The Art and Value of Satire
Satire:
The Oxford English Dictionary defines satire as “the employment in speaking or writing of sarcasm,
irony, ridicule, etc., in exposing, denouncing, deriding, or ridiculing vice, folly, indecorum, abuses, or evils of
any kind.” Another definition in the OED (Old English Dictionary) defines a satire as “a poem, or in modern
use sometimes a prose composition, in which prevailing vices or follies are held up to ridicule. Sometimes, less
correctly, satire is applied to a composition in verse of prose intended to ridicule a particular person or class of
persons.” Dryden explains satire is “corrective ridicule or fine raillery.”
Satire we may say, then, is a literary form of criticism. As society may over the years have come to accept
a custom, a tradition, a belief, or an institution as embodying truth. The satirist sees in the world of reality that
the particular custom, tradition, belief, or institution, instead of making man’s existence secure and rich, is, on
the contrary, causing him serious damage. The satirist sees this world no longer as one embodying truth but
rather as one embracing a lie, as one founded on evil. To correct the harm, to expose the fault, he looses his
attack. But his approach is not to reveal the ugliness totally in realistic terms, to show the cancer as it is. He
prefers to achieve his aims through ridicule, and he uses the weapons of exaggeration, understatement,
incongruity, sarcasm, irony, humor, wit, burlesque, invective.
Origins:
Greek writers: Aristophenes, Aesop, Lucian
Roman writers: Juvenal and Horace
12th century “Goliardic” verses named for the mythical poet Golias (Latin satire on church and society)
Medieval England used folk ballads: “The Two Corbies” (satire on war)
“Get up and Bar the Door” (satire on the sexes)
The Canterbury Tales (satire on society) by Geoffrey Chaucer
Neo-classical Era/The Age of Reason/1700s: “Rape of the Lock” (poem by Pope)
Prose, critical essays, masques/plays (Ben Jonson)
“A Modest Proposal” (Jonathan Swift)
Lighter journalism (Addison and Steele)
Modern era uses all mediums for satire:
“The New Yorker”
The Jungle (Sinclair Lewis)
Watership Down (Richard Adam)
Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
Political cartoons
Sketches and parodies (SNL, Weird Al)
“The Onion”
Two types of Satire:
Horatian – light and amusing like Horace wrote
A satire with a voice that is indulgent, tolerant,
amused, and witty. The speaker holds up to gentle
ridicule the absurdities and follies of human beings,
aiming at producing in the reader not the anger of a
Juvenal, but a wry smile. Perhaps the opening
sentence of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, “It is
a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man
in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a
wife,” might evoke such a smile.
Juvenalian – bitter and shocking like Juvenal wrote
A harsh and bitter formal satire in which the
speaker attacks vice and errors with tcontempt and
indignation. This satire, in its realism and
harshness, contrasts Horation satire. Perhaps
Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” would be a
good example of this extreme device.
And also…
Burlesque – comedy characterized by ridiculous exaggeration distortion
A serious subject may be treated frivolously or a frivolous subject seriously. The essential quality that makes
for burlesque is the discrepancy between subject matter and style. That is, a style ordinarily dignified may be
used for nonsensical matter, or a style very nonsensical may be used to ridicule a weighty subject. Perhaps
Freneau’s “On a Honeybee” is a good example of burlesque.
The Satirist: Things to Consider
 Purpose - what behavior (attitude, situation, theory, etc.) does the satirist want to change and correct?
 Using quotes or examples, how does the satirist portray the opposite of his/her intended outcome to
convince the reader of his/her opinion? What are those devices called?
 What is the author’s tone?
o Is the author bemused?
o Is the author angry?
o Is the author stifled by authority?
 What is the author’s attitude to the topic and audience?
o Is the attitude mild, sympathetic, unemotional? Scientific or detached? Light?
o Is the attitude a reflection of intellectual scorn, of a mental irritation with those who live with
the self-delusions at the expense of others?
o Is the attitude of intense anger, hatred, and bitterness toward the harm which man inflicts on
his fellows and towards the gross failure of man’s institutions?
o Is the comment colored by pessimism and despair or by optimism and hope?
o Is the sardonic comment characterized by derision and mockery?
o How does the author consider his/her audience?
 Is the argument effective?
 What is the author’s intention?
o Is the author seeking to display his/her own intellectual superiority?
o Does s/he wish to exhibit his/her wit and style for the pure intellectual enjoyment of his
audience as well as himself?
o Does the author wish to jolt the reader out of complacency out of complacency and
indifference?? Does he want to make people think and act?
o Is the author’s aim a psychological one? Is s/he making a study of the motivations, sometimes
noble, sometimes noble, sometimes ignoble, behind foolish and destructive behaviors?
Devices of Satire:
Satire -
a literary genre that uses irony, wit, and sometimes sarcasm to expose humanity’s vices and foibles, giving
impetus to change or reform through ridicule.
Mockery –
to make fun of something.
Ex. Man is the only animal that blushes – or needs to. (Mark Twain)
Sarcasm –
A form of verbal irony in which, under the appearance of praise a bitter expression of strong disapproval
is given. Sarcasm is a personal attack intended to hurt. Don’t confuse verbal irony with sarcasm.
Sarcasm is intended to wound or hurt its object’s feelings while irony merely expresses the speaker’s
sense of paradox.
Overstatement (Hyperbole) – A form of exaggeration in which something is intentionally represented as much more
than it is. The speaker does not intend to be taken literally; rather the exaggeration is
intended to heighten an effect or produce a comic effect.
Understatement (Litotes) – A form of exaggeration in which something is intentionally represented as less than in
fact it is. It often contains words like “only” or “just” or “not”.
Parody –
mockery by imitation. It imitates a specific literary work for comic effect, usually to ridicule or criticize
the work, author, or style.
Ex. The Onion – an imitation of a newspaper/journalism magazine
Irony –
(can be both a tone and a device.) The device is a figure of speech in which the actual intent is expressed
in words that carry the opposite meaning. In literature, we can distinguish 3 types of irony:
Verbal irony: The speaker says the opposite of what s/he actually means
Dramatic irony: What happens is the opposite of what is expected
Universal irony: The general state of humanity is not what it seems
Bathos a sudden ludicrous descent from exalted to ordinary matters or style in speech or writing; insincere or
excessive pathos; triteness; flatness
Ex. I love my county, my wife, my job, and chocolate.
Mock-Heroic –
Imitates, yet exaggerates and distorts, the literary epic and stuyle.
Ex. The garbage man, tall and strong, lifted his glittering can of rubbish high, as if it were a
feather, and with the strength of Thor, hurled it into the dumpster.
Epithet any word or phrase applied to a person or thing to describe an actual or attributed quality; a
characterizing word or phrase firmly associated with a person or thing and often used in place of an
actual name; a word, phrase, or expression used invectively as a term of abuse or contempt, to express
hostility, etc.
Ex. “Richard the Lion-Hearted”; calling your dog “man’s best friend”; conservatives calling hipsters
“latte-sipping freaks.”
Sardonic Tone –
scornful, cynical (derisive from sardaine, a poisonous root where those who dies from eating it
look like they’re laughing; literally it means “to die laughing.”)
Ex. “Love – A temporary insanity curable by marriage; Congratulation – The civility of envy” –
The Devil’s Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce
Universality – For humor to work, the audience must be able to identify with the basic situation. Otherwise, they may
not “get” the joke.
Pun –
A play on words based on the similarity of sound between two words of different meanings or on two
different meanings of the same word.
Ex. My problems are apparent – as every daughter knows.
Personification –
Representing an animal, idea, abstraction, or inanimate object as having human form, behavior or
traits. In humor, the personification is ridiculous and thus funny.
Ex. Poker playing dogs
Innuendo –
A statement containing an insinuation or indirect suggestion. This is the kidn of joke that requires the
audience to “think” beause it doesn’t explicitly make its point.
