Lecture 'The Cannibal Taste Test: Sensual vs. Intellectual Discernment in Satire from Jonathan Swift to Britain’s Miracle Meat'

This presentation examines the trope of cannibalism in satire as a means of interrogating the unstable boundary between sensual and intellectual taste. In the eighteenth century, “taste” denoted both physical gustation and aesthetic or moral discernment, a duality captured in Voltaire’s distinction between goût sensuel and goût intellectuel.

It argues that cannibal satire deliberately privileges sensual taste in order to expose the fragility of intellectual judgement, revealing how easily ethical reasoning can be overridden by appetite, fashion, or pleasure. Ultimately, the paper argues that cannibal satire cultivates a form of critical habitus, compelling audiences to rehearse discernment when confronted with seductive but ethically untenable propositions.

Speaker: Dr Adam James Smith is an Associate Professor of English Literature at York St John University, where he is also co-director of the York Research Unit for the Study of Satire.

No registration required.