Print, visuality, and gender in eighteenth-century satire : "the scope in ev'ry page" / by Katherine Mannheimer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mannheimer, Katherine.

Series:

Routledge studies in eighteenth-century literature ; 8.

Routledge studies in eighteenth-century literature ; 8

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Montagu, Mary Wortley, Lady, 1689-1762.

Pope, Alexander, 1688-1744.

Swift, Jonathan, 1667-1745.

Satire, English--History and criticism.

Satire, English.

Verse satire, English--History and criticism.

Verse satire, English.

English literature--18th century--History and criticism.

English literature.

Swift, Jonathan, 1667-1745--Criticism and interpretation.

Swift, Jonathan.

Pope, Alexander, 1688-1744--Criticism and interpretation.

Pope, Alexander.

Montagu, Mary Wortley, Lady, 1689-1762--Criticism and interpretation.

Montagu, Mary Wortley.

Vision in literature.

Printing--Great Britain--History--18th century.

Printing.

Authors and readers--Great Britain--History--18th century.

Authors and readers.

Women and literature--Great Britain--History--18th century.

Women and literature.

History.

Criticism and interpretation.

Great Britain.

Physical Description:

ix, 236 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York : Routledge, 2011.

Summary:

"This study interprets eighteenth-century satire's famous typographical obsession as a fraught response to the Enlightenment's "ocularcentric" epistemological paradigms, and to a print-cultural moment identified by book-historians as increasingly "visual"--as the first to pay widespread attention to format, layout, and visual advertising strategies. The Augustans were convinced of the ability of their texts to function as a kind of optical machinery rivaling that of the New Science, enhancing readers' physical and moral vision, while at the same time they feared the dangers of an overly-scrutinizing gaze as one that might undermine the viewer's natural faculty for candor, sympathy, delight, and desire. Mannheimer studies this distrust of the empirical gaze, and its applications in print, to the inherent gender politics and broader ethical concerns of ocularcentrism in the works of Montagu, Swift, Pope, and Fielding. These writers sought to ensure that print itself never became either a mere tool of, or an inert object for, the gaze, but rather that it remained a dynamic and interactive medium by which readers could learn both to see and to see themselves seeing"-- Provided by publisher.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780415890823

0415890829

OCLC:

666242821