Schmitt’s Roman links in The Buribunks: enriching the satire

Abstract

This chapter considers Schmitt’s Roman links in The Buribunks (1918) and how they enrich the satire. Broadly, it examines Schmitt’s background in the classics and satire, and focuses on The Buribunks’s satiric toolkit and its connections, explicit or implicit, with two Roman authors: Tacitus and Juvenal. Their Latin texts – Tacitus’s Annales and Juvenal’s Satire 7 – are expressly referenced in Schmitt’s early scholarly text, Dictatorship (1921). These intertextual links enrich Schmitt’s critique of diary-writing and the philosophy of history in this fantastical world. To illustrate this, Schmitt’s background and early texts – his early familiarity with the classics and satire, and the relevant Roman links in his early text, Dictatorship – are first sketched. Second, key aspects of satire and irony are canvassed and applied to The Buribunks. Third, The Buribunks’s links with Tacitus’s irony are considered – the narrator’s seeming lack of understanding of the implications of Tacitus’s phrase ‘sine ira et studio’ casts doubt on the narrator’s reliability. Fourth, The Buribunks’s links with Juvenal’s satire are explored – Juvenal’s satire targets, and likely pillories, the plight of intellectuals, including historians. Finally, it is proposed that the admonitory implications of this fictional text’s dystopia sharpen Schmitt’s satire in The Buribunks.