Irony and Earnestness in Eighteenth-Century Literature
Dimensions of Satire and Solemnity
£75.00
- Author: Shane Herron, Flinders University of South Australia
- Date Published: January 2022
- availability: Available
- format: Hardback
- isbn: 9781108834438
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The conventional literary history of the eighteenth century holds that upstart novelists and other intensely serious writers worked against the conservative and ironic sensibility of an earlier generation of satirists. However, many of these ostensibly earnest writers were exceptional satirists in their own right, employing the same ruses, tricks, and deceptions throughout their work. The novels of such canonical figures as Behn and Defoe, for example, passed themselves off as real documents, just as an earlier generation of hack writers combined the serious and the absurd. Re-examining this nexus between the ludicrous and the solemn, Shane Herron argues that intense earnestness was itself a central component of the ironic sensibility of the great age of literary satire and of Swift's work in particular. The sensationalism and confessionalism of earnestness were frequently employed tendentiously, while ironic and satirical literature often incorporated genuine moments of earnestness to advance writerly aims.
Read more- Discusses Swift and the genre of satire in relation to more earnest writers and writings, forging connections between seemingly disparate subfields in eighteenth-century studies
- Uses moral sense theory to theorize affect and sentiment as inherently ironic constructs, connecting the literary history of satire and irony to the study of emotion
- Provides an account of eighteenth-century literary history in which irony and earnestness function in tandem, making a significant contribution to an emerging body of scholarship revising progressive, teleological, and Whig-historical accounts of the period
Reviews & endorsements
'The book is well structured, well argued, and well written … Recommended.' J. T. Lynch, Choice
See more reviews'… Herron provides an in-depth and exhaustive examination of Swift's irony and his earnest engagements while considering all their moral and political implications. Beginning with a discussion of the irony of The Colbert Report and closing with a discussion of contemporary conspiracy theories, this study dwells on that most complex and confusing aspect of irony and the role of the satirist - 'the ability to genuinely, even affectionately, channel and inhabit its targets'. The result for this reader is that I now read Swift, and The Onion, with a new critical appreciation.' Scott Nowka, Eighteenth-Century Fiction
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×Product details
- Date Published: January 2022
- format: Hardback
- isbn: 9781108834438
- length: 250 pages
- dimensions: 235 x 159 x 20 mm
- weight: 0.51kg
- availability: Available
Table of Contents
1. Swift and the hacks: A relationship reconsidered
2. 'By One of the Fair Sex': Irony, sovereignty, and sexual difference
3. Keeping up appearances: Satire between preservation and reformation
4. Dark humor and moral sense theory: Or, how Swift learned to stop worrying and love evil
5. Gratitude for the ordinary: Defoe's irony.
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