Animal Satire

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xii

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2. A Satire by Way of a Preface

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

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   2. The Hall of the Sovereigns

      • David Brooks

      Pages 3-4

3. Introduction

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 5-5

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   2. Animal Satire: An Introduction

      • Susan McHugh, Robert McKay

      Pages 7-31

4. Drama and Poetry: Animal Satire in Classics, Medieval, and Renaissance Studies

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 33-33

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   2. Dogs in Court and Sheep in the Assembly: Animal Satire in Aristophanes

      • Babette Pütz

      Pages 35-54

   3. The “Battle of the Frogs and Mice” (Batrachomyomachia) and Satire in the Ancient Greco-Roman Tradition

      • Matthew Hosty

      Pages 55-72

   4. Making an Ass of Yourself? The Pointed Comedy of the Mirror for Fools

      • Diane Heath

      Pages 73-100

   5. What Can Beast Fables Do in Literary Animal Studies? Ben Jonson’s Volpone and the Prehumanist Human

      • Erica Fudge

      Pages 101-116

   6. “That was a rare experiment of transfusing the blood of a sheep into a mad-man”: Animal Experiments and Satirical Knowledge in Thomas Shadwell’s The Virtuoso

      • Vera Thomann

      Pages 117-127

5. Satirical Interruption

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 129-129

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   2. A Slaves’ Revolt

      • David Brooks

      Pages 131-133

6. Satirical Editorials and Fiction: Early Through High Modernist Studies

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 135-135

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   2. “A green Parrot for a good Speaker”: Writing with a Birds-Eye View in Eliza Haywood’s The Parrot

      • Adam James Smith, Ben Garlick

      Pages 137-153

   3. The Lacking Satirical Animals of Mary Shelley’s The Last Man

      • David Sigler

      Pages 155-173

   4. Learning About Race and Religion with Bob and Felissa: Satire in Nineteenth-Century Children’s It-Narratives

      • Christopher Douglas

      Pages 175-187

   5. Nineteenth-Century American Anti-extinction Humour: “A Polar Whale’s Appeal” as Environmentalist Animal Satire

      • Jennifer Schell

      Pages 189-208

   6. Vivisections, Vaccinations, Revelations: Ecofeminist Satire and Biopolitical Dystopia in Frances Power Cobbe’s The Age of Science

      • Paul Fagan

      Pages 209-226

   7. “Wolf within the Fold”: Satire and Animality in The Brutalitarian and The Beagler Boy

      • Mo O’Neill

      Pages 227-241

Animal Satire presents a cultural history of animal satire, a critically neglected but persistent presence in the history of cultural production, in which animals expose human folly while the strategies of satire expose the folly of human-animal relations. Highlighting the teeming animal presences across the history of satirical expression from Aristophanes to Twitter, with chapters on key works of literature, drama, film, and a plethora of satirical media, Animal Satire reveals the rich rhetorical significance of animality in powering the politics of satire from ancient and medieval through modern and contemporary times. More pressingly, the book makes the case for the significance of satire for understanding the real-world implications of rhetoric about animals in ongoing struggles for justice. By gathering both critical and creative examples from representative media forms, historical periods, and continents, this volume aims to enrich scholarship on the history of satire as well as empower creative practitioners with ideas about its practical applications today.

• Literature and Animal Studies
• satirical writing
• Human-Animal relationships
• nonhuman animals
• political satire
• anthropomorphism

“This is a uniquely valuable collection with expansive reach: much is included; many voices are contributing to the conversation; and many various modes of Animal Satire are at work here.” (Richard Nash, Professor of English (Emeritus), Indiana University)

• School of English, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

  Robert McKay

• English, SAH, Marcil Hall, University of New England, Biddeford, USA

  Susan McHugh

Robert McKay is Professor of Contemporary Literature, School of English, University of Sheffield, UK. He has co-edited Animal Remains (2022), Against Value in the Arts and Education (2016), and Werewolves, Wolves and the Gothic (2017). He is the co-author (with the Animal Studies Group) of Killing Animals (2006).


Susan McHugh is Professor of English, School of Arts and Humanities, University of New England, USA. She is the author of Love in a Time of Slaughters: Human-animal Stories against Extinction and Genocide (2019), Animal Stories: Narrating across Species Lines (2011), and Dog (2004). She is co-editor of several volumes, including Posthumanism in Art and Science (2021) and Indigenous Creatures, Native Knowledges, and the Arts: Animal Studies in Modern Worlds (Palgrave 2017).



Robert McKay and Susan McHugh are co-editors (with John Miller) of the Palgrave Studies in Animals and Literature book series, as well as the volume The Palgrave Handbook of Animals and Literature (Palgrave 2021).

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