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Pathos
Definition of Satire
Satire is the use of humor, irony, sarcasm, or ridicule to criticize something or someone. Public figures, such as politicians, are often the subject of satire, but satirists can take... read full definition
Satire is the use of humor, irony, sarcasm, or ridicule to criticize something or someone. Public figures, such as politicians, are often the subject of... read full definition
Satire is the use of humor, irony, sarcasm, or ridicule to criticize something or someone. Public figures, such as politicians... read full definition
Act 3, Scene 5
Explanation and Analysis—The Schoolmaster :
In one of the play’s few comedic scenes, a local Schoolmaster attempts to lead the Country Folk in a short dance and theatrical performance, to be performed for Theseus, the Duke of Athens. Shakespeare and Fletcher satirize both the rustic and simple villagers, and the pretensions of the Schoolmaster. When the villagers struggle to follow his directions, the Schoolmaster states:
Fie, fie, what tediosity and disinsanity
is here among you! Have my rudiments been labored so long with you, milked unto you, and, by a figure, even the very plum broth and marrow of my understanding laid upon you, and do you still cry “Where?” and “How?” and “Wherefore?” […] Proh deum, medius fidius, you are all dunces! Forwhy, here stand I; here the Duke comes; there are you, close in the thicket; the Duke appears; I meet him and unto him I utter learnèd things and many figures; he hears, and nods, and hums, and then cries “Rare!” and I go forward.
The impatient Schoolmaster vents his frustrations at the villagers, who have failed to master his directions. He insists that he has given them the “plum broth and marrow / of [his] understanding”—a metaphor that compares his knowledge to some food considered both valuable and delicious in early modern England.
While the Schoolmaster considers himself to be more intelligent than the villagers, Shakespeare and Fletcher also satirize his pretentious attitude. He has peppered his speech with Latin expressions and pompous vocabulary in an attempt to appear well-educated, though he uses many words incorrectly. “Tediosity” and “disinsanity,” for example, are words of his own invention. In this scene, then, the playwrights satirize different classes of society.
