Satire is primarily a literary genre or form A literary genre is a category of literary composition. Genres may be determined by literary technique, tone, content, or even length. Genre should not be confused with age category, by which literature may be classified as either adult, young-adult, or children's. They also must not be confused with format, such as graphic novel or picture book, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic Graphic arts is a term applied historically to the art of printmaking and drawing. In contemporary usage it refers to the applied trade-skills of a pressman, pre-press technician, or typesetter. The term can include the trades of lithography, serigraphy and bindery, among others. Graphic arts as a trade can be traced back to the first instances of and performing arts The performing arts are those forms of art which differ from the plastic arts insofar as the former uses the artist's own body, face, and presence as a medium, and the latter uses materials such as clay, metal or paint which can be molded or transformed to create some physical art object. The term "performing arts" first appeared in the. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule Ridicule is a 1996 French film set in the 18th century at the decadent court of Versailles, where social status can rise and fall based on one's ability to mete out witty insults and avoid ridicule oneself. The story critiques the social injustices of late 18th century France, in showing the corruption and callousness of the aristocrats, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement.[1] Although satire is usually meant to be funny, its greater purpose is constructive social criticism, using wit As in the wit of Parker's set, the Algonquin Round Table, witty remarks may be intentionally cruel , and perhaps more ingenious than funny as a weapon.
A common feature of satire is strong irony Irony is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or situation in which there is an incongruity or discordance that goes beyond the simple and evident meaning of words or actions or sarcasm Sarcasm is “a sharp, bitter, or cutting expression or remark; a bitter jibe or taunt.” Some authorities sharply distinguish sarcasm from irony, however others argue that sarcasm may or often does involve irony—"in satire, irony is militant"[2]—but parody A parody , in contemporary usage, is a work created to mock, comment on, or make fun at an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation. As the literary theorist Linda Hutcheon (2000: 7) puts it, "parody … is imitation, not always at the expense of the parodied text.", burlesque Burlesque is a humorous theatrical entertainment involving parody and sometimes grotesque exaggeration. In 20th century America, the form became associated with a variety show in which striptease is the chief attraction, exaggeration, juxtaposition, comparison, analogy, and double entendre A double entendre or adianoeta is a figure of speech in which a spoken phrase is devised to be understood in either of two ways. Often the first meaning is straightforward, while the second meaning is less so: often risqué, inappropriate, or ironic are all frequently used in satirical speech and writing. This "militant" irony or sarcasm Sarcasm is “a sharp, bitter, or cutting expression or remark; a bitter jibe or taunt.” Some authorities sharply distinguish sarcasm from irony, however others argue that sarcasm may or often does involve irony often professes to approve (or at least accept as natural) the very things the satirist wishes to attack.
Satire is nowadays found in many artistic forms of expression, including literature, plays, commentary, and media such as lyrics.
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Term
The word satire comes from the Latin Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. With the Roman conquest, Latin was spread to countries around the Mediterranean, including a large part of Europe. Romance languages such as Aragonese, Corsican, Catalan, French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Sardinian, Spanish and others, are descended from Latin, while word satur and the subsequent phrase lanx satura. Satur meant "full," but the juxstaposition with lanx shifted the meaning to "miscellany or medley": the expression lanx satura literally means "a full dish of various kinds of fruits."[3]
The word satura as used by Quintilian Marcus Fabius Quintilianus was a Roman rhetorician from Hispania, widely referred to in medieval schools of rhetoric and in Renaissance writing. In English translation, he is usually referred to as Quintilian, although the alternate spellings of Quintillian and Quinctilian are occasionally seen, the latter in older texts however, indicated a narrower genre than what would be later intended as satire; it denoted only works in strictly hexameter Hexameter is a metrical line of verse consisting of six feet. It was the standard epic metre in classical Greek and Latin literature, such as in the Iliad and Aeneid. Its use in other genres of composition include Horace's satires, and Ovid's Metamorphoses. According to Greek mythology, hexameter was invented by the god Hermes form, which were a distinctly Roman genre.[3] Quintilian famously said that satura, that is a satire in hexameter verses, was a literary genre of wholly Roman origin (satura tota nostra est).[3] He was aware of and commented on Greek satire, but at the time there was no word to label it under the same genre.[3] It is likely that Aristophanes' Old Comedy, which is considered today the origin of the current literary genre of satire, would have been considere satire by Quintilian as well.[3] The first critic to use satire in the modern broader sense was Apuleio.[3]
The derivation of satire from satura properly has nothing to do with the Greek mythological Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece. Modern scholars refer to the myths and study them in an attempt to throw light on the figure satyr In Greek mythology, satyrs are a troop of male companions of Pan and Dionysus — "satyresses" were a late invention of poets — that roamed the woods and mountains. In mythology they are often associated with pipe playing[4]. To Quintilian, the satire was a strict literary form, but the term soon escaped from the original narrow definition. Robert Elliott writes:
- "As soon as a noun enters the domain of metaphor, as one modern scholar has pointed out, it clamours for extension; and satura (which had had no verbal, adverbial, or adjectival forms) was immediately broadened by appropriation from the Greek word for “satyr” (satyros) and its derivatives. The odd result is that the English “satire” comes from the Latin satura; but “satirize,” “satiric,” etc., are of Greek origin. By about the 4th century AD the writer of satires came to be known as satyricus; St. Jerome, for example, was called by one of his enemies 'a satirist in prose' ('satyricus scriptor in prosa'). Subsequent orthographic modifications obscured the Latin origin of the word satire: satura becomes satyra, and in England, by the 16th century, it was written 'satyre.'"[5]
Satire and humour
Satirical works often contain "straight" humour, usually to give relief from what might otherwise be relentless preaching. Although this has always been so, it is probably more marked in modern satire. Yet some satire is not "funny", nor is meant to be. Obviously, not all humour - even on such such topics as politics, religion or art, or using the great satirical tools of irony, parody, and burlesque - is necessarily "satirical"; the most light-hearted satire always has a serious "after-taste". The Ig Nobel Prize The Ig Nobel Prizes are an American parody of the Nobel Prizes and are given each year in early October for ten achievements that "first make people laugh, and then make them think". Organized by the scientific humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research , they are presented by a group that includes genuine Nobel Laureates at a ceremony satire on trivial scientific research describes this as "first make people laugh, and then make them think" - a fair definition of satire itself.
Types of Satire
Satirical literature can commonly be categorized as either Horatian or Juvenalian.
Horatian
Named for the Roman satirist, Horace Quintus Horatius Flaccus , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus, this playfully criticizes some social vice through gentle, mild, and light-hearted humour. It directs wit, exaggeration, and self-deprecating humour toward what it identifies as folly, rather than evil. Horatian satire's sympathetic tone is common in modern society. Some examples include Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift was an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for the Tories), poet and cleric who became Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin's Gulliver’s Travels, Daniel Defoe Daniel Defoe , born Daniel Foe, was an English writer, journalist, and pamphleteer, who gained enduring fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe. Defoe is notable for being one of the earliest proponents of the novel, as he helped to popularise the form in Britain, and is even referred to by some as among the founders of the English novel. A prolific's The True-Born Englishman, Alexander Pope Alexander Pope was an eighteenth-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson. Pope is famous for his use of the heroic couplet's The Rape of the Lock, C.S. Lewis Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as Jack, was an Irish-born British novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist. He is also known for his fiction, especially The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia and The Space Trilogy' The Screwtape Letters The Screwtape Letters is a Christian apologetics novel written in epistolary style by C. S. Lewis, first published in book form in February 1942. The story takes the form of a series of letters from a senior demon, Screwtape, to his nephew, a junior tempter named Wormwood, so as to advise him on methods of securing the damnation of a British man,, The Onion The Onion is an American news satire organization. It features satirical articles reporting on international, national, and local news as well as an entertainment newspaper and website known as The A.V. Club. It claims a national print circulation of 690,000 and says 61 percent of its web site readers are between 18 and 44 years old. Since 2007,, Matt Groening Matthew Abram "Matt" Groening is an American cartoonist, screenwriter and producer. He is the creator of the comic strip Life in Hell as well as two successful television series, The Simpsons and Futurama's The Simpsons The Simpsons is an American animated television series created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a working-class American lifestyle epitomized by its eponymous family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. The show is set in the fictional city of Springfield, and lampoons and the Ig Nobel Prizes The Ig Nobel Prizes are an American parody of the Nobel Prizes and are given each year in early October for ten achievements that "first make people laugh, and then make them think". Organized by the scientific humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research , they are presented by a group that includes genuine Nobel Laureates at a ceremony.
