Writing and the Rise of Finance: Capital Satires of the Early Eighteenth CenturyThe early eighteenth century saw a far-reaching financial revolution in England, whose impact on the literature of the period has hitherto been relatively unexplored. In this original study, Colin Nicholson reads familiar texts such as Gulliver's Travels, The Beggar's Opera and The Dunciad as 'capital satires', responding to the social and political effects of the installation of capitalist financial institutions in London. The founding of the Bank of England and the inauguration of the National Debt permanently altered the political economy of England: the South Sea Bubble disaster of 1721 educated a political generation into the money markets. While they invested in stocks and shares, Swift, Pope and Gay conducted a campaign against the civic effects of these new financial institutions. Conflict between these writers' inherited discourse of civic humanism and the transformations being undergone by their own society, is shown to have had a profound effect on a number of key literary texts. |
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Contents
Introduction | 1 |
some investing contemporaries | 51 |
the strange case of Gullivers Travels | 91 |
The Beggars Opera | 123 |
Popes poetry | 139 |
figuring out credit in The Dunciad | 177 |
| 202 | |
| 212 | |
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Writing and the Rise of Finance: Capital Satires of the Early Eighteenth Century Colin Nicholson No preview available - 2004 |
Common terms and phrases
activity appearance appropriate Bank become Belinda's Bubble called capital civic classical common Company concerned constructed continued Corr corruption Country culture debt Defoe describe developing Dunciad early economic edited effects England English Essay exchange expressed figure forces forms friends give given Gulliver Gulliver's Travels hand human imaginative individual interest investment John kind King landed leaving lines living Locke London Mandeville material means moral natural objects Opera Opposition passion perception play poem political Pope Pope's possession possible practice present produce Rape Reason reference relations response rich rise satire seems sense share social society South Sea South Sea stock structure Subsequent suggests Swift things thought Tory trade traditional turn values virtue Walpole wealth Whig whole writing
References to this book
Bibliographic information
| Title | Writing and the Rise of Finance: Capital Satires of the Early Eighteenth Century Volume 21 of Cambridge Studies in Eighteenth-Century English Literature and Thought |
| Authors | Colin Nicholson, Professor Colin Nicholson |
| Edition | illustrated, reprint |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press, 1994 |
| ISBN | 0521453232, 9780521453233 |
| Length | 219 pages |
| Subjects | › › Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Literary Criticism / Renaissance |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |