What is Satire?

1. What is Satire? Purposes Forms Devices Conventions

2. The purpose of satire • Criticism is the base of all satire. • It attempts to bring about the improvement of humanity and human society

3. Vehicles for Satire • Prose, poetry • Music • Art • Drama, Films • Fables • Critical Reviews • Comic Strips • Cartoons

6. Horatian satire tries to evoke a smile writer is urbane, sophisticated, man-of-the-world attitude: amused at foibles of men similar to comedy Juvenalian Satire tries to arouse moral indignation, anger writer is a serious moralist, a dedicated reformer attitude: bitter, denunciatory, attacking vices of men similar to tragedy Styles of Satire

7. Direct: Satiric voice speaks out in the first person Indirect Cast in the form of a plot Characters make themselves ridiculous by thought, speech, actions Characters made more ridiculous by the author’s narrative style and comments Forms of Satire

8. Devices and conventions • Irony: implied attitudes which are opposed to those being expressed • Verbal—When words suggest something different from what is being said. Similar to sarcasm. • Dramatic—Audience/Reader knows more than character(s) • Situational—Events turn out differently than what’s expected • Parody: A close imitation of an author’s style or work for comic effect or in ridicule

9. Burlesque: • High: treats trivial subject in elevated and serious manner • Exp: The Onion • Low: treats serious subject in low and comic manner • Exp: The Onion or, at times, SNL

10. Devices and conventions • Understatement: deliberately representing something as much less than it really is • Lampoon: a full-length verbal portrait of a person which ridicules him in a biting manner • Caricature: a type of portrait, graphic or verbal, which exaggerates or distorts prominent features of a person without losing the likeness

11. More Methods of distorting • Reducing something to absurdity • Exaggeration • Overstatement (use of hyperbole) • Wit, or word play