Fire Bad, Satire Funny

Satire was once classified as a genre by Aristotle and was seen as being a poem. The satiric poem was a very specific, definable and used to highlight social or political weakness, moral or fails so that the audience could see what is wrong. In modern times, satire had become a mode and no longer a form of writing. It is now a writing style but it still highlights social problems.

Satire is the literary art of diminishing something to make fun of it. It can also invoke a feeling of scorn, indignation and anger. The two great original satirists were Horace and Juvenal, and each had his own style. Horace would point out what was wrong by using light hearted dry-wit humor, and tended to stand back a bit so that people could see the errors on their own. Juvenal wanted his audience to be angry, enraged and vicious so his writings were laced with his own anger.

One of the satirists that I enjoy is Jonathan Swift. I studied his Modest Proposal last year and was eager to see what his poetry would be like. So from the Norton, I decided to look at The Lady's Dressing Room, on page 530-533. Upon the first read, I was appalled by the images that Swift paints of Celia (the lady who's room it is)! They are so graphic and rude...but then I remembered that this was a satire! So Swift was being serious but not. Serious in the way that there is something wrong with what he has chosen to focus on...a lady's toillette routine that involves so much work behind it. And not serious because he is trying to poke fun at the scene and show through humor that a lady's beauty routine is highly over rated...which it really is =)

I really do recommend reading The Lady's Dressing Room, despite its length. Try hard to get past the one page limit that Prof. Kuin keeps talking about, because the poem is worth the read. I will not be posting the whole poem here because it is rather lengthy, but shall put snippets that I want to highlight.

Now listen while he next produces
The various combs for various uses,
Filled with dirt so closely fixt,
No brush could force a way betwixt.
A paste of composition rare,
Sweat, dandruff, powder, lead and hair.

Strephon had just found the combs that Celia uses on her hair. He is disgusted to find that they are laced with gross properties. He is revolted by the notion that the teeth of the combs are crammed full with this gunk! He has every reason to feel naueseated because it truly is a foul image, but on the flip side one has to remember that that stuff has been in Celia's hair. It has been in her hair in the name of beauty...her poor poor hair!

But oh! it turned poor Strephon's bowels,
When he beheld and smelled the towels,
Begummed, bemattered, and beslimed
With dirt, and sweat, and earwax grimed.

So this snippet, like the entire poem is written in an easy to see rhyme scheme of aabb, which gives the poem a song like quality almost. But I don't think that the poem would turn into a break away pop hit because of its theme...sad but true. I just thought that these lines were hilarious and cleverly written. I especially liked the alliteration in the third line when referring to the state of towels. It makes you almost see the grime that laces these towels and why it turned Strephon's bowels.

For Strephon ventured to look in,
He lifts the lid, there needs no more,
He smelled it all the time before.
As from within Pandora's box,
When Epimetheus op'd the locks,
A sudden universal crew
Of human evils upwards flew;
He still was comforted to find
That Hope at last remained behind

Here we have a description of Strephon looking into Celia's chamber pot, which if you don't know what that is, it would be the equivalent to a portable toilet in her room. Here Swift is equating Strephon's peeping to that of looking into Pandora's box. Opening something that should remain a mystery because of the peril that it will cause the world and the person that opened it specifically. I thought that was a clever use of allusion to refer to mythology to give the action more layers of meaning. If you are unaware of the Pandora myth, then just look at the footnote in the Norton since they provide an ample description of it.

Such order from confusion sprung,
Such gaudy tulips raised from dung.

This little couplet closes the poem and for me sealed what satiric poem I would blog about this week. Within those two lines, Swift is able to encapsulate the crux of his entire poem...that gaudy tulips raise from dung! So when Swift indicates order, I think he is being truly ironical and is actually referring to the disorder that we all live in and the confusion would belong to Celia who isn't sure what she needs to do to fit into the order. The tulips represent the youth and natural beauty of Celia, while gaudy refers to what she is doing to herself (the hair, the make-up, and the clothes) and the overdone state that it puts her in and dung refers to the societal crap that dictates that women need to go through the process of becoming gaudy tulips to fit into society. With a message like that you could almost see this being written by someone in our present time since it is still very relevant.

sv