'Rais'd from a Dunghill, to a King's Embrace': Restoration Verse Satires on Nell Gwyn as Life Writing. Issue 4 (1st October 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Novak, Julia
• Is Part Of: Life writing. Volume 13:Issue 4(2016)
• Page Start: 449
• Page End: 464
• Publication Date: 2016-10-01
• Subjects: Nell Gwyn -- Restoration verse satire -- biography -- life writing; Biography as a literary form -- Periodicals; Autobiography -- Periodicals; 809.93592
• DOI: 10.1080/14484528.2015.1073715
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1448-4528

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Nell Gwyn (1650–1687), one of the very early theatre actresses on the Restoration stage and long-term mistress to King Charles II, has today become a popular cultural icon, revered for her wit and good-naturedness. The image of Gwyn that emerges from Restoration satires, by contrast, is considerably more critical of the king's actress-mistress. It is this image, arising from satiric references to and verse lives of Nell Gwyn, which forms the focus of this paper. Creating an image—a 'likeness'—of the subject is often cited as one of the chief purposes of biography. From the perspective of biography studies, this paper will probe to what extent Restoration verse satire can be read as life-writing and where it can be situated in the context of other seventeenth century life-writing forms. It will examine which aspects of Gwyn's life and character the satires address and what these choices reveal about the purposes of satire as a form of biographical storytelling. Gwyn's case, it will be argued, demonstrates that Restoration verse satire, which participates in many of the biographical conventions of the period, ought to be revaluated as a site of early modern life-writing.