Non-Aligned Humour

This chapter on ‘non-aligned’ humour (so called because it is not tied to either object or subject) excludes the Stoic satires of Persius, but argues that for Horace and Juvenal, non-aligned humour is an important characteristic of their work, adding a dimension of merry openness. Through non-aligned humour, Horace’s and Juvenal’s satires again tease, and occasionally cheat the reader, as the ‘irrelevant’ jokes and irony sometimes try to win the reader’s sympathy, but sometimes turn against him; warmly delight in an alternative lifestyle, and then suddenly ridicule it; make cynically nihilistic statements alongside dully traditional ones, and generally destabilize the seriousness of the normative message on the surface. In Horace, the analysis focuses on his masterly balance of extremes. For Juvenal, the discussion centres on the monsters of his world, present even in the Golden Age.

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