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‘[T]aking up Plots upon Trust’:1 Titus Oates, Roger L’Estrange, and Popular Polemic

Peter Hinds

in ‘The Horrid Popish Plot’: Roger L’Estrange and the Circulation of Political Discourse in Late Seventeenth-Century London

This chapter discusses an introduction to Titus Oates and Roger L'Estrange. It provides contexts for their behaviour and actions in the 1670s and 1680s. The author uses L'Estrange as an observer and ... More

This chapter discusses an introduction to Titus Oates and Roger L'Estrange. It provides contexts for their behaviour and actions in the 1670s and 1680s. The author uses L'Estrange as an observer and critic of the times through which he lived, as well as a narrative anchor to some degree. This helps in making sense of the comment on the political events during the period. Political satire during this period is also discussed.Less

Delarivier Manley's Public Representations

Paula McDowell

in The Women of Grub Street: Press, Politics, and Gender in the London Literary Marketplace 1678-1730

By 1714, when she pretended to renounce politics as ‘not the business of a Woman’, Delarivier Manley was a recognized force as a political writer. In 1709, she was arrested for The New Atalantis, ... More

By 1714, when she pretended to renounce politics as ‘not the business of a Woman’, Delarivier Manley was a recognized force as a political writer. In 1709, she was arrested for The New Atalantis, which encouraged critical scrutiny of those in power. Chapter 5 examines Manley's personal and political strategies as an author, showing how she attempted to legitimize her career as England's first avowed female political propagandist. Manley created a space for her innovative fictions by representing herself as a female intelligence agent of the private sphere. This chapter also suggests how Manley's changing authorial self representations foreshadow the changing relationship of women writers to the political press by the mid-eighteenth century. Manley's autobiographical Adventures of Rivella, and her pretended retirement from ‘Politicks and State- Reflections,’ foreshadows women writers' turn away from explicitly polemical political writing and genres, towards more ‘polite’ textual practices and literary forms (especially the novel).Less

Satires on Domestic Subjects: William III and Amsterdam

Meredith McNeill Hale

in The Birth of Modern Political Satire: Romeyn de Hooghe and the Glorious Revolution

This chapter examines five satires on the subject of domestic politics. Orange-Amsterdam opposition dominated Dutch politics for much of the seventeenth century and the States Party faction, led by ... More

This chapter examines five satires on the subject of domestic politics. Orange-Amsterdam opposition dominated Dutch politics for much of the seventeenth century and the States Party faction, led by the republican-leaning Amsterdam regents, was driven by two primary concerns: the interruption to trade, particularly with France, caused by William III’s invasion of England and subsequent military exploits; and the curbing of William’s dynastic ambition, which was seen as a direct threat to Holland’s supremacy within the United Provinces. All of De Hooghe’s satires under consideration here are Orangist in viewpoint and accuse Amsterdam of colluding with France in order to maintain lucrative trade alliances and marginalize William III politically. The function of De Hooghe’s satires is the primary focus of this discussion and, to this end, the critical role played by factionalism in Dutch politics of this period will be considered. It will be argued that De Hooghe’s domestic satires were intended for a specific segment of Holland’s governing elite, those in the ‘middle party’ who did not align themselves fully with either the States Party or the Orangist ends of the political spectrum. The chapter concludes that pragmatic considerations were a critical impetus for the domestic satires: for Orangists, the fact that William III needed the financial support of Amsterdam for his military campaigns; and, for the Amsterdam regents, as is articulated in an anonymous anti-Williamite satire, the fear of William III’s monarchical ambitions and the opportunity to consolidate their power in the absence of the Stadhouder-King.Less

Staging Defeat: The Golden Cockerel and the Russo-Japanese War

Marina Frolova-Walker

in Rimsky-Korsakov and His World

This chapter examines The Golden Cockerel as a pointed political satire, prompted and shaped by the concrete events of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905. Indeed, Rimsky-Korsakov and his librettist ... More

