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Genre

Satire

Also Known As Satura The Latin term for the miscellany-verse form the Roman poets (Ennius, Lucilius, Horace, Juvenal) gave the genre its name from.
Satire and Mystery Fiction

A genre using irony, exaggeration, ridicule or invective to expose and criticize vice, folly, abuses or contemporary institutions, spanning verse, prose and drama. The Roman poets Horace and Juvenal established two enduring registers, the wry and the savage, and the hybrid prose-and-verse Menippean satire, named for the Greek Cynic Menippus and practiced in Petronius' Satyricon and Lucian's dialogues, mixed forms to send up philosophical pretension. Renaissance and Enlightenment satire, Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels and A Modest Proposal foremost among English examples and Voltaire's Candide in French, turned the mode against political and religious institutions, and satire persists as a live literary and journalistic mode into the present.

Facts
Place of Origin
Traced to ancient Greece; Aristophanes's Old Comedy is considered the origin of satire as a literary mode. 1
Notable Example
Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal, which suggests Irish peasants sell their own children as food for the rich as a mock solution to the problem of poverty. 1
Defining Trait
Vices, follies, abuses and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of exposing or shaming the perceived flaws. 1
Connections

Associated With

Fable, Genres
Source The Norton Anthology of World Literature
Maqama, Genres
Source The Norton Anthology of World Literature
Ottava Rima, Forms
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica

Encompasses Form

Menippean Satire, Genres
News Satire, Genres
Parody, Genres
Pasquinade, Genres
Political Satire, Genres
Religious Satire, Genres
The Epigram, Forms

The Roman epigrammatist Martial used the short, pointed epigram as a primary vehicle for satire.

Source The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics

Features Author

Animal Farm, Works
Source Animal Farm (Wikipedia)
Candide, Works
Source Candide (Wikipedia)
Dead Souls, Works
Source Dead Souls (Wikipedia)
Gulliver's Travels, Works
Source Gulliver's Travels (Wikipedia)
Miguel de Cervantes, Authors
Source The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
Sartor Resartus, Works
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
The Master and Margarita, Works
Source The Master and Margarita (Wikipedia)
The Rape of the Lock, Works
Source The Rape of the Lock (Wikipedia)
Thomas Carlyle, Authors

Via the Menippean satire of Sartor Resartus; his main body of work is nonfiction prose.

Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Utopia, Works
Source Utopia (book) (Wikipedia)
Sources
1. Satire (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundation
  • Lead section
    Vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of exposing or shaming the perceived flaws.
  • body
    The origin of satire is considered to be Aristophanes' Old Comedy.
  • Age of Enlightenment section
    [A Modest Proposal] suggests that Irish peasants be encouraged to sell their own children as food for the rich, as a solution to the problem of poverty.
View the Source
The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
Princeton University PressSatire entry
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
  • Features Author: Sartor Resartus
  • Features Author: Thomas Carlyle
  • Associated With: Ottava Rima, s.v. Ottava rima
View the Source
The Norton Anthology of World Literature
W. W. Norton & Company
  • Associated With: Fable, Introduction, World Fable Traditions
  • Associated With: Maqama, Introduction, Arabic Narrative Prose
The Rape of the Lock (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationFeatures Author: The Rape of the Lock, Lead section, satire description
Quote, Features Author: The Rape of the Lock, Lead section, satire description
It satirizes a real social quarrel, a young nobleman's theft of a lock of hair from a society beauty, by treating the trivial incident with the full machinery of classical epic, gods, battles and elevated language turned to a drawing-room dispute.
View the Source
Utopia (book) (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationFeatures Author: Utopia, Lead section, satire description
Quote, Features Author: Utopia, Lead section, satire description
Utopia is a work of fiction and socio-political satire by Thomas More (1478-1535), written in Latin and published in 1516 and revised in 1518.
View the Source
Candide (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationFeatures Author: Candide, Lead section, genre
Quote, Features Author: Candide, Lead section, genre
is a French satire written by Voltaire
View the Source
Animal Farm (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationFeatures Author: Animal Farm, Lead section, genre (satire)
Quote, Features Author: Animal Farm, Lead section, genre (satire)
a satirical allegorical dystopian novella, in the form of a beast fable
View the Source
The Master and Margarita (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationFeatures Author: The Master and Margarita, Lead section, genre
Quote, Features Author: The Master and Margarita, Lead section, genre
combines supernatural elements with satirical dark comedy and Christian philosophy
View the Source
Gulliver's Travels (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationFeatures Author: Gulliver's Travels, Lead section, genre (satire)
Quote, Features Author: Gulliver's Travels, Lead section, genre (satire)
Satire, fantasy, Science fiction, traveller's tale
View the Source
Dead Souls (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationFeatures Author: Dead Souls, Lead section, genre (satire)
Quote, Features Author: Dead Souls, Lead section, genre (satire)
Picaresque, political, satire
View the Source
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