ABSTRACT

Originally published in 1985, Order From Confusion Sprung brings together some of Claude Rawson's more important essays and articles on eighteenth-century subjects, most belong to the last decade or so, but a few earlier pieces have also been included. Swift, Pope and Fielding are extensively treated, and there are discussions of Johnson, Boswell, Cowper, as well as some authors of the so-called Sentimental School. The volume also contains reappraisals of the concepts underlying such terms as 'neo-classic' and 'Augustan' in their application to eighteenth-century literature, and comments forthrightly on prevailing trends in the academic study of the subject in the last two decades.

part I|1 pages

Swift

chapter 1|65 pages

The Character of Swift’s Satire

Reflections on Swift, Johnson, and Human Restlessness

chapter 3|24 pages

A Reading of A Modest Proposal

part II|1 pages

Swift, Pope and Augustan Verse Satire

chapter 4|46 pages

Swift’s Poems

chapter 5|8 pages

Slaughtering Satire

chapter 8|24 pages

‘Neo-classic’ and ‘Augustan’

part III|1 pages

Fielding

chapter 10|20 pages

A Journey From this World to the Next

chapter 11|8 pages

Empson’s Tom Jones

part IV|1 pages

Others

chapter 12|14 pages

Notes on ‘Delicacy’

chapter 13|11 pages

π-ions Boswell

chapter 14|15 pages

William Cowper and Christopher Smart