You may think trolling is a modern phenomenon, much like clickbait, social media scraps, or reality TV.
But you'd be mistaken.
The act of insulting or humiliating someone in just the right way to provoke the perfect reaction seems to be almost as old as the spoken word. And my next guest argues that some very influential historical figures were exceptional at the art of trolling.
David Rudrum is an English lecturer at the University of Huddersfield and the author of Trolling Before the Internet: An Offline History of Insult, Provocation, and Public Humiliation in the Literary Classics.
Photo: WikiImages
