Swift and Juvenalian Satire in BLAST Magazine, Issue 1

When first reading BLAST, the reader is handed (if not hit with) many criticisms of the art and culture of the 1910s.  The writers “BLAST” the figureheads of the movements of which they disapprove. As we read in the introduction, BLAST was trying to establish Vorticism as the artistic movement in England (as well as the rest of the world).  Vorticist painters/artists were trying to establish the movement as being separate from Futurism and as being English in origin; however, the magazine goes far beyond just announcing the problems—and the BLAST writers’ hatred—of Futurism.  It quickly and poetically scrutinizes many elements of popular culture.  They even go so far as to “BLAST HUMOR” and claim that humor is merely “a drug for stupidity and sleepiness” (BLAST 17).  Additionally, they describe it as “freezing” the “REAL” aspects of life in the “ferious chemistry/of laughter” (17).

However, it is important to note that the BLAST writers—specifically, Wyndham Lewis who wrote the introduction to the magazine—do not completely shun humor.  In fact, they later “BLESS” it on page 26 of the magazine.  They mention specifically two great writers of English humor: Jonathan Swift and William Shakespeare.  They praise both for their specific style of humor, but these styles share a common element: they both wield humor as “a barbarous weapon” as geniuses of their respective ages.  Shakespeare brings both a “bitter Northern Rhetoric” to his humor and “a mysticism, madness and delicacy…[and brings] equal quantities of Comic and Tragic together” (26, 37).  He makes the humorous slightly tragic and vice versa.  However, in this blog post, I want to specifically discuss Swift.  Of Swift, Lewis praises his “solemn bleak/wisdom of laughter” (26).  Lewis appreciates Swift, because he is able to use his humor and the “bleak wisdom” of his words for a very primitive and barbaric purpose.  This purpose is the use of wit and humor to ridicule and correct behavior.  Lewis is applauding the use of satire—literary art written to correct human behavior, practices, mores, etc.

There are two main forms of satire: Horation and Juvenalian.  Horation satire is more conversational and is known for playfully and wittily trying to correct societal behavior.  Swift, however, used mostly Juvenalian satire which focuses on berating and harshly mocking something in society which the satirist sees as grotesque.  An example of his Juvenalian satire would be “A Modest Proposal.”  It comes as no shock that Lewis (and as I will discuss later, Pound) channel Swift for BLAST.  BLAST itself has a very strong, forceful use of satire and irony.  It has an entire page devoted to the specific people that it is BLAST-ing. 

Additionally, Pounds poem “Salutation The Third” on page 45 should be read as a piece of Juvenalian satire.  He calls out the people in “The Times” for going against “newness” (l. 1-4).  He mentions that they will deserve it “when the worms are wriggling in their vitals” (l. 3).  He goes on to call out other people that will go against their pursuits of the avant-garde.  He ends the poem commanding that one come and lick his boots for not realizing the importance of their new art.  He also makes what I find to be a reference to Swift in lines 18 and 19: “It has been your HABIT for long to do away with true poets,/You either drive them mad or else you blink at their suicides.”  The fear of insanity permeated Swift’s works.  Works like Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift, D.S.P.D.—in which Swift discusses his not-so-idealistic view of how the world will look at his life’s work after he has died—exposes this view, and at a certain point in the poem, people say that he was starting to lose his mind (l. 84-98).  Swift was afraid that at some point he would lose his mind, and towards the end of his life, he did.  Pound may be attributing some of Swift’s madness to the critics that hounded him, and he might be connecting his and the other contributors to BLAST's situation to Swift’s plight.