This chapter examines The Golden Cockerel as a pointed political satire, prompted and shaped by the concrete events of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905. Indeed, Rimsky-Korsakov and his librettist saturated the libretto with direct and recognizable references to the recent war, turning the opera into a kind of topical political theater. Here, Rimsky-Korsakov appears as politically radical, and returns to the idioms of the Russian Style—not in a spirit of nostalgia, but with the aim of inventing and mocking his previous values, and also mocking the Russian state, whose hubris had led to a humiliating defeat. Ultimately, the Cockerel became a distorting mirror in which the previous seventy years of Russian opera and its nationalist preoccupations found an unflattering reflection.Less

Introduction: The Birth of Modern Political Satire: Romeyn de Hooghe (1645–1708) and the Glorious Revolution

Meredith McNeill Hale

in The Birth of Modern Political Satire: Romeyn de Hooghe and the Glorious Revolution

The book’s introduction provides an overview of the genre of political satire, a brief biography of Romeyn de Hooghe, and a summary of the contents of the individual chapters. It considers the key ... More

The book’s introduction provides an overview of the genre of political satire, a brief biography of Romeyn de Hooghe, and a summary of the contents of the individual chapters. It considers the key characteristics of political satire, among them: its assumption of the forms of other genres, the engagement of the viewer in an unresolved moment, the promise to unveil the ‘truth’ and suggestion of moral correction, and deep imbrication in a specific historical context. A brief review of the existing literature on De Hooghe contextualizes this study and provides the necessary background for understanding the reception of the satires.Less

Satires on Foreign Subjects: The End of the Absolute Monarch

Meredith McNeill Hale

in The Birth of Modern Political Satire: Romeyn de Hooghe and the Glorious Revolution

This chapter examines seven of De Hooghe’s eighteen satires on the events surrounding William III’s invasion of England and associated diplomatic and military campaigns. These satires, which were ... More

This chapter examines seven of De Hooghe’s eighteen satires on the events surrounding William III’s invasion of England and associated diplomatic and military campaigns. These satires, which were produced between the autumn of 1688 and summer of 1690, followed the events of the Glorious Revolution as they unfolded and represent not only key political-historical events but also the development of De Hooghe’s satirical strategies. William III is featured as the sober and valiant defender of Protestantism against the Catholic kings, James II and Louis XIV, who appear as a darkly comic duo, misguided adherents of a primitive religion committed only to their own aggrandizement. This discussion examines the iconography of the foreign satires, providing detailed interpretive analysis and translation of many of the texts into English for the first time. It will be demonstrated that De Hooghe responded almost immediately to the rapid unfolding of events that constituted the Glorious Revolution, highlighting the need to consider them in terms of the speed with which they were produced and their serial nature. It is often possible to determine the month in which a satire was made and, in certain cases, the timeframe can be narrowed to weeks. This dramatic imbrication in a particular historical moment is characteristic of political satire to this day.Less

The Role of the Satirist and the Problem of Moral Conviction

Meredith McNeill Hale

in The Birth of Modern Political Satire: Romeyn de Hooghe and the Glorious Revolution

This chapter addresses two related subjects, the reception of De Hooghe’s satires and the role of the satirist. The focus of this discussion is the so-called Pamphlet War of 1690, the primary vehicle ... More

This chapter addresses two related subjects, the reception of De Hooghe’s satires and the role of the satirist. The focus of this discussion is the so-called Pamphlet War of 1690, the primary vehicle for much of the criticism of De Hooghe’s satires. In twelve scathing pamphlets published against Romeyn de Hooghe in the first several months of 1690, witnesses alleged his blasphemy, atheism, and sexual perversion, and embroiled him in a fevered exchange of pamphlets with representatives of Amsterdam. While such rhetoric employed against the printmaker in pamphlet literature vividly described his manifold immorality, Hollands hollende koe (Holland’s running cow), an anti-Williamite satire produced by the printmaker’s enemies in his distinctive etching style, provided material ‘evidence’ of his lack of integrity. With this print, De Hooghe was accused of working for both sides of the political divide—producing Orangist satires for William III and anti-Williamite satires for the Amsterdam regents. The potency of Hollands hollende koe depends fundamentally upon the assumption of integrity between satirist and satire, the notion that he or she believes in the positions and ideologies espoused in his or her satires. It will be argued that the conflation of satirist and satire and the attendant expectation of moral conviction on the part of the satirist are not only associated with the genre of political satire, they are engendered by it and feature prominently throughout its history.Less

