The Mock-Heroic in Augustan Satire

The first half of the eighteenth Century is also called, in literary study, the Augustan Age [9] and Alexander
Pope, who lived during that time, largely influenced the satirical mode of writing at the time. Other
important Augustan satirists were Jonathan Swift and Samuel Johnson. They also made a big contribution
to this century becoming the great age of satire in English literature. [10]They emulated the decorum,
capacity for sharp judgment, and firmly shaped urbanity of the Roman authors. [11] In the actual Augustan
Age, under the reign of the Roman Emperor Augustus [] Latin literature, led by the poets Virgil, Horace,
and Ovid, reached great heights[12] Ian Jack devoted an entire book to the Augustan Satire. He limited the
time in which this specific kind of satire has been written to the years between 1660 and 1750. [13]
It was the Formal Satire that was mainly used in the Augustan age. The authors in this satiric age
inherited this mode from classical poets, especially Juvenal and Horace. [14]
Formal s. is a direct attack in which the satirist, represented by an "I" point of view, addresses
the adversarius whose failings are the object of attack and whose technical function is to steer the
speaker's comments. The Horatian s. presents a worldly and amused speaker whose speech is informal
and whose attitude is generous toward the folly he speaks of (...). The Juvenalian s.presents a grave
speaker who views folly as a serious threat, and thus hopes to elicit serious reaction from his readers. [15]
Because of that explanation, I would classify Popes The Rape of the Lock to be a Horatian Satire. He
tries to portray severe issues using more playful mood. The Rape of the Lock has a serious background,
namely the quarrel between two families, but Pope still seems a bit amused by it, which is evident since
he draws a lot of comical comparisons and exaggerates unimportant things. We may even make a deeper
classification and specify this poem as a Mock-Heroic satire.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AUGUSTAN OR

CLASSIC AGE: ANALYZING THE KEY
POINTS

The Political Time: The reign of Queen Anne in early 18th-century England is
commonly known as Augustan age. During this period, the satirist Jonathan Swift, the poet
Alexander Pope, and the essayists Joseph Addison and Sir Richard Steele were among the major
literary figures.

The Style in Motions: Their neoclassical style employed Roman forms, such as the
ode, and emphasized common sense, moderation, reason over emotion and elegance over
brevity. In the eighteenth century the subjects of study became more numerous and more
systematic. And it was the good fortune of England that prose in the age had become a pliant
and serviceable medium.

The Transitional Time: It was a century full of speculation and fierce questioning a
century with powerful minds that applied themselves to the problems of the nature of life, and
set out solutions which have been the basis of much later thought. It was a century, above all
others, when England led Europe in philosophical speculation. The first half of the eighteenth
century was remarkable for the rapid social development in England. For the first time they
began themselves the task of learning art of living together. In a single generation nearly two
thousand public coffeehouses sprang up in London alone. This new social status had a superb
effect in polishing mens words and manners.

The Emancipation of the Political Parties- By the year 1700 (during the reign of
Charles ii) the terms Wing party stood for the pre-eminence of personal freedom as opposed
the Hanoverian succession, whereas the Tories were Jacobites.

The Spirit of the Age- It was an age of tolerance, moderations, and common-sense..
This age introduced the rule of sweet reasonableness. The way reason was faithful reflected in
the literature of the then period, specially in the works of Swift, Steele, Addison and Defoe.

The clubs and coffee-houses- The increased activity in politics led to a great Addison
to the number of political clubs and coffeehouse, which became the inspiration to fashionable
and public life. In the first number of The Tatler Steele announces that the activities of his new
journal will be based upon the clubs. All accounts of Gallantry, Pleasure, and Entertainment
shall be under the article of Whites Chocolate-House; poetry under that of Wills Coffee-House;
Learning under the title of Grecian, Foreign and Domestic News you will have from Saint
James Coffee-House.

Periodical and publishing House- In every age we have noted specially the political
works, which constitute, according to Matthew Arnold, the glory of English literature. Now for
the first time we must chronicle the triumph of English prose. During this reign the law of copyright (1709) was passed. The freedom of the press was restored in 1682 and large numbers of
periodicals appeared and flourished in their in their different fashions. Steele published The

Tatler, The Spectator and The Plebeian (an early example of the political0 in 1709, 1711 and
1719 respectively. He also published others short-lived periodicals like The Guardian (1713),
The Englishman (1713), The Reader (1714) etc. For the interest of the readers a great many
numbers of publishing houses were controlled by Edmund Curl, Jacob Tonson, and John
Dunton etc.

The New Morality- The immorality of the Restoration period was absolutely by the
new morality of stele, Defoe, Addison, Swift and also others of the then period. Once in the
pages of the Spectator, Addison says I shall endeavour to enliven morality with wit, and to
temper wit with morality.

