Satire And The Threat Of Speech

In his first book of Satires, written in the late, violent days of the Roman republic, Horace exposes satiric speech as a tool of power and domination. Using critical theories from classics, speech act theory, and others, Catherine Schlegel argues that Horace's acute poetic observation of hostile speech provides insights into the operations of verbal control that are relevant to his time and to ours. She demonstrates that though Horace is forced by his political circumstances to develop a new, unthreatening style of satire, his poems contain a challenge to our most profound habits of violence, hierarchy, and domination. Focusing on the relationships between speaker and audience and between old and new style, Schlegel examines the internal conflicts of a notoriously difficult text. This exciting contribution to the field of Horatian studies will be of interest to classicists as well as other scholars interested in the genre of satire.

"Justman considers satire not as a genre but as a potential available to different genres. He contrasts a line of English literature critical of journalism - writers such as Addison, Austen, and Trollope - with another less mannerly, represented by writers who exploded the stock formulas of which so much journalism is made, a line running from Swift through Dickens to Joyce and Orwell. Discussed too is the exploitation of the power of satire in political doctrine."--BOOK JACKET.

Satire, though a form of literature familiar to everyone, is difficult to define. Partaking variously of sarcasm, irony, ridicule, and burlesque, it is exactly synonymous with no one of these. Satire is primarily dependent on the motive of its writer. Unless meant for satire, it is not the real thing; unconscious satire is a contradiction of terms, or a mere figure of speech.Secondarily, satire depends on the reader. What seems to us satire to-day, may not seem so tomorrow. Or, what seems satire to a pessimistic mind, may seem merely good-natured chaff to an optimist. This, of course, refers to the subtler forms of satire. Many classic satires are direct lampoons or broadsides which admit of only one interpretation.Literature numbers many satirists among its most honoured names; and the best satires show intellect, education, and a keen appreciation of human nature. Often satire provides best examples of a kindly tolerance for the vice or folly in question, and even hint the acceptance of the conditions condemned. Again in the hands of a carping and unsympathetic critic satire is used with vitriolic effects on sins for which the writer has no mercy.It is the compiler¿s regret that a great mass of material is necessarily omitted for lack of space; other selections are discarded because of their present untimeliness, which deprives them of their intrinsic interest. But an endeavour has been made to represent the greatest and best satiric writers, and also to include at least extracts from the masterpieces of satire.

This volume, from an innovative scholar of Latin Literature and Greek Old Comedy, distills the modern corpus of scholarship on Roman Satire, presenting the genre in particular through the themes of literary ambition, self-fashioning, and poetic afterlife.

From the INTRODUCTION: SATIRE, though a form of literature familiar to everyone, is difficult to define. Partaking variously of sarcasm, irony, ridicule, and burlesque, it is exactly synonymous with no one of these. Satire is primarily dependent on the motive of its writer. Unless meant for satire, it is not the real thing; unconscious satire is a contradiction of terms, or a mere figure of speech. Secondarily, satire depends on the reader. What seems to us satire to-day, may not seem so tomorrow. Or, what seems satire to a pessimistic mind, may seem merely good-natured chaff to an optimist. This, of course, refers to the subtler forms of satire. Many classic satires are direct lampoons or broadsides which admit of only one interpretation. Literature numbers many satirists among its most honoured names; and the best satires show intellect, education, and a keen appreciation of human nature. Nor is satire necessarily vindictive or spiteful. Often its best examples show a kindly tolerance for the vice or folly in question, and even hint a tacit acceptance of the conditions condemned. Again, in the hands of a carping and unsympathetic critic, satire is used with vitriolic effects on sins for which the writer has no mercy. This lashing form of satire was doubtless the earliest type. The Greeks show sardonic examples of it, but the Romans allowed a broader sense of humour to soften the satirical sting. Following and outstripping Lucilius, Horace is the acknowledged father of satire, and was himself followed, and, in the opinion of some, outstripped by Juvenal. But the works of the ancient satirists are of interest mainly to scholars, and cannot be included in a collection destined for a popular audience. The present volume, therefore, is largely made up from the products of more recent centuries. From the times of Horace and Juvenal, down through the mediaeval ages to the present day, satires may be divided into the two classes founded by the two great masters: the work of Horace''s followers marked by humour and tolerance, that of Juvenal''s imitators by bitter invective. On the one side, the years have arrayed such names as Chaucer, Swift, Goldsmith, and Thackeray; on the other, Langland, Dryden, Pope, and Burns. A scholarly gentleman of our own day classifies satires in three main divisions: those directed at society, those which ridicule political conditions, and those aimed at individual characters. These variations of the art of satire form a fascinating study, and to one interested in the subject, this small collection of representative satires can be merely a series of guide-posts. It is the compiler''s regret that a great mass of material is necessarily omitted for lack of space; other selections are discarded because of their present untimeliness, which deprives them of their intrinsic interest. But an endeavour has been made to represent the greatest and best satiric writers, and also to include at least extracts from the masterpieces of satire. It is often asked why we have no satire at the present day. Many answers have been given, but one reason is doubtless to be found in the acceleration of the pace of life; fads and foibles follow one another so quickly, that we have time neither to write nor read satiric disquisitions upon them. Another reason lies in the fact that we have achieved a broader and more tolerant human outlook. Again, the true satirist must he possessed of earnestness and sincerity. And it is a question whether the mental atmosphere of the twentieth century tends to stimulate and foster those qualities. These explanations, however, seem to apply to American writers more especially than to English. The leisurely thinking Briton, with his more personal viewpoint, has produced, and is even now producing, satires marked by strength....

