The Satiric Eye: Forms of Satire in the Romantic Period

The Satiric Eye is a compelling collection of essays on satiric writing, images, and theatrical performances from 1780-1832. The title alludes to Wordsworth's famous "inward eye / Which is the bliss of solitude" -and is meant to raise significant critical questions about inwardness, solitude, sincerity, and authenticity in the period, questions which all these essays address. These diverse contributions range from advertising to Jane Austen, graphic pamphlets to the pantomime and illuminate with a satiric eye many presuppositions about early-nineteenth-century literature. Taken together, they challenge the critical conventions about what matters in the Romantic period, the preoccupation with nature, the Gothic, revolution, sentiment, beauty, and literary aesthetics. In their stunning range the essays both decenter Romanticism and reorient the canonical works, authors, and the critical constructs that have defined it.