent. Taken together, the examples in this chapter ought to give us a sense of the different ways novelists use satire to express pessimism.

I. The Possibilities of Pessimistic Satire

The defining trait of pessimistic satire is that it suggests that any improvement to the situation it depicts is not likely to occur or is absolutely impossible. In these works we do not find the confidence Bage exhibits in Hermsprong that social change will happen, albeit gradually, or the belief of Graves in The Spiritual Quixote that rhetorical appeals and sympathy will sway a somewhat hostile audience to his cause. Instead, pessimistic satirists make their readers conscious of a serious problem for which no readily-available solution exists. Within this category, however, we will find some diversity in terms of the grounds of the satirist’s pessimism, the results he or she aims to achieve through satire, and the means by which he or she conveys a sense of despair to readers. Examining some possible variations within this category should give us a better sense of the category itself.

The Grounds of Pessimism

What might cause a satirist’s pessimism? In some cases, we get the sense that the novelist is writing about a system or institution that is too deeply entrenched to change. In such a case, imagining alternatives or hoping for improvement might seem foolhardy and naïve. Consider, as a non-novelistic example, Thomas Southerne’s The Wives Excuse (1691). The play offers a gloomy critique of marriage, showing how oppressive the institution can be, especially for women who are wedded to men who mistreat them. Mrs. Friendall is a good wife and remains

261 faithful to her husband, refusing the seductive entreaties of Lovemore. But Mr. Friendall is eventually caught cheating on his wife; the play concludes with Mrs. Friendall unhappily trapped in a marriage with an unfaithful and repugnant man. Nothing in the play suggests that Mrs.

Friendall will ever find a way to escape her situation. As Robert D. Hume has argued, the play’s

“broader picture of society is dismally depressing. That Southerne had much hope of improvement is doubtful.”3 Southerne is writing about an ingrained system that he saw no way to correct or mend.

In some cases, the satirist may not consider change a possibility because attempts at improvement have been attempted and failed. A clear eighteenth-century example of this phenomenon is the French Revolution, which at first inspired great hope among English radicals but then led to the Reign of Terror in France and increasing conservatism in England. As I have argued in the last chapter, I do not agree with the critics of Hermsprong who see Bage as being utterly disillusioned with the radical cause by 1796. Hermsprong does not advocate sudden, sweeping social reform of a revolutionary nature, but it does suggest that change of a small- scale, local variety is achievable. But we can see an instance of pessimistic satire possibly caused by the worsening political climate of England if we contrast Hermsprong with another radical novel, Godwin’s Caleb Williams, especially if we consider the ending Godwin originally intended for the novel. Caleb, an innocent man hounded by the law, eventually goes mad in prison. Justice does not triumph; the novel ends on a darkly negative note, and Caleb’s statement that “persecution and tyranny can never die” seems all too true.4 Unlike Hermsprong, Caleb

Williams shows us the abuses of power possible in an unjust society and suggests that these

3 Robert D. Hume, “The Socio-Politics of London Comedy from Jonson to Steele,” Huntington Library Quarterly 74, no. 2 (2011): 187–217, at 203. 4 William Godwin, Caleb Williams, ed. Pamela Clemit, in Collected Novels and Memoirs of William Godwin, ed. Mark Philp, 8 vols., (London: Pickering and Chatto, 1992), 3:338.

262 problems have no solution. The Godwin who wrote the original ending seems to be struggling against an ineradicable institution that has withstood the assault of radical ideas and over which there can be no victory.

The cause of pessimism is not always a single immovable system or facet of society, however. In some instances, the satirist may be inspired by the essential flaws of humanity itself.

The view that to be human is to be commingled out of good and evil, as Dr. Jekyll knew, is common; some pessimistic satirists, however, dwell upon the vicious side of human nature and the evil that men do. Golding’s The Lord of the Flies suggests that humans are instinctively cruel and barbaric. The seemingly innocent boys of the novel become tyrants and murderers; the moral decay of Jack and his followers culminates in the killing of Piggy and the hunt for Ralph. As we have seen earlier, Alvin Kernan argues that the arrival of the warship at the conclusion of the novel reminds us that human savagery is not eradicated by civilization—it merely takes a different form.5 We find a similar worldview in Fielding’s Amelia. In this novel, Fielding is not so much writing against specific institutions and problems as exposing the flawed and evil nature of humanity itself. Even a character with good traits like Colonel Bath is ultimately undone by his own vices. The Fielding of Amelia presents a world in which humanity’s inclination to evil far outweighs its propensity to good. If a satirist takes the view that people are inherently wicked, he or she has little reason to believe that improvement is possible.

In some cases a satirist will suggest that change is possible, but that improvement will not result regardless of what happens. Pessimistic satirists who write about controversial issues in which both sides are flawed fall into this category: no matter which side wins, problems will ensue. Frank Palmeri’s theory that narrative satires tend to criticize opposing sides of a conflict without offering a viable alternative does not apply to all satiric novels, but it works well to

5 Kernan, The Plot of Satire, 99–100.

263 explain this type of work.6 David Lodge’s Souls and Bodies (1980) is a glum satire on the

Catholic Church’s position on contraception. The novel follows a small group of Catholics as they attempt to navigate the Church’s teachings on sexuality. Lodge clearly critiques traditional

Catholic sexual morality, suggesting that it can lead to repression, disappointing marriages, and an increased risk of children with congenital disorders, inter alia. But Lodge also suggests that the liberal Catholicism inspired by the Second Vatican Council is shallow and impoverished, as it fails to provide adequate spiritual nourishment to those who espouse it. In the world of the novel, a Church that is both more tolerant in its sexual teachings and yet also spiritually and intellectually rich would be ideal, but Lodge does not suggest that such a thing will come to pass.

The change brought about by liberal Catholicism is not the answer. In the conclusion, the narrator wonders whether the election of Pope John Paul II will provide a solution to the problems the novel exposes, but does not seem to possess much confidence that this change will result in real improvement.

We should keep in mind that the targets of pessimistic satire are meant to be taken seriously. If we consider a novel like Peregrine Pickle, we will find that it satirizes foolishness without suggesting that change will occur. Yet we do not feel that the satire of Peregrine Pickle is particularly pessimistic, because the follies exposed are largely harmless; such fools as Pallet and the physician are funny, but unable to hurt anybody. In pessimistic satires, we need to have a sense that the problem is at least somewhat more serious. This is not to say that pessimistic satires cannot be humorous or entertaining, but their subject matter is typically a bit grimmer.

When we read Burney’s Cecilia, for instance, we feel that the societal forces arrayed against the heroine are formidable and dangerous, as they drive her to despair and temporary madness.

6 Frank Palmeri, Satire in Narrative: Petronius, Swift, Gibbon, Melville, and Pynchon (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990), 129–30.

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Unlike the antics of the characters in Peregrine Pickle, the vices of the characters in Cecilia cause real harm, and we are made to feel that the entrenchment of the forces against her is cause for gloominess. The satire cannot merely be regarded as pure entertainment.

The Results of Pessimism

We have considered a number of reasons why pessimistic satirists might feel that the situations they write about are not subject to amelioration. But if positive change cannot or will not occur, then why write satire at all? What are some of the potential goals satirists might try to accomplish by describing bleak and hopeless situations?

In some cases, the satirist may be trying to provoke thought about the subject at hand, even if that thought is not likely to lead to any improvement. To some degree, all satirists, pessimistic or otherwise, attempt to make their audience see the world as they see it. If life is bleak and gloomy, a pessimistic satirist might believe that showing people this reality is preferable to letting them live in hopeful delusion. The problem will not be resolved, but at least the reader would have a clear understanding of the situation. The full title of Caleb Williams is

Things as They Are; or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams. We could read the main title as an exhortation by Godwin to his readers to change “things as they are” to some better state of affairs—and this may have been what Godwin meant when he wrote his revised, more optimistic ending to the novel. But we could also read the title as a call for readers to come to grips with a hopeless reality which they might otherwise ignore, a reading that makes sense considering the original ending. In the earlier version we get the sense that “things as they are” will likely remain so, but at least recognizing the corruption of the political system is superior to believing with blithe ignorance that all is well.

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In other pessimistic satires we get the sense that the satirist is trying to provoke laughter in the face of a situation beyond repair. This satiric aim is distinct from the entertainment satires

I discussed in Chapter 3. The humor in those novels is typically cheerful; in these pessimistic satires, it is a black, gallows humor, under which lies a grim statement about some part of society. The jokes of Headlong Hall are clearly satiric, but they are also light and amusing, and they do not hint at some darker truth which we must confront to understand the humor.

Contrariwise, Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera is quite funny, but our recognition of the humor depends upon our acceptance of a bleak truth: that, as Macheath states, “the world is all alike” in its depravity and corruption.7 Freud speculated that gallows humor results from the ego’s attempt to assert its indifference to negative outside circumstances.8 Whether or not one fully accepts

Freud’s psychoanalytic theories, the concept of dark laughter as a way to assert control over an otherwise uncontrollable situation seems reasonable, and might explain why some pessimistic satirists write.

Pessimistic satire can conceivably be written to encourage acceptance of a problematic and imperfect state. One of the most famous eighteenth-century instances of this kind of pessimistic satire is Voltaire’s Candide, which completely rejects any optimistic notions about human nature; this work is one of those in which the grounds of pessimism are the universal depravity of mankind and the inescapability of suffering in this world. At the close of the work,

Candide abandons his own optimistic search for happiness and resolves, with his companions, to cultivate their garden. This somewhat positive ending does not change the rampant negativity of the rest of the narrative: the world is still irredeemably evil, and life is still full of suffering. But the conclusion seems at least to suggest that, faced with an absurd and cruel existence, the only

7 John Gay, Dramatic Works, ed. John Fuller, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1983), 2:62. 8 Sigmund Freud, “Humour,” in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, ed. and trans. James Strachey (London: The Hogarth Press, 1961), 21:162.

266 sensible thing that one can do is accept the sufferings of life, withdraw from the world, and work without thinking about the bleak nature of existence. The satire here clearly depicts a problem that cannot be changed—and if finding an ideal mode of living is impossible, one might as well accept this imperfect state of affairs and live as best as one is able to do. The effect of the satire is to encourage acceptance of the world, flawed as it is.

As we consider these reasons for writing pessimistic satire, we should remember that provoking thought, encouraging laughter at a grim situation, or urging resignation to a bad state of affairs might not be the only conceivable goals. We can imagine some grumpy individual writing pessimistic satires purely out of splenetic ill-nature. Swift, for instance, has been accused of writing to indulge his sadistic misanthropy—although whether this claim has merit is beyond the scope of my present study.9 Most pessimistic satire, however, has some sort of rhetorical objective and does not seem to be written out of pure self-indulgent protest or malice. The satirist cares about the reactions of readers and wants them to see the dark truth about his or her subject.

We should also remember that sometimes these objectives can be mixed. Candide, for instance, encourages resignation, but it also treats the many misfortunes suffered by its characters in a humorous way. Voltaire seems to be encouraging bitter laughter at the world’s evil as well as acceptance of it. Nonetheless, the point is that Voltaire—and most other pessimistic satirists— attempt to achieve some rhetorical goal or goals from their works.

9 F. R. Leavis, for instance, describes Swift as taking pleasure in the destructive negativity of his satire and ascribes to him “unusual capacity for egotistical animus.” As Leavis writes, “the genius delights in its mastery, in its power to destroy, and negation is felt as self-assertion.” See F. R. Leavis, “The Irony of Swift,” originally published in Determinations: Critical Essays, ed. F. R. Leavis (London: Chatto and Windus, 1934); reprinted in Fair Liberty Was All His Cry: A Tercentenary Tribute to Jonathan Swift 1667–1745, ed. A. Norman Jeffares (New York: St. Martin’s, 1967),116–30, at 130, 129.

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The Means of Creating Pessimism

Pessimistic satirists can accomplish their goals in a variety of ways. The specific techniques of creating a sense of pessimism and hopelessness differ from novel to novel, but we can identify some of the most common methods and techniques.

Concentration on a problem instead of its cause: Most novels of pessimistic satire tend to focus on a problem rather than on the person or group responsible for that problem. Long ago,

John Peter attempted to differentiate “satire” and “complaint.” For him, satire tends to attack specific individuals and institutions, whereas “Complaint is vague, concerned with the abuse rather than the abuser.”10 While I believe that complaint and satire are more closely connected than Peter does, his insight that some works decry general difficulties instead of blaming specific individuals is applicable to the concept of pessimistic satire. Blaming the abuser might lead the reader to believe that if only the vicious individual were suitably punished or somehow made to reform, then the problem would be resolved. But if the focus is on the abuse itself, we will find no such comfort, especially if no blame at all is assigned. Consider Burney’s The Wanderer. As the subtitle of the novel suggests, the work focuses on “Female Difficulties.” Juliet’s troubles are caused by specific characters in the text, but these characters represent more general types, and one does not get the sense that any individual or group is entirely responsible for the social conditions that make Juliet’s autonomy impossible. The focus is more on what happens to Juliet than on how such characters as Mrs. Ireton or Mrs. Maple came to be the way that they are.

While we can blame Juliet’s specific tormentors, we recognize that Burney is showing us the problems of an entire social system that is unlikely to change.

Negative emotional vectors: By emotional vector, I mean the general emotional direction of the plot, determined by the positivity or negativity of a narrative’s conclusion relative to its

10 John Peter, Complaint and Satire in Early English Literature (Oxford: Clarendon, 1956), 10.

268 opening. Most of the novels we have examined in previous chapters have, on the whole, a positive emotional vector. The protagonists experience some difficulties, but they eventually overcome their trials and arrive at a better state than they had achieved at the beginning of the narrative. Such protagonists as Joseph Andrews, Tom Jones, Arabella, and Peregrine Pickle are all clearly in better places at the conclusions of their novels than at the beginnings. This positive emotional arc is conducive to promoting an optimistic worldview: things are likely to improve.

In some novels of pessimistic satire, however, we find no such positive progress made. In Evelyn

Waugh’s A Handful of Dust, for instance, Tony Last is initially the owner of the Hetton estate, married to Brenda, and with a child. His life is far from idyllic, but over the course of the narrative it takes progressive turns for the worse: his child dies, his wife leaves him, and he ends up captured on an Amazonian expedition by an insane sadist who forces Tony to read the novels of Dickens to him for the rest of his life. This is clearly a negative emotional vector, as the situation at the end of the novel is grimmer by far than that at the beginning. This movement gives us the sense that Waugh is conveying a pessimistic view of the world, as the situations of the novel only deteriorate.

Circular plots: Similar to maintaining a negative emotional vector is the technique of creating a circularity to the plot. If conditions at the end of the novel are largely the same as they are at the beginning, the narrative conveys a sense that change is impossible. Kernan identifies the circular plot as a key technique not only in A Handful of Dust but in all of Waugh’s early satiric novels, a group which also includes Decline and Fall (1928), Vile Bodies (1930), and

Black Mischief (1932). He argues that these novels are “savage indictments of a civilization in the last stages of its decline because the defenders have left the wall,” and Waugh never suggests that this decline is reversible (151). Instead, by structuring his plots circularly, the satirist implies

269 that nothing ever changes for the better; all is caught in the “hopeless circles on which existence moves in Waugh’s world” (155). Decline and Fall, for instance, begins with the protagonist,

Paul Pennyfeather, at Scone College, Oxford. He is sent down, and he subsequently endures a series of misfortunes and misadventures that expose the absurdity of modern life, until finally, by novel’s end, he is once more back at Scone. No progress has been made, and we thus get the sense that society as a whole is unlikely to change; the pattern of decay will continue unchecked.

Exposition of the negatives in both sides of an issue: We have discussed already that in some pessimistic satires, the satirist is faced with a problem or issue in which none of the opposing sides is particularly appealing. One of the techniques that a satirist can use to convey a sense of hopelessness is to criticize both sides, suggesting that nobody is in the right. A famous non-novelistic example is Swift’s A Modest Proposal (1729). Swift complains with bitter irony about the treatment of the native Irish by their Anglo-Irish landlords, whose mismanagement and oppression have impoverished Ireland. But Swift is not content to expose only one side of this issue. He also laments the vices and failures of the native Irish themselves, and clearly feels that they too are to blame. Furthermore, Swift seems not to believe that either party will change, or that the sensible reforms he suggests will be attempted. One gets the sense that the satirist, disgusted with the whole situation, wishes a plague on both houses.

Presentation of a broad social panorama of vice: Pessimistic satirists may also choose to provide the reader with a broad panoramic view of society to show that problems exist at every level, and that depravity is the way of the world. A fairly recent non-novelistic example is David

Simon’s masterful television series The Wire (2002–2008). The show’s first season depicts the problems of the war on drugs in Baltimore and the failures of a police department whose commanders are more interested in obtaining promotions than in stopping crime. In each

270 subsequent season, however, the show’s satiric critique broadens to other aspects of Baltimore society, including its government, education systems, and media. By the end of the series, the viewer is left with the conclusion that corruption, careerism, and incompetence are rampant in all of the city’s major institutions. The unscrupulous upper-end administrators of the Baltimore

Police Department have their counterparts not only in the city’s criminal organizations but in the

Mayor’s office, the state senate, the legal system, the public schools, and the newsroom of the

Baltimore Sun. The point seems to be that selfishness and institutional dysfunction are inescapable, and that the problems they cause can have dire effects on the lives of real individuals.

This discussion provides us, I hope, with a better sense of what pessimistic satire is, what kind of situations might inspire it, what it can aim to accomplish, and how it might be executed.

But to understand how pessimistic satire actually works, let us look at an eighteenth-century novelistic example of the form in more detail: Coventry’s Pompey the Little.

II. Pessimistic Satire in Pompey the Little

At first glance, The History of Pompey the Little: or, The Life and Adventures of a Lap-Dog does not appear to be particularly bleak. As its subtitle suggests, the novel lacks a traditional protagonist and instead follows a small dog and its various owners.11 One might be tempted to believe that this premise would not be serious enough to deliver gloomy social criticism. The appraisal of the novel in the Monthly Review supports this idea: the reviewer praises Pompey as a work in which “the vein of pleasantry, which runs through it, is every where evenly upheld, from

11 Pompey the Little popularized the genre of the it-narrative, in which the story focuses on a non-human object, epitomized by such works as Charles Johnstone’s Chrysal, or The Adventures of a Guinea (1760) and Thomas Bridges’s The Adventures of a Bank-Note (1770–71). See Robert Adams Day, introduction to The History of Pompey the Little, or The Life and Adventures of a Lap-Dog, by Francis Coventry, ed. Robert Adams Day (London: Oxford University Press, 1974), ix–xxiii, at xv.

271 the beginning to the end. . . . His lashes, however smart, carry with them rather the marks of a benevolent correction, than of the spleen of misanthropy.”12 This description does not make the novel’s satire seem particularly glum; the reviewer’s comments could easily be applied to Joseph

Andrews or Tom Jones, which, as we have seen, are not pessimistic in their outlook.

The comparison to Fielding is particularly apt because Coventry himself admired and was influenced by Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones. The third edition of Pompey (1752) contains a dedication to Fielding in which Coventry defends the novel form and singles out Fielding’s novels in particular as being “master-pieces and complete models in their kind,” “worthy the attention of the greatest and wisest men.”13 As Toby A. Olshin has argued, Coventry imitates

Fielding in a number of ways, including the sardonic narrator, the chapter titles, and the use of a picaresque structure.14 The anonymously-published Pompey was even attributed by some readers to Fielding. In a letter to William Shenstone, Lady Luxborough notes that the book is

“entertaining enough for such a trifle. Fielding, you know, cannot write without humour.”15 All of these facts would seem to suggest that Pompey’s satire is similar in nature and aim to that of

Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones: that Coventry, like the early Fielding, aims primarily to instruct his audience using wit, humor, and an affable narratorial persona. Yet, as I will demonstrate,

Pompey and Fielding’s first two novels differ significantly, and they seem to be designed for different purposes. Coventry’s work, despite its seemingly innocuous premise, shows us a dark outlook on human nature and invites us to laugh bitterly at the thorough corruption of society.

12 The Monthly Review 4 (February 1751): 316–317, at 317. 13 Francis Coventry, The History of Pompey the Little, or The Life and Adventures of a Lap-Dog, ed. Robert Adams Day (London: Oxford University Press, 1974), xliii. All references to Pompey the Little are to this edition. 14 Toby A. Olshin, “Pompey the Little: A Study in Fielding’s Influence,” Revue des Langues Vivantes 36 (1970): 117–24, at 117–22. 15 Henrietta Knight, Lady Luxborough, Letters Written by the Late Right Honourable Lady Luxborough, to William Shenstone, Esq. (London, 1775), 265.

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How does Pompey differ so dramatically from Fielding’s novels? The most obvious way is in its plot structure, which is simple. Pompey is born in Bologna in the house of an Italian courtesan and subsequently given to a young English fop. The fop brings him back to England, where Pompey is then given away to one of the fop’s English lovers, Lady Tempest. He is then abandoned and goes through a series of owners, including an old beggar, a hack poet, a milliner, a noble lord, and a Cambridge student. At each stage of his progression through society, the narrator provides a brief portrait of Pompey’s new owner, and in almost all cases the character is guilty of some vice. Lady Tempest, for instance, is vapid and profligate; the beggar is a rogue and a cheat; and the noble lord is a philandering seducer and a false-promiser. This pattern continues throughout the narrative until Pompey is reunited with Lady Tempest; then, in the midst of a dispute over his ownership, Pompey dies. Only in one case are Pompey’s owners presented as virtuous individuals: when he arrives at the home of Aurora and Theodosia, about whom more later. But the rest of the novel is devoted to showing the faults of the people Pompey encounters.

This sort of plot is much different from what we find in Fielding, especially in the intricately-plotted Tom Jones. True, some parts of Fielding’s novels introduce us to a series of roguish characters, as Pompey does, but ultimately Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones each tell a coherent story about the development and progress of a young man. We identify with the protagonists and become emotionally invested in their struggles, and over the course of their narratives we watch them overcome difficulties and better themselves. We form no such connection with Pompey. While we follow him and his adventures, he does not ever grow, develop, or surmount challenges. The actions of his owners are described in more detail than his own. And because the narrative moves rapidly from owner to owner, we do not have the time to

273 form emotional connections with these characters, either. The result is that in Pompey, none of the characters is particularly sympathetic.

How does the lack of sympathetic characters affect our sense of the novel’s satire? In one sense, they decrease our sense of shock and concern when something negative happens to the characters. Because we do not care much about Pompey’s owners, events that harm them are less likely to upset us than if something were to harm Tom Jones or Sophia Western. This effect might seem to work against a pessimistic aim, as the vices Coventry depicts seem less serious and problematic. Another effect of Pompey’s plot and characterization, however, increases our sense of its negativity: the novel distinctly lacks a positive emotional vector. Things do not become markedly worse over the course of the narrative, but things do not improve, either.

Coventry does not offer us the satisfaction of seeing characters we care about triumph, and thus removes one of the ways in which more optimistic satirists inject cheerfulness into their works.

Pompey not only lacks any sense of improvement or positive motion, but also contains few exemplary or even morally decent characters. Because most of Pompey’s owners are targets of satiric critique, almost none of the characters represent positive values or is worthy of emulation. The world of Pompey is almost entirely peopled by petty, foolish, selfish, vain, and malicious individuals. Granted, the evil that these characters do is not presented in a way likely to produce anger or despair. But the sheer preponderance of vicious and foolish characters makes the worldview of the novel grim nonetheless. Both Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones contain a number of malicious characters, but the presence of likeable, positive characters mitigates the social critique. The worlds Fielding creates in those novels have their Blifils and their Parson

Trullibers, but they also contain their Mr. Wilsons, Parson Adamses, Squire Allworthys, and

Mrs. Millers. Furthermore, Fielding’s heroes exemplify the virtues of good-natured generosity

274 and benevolence. These positive characters are crucial for giving readers the assurance that

Fielding does not take a dim view of the world. Coventry’s plot structure and premise do not allow him to balance his evil characters with good ones.

The satiric effect of Pompey is further increased by both the generality of the novel’s characters and the range of its targets. The novel’s vicious characters represent types rather than individuals, thereby giving us the impression that the vices commented upon are ubiquitous in society. When Pompey encounters a pair of drunken boorish lords, we are meant to understand that their behavior is typical of an entire class of debauched libertines. The scope of the satire makes the social critique all-encompassing: given the number and diversity of characters in the novel, one gets the impression that the satirist is attempting a comprehensive complaint about society from top to bottom. Coventry uses the device of having Pompey frequently change hands to present a social panorama of vice. As Liz Bellamy has argued, the nature of Coventry’s plot allows him to portray “the full spectrum of society . . . from the highest to the lowest in the land.”16 Evil is not confined to the very rich or very poor: all social classes have their own form of wickedness. Nor does profession (or lack thereof) seem to make a difference: we are shown foolish tradespeople, dishonest servants, quack physicians, villainous aristocrats, stupid politicians, and roguish criminals, among others. The point seems to be that no matter one’s walk of life, treachery and iniquity are inescapable.

Many of the vices that Coventry portrays in Pompey are meant to be laughed at, but often the humor is of a dark and cynical nature, further strengthening our sense that the novel’s worldview is pessimistic. For instance, at the close of the episode with the drunken lords who have been taken by the Watch, we are told that “the next Morning, they returned Home in Chairs,

16 Liz Bellamy, Commerce, Morality and the Eighteenth-Century Novel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 126.

275 new-dressed themselves, and then took their Seats in Parliament, to enact Laws for the Good of their Country” (82). The sentence has an amusing situational irony; the idea of these sots making laws is humorously incongruous. But this situation is more discomfiting than amusing; we may laugh at the joke, but to do so we must also acknowledge the corruption and brokenness of the political system. We find something similar in the description of Aurora’s seventy-year-old suitor. The aged lover is a stock comedic figure, and the incongruity of a man of his age seeking a young wife is amusing. But we also learn that this man is responsible for the death of one of his previous wives, having deliberately indulged her penchant for heavy drinking to a fatal degree

(123). The humor here carries a dark undertone of menace; we are not emotionally invested in the man’s previous wives, but the fact nonetheless remains that he is a de facto murderer. Even a more innocuous passage, such as the description of the rank of fellow-commoner at Cambridge, nonetheless forces the reader to recognize that corruption extends to the university, where richer students are able to spend their time in frivolous debauchery with no ill consequences (180).

This kind of humor is much different from what we find in Joseph Andrews and most of

Tom Jones. Like Coventry, Fielding ridicules vice, but his jokes do not often force readers to confront some grim reality. The description of Parson Trulliber in Joseph Andrews, for instance, does not leave the reader with the sense that the Church of England is rife with greedy and irresponsible clergymen. We can likewise laugh at Partridge’s cowardice in Tom Jones without having to accept any dark truth about the pusillanimous nature of mankind. Some of Fielding’s jokes do not even rely on exposing a flaw. Consider, for instance, Fielding’s witty description of

Molly Seagrim’s brawl with the other women of the town, which the narrator renders in the epic style. The comedy here lies not in the jealousy that triggers the fight itself, but in the incongruity between the actual events and the high style in which they are described. The humor of

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Coventry, contrariwise, mostly depends on the incongruity between things as they are and things as they should be. Lawmakers should be model citizens, but are in fact debauched idiots.

Servants ought not to be lazy gossips, but they are. These are the kinds of darkly funny situations that comprise Pompey.

The third edition of the novel adds even more in the way of grim humor. Coventry inserts a number of new episodes in this version, some of which are quite gloomy. For instance, in the first edition, the beggar to whom Pompey is given dies from an illness after returning from Bath.

In the third edition, the beggar’s story is told in greater detail, and we are introduced to his daughter and son. The son, who is posing as an Irish nobleman in order to seduce a rich and naïve young woman, is foiled when his father gossips about his son’s true identity.

Consequently, the son disowns the father and threatens to kill him, and the father dies of grief.

All this is funny in a way, but it is humor of a much crueler kind than we find in Fielding.

Likewise, we are told more details in the third edition about the lord who takes Pompey away from the milliner’s house. In the first edition, we learn that he has seduced a woman and helped her run away from her husband, but we do not hear anything about her fate. In the third edition,

Coventry adds that this affair “ended in the utter ruin of the lady, who finding her reputation lost, and her passionate lover soon growing indifferent, took refuge in citron waters, and by the help of those cordial lenitives of sorrow, soon bade adieu to the world and all its cares” (159). The addition of the lady drinking herself to death seems to suggest that Coventry wanted to make his revised edition even darker than the original.

