How the law shaped satire in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England

Talk by associate professor of English Literature at Ghent University Andrew Bricker.

Drawing on his research on the intersection of law, literature and politics in eighteenth-century England, Andrew Bricker will explore how the many changes to the law and in court procedure between 1670 and 1792 influenced the ways in which satirists wrote and published. His lecture promises to provide fascinating insights into the ways in which libel laws shaped both the form and content of satirical writing in eighteenth-century England and beyond, with a particular focus on the creative responses of satirical writers to the state restrictions placed upon them.

Andrew Bricker is the author of Libel and Lampoon: Satire in the Courts, 1670-1792 (Oxford University Press, 2022).