Ex. My blonde girlfriend won’t answer her cell phone because she says, “It can’t be for me; nobody
knows I am here.”
Incongruity (Incongruous Juxtaposition) – The connection or side-by-side placement of words or ideas that are
incompatible, illogical, or inconsistent)
Ex. It’s as useful as a bicycle for a fish.
Deadpan Tone –
ridiculousness presented as seriousness (literally it means “having no facial expression.”) This
completely depends on delivery and voice development so the audience can understand the
narrator wants something silly presented as if it’s totally serious; the expectation is the audience
would also take it seriously.
CLUES it is a SATIRE
Fantastic
Grotesque
Moral
Judgmental
There’s an object of the attack (satiric victim)
Objective stance
OTHER TERMS TO KNOW
Hypocrisy
Persona
Jeremiad
TYPES of SATIRE
(by tone)
Horatian
Juvenalian
Burlesque
(by subject)
Social
Political
Human Nature
(by narrative stance)
Insider v. Outsider
Objective v. Subjective
Involved v. Detached
Ignorant/Naïve v. Aware
Cynic
Pragmatic
Ingénue
Oracle
“True Satire” by John Dryden’s A Discourse concerning the Original and Progress of Satire (1693)
How easy is it to call Rogue and Villain, and that wittily! But how hard to make a Man appear a Fool, a
Blockhead, or a Knave, without using any of those opprobrious terms! To spare the grossness of the
Names, and to do the thing yet more severely, is to draw a full Face, and to make the Nose and Cheeks
stand out, and yet not to employ any depth of Shadowing. This is the Mystery of that Noble Trade, which
yet no Master can teach to his Apprentice: He may give the Rules, but the Scholar is never the nearer in his
practice. Neither is it true, that this fineness of Raillery is offensive. A witty Man is tickled while he is hurt
in this manner, and a Fool feels it not. The occasion of an Offence may possibly be given, but he cannot
take it.
If it be granted that in effect this way does more Mischief; that a Man is secretly wounded, and though he
be not sensible himself, yet the malicious World will find it for him: yet there is still a vast difference
betwixt the slovenly Butchering of a Man, and the fineness of a stroke that separates the Head from the
Body, and leaves it standing in its place. A man may be capable, as Jack Ketch's Wife said of his Servant,
of a plain piece of Work, a bare Hanging; but to make a malefactor die sweetly was only belonging to her
Husband. I wish I could apply it to my self, if the Reader would be kind enough to think it belongs to me.
The character of Zimri in my Absalom is, in my opinion, worth the whole Poem: 'Tis not bloody, but 'tis
ridiculous enough; and he for whom it was intended, was too witty to resent it as an injury. If I had railed, I
might have suffered for it justly; but I managed my own Work more happily, perhaps more dexterously. I
avoided the mention of great Crimes, and applied myself to the representing of Blindsides, and little
Extravagancies: to which, the wittier a Man is, he is generally the more obnoxious. It succeeded as I
wished; the Jest went round, and he was laughed at in his turn who began the Frolic.
Huck Finn by Mark Twain, ch. 6
"Oh, yes, this is a wonderful govment,
wonderful. Why, looky here. There was
a free n--- there from Ohio—a mulatter,
most as white as a white man. He had
the whitest shirt on you ever see, too, and
the shiniest hat; and there ain't a man in
that town that's got as fine clothes as
what he had; and he had a gold watch
and chain, and a silver-headed cane—the
awfulest old gray-headed nabob in the
State. And what do you think? They
said he was a p'fessor in a college, and
could talk all kinds of languages, and
knowed everything. And that ain't the
wust. They said he could vote when he
was at home. Well, that let me out.
