Satire is a bit unusual as a literary term because it can be used to describe both a literary device and the specific genre of literature that makes use of the device. Even the most basic issues surrounding ancient satire, such as the provenance of the word, which comes from “satura” (mixture) rather than “satyr,” as many thought, were not always widely understood. The basis of satire is not a positive ethical program but a hysterical desire for the satirist to ward off a too-close evil. Additionally, Pope overstates the male lover's frustration and the extent to which Fate played a role in the incident (the minor theft of a single curl). Teacher Editions with classroom activities for all 1383 titles we cover. 93. 46. Early 21st century criticism has moved between a rhetorical approach inflected by poststructural theory and a historicism grounded in archival research, empiricism, and period studies. For Bogel, the distinction between Horatian and Juvenalian satire collapses, because both tendencies are essentially denials of satire’s true function. Although Menippean satire was a significant form of ancient satire, it had largely fallen into obscurity by the 20th century. If you read The Hunger Games, you’ll know that the layers of social and political commentary were complex. Dryden, “Discourse Concerning the Original and the Progress of Satire,” 193. A third, less common type of satire is Menippean satire, named after Menippus, the Greek cynic and satirist. Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, another example of satire in literature, satirizes bureaucracy. But despite these frequent classical references, the transmission of ancient satire into the modern world was not linear. These labels are more of a classical framework for literary critics rather than a strict set of guidelines that all modern satires must follow, but they are worth reviewing because they can help make clear the wide variety of forms that satire can take. The result is that he has been variously described as both a satirist and a romantic ironist. Critical views of satire have also been affected by the fact that, at least from the 20th century onward, satire has been a comparatively marginal object of study. Seidel foregrounds the aesthetic possibilities of satire, arguing that satire’s rhetorical excesses completely overwhelm its alleged ethical benefits: “In satiric invective the urge to reform is literally overwhelmed by the urge to annihilate. While often funny, there is also dark satire. 2 (1974): 335. As shown by the examples, satire typically uses comedy to highlight the failings of targets in the political arena. Robert C. Elliott, The Power of Satire: Magic, Ritual, Art (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1960), 219. Satire’s long history, which is not straightforwardly linear, means that it is impossible to catalogue all of the views on it from antiquity through to modernity. Some additional famous satirical works of literature, and their targets, are: Satire is popular on television, especially on late-night talk shows like Saturday Night Live and The Late Night Show with Stephen Colbert, where hosts regularly target politicians and celebrities who have been in the news recently. Lewis’s account of satire, though obviously both polemical and self-interested in various ways, has received a great deal of attention from theorists of satire. While satire has long been a popular form that has extended beyond the literary to include both the visual and performative arts, specific media forms have nonetheless altered satirical practices in various ways. Fredric V. Bogel, The Difference Satire Makes: Rhetoric and Reading from Jonson to Byron (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001), 41–42. The ethical function of satire justifies its tendencies toward negativity, anger, ridicule, and so forth. But, as Nathan Waddell has pointed out, even Lewis himself began to argue that there was an educative function to satire later in his career.51 Regardless, in its insistence on the aesthetic value of satire, Lewis’s theory remains the most radical argument within the Juvenalian tradition of rhetorical satire. 84. However, satires don't have to explicitly call for social change—they may just be poking fun at human nature for the sake of entertainment. Satirizing Modernism: Aesthetic Autonomy, Romanticism, and the Avant-Garde (New York, NY: Bloomsbury, 2017), 13. Gilbert Highet has argued that the notion of persona makes little sense in analyzing explicitly autobiographical satires by Horace, Lucilius, Boileau, Pope, and Byron.26 Christopher Nappa has suggested that, for ancient satire, persona theory may be an anachronistic concept that introduces more problems than it solves.27. Contemporary historicist criticism of satire typically relies on archival evidence to make claims about satire in specific historical periods; exemplary works in this mode include Ashley Marshall’s Practice of Satire in England, Steven Jones’s Satire and Romanticism, and Jonathan Greenberg’s Satire, Modernism, and the Novel. A writer in a satire uses fictional characters, which stand for real people, to expose and condemn their corruption.A writer may point a satire toward a person, a country, or … 78. Pope satirizes the minor event by inflating its importance to epic proportions: he makes reference to Sylphs, which are mythological creatures who intervene in moments of crisis. Struggling with distance learning? Lewis openly proclaimed that the “the greatest satire is non-moral” and argued for a non-mimetic practice of “‘satire’ for its own sake.”47 Lewis sought to create a modernist version of satire that is as autonomous as any other literary form; in order to do this, he argued for satire as an aesthetic method rather than an ethically grounded form. To recast strongly-held convictions as harmful and/or meaningless. 62. As an art form, satire can be divided into three main categories, which come from the genre’s Latin roots. 3 (London, UK: M. Baldwin and Son, 1800), 173. When the satiric utterance breaks loose from its background in ritual and magic, as in ancient Greece (when it is free, that is, to develop in response to literary stimuli rather than the “practical” impulsions … On the one hand, this appears to be yet another intensification of arguments for satire as an aesthetic form in its own right, which is associated with the Juvenalian tradition. Keep in mind that these devices are not specific types of satire—they're just devices that are commonly used as a part of satire (the device), or in satire (the genre). 18. 41. Satire is simply the use of humor and/or irony to criticize or expose social customs, practices and political systems. There are many “carnivalesque” works that employ categories of the grotesque and occasional moments of modal satire but are also largely devoid of either satiric critique or references to specific persons or events. Rather than examining these ancient traditions as they existed, the focus here is on how these terms were interpolated and repurposed by modern satirists. The rhetorical distance between satirists and their satiric personas was further explored by Robert C. Elliott in The Power of Satire (1960), where he analyzed a recurrent satirical trope that he called “the satirist satirized.” In moments where this trope is deployed, satires become self-reflexive, turning their critique inward. To mock literary or stylistic conventions. Finally, Kernan discusses the importance of the “plot” of satire, which differs markedly from a novelistic plot; rather than presenting character development, the plot of satire is a “stasis in which the two opposing forces, the satirist on one hand and the fools on the other” remain locked in an unending duel.36 In identifying these features, Kernan interpolates rhetorical readings of satire into formalist criticism and argues for satire as a “literary genre” with features that find “concrete expression in a wide variety of ways.”37. There has been a long tradition of satirical novels that criticize and poke fun at all aspects of both society and humanity more generally. Ruben Quintero, “Introduction: Understanding Satire,” in A Companion to Satire, ed. “I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. By juxtaposing the king's dramatic escape with the trivial law that led to it, Swift is mocking the seriousness of the ongoing feud. From a psychological point of view, satire is part of human behavior, which seeks to make fun of someone or something, which became a literary genre when it became part of written language. As Ruben Quintero states, “Satire cannot function without a standard against which readers can compare its subject.”46. If there is one thing that virtually all critics of satire agree on, it is that satire, as a literary form, evades easy definitions. Rather than being exemplary, most canonical works are exceptional in their deployment of complex, high rhetoric toward satiric ends.66 Not only does this claim emphasize that literary traditions are highly selective rather than representative, but also it undermines the historical distinction between Juvenal and Horace that Dryden establishes. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981), 26. The culinary roots of satire Synonym Discussion of satire. 85. Seidel, The Satiric Inheritance, 3–4. 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