Juvenal

Juvenal, full name Decimus Junius Juvenalis (65?-128?), Roman satirical poet, born in Aquinum in southern Italy. All that is known of his life is that he had a short army career, fell out of favor with the Emperor Domitian, and was exiled (perhaps to Egypt). On his return to Rome he lived in poverty, but toward the end of his life his circumstances improved—probably because of the favor of the Emperor Hadrian.

The period of Juvenal's literary activity extended from about 98 to 128, during which time he wrote the 16 extant satires upon which his reputation is based. Remarkable for their brilliant, epigrammatic style, they are unsparing attacks upon the follies and vices of imperial Roman society and give a vivid description of life in Rome. Many of the satires reveal deep sympathy for the poor and disgust for the wealthy. Juvenal's moral indignation and bitter irony are in contrast to the gentler ridicule written by the earlier Roman poet Horace. Both modes of satire, however, greatly influenced later poetry. Juvenalian satire was particularly admired by such 17th- and 18th-century British poets as John Dryden, Jonathan Swift, and Samuel Johnson, who translated Juvenal's work and modeled their own satirical verse on his. Johnson's Vanity of Human Wishes (1749), for example, is an imitation of the great tenth satire.