Trolling Before the Internet (Hardcover)

Hardcover. Trolling began long before the internet. This accessible history traces the ancestry of its textual and rhetorical strategies, by looking at literature from ancient Greece to the 1980s. Trolling is the most controversial genre of writing to have risen to prominence in the 21st century, with far-reaching consequences for its writers and readers alike. But it is too often regarded as a technological problem, confined to the internet. This book takes a very different approach: it regards trolling as a cultural problem with a long and venerable literary history.Taking in the contrarianism of Lord Byron, the wit of Oscar Wilde, insult trading in Shakespeare, Jonathan Swifts disaster trolling, Martin Luthers dissemination of heresy through a public discussion forum, the grotesquely misogynistic abuse hurled in Archilochuss poetry, the taunting provocations of avant-garde manifestos, and not forgetting public humiliations in Beowulf, David Rudrum demonstrates that trolls rhetorical shenanigans are neither new nor unvanquishable. Traces the literary and rhetorical ancestry of trolling. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.…