Horatian or Juvenalian: That Is the Question
Sunday, July 17, 2005, 10:30-11:45
(Sharon Johnston – sharonj@spokaneschools.org)
“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.” – Jonathan Swift
“Satire’s my weapon, but I’m too discreet
To run amuck, and tilt at all I meet;” – Alexander Pope
Essential Questions:
- How successful are students in recognizing satire?
- How do we engage students in the study of satire?
How successful are students in recognizing satire?
- 2005 Onion question – According to a table leader on the question, over 50% of the students did not recognize satire (despite prompt supplying cues)
- clues: mock essay; pub devoted to humour and satire; strategies used to satirize
- where does it fit on range of satire continuum? rationale?
- Horatian (gentle) à “tell the truth with a smile”
- Juvenalian (bitter) à “bitter, ironical”
How do we engage students in the study of satire?
- study satirical devices and identify them in literature
- imitate Swift (write a satire)
- read and interpret satire, including contemporary examples and video/media forms
- analyse POV and determine if satire is gentle or bitter, Horatian or Juvenalian
- writing letters to the editor
- Letters from a Nut – Ted Nancy (Jerry Seinfeld); The Lazlo Letters – Lazlo Toth
- mock process (how-to) essays
- view satirical reviews posted by users of Amazon.com (e.g. of David Hasselhoff’s CD)
- analyze editorial/political cartoons
- satire debate – whatever the premise, the teams must argue the opposite side and the class must determine what the actual arguments are
- teaching 18th C as the era or satire
- parodies of poetry – Prairie Home Companion script parodying William Carlos Williams
- drama – Importance of Being Earnest, etc.
Horatian or Juvenalian
- where it falls on the continuum depends on how you feel about the issue – the idea is less to be “right” than to justify how it elicits reaction
- target of satire often determines how biting satire will be
- anytime the student can identify satire, they realize it is “medicine” for the target – what kind of medicine is it à sugar-coated or bitter?
Classroom activity
- identify the target of the satire, devices used, POV (type of satire)
- place on continuum (only one possible placement?) – provide range to give opportunities for discrimination of degrees
- articulate rationale
Handout One: Horatian or Juvenalian, That is the Question
AP National Conference 2005
Sharon Johnson, Ed.D.
sharonj@spokaneschools.org
Horace (b. 65 B.C., d. 8 B.C.) followed Lucilius in using hexameters to ridicule folly and bad taste, and produced the ‘Sermones’ (30 B.C.), two books of discourses, conversational in style, humorous and urbane, dealing with a variety of subjects. These included incidents in the life of the poet, the follies and vices of mankind and his own poetical methods. Horace is particularly admired for his ability to “ridentem dicere verum” (“to tell the truth with a smile”), and his poems usually appear to pass gentle comment on the failings of mankind, rather than dealing with these faults with malice.
Juvenal (b. A.D. 60-70) published his 16 Satires in five books in the second and third decades of the 2nd century A.D., during the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian. Although Juvenal claims Horace and Lucilius as his masters, his poetry has none of their gentle humor. His Satires are notable for their bitter ironical humor, power of invective, grim epigram, sympathy with the poor and narrow-minded pessimism, whilst he attacks the rich and condemns the female sex. His linguistic register alternates violently between the elevated and the low.
Range of Satire Continuum
HORATIAN ………………………………………………………….. JUVENALIAN
(gentle) (bitter)
ATTACK – DIRECT …………………………………………… INDIRECT
(little or no ironic diction) (much ironic diction)
TARGET – TOPICAL …………………………………………… UNIVERSAL
(short-lived, current) (long lived)
(Above notes and chart adapted from Florida Virtual School’s AP Literature and Composition)
“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.” – Swift, Jonathan
Suggested websites:
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/satire Resources for Satire Study
http://andromega.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Biblio/satirebib.html Jack Lynch/Satire Bibliography
http://www.borowitzreport.com/ Andy Borowitz-Winner of National Press Humor Award
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/rogers_w.html PBS American Masters
http://www.cagle.com/ Political cartoons
http:///scottwitt.net/ Scott Witt
Handout Two: Classroom activity
- Identify the target of the satire
- Identify the satirical devices the author uses
- Identify the type of satire used by the author; place the quotation on the Satire Continuum
“They dream in courtship, but in wedlock wake.” Alexander Pope
“Wherefore being all of one mind, we do highly resolve that government of the grafted by the grafter for the grafter shall not perish from the earth.” Mark Twain
“All human race would fain be wits, And millions miss for one that hits. Young’s Universal Passion, pride, Was never known to spread so wide. Say, Britain, could you ever baost Three poets in an age at most? Our chilling climate hardly bears A sprig of bays in fifty years; While every fool his claim alleges, As if it grew in common hedges. What reason can there be assigned For this perverseness in the mind? Brutes find out where their talents lie: A bear will not attempt to fly; . . . But man we find the only creature, Who, led by folly, combats nature; Who, when she loudly cries, Forbear, With obstinacy fixes there; And, where his genius least inclines, Absurdly bends his whole designs.” Jonathan Swift
“How come when I’m standing in front of a full-length mirror with nothing on but socks, white socks look OK, but dark-colored socks make me look cheap and sleazy?”
This letter was passed along to me by my Research Department, Judi Smith, who attached a yellow stick-on note that says: “This is true.” Judi did not say how she happens to know it’s true; apparently – and I’m sure there’s a perfectly innocent explanation – she has seen John Cog of Norfolk, Va., wearing nothing but socks.
But the point is that dark socks, as a lone fashion accessory, create a poor impression. This is a known fact that has been verified in scientific experiments wherein fashion researchers put little white socks on one set of naked laboratory rats, and dark socks on another, then exposed both groups to a panel of leading business executives such as Bill Gates, who indicated that they would be “somewhat more likely” to hire from the white-sock group, should their personnel needs ever include a rat.
What this means, men, is that if you’re dressing for an important job interview, church supper, meeting with my Research Department or other occasion where you could wind up wearing nothing but socks, they should be white. Dave Barry
“NBA players had to agree to four random drug tests per year, up from the current one per year. The owners wanted more tests, but it wasn’t possible because of their promise to notify players three months before each random test.” Scott Witt
“In other words, a war that could destroy the global order and cast a region of the earth into chaos was discussed for about as much time as it takes Lenscrafters to make a pair of bifocals.”
Quip about a one-hour meeting President Bush had with England and Spain in March 2003 about war in Iraq. Jon St
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