Ideology, Fashion and the Darlys Macaroni Prints

Is there a concrete difference between the reception of a political caricature, and one concerning manners, such as arose in very large numbers in the last third of the eighteenth century in England? How can we determine the ideological function of eighteenth- century printed satires of the subject of fashion? What was the ideological role of the witty expressions and humorous sallies that were popular consumer items, as dArchenholz observed of the many such broadsheets being sold in the streets of London in 1786? What is known about the people who might have perused them? In this chapter I focus upon one genre of the printed satirical material of the eighteenth century and indicate some of the problems of interpreting the corpus