Satire, Epic

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Satire, Epic Mock Epic

• Works of Swift Pope

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Satire

• Satire is a verbal or visual mode of expression
  that uses ridicule to diminish its subject in the
  eyes of its audience.
• The authors are intent on making fun of the
  absurdity, pretension and degeneracy of the
  respective worlds they are portraying.
• Swifts proposal makes fun of a societythat
  cares nothing for the poor by makinghorrific
  suggestions.

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Characteristics of an Epic 1

• An epic is usually defined as a very long poem
  composed in a lofty style that tells a story on a
  grand scale.  
• Its protagonist, generally a noble hero of
  national significance, undergoes many adventures
  that help create a people or a nation.  
• Epics employ a vast setting, relating episodes of
  courage and valor that cover the expanse of
  continents or sometimes the entire universe.  
• Gods and demons often intervene in the action,
  either by helping or hindering the hero.  
• The poet, whether known or not, relates his tale
  in simple yet elevated language which underscores
  the poem's serious mood.

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Characteristics of an epic 2

• The poem begins in the middle of the action
  (critics use the Latin term in medias res to
  describe this convention).  
• The poet states his theme early in the poem.  
• A muse is invoked to provide inspiration.  
• Catalogs of warriors, ships, and enemies make up
  large passages. These catalogs present different
  elements of the culture in detail to create the
  effect that the epic is including the whole world
  of its action in the poem.  
• Principal characters deliver long, formal
  speeches in a lofty, non-colloquial style.

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Epic Past Now

• Epic poems tend to get written when the
  civilization they are celebrating is clearly
  passing away or has disappeared completely.
• Epics have been used to establish a current
  civilization using the epic as basis for its
  past.
• In recent times, epic narratives are usually in
  prose (for example, War and Peace or Moby Dick),
  and the epic novel has largely replaced the
  traditional epic poem as the highest summit of
  the creative writer's art.

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Parody

• Parody is a form of satire that imitates another
  work of art in order to ridicule it.
• When the conventions of a genre have become
  defined, authors often lampoon these conventions,
  making the reader laugh.
• Popes Rape of the lock makes fun of the epic
  style by making the story of how a girl lost a
  curl into a huge production.

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Mock Epic not really epic

• Normally much shorter than true epics.
• Satirize their subjects instead of extolling
  them.
• Treat a trivial subject in a lofty fashion to
  make it appear ridiculous.
• Mock epic uses epic conventions, but instead of
  describing battles and perilous voyages across
  deep seas, authors depict card games and suitors
  vying for advantageous positions in the drawing
  room.
• Two examples are Pope's Rape of the Lock and
  Byron's Don Juan.