1700–1740 Libels in Hieroglyphics: Pope, Defoe
This chapter approaches the 1700–40 period through close study of Defoe and Pope, and focuses especially, for context, on press control under Harley and others during the reign of Queen Anne and under Walpole in the 1720s and 1730s. Early eighteenth-century cases like that of Joseph Browne (which opened up the prosecution of ironic discourse) gave Pope a larger context in which to frame his mockery of Defoe in The Dunciad; they also informed, more broadly, his satirical exploration of the pillory and its meanings throughout the body of his work. New interpretations are offered of The Shortest Way with the Dissenters and the much-mythologized pillorying that ensued. The provocativeness of Defoe’s pamphleteering is contrasted with Pope’s virtuosity, from Windsor Forest to the Epilogue to the Satires, in insinuating seditious hints while remaining within the parameters of acceptable utterance in verse.