Satire Essay

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Satire

Satire is unpolished verse. The main aim of satire is to ridicule folly or vice. It provokes laughter and keeps the reader in good humour. Swift’s Gulliver’s Travel and Pope’s Rape of the Lock are satires. According to Dryden the true end of satire is the “amendment of vices by correction”. Some of the famous satires in English poetry are

Dryden’s – Mac Flecknoe

Butler’s – Hudibras

Pope’s – Dunciad

In Mac Flecknoe, Dryden attacks Shadwell, a former friend turned enemy.

Essentials of a Good Satire

Satire is an attack on social evil or folly or a person or a group of persons. It is intended to mock at or ridicule not to abuse. It hates sin and not the sinner. Pope’s satires are “waspish, venomous, malignant”. Satire should be forceful and outspoken.

Subjects of the satire

Each ages had its vices and follies to ridicule. The satire mirrors out the contemporary follies and foibles. For eg. During 14th century Chaucer and Langland attacked corruption in the church. The Elizabethans had their own subject of satire.

The satires of Dryden and Pope are more personal. It was an age of artificiality and bitter political rivalry. There was plenty of food for satire.

Victorian era is not considered a great period of verse satire. Personal attacks have gone out of fashion, but social conditions, offer countless subjects to the satirist.

 

 

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