04-07-2025
What We Are Reading Today: ‘State of Ridicule'
Author: Dan Sperrin
Satire is a funny, aggressive, and largely oppositional literature which is typically created by people who refuse to participate in a given regime's 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 durée history of political satire in British literature. He traces satire's 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.
