Trolling Before the Internet

David Rudrum is Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Huddersfield, UK. He is the author or editor of four previous publications, including Supplanting the Postmodern (co-edited with Nicholas Stavris, Bloomsbury, 2015) and Stanley Cavell and the Claim of Literature (2013).

• AcknowledgementsPrefatory note on contentIntroduction:Trolling in/and/as Literature Chapter One: Trolling is …Trolling and its definitions: What we (don’t) know so farChapter Two: …to defame, insult, or humiliate an opponent in public…From flyting to flaming; from Beowulf to ShakespeareChapter Three: …or to make a public statement…Trolling the Pope: Martin Luther Goes ViralChapter Four: …of views that are not sincerely held…U Can Has Babeez! – Jonathan Swift’s A Modest ProposalChapter Five: …but instead aim to court controversy…Oscar Wilde as a contrarian troll, or, How to put the ‘wit’ into ‘Twitter’Chapter Six: …or to be provocative or vexatious…‘A Slap in the Face of Public Taste’: some avant-garde trolls Chapter Seven: …sometimes with legal consequences.Social justice trolling: Émile Zola’s J’Accuse…! ConclusionsIndex

[Rudrum’s] findings serve as an important first step toward legitimizing the study of trolling as a genre of writing.