"People Have to Watch What They Say": What Horace, Juvenal, and 9/11 Can Tell Us about Satire and History

Abstract

In days and weeks following attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001, related assault began on place of and satire in America's new post-9/11 culture. For example, on 18 September, Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter told news website Inside.com that America had reached the end of age of irony; on 21 September, Camille Dodero wrote in Boston Phoenix of end of unbridled irony for coddled generation that bathed itself in sarcasm; and on 24 September, in Time magazine editorial, Roger Rosenblatt also declared dead, its demise constituting the one good thing [that] could come from this horror. (1) Although small number of media pundits came to defense of irony, events in popular culture seemed to reflect accuracy of views of Carter and Rosenblatt, as many television productions that relied on ironic satire went temporarily (and, in at least one case, permanently) off air in face of wave of public animosity. The attack on ironic satire after 9/11 helps to illuminate one of most contentious theoretical issues surrounding genre: role of history in interpretation of satire. What is potentially useful to literary critic/historian about moments of intense cultural crisis is that such moments tend to make satire's 'historicity' (2) more readily apparent. Since satire unapologetically engages with things which men do (quidquid agunt homines) (3) as Juvenal (1.85) wrote, genre must invariably engage with profound shifts in cultural ethos in dialogic manner; however, it is when engagement turns to conflict during moments of crisis that satire is subjected to repression, and repressive response often provides illuminating details about nature of conflict between arbiters and critics of society. As one historical example, Annabel Patterson (1989, 83-4) describes Elizabethan government's effort to ban satire in politically unstable summer of 1599 as a struggle not only for popular imagination but also, obviously, for control of media by which that imagination was stimulated. Patterson's (1989, 86) contention that Elizabeth's government could not tolerate representational instability resonates with modern times as well. During heavily contested ministerial elections in Italy in 2006, for example, Prime Minister and media mogul Silvio Berlusconi invoked Italy's par conditio law, which ensures equal time for all political views, as means to prevent Italian comedians and satirists from deriding his administration on those television networks that were beyond his control. Satire's historicity and frequent desire to quell its unorthodox influence are recurring issues in cultural history; after all, if in actuality satire has little power to disturb political order, asks Dustin Griffin (1994, 153), then why have governments thought it important to control? The battle to control tenor of representations of social ethos is an inherently ideological battle as forces of authority work to maintain orthodoxies that sustain it by suppressing those who would undermine such orthodoxies. The repressive acrimony leveled at satire after 9/11 provides kind of case study of dynamics involved in dialogue between contemporary satire and historical change. The radical shifts in America's political, economic, and psychological climates of time both influenced and were influenced by prevalent modes of cultural criticism. Although space does not permit an exhaustive discussion of all factors involved in recent example of satire's historicity, broad outline may help to illuminate not only historicity of contemporary satire but that of Roman satire as well. Such comparison of contemporary America and ancient Rome is open to host of well-founded objections, yet comparison is made with such frequency as to merit serious consideration. …