" Here is the ideal introduction to satire for the student and, for the experienced scholar, an occasion to reconsider the uses, problems, and pleasures of satire in light of contemporary theory. Satire is a staple of the literary classroom. Dustin Griffin moves away from the prevailing moral-didactic approach established thirty some years ago to a more open view and reintegrates the Menippean tradition with the tradition of formal verse satire. Exploring texts from Aristophanes to the moderns, with special emphasis on the eighteenth century, Griffin uses a dozen figures -- Horace, Juvenal, Persius, Lucian, More, Rabelais, Donne, Dryden, Pope, Swift, Blake, and Byron -- as primary examples. Because satire often operates as a mode or procedure rather than as a genre, Griffin offers not a comprehensive theory but a set of critical perspectives. Some of his topics are traditional in satire criticism: the role of satire as moralist, the nature of satiric rhetoric, the impact of satire on the political order. Others are new: the problems of satire and closure, the pleasure it affords readers and writers, and the socioeconomic status of the satirist. Griffin concludes that satire is problematic, open-ended, essayistic, and ambiguous in its relationship to history, uncertain in its political effect, resistant to formal closure, more inclined to ask questions than provide answers, and ambivalent about the pleasures it offers.
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"Merits a wide readership among students and scholars of the early modern era." -- 1650-1850
"An easy and informative read." -- Bibliotheque d'Humanisme et Renaissance
"This volume is provocative, constituting a real forward step in our assessment of satire." -- Choice
"The most commonsense general treatment of Western Literary satire in a generation." -- Eighteenth-Century Studies
"An easy and informative ready." -- Bibliotheque d'Humanisme et Renaissance
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7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Whaddya know . . . good lit crit!,
This review is from: Satire: A Critical Reintroduction (Paperback)
I spent most of my college English courses dreading the appearance of a volume of literary criticism on my book lists. This book, however, is not worthy of such loathing. It lacks the condescending tone often found in such volumes, and the author is not in the typical literature-scholar habit of using ten words when one will do.Griffin also has an impressive grounding in his field of study. His examples are well-chosen, and his subjects are interesting, particularly the chapters on satiric play and satiric closure. (Other topics include theories of satire, satiric provocation, politics of satire, and pleasures of satire.) I hope that all teachers of staire will do their students a favor by introducing them to this book; and I hope that students of satire will introduce themselves to this book of their instructors do not do so. Reading Griffin's histories and theories is almost as good as reading satire itself.
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