Download as pdf or txt
Download as pdf or txt
You are on page 1of 44

German And United States Colonialism

In A Connected World: Entangled


Empires 1st Edition Janne Lahti
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/german-and-united-states-colonialism-in-a-connected
-world-entangled-empires-1st-edition-janne-lahti/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

Violence, Colonialism and Empire in the Modern World


1st Edition Philip Dwyer

https://ebookmass.com/product/violence-colonialism-and-empire-in-
the-modern-world-1st-edition-philip-dwyer/

Slavery, Surveillance and Genre in Antebellum United


States Literature Kelly Ross

https://ebookmass.com/product/slavery-surveillance-and-genre-in-
antebellum-united-states-literature-kelly-ross/

Corporatizing Rural Education: Neoliberal Globalization


and Reaction in the United States 1st Edition Jason A.
Cervone (Auth.)

https://ebookmass.com/product/corporatizing-rural-education-
neoliberal-globalization-and-reaction-in-the-united-states-1st-
edition-jason-a-cervone-auth/

Colonialism, Independence, and the Construction of


Nation-States 1st ed. Edition Forrest D. Colburn

https://ebookmass.com/product/colonialism-independence-and-the-
construction-of-nation-states-1st-ed-edition-forrest-d-colburn/
Sportswomen’s Apparel in the United States: Uniformly
Discussed 1st ed. Edition Linda K. Fuller

https://ebookmass.com/product/sportswomens-apparel-in-the-united-
states-uniformly-discussed-1st-ed-edition-linda-k-fuller/

Race, Popular Culture, and Far-right Extremism in the


United States 1st Edition Priya Dixit

https://ebookmass.com/product/race-popular-culture-and-far-right-
extremism-in-the-united-states-1st-edition-priya-dixit/

(Dis)Connected Empires: Imperial Portugal, Sri Lankan


Diplomacy, and the Making of a Habsburg Conquest in
Asia Zoltán Biedermann

https://ebookmass.com/product/disconnected-empires-imperial-
portugal-sri-lankan-diplomacy-and-the-making-of-a-habsburg-
conquest-in-asia-zoltan-biedermann/

Culture and Diversity in the United States: So Many


Ways to Be American 1st

https://ebookmass.com/product/culture-and-diversity-in-the-
united-states-so-many-ways-to-be-american-1st/

Sovereignty and Land Rights of Indigenous Peoples in


the United States 1st ed. Edition Wayne Edwards

https://ebookmass.com/product/sovereignty-and-land-rights-of-
indigenous-peoples-in-the-united-states-1st-ed-edition-wayne-
edwards/
German and
United States Colonialism
in a Connected World
Entangled Empires
Edited by Janne Lahti
Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies

Series Editors
Richard Drayton
Department of History
King’s College London
London, UK

Saul Dubow
Magdalene College
University of Cambridge
Cambridge, UK
The Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies series is a well-
established collection of over 100 volumes focussing on empires in world
history and on the societies and cultures that emerged from, and chal-
lenged, colonial rule. The collection includes transnational, comparative
and connective studies, as well as works addressing the ways in which
particular regions or nations interact with global forces. In its forma-
tive years, the series focused on the British Empire and Commonwealth,
but there is now no imperial system, period of human history or part of
the world that lies outside of its compass. While we particularly welcome
the first monographs of young researchers, we also seek major studies
by more senior scholars, and welcome collections of essays with a strong
thematic focus that help to set new research agendas. As well as history,
the series includes work on politics, economics, culture, archaeology, liter-
ature, science, art, medicine, and war. Our aim is to collect the most
exciting new scholarship on world history and to make this available to
a broad scholarly readership in a timely manner.

More information about this series at


http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/13937
Janne Lahti
Editor

German and United


States Colonialism
in a Connected World
Entangled Empires
Editor
Janne Lahti
Department of Philosophy, History and Art
University of Helsinki
Helsinki, Finland

ISSN 2635-1633 ISSN 2635-1641 (electronic)


Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies
ISBN 978-3-030-53205-5 ISBN 978-3-030-53206-2 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53206-2

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2021
Chapter 1 is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Inter-
national License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). For further details see
license information in the chapter.
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights
of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc.
in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such
names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for
general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and informa-
tion in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither
the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with
respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been
made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps
and institutional affiliations.

Cover illustration: Niday Picture Library/Alamy Stock Photo

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Acknowledgments

As usual, academic gratitude has accumulated during the making of this


book. The period spent as a visiting scholar at Free University Berlin’s
Global History Program certainly proved extremely helpful in deep-
ening my views on German colonialism and contemplating on the forms
and range of historical connections between United States and German
empires. Thanks for having me over and for the exchange of ideas, Sebas-
tian Conrad. I also enjoyed the lattes/beers and the talks with Eriks
Bredovskis, Nicola Camilleri, Minu Haschemi Yekani, Adam Hjorthen,
Valeska Huber, Dörte Lerp, and Ben van Zee. The experience would not
have been as stimulating without my Global Settler Colonialism class.
Thanks to all the wonderful students for engaging my arguments and
challenging me. The same goes to the equally wonderful students at the
University of Helsinki, where I have taught several years on settler colo-
nialism and German and US empires. For enabling this book to come
to life in the first place, I wish to thank the Academy of Finland and
the Finnish Cultural Foundation. Both institutions, together with the
University of Helsinki, have kept my academic career afloat in recent years.
Research fellowships at the Hunting Library, in San Marino, California,
and the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, in Cody, Wyoming, have also
been very helpful in nurturing my ideas on global empires. My magnif-
icent author team deserves a massive thanks. At Palgrave, Molly Beck,
Ashwini Elango, Maeve Sinnott, and Sam Stocker have proven most

v
vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

helpful, patient, and supportive. Finally, my warmest thanks go, as always,


to my family, to my wife Sanna who has put up with me for two decades
already, and our two soon-to-be-adults, Sofia and Juho.
Praise For German and United States
Colonialism in a Connected World

“Janne Lahti brings together a fine ensemble of international scholars to


look at one of the currently most rewarding fields in imperial history, the
history of transimperial entanglements. The volume specifically engages
with US-German imperial relations and throws new light on their great
historical significance. Lahti’s skillful and gripping introduction immedi-
ately draws the reader into the subject matter. His real feat, however,
lies in the composition of the contributions that covers broad historical
ground and at the same time provides in-depth empirical analysis. A timely
and stimulating book at the interface of imperial and global history.”
—Roland Wenzlhuemer, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

