Lyric Generations: Poetry and the Novel in the Long Eighteenth Century by G. Gabrielle Starr (review)

76 not that many, takes the words at face value. Such a reading patently ignores the evidence of a tradition of the poet placing himself at odds with the contemporary that dates back, as Pope well knew, to Juvenal, Horace, and their ilk. Pope looked askance at contemporary print culture—The Dunciad gets a nod of such passing brevity as to suggest that Mr. Hess’s discomfort with satire extends even to this most obviously satirical of poems—not simply to effect a plausible persona as a self-employed writer but also because satirists, by virtue of their trade, have to look askance at popular culture. Pope just happened to be writing when print became the dominant medium, and so it is this medium that necessarily attracted his attention . Mr. Hess’s study would have been helped by a sensitivity to the works he is discussing, by a broader cultural knowledge of his subject (he manages an entire chapter on the Scottish poet James Beattie without once mentioning Francis Hutcheson), and, perhaps most surprisingly, by some discussion of the idea of ‘‘self,’’ either as it was understood in the time of the various subjects of his study or, at least, as we now think we understand the term today. The title Authoring the Self misleads, offering little if any guidance to understanding authorship , the self, or their relationship. Christopher Fauske Salem State College G. GABRIELLE STARR. Lyric Generations : Poetry and the Novel in the Long Eighteenth Century. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 2004. Pp. 298. $42. Lyric Generations builds on the kind of observation that once it is articulated, one wonders how anyone ever missed it. Ms. Starr’s argument is built around the observation that even as the novel became the preeminent literary genre in the eighteenth century, it shared with lyric poetry an ability to make private feeling public. This just seems right. She suggests ways in which lyric poetry and the novel cross-pollinated throughout the era. Indeed, she daringly argues that prose influenced poetry as well as vice versa. The strength of the text is in the close readings, particularly in the opening chapters. Focusing on parallels between Clarissa’s writing and the Old Testament , Chapter One impressively discusses how Clarissa uses laments like those found in Job and the Psalms to pour out her heart at her wrongs. Job and the Psalms are more plausibly sources for Richardson than Donne and Herbert. Conversely, the second chapter shows how romance writers used lyricism in their prose to express intense personal feeling. Here, as elsewhere, Ms. Starr favors more technical language. Such prose may offer a certain theoretical cachet at the price of clarity. For example, ‘‘Haywood’s use of verse underlines the ability of lyric to work for affective consensus .’’ Readers may also profit from her later chapters, which for the most part deal with writing from the latter half of the century. Chapter Three, in particular, takes up mid-century patriotic odes to argue that they import strategies from lyric poetry in order to convey individual sensibilities. Chapter Four claims that Richardson borrows rhetorical strategies derived from Spenser’s epithalamia : ‘‘In bringing lyric into his prose, Richardson expands upon tradition wherein the poetic signifies emotional exuberance and stylistic refinement.’’ 77 Despite her prose, her text is worth reading for its fine insights. Michael Caldwell University of California, San Diego The London Jilt, ed. Charles H. Hinnant . Claremont, Canada: Broadview, 2008. Pp. 221. $19.95 (paper). The London Jilt (1683) is a lively text, important as a precursor to later famous scandalous memoirs, and useful as an engaging libertine-era novel. In a first-person narrative, a strikingly independent Cornelia recounts her varied adventures as a whore. The novel warns (male) readers against patronizing prostitutes : ‘‘[W]hat greater Folly can there be than to venture one’s All in such rotten Bottoms,’’ for a prostitute is ‘‘like a Barber’s chair, no sooner one’s out, but t’other’s in.’’ After the early death of Cornelia’s father , her mother supports herself and her daughter by prostitution, or ‘‘play[ing] with her Buttocks.’’ Thus, Cornelia is raised to believe that there is no shame in ‘‘persons who...