The conventional literary history of the eighteenth century holds that upstart novelists and other intensely serious writers worked against the conservative and ironic sensibility of an earlier generation of satirists. However, many of these ostensibly earnest writers were exceptional satirists in their own right, employing the same ruses, tricks, and deceptions throughout their work. The novels of such canonical figures as Behn and Defoe, for example, passed themselves off as real documents, just as an earlier generation of hack writers combined the serious and the absurd. Re-examining this nexus between the ludicrous and the solemn, Shane Herron argues that intense earnestness was itself a central component of the ironic sensibility of the great age of literary satire and of Swift's work in particular. The sensationalism and confessionalism of earnestness were frequently employed tendentiously, while ironic and satirical literature often incorporated genuine moments of earnestness to advance writerly aims.

‘The book is well structured, well argued, and well written … Recommended.’

J. T. Lynch Source: Choice

‘… Herron provides an in-depth and exhaustive examination of Swift’s irony and his earnest engagements while considering all their moral and political implications. Beginning with a discussion of the irony of The Colbert Report and closing with a discussion of contemporary conspiracy theories, this study dwells on that most complex and confusing aspect of irony and the role of the satirist - 'the ability to genuinely, even affectionately, channel and inhabit its targets'. The result for this reader is that I now read Swift, and The Onion, with a new critical appreciation.’

Scott Nowka Source: Eighteenth-Century Fiction