Juvenal and the Satiric Emotions

Catherine Keane

The first monograph in a half-century to examine all sixteen of Juvenal's "Satires" individually and as a series
Traces a self-conscious satiric career through a reconsideration of Juvenal's rhetorical personae and the spectrum of emotions they represent
Studies the "Satires" alongside a wide range of contemporary and earlier ancient literary texts, including rhetorical theory, philosophy, and declamation

Juvenal and the Satiric Emotions

Catherine Keane

Description

In his sixteen verse Satires, Juvenal explores the emotional provocations and pleasures associated with social criticism and mockery. He makes use of traditional generic elements such as the first-person speaker, moral diatribe, narrative, and literary allusion to create this new satiric preoccupation and theme. Juvenal defines the satirist figure as an emotional agent who dramatizes his own response to human vices and faults, and he in turn aims to engage other people's feelings. Over the course of his career, he adopts a series of rhetorical personae that represent a spectrum of satiric emotions, encouraging his audience to ponder satire's proper emotional mode and function. Juvenal first offers his signature indignatio with its associated pleasures and discomforts, then tries on subtler personae that suggest dry detachment, callous amusement, anxiety, and other affective states.

As Keane shows, the satiric emotions are not only found in the author's rhetorical performances, but they are also a major part of the human farrago that the Satires purport to treat. Juvenal's poems explore the dynamic operation of emotions in society, drawing on diverse ancient literary, rhetorical, and philosophical sources. Each poem uniquely engages with different texts and ideas to reveal the unsettling powers of its emotional mode. Keane also analyzes the "emotional plot" of each book of Satires and the structural logic of the entire series with its wide range of subjects and settings. From his famous angry tirades to his more puzzling later meditations, Juvenal demonstrates an enduring interest in the relationship between feelings and moral judgment.

Juvenal and the Satiric Emotions

Catherine Keane

Juvenal and the Satiric Emotions

Catherine Keane

Author Information

Catherine Keane is Associate Professor of Classics at Washington University in St. Louis. She is the author of Figuring Genre in Roman Satire (2006) and A Roman Verse Satire Reader (2010).

Juvenal and the Satiric Emotions

Catherine Keane

Reviews and Awards

"Keane carefully leads us through five books of Juvenal's Satires, giving consideration both to how these Satires are all connected and to the different ways in which each Satire performs emotion. She deftly pulls together passions, satiric behavior, the speaking "I," Quellen, bodies, and emotional evolution throughout the 15 ½ Satires to give us a fully fleshed-out and sometimes funny picture of Juvenal with the occasional nod to the ways in which contemporary issues and approaches have affected our understanding of Juvenal.[iii] She does not allow us to come away with a homogenized picture of Juvenal, but rather opens up the seams of his Satires, using emotions as a tool. ... Keane has answered her own question here: perhaps in just the way she has allowed us to engage with him. She is to be congratulated for giving us a new look at this much worked-over poet." --Barbara K. Gold, CJ-Online

"One view of Juvenal's poetic career posits a vigorous, angry, youthful satirist whose power declines as he ages; another view sees a poet who shifts from the persona of an angry man to that of a tranquil man. Keane challenges both views with a nuanced reading of all 16 poems, showing a poet consistently engaged in exploring the relationships (ironic, nuanced, complex) between emotions and satiric judgments. ... In sum, this book significantly advances the study of Juvenal.... Highly recommended." --CHOICE

"How do we respond to the angry satirist? Keane is aware that the answer is far from obvious, and her book is a rich exploration of the "story" of anger as it unfolds over Juvenal's fifteen Satires, mutating into irony and cynicism in the later poems." -- The Times Literary Supplement