Thinks I, what is the country a-coming
to? It was 'lection day, and I was just
about to go and vote myself if I warn't
too drunk to get there; but when they told
me there was a State in this country
where they'd let that n--- vote, I drawed
out. I says I'll never vote agin. Them's
the very words I said; they all heard me;
and the country may rot for all me—I'll
never vote agin as long as I live. And to
see the cool way of that n--- —why, he
wouldn't a give me the road if I hadn't
shoved him out o' the way. I says to the
people, why ain't this n--- put up at
auction and sold?—that's what I want to
know. And what do you reckon they
said? Why, they said he couldn't be sold
till he'd been in the State six months, and
he hadn't been there that long yet. There,
now—that's a specimen. They call that a
govment that can't sell a free n--- till he's
been in the State six months. Here's a
govment that calls itself a govment, and
lets on to be a govment, and thinks it is a
govment, and yet's got to set stock-still
for six whole months before it can take a
hold of a prowling, thieving, infernal,
white-shirted free n---, and—"
“British Art Snots are Working in the Dark”
Dave Barry
Miami Herald
7/11/2002
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Today we have an important art news update from England, or Great Britain, or the United Kingdom, or whatever they're
calling if these days.
As you may recall, the last time we checked in on the British art community it had awarded a major art prize, plus £20,000
(about $50,000 Cdn), to an artist named Martin Creed, for a work entitled The Lights Going On and Off. It consisted of a
vacant room in which the lights went on
and off. Yes. He got fifty grand for that. Why? Because The Lights Going On and Off possesses the quality that your
sophisticated art snot looks for above all else in a work of art, namely that no normal human would ever mistake it for art.
Normal humans, confronted with a room containing only blinking lights, would say. "Where's the art? And what's wrong with
these lights?"
The public prefers the old-fashioned style of art, where You have some clue as to what the art is supposed to represent. This is
why the Sistine Chapel frescoes painted by the great Italian artist Mike L. Angelo are so popular. The public is impressed
because (I) the people in the frescoes actually look like people, and (2) Mike painted them on the ceiling. The public has
painted its share of ceilings, and it always winds up with most of the paint in its hair. So the public considers the Sistine
Chapel to be a major artistic achievement, and will spend several minutes gazing at it in awe and wonder ("Do you think he
used a roller?") before moving on to the next thing on the tour, which ideally will be lunch
The public has, over the years, learned to tolerate modern art, but only to the degree that it has nice colors that would go with
the public's home decor. When examining a modern painting, the public invariably pictures it hanging over the public's livingroom sofa. As far as the public is concerned, museums should put sofas in front of all the paintings, to make it easier to judge
them.
This kind of thing drives your professional art snots CRAZY. They cannot stand the thought that they would like the same art
as the stupid old moron public. And so, as the public has become more accepting of modern art, the art snots have made it their
business to like only those works
of "art" that are so spectacularly inartistic that the public could not possibly like them such as The Lights Going On and Off.
Which leads us to the latest development in the British art world. You are going to think I made this development up. Even I
sometimes wonder if1 made it up, although 1 know for a fact that I did not, because I am looking at a story about it from the
Daily Telegraph. Here is the key
sentence: "The Tate Gallery has paid £22,000 of public money for a work that is, quit e literally, a load of excrement." Yes. The
Tate Gallery, which is a prestigious British art museum, spent £22,300 -or roughly $55,000 Cdn -of British taxpayers' money to
purchase a can containing approximately one ounce of an artist's very own personal ... OK, let's call it his artistic vision. The
artist is an Italian named Plero Manzoni, who died in 1963, but not before filling 90 cans with his vision. According to the
Telegraph, "The cans were sealed according to industrial standards and then circulated to museums around the world."
Now if somebody were to send YOU a can of vision, even sealed according to industrial standards, your response would be to
report that person to the police. This is why you are a normal human, as opposed to an art professional The art museums
BOUGHT it. The Telegraph states that, in addition to the Tate, both the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the
Pompidou Museum in Paris have paid actual money for cans of Manzoni's vision. Anyway, here's what I'm picturing. I'm
picturing a British citizen, a regular working guy who's struggling to get by on what money he has left after taxes. He wakes
up one morning, grabs his newspaper and goes into the bathroom. While he's in there, he reads about how art snots have spent
tax money -more money