Jure Divino comprises over 7,500 lines, mostly of heroic couplets, organised into twelve books, as well as explanatory annotations in prose. It is Defoe’s intended magnum opus in poetry, though it has never enjoyed the popularity of The True-Born Englishman (1701). The subject is the divine right theory of kingship. The Whig Defoe was perturbed that Tories and Jacobites clung to that political doctrine, which he regards as a veil for tyranny and slavery, conditions to which vitiated human nature tends but which the divine gift of reason, properly exercised, shows to be demeaning. Defoe’s satire is a “verse essay”, an Augustan mode of philosophical poetry that comprehensively examines a topic from its basic rudiments to multiple particular examples. Jure Divino is the fullest statement of Defoe’s political ideas—only The Original Power of the Collective...
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Citation: Seager, Nicholas. "Jure Divino". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 20 April 2021 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=28790, accessed 09 June 2026.]