Europa and the Bull: Sex, Society, and Politics

Theodore Ziolkowski

in Minos and the Moderns: Cretan Myth in Twentieth-Century Literature and Art

This chapter investigates how the tale of Europa and the bull—in poetry, drama, and art, but also in cartoons, advertising, and currency—was initially seized upon by artists around the turn of the ... More

This chapter investigates how the tale of Europa and the bull—in poetry, drama, and art, but also in cartoons, advertising, and currency—was initially seized upon by artists around the turn of the century and by Expressionist poets as a parable of sexual awakening and of the essential animality of sex. In the 1920s it emerged as a vehicle for social commentary and political satire; later exile artists used the myth to suggest the descent into social depravity and political chaos in Europe. Long a popular subject for works of artistic kitsch, it triumphed as a widespread symbol of European unity after World War II.Less

“We Hope You Like Us, Jack”: Liberal Political Satire, 1958–63

in Revel with a Cause: Liberal Satire in Postwar America

Aided in large part by the success of improvisational stage troupes, liberal satire during the Kennedy years reached new levels of popularity. Even political satire, once held at bay by the ... More

Aided in large part by the success of improvisational stage troupes, liberal satire during the Kennedy years reached new levels of popularity. Even political satire, once held at bay by the conservative cold war culture of the 1950s, appeared to rebound in this period. This chapter focuses on the type of political satire that flourished during the “satire boom” of the early 1960s.Less

Clichés are funny as long as they happen on stage: comedy as political criticism

Riem Spielhaus

in Muslim Political Participation in Europe

With shows like “Allah Made me funny”, “Little mosque in the prairie” and “The Moslem TÜV”, Muslim comedy and satire has entered mainstream entertainment in several European countries and Northern ... More

With shows like “Allah Made me funny”, “Little mosque in the prairie” and “The Moslem TÜV”, Muslim comedy and satire has entered mainstream entertainment in several European countries and Northern America, especially after the cartoon crisis. By focusing on the contributions of Muslim performers in the field of contemporary German comedy this chapter approaches political satire and other subversive strategies used by subalterns to address injustice, discrimination and structural exclusion as a form of political activism. It argues that in an atmosphere of suspicion and verbal taboos, political satire can play a significant role by enabling entertainers to address and criticise policies of active securitisation and domestication. Politically grounded satire, the field of humor, of absurdity, ridicule and subversion are therefore worth being examined both in terms of content and as a political strategy to address the unspeakable.Less

The Roots of Modern Political Satire

Meredith McNeill Hale

in The Birth of Modern Political Satire: Romeyn de Hooghe and the Glorious Revolution

This chapter considers the evolution of the political print from 1500 through the mid-seventeenth century. This discussion examines satirical strategies employed by printmakers working at four key ... More

This chapter considers the evolution of the political print from 1500 through the mid-seventeenth century. This discussion examines satirical strategies employed by printmakers working at four key historical moments—the Reformation in Germany, the Dutch revolt from Spain, the French wars of religion, and the Commonwealth in England—in order to provide a larger context for the assessment of Romeyn de Hooghe’s innovation of the genre. Two strategies dominate the political prints considered in this chapter: (i) those that employ animal imagery, such as the animal fable and the animal hybrid; and (ii) those that feature individual human protagonists. This chapter introduces three themes that feature prominently throughout the book: (i) the elision of boundaries between man and animal; (ii) the treatment of the satirized body; and (iii) the inter-relationship between text and image. It is shown that the finished, closed, and choreographed body of formal portraiture that dominates earlier political prints gives way in De Hooghe’s satires to the expansive, gaping, and uncontrollable body that has been associated with the genre ever since.Less

Conclusion: The Geography of Satire

Meredith McNeill Hale

in The Birth of Modern Political Satire: Romeyn de Hooghe and the Glorious Revolution

This concluding chapter focuses on the question of circulation and impact: to what extent did De Hooghe’s satires travel beyond The Netherlands in the seventeenth century and what influence did they ... More

This concluding chapter focuses on the question of circulation and impact: to what extent did De Hooghe’s satires travel beyond The Netherlands in the seventeenth century and what influence did they have on English political satire of the eighteenth century? The appearance of motifs from De Hooghe’s satires in mezzotints of c.1690 and prints on the subject of the South Sea Bubble of 1720 will be discussed as will instances in which De Hooghe’s satires were reissued in the eighteenth century. However, a comparison of this handful of examples with the liberal use of De Hooghe’s triumphal allegories and battle scenes in such distant locations as Latin America and Russia reveals one of the qualities that epitomizes political satire—its dramatic circumscription by temporal and geographical boundaries. Satire’s embeddedness in a specific political, historical, and cultural moment and its dependence upon text that often channels the idiosyncrasies of spoken language, render it difficult—often impossible without intensive investigation—to understand beyond its immediate context. This is as true for twenty-first-century satires as it was for those produced in the late seventeenth century.Less

Conclusion

GIDEON NISBET

in Greek Epigram in the Roman Empire: Martial's Forgotten Rivals

This concluding chapter emphasises the diversity and subversive potential of skoptic epigram. It revisits the Cultural Materialist concerns of Chapter 1 to suggest reading skoptic epigram's attempts ... More

This concluding chapter emphasises the diversity and subversive potential of skoptic epigram. It revisits the Cultural Materialist concerns of Chapter 1 to suggest reading skoptic epigram's attempts at containment as symptomatic of particular, historically locatable ideological anxieties. The emphasis is on reading skoptic epigram not as a fixed corpus of named authors but as the literary residue of a ‘live’ performative discourse with the power to enact political critique and potentially to enact change.Less

Libel and Invasion of Privacy

ERIC BARENDT

in Freedom of Speech

This chapter examines how to reconcile freedom of speech with personal privacy, a matter of considerable controversy in all cultures where people are fascinated by the conduct of celebrities. The ... More

This chapter examines how to reconcile freedom of speech with personal privacy, a matter of considerable controversy in all cultures where people are fascinated by the conduct of celebrities. The general arguments for bringing the publication of defamatory allegations, at least in some contexts, within the coverage of freedom of speech are discussed. Even if it is accepted that this step is right, it does not follow that free speech should always, or even generally, trump reputation rights. The legal principles for balancing the two rights or interests are considered; it will be seen that there are a variety of solutions, some of them more solicitous of free speech concerns than others. The legal problems posed by non-defamatory insults and political satire are also explored, along with the issue of whether the law should adopt similar rules to those appropriate for defamation or should give stronger protection to privacy rights.Less

Text, Image, and the Performance of Satire

Meredith McNeill Hale

in The Birth of Modern Political Satire: Romeyn de Hooghe and the Glorious Revolution

This chapter considers the relationship between text and image in De Hooghe’s satires: how it functions and what it tells us about how the satires were produced and who their intended audience/s ... More

This chapter considers the relationship between text and image in De Hooghe’s satires: how it functions and what it tells us about how the satires were produced and who their intended audience/s might have been. De Hooghe’s satires were issued in the form of broadsheets, the typeset text appearing beneath the print in the form of a spoken (or sometimes sung) dialogue accompanied by letters or numbers identifying the figures in the scene. Neither text nor image is effective alone: the viewer is required to cross-reference them repeatedly in order to understand the satire. While the textual component of De Hooghe’s satires may seem to suggest a relationship to newspaper and pamphlet production, their emphatic rejection of narrative in favour of the discursive places them in the realm of dramatic literature and the theatre, genres more readily suitable to conveying the fictive and often whimsical violence of satire. This discussion includes material considerations, among them the format of the satires and how they were produced, and considers the satires in light of other contemporary printed media, among them the pamphlet, the news sheet, and the ballad. The particular relationship between text and image in De Hooghe’s satires and the distinctly performative quality it engenders shed critical light on their audience and function.Less

The Unspeakable and Political Satire: Performance, Perception and Technology

Ryan Bishop

in Comedy and Cultural Critique in American Film

The satiric films taken up in this chapter all pertain to and relate to the intersection of warfare or militarisation and cinema, or some art form and / or set of technological practices that ... More

The satiric films taken up in this chapter all pertain to and relate to the intersection of warfare or militarisation and cinema, or some art form and / or set of technological practices that metonymically invoke cinema. With each, the satire employs cinema deploying other modes of performance, such as vaudeville, operetta, theatre (including monologue), television, popular music or stand-up comedy. Parody depends directly on a form of representation and is bound by its generic demands, while satire can borrow from other representational modes for its enunciation, even incorporating those modes into itself. That cinema can embody other representational strategies bespeaks its elasticity and its hegemony, for it is an art form (or business commodity, or technological concatenation) capable of incorporating resistance into its overall endeavour. The extent to which these capacities blunt the power of critique operative within satire, though, remains a subject of question and concern.Less

Liberal Satire's Last Laughs

in Revel with a Cause: Liberal Satire in Postwar America

The 1964 campaign season would prove to be postwar liberal satire's Indian summer. Throughout the early 1960s, liberal satirists of all stripes had assailed the prominence of aggressive cold warriors ... More

The 1964 campaign season would prove to be postwar liberal satire's Indian summer. Throughout the early 1960s, liberal satirists of all stripes had assailed the prominence of aggressive cold warriors in America's foreign policy apparatus, the recalcitrance of Southern white segregationists, and the rise of the conservative grassroots organizations such as the Young Americans for Freedom and the John Birch Society. With the ascension of conservative Arizona senator Barry Goldwater to the front ranks of the Republican Party, liberal satirists now concentrated their focus on one large and, admittedly, rather easy target. Liberal cartoonists focused most of their efforts addressing what they believed was Goldwater's trigger-happy nuclear policy. The 1964 campaign season witnessed not only a flurry of cartoons but the release of numerous satirical folk songs poking fun at Barry Goldwater and his grassroots supporters.Less

Last Week Tonight With John Oliver and the Stewart/Colbert Impact on U.S. Political Communication in the Post-Network Era

Paul Alonso

in Satiric TV in the Americas: Critical Metatainment as Negotiated Dissent

Chapter 2 analyzes Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (LWT), the political news satire show aired on HBO since 2014. While TDS satirized TV journalism’s coverage of news and TCR parodied the ... More

Chapter 2 analyzes Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (LWT), the political news satire show aired on HBO since 2014. While TDS satirized TV journalism’s coverage of news and TCR parodied the conservative rhetoric in the media, LWT presents investigations, generating in-depth coverage of national and international public interest issues. Chapter 2 analyzes LWT in relation to the academic debates and scholarly work generated by its successful predecessors. By contextualizing and examining the show in relation to the evolution of political infotainment in the United States, I show how LWT not only fills gaps left by mainstream media, but also takes satire to a more international, activist, and investigative level. Because U.S. political infotainment has been internationally influential, this chapter also serves to illuminate the debates about the genre to be applied to the Latin American cases, which have remained academically unexplored.Less

The “Tsadik from Plonsk” and “Goldenyu”: Political Satire in Dzigan and Shumacher’s Israeli Comic Repertoire

Diego Rotman

in A Club of Their Own: Jewish Humorists and the Contemporary World

This chapter examines the career and political satire of comic duo Shimen Dzigan and Yisroel Shumacher. Their performances dealt with issues that reflected the major topics that preoccupied Jews of ... More

This chapter examines the career and political satire of comic duo Shimen Dzigan and Yisroel Shumacher. Their performances dealt with issues that reflected the major topics that preoccupied Jews of their era: the vagaries of making a living, the state of the economy, world and local politics, marriage, Jewish tradition, antisemitism, and current events. After they emigrated to Israel, their repertoire expanded to include such issues as the individual confronting the Israeli bureaucracy, the question of Yiddish versus Hebrew, the Jewish-Arab conflict, relations between diaspora Jewry (especially American Jews) and Israel, the memory of Jewish life in Eastern Europe, and the Holocaust. The chapter analyzes two pairs of skits that focused on two prime ministers: David Ben-Gurion in “ Der nayer dybbek” (The New Dybbuk, 1957) and “In der yeshive fun plonsker rebbe” (In the Plonsker Rebbe’s Yeshiva; 1961); and Golda Meir in the monologue “Goldenyu” (1971) and the skit “Golde baym poypst” (Golda Visits the Pope; 1973).Less