Decoding the Lecture on Heads : Personal Satire on the Eighteenth-Century Stage

Abstract: This article asserts that one of the most popular plays of the era, George Alexander Stevens’s Lecture on Heads (1764), was so successful in its use of objects, mimicry, and other deverbalizing techniques that historians have subsequently misinterpreted its satirical purpose. The wooden and papier maché heads Stevens exhibited were anything but generic: they were skillfully crafted representations of recognizable public figures. Targeting these figures with keen precision, Stevens engaged his audiences in a complex “gazing game” that required deep knowledge of 1760s court gossip, political intrigue, mezzotint imagery, and the semiotics of print caricature. This article plays that game through close analysis of caricatures, etchings, engravings, mezzotints, oil paintings, and other visual sources, aided by contemporary accounts of the Lecture , and various (unauthorized) publications of Stevens’s script.