Description
Book SynopsisEvelyn Waugh (1903–1966) is one of the twentieth century’s great prose stylists and the author of a suite of devastating satires on modern English life, from his first unforgettably funny novel Decline and Fall, to his last work of fiction, “Basil Seal Rides Again.” Evelyn Waugh’s Satire: Texts and Contexts renews scholarly debates central to Waugh’s work: the forms of his satire, his attitudes towards modernity and modernism, his place in the literary culture of the interwar period, and his pugnacious (mis)reading of literary and other texts. This study offers new exegetical accounts of the forms and figures of Waugh’s satire, linking original readings of Waugh’s texts to the literary-historical contexts that informed them. Posing fresh readings of familiar works and affording attention to more neglected texts, Evelyn Waugh’s Satire: Texts and Contexts offers readers and scholars a timely opportunity to return to the rich, dark art of this master of prose satire.
Trade ReviewMilthorpe is careful to acknowledge that most significant Waugh scholarship to date has been grounded in biographical study before making a robust case for rooting her own enquiry more theoretically, specifically in the mechanics of satire.... [T]he strategy is highly successful, energetic, and engaging. Milthorpe offers some original and alternative readings that benefit the field considerably.... Milthorpe’s detailed exploration of Waugh’s personal writings and collections offers an excellent model of how such material can be deployed to enrich theory-led literary criticism rather than promoting the soft-historicist reduction of a work to no more than the sum of a writer plus his or her times. * Modern Language Review *
Table of ContentsAbbreviations
Acknowledgments
IntroductionSatire, texts and contexts
1England and the Octopus: Decline and Fall
2Real Tears: Vile Bodies and The Apes of God
3Collecting Material: Black Mischief, Scoop and Cold Comfort Farm
4Blow the Whole Thing Sky-High: A Handful of Dust
5Divided We Stand, United We Fall: Put Out More Flags and Scott-King’s Modern Europe
6Half in Love With Easeful Death: The Loved One and Love Among the Ruins
7Conscious Imposture: The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold
CodaThe Rake’s Regress: “Basil Seal Rides Again”
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