The Metamorphoses of Satire in Eighteenth-Century Narrative

Abstract

N THE SURVIVING PART of his work on Bildungsroman, Mikhail Bakhtin argues that demystifying critique of established beliefs and official culture in eighteenth century resulted in an impoverishment, which nevertheless opened up new prospects for narrative and led to development of Bildungsroman by end of century (44-45). I take Bakhtin's remarks as a point of departure for exploring path that leads from narratives of satiric critique in early part of century to appearance of Bildungsroman at its end. The prominence of former is indicated by works such as Gulliver's Travels (1726) and Montesquieu's Lettres Persanes (1721). The latter becomes one of the greatest tendencies of age (Friedrich Schlegel 46) following appearance of Wieland's influential early Bildungsroman, Agathon (1767), and incontestable exemplar of genre, Goethe's Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (1796). I propose that Rousseau's conjectural histories both of society and of individual serve as crucial mediators in this transformation of prevailing narrative forms. The critique of civilized society in his Discours sur l'origine de l'inigalite (1755) agrees in general and in particulars with Houyhnhnm's critique in fourth book of Gulliver's Travels. Emile (1762), which arises from this critique, establishes many parallels between Emile's education and Gulliver's; moreover, it constitutes an important step in later development of Bildungsroman. My inquiry here will focus not only on series of related narrative forms that succeed one another in prominence throughout eighteenth century-satire, history, and novel of self-cultivation-but also on ways that forms such as these, which are