Satirizing the Debating Society in Eighteenth-Century England

Abstract

Debating societies formed among tradesmen, craftsmen, professionals, and small businessmen of eighteenth-century England with the overt purpose of “improving” their members. A body of discourse arose in response which satirized the debating societies of the day. These classical examples of the satiric voice served as a form of argumentative practice in which the ideological struggle between social classes was waged.