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Article: Sarah Fielding and the Salic law of wit.(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900
- Article date:
- June 22, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Rice University. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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What daring female is't who thus complains, In masculine Pindaric strains, Of great Apollo's Salic law? (1)
The structure of satire would seem to make it an appropriate, though admittedly complex, form for women who have ready access to the doubled vision that satire requires. In a masculine-normative culture, where women know the culture intimately but have good reasons not to identify with it, educated women possess the insider's knowledge and outsider's perspective that is satire's special mark. It would surely be odd if such women did not satirize. Yet satire is conventionally a masculine genre, excluding women from the tradition by what this anonymous ...