Satirists are social critics, but they are also products of society. Horace, Persius, and Juvenal, the verse satirists of ancient Rome, exploit this double identity to produce their colorful commentaries on social life and behavior. In a fresh comparative study that combines literary and cultural analysis, Catherine Keane reveals how the satirists create such a vivid and incisive portrayal of the Roman social world. Throughout the tradition, the narrating satirist figure does not observe human behavior from a distance, but adopts a range of charged social roles to gain access to his subject matter. In his mission to entertain and moralize, he poses alternately as a theatrical performer and a spectator, a perpetrator and victim of violence, a jurist and criminal, a teacher and student. In these roles the satirist conducts penetrating analyses of Rome's definitive social practices "from the inside." Satire's reputation as the quintessential Roman genre is thus even more justified than previously recognized. As literary artists and social commentators, the satirists rival the grandest authors of the classical canon. They teach their ancient and modern readers two important lessons. First, satire reveals the inherent fragilities and complications, as well as acknowledging the benefits, of Roman society's most treasured institutions. The satiric perspective deepens our understanding of Roman ideologies and their fault lines. As the poets show, no system of judgment, punishment, entertainment, or social organization is without its flaws and failures. At the same time, readers are encouraged to view the satiric genre itself as a composite of these systems, loaded with cultural meaning and highly imperfect. The satirist who functions as both subject and critic trains his readers to develop a critical perspective on every kind of authority, including his own.

In this first comprehensive reading of Juvenal’s satires in more than fifty years, David H. J. Larmour deftly revises and sharpens our understanding of the second-century Roman writer who stands as the archetype for all later practitioners of the satirist’s art. The enduring attraction of Juvenal’s satires is twofold: they not only introduce the character of the “angry satirist” but also offer vivid descriptions of everyday life in Rome at the height of the Empire. In Larmour’s interpretation, these two elements are inextricably linked. The Arena of Satire presents the satirist as flaneur traversing the streets of Rome in search of its authentic core—those distinctly Roman virtues that have disappeared amid the corruption of the age. What the vengeful, punishing satirist does to his victims, as Larmour shows, echoes what the Roman state did to outcasts and criminals in the arena of the Colosseum. The fact that the arena was the most prominent building in the city and is mentioned frequently by Juvenal makes it an ideal lens through which to examine the spectacular and punishing characteristics of Roman satire. And the fact that Juvenal undertakes his search for the uncorrupted, authentic Rome within the very buildings and landmarks that make up the actual, corrupt Rome of his day gives his sixteen satires their uniquely paradoxical and contradictory nature. Larmour’s exploration of “the arena of satire” guides us through Juvenal’s search for the true Rome, winding from one poem to the next. He combines close readings of passages from individual satires with discussions of Juvenal’s representation of Roman space and topography, the nature of the “arena” experience, and the network of connections among the satirist, the gladiator, and the editor—or producer—of Colosseum entertainments. The Arena of Satire also offers a new definition of “Juvenalian satire” as a particular form arising from the intersection of the body and the urban landscape—a form whose defining features survive in the works of several later satirists, from Jonathan Swift and Evelyn Waugh to contemporary writers such as Russian novelist Victor Pelevin and Irish dramatist Martin McDonagh.

This volume demonstrates that distinctive features of Roman satire found in the writings of Lucilius, Horace, and Persius derived from Greek Old Comedy.