“The Dark Side of the Moon”: Romanticism and Lunar Satire

Published in quick succession during the first few months of 1820, The Man in the Moon, The Men in the Moon, The Loyal Man in the Moon and The Queen in the Moon are verse parodies and satires, illustrated with fittingly acidic cartoons, which attack and counterattack each other from such incompatible stances as those held by the British radicals and royalists on the many contentious affairs of the day. Curiously, they all resort to ‘the Moon’—more specifically, to her ‘other’ or dark side—to bring to light their respective points. This is not only an oxymoron but also a useful device to bypass censorship (the Six Acts were looming up) at a time when there were a wealth of risky (and often risqué) issues in Britain. After tracing the fundamentals of the time-honoured tradition of ‘lunar satire’ prior to 1820, I will try to establish the form, character and force of the four tracts, in the hope that, by doing so, some (moon)light is shed on the relationship between fact and opinion, literature and life—as intriguing an issue 200 years ago as it is today.