The Peer now spreads the glittering Forfex wide,
T' inclose the Lock; now joins it, to divide.
Ev'n then, before the fatal Engine clos'd,
A wretched Sylph too fondly interpos'd;
Fate urged the Sheers, and cut the Sylph in twain,
(But Airy Substance soon unites again)
The meeting Points the sacred Hair dissever
From the fair Head, for ever and for ever!
Using epic battle imagery to describe a small pair of scissors satirizes the ridiculous nature of the whole situation
The Rape of the Lock is written in iambic pentameter: each line has five feet and each foot has two syllables, with the second bearing the stress. This gives ten syllables per line.
The second poem which will be examined is the Lady’s Dressing Room written by Jonathon swift. The Poem is a painfully repugnant list by Strephon, a male suitor, of the carnage left in the efforts of Celia, a well to-do woman, to make herself presentable for society. Celia is a name from classical pastoral poetry. This is ironic as she is trying to make herself seem beautiful when she has such a beautiful name. The remainder of the poem relates to Strephon’s subsequent dissatisfaction with women and the narrator id chastising him for this. Strephon’s survey of Celia’s recently-used, yet-to-be-cleaned dressing room portrays the Lady as a completely filthy being. Through clever wit, satire and sarcasm, Swift points out the problems with unrealistic expectations in his poem.
"Paste of Composition rare,"
"Ointments good for scabby Chops,"
Within the poem, Swift’s satirical target is Celia who serves for a metaphor for women, their vanity, and their charm and beauty which is ultimately a total façade. In this case, given the grotesque misrepresentation of every woman Celia, Swift is clearly a hater if women.
“Five Hours, (and who can do it less in?
By Haughty Celia spent in Dressing:
The Goddess From her chamber issues
Array’d in Lace, Brocades and Tissues”
This is a very sarcastic verse. “Five Hours, (and who can do it less in?”. This is meant to be rhetorical. It is as if he is waiting for a reply, yet knows he will not get one. The rhyme is humorous and sounds like a nursery rhyme, a children’s poem. The term Goddess sounds very nice but this is ironic as he is satirizing Celia. He does not agree with this and cleverly satirizes her but in a subtle manner.
“On such a Point few words are best [15]”
This sentence is full of heavy irony which underlines satire. Irony is a form of speech in which the real meaning is concealed or contradicted by the words used. This is very useful as it engages the reader to the wit and sarcasm.
“Here Allum Flower to stop the streams”
This is a form of alliteration. Alliteration us a frequent tool in poetry and in this poem its acts to humorous effect. Allum Flower is an antiperspirant and in this sentence he has described it as quite pleasant. However he goes on to say:
“Exhal’d from sour unsavoury streams”
Sour, unsavoury streams is a very effective alliteration because it makes the reader think how repulsive it sounds as it rolls off their tongue.
The third poem to be studies is Speak, Parrot, the pet bird is a noble lady, of fabulous origin and a wonderfully clever person, after some other satirical remarks, says unpleasant things about Wolsey, who has been the object of the poets satire. He is characterized as the all powerful favourite, who rules even the king, his master. Many if the satirical hints are incomprehensible; but they seem to bear some relation to certain of Wolseys political missions. He is called “a melancholy mastyf” and “mangye curre dog” because he was said to be the son of a butcher at Ipswitch and appears to be a busybody, undertaking too much and spending large sums of money to no effect. The fact that wolsey sounds like wolfsey also adds to the reason for why he is called mangye curre dog”. The poem ends in a general satire of the time.
The fourth and final poem to be examined is the Ruler of the Queens Navee by Sir William Schwenck Gilbert. The character of Joseph Porter in terms of business background resembles that of a bookseller William Henry Smith (1825-91), who had entered parliament in 1898 and had been appointed First Lotrd of Admiralty in 1877. Smith had made a fortune through expanding his fathers bookselling business in the Strand by setting up railways station bookstalls and newsstands to become Britain’s biggest bookseller and newsagent. The object of Gilbert’s satire is not so much the person of publisher and politician W.H Smith. Gilbert was attacking the long-standing aristocratic tradition of purchasing commissions. Instead of “serving a term” as a midshipman, Sir Joseph Porter has taken a strictly political route to the admiralty. Also, a method is ridicule is the fact that he is related to “Cousin Hebe”.
Overall, Poets over the sentries have sued satire to comment on their times in many different ways. There has been use of ironic lines, alliteration, hyperbole and other forms of literary methods as in the subversion of well-established literary tradition. However each has been effectively used to satirize their times in different ways.
