| 
  • If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.

  • You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!

View
 

Outrage

Page history last edited by ruben.richardson@... 9 years ago

Introduction


 

The Oxford English Dictionary has many different definitions of what outrage is. As a noun, adjective, adverb and verb it is defined as being: Mad, passionate, violent, disorderly behaviour; excessive in the use of force or speech; to behave immoderately, extravagantly or without restraint; To burst into a rage; to be furious; among many other descriptions. It is the definitions 'to burst into rage' and 'disorderly behaviour' which will be discussed with most detail on this page.

 

In regards to eighteenth century literature it is the tropes of behaving immoderately and extravagantly without judgement that were new to the century and therefore important, and how this was perceived by the British Public. It was not the first time that literature, and wider culture, had featured traits that would be guilty of outrage, however it was during this time that these qualities became trendy among writers and that English society began to show moral outrage in regards to culture. As universal morals began to exit literature they continued to exist in greater society. Outrage, as explored on this page, is when two converse opinions exist in the same space; radical politics vs conservative; violence vs peace; rich vs poor; femininity vs masculinity.

 

The change in cultural expression at the turn of the eighteenth century


 

Up until the eighteenth century there had been what Basil Willey describes as, 'a long conflict, in western thought, between the idea that god made all things 'Good', and the experience that much exists, both in the material and the moral worlds, which is 'evil'.' [1]. He continues, 'On the whole this had been resolved, for Christendom, by the doctrine of the Fall and the divine malediction which ensued. Through this doctrine it had been able to recognise evil as such, and to see meaning in human life as a struggle to escape or conquer it. But in the new mental climate of the enlightenment this was no longer generally acceptable.' There was in the cultural sphere, due to enlightenment, different interpretations of what was right and what was wrong for the first time and this is what gave birth to mass outrage.

 

Prior to the eighteenth century widely read literature contained values that were held by society rather than the individual. Of the mid seventeenth century poem, Paradise Lost, Jared Anderson writes, 'Milton [has a need] to uphold the authority of god' [2]. Paradise Lost is a prime example of how literature that was written before the advent of the novel prescribes both unscrutinised morals and also follows a traditional, and therefore safe, narrative. Anderson carries on to argue that 'Milton's choice to include an element of otherness [Adam and Eve] in Paradise Lost causes the notion of evil to become subjective.' But the otherness, other to God's 'norm', is in fact just the reverse of what society's morals were; if it was just the reverse then society would have already known about this perspective and therefore it would not have been doing anything dangerous. God obviously represents christian morals and therefore those that disobey God in Paradise Lost represent the opposite. Milton himself writes in 'book one' of Paradise Lost that his purpose is to 'justify the ways of God to men', from this line it is clear that Milton is supporting a particular line of popular thought and his poem is perpetuating a christian line of thought rather than his own. Indeed, it could be argued that in having two views, both God and also an alternative view, challenges Milton's claim of what he is trying to achieve, except that the poem is clearly sided with God. Also, even if God was not held up as the 'standard' view and both God and the Others were seen as viable ideas free from judgement of good and evil having two views cannot represent a true sense of subjectivity but rather it gives only a two-way dichotomy that the reader is able to choose from, rather than the full spectrum opinions that novels allow; in short the eighteenth century literature gave birth to views that had ambiguity, it gave opinions that were free of judgement and allowed the reader to pick and choose what they thought was correct whilst also leaving open the idea that other views are available and should be searched for.

 

Opening up subjectivity was a large part of what made what happened in literature in the eighteenth century so important. This increasing sense of subjectivity was quite heavily down to the rise of the novel. What novels introduced was the idea that literature could be drawn from personal experience, for example Gulliver's Travels can be seen to be a biopic for Swift's own life; as Swift traveled, so did Gulliver. The rise of the novel and newly invented printing equipment meant that for the first time a diverse amount of opinions were available to a mass audience. By the early nineteenth century Jane Austen had introduced free indirect discourse into novels and literature's evolution from universal ideas to inside-the-individuals-head had been completed.

 

http://s4.e-monsite.com/2011/06/22/05/Couverture-Bantam-Classic.jpg

(Image: 1) A front cover to an edition of Emma by Jane Austen

 

 

Where new notions were expressed in literature, it was in the coffee houses that they were discussed and legitimised. The first coffee house was opened in London by a coachman of a Levantine merchant and by 1710 there were over 3,000 coffee houses in London. Here critical debate was ignited by works of literature and art, and later economic and political disputes too. Although gender was an issue, women were not allowed to enter, social status was disregarded and therefore it was the better argument that won out, rather than the one with higher social standing [3]; this was unique in that during this period in other institutions class played a huge role, for example only those with land had suffrage.

