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Other Forms of Nonfiction
Lettersand diariesoften provide personal details of everyday life at the time they were written. Most are private and not intended to be shared, but some are published because they are well written or concern famous historical or literary figures. The Diary of Samuel Pepys is an important historical record written by someone who observed life in its smallest details and then meditated on the meaning of what he had witnessed. Other examples include Fanny Burney’s journal and collected letters.
Biographyis nonfiction in which a writer recounts the events of another person’s life. Autobiographiesand memoirsare works in which people recall significant events in their own lives. James Boswell’s The Life of Samuel Johnson is an example of a biography about a great literary figure.
When you are reading nonfiction, use the following strategies:
• Take note of the type of documentyou are reading. Is it a formal essay, or is it an informal work with a loose structure?
• Draw conclusions about the author’s purpose.Is the writer addressing a social problem? If so, what solutions does he or she suggest?
• Consider the historical contextand the value of the work at the time it was written or published. Ask yourself if the work is still of value today.
• Summarize the main ideasof the work in your own words.
Literature Focus III. Satire
A History of Mockery
Satireis a literary technique in which behaviors or institutions are ridiculed for the purpose of improving society. What sets satire apart from other forms of social and political protest is humor. The use of satire began with the ancient Greeks but came into its own in ancient Rome, where the “fathers” of satire, Horace (1st c. BC) and Juvenal (2nd c. AD), were inspired by the decadence of the Roman Empire to write scathing critiques of their society.
The next great flourishing of satire began in Europe in the second half of the 17th c. and continued throughout the 18th c. In England, this “golden age” of satire encompassed the talents of the Restoration dramatists as well as John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, and Samuel Johnson.
The 18th c. was dominated by satiric poetry, prose, and drama. Satirists, as guardians of the culture, sought to protect their highly developed civilization from corruption by attacking hypocrisy, arrogance, greed, vanity, and stupidity. “The satirist is to be regarded as our physician, not our enemy,” wrote 18th c. novelist Henry Fielding.
With a few notable exceptions—namely, the writings of Lord Byron, William Makepeace Thackeray, and Samuel Butler in England and Mark Twain in the United States—satirical writing faded in the 19th century. Literary satire in the 20th c. has been somewhat scarce, but other forms of media, such as political cartoons and television shows, have shown a resurgence of satire.