We have seen that Coventry shows us a thorough panorama of a vicious society, suggesting that in Pompey, the ground of pessimism is the general viciousness of mankind. Man is evil by nature, and this evil manifests itself in various ways at different levels of society. We

277 have also seen that Coventry’s response to this state of affairs is to invite us to laugh at it, but in such a way as to make us acknowledge the bleakness of the situation. What, then, are we to make of the Monthly Review’s claim that the satire of Pompey is written for the purposes of

“benevolent correction?”17 Could Coventry be pointing out the widespread follies and vices of mankind in order that they might be repented of and human nature improved?

Some critics have suggested that Pompey attempts to teach a positive lesson. For

Nicholas Hudson, the novel is “a highly conservative book” that “turns to the traditional aristocracy and gentry for models of virtue and generosity” and makes its strongest critiques of the lower classes.18 Hudson acknowledges that Pompey satirizes all social ranks, but he finds that the moral exemplars of the narrative are those who “treat the hapless Pompey with a modicum of kindness and generosity” and singles out Lady Tempest and the milliner as examples (297). This reading is a stretch. True, Lady Tempest takes good care of Pompey, but the description of her character is hardly positive: she marries for the sake of “a Title and a Coach and Six,” quarrels with her husband while his alive, and, after his death, abandons herself entirely to “the Stream of

Pleasure, without the Fears of Virginity to check her” (23–25). The milliner, too, is hardly exemplary: she is inordinately proud, having been a failed former actress who believed herself to have great talent despite having very little (136). As for the “generosity” that Hudson attributes to her because she adopts Pompey, this trait is nowhere in evidence. The milliner does not willingly take Pompey in off the street; instead, Pompey is given to her by Aurora. Her treatment of Pompey is not markedly kinder than that of the mistress of the coffee-house who buys the dog from an oyster-woman, or the chambermaid at the inn who prevents Pompey from being hanged.

17 The Monthly Review 4 (February 1751): 316–317, at 317. 18 Nicholas Hudson, “It-Narratives: Fictional Point of View and Constructing the Middle Class,” in The Secret Life of Things: Animals, Objects, and It-Narratives in Eighteenth-Century England, ed. Mark Blackwell (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2007), 292–306, at 297.

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These characters work against the idea that Coventry is attempting to demonstrate the virtuousness of the aristocracy and gentry through their treatment of Pompey. More likely,

Coventry means to show that both the upper and lower classes contain vicious individuals without suggesting that one group is particularly better than the others.

Somewhat more plausibly, Norman Dean Wheatcraft suggests that we can find

“embodiments of Coventry’s ideals” in the characters of Theodosia, Aurora, and her preferred lover.19 Certainly, these three characters come closest to providing something of a moral center to the novel: they are described as being benevolent, sensible, and intelligent. Yet even they are not entirely perfect; Aurora is petty enough to get rid of Pompey in a fit of pique after he wakes her from a romantic dream. More important, we do not dwell on these characters for very long.

They appear in only a few chapters, and they are vastly outnumbered by the novel’s negative characters. Their inclusion suggests that not all of humanity is rotten, but that virtue is rare and difficult to find—the pessimism of the novel is mitigated only a little by these characters.

Furthermore, because the narrative follows Pompey and not Aurora and Theodosia, we never see them triumph or get rewarded for their virtue; indeed, Aurora must suffer the attentions of a number of undesirable suitors, including the foppish Count Tag and the murderous seventy-year- old man. Whatever endorsement of good these characters convey is weak, and their goodness is hardly the focus of the text.

An episode added to the third edition suggests that virtue is not only rare but also exploitable by less-scrupulous individuals. In the additional chapters about Pompey’s time at

Bath, we meet the character of Miss Newcome, who has the sort of generosity and good-nature possessed by Fielding’s protagonists. She has the goodness to give alms to the beggar, despite

19 Norman Dean Wheatcraft, “Francis Coventry’s Pompey the Little: An Historical, Textual, and Critical Study” (PhD diss., Ohio State University, 1974), 132.

279 the warning of her companion, Lady Marmazet, that charitable giving is passé (96). Of course, the beggar to whom she gives is hardly destitute, as he makes enough from his mendicancy to feast on veal cutlets. As Bellamy points out, Lady Marmazet’s mockery of charity is “a manifestation of the depravity of the manners of modern society,” but Miss Newcome’s willingness to give is “a sign of gullibility” (127). The generous character is as much in the wrong as the selfish one. Furthermore, Miss Newcome is the target of the beggar’s fortune- hunting son, and the only reason Miss Newcome is not duped is the father’s indiscreet gossip about his son’s roguery. This episode seems to imply that, because society as a whole is full of corruption, being virtuous oneself does not guarantee happiness. The novel’s good characters still live in a selfish and treacherous world, and their morality is no shield against harm.

Pompey not only lacks a strong moral center, but also does not suggest that people can or are likely to change for the better—another trait that makes Coventry’s novel much more pessimistic than the early novels of Fielding. While the reform of vicious characters is not common in Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones, such characters as Mr. Wilson and Young

Nightingale suggest that, in the world of those novels, people who have erred can amend their ways. The repentance of Blifil at the end of Tom Jones may be unconvincing, but at least some sort of repentance occurs; in Pompey, we are not shown any characters changing or improving.

When Pompey returns to Lady Tempest at the end of the novel, she does not seem to have changed, as she continues in her extreme and extravagant obsession with dogs to the point that she desires to have Pompey embalmed after his death. The world of Pompey is one in which characters largely remain static. Those characters who change do so for the worse, as the beggar’s son in the third edition of the novel does: he progresses through various forms of roguery, from pickpocketing to card-sharping to robbing stagecoaches to fortune-hunting. The

280 novel thus does not seem to use satire to educate or promote reform, as behavioral change does not help much in this world: the vicious cannot improve, and the good are surrounded by an ineluctably flawed society.

We have seen a number of characteristics of Pompey the Little that suggest that its worldview is pessimistic. The novel lacks a positive emotional vector, and it depicts vice on every social level, giving the sense that evil is present in every walk of life. The few positive characters are outweighed by the negative ones, and we are provided with no indication that

Coventry believes reform is likely. The novel is funny, but its humor is not the light mirth of

Joseph Andrews or Peregrine Pickle or Tristram Shandy. Rather, the novel’s jokes emphasize how much the world as it is differs from the ideal. Some eighteenth-century readers confused

Coventry for Fielding, but based on the worldview promoted by Pompey’s satire, he is closer to the Fielding of Amelia than the Fielding of Joseph Andrews. Despite the seemingly innocuous premise, Pompey the Little invites us to laugh bitterly at the unalterable depravity of humanity.

III. The Power of Social Custom in Burney’s Cecilia

At first glance, Frances Burney’s Cecilia might seem to have almost nothing in common with

Pompey the Little. While Coventry’s novel has barely any plot to speak of, Cecilia’s plot is intricate. Pompey’s characters are seen only briefly and hardly developed at all; Cecilia, by contrast, contains some characters of surprising depth. While Burney employs a number of exaggerated stock figures, such as the sycophantic Mr. Morrice and the tonnish Mr. Meadows, other characters, like Mr. Belfield or Mrs. Delvile, are not reducible to a single trait. And whereas the premise of Pompey seems somewhat silly, that of Cecilia is much more serious. The

281 two are not even part of the same novelistic sub-genre. Pompey is a picaresque “it-narrative,” while Cecilia (like Burney’s other novels) has generally been classified as a novel of manners.

The issues that these books discuss also appear to be different. Pompey, as we have seen, critiques a wide range of subjects, from lords and politicians to beggars and thieves. Cecilia, contrariwise, has often been interpreted as focusing on a much more specific issue—women’s lack of social, sexual, and economic freedom in Burney’s society. As Kristina Straub writes,

Cecilia “exposes women’s over-determined social powerlessness.”20 Given that the novel eschews an episodic structure and mainly follows the story of a single character, we might expect its satire to be less scattershot.

The differences between these texts are real and should not be overlooked—but they obscure two important points. The first is that, in terms of basic worldview, the two novels are remarkably similar. The second is that Burney’s satire in Cecilia, while not quite as wide-ranging as that of Pompey, is nonetheless a broad exposure of a depraved society. Both novels show the pervasiveness of vice and the harm it can do, and both go on to suggest that reform or even improvement is impossible. Cecilia posits, as Pompey does, that the harm arising from society’s vices is inescapable—not because all humans are naturally vicious, but because the networks of social obligation and custom inevitably connect even well-meaning and virtuous individuals to those who are less so.

What techniques does Burney use to achieve this satiric end? In answering this question, we will see not only that Cecilia is much closer to Pompey in worldview than it appears, but that the novel’s pessimism runs deeper than its critics have typically allowed.

20 Kristina Straub, Divided Fictions: Fanny Burney and Feminine Strategy (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1987), 110.

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Social Obligation as Entrapment

From the beginning of Cecilia, we have a sense that the novel’s tone will be dark. It opens with a scene of loss—Cecilia praying for her dead parents as she tearfully leaves her home—that creates an expectation in the reader that the heroine will suffer over the course of the narrative.

As the novel progresses, this prediction is confirmed: Cecilia is often unhappy, and she experiences several different kinds of loss. She has been left £10,000 by her parents; more important, she receives £3,000 per annum from her uncle’s will, on the condition that when she marries, her husband will take her surname. This wealth, however, soon evaporates. When she goes to London, she resides with one of her guardians, Mr. Harrel, who leads a decadent lifestyle. Most of Cecilia’s £10,000 is “loaned” to him so that he can pay his debts; being an incorrigible spender, he never pays her back. The rest of her fortune is given up when she secretly marries Mortimer Delvile, whose parents are obsessed with maintaining the Delvile name and will not consent to their son adopting Cecilia’s surname. The marriage is discovered, and a distant male relation claims all of Cecilia’s possessions; she loses even her house. At the climax of the novel, she dashes about the streets of London, fearing that her husband will be killed in a duel; the terror of this moment causes her temporarily to lose her sanity.

Part of the way the novel’s satire works is by making the protagonist sympathetic. Cecilia is depicted as genuinely good-hearted. She does not give herself over to vapid amusements, like most of London society; rather, she derives pleasure from reading and performing acts of charity.

Unlike many of the novel’s other characters, she cares about the plight of those less fortunate than her. Given her personal virtues, we are likely to sympathize with her and desire a good outcome for her. Furthermore, because we are privy to her thoughts, desires, and fears, we are likely to hope that her desires are fulfilled and her fears not realized. When she suffers harm and

283 loss, we are therefore led to make negative judgments against those people and things that cause her suffering. Here Burney employs a fairly straightforward satiric technique: creating an attractive character so that we are moved to despise the various social problems and vicious characters that harm her.

Burney’s technique is different from that which Coventry uses in Pompey. When we see

Pompey’s owners engage in vice, we are clearly invited to make negative judgments against those vices, but those judgments are not particularly strong, because we do not care about any of the characters. In Cecilia, our judgments are much stronger because we are emotionally invested in Cecilia. Her problems are more grievous, and have more significant consequences, than most of the ills that fill the pages of Pompey. Because Cecilia begins the novel as an intelligent and benevolent heiress, and becomes a penniless, homeless madwoman barely clinging to life towards the novel’s end, we get a sense that the problems the novel depicts are truly dangerous.

Pompey covers a wider range of social viciousness than Cecilia does, but the kinds of vices

Cecilia portrays are rendered more odious by our attachment to Cecilia and her allies.

But what, exactly, are the problems that Cecilia exposes and satirizes? For some readers, the focus of Burney’s satire is on the treatment of women by a patriarchal society. Barbara

Zonitch, for instance, observes that both Cecilia and Mrs. Delvile “painfully discover that a patrilineal system of inheritance often confines them to limited roles of serviceability, to securing aristocratic male lineage.”21 For Julia Epstein, the novel puts forth the view that “young women live inside an envelope of continual material threat to their individual selfhood and to their social and economic survival.”22 Indeed, one of Burney’s major concerns in this novel is that for

21 Barbara Zonitch, Familiar Violence: Gender and Social Upheaval in the Novels of Frances Burney (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1997), 60. 22 Julia Epstein, The Iron Pen: Frances Burney and the Politics of Women’s Writing (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989), 155.

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Cecilia and other women, obtaining meaningful independence is impossible. Because of the misogynistic attitudes of her society, she is assigned three male guardians, who, as Joanne

Cutting-Gray points out, are all “bent upon finding her a husband in order to preserve her fortune for male dominion.”23 The need for her to surrender her £3,000 annuity arises out of the

Delviles’ patriarchal desire that their name be passed on patrilineally. Her problems with Mr.

Delvile are exacerbated by the machinations of Mr. Monckton, who wishes himself to marry

Cecilia for her fortune. The novel is full of men who see women as tools to be used, either to obtain money or to further the glory of an ancient family.

The constraints placed upon women are not the only targets of Cecilia’s social satire, however. When Cecilia arrives in London, what she first notices is not her powerlessness but how vacuous the acquaintances of Mrs. Harrel are. Almost everybody that she meets seems unable to find contentment. They consequently pursue such mindless activities as attending the sale of a bankrupt lord’s possessions or throwing lavishly unaffordable entertainments. The problem is not confined to women. Consider Mr. Meadows, who is so preoccupied with being fashionable that he cannot appear to be enjoying himself or interested in anything around him, and behaves with rudeness to everyone he meets. Or Mr. Morrice, who needs so badly to be liked that he becomes a servile toady. Even people outside of the Harrels’ circle fetishistically obsess over such things as money (Mr. Briggs), or rank (Mr. Delvile), or even the promotion of a son’s fortune (Mrs. Belfield). What Burney depicts is a society so perverse that its members cannot obtain pleasure except through indulging in behaviors destructive to self and others. The power men hold over women is a serious problem, as the harm they can do to the women around them

23 Joanne Cutting-Gray, Woman as ‘Nobody’ and the Novels of Fanny Burney (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1992), 35.

285 is potentially greater. But the wider issue is that the vast majority of men and women in this novel attempt to attain happiness in dangerous, anti-social ways.

Not everybody in Cecilia engages in self-destructive or exploitative behaviors; some are presented as virtuous and exemplary. Cecilia herself is the principal example, but she is not alone. Mortimer is depicted as a generally good man; he is free from the prejudices of his parents, and like Cecilia he approves of charitable actions. Belfield is not entirely admirable; as

Straub argues, he is “an unrealistic but well-intentioned young man of great moral courage and little practical sense” (119). His positive qualities outweigh his negative ones, however, and he is certainly one of Cecilia’s more decent and trustworthy friends. His sister, Henrietta Belfield, is also a likable individual; her friendship for Cecilia is genuine. Albany’s jeremiads against high society are eccentric but accurate, and he directs much of Cecilia’s charitable giving over the course of the novel; at the conclusion, he retains “his favourite office of being her almoner and monitor” (939). Even Mrs. Delvile is, at least in part, an exemplary character; she is one of

Cecilia’s few friends at the beginning of the novel, and while she opposes Cecilia’s marriage to

Mortimer at first, she eventually changes her mind. Given that the novel contains these characters, as well as other virtuous individuals such as Mr. Arnott and Mr. Gosport, Cecilia does not urge us to feel that humanity is innately wicked.

If Cecilia contains a number of good characters who seem exemplary, how does it nonetheless convey a pessimistic message? The key is that the personal virtue of these characters does not shield them from harm. Indeed, most of the novel’s seemingly exemplary characters suffer in some way through their association with the rest of a vicious society. Cecilia loses money, friends, and health, as we have seen, but the other virtuous characters suffer losses and setbacks as well. Mr. Harrel does not only drain Cecilia’s fortune, he also takes a large part of

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Mr. Arnott’s. Belfield makes various attempts to find a course of living that will make him happy, including becoming a day-laborer and a writer, but he fails in all of these endeavors. Late in the novel we find that Albany has been responsible for the death of an innocent woman, and that he—like Cecilia—has gone temporarily insane. Mortimer, though holding the enviable position of being a firstborn son of a good family in a patriarchal society, is constrained by his parents and suffers the displeasure of his father because of his association with Cecilia. And Mrs.

Delvile is trapped in a marriage with a man whom she never loved and whom she cannot respect.

We can find virtuous characters in the world of Cecilia, but they fare no better (and often worse) than the others.

Many of these characters have in common the fact that their problems do not arise from active malevolence or coercion. Cecilia is not forced by Mr. Harrel to give away her £10,000; indeed, the first time she lends money to him she volunteers to do so. Likewise, her £3,000 per annum is not taken away from her, but voluntarily given up when she chooses to marry

Mortimer. Nobody forces Mr. Belfield to be unhappy with the various lifestyles he has tried, nor is Albany driven mad by some malicious antagonist. The novel contains a scheming villain in

Mr. Monckton, who uses Blifil-like cunning and deceit in attempts to prevent Cecilia from marrying anybody but himself, but he is the exception. Most of the novel’s negative characters do not actively work to thwart the hopes and plans of those characters we care about. The point

Burney seems to be making, then, is not that her society is filled with predatory evil-doers looking to prey upon the innocent. Rather, the problem is that social forces compel even virtuous characters to make harmful choices. The cause of pessimism in Cecilia is the insidious strength of social pressure from which none can successfully escape.

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Social pressure in Cecilia takes a number of forms, the most prominent being the force of customary practices and ideas. In the novel’s second chapter, Mr. Monckton and Mr. Belfield debate the ability of people to act contrary to societal norms. Mr. Monckton, taking a pessimistic view, argues that one who interacts with the world “soon finds the necessity of accommodating himself to such customs as are already received, and of pursuing quietly the track that is already marked out” (14). Mr. Belfield takes the opposite view. Not only does Belfield believe in the possibility of acting contrary to social custom, he optimistically asserts that “if man dared act for himself, if neither worldly views, contracted prejudices, eternal precepts, nor compulsive examples, swayed his better reason and impelled his conduct, how noble indeed would he be! how infinite in faculties! in apprehension how like a God!” (15). This argument is never resolved, but the rest of the novel proves Monckton correct. The “worldly views” and

“compulsive examples” that Belfield mentions are too strong for most of the novel’s characters to resist.

Some of the members of Cecilia’s society, like the Harrels, actively embrace social custom, to their detriment. Mrs. Harrel refuses to curb their spending on the grounds that they do

“nothing but what every body else did” (193). Mr. Delvile and Mr. Briggs, though they never reach the same kind of despair that Mr. Harrel does, are also seduced by “eternal precepts” concerning the value of nobility and money. What makes custom seem so irresistible in this novel, however, is the fact that even people who try to resist it fail to do so. Belfield, for all his belief in the ability of humans to act contrary to social norms, is in many ways a slave to custom.

The son of a shopkeeper, he is sent by his father to university, where he meets men of fashion and falls into their habits. He is rendered unfit for his father’s profession, and he spends the novel in a vain quest for happiness, sampling a number of different careers and failing to be

288 satisfied with any of them. For Straub, Belfield’s progress “provides sobering evidence of the harm that individual deviation from custom and an exclusive dependence on one’s own understanding can do” (150). But while Belfield’s actions seem to represent a break from social norms, in fact he fails in his various endeavors because he desires to live like his upper-class acquaintances and is thus unable to tolerate any kind of occupation. Albany, too, seems like a character who manages to resist social custom—until we realize that, in his youth, he was enticed into a life of debauchery, which led to the death of his fiancée and his own madness.

Given this history, Albany seems less a virtuous figure breaking heroically from social norms, and more an example of how the lure of social vices can lead to madness and death.

Some of Cecilia’s characters manage to resist conforming to social custom, but are unable to escape social pressure of other kinds, such as the obligation conferred upon one by friendship or kinship. The novel shows through several examples that familial obligation can be a force as strong as custom. When Cecilia arrives in London, she is not attracted to the vapid lifestyle led by the Harrels and their circle. Neither is Mr. Arnott, who is described as “a young man of unexceptionable character” (52). Yet both of them feel obligated to give away their money in order to fund the extravagances of the Harrels. Mr. Arnott, being Mrs. Harrel’s sister, is tied to the Harrels by blood and is thus pressured into assisting them. Cecilia, when she first pays the Harrels’ bills, does so out of her friendship to Mr. Arnott: she is “shocked that such tenderness and good-nature should be thus grossly imposed upon” (174). Though nobody forces her or even demands that she surrender her fortune, she chooses to do so because she cannot bear to see Mr. Arnott so ill-used. Almost immediately after paying this first sum, Cecilia is moved to give yet more money to Mr. Harrel because of “her kindness for Mrs. Harrel” (192). The personal virtue of Cecilia and Mr. Arnott cannot save them from the fact that they are

289 inextricably tied to vicious profligates by bonds of blood and friendship. As Margaret Anne

Doody puts the point, “Cecilia’s assumption that she can ‘resolve to select’ only the good, the wise, or delightful as friends is subtly absurd.”24

Social pressure works on Cecilia not only through the obligations of kinship and friendship, but also through rumor and gossip. At various points in the novel, Cecilia is assumed to be in love with either Sir Robert Floyer or Mr. Belfield. While this gossip does not actually compel her to marry either of these individuals, it nonetheless has power to harm her. The hearsay linking Cecilia with Belfield has dire consequences towards the end of the narrative.

Both Mr. Delvile and Mortimer, in separate instances, find Cecilia in circumstances that lend credence to the rumor. Mr. Delvile’s conviction that Cecilia is involved with Belfield increases his anger at her, so much so that he refuses to help her at the novel’s climax when she is mad and in distress. Mortimer’s suspicions of Belfield, of course, propel him to seek satisfaction; fear that

Mortimer will fight a duel with Belfield is what drives Cecilia to madness. Try as she might to escape its influences, her association with fashionable London society makes her a topic of discussion and speculation, putting her in vulnerable and harmful positions.

These various forms of social pressure—custom, social obligation, and rumor—combine to render Cecilia and the other characters we care about unhappy. For instance, Mortimer’s unwillingness to take Cecilia’s name arises from several sources. First, social custom dictates that the man take the woman’s surname, and not vice versa. Second, Mortimer’s father embraces the cultural precept that his family name is to be treasured and preserved. Third, Mr. Delvile’s feelings are further hardened against Cecilia because of the gossip about her. Fourth, though

Mortimer does not share his father’s beliefs, he has the obligation of a son to his father. Though

24 Margaret Anne Doody, Frances Burney: The Life in the Works (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1988), 117.

290 he could defy his father’s will, he naturally feels some reluctance to do so. As Megan A.

Woodworth notes, Mortimer’s position as Mr. Delvile’s only son “makes him dependent on the whims of his father and perpetuates a cycle of tyranny.”25 Together, these forces cause Mortimer to marry Cecilia without taking her name, thus depriving her of her remaining fortune. The point is that the various kinds of social pressure form a snare from which no character manages to escape. Merely to be a part of society in Cecilia opens oneself up to risk; even if one manages to avoid the tyranny of social custom, one is likely to be connected to those who do not, or to feel the effects of gossip and rumor.

One might object that, since the characters bring much of their difficulties upon themselves, that Burney is using satire to warn her readers against bad choices rather than to convey a pessimistic worldview. If the problems of Cecilia and many of her friends arise from their own decisions, might not the novel be suggesting that one can obtain happiness if only one avoids doing such things as giving away thousands of pounds to a spendthrift or marrying in such a way as to render one homeless and penniless? Such a view might be more plausible if

Burney included some characters who were not vicious in themselves and who managed to escape experiencing some type of harm because of social pressure. Because the novel lacks any character who is truly exemplary, and because so many characters are unable to withstand the compulsion of social forces, we are more likely to feel that making good decisions and resisting social pressure, as Belfield would have all people do, is extremely difficult, if not impossible.

25 Megan A. Woodworth, Eighteenth-Century Women Writers and the Gentleman’s Liberation Movement: Independence, War, Masculinity, and the Novel, 1778–1818 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), 72.

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The Grim Realism of “Cecilia”

Cecilia is similar to Pompey not just in its suggestion that the harmful effects of social vice are inescapable, but also because we are given no reason to believe that society will change for the better. Indeed, the pessimism of Cecilia in this respect is more intense. In Pompey, we get a sense that its characters remain static, but because Cecilia follows the same set of characters over the course of the narrative, we actually see their failure to reform. Cecilia confirms what Pompey suggests: that social vice is not easily cured, and that the problems the novel describes will, in all likelihood, continue to menace and harm others even after the novel’s conclusion.

The clearest example the novel gives of the unwillingness of people to improve themselves is the Harrels. Cecilia warns Mrs. Harrel of the danger of their extravagant lifestyle and gives her sensible advice about how they can live more frugally, only to have her friend respond that such a reform would be impossible because “it would seem such an odd thing”

(194). Even after several brushes with creditors, Mr. Harrel refuses to change his ways—indeed, he redoubles his energies and spends even more money, afraid that his acquaintances will suspect his dire financial straits. So recalcitrant is Mr. Harrel that he would rather die than reform; halfway through the novel, he kills himself at Vauxhall. One would think that Mrs.

Harrel would be chastened by this traumatic experience, but she learns nothing from it; instead, she cannot understand how Mr. Harrel winds up in so much debt. At the end of the novel, we are told that she “married very soon a man of fortune in the neighbourhood, and, quickly forgetting all the past, thoughtlessly began the world again, with new hopes, new connections,—new equipages and new engagements!” (940). Profligacy has become for her an unbreakable addiction.

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The unwillingness to change one’s way of living is not a fault of the Harrels alone, but of most of the novel’s characters, as the final chapter of the novel illustrates. When Mr. Delvile discovers that Cecilia has been driven mad partly by his own cruelty, he briefly regrets his haughtiness, but by the end of the novel he has reverted to his old way of thinking, valuing blood and rank above all things. Mr. Monckton likewise refuses to admit his fault, insisting even after his perfidy has been discovered that his actions were motivated through friendship towards

Cecilia (929). We are told that Belfield “roved from employment to employment . . . soured with the world, and discontented with himself,” until he decides to rejoin the army. But while “his hopes were revived by ambition” at this new development, we are given no assurances that this new attempt will succeed better than his previous stint in the same profession, or than any of his other career choices (940). The final chapter does not tell us of the fates of such characters as

Mrs. Larolles or Mr. Morrice, but given that we have proof positive that some of the novel’s most flawed characters do not reform, we have little cause to believe that they abandon their dangerous behaviors. The world Burney portrays is one in which past behavior is unfortunately the best predictor of future behavior.

To be fair, Burney provides a pair of examples of characters who have altered their ways.

But the changes that they make come at great personal cost. Mr. Albany, as we have seen, leads a debauched lifestyle in his youth, and eventually makes a radical life shift when he becomes a somber moralist. He does not reach this stage, however, until after he recovers from the madness brought on by the death of his betrothed. Mrs. Delvile is the other example, as she eventually drops her opposition to Mortimer’s marriage to Cecilia. She only does so after experiencing severe illness caused by a brain aneurysm, however, and her alteration of opinion is not as radical as it might be: she encourages Mortimer to marry Cecilia, but only if she surrenders her

293 name and fortune. Though Mrs. Delvile reverses her opinion, she retains the same pride that causes her initially to disapprove of the marriage. Even this slight change causes Mrs. Delvile’s estrangement from her husband. Reform is possible, but highly unlikely unless one experiences some drastic catastrophe. And Mrs. Delvile and Albany are exceptions; as the example of Mrs.

Harrel shows, sometimes even an utterly calamitous situation is not enough to spur self- reflection, much less meaningful improvement. The status quo is much more likely to remain so than to change.

Given that Burney depicts a vicious society that is unlikely to improve, we may be tempted to read Cecilia as a conservative novel. Terry Castle suggests that in this work, Burney is a “female apologist for the ancient régime.”26 The novel, she argues, contains within it a carnivalesque fantasy of “the derangement of the status quo,” but that this fantasy is never realized. Burney does not show her society changing, and so the novel is “a dystopia, the projection of failed revolutionary hopes” (288–89). While one can read Burney as a reactionary, she seems much more a realist. The society she depicts is clearly in need of change; Cecilia is highly critical of things as they are. The failure of change to occur suggests not that Burney approved of the status quo but that she could see no realistic way of remedying it. She seems to have realized, with considerable justification, that one cannot make radical alterations in the way society operates merely by wishing it so.

A realistic outlook on the possibility of change informs the novel’s conclusion, which is relatively downbeat. Even though Cecilia finally obtains recognition by the Delvile family, her life is not a happy one. We are told that Cecilia “knew that, at times, the whole family must murmur at her loss of fortune, and at times she murmured herself to be thus portionless, tho’ an

26 Terry Castle, Masquerade and Civilization: The Carnivalesque in Eighteenth-Century English Culture and Fiction (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1986), 289.

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HEIRESS.” She must learn to bear “partial evil with chearfullest resignation” (941). Few eighteenth-century novels end without promising their protagonists unmitigated bliss; Burney’s decision to bring up Cecilia’s sorrows is a radical move. This ending was written to make the novel more realistic: Burney writes in a letter to her friend Samuel Crisp that the novel would seem a “Farce . . . if the whole is to end, like the hack Italian Operas, with a Jolly chorus that makes all parties good, & all parties happy! . . . Besides, I think the Book, in its present conclusion, somewhat original, for the Hero & Heroine are neither plunged in the depths of misery, nor exalted to unhuman happiness.”27 Burney seems to understand that “all parties good,

& all parties happy” is not the way of the world, especially one as depraved as that of this novel.

