ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions lunchtime seminar: 'Farcical Politics: Fielding's Public Emotion'
Wednesday, February 24, 2016 12:30 - 14:00
In 1737, in his farce afterpiece, Eurydice Hiss'd, Henry Fielding conflated self-parody with a satirical portrait of Walpole, whom he repeatedly characterized as the nation's enemy. Even for a dramatist with a notable commitment to self-parody in life as well as on stage, this is a peculiar move. This paper investigates the way in which Fielding's identification of himself with the object of his political satire codes a shift in the affective context of the eighteenth-century political process. Francis Hutcheson called our affective investment in politics the "publick Sense" (Essay 17), a moral commitment that ought to define our immediate, unthinking, and intimate connection to the nation. Fielding's farce makes the serious political case that the performances of politics divide us from a proper emotional connection to the state.
Contact
- Email: jacqueline.doyle@unimelb.edu.au
- Phone: +61 3 8344 3785
Event type
Seminar/Forum
Location
Room 152, Old Arts (Building 149)