tag:theconversation.com,2011:/nz/topics/18th-century-britain-50347/articles
18th-century Britain – The Conversation
2019-10-07T14:14:02Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/124546
2019-10-07T14:14:02Z
2019-10-07T14:14:02Z
Spitting Image: a warning from the ‘golden age’ of satire
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295807/original/file-20191007-121060-1jjprgg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4778%2C4477&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Harrison/Avalon</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Topical puppet show Spitting Image <a href="https://twitter.com/HanburySt/status/1177834790785032193">is set to return</a> with a new show and fresh caricatures, 23 years after it disappeared from Britain’s screens. Roger Law, co-creator of the original ITV series which skewered the Thatcher and Blair governments of the 1980s and 1990s, confirmed the show will air on US networks with a range of new global newsmakers <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/sep/28/spitting-image-returns-chaotic-times-trump-putin-zuckerberg">to</a> “bring this very British brand of satire to the wider world”. </p>
<p>Puppets of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/sep/28/spitting-image-returns-chaotic-times-trump-putin-zuckerberg">Meghan Markle, Mark Zuckerberg and Donald Trump</a> have been confirmed. Avalon Entertainment, the company behind the Spitting Image revival, remains tight-lipped about when and if the series will air in the UK, but it seems unlikely that Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage, and other contemporary figures will escape parody.</p>
<p>Law describes the show as “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/sep/28/spitting-image-returns-chaotic-times-trump-putin-zuckerberg">public service satire</a>”, the “public service” being to at least offer viewers an alternative to “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/sep/28/spitting-image-returns-chaotic-times-trump-putin-zuckerberg">shouting at the television set</a>.” But in turning politics into puppetry, Spitting Image revives a problem that has been inherent in British caricature for 300 years: how do you do satire without promoting or protecting the very people you seek to critique? </p>
<p>The grotesque exaggerations of the Spitting Image puppets continued a tradition that enjoyed its <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/about_us/tours_and_loans/uk_loans_and_tours/current_tours_and_loans/golden_age_of_satire.aspx">golden age in the 18th century</a> – that of poking fun at politicians. Satirical prints which mocked the physical appearance of public figures to critique their character or behaviour proved tremendously popular during this period. Displays in print shop windows ensured that everyone could get some sense of who their politicians were and what they were being lampooned for, even without purchasing a print. </p>
<p>This might seem a formidable way to hold the government to account in the court of public opinion – but history suggests that while caricature is not always flattering, it is always flattering to be caricatured.</p>
<h2>Farmers and foxes</h2>
<p>Following his coronation King George III was quickly drawn by caricaturists as “Farmer George”, a mocking representation intended to deride his overriding interests in agriculture and simple domestic life. Much fun was had with the idea that the king was happier among his crops than in parliament, and the joke reached its puerile climax with George III depicted pooing in a field.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295781/original/file-20191007-121071-fh4zhu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295781/original/file-20191007-121071-fh4zhu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295781/original/file-20191007-121071-fh4zhu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295781/original/file-20191007-121071-fh4zhu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295781/original/file-20191007-121071-fh4zhu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1144&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295781/original/file-20191007-121071-fh4zhu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1144&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295781/original/file-20191007-121071-fh4zhu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1144&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Farmer George and his wife’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Unknown artists © The British Museum</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But as his reign continued, the stock character of “Farmer George” became more flattering and George III became known as the thrifty father of the nation who understood the meaning of a hard day’s work. </p>
