The Literary Genres of Edmund Burke: The Political Uses of Literary Form

The Literary Genres of Edmund Burke resituates Burke's political writings within the larger literary enterprise of the eighteenth century, which did not as yet recognize the boundary that today separates literature from other forms of discourse, including history, oratory, politics, and philosophy. Burke understood himself to be, above all, a 'literary' writer, a claim that held a far-reaching cultural, ideological, and political significance for him and his audience. This book explores what the eighteenth century understood by the term 'literature' and demonstrates how thoroughly Burke relies on the dominant literary discourses of his time, especially the satirical and georgic/didactic modes, in composing his speeches and polemics. From his debt to the Scriblerian satire of Pope and Swift to his reliance on contemporary dramatic and georgic discourses, Burke's systematic deployment of literary forms and features in his political writings reflects the closed, restrictive political culture of his time, before the age of mass democracy demanded new modes of mass political discourse. De Bruyn's study demonstrates how the literary forms Burke uses are indispensable to the meaning and persuasiveness of his texts as they negotiated the elite political and cultural economy of his time.