“This outstanding collection of essays on the many entanglements of


Germany and the United States in the age of empire showcases a highly
dynamic research field of younger and established scholars that is breaking
down the barriers and stale conventions that have long hindered a full
understanding of global competitive colonialism. By also challenging
the national exceptionalism that has long contained both American and
German history, the essays are sure to spark lively debate that will lead to
productive new avenues of research.”
—Erik Grimmer-Solem, Wesleyan University

vii
viii PRAISE FOR GERMAN AND UNITED STATES COLONIALISM IN A …

“Entangled Empires presents global and transnational scholarship at their


finest. Full of original research, arresting insights, and powerful case
studies, the essays collected here decentre US and German colonialism
in compelling ways. In crisp and elegant prose the authors in this superb
collection show as never before how the United States and German impe-
rial formations were entangled by flows of knowledge, people, and strate-
gies of colonial domination, and developed relationally with one another.
This carefully curated volume showcases how the signature methods of
transnational and global history—connected, comparative, and collabo-
rative—offers vital new understandings on imperial formation and the
imperial origins of contemporary globality.”
—Stephen Tuffnell, St Peter’s College, University of Oxford

“This important collection offers a wealth of thought-provoking essays


that open up a long overdue discussion about the myriad ways that U.S.
and German colonialism interacted with one another across the long nine-
teenth century. After reading German and United States Colonialism in
a Connected World, it will be impossible to think about U.S. or German
history—or, indeed, global history—the same way ever again.”
—Karl Jacoby, Columbia University

“The compelling essays in this rich, wide-ranging volume vividly demon-


strate the value of approaching histories of modern colonialism as globally
entangled. Focusing on the ways Germans’ perceptions of U. S. empire—
as inspiration and model, rival and threat—shaped their understandings
of Germany as nation, empire and world power, the essays reveal myriad
ways that German visions of settler-colonial rule, racialized power and
colonial violence crossed national and imperial boundaries.”
—Paul Kramer, Vanderbilt University
Contents

1 Introduction: Relational Empires 1


Janne Lahti

Part I Portabilities

2 Seapower and Frontier Settlement: Friedrich List’s


American Vision for Germany 17
Gregor Thum

3 The Fantasy of Open Space on the Frontier: Max


Sering from the Great Plains to Eastern Europe 41
Robert L. Nelson

4 The Role of US Railroads in the German Expansionist


Mindset of Gerhard Rohlfs 63
Tracey Reimann-Dawe

5 Between France, Germany, and the United States:


Raymond Aron as a Critical Theorist of Colonialism
and Empire 83
George Steinmetz

ix
x CONTENTS

Part II Passages

6 “A Truly Exquisite Little Phrase:” Global Colonialist


Visions vs. The “Drang nach Osten” 109
Jens-Uwe Guettel

7 Ruling Classes and Serving Races: German Policies


on Land, Labor, and Migration in Trans-Imperial
Perspective 129
Dörte Lerp

8 How the Südwest Was Won: Transnational Currents


of American Agriculture and Land Colonization
in German Southwest Africa 153
Jeannette Eileen Jones

9 Practicing Empire: Germany’s Colonial Visions


in the Pacific Northwest 177
Eriks Bredovskis

Part III Parallels

10 Similarity in Appearance—“Chinaman” in German


and American Satire Magazines Around 1900 203
Volker M. Langbehn

11 “I Almost Pulled Her to My Heart, but…”


Competing Masculinities in Karl May’s Wild West
Fictions and Their Modern Theatrical Adaptations 229
A. Dana Weber

12 In Service of Empires: Apaches and Askaris


as Colonial Soldiers 253
Janne Lahti and Michelle R. Moyd
CONTENTS xi

13 Words and Wars of Conquest: The Rhetoric


of Annihilation in the American West and the Nazi
East 277
Edward B. Westermann

Part IV Afterwords

14 Empires of Comparison 301


Andrew Zimmerman

15 Settler Colonialism and Financial Imperialism: The


German and United States Empires in a Global Age 307
Sebastian Conrad

Index 315
Notes on Contributors

Eriks Bredovskis is Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at


the University of Toronto and affiliate with the Collaborative Program at
the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies. Funded by the Canada
Graduate Scholarship from SSHRC, his dissertation examines German
anxiety about US empire from 1878 to 1918, with a particular interest
in Germans in the North Pacific Ocean. His most recent publication is
titled “Sketching America: German Depictions of the United States and
Woodrow Wilson” in the October 2019 issue of German Studies Review.
Sebastian Conrad is Professor of Global History at the Free Univer-
sity of Berlin. He has a background in both modern Western European
and Japanese history and is currently interested primarily in transnational
and global history approaches and their contribution to an understanding
of the interactions and entanglements of the past. His recent publica-
tions include German Colonialism: A Short History (Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 2012), What is Global History? (Princeton University Press,
2016), and An Emerging Modern World, 1750–1870, eds. with Jürgen
Osterhammel, (A History of the World, vol. 4; The Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press, 2018).
Jens-Uwe Guettel is Associate Professor of German Studies and History
at Penn State. His first book, German Expansionism, Imperial Liber-
alism, and the United States, 1776–1945 (Cambridge University Press,
2012), focuses on the domestic ramifications of colonial expansion for

xiii
xiv NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Germany and Nazi expansionism.


His current book project, Radical Democracy in Germany, 1871–1918,
takes a broad look at women, socialists, anarchists, and a host of other
individuals and movements interested in radical change in Germany
before 1918. Guettel’s articles have appeared, for instance, in the Journal
of Modern History, Central European History, and Modern Intellectual
History.
Jeannette Eileen Jones is Associate Professor of History and Ethnic
Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her research expertise
and interests include Gilded Age and Progressive Era history, transna-
tional history, pre-Colonial Africa, history of science, digital history, Black
European Studies, and the Black American West. She is the author of
In Search of Brightest Africa: Reimagining the Dark Continent in Amer-
ican Culture, 1884–1936 (The University of Georgia Press, 2010). She is
currently working on her second monograph, America in Africa: U.S.
Empire, Race, and the African Question, 1821–1919, which is under
advanced contract with Yale University Press.
Janne Lahti works as Academy of Finland Research Fellow at the
University of Helsinki, Finland. His research focuses on global and
transnational histories of settler colonialism, borderlands, the Amer-
ican West, and German and Nordic colonialism. He has authored five
books, including Cinematic Settlers: The Settler Colonial World in Film,
with Rebecca Weaver-Hightower (Routledge, 2020), The American West
and the World: Transnational and Comparative Perspectives (Routledge,
2019), and Wars for Empire: Apaches, the United States, and the South-
west Borderlands (University of Oklahoma Press, 2017). His current book
project is titled Global Settler Colonialism: American West and Imperial
Germany in the World of Empires.
Volker M. Langbehn is Professor in the German Program at San Fran-
cisco State University. His scholarly interests include German Literature
from 1700–1820 and from 1890–present, theory of literature, cultural
criticism, European and American Colonialism, Visual Studies, and Geno-
cide Studies. His main publications include German Colonialism: Race,
Holocaust, and Postwar Germany, with Mohammad Salama (Columbia
University Press, 2011) and German Colonialism, Visual Culture, and
Modern Memory (Routledge, 2010). Langbehn’s current project is titled
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xv

