Savage Indignation: Colonial Discourse from Milton to SwiftSavage Indignation is about a flexible and indiscriminate discourse during the window of license occurring between the end of an English divine polity (1649) and the emergence of science as arbiter of true discourse (ca. 1734). Rather than tracing the development of the expedient language of empire and ideological success, the book analyzes the resistance and the waste that are integral to that spectacle of the bourgeois progress. Theoretically informed by Foucault and others, the readings of Milton's late poems, the Oroonoko texts, and Scriblerian efforts attend to denotative and connotative limits of the language, and they incorporate contemporary ephemera to expand the amplitude of potential signification. During the period, von Sneidern concludes, proprietary discourse and the language of trespass had not yet been converted into the language of duty. Just about anything could and was said, to the ingenious reader's wonder, merriment, and considerable uneasiness of mind. Maja-Lisa von Sneidern, Editorial Associate for Arizona Quarterly, teaches part-time at the University of Arizona South. |
From inside the book
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Page 9
... Restoration and early eighteenth century can be found on every page ; without his guidance , expertise , and infinite patience the book would not be . While I watched hawk - eyed , Neil MacKenzie , amateur boxer and brilliant scientist ...
... Restoration and early eighteenth century can be found on every page ; without his guidance , expertise , and infinite patience the book would not be . While I watched hawk - eyed , Neil MacKenzie , amateur boxer and brilliant scientist ...
Page 13
... restoration of the Stuart monarch , in early 1660 Milton wrote two editions of The Readie and Easie Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth . There , the only explanation for backsliding into the bondage of kingship is " that people must ...
... restoration of the Stuart monarch , in early 1660 Milton wrote two editions of The Readie and Easie Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth . There , the only explanation for backsliding into the bondage of kingship is " that people must ...
Page 14
... Restoration and early eighteenth - century England / Britain as it is to us . Whatever else its shortcomings , now is an aus- picious time to present the arguments and readings in this book , not because history repeats — it does not ...
... Restoration and early eighteenth - century England / Britain as it is to us . Whatever else its shortcomings , now is an aus- picious time to present the arguments and readings in this book , not because history repeats — it does not ...
Page 27
... Restoration , men of sense and sen- sibility attempted to divorce Milton's " left - handed " prose from the great poems ; they admired his poetry while they abhorred his poli- tics . One story goes that when Cromwell died and the Good ...
... Restoration , men of sense and sen- sibility attempted to divorce Milton's " left - handed " prose from the great poems ; they admired his poetry while they abhorred his poli- tics . One story goes that when Cromwell died and the Good ...
Page 29
... Restoration and early eighteenth - century readers . What financed the " Paradise within " ? It may be merely coincidental that the Roman- tics ' elevation of Satan to " hero " of the poem coincided with the fall of the " first ...
... Restoration and early eighteenth - century readers . What financed the " Paradise within " ? It may be merely coincidental that the Roman- tics ' elevation of Satan to " hero " of the poem coincided with the fall of the " first ...
Contents
26 | |
Freedom Pleasure and Waste | 53 |
Royal Slaves Unnatural Oppression and the Nature of Race | 85 |
Royal Slaves Of Blood and Bondage | 102 |
A Monster Colonialism and the Scriblerian Project | 140 |
Notes | 162 |
Works Cited | 193 |
Index | 201 |
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Common terms and phrases
Abdelazer Adam and Eve Adam's Alexander Pope anamorphic anamorphosis angels Aphra Behn appetite argues aristocratic particularities articulates asserts authority Behn Behn's birth body Book British choice colonial discourse concept of race conjoined conjoined twins Critical cultural death divine economic eighteenth century emerges Empire Empson England English excrement Foucault freedom God's Gulliver Gulliver's Gulliver's Travels Heylyn Houyhnhnms human identify ideology Imoinda individual John Jonathan Swift king labor liberty literary London marriage Martin's master material ment Michel Foucault Milton Milton's God miscegenation monster narrative natural noble offers oppression Oroonoko Oxford University Press Paradise Lost particularities of blood pleasure poem political Polly Prince Purchas racial Raphael readers Restoration royal slave Samson Agonistes Satan Satire savage indignation scatology Scriblerians serve servitude seventeenth-century sexual slavery Slavoj Žižek social Southerne's Spanish symbolic tale theory Thomas Southerne threat tion twins waste women World Yahoos York Žižek
Popular passages
Page 47 - dimension, where length, breadth, and height, And time and place are lost Into this wild Abyss the wary fiend Stood on the brink of Hell and look'da while, Pondering his Voyage: for no narrow frith He had to cross.
Page 48 - So eagerly the fiend O'er bog or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare, With head, hands, wings, or feet pursues his way, And swims or sinks, or wades, or creeps or flies[.]
Page 70 - such a man, truly wise, creams off Nature, leaving the sour and the dregs for philosophy and reason to lap up. This is the sublime and refined point of felicity, called the possession of being well deceived; the serene peaceful state, of being a fool among knaves.
Page 19 - And what is Faith, Love, Virtue unassay'd Alone, without exterior help sustain'd? Let us not then suspect our happy State Left so imperfet by the Maker wise, As not secure to single or combin'd. Frail is our happiness, if this be so, And Eden were no Eden thus expos'd.
Page 46 - Adam: Heav'n is for thee too high To know what passes there; be lowly wise Think only what concerns thee and thy being; Dream not of other Worlds, what Creatures there Live, in what state, condition or
Page 76 - I told him, we fed on a Thousand Things which operated contrary to each other; that we eat when we were not hungry, and drank without the Provocation of Thirst: That we sat whole Nights drinking strong Liquors without eating a Bit; which disposed us to Sloth, enflamed our Bodies, and precipitated or prevented Digestion.
Page 36 - And should I at your harmless innocence Melt, as I do, yet public reason just, Honor and Empire with revenge enlarg'd, By conquering this new World compels me now To do what else though damn'dI should abhor.
Page 179 - he took thereof in his hands, and went on eating, and came to his father and mother, and he gave them, and they did eat: but he told not them that he had taken the honey out of the carcase of the lion
Page 65 - add / Deeds to thy knowledge answerable, add Faith, / Add Virtue, Patience, Temperance, add Love, / By name to come call'd Charity, the soul / Of all the rest: then wilt thou
Page 55 - I thy Priest before thee bring, Fruits of more pleasing savor from thy seed Sown with contrition in his heart, than those Which his own hand manuring all the Trees Of Paradise could have produc't, ere fall'n From innocence.