Beyond Time and Terror: Political Satire in Modern Selected Verse Dramas

Abstract The current study, Beyond Time and Terror: Political Satire in Modern Selected Verse Dramas, is mainly conducted in pursuit of the political satire in certain modern verse dramas, Munificence Palm and Kongi`s Harvest, and how the playwrights convey their overt and covert messages. Such a locus is of the interest of the readership as much as there is an eclectic model to explicate different texts to obliterate any state of obscurity. To trace such objectives there are two sections with a conclusion, the first surveys the rise of the political satire and its impact on literature in general and modern verse drama in particular and endeavours to expose the unexposed in the verse dramas in focus. The second does explicate the verse dramas in the light of the political satire components; menippean satire, Horatian satire and Juvenalian satire, its three modes; monologue, parody and narrative ,the poetic devices ,scenographic elements and onomastic allusions. Thus, the monologue and narrativity take precedence over parody as the playwrights revert into narrativity to escalate the plot structure and into monologue to expose the innermost passions of the pivotal characters .Furthermore, the decrowning in carnival of the menippean satire and the gentility vs. follies of the Horatian satire are found in conditions of equality in these two plays. Such reflects the reality of the injustice man endures to cope with, sometimes the struggle for the best standards of living and for highest levels of dignity costs him dear as seen in the Munificence Palm and Kongi`s Harvest. The former shows, with specific poetic devices, a protagonist too adamant and pertinacious to succumb to disgrace and disloyalty, the latter sets the pivotal character candid and determined to reveal nobility in the face of mundane and ephemeral desires.