Precursors to Genocide: European and American Imperialism and Mass


Culture from the late 19 th Century to 1933.
Dörte Lerp works as postdoctoral researcher at the Free University of
Berlin. Her research interests include German and European colonial
history, postcolonial memorial culture as well as tourism and development
history. Her first monograph, Imperiale Grenzräume. Bevölkerungspoli-
tiken in Deutsch-Südwestafrika und den östlichen Provinzen Preußens
1884–1914 (Campus, 2016), examined colonial policies in German
Southwest Africa and the eastern Prussian provinces. Her current project,
funded by the German Research Council, investigates how tourism shaped
European-African economic and socio-political relations. Her publica-
tions also include New Perspectives on the History of Gender and Empire.
Comparative and Global Approaches, with Ulrike Lindner (Bloomsbury
2018).
Michelle R. Moyd is Associate Professor of History at Indiana Univer-
sity—Bloomington. She is a historian of eastern Africa, with special inter-
ests in the region’s history of soldiering and warfare. She is also inter-
ested in bringing the experience of nineteenth-century African-American
soldiers into a broader analysis of soldiers of empire. Her book, Violent
Intermediaries: African Soldiers, Conquest, and Everyday Colonialism in
German East Africa, was published by the Ohio University Press in 2014.
Robert L. Nelson is Head of the Department of History at the Univer-
sity of Windsor, Canada. His main areas of research include settler colo-
nial studies, cultural military history, the law of warfare, and food history.
His revised Cambridge dissertation appeared in 2011 as German Soldier
Newspapers of the First World War (Cambridge University Press). Earlier
he published the edited volume Germans, Poland, and Colonial Expan-
sion to the East: 1850 Through the Present (Palgrave, 2009). He is currently
working on the biography of Max Sering.
Tracey Reimann-Dawe is Assistant Professor in German at Durham
University, UK. Her research interests focus on aspects of German
history, literature, and culture from the mid-nineteenth century onwards,
including colonialism, travel writing, nationalism, cultural memory, and
protest movements. Her publications include “Time and the Other in
Nineteenth-Century German Travel Writing,” Transfers: Interdisciplinary
Journal of Mobility Studies [Special section ‘Travel Writing and Knowl-
edge Transfer], 2016 and “The British Other on African soil: the rise
xvi NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

of nationalism in colonial German travel writing on Africa”, Patterns of


Prejudice [Special issue ’German Nationalist and Colonial Discourse’],
2011.
George Steinmetz is the Charles Tilly Professor of Sociology at the
University of Michigan and has been a tenured professor at the Univer-
sity of Chicago and the New School in New York. His main areas are
the sociology of empires and states, social theory, and the history and
philosophy of the social sciences. His recent publications include “Sozi-
ologie und Kolonialismus: Die Beziehung zwischen Wissen und –Politik,”
Mittelweg 36 (May 2020), “Scientific Autonomy, Academic Freedom,
and Social Research in the United States,” Critical Historical Studies
(Fall 2018), and “Sociology and Colonialism in the British and French
Empires, 1940–1960s,” Journal of Modern History 89.3 (2017).
Gregor Thum is Associate Professor of History at the University of
Pittsburgh. He is a historian of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Central
European history with a particular interest in the German borderlands
of east central Europe, the history of forced migration, and politics of
the past. He is the author of Uprooted: How Breslau Became Wrocław
during the Century of Expulsions (Princeton University Press, 2011),
editor of Traumland Osten: Deutsche Bilder vom östlichen Europa im 20.
Jahrhundert (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006) and co-editor of Helpless
Imperialists: Imperial Failure, Fear, and Radicalization (Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 2013).
A. Dana Weber is Associate Professor of German in the Department of
Modern Languages and Linguistics at Florida State University in Talla-
hassee. Her interdisciplinary research addresses diverse topics including
performativity, performance and the uncanny, Karl May festivals, the films
of Fritz Lang and Quentin Tarantino, film noir in East Germany, and
the German Romantic novella. Dana is the author of Blood Brothers and
Peace Pipes: Performing the Wild West in German Festivals (University of
Wisconsin Press, 2019), editor of the essay collection Performativity—
Life, Stage Screen. Reflections on a Transdisciplinary Concept (LIT Verlag,
2018), and author of several articles.
Edward B. Westermann is Professor of History at Texas A&M
University-San Antonio. He has published extensively on the Holocaust
and military history, including Hitler’s Ostkrieg and the Indian Wars:
Comparing Genocide and Conquest (University of Oklahoma Press, 2016)
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xvii

and Hitler’s Police Battalions: Enforcing Racial War in the East (Univer-
sity Pres of Kansas, 2005). His newest book, Drunk with Genocide?
Drinking Rituals, Masculinity, and Mass Murder in Nazi Germany will
be published by Cornell University Press in March 2021.
Andrew Zimmerman is Professor of History at the George Washington
University. They is the author of Anthropology and Antihumanism in
Imperial Germany (Chicago University Press, 2001) and Alabama in
Africa: Booker T. Washington, the German Empire, and the Globalization
of the New South (Princeton University Press, 2010). They has also edited
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Civil War in the United States (Inter-
national Publishers, 2016). Their current project is writing a transnational
history of the American Civil War.
List of Figures

Fig. 8.1 Campbell’s Soil Culture Manual Cover (1905) (Courtesy


of History Nebraska) 166
Fig. 8.2 Top Left: Oxcart on the Trek. Bottom Left: Rambouillet
Sheep in Rehoboth. Top Right: Grazing Land of His
Majesty’s the Emperor’s Farm. Bottom Right: Cattle
Herd by the Open Water (Source Deutschland als
Kolonialmacht: Dreißig Jahre deustche Kolonialgeschichte
[1914]) 169
Fig. 9.1 Page from Paul Behncke, “Kleiner Kreuzer
“Falke,” Auslandsreisen unter dem Kommando von
Korvettenkapitän Paul Behncke (Fotoalben), Nord-
und Mittelamerika,” Bundesarchiv-Freiburg, BArch N
173/31, Bd. 31 183
Fig. 9.2 Page from Paul Behncke, “Kleiner Kreuzer
“Falke,” Auslandsreisen unter dem Kommando von
Korvettenkapitän Paul Behncke (Fotoalben), Nord-
und Mittelamerika,” Bundesarchiv-Freiburg, BArch N
173/31, Bd. 31 186
Fig. 9.3 Image from Paul Behncke, “Kleiner Kreuzer
‘Falke,’ Auslandsreisen unter dem Kommando von
Korvettenkapitän Paul Behncke (Fotoalben), Nord-
und Mittelamerika,” Bundesarchiv-Freiburg, BArch N
173/31, Bd. 31 193

xix
xx LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 10.1 Celestial Ladies, from Harper’s Weekly, Vol. 2, no.


