Writing "for profitable use"

This dissertation examines satiric political discourse in five prose fictional narratives written between 1628 and 1688 by Elizabeth Cary, Margaret Cavendish, and Aphra Behn. I argue that Cary's "The Rainge and deathe of Edwarde the Seconde" (1627/8), Cavendish's Sociable Letters (1664) and Blazing World (1666), and Behn's Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and his Sister (1684--1687) and Oroonoko (1688) are deeply invested in political discourse and debates, and that the political-ideological critique in these works is sharpened by its articulation through a satiric voice. The use of satiric political discourse in these texts positions these writers as agents of political change, and thus, as political subjects willing to engage in thinly-veiled critiques of powerful men and the political institutions through which they govern.Chapter One addresses specific literary-historiographical questions by investigating the place of early modern women's fiction in feminist literary history and within current debates on the origins of the novel. Chapter Two discusses the intersection of historical and fictional writing in Cary's manuscript history of Edward II. I argue that this narrative functions as a form of crypto-historical narrative in that it reflects with a decidedly satiric edge on the relationship between the Duke of Buckingham and James I, and as a form of analytic historical writing in its extensive exploration of the nature of kingship, patronage, the problem of court corruption, and the rights and obligations of political subjects. Chapter Three discusses satiric analysis and models of sovereignty portrayed in Cavendish's Sociable Letters and Blazing World. I demonstrate the range of Cavendish's satiric commentary on the ills of society, the problem of faction, the causes of civil war, corruption in Restoration court culture, and the king's treatment of Cavendish's husband, the Duke of Newcastle. Chapter Four investigates the rhetorical strategies and ideological implications of Behn's satiric treatment of republicanism and heroic rebellion in Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and his Sister and Oroonoko: or the Royal Slave. A True History. I conclude with some thoughts towards a theory of women's satiric discourse, and further reflections on the nature of literary-historical narrative.