The Bitter and Harsh Side of Satire-Juvenalian Satire
Satire is the literary art of diminishing a subject by making it ridiculous and evoking toward it attitudes of amusement, contempt, scorn or indignation. There are three kinds of satire-Horatian, Juvenalian and Menippean. Among the three, Juvenalian satire is the least humorous.
Juvenalian satire is angry, relentless, personal, and serious. It was named after Augustun period's Roman satirist Juvenal. It is more disdainful and harsh than the Horatian satire. Juvenalian satire provokes a dark side of humor and often attacks and shows contempt for people. It generally addresses social evils and points to the corruption of men through scorn, outrage and uncivilized ridicule. This form of satire is characterized by irony, sarcasm, moral indignation etc. The Juvenalian satirists even use abusive languages to make their point. In English, Samuel Johnson's poems 'London' and 'The Vanity of Human Wishes' are both imitations of Juvenal, but the satires of Jonathan Swift come closer to Juvenal's uncompromisingly disgusted tone.