<p>Whig statesman Charles James Fox was known for his scandalous personal and public life and his reckless and debauched behaviour. Fox was the most caricatured man in the 18th century. But once again, these caricatures proved more helpful than damaging to their target. Prints of his various misadventures and political stunts proved bestsellers, gifting Fox a large and loyal fan base. </p>
<p>Fox was first depicted as an actual fox. Though caricaturists may have wished to associate him with the fox’s untrustworthy nature, he in fact benefited from the animal’s representation in literature and folklore as clever, cunning and strangely attractive.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295768/original/file-20191007-121083-5c6etw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295768/original/file-20191007-121083-5c6etw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295768/original/file-20191007-121083-5c6etw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295768/original/file-20191007-121083-5c6etw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295768/original/file-20191007-121083-5c6etw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295768/original/file-20191007-121083-5c6etw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295768/original/file-20191007-121083-5c6etw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295768/original/file-20191007-121083-5c6etw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Crumbs of comfort’ cartoon, depicting Charles James Fox (left) and fellow statesman Edmund Burke.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">James Gillray © National Portrait Gallery, London</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As his career progressed, caricaturists began depicting him as a shambolic and disoriented statesman, with shaggy hair and a perennial five o’clock shadow. In doing so they inadvertently created a new perception of Fox as a relatable “man of the people” – a slogan later incorporated into his party’s official propaganda. </p>
<p>It is telling that Fox held a huge collection of caricatures of himself. Indeed, his two main caricaturists, <a href="http://www.james-gillray.org/">James Gillray</a> and <a href="https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp06840/isaac-cruikshank">Isaac Cruikshank</a> received substantial financial rewards from the government, suggesting that Fox was grateful for their satirical efforts. Caricature can be more helpful to its targets than its creators might intend. </p>
<h2>Loving the attention</h2>
<p>Similarly the Spitting Image puppets <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/sep/28/spitting-image-victims-on-being-lampooned-livingstone-currie-kinnock">didn’t necessarily offend</a> the individuals who inspired them. Ken Livingstone, Edwina Currie, and Margaret Thatcher all rather enjoyed their caricatures, with Currie observing “it suggested I was getting my little message across” and Livingstone <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/sep/28/spitting-image-victims-on-being-lampooned-livingstone-currie-kinnock">that</a> “it helps you be established a bit in the public mind”.</p>
<p>The show’s caricature of Thatcher as “best man in the cabinet” was perhaps as useful to her as “Farmer George” was to George III or the “man of the people” proved to Fox.</p>
<p>One big question invited by the show’s return then, is what it will do with (or to, or for) Johnson as the current UK prime minister. Johnson’s relationship with satire has been complex: in his earlier career, he appeared as a kind of buffoonish self-parody on shows such as Have I Got News For You. What The Guardian <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/apr/05/the-one-positive-of-brexit-it-might-make-have-i-got-news-for-you-watchable-again">called</a> his “buffoonish eye-rolling Oh-Boris smokescreen of a persona” became Johnson’s public image. Since then, he has dismissed some of his own most controversial comments as “wholly satirical”.</p>
<p>More recently still in comparing himself <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/sep/15/eu-dismay-boris-johnson-compares-himself-to-hulk">to the the Incredible Hulk</a>, Johnson deliberately offered caricaturists an easy way to represent him that he approves of.</p>
<p>Though the medium of caricature itself is 300 years old, the problem of how to caricature a politician who has already so relentlessly caricatured himself may be an entirely new one. Law’s intention to deliver “public service satire” may be admirable, but the complicated history of caricature and its tendency to serve those it wishes to undermine, suggests that this might prove a tall order.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124546/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Satire can skewer a pompous or corrupt politician. But history shows it can also popularise its targets.
