Satire and Sentiment 1660-1830: Stress Points in the English Augustan Tradition [Paperback]

Professor Claude Rawson (Author), Claude Rawson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2000

Claude Rawson examines the evolution of satirical writing in the period 1660-1830. In a sequence of linked chapters, some new and others revised substantially from earlier articles, he focuses on English writers from Rochester to Austen, both within a contemporaneous European context and as part of a tradition deriving from classical and 16th-century Humanist predecessors (Homer, Virgil, Erasmus, Montaigne) and leading to later writers like Flaubert and Yeats. Within the period 1660-1830 satire moved from an unusually dominant position to a relatively modest one, softened by the cult of "sensibility" or "sentiment". The transition was connected with large social and cultural changes culminating in the French Revolution. Rawson's method is to concentrate on stress points, on evasions and internal contradictions, and on continuities and discontinuities with earlier and later periods and with literatures and modes of thought outside Britain.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Rawson is himself an Augustan among critics, expressing worlds of scholarship with a pungent and delightful humanism." Donald Lyons, New Criterion "A luxuriant hybrid of keen literary criticism and well-documented cultural history...This ranging synthesis of a reeling world is mind-expanding for critics and historians, specialists and generalists." Kenneth Craven, Scriblerian "Rawson's book shows that there is considerable life and interest left in relatively traditional literary history." Charles A. Knight, Eighteenth-Century Studies "Rawson marshals an army of erudite references from Statius to Maller to illuminate the major figures: Swift, Pope, Burke, Byron, and Shelley. His conversational style is wide-ranging in the best Augustan essay-mode." Laura L. Runge, Albion

Book Description

Claude Rawson examines some decisive moments in satire of the period 1660-1830. In a sequence of linked essays he focuses on major English writers, both within a contemporaneous European context and as part of a tradition deriving from classical predecessors and leading on to later authors. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 328 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (April 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300079168
• ISBN-13: 978-0300079166
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,107,518 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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