 

 

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ihU18Bu9XRE/UbXJsQqP95I/AAAAAAABgAY/VjSuK66BQKk/s1600/Ned+Ward,+The+Coffee+House+Mob%E2%80%99,+frontispiece+to+Part+IV+of+%E2%80%98Vulgus+Britannicus,+or+the+British+Hudibras%E2%80%99+(London,+1710)..jpg

(Image: 2) The Coffee House Mob By Edward Ward (1710) LINK

 

The coffee house whilst praised by those that wanted open discussions and to discuss the issues of the day also had fierce opponents, as the above painting illustrates. These opponents would have not been happy with open discussion of outrageous content and would have wanted conservative views to continue and although the coffee houses would have contained both radical and conservative views (otherwise there would have been no room for discussion) there was still a fear that radical views might become the predominant ones.

 

A publication which would have been present at these coffee houses was The Spectator. Because of its appearance at coffee houses, the journal, one sheet of paper printed on both sides, would have had a wide spread readership. The paper even makes this claim in one of its issues, 'My publisher [this is Mr Spectator talking, a character created to give the paper a certain narrative voice] tells me, that there are already Three thousand of them distributed every day' [4] these would have ended up at coffee houses and each issue read by perhaps twenty people (which the spectator states is a 'modest claim') then maths would suggest that around sixty-thousand would have read each issue. This again would have strongly shaped the morals, and therefore ability to become outraged, and Ann Messenger writes, 'Both [there was a The Female Spectator too] champion modesty, good nature, and virtue' [5]. The mass readings of The Spectator was creating a conservative audience for some outrageous works.

 

'Whatever is, is right'


Cosmic Toryism was one of the outstanding states of mind during the eighteenth century. This is a term coined by Basil Willey and dictates that 'whatever is, is right.' The term may mean many different things but it generally seems to denote contentment with the existing state of things.[6] This feeling was encapsulated in James Thomson's poem The Seasons :

 

But, above

Those superstitious horrors that enslave

The fond sequacious herd, to mystic faith

And blind amazement prone, the enlightene'd few,

Whose godlike minds Philosophy exalts,

The Glorious stranger hail [7]

 

 

Thomson's poem demonstrates the sentiment held by those that considered themselves enlightened during this period. Whilst the literacy rates were increasing it was a slow process with schools for the poor having reading writing and arithmetic as 'a secondary aim and it was rarely pursued with much expectation of success' and the gap was rising between those that were 'sequacious' and those that had separated themselves from the rest of society to become 'the enlightene'd few' [8].

 

From this split though two lines of thought arose. The first, a traditional view, was best articulated by Soame Jenyns: 'self-interest is the great principle that operates in the political world in the same manner that attraction does in the natural' and that in politics most principles spectacularly right are  practically wrong [9]. These views, which stem from Hobbes and Burke's ideas, show an understanding of revolutionary politics but also a fear of them, anything which openly opposed these views was deemed to be taboo.

 

Soame Jenyns (1704–1787), MP

(Image: 3) Soame Jenyns (1704-1787), MP By Joshua Reynolds (1734) LINK

 

 

On the other hand 'whatever is, is right' could be construed to say that if things are exactly how they seem then there is no reason to believe in a deity. This was the age of enlightenment and as Leslie Stephen explains it, morality was no longer 'the handmaid of theology', for the first time people could take their ethics from philosophy and thought rather than what was prescribed by the church [10].

 

A line so simple as 'Whatever is, is right' could create two divisions and the former of the two described would have been strongly outraged by the latter.

 

 

Outrage as an identifier of class


RELIGION

'The greatest volume of book production still consisted of sermons and other devotional works' writes James Sambrook [11]. For the working classes, and even then only those that were literate, religious literature might be all that they read; 'At the end of the eighteenth century most of their dwellings would have contained a Prayer Book and Bible and little, if anything, else', adds Sambrook. With such little literature available to them they would have had next to no way to be outraged; all of their literature would have been christian and therefore been in line with their morals thus alleviating any chance of outrage; if there is only one way that you are getting your morals there can be no room for conflict. For the poor perhaps morality was still 'the handmaid of theology'.

 

GIN For further information on gin

Although they did not have the education or cultivation to be outraged at aspects of society the poor were often the subject of outrage themselves. The Gin Craze originally came to London (and to a lesser extent the rest of Britain) as a drink that was consumed by all Londoners because: things were in a state of change and insecurity; it offered an instant head transformation allowing dreams; they wanted to drown their sorrows at a time when more Londoners were buried than born. It was during these turbulent times of highs and lows that productions of spirits rose from half a million gallons at the time of the glorious revolution (1688) to two million gallons at the Peace of Utrecht (1713). But it was the price of gin that lent itself to the poor in particular. Whilst the dangers of the city were there for everyone, it was the poor in particular that were faced with them, often changing rooms each night, and so for a penny a dram they had available to them a powerful escape... at least for a few hours [12]. Gin was seen as 'the siren voice leading the poor away from their duty', it was seen as the cause rather than the affect of the poor's problems and getting rid of it was seen to be the solution to societies problems. The outrage shown at how the poor lived on gin was contrasted with how the consumption of beer was consumed, this is illustated most famously, and explicitly, in Hogarth's satirical works Beer Street and Gin Lane (See images 6 & 7 in 'Outrage Depicted').  

 

Outrage bias


What was seen to offend and outrage society was how things were done rather than the actions themselves. Because of this morals came across as deeply paradoxical. For example between 1691 and 1725 ninety-thousand arrests had been made for drunkenness and swearing, yet cock-fighting would be defended on the grounds that each bird had an equal chance [13]. this shows that eighteenth century outrage in Britain had a different definition to the dictionaries because putting two animals together to fight is violent, a key component to the definition of outrage.

 

(Image: 4) Cockfighting Spurs attached to chickens during fights; not a source of outrage. LINK

 

This mantra of morals being around image rather than substance, which could be why much was made of the poor's gin problem which could be visibly seen on the street and nothing was done to alleviate problems that went on behind doors, problems that benefited the wealthy, was opposed by radical artists. These morals were mocked in such satires as The School for Scandals where society's high reliance on image is satirised by Lady Teazle. Artists had values that differed from society but also from those that worked in industries which closely affected there own: from other artists to producers. The battle between producer and artists perhaps most present in Pope's The Dunciad where Edmund Curll's is heavily ridiculed Curll throughout the satire by Pope. Pope's work here is a prime example of literature causing outrage among other artists; other artists were livid and it is said that with this work Pope stirred up a hornet's nest. The anger of his contemporary authors due to was due to the juvenalian dismantling of them that Pope embarked on in this satire.

 

Even the dictionaries showed bias and their dismay at the current way things were. In the 1730 edition of Dictionary written by Nathaniel Bailey, under the definition for 'Gentleman' it reads, 'In our days, all are accounted gentlemen that have money.' This shows the contempt that the upper classes showed to the newly introduced middle classes who might have earned their money by trade rather than being part of the aristocracy and were therefore scorned.

 

 

 Outrage Depicted


(Image: 5) David Garrick as Sir John Brute in Vanbrugh's 'The Provoked Wife' By Johann Zoffany (1763–1765) Link

 

The Provok'd wife had, by the mid eighteenth century, become the most controversial of English comedies. The play where fornication is contemplated but never consummated led Inchbald to write 'The present comedy had yet better - never either be seen or read' [14]. Inchbald comment highlights the difference in opinion not only of the supposed 'enlightened' versus 'the herd' but also that among those that were involved with intellectual pursuits there was a dialect playing out that wasn't always agreeable. It was possible for anyone to be outraged by anything.

 

This painting of the comedy by Johann Zoffany captures another side to the outrage that the play possesses. His painting captures what would have then been seen as the juxtaposition between action and femininity. Penelope Treadwell explains that 'one of the most delightful visual jokes of the picture rests upon the actor's muscular leg with its plainly shod, firmly planted, battle-ready foot appearing from beneath flying petticoats and the billowing silk of the gorgeously patterned pink overdress.' [15].

 

 

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/GinLane.jpg

(Image: 6) Gin Lane by William Hogarth (1751) Full size link

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/William_Hogarth_-_Beer_Street.jpg

(Image: 7) Beer Street By William Hogarth (1751) Full Size Link

 

Two of Hogarth's most famous works, Beer Street and Gin Lane, show two different societies: one in prosperity and one in decay.

 

Hogarth was a champion of personal responsibility and so it is clear that we are to interpret the subject forming the environment and not the inverse [16]. To show gin lane as being the one in decay demonstrates, in this instance, Hogarth's agreement with the government who put in laws to prevent gin consumption. Really it was not gin that was the problem, although it was the stronger drink over beer, but the price; gin's cheap price meant that it was mass consumed and used as an opium for the masses. Beer was more expensive and so therefore drunk less and seen as less of an evil on society.

