English 12 Unit 3: The Enlightenment and Satire | Notes and practice

Notes

The Age of Reason

The Enlightenment valued reason, order and common sense. English writers of this Neoclassical (Augustan) age admired ancient Rome and prized wit and clarity.

Satire and irony

Satire exposes folly with humor, exaggeration or ridicule. Horatian satire is gentle; Juvenalian satire is harsh.
Techniques: irony, hyperbole, understatement, parody, absurdity and a persona.
Types of irony: verbal (opposite meaning), situational (unexpected outcome), dramatic (audience knows more).

Swift and Pope

Swift's "A Modest Proposal" (1729) uses a deadpan persona to propose eating children, which attacks cold economic thinking and the neglect of the Irish poor.
Pope used heroic couplets (rhymed iambic pentameter pairs) and mock epic (grand style for trivial subjects) in The Rape of the Lock. His lines are balanced and quotable: "To err is human; to forgive, divine."

Topics in this unit

Each topic has its own short notes and practice.

Practice

What technique is Swift using when the speaker of "A Modest Proposal" calmly outlines the economics of selling children?

In "A Modest Proposal," Swift's real target is mostly:

Which pair of lines is a heroic couplet (a rhymed pair of iambic pentameter lines)?

A narrator solemnly announces that to improve test scores the school will "wisely" remove all desks since "students cannot fail a test they cannot sit for." The best description is:

A mock epic like The Rape of the Lock treats the theft of a lock of hair as a heroic battle. What is the effect?

Which is an example of situational irony?

Free response

Write your answer first, then open the scoring guide.

Free-response question

Read this original passage: "The Town Council has announced a bold plan to reduce litter: the public library will be closed, since overdue-book notices make up most of the town's paper waste. 'We regret that reading must suffer,' said the mayor, 'but the cleanliness of our sidewalks is no small matter.'"

(a) Identify the main satirical technique and explain how it works.

Show the answer and scoring guide

The passage uses absurd logic and deadpan irony. The council treats closing a library as a sensible answer to litter, and the mayor delivers the decision seriously.

Check off the points you earned:

1 point: names a technique such as irony, absurdity or deadpan tone
1 point: explains how it appears in the passage

(b) Name the target of the satire.

Show the answer and scoring guide

The target is officials who make shortsighted or foolish decisions that harm education and public good for trivial benefits.

Check off the points you earned:

1 point: identifies a reasonable target (local government or leaders who undervalue libraries)
1 point: connects it to a detail in the passage

(c) State the real message the author wants readers to take away.

Show the answer and scoring guide

Cutting valuable public services to fix a minor problem is unreasonable; leaders should find solutions that do not sacrifice education or community resources.

Check off the points you earned:

1 point: states a clear message beyond the literal text
1 point: supports it with evidence from the passage