Adam J Smith, Lecturer in 18th-century Literature, York St John University
Jo Waugh, Senior Lecturer in English Literature, York St John University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/121383
2019-08-09T14:27:26Z
2019-08-09T14:27:26Z
The past stinks: a brief history of smells and social spaces
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287493/original/file-20190809-144838-sel80e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'Living Mady Easy: Revolving hat', a satirical print with a hat supporting a spy glass, an ear trumpet, a ciggar, a pair of glasses, and a scent box, 1830, London.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/tgp5czxy">Wellcome Images CCBY</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A sunny afternoon in Paris. An intrepid TV presenter is making his way through the streets asking passersby to smell a bottle he has in his hand. When they smell it they react with disgust. One woman even spits on the floor as a marker of her distaste. What is in the bottle? It holds, we are told, the “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LGUgiwTqTE">pong de paris</a>”, a composition designed to smell like an 18th-century Parisian street. </p>
<p>The interpretation of past scents that we are given on the television, perhaps influenced by Patrick Süskind’s pungent novel Perfume, is frequently dominated by offence.</p>
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<p>It’s a view found not just on TV but in museums. In England, York’s <a href="https://www.jorvikvikingcentre.co.uk/press/norse-ty-niffs-historic-aroma-packages-trialled-bring-vikings-smells-home/">Jorvik Viking Centre</a>, <a href="https://www.surreycomet.co.uk/news/16200022.sights-sounds-and-smells-of-tudor-kitchens-at-hampton-court-palace-to-be-experienced-this-summer/v">Hampton Court Palace</a>, and the Museum of Oxfordshire have all integrated smells into their exhibits. </p>
<p>The one smell that unites these attempts at re-odorising the past: toilets. Viking toilets, a Georgian water closet, and the highly urinous and faecal smell of a Victorian street, all included in the above examples, thread the needle of disgust from the medieval to the modern.</p>
<p>The consequence of such depictions is to portray the past as an odorous prelude, with foul-smelling trades and poor sanitation, to the clean and pleasant land of modernity.</p>
<h2>Phew, what a pong</h2>
<p>Suggesting that people who are not “us” stink has a long history. It is applied to our forebears just as often as is to other countries, peoples, or cultures. It is not accident that, “Filthy Cities” – an English television program, highlighted the stink of 18th-century France – even in the 18th century the English had associated the French, their absolutist Catholic enemies, with the stink of garlic.</p>
<p>The toilet-training narrative is a simple and seductive story about “our” conquest of stench. But the “pong de paris” misses the point. Too busy turning the past into a circus of disgust for modern noses, it fails to ask how it smelt to those who lived there. <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/smell-in-eighteenth-century-england-9780198844136?cc=tr&lang=en&">New historical work</a> reveals a more complex story about past scents.</p>
<p>A careful examination of the records of urban government, sanitation, and medicine reveal that 18th-century English city-dwellers were not particularly bothered by unsanitary scents. This was partly because people adapted to the smells around them quickly, to the extent that they failed to notice their presence. </p>
<p>But, thanks to 18th-century scientific studies of air and gases, many Georgians also recognised that bad smells were not as dangerous as had previously been thought. In his home laboratory, the polymath <a href="https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/josephpriestleyoxygen.html">Joseph Priestley</a> experimented on mice, while others used scientific instruments to measure the purity of the air on streets and in bedrooms. The conclusion was simple: smell was not a reliable indicator of danger.</p>
<p>Scientist and social reformer <a href="http://broughttolife.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/people/edwinchadwick">Edwin Chadwick</a> famously claimed in 1846 that “all smell… is disease”. But smell had a much more complex place in miasma theory – the idea that diseases were caused by poisonous airs – than has often been assumed. In fact, by the time cholera began to work its morbid magic in the 1830s, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/historical-journal/article/reodorization-disease-and-emotion-in-midnineteenthcentury-england/8CFF3DDF83FC593FD3A355D258F1DE9C">a larger number of medical writers</a> held that smell was not a carrier of sickness-inducing atmospheres. </p>
<p>Smells tend to end up in the archive, recorded in the sources historians use, for one of two reasons: either they are unusual (normally offensive) or people decide to pay special attention to them. One scent that appeared in the diaries, letters, magazines, and literature of 18th-century England, however, was tobacco smoke. The 18 century saw the rise of new anxieties about personal space. A preoccupation with politeness in public places would prove a problem for pipe smokers. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287494/original/file-20190809-144888-4vpx8d.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287494/original/file-20190809-144888-4vpx8d.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287494/original/file-20190809-144888-4vpx8d.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287494/original/file-20190809-144888-4vpx8d.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287494/original/file-20190809-144888-4vpx8d.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287494/original/file-20190809-144888-4vpx8d.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287494/original/file-20190809-144888-4vpx8d.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">On the left a fashionable cigar smoker and on the right a rather less fashionable pipe-smoker, c.1805.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Own collection</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Getting sniffy about tobacco</h2>
<p>Tobacco had become popular in England during the 17th century. But, by the mid-18th century, qualms began to be raised. Women were said to abhor the smell of tobacco smoke. A satirical poem told the story of a wife who had banned her husband from smoking, only to allow its resumption – she realised that going cold turkey had made him impotent. </p>
<p>New sociable venues proliferated in towns and cities, with the growth of provincial theatres, assembly rooms, and pleasure gardens.
