English Satire: the Great Works of 18th Century. Essay Example
English Satire: the great works of 18th century.
Before the beginning at least a brief definition of satire should be given. What is satire? It is a genre of literature, in particular, which uses an entire arsenal of various comic means, like sarcasm, irony, hyperbole, grotesque, parody etc. in the aim of criticising someone, pushing individuals or the society as a whole to improvement. To add for the further understanding, satirical literature may be classified on the basis of the degree of the sharpness of its criticism and spite of its humour: Horatian, which is milder, and Juvenalian, which, on the contrary, is rude and keen.(Anonymous, 2010)
Moving closely to the topic, the following question should be stated. How do the greatest English satiric works of 18th look like? Firstly, many authors who wrote about this topic concur in opinion that the famous works of Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift are perfect examples to show the features of English satire of that time. Furthermore, their works represent both Horatian and Juvenalian styles.
Swifts A Modest Proposal is “a quintessential Juvenalian satire” (Szwec, 2011) of a pure Juvenalian style. This text was written in 1729, when Ireland was almost literally wasted up and suppressed by the British Empire, which wasn’t bothered at any degree by the state of Irish population. Such ignorance of British government gave a motive and an inspiration for Swift to write his harsh and satirical proposal written as by the lord to force them to change their minds. His detailed case for his proposal and “deep research” into the problem of poverty:
“There only remain an hundred and twenty thousand children of poor parents annually born.... For we can neither employ them in handicraft or agriculture...”(Swift, 1729)
“Fourthly, the constant breeders, besides the gain of eight shillings sterling per annum by the sale of their children, will be rid of the charge of maintaining them after the first year.”(Swift, 1729)
This
Before the beginning at least a brief definition of satire should be given. What is satire? It is a genre of literature, in particular, which uses an entire arsenal of various comic means, like sarcasm, irony, hyperbole, grotesque, parody etc. in the aim of criticising someone, pushing individuals or the society as a whole to improvement. To add for the further understanding, satirical literature may be classified on the basis of the degree of the sharpness of its criticism and spite of its humour: Horatian, which is milder, and Juvenalian, which, on the contrary, is rude and keen.(Anonymous, 2010)
Moving closely to the topic, the following question should be stated. How do the greatest English satiric works of 18th look like? Firstly, many authors who wrote about this topic concur in opinion that the famous works of Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift are perfect examples to show the features of English satire of that time. Furthermore, their works represent both Horatian and Juvenalian styles.
Swifts A Modest Proposal is “a quintessential Juvenalian satire” (Szwec, 2011) of a pure Juvenalian style. This text was written in 1729, when Ireland was almost literally wasted up and suppressed by the British Empire, which wasn’t bothered at any degree by the state of Irish population. Such ignorance of British government gave a motive and an inspiration for Swift to write his harsh and satirical proposal written as by the lord to force them to change their minds. His detailed case for his proposal and “deep research” into the problem of poverty:
“There only remain an hundred and twenty thousand children of poor parents annually born.... For we can neither employ them in handicraft or agriculture...”(Swift, 1729)
“Fourthly, the constant breeders, besides the gain of eight shillings sterling per annum by the sale of their children, will be rid of the charge of maintaining them after the first year.”(Swift, 1729)
This