Her response to the insoluble problems she depicts is resignation. Cecilia must learn to live with the evils of the world; so, the novel seems to say, must we all.

This attitude differs from that which we find in Pompey the Little. Coventry seems to suggest that the only way to deal with an absurdly depraved world is to laugh at it. While Cecilia contains some humor, we get the sense that Burney does not laugh at her world. But despite the differences between Cecilia and Pompey, both works suggest that society is generally wicked, and that escaping the effects of social wickedness is impossible. Even though the satiric techniques and the exact nature of each author’s pessimism is different, in terms of satiric aim

Burney and Coventry share much more with each other than either do with other satiric novelists like Sterne or Bage. Considering them together shows us that different satiric techniques can nonetheless work to promote similar pessimistic worldviews.

27 Frances Burney, The Early Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney, vol. 5, 1782–1783, ed. Lars E. Troide and Stewart J. Cooke (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2012), 43–44.

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IV. Castle Rackrent and Negative Uncertainty

Maria Edgeworth is generally considered a didactic novelist; while many of her novels contain satiric elements, most do not seem predominantly or even substantially satiric. Castle Rackrent is, however, an exception. The novel’s name signals its satiric nature: just as the names of such satiric characters as Peachum, Thwackum, and Justice Gobble suggest some sort of vice, so

“Castle Rackrent” calls to mind Anglo-Irish landlords charging extortionate rents from their native Irish tenants. As the title indicates, the narrative chronicles the vices, excesses, and gross mismanagement of four successive heads of the Rackrent family, all of whom come to grief. At first glance, the novel appears to be a fairly straightforward satire on the policies of the Anglo-

Irish.

Though Edgeworth indeed satirizes the behavior of landlords in Ireland, nothing about

Castle Rackrent’s satire is straightforward, as the wildly diverse response of critics attests. For some readers, the novel is an anti-colonial work; Edgeworth protests the colonial abuses of the

Protestant Ascendancy. Joanne Cordon, for instance, reads Castle Rackrent as a progressive text, as it challenges harmful stereotypes of Irishness that “do the political work of keeping things the way they are for those in power.”28 Yet the novel can also be read as a tool of colonialism. For

Susan B. Egenolf, the novel works to suggest that the Anglo-Irish control of Ireland is a system of “benevolent patronage”; for Mary Jean Corbett, it attempts to teach landlords how to treat their tenants in such a way as to maintain Anglo-Irish dominance and generate “the kind of

(misplaced) loyalty the Rackrents inspire.”29 All of these critics assume that Edgeworth writes with some sort of positive agenda, but what such an agenda comprises is not obvious, if it exists

28 Cordon, “Revising Stereotypes of Nationality and Gender,” 132–33. 29 Egenolf, The Art of Political Fiction, 47; Mary Jean Corbett, Allegories of Union in Irish and English Writing, 1790–1870: Politics, History, and the Family from Edgeworth to Arnold (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 41.

296 at all. Edgeworth clearly employs satire here, but she appears deliberately to obfuscate her own position on the issue she satirizes.

Instead of assuming that Edgeworth is either attempting to shore up Anglo-Irish colonial rule or undermine it, we need to consider the possibility that Edgeworth is writing pessimistic satire, and thus promotes no positive position in this work. Her use of such satire differs from that of Coventry and Burney; Castle Rackrent does not instill its readers with a sense of the depravity of society at large. Rather, Edgeworth examines a specific issue, critiques various sides of it, and does not suggest or imply that the situation will improve. The reader leaves Castle

Rackrent with no clear sense that the problems of Ireland can be addressed.

The Two-Part Structure of “Castle Rackrent”

That something is wrong with Ireland is made clear early in the novel. The bulk of the story is narrated by Thady Quirk, a long-time retainer of the Rackrent family and the father of Jason

Quirk, the man who eventually takes over the Rackrent estate. The story he tells is at times darkly humorous, but ultimately it is a tale of decline and decay. In the first paragraph of his narration, we learn that he is himself poor, and that his son “looks down upon” him.30 In the next few pages, he recounts Sir Patrick Rackrent’s death after a heavy bout of drinking. We learn more about his demise and funeral than we do about his life; this anecdote sets us up to expect the rest of the tale to be somber. Sure enough, Thady proceeds to tell of three successive

Rackrent landlords, all of whom die: Sir Murtagh bursts a blood vessel whilst arguing with his wife; his brother Sir Kit perishes foolishly in a duel, and Sir Condy dies after draining Sir

Patrick’s drinking horn in one breath. The gloom that surrounds the Rackrent family seems to

30 Maria Edgeworth, Castle Rackrent, in The Novels and Selected Works of Maria Edgeworth, vol. 1, ed. Jane Desmarais, Tim McLoughlin, and Marilyn Butler (London: Pickering and Chatto, 1999), 10. All references to Castle Rackrent are to this edition.

297 extend to Ireland itself: the lives of the native Irish do not seem much happier than those of the

Rackrents.

The first part of Thady’s narration, covering the lives of Sir Patrick, Sir Murtagh, and Sir

Kit, suggests that the country’s woes are due to the cruel and imprudent behavior of the

Protestant Ascendancy. The Rackrents are a native Irish family by origin—the old family name is O’Shaughlin—but Sir Patrick changes his surname to Rackrent in order to inherit the estate from his cousin, Sir Tallyhoo Rackrent (10). The implication is that the family also converts to

Protestantism; otherwise they could not legally inherit land. The faults of the Rackrents, then, seem to be an indictment of the entire class of Protestant landlords. All three enact policies that harm their tenants. Sir Patrick is popular with the native Irish, but is a poor manager and dies in debt. His successor, Sir Murtagh, is more obviously cruel. He oppresses his tenants by demanding duty-work at inconvenient times from those who displease him. We also learn that his wife forces the children at her charity-school to spin yarn for her, and that the tenants provide her with gifts of produce for fear that she will drive up their rents. Naturally, the tenants rejoice when Sir Murtagh finally dies and his wife departs—and we feel that his untimely death is somewhat deserved.

Sir Kit does not, at first, seem as oppressive as Sir Murtagh, but we soon learn that he, too, is irresponsible and cruel. Soon after he inherits the Rackrent estate he leaves for England, placing an agent in charge. In England, Sir Kit takes to gambling, and his agent squeezes the tenants for money in order to finance his master’s vice. The full extent of his inhumanity is only made clear when he returns with a Jewish wife, whom he has married for her money. Because she refuses to surrender her valuable diamond cross to him, and protests when Sir Kit tries to

298 make her consume pork, he shuts her up in her room for seven years; only upon his death is she released.

At this point in the tale, Thady’s son Jason seems to be a positive foil for the Rackrents.

Most critics, when describing Jason, focus on his negative qualities. As Irene Basey Beesemyer writes, Jason’s methods of advancement are “disloyal, crass, grubbing, and drearily industrious.”31 Yet in the first part of the novel, what little we learn about Jason is almost entirely positive; certainly he does not seem to be a particularly negative or villainous character in contrast to the Rackrents. When Jason is first introduced, Thady tells us that he is intelligent, and that he works for the Rackrents gratis, as he “was always proud to serve the family” (16). While our judgment of the Rackrents is negative, that negativity does not extend to Jason, who seems at worst mostly harmless and at best a good and loyal man. Later, we learn that Jason frees Sir Kit’s wife from imprisonment after Sir Kit’s death. The news of her husband’s decease “bereaved her of her senses at first,” and she initially believes that she is being tricked into surrendering her jewels. Once again, Jason plays a benevolent role: he thinks of showing her Sir Kit’s corpse, which immediately restores her to sanity (22). Because we are led to pity Sir Kit’s wife and deplore Sir Kit’s cruel treatment of her, Jason here appears to be a thoughtful and humane figure whose actions we can admire.

The successive tales of Sir Patrick, Sir Murtagh, and Sir Kit establish a narrative pattern: an incompetent landlord mismanages the estate, to the detriment of the native Irish tenants. Were the story to end at this point, it would read like a somewhat dark but ultimately instructive satire cautioning Anglo-Irish landlords against heavy-handed treatment of the native Irish, or perhaps an attack upon the system of Anglo-Irish colonial governance. We are encouraged to make

31 Irene Basey Beesemyer, “‘I thought I never set my eyes on a finer figure of a man’: Maria Edgeworth Scrutinizes Masculinity in Castle Rackrent, Ennui, and The Absentee,” in New Essays on Maria Edgeworth, ed. Julie Nash (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 109–129, at 119.

299 negative judgments against the Rackrents, and consequently we are likely to see the native Irish positively. At times, they are presented as victims; when, for instance, Thady narrates the anecdote of the maid who, to avoid fainting, eats a piece of roast beef during Lent and is subsequently forced to do penance for this transgression, we see her as a sufferer of gross injustice (12). Alternately, they are presented, like Jason, as decent individuals who counteract the cruelties of their masters. We are thus led to believe that the point Edgeworth is making is that the landlord class ought either to treat the native Irish with more leniency or be abolished altogether.

The second part of the narrative, the “History of Sir Conolly Rackrent,” upends our expectations. In this part, Thady tells the tale of the last Rackrent landlord, Sir Condy. Given the histories of his predecessors, we might predict that Sir Condy will oppress his tenants, charge exorbitant rents, or be guilty of some other kind of cruelty. We learn, however, that nothing could be further from the truth. Sir Condy is generous to a fault. Even when he has lost the

Rackrent estate and the majority of his fortune, he insists on buying Judy a new shawl and giving each of her children a guinea. In contrast to Sir Murtagh and his wife, who rule the tenants through fear, Sir Condy kindly allows the tenants’ children to “go a nutting in the demesne without saying a word to them” (45). The contrast with Sir Kit is even starker. Whereas Sir Kit keeps his wife captive, Sir Condy frees his future wife from imprisonment; we are told that

Isabella Moneygawl is “locked up in her chamber, and forbid to think of him any more” by her family, who oppose marriage with Sir Condy, but he defiantly carries her off with her consent to

Scotland and marries her (28).

This romantic exploit notwithstanding, the most significant difference between Sir Condy and the Rackrents before him is his passivity. The other three Rackrents are defined by some

300 active trait: Sir Patrick drinks, Sir Murtagh litigates, Sir Kit gambles and fights duels. But Sir

Condy does not act so much as he is acted upon. Most of the major decisions he makes are not made purely of his own volition, but urged upon him by someone else. He does not want to stand for Parliament, but is pushed to do so by his friends, who “wrote all his circular letters for him, and engaged all his agents, and did all the business unknown to him” (33). The signing over of the estate to Jason is done at Jason’s urging. Condy would rather ignore the business; he tells

Jason to “settle all as you will . . . but let me hear no more; I’m bothered to death this night” (45).

He does not even determine for himself who he will marry. Instead of choosing between Judy and Isabella, he flips a coin, abiding by the result even though Thady believes he would have preferred to marry Judy.

While the Rackrent landlord in this section of the narrative seems much more passive, the native Irish become much more active. Sir Murtagh and Sir Kit are figured as oppressors of their tenants, but Sir Condy reverses this paradigm: he becomes the victim, and various native Irish figures become his oppressors. The clearest instance of this shift is in the character of Jason.

Loyal and benevolent in the first part of the narrative, he becomes a scheming manipulator in the second part, taking advantage of Sir Condy’s weakness and irresponsibility for his own profit.

But Sir Condy’s tenants, too, are implicated in his downfall. Even during Sir Kit’s lifetime, tenants lend Sir Condy money on the assumption that when he comes into the estate, he will repay them; as a result, his first year’s income is “almost all paid away in interest” (26). When

Sir Condy is elected to Parliament, “shoals of people,” alleging that they voted for him, claim of him promises which he does not remember making (35). Sir Condy bears much of the blame for being cheated in this way; his negligence leads us to judge him negatively. But we are also led to

301 see the native Irish as grasping and rapacious, ready to prey upon Sir Condy when given the opportunity.

We may even suspect, at this stage in the novel, that Thady is not the loyal retainer that he claims to be. A number of readers have argued that Thady actively abets Jason’s acquisition of the Rackrent estate.32 I believe the issue of Thady’s loyalty is indeterminable, and I do not propose here to resolve the issue definitively. What is certain, however, is that the strongest evidence for Thady’s disloyalty comes from the second part of the book. In the first paragraph of the second part, we learn that Thady has told the young Condy stories of the Rackrent family’s greatness. As Sharon Murphy observes, “it is because Thady fills his head with stories that

Condy becomes increasingly certain that he will inherit, and this, in its turn, leads him to abandon the studies through which he could have become his family’s saviour” (148). In this way, Thady is either deliberately or inadvertently the prime mover of Sir Condy’s ruin. Judy is also introduced in this part of the novel, and we may suspect, as Newcomer does, that Thady encourages Sir Condy to marry Judy for selfish reasons (147). More directly, Thady leads to his master’s fall by introducing the agent who buys up all of Sir Condy’s debts to Jason. Regardless of whether or not we conclude Thady to have acted maliciously or innocently, in this part of the narrative we are at least given room to doubt his loyalty and reassess our judgments of him.

The effect of the second section of the novel is to cast doubt upon any ideas about the cause of Ireland’s problems that we may have developed in the first section. Earlier, Edgeworth has led us to believe that the poverty of the country is caused by the Anglo-Irish landlords’ ruthless treatment of their tenants, and that the landlords must either change their ways or be removed from power. Yet the tale of Sir Condy suggests that landlords who treat their tenants

32See, for instance, James Newcomer, Maria Edgeworth the Novelist: 1767–1849, A Bicentennial Study (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1967), 144–51; Sharon Murphy, Maria Edgeworth and Romance (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2004), 147–51.

302 with leniency are liable to be taken advantage of, and that the native Irish are far from innocent.

Furthermore, Edgeworth provides no confidence that the demise of the Rackrent family will lead to improvement. As Declan Kiberd puts the point, Jason and the rising Irish middle class that he represents are, to Edgeworth, “dark, unknowable, ferocious.”33 Given Jason’s amorality and passion for self-advancement, we have no cause to believe that he will treat the peasants any better than Sir Murtagh or Sir Kit.

Terry Eagleton aptly compares Castle Rackrent to the fourth part of Gulliver’s Travels: in both cases, “it is hard . . . to know exactly who or what is being satirized.”34 Edgeworth seems deliberately to have made her satire ambiguous. This decision makes little sense if we consider

Edgeworth as a satirist attempting to champion a particular cause—but if we view the novel through the lens of pessimistic satire, her narrative choices are more understandable.

Negative Uncertainty and Pessimistic Satire

The effect of the two-part structure of Castle Rackrent seems to be principally befuddlement.

Because Edgeworth leads the readers towards straightforward condemnation of the Anglo-Irish landlord class only to complicate our sense of the situation in the second part, we are left unsure of where she stands on the issue of how Ireland ought to be governed. The confusion is especially pronounced because the reader enters the narrative believing that it is a “plain unvarnished tale,” as the Editor proclaims in the Preface (5). As we can see, the story is not plain at all but carefully structured to make the reader unsure of what ideal relations between the

Anglo-Irish and the native Irish might be. But why would Edgeworth present the reader with such a complex text in the guise of a simple one?

33 Declan Kiberd, Irish Classics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001), 261. 34 Terry Eagleton, Heathcliff and the Great Hunger: Studies in Irish Culture (London: Verso, 1995), 163.

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The question takes on even greater importance when we realize that the novel’s two-part structure is just one of several ways that Edgeworth leads the reader to a position of uncertainty.

While the sudden shift from a landlord-as-tyrant narrative to a landlord-as-victim one is the novel’s primary way of sowing confusion, the editorial apparatus also contributes significantly.

As several critics have noted, the position of the Editor is inconsistent and difficult to pin down.35 At times, the Editor’s comments deride the native Irish, as when he discusses Irish litigiousness, or when he describes Irish wakes as “orgies of unholy joy” (67). In these comments, the Editor portrays the native Irish as lazy, greedy, and debauched. Yet the Editor also does not hesitate to explain the ways in which the Anglo-Irish landlords abuse their tenants.

The gloss of the term “duty fowls” reveals the Editor’s disapproval of the practice; he writes that tenants must “supply an inordinate quantity of poultry to their landlords” (58; my emphasis).

The gloss on the phrase “English tenants” suggests the Irish lower classes are no worse than the

English at paying their rents on time (58). Most forcefully, the Editor decries the practice of duty-work, which he condemns as “the height of absurd injustice” (59). The combination of these kinds of comments with those foregrounding the faults of the native Irish amplify the sense that we get from Thady’s two-part narrative that the Irish peasants and those who rule them are both simultaneously victims and victimizers, abusers and abused.

Given the ambiguity of both Thady’s narrative and the Editor’s apparatus, the fact that each ends with an unanswered question is fitting. One of the last events that Thady narrates is a lawsuit between Isabella Moneygawl and Jason about the jointure Sir Condy settled upon

Isabella before his death. Jason has previously purchased the jointure from Sir Condy, but the record of this transaction “not being on stamped paper, some say it is worth nothing, others again

35 See Susan Glover, “Glossing the Unvarnished Tale: Contra-dicting Possession in Castle Rackrent,” Studies in Philology 99, no. 3 (2002): 295–311, at 297–98; Clíona Ó Gallchoir, Maria Edgeworth: Women, Enlightenment and Nation (Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2005), 62–63.

304 it may do; others say, Jason won’t have the lands at any rate” (54). We never learn the ultimate outcome of this struggle, but are left in doubt. After Thady’s narrative, the Editor inserts a few final paragraphs to conclude the novel. The last sentence is even more productive of doubt: “Did the Warwickshire militia, who were chiefly artisans, teach the Irish to drink beer? or did they learn from the Irish to drink whiskey?” (54). Ending the novel with not just one but two unanswered questions signals that the novel, as a whole, is intended to provide the reader with a sense of incertitude.

All of these sources of obfuscation suggest that Edgeworth attempts to write a particular kind of pessimistic satire in Castle Rackrent. Some critics have read the novel as advocating a system of reform—that it encourages landlords to change their behavior and be more lenient to tenants.36 But given the uncertainty that readers are led to feel at the end of the novel, they are unlikely to have a clear sense of what steps to take. Given that the extreme failures of landlords and tenants are both vividly portrayed, imagining how harmony between them can be achieved is difficult. Edgeworth depicts a clearly dysfunctional system and shows two different ways in which the system can fail without depicting a successful way to order the relationship between landlord and tenant.

This kind of pessimistic satire differs from that which we have seen earlier in this chapter. The other novels of pessimistic satire we have examined encourage the reader to feel, with some assurance, that society or human nature is inherently broken. The ending of Cecilia, for instance, proclaims with confidence that in this world, “of the few who had any happiness, there were none without some misery” (941). Pompey the Little, by showing many examples of

36 See Eve Walsh Stoddard, Positioning Gender and Race in (Post)colonial Plantation Space: Connecting Ireland and the Caribbean (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 61; Robert Tracy, The Unappeasable Host: Studies in Irish Identities (Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 1998), 25.

305 vice and hardship throughout society, leads the reader to a similar conclusion. But whereas those novels provide the reader with a conviction that the world is depraved, Castle Rackrent instead encourages doubt. The novel never asserts outright that the problems of Ireland are insoluble, but by building up the reader’s confidence in one point of view only to destroy that confidence, it leaves the reader uncertain of what a good solution would be. This uncertainty, however, is negative. While the novel does not rule out the possibility of improvement, it nonetheless leaves readers with an uncomfortable feeling that positive change is unlikely.

The negative uncertainty that Castle Rackrent induces colors our sense of where the text stands on the issue of the Union with Great Britain. Scholars of the novel have often interpreted it as a commentary on whether or not the Union is to be desired, but they have not agreed upon which side of the debate the novel champions. Some have considered it to be a pro-Union work.

For Corbett, the novel supports the Union because it will erase the identities of both abusive

Anglo-Irish landlords and the grubbing native Irish middle class; it will “consign the unsettling differences of Irish culture to a vanished—albeit necessarily representable—past” (50). For

Daniel Hack, Castle Rackrent shows that “Ireland on the one hand needs and on the other hand merits Union,” even as it also feeds English anxieties about the Union to demonstrate that the

Anglo-Irish are needed to control the native Irish.37 Others have suggested that the novel argues against Union, as Christina Morin does. Morin, arguing that the various failed marriages in the novel point to the impending failure of the Union, reads in Castle Rackrent “a decided preference for independence.”38

37 Daniel Hack, “Inter-Nationalism: Castle Rackrent and Anglo-Irish Union,” Novel 29, no. 2 (1996): 145–64, at 153. 38 Christina Morin, “Preferring Spinsterhood? Maria Edgeworth, Castle Rackrent, and Ireland,” Eighteenth- Century Ireland 23 (2008): 36–54, at 39.

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Certainly one can find evidence in the text to read it as either pro- or anti-Union. More likely, however, is that Edgeworth did not intend to write a text clearly in support of one camp or the other. As Ó Gallchoir writes, “we might ask ourselves why the Edgeworths were so anxious to publish a text of such indeterminate meaning at such a sensitive political time.”39

Indeterminacy seems to be the point: the text suggests that the future of the Union is unknowable. At the end of the narrative, the Editor opines that “it is a problem of difficult solution to determine, whether an Union will hasten or retard the melioration of this country”

(54). He goes on to suggest one way in which Ireland might benefit from the Union—the

“introduction of British manufacturers”—but also suggests that any well-educated Irishmen will move to England. The issue is left open: the Editor seems genuinely unsure of whether the net effect of the Union will be positive or negative, and does not seem strongly to favor either union or independence. And while the Editor is not Edgeworth, Thady’s narrative does not clearly comment either way on the issue of Union. While the story of the Rackrents contains a number of failed marital unions, which can perhaps be read allegorically as symbolizing a failed union with Britain, the narrative also suggests that the Anglo-Irish class are unfit to rule, and so can also be read as supporting the ceding of Anglo-Irish power to the British. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, the uncertainty of the Editor seems meant to be passed on to the reader.

The uncertainty the reader feels on the question of the Union is, however, decidedly negative. Though the text does not rule out the possibility that the Union will be beneficial, it suggests that the “melioration of this country” is unlikely. This is not to say that Castle Rackrent is an anti-Union novel; we are also left uncertain whether independence would do much to help

Ireland either. One of the ways the text conveys the negativity of this uncertainty is through showing a number of different changes, none of which leads to improvement. No matter who is

39 Ó Gallchoir, Maria Edgeworth, 63.

307 in charge, the Rackrent estate seems to be in a state of constant deterioration. Newcomer fittingly describes the atmosphere of the novel as “compounded of whiskey, decay, rot, guttering candles, tobacco, damp, horse dung, and dust” (155). We almost never see anything positive happen to the Rackrents; they are in perpetual decline. The Editor’s paratext, likewise, provides us with many anecdotes criticizing either the native Irish or their landlords, but offers no stories of good governance. These facts do not comment directly on the Union, but they provide a sense that no change, whether it be union with Britain or Irish independence—will provide an easy solution to

Ireland’s problems.

The cyclical nature of the plot further reinforces our feeling that Ireland’s problems will continue after the Union. Though the first part of the novel differs significantly from the second part, as we have seen, the novel also contains many instances of repetition, the most prominent being Sir Condy’s death. When Sir Condy falls into a swoon after drinking the full contents of

Sir Patrick’s great drinking horn in one gulp, we cannot help but be reminded of Sir Patrick’s own death brought on by a fit after a heavy night of drinking. Other patterns recur as well, such as Sir Condy’s attempt to recreate Sir Patrick’s wake by spreading false reports of his death, or the fact that Sir Murtagh, Sir Kit, and Sir Condy all die childless. This is the sort of circularity that Kernan describes as the shape of the plot of satire: though the novel is by no means static, the past continues to repeat itself. Consequently, we are led to doubt that the Union—or any other change in Irish governance—will lead to the nation’s flourishing. After narrating the aftermath of Condy’s death, Thady states that he is “tired wishing for any thing in this world, after all I’ve seen in it” (54). Given the circular shape of the narrative, his unwillingness to hope for any change in the future seems justified. Like Thady, the reader is left uncertain about what the future will hold, but without the expectation that positive developments will ensue.

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Some might argue that a reading of Castle Rackrent as a pessimistic satire that creates negative uncertainty overlooks the novel’s humor. Kiberd, for instance, argues that “seen up close the struggles of the Rackrents might appear tragic; but viewed from a distance made possible by virtue of the sheer pace of narrative, they appear more comical than sad” (258). We have seen, in the previous chapter, works in which potentially tragic events are narrated comically, as when Joseph Andrews is nearly beaten to death. And, to be fair, we can find some humor in Thady’s narration, especially if we read him as a naïve character deluded into thinking the Rackrents are a great family and blind to the ways in which they destroy themselves. But much of the humor of Fielding and Smollett lies in the fact that the characters are exaggerated and do not seem to represent flesh-and-blood individuals; consequently, we can take their misfortunes less seriously. Edgeworth deploys some exaggeration in Castle Rackrent, but the notes of the Editor remind us that the situations described in the novel are real. We may be in danger, for instance, of reading Sir Murtagh and his wife as comic caricatures, but when the

Editor refers to presumably real instances of landlords abusing their tenants, we are less likely to find Sir Murtagh’s behavior amusing. What humor we find in Castle Rackrent is grim.

The negativity of Castle Rackrent, then, is different from what Cecilia and Pompey the

Little create, but is nonetheless recognizable as pessimistic satire. The novel is neither pro-Union nor anti-Union; it contains genuine uncertainty about the Union’s outcome. Nonetheless, it leads readers to a sense that the problems of Ireland are not easily addressed, and that social conditions are unlikely to improve, regardless of whatever changes do or do not occur. The novel’s final question about the Warwickshire militia is unsettling not because it suggests that the native Irish will corrupt the English, but because the question is genuinely unanswerable. Castle Rackrent

309 leaves us bewildered, not just about how the Union will affect Ireland, but about how, or whether, the problems of Ireland can be solved.

* * *

What conclusions can we draw about novels of pessimistic satire? One is that they are distinct from the other kinds of satire I describe. Pompey the Little, Cecilia, and Castle Rackrent all make use of satire, but they are radically different in terms of satiric aim from the enterprises we have examined in earlier chapters. They are not particularly funny; of these three novels, only

Pompey the Little makes extensive use of humor, and even then it is not quite as light-hearted as

Tristram Shandy or Headlong Hall. We can enjoy reading these novels, but their satire is clearly not meant to evoke breezy laughter; we feel something darker and more serious is being conveyed by the satirists. Yet they do not attempt to lead the reader to some sort of positive behavior. No individual action can change the general viciousness of the world of Pompey; no virtue is proof against the insidious networks of vice in Cecilia; and no solution is sure to improve the condition of Castle Rackrent’s Ireland. For all their differences, these three novels share a similar aim, one worth distinguishing from those of the other satiric novels we have discussed.

Yet comparing these novels also shows us a considerable degree of diversity within the category of pessimistic satire. One of the most obvious differences among the satire of these works is that of scope. Pompey conveys a general pessimism about human nature. Cecilia is slightly more focused in scope; though the novel suggests at its conclusion that all lives contain some misery, the narrative tends to focus on a specific social stratum. Unlike Coventry, Burney does not choose to depict the vices of beggars or thieves, preferring to focus on higher-class

310 individuals like Mr. Harrel and Mr. Delvile. Castle Rackrent’s satire is significantly more specific than that of either Pompey or Cecilia, dwelling on the particular problem of the relationship between Anglo-Irish landlords and their tenants, and commenting on the issue of the

Union. Pessimistic satire can be written on a range of subjects; it need not entail wholesale social condemnation or disgust with humanity, but can also express more limited negativity about a particular circumstance.

Just as novels of pessimistic satire differ in their scope, so too do they differ in their satiric techniques. Satirists can create a feeling of pessimism in multiple ways. They may choose to use dark humor to show some situation’s bleakness, or they may choose instead to depict dire circumstances befalling a character about which we have been made to care. They may present a panorama of different social vices, as Pompey does, or they may instead depict in detail a single vexed relationship, like that between landlords and tenants in Castle Rackrent. The narrator may directly present the reader with a pessimistic message, as in the ending of Cecilia, or may be unreliable, as Thady Quirk is, causing confusion and uncertainty. These differences in technique depend in part on the response of the satirist to the situation he or she writes about. As we have seen, for Coventry, the proper response to the fact that human nature is inherently perverse is bleak laughter; for Burney, the only rational stance one can take is quiet resignation to the world’s evils. Edgeworth, by contrast, responds to a puzzling quagmire with confusion and doubt. These are all pessimistic reactions, but they necessitate different types of satiric techniques.

