The New Style of 'Sweeney Agonistes'

Abstract

When, in the late eighteenth century, the neo-classical system of genres began to break down, formal satire ceased to attract major literary talents. But the satiric impulse itself did not of course disappear. Satire became an incidental element: it no longer prescribed its own form. Much of the best Victorian satirical writing is found in prose fiction (an obvious instance would be the American chapters in Martin Chuzzlewit). In the present century only Wyndham Lewis could be called a thoroughgoing satirist; and he too uses the novel as the vehicle for his satiric vision. T. S. Eliot's earliest