53 (January 2, 1858). Held by the Lincoln Financial
Foundation Collection, held in the Lincoln Library,
Allen County Public Library (Image courtesy of Internet
Archive. https://www.archive.org/) 209
Fig. 10.2 Chinese Coolies, from Harper’s Weekly, Vol. 2, no.
53 (January 2, 1858). Held by the Lincoln Financial
Foundation Collection, held in the Lincoln Library,
Allen County Public Library (Image courtesy of Internet
Archive. https://www.archive.org/) 210
Fig. 10.3 “What Shall We Do With Our Boys?,” Oakland Museum
of California (https://www.archive.org/) 212
Fig. 10.4 “Im Hospital der Unheilbaren,” Heidelberg University
Library (https://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/kla
1900/0324) 219
Fig. 11.1 From left to right: Nscho-tschi (Radost Bokel), Old
Shatterhand (Jochen Bludau, ✝ 2019), Intschu-tschuna
(Wolfgang Kirchhoff), and Winnetou (Jean-Marc
Birkholz), in blood-brotherhood scene, Elspe 2012
(Photograph by A. Dana Weber) 234
Fig. 11.2 From left to right: Nscho-tschi (El’ Dura), Winnetou
(Hans Otto), and Old Shatterhand (Ludwig Körner),
Berlin 1929 (Image available in the public domain) 241
Fig. 11.3 Uschi Behm (right) and a friend as Old Shatterhand
and Winnetou on the shooting location of Winnetou’s
film adaptation in Croatia, 1982 (Used with permission) 247
CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Relational Empires

Janne Lahti

Summer 1893. Chicago. While the historian Frederick Jackson Turner


delivered a paper titled “The Significance of the Frontier in American
history,” in the meeting of the American Historical Association, Buffalo
Bill Cody’s Wild West show performed close by, packing audiences twice
a day to an arena of eighteen thousand spectators. However, the main
attraction in town was the World’s Columbian Exposition, a massive cele-
bration of Columbus’ landing some 400 years earlier. The exposition
covered around 600 acres, with nearly 200 new buildings, and drew
millions of visitors. The exposition, Buffalo Bill’s show, and Turner’s
paper were all big hits (in their respective ways), and they all symbolized
and celebrated American exceptionalism. They inserted US history into a
tight national framing. While the exposition lauded and featured exam-
ples of American technological progress, the dynamism of its civic society,
and the prominence of its civilization, Turner’s famous “frontier thesis”
offered an explanation of American identity and history as a westbound
process where Anglo pioneers built civilization on free land. Buffalo Bill’s

J. Lahti (B)
Department of Philosophy, History and Art, University of Helsinki, Helsinki,
Finland
e-mail: janne.lahti@helsinki.fi

© The Author(s) 2021 1


J. Lahti (ed.), German and United States Colonialism in a Connected
World, Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53206-2_1
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
“Sighing out a faint adieu
To truffles, salmis, toasted cheese.”

Especially painful to Byron was the report that Marie Louise (1791–
1849), Napoleon’s widow, who had been secretly married to her
chamberlain, Adam de Neipperg, had attended the Congress, and
had become reconciled to her first husband’s captors. One section of
the satire paints a picture of her leaning on the arm of the Duke of
Wellington, “yet red from Waterloo,” before her husband’s ashes
have had time to chill.
The most bitter, and, at the same time, the most just satire in the
poem is directed at the English landed gentry:

“The last to bid the cry of warfare cease,


The first to make a malady of peace.”

The rise in prices due to the long-continued war had fattened the
purses of the farmers and land-holders in England, and led them to
wish secretly for the continuance of the struggle. Byron attacks
severely their grudging assent to proposals of peace, and, in a
succession of rhymes on the word “rent,” points out the selfishness
of their position. The diatribe contains some of Byron’s most
passionate lines:

“See these inglorious Cincinnati swarm,


Farmers of war, dictators of the farm;
Their ploughshare was the sword in hireling hands,
Their fields manured by gore of other lands;
Safe in their barns, these Sabine tillers sent
Their brethren out to battle—why? for rent!”

Although an occasional touch of mockery reminds us of Don


Juan, The Age of Bronze, in method, shows a reversion to the
invective manner of English Bards. It can hardly be said, however,
that this later satire is any advance over the earlier poem. Its
allusions are now unfamiliar to the average reader, and the names
once so pregnant with meaning have faded into dim memories.
Although The Age of Bronze has sagacity and practicality, it lacks
unity and concentration. Without the vehement sweep of English
Bards, it is also too rhetorical and declamatory. Most readers,
despite the flash of spirit which now and then lights its pages, have
found the satire dull.
The Blues, so little deserving of attention in most respects, is
unique among Byron’s satires for two reasons: it is written in the
form of a play, and it employs the anapestic couplet metre, used by
Anstey and later by Moore. Byron’s first reference to it occurs in a
letter to Murray from Ravenna, August 7, 1821: “I send you a thing
which I scratched off lately, a mere buffoonery, to quiz the Blues, in
two literary eclogues. If published, it must be anonymously—don’t let
my name out for the present, or I shall have all the old women in
London about my ears, since it sneers at the solace of their ancient
379
Spinsterstry.” On September 20, 1821, he calls it a “mere
380
buffoonery, never meant for publication.” Murray, following his
usual custom with literature which was likely to get him into trouble,
cautiously delayed publication, and the poem was turned over to
John Hunt and printed in The Liberal, No. III (pages 1–24), for April
26, 1823. It was not attributed to Byron by contemporary critics, most
of them giving Leigh Hunt credit for the authorship.
There is nothing in Byron’s letters to explain the immediate
motive which led the poet to scribble a work so unworthy of his
genius. In his journal kept during his society life in London there are
several references to the “blues,” and later he made some
uncomplimentary allusions to them in Beppo and Don Juan. In a
sense his efforts to ridicule them seem to parallel the attacks of
Gifford on a coterie equally harmless and inoffensive.
In form the satire is a closet drama in two acts, each containing
approximately 160 lines. The characters represented are intended, in
many instances, for living persons. Thus, in the first act, which takes
place before the door of a lecture room, Inkel, who is apparently
Byron, converses with Tracy, who may be Moore. Within, Scamp,
probably Hazlitt, is delivering a discourse to a crew of “blues,
dandies, dowagers, and second-hand scribes.” Among the subjects
for discussion between the two men is Miss Lilac, a spinster, and
heiress, and a Blue, who is doubtless a caricature of Miss Milbanke,
the later Lady Byron. References to “Renegado’s Epic,” “Botherby’s
plays,” and “the Old Girl’s Review” indicate that Byron has returned
to some favorite subjects for his satire.
The second act is located at the home of Lady Bluebottle, who
resembles closely Lady Holland, the well-known Whig hostess and
one of Byron’s friends. Sir Richard Bluebottle, in a monologue,
complains of the crowd of,
“Scribblers, wits, lecturers, white, black, and blue,”
who invade his house and who are provided for at his expense. In
the scene which ensues, Inkel acts as a sort of interlocutor, with the
others as a chorus. Wordsworth, the “poet of peddlers,” is satirized in
the old fashion of English Bards as the writer who,

