Blaming and demonizing. Satirical pamphlet literature in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic

This article discusses the rhetoric and function of seventeenth-century Dutch clandestine satire as counterpart to the more official laudatory literature in which the mighty regents were morally praised and honoured because of their civic virtues. While these laudatory texts served both as honorary monuments for the rulers and positive civic mirrors at the same time, their satirical counterparts functioned as moral negatives that actually subverted public order. We focus on the pamphlets against the influential Amsterdam ruling family Bicker in the context of political power games in 1650.