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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2016
Everyone thinks they know what satire is, or, at least, what is meant by ‘satire’. But this knowledge is a dangerous thing. It conceals the fact that the term ‘satire’ has two meanings. For us, it denotes a tone of voice which may occur in virtually any form – a novel, a letter, a play, a cartoon, a comic sketch. But for the Romans it denoted a specific form of literature, the two literary genres of satire, Roman verse satire and prose ‘Menippean’ satire. Strict rules governed the form and content of these literary genres; these rules emerge from the study of the satires which survive. Yet both genres are recognizable as satire and it is clear that modern theories about the origin and nature of satire apply with equal validity to Roman satire. In this introduction I shall attempt to present a few of the most significant of the modern approaches to satire.
1. On the two meanings of ‘satire’ and for an illuminating essay on the nature of satire see Frye (1944).
2. A good example is Martyn (1979), a study of Juvenal’s wit.
3. Elliott (1960).
4. Richlin (1984), 67.
5. On this ambivalence see Kernan (1959), pp. 22-8.
6. There are several useful discussions of the persona, including Kernan (1959), pp. 14-30 and on Roman satire Anderson 1982), pp. 3-10, Dessen (1968), pp. 6-9.
7. Hodgart (1969), p. 129 ‘satire is an urban art’, pp. 135-7, Kernan (1959) pp. 7-14, Braund (1989), pp. 23-6.
8. On the centrality of entertainment see Hodgart (1969), p. 12. For an example drawn from Juvenal Salire 3 see Braund (1989), pp. 34-6.
9. The characteristic Latin word is sermones or sermo, used by Lucilius (e.g. 1039 W = 1039 M, 1085 W = 1015 M, 1086 W = 1016 M) and Horace (e.g. Sai. 1.4.42, Ep. II.1.250, II.2.60), cf. Persius 5.14-15.
10. The classic example is Juvenal’s use of the phrase ‘my volume’s hotch-potch’ (farrago libelli) at 1.86 which may seem to imply a random miscellany. For interpretation of the phrase see Cloud & Braund (1982), pp. 78-9.
11. See Zetzel (1980) on Horace’s first book of Satires and Cloud & Braund (1982) on Juvenal Book I.
12. Thus Classen (1988) describes it as ‘the elusive genre’ and suggests (114) that its central characteristic is variety, varíelas, of forms, contents, and purposes.
13. See Hodgart (1969), pp. 30-2 on the centrality of travesty to satire.
14. Feinberg (1963), p. 7.
15. Frye (1957), pp. 224-5 takes a similar view: ‘Two things... are essential to satire; one is wit or humor founded on fantasy or a sense of the grotesque or absurd, the other is an object of attack. Attack without humor, or pure denunciation, forms one of the boundaries of satire.... The humor of pure fantasy [is] the other boundary of satire.’