Burlesque Natural Philosophers: Eighteenth-Century Satires of Science and Social Innovation

Abstract This dissertation examines the socio-political underpinnings of the satires about science that proliferated in British literature from 1660 to 1800. Most scholarship on the topic assumes that frequent literary assaults reflected a prevailing scepticism about science, and this assumption continues to prejudice analyses of satires like The Virtuoso (1676), Blazing World (1668), and the Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus (pub.1741). However, science was widely embraced as a reliable mode of investigation, and people were generally enthusiastic about it. Why then are there so many farcical natural philosophers in eighteenth century literature and so few respectable ones? I argue that the satirical virtuoso served as a focal point for new forms of social conflict. His zeal for scientific innovation registered broader, often unacknowledged, anxieties about Englandâ s emerging cultural of innovation. Thus, burlesque natural philosophers, who strive to topple traditional hierarchies of knowledge, serve as proxies for the dynamic middle orders, who were seen to threaten traditional social hierarchies. The dissertation is composed of five case studies focusing on different moments of intersection between science and social hierarchies. The first study is of Margaret Cavendish, whose fantastical travelogue Blazing World and its companion treatise on Experimental Natural Philosophy (1668) articulate the perceived link between epistemic and political revolution in a manner that most eighteenth-century satires merely imply. Next I examine Dr. John Woodward, perpetual butt of the Scriblerian group, whose satires fashioned him as an embodiment of social ambition and cultural degeneration. I then discuss three scientific parodies by Henry Fielding and how they reflected the growing presence of science in popular culture. The fourth chapter is on the surprising prevalence of science in oriental tales, and how stories like Rasselas (1759) and Vathek (1786) used the imaginative east to reflect on prospective technological advances like manned flight and large-scale engineering projects. The final chapter, on Elizabeth Hamiltonâ s anti-Jacobin novel Memoirs of Modern Philosophers (1800), explores the paradox of late-century conservatives who embraced scientific and economic progress, but who continued to regard such progress as threatening traditional social structures.

Department dc:contributor.department

English

Year dc:date.issued

2017

Author dc:creator

• Risling, Matthew Michael

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Keymer, Thomas

• British
• Eighteenth Century
• Restoration
• Satire
• Science

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1807/98808

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:utoronto.scholaris.ca:1807/98808