The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School Department of English THE PRACTICE OF SATIRE IN ENGLAND, 1650-1770 A Dissertation in English by Ashley Marshall Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 2009 The dissertation of Ashley Marshall was reviewed and approved* by the following: Robert D. Hume Evan Pugh Professor of English Literature Dissertation Advisor Chair of Committee John T. Harwood Associate Professor of Information Sciences and Technology and English Laura Lunger Knoppers Professor of English J. Philip Jenkins Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Humanities Thomas Lockwood Professor of English, University of Washington Special Member Howard D. Weinbrot Ricardo Quintana Professor of English and William Freeman Vilas Research Professor in the College of Letters and Science, University of Wisconsin Special Member Robin Schulze Professor of English Head of the Department of English *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School iii ABSTRACT This dissertation attempts to answer a central question: how was satire conceived and understood by writers and readers from 1650 to 1770? Much has been written about eighteenth-century satire, but scholars have focused almost exclusively on a very small number of canonical works (e.g., Absalom and Achitophel, Gulliver’s Travels, The Dunciad). They have also looked for continuity over time or have jumped casually from 1681 to 1704 to 1743 with little attention to the importance of chronology. This study is based on reading some 3,000 works, in all genres and all years, from one-page squibs to novels. Chapter 1 offers a quantitative and conceptual analysis of the canon as presented in the books of twelve major predecessors. It also analyzes the prices charged for some 250 satires, considers the problem of definition of “satire,” and offers a rationale for a taxonomic approach. Chapter 2 is devoted to a survey of contemporary commentary—what eighteenth-century critics and practitioners of satire had to say about it. Contrary to the conclusions drawn by P. K. Elkin in The Augustan Defence of Satire (1973), I demonstrate that eighteenth-century attitudes toward satire are not neat and consistent. Chapters 3 through 7 offer a detailed taxonomic analysis of satire as it was written in five significantly different sub- periods. Chapter 3 deals with “Satire in the Carolean Period”; chapter 4 with “Satire at the End of the Seventeenth Century; chapter 5 with “Swift, Defoe, and the New Varieties of Satire, 1700-1725”; chapter 6 with “Harsh and Sympathetic Satire, 1725-1745”; chapter 7 with “Churchill, Foote, Macklin, Garrick, Smollett, Sterne, and Others: 1745-1770.” A brief Epilogue analyzes a spectrum of motives for writing satire. English satire from 1650 to 1770 is messy, confused, and discontinuous; it comprises a staggering amount of disparate material; and it comes in all shapes and sizes. Satiric practice changes radically and rapidly (from decade to decade, sometimes more quickly) across this period. Reading everything, and paying attention to the particular contexts from which satires spring, dramatically changes how we understand satire in its great age. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES...................................................................................................................vii PREFACE................................................................................................................................viii A NOTE ON TEXTS, DATES, AND CURRENCY...............................................................xiii WORKS FREQUENTLY CITED ...........................................................................................xiv PRICE SYMBOL KEY ...........................................................................................................xv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.....................................................................................................xvi Chapter 1 Canonical and Non-Canonical Satire, 1650-1770..................................................1 I. The modern critical canon and its implications ............................................................2 II. Satires produced in England, 1650-1770.....................................................................10 III. Price, format, dissemination, and implied audiences .................................................18 IV. The “definition” quagmire .........................................................................................31 V. A taxonomic methodology..........................................................................................35 Chapter 2 Contemporary Views on Satire, 1650-1770 ...........................................................46 I. Concepts of satire..........................................................................................................47 “Satire”: etymology and terminology.......................................................................47 Definition by contrast...............................................................................................49 II. The business of satire ..................................................................................................51 The opposition to satire............................................................................................52 The case for satire ....................................................................................................57 III. The practice and province of satire ............................................................................65 Acceptable and problematical satiric methods.........................................................66 Appropriate and inappropriate satiric targets ...........................................................70 IV. Characterizing the satirist ..........................................................................................78 V. Perceptions of eighteenth-century satire then and now...............................................82 Chapter 3 Satire in the Carolean Period..................................................................................89 I. Some Preliminary Considerations: Realities vs. Assumptions .....................................91 II. Dryden, Rochester, Buckingham.................................................................................95 Carolean Dryden: lampoonist, social commentator, propagandist...........................95 Rochester: skeptical, provocative, negative .............................................................101 Buckingham’s purposive satire ................................................................................106 III. Marvell, Ayloffe, Oldham..........................................................................................112 Marvell as polemical satirist.....................................................................................113 Ayloffe’s anti-monarchical diatribes........................................................................116 Oldham’s Juvenalian performances .........................................................................119 IV. The case of Hudibras.................................................................................................123 v V. Personal and social satire: from lampoons to Otway and Lee.....................................131 VI. Chronological change, 1650-1685 .............................................................................139 VII. Issues: satiric intensity, tone, positives—and the problem of application................145 Intensity....................................................................................................................145 Tone..........................................................................................................................146 Presentation of positives...........................................................................................150 The problem of application ......................................................................................153 VIII. The discontinuous world of Carolean satire............................................................155 Chapter 4 Beyond Carolean: Satire at the End of the Seventeenth Century...........................159 I. Altered circumstances...................................................................................................160 II. Dryden as satirist, 1685-1700......................................................................................167 III. Poetic satire................................................................................................................178 Tutchin, Defoe, and political satire ..........................................................................179 Gould and defamatory satire ....................................................................................186 Garth and Blackmore ...............................................................................................191 Brown, Ward, and commercial satire.......................................................................197 IV. Dramatic satire...........................................................................................................203 Shadwell and exemplary comedy.............................................................................204 Mitigated satire: Cibber, Vanbrugh, Farquhar .........................................................210 Harsh social satire: Congreve and Southerne...........................................................213