“Singing of peddlers and asses,


Has found out the way to dispense with Parnassus.”

Southey is referred to as “Mouthy.” Of the other figures, Lady


Bluemont is, perhaps, Lady Beaumont, and Miss Diddle, Lydia
White, “the fashionable blue-stocking.” When the party breaks up, Sir
Richard is left exclaiming,
“I wish all these people were damned with my marriage.”
On May 6, 1823, Byron finished Canto XVI of Don Juan. The
fourteen extant stanzas of Canto XVII are dated May 8th. Shortly
after he made preparations for his expedition to Greece, and, on July
23, 1823, sailed in the Hercules, with Gamba and Trelawney, for
Cephalonia. From this time on, his work in poetry practically ceased.
He wrote Moore from Missolonghi, March 4, 1824: “I have not been
quiet in an Ionian Island but much occupied with business.... Neither
381
have I continued Don Juan, or any other poem.” He devoted
himself to drilling Greek troops, holding conferences with leaders,
and corresponding with the patriot parties. A fever, brought on by
over-exposure, attacked him on April 11th, on the 19th, he died. His
remains were brought to England, and buried in the little church of
Hucknall Torquard, only a few miles from Newstead Abbey.
CONCLUSION
Mr. Augustine Birrell, in an illuminating essay on the writings
of Pope, brings forward, with reference to satire, a standard of
judgment which merits a wider application. “Dr. Johnson,” says Mr.
Birrell, “is more to my mind as a sheer satirist than Pope, for in satire
character tells more than in any other form of verse. We want a
personality behind—a strong, gloomy, brooding personality; soured
and savage if you will—nay, as sour and savage as you like, but
spiteful never.” Without subscribing unreservedly to Mr. Birrell’s
preference of Johnson over Pope, we may still point out that the
most conspicuous feature of Byron’s satire, as, indeed, of most of his
other poetry, is the underlying personality of the author, too powerful
and aggressive to be obscured or hidden. There have been satirists
who, in assuming to express public opinion, have succeeded in
partly or entirely effacing themselves, and who have thus acted in
the rôle of judicial censors, self-appointed to the task of voicing the
sentiments of a party. In the poetry of the Anti-Jacobin, it is by no
means easy to detect where the work of one Tory satirist leaves off
and that of another begins. So in Dryden’s work we are seldom
confronted directly by the emotions or partialities of the writer
himself; Absalom and Achitophel gives the impression of a cool
impersonal commentary on certain episodes of history, prejudiced
perhaps, but carried on with real or feigned calmness. Byron’s satire
is of a different sort; we can read scarcely a page without
recognizing the potency of the personality that produced it. Just as in
Childe Harold the hero usually represents Byron himself in some of
the phases of his complex individuality; just as the Lara and the
Corsair of his verse romances and the Cain and Manfred of his
dramas are reflections of the misanthropical, theatrical and skeptical
poet; so, in the satires, no matter what method he uses, it is always
Byron who criticises and assails.
Most of the characteristics which make up this personality
accountable for Byron’s satiric spirit have been brought out and
discussed in previous chapters. The most important of all, probably,
is the haste and impetuosity with which he was accustomed to act. In
this respect he may be again contrasted with Dryden, who
proceeded to satirize an enemy after due preparation, without
apparent agitation or excitement, much as a surgeon performs a
necessary operation. Even Pope, sensitive and irritable though he
was, did not usually strike when his temper was beyond his control.
Byron, on the other hand, was, in most cases, feverish and
impulsive; what he thought to be provocation was followed at once
by a blow. He did not adopt a position of unmoved superiority, but,
both too proud and too impatient to delay, sought instinctively to
settle a dispute on the spot. Except in some instances notable
because of their rarity, Byron seems to have had no understanding
of the method of toying with a prospective victim; he planned to close
with his opponent, to meet him in a grapple, and to overwhelm him
by sheer energy and intrepidity.
This want of restraint had, of course, some favorable results on
his satire; the work was indisputably vigorous, effective because of
the ungoverned passion which sustained it. At the same time this
hasty action was detrimental to Byron’s art, and accounts, in part, for
the frequent lack of subtlety in his satire. We may be roused
temporarily by the fury of the lines; but when, in less enthusiastic
moods, we examine the details, we miss the technique and the
transforming craftsmanship of the supreme artist. Only in The Vision
of Judgment did he devote himself to devising means for gaining his
end in the most dexterous fashion; and the consequence is that
poem is the finest of his satires. In the earlier satires we have Byron,
the man, talking out spontaneously, angrily, unguardedly, without
second thought or reconsideration, like Churchill, a mighty wielder of
the bludgeon but a poor master with the rapier.
Byron’s satiric spirit was always combative rather than
argumentative or controversial. He preferred to assail men rather
than principles. When he disliked an institution or a party, his
invariable custom was to select some one as its representative and
to proceed to call him to account. It is this desire to war with persons
and not with theories that explains his attacks on Castlereagh, whom
he never knew, but whom he singled out as the embodiment of
England’s repressive policy. By nature Byron was much more ready
to quarrel with the Foreign Minister as an individual than he was to
discuss the prudence and expediency of that statesman’s measures.
The characteristics so far mentioned could belong only to a
daring and fearless man. Byron never hesitated to avow his ideas,
nor did he ever retract his invective except in cases in which he had
been convinced that he was unjust. He published the Lines to a Lady
Weeping under his own name at a time when no one suspected his
authorship. For years he satirized European sovereigns without
showing the slightest sign of trepidation. He espoused unpopular
causes, and often, of his own choice, ran close to danger, when
mere silence would have assured him security.
But despite the fact that Byron’s hatreds were seldom disguised
and that he was, on the whole, open and manly in his satire, there is
another side to his nature which cannot be left unnoticed. He was,
unfortunately, implicated in certain incidents which leave him under
the suspicion of a kind of treachery towards his friends. His lampoon
on Samuel Rogers, beginning,

“Nose and chin would shame a knocker;


Wrinkles that would puzzle Cocker;”

and ending,

“For his merits, would you know ’em?


