A review by poisonenvy
John Gay, Social Critic by Sven M. Armens

informative

3.75

I haven't read all of John Gay's writing -- I have, in fact, only read The Beggar's Opera and Polly -- and so that limited my full understanding of this text. But Armens' analysis of Gay's writing was understandable even without having read his other writings, and incredibly insightful as a way to parse through and read Gay's satire. I found it incredibly helpful in writing my paper about John Gay's plays -- this book from the 50s, unsurprisingly, doesn't look at any of Gay's writing through a queer or feminist lens, which was the topic of my paper, but even still it gave me a way to look at Gay's writing so that I could make my own analysis on those topics. 

Overall an incredibly helpful book that I ended up reading cover to cover despite absolutely not needing to.