Juvenalian
Named after the Roman satirist Juvenal Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis, known in English as Juvenal, was a Roman poet active in the late 1st and early 2nd century AD, author of the Satires. The details of the author's life are unclear, although references within his text to known persons of the late 1st and early 2nd centuries AD fix his terminus post quem, this type of satire is more contemptuous and abrasive than the Horatian. Juvenalian satire addresses social evil through scorn, outrage, and savage ridicule. This form is often pessimistic, characterized by irony, sarcasm, moral indignation and personal invective, with less emphasis on humour. Some Juvenalian satire: Joseph Hall Joseph Hall , was an English bishop, satirist and moralist. His contemporaries knew him as a devotional writer, and a high-profile controversialist of the early 1640s. In church politics, he tended in fact to a middle way's Virgidemiarum, Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift was an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for the Tories), poet and cleric who became Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin's A Modest Proposal A Modest Proposal: For Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick, commonly referred to as A Modest Proposal, is a Juvenalian satirical essay written and published anonymously by Jonathan Swift in 1729. Swift appears to suggest in his essay that, Samuel Johnson Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr Johnson, was a British author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. Johnson was a devout Anglican and committed Tory, and has been described as "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English's London, George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist. His work is marked by keen intelligence and wit, a profound awareness of social injustice, an intense, revolutionary opposition to totalitarianism, a passion for clarity in language and a belief in democratic socialism's Nineteen Eighty-Four Nineteen Eighty-Four , by George Orwell, published in 1949, is a dystopian novel about the totalitarian regime of the Party, an oligarchical collectivist society where life in the Oceanian province of Airstrip One is a world of perpetual war, pervasive government surveillance, public mind control, and the voiding of citizens' rights. In the and Animal Farm Animal Farm is a dystopian allegorical novella by George Orwell. Published in England on 17 August 1945, the book reflects events leading up to and during the Stalin era before World War II. Orwell, a democratic socialist and a member of the Independent Labour Party for many years, was a critic of Joseph Stalin and was suspicious of Moscow-, Ray Bradbury Raymond Douglas Bradbury is an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953) and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles (1950) and The Illustrated Man (1951), Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th and 21st century American’s Fahrenheit 451 Fahrenheit 451 is a dystopian novel by Ray Bradbury which was first published in a shorter form as "The Fireman" . The short novel presents a future American society in which the masses are hedonistic and critical thought through reading is outlawed. The central character, Guy Montag, is employed as a "fireman" (which, in this, William Golding Sir William Gerald Golding was a British novelist, poet, playwright and Nobel Prize for Literature laureate best known for his novel Lord of the Flies. He was also awarded the Booker Prize for literature in 1980 for his novel Rites of Passage, the first book of the trilogy To the Ends of the Earth's Lord of the Flies Lord of the Flies is a novel by Nobel Prize-winning author William Golding. It is about a group of British schoolboys stuck on a deserted island who try to govern themselves, with disastrous results. Its stances on the already controversial subjects of human nature and individual welfare versus the common good earned it position 68 on the American, Aldous Huxley Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. He spent the later part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death in 1963. Best known for his novels including Brave New World and wide-ranging output of essays, Huxley also edited the magazine's Brave New World Brave New World is a novel by Aldous Huxley, written in 1931 and published in 1932. Set in London of AD 2540 , the novel anticipates developments in reproductive technology and sleep-learning that combine to change society. The future society is an embodiment of the ideals that form the basis of futurism. Huxley answered this book with a, Anthony Burgess John Burgess Wilson — who published under the pen name Anthony Burgess — was an English author, poet, playwright, composer, linguist, translator and critic. The dystopian satire A Clockwork Orange is Burgess' most famous novel, though he dismissed it as one of his lesser works. It was adapted into a highly controversial 1971 film by Stanley' A Clockwork Orange A Clockwork Orange is a 1962 dystopian novel by Anthony Burgess. Burgess gave three explanations for the origins of the title. In a prefatory note to A Clockwork Orange: A Play with Music, Burgess wrote that the title was a metaphor for "...an organic entity, full of juice and sweetness and agreeable odour, being turned into an automaton.&, Joseph Heller Joseph Heller was an American satirical novelist, short story writer and playwright. He wrote the influential novel Catch-22 about American servicemen during World War II. The title of this work entered the English lexicon to refer to absurd, no-win choices, particularly in situations in which the desired outcome of the choice is an impossibility,'s Catch 22 Catch-22 is a satirical, historical novel by the American author Joseph Heller, first published in 1961. The novel, set during the later stages of World War II from 1944 onwards, is frequently cited as one of the great literary works of the twentieth century. It has a distinctive non-chronological style where events are described from different, William Burroughs William Seward Burroughs II – August 2, 1997; pronounced /ˈbəroʊz/, also known by his pen name William Lee) was an American novelist, poet, essayist, painter and spoken word performer. Burroughs was a major figure of the Beat Generation and a postmodernist author who affected popular culture as well as literature. He is considered to be "' Naked Lunch, Stephen Colbert Stephen Tyrone Colbert is an American political satirist, writer, comedian and television host. He is the host of Comedy Central's The Colbert Report, a satirical news show in which Colbert portrays a caricatured version of conservative political pundits's performance at the 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner, anarcho-punk Anarcho-punk is punk rock that promotes anarchism. The term anarcho-punk is sometimes applied exclusively to bands that were part of the original anarcho-punk movement in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Some use the term more broadly to refer to any punk music with anarchist lyrical content, including crust punk, d-beat, folk band Crass Crass were an English punk band, formed in 1977, which promoted anarchism as a political ideology, way of living, and as a resistance movement. Crass popularised the seminal anarcho-punk movement of the punk subculture, and advocated direct action, animal rights, and environmentalism. The band both utilised and advocated a "Do It Yourself&, and the cartoon South Park South Park is an American animated sitcom created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the Comedy Central television network. Intended for mature audiences, the show has become infamous for its crude, surreal, satirical, and dark humor that lampoons a wide range of topics. The ongoing narrative revolves around four children—Stan Marsh, Kyle.
Development
Ancient Egypt
One of the earliest examples of what we might call satire, The Satire of the Trades[6], is in Egyptian writing from the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. The text's apparent readers are students, tired of studying. It argues that their lot as scribes is useful, and their lot far superior to that of the ordinary man. Scholars such as Helck [7] think that the context was meant to be serious.
The Papyrus Anastasi I[8] (late 2nd millennium BC) contains a satirical letter which first praises the virtues of its recipient, but then mocks the reader's meagre knowledge and achievements.
Greco-Roman world
The Greeks had no word for what later would be called "satire", although the terms cynicism and parody were used. Modern critics call the Greek playwright Aristophanes one of the best known early satirists: his plays are known for their critical political and societal commentary,[9] particularly for the political satire by which he criticized the powerful Cleon (as in The Knights). He is also notable for the persecution he underwent.[9][10][11][12] Aristophanes's bawdy style was adopted by Greek dramatist-comedian Menander. His early play Drunkenness contains an attack on the politician Callimedon.
The oldest form of satire still in use is the Menippean satire by Menippus of Gadara. His own writings are lost. Examples from his admirers and imitators mix seriousness and mockery in dialogues and present parodies before a background of diatribe. The reader is meant to question approved truths in order to form a didactic set of knowledge.
The first Roman to discuss satire critically was Quintilian, who invented the term to describe the writings of Lucilius. The two most prominent and influential ancient Roman satirists are Horace and Juvenal, who wrote during the early days of the Roman Empire. Other important satirists in ancient Latin are Lucilius and Persius. Satire in their work is much wider than in the modern sense of the word, including fantastic and highly coloured humorous writing with little or no real mocking intent. When Horace criticized Augustus, he used veiled ironic terms. In contrast, Pliny reports that the 6th century BC poet Hipponax wrote satirae that were so cruel that the offended hanged themselves.[13]
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Wed, 25 Aug 2010 02:38:28 GMT+00:00
Washington Post (blog) That point being that criticism, parody and satire and the free expression of your opinion is NOT "defamation." It just is not defamation, on any level. ...
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by Brett Lay The Washington Nationals announced in a conference call this morning that phenom rookie pitcher Stephen Strasburg's mutant right arm has lost its powers due to recent sunspot activity. Nationals GM Mike Rizzo said Strasburg ...
Q. I'm writing a paper on the use of satire in literature, can anyone give some ideas to include in my essay, like topics for body paragraphs. I'm in real need of help.
Asked by Jason - Sat Apr 3 23:40:23 2010 - - 1 Answers - 0 Comments
A. An Analysis on the Use of Satire Satire is the use of ridicule or humor in an artistic work with the purpose of exposing or denouncing vice or folly. Although it is usually subtle in nature, it is used to bring light to contemporary societal problems and provoke change within a culture. Many artists have tackled serious issues using this form of comedy to appeal to their audience. Satire has been used for centuries as a means of assessing the faults of society. This literary device could be traced back to the old Greek playwrights, such as Aeschylus, of the fifth century B.C. In his plays he would have men dressed as satyrs, thus the modern word satire, make fun of the actors. The use of comedy as a means of criticism continued to… [cont.]
Answered by Uday Teja - Wed Apr 7 12:31:56 2010