Once he wrote a pretty Poem,”

unpublished during his lifetime, was nevertheless a malicious squib


directed at a man who had been one of his closest companions.
There can be no doubt, too, that Byron’s satiric ballad on Hobhouse,
“My boy Hobbie, O,” sent secretly to England, was a true stab in the
back, administered to the man who had been his loyal friend. Byron,
moreover, was not always accurate in his charges. Like most
satirists, he exaggerated to gain his point, and made claims which
the evidence did not justify. Nor is it in his favor that he chose to
attack his wife in public lampoons, and wrote scurrilous epigrams
upon dead statesmen.
This lack of delicacy aside, however, it must be recognized that
Byron’s satire was often exerted in condemning real evils, and that
he performed a definite service to humanity. More than any other
man of his time he insisted on liberty of speech and action in a
period when reactionary politicians were in the ascendant. He
combated the perennial forms of hypocrisy and cant which appear
constantly in England. Neither Dryden nor Pope had been the
consistent champion of great causes; but Byron so often employed
his satire for beneficial purposes that, despite the vituperation with
which it was greeted by conservatives, it became a powerful
influence for good.
It may be said, in general, of the substance of Byron’s satires,
that he devoted very little attention to the faults and foibles of
mankind, taken as a whole. He was usually moved to satire by some
contemporary person, event, or controversy, and his criticism was
definite, levelled at some specific abuse or evil. In his youth he
showed a disposition to take a lofty moral stand, and to preach
against vice; but he was ill-suited to didacticism, and soon forsook it
altogether. After 1812, his satire had a very intimate connection with
the life around him in politics, society, and literature, and reflected
the manners and moods of the age. It is to be noted, too, that Byron
was, in theory at least, in opposition to the spirit of his time. His belief
in liberal doctrines led him to resist much that seemed safe and solid
to those in his own class of life. He was not, in his later days, in
sympathy with the situation in Europe; and he died too soon to see
his progressive ideas bear fruit in the revolutions of 1830 and the
Reform Bill of 1832.
In literature Byron satirized, throughout his career, the
representatives of the older romantic school: Wordsworth, Coleridge,
and Southey. He did this mainly on the ground that their principles of
poetry were subversive of the rules handed down by his avowed
masters, Pope and Gifford. In thus defending the name and
doctrines of Pope, Byron was consistent during his literary lifetime,
although he himself wandered from the path which he persistently
asserted to be the only right one. In inveighing against Southey, he
was, of course, animated largely by personal spite. For minor
poetasters, scribblers who might have been made the puppets of a
modern Dunciad, Byron had little but silent contempt. In literary
satire, then, he presents the strange spectacle of a radical striving
desperately to support a losing cause, and that cause a conservative
one. Progressive in nearly every other respect, Byron persisted in
opposing any attempt to deviate from the standard established by
Pope.
Byron’s satire on society was partly the result of pique. He who
had been for some time its idol, found himself expelled from English
society, and, in retaliation, exposed its absurdities and follies. At the
same time it is unquestionable that he furthered a reform in ridiculing
the cant and sham of English high life. It was in his last saner days
that he wrote the cantos of Don Juan which treat of the all-pervasive
hypocrisy of fashionable circles, and the satire, even to-day, rings
true. It is noticeable that he seldom satirizes fads or fashions, and
that he rarely, after 1812, attacks private immorality. His zeal is
devoted to unveiling pretence, and to describing this outwardly
brilliant gathering as it really is.
Since Byron was a radical and a rebel, his satire was devoted,
so far as it concerned itself with political questions, to the glorification
of liberty in all its forms, and to the vigorous denunciation of
everybody and everything that tended to block or discourage
progressive movements. In defence of freedom and in resistance to
oppression, his satire found its fullest mission and its amplest
justification. When continental Europe of the middle nineteenth
century thought of Byron, it pictured him as a nobleman who had
assailed tyrannical monarchy, who had aided Italy and Greece in
their struggles for independence, and who had been willing to fight
for the sake of the principles in which he believed. The words of
Byron’s political creed have a noble ring: “The king-times are fast
finishing. There will be blood shed like water, and tears like mist; but
the peoples will conquer in the end. I shall not live to see it, but I
foresee it.”
The broader philosophical satire on humanity in which he was
more and more inclined to indulge as he reached maturity is
essentially shallow and cynical. As soon as Byron became indefinite,
as soon as he undertook to preach, he grew unsatisfactory, for he
had no lesson to teach beyond the pessimism of Ecclesiastes.
All these objects for satire afforded Byron an opportunity for
expressing some much-needed criticism. The most unworthy
sections of his satire are those devoted to mere revenge: the
unchivalric lines on Lady Byron and Mrs. Clermont; the violent abuse
of Southey and Jeffrey; and the treacherous thrusts at Rogers and
Hobhouse. In these passages the satirist descends to the lower level
of Churchill and Gifford.
It remains to say a word of Byron’s methods, a word merely of
recapitulation. Preferring directness always, he was inclined by
nature to go straight to his goal, to speak his mind out without
pausing to devise subtle or devious plans of attack. Except in his
Italian satires his procedure was simple enough: he hurled epithets,
made scandalous and scurrilous charges, and thought out offensive
comments, writing usually in the first person and meeting his
enemies face to face in the good old way of his eighteenth century
predecessors. It is, perhaps, unsafe, with Don Juan and The Vision
of Judgment before us, to assert that he was incapable of finesse
and cunning; but, for the most part, even in these poems, he was
more fond of abuse than he was of innuendo and crafty insinuation.
His impetuosity and irrepressible impulsiveness, to which we have
had occasion so often to refer, did not allow him to dwell
scrupulously on artistic effects.
He had, however, two distinct satiric moods: the one, savage,
stern, and merciless; the other, mocking, scornful, and humorous.
The one resulted in invective, the other, in ridicule and burlesque.
One came to him from Juvenal, Pope, and Gifford; the other he
learned from Moore, Frere, and the Italians. Thanks to his versatility,
he was successful in using both; but his real genius was shown more
in the contemptuous mirth of The Vision of Judgment than in the fury
of English Bards.
Unlike Pope, Byron was no adept at framing pointed phrases.
The beauty of Pope’s satire lies in the single lines, in the details and
the finish of an epithet. Byron’s work, on the other hand, should be
estimated with regard to the general effect. Few recall particular lines
from the passage on Southey in The Vision of Judgment; yet every
one remembers the complete caricature of the laureate. Pope
manipulated a delicate and fine stencil; Byron painted on the canvas
with broad sweeping strokes.
Byron was the last of the great English satirists in verse, and he
has had no imitators who have been able to approach his unique
style and manner. It is a curious fact that his influence after his death
on nineteenth-century English satire has been almost negligible. The
causes of this decline in satire since Byron’s day are not altogether
easy to explain. Perhaps it may be accounted for as accompanying
the general lack of interest in poetry of any sort so common to-day.
Possibly it may be due to the stringency of the laws against libel,
which has resulted in the situation described by Sir George
Trevelyan in his Ladies in Parliament:

