SOURCE: Wolf, Richard B. “Shaftesbury's Just Measure of Irony.” SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 33, no. 3 (summer 1993): 565-85.

In this essay, Wolf examines Shaftesbury's use of satiric wit and discusses how his distinctive use of raillery is influenced by his philosophical beliefs and classical background.

John Hayman has justly linked the third earl of Shaftesbury to Augustan satiric reformers such as Addison and Steele, who were intent on curbing the malice of contemporary raillery and providing a proper model of good humored mental disposition.¹ These writers reacted against the cynical and predatory image of humankind associated with Hobbes and the Restoration wits, as well as against the kind of vitriolic satire written by contemporaries such as Jonathan Swift. They sought to promote both a more optimistic vision of individual and social potential, and a more refined ironic mode. But Shaftesbury's satiric practice was strikingly different from that found...