In this study, Simon Dickie uncovers a rich strain of cruelty coursing through the supposedly polite and sentimental culture of eighteenth-century Britain.Dickie delves into the forgotten comic literature of the eraan enormous but little-known archive of jestbooks, comic periodicals, farces, variety shows, and minor comic novels.The most striking thing about these materials is their sheer nastiness, for they amount to a seemingly bottomless repository of jokes about cripples, blind men, rape, and wife-beating; epigrams ...
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In this study, Simon Dickie uncovers a rich strain of cruelty coursing through the supposedly polite and sentimental culture of eighteenth-century Britain.Dickie delves into the forgotten comic literature of the eraan enormous but little-known archive of jestbooks, comic periodicals, farces, variety shows, and minor comic novels.The most striking thing about these materials is their sheer nastiness, for they amount to a seemingly bottomless repository of jokes about cripples, blind men, rape, and wife-beating; epigrams about scurvy; and one-act farces about hunchbacks in love.These ephemera remind us, with a jolt, of just how slowly ordinary suffering became worthy of sympathy in the modern age."
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