Juvenal: Satires Literary Elements

Lucilian satire in verse, though very often translated into prose for modern readers

Rome in the early second century after the birth of Christ; it is portrayed as the nadir of Roman civilization. The narrative also recounts events from Roman history to counterpoint its decline.

Varies. For the most part, the Satires are written from the perspective of a narrator presumed to be the author. The perspective, however, is typically from the second person in which the narrator is directing his text toward a “you” who is sometimes the reader, but very often a character to whom he supposedly speaking. Satire III, however, is mostly handed over to a fist-person narrator named Umbricius who begins the chapter as one of the characters which the narrator addresses in the second person.

As one might expect, the mood is decided ironic. It is the tone where things vary. Tonal shifts from one chapter to the next can proceed from corrosive outrage to an almost flippant sort of sardonic humor, usually directed at specific targets of ire.

The narrator—or, when appropriate, the character he is addressing—is generally speaking the protagonist of the entire collection. Although specific antagonists vary from one chapter to the next, the overarching antagonist is very apparent: everyone the narrator deems responsible for the collapse of the greatness of what Rome. This covers a very large portion of the populace, befitting a comprehensive ironic attack on the state of society

The conflict which stretches across the breadth of the series of satire is on which pits the glory of Rome’s past with the forces which have led to its decline into decadence. Among the most potent of these forces are Greek immigrants, women, rich patrons, liars, those lacking empathy and compassion, autocratic soldiers, and anyone who seeks the pleasures of the nobility without having it earned it.

As there is no actual linear narrative tying the chapters together, there is no climax. And that is, in itself, a kind of climax: the Rome which is being described is looking to be an anticlimactic end to the glory which preceded it.

Early in Satire IV, one of the individual antagonists, Crispinus, is pointed out as an example of the decadence of the time through his purchase of a mullet for a price exceeding the cost of the fisherman which caught it. This sly foreshadows the attack on the rich patron in the succeeding chapter—another of the individual antagonists—who eats mullet imported from Corsica while his dinner are served bottom feeders.

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Allusions abound throughout the text with at least one appearing on practically every page: the opening line of the Satire I alludes to an epic poem by Theseid while the last paragraph of the last page references a relatively obscure figure in Greek myth, Pylades, who is really only remembered because of his relationship to Orestes.

The satire titled “How Catullus Escaped the Shipwreck” provides the most robust opportunity for Juvenal to dip into the imagery pond. And with this catch he comes up with not just the one that got away, but imagery full enough to feed upon for the week: “Soon the winds abated, and out came the sun, bringing hope of life; and then there came into view the beetling height so dear to lulus, and preferred by him for his abode to his stepmother's Lavinum, a height that took its name from the white sow whose wondrous womb made glad the Phrygians' hearts, and gained fame for her thirty teats-- a sight never seen before!”

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Umbricius engages in parallelism early in his attack against the state of Rome not being fit for a good Roman: "What can I do at Rome? I cannot lie; if a book is bad, I cannot praise it, and beg for a copy; I am ignorant of the movements of the stars; I cannot, and will not, promise to a man his father's death; I have never examined the entrails of a frog; I must leave it to others to carry to a bride the presents and messages of a paramour.”

Rome is throughout a metonym for the entire civilization by encompassing all the various personalities from history, the characters whom the narrator addresses, and the various antagonists who have brought about its collapse into decadence and evil.

Multiple examples of personification can be found throughout the text:
“Never does Nature say one thing and Wisdom another.”
"Honesty is praised and starves."