Includes bibliographical references (pages [209]-227 ) and index.
Contents:
Introduction : literary culture, the classical past, and the rise of Restoration freethinking -- Libertine precursors. Rochester, Blount, and the faith of unbelief -- Behn, Fontenelle, and the cheats of revealed religion -- Skepticism and piety. Swift's Tale of a tub and the anthropology of religion -- Suspending disbelief : Swift, credulity, and the pious fraud -- Conclusion : Pope's "Essay on man" and the afterlife of English freethinking.
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