Write an essay of about five pages (no less than three, no more than seven) on one of the following topics. You paper should discuss satires by several authors. You will probably do better to organize your paper according to the development of your topic rather than discussing one satire and then another.
1. Naming names. Aristophanes attacks his living contemporaries by name, and often in a most insulting way. (Of course, he also insults people who are dead.) Horace defends the practice of naming names, as engaged in by Lucilius, and he occasionally attacks named contemporaries, though, to tell the truth, most of the people he names are either dead or fictitious. Juvenal, pointing out the consequences of naming real people, largely names the dead. By-and-large, Lucian avoids naming names in his fictional satires, but his satire on Peregrinus attacks a contemporary figure quite sharply. Discuss the naming of names, the refusal to name names, the defense of naming names, the purposes of naming names, and alternatives to naming names in satire.
2. Satiric philosophy. Aristophanes does not have anything good to say about Socrates (who was apparently a personal friend) or any other philosopher, and he seems hostile to the philosophical implications of Euripides. Horace certainly dumps on Stoics, directly and indirectly. Lucian seems to take a hostile but perhaps ambiguous view of the whole philosophical enterprise. What is the substance of these attacks on philosophy? Do they have any philosophical merit?
3. Satiric religion. Dionysos, in The Frogs, is worshiped by the chorus but seems in person to less a god than a comic blunderer. Priapus, in Horace, Satires 1.7, seems to have a limited effectiveness in guarding his turf. Lucian's Zeus, in desperately trying to prove his own existence, seems a parody caught in a paradox. Do these attacks on the gods amount to a genuine critique of religion, and, if so, what is the nature of that critique? If the attacks are not serious, what is their point?
4. Juvenal begins his first satire by attacking contemporary poets; Horace, in addition to praising poets in the Maecenas circle, also attacks other poets (including, in part, Lucilius); Aristophanes holds Euripides and Aeschylos up to ridicule. Lucian makes considerable fun of historians (among others). Discuss satire as a vehicle for attacking other literature. Are these attacks merely random, or is there a relatively consistent reason for them? How would at least two satirists define bad literature?
5. Speech-making as a satiric vehicle. Euripides and Aeschylos are significant makers of speeches in The Frogs; Damasippus (or Stertinus) in Horace, Satires 2.3 is certainly a prominent one; Juvenal's satirist and his crony Umbricius are incessant makers of speeches; public speakers abound in the satires of Lucian. Compare at least two of these figures as speech-makers. Discuss both the structure and the ironies of their speeches. What is the relation of what the speakers say to what you see as the ideas and the intentions of the satirists who write their speeches? Does writing speeches that we may not take too seriously serve the satirists in expressing serious ideas? What is the relationship between irony and truth in the speeches and in the making of speeches?
6. Satiric rhetoric. You can think of the "satiric situation" as the interrelations among the satiric author, the speaker, the topic, the contexts, the purpose (or "moral") of the author or speaker, and the audiences (real and imagined). Discuss this interrelationship in one satire by Horace, in one choral passage from The Frogs, and in one of the satires of Lucian (or at least in two of the three). Your paper should analyze how the satirist's manipulation of the elements of the satiric situation produces a significant text.
7. Juvenal's Satire 3 is the classic urban satire, but Horace also has some nasty things to say about Rome, especially in Satires 2.6, and Aristophanes is consistently concerned with the social and political life of Athens. Discuss urban satire in at least two of these satirists. Are there characteristic techniques for attacking cities? Does the city in turn stand for other human problems?8. One could argue that satire functions not only to correct human behavior but to reveal human illusion. (Illusion strikes me as particularly an issue in satires by Horace, Juvenal, and Lucian.) How is illusion exposed? What is left when figures in satire reject their illusions? What do satirists see as the reality hidden by illusion? Discuss illusion is several satires by different authors.
9. We have seen various satirists defend themselves or explain what they are writing a possibly offensive kind of literature: Horace in Satires 1.4 and 1.10, Juvenal in Satire 1, Lucian in The Fisherman. Why are the satirists being attacked? What is the basis of their defense? Is the defense the same for different satirists? Discuss at least two examples.
7. Alternative topics. If you think of what seems to you a strong topic that connects two of the four writers we have read thus far (Aristophanes, Horace, Juvenal, and Lucian), feel free to write about it. (To my mind, Lucian-and-Aristophanes connections seem particularly fruitful.)