In these sociable spaces, a correspondent to The Monthly Magazine noted in 1798, “smoaking [sic] was a vulgar, beastly, unfashionable, vile thing” and “would not be suffered in any genteel part of the world”. Tobacco smoking was left to alehouses, smoking clubs and private masculine spaces.</p>
<p>Clouds of smoke invaded people’s personal space, subjecting them to atmospheres that were not of their own choosing. Instead, fashionable 18th-century nicotine addicts turned to snuff. Despite the grunting, hawking and spitting it encouraged, snuff could be consumed without enveloping those around you in a cloud of sour smoke.</p>
<p>The 18th century gave birth to modern debates about smoking and public space that are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/aug/09/outdoor-smoking-ban-escalates-war-over-barcelonas-restaurant-terraces?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other">still with us today</a>. The fact that the smell of tobacco smoke stains the archives of the period, metaphorically of course, is a testament to the new ideas of personal space that were developing within it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/121383/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr William Tullett has received funding from the AHRC.</span></em></p>
The history of smell in 18th-century England reveals the complex story of scent and personal space.
William Tullett, Lecturer in History, Anglia Ruskin University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/104442
2018-10-08T12:56:14Z
2018-10-08T12:56:14Z
Brexit Britain is easy fodder for satirists: but they should learn from 18th-century masters how to do it properly
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239694/original/file-20181008-72117-16pza3c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Artwork courtesy of Richard LIttler (scarfolk.blogspot.com)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you thought satire was dead in the age of Brexit and Trump, then a quick look at social media should pretty quickly disabuse you of that illusion. Search “Festival of Brexit Britain” if you want a picture of satire’s bright future. Theresa May’s recent announcement that she wants the UK to hold a national festival in 2022 to celebrate leaving the EU prompted an avalanche of humorous memes – including the illustration by <a href="https://twitter.com/richard_littler/status/1046322039114674176">the artist Richard Littler</a> at the top of this article.</p>
<p>The question is, though: are we witnessing a revival of satire as a far more prolific and potent form than ever before – or, because of the sheer numbers of people using social media to try to make humorous points, are we seeing its dilution to the point of redundancy?</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1046867005926727682"}"></div></p>
<p>What is there left for a satirist to say when the UK’s prime minister <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2018/oct/03/theresa-may-dances-on-to-the-stage-at-the-tory-party-conference-video">“dances” onto stage to ABBA</a> (and I’m using the scare quotes deliberately here), Europe’s most famous band? Or when a platform such as Twitter tends to cut the joke from its context, which it does so often – as you will have seen if you searched for Festival of Brexit Britain, for example.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1047446740968849408"}"></div></p>
<p>But even in its golden age in the 18th century there were those who feared for the future of satire. Concern arose from fears that amateur practitioners might tarnish a classical tradition. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/32190/32190-h/32190-h.htm">Alexander Pope</a>, expressed these identical worries in 1738. Pope was writing in a new culture of cheap print where mass condemnation came far quicker than either understanding or the possibility of redemption. In his <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Epilogue-to-the-Satires">Epilogue to the Satires</a> (1733) Pope was wondering how a satirist might survive in these conditions:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>So –satire is no more – I feel it die -<br>
No Gazetteer more innocent than I –<br>
And let, a’ God’s name, every fool and knave<br>