“But now the press has squeamish grown, and thinks invective
rash:
And telling hits no longer lurk ’neath asterisk and dash;
And poets deal in epithets as soft as skeins of silk,
Nor dream of calling silly lords a curd of ass’s milk.”

In the twentieth century great political problems are usually fought


out in the newspapers or in prose pamphlets; the editorials of our
daily journals take the place of satires like The Age of Bronze.
Doubtless, too, we have grown somewhat refined in our sensibilities
and fastidious in our speech, so that we shrink from the cut-and-
slash method in poetry. At any rate our English satire since 1830 has
inclined toward raillery and humor, wholly unlike the ardent
vindictiveness of the men under the Georges. The old régime died
away with Byron; and in its stead we have had the polished
cleverness of Praed, the gentle cynicism of Thackeray, the mild
sentimentality of Looker and Dobson. Not until very recently have
flashes of the invective spirit appeared in the work of William Watson
and Rudyard Kipling. The great issues of the twentieth century have
stimulated no powerful English satirist in verse.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The standard edition of Byron’s Poetical Works is that by Ernest
Hartley Coleridge in seven volumes (London, 1904), which contains
an exhaustive bibliography of the successive editions and
translations of different poems. The most complete collection of the
Letters and Journals is that by Rowland E. Prothero in six volumes
(London, 1902). Any study of Byron must be largely based on these
comprehensive and scholarly works. A fairly detailed list of critical
articles on Byron was compiled by Roden Noel in his Life of Lord
Byron; this, however, needs to be supplemented and revised in the
light of recent investigation.
The following list includes only the more important sources of
information for this treatise.

Ackermann, R. Lord Byron, Heidelberg, 1901.


Anti-Jacobin, Poetry of the, edited by Charles Edmonds, London,
1890.
Armstrong, J. L. Life of Lord Byron, London, 1858.
Arnold, Matthew. Byron (In his Essays in Criticism, Second
Series, London, 1903).
Austin, Alfred. A Vindication of Lord Byron, London,
1869.
Byron and Wordsworth (In his Bridling of
Pegasus, London, 1910.)
Bell, John. Fugitive Poetry, London, 1790. 18 vols.
in 9.
Beyle, Henri. Lord Byron en Italie (In his Racine, Paris,
1854).
Bleibtreu, K. Byron der Uebermensch, Sein Leben
und sein Dichten, Jena, 1897.
Blessington, Lady. Conversations with Lord Byron, London,
1834.
Brandes, G. Main Currents in 19th Century Literature,
London, 1905.
Brydges, Sir Samuel E. Letters on the Character and Poetical
Genius of Lord Byron, London, 1824.
An Impartial Portrait of Lord Byron, as a
Poet and a Man, Paris, 1825.
Buratti, P. Poesie, Venezia, 1864. 2 vols.
Castelar, E. Life of Lord Byron, and Other Sketches,
London, 1875.
Casti, G. B. Gli Animali Parlanti, Londra, 1803. 2
Tome.
Novelle, Parigi, 1804. 3 volumi.
Il Poema Tartaro, Milano, 1871.
Chasles, V. E. P. Vie et influence de Byron sur son époque
(In his Études sur l’Angleterre au XIX
siècle, 1850.)
Chesterton, G. K. The Optimism of Byron (In his Twelve
Types, London, 1903.)
Churchill, C. Poetical Works, Boston, 1854. (Ed. by
Tooke.)
Clinton, G. Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Lord
Byron, London, 1825.
Collins, J. C. Studies in Poetry and Criticism, London,
1905.
Courthope, W. J. The Liberal Movement in English
Literature, London, 1885.
A History of English Poetry, London,
1895–1910. 6 vols.
Dallas, R. C. Recollections of the Life of Lord Byron,
1808–1814, London, 1824.
Edgcumbe, R. Byron, the Last Phase, New York, 1909.
Eichler, A. John Hookham Frere; Sein Leben und
seine Werke; Sein Einfluss auf Lord
Byron, Wien und Leipsig, 1905.
Elze, Karl. Lord Byron: A Biography, London, 1872.
Esteve. Byron et le Romantisme français, Paris,
1907.
Frere, J. H. Works, London, 1872. 2 vols.
Fuhrman. Die Belesenheit des jungen Byron.
Galt, John. The Life of Lord Byron, London, 1830.
Gamba, P. A Narrative of Lord Byron’s Last Journey
to Greece, London, 1825.
Gifford, W. The Baviad and the Mæviad, London,
1797.
Gilfillan, G. A Second Gallery of Literary Portraits,
London, 1850.
Guiccioli, Countess. Lord Byron jugé par les temoins de sa
vie, Paris, 1868.
Hancock, A. E. The French Revolution and the English
Poets, New York, 1899.
Hannay, J. Satire and Satirists, London, 1854.
Hazlitt, W. The Spirit of the Age, London, 1825.
Hunt, L. Lord Byron, and Some of his
Contemporaries, London, 1828. 2 vols.
Jack, A. A. Poetry and Prose, London, 1912.
Jeaffreson, J. C. The Real Lord Byron, Leipsig, 1883. 3
vols.
Kennedy, James. Conversations on Religion, with Lord
Byron and Others, London, 1830.
Koeppel, E. Lord Byron, Berlin, 1903.
Medwin, T. Journal of the Conversations of Lord
Byron, London, 1824.
Moore, Thomas. Letters and Journals of Lord Byron, with
Notices of his Life, London, 1830.
Memoirs, Journal, and Correspondence,
London, 1856. 8 vols.
More, P. E. The Wholesome Revival of Byron. (In the
Atlantic. Vol. 82, December, 1898.)
Nichol, J. Byron, London, 1908. (Eng. Men of
Letters Series.)
Parry, W. The Last Days of Lord Byron, London,
1825.
Pope, A. Poetical Works, London, 1895. 10 vols.
Previte-Orton, C. W. Political Satire in English Poetry,
Cambridge, 1910.
Pulci, L. Morgante Maggiore, Venezia, 1784.
Pyre, J. F. A. Byron in our Day. (In the Atlantic, Vol. 99,
April, 1907.)
Roever. Lord Byrons Gedanken ueber Alexander
Pope’s Dichtkunst, Hanover, 1886.
Stephen, L. Byron (In Dict. of Nat. Biog., Vol. viii., pp.
132–155).
Swinburne, A. C. Essays and Studies, London, 1875.
Miscellanies, London, 1886.
Trelawney, E. J. Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley
and Byron, London, 1858.
Records of Shelley, Byron, and the
Author, London, 1878.
Trent, W. P. The Byron Revival. (In the Forum, Vol.
26, October, 1898.)
Tucker, S. M. Verse Satire in England before the
Renaissance, New York, 1906.
Weddigen, O. Lord Byrons Einfluss auf die
europaischen Litteraturen der Neuzeit,
Hannover, 1884.
FOOTNOTES
1
That satire is primarily destructive criticism was asserted by
Heinsius in a familiar passage quoted approvingly by Dryden
in his Essay on Satire:—“Satire is a kind of poetry—in which
human vices, ignorance, and errors, and all things besides,
which are produced from them in every man, are severely
reprehended.” The same theory is expressed by De
Gubernatis in his Storia della Satira:—“La satira è, sovra ogni
cosa, una negazione.”
2
See Poetry, VII, 1.
3
In the Preface to Absalom and Achitophel, Dryden is inclined
to take pride in his fairness:—“I have but laughed at some
men’s follies, when I could have declaimed against their vices;
and other men’s virtues I have commended, as freely as I have
taxed their crimes.”
4
Epilogue to the Satires, Dialogue II., 212–217.
5
See Chesterton’s Pope and the Art of Satire.
6
Both methods are illustrated in a line of the Dunciad:—
“My H—ley’s periods, or my Blackmore’s numbers.”

