Satire: What you need to know

1. Satire: What you need to know

2. Definition • Satire approaches its subject with • Irony • Criticism • And a desire to see reform or change • Needs to have all 3 criteria to be satire

3. Other kinds of satire • Parody: humorous imitation of serious subject • Caricature: humorously exaggerates a particular quality, feature or characteristic of a person or group • Burlesque: treats a serious subject in a trifling manner or a trifling subject in a serious manner

4. 2 extremes of satire • Horation: light and humorous-named after the Roman author Horace (Twain) • Juvenalian: dark and bitter, sometimes disturbing-named after Juvenal • Satire is not just on either end, but as a continuum.

5. Purpose of Satire • For people to express their dissatisfaction with the society around them. • Usually called: • Pessimists: ones who expect bad things to happen (optimists) • Misanthropes: people who dislike the human race (philanthropists) • Cynics: someone who distrusts the sincerity and motives of others. (Pollyanna)

6. What satirists use • Wit-quick perceptions of life=verbal skills • Classic: a book which people praise and don’t read • Sarcasm-type of irony-intent is to insult and wound. • Irony-saying or doing something different than what was intended or expected.

7. Types of irony • Verbal: discrepancy between what is said and what is meant. (puns, exaggeration—understatement, hyperbole • Dramatic: discrepancy between what a reader knows is true and what a character believes is true. (Oedipus) • Situational: discrepancy between what one expects will or should happen and what actually does happen. (TV sit-coms)

8. Lastly… • Satire tends to be topical. • Meaning that only people who are part of the situation, event, joke, etc will understand it. • Satire is aimed at those who know something about the context-an uninformed audience will rarely appreciate the satirist’s work—think British humor.