M. Rabb 
Satire and Secrecy in English Literature from 1650 to 1750 

This book revises assumptions about satire as a public, masculine discourse derived from classical precedents, in order to develop theoretical and critical paradigms that accommodate women, popular culture, and postmodern theories of language as a potentially aggressive, injurious act. Although Habermas places satirists like Swift and Pope in the public sphere, this book investigates their participation in clandestine strategies of attack in a world understood to be harboring dangerous secrets. Authors of anonymous pamphlets as well as major figures including Behn, Dryden, Manley, Swift, and Pope, share at times what Swift called the writer’s ‘life by stealth.’

Table of Content

Secrecy and Satire * A History of Secrecy * Towards a Theory of Satire I: Gossip and Slander * Towards a Theory of Satire II: Secret History * The Gender of Satire: Contracts, Promises, and Don Juan-figure from Behn to Byron * Satire: Re-reading The New Atalantis , Gulliver_s Travels , The Rape of the Lock , The Dunciad * _A Life by Stealth_: Autobiographical Satire in Manley, Swift, and Pope * Postmodernizing Satire: Secrecy, Conspiracy, and Paranoia

About the author

Melinda Alliker Rabb is Associate Professor of English and American Literatures and Language at Brown University.