Now available online? 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. <http://www.utpjournals.com/ecf> www.utpjournals.com/ecf Eighteenth Century Fiction is available online at: Project MUSE - <http://bit.ly/ecf_pm> http://bit.ly/ecf_pm ECF Online - <http://bit.ly/ecf_online> http://bit.ly/ecf_online 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 seventeenth-century or early nineteenth-century fiction. The languages of publication are English and French. Articles about the fiction of other languages are welcomed and comparative studies are particularly encouraged. The suggested length for manuscripts is 6,000-8,000 words, but longer and shorter articles have been published in the journal. The Chicago Manual of Style is used for most points in ECF. Articles submitted should be double-spaced, including quotations. Email submissions are encouraged <mailto:[log in to unmask]> [log in to unmask] As ECF evaluates manuscripts anonymously, the author's name ought not to appear on the article itself. -- The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336.