Satire is of course found in both poetry and prose. It has no
set literary form. A verse satire may be written as an ode, an elegy, a ballad
or anything else. The satire as a mode of writing is of classical origin. Its
chief exponent in Latin literature is Horace, Persius and Juvenal who were
imitated all over Europe during and after Renaissance. They set the model for
Elizabethan and Augustan Satire in England. Etymologically a satire is
unpolished verse and this has been characteristic of it in English literature.
It may be defined as a literary composition whose principal aim is to ridicule
folly or vice. It is a light form of composition, intended to keep the reader
in a good humor even when it is at its most caustic. According to Dryden, “The True end of satire is the amendment of vices by
correction.” Without humor satire is Invective; without literary form it
is mere clownish jeering. The two essential elements of literary satire are
criticism of the ridiculous or the disgusting and humor. The art of a satirist
is an exercise of the intellect rather than of the imagination. We can say the
satirical temperament is a fusion of the critical and the humorist. If we
compare Shakespeare and Swift, we find Shakespeare is moved by a spirit of
sympathy and appreciation while Swift is driven by an intellectual force, a
spirit of savage anger and destruction. Shakespeare is not a satirist, despite
his occasional palpable hits: Swift is the most devastating of Satirists. Each
gives the truth as he sees it. a number of special features distinguished
satire from humor. A person who laughs at himself cannot be a satirist. The
satirist has all his fun at the expense of others. His attempt and aim is to
prove that he himself is superior to others whose faults he makes object/subject
of his satire. There is less contempt in satire than in irony. The laughter
produced by satire is not altogether unadulterated. The satirist disassociates
himself completely from his victim.
In the 18th century satire was on full-scale.
Alexander Pope had the command over the technique of Satire. His poetic
criticism of life was simply and solely through heroic couplet. Pope carried
the couplet to its subtlest refinement. A patient and sensitive artist
excelling in the miniature, he gave the couplet a flawless elegance and
developed the stinging quality which made it the perfect weapon for his
malicious satire. His couplet is more epigrammatic and mere isolated a unit
than Dryden’s, yet by richly varying its texture, he avoided much of the monotony
inherent in the use of so narrow a verse form. Pope is at his best when
satirizing the individuals. He was physically deformed and his lifelong disease
acutely vain and sensitive, he was tortured by any slight, real or suspected.
He hated passionately and assailed unjustly and spitefully all who has roused
his animosity. He is less discriminating than Dryden and lacks his skill in
developing a portrait. In place of Dryden’s masculine force, Pope has an
exquisite pungency, a quality in which he is unrivalled. The Rape of the Lock
is his most famous social satire. It is the best mock heroic in English verse.
The poem has a beauty, light and glittering like that of the sylphs themselves.
While the Dunciad, Pope’s most ambitious satire wa suggested by Mac Flecknoe,
the tone of the satire shows the influence of Swift, one of Pope’s close
friends. It is an onslaught on the tribe of dunces and on dullness itself,
covering a wide field of personal and general satire. It is brutal and unjust
to many besides Cibber, who figures as the hero. It is in the Moral Essays and
particularly in Satires and Epistles that Pope’s brilliance spitefulness in
satirical portraiture are fully developed. The finest of Pope’s Epistles is
Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, now called Prologue to the Satires. Here Pope
explaining his satirical aims shows himself as he wished others to see him. In
this work he is at his happiest in the familiar style. Here is his tenderness
in the lines on his mother and his venom in the attacks on Atticus, Bufo and
Sporus : the portrait of Addison is his discriminating. In satires and
epistles, Pope’s lucid, pointed writing is at its best. Aiming at correctness,
he had made himself the most correct of poets.
In the spheres of prose, satire flourished in the 18th
century. Defoe’s chief prose satire is ‘The Shortest Way with the Dissenters’,
an attack on tolerance which led to his arrest. With his verse satire ‘The
Trueborn Englishman’, he was more fortunate, the work enjoying great
popularity. Arbuthnot’s satire is far more genial than that of his friend. His
art of political lying is another clever and amusing satire. Swift is the
greatest English satirist. Unlike Pope, he restricts himself to general rather
than personal attacks and his work has a cosmic elemental force which is
irresistible and at times almost frightening. He is never destructive in his
works. Always underlying his work is the desire for the greater use of common
sense and reason in the ordering of human affairs. Often the satire is cruel
and violent and sometimes it is coarse and repulsive, perhaps the result of his
own physical disabilities and his keen disappointment at his failure to gain
the preferment which he felt himself to have merited. Gulliver’s travels
illustrate Swift’s skill in dramatizing his ideas, his fertile imagination,
humor and his clear and masculine style. It is his most pleasing work and at
the same time his most complete satire. As a masterpiece of intellect, A Tale
of Tub is however superior. Superstition and fanaticism in religion Pride and
pedantry are assailed with such inventive skill, penetrating wit, irony and
humor that no critic has been able to do more than echo Swift’s judgment on
rereading the work in later life. His chief characteristic is the sustained use
of irony, irony which is unequalled in intensity. It is quietness, lucidity and
coherence which make his satire so telling. An argument against abolishing
Christianity is one of the best examples of his use of irony. In this era, two
great satirists Addison and Steele at once deserve the attention of the reader.
Addison contributed more than Steele in literary works.
Politics , religion and literature came within the essayists field but their
particular purpose was the raising of moral and social standards. They
ridiculed the follies of beaux and coquettes, reproved extravagances,
coarseness and self indulgence recommended cheerful and considerate behavior.
Their social satire was effective based on good sense and taste, it is keen and
firm but always genial and dignified and though generalized is skillfully
pointed by the invention of story and character. The didactic elements are
always controlled by the artistic. Steele is the more spontaneous and vigorous
writer, the more lovable man. Addison the more restrained and cultured, the
greater artist. Though Addison is less chivalrous than Steele in his attitude
to woman , both essayists realise the need to raise the position of woman in
society. The aim of Steele’s essays was frankly didactic, he decided to bring about
a reformation of contemporary society – manners and is notable for his
consistent advocacy of womanly virtue and the ideal of the gentlemen of
courtesy , chivalry and good taste. He is full of human sympathy and his essays
on children are charming. Henry fielding is the first satirical novelist in English
literature. In Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones he adopts the vein of the mock
epic, but these novels are more than satires. In his verse satire London and
The Vanity of Human Wishes, Dr. Samuel Johnson took up the form of classical
imitation of which Pope was a master. He comes closer to Juvenal than any other
English Satirist. The Vanity of Human Wishes is the freer adaptation and the
mature poem. Johnson expresses the philosophy of a moralist who had himself
suffered the lot of poetry and ill health, with measured gravity and sonorous
declamation. Goldsmith’s chief satirical work is The Citizen of the world, a
series of essays in the form of letters.
The essays are akin to those of Addison. His satire is shrewd
but always humane. Goldsmith’s range is wider than Addison’s less restricted to
the manners of the day; his humorous commentary reaches out to literature, the theater,
the clergy, the laws and political ideals. He fills his essays with odd and
amusing figures and though developing none so fully as Addison. His style is
easy and lucid, an admirable medium for light criticism. Churchill is the chief
satirist in verse between Pope and Byron. He has vigorous sense and rough humor;
he hits hard and steadily in strong verse. His model is Dryden, but of Dryden’s
Olympian contempt he has none. Churchill is burly and fierce and he is not a
spiteful satirist. The Prophecy of Famine is his best satirical work.
Artistically, satire rises in so far as it is true, balanced
and significant. The satirist must be sincere, keenly perceptive,
discriminating and controlled. He fails when emotions cloud his intellect, he
must express his satirical passion logically and coolly, if it is to be
significant. Satire is by nature practical. It reaches its highest sustained
levels in an age when romance is discounted. Satire is no place for
sensuousness and high imaginings but wit and humor and irony, all the devices
of mockery are here in abundance. The vein of satire maybe boisterous, impudent
and caustic; contemptuous, well-bred and cultured. The great satires are great
achievements in a rich field. Nor will satire disappear while man is imperfect.
Today conditions are less favorable for the production of great satire than
those which prevailed in the days of Dryden, Swift and Pope: Values are less
stable. But the field is worked by many including Shaw, Eliot, Huxley and
Lewis.
Poetic satire might very properly be considered as didactic
poetry, because the object it keeps in view is the reformation of men and
manners and to this end, the satirist takes liberty of boldly censuring vice
and vicious character. In Roman literature, Juvenal and Horace are the most
famous satirists. The former’s satire is pointed; it is full of force, yet not
savage. The fierce indignation of Juvenal’s censure and ridicule has a parallel
in that of swift in English literature; only the latter is a prose satirist.
Horace’s irony is more graceful and tolerant. He chides with a smile. His
manner might be compared with that of Addison in the Spectator papers. Metrical
writing brings no access of poetic enthusiasm and rarely does the satirist touch
the heights. But verse has solid virtues; it encourages concentration and force
lending itself to epigram, whereby the satirist may sharpen his sting and drive
home his mockery. Anger and vivacity are conveyed in the rush and rattle of
verse in a manner impossible to sustain in prose.
(Notes made from Book : Quintessence of Literary Essays :
Goodman)
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