Be graced through life, and flattered in his grave.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Pope is joking here when he describes himself as an “innocent Gazetteer”. His readers knew that he wrote <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Dunciad">The Dunciad</a>, a project so scurrilous that it is still considered the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/may/10/poetry3">greatest work of satire</a> ever produced in the English language. He invites us to reverse the logic of his claim to reveal that it would actually be very bad for “every fool” to be “flattered”. For Pope, satire was a classical mode descended from the likes of Horace and Juvenal, conceived with the express intention of puncturing pride, moderating ego and forcing its readers to undergo critical introspection. </p>
<p>Twitter commentary does seek to puncture pride and moderate ego. Most responses to the Festival of Brexit Britain were ultimately less about the festival itself and more about May’s hubris in even speaking of it out loud. Repeatedly, users such as @albi_albi referred to it as being specifically “Theresa May’s Festival of Brexit Britain” before <a href="https://twitter.com/albi_albi/status/1046322947466678272">posting a bathetic image of Crinkley Bottom</a> or, courtesy of @etiennelefleur, <a href="https://twitter.com/etiennelefleur/status/1046308121608638465">a doctored Ladybird book titled How To Spot Foreigners</a>. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1046322947466678272"}"></div></p>
<p>And with hundreds and thousands of likes, these tweets certainly found an audience.</p>
<h2>Rapier wit</h2>
<p>In the 18th century, satirists were often less interested in making readers laugh than inflicting a moment’s pain and provoking a different point of view. Satire was figured as a scalpel (used to excise ignorance and hypocrisy), a mirror (reflecting a reader’s most undesirable aspects) and as bad medicine. As <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/11488/pg11488-images.html">John Dryden suggested in 1681</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The true end of satire, is the amendment of vices by correction. And he who writes honestly, is no more an enemy to the offender, than the physician to the patient, when he prescribes harsh remedies to an inveterate disease.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For Dryden, the job of satire was not to destroy but to reform. <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2615/2615-h/2615-h.htm">He wrote that there is</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A vast difference between the slovenly butchering of a man, and the finest stroke that separates the head from the body, and leaves it standing in its place. [A] witty man is tickled when he is hurt in this manner, a fool feels it not. The occasion of offense, may possibly be given, but he cannot take it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>People can learn from satirical abuse, but they should not take offence – and if, like Donald Trump after his recent UN speech, he has to call a press conference to explain that his audience <a href="https://twitter.com/cjzer0/status/1045078002604871680">were laughing with him, not at him</a> he probably isn’t a witty man. But, crucially, if the satire does not intend to teach, then it fails as satire – and this failure is at its victim’s expense. </p>
<p>Twitter democratises satire – but it also changes it. What happens when “good” satire is no longer that which enacts the most reform, but that which gets the most likes? Most “Festival of Brexit Britain” tweets revelled in <a href="https://twitter.com/teaandnaps/status/1046330538645225472">a dystopic vision</a> of an impoverished and xenophobic Britain – and while there is a catharsis and camaraderie in sharing this despair with like-minded people, it is unlikely to prompt introspection among those who disagree. </p>
<p>If the quality of satire is judged on how many people a tweet reaches – and if everyone wants to be a satirist – then politics is reduced to light entertainment.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"960466312127533056"}"></div></p>
<p>Boris Johnson has known this for a long time. When politicians become satirical caricatures we are inclined to overlook their obligation to preserve our welfare – for all that they are sometimes unintentionally hilarious, politicians are qualified professionals tasked with governance. Ironically, what is needed now is for professional satirists to remind us of this, ensuring that government is held to account in real terms.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104442/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam J Smith is affiliated with the Labour Party and the University and College Union (UCU).</span></em></p>
Too many satirists on social media misunderstand that it is humour designed to provoke change, not merely direct ridicule.
