Satire

The object of the satire is to ridicule its subject (individuals, organizations, States etc…), often in the intention to cause or prevent a change. One generally allots the paternity of this literary kind ( saturated , i.e. “ pot-rotted ”) to the poet and to antiquated playwright Latin Lucilius third century BC

The literary kind

According to the the Petit Robert, the modern direction and current are: “Written, speech which attacks something, with somebody, while making fun about it”.

There exist several types of satire:

  • the reduction reduces the size of something in order to make it appear ridiculous or of being able to examine it in detail and to thus expose its defects.
  • the exaggeration is a common technique of satire where a real situation is taken and one exaggerates it at a point such as it becomes ridiculous. The Caricature is attached to this technique.
  • the juxtaposition compares unequal things of importance, which brings the unit to the level of less importance.
  • the parody imitates the techniques and the style of a person, a place or a thing in order to ridicule it.

On the other hand, contrary to this large variety of topics, of subjects and of let us tons, the Latin modern satire (Lucilius) is defined from a formal point of view by the use of the Hexamètre.

Origin

One lengthily discussed the origin of the satire. The Humanistic critic of the Rebirth, lasting nearly one century and half, believed that the satire was originating in the Greek drama satyric, whereas it of it is nothing. Like Quintilien writes it (X, 1,9): “ saturated tota will nostra is ”, the satire is well a Latin creation whose definition itself one “pot-is rotted”, in other words a kind which is characterized by its flexibility: subject, your, rate/rhythm, length.

Greek origin?

If such a diagram of filiation is too simple, it remains that many Greek texts have already the main part of the characteristics of the Latin satire. One can in particular read the Margitès allotted to Homère, parody of the epopee, or the portrait of Socrate in “ the Clouds ” of Aristophane (v.218-234), which does not have anything to envy the satirical portraits of the republican time.

However, one allots the paternity of the satire to the Greek poet Archiloque de Paros . This wire of freed slave, very poor was very proud of its origins. It is told that this pride was the cause of its first poem. Indeed, he was promised of an young girl of the name of Néoboulé, whose father cancelled the marriage at a few feastdays, having found a better party for his daughter. Archiloque was so much insult which he wrote the first satire in a new poetic meter: the iambe. It is told that the father of Néoboulé as his/her daughter hung herself after having heard this very virulent poem. The legend also wants that the people aimed by Archiloque contracted skin diseases.

Moreover, to counter Quintilien referred to above, Horace affirmed that it was the first to adapt to the Latin language the ïambe of Paros. Thus the satire is really Greek and not Roman.

A Latin literary kind

The satire is typical Latin Littérature, even if the writers do not have exclusiveness in it: she experienced in Rome a strong development, including institutional (cf the satirical worms pronounced by the Légionnaire S bound for their general: Suétone, Life of César , 49.51.52 for example).

“ Satura ” with Latin means kind of macedoine, one “pot-rotted”; in other words, the satire is characterized by its flexibility: subject, your, rate/rhythm, length. And in fact, one finds of very under the term satire : “ Sermonize ” Horace with the “ Satires ” of Perse or of Juvénal, some “ Carmina ” Catulle, the “ Épigrammes ” of Martial, but still many passages of Sénèque (for example the passage on the embarrassments of Rome, in the “ Lettres in Lucilius ” VI, 56), etc the concept of kind is thus partially inadequate, and it would perhaps then be necessary to speak then about register .

The satire, as a literary Genre codified, of which one allots creation to Lucilius (of the work of which there remain only fragments), appeared to the II E at the Latin S.

The principal authors of satire of Antiquity are:

  • Lucilius, which one has many fragments and to which many poets refer (in particular Horace).
  • Varron, author of Satires Ménippées , standard private individual of recognizable satire to his mixture of worms and prose, and explicitly placed from the point of view of a Greek heritage, since they refer to Ménippe de Gadara, Greek Cynique of IIe century before our era.
  • Horace which, by its Sermonize ( Conversations ), will make satire a pleasant kind intersecting its some criticisms with sentences.
  • Persian, more obscure poet, influenced by the Stoicism.
  • Sénèque the Young person who enamels his texts of moral Philosophie of prickly anecdotes and properly satirists. He is also probably the author of a ménippée satire: “ Apocoloquintose of the divine Claude ”.
  • Juvénal which will make culminate the violence of the remarks, the satirical bile, the personal judgment with its apogee attacking the company in all its defects: Tyranny, perversities female, superstitions, privileges…

Among Celts

The companies Celtes thought that the satires of the bards S had a physical effect similar to a fate (see Glam dicinn).

Posterity

Late antiquity

The kind dies out apparently in Rome after Apulée, although the Greek Lucien de Samosate still takes again in IIe century the Latin example on his account.

The Middle Ages and Rebirth

If one excludes the Romance of Renart, the regular satire disappears during the medieval period.

It will reappear in Italy only during after the republication of the Latin satirists. Then, the kind is then a broad success and will inspire by many authors:

Does the satire find in France its final realization (???) at Nicolas Boileau. In spite of the success of Voltaire, it is erased gradually during as a great literary kind with the detriment of the Parodie, to standardize itself in the written press.

Media

  • Television:
    • to see satirical emission

See too

Internal bonds

  • Caricatures of Mahomet of the newspaper Jyllands-Posten

External bonds

  • Approach of satirical and satyric poetry to the Rebirth and the traditional age

Simple: Satire

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