greykit.poetry — #satire

• 1919 [rudyard-kipling] The Gods of the Copybook Headings

  Kipling’s bleak parable — the plain truths you can deny, ignore, or outlaw, but never escape.

  #satire#prophecy#1910s
• 1902 [rudyard-kipling] The Islanders
  The Five Nations

  A savage rebuke to a complacent England — “the flannelled fools at the wicket … the muddied oafs at the goals.”

  #empire#england#satire#1900s
• 1890 [rudyard-kipling] Tommy
  Barrack-Room Ballads

  The soldier scorned in peacetime and cheered in war answers back.

  #soldiers#satire#1890s
• 1609 [william-shakespeare] Sonnet 130: My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun
  Shakespeare’s Sonnets

  A systematic demolition of every Petrarchan compliment — the eyes, lips, breasts, hair, cheeks, breath and voice all fail the comparison, and the woman walks on the ground — which turns out to be the point: his love is as rare as any belied with false compare.

  #sonnet#love#satire#1600s