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Political fiction

Literary genre

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Plato's Republic, a Socratic dialogue written around 380 BC, has been one of the world's most influential works of philosophy and political theory, both intellectually and historically. The Republic is concerned with justice (δικαιοσύνη), the order and character of the just city-state, and the just man. Other influential politically themed works include Thomas More's Utopia (1516), Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726), Voltaire's Candide (1759), and Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852).

Political fiction frequently employs satire, often in the utopian and dystopian genres. This includes totalitarian dystopias of the early 20th century such as Jack London's The Iron Heel, Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here, and George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Political satire

The Greek playwright Aristophanes' plays are known for their political and social satire, particularly in his criticism of the powerful Athenian general, Cleon, in plays such as The Knights. Aristophanes is also notable for the persecution he underwent. Aristophanes' plays turned upon images of filth and disease. His bawdy style was adopted by Greek dramatist-comedian Menander, whose early play, Drunkenness, contains an attack on the politician, Callimedon.

Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal (1729) is an 18th-century Juvenalian satirical essay in which he suggests that the impoverished Irish might ease their economic troubles by selling their children as food for rich gentlemen and ladies. The satirical hyperbole mocks heartless attitudes towards the poor, as well as British policy toward the Irish in general.

George Orwell's Animal Farm (1945) is an allegorical and dystopian novella which satirises the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Soviet Union's Stalinist era. Orwell, a democratic socialist, was a critic of Joseph Stalin and was hostile to Moscow-directed Stalinism—an attitude that had been shaped by his experiences during the Spanish Civil War. The Soviet Union, he believed, had become a brutal dictatorship, built upon a cult of personality and enforced by a reign of terror. Orwell described his Animal Farm as "a satirical tale against Stalin", and in his essay "Why I Write" (1946) he wrote that Animal Farm was the first book in which he tried, with full consciousness of what he was doing, "to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole."

Orwell's most famous work, however, is Nineteen Eighty-Four (published in 1949), many of whose terms and concepts, such as Big Brother, doublethink, thoughtcrime, Newspeak, Room 101, telescreen, 2 + 2 = 5, and memory hole, have entered into common use. Nineteen Eighty-Four popularised the adjective "Orwellian", which describes official deception, secret surveillance, and manipulation of recorded history by a totalitarian or authoritarian state.

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