 

 

References 


 

[1] The Eighteenth Century Background, Basil Willey , Page 46, New York, Ark Publishing,1986.     

One of the most useful texts that I used, helped me with multiple sections. Had lots of detailed information on how theology and morals were connected in the eighteenth century. 

[2] The Decentralization of Morality, Jared K Anderson, Page 198, Ohio, Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association, 2010.  

An online resource, found on JSTOR, this helped me to get some background knowledge on the way that morality went hand in hand with morals in the seventeenth century. Perhaps not directly useful for eighteenth century study, however it helps to illustrate the development that literature took.  

[3]  The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere,  Jürgen Habermas, Page 32-36, Massachusetts, MIT Press, 1991.   

A strong source for understanding the way, and place, in which culture was discussed. Describes how enlightenment was introduced into British every day life.

[4] The Spectator, Monday March 12, 1711.

A copy of the paper as it would have appeared in 1711. Used to get an idea of what the thoughts that existed at the time. Also, used for facts on distribution on literature, allowing for a better sense of numbers.

[5] His and Hers, Ann Messenger, Page 109, Kentucky, Kentucky UP, 1986.

Used as analysis of The Spectator. Introduced some feminist perspectives to eighteenth century literature. 

[6]  The Eighteenth Century Background, Basil Willey, Page 43-45, New York, Ark Publishing,1986.

See above.  

[7] The Seasons, James Thomson, Page 138, line 1711-1716, Oxford, Oxford UP, 1981.

Thomson's poem allowed me to understand the divide between those that felt they were part of the enlightenment and those that were not. It shows that whilst they were radical in some ways, many artists still had conservative views on class.

[8] The Rise Of The Novel, Ian Watt, Page 38, London, The Hogarth Press, 1987.

Used here as a reference to show the changing literacy rates. I have read this before however and so some of the bits about the evolution of the novel in the section 'The change in cultural expression at the turn of the eighteenth century' have been heavily influenced by what i read in this book.

[9]  The Eighteenth Century Background,  Basil Willey, Page 55, New york, Ark Publishing, 1986.

See above.  

[10]  The Eighteenth Century: The Intellectual and Cultural Context of English Literature 1700-1789, James Sambrook, Page 59 , Edinburgh, Longman, 1993.

This text helped me to understand how philosophy, morals and religions are all very much connected and the relationship that they all have with one another.

[11] The Eighteenth Century: The Intellectual and Cultural Context of English Literature 1700-1789, James Sambrook, Page 31, Edinburgh, Longman, 1993.

See above.   

[12] The Much-Lamented Death Of Madam Geneva: The Eighteenth Century Gin Craze, Patrick Dillon, Pages 27,35, London, Review, 2002.

This text was helpful in a more specific way to other texts. It focused on gin's impact on eighteenth century Britain; political impact, laws affected, changing soial class of gin. Helped me to understand just how important gin was to the century.

[13] The Augustan Vision, Pat Rogers, Pages 7,72, Cambridge, Cambridge UP, 1974.

Provided a very solid background to the eighteenth century British society. Used as a base with which to read all the other texts.

[14] Fatal Desire: Women, Sexuality, and the English Stage, 1660-1720, Jean I. Marsden, Page 52, Cornell, Cornell UP, 2006.

Just used to understand the outrage and reaction to one particular play.

[15]  Johan Zoffany: Artist and adventurer, Penelope Treadwell, Page 74, London, Paul Holberton Publishing, 2009.   

Used for one particular quote in order to put across the level of satire involved in a way that I couldn't. Helps to unlock the painting. 

 [16] William Hogarth, Matthew Craske, Page 22, London, Tate Publishing, 2000.

A very helpful text in understanding the life of Hogarth who was one of the most important satirists of the eighteenth century.

 

Bibliography


Gulliver's Travels, Jonathon Swift, London, Penguin Books, 2003.

Novel used to understand change to subjectivity and personal experience as a literary convention.

Eighteenth-Century Poetry: An Annotated Anthology, David Fairer and Christine Gerrard, Oxford, Blackwell, 2003.  

Used for The Dunciad, which was examined due to it being a source of outrage for authors of the period.

Paradise Lost, John Milton, London, Dover Publications, 2005.

Used to examine the difference in literature that existed prior to the eighteenth century versus the changes that occurred in the eighteenth century.

Comments (1)

ruben.richardson@... said

at 1:51 am on Mar 13, 2015

I have tried to reference everything where possible but I got a little mixed up and so a couple of my quotes do not have references.

You don't have permission to comment on this page.