Unit Five: Political Satire

Lesson Nine

The Political Essayists

Daniel Defoe, 1660-1731

Son of Alice and James Foe.

His father was a City tradesman and member of the Butchers’ Company.

The Foes were Dissenters, Protestants who did not belong to the Anglican Church - come occasionally comes through Defoe's writing.

Business Man

He studied at Charles Morton's Academy, London.

Father wanted him to be a minister

Defoe preferred politics and trade, travelling extensively in Europe.

Business ventures failed and left him with large debts, amounting over £17000

Prolific Writer

Journalist, pamphleteer, social and political commentator, and novelist

some of his religious and political writings led to arrests for libel and treason, fines, imprisonments, and one

pillorying, from July 29- 31,

1703.

Political Rebel

Joined the Duke of Monmouth’s rebellion in Lyme Regis

While hiding as a fugitive in a churchyard after the rebellion was put down, he noticed the name Robinson Crusoe carved on a stone later gave it to his famous hero.

Early William Supporter

Participated in the Glorious Revolution as a member of William’s army

Served the king in various capacities in England and Scotland, 1689-1702;

Notably, an agent for Robert Harley, a member of parliament and secretary of state, 1703-14, working as a propagandist, opinion pollster, and spy in England and Scotland.

Incredibly Prolific Writer

He produced some 200 works of nonfiction prose

In addition, close 2000 short essays in periodical publications, several of which he also edited.

True-Born Englishman

Written in 1701, became the best-selling poem ever at that time.

By the end of 1701 it was in its ninth edition, and there were 30 editions before 1750.

The Foes were a family of Flemish descent, so close to his heart

Political Background

After Queen Mary’s death, William wanted a standing army, as he didn’t trust the king of France (who was supporting James II at the time).

But both the Whigs and Tories felt that a militia was sufficient, so William sent home his Dutch troops and considered abdicating particularly after a series of attacks on the Dutch and

the removal of many of the grants he had given his friends.

So Much for Purity

By showing through England's history just how many races and nationalities it had taken to produce the Englishman of his time, Defoe reduced arguments about racial and national purity to absurdity

Important Resources

Defoe's verse dominated the volumes of political poetry known as Poems on Affairs of State that were published between 1700 and 1710

They were a continuation of the volumes of political poems from the Restoration.

Delarivier Manley

Arguably the most famous woman writer of her time.

Friend and collaborator of Jonathan Swift;On-again, off-again social and literary

relationship with Sir Richard SteeleHad the patronage of Robert Harley, the Duke

of Devonshire, and Sir Thomas Skipworth; Important enough to be lampooned and

satirized on a number of occasions.

Knew Her World

With keen insight into her culture and society, she wrote of herself in her autobiography in the guise of a male narrator:

If she had been a Man; she had been without Fault: But the Charter of that Sex being much more confined than ours, what is not a Crime in men is scandalous and unpardonable in Woman. (Rivella 2:743)

Her Writings:

Her four hugely popular and most famous works: The History of Rivella Queen Zarah and the Zarazians The New Atalantis

which is credited with a major role in the toppling of the Whig government in 1710 (Trevelyan Peace 38)

The Memoirs of Europe

Others:

Three early little-known narratives;four plays; six political pamphlets; and a brief turn as the editor of The

Examiner (after Swift)

Obscure Biography

One fact Manley obscured was her date of birth could be either in 1673 or 1675. Both of these dates are highly suspect.

If she was born while her father was in Jersey, her date of birth must have been between 1667 and 1671.

The year 1671 is most likely if Swift was accurate when he wrote in 1711 that Manley was "about forty, very homely, and very fat" (Journal to Stella 2:474).

Unusual Christian Name

She was most likely named after Lady Delarivier Cholmondeley Morgan, the wife of her father, Sir Roger's superior on Jersey, Sir Thomas Morgan

The Royalist ManleysThe Manley family of Denbighshire, Wales, near

Wrexham, were loyal to Charles I.Delarivier's grandfather was most likely

Cornelius Manley of Erbistock.Had three sons: Francis, Roger and John.

Both Francis and Roger fought for the king during the Civil War and both were knighted for their efforts.