Lyrical Ballads
Lyrical Ballads, collection of poems, first published in 1798 by Samuel Taylor
Coleridge and William Wordsworth, the appearance of which is often
designated by scholars as a signal of the beginning of English Romanticism.

The work included Coleridges Rime of the Ancient Mariner and

Wordsworths Tintern Abbey, as well as many controversial commonlanguage poems by Wordsworth, such as The Idiot Boy. The Preface to the
second edition (1800) contains Wordsworths famous definition of poetry as
the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings and his theory that poetry
should be written in the language really used by men.

Q. Lambs wit and humor ?

On Humour and Pathos as used by Charles
Lamb in his "Essays of Elia" particularly
"Dream Children: A Reverie"
Some things are of that nature as to make Ones fancy chuckle while his heart doth
ache Wrote Bunyan.

The nature of things mostly appeared to Charles Lamb in this way. Lamb does not
frolic out of lightness of heart, but to escape from gloom that might otherwise
crush. He laughed to save himself from weeping. In fact, Lambs personal life was
of disappointments and frustrations. But instead of complaining, he looked at the
tragedies of life, its miseries and worries as a humorist. Thus his essays become an
admixture of humour and pathos. Examples of his keen sense of humour and
pathetic touches are scattered in all of his essays. Lets focus our discussion
on Dream Children: A Reverie.

In Lambs writing wit, humour and fun are interwoven and it is humour which is
most notable for its extreme sensitiveness to the true proportion of things. Lamb
often brings out the two sides of a fact and causes laughter at our own previous
misconceptions. Therefore it borders on the painful realization. Thus his humour is
very nearly allied to pathos. They are different facts of the same gem.
In his essay Dream Children: A Reverie Lamb talks of personal sorrows and
joys. He gives expressions to his unfulfilled longings and desires. He readily enters
into the world of fantasy and pops up stories in front of his dream children. He
relates his childhood days, of Mrs. Field, his grandmother and John Lamb, his
brother. He describes how fun he had at the great house and orchard in Norfolk. Of
his relations he gives us full and living pictures his brother John is James Elia
of My Relations, but here is John L-, so handsome and spirited youth, and a king.
John was brave, handsome and won admiration from everybody Charles
grandmother Mrs. Field is the other living picture. She was a good natured and
religions minded lady of respectable personality. Narrators sweet heart Alice
Winterton is the other shadowed reality. The Dream Children, Alice and John are
mere bubbles of fancy. Thus Lambs nostalgic memory transports us back to those
good old days of great grandmother Field. But even in those romantic nostalgia the
hard realities of life does not miss our eyes. Death, separation and suffering inject
us deep-rooted pathos in our heart. Whereas Mrs. Field died of cancer, John Lamb
died in early age. Ann Simmons has been a tale of unrequited love story of Charles
Lamb. Notably the children are millions of ages distant of oblivion and Charles is not
a married man but a bachelor having a reverie.

In his actual life Lamb courted Ann Simmons but could not marry her, he
wanted to have children but could not have any. Thus he strikes a very pathetic
note towards the end of his essay when he puts the following word into the months
of his imaginary children, we are not of Alice, nor of thee, nor are we children at all
We are nothing, less than nothing, dreams. We are only what might have been.
Alice is here no other that Ann Simmons the girl Lamb wanted to marry, but failed
to marry her. In fact, the subtitle of the essay A Reverie which literally means a
daydream or a fantasy prepares us for the pathos of the return to reality although
the essay begins on a deceptively realistic note.

Although Dream Children begins on a merry note, the dark side of life soon forces
itself upon Lambs attention and the comic attitude gives way to melancholy at the
end of the essay. Throughout the essay Lamb presents his children in such a way
that we never guess that they are merely figments of his imagination their
movements, their reactions, their expressions are all realistic. It is only at the end
of the essay that we realize that the entire episode with his children is a daydream.
We are awakening by a painful realization of the facts.

Lambs humour was no surface play, but the flower plucked from the nettle
of peril and awe. In fact, Lambs humour and pathos take different shapes in
different essays. Sometimes it is due to his own unfulfilled desires, sometimes it is
due to the ill-fortunes of his relatives and friends and on some other occasions it is
due to his frustration in love etc. If his Poor Relations begin humorously of a male
and female poor relation, he later gives us a few pathetic examples of poor
relations that had to suffer on account of poverty. Again in his The Praise of
Chimney SweepersLamb sways between humour and pathos while describing the
chimney sweepers. Similarly the essay Dream Children is a beautiful projection of
Lambs feelings and desire to have a wife and children of his own. It is humorous
that in his dream he is married and has two children of his own while he had a
disheartening frustration in love. Thus Lamb has painted both the lights and shades
of life in full circle. His is the criticism of life in pathos and humours.