Imperial Satire Redux: A Political Reading of Dryden's ‘Discourse’ on Satire

Abstract

Dryden's 'Discourse Concerning the Original and Progress of Satire' has long been seen as one of the most important and influential accounts of satire and its history in English literature. Historians, editors, and critics have admired and contested Dryden's account of satire's pre-history, etymology, and ‘progress’, finding in this intricate text a whole tissue of challenging ideas about satire as a literary form. However, the political purposes of the Discourse (in its immediate context) remain exceptionally difficult to bring into focus. For all the clarity with which we can see what Dryden was saying about satire, it has always been quite unclear as to why he was saying it in the first place. Assuming Dryden's rationality and command of the intellectual resources, this article offers a very different reading of the Discourse as a politically motivated intervention post-1688 discussions about literary satire, and as an attempt to reset the form along ancient lines for Tory satirists excluded from the centre of public life by the Glorious Revolution.