Kimberly Fisher
Connie Jordan
The Age of Satire
2-8-10
Humanistic Traditions II (MWF 12:30-1:20)
The satire of Jonathan Swift mainly centered on religion and politics, where he
sharpened his abilities at using literary methods such as bitter irony, innuendos and metaphors
via the articles, essays and pamphlets with which he published his work in (Merriman,
Jonathan). Swift mainly took jabs at the upper class society members, at the politics and power
leaders of his time, and of course at the religious leaders (Merriman, Jonathan).
Unlike Swift and his literary satire, the satire of William Hogarth was of the visual variety.
It began with his visual rendition, of the play, John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera, in which he
painted the climax of the play and some of the audience members (Gifford). After that he started
imagining his own scenes that would be suitable for painting and worthy to capture an audience,
and thus began his “career in dramatic narrative” (Gifford). Hogarth did not necessarily make
fun of harlot women but he did spend a great deal of his later career studying their place within
society and created a six piece collection dedicated to it called The Harlot’s Progress (Gifford).
Voltaire is seen as the most famous satirical voice because his work continues to be
read over two centuries after he wrote it and is still able to connect to people today, his works
have been translated into many languages and adapted to the stage, showing just how
insightful and forward thinking he was for his time for his work to still be around and relevant
today. His fame also comes from his shock value of his art in the fact that back then the things
he did were considered outrageous, he made things that were supposed to be beautiful ugly,
and transformed ugly things into beautiful ones (Lane).
Voltaire’s works on satire cover religion, philosophy and government but his entire works
ranges to topics greater than this such as science, history, theory, etc. (Merriman, Francois).
Voltaire satirized religious ideals, censorship laws of the times, the church and state in France in
what would later be known as one of the defining pieces of literary work of the Enlightenment
period (Merriman, Francois).
My favorite contemporary satirist would have to be Stephen Colbert from the Colbert
Report. While I do enjoy John Stewart and his unique flair for satire, Stephen Colbert just has
that something extra that makes his musings a little snappier to me and to my liking. A main
example of his work and why I prefer him to other modern satirists is his segment “The Word”.
In this part of the show he takes recent news related topics and adds in today’s style satire to
spice it up and make it interesting so that the audience is not just simply entertained but that his
viewers are also getting some informative knowledge about what is going on with topics
including: politics, world occurrences, etc. without it being boring and dull like it is on the regular
news which generally causes people, generally around my age range, to lose interest.
Satire has been around in literature for a long time, and used mainly to bring forth an
issue to the public’s eye in a way that the public has neglected to see due to either lack of
knowledge, understanding, fear, etc. However satire brings the issue to the surface hidden
within a humorous packing to either soften the blow of the reality of the situation, or blow it out
of proportion and make the issue seem greater than it is. Satire has always had a main stake in
literature and no matter what is in store for the future, be it the continuation of a transition to full
on digital media; satire will always have a place within our society.
Work Cited Page
Gifford, Katya. "William Hogarth Biography." Humanitiesweb.org. 05032008. Humanities Web,
Web. 8 Feb 2010. <http://www.humanitiesweb.org/human.php?ID=99&a=b&p=c&s=g>.
Lane, Jim. "The Lunatics Take Over the Asylum." Humanitiesweb.org. 05032008. Humanities
Web, Web. 8 Feb 2010. <http://www.humanitiesweb.org/human.php?s=g&p=a&a=i&ID=278>.
Merriman, C.D. "Francois-Marie Arouet Voltaire." The Literature Network. 2008. Jalic Inc., Web.
8 Feb 2010. <http://www.online-literature.com/voltaire/>.
Merriman, C.D. "Jonathan Swift." The Literature Network. 2008. Jalic Inc., Web. 8 Feb 2010.
<http://www.online-literature.com/swift/>.