A Gender-Based Analysis of Eighteenth-Century Satirical Poetry: A Cognitive Stylistic Perspective

Abstract

Satirical poetry is a literary genre written in such a way to reflect the poet's subjective judgments about what s/he thinks is a problem in society. It is a literary product that is not easy to be systematic and objective. The present study which is basically qualitative in nature aims to investigate the gender bias that was prevalent in the eighteenth-century satirical poetry, revealing poets' ideologies. Accordingly, an analysis has been conducted on eight satirical poems from a cognitive stylistic perspective using Schema and Text World Theories as two different but complementary theoretical frameworks. The analysis revealed the hierarchical construct of the eighteenth-century English society. Male poets appear to reinforce this hierarchy and solidify their androcentric beliefs which assert both men's supremacy and women's inferiority. They sought to denigrate women in a way which reflected the prevalent cultural and societal beliefs at that time which depicted women as their men's property with no right to voice their opinions. This seems to validate the belief that satirical poetry was a reflection of the socially constructed system of the English society during the eighteenth century.