Crime and Punishment in Augustan Poetry
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Liverpool
Department Name: English
Abstract
This project starts from the perception that writing and publishing about crime became very widespread over the period 1675-1750, and in a great variety of forms: legal histories and penal theory, trial records (especially the 'sessions papers' of the Old Bailey), the Ordinary of Newgate's accounts of felons, collections of criminal lives, sensational pamphlets, execution ballads, and 'last dying speeches'. At the same time, the group of elite Tory-inclined wits known as the Scriblerians (Swift, Pope, Gay, Arbuthnot, Parnell) used 'true crime' figures, criminal motifs and punishment images as a prominent part of their satiric endeavours, appropriating popular forms and using satire to 'pillory' political and moral enemies.
While Swift and Gay seem to have relished the comic opportunities of this kind of writing for its power rather than its moral efficacy, Pope seems to move from that position to one Which asserts the moral primacy of punitive satire- a position much contested by those it identified, and others who pointed to the seditious or libelous nature of the Scriblerians' own work.
This study traces the development of these themes through the major and minor works of the Scriblerians, reading them in the light of archival work on the villains they identified and of the work of writers who opposed the satirists. Some chapters focus on particular crimes (e.g. rape, financial crimes), some on particular punishments (e.g. the pillory), and some on particular literary crimes (e.g. plagiarism). The long-running and culturally emblematic feud between Pope and Edmund Curll, a notorious rogue publisher, brings together many issues of legal and illegal punishment, seditious libel, and literary property.
The study shows how the Scriblerians developed critical and literary models of satire, and what they bequeathed to future writers. It suggests that as judicial punishment sought to 'reform' itself, moving away from direct infliction of violence on the body of the criminal towards the institution of internal moral reformation and discipline, so there is a shift in the way the Scriblerians, especially Pope, negotiated their quasi-judicial satire: from violent, bodily power-play to secular, economic regulation and a sense of personal biographical responsibility to which writing is peculiarly sensitive.
While Swift and Gay seem to have relished the comic opportunities of this kind of writing for its power rather than its moral efficacy, Pope seems to move from that position to one Which asserts the moral primacy of punitive satire- a position much contested by those it identified, and others who pointed to the seditious or libelous nature of the Scriblerians' own work.
This study traces the development of these themes through the major and minor works of the Scriblerians, reading them in the light of archival work on the villains they identified and of the work of writers who opposed the satirists. Some chapters focus on particular crimes (e.g. rape, financial crimes), some on particular punishments (e.g. the pillory), and some on particular literary crimes (e.g. plagiarism). The long-running and culturally emblematic feud between Pope and Edmund Curll, a notorious rogue publisher, brings together many issues of legal and illegal punishment, seditious libel, and literary property.
The study shows how the Scriblerians developed critical and literary models of satire, and what they bequeathed to future writers. It suggests that as judicial punishment sought to 'reform' itself, moving away from direct infliction of violence on the body of the criminal towards the institution of internal moral reformation and discipline, so there is a shift in the way the Scriblerians, especially Pope, negotiated their quasi-judicial satire: from violent, bodily power-play to secular, economic regulation and a sense of personal biographical responsibility to which writing is peculiarly sensitive.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
| Paul Baines (Principal Investigator) |