Adam J Smith, Lecturer in 18th-century Literature, York St John University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/97483
2018-05-30T13:35:14Z
2018-05-30T13:35:14Z
How the humble potato fuelled the rise of liberal capitalism – podcast
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220991/original/file-20180530-120499-1mm1yy0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/home">from www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Britain’s love for the potato is bound up with notions of the utilitarian value of a good diet and how a healthy citizenry is the engine room of a strong economy. And it all dates back to the 18th century. </p>
<p>This episode of <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/podcasts/in-depth-out-loud">In Depth Out Loud</a>, a podcast narrating an in depth article from The Conversation, looks at the history of the Enlightenment thinkers who promoted the tuber as a way to build a healthy and productive society. It’s read by Laura Hood. </p>
<iframe src="https://player.acast.com/5e29c8205aa745a456af58c8/episodes/5e29c8365aa745a456af58cc?theme=default&cover=1&latest=1" frameborder="0" width="100%" height="110px" allow="autoplay"></iframe>
<p>You can read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-humble-potato-fuelled-the-rise-of-liberal-capitalism-80767">text version of the article here</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>The music in this podcast is <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Lee_Rosevere/Music_for_Podcasts_4/Lee_Rosevere_-_Music_for_Podcasts_4_-_06_Night_Caves">Night Caves</a>, by Lee Rosevere from the Free Music Archive. A big thanks to City University London’s Department of Journalism for letting us use their studios to record.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97483/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Earle does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
An audio version of an in depth article about the 18th century Enlightenment thinkers who promoted the potato as a way to build a healthy and productive society.
Rebecca Earle, Professor of History, University of Warwick
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/91761
2018-02-26T14:33:27Z
2018-02-26T14:33:27Z
How harassed women had their #MeToo moments in the 18th century
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207823/original/file-20180226-140213-hl1srk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">One of the original plates illustrating the novel Pamela, by Samuel Richardson.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Etched by L. Truchy and A. Benoist after paintings by J. Highmore - Houghton Library</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>We’ve long become accustomed to the notion that reading allows us to connect with others and find support during times of crisis. In a recent <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/15/me-too-founder-tarana-burke-women-sexual-assault">Guardian interview</a>, #MeToo founder Tarana Burke recalled how, as a child, she turned to literature as a survivor of sexual assault:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I read a lot when I was young. Those were the things that helped change the trajectory of my life. And the first glimpses of healing, and understanding what had been happening to me as a child, came from the literature that I read.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>If Burke had been reading 18th-century English literature, she would have discovered some remarkable examples, in fiction and non-fiction sources, of writers willing to break the cultural silence on harassed and abused women, particularly working women.</p>
<p>In 18th-century Britain, working women mostly laboured as domestic servants, a profession that muddied the boundaries between the professional and the personal. Women servants lived with their employers and were often beset by sexual pressure on all sides – from their male masters to their servant peers. They were frequently <a href="http://www.mqup.ca/women--work--and-sexual-politics-in-eighteenth-century-england-products-9780773512702.php">raped</a>. Some concealed their resulting pregnancies and gave birth alone in their garret rooms (outcomes for the babies were poor, which often resulted in <a href="https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?id=t17550702-21-off107&div=t17550702-21&terms=servant#highlight">charges of infanticide</a>). And yet their stories circulated via the era’s new ways of writing.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207832/original/file-20180226-140204-c4c2lf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207832/original/file-20180226-140204-c4c2lf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=852&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207832/original/file-20180226-140204-c4c2lf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=852&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207832/original/file-20180226-140204-c4c2lf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=852&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207832/original/file-20180226-140204-c4c2lf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1071&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207832/original/file-20180226-140204-c4c2lf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1071&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207832/original/file-20180226-140204-c4c2lf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1071&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pamela, Or Virtue Rewarded was first published in 1740.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons via Olaf Simons and Ottava Rima</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Instances of sexual assaults against female servants were detailed in the 1700s via innovative fiction and nonfiction prose. One of the century’s leading novelists (sometimes considered a founder of the form) was Samuel Richardson, and his 1740 bestseller, Pamela, Or Virtue Rewarded, gives us a copybook story of relentless workplace harassment. </p>
