Evelyn Waugh’s Satire

By Naomi Milthorpe

Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966) is one of the twentieth century's great prose stylists and the author of a suite of devastating satires on modern English life, from his first unforgettably funny novel Decline and Fall, to his last work of fiction, "Basil Seal Rides Again." Evelyn Waugh's Satire: Texts and Contexts renews scholarly debates central to Waugh's work: the forms of his satire, his attitudes towards modernity and modernism, his place in the literary culture of the interwar period, and his pugnacious (mis)reading of literary and other texts. This study offers new exegetical accounts of the forms and figures of Waugh's satire, linking original readings of Waugh's texts to the literary-historical contexts that informed them. Posing fresh readings of familiar works and affording attention to more neglected texts, Evelyn Waugh's Satire: Texts and Contexts offers readers and scholars a timely opportunity to return to the rich, dark art of this master of prose satire.

AbbreviationsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction Satire, texts and contexts1 England and the Octopus: Decline and Fall2 Real Tears: Vile Bodies and The Apes of God3 Collecting Material: Black Mischief, Scoop and Cold Comfort Farm4 Blow the Whole Thing Sky-High: A Handful of Dust5 Divided We Stand, United We Fall: Put Out More Flags and Scott-King's Modern Europe6 Half in Love With Easeful Death: The Loved One and Love Among the Ruins7 Conscious Imposture: The Ordeal of Gilbert PinfoldCoda The Rake's Regress: "Basil Seal Rides Again"Bibliography