Can the term ‘Juvenalian’ irony or satire be applied to the Fool’s use of irony /satire in King Lear? I have never seen it described that way anywhere on Google.
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Can you explain more about why you think it would? I don’t really see the resemblance, but I’ll admit to not having read a lot of Juvenal. Is there something specific you had in mind?
I’d say that many of the Fool’s speeches fit the definition: Juvenalian satire | Irony, Cynicism, Mockery | Britannica:
Juvenalian satire , in literature, any bitter and ironic criticism of contemporary persons and institutions that is filled with personal invective, angry moral indignation, and pessimism.
When I’m at work, I can look up articles from research databases that aren’t available through google,
If so, it wouldn’t be the first time Shakespeare used a clownish character to lampoon the elderly à la Juvenal:
…the satirical rogue says here that old men have grey beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber and plum-tree gum, and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams…
That’s me!
Thanks gkster. Shakespeare must have read Juvenal or had a passing knowledge of his writings. Some of the Fool’s words do sound bitterly satirical. Take this one satirical comment referring no doubt to Goneril and Regan’s false flattery.
“For there was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a glass” (3.2.36-36)
Thanks for explaining what you mean! OK, here’s why I don’t see it. (I’m not disputing that Shakespeare was familiar with Juvenal’s works, because of course he was – all educated people in seventeenth-century England would have known their Roman poetry really, really well.)
This is Juvenal’s expression of a somewhat similar sentiment (pretty and / or rich women get away with everything), and it’s just … not all that similar, either in style or tone, at least not to my ears.
By contrast, this is what Renaissance poets sound like when they’re trying to do Juvenalian satire. (Oh, OK, I also think any poem with the line “Who loves whores, who boys, and who goats” should be shared far and wide.)
Thanks Fretful_Porpentne. Your example is a clear one. I thought perhaps my example was more subtle. But I’ll try to finds a better one. How’s this one?
When thou clovest thy crown i ’ th ’ middle, and gavest away both parts, thou borest thy ass o ’ th ’ back o 'er the dirt. Thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown when thou gavest thy golden one away.( Act 1, Scene 4. )
Hmm. I’d actually say your first example is closer, in that it’s a critical comment about society (or at any rate, pretty women) in general, rather than banter with a specific person about why a specific thing that person did was foolish. (I mean, I guess Juvenal and other classical satirists do write as if they’re addressing particular people by name, but they’re presumably-imaginary people guilty of vices that are widespread in society. Lear, from the Fool’s perspective, is a real person who has made a one-of-a-kind mistake.)
I can see where you’re coming from now that you’ve explained it, but I think it’s more of a “kind of looks like it if you really squint” level of resemblance, rather than a clear-cut example.