Dialogues, English -- Early works to 1800; Great Britain -- History -- Charles II, 1660-1685 -- Pamphlets
No matter what the content or objective purpose of dialogues, however,
they were uniformly written in what became known after the Restoration
as the "plain, easy, and familiar" style.[7] Sentences were more
conveniently broken up than heretofore, and there was increased
lightness of tone. Though there was still a great deal of invective,
Hugh Macdonald notes in "Banter in English Controversial Prose after the
Restoration," that banter became prominent in the literature of
disputation after 1660. On the other hand, "No one would expect to find
a clear-cut division between banter, satire, sarcasm, burlesque, and
abuse in every passage of a book written in the seventeenth century."[8]
As Mr. Macdonald states, it is largely a question of emphasis. Employing
a great deal of banter, Marvell reintroduced a tradition forgotten since
the Marprelate tracts--that of treating a grave subject lightly yet with
serious intention of reinforcing the argument. Restoration polemicists,
with L'Estrange in the vanguard, quickly realized the advantages of this
technique and claimed it as their own.
_Citt and Bumpkin_ survives close scrutiny according to the critical
criteria for evaluating dialogues suggested by Purpus and Macdonald.
Although L'Estrange does use the genre for a specific controversial end,
he does not lapse into a barren question-and-answer type of organization
nor into that of an artificial didactic catechism. While he sketches a
setting, develops characterization, and creates believable conversation,
L'Estrange does not err in the direction of over-dramatization either.
He provides all the requisite machinery to support the dramatic realism
necessary in a successful dialogue, but he goes no further. Throughout
_Citt and Bumpkin_, L'Estrange maintains the appropriate "plain, easy
and familiar" style. The sentence structure is simple, and clauses are
well punctuated. Abounding with colloquial expressions, contractions,
and slang, the vocabulary is common and especially suited to the low
characters. A bantering tone predominates, accompanied by passages
employing irony, satire, and invective. There is not enough invective,
however, to destroy the mood. If L'Estrange's Tory bias is perfectly
evident, it is not aggressive enough to prevent the accomplishment of
his polemic objectives. Although the republican political theories of
the Whigs are attacked satirically in the first part of _Citt and
Bumpkin_, they are stated and refuted in proper controversial style in
the final pages of the pamphlet. On the whole, _Citt and Bumpkin_
conforms to the conventions of a successful dialogue; where it does
not, the infringements are not great enough to destroy its artistic
integrity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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