A History of the London Gazette, 1665-1965

This essay examines three published but unperformed political parodies of the 1770s: The Duenna (1776) and The Critic; or a Tragedy Rehearsed (1780), both attributed to Israel Pottinger, and The School for Scandal (1779) by the Philadelphian John Leacock. These works, taking their titles from the comedies of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, are to all intents and purposes anti-government pamphlets in dramatic form, specific critiques of the British administration's handling of the American War. This piece explores the processes by which Pottinger and Leacock politicize Sheridanian comedy of manners in order to dramatize and interrogate the new cultural technologies, most especially the mass media, engendered or accelerated by the American war.

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The Culture of War and Civil Society in the Reigns of William III and Anne

Lincoln¹

2011

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The essay examines the representation of war in poems and church services during the reigns of William III and Queen Anne. It identifies relations between social discipline and the imaginative participation in violence, and considers how war—described by poets as a test of heroism, and represented by the church as the occasion for spiritual purgation—served the interests of those who wanted to regulate and refine the manners of civil society. It argues that the promotion of gentler manners did not undermine the commitment to military aggression, but worked in the service of it.

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A History of the London Gazette, 1665-1965

Cited by 7 publications

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Government gazettes in Australia: Notes on their history and role

Government gazettes in Australia: Notes on their history and role

"The Fate of Empires": The American War, Political Parody, and Sheridan's Comedies

The Culture of War and Civil Society in the Reigns of William III and Anne

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