Discourses on Satire and on Epic Poetry — John Shaqi
Discourses on Satire and on Epic PoetryDryden, John
History
Discourses on Satire and on Epic Poetry
Dryden, John
Epic poetry; Satire; Satire -- History and criticism
that the satires of Horace are wholly different from those of Lucilius,
because Horace has not less surpassed Lucilius in the elegancy of his
writing than Lucilius surpassed Ennius in the turn and ornament of his.
This passage of Diomedes has also drawn Dousa the son into the same error
of Casaubon, which I say, not to expose the little failings of those
judicious men, but only to make it appear with how much diffidence and
caution we are to read their works when they treat a subject of so much
obscurity and so very ancient as is this of satire.
Having thus brought down the history of satire from its original to the
times of Horace, and shown the several changes of it, I should here
discover some of those graces which Horace added to it, but that I think
it will be more proper to defer that undertaking till I make the
comparison betwixt him and Juvenal. In the meanwhile, following the
order of time, it will be necessary to say somewhat of another kind of
satire which also was descended from the ancient; it is that which we
call the Varronian satire (but which Varro himself calls the Menippean)
because Varro, the most learned of the Romans, was the first author of
it, who imitated in his works the manners of Menippus the Gadarenian, who
professed the philosophy of the Cynics.
This sort of satire was not only composed of several sorts of verse, like
those of Ennius, but was also mixed with prose, and Greek was sprinkled
amongst the Latin. Quintilian, after he had spoken of the satire of
Lucilius, adds what follows:—“There is another and former kind of satire,
composed by Terentius Varro, the most learned of the Romans, in which he
was not satisfied alone with mingling in it several sorts of verse.” The
only difficulty of this passage is that Quintilian tells us that this
satire of Varro was of a former kind; for how can we possibly imagine
this to be, since Varro, who was contemporary to Cicero, must
consequently be after Lucilius? But Quintilian meant not that the satire
of Varro was in order of time before Lucilius; he would only give us to
understand that the Varronian satire, with mixture of several sorts of
verses, was more after the manner of Ennius and Pacuvius than that of
Lucilius, who was more severe and more correct, and gave himself less
liberty in the mixture of his verses in the same poem.
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