<p>The 15-year-old Pamela repeatedly fends off her employer. His frequent groping, attempts at rape, and kidnapping recall many of the modern day abuses documented by #MeToo. Pamela is slow to see the full extent of Mr B’s nefarious intentions: how could a man so charming, intelligent and impressive subject her to such suffering? Pamela evades the worst of her master’s plans and successfully reforms him into her husband. </p>
<p>Richardson’s novel may not square with modern ideas of romance, but, in its time, it told an astonishing story of how a working teenager could protect herself against a man who held every form of power (age, money, class, masculinity) over her.</p>
<h2>Eliza Haywood</h2>
<p>Richardson was the not the first novelist to defend women against male sexual transgression. In 1725, the popular writer <a href="https://chawtonhouse.org/2017/03/woman-writer-month-eliza-haywood/">Eliza Haywood</a> published Fantomina, Or Love in a Maze, a short novel in which the heroine is sexually coerced by a promiscuous rake. Fantomina transforms her rake into a constant lover by taking on four different disguises (including that of a servant), her lover none the wiser.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207833/original/file-20180226-140191-29xhb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207833/original/file-20180226-140191-29xhb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207833/original/file-20180226-140191-29xhb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1014&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207833/original/file-20180226-140191-29xhb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1014&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207833/original/file-20180226-140191-29xhb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1014&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207833/original/file-20180226-140191-29xhb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1275&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207833/original/file-20180226-140191-29xhb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1275&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207833/original/file-20180226-140191-29xhb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1275&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Frontispiece to The Female Spectator, London: 1746.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Houghton_EC7.H3362.746f_-_Female_Spectator.jpg">Harvard University</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the concluding pages of her 1743 self-help guide for female servants Haywood shared strategies for evading male come ons, including those from masters (both married and unmarried), masters’ sons, and gentleman lodgers. She advocated modesty at all times – but also encouraged servants to speak about their rights to virtue (taking a page from Pamela) and to seek a new position if necessary. Haywood cautions especially about avoiding men “in liquor” and against the master’s son, explaining how to spot his false flattery and promises. Follow these strategies, Haywood assures her servant audience, as you, too, deserve “valuable and happy” lives.</p>
<h2>Forced ‘seduction’</h2>
<p>If #MeToo has brought today’s hidden stories to light, the past reminds us that just as women have always worked, they have always been harassed in the workplace. In my research into <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/literature/english-literature-1700-1830/women-work-and-clothes-eighteenth-century-novel?format=PB#fP1oUeTs2EGWM1mL.97">labouring women in Georgian Britain</a>, I’ve encountered hundreds of grim tales of “seduction” (a frequent code word for coercion or assault). </p>
<p>Some of the most heartbreaking stories were documented by printed trials from the <a href="https://www.oldbaileyonline.org">Old Bailey</a> starting in 1674. <a href="https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/static/Publishinghistory.jsp#a1729-1778">By 1729</a>, trial accounts grew longer and more narrative in response to the public’s appetite for true tales of suffering. They were one of the few print outlets in which women servants could speak for themselves (albeit through the courts). </p>
<p>Despite the innovative spotlight that these new forms of narrative shone on the struggles of working women, new forms of media in Georgian Britain laid the groundwork for many of the fissures that continue to haunt feminist movements today. “Deserving” women (especially those who dressed modestly) were more likely to merit attention. Stories overwhelmingly focused on white women at a time when Britain was vastly expanding its role in the global slave trade. </p>
<p>There was no <a href="https://www.timesupnow.com">Time’s Up</a> movement to establish a legal fund for those abused domestic servants – but these stories managed to draw attention to the plight of working women. In 1739, Thomas Coram established the <a href="https://foundlingmuseum.org.uk/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=adwords&utm_campaign=London%20Museums%20adgroup&utm_content=Foundling%20Museum%20general%20advert&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIjarA3Nii2QIVo7vtCh2rIggrEAAYASAAEgKFP_D_BwE">Foundling Hospital</a> for the children of impoverished mothers, even illegitimate ones. </p>
<p>Neither the Foundling Hospital nor other Georgian charities were enough to protect the countless women who suffered abuse in the workplace, but the literary marketplace created new print platforms for these women to be seen and heard. Rather than being spoken for by a third-party author, today’s new media has importantly enabled women to share their own stories via Twitter, Facebook and live courtroom testimony. Perhaps it will support those who have not yet dared to speak or have been left out of the conversation for all too long.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91761/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chloe Wigston Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
New forms of fiction and non-fiction writing told the stories of the plight of everyday working women at the hands of abusers.
Chloe Wigston Smith, Lecturer in 18th-century Literature, University of York
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.