"Revealing America Through Satire"
Blog Post #2
     I love satire,and when I think of the word "satire", I think of comedy, because it is a form of comedy. I'm a comedian myself, so I can relate to John Dryden's unique way of using satire to expose someone. Satire is a gift that most comedian or poets were born with. You can't be taught satire, you have to be born with it. This is a gift that Trevor Noah, the host of "The Daily Show" has. He uses satire to expose politicians and the many political issues that we a faced with in America. He exposes them by taking what they said and explaining what they really wanted to say or what they should have said in a comical way.
    “The power of the poet to influence opinions and shape people’s literary and political tastes required certain poets to be tagged as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. The method to accomplish this was to comment on other poets and their work. This method led to development of the genre of satire. Dryden outlines the shape of satire in his Discourse  in terms of what the poet should address and how he should structure his argument with a variety of themes.”
    John Dryden was a great poet during the Restoration period. He used his power as a poet to expose other so called great poets. he exposed those poets who were saying things that made know sense to the public or to themselves, but only given false meaning and hope to people. Dryden used satire and whit to reveal the difference between a true poet and false poet.
   “Dryden undercuts this by calling his work “fruitless industry”, implying that even if Shadwell is capable of “practice”, like Flecknoe he is not capable of “success”. The lack of results from his work makes his “labours” equal to nothing, just like his false pregnancy.”
    Dryden used satire to insult "Mac Flecknoe and his so called dad "Thomas Shadwell." He exposed their falsely advice as poets. He reminded the people of how they pretended to great by using big words to covered up the nonsense that they were saying. This is what true comedy is to me. When you can use satire or comedy to expose people of power. In our world today, just as it was during the Enlightment Period, people of power, thought that they could just say and do what they wanted without any consequences. But just as Dryden reveal the false poets back then, Noah is revealing the false politicians to us, in a comical way. That's why I love satire.

Sources: http://www.academia.edu/7370230/John_Drydens_Engagement_with_Satire_and_MacFlecknoe
   







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