State of Ridicule

A history of political satire in English literature from its Roman foundations to the present day Satire is a funny, aggressive and largely oppositional literature which is typically created by people who refuse to participate in a given regimes perception of itself. Although satire has always been a primary literature of state affairs, and although it has always been used to intervene in ongoing discussions about political theory and practice, there has been no attempt to examine this fascinating and unusual literature across the full chronological horizon. In State of Ridicule, Dan Sperrin provides the first ever longue dure history of political satire in British literature. He traces satires many extended and discontinuous trajectories through time while also chronicling some of the most inflamed and challenging political contexts within which it has been written. Sperrin begins by describing the Roman foundations and substructures of British satire, paying particularly close attention to the core Roman canon: Horace, Persius, and Juvenal. He then proceeds chronologically, populating the branches of satires family tree with such figures as Chaucer, Dryden, Jonson, Swift, Pope, and Dickens, as well as a whole series of writers who are now largely forgotten. Satire, Sperrin shows, can be a literature of explicit statements and overt provocationbut it can also be notoriously indirect, oblique, suggestive and covert, complicated by an authors anonymity or pseudonymity. Sperrin meticulously analyses the references to transient political events that may mystify the contemporary reader. He also presents vivid and intriguing pen portraits of the satirists themselves along the way. Sperrin argues that if satire is to be contended with and reflected upon in all its provocative complexityand if it is to be seen as anything more than a literature of political vandalismthen we must explore the full depth and intrigue of its past. This book offers a new starting point for our intellectual and imaginative contact with an important and fascinating kind of literature.