Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

1 results

  • Chapter 5 - The Pleasures of Satire in the Fables of Anne Finch

  • from Part I - Traditions and Breaks
  • Edited by Amanda Hiner, Elizabeth Tasker Davis
  • Book:
    British Women Satirists in the Long Eighteenth Century
    Published online:
    31 March 2022
    Print publication:
    07 April 2022, pp 98-112

  • Summary

    In her poetry, Anne Finch employs fable to simultaneously distance herself from abusive satire, which she associates with lampoon, and produce reformative satire, or satire that addresses the shortcomings of society more generally in an effort to bring about the improvement of the culture-at-large. In spite of her purported aversion to lampoonery, however, Finch represents within several of her verse fables figurative satirists who abuse their targets without seeking to reform them. She does so not with a censorious tone designed to encourage readers’ disapproval but in a manner that emphasizes the figurative satirists’ pleasure, pleasure that emerges largely from reversals of power. Finch not only invites the reader to participate in this pleasure but appears to do so herself. As a writer of satirical fables, Finch engages critically with questions regarding what satire should be. At the same time, a number of her fables suggest her desire to engage in satire as she wishes it could be: an empowering personal attack with no repercussions.