11 - The evolution of Tudor satire

Summary

It is hard, said the poet Juvenal as he looked around Nero's Rome, not to write satire (Satires i.i). But what is “satire”? Sometimes a form, often a mode, it can double as diatribe, sermon, parody, joke, Utopia, dystopia, epistle, or novel; its tone ranges from fury to faint irony, anguish to amusement. Is it, then, discourse with attitude? Any sendup or putdown? It must be more than irritability or grief, and that “more” is often some fantasy, conceit, myth, invention, or persona. Like allegory, it thrives in a fallen world of ambiguous signs, Augustine's “land of unlikeness.” Not all Tudor writers explore a deconstructionist's “differance,” but some adopt a distance or difference - fiction - that distinguishes their work from lament, polemic, or sermon. When such work holds something up to amused or scornful scrutiny, and at some length, the result is satire.