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Hello, the 18th century school blarris club included some of the most extraordinary and vivid satirists ever to have written in English language

We give giants and midgets implausible unions with simultaneous twins diving competitions into the open sewers of fleet street and

Ripe-lood language these exotic images were part of an attempt by Pope swift and their friends to show a world in terminal decline

Religion blushing veils her sacred fires and unawares morality expires

Nor public flame nor private durs to shine nor human spark is left nor glimps divine low thy dread

Empire chaos is restored light dies before thy un-creating word

So wrote Alexander Pope in his mock epic verse the Donciard who were the Sklebrerins and what in 18th century society had caused them such a disdain and despair

With me to discuss the

Skleblarris Club is John Mullin senior lecture in English at University College London

Marcus Walsh Kenneth Allert professor of English literature at the University of Liverpool and Judith Hawley senior lecture in English at Royal Holloway

University of London John Mullin. Can you give us a sense at the end of the 17th beginning of the 18th century of the coffee house culture out of which this club emerged?

Yes, I mean it's a

London's a place where for

The literate and the ambitious man

The business of socializing in a kind of semi public way has taken on a new importance and the coffee house is

The great place where people do this. It's a place where you go to

Exchange news, but also to try and win friends and influence people

And when the young Alexander Pope and we're going to talk about a bit on this programmer

First arrived in London as a very ambitious young writer. He went to coffee houses and he hung out with people who mattered there

So are we talking when you say emerge?

...