ENGLISH VERSE SATIRE IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

 

I. Satyasree

 

While most of the literary labels – drama, epic, lyric, ode—are Greek, the term Satire is a Latin word.  Satire may be defined as an attempt to show disgust by exposing the ridiculous and the contemptible.

 

Though its flicker is seen even at the beginning of literature, Satire has become an effective weapon only in the later stages of civilisation, with the over-abundance of injuries.  In his preface to “Absalom and Achitophel” John Dryden, the well-known satirical poet of 18th Century sets forth the true end of satire as “amendment of vices by correction”.  To Alexander Pope, another great satirist, it is a sacred weapon in truth’s defence; and it heals with morals what it hurts with wit.  We may safely assume that satire is a mixture of laughter and rebuke.  Satire implies an accepted norm of behaviour, the departure from which calls forth criticism.  In all the great satirists like Swift, Pope and Horace, there is always present the fire of indignation which burns away human foibles and vices.  Thus satire is but an indignant and veiled protest against evils rampant in social behaviour, human nature or institutions.

 

Satire spreads over all branches of literature.  Moliere, Aristophanes and Bernard Shaw are satirists in drama.  Lucian, Swift and Cervantes are prose satirists.  Perfect and excellent satire implies an artistic restraint and a balance of mind which elevate the subject to the sublime heights.  If roughly or coarsely handled, it borders on invective and degenerates into lampoon.  The idea of folly and roguery should be suggested without calling people fools and rogues.  Geniality and laughing irony give to the razor a sharp edge.  Otherwise it becomes a bludgeon and crudely slaughters the victim instead of slaying him.  Satire should be a surgeon’s scalpel but not a butcher’s knife.

 

Formal satire was brought to flower in Augustan Rome, when Horace, Persius and Juvenal castigated human weaknesses and social ills.  The neo-classic formula of wit and judgement in right balance is applicable to the art of satire.  That is why, satire flourished in the age of Dryden and Pope, who lifted it to the sublime.  In the 19th Century, naturally satire declined and disappeared, because the dominant notes of the age were romance and sentiment.

 

Satire especially in verse was at its zenith in the France of Louis XIV and the England of Dryden and Pope.  With Dryden, satire occupied a merited niche in the temple of English Letters.  English verse satire became the most powerful literary instrument with the publication of “Absalom and Achitophel”—the deadliest document in the history of English Literature unequalled in power and unrelenting in purpose.  The events dealt in this poem are the events that ushered in the constitutional monarchy and the party system of government in England – Whigs and Tories.  Satire became a prime factor of propaganda in the realm of politics.

 

In “Absalom and Achitophel” Dryden used the Biblical analogy for describing contemporary events.  It was a common practice in the 17th Century.  In the following lines Dryden describes the evil qualities of Achitophel as a statesman, and the ambitious ways he followed to rule or ruin the state:

 

“To compass this Triple Bond he broke,

The pillars of the public safety shook,

And filled Israel for a foreign yoke”

(LI-174-176)

 

But as a real off-set there follows the passage praising the upright judge in Achitophel—

 

“Yet fame deserved no enemy can grudge; The statesman we abhor, but praise the judge. In Israel’s Courts ne’er sat an Abbethdin with more discerning eyes or hands more clean, unbridled, unsought, the wretched redress”. (L1.186-190)

 

In his ‘Medal’ another poem of vigour and virulence Dryden attacked his political adversaries like Shadwell and Settle, in almost scurrilous terms.  The couplets have a sonorous ring and an epigrammatic terseness in them. “Mac Flecknoe” however is a satire of the personal type.  In this poem, Shadwell is enthroned as the monarch of dullness, never “deviating into sense”.  Though it is a personal attack, such dullness is always present in society and to this extent strikes a universal note.

 

Most satirists generally attack either types or else individuals.  Pope’s greatest works are satirical concerning the contemporary spirit. His “Rape of the Lock” gives an amusing castigation of social vices in a mock-heroic spirit.  His “Epistles” are supremely satirical from the angle of vision which is a peculiar blend of critical amusement and fascinated interest.

 

Alexander Pope sometimes lost self-control in his castigation of his enemies.  His satire often grew bitter and ruthless.  He poured forth his vials of contempt on the poor and contemptible poets of the “Grub Street”.  He was fed up with the madness of these poetasters and criticises them in his “Epistle to Dr.Arbuthnot - -

 

“Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand,

They rave, recite and madden round the land”. 

The nature of their needs is revealed in “Happy

to catch me, just at Dinner - time”.

 

His satires showed his personal littleness and meanness sometimes.  But throughout his satire flowed the genuine current of sincerity.  His fiery indignation gave to his work intensity, one of the qualities of good literature.  One of the celebrated passages in the “Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot” is the Atticus passage, satirising Addison.  Pope disliked Addison’s patronizing attitude and attacked him in the following way—

 

“We have, it seems, a great Turk in poetry, who can never bear a brother on the throne; and his mutes too, a set of nodders, winkers, and whisperers, whose business is to strangle all other off springs of wit in their birth;"

 

Pope refers to Lord Hervey as Sporus and condemns him in these lines—-

 

“Let Sporus tremble –” What? that thing of silk, Sporus, that mere white curd of Ass’s Milk ? Eves’ Tempter thus the Rabbins have exprest, A cherub’s face, a Reptile all the rest; Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will trust, Wit that can creep and pride that licks the dust”.

 

There is no other caricature in the whole of English Literature as contemptible, loathsome and repugnant as that of Sporus.  Thus 18th Century verse satire, held upto ridicule the seamy side of life and the vulnerable aspects of the social fabric.  All things taken into account, satire needs an appearance of reality, a thought of sympathy and geniality in order to be powerful and hit the bull’s eye.  Like the worm of Nilus (in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra) it “Kills but does not hurt”.

 

In my opinion India needs today this kind of satiric poetry.  In view of the corruption and decline in moral standards in our political and social life, our poets who write in Indian languages should try to make verse-satire a people’s weapon to castigate the social ills and political malpractices.  There are a few satires no doubt.  But there is need for more.  Poetry has the power to cleanse the society and the politics of their rooted evils.

 

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