1. Neoclassical Theater & Satire

2. sat·ire (săt'īr') noun
A literary work in which human vice or folly is attacked through irony, derision, or wit. It aims to improve society by its humorous criticism.
A branch of literature constituting such works:
* Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut, David Sedaris, John Stewart
Changing a negative situation by making fun of it.
Examples: Irony, sarcasm, or wit used to attack and expose folly, vice, or stupidity.

3. Types of Satire

4. 1) Horatian: gentle, sympathetic satire where the subject is mildly made fun of with light joking.

5. 2) Juvenalian:
harsher form that uses contempt and condemnation toward the subject.

6. 3) Menippean:
chaotic, formless satire that attacks the structure of the world as well as its subject matter.

7. Purposes of Satire
Ethical Reform: It attacks those institutions or individuals that the satirist deems corrupt.
*THINK: Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain)
It works to make vice laughable and thus bring social pressure on those who engage in wrongdoing.

8. Purposes of Satire
Ethical Reform: It attacks those institutions or individuals that the satirist deems corrupt.
It works to make vice laughable and thus bring social pressure on those who engage in wrongdoing.
It seeks a reform in public behavior; an improvement in standards, or at the very least , a wake-up call to a corrupt culture.
Satire is often implicit and assumes readers who can pick up on its moral clues.

9. Key & Peele - “School Bully”
Answer the following question in your notes: 1. How is this clip satire? 2. Is it funny to you? Explain why. 3. Name one problem that this clip is trying to draw attention to in hopes of fixing.

10. The Simpsons - “Margical History Tour”
While watching the following clip, identify three topics that are satirized.
On your paper, complete the following chart to demonstrate your knowledge of satire.
1) Example of Satire
2) Type of Satire
3) Description of the criticism of
the subject as made by this scene
Henry VIII
Sacagawea
Mozart

12. Jonathan Swift 1667-1745 Irish writer
Used literary talents for social reform
Works Include:
“A Modest Proposal”
It highlights a way to solve hunger, overpopulation, and poverty in Ireland.

13. “I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled ...”

14. William Hogarth 1697-1764 English painter
Picture series of moral corruption
Audience was middle class public eager to laugh at neighbors
Works Include:
A Rake’s Progress
8 paintings showing the decline and fall of Tom Rakewell

15. stylish in a dashing or sporty way
Rakish (adj)
stylish in a dashing or sporty way
Synonyms: casual, confident, breezy, stylish, sporty, dashing, jaunty, dapper, debonair

16. The Heir

17. In the first painting, Tom has come into his fortune on the death of his miserly father. While the servants mourn, he is being measured for new clothes. He is also rejecting the hand of his pregnant fiancée, Sarah Young, whom he had promised to marry (she is holding his ring and her mother is holding his love letters). He will pay her off, but it is clear that she still loves him.

18. The Levée

19. In the second painting, Tom is at his morning levée in London, attended by musicians and other hangers-on all dressed in expensive costumes. Surrounding Tom from left to right: a music master at a harpsichord, who was supposed to represent George Frideric Handel; a fencing master; a quarterstaff instructor; a dancing master with a violin; a landscape gardener Charles Bridgeman; an ex-soldier offering to be a bodyguard; a bugler of a fox hunt club. At lower right is a jockey with a silver trophy. The quarterstaff instructor looks disapprovingly on both the fencing and dancing masters. Both masters appear to be in the "French" style, which was a subject Hogarth loathed.

20. The Orgy

21. The third painting depicts a wild party or orgy underway at a brothel
The third painting depicts a wild party or orgy underway at a brothel. The whores are stealing the drunken Tom's watch. On the floor is a night watchman's staff and lantern. The scene takes place at the Rose Tavern, a famous brothel in Covent Garden. The prostitutes have black spots on their faces to cover syphilitic sores.

22. The Arrest

23. In the fourth, he narrowly escapes arrest for debt by Welsh bailiffs (as signified by the leeks, a Welsh emblem, in their hats) as he travels in a sedan chair to a party at St. James's Palace to celebrate Queen Caroline's birthday on Saint David's Day (Saint David is the patron saint of Wales). On this occasion he is saved by the intervention of Sarah Young, the girl he had earlier rejected; she is apparently a dealer in millinery. In comic relief, a man filling a street lantern spills the oil on Tom's head. This is a sly reference to how blessings on a person were accompanied by oil poured on the head. In this case the "blessing" being the "saving" of Tom by Sarah, although Rakewell, being a rake, will not take the moral lesson to heart. In the engraved version, lighting flashes in the sky and a young pickpocket has just emptied Tom's pocket. The painting, however, shows the young thief stealing Tom's cane and has no lightning.

24. The Marriage

25. In the fifth, Tom attempts to salvage his fortune by marrying a rich but aged and ugly old maid at St Marylebone. In the background Sarah arrives holding their child while her indignant mother struggles with a guest.

26. The Gaming House

27. The sixth painting shows Tom pleading for the assistance of the Almighty in a gambling den at Soho's White Club after losing his "new fortune." Neither he nor the other obsessive gamblers seem to have noticed a fire breaking out behind them.

28. The Prison

29. All is lost by the seventh painting, and Tom is incarcerated in the notorious Fleet debtor's prison. He ignores the distress of both his angry new (old) wife and faithful Sarah, who cannot help him this time. Both the beer-boy and the jailer demand money from him. Tom begins to go mad, as indicated by both a telescope for celestial observation poking out of the barred window and an alchemy experiment in the background. Besides Tom is a rejected play; another inmate is writing a pamphlet on how to solve the National debt. Above the bed at right is an apparatus for wings, which is more clearly seen in the engraved version at the left.

30. The Madhouse

31. Finally insane and violent, in the eighth painting he ends his days in Bethlehem Hospital (Bedlam), London's celebrated mental asylum. Only Sarah Young is there to comfort him, but Rakewell continues to ignore her. While some of the details in these pictures may appear disturbing to modern eyes, they were commonplace in Hogarth's day. For example, the fashionably dressed women in this last painting have come to the asylum as a social occasion, to be entertained by the bizarre antics of the inmates.

32. Exit Slip
1) Define satire 2) Name the three types of satire. 3) Why was Swift’s proposal to eat Irish children to curb the population boom satire? 4) Summarize why A Rake’s Progress, by Hogarth, is considered satire.

33. A Rake’s Progress Activity
Objective:
To demonstrate your knowledge of satire in visual art
Assignment:
In pairs, make a poster that analyzes A Rake’s Progress by completing the following:
Title your poster “Satire in A Rake’s Progress”
In pairs match the eight images to the correct description.
Glue these images, with their descriptions, in order on your poster
Summarize the rise and fall of Tom Rakewell
Evaluation: Why is this series a satire?

34. Poster Outline Title of Poster: “Satire in A Rake’s Progress”
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Subject
Subject
Subject
Subject
Subject
Subject
Subject
Subject
Summary: The Rise and Fall of Tom Rakewell
Evaluation: Why is this series a satire?