| Description |
This study tries to account for the differences between Donne's and the other satires of the 1590's. It analyzes the five satires from the point of view of rhetorical technique, and finds that the poems use predominantly the devices of teaching. They at least pretend to be didactic discourse. Elizabethan formal verse satire is usually epideictic; Donne's is deliberative in overall purpose, though the other rhetorical modes are used to achieve the end. The poems show an interest in virtue and vice, in ways that reflect the cardinal virtue tradition. They assert an optimistic v i.cw of the power of reason to lead men to virtue. They are informed by an ideal of the sapiens upon whom is conferred a civic responsibility. They also show an interest in language, and reflect some of the values attached to the classical ideal of eloquence. In all these aspects, Donne is deliberately identifying his work in the Humanistic tradition, particularly as it derives from Cicero. As satirist, Donne is pretending to be a moral teacher, a teacher of moral knowledge who want to exhort us Lo live a more rational life. As teacher, he tells us that the quest for wisdom, which is the highest virtue, must start w i t.h self-knowledge, which begins at understanding our concupiscent and irascible tendencies. These satires educate us about vice, and, by making the passionate life appear undesirable, enjoin us to temper our passions by means of reason. The satirist is vates, the priestly poet, who perceives a relationship between language and wisdom. |
