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. |
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 American angels appears argues argument articulates asserts attempt authority become Behn birth blood body Book British called chapters character choice claim colonial concept concern condition construction course Critical cultural death designed desire discourse divine early economic eighteenth century emerges Empire England English essential figure freedom God's honor human identify ideology imagination individual John king labor language later less liberty London material matter means Milton monster narrative natural noble notes object offers original Oroonoko Oxford Paradise Lost person play pleasure poem political position possession practices problem produced qualities question race Raphael readers reading reason Restoration royal royal slave Samson Satan savage Second serve slave slavery social society Swift texts theory things tion turn twins University Press waste women World York
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.
Bibliographic information
| Title | Savage Indignation: Colonial Discourse from Milton to Swift |
| Author | Maja-Lisa Von Sneidern |
| Publisher | University of Delaware Press, 2005 |
| ISBN | 0874138825, 9780874138825 |
| Length | 204 pages |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |