Genres
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.
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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 OriginTraced to ancient Greece; Aristophanes's Old Comedy is considered the origin of satire as a literary mode. 1 Notable ExampleJonathan 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 TraitVices, follies, abuses and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of exposing or shaming the perceived flaws. 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Encompasses Form
The Epigram, Forms The Roman epigrammatist Martial used the short, pointed epigram as a primary vehicle for satire.
Features Author
Thomas Carlyle, Authors Via the Menippean satire of Sartor Resartus; his main body of work is nonfiction prose.
Sources
1. Satire (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationLead sectionQuote, Lead section
Vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of exposing or shaming the perceived flaws.
1. Satire (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationbodyQuote, body
The origin of satire is considered to be Aristophanes' Old Comedy.
1. Satire (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationAge of Enlightenment sectionQuote, 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.
The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
Princeton University Press
The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
Princeton University PressSatire entry
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.Features Author: Sartor ResartusView the Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.Features Author: Thomas CarlyleView the Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.Associated With: Ottava Rima, s.v. Ottava rimaView the Source The Norton Anthology of World Literature
W. W. Norton & CompanyAssociated With: Fable, Introduction, World Fable Traditions
The Norton Anthology of World Literature
W. W. Norton & CompanyAssociated With: Maqama, Introduction, Arabic Narrative Prose
The Rape of the Lock (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationFeatures Author: The Rape of the Lock, Lead section, satire descriptionQuote, 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.
Utopia (book) (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationFeatures Author: Utopia, Lead section, satire descriptionQuote, 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.
Candide (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationFeatures Author: Candide, Lead section, genreQuote, Features Author: Candide, Lead section, genre
is a French satire written by Voltaire
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