Nonetheless, we can also find some common ground in the techniques these novelists use that should help us to identify other novels of pessimistic satire. In all of these novels, the emotional trajectory of the plot trends downward, or at least remains neutral—in none of the

311 works we have examined does the situation of the protagonists or the world in which they live seem to improve from the beginning of the narrative to the end. While many eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century novels end on at least a somewhat upbeat note, all three of the works we have examined here conclude flatly, even depressingly. All three novelists also avoid blaming specific individuals in their works; the problems they expose transcend any one person or group, but are more systemic. Even Edgeworth, focusing on the problems of Ireland, does not simply castigate the landlord class, but shows that the situation is more complicated. The issues that these novelists write about are too large to be resolved by the reform or removal of a single person or institution.

The most important common feature in these three novels, however, is that all three satirists are uncompromising realists—not in terms of striving to create realistic characters or situations in their novels, but in their willingness to depict unflinchingly what they likely felt to be harsh truths. They portray difficult problems without pretending that a solution exists. History has, at least to a degree, vindicated their pessimism. Were Coventry alive today he no doubt would find instances of political corruption, dissipation, hypocrisy, and folly to match those he mocks in Pompey. While conditions have improved since Burney’s time, social forces still strongly influence and constrain how both men and women behave, often in unhealthy ways.

And Ireland’s union with Great Britain did not solve all of that country’s problems.

We can find a similar willingness to expose insoluble evils not just in novels of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, but also in the works of such later authors as Dickens,

Hardy, and Waugh. Recognizing the distinctness of pessimistic satire should help us better appreciate the aims and satiric techniques of Coventry, Burney, and Edgeworth, but will also give us a way to describe many other satiric works. Humanity, after all, has always been plagued

312 by problems to which no obvious solution exists and questions that have no easy answers. Little wonder, then, that satirists across all periods choose the gloomy realism of pessimistic satire over entertainment, instruction, or attack.

CHAPTER SIX: ATTACK SATIRE: INCHBALD, HAMILTON, AND HOGG

I have spent much space arguing that conceiving of satire purely as attack limits our understanding of how novelists in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries employ satire.

We have seen that sometimes satirists write primarily to entertain; at other times they write to inculcate some beneficial lesson, and at still other times they write to express a sense of gloom and pessimism. Yet expanding our understanding of novelistic satire’s various aims raises several important questions. First, how do we distinguish attack satire from other forms? In other words, what are the identifying characteristics of attack satire? Second, what are the different ways in which novelists can attack targets in their works?

Considering the purpose of attack—to cause harm to a target—can help us to answer these questions. Attack satire must do more than simply direct the reader’s negative judgment against something. In Fielding’s Joseph Andrews, for instance, our negative judgment is directed against such characters as Mrs. Tow-Wouse and Parson Barnabas, but we do not get the sense that the novel is designed to cause harm to selfish innkeeper’s wives or unfeeling clergymen. But a novel like Dickens’s Hard Times not only directs our negative judgment against industrial capitalism but seems designed to eradicate the cruelties of that system. The reader of Joseph

Andrews may be nudged towards charity, but does not feel a burning desire to eliminate cupidity from society. The reader of Hard Times, by contrast, not only feels that the abuses of

Bounderby’s real-life counterparts ought to be stopped, but is even exhorted in the novel’s final sentences to ensure that the harm caused by greedy capitalism and inhumane utilitarianism is put to an end. Fielding’s goal is to instruct gently; Dickens’s is to destroy a vicious and unjust system. 314

We should recognize, however, that satirists can try to harm their targets in various ways

(see Table 2 below). A boxer and a jujitsu practitioner may both seek to incapacitate their opponents, but their techniques and strategies differ wildly—so too with satire. In some cases, the satirist will attempt to depict the target as extremely threatening and horrific, aiming to anger or alarm the reader into destroying or harming the target. To take a relatively modern example,

Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle is a clear exemplar of this method of attack. The reader is made to see in unrelenting detail the horrors of the Chicago stockyards and the cruelty of the capitalists that create the suffering of Jurgis and his family. The novel attacks the idea of capitalism by presenting it as a brutal and terrifying system that must be eliminated. We can see a similar kind of approach to attack in such novels as Andrea Dworkin’s Mercy (1990), in which the various rapes suffered by the protagonist serve to show the consequences of patriarchal dehumanization of women. The reader is meant to be disturbed and disgusted by patriarchy generally, and especially by the way pornography furthers the objectification of women. Dworkin clearly seeks to motivate readers to struggle against rape and porn culture, even going so far as to accuse “sex- positive” feminists of being insufficiently willing to fight for social change.

Not all attack consists of attempts to horrify or shock the reader, however. In some cases the satirist attempts to expose the target not as abominable but as absurd or foolish. Calling someone monstrous is different from calling someone stupid, though both are aggressive provocations. If one can show that some person, institution, or idea is unreasonable, one harms that target’s creditability and dignity. Consider the kind of satire practiced by Samuel Foote in

The Minor (1760). The play seems meant to harm the Methodist movement by exposing its absurdity and thus lowering whatever validity it might have had with its audience. Foote does not portray Methodism as terrifying or outrageous, but he does suggest that it is contemptible; a

315 religion that does not demand that bawds such as Mrs. Cole reform their lives is not only unworthy of being taken seriously but also should be scorned as a sham. If the publication of such angry responses to the play as Christian and Critical Remarks on a Droll, or Interlude,

Called The Minor and The Theatre Licentious and Perverted are any evidence, Methodists and their sympathizers certainly felt attacked by the play.1 For a novelistic example of this sort of attack, we may point to Jaroslav Hašek’s The Good Soldier Schweik. Though the novel is quite humorous, its satire against war and the military has bite. Through Schweik’s interactions with various military figures, Hašek shows the hypocrisy and incompetence of various officers and soldiers, as well as the nonsensical nature of the military as an organization. In doing so, he deflates the notion that war is a glorious endeavor and that the army is a noble institution. The novel does not depict the horrors of war in great detail or present those who fight it as monsters, but it nonetheless seems designed to discredit it.

A third method of attack is simply to abuse the target. Here, the satirist neither makes the target hateful nor attempts to degrade it by exposing its absurdity, but mocks it. When Pope attacks various literary figures in The Dunciad, he does not present them as particularly threatening or show the reader why they are foolish. Instead he simply denigrates them. For instance, when he describes Eliza Haywood unflatteringly as having “cow-like udders,” he is not attempting to convince the reader of her dangerousness or foolishness, yet this gibe is nonetheless an attack of a sort.2 Likewise, Dryden’s Mac Flecknoe is less an exposure of Thomas

Shadwell’s faults than a brilliant rubbishing of him. Compared to the other two kinds of attack, how such put-downs damage their targets may not be immediately obvious, but anybody who

1 Martin Madan, Christian and Critical Remarks on a Droll, or Interlude, Called The Minor. . . . (London, 1760); James Baine, The Theatre Licentious and Perverted or, A Sermon for Reformation of Manners. . . . (Edinburgh, 1770). 2 Alexander Pope, The Poems of Alexander Pope, vol. 5, The Dunciad, ed. James Sutherland, 3rd ed. (London: Methuen, 1963), 303.

316 has felt the sting of an unkind word can appreciate how raw abuse has at least the potential to harm, especially if the target includes people without particularly thick skins.

Table 2. Different Methods of Attack

Method of Attack Examples Target(s) Horrifying/angering the audience by Upton Sinclair, The Jungle (1906) The meatpacking industry; presenting the target as an odious capitalism generally threat Andrea Dworkin, Mercy (1990) Patriarchy; pornography; “sex- positive” feminists

Mocking a target by exposing its Jaroslav Hašek, The Good Soldier War; the military ridiculousness/absurdity Schweik (1921–23)

Samuel Foote, The Minor (1760) Methodism

Raw abuse Alexander Pope, The Dunciad Colley Cibber; Various literary (1743) figures

John Dryden, Mac Flecknoe (1682) Thomas Shadwell

What I am describing is not three distinct types of attack satire, but three methods that satirists can use to harm their targets. Some works rely solely on one of these methods; The

Jungle, for instance, almost exclusively attempts to horrify its audience and contains no direct insult. Yet other works contain a mixture of methods. Though The Minor’s anti-Methodist satire mainly involves exposing the absurdity of the doctrine of faith without works, Foote also engages in personal insult by mocking George Whitefield’s squint in the character of Mr.

Squintum. And while attack in Hard Times consists largely in showing the horrific consequences of the beliefs of Gradgrind and Bounderby, Dickens also at times makes Gradgrind’s principles seem absurd, especially in the early chapters describing Gradgrind’s school. In distinguishing different ways in which satirists can attack, I hope not to impose rigid subcategories but to show that, within works best described as attack satires, we can nonetheless find considerable diversity.

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Given that targets can be harmed in varying ways, how can we identify attack satire and differentiate it from the other kinds of satire I have described? Despite the diversity of attacking methods, we can find some common characteristics that are indicative of attack satire. Most useful is the fact that attack satire tends to be relatively harsh in tone. If a satirist is attempting to horrify the audience, a light tone will not work; a reader is unlikely to be seriously repulsed or angered at something if the work is breezy and light-hearted. This is not to say that all attack satires must be as harsh in tone as The Jungle; a play like Nathaniel Lee’s The Princess of Cleve

(1682) manages to have its humorous moments and still present the libertine ethos as despicable.

And of course, works that insult a target or expose its absurdity tend to have a somewhat lighter tone than those which attempt to horrify or anger the audience. Yet even in a humorous work like

The Good Soldier Schweik, the jokes have an edge; Hašek does not let us forget that in the background, a generation of Europeans is slaughtering each other. The characters in Peacock’s

Headlong Hall are just as absurd as those of Schweik, but Peacock’s tone is decidedly lighter; the foolishness of his characters causes no real harm. For this reason we merely laugh at the foibles of Foster and Escot, but we feel that our attitude towards war in Schweik should be one of contempt. A degree of seriousness and a sense that the satirist truly hates what he or she targets is a common trait of attack satire regardless of the methods used to attack.

Attack satires also typically condemn a single target or a closely-related group of targets.

In their narrow scope, they are similar to instructive satires. Just as instructive satires tend to depict a particular problem or issue so as to convey a specific lesson, attack satires focus on some particular vice or evil. If the satirist’s goal is to harm a target, then the majority of the work will likely be devoted to either inspiring anger against that target or insulting it. As we have seen in the previous chapter, a satirist who engages many targets is more likely to be conveying a

318 general sense of pessimism, as Francis Coventry does in Pompey the Little, than trying to harm any of his individual targets. Smollett’s Adventures of an Atom would be a strange book indeed if, in addition to ridiculing the leading British politicians of his time, it also went on to attack (for instance) prominent actresses, pawn-shop owners, and cheese farmers.

In most attack satire, the satirist writes from a clearly identifiable position. As we will see, the ideological outlooks of the authors of Nature and Art, Memoirs of Modern Philosophers, and The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner are not difficult to discern:

Inchbald writes from a radical’s perspective, Hamilton from a Christian’s, and Hogg from that of one who despises Calvinism. These works thus differ from something like Edgeworth’s Castle

Rackrent or Peacock’s Headlong Hall, in which the satirist’s position is ambiguous or at least difficult to determine. If the satirist is trying to attack, we are almost never uncertain what the target is and where the satirist stands; an attack satire in which the target is unclear or uncertain is unlikely to be very effective. The satirist’s position is not always positive; Pope clearly stands against many foes in The Dunciad, but does not seem to stand for anything in particular. In many attack satires, however, the satirist holds some positive values. A novel like Jack London’s The

Iron Heel (1908) seeks to harm capitalism in order to advance socialism, and the attack in Hard

Times is premised on the belief that, absent its Bounderbys, the world would be a better place.

Though some satiric attack seems to have no justification beyond mere malice, much is carried out to effect some sort of beneficial change. In either case, however, the satirist’s attitude towards the target is not much in doubt.

These characteristics ought to help us more easily identify attack satires, but distinguishing them from other types can nonetheless be tricky. In the first section of this chapter, I will discuss Inchbald’s Nature and Art, comparing it with a novel I have already

319 discussed, Bage’s Hermsprong. The novels were both published in 1796 and are written from a radical perspective, and in many ways they advance similar ideas. But despite their similarities, I believe that Inchbald’s satiric aim is different from Bage’s, and that her satire is motivated more strongly by an impulse to attack. Comparing the two works will clarify what distinguishes satiric novels of attack from other types.

In the following sections, I will turn to Hamilton’s Memoirs of Modern Philosophers and

Hogg’s Confessions of a Justified Sinner. These novels both seek to harm their targets, but they employ different methods. Determining the techniques they use to attack should give us a sense of the diverse possibilities open to novelists trying to damage some hated person, group, or idea.

Some critics have thought that the novel form is inimical to attack. According to this logic, the novelist must not only make characters believable and therefore somewhat realistic, but must bring the narrative to a fulfilling conclusion and give meaning to the narrative as a whole— undertakings that would distract the novelist from attacking targets. Matthew Hodgart, treating satire as attack, writes that we expect novelists to “give us a realistic transcript of life as it is lived, provide models for behaviour, both in morality and in style of life; and at the same time he may give his narrative a structure of myth or symbolism to give a more than literal meaning to the events he describes.” These expectations, Hodgart argues, are “inconsistent with the simplicity of satire,” which seeks “to make a simple point effectively.”3 As I hope to show from the examples in this chapter, however, the novel form is hardly incompatible with attack.

Novelistic elements such as plot and character, far from diluting attack or making denunciation impossible, are instead crucial to the ways in which these authors try to damage their targets.

3 Hodgart, Satire, 214.

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I. Attack vs. Instruction: Psychological Realism in Inchbald’s Nature and Art

In many ways, Nature and Art seems much like another satiric novel we have already discussed,

Bage’s Hermsprong. Both are Jacobin novels and focus on similar targets: the rich and powerful, especially the aristocracy and the Church of England. Nature and Art begins with two poor orphans, Henry and William, making their way to London. Once there, Henry manages to support the pair by playing the violin; in time, he earns enough to send William to an Oxbridge university. Henry’s success even enables him to help William rise in the church. Henry’s kindness, however, inflames William’s pride. Having become a dean, William despises Henry’s status as a low entertainer and falls out with him over Henry’s marriage to a singer (William himself marries the high-born Lady Clementina). Henry, upon the death of his wife, leaves the country for an African island with his son (also named Henry), where they are captured by the inhabitants. The narrative then shifts its focus to the next generation. Young Henry escapes the island and returns to England, where he is taken in by William and educated alongside the

Dean’s son (also named William). Young Henry, being a stranger to civilization, acts as a naïve satirist figure; his simple nature allows him to point out the absurdities of English culture. The two cousins grow to adulthood and resemble their fathers: young William is selfish and cruel, while young Henry is thoughtful, compassionate, and rational.

Young Henry falls in love with Rebecca, a curate’s daughter and autodidact. Young

William, meanwhile, seduces a poor girl named Hannah, impregnates her, and abandons her.

When the child is born, Hannah tries to kill him, but he is saved by young Henry. Although the child is initially presumed to be young Henry’s, the truth eventually comes out; though the Dean initially condemns Henry harshly for sexual impropriety, he does not blame his son when he is discovered to be the real father. Shamed and ostracized, Hannah leaves her village and

321 eventually becomes a prostitute and a criminal in London. She is caught and tried by young

William, now a magistrate, who condemns her to death. In the interim, Henry leaves England to search for his father. Years later, he returns to England with the elder Henry and reunites with

Rebecca, where they retire to a cottage and pass their lives in simplicity.

In some respects the satire operates similarly to that of Hermsprong. Just as

Hermsprong’s education among the Native Americans inures him to the prejudices of English society, so young Henry’s simple upbringing makes him a perceptive social critic. For instance, he has difficulty mastering the usage of words in England: “he would call compliments, lies—

Reserve, he would call pride—stateliness, affection—and for the words war and battle, he constantly substituted the word massacre.”4 And like Hermsprong, the novel also employs much irony aside from Henry’s remarks, as when the writer of a libel assures Lady Clementina that she is not the target, as “unless we are deceived in our information, we always take care to libel the innocent” (68). Both the elder and the younger Henry serve as admirable characters, as

Hermsprong does; Dean William and his son illustrate the arrogance and hypocrisy of the wealthy, as Lord Grondale and Dr. Blick do. The similarities between these works have not been lost on critics. Nancy E. Johnson, for instance, classes these novels together among those that try to promote the concept of the “new citizen,” an independent and empowered individual who participates responsibly in his public community.5 Mona Scheuermann finds that in Nature and

Art Inchbald “writes the same kind of novel as Bage, bringing wit and skepticism to her depictions of life up and down the social scale.”6

4 Inchbald, Nature and Art, 63. 5 Nancy E. Johnson, The English Jacobin Novel on Rights, Property and the Law: Critiquing the Contract (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 56. 6Mona Scheuermann, Her Bread to Earn: Women, Money, and Society from Defoe to Austen (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1993), 169.

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Given these resemblances, we might be tempted to feel that Nature and Art shares the satiric aim of Hermsprong. And indeed, at times the novel seems designed to instruct rather than to attack, as when the narrator compares the lives of the two elder brothers in Chapter XXXVII.

This episode seems designed to convey to the reader the point that a clear conscience and benevolent disposition are more important to happiness than wealth and splendor. Yet Nature and Art differs from Hermsprong in a number of crucial ways, such that while parts of the novel instruct, the artifact as a whole seems more concerned with rousing the reader’s ire at the abuses of the wealthy than with gently promoting a certain mode of behavior.

One of the most obvious differences between the two novels is that we see in much grimmer detail in Nature and Art the consequences of the callousness of the rich. In

Hermsprong, Lord Grondale never manages to do much real harm; he spends much of the novel trying to force Miss Campinet to marry Sir Philip Chestrum, but ultimately fails in this goal. Sir

Philip and Sir John Wing set out with the intention of raping the daughters of Mr. Wigley, but they are prevented from doing so by Hermsprong. In contrast, young William actually ruins the life of Hannah, and Inchbald shows us in detail the misery into which Hannah has been plunged.

Bage never brings us to hate Lord Grondale and his cronies, but hatred towards William, mixed with pity for his victim, is exactly what we feel when Inchbald describes Hannah contemplating suicide or fainting as William coldly pronounces her death sentence. Scheuermann correctly notices a shift to a “harsh and tragic” tone in the second half of the novel, which “shows the human consequences” of upper-class cruelty.7 While Hermsprong’s tone remains light throughout the novel, Nature and Art’s becomes decidedly dark, giving the impression that

Inchbald meant more to attack than to instruct.

7 Scheuermann, Social Protest, 189.

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Though the tone is crucial, Inchbald also contributes to our sense that her novel is attack in other ways. The narrative of Nature and Art focuses much more on the actions of the two

Williams and their consequences than on those of the Henrys. The result is that we see much negative behavior counterbalanced by relatively little admirable conduct. The elder Henry is absent for much of the narrative, and while the younger Henry acts as an exemplary character, much more time is devoted to the William/Hannah plot than to the Henry/Rebecca plot. Henry acts benevolently on a number of occasions, as when he tries to convince William to marry

Hannah or when he shelters Hannah’s abandoned child, but as a protagonist he is much less active than Hermsprong, who often acts to thwart Lord Grondale’s plans and is much more central to his narrative. The effect is that, while Bage exhorts his reader to act as Hermsprong does, Inchbald seems more interested in presenting the behavior of the wealthy as odious and even horrific than in offering alternatives to it.

Nature and Art further differs from Hermsprong in one important way: the psychological complexity of its characterization. This claim may seem surprising when we consider Inchbald’s other novel, A Simple Story, which is generally judged to be far more complex in terms of the psychological realism of its characters than Nature and Art. Gary Kelly, for instance, states that

Nature and Art “eschews for the most part the realism of A Simple Story and pertains to the sub- genre of the satiric rather than the psychological novel.”8 The conventional idea is that in Nature and Art, Inchbald wanted to write a more polemical work whose message was more obvious than that of A Simple Story. Implicit in this idea, however, is the assumption that psychological realism is incompatible with satire: that the more satiric a novel is, the less it must attempt to present its characters as plausibly realistic human beings. Marilyn Butler suggests that Inchbald,

“when writing as a progressive”—that is, when attempting to make a radical satiric point—does

8 Kelly, The English Jacobin Novel, 99.

324 not show “any of that interest in the psychological processes which is the hallmark of the sentimental liberal.”9

This perspective makes some degree of sense when comparing A Simple Story with

Inchbald’s later novel. A Simple Story is not as strongly satiric as Nature and Art, and Inchbald gives us more insight into the thoughts and feelings of Dorriforth, Miss Milner, and Matilda than into those of the Henrys and Williams. But when we compare Nature and Art to Hermsprong, we can see that the presence of at least some psychological realism does not hinder satire; indeed,

Inchbald’s greater commitment to presenting the psyches of her characters in a believable way contributes to our sense that Nature and Art and Hermsprong seem designed with different satiric aims. For Kelly, the characters of satire “tend to be little more than functions of some grander scheme of virtue and vice” (102). Inchbald, however, claims in the novel that her characters are something more: “they are human creatures who are meant to be pourtrayed in this little book: and where is the human creature who has not some good qualities to soften, if not counterbalance his bad ones?” (50). We can find a hint of irony here—Lady Clementina, whose faults have just been described, seems to have no redeeming qualities whatsoever. But the statement can also be taken straight: especially when compared to the negative characters of

Hermsprong, the two Williams are much closer to human creatures than simple types.

The complexity of the characters in Nature and Art becomes apparent if we compare

Bage’s Dr. Blick with the elder William. Both are ambitious, sycophantic, hypocritical clergymen who dream of becoming bishops. But Dr. Blick never rises above the level of a caricature: in no circumstance does he ever appear except to illustrate his faults, and his emotional range seems limited to ridiculous deference to his superiors and overbearing haughtiness towards everybody lower than himself. We have no idea how he came to be thus; he

9 Butler, Jane Austen and the War of Ideas, 32.

325 merely is. By contrast, William is much more fully developed. We see him as a child crying over the death of his father, and we pity him. While we do not countenance his animosity towards

Henry, we can at least understand the resentment of a proud man who owes all his success to his younger brother. And even after the two become estranged, William is not without some feeling of affection for Henry. He weeps, for instance, when he learns that Henry has left England for

Africa. These sentiments do not last, but we sense that William is not devoid of feeling and decency. Nor is he an entirely hypocritical clergyman: he teaches young Henry to pray, and, moved by the boy’s sincerity, realizes that children ought not to be taught to pray until they can understand maturely what prayer is (72). In this one instance, Inchbald clearly intends us to approve of the Dean and his thoughts. Dr. Blick, we feel, would never be perceptive enough or sincere enough in his beliefs to reach such a conclusion; Bage never invites us to approve of his ideas, or those of the other negative characters of Hermsprong.

We can find a similar depth of characterization in young William. When he seduces

Hannah, we are told that, because of his sense of morals, he “did not dare to tell an unequivocal lie even to his inferiors—he never promised Hannah he would marry her,” and makes clear that marriage between them would be impossible (82). This scrupulosity hardly vindicates William’s eventual failure to marry Hannah, but it makes him more psychologically complex. He is not a brainless rake out for pleasure, like Bage’s Sir John Wing, but a man who feels some need to justify his actions and therefore assuages his guilt through the perverted reasoning that he has not technically lied to his lover. Were Inchbald engaged in mere caricature, we would not get this glimpse into William’s twisted sense of morality. Though his behavior towards Hannah is cold and calculating, he is not without some genuine feeling. He experiences regret when he decides to abandon her because of his upcoming marriage, and feels profound remorse later in the

326 narrative when he learns that the woman he has sentenced to die is the one he himself has ruined.

William is, at least compared to such characters as Lord Grondale and Sir Philip Chestrum, a plausible, if reprehensible, human being.

If psychological realism were truly incompatible with attack, then these moments of humanity in the two Williams would be a fault. But the actions of both characters are odious not in spite of, but precisely because of their greater realism. The injustices they perpetrate seem less exaggerated and therefore truer to life than those we see in Hermsprong. Take, for instance, the elder William’s willingness to hush up the affair of Hannah’s child when he learns that his son is

Hannah’s seducer. An offense for which he is willing to banish and disown Henry when he believes Henry to be the perpetrator becomes only “an affair of some little gallantry” when committed by his son (118). When Dr. Blick countenances Lord Grondale’s sexual indiscretions, we take the point about clerical hypocrisy but are not shocked. But here, we know that the Dean is not without some basic humanity and, on some level, believes the truths of his religion, and yet these encouragements of morality cannot overcome the power of his selfishness. Real-life scandals show us that even good people, when placed in positions of power, are apt to overlook the wrongdoings of those close to them. Because of Inchbald’s psychological realism, this scene makes much the same point, and thus renders the power of wealth and status much more sinister and threatening than any scene in Hermsprong does.

The cumulative effect of this episode and the others in which the elder or younger

William abuse their power is to make the point that the rich are not only foolish but morally blind, willing to ruin the lives of others to protect their comfortable existence. The villains of

Hermsprong serve to illustrate that the aristocracy and the higher clergy are prone to committing social injustice, but they are nonetheless difficult to take seriously. One does not feel outrage

327 after reading Bage’s novel. Nature and Art shows more forcefully that the wrongdoings of the

Williams are real, and that they have dire consequences for the poor. The problem with the

“idolatrous worship” of wealth that the Henrys discuss in the novel’s final chapter is that it makes thinking, feeling human beings with moral sense act in inhuman and immoral ways (154).

Merely modifying one’s behavior to live more simply and act more tolerantly, as Hermsprong urges readers to do, seems somehow inadequate as a response to the evils Inchbald depicts. We are more likely to feel that the mighty ought to be put down from their seats, even by force, lest the fate of Hannah befall others.

A degree of psychological realism is found not only in the two Williams, but in Hannah, as well. Hannah is hardly a fully rounded character—for most of the narrative the single trait that dominates her thoughts and actions is her love of William. But after William abandons her and she winds up in London, Inchbald describes her behavior with at least some depth. For instance,

Hannah often “paced up and down the street in which William lived, looked wistfully at his house, and sometimes, lost to all her finer feelings of independent pride, thought of sending a short petition to him,” but is always dissuaded by the idea of William rejecting her (128). What

Inchbald depicts is a mind torn between desire and shame, simultaneously attracted to William and repulsed by her knowledge of his pride. Later, Inchbald describes Hannah’s thoughts on her life of prostitution. She attempts to rationalize her actions: “why refuse conformity to

[prostitutes’] customs, since none of my sex besides will admit me to their society . . . ?” (129).

But these rationalizations fail; she loathes herself to the point where she “at times tore her hair with frantic sorrow” (130). Again, Inchbald gives us an insightful view into a divided mind trying but failing to assuage a deeply-ingrained guilt. In its image of a victim perversely blaming herself, Inchbald’s depiction of Hannah is compelling, as at least one contemporary review

328 attests.10 No character in Hermsprong is thus divided; Miss Campinet at times feels caught between filial obedience and her attraction to Hermsprong, but this mental struggle is never portrayed quite as vividly. Consequently, Hannah strikes us more like a real person than Bage’s characters do, making the impact of her suffering on the reader even greater.

The force of Inchbald’s attack against the rich is diminished somewhat by the novel’s puzzling conclusion. In the last chapter, the two Henrys and Rebecca retire to a rural cottage life and discuss the virtues of poverty. In the first edition, Inchbald seems to advocate quietism: the elder Henry surprisingly condemns the poor for trying to improve their lot, and states that they should “leave, and without molestation, those to govern a kingdom who have studied the science of politics” on the grounds that perfection is attainable only in heaven (156). A satirist may choose to argue that improvement to a situation is impossible, as we have seen, but this chastising of the poor jars with the rest of the narrative, in which the poor have generally been portrayed as virtuous and innocent people unjustly victimized by the rich. Nothing in the rest of the novel suggests that those currently with power are fit to wield it, or that attaining at least some social improvement is impossible. Inchbald revised the ending in the second edition

(1797), but the revision is hardly less bizarre. Here, the elder Henry blames the poor for desiring wealth and for lamenting their poverty, because the poor are actually more fortunate than the rich. The younger Henry concurs, exhorting the poor to “no more be their own persecutors”

(154). Given the actions of the Williams, Lady Clementina, and Lord and Lady Bendham, the idea that the poor are really their own persecutors is absurd. Either way, the conclusion of the novel does not seem appropriate to an attack satire.

10 The reviewer of Nature and Art in the English Review states that “the feelings of an innocent but susceptible mind, such as Hannah Primrose’s, are well described.” The English Review 27 (April 1796): 377–79, at 378.

