Analysis of Rochesters A Satyr Against Mankind Essay -- Satyr Against

Analysis of Rochesters A lech Against piece Although John Wilmot, better known as the Earl of Rochester, wrote A satyr Against piece in 1679, his ideas are still relevant over trio centuries later. His foresight in satirizing humankinds use of background reinforces the intrinsic role of moderateness in the human condition. But implicit in his condemnation of ground is an intentional fallacythe speaker of the poem uses reason in the identical manner as those that he claims to abhor. In doing this, Rochester widens the perimeter of his criticism to compass the speaker as well as those he admonishes, a crusade that magnifies the satire. Considering this, the anti-reason cadences of the poem become exaggerated so strikingly that the speakers words essential be taken lightly. Accordingly, Rochesters intent in A Satyr Against Mankind is to persuade readers to use their gift of reason humbly, a sentiment denotative by making the poems narrator one of the unreasonably reasonable hoi polloi of whom he speaks. In the first line of the poem, the narrator immediately interjects a handicap that accounts for his potential poetic ineptness he is a man. He establishes the poems prevailing attitude that man is a strange, prodigious creature (Wilmot 2), heartrending because of his vainglorious rationality. Rochester is careful not to detach the narrator from the humans he criticizes, but let him glow with a misleading aura of objectivity, as if by acknowledging that he is a man with unjust pride of reason he is partially exempt from the criticisms he bestows upon his ... ... rational observations and conclusions. A great thread of irony lashes together the speakers arguments in A Satyr Against Mankindhis use of reason undermines his disapproval of it. As he deplores rational view as kindling for interpersonal dis cord and fuel for useless pursuits of veracious resolve, he places himself in the same position of those he criticizes. Rochester manipulates the narrator with this problem to heighten the satire, which ultimately exaggerates the human tendency of proudly flouting rational aptitudes to appraise those who use reason with sensible restraint. Work Cited Wilmot, John. A Satyr Against Mankind. Eighteenth-Century face Literature. Ed. Geoffrey Tillotson. Fort Worth Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers, 1969. 3336.