British Women Satirists in the Long Eighteenth Century

Featuring cutting-edge essays by leading scholars, this collection formulates a new feminist theory of eighteenth-century women's satire.

Amanda Hiner (Edited by), Elizabeth Tasker Davis (Edited by)

9781108837361, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 7 April 2022

276 pages
23.5 x 15.7 x 2.2 cm, 0.595 kg

This collection of innovative essays by leading scholars on eighteenth-century British women satirists showcases women's contributions to the satiric tradition and challenges the assumption that women were largely targets, rather than practitioners, of satire during the long eighteenth century. The essays examine women's satires across diverse genres, from the fable to the periodical, and attend to women writers' appropriation of a literary style and form often viewed as exclusively masculine. The introduction features a new theory of women's satire and proposes a framework for analyzing satiric techniques employed by women writers. Organized chronologically, the contributors' essays address a wide range of authors and explore the ways in which satiric writings by women engaged in contemporary cultural conversations, influencing assumptions about gender, sociability, politics, and literary practices. This inclusive yet tightly-focused collection formulates an innovative and provocative new feminist theory of satire.

Introduction Amanda Hiner and Elizabeth Tasker Davis
Part I. Traditions and Breaks: 1. Women Writers and Juvenal: 'singing plain truths' Paul Baines
2. Unlocking the Dressing Room: Mary Evelyn's Mundus Muliebris Melinda Alliker Rabb
3. Aphra Behn and Traditions of Satire Tanya Caldwell
4. Delarivier Manley: Satire as Conversation Rachel Carnell
5. The Pleasures of Satire in the Fables of Anne Finch Sharon Smith
Part II. Publicity and Print Culture: Women Satirists during the Mid-Eighteenth Century: 6. Women's Satires of the Literary Marketplace in Eighteenth-Century England Catherine Ingrassia
7. Charlotte Lennox, Satirical Poetry, and the Rise of Participatory Democracy Susan Carlile
8. Jane Collier's Satirical Fable: Teeth, Claws, and Moral Authority in An Essay on the Art of Ingeniously Tormenting Martha F. Bowden
9. Hiding in Plain Sight: Frances Burney as Satiric Novelist Marilyn Francus
Part III. Moral Debates and Satiric Dialogue: Women Satirists and Eighteenth-Century Sociability: 10. Anne Finch, Anna Seward, and Women's Relation to Formal Verse Satire in the Long Eighteenth Century Claudia Thomas Kairoff
11. Satire as Gossip: Lady Anne Hamilton's The Epics of the Ton Michael Edson
12. 'An invisible spy': Mary Robinson's Sylphid and the Image of the Satirist Rayna Rosenova
13. Austen's Menippean Experiments: Paternalism and Empire in the Juvenilia and Mansfield Park Danielle Spratt.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers [DSK], Literary studies: plays & playwrights [DSG], Literary studies: poetry & poets [DSC], Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800 [DSBD]