Preface
Acknowledgments
A Note on Texts, Dates, and Money
Part 1. Canonical and Noncanonical Satire, 1658–1770
I. The "Definition" Quagmire and the Problem of Descriptive Terminology
II. Genre versus Mode
III. The Modern Critical Canon and Its Implications
IV. The Total Satire Canon and Its Economic Context
The Production of Satire in England, 1658–1770
Price, Format, Dissemination, and Implied Audiences
V. Some Issues of Coverage and Organization
VI. The Uses of a Taxonomic Methodology
The Varieties of Satire
Forecasting Some Conclusions
The Nature of the Enterprise
Part 2. Contemporary Views on Satire, 1658–1770
I. Concepts of Satire
"Satire"
Definition by Contrast
II. The Business of Satire
The Opposition to Satire
The Case for Satire
III. The Practice and Province of Satire
Acceptable and Problematical Satiric Methods
Appropriate and Inappropriate Satiric Targets
IV. Characterizing the Satirist
V. Perceptions of Eighteenth-Century Satire Then and Now
Part 3. Satire in the Carolean Period
I. Some Preliminary Considerations
II. Dryden, Rochester, Buckingham
Carolean Dryden
Rochester
Buckingham's Purposive Satire
III. Marvell, Ayloffe, Oldham
Marvell as Polemical Satirist
Ayloffe's Antimonarchical Diatribes
Oldham's Juvenalian Performances
IV. Hudibras and Other Camouflage Satires
V. Personal and Social Satire: From Lampoons to Otway and Lee
VI. Chronological Change, 1658–1685
VII. Issues
Intensity
Tone
Presentation of Positives
The Problem of Application
VIII. The Discontinuous World of Carolean Satire
Part 4. Beyond Carolean
I. Altered Circumstances
II. Dryden as Satirist, 1685–1700
III. Poetic Satire
Tutchin, Defoe, and Political Satire
Gould and Defamatory Satire
Garth and Blackmore
Brown, Ward, and Commercial Satire
IV. Dramatic Satire
Shadwell and Exemplary Comedy
Mitigated Satire
Harsh Social Satire
V. The State of Satire ca. 1700
Part 5. Defoe, Swift, and New Varieties of Satire, 1700–1725
I. Defoe as Satirist
Attack and Defense
Instruction and Direct Warning (Aimed at the Audience)
Indirect Exposure and Discomfiture
II. Religious and Political Satire
Topical Controversy
Monitory Satire in the Manner of Defoe
Ideological Argumentation: Dunton, Defoe, and Others
III. Social and Moral Satire
Generalized Satire
Didactic Satire in the Manner of Steele
Particularized and Topical Satire
Argument and Inquiry
IV. The Alleged "Scriblerians"
V. Swift before Gulliver
Jokiness and Play
Destruction and Negativity
Purposive Defamation and Defense
Indirection and Difficult Satire
VI. Characterizing the Early Eighteenth Century
Part 6. Harsh and Sympathetic Satire, 1726–1745
I. Pope and Swift among Their Contemporaries
Political Commentary and Combat
The Culture Wars
Social Satire
II. Pope, Swift, Gay
Pope
Swift
Gay
III. The Problem of Meaning in Gulliver's Travels
IV . Fielding and the Move toward Sympathetic Satire
Playful Satire and Entertainment
Provocation and Preachment
Distributive Justice
Fielding's Concept of Satire
Sympathetic Satire
V. Alive and Well
Part 7. Churchill, Foote, Macklin, Garrick, Smollett, Sterne, and Others, 1745–1770
I. The Rise of "Poetic" Satire
Frivolity and Entertainment
Moral Preachment
Particularized Attack
Poeticized Satire
Churchill's Nonpolitical Satire
II. Wilkes, Churchill, and Political Controversy in the 1760s
The North Briton
Churchill's Political Satire
Visual Satire
Wilkes's Essay on Woman
III. Satire in the Commercial Theater
Social Comedy
Lightweight Afterpiece Entertainment
Samuel Foote
Charles Macklin
David Garrick
IV. Satire in the Mid-Eighteenth-Century Novel
Smollett's Dark Satire
The Late Career of Fielding
Tristram Shandy and the Singularity of Sterne
Charlotte Lennox, Oliver Goldsmith, Sarah Fielding
V. Satire for a Stable Era
Epilogue
I. Motives and Modes
II. Remapping English Satire, 1658–1770
Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Outstanding Academic Title, Choice

In The Practice of Satire in England, 1658–1770, Ashley Marshall explores how satire was conceived and understood by writers and readers of the period. Her account is based on a reading of some 3,000 works, ranging from one-page squibs to novels. The objective is not to recuperate particular minor works but to recover the satiric milieu—to resituate the masterpieces amid the hundreds of other works alongside which they were originally written and read.

The long eighteenth century is generally hailed as the great age of satire, and as such, it has received much critical attention. However, scholars have focused almost exclusively on a small number of canonical works, such as Gulliver’s Travels and The Dunciad, and have not looked for continuity over time. Marshall revises the standard account of eighteenth-century satire, revealing it to be messy, confused, and discontinuous, exhibiting radical and rapid changes over time. The true history of satire in its great age is not a history at all. Rather, it is a collection of episodic little histories.

"This strong and wide-ranging book . . . earns its authority from the wealth of information it provides . . . It also offers a considerable enlargement of our knowledge and understanding of a lively and turbulent terrain, whose boundaries are wider and more untidy than we have imagined."—Times Literary Supplement

"This original, detailed account of satire during the period will challenge and shape the literary history of satire for decades to come. Essential."—Choice

“So much material is included in The Practice of Satire in England, and its historiographic claims are so striking, that scholars will be discussing this book for some time. Perhaps most admirably, Marshall has put satire, recently a rather neglected genre, firmly back at the center of scholarly attention and debate.”—Philological Quarterly

Ashley Marshall is an associate professor of English at the University of Nevada, Reno. She is the author of Swift and History: Politics and the English Past.

Marshall is completely in control of her vast materials . . . Exceptional cases are not her subject; hers is the much broader one of satire across-the-board, whether we call it lampoon or tirade, punitive or educative, merely entertaining or even affectionate; and her subject is one that has never been systematically dealt with.
—Ronald Paulson, Johns Hopkins University, author of The Beautiful, Novel, and Strange: Aesthetics and Heterodoxy

Marshall is completely in control of her vast materials... Exceptional cases are not her subject; hers is the much broader one of satire across-the-board, whether we call it lampoon or tirade, punitive or educative, merely entertaining or even affectionate; and her subject is one that has never been systematically dealt with. -- Ronald Paulson, Johns Hopkins University, author of The Beautiful, Novel, and Strange: Aesthetics and Heterodoxy Ashley Marshall wisely sets the great eighteenth-century satirists within the vastly diverse literary contexts of their own and consequent ages. The study is important, persuasive, lively, learned, and a major advance upon scholarship concerning English satiric theory and practice from 1658 to 1770. -- Howard D. Weinbrot, University of Wisconsin, author of Literature, Religion, and the Evolution of Culture, 1660-1780 This is a remarkable work of scholarship: a revaluation of the whole idea and scope of satire as actually produced in the Restoration and eighteenth century. These chapters are notable for their command of this material, their analytical depth, their nuanced reading of the historical character of satire over generational passages of time, and their clear-sighted power of synthesis in putting all this disorderly mass of material before the reader in such vivid form. I do not see how any serious scholarship on satire will be able to proceed henceforth without reference to Marshall's book. -- Thomas Lockwood, University of Washington, coeditor of Henry Fielding: The Critical Heritage