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

FAQs

What is the difference between Horatian and Juvenalian satire?

Horatian satire is gentle and playful about folly; Juvenalian satire is harsher and scornful about perceived evil.

The two registers are named for the Roman satirists Horace and Juvenal. Horatian satire criticizes a social vice playfully, through gentle, mild and light-hearted humour, and aims its wit at folly rather than evil, hoping to heal a situation with smiles rather than anger. Juvenalian satire is more contemptuous and abrasive, and treats perceived social evil with scorn, outrage and savage ridicule. Writers do not always stay in one register, but the contrast is the usual starting point for describing a satirist's tone.

Connections

Associated With

Fable

Source The Norton Anthology of World Literature

Maqama

Source The Norton Anthology of World Literature

Ottava Rima

Source Encyclopaedia Britannica

Encompasses Form

Parody

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

A Clockwork Orange

Source A Clockwork Orange (novel) (Wikipedia)

Alexander Pope

Source Wikipedia: Alexander Pope

Animal Farm

Source Animal Farm (Wikipedia)

Being There

Source Being There (novel) (Wikipedia)

Candide

Source Candide (Wikipedia)

Catch-22

Source Wikipedia: Catch-22

Cat's Cradle

Source Wikipedia: Cat's Cradle

Dead Souls

Source Dead Souls (Wikipedia)

Death and the Penguin

Source Wikipedia: Death and the Penguin

Erewhon

Source Wikipedia: Erewhon

François Rabelais

Source Wikipedia: François Rabelais

Gargantua and Pantagruel

Source Wikipedia: Gargantua and Pantagruel

Gulliver's Travels

Source Gulliver's Travels (Wikipedia)

Henry Fielding

Source Wikipedia: Henry Fielding

Jaroslav Hašek

Source Wikidata: Jaroslav Hasek

Additional Source Jaroslav Hasek (Wikipedia)Infobox: genre

Jonathan Swift

Source Jonathan Swift (Wikipedia)

Joseph Heller

Source Wikipedia: Joseph Heller

Lazarillo de Tormes

Source Wikipedia: Lazarillo de Tormes

Miguel de Cervantes

Source The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics

Noli Me Tangere

Source Wikidata: Noli Me Tangere

Rudolf Erich Raspe

Source Wikipedia: Rudolf Erich Raspe

Sartor Resartus

Source Encyclopaedia Britannica

Satyricon

Source Wikipedia: Satyricon

The Confidence-Man

Source Wikipedia: The Confidence-Man

The Good Soldier Švejk

Source Wikidata: The Good Soldier Svejk

Additional Source The Good Soldier Svejk (Wikipedia)Infobox: genre

The Loved One

Source The Loved One (book) (Wikipedia)

The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg

Source The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg (Wikipedia)

The Master and Margarita

Source The Master and Margarita (Wikipedia)

The Rape of the Lock

Source The Rape of the Lock (Wikipedia)

The Trials of Brother Jero

Source The Trials of Brother Jero (Wikipedia)

The Twelve Chairs

Source Wikipedia: The Twelve Chairs

Thomas Carlyle

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

Source Encyclopaedia Britannica

Tristan Tzara

Source Tristan Tzara (Wikipedia)

Utopia

Source Utopia (book) (Wikipedia)

Vanity Fair

Source Wikipedia: Vanity Fair (novel)

Voltaire

Source Wikipedia: Voltaire

William S. Burroughs

Source Wikipedia: William S. Burroughs

Yevgeny Zamyatin

Source Wikipedia: Yevgeny Zamyatin

In the Other Atlases

Originated In

Greece

Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject originated.

Source The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poeticstier 1

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.