Abstract
Literary scholars use various methods to undermine and reject explicit declarations of the Roman verse satire. This paper argues that not only do these scholars develop some strategies to avoid facing uncomfortable messages, but that the satirical text also offers an opportunity to subvert its own utterances. Although the dialogic nature of literature (and language in general) always offers opportunities for subversive interpretations that refuse to accept the proclaimed ideas at face value, the satirical text has a special feature, since it tends to say what it says with some ambiguity. The paper calls this the betrayal of the satirical text, which through the very act of (humorous) textualization opens the gates for opposing or subverting interpretations. The second part of the paper analyses Satires 1.7 by Horace, underscoring how various implications of the poetic discourse create opportunities to undermine the proffered ideas. A text that seems to try to stabilize Roman elite identity may lead to a retracing of the boundaries between Romans and aliens, the elite and the pariahs.
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Notes
For the theatrical (aspect, theme, character, topic?) in the satire see especially Keane (2006), pp. 13–41.
It must be emphasised that we are only making use of Frye's terminology, while in his analysis of “the mythos of winter: irony and satire” the option of the satirist as an alazon never appears, while he mentions that alazons are frequently attacked in and by satires: “the satirist may employ a plain, common-sense, conventional person as a foil for the various alazons of society. Such a person may be the author himself or a narrator” (Frye 1957, p. 226).
At least when a critic has basic theoretical training.
Sat. 1.6,6, 1.6,45, and 1.6,46.
To be exact, doubt was expressed also before Williams’ paper, see e.g. White (1982), p. 52. The question is not settled at all. While the cliché of the freedman father can be found in many recent publications (e.g. Keane 2006, pp. 106, 109), a new survey of Roman satire formulates the problem as follows: “His father was, according to Horace (1.6), a freedman, but it is likely he was never a slave in the traditional sense” (Hooley 2007, p. 29).
The second place (Nunc ad me redeo, libertino patre natum / quem rodunt omnes libertino patre natum.) was translated by C. Smart and Th. Buckley as follows: “Now I return to myself, who am descended from a freedman; whom every body nibbles at, as being descended from a freed-man.” According to the recent, skeptical interpretation it would be: “Now I return to myself, who am ‘descended from a freedman’; whom everybody nibbles at, as if I were descended from a freedman.”
See especially the chapter “Discourse in poetry and discourse in the novel” (Bakhtin 1981, pp. 275–300).
The idea that speakers cannot even remotely control their utterances, since the language is uncontrollable, has been famously formulated by Martin Heidegger: “Die Sprache spricht nicht der Mensch. Der Mensch spricht nur, indem er geschicklich der Sprache entspricht” (Heidegger 1957, p. 161).
On my concerns about irony see Hajdu (2007).
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Poe's_Law (Accessed 29. 10. 2012).
I quote the 1836 translation by C. Smart and A. Buckley, which can be found at http://www.perseus.taft.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0063%3Abook%3D1%3Apoem%3D7. Lippus does not exactly mean blind, rather somebody having chronic conjunctivitis, like ‘Horace’ in Sat 1.5,30.
Translation attributed to John Florio, published in 1620 by the London publisher Iaggard. http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/b/boccaccio/giovanni/b664d/.
In Henderson’s interpretation both parties are members of Brutus’ entourage (1994, p. 161), and Brutus has a difficult choice between Rupilius, a “martyr of the Republican Cause” (165) and “Mr. Moneybag” (161), representing a group, of which the financial support is vitally important for the campaign (166).
I do think that the ambiguity itself has its poetic merits here. Students of Horace, however, tend to find it necessary to take a stand, like in the quotation that follows: “I take ‘ridetur’ in the impersonal sense defended by Bernardi Perini […] contra Buchheit” (Plaza 2006, p. 64).
For boasting in Praeneste see Plautus Bacch. 12: Praenestinum opino esse, ita erat gloriosus.
Although the narrator takes his revenge by calling Aristius Fuscus male salsus (line 65). This male usually functions as privative, and therefore the expression might mean that the friend did not behave urbanely this time. But in Catull’s poem 10, which is in many aspects a model for this satire, a girl is called insulsa male, which evidently does not mean ‘very urbane’, but ‘inurbane in a malicious way’ (line 33). In my opinion, Horace’s male salsus also means ‘using his urbanity in a malicious way’ (as Smart and Buckley put it: “cruelly arch”); if so, it does not deny that Aristius’ behavior was urbane, it only emphasizes that this time the narrator-protagonist did not really like this kind of urbanity.
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Hajdu, P. The betrayal of the satirical text. Neohelicon 40, 47–57 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-013-0171-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-013-0171-3