| Description |
1 online resource (xiii, 188 pages) |
| Series |
Cambridge studies in eighteenth-century English literature and thought ; 11 |
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Cambridge studies in eighteenth-century English literature and thought ; 11.
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| Contents |
Machine derived contents note: 1. The character progress as an Augustan phenomenon; 2. About wit: Locke, Jakobson, and Augustan ideas; 3. On the matter of wit; 4. Gravity, abstraction, and crackpot materialism; 5. That satire is art only more so |
| Summary |
Comic and satiric literature from the 1670s to the 1740s is characterised by the allusive and elusive word play of Augustan wit. The arguments of Augustan wit reveal preoccupations with the metaphorical dimension of language so distrusted by Locke and others who saw it as fundamentally opposed to the rational mode of judgement. John Sitter makes a challenging claim for the importance of wit in the writings of Dryden, Rochester, Prior, Berkeley, Gay, Pope and Swift, as an analytic mode as well as one of stylistic sophistication. He argues that wit - often regarded by modern critics as a quaint category of verbal cleverness - in fact offers to current literary theory a legacy corrective of Romantic and neo-Romantic idealizations of imagination. This study aims at once to emphasise the historical specificity of Augustan writing, and to bring its arguments into dialogue with those of our time.--Publisher description |
| Analysis |
English literature |
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English literature |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Notes |
English |
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Print version record |
| In |
ACLS Humanities E-Book. |
| Subject |
English wit and humor -- History and criticism
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English literature -- 18th century -- History and criticism
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English literature -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- History and criticism
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English literature -- Roman influences.
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English literature
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English literature -- Early modern
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English literature -- Roman influences
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English wit and humor
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| Genre/Form |
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| LC no. |
90028116 |
| ISBN |
0511553544 |
|
9780511553547 |
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