But the third son, John, became a major in the parliamentary army.

Scholars suspect that John's allegiance may have been swayed by his wife, Margaret Dorislaus, the daughter of a prominent Parliamentarian

Bigamous Marriage

John and Margaret were the parents of John Manley, the cousin who later bigamously married Delarivier.

She had a child by him, and was considered “unfit” for marriage after the trickery was discovered.

Prose NarrativesThe reading public, critics and scholars

have traditionally denigrated Manley's prose fiction as either soft pornography, scandal chronicles, or partisan political satire.

Yet Swift was writing the latter in books now considered classics of literature like Gulliver's Travels, and no one would think of labeling that novel a "mere political satire."

Writer to Take Seriously

If one reads the books as novels, one finds that she will stand up to serious criticism, especially in The New Atalantis.

She uses recurring motifs, Her "warmth" is usually employed in an

ironic or negative manner,most important, Manley spends much time

exploring her characters' psyches, both heroes and villains alike.

Can’t Ignore Politics

The political satire comprises a very important aspect of her works.

To her contemporaries, she was powerful Tory writer, who attacked her Whig enemies with scandalous tales, which, in many cases, were uncomfortably close to the truth.

The questioning that Manley underwent after her arrest for libel also underscores the veracity of much of what she was writing. For the Whigs to want to know who her "inside source" was,

there had to be more than a grain of truth in her stories

The New Atalantis

The New Atalantis is much nearer a true novel than either of Queen Zarah's volumes

Of all Manley's novels, it is the best. While critics have argued that it is merely

a collection of tales and novellas linked by a narrator, it is more than that.

Title Page of First Edition

What Makes It a Novel?

It does have a unified theme, which is the treachery of the powerful, and usually corrupt, against the powerless.

As Ros Ballaster points out, the novel is centered around the Charlot/Duke story "to or from which all subsequent stories in the novel correspond or diverge" (Seductive 132).

Successful in Her Time

Immensely popular and influential book in its day.

Trevelyan calls it "the publication that did the most harm" to the Whig Ministry in 1705 (Peace 38).

Albeit satirically, Pope uses it as a measure for literary immortality in The Rape of the Lock: "For long as Atalantis shall be read" is

synonymous with the timelessness of "While fish in streams, or birds delight in air."

Power Corrupts

The narrative has a definite theme — power corrupting, often underscored by examples of powerful men taking advantage of powerless women.

In the second volume this emphasis is slightly modified to show hypocrisy being a tool of power and evidence of corruption.

Social Commentary As Well

All of the seemingly unrelated narratives and vignettes work together to paint a broad picture of those in power running amok, glutted with their own excesses and destroying the powerless for fun or profit.

This is a broad theme which allows Manley room to make commentary on a number of social ills that are the direct result of abuses of power.

Forced Marriage

Manley goes further than merely attacking parents who force their children into marriages for financial or political reasons.

She underscores its horror by showing the ultimate evil in forced marriages: bigamy. Three instances of it occur in the novel,

including Manley's own story, which coincidentally was the only instance in the novel in which the young woman was not first convinced that bigamy was a "natural" state.

Children Are Lesser Beings

Most of these forced marriages turn out to be loveless as well.

Virtue tells her daughter Astrea that children of these all-too-common loveless marriages are lacking something in their make-up.

They are "void of generous Fire, of that Sparkling Genius, the product of noble free-born love," and that is why there are so few heroes left in the world (1:276).

What’s Wrong With the System

"But Parents think their Children can never be unhappy, if they do but take care of their Interest, which is the true reason we so seldom see People of Condition fortunate in their Marriages" In the section we read for today

The St. Amants

The moral of their tale is that people should be in love with one another before they marry or the scene is set for disaster.

In the case of the St. Amants, their parents had arranged their marriage while the two were still children.

Attacks Androcentric Medical Care

Manley's description of Madam's "vapours" and the doctor's diagnosis and treatment is comment on what women are to expect at the hands of doctors.

The doctor's method of diagnosis is to tell a joke. If a woman doesn't laugh at a man's joke there must be something wrong with her. It can't be that the joke was bad; she must be mentally ill (see 1:381-83).