Daniel Defoe and the Whig Tradition in Satire

This essay uncovers the forgotten Whig tradition in satire and reconsiders Daniel Defoe's relationship to that tradition. Recent scholarship on Whig literary culture has ignored or denied the existence of a Whig tradition in satire beyond the Carolean libels of authors such as Andrew Marvell and his followers. This essay traces the reception history of those libels. Defoe rejected libel as an appropriate model for Whig satire and instead imbued his satires with panegyric strains, designed to encourage moral reformation. Defoe's most ambitious verse satire, Jure Divino, was his last attempt to forge this new kind of Whig satire grounded in equal parts praise and blame.