SATIRE AS PERFORMANCE: A RE-READING OF ORALITY

Abstract

Time there was when scholars believed that Homeric formulaic expressions and epithets alone conferred orality on a text. The seminal work by Milman Parry, establishing the orality of Homer, places emphasis on some traditional techniques of composition in the Homeric poems. However, recent criticisms by oralists who are concerned about techniques in oral compositions have cast doubts on what makes a text performative, an action-in-performance. Indeed, the study of 'speech acts' contained in satiric compositions reveals that this genre of poetry can be read as action-in-performance. By investigating the speech acts and other structural elements in selected compositions by Juvenal and Horace, this paper seeks to show that ancient Roman satire exhibits similar grammatical structure and oral features, and can thus be seen as performance, even in its literary form