Book description

In early modern Britain, the primary medium of free comment was theclandestine satire, circulated either orally or in manuscript. Part of thenational political culture from Jacobean times, satire reached its greatestinfluence following the Restoration of Charles II, when a new "easy"style, combining courtly polish with demotic frankness and flagrant indecency,led to the composition of thousands of such poems. Most of the poets of thetime, including such major talents as Marvell and Rochester, wrote in the genre,though nearly always anonymously. While its chief targets were political, muchRestoration satire concerned itself with the emerging demography of"Town" and its uncertain experimentation with new kinds of socialfreedom. Attacks on the sexual misbehaviour (real or imagined) of aristocraticwomen hover, equally uncertainly, between moral condemnation and ill-disguisedenvy, while also conferring an inverse celebrity status on their victims. Inthis paradoxical social world, not to be lampooned could mean that one was nolonger a person of importance.

In the first comprehensive survey of this vast field, Harold Love considers therelationship of the lampoon to gossip, how one might construct a poetics of thegenre, and how clandestine satire reached and was received by its readers.Constructing three primary categories of "court," "Town" and"state" lampooning, Love argues that far from being the product ofisolated disaffection, most satire was the work of a circle of recognized poets,frequently operating in collaboration. An extensive first-line index to theprincipal manuscript sources for clandestine satire makes this book an opensesame to further exploration of its fascinating field.

About the Author

Harold Love is an Emeritus Professor in the School of Literary, Visual and PerformanceStudies at Monash University. He is a specialist in the literature of the Restoration period.

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