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Sarah Lynn Duquette 12/14/14 Humanities Essay Horatian vs. Juvenalian Satire Two of the most famous satiric authors, Horace and Juvenal, set the stage for all writers of satire to come. Each of the authors had a style of writing that was set apart by the tone that his piece had. Both Horace and Juvenal lampooned their subjects, but the ways that they used lampoon were different. Horace used satiric elements such as self-deprecation and ridicule to make his satire amusing, or funny and lighthearted. Juvenal, on the other hand, used different satiric elements, sarcasm and hyperbole for example, to make his satire much darker and more attacking. Although Horace’s and Juvenal’s satires differed from each other, there were some satiric elements common to both the Horatian and the Juvenalian pieces. One common element in the two was lampoon. Both satires were designed to make fun of something; the Horatian piece made fun of slave owners and the upper class, and the Juvenal’s piece made fun of Rome and Romans. Such descriptions of Horace as a harlot in “My Slave is Free to Speak his Mind,” and of the Roman dress trends in “Satire III” showed this lampooning. The main differences between Horace’s and Juvenal’s satiric pieces were the severity and the ways in which they lampooned their subjects. In Horatian satire, the literary elements used are mainly incorporated for the purpose of comic relief. One of these elements is self-deprecation. Horace’s satire portrayed the main character, also named Horace, as a slightly despicable person. Despite the fact that the piece was set during Saturnalia, a time when slaves could speak their minds as they wished, Horace threatened to stone and punish Davus if he kept talking. In this way, Horace was creating a negative persona for himself, allowing the reader to laugh at the bad character. The selfdeprecation in Horace’s satire included ridicule, another technique Horace used to make his satire more amusing. The ridicule, or mockery for the purpose of amusement, was very light hearted as opposed to dark and critical. Davus ridiculed Horace in the satire in most of what he said, such as, “At Rome, you long for the country; when you are in the country, fickle, you extol the absent city to the skies.” By using self-deprecation in the form of ridicule, Horace’s satire was rather amusing. Unlike the tone of Horatian satire, which is light and amusing, the tone of Juvenalian satire is much more harsh and hurtful at times. Juvenal accomplished this tone by using different satiric elements than Horace. For example, Juvenal’s satiric piece was laden with hurtful sarcasm against Rome. In the piece, Juvenal criticizes everything possible about Rome, from the professions to the clothing, and attacks it all with a very sarcastic tone. Along with the sarcasm, Juvenal used many hyperboles to make everything about Rome seem much worse than it actually was. For example, Juvenal described Rome’s “drunken bully” as being “twice one’s size and fighting-mad as well.” He also stated that Rome stripped him of all money, and that he was going to have to live off of scarce amounts of it. These, along with many other exaggerations, made Rome and its inhabitants out to be a lot worse than they were. By using hurtful sarcasm and untrue hyperboles, Juvenal’s satire was much more biting than Horace’s lighthearted satire. Juvenal and Horace, two pioneers of satirical writing, each used different types of satiric elements to lampoon his subjects. Whereas Juvenal used sarcasm and hyperbole to write pieces that attacked, Horace used ridicule and self-degradation to make his satire seem funny. The goal of satire is to bring about change, and each type sought to change different things: Horatian satire focused on smaller issues than Juvenalian satire did, such as the behavior of the upper class rather than all of Roman society. These pieces of satire show that there are many different options available for the use of authors, and that different available elements can help to change different things. All of these elements can be seen in modern satire, attempting to change similar problems to the problems in Juvenal’s and Horace’s times.