7
In the Dramatis Personæ of Absalom and Achitophel only two
women appear, and they are spoken of in the poem in a
complimentary way.
8
Byron particularly emphasizes the correctness and moral tone
of Pope: he is “the most perfect of our poets and the purest of
our moralists” (Letters, v., 559); “his moral is as pure as his
poetry is glorious” (Letters, v., 555); “he is the only poet that
never shocks” (Letters, v., 560).
9
Gay’s Alexander Pope, his safe Return from Troy (1720) is
interesting as being one of the rare examples of the use of the
English octave stanza between Lycidas and Beppo.
10
Letters, v., 252.
11
In speaking of the art of rhyming to Trelawney, Byron said:—“If
you are curious in these matters, look in Swift. I will send you a
volume; he beats us all hollow, his rhymes are wonderful.”
12
Cf. Swift’s The Puppet Show with Byron’s Inscription on the
Monument of a Newfoundland Dog.
13
For a contemporary characterization of the unscrupulous
satirists of the period see Cowper’s Charity, 501–532, in the
passage beginning,
“Most satirists are indeed a public scourge.”
14
Examples are The Thimble (1743) by William Hawkins (1722–
1801) and the Scribleriad (1752) by Richard Owen Cambridge
(1717–1802).
15
State Dunces (1733) and The Gymnasiad (1738) by Paul
Whitehead (1710–1744); The Toast (1736) by William King
(1685–1763); and a succession of anonymous poems, The
Battle of the Briefs (1752), Patriotism (1765), The Battle of the
Wigs (1763), The Triumph of Dulness (1781), The Rape of the
Faro-Bank (1797), and The Battle of the Bards (1799).
16
The most important is Churchill’s Rosciad (1761), with the
numerous replies which it elicited: the Churchilliad (1761), the
Smithfield Rosciad (1761), the Anti-Rosciad (1761), by
Thomas Morell (1703–1784), and The Rosciad of Covent
Garden (1761) by H. J. Pye (1745–1813). Among other satires
of the same class may be mentioned the Smartiad (1752) by
Dr. John Hill (1710–1775), with its answer, the severe and
effective Hilliad (1752) by Christopher Smart (1722–1771); the
Meretriciad (1764) by Arthur Murphy (1727–1806); the
Consuliad (1770), a fragment by Chatterton; the Diaboliad
(1777), with its sequel, the Diabolady (1777) by William
Combe (1741–1823); and finally the Criticisms on the Rolliad,
Gifford’s Baviad and Mæviad, the Simpliciad, and the
Alexandriad (1805).
17
The Scandalizade (1750); The Pasquinade (1752) by William
Kenrick (1725–1779); The Quackade (1752); The Booksellers
(1766); The Art of Rising in the Church (1763) by James Scott
(1733–1814); The Senators (1772); and The Tribunal (1787).
18
A few typical controversial satires of this decade are: The
Race (1762) by Cuthbert Shaw (1739–1771); The Tower
(1763); The Demagogue (1764) by William Falconer (1732–
1769); The Scourge (1765); and The Politician (1766) by E. B.
Greene (1727–1788).
19
Some characteristic examples are the Epistle to Cornbury
(1745) by Earl Nugent (1702–1788); the Epistle to William
Chambers (1773) and the Epistle to Dr. Shebbeare (1777) by
William Mason (1724–1797); and the Epistle to Dr. Randolph
(1796), as well as numerous other epistles, by T. J. Mathias.
20
See Macaulay’s Essay on Horace Walpole, page 35.
21
An Essay on the Different Styles of Poetry (1713) by Thomas
Parnell (1679–1718); The Danger of Writing Verse (1741) by
William Whitehead (1715–1785); A Prospect of Poetry (1733);
The Perils of Poetry (1766); and The Wreath of Fashion (1780)
by Richard Tickell (1751–1793).
22
The anonymous Manners of the Age (1733); Manners (1738)
by Paul Whitehead; The Man of Taste (1733) by James

You might also like