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Eighteenth Century Fiction - Volume 26, Number 4, Summer 2014



The Senses of Humour/Les Sens de l?humour

  <http://bit.ly/ecf264> http://bit.ly/ecf264

This issue contains:



Introduction: The Senses of Humour/Les Sens de l?humour

Eugenia Zuroski Jenkins, Patrick Coleman

DOI: 10.3138/ecf.26.4.505

  <http://bit.ly/ecf264a> http://bit.ly/ecf264a



?Fitted to the Humour of the Age?: Alteration and Print in Swift?s A  
Tale of a Tub

Katie Lanning



Alteration links seemingly disparate ideas and pieces of the text in  
Jonathan Swift?s A Tale of a Tub. In the Tale?s allegory, brothers  
alter their coats through over-embellishment. In the Tale?s  
digressions, the Grub Street narrator alters texts by overvaluing and  
reading only added commentary and prolegomena. The Tale?s material  
format also demonstrates surface alteration in its constant shifting  
between forms and in the changes Swift makes to the 1710 edition.  
Books and bodies alike are altered by layers of new surfaces in the  
Tale. Swift suggests that in both cases these exterior alterations  
possess the ability to disrupt and distort interiors, producing  
madness in bodies and misreading in books. Uneasy with the possibility  
of alterations unbalancing or destabilizing his meaning in an attempt  
to fit the text ?to the humour of the Age,? Swift creates a work that  
possesses the potential to grow with material alteration. Any errors,  
additions, or changes to his text over time, even if Swift might  
despise them, validate his strategy. DOI: 10.3138/ecf.26.4.515

  <http://bit.ly/ecf264c> http://bit.ly/ecf264c



A Comedian on Tragedy: Colley Cibber?s Apology and The Rival Queans

Vivian L. Davis



While eighteenth-century actor and theatre manager Colley Cibber is  
most frequently discussed within the context of sentimental comedy,  
this article addresses the comedian?s writing for and about the tragic  
stage. The neoclassical establishment consistently argued for the  
propriety of tragedy; however, actor and manager Cibber in his 1740  
autobiography makes a case for the ludic qualities of successful  
tragic performance which, he insists, produces pleasure not tied to  
moral improvement. Moreover, Cibber embraces, rather than bemoans, the  
destabilization of social hierarchies that attends confessed generic  
hybridity. In an analysis of the comic burlesque The Rival Queans, a  
parody of Nathaniel Lee?s earlier tragedy The Rival Queens, I show how  
Cibber?s tragic stage was less concerned with categories of  
masculinity and femininity than in the sheer fluidity of gender.  
Experimenting with gender and genre in light of the period?s changing  
notions of sexual difference, the comedian revalues mixed genres and  
gender confusion as a site of illicit pleasure, providing an affective  
yet ephemeral other against which tragedy?s formidable narratives  
about gender and nation took shape. DOI: 10.3138/ecf.26.4.537

  <http://bit.ly/ecf264d> http://bit.ly/ecf264d



Between Excess and Inanition: Tobias Smollett?s Medical Model of the State

Douglas Duhaime



Tobias Smollett?s medical training in the Boerhaavian tradition helped  
shape his contributions to debates on luxury, British foreign policy,  
and public economics. He also invested his medical philosophy with a  
vast range of political import. This article draws on recent  
scholarship to outline some of the ways in which medical thought  
informed the political sensibilities of those writing before Smollett,  
from Gerard de Malynes and Edward Misselden to William Petty and  
François Quesnay. Reading Smollett?s novels vis-à-vis his medical and  
historical works, I analyze the ways in which Smollett deployed his  
medical philosophy to naturalize his reactionary agenda on issues from  
Anglo-Scottish fiscal policy to the Seven Years? War. Attending to  
Smollett?s revision of the body politic metaphor can help resolve  
extant scholarly debates concerning Smollett?s axiological orientation.