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Critics have responded to this ending in various ways. Kelly speculates that “perhaps prudence induced Mrs. Inchbald to soften the ending” (104). Scheuermann argues instead that the ending “indicates a failure not only of social but of artistic vision,” and that Inchbald was

“not a careful thinker.”11 For Lance Wilcox, Inchbald does not mean to criticize the involuntarily poor but to recommend the “well-ordered voluntary poverty” of the kind practiced by monks.12

Eleanor Ty, contrariwise, finds in the ending evidence of Inchbald’s ambivalence: she argues that much of the novel is a protest against the Lacanian symbolic order, but that the final chapter

“reveals a hesitancy with respect to total commitment to the world without the Father, or the pre- symbolic.”13 The range of responses is testament to the befuddling nature of this critical problem.

I do not claim to be able to offer a definitive solution; the only thing we can be sure of is that the last chapter of Nature and Art is bewildering and unsatisfying given the events that precede it in either version. But let me at least attempt to provide a possible reading based on treating the novel as an attack satire.

If we assume that Inchbald’s intention was indeed to attack the rich with the goal of causing them harm, the original ending makes no sense—indeed, it suggests that the rich ought not to be harmed, but allowed to wield their abusive power in peace. But the revised ending contains at least a hint of an idea compatible with the aim of attack: that the poor ought to take some action to improve their lot. At least some of the characters’ complaints about the poor are, as Amy Garnai points out, “directed towards the poorer classes’ own acceptance of the status quo.”14 When the elder Henry complains about the practice of paying respect and reverence to

11 Scheuermann, Social Protest, 200–01. 12 Lance Wilcox, “Nature and Art: Elizabeth Inchbald in the Church of the Savoyard Vicar,” Age of Johnson 21 (2011): 217–242, at 238. 13 Eleanor Ty, Unsex’d Revolutionaries: Five Women Novelists of the 1790s (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993), 114. 14 Amy Garnai, Revolutionary Imaginings in the 1790s: Charlotte Smith, Mary Robinson, Elizabeth Inchbald (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 144.

330 the wealthy, and young Henry exhorts them to “no longer pay homage to wealth,” Inchbald may be critiquing the sort of deference to the status quo that prevents revolutionary social change

(154). Earlier in the novel young Henry comments about Lord Bendham’s gift of £100 to his poor tenants that “it was prudent in you to give a little; lest the poor, driven to despair, should take all” (76). This radical statement seems to condone violent revolution, but it also suggests that the failure of Lord Bendham’s tenants to revolt arises from their respect for the wealth that allows him to contribute a small sum towards their relief. Perhaps the conclusion is meant to suggest that the poor should cease respecting the rich—and thereby rise in rebellion against them.

Admittedly, this reading does not totally dispel all bafflement about Inchbald’s ending; the idea that the desire of the wealthy for more material goods is somehow equivalent to the poor’s desire for the basic necessities of life, or that intemperance is as great a suffering to the rich as starvation is to the poor, is patently rubbish no matter how you look at it. But the text at least contains room to be read as aiming to diminish wealth’s aura of attractiveness in the hopes that readers will be more willing to take measures to eliminate the current unjust class system.

Read in this way, the ending is a muddled and failed attempt at attack, but an attempt nonetheless.

What, ultimately, can we learn from this examination of Nature and Art? The points here are threefold. First, by comparing this novel with Hermsprong, I hope that we can see more clearly the difference between satire that aims to instruct and satire that aims to attack. Crucial to the distinction between them is the tone of the work and the emotion that is produced by the events of the plot. Because we are exposed to the suffering of the poor much more directly, and because the characters are truer to life, the tone of Nature and Art is darker and we feel righteous

331 indignation at the vices Inchbald portrays. The satirist seems to be trying to inspire the reader to destroy the power of the wealthy so that, as young Henry predicts, “the idol will be broken” at last (154).

Second, we can see that even though Nature and Art has a different satiric aim than

Hermsprong, attack and instruction are not rigid categories. On the whole, attack satire dominates the novel, but the work nonetheless attempts at various points to convey some beneficial truths, as Hermsprong does. The reader is mainly incensed by social injustice, but

Inchbald also promotes some ideas about how a child’s education ought to be conducted, what true love is, and how one ought to live, among other subjects. While I think considering Nature and Art and Hermsprong as different sorts of enterprises is helpful, we should keep in mind that the descriptors of satiric aim are somewhat fluid, and that not all works are entirely in one camp or another. While some works are almost wholly attack and others wholly instruction, Nature and Art is somewhere in the middle of the spectrum—markedly closer to the attack side, I think, but hardly at the pole.

Third, Nature and Art shows us that psychological realism is not necessarily incompatible with attack satire (or indeed, novelistic satire generally). I do not claim that Nature and Art is a novel of great psychological depth, or that its characters are as fully realized as those of James or Tolstoy or even Richardson. But Inchbald certainly avoids the flatness of characterization we find in Hermsprong or Joseph Andrews or Pompey the Little, and in doing so she makes her attack more effective. Realistic characterization is a novelistic tool that can be used for multiple purposes; an author may use it to soften our negative judgment of a character, but he or she may also use it to intensify that judgment into hatred and disgust. The assumption that psychological realism works counter to satire is simply not true.

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With these points in mind, let us now turn to some other examples of novelistic attack satire. Hamilton’s Memoirs of Modern Philosophers provides a good counterpoint to Nature and

Art, not just because Hamilton writes from a diametrically opposed ideological position, but because her techniques and manner of attack are quite different.

II. Mixed Aims in Memoirs of Modern Philosophers

Elizabeth Hamilton’s Memoirs of Modern Philosophers is a surprisingly complex satiric novel.

At first glance, the novel seems to be a straightforward satire on English Jacobin writers such as

William Godwin and Thomas Holcroft. Certainly the approving reviewer of the novel in the

Anti-Jacobin Review thought so; he writes that “the philosophical harvest is great; and the hand that thus condescends to the irksome, though meritorious, labour of plucking up and burning the weeds, deserves the thanks of her country.”15 The novel’s villains are the eponymous “modern philosophers,” whose Godwinian radicalism is shown to be dangerous and perverse. We might naturally take the novel to be a scathing attack designed to derogate radical ideas.

Yet modern critics of the novel have mainly been concerned to show that Hamilton is hardly a conservative writer and that we should not read Memoirs as purely or even primarily an attack on radical thinkers. Several scholars have suggested that Hamilton’s sympathies lie with her seeming targets. Janice Thaddeus, for instance, argues that the novel was misread by its contemporary reviewers, and that many of the positive characters in the novel advance

Godwinian ideas.16 Eleanor Ty claims that, far from viewing the novel’s radical mock-heroine

Bridgetina Botherim as a negative figure, we should find “something noble about [her] speech,

15 The Anti-Jacobin Review 7 (December 1800): 39–46 and 369–376, at 376. 16 Janice Thaddeus, “Elizabeth Hamilton’s Modern Philosophers and the Uncertainties of Satire,” in Cutting Edges: Postmodern Critical Essays on Eighteenth-Century Satire, ed. James E. Gill (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1995), 395–418, at 412.

333 something attractive about her goals.” Bridgetina is admirable because she is “full of energy and ambition” compared to the novel’s seemingly positive young female characters, whom Ty finds

“rather insipid but obedient.”17 While some of these claims seem exaggerated—Bridgetina is quite difficult to admire and almost certainly was not meant as a positive figure—Hamilton indeed advances some ideas for social reform. The novel suggests, for instance, that the superficial education most women receive is harmful, an idea also put forth by such radicals as

Inchbald and Mary Wollstonecraft.

Memoirs of Modern Philosophers resists categorization. Claire Grogan is right to suggest that the Jacobin/anti-Jacobin dichotomy is of limited use when applied to Hamilton.18 The ideological position of Memoirs is clearly not radical, but neither can it be accurately described as “conservative,” at least in the reactionary sense. The novel’s political stance is not the only tricky thing about it, however: just as complicated are the novel’s satiric aims. At times, Memoirs reads like an instructive satire, written to promote a certain mode of living. At others, it reads like a particularly mean-spirited and vindictive attack against Godwin and especially Mary Hays.

Satire can, of course, have multiple aims; we have seen in Inchbald’s Nature and Art that a satirist may seek both to instruct and attack in varying proportions. Here, however, the aims seem somewhat at odds. Why would Hamilton choose to promote radical ideas while also harshly attacking English Jacobin thinkers? The attack would seem to undermine the instruction, or vice versa.

What are we to make of the novel’s satire? I want to show that while Hamilton has two distinct satiric aims, these aims are related. Moving beyond classing Hamilton as a conservative

17 Eleanor Ty, “Female Philosophy Refunctioned: Elizabeth Hamilton’s Parodic Novel,” ARIEL 22, no. 4 (1991): 111–29, at 118. 18 Claire Grogan, Politics and Genre in the Works of Elizabeth Hamilton, 1756–1816 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), 2–3.

334 or a radical or a proto-feminist or an educationist helps. While she is in some sense all of these things, the satire of Memoirs of Modern Philosophers takes as its target not just a particular ideology but the idea of subscribing to an ideology altogether. The instructive component of

Hamilton’s satire works to steer the reader away from seeing the world through a rigid ideological perspective, conservative or radical. The attack component of the satire works to undermine a specific ideology that Hamilton finds particularly pervasive, but also works together with the instructive component to further the broader case against ideology. The two satiric aims do not always sit comfortably with each other, but ultimately Hamilton uses them to advance a cohesive agenda.

Hamilton’s Anti-Ideological Christian Instruction

To answer the question of how the novel’s attack satire works together with its instructive satire, let us first consider the novel’s instruction. The satiric techniques Hamilton uses to instruct are similar to those we have seen in the works discussed in Chapter 4. Hamilton leads us to sympathize with some of her characters, and in doing so causes us to judge negatively the various forces that harm them. She also includes several authorial spokespersons whose statements are meant to convey the author’s views. The novel’s narrator also influences the reader’s judgments by providing wryly ironic comments (much like Bage’s narrator in

Hermsprong) or occasionally by addressing the reader directly. These techniques are relatively straightforward. More interesting, however, is the question of what Hamilton is attempting to teach her audience.

The novel’s plot seems to indicate that the message is primarily anti-Jacobin. Modern

Philosophers follows three young women in the country village of W—. The first, Bridgetina

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Botherim, is an enthusiastic reader of novels and radical texts, and is an active member of the village’s circle of radical philosophers. The second, Julia Delmond, is likewise a member of this philosophical circle and tries to absorb Godwinian ideas, but cannot quite bring herself to reject traditional values such as gratitude and filial piety. The third, Harriet Orwell, is the dutiful daughter of the village rector. Both Bridgetina and Harriet are in love with Henry Sydney, the son of the village’s dissenting minister. Henry, a young physician, loves Harriet but does not reveal his affections because he lacks the income to support a family. Though Henry never encourages Bridgetina to believe that he returns her affection, she nonetheless convinces herself that he loves her and spends much of the novel trying to make Henry declare his passion for her.

Julia, meanwhile, is seduced by Vallaton, one of the village’s philosophers. Vallaton lies to Julia about his origins: he is a low-born hairdresser, but he insinuates to Julia that he is the orphan of noble parents. Julia, who has read of such circumstances in novels, believes Vallaton’s story.

When Henry is appointed physician to a hospital in London, Bridgetina follows him there alone, in the hopes of persuading him to love her. Her circle of philosophers has decided that they will go to Africa to live among the Gonoquais Hottentots, whom they idealize because

Hottentot society lacks such oppressive institutions as monogamy, organized religion, and government. Bridgetina hopes that Henry will come with her to Africa. Julia also ends up in

London, as Vallaton urges her to run off with him against her father’s wishes. Both heroines find themselves in error. Bridgetina fails to win Henry, and, lacking any friends in London, soon runs out of money. Julia is impregnated and abandoned by Vallaton, who does not keep his promise to marry her. Having taken poison in an attempt to abort her baby, Julia is given shelter by the

Asylum for the Destitute, a charitable institution run by Mrs. Fielding, a friend of Henry’s father.

Here, Julia is found by Harriet and Henry. Julia dies penitent, and her death moves Bridgetina to

336 give up her Jacobin ideas. Henry receives a large sum of money from Mrs. Fielding, allowing him to marry Harriet at the novel’s conclusion.

Though the message seems clear on the surface—avoid novel-reading and radical behavior; act like Harriet and not like Bridgetina or Julia—critics have tended to argue that

Modern Philosophers actually promotes radical or progressive ideas. A number of readers have commented on the novel’s concern with women’s education. Grogan, for instance, points out that the character of Mrs. Fielding demonstrates the importance of the female right to education and the ensuing economic freedom it offers.19 Miriam L. Wallace notes that the failure of Julia’s parents to endow her with a strong education contributes to her seduction and death.20 Hamilton is clearly in favor of women receiving rigorous and substantive educations, as her narrator’s numerous snide comments on boarding-school girls show. In voicing this opinion, Hamilton expresses ideas similar to those of Wollstonecraft on female education. Henry Sydney even offers qualified praise of Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman, calling its author

“very sensible,” though she has “sometimes permitted her zeal to hurry her into expressions which have raised a prejudice against the whole.”21

Hamilton expresses sentiments on other issues with which radicals might agree. For instance, she tells us that to Mr. Sydney, “a monopoly of wealth and power appeared an evil of mighty magnitude,” and that he has even written a tract urging the wealthy to divide their property equally among their children (349). The scene in which Julia dines with Mrs. Villers would not seem out of place in Hermsprong. Mrs. Villers and her high-society friends feast on turtle-soup and venison with jelly-sauce while complaining that the poor are not satisfied with

19 Grogan, Politics and Genre, 86. 20 Miriam L. Wallace, Revolutionary Subjects in the English “Jacobin” Novel, 1790–1805 (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2009), 232. 21 Elizabeth Hamilton, Memoirs of Modern Philosophers, ed. Claire Grogan (Peterborough: Broadview, 2000), 101. All references to Memoirs of Modern Philosophers are to this edition.

337 their brown bread and thus “do not deserve any compassion” (129). When one of the guests mentions that Dr. Orwell has compassion for the poor, Mrs. Villers responds, “I dare say that Dr.

Orwell is a democrat . . . It is these people who encourage the poor in all their insolence” (130).

Here Hamilton’s satire is directed against the rich, who are too selfish to be moved by the suffering of the poor.

Perhaps the most “progressive” of Hamilton’s opinions is her attitude towards female sexual transgression. Hamilton’s positive characters do not condemn Julia for her unchastity.

Mrs. Fielding suggests that Julia should keep her sexual experience with Vallaton a secret and start a new life in Ireland, where her story will not be known. Julia ultimately rejects this idea, insisting on owning her fault publicly, and what exactly Hamilton thinks unchaste women should do is unclear. But as Wallace argues, the point is not Hamilton’s exact position, but that she

“engages overtly the specific questions surrounding the moral consequences of the woman’s sexual error, but also her subsequent life and actions” (237). Hamilton rejects the idea that once a woman loses her virtue, she is forever fallen and tainted.

Given these parts of Modern Philosophers, Hamilton seems like a Jacobin writer instead of a conservative one. We can understand why some critics have described her as a liberal writer.22 But why, if Hamilton’s goal is to inculcate into the reader a liberal or even radical ideology, would she choose to do so in a novel that seems at other times to reject this ideology?

For all that Hamilton’s exemplary characters sometimes advance progressive ideas, the novel’s major negative characters—Vallaton, Bridgetina, Mr. Glib, and Mr. Myope—do the same. While some of the novel’s scenes could be taken from Hermsprong or Hugh Trevor or Nature and Art, nobody would ever confuse Modern Philosophers as a whole with something written by Bage or

22 See Claire Grogan, introduction to Memoirs of Modern Philosophers, by Elizabeth Hamilton (Peterborough: Broadview, 2000), 9–26, at 11; Thaddeus, “Elizabeth Hamilton’s Modern Philosophers,” 398.

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Holcroft or Inchbald. How can we square Hamilton’s sometimes-progressive ideas with the fact that her satire is also directed at progressive thinkers?

Perhaps Hamilton was simply inconsistent in her political beliefs. We can, however, better understand Hamilton’s instructive satire if we consider that she is less concerned with promoting specific liberal or conservative opinions than with inculcating a more basic, anti- ideological worldview grounded in her understanding of Christianity. Critics have noted that

Hamilton was a Presbyterian and that she writes from a Christian worldview, but they have not tended to discuss the centrality of Christianity to her satire. Some, like Thaddeus and Ty, have suggested that while the novel appears to promote Christianity, it actually invites the reader to question the ability of Christianity to address social ills.23 Far from repudiating Christianity, however, Hamilton draws upon her understanding of her faith to warn the reader against the dangers of adhering too firmly to an ideological system.

When I suggest that Hamilton’s satire is anti-ideological, I do not mean that she understands ideology as an all-pervasive force, as Althusser does. The term “ideology” would likely not even have been familiar to Hamilton; the Oxford English Dictionary lists the earliest usage of the term in 1796.24 What Hamilton promotes is the idea that adhering to abstract theories about how the world operates warps one’s sense of reality and interferes with one’s ability to interact productively with other human beings. In Modern Philosophers, she uses the word “system” to describe that to which she objects. For instance, the narrator states directly that

“it is one of the prime advantages of system to be able to twist, and turn, and construe every thing to its own advantage” (309). Hamilton posits that ideologues cling so firmly to their belief system that they are willing to ignore or dismiss any evidence that contradicts it. She uses the

23 Thaddeus, “Elizabeth Hamilton’s Modern Philosophers,” 415–16; Ty, “Female Philosophy Refunctioned,” 117. 24 Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd ed., s.v. “ideology.”

339 same word in her earlier novel, Translation of the Letters of a Hindoo Rajah (1796), to satirize radical philosophers. There, the rajah describes the systems of the philosophers as a faith

“received by the votary of the system with undoubting confidence, and defended with the fervency of pious zeal. It must be confessed, that this zeal, sometimes carries the Philosophers to a pitch of intolerance, that is repugnant to the feelings of a Hindoo.”25 Modern Philosophers, however, implies that not only radicals but also conservatives are susceptible to the dangers of ideological, systematic thinking.

One of the consequences of such thinking that Hamilton illustrates is the tendency of ideologues to ignore reality, as we can see from the belief of the novel’s radical philosophers that mental energies can heal bodily ailments (this belief does little good for Vallaton when he breaks his arm). A more invidious consequence of ideology, however, is the privileging of abstract ideas over the needs of actual people. The ideologue, Hamilton suggests, dehumanizes those around him or her. Ideological thinking leads Bridgetina to treat her mother cruelly; because her mother does not understand Bridgetina’s system, Bridgetina deems her not worth speaking to. For

Bridgetina, Mrs. Botherim has no intrinsic value as a human being, but is only valuable in proportion to her support of radicalism. A conservative ideology can be as harmful and dehumanizing as a radical one, however. When Hamilton suggests that Julia ought to be able to live a good life after her seduction, she implicitly criticizes those who privilege the abstract concept of purity over the needs of victims like Julia. Those who would condemn Julia objectify women by reducing them to their chastity.

Related to this problem of ideology is that it leads its adherents into intolerance and bigotry. When Mr. Myope abandons his radical principles under the influence of Mr. Sydney, he

25 Elizabeth Hamilton, Translation of the Letters of a Hindoo Rajah, ed. Pamela Perkins and Shannon Russell (Peterborough: Broadview, 1999), 257. Further references to this novel are to this edition.

340 finds the dissenting clergyman is “neither dictatorial, impatient of contradiction, harsh in his censures, nor illiberal in his judgments,” as his ideology has led him to believe all clergymen are

(364). His system has led him to sweeping, prejudicial judgments against those who disagree with him. The same kind of thinking motivates Bridgetina’s deceased father, a High-Church clergyman, to believe that “Scotch Presbyterians were the most horridest, wickedest people in the world” (109). Each of these cases of bigotry stems from privileging abstract notions— atheism for Mr. Myope, dogmatically conservative ecclesiology for Mr. Botherim—over the actual evidence of real individuals.

As an antidote to ideology, Hamilton upholds a latitudinarian Christianity. For Hamilton, properly-practiced Christianity is anti-ideological, not concerned with abstract dogmas but with practical principles. In a discussion of Christianity, one of the novel’s exemplary characters,

Martha Goodwin, states that

I have often thought it a great pity that the heads of our church had not, instead of

prescribing confessions of faith with regard to abstruse and speculative points of doctrine,

confined themselves to those which are chiefly insisted upon in the discourses of our

Saviour. The creed universally enjoined should then have begun with “I believe it is my

duty to love my neighbor as myself, and to do to others as I would have others do to me

on the like occasion;” and so gone on through the virtues of humility, meekness, and

charity; brotherly love, forgiveness of injuries, &c. &c. which articles might have been

signed by the most tender conscience, and might probably have been repeated with as

much advantage to the soul as the most incomprehensible mystery. (104)

According to these ideas, the Christian sees others as human beings to be loved, not as representatives of any particular ideological position. Dr. Orwell and Mr. Sydney are Hamilton’s

341 strongest examples of non-ideological Christian practice. As Dr. Orwell is a Church of England clergyman and Mr. Sydney is a dissenting minister, they clearly differ in points of doctrine. They hold their beliefs strongly: at one point, Mr. Sydney reveals that the reason he never married

Mrs. Fielding is because he refused to conform to the Established Church (244). But the two clerics do not see each other as ideological opponents. Instead, they lay aside their differences and work together to benefit their community. Though they do not agree in all opinions, they can respect and understand each other’s points of view. As Mr. Sydney says of religious difference,

“various are the views, which, with equal integrity of intention, may be taken of the same subject. . . . No honest man will condemn another for differing from him in opinion” (244). This anti-ideological tolerance allows them to be kind and loving even to those who dislike them: when Mr. Sydney discusses radicalism with Mr. Myope, he avoids “loading with indiscriminate abuse all the opinions which formed a part of Mr. Myope’s system” and instead praises the positive aspects of Jacobin thought (365). This sort of charitable open-mindedness is absent from such ideologues as Bridgetina and Vallaton.

Hamilton’s belief in practical Christianity motivates many of the ideas that we find

“radical.” Women should be treated as rational beings because Christ did so, as Dr. Orwell asserts. Julia is not utterly ruined by her sexual indiscretion because, as Mrs. Fielding tells her, the Christian God is one “of hope and consolation” more concerned with aiding sinners than with condemning them (371). Yet Hamilton’s anti-systemic faith also motivates her disapproval of radicalism. When Julia is injured in a carriage accident, Harriet spends much of her time nursing her. Though Bridgetina is much closer to Julia in ideological belief than Harriet is, Harriet is by far the superior nurse, as she exerts her mind, as Hamilton suggests a good Christian should, “to promote the happiness and comfort of those within the reach of its exertions” instead of in

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“forming speculations upon general utility” (180). As a solution for the problem of poverty

Hamilton advocates not revolution or social upheaval or the abolition of property, but private charity of the kind that Mrs. Fielding practices in running her Asylum for the Destitute. This institution does not do away with the problems of poverty and gender inequality, but it provides more actual help for Julia and those like her than the abstract musings of the philosophers of

W—.

Considering Hamilton as an anti-ideological thinker helps us to understand the aspects of the novel’s instruction that do not pertain to political issues. At times the points Hamilton makes are neither liberal nor conservative, but personal. One of the few passages in which the narrator directly addresses the reader urges the reader to “mitigate, therefore, the fierceness of thy wrath” against “the person whose conduct thou hast last condemned,” on the grounds that “thou mayest, peradventure, have mistaken the intentions of his heart” (215). This advice is anti-ideological: it urges the reader to attempt to understand an opponent’s point of view—something that one devoted to an ideology is unlikely to do. A similar passage occurs when Harriet debates with

Julia on the importance of repentance. She states that memory is “never better employed than in tracing the rise and progress of our errors, in reminding us of how much we have come short of purposed excellence” (167). The critical self-examination urged here stands in stark contrast to the “undoubting confidence” that Hamilton accuses the philosophical thinkers of in Letters of a

Hindoo Rajah. Whereas the ideologue holds zealously to his or her system to the point of ignoring realities that might contradict it, one suspicious of ideology would be more open to admitting fault.

Hamilton’s instructive satire in Modern Philosophers is thus not conservative or liberal, but anti-ideological. She exposes flaws in both radical and conservative thinking, and she

343 advocates practical solutions to the real problems that exist in her society. When she arrives at opinions that we might deem liberal or progressive, she seems to do so because of her religious convictions, and with a deep suspicion of making social changes based on airy theories. The problems she describes exist not because her societal structure is in itself flawed, but because too many people do not take seriously the Christian injunction to love one’s neighbor. She urges readers to examine their own faults and understand the viewpoints of those who differ in opinion—advice that would not likely come from an ideologue convinced of the rightness of his or her political position. We can best understand Hamilton as a writer suspicious of system- building in general and trying to encourage a non-ideological mindset.

This account of the novel’s instructive satire is only half of the picture, however. While

Modern Philosophers is certainly not just the straightforward demolition of Godwin that its reviewer in the Anti-Jacobin takes it to be, we also cannot ignore the novel’s attack. Given that

Hamilton satirizes ideological closed-mindedness and bigotry, and makes her exemplary characters tolerant and forgiving, her decision to also slam Jacobin thinkers appears counterintuitive. How does Hamilton attack the Jacobins, and why does she choose to combine this attack with satiric instruction?

The Methods and Aims of Hamilton’s Attack

Though Hamilton satirizes ideology generally, she singles out radical philosophy for special treatment. But what makes the novel’s critique of radical philosophy attack, rather than simply an extension of her instruction against adhering too strongly to a system? We have seen in previous chapters that satirists can induce negative judgments against their targets gently, in

344 ways not best described as attack. Here, however, we get a sense that Hamilton attempts actively to harm the Jacobin cause.

Hamilton uses a number of different methods to attack radical philosophy specifically.

One way in which she does so is to undermine its intellectual credibility by portraying its absurdity. Perhaps the clearest example of Hamilton’s efforts to make Jacobinism appear absurd is the scheme of the philosophers of W—, inspired by François Le Vaillant’s Travels from the

Cape of Good-Hope (1790), to live amongst the Hottentots. They believe, based on Le Vaillant’s descriptions, that the Hottentots are an enlightened society of philosophers because they have

“no trade, no commerce, no distinctions of rank, no laws, no coercion, no government” (144).

The philosophers are laughably blind to any differences between actual Hottentot society and their ideal vision of it. For instance, Mr. Glib believes that among the Hottentots injury and disease are no more, as “all exert their energies” to overcome physical maladies (155). A sensible reader of Le Vaillant would of course find this absurd; in one of his chapters about the

Gonoquais, Le Vaillant describes seeing “a miserable wretch, covered with sores from head to foot,” whose suffering cannot be relieved because the Hottentots have no physicians.26 Grogan has argued that through the philosophers’ plans, Hamilton aims to show that the philosophers are disturbingly similar to the Hottentots and thus to be feared.27 But the point here seems to be, contrariwise, that Hottentot society is wildly different from what the philosophers envision it to be. The profound gap between the philosophers’ utopia and the realities of Gonoquais society makes the philosophers appear staggeringly idiotic.

Hamilton does not only portray radical philosophy as absurd, however. She also suggests that it is dangerous and odious. She does so primarily in the Julia/Vallaton plot. We are led by

26 François Le Vaillant, Travels from the Cape of Good-Hope, into the Interior Parts of Africa, trans. Elizabeth Helme, 2 vols. (London, 1790), 2:27. This translation was printed for William Lane. 27 Grogan, Politics and Genre, 68.

345 the narrative to like Julia; she seems sensible and good-natured, and though she imbibes the ideas of the new philosophers she lacks Bridgetina’s arrogance. She is also portrayed much more realistically than a character like Arabella or Parson Adams, and so the harm that occurs to her seems more serious. When she is seduced by Vallaton, therefore, we feel anger at him and at the principles he uses to convince her of the rightness of going off to London with him. In this plot,

Hamilton seems to suggest that radical ideas are dangerous because unsavory individuals like

Vallaton will abuse them to further their villainous designs. As April London writes, Vallaton fits into a class of characters often found in anti-Jacobin satire who “feed on the public texts of key Jacobins such as Godwin, Paine, Holcroft, and Wollstonecraft, and then use their derivative narratives to prey on those ingenuous and impressionable well-born characters whose idealism makes them easy targets for the beguiling pleasures of story.”28 Our hatred of Vallaton is strengthened by the pathetic state to which Julia is reduced at the end. When Henry and Mrs.

Fielding first find Julia at the asylum, she does not recognize them; in her delirium, she asks,

“Did you know my father? But be comforted; you did not kill him; you did not break his heart”

(361). These sentimental passages make us viscerally conscious of how much harm Vallaton has done to Julia, and we hate the character and the values he represents.

The technique that most contributes to our sense that Hamilton is attacking radical philosophy, however, is the novel’s depiction of Bridgetina. While Hamilton uses Bridgetina at times to show the absurdity of Jacobin philosophy, as when she mistakes a pawn shop owner for an enlightened philosopher, the character also allows Hamilton to heap pure abuse onto the radicals and their thought. Bridgetina is regularly described as ugly. She is short and squat (she is

“rather taller sitting than standing”), has a squint, and waddles when she walks (46, 37, 284).

28 April London, “Novel and History in Anti-Jacobin Satire,” Yearbook of English Studies 30 (2000): 71–81, at 76.

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Hamilton at one point describes her as “drawing up her long craggy neck so as to put the shrivelled parchment-like skin which covered it upon the full stretch” (101). These jabs have nothing to do with the dangerousness or absurdity of Jacobin ideas; they are simply nasty put- downs. Nor does Hamilton merely describe Bridgetina in derogatory ways. She also puts her

Jacobin heroine through a number of embarrassing situations. Early in the novel, for instance, her wig is blown off her head into a dirty street gutter (47). Later, she is surrounded by a herd of belligerent pigs who “pushed her about from side to side in a most ungentle manner” until “a violent push from a huge untoward beast laid her prostrate on the ground, and completed the climax of her misfortune” (157–58). These sorts of moments are further attempts by Hamilton to humiliate her ideological foes. We are supposed to laugh mean-spiritedly at Bridgetina’s misfortunes.

Critics have tended to regard Bridgetina as representing Mary Hays; one of her favorite works to quote is Hays’s Memoirs of Emma Courtney.29 The depiction of Bridgetina as ugly consequently takes on the quality of personal attack. We need not interpret Bridgetina as only a stand-in for Hays, however; she quotes Godwin as well as Hays, and, as Wallace reminds us, her attempt to force Henry to love her might call to mind Wollstonecraft’s unsuccessful romances as well as Hays’s (226). Bridgetina, then, can also represent a devotee of radicalism more generally.

When she is knocked down by the pig, Hamilton seems to be suggesting that not just Hays but all Jacobins deserve to be so humiliated. The fact that Bridgetina is meant to represent real individuals or at least a specific group of people is what separates the physical humor we find here from that we find in some of Smollett’s novels. I have argued that in the case of Peregrine

Pickle, Smollett deploys physical humor mainly to entertain his readers. The use of these techniques has much more bite in Memoirs of Modern Philosophers, however, because they are

29 See, for instance, Tompkins, The Popular Novel in England, 318.

347 only ever used to describe Bridgetina. Whereas Smollett makes fun of a wide range of characters, Hamilton focuses her abuse on a single character meant to represent an English

Jacobin, further increasing our sense that Hamilton is not just lightly entertaining her reader but trying to provoke hurtful, malicious laughter.

Adding to the potency of Bridgetina’s derogation is our sense that Hamilton has complete control over the narrative. Though the main narrative is surrounded by a frame story—the novel is claimed to have been found by the “author” in a garret—the narrator is identified quite strongly with the author, offering opinions that seem authorial. At times, the narrator interacts with the reader in an almost Sterneian way. For instance, when Bridgetina travels from W— to

London, the narrator gives a digression on the mundanity of modern travel, only to conclude with “if I do not this minute take care, Bridgetina will be at the end of her journey before I finish my digression. Allons, then, my good reader, let us hasten to the inn-door, to be ready to receive her” (238). In these moments of self-conscious authorship, Hamilton reminds us that we are reading a fictional text, and that she has complete mastery of the narrative’s events. When, therefore, Bridgetina loses her wig or is pushed into a London gutter, we are likely to feel that

Hamilton is gleefully causing these things to happen to her fictional Jacobin creation, and enjoying her ensuing humiliation.

Hamilton presents Jacobinism variously as an absurdity to be laughed at, a danger to be hated, and an error that warrants crude derision. All of these satiric methods can be present in attack—but their presence does not necessarily imply that attack is the novel’s satiric aim. What gives us the sense that Hamilton is trying to harm the idea of Jacobinism is not just the presence of certain satiric techniques but the intensity with which they are executed. Compare, for instance, the anti-Jacobin satire of Modern Philosophers with that of Letters of a Hindoo Rajah.

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In the earlier novel, Hamilton also depicts Jacobinism to be dangerous. The radically-inclined nephew of Doctor Sceptic, having seduced and abandoned his cousin, sets out to write a book against religion. His philosophy does not bring him happiness, however, and he shoots himself

(280–83). This episode, like Modern Philosophers’ Julia/Vallaton plot, shows that radical philosophy can cause men to lure women into sexual impropriety, and that ultimately it leads to death. But the story of Sceptic’s nephew is nowhere near as intense in its condemnation of

Jacobinism as the story of Julia. Young Sceptic’s story is related in a handful of pages, and so we never build any emotional connection with him; we never even learn the name of his cousin.

Julia and Vallaton are much more central to Modern Philosophers; we have the time to develop pity for Julia and hatred for Vallaton. Julia’s death has vastly more impact than young Sceptic’s.

In Letters of a Hindoo Rajah, we feel that Hamilton is warning the reader about the dangers of radicalism; in Modern Philosophers, we feel that she is trying to make radicalism seem not only dangerous but ugly, loathsome, and despicable.

Further contributing to our sense that Hamilton is attacking the Jacobins is her focus on them as a satiric target. In Letters of a Hindoo Rajah, radical philosophers are just one of many targets. Zāārmilla encounters a multitude of problems with English society, ranging from excessive card-playing and sparse church attendance to libelous newspapers and over-severe poaching laws. Given the diversity of problems Hamilton critiques, she does not appear to be focusing primarily on satirizing radical philosophy. Rather, radicalism is presented as just one of a number of Britain’s social ills. Modern Philosophers also has multiple targets, including wealthy epicureans, boarding-schools, money-grubbing stock-jobbers, and intolerant clergymen, but the proportion of the novel’s satire aimed at these problems pales in comparison to that aimed at radicalism. Because either Bridgetina or Vallaton or some of the other philosophers are

349 almost constantly the focus of the narrative, we get the sense that Hamilton is singling out radicalism for attack. We take Hamilton’s satiric point about such non-radical characters as Mrs.

Villers and Sir Anthony Aldgate, but we do not hate them in the same way that we hate Vallaton, nor are they ever as foolish as Bridgetina.

We have seen how Hamilton attacks Jacobinism, and why the anti-Jacobin satire feels like attack rather than instruction. Why, however, would Hamilton choose to attack radicals and not the other targets she critiques? The question is particularly puzzling if we keep in mind the novel’s date. By 1800, enthusiasm for Jacobin ideas in England had waned considerably. Radical philosophy was not nearly the threat it would have appeared in the earlier part of the 1790s. The fact that Hamilton attacks a target that had already been largely discredited was not lost on some of her contemporary readers. The reviewer of the novel in the New London Review begins by stating that “after the complete overthrow which the Godwinean system of philosophy had experienced from the joint efforts of ridicule and argument, and, above all, from practical instruction, a fresh attack appears wholly unnecessary.”30 We might expect that the satire against

Jacobinism would be milder in a novel published in 1800 than in Letters of a Hindoo Rajah, four years earlier. In fact, the reverse is true.

One reason why Hamilton might choose to attack Jacobinism is because such an attack would help her further her instruction. If, as I have suggested, one of the book’s satiric aims is to lead the reader to a non-ideological worldview, this aim would still be relevant in 1800. By bashing Godwinian ideas and presenting radicalism as alternately foolish and dangerous,

Hamilton attacks a particularly extreme example of the ideological thinking she critiques.

Vallaton’s use of radical ideas to seduce Julia makes him and the ideology he represents appear odious, but we also learn from the Julia-Vallaton plot how Julia’s commitment to radicalism

30 The New London Review 17 (May 1800): 451–52, at 451.

350 warps her sense of reality and renders her unable to detect Vallaton’s lies. The philosophers’ belief that Hottentot society is utopian shows the absurdity of radicalism, but in doing so it offers an example of how ideological thinking can lead one into obvious error. And by castigating a much-hated instance of system-building, Hamilton emphasizes by contrast the virtues of the non- ideological behavior of her exemplary characters. From this perspective, that radicalism was on the decline might actually be an advantage. Hamilton’s audience would be likely to agree with her that Godwinian thought is dangerous, and so might be more disposed to accept her larger point about the general perils of rigid ideology.

While the novel’s attack aids the satiric instruction, part of Hamilton’s goal also seems to be to allow us to find pleasure in the take-down of radical philosophy. While Jacobinism had already lost its creditability, Hamilton may have felt that readers who hated radicalism would nonetheless appreciate further derogation of a despised target. Beating an unpopular horse may provide an entertaining spectacle, no matter how deceased the horse may be. Her ideal reader would likely agree with her disapproval of Jacobinism even before reading the work, but would savor the attack while being confirmed or even strengthened in his or her anti-Jacobin opinions.

Hamilton may have been especially keen to cause further damage to the new philosophy as its atheism was directly inimical to her Christian worldview. While Hamilton clearly disapproves of several different ideologies, she reserves her harshest anger for that which is most inimical to her faith. Quite possibly she, and like-minded religious readers, would have found special pleasure in the bashing of a godless system of thought.

If we consider denigration of radicalism to be an aim in its own right, we can even see that at times the novel’s instruction works to further its attack. The novel’s anti-ideological lesson helps us to understand why the Jacobins are to be rubbished. Hamilton’s ideal reader

351 likely already disapproved of radicalism, but Hamilton teaches the reader to hate it for the right reasons, or at least gives the reader further reasons to feel justified in hating it. By showing that radicalism is an extremely abstract form of ideological thinking, and that (like all ideologies) it leads to bigotry and blindness, she gives anti-Jacobin readers additional vindication in their position. The reader can thus take further pleasure in the attack, his or her righteous disgust having been strengthened by the lesson Hamilton teaches about the problems of perceiving the world through the lens of a rigid system.

This is not to say that the aims of instruction and attack are perfectly harmonious in

Memoirs. At times these two aims seem to contradict each other. One such point is when Mr.

Sydney finds Mr. Glib in prison. When Mr. Glib complains about Vallaton, who has cheated him, Mr. Sydney “was at much pains to turn the current of his wrath from the man to the principles on which he had acted” (356). This action is in keeping with the novel’s anti- ideological instruction: Mr. Sydney does not hate Vallaton, the person, but only the ideas which have caused Vallaton to act as he does. Because he is not motivated by an abstract conservatism, he can treat even those who disagree with him with some charity. Yet Hamilton herself does not always practice the kind of detached goodwill that Mr. Sydney endorses. In portraying

Bridgetina as she does, Hamilton moves beyond attacking radical ideas and abuses radical thinkers themselves. Mr. Sydney, Dr. Orwell, and Harriet do not seem to be the type of characters who would laugh at Bridgetina’s misfortunes—yet Hamilton urges the reader to do precisely that. Promoting open-mindedness and forgiveness while also making harsh personal attacks upon one’s enemies is counter-intuitive.

Ultimately, we cannot know whether Hamilton intended these contradictions, or whether she merely overlooked them. What is clear, however, is that some parts of the novel strongly

352 promote non-ideological thought, tolerance, humility, and charity towards one’s enemies, and that others harshly and even nastily attack English Jacobins and their ideas. Possibly the ideal reader, believing strongly that Jacobinism is wrong, would not be bothered by the seeming disparity in goals, and would appreciate both the attack and the instruction. Radical thought might appear dangerous enough to warrant an exception to the general principle of tolerance.

Whatever the case, though the two aims do not always coincide, Hamilton is at least partially successful in writing a novel that both attacks radicalism and teaches a lesson about the dangers of ideology more generally. Both attack and instructive satire are present in Memoirs of Modern

Philosophers, and we should acknowledge the importance of each. They explain why the novel has been read variously as a conservative work and a radical one, as a novel that defends the patriarchy and as one that promotes feminist ideas. Considering the attack and the instruction together shows us that the novel is none of these, but a complex blend of satiric aims and techniques.

What can this novel show us about satire, and in particular about attack satire? First, we can see that aims can be mixed with each other. In most of the novels I have examined in this study, one single aim predominates. Here, however, attack and instruction co-exist—neither aim achieves primacy over the other. The blending of the two aims is not entirely successful, which may explain why most novels stick with one main satiric aim. But writing a novel with two distinct satiric aims is certainly possible. Second, Modern Philosophers gives us an example of the blending of different kinds of attack. When Hamilton shows us the heart-rending fate of

Julia, she is attacking Jacobinism in a different way than when she has Bridgetina struggle to comb out her ugly wig. The novel shows us a variety of ways in which a target can be harmed.

Finally, we see that satirists may attack a target even when that target is already quite low in the

353 estimation of the reader. Though doing so may seem counterintuitive, sometimes the point of attack satire is not to convince the reader that something is odious or absurd, but to reinforce or maintain the reader’s existing hatred of the target.

From a novel that mixes both instruction and attack, let us turn to a satiric novel that aims more purely at demolition of its target. We will see that Hogg’s satiric techniques in Private

Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner differ from those of both Inchbald and Hamilton.

III. Attack and Provocation of Thought in Hogg’s Confessions of a Justified Sinner

James Hogg’s Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner was treated by most contemporary reviewers as an attack on Calvinism. A reviewer in The Literary Gazette, though he admits some confusion over Hogg’s exact aim, declares that the book’s object “seems to be to satirize the excess of that Calvinical or Cameronian doctrine, which rests the salvation of mankind entirely on faith without good works.”31 His counterpart in the Westminster Review, in a decidedly sour assessment, complains that Hogg has created “a hideous caricature” of the “ultra- calvinists of Scotland.”32 More recently, however, scholars have tended to see the Confessions as being less about Calvinism than about such topics as history writing, or the formation of Scottish identity, or early nineteenth-century print culture. For Ismael Velasco, for instance, the novel is

“a penetrating critique of the claims of historical discourse, both oral and written, to neutrality and objectivity.”33 Douglas S. Mack reads the novel as resisting the imperialist idea that traditional Scottish culture is “a relic of a primitive past” by suggesting that pre-Enlightenment

31 The Literary Gazette 391 (17 July 1824): 449–51, at 449. 32 The Westminster Review 2, no. 4 (October 1824): 560–62, at 561. 33 Velasco, “Paradoxical Readings,” 45.

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Scottish customs “have a continuing life and validity.”34 Cates Baldridge argues that the target of

Hogg’s satire is really “the ideological extremism of the nation’s cultural gatekeepers,” the reviewers in Romantic-era magazines.35 Though what exactly Hogg is writing about is open to debate, the current general sense seems to be that his subject is definitely not Calvinism.

How can we reconcile the radical divergence between the interpretations of Hogg’s contemporary readers and modern critics? That nineteenth-century readers would have thought the novel an attack on Calvinism is understandable, given the novel’s plot. On a very basic level,

Confessions is the story of a man who believes firmly in Calvinist doctrines and who is driven by those beliefs to murder those he considers enemies to Christianity. The novel functions something like Nature and Art, in which we see characters who believe in the importance of rank and wealth, and who are led by those beliefs to abuse the poor. But Confessions is not Nature and Art; its narrative techniques are much more complex. Instead of the single omniscient third- person narration in Inchbald’s work, Hogg’s novel oddly features two main narratives each told by a different character, whose accounts sometimes conflict. The novel ends bizarrely, with the first narrator unable to make sense of the second narrator’s story. Whereas the point of Nature and Art is relatively clear, Confessions resists easy interpretation because of Hogg’s puzzling structural decisions. The text’s indeterminacy has even led Magdalene Redekop to dub it “a kind of premature post-modernist novel.”36 The novel’s complexity seems to have led modern readers to find hidden meanings behind the readily-apparent anti-Calvinist attack. To suggest that

Confessions operates like Nature and Art, most readers would agree, is drastically to

34 Douglas S. Mack, Scottish Fiction and the British Empire (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006), 57. 35 Cates Baldridge, “Antinomian Reviewers: Hogg’s Critique of Romantic-Era Magazine Culture in The Confessions of a Justified Sinner,” Studies in the Novel 43, no. 4 (2011): 385–405, at 385. 36 Magdalene Redekop, “Beyond Closure: Buried Alive with Hogg’s Justified Sinner,” ELH 52, no. 1 (1985): 159–84, at 162.

355 oversimplify. The underlying logic is that a novel so opaque must be, as Crawford Gribben puts the point, “far more than a satire of Calvinism.”37

Though Confessions is by no means a straightforward or simpleminded work, we should not deem Hogg’s original readers completely wrong in their assessment of the novel. Calvinism is indeed central to the novel’s satire. I believe, however, that we can both recognize the centrality of the anti-Calvinist satire and also acknowledge the work’s intricacy. We can read

Confessions as primarily an attack on Calvinism, but one that operates in two ways. The first kind of attack is the more basic one, whereby much of the anti-Calvinist sentiment is conveyed through the plot. Here, Hogg directs our ire at Calvinism in a way that is hard to miss and accessible even to relatively passive readers. The second form of attack is subtler and more complex. Through various narrative techniques, such as the unreliability of the narrators, Hogg invites us to think about subjects or issues which might lead us to feel antipathy towards

Calvinism. This component of the novel’s attack is indirect: Hogg does not explicitly tell us what opinions we should hold. But by provoking thought about such broad topics as mercy and certitude, Hogg conveys to active, wary readers precisely what is wrong about Calvinist thought.

Ultimately, the two levels of satire reinforce each other, combining to portray Calvinism as a cruel and dangerous theology.

I do not mean to suggest that reading Confessions as an anti-Calvinist satire is the only plausible approach to the work. Confessions is best approached as an open text, like Tristram

Shandy or Waiting for Godot, that does not point to any particular interpretation but supports multiple readings. Nonetheless, I want to argue that considering the novel as a nuanced multi- pronged attack on Calvinism is plausible, and can explain some of Hogg’s strange narrative

37 Crawford Gribben, “James Hogg, Scottish Calvinism and Literary Theory,” Scottish Studies Review 5, no. 2 (2004): 9–26, at 21.

356 decisions. This reading shows us, as well, that attack satire need not always be overt or obvious to be effective. I hope to demonstrate that satiric attack can be carried out in the novel not only through blunt caricature, but also simultaneously through more sophisticated narrative techniques.

The First Mode of Attack: Calvinism and the Plot of “Confessions”

Before we explore the more subtle elements of Hogg’s attack, we should understand the direct attack that operates largely on the level of plot. Confessions is divided into three parts, beginning with the Editor’s history of the Colwan family and young George’s murder, the events of which take place largely in the early eighteenth century. The Editor opens by discussing the marriage of

George Colwan, the boisterous Laird of Dalcastle. His wife, Rabina, is a religious zealot; naturally, the marriage is unhappy, and the two live apart, with Rabina taking solace in the counsel of her favorite minister, the fanatical Reverend Robert Wringhim. Rabina bears two sons. The first, named George, is raised by the Laird and his mistress, Mrs. Logan. Her second child, Robert, is raised by Rev. Wringhim, who is probably Robert’s actual father. George fils grows up into a “kind-hearted youth,” while Robert absorbs the religious tenets of Rev.

Wringhim.38 When the two brothers are young men, they both go to Edinburgh. There, Robert haunts his brother, interfering with George’s sports and unaccountably appearing everywhere

George goes. One evening, after stepping out of a bagnio, George is murdered, stabbed in the back. The crime is blamed on one of George’s friends, Drummond, who had been drinking with

George that night. The Laird of Dalcastle dies of grief soon after, and Robert becomes the new

Laird.

38 James Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, ed. Peter Garside (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2002), 14. All references to this novel are to this edition.

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The Editor continues by recounting the efforts of Mrs. Logan, who does not believe that

Drummond was the real killer, to discover the truth of George’s murder. She finds an eyewitness to the crime, the prostitute Bell Calvert, who claims that on the night of the murder, a man with the appearance of Drummond but who was not him lured George out of the bagnio and provoked him to fight a duel. By her account, George was then stabbed in the back by another man who had been hiding in an alley. Mrs. Logan brings Bell Calvert back to Dalcastle, where Calvert is able to identify Robert as the killer. When they espy Robert, he is accompanied by a companion who mysteriously bears the face of Robert’s dead brother. Mrs. Logan and Calvert convince the authorities that they should arrest Robert, but he manages to elude the grasp of the law.

Here the Editor’s narrative ends and is followed by the memoirs of Robert himself.

Robert recounts how, as a child, he feared that he was not one of the elect predestined by God for salvation. After his eighteenth birthday, however, Rev. Wringhim announces to Robert that, after much prayer, he has determined that Robert is one of the elect. The same day, Robert meets a stranger calling himself Gil-Martin who engages Robert in theological discussion. Gil-Martin professes the same extreme religious ideas that Robert does, putting special emphasis on the perseverance of the saints—the idea that once God has destined an individual for salvation, no act by that individual can cause him or her to be damned. Gil-Martin soon becomes Robert’s closest confidante and, claiming that Robert can never lose salvation, incites Robert to murder the enemies of Christianity. He first convinces Robert to kill an elderly clergyman whose emphasis on the importance of morality conflicts with Robert’s theology, and then urges him to slay the younger George Colwan. Gil-Martin assists him in these murders, although in both cases

Robert inflicts the wounds.

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After Robert becomes the Laird of Dalcastle, he grows psychologically troubled. Time passes strangely for him; at one point he feels that only a few weeks have gone by, though others assure him that in fact four months have passed. The people around him also claim that he has committed murder and rape since becoming Laird, though he does not remember these acts.

Robert comes to fear Gil-Martin, and even implores him unsuccessfully to leave Robert alone. At length, when the officers of the law attempt to arrest him, Robert escapes and flees through

Scotland, first heading towards England and then turning north. He cannot find peace anywhere, however, as he is pursued and tormented by demons and continually haunted by Gil-Martin. At the conclusion of Robert’s narrative, Gil-Martin teaches Robert a blasphemous prayer to ward off the demons. Robert utters this prayer and his demonic torment ceases, but his anguish nonetheless drives him to commit suicide.

The novel concludes with a brief continuation of the Editor’s narrative, recounting how he obtains the suicide’s manuscript. He describes finding the suicide’s grave and exhuming the body, which has been perfectly preserved after over a century, but which falls apart as they remove it from the grave. The corpse has been buried with a pamphlet entitled “The Private

Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, Written by Himself,” which is presumably

Robert’s memoirs. The Editor concludes by expressing bafflement about the nature of the manuscript.

The events of the plot seem designed to lead us to make negative judgments about Robert and his beliefs. Even early in the novel, we are led to be ill-disposed towards Calvinism, as Rev.

Wringhim is clearly a hypocrite. When we are introduced to Robert himself, we find that

Calvinism causes him to be cruel: even as a child, he takes delight in “punishing wicked men, froward boys, and deceitful women” (74). As Robert’s crimes increase in seriousness, so does

359 our loathing for the Calvinist doctrines that motivate him. In a system in which all acts are predestined, and in which the call of the Gospel is ineffectual to the reprobate, Robert’s murders seem logical. Killing unbelievers is indeed more sensible than “haranguing them from the pulpit, striving to produce an effect, which God, by his act of absolute predestination, had for ever rendered impracticable” (84). Because Robert continually rationalizes his acts by means of his

Calvinist tenets, we judge negatively not just Robert but the ideas he represents.

Given the nature of Robert’s crimes, the satire against Calvinism moves far beyond the limits of instructional critique and into the realm of withering attack. The doctrine of predestination and its limitation of human moral agency is presented much more harshly here than, for instance, the doctrines of Methodism are presented in Graves’s The Spiritual Quixote.

There, Whitefield’s Calvinistical preachings result in antinomianism, but Wildgoose himself never kills anyone. Here, Robert not only murders others, but is himself utterly destroyed by his beliefs, as they drive him to despair and, ultimately, to suicide. The Spiritual Quixote’s light- hearted tone gives us the sense that Methodism is merely misguided and silly. The Confessions has moments of humor, but it is far darker, making Calvinism seem sinister. Hogg is not engaging in light and optimistic instruction; he presents Calvinist ideas as causing real and grave harm, and thus urges us to abominate it.

Though the plot of Confessions shows us the dangers of Calvinist tenets, some critics have objected to reading the novel as a satire on Calvinism, either on the grounds that by 1824

Calvinism was moribund and decayed, or because Robert’s beliefs do not accurately portray orthodox Calvinism. Let us consider the former objection first. Daniel Stout denies that “Hogg would have found the subject of Calvinism particularly worth taking up” because “by 1824 . . .

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Calvinism is antiquated.”39 This assertion that Calvinism is outdated has some truth to it: as

Callum G. Brown has argued, Calvinist theology “was under challenge from at least the 1750s from Arminianism,” as Presbyterian ministers sought to downplay the idea of predestination.”40

Yet the claim that strict Calvinism had completely gone out of fashion in Scotland is an exaggeration. Orthodox Calvinists like Thomas Chalmers, who in 1843 led Evangelicals to break from the more liberal Church of Scotland to form the Free Church of Scotland, were active in the

1820s. And, as Andrew L. Drummond and James Bulloch have argued, the beginning of the nineteenth century was a time of “increasing dogmatism,” especially in the Highlands, where “a distinctive Highland piety, strictly Calvinist, was being formed.”41 Despite its decline in the moderate age of the eighteenth century, orthodox Calvinism survived into the nineteenth, suggesting that Hogg might well have found the subject worth writing about.

The second objection, that the Calvinism that Hogg portrays is not in fact orthodox, is correct in noting that Calvinism, properly understood, does not endorse antinomianism. Gribben makes this case when he asserts that Wringhim’s theology is “totally unrepresentative of the orthodox Calvinism of any of the Scottish Presbyterian Churches,” and hence that Hogg “is emphatically not satirising conventional Calvinism.”42 As he points out, the Westminster

Confession of Faith, the standard doctrinal document of the Church of Scotland, states that though the elect are predestined for heaven, they are not immune to sinning.43 Gribben’s

39 Daniel Stout, “Castes of Exception: Tradition and the Public Sphere in The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner,” ELH 77, no. 2 (2010): 535–60, at 536–37. 40 Callum G. Brown, Religion and Society in Scotland since 1707 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997), 180. 41 Andrew L. Drummond and James Bulloch, The Scottish Church, 1688–1843: The Age of the Moderates (Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 1973), 215. 42 Gribben, “James Hogg, Scottish Calvinism and Literary Theory,” 13. 43 In Chapter XVII, “Of the Perseverance of the Saints,” the Westminster Confession of Faith affirms that the elect “can neither totally, nor finally, fall away from the state of Grace,” but also states that they may “fall into grievous sins; and, for a time, continue therein; whereby they incurre Gods displeasure . . . and bring temporall judgements upon themselves.” The Humble Advice of the Assembly of Divines, Now by Authority of Parliament

361 argument, however, ignores the fact that satirists often misrepresent their targets. Leonard

Feinberg’s dictum that “satire is always unfair,” though perhaps exaggerated, is applicable to the

Confessions.44 The novel’s depiction of Calvinism is grossly inaccurate precisely because Hogg is attacking it. The Wringhims’ doctrines need not be a fair representation of orthodox Calvinism for the novel’s attack to be effective. All that is required is that the target be recognizable.

Dryden’s portrayal of Shadwell as a dullard in Mac Flecknoe completely misrepresents

Shadwell’s considerable competence as a playwright—following Gribben’s logic, should we assert that Dryden is “emphatically not satirising” Shadwell?

The question, then, is whether readers would have recognized Robert’s belief system as

Calvinist. While a few parts of the Editor’s narrative suggest that Wringhim’s doctrine is a form of Calvinism “overstrained and deformed,” he is also clearly concerned that Robert’s memoirs will “attach discredit to any received principle of our church,” suggesting that Robert is not so far from orthodoxy as Gribben suggests (4, 174). In fact, many of Robert’s ideas are perfectly orthodox. His belief in predestination, for instance, is sanctioned in the WCF’s third chapter, which makes clear that God did “unchangably ordaine whatsoever comes to passe” (8). His sense that Blanchard is heretical for stating that “‘it was every man’s own blame if he was not saved’” is also not an extreme reaction, but a standard position distinguishing Calvinism from

Arminianism (93). The WCF unequivocally states that man “hath wholly lost all ability of Will to any spirituall good accompanying salvation” and is “not able, by his own strength, to convert himself” (19), contrary to Blanchard’s assertions. Hogg’s readers would likely have seen in

Robert’s beliefs a satiric caricature of orthodox Calvinism, not a faith completely removed from

Reformed ideas.

Sitting at Westminster, Concerning Part of a Confession of Faith, Presented by them Lately to Both Houses of Parliament (London, 1646), 28. 44 Feinberg, Introduction to Satire, 14.

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Even a passive reader would have seen Calvinism as central to Confessions and hence viewed the novel as an attack upon a target that had at least some contemporary relevance. The account I have offered thus far, however, is incomplete, as it does not account for many of the features that make Confessions such a strange and compelling novel: the character of the Editor, the dual-narrative structure, the unreliability of both narrators, and so forth. These narrative oddities, as we shall see, do not undermine the satire on Calvinism, but allow Hogg to make subtler attacks on his target.

The Second Mode of Attack: Hogg’s Provocation of Thought

Unlike the first kind of attack, which works to lead readers directly to negative judgments of

Robert and his motivations, the second kind is indirect. Here, Hogg does not direct the reader’s judgments explicitly, but rather provokes thought on several subjects related to Calvinism. In leading the reader to think about these issues, Hogg invites the reader to grapple with Calvinist ideas. Though the text leaves the reader free to form whatever conclusion he or she wishes, the reader seems likely to arrive at an attitude hostile to Calvinism, and to have a more precise sense of the weaknesses of the Calvinist position. This manner of attack is different from what we see in Nature and Art and Memoirs of Modern Philosophers: in neither of these cases does the author cause the reader to think much about the ideologies being attacked. Hogg, by contrast, gives readers opportunities to ponder Calvinism’s flaws.

In what follows, I consider four subjects on which Hogg provokes thought: 1) judgment and mercy; 2) human agency; 3) certitude and incertitude; and 4) the relevance of religion. In each case, Hogg leads us to these subjects through his unconventional narrative choices.

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1) Thoughts on Judgment and Mercy. When we arrive at the end of the Editor’s first narrative, most readers have already made a negative judgment of Robert. He has been shown to be arrogantly self-righteous, and his conduct towards George, as the Editor describes it, is disturbing. Regardless of whether or not we think that Robert is responsible for George’s death, we expect to dislike him by the time we get to his memoirs. Our expectations are confirmed at the beginning of Robert’s narration. We learn that as a child, he was a liar and a bully, and that he delighted in harming others. We see how he allows himself to fall under the influence of Gil-

Martin, and we loathe him for murdering Mr. Blanchard. Most of all, we hate the smugness with which Robert considers his evil deeds to be righteous.

But one of the effects of Robert’s memoirs is to invite us to alter our judgment of him as they progress. Early on, Robert is sure of his own rightness, but he eventually ceases to believe that his crimes are just, and he becomes a victim of Gil-Martin rather than an aggressor. We can see these changes occurring even before Robert kills George. Robert is reluctant to do so at first, and even after he accedes to Gil-Martin’s fratricidal command, he repents his decision on several occasions. Indeed, on the very night that he kills George, Robert argues with Gil-Martin, denying the rightness of the murder (116–17). We see in these moments that Robert, though not likeable, is not entirely without humanity.

Our sympathy for Robert is likely to increase even further after he becomes Laird. From this point forward, Robert is an at least somewhat pitiable character, as he is accused of crimes that he has no memory of committing, and is unable to escape from the clutches of Gil-Martin.

When he flees Dalcastle, he is homeless and poor, and is on several occasions physically injured.

Now utterly powerless and harmless, he is at this stage of the narrative literally more sinned against than sinning. Robert the self-righteous murderer is odious; Robert the lame, beaten, and

364 tormented cowherd is pitiful. Our initial harsh negative judgments of Robert give way to empathy as a result of Robert’s first-person narration, which allows us to see the novel’s events from his perspective and understand his suffering.

What results is a tension between our sympathy for Robert at the end of the novel and our recognition that he has committed terrible crimes for which he deserves punishment: ought we to feel pity for Robert, given his heinous deeds? Redekop astutely suggests that “through empathy

[with Robert], horror becomes pity,” and that the novel thus implicitly “affirms the simple values of love and forgiveness” (181–82).45 Though affirming forgiveness does not seem to be the novel’s main thrust, we are nonetheless made to consider whether, by the end of the novel,

Robert has suffered enough and deserves mercy.

Given the centrality of Calvinism to the novel, our pondering of the question of mercy is likely to lead us to consider mercy in the context of the Calvinist system. If we pity Robert, we will probably want mercy for him—but mercy is precisely what he will not get, at least from the

Calvinist God, as Robert is by all indications reprobate. Pondering Robert’s damnation, we may wonder how we can deem merciful a God who, through double predestination, foreordains certain individuals to be eternally damned regardless of what those individuals might have done or how they might have acted. Of course, from the Calvinist perspective, all people deserve damnation, and that God has decided to save even some demonstrates a significant degree of divine mercy. Robert’s narrative does not absolutely induce the conclusion that the God of

Calvinism is unmerciful. But by provoking us to think about the issue of mercy, Hogg at least leaves room for us to conclude that Calvinist doctrines make God out to be a callous and unmerciful tyrant.

45 John Bligh similarly notices that Robert becomes pitiable at the end of the novel, suggesting that we are meant to hate antinomianism but feel pity for those who embrace it. See John Bligh, “The Doctrinal Premises of Hogg’s Confessions of a Justified Sinner,” Studies in Scottish Literature 19 (1984): 148–64, at 161.

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2) Thoughts on Human Agency. Hogg’s pairing of the Editor’s and Robert’s narratives does more than just lead us gradually to pity Robert. It also allows Hogg to include inconsistencies between the two accounts—inconsistencies which cause us to seek explanations, and which provoke our thought. In some cases the contradictions are on the level of fact, as in the description of George’s murder. More often, however, Robert and the Editor differ in how they describe the same event. One such moment of contradiction is each narrator’s description of what happens when Mrs. Logan and Bell Calvert find Robert in the Bogle-Heuch. In the Editor’s narrative, Mrs. Logan hears Robert express a desire to “tear her to pieces with my dogs, and feed them with her flesh” (60). Bell Calvert also asserts that she hears Robert agree to kill his mother.

When Robert finds them in the thicket, he takes Mrs. Logan “by the throat” and is only prevented from killing her by Bell Calvert’s interference (61). Throughout this scene, the Editor depicts Robert as an aggressive murderer.

Robert’s account of the event is much briefer, and differs significantly from the Editor’s.

He describes Gil-Martin leading him to the place where Mrs. Logan is concealed, and asserts that his companion “left me to the mercy of two viragos, who had very nigh taken my life” (141). He makes no mention of desiring to kill his mother, or even of wanting to mutilate Mrs. Logan, nor does he admit to having attempted to strangle her. Whereas the confrontation between Robert and Mrs. Logan is the climactic moment of the Editor’s narrative, here we find almost no dramatic tension. The event does not even seem to have any particular importance to Robert, as he mentions it only to describe how Gil-Martin is attempting to deliver him “into the hands of justice” (141). His capture by the women is simply one amongst many events that happen to

Robert at this stage in his narrative.

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Though the two narratives do not absolutely contradict each other in point of fact, they are wildly disparate in their narrators’ attitude towards the agency of the characters involved.

The Editor’s narrative describes all the characters as having agency and the ability to make meaningful choices. Mrs. Logan and Bell Calvert choose to hide themselves in the Bogle-Heuch;

Robert expresses a desire to kill them and chooses to search for them in the thicket; Bell actively chooses to attack Robert after he grabs Mrs. Logan. Each character seems to be making conscious and meaningful decisions. In Robert’s narrative, however, everybody besides Gil-

Martin is described as acting passively. Bell and Mrs. Logan are not described as actively lying in wait for Robert; rather, Robert states that Gil-Martin “had them concealed in the neighbourhood” (141). Neither the women nor Robert are described actively in their fight, either;

Robert is merely left at their mercy. The Editor’s description assumes that characters have agency and can, to some degree, control what they do; Robert’s implies that people (especially those who are not Gil-Martin) have little or no agency, and that things simply happen to them.

In considering the two differing accounts of the same event, we are led to think about the issue of human agency. Hogg never explicitly foregrounds this subject, but an active reader may easily be reminded of the question of free will, especially considering how important Calvinism is to the plot. When we seek to account for the disparity between the Editor’s narration and

Robert’s, one obvious explanation that comes to mind is the effect of Calvinist tenets upon

Robert’s understanding of agency. From the Calvinist perspective, humans have no free will in the conventional sense, all things having been preordained by God. Certainly critics of Calvinism would argue that the system’s focus on the absolute sovereignty of God, especially in matters of salvation, would lead one to a passive outlook on life and one’s ability to make meaningful choices. As with the issue of mercy, the reader who is led to think about the issue of agency will

367 not necessarily arrive at an anti-Calvinist position. A Calvinist would no doubt assert that though

God has predestined all things, humans are still responsible for their own choices. But by inviting us to contemplate the issue of human agency, and to explain Robert’s inordinate passivity, Hogg leads us to grapple with the Calvinist position on human agency and free will, with the likelihood that we will come out feeling hostile towards Calvinism.

The episode of Robert’s confrontation with Mrs. Logan and Bell Calvert is only one of a number of instances in the novel in which Hogg calls our attention to Robert’s passivity. For most of Robert’s memoirs, he is a passive character, acting in accordance with Gil-Martin’s will and putting up very little resistance. Robert’s narration becomes especially passive after he becomes Laird, as he is unable to describe his own actions and can only attempt to understand what is happening to him. The point is not so much what happens in Robert’s narrative, but how he describes the events, and the way that he characterizes himself as having no ability to change what happens to him. Through Hogg’s decisions to emphasize Robert’s passivity, he makes us wonder whether the Calvinist belief in determinism naturally leads its adherents to a passive or even apathetic attitude towards the world. Hogg thus calls to our attention a potential weakness in Calvinist thought that further lowers Calvinism in the reader’s estimation.

3) Thoughts on Certitude. I have mentioned that parts of Robert’s narrative conflict with the Editor’s on issues of fact. When these narratives diverge not just in the manner of description but in the actual facts being described, we are apt to feel that Robert is an unreliable narrator who inaccurately reports events—that is, we trust the Editor’s narrative more than Robert’s. In the case of George’s murder, for instance, Robert describes killing George in a fierce duel in which

George falls “covered with wounds,” which contradicts the Editor’s assertion that George’s wounds were given from behind. We favor the Editor’s narrative both because Bell Calvert’s

368 account corresponds with the Editor’s version of the facts, and because Robert himself tells us that “my own immediate impressions of this affair in some degree differed” from what he described, and that the version of events he narrated is only what Gil-Martin has told him occurred (118). Though we cannot be sure, we are at least fairly certain that Robert’s account of the event is unreliable.

At times, however, Robert narrates unreliably, but we have no corresponding account from the Editor to give us a sense of what actually happens. The most prominent of these passages is when Robert is accused of rape and appears to have forged a grant giving him power over the girl’s mother. Robert assiduously denies having done these things, but Gil-Martin and the other characters assert that Robert is guilty. Robert himself does not have a definite sense of what has happened; he writes that “either I had a second self, who transacted business in my likeness, or else my body was at times possessed by a spirit over which it had no controul, and of whose actions my own soul was wholly unconscious” (125). We cannot tell from the narrative whether Robert is actually possessed by a demon, or whether he simply represses his memory of crimes he consciously committed, or even whether he has committed these crimes at all. Robert’s narrative generates a feeling of uncertainty in the reader not just in this episode, but in a number of other mysterious moments; we never learn, for instance, what the prayer that Gil-Martin teaches Robert is, or the identity of the intruder who spooks the horses and causes Robert to flee when he is sleeping in the hay-loft at Ellanshaws (164, 155).

When we reach the Editor’s second narrative, we may be lured into thinking that our uncertainties will now be resolved, as the Editor is more factually reliable. But these hopes are soon dashed, as the Editor provides almost no insight into the mysteries we encounter in Robert’s memoirs. Instead, the novel ends with the Editor confused by Robert’s narrative, as he confesses

369 that “I do not comprehend the writer’s drift” (174). As Ian Campbell puts the point, Hogg

“absolv[es] himself in this way from the task of explaining the features of uncertainty which he built into his own novel” and “throws the burden of explanation on to the reader.”46 Though individual readers may choose to explain the uncertainties of the text in various ways, they must always do so with an awareness of the fact that no explanation is clearly supported by the text.

Douglas Gifford aptly states that “Hogg is at great pains to safeguard” multiple interpretations: while we cannot rule out a purely rational and psychological reading, in which Robert is simply a madman, we also cannot discount a supernatural reading, in which Robert is actually tormented by the Devil.47 Belief in the Devil, as Gribben has shown, was a facet of Scottish

Presbyterianism, and so a nineteenth-century Presbyterian reader might be inclined to take seriously the possibility that Gil-Martin is Satan, but his exact nature is never clarified.48

Why would Hogg end his novel so unsatisfactorily, giving the reader no definite explanation of the narrative’s events? One plausible reason is to make the reader contemplate the concept of certitude itself as it relates to Calvinism. Calvinists who are assured of their election feel certain of their salvation; as Peter K. Garrett points out, “Robert’s downfall begins with a moment of narrative certainty, his assurance of salvation.”49 Adherents of Calvinism possess another kind of certitude, as well—the certainty that the Bible clearly supports their theology.

The Westminster Confession states that “those things which are necessary to be known, beleeved, and observed for salvation, are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the Learned but the unlearned . . . may attaine unto a sufficient understanding

46 Ian Campbell, “Hogg’s Confessions and the Heart of Darkness,” Studies in Scottish Literature 15 (1980): 187–201, at 189. 47 Douglas Gifford, James Hogg (Edinburgh: Ramsay Head Press, 1976), 149. 48 Crawford Gribben, “James Hogg and the Demonology of Scottish Writing,” in The Lure of the Dark Side: Satan and Western Demonology in Popular Culture, ed. Christopher Partridge and Eric Christianson (London: Equinox, 2009), 171–81, at 174–76. 49 Peter K. Garrett, Gothic Reflections: Narrative Force in Nineteenth-Century Fiction (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003), 65.

370 of them” (5). As the frequent Scripture references in the WCF indicate, Calvinist doctrines can be derived from the Bible. Yet the fact that Arminian and even Catholic theological positions can also be arrived at through interpretations of Scripture suggests that, like Hogg’s novel, the Bible can be interpreted in various ways. And if texts can have many different valid interpretations, on what grounds do Calvinists proclaim that their brand of Christianity alone is truly Biblical?

Hogg’s uncertain ending has the effect of leading the reader to think about incertitude, which might well cause the reader to question Calvinists’ claims to be able to know God’s plan and interpret the Bible with certitude.

4) Thoughts on the Relevance of Religion. While we are likely to feel incertitude at the end of Confessions, we are not entirely sympathetic with the Editor’s confusion. When we reach the Editor’s second narrative, we realize that the Editor is as much an unreliable narrator as

Robert—not because he presents us with incorrect facts, but because he is unable to interpret accurately the facts that he narrates.50 Though much evidence in the text (both Robert’s narrative and Mrs. Logan’s experiences) points to Gil-Martin being an independent being with supernatural powers, the Editor asserts the impossibility that the Devil should manifest himself on Earth, and even goes so far as “greatly to doubt” that Robert has had any hand in George’s murder (175). For all of our uncertainty about what exactly has occurred, we are likely to believe that Robert is in some way responsible for George’s death. The Editor’s rationalist, materialist worldview interferes with his ability to draw obvious conclusions from the various histories he has assembled.

The Editor’s myopia is especially acute in that he himself witnesses something preternatural: the preservation of Robert’s corpse. When he and his friends exhume the lower

50 The Editor is what James Phelan would call a “misreader.” For more on various types of unreliable narration, see James Phelan, Living to Tell about It: A Rhetoric and Ethics of Character Narration (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005), 50–51.

371 half of the body, they find that “all the limbs, from the loins to the toes, seemed perfect and entire” (173). As astounding as finding a century-old corpse in this condition is, the Editor refuses to consider the significance or cause of this discovery. With his scientific mind, he reports the circumstances of the corpse minutely, even mentioning such trifling details as “a layer of cow’s dung, about one eighth of an inch thick,” in one of the corpse’s shoes (172). But he never entertains the possibility that something beyond the bounds of ordinary nature has occurred to protect Robert’s body from decay. Only William Laidlaw, accompanying the Editor, is able to offer a rationale, one grounded in religious belief: he suggests that “this man’s corpse has been miraculously preserved frae decay . . . for the preservation o’ that little book” (174).

Given that the Editor disbelieves not just Robert’s memoirs but also the evidence of his own eyes in denying the supernatural, his refusal to consider supernatural explanations seems exceptionally perverse to most readers, and we feel that Hogg is leading us to be deeply suspicious of the Editor’s conclusions.

Many critics, especially those considering the role of Confessions in debates about post-

Union Scottish identity, have emphasized that Hogg critiques the Editor’s rationalist,

Enlightenment point of view. For Mack, the Editor’s inability to understand the supernatural puts him in opposition to the traditional Scots culture represented by such characters as Lucky Shaw, who believes in the supernatural. Confessions critiques the Editor’s viewpoint by offering “a sophisticated and ultimately devastating subversion of the Editor’s obtuse failure to be fully open to the value and the vitality of the culture of the ‘supposedly rather primitive’ peasantry of

Ayrshire, Ettrick, and the Highlands” (81). Similarly, Samuel W. Harnish, Jr., finds that the

Editor represents print culture in opposition to traditional oral culture, and reads his narrow- mindedness to indicate that “the wisdom of local Scottish people, holding onto their tradition, is

372 more reliable than the printed word.”51 The idea is that Hogg satirizes those things the Editor stands for: Englishness, rationalism, “high” literary culture, empire.

Viewed from these critical positions, the Editor’s unreliability seems to have nothing to do with the novel’s religious satire. Yet if we consider the Editor’s attitude towards Robert’s memoirs and religious matters generally, we can see that Hogg uses the Editor’s confusion to stimulate thought about the importance of religion. One of the traits of the Editor’s rationalist worldview is that he treats religion as a relic of the past. He describes Robert’s memoirs as being a tale of the “rage of fanaticism in former days” (64, my emphasis), and he claims that its supernatural elements will not be believed by “the present generation” (175). Although he hypothesizes that the memoirs may be a religious allegory, he claims that it “would have suited that age well,” implying that religious allegories are no longer relevant in the early nineteenth century (175). Naturally, one inclined to disbelieve in the existence of the Devil or of miracles is unlikely to find religion relevant. Because Hogg has demonstrated that the Editor is unreliable, however, we are invited to consider the Editor’s attitude towards religion critically, and to question whether religion is as passé and unimportant as he makes it out to be.

The question of religion’s importance has major significance for the novel’s anti-

Calvinist satire. If the Editor’s point of view is correct—if religion is indeed a thing of the past, with little relevance for a secular nineteenth century—then hating Calvinism makes little sense.

Calvinism becomes just one of a number of religious positions, all equally meaningless and absurd. It may be wrong-headed, but it is hardly worth despising, any more than such bygone relics as the Anti-Masonic Party or the Bull Moose Party are worth despising in the twenty-first century. If, contrariwise, the Editor’s point of view is wrong—if religious faith does matter—

51 Samuel W. Harnish, Jr, “James Hogg: The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner and Manufactured Tradition,” Studies in Hogg and his World 17 (2006): 36–48, at 47.

373 then presumably we ought to get it right, and reject those who lead believers into religious error.

Seen from this perspective, attacking Calvinism as a dangerous perversion of Christianity seems much more sensible. If, indeed, there is a God, as the miraculous preservation of Robert’s body may suggest, and if Calvinism is indeed a corruption of the true faith, then repudiating it is a holy and worthwhile endeavor.

As with the other techniques of the novel’s second mode of attack, Hogg does not assert outright that religious faith is relevant or that correct belief is important. He leads us to think about the relevance of religion, but readers are free to side with the Editor’s secular, anti- supernatural position. But by making the Editor unreliable, Hogg leads us at least to consider whether the Lucky Shaws and Laidlaws of the world are correct. In doing so, we may arrive at the position that Calvinism is indeed a diabolical doctrine, and thus deserving our hostility.

I have discussed four of the ways in which Hogg provokes thought in the reader in order to make an indirect attack upon Calvinism. These are the most prominent examples of Hogg’s second mode of attack, although more might be found. The point, however, is not to be exhaustive, but to recognize that Hogg’s indirect attack can explain some of his strange narrative decisions. If Hogg were attempting a simple bashing of Calvinism, then many of his choices, such as his inclusion of ambiguity in his text, his creation of an unsatisfying ending, and his use of the dual narrative structure, do not make sense. Hogg could have written the events of the novel from the perspective of an omniscient narrator, like those of Inchbald or Hamilton; he might just as easily have written the whole novel from Robert’s perspective. Either of these forms of narration would be conducive to making an effective attack on Calvinism. But because of the strange narrative features of Confessions, the novel provokes much more thought about its target than Nature and Art or Memoirs of Modern Philosophers.

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Why would Hogg choose to use two different kinds of attack? If Hogg had only attacked

Calvinism through the novel’s plot without trying to provoke thought about such issues as mercy or free will, the attack would be obvious but less comprehensive. The reader might be led to believe that Calvinism is dangerous, but would not wrestle actively with Calvinist ideas. If, on the contrary, Hogg had managed to lead readers to think about issues related to Calvinism but had not attacked Calvinism directly in his novel’s plot, then the attack would probably be ineffective. The reader might ponder the relevance of religion or the nature of certitude, but might not connect these ideas with Calvinist theology. Because Hogg uses both direct and indirect attack, however, the overall impact of the satire is more forceful. Given the direct attack on Calvinism, the reader is more likely to connect Hogg’s provocations of thought to

Calvinism’s flaws. When made to ponder the topic of certitude, for instance, the reader is much more likely to consider the certitude of the Calvinists because the direct attack has already trained the reader to make anti-Calvinist judgments. The direct attack allows the indirect attack to function; the indirect attack helps the reader see more clearly what precisely is wrong about

Calvinist thought and why it is worth caring about.

The satire of Confessions shows us that while satiric attack is often harsh and heavy- handed, it can also be subtle. Though Hogg’s second mode of satire is much less overtly aggressive than most satiric attack, it is nonetheless focused on undermining whatever cultural cachet Calvinism possesses, and further lowering Calvinism in the esteem of those already unsympathetic to it. The attacking techniques used in Nature and Art and Memoirs of Modern

Philosophers—showing obviously bad characters representing obviously bad ideologies doing obviously bad things—are effective and artful in their own way, but they are about as subtle as a rhinoceros. We tend to think of satiric attack as the angry lashing or demolition of a target, but

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Confessions reminds us that less direct means of attack can be as effective. While Hogg engages in some of this satiric bashing on the level of plot, he is content mainly to allow the reader to reach his or her own conclusions about why Calvinism is wrong. Gil-Martin-like, Hogg does not deliver the killing blow, but urges us with a penetrating word in our ear to take up the sword ourselves.

* * *

Comparing Inchbald’s Nature and Art, Hamilton’s Memoirs of Modern Philosophers, and

Hogg’s Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner can lead us to some conclusions about novelistic attack satire in general. First and foremost, these three novels clearly show that the novel form is compatible with attack satire, not inimical to it, as some theorists have suggested. Though Charles A. Knight grants that novels may contain attack, he asserts that the

“element of satiric attack is secondary to and contingent upon the intense depiction of consciousness.”52 The position here seems to be that attack can only ever be a subordinate goal of a novel, less important than conveying than developing realistic plots and characters. But as the novels of Inchbald, Hamilton, and Hogg show us, the aim of harming a target can be much more than simply one component of a larger work: in each of these novels attack is the primary goal.

Though the novel is less suited to straight denunciation of a target than verse satire, the traits of the form can nonetheless be used effectively to attack. The deployment of plot and character can be particularly useful for generating hatred or disgust against a target because these features can cause the reader to become emotionally involved in the narrative. When Inchbald describes William’s treatment of Hannah and her subsequent misery, we feel anger at the rich

52Knight, The Literature of Satire, 204.

376 and powerful because Hannah resembles a real human being to whom we have become emotionally attached. Our fury is likely greater than it would be if Inchbald had simply written a verse satire denouncing the wealthy. The novel form also gives the author control over how the events of the plot are narrated. As we have seen in Hogg’s Confessions, the decisions a novelist makes about what kind of narration to use can impact how the satiric attack operates. The intricacies of Hogg’s narration make his attack more wide-ranging in terms of what the satirist shows to be wrong about his target than the relatively simple attack in a poem like Burns’s Holy

Willie’s Prayer (1789) or in a play like Foote’s The Minor. The characteristics of the novel form do not necessarily make it unsuited to attack; a novel can cause a reader to feel ire, hatred, disgust, or contempt for a target just as effectively as a poem or play can.

In addition to confirming that novels can be written primarily as vehicles of attack satire, our examination of Inchbald, Hamilton, and Hogg also suggests two general trends in satiric novels of this type. The first is that the degree of realism and psychological complexity in this kind of satiric novel is related to the type of attitude the satirist is attempting to convey about the target. If the satirist is attempting to horrify and anger the audience by presenting the target as something capable of causing serious harm, he or she will likely make significant use of realism.

We have seen how Inchbald’s attempts to make her characters more psychologically vivid contributes to the attack in Nature and Art. Likewise, the striking psychological image of the fanatic’s mindset we get in Confessions makes Calvinism more odious. Yet realism is not the most logical technique for all kinds of attack. When the satirist is attempting to show the absurdity or idiocy of the target, or to make personal attacks, he or she is more likely to use caricature and exaggeration, as Hamilton does with Bridgetina in Memoirs of Modern

Philosophers. Further, we can see that when a satirist is attempting to make a target seem both

377 horrifying and absurd, realism and exaggeration may be combined in the same work:

Confessions, for instance, is realistic insofar as we get a convincing psychological profile of

Robert, but also exaggerates in its depiction of the Wringhims’ extreme theology. Realism and exaggeration each have their own uses, and neither is inimical to attack satire.

A second trend we can draw from these works is that satiric novels of attack tend to include other elements which moderate the force of the satire. Memoirs of Modern Philosophers is the clearest example, as Hamilton mixes attack satire with lighter, instructive satire. Though the attack on radicalism is harsh, the novel is not entirely devoted to bashing Jacobinism.

Moderating elements are present in Nature and Art as well; though the satire on the Williams is primary, we are also given depictions of positive thought and behavior in the two Henrys and

Rebecca. And while Confessions is almost purely attack, the presence of indirect attack mitigates somewhat the unsubtle critique of Calvinism conveyed through the plot. The point is not that the novel form necessarily dilutes attack, but that attack can be made more effective when moderated. If, for instance, Inchbald had removed the Henrys entirely from Nature and Art, so that the novel only consisted of the Williams and their ilk abusing others, the result would be monotonously dull and likely less effective. The attack in the three novels I have considered is actually more effective because it is mixed with other content.

These trends are not rigid rules of the satiric novel of attack: one might, for example, find a novel of this type in which the attack is not at all mitigated. Sinclair’s The Jungle approaches this sort of extreme. Not every satiric novel of attack resembles those I have discussed here. But by comparing and contrasting three novels that vary greatly in some respects while sharing the same aim of harming some target, we can get a sense of what satiric novels of attack are like and how they can use satire to harm people, institutions, or ideas. Nature and Art, Memoirs of

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Modern Philosophers, and The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner should give us a good idea of what attack satire looks like, especially in contrast to other types of satire, and should allow us to recognize attack satire when we encounter it in other novels.

CONCLUSION: SATIRE IN THE NOVEL, 1740–1830

In this study I have confronted a number of dominant assumptions about what satire is and how it is used by eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century novelists. The most fundamental idea that I have challenged is the notion that eighteenth-century novelists move away from satire, such that satire declines by the late eighteenth century and gives way to the novel form. Though

Ronald Paulson describes satire as surviving to some degree through the middle of the eighteenth century in the fiction of Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne, it eventually “dwindled into a local effect, disappearing into sentimental, doctrinal, or other kinds of novel,” or was “domesticated, reduced to one element in a larger work, placed, and criticized, or merely used as decoration.”1

Likewise, Frank Palmeri discusses how novelistic forms “succeed” narrative satire in the eighteenth century.2 As I have shown, we can find numerous novels from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in which satire has neither dwindled nor been domesticated; the idea that the novel wipes satire out is simply not true. Contrariwise, satire flourishes in the novel, in the works of writers like Graves, Burney, Peacock, and Hogg.

Admitting that satire is a major component of the novel c. 1740–1830 leads us to other important questions, which I have tried to answer. If satire exists in the novel, what exactly is a satiric novel anyway, and how do we identify it? If novels as different in tone as Peregrine

Pickle and Nature and Art are both satiric, how useful is the term? Can we count as satires novels that do not seem very strongly to attack a target, or should we cling to the long-held idea that satire is primarily attack? I have advocated for abandoning rigid and simplistic definitions of satire, as modern-day definitions tend to exclude works that eighteenth- and nineteenth-century readers describe as satiric. Instead, I have offered a flexible way of identifying satire and

1 Paulson, The Fictions of Satire, 222. 2 Palmeri, Satire, History, Novel, 269. 380 classifying individual satiric novels, one that grants that not all satire is written with the same goal in mind. As I hope I have shown, recognizing that multiple kinds of satire can be written yields us useful readings of satiric texts, and allows us more effectively to explain how satire functions in these works.

This project was conceived with multiple audiences in mind, and what one takes away from the study as a whole depends largely on one’s interests and point of view. This finale is divided into two parts. First, I want to offer some thoughts on what the novels I have discussed can show us about the theory of satire more generally. Then, I will turn to how examining the period’s satiric fiction gives us insight into the novel of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. While my goal is not to chronicle the history of the form, my study can provide some useful conclusions about how to conceive of the development of the novel c. 1740–1830.

I. The Rhetoric of Satire

What can this study of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century satiric novels tell us about satire?

We have seen that satire is, at its heart, a rhetorical enterprise. Most satirists do not write purely to vent spleen; rather, they aim to affect the judgments and opinions of their readers. How else to explain Burney’s claim in the dedication of The Wanderer that she aims to give “juvenile credulity knowledge of the world, without ruin, or repentance”?3 Though Dustin Griffin has claimed that satirists “for the most part are not committed to a set of political principles” and do not attempt to sway the politics of their audiences, writers like Robert Bage and Thomas Holcroft seem to believe firmly that their satire can have positive effects on their readers.4 Indeed, if the character of Turl in Hugh Trevor represents Holcroft’s own beliefs, then Holcroft writes satire

3 Burney, The Wanderer, 7. 4 Griffin, Satire, 152.

381 out of a moral duty to remove the ignorance of his readers “by the communication of knowledge.”5 The novelists that I describe have rhetorical goals and attempt to achieve them through the practice of satire.

Given its rhetorical nature, theorizing about satire in broad, sweeping terms makes little sense and tends to produce misleading conclusions. If satire is a rhetorical tool, it can be used for many different ends—just as other rhetorical devices, such as pathos or metaphor, can. Since satire can be deployed in various ways and for a multitude of purposes, generalized assumptions about it typically fail to take account of its nuances. The idea that all satire is attack, for instance, is belied by the fact that satire can be used to produce entertainment or instruction. Leon

Guilhamet’s dictum that satire is motivated by “a belief in the superiority of the past to the present and a fear of innovation as a threat to the institutions of the past” ignores the fact that satire is used for radical as well as conservative purposes, as demonstrated by such writers as

Bage and Inchbald.6 Likewise, Fredric V. Bogel’s idea that satirists target things that are “both unattractive and curiously or dangerously like them” explains some works well—the satire against the extreme Christianity of Methodism from an orthodox Anglican point of view in The

Spiritual Quixote is a clear instance of the satirist critiquing something uncannily similar to himself.7 But the theory is not as helpful when dealing with such a novel as Burney’s Cecilia.

The notion that Burney identifies in the oppressive structures of a vicious and patriarchal society something that is uncomfortably similar to herself seems decidedly peculiar. My study shows us that sweeping statements about all satire in general are likely to be disproved by actual satiric practice.

5 Holcroft, Hugh Trevor, 218. 6 Leon Guilhamet, Satire and the Transformation of Genre (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987), 165. 7 Fredric V. Bogel, The Difference Satire Makes: Rhetoric and Reading from Jonson to Byron (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001), 41.

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Instead of discussing satire as a monolithic enterprise, we need a way to account for the different ways in which it is used. As satirists use satire to achieve some sort of goal, subdividing satire by aim makes sense. Identifying different satiric aims has several advantages. Most important, considering aims can help us to explain differences in tone and technique between different kinds of satire. A satirist writing to entertain is likely to employ a much lighter tone than one attempting to inculcate pessimism; a satirist trying to instruct will use different satiric techniques than one more interested in attack. Fielding’s Amelia and Peacock’s Headlong Hall are both satires, but they read very differently—precisely because they have different satiric aims. Furthermore, identifying a number of distinct satiric aims helps us to compare novels that we might not normally think of as similar. Peacock is not often compared to Smollett or Sterne;

Hogg is not often connected to the Jacobin or anti-Jacobin novelists. Different as these works are, considering satiric aim allows us to see real and intriguing similarities.

Let me briefly discuss two caveats regarding my system of characterizing satire by aim.

First, though satiric aims can be categorized, these categories—entertainment, instruction, pessimism, and attack—are not exclusive. They are rough descriptions of the various ways satirists attempt to influence their readers. Satirists do not always write with only a single purpose in mind, and we have to acknowledge that some works straddle the line between categories. The point is not to impose a rigid taxonomy that distorts our view of individual novels in order to cram them into one pigeonhole or another. Satirists do not set out to write “an instructive satire” or “an entertainment satire”—the terms I propose merely provide us with ways to conceive of and discuss these novelists’ goals. Second, we also need to remember that just because two satires share similar aims does not mean that they are radically alike in all ways.

Pompey the Little and Cecilia both inculcate a pessimistic worldview in the reader, but they do

383 so using vastly different narrative techniques. We must remember that satire is wildly diverse, and that even within the subtypes of satire I discuss, we can find variation.

Though the aims I discuss do not fall into exclusive categories, and though we can find great variety among satires with similar aims, loosely grouping satires by aim nonetheless helps us see real similarities and trends. For all that Pompey the Little and Cecilia may differ from each other in style, in terms of their attitude towards their subjects, they are much closer to each other than they are to such works as Joseph Andrews or Tristram Shandy. Even though the aims can overlap, we can find general patterns: entertainment and instructive satires tend to be lighter in tone than pessimistic and attack satires. Instructive and attack satire tends to focus on a single target or a related group of targets, whereas entertainment and pessimistic satire tends to satirize a wider variety of things. Caricature lends itself more to entertainment and instructive satire, while realistic characterization is more common in pessimistic satire and certain kinds of attack.

We can find exceptions to these patterns, but for the most part they are valid.

The goal is not to create a foolproof scheme for taxonomizing and classifying satiric novels, but to help us describe individual works. Different readers may reasonably disagree about borderline cases—such as whether Memoirs of Modern Philosophers is more centrally an instructive or an attack satire, for instance. The point of this study, however, is to provide readers with an approach to novels of various sorts that seem heavily satiric. Helping readers to question what the aims of particular satires are and how we can tell—rather than assuming that a work necessarily attacks because it is satiric—is more important to me than that every reader agrees with the categorizations I have put forward. We need fundamentally to change the way we think about and discuss the phenomenon of satire. Doing so will enrich our criticism of specific instances of the mode.

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Though my study has focused on satire as practiced in the novel from 1740 to 1830, the conclusions I draw about satire’s diversity can be applied to other genres. We can find poems and plays, like Pope’s The Rape of the Lock and Congreve’s The Country Wife, which are satiric and yet which do not seem best described as attack. No doubt we can identify examples of different kinds of satire in these genres: Rochester’s Upon Nothing is quite pessimistic in nature, differing fundamentally from something like Defoe’s Reformation of Manners, which blends attack and instruction. My conclusions about satire are likely also applicable to novels outside of the period I focus on. The distinction between pessimistic satire and attack satire, for instance, can help us to account for the differences between Waugh’s A Handful of Dust (a pessimistic complaint) and Sinclair’s The Jungle (relentless attack). Because I have focused specifically on the satiric novel of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, however, I want now to turn to the conclusions my study offers us about how the novel develops in that specific period.

II. Satire and the Form of the Novel, 1740–1830

For much of the twentieth century, scholars recognized five major writers of fiction in the eighteenth century: Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne. From this point of view, little important fiction was created by anybody else until Austen began writing around the turn of the nineteenth century, and after Austen not much transpired in the novel until Dickens. More recent scholarship has recognized the importance of other novelists, including such writers as

Burney, Inchbald, and Scott, as well as of popular trends in the novel, such as the Gothic. Even so, not many studies of the novel discuss how the form changes from the mid- to the late eighteenth century and into the nineteenth century. Scholars have often endeavored to explain the

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“rise of the novel,” but have been less interested in what happens after the novel becomes a popular form but before the Victorian period.

Though my goal is not to map out the history of the novel, or even the satiric novel, c.

1740–1830, my focus is on the relatively neglected latter half of the eighteenth century and the early nineteenth century. As I hope I have shown, many fascinating works of fiction are written in this period, both by authors we now consider major and by those we have largely forgotten but who were nonetheless popular in their time. Looking at the novel of this period from the perspective of one interested in narrative satire, I want to offer a few thoughts on how we should answer the question of what “happens” in the novel in the late eighteenth century. Studying the satiric novels of this period offers us both positive knowledge about the novel in general and also provides some cautions about how the late eighteenth-century novel ought to be approached.

Positive Conclusions: The Prominence of Satire in the Novel

A major trend that my study has shown us is that the satiric impulse remains continuous in the period c. 1740–1830. Throughout this period, writers feel the urge to mock, critique, and bash targets; though what is generally deemed “the great age of satire” is over, satire lives on. Though what exactly motivates the writing of satire likely varies from author to author, the need to voice criticism in the form of satire remains constant, surviving the sentimentalism of the late eighteenth century and the focus on imagination of Romanticism. Naturally, as the novel became more popular, satire was frequently written in novel form. Given that many of the major early novelists of the period write novels that are heavily satiric, the fact that novelists continue to incorporate satire into their narratives throughout the next hundred years makes sense.

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So strong is the satiric impulse in the novel that even works that are not primarily satiric nonetheless often make use of satiric elements. At the end of his study of satire in the eighteenth- century novel, Paulson concludes that “satire’s eclipse in the later eighteenth century” came about because satire was absorbed into the novel form (309). Novelists in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, he argues, do not write satire, but include satiric moments in their works. I hope I have demonstrated that novelists actually do write satire, but Paulson is correct in noting that in many novels, satire is not a primary goal but is nonetheless present. What he takes to be a sign of satire’s eclipse, however, I see as evidence of satire’s continuing importance to the eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century novel. If, in addition to the heavily satiric novels

I have discussed, less satiric novels are nonetheless making use of satiric elements, then satire seems to be crucially intertwined with the novel form of this period.

Jane Austen provides a good example. Critics have divided over what to make of her works: she has been described as a feminist, a traditionalist, a Burkean, a radical, a realist, and a didacticist, among many other things. While her use of satire is acknowledged, she is not often discussed as a satirist. In Chapter 1, I posited a number of characteristics that can help us determine whether or not a particular novel feels satiric. Not all characteristics need be present for the work to feel heavily satiric, but if few or none of these traits are present, it will seem only lightly satiric, if at all. If we focus on Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, how satiric does it feel? In many ways it does not possess the traits I have discussed. Though Austen leads us to make negative judgments of many of the characters, most of these judgments do not extend to targets outside of the text. Lady Catherine de Bourgh is proud, but her pride seems exceptional; the novel does not suggest that the world is brimming with many Lady Catherines. Wickham is a scoundrel, but he likewise is exceptional in his immorality—though he proves to be a harmful

387 character, we do not get the sense that the novel mainly aims to critique womanizing scamps.

Austen does not rely heavily on caricature—certainly not to the extent that writers like Smollett,

Lennox, or Peacock do. Nor do we find many positive exemplars: though Darcy and Elizabeth are both positive and likeable characters, they are each flawed in their own way. They are a far cry from the Henrys of Nature and Art or Turl in Hugh Trevor.

Yet despite the ways in which Pride and Prejudice does not appear to contain some of the basic traits of satiric novels, the novel is not entirely devoid of them. The negative judgment of external circumstances is not as prominent as it is in something like Burney’s The Wanderer, where the subtitle proclaims that the novel’s subject is “Female Difficulties.” But Pride and

Prejudice nonetheless contains an element of negative judgment against an external circumstance, namely the plight of women in the marriage market of Austen’s time. The marriage of Charlotte Lucas to the repellent Mr. Collins, for instance, can be read as a critique of marrying for money instead of love, but it can also be taken as an indictment of a social system in which women could not live independently and thus had to rely on marriage for financial security. Her fate could easily be that of the Bennet daughters: as Robert D. Hume has pointed out, Mr. Bennet’s failure to make adequate provision for his children is selfish and irresponsible.8 Here, we find negative judgment of a very real phenomenon outside the text. The plight of the single woman without fortune is not confined to just one character; we get the sense that Charlotte Lucas’s female difficulties are not extraordinary.

Further contributing to our sense that the novel is at least somewhat satiric is Austen’s use of irony. As has been well documented, Austen is a master of irony and understatement. She employs wittily ironic remarks to call attention to the faults and follies of her society, as when

8 Robert D. Hume, “Money in Jane Austen,” Review of English Studies, n.s., 64, no. 264 (2013): 289–310, at 305–310.

388 she describes the effect of the departure of Wickham’s regiment from Meryton on the neighborhood’s young ladies. During the regiment’s final week in town, “the dejection was almost universal. The elder Miss Bennets alone were still able to eat, drink, and sleep, and pursue the usual course of their employments.”9 This moment of irony, and the many others like it throughout the novel, add an element of wry humor that is found in a number of other satiric novels we have seen. Though the irony is not quite so cutting as that of Bage’s Hermsprong, for instance, it is prominent enough to give Pride and Prejudice a partially satiric feel.

Pride and Prejudice, then, seems to be a borderline case. It does not seem as forcefully and predominantly satiric as Hermsprong or Melincourt or Memoirs of Modern Philosophers, but we can detect satiric elements in it. We can see in Austen’s novel characters and situations that are reminiscent of some of the more heavily satiric novels I have discussed. In his failure to provide for his daughters, Mr. Bennet may remind us of the failed guardians of Cecilia. We can find fortune-hunting characters like Wickham in a wide range of satiric novels, including

Pompey the Little, Tom Jones, and Humphry Clinker. And the exposure of the helplessness of women in a patriarchal society is a project attempted not just here but in Burney’s novels, as well, nowhere more starkly than in The Wanderer. The point is not that we should presume the direct influence of Fielding or Smollett or Coventry on Austen—although she famously mentions

Burney positively in Northanger Abbey. Influence is difficult to prove given a lack of explicit evidence. But we can plausibly surmise that, given how many of the major novelists of the eighteenth century used satire heavily, employing satire in her novels would have seemed natural to her. Understanding how satire operates in the eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century novel is important not just because many of the period’s major novels are predominantly satiric, but also because many other novels, while not primarily satiric, nonetheless contain satire.

9 Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, ed. Pat Rogers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 254.

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Applying what we have seen about the various types and aims of satire in the previous chapters, we can treat Pride and Prejudice as a novel mainly focused on depicting romance, but that also contains a dark undercurrent of pessimistic satire. The relationship between Elizabeth and Darcy is central to the plot, and the problems they must overcome to achieve a happy union are not critiqued as heavily as they are in novels like Cecilia or Evelina. The novel is more a celebration of romantic love than an exposure of societal flaws. The positive ending goes far in blunting the edge of the novel’s satire: Elizabeth’s true love triumphs over Charlotte Lucas’s pragmatism after all. But underlying the uplifting romance plot is a pessimistic, or at least realistic, outlook on reality. For most women in Austen’s time, making one’s fortune by marrying a man who is rich, handsome, and romantically compatible would not have been a viable option. Given the kind of society Austen depicts, Mrs. Bennet is not so foolish for striving to marry off her daughters advantageously, nor is Charlotte wrong to marry Mr. Collins. The novel never suggests that the place of women in Austen’s society will change or improve; sacrificing emotional companionship for financial stability remains a fact of life for many. The main point of the novel is not to inculcate pessimism—we are not told, as in Cecilia, that the heroine must bear her sufferings with resignation. But what satire Austen employs is pessimistic, even as she provides a narrative that fantasizes escape from her society’s problems.

Because many major novels from 1740 to 1830 are primarily satiric, and because many others at least incorporate satire as a secondary element, recognizing the diversity of satire and its possibilities should be helpful to scholars focusing on the fiction of this period. As we can see from the example of Pride and Prejudice, being aware of the different aims satirists can attempt can help us even with novels that are not predominantly satiric. Austen does not really attack anything, in any meaningful sense of the word—but allowing for the possibility of pessimistic

390 satire, and considering some of the techniques by which it can be created, can provide us models for conceptualizing satire as it appears in Pride and Prejudice. Having a grasp of the various aims and techniques of novelistic satire can be an invaluable tool for someone interested more generally in the novels of this period.

Warnings: The Chaos and Heterogeneity of the Novel Form

Though the continued presence of satire in the novel through the late eighteenth century and into the nineteenth century is a clear and widespread trend, others are difficult to draw. While we can see some tendencies, generalizing from them can be dangerous. Consider, for instance, one basic pattern that we might apply to the satiric novels of the period. Generally speaking, techniques that lend themselves to serious satire become more popular later in the eighteenth century. By serious satire, I mean pessimistic and attack satire, which tend to have darker tones and harder- hitting critique. We do not find the psychological depth of character in Burney’s Cecilia or in

Hogg’s Confessions used satirically earlier in the period. The works of Fielding, Smollett,

Coventry, and Sterne tend to rely on exaggerated and caricatured characters, especially those who represent types rather than actual individuals. These kinds of characters are naturally more suited to lighter types of satire—entertainment and instruction. When novelists employ deeper and more complex characters, such as Falkland in Caleb Williams, the satire can be more impactful because more analogous to real life. Part of the effectiveness of Caleb Williams is that it seems to portray real and dangerous problems.

But though we can see a tendency of later novels to use realistic techniques to create serious satire, we would be mistaken to declare that, over the course of the eighteenth century, light and unrealistic satire cedes to or evolves into dark and realistic satire, for two main reasons.

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First, though later satiric novels tend more often to employ techniques suited to serious satire, serious satire certainly exists earlier in the century. Increased psychological realism is a powerful tool for writing pessimistic or attack satire, but it is by no means the only way to do so.

Coventry, for instance, uses shallow species characters in Pompey the Little and nonetheless manages to create a fairly dark and bleak satiric novel. We could say the same of Fielding’s

Amelia. Second: just because we can see a general increase in serious satire later in the period, we should not assume that lighter satire diminishes. More authors may use deeper psychological characterization by the end of the eighteenth century, but writers still use relatively shallow caricatures to good comic and satiric effect. At around the same time that Godwin writes Caleb

Williams, Bage writes Hermsprong; in the same decade that Burney publishes The Wanderer,

Peacock publishes Headlong Hall. Lighter satire practiced through simple, exaggerated characters remains popular into the nineteenth century. We cannot simply assume a shift from lighter satire to darker satire as the period progresses.

Likewise, a broad tendency we can observe in this period is that moments of political conflict are especially conducive to both attack and instructive satire. Instructive and attack satire differ in tone, but both share in common a desire to cause some kind of change: instructive satires attempt to inculcate positive change on the part of the reader, while attack satires attempt to harm or destroy a target, often by motivating the reader to take action against it. Naturally, the

French Revolution, and the polarization that it caused in England, spawn some of the clearest attempts on the part of novelists to change how the reader feels about some issue or target. My study has showcased a number of Jacobin and anti-Jacobin novels, not because they are artistically superior to other works, but because they are strong examples of satirists believing that their satire can have some sort of real political impact. Whether these works were actually

392 effective in swaying public opinion and bolstering either the Jacobin or anti-Jacobin cause is unclear, but novels like Hermsprong, Nature and Art, Hugh Trevor, and Memoirs of Modern

Philosophers suggest that their authors truly felt that their satire could bring about at least some meaningful change. The political climate of the late 1780s and 1790s led to satirists feeling passionately about their ideals and attempting to convey them through satire.

But for all the instructive and attack satire produced during the turmoil of the 1790s, we should again be wary of taking our conclusions too far. As we have seen, instructive satire happens elsewhere in the period, and on subjects unrelated to political conflict. Nor is attack exclusively found in the 1790s, as the example of Hogg’s Private Memoirs and Confessions of a

Justified Sinner shows. The observation that political turmoil tends to give rise to instructive and attack satire is useful, but it should not be overgeneralized—not every instructive or attack satirist writes about politics, nor should we assume that all satire published around the time of the French Revolution is either attack or instructive.

The point is not that finding trends to explain what happens in the satiric novel is impossible. But we must allow for nuance when we attempt to find patterns; we cannot impose a simple narrative of development upon this form. The satiric novels of the period frustrate our attempts to create a neat, tidy history of generic evolution. Though two of my examples of entertainment satire are written relatively early (Peregrine Pickle in 1753 and Tristram Shandy

1759–67), the novels of Peacock show that entertainment satire does not go away or transform into another type of satire. The same is true for my other types: we can find examples of each throughout the span I examine. Clear lines of influence are hard to find. Peacock seems to have been influenced more by Fielding and Smollett than he was by his immediate predecessors and contemporaries; his novels look nothing like the works of Burney or Godwin or Inchbald or

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Austen. Burney and Francis Coventry attempt similar satiric aims, but nothing in Burney’s novels suggest that she is influenced in any significant way by Pompey the Little.

What is true of the satiric novel is likely truer of the eighteenth-century novel as a whole.

Just as the development of the satiric novel cannot be easily explained, so too will we have a difficult time answering the question of how the novel develops more broadly. Part of the problem is regarding “the novel” as one distinct and monolithic form. We have already seen that generalized assumptions about what “the novel” is in the eighteenth century—that it is focused on providing realistic and complex explorations of characters and situations, or that it provides middle grounds between two extreme ideas—lead to the conclusion that the eighteenth-century novel is inimical to satire. In fact, “the novel” is not a distinct form, but a congeries of loosely- related forms. We can find similarities between Richardson’s Pamela and Lewis’s The Monk, but these novels seem to be very different enterprises. A genre that contains works as disparate as

Amelia; Humphry Clinker; Chrysal, or The Adventures of a Guinea; Sense and Sensibility; Fanny

Hill; The Castle of Otranto; and Ivanhoe, to name just a few, should not be the subject of broad generalizations. Attempting to describe the development of “the novel” in such a way that does not recognize the vast differences between various examples of the type distorts our readings of actual texts.

How, then, ought we to approach the territory of the English novel during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries? The amount of fiction written in this period is dizzying, and perhaps our best means of making sense of it is to conceive of the novel as many sub-forms, with some works being sui generis (what type of novel is Tristram Shandy, after all?). Even mapping out a particular sub-type of the novel is no mean feat—the eighteenth-century satiric novel, as we have seen, does not develop in a clearly explainable way. But recognizing the need to split up

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“the eighteenth-century novel” into more manageable bites is a start. The novel c. 1740–1830 may be too broad a territory to map in a single master narrative, but we may be able to track the development and growth of various strands.

We might, for instance, consider as separate threads novels concerned with evoking different kinds of emotional responses from the reader. Many potential strands have already been identified by critics.10 For instance, the sentimental novel is one of the major subtypes of the genre in this period, although (like the satiric novel) precise definitions are hard to come by. The

Gothic novel, meant to evoke fear or suspense or horror through the use of supernatural elements, is another well-established subtype of the eighteenth-century novel. Some of the novels that I have discussed, such as Headlong Hall or Tristram Shandy or Peregrine Pickle, could be described as comic novels meant to delight the reader; tracing the use of comedy in the novel might lead to worthwhile results. These are not the only ways in which we might subdivide the bewildering territory of “the novel,” however. Besides considering the kinds of emotions that particular kinds of novels might be meant to evoke, we could also group together novels that use similar forms or techniques. Some such groups have already been established—the picaresque novel, for instance, or the epistolary novel. But we could try to find patterns in novels that employ such features as the unreliable narrator, or the species character who serves to represent a larger group, or heavily ironic narration. We might even be able to write the history of novels unified by a certain subject, such as Methodism (or religion more generally), the French

Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, or even more mundane subjects like wealth-acquisition and marriage. Good scholarship has already been done on many of these strands, and

10 Volume Two of The Oxford History of the Novel in English, which focuses on fiction 1750–1820, offers essays on various traditions in the novel such as the novel of sensibility, the ramble novel, the epistolary novel, the scandal narrative, and the oriental tale, among others. See The Oxford History of the Novel in English, vol. 2, English and British Fiction 1750–1820, ed. Peter Garside and Karen O’Brien (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015).

395 understanding how each of them develops will give us a clearer sense of the landscape of novelistic fiction in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

If my own discussion of satiric novels can offer us any advice on how to think about the various strands of the novel, it is not to conceive of particular novels as belonging to rigidly delineated categories. As we have seen, the satiric novel is not a distinct subtype; we could with reason approach Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner as a Gothic novel, or

Castle Rackrent as a historical novel, or Joseph Andrews as a comic novel. A study of the epistolary form and a study of the national novel would overlap in their concern with Humphry

Clinker. This state of affairs might be distressing to those drawn to neat taxonomies and tidy categories, but coming at individual works from multiple perspectives is generally a good thing.

Novels, like lenticular images, appear differently when approached from different angles, and we can better appreciate the whole if aware of the several ways it can be viewed. While we need to identify strands within the novel, we do not want to impose exclusive either/or categorizations

(e.g., Tristram Shandy is either comic or satiric but not both). Though we might have to sacrifice definitional orderliness in conceiving of novelistic strands as permeable and interpenetrating, our understandings both of individual works and of the novel in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries will be enriched.

Ultimately, we should remember that our main goal is not to identify a single prevailing truth about how the form of the novel changed and developed in roughly the first century of its existence. Histories of literary forms are useful, but for those who are not antiquarians, they mainly help us insofar as they provide a context in which we can situate individual works. Our enterprise should be focused on how we interpret particular novels, in order to better learn from them and appreciate them. To that end, whatever means we use to conceptualize the novels of

396 this period should be derived from observations of novelistic practice rather than abstract theories. Distorting individual works to fit our overarching conceptions is easy—we have seen how satiric novels can be misinterpreted if we maintain that all satire must be attack, for instance. Constructing the general history from the individual works, as opposed to interpreting individual works in light of the theory, is difficult, complicated, and messy—but it should help us arrive at a stronger understanding of the novels of the period.

* * *

However we choose to approach the novels of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, we should remember that satire is a significant component of many major novels of the period. The ways satire is deployed are multifarious and diverse, and each satiric novelist I have discussed attempts to achieve his or her aims in slightly different ways. I do not pretend to have described exhaustively all the techniques that the novelists of this period use to create satiric effects; the eighteenth century is a time of diversity and experimentation in the novel, as we have seen. But in outlining various satiric aims and offering a way to discuss novelistic satire as a rhetorical enterprise, I hope I have provided a toolkit that will allow readers better to analyze and appreciate the complexity of any satiric novel from this period. If we are willing to abandon a limited view of what satire is and acknowledge the wide-ranging possibilities of satiric aim, we will see that satire is alive and well in the eighteenth-century novel, and that understanding its variety can lead us to new and compelling perspectives on satiric texts.

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Bage, Robert. Man as He Is. 4 vols. London, 1792.

Baine, James. The Theatre Licentious and Perverted or, A Sermon for Reformation of

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Boaden, James. Memoirs of Mrs. Inchbald. 2 vols. London, 1833.

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of Modern Manners. London: J. Dodsley, 1783.

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JULIAN FUNG Curriculum Vitae  10 Vairo Blvd, Apt. 211B  State College, PA 16803 732-725-9917  [email protected]

EDUCATION

Ph.D., English, The Pennsylvania State University, expected 2015 M.A., English, The Pennsylvania State University, 2011 B.A., English, Dartmouth College, 2009

PUBLICATIONS

ARTICLES “Eighteenth-Century Illustrations of the Novels of Tobias Smollett,” Eighteenth-Century Life 38.1 (2014): 18–62.

“Religion and the Anglican Narrator in Defoe’s Tour,” Studies in English Literature 53.3 (2013): 565–82.

“Frances Burney as Satirist,” Modern Language Review 106.4 (2011): 937–53.

BOOK REVIEWS Textual Studies and the Enlarged Eighteenth Century: Precision as Profusion, ed. Kevin L. Cope and Robert C. Leitz III. Forthcoming in The Scriblerian.

The Practice of Satire in England, 1658–1770 by Ashley Marshall, The Eighteenth-Century Intelligencer 27.2 (2013): 16–19.

Cruelty and Laughter: Forgotten Comic Literature and the Unsentimental Eighteenth Century by Simon Dickie, The Eighteenth-Century Intelligencer 26.2 (2012): 19–22.

PRESENTATIONS

“Tonal Variations in Henry Fielding’s Novelistic Satire,” East-Central/American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Philadelphia, November 2013.

“Abridgments of Gulliver’s Travels,” American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Cleveland, March 2013.

“The Anglican Narrator and the Role of Religion in Defoe’s Tour,” East-Central/American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Baltimore, November 2012.

“Eighteenth-Century Illustrations of Tobias Smollett’s Novels,” East-Central/American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, State College, November 2011.

“Frances Burney as Satirist,” East-Central/American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Pittsburgh, November 2010.