The Scriblerian sublime

This essay argues against the easy assumption of a shift in eighteenth-century aesthetics away from neoclassical satire toward a "preromantic" sublime. With particular attention to the engagement of Pope and Swift with Longinus, a methodology common to both Scriblerian satire and On the Sublime can be articulated, one that employs categories of identity and difference to produce both satiric and sublime effects. In particular, both Longinus and the Scriblerians develop a sense of performative textuality most evident in the vivid use of typography by Swift, Pope, and Sterne. What is in Longinus a critical self-reflexivity becomes a self-conscious material performance in the satirists.