DOI: 10.3138/ecf.26.4.565

  <http://bit.ly/ecf264e> http://bit.ly/ecf264e



Edgeworth?s Belinda and the Gendering of Caricature

David Francis Taylor



Vital parts of the narrative of Maria Edgeworth?s Belinda (1801) hinge  
on the disastrous personal consequences that attend one woman?s  
caricaturing of another. Critics, however, have yet to pay attention  
to graphic satire in their readings of this novel. In this article, I  
offer a close reading of the key episode in Belinda in which Lady  
Delacour caricatures Mrs Luttridge, a satirical act that leads to a  
duel and, subsequently, to Lady Delacour sustaining a seemingly  
cancerous wound to her breast. I apply critical pressure to the  
representation of graphic satire as a gendered cultural practice, a  
?masculine? discourse that offers another means by which Lady Delacour  
transgresses the mores of polite womanhood. In particular, I consider  
the specific significance of introducing caricature?a form that deals  
in a grammar of physiognomic distortion and disfigurement, and in  
which bodies, not least women?s bodies, are invested with complex  
moral and political symbolism?into a scene that culminates in the  
infliction of injury and into a novel that is centrally concerned with  
the vexed relations between a woman and her body.

DOI: 10.3138/ecf.26.4.593

  <http://bit.ly/ecf264f> http://bit.ly/ecf264f



« Humour » et « Wit »: Faire l?histoire de deux mots dans l?Angleterre  
moderne (XVIIe?XVIIIe siècles)

François Lavie



Comment accéder aux différents sens d?un mot à l?époque moderne? Les  
dictionnaires demeurent la principale source en sémantique historique,  
mais leur intérêt décroît à mesure que l?on remonte dans le temps. La  
précision des définitions est fortement dépendante des progrès de la  
discipline et du sérieux des lexicographes. De plus, les dictionnaires  
permettent de dater l?enregistrement ou le dépôt d?une acception  
nouvelle, mais en aucun cas son apparition. Si l?on veut retracer  
l?évolution des mots « humour » et « wit » aux XVIIe et XVIIIe  
siècles, il faut compléter les sources lexicographiques par d?autres  
sources, celles où s?opère le processus de création de sens. Le mot «  
humour » a connu deux changements sémantiques fondamentaux: le premier  
à la fin du XVIe siècle, et le second entre la fin du XVIIe et le  
milieu du XVIIIe siècle. À l?issue de ce processus, le mot a acquis sa  
signification moderne sous la plume de Corbyn Morris (1710?79). Mon  
intention est triple: dater l?enregistrement des sens successifs des  
mots « humour » et « wit » grâce aux dictionnaires, localiser la  
source de ces évolutions sémantiques, et, enfin, étudier les rapports  
entre « humour » et « wit ».DOI: 10.3138/ecf.26.4.625

  <http://bit.ly/ecf264g> http://bit.ly/ecf264g



L?Humour noir des Lumières: Diderot, Casanova, Freud

Erik Leborgne



La critique récente sur les procédés du comique s?est beaucoup  
intéressée à l?ironie, au mot d?esprit, au persiflage, mais beaucoup  
moins à la pratique de l?humour et du Galgenhumor dans les ?uvres du  
XVIIIe siècle. La littérature à la première personne (narrative,  
épistolaire, mémorielle) offre pourtant un riche matériau pour saisir  
le mécanisme psychique de l?humour noir à partir des concepts  
freudiens. Les textes de Denis Diderot et de Casanova témoignent d?une  
fine perception des ressources de l?humour et de son inscription  
littéraire, sur le plan de l?énonciation et du partage du mot  
humoristique avec le lecteur.

DOI: 10.3138/ecf.26.4.651

  <http://bit.ly/ecf264h> http://bit.ly/ecf264h



Humour et sociabilité dans les récits galants et les écrits mondains  
aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles en France

Dominique Hölzle



Dans les sociétés mondaines, à l?époque classique, avoir de  
l?humour?terme anachronique?c?est être spirituel. L?esprit est la  
qualité la plus précieuse que peut avoir un galant, mais cette qualité  
est aussi rare qu?indéfinissable, et elle peut se transformer en  
défaut rédhibitoire. On ne peut approcher de l?esprit qu?en  
définissant ce qu?il n?est pas (la sottise, l?érudition, le sérieux),  
mais la difficulté tient également au fait que ce concept qui doit  
organiser les relations sociales dans le cadre des salons est  
constamment susceptible de se corrompre, et de devenir non plus le  
principe sur lequel se fonde l?harmonie des mondains, mais une arme  
qui réintroduit la violence dans un univers galant qui se voulait  
apaisé. Cette ambiguïté fondamentale de l?esprit était déjà présente  
dans les textes de Bouhours ou de Méré, eux qui n?ont cessé de  
distinguer le véritable esprit du faux esprit ou de la médisance, et  
c?est elle qui explique l?émergence d?une forme dégradée de l?esprit,  
le « bon ton », que condamnent tant Crébillon que Duclos. Le tableau  
des m?urs que proposent les auteurs du XVIIIe siècle est si négatif  
que l?on est en droit de se demander si l?« esprit » peut encore être  
perçu positivement, et si cette forme d?humour reste acceptable. DOI:  
10.3138/ecf.26.4.669

  <http://bit.ly/ecf264i> http://bit.ly/ecf264i



Rousseau et le combat pour le rire: L?Humour entre gaieté et moquerie

Marco Menin



Le présent article se propose de montrer à quel point le jugement que  
Jean-Jacques Rousseau porte sur l?humour et sur le rire peut nous  
aider à éclairer sa réflexion philoso? phique, notamment la genèse de  
l?émotion et le rôle que celle-ci peut jouer dans la conduite morale  
de l?individu. L?analyse généalogique de la passion du rire dans  
l??uvre de Rousseau?qui s?inscrit de manière cohérente dans sa  
conception «vectorielle» de l?émotion?nous signale la nécessité de  
séparer nettement la réalisation positive de la bonne humeur, c?est à  
dire la gaieté, de sa dégénérescence négative, à savoir la moquerie.  
Dans le premier cas, il s?agit d?une émotion positive et légitime qui  
reprend le caractère naturel d?une passion pré-morale en l?élevant à  
outil d?édification de la socialité humaine; dans le second, il  
s?agit, au contraire, d?un sentiment artificiel et conventionnel qui  
fausse l?émotion et la transforme en un instrument de domination sur  
le prochain. DOI: 10.3138/ecf.26.4.693

  <http://bit.ly/ecf264j> http://bit.ly/ecf264j



?Eating, Drinking and Sleeping?: Exploring Thomas Rowlandson?s Peter  
Plumb?s Diary

Frank Felsenstein



By close visual and verbal commentary with the focus on Peter Plumb?s  
Diary (1810), my essay takes issue with Ronald Paulson?s long  
established belief that Thomas Rowlandson?s graphic satires never tell  
?more than the simplest anecdote that is least in need of commentary.?  
A contextual examination of this particular print shows that it is  
replete with historical and linguistic echoes, which reveal a  
surprising inventiveness and depth of vision on the part of  
Rowlandson. His comedic art joyously captures the spirit of the age by  
finding humour in the everyday aspects of bourgeois life in Regency  
London. A widening of the frame of reference allows us to see a  
reiteration of his vis comica in a selection of other works by  
Rowlandson. The discussion ends with the plea that  
twenty-first-century art historians and critics should take advantage  
of the open access to many major collections that digitization allows  
and endeavour to construct an online and fully searchable catalogue  
raisonné of Rowlandson?s satires. DOI: 10.3138/ecf.26.4.715

  <http://bit.ly/ecf264k> http://bit.ly/ecf264k



Unholy Laughter

Misty G. Anderson



Clerical satires with anxious depictions of religious devotion poured  
forth from British presses in the eighteenth century, a period of  
conversation about whether secularism and toleration could be seen as  
the hallmarks of a modern culture. The images in this essay represent  
this abundant clerical satire; they are drawn from the Lewis Walpole  
Library holdings at Yale University and were the basis of a gallery  
show, Sacred Satire, which I co-curated with Cynthia Roman in 2011.  
Through these images, I illustrate the tension between an  
understanding of religion as part of a traditional past and of  
religion as a collection of new evangelical Christian movements and  
practices including ?human? hymns, evangelical preaching, religious  
life beyond the parish, ?heart religion? or ?primitive Christianity,?  
and working-class enthusiasm. Clerical figures such as George  
Whitefield and John Wesley loom large in the visual satires of modern  
religion and the implicit questions it raised about the relationship  
of belief to modernity. DOI: 10.3138/ecf.26.4.731

  <http://bit.ly/ecf264l> http://bit.ly/ecf264l



---------------------------------------------------

Eighteenth Century Fiction publishes articles in both English and  
French on all aspects of imaginative prose in the period 1700?1800,  
but will also examine papers on late 17th-century or early  
19th-century fiction, particularly when the works are discussed in  
connection with the eighteenth century.   
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Submissions to Eighteenth Century Fiction

The editors invite contributions on all aspects of imaginative prose  
in the period 1700-1800, but are also happy to consider papers on late  
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other languages are welcomed and comparative studies are particularly  
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