Consuming Anxieties: Alcohol, Tobacco, and Trade in British Satire, 1660-1751

Writers of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries--a period of vast economic change--recognized that the global trade in alcohol and tobacco promised a brighter financial future for England, even as overindulgence at home posed serious moral pitfalls. This engaging and original study explores how literary satirists represented these consumables--and related anxieties about the changing nature of Britishness--in their work. Riley traces the satirical treatment of wine, beer, ale, gin, pipe tobacco, and snuff from the beginning of Charles II's reign, through the boom in tobacco's popularity, to the end of the Gin Craze in libertine poems and plays, anonymous verse, ballad operas, and the satire of canonical writers such as Gay, Pope, and Swift. Focusing on social concerns about class, race, and gender, Consuming Anxieties examines how satirists championed Britain's economic strength on the world stage while critiquing the effects of consumable luxuries on the British body and consciousness.

Author: Dayne C. Riley
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Bucknell University Press
Published: 06/14/2024
Series: Transits: Literature, Thought & Culture, 1650-1850
Pages: 224
Weight: 0.75lbs
Size: 9.20h x 6.10w x 0.70d
ISBN: 9781684485314