Arguments of Augustan Wit

Comic and satiric literature from the 1670s to the 1740s is characterized by the allusive and elusive word play of Augustan wit. The arguments of Augustan wit reveal preoccupations with the metaphorical dimension of language so distrusted by Locke and others who saw it as fundamentally opposed to the rational mode of judgement. John Sitter makes a challenging claim for the importance of wit in the writings of Dryden, Rochester, Prior, Berkeley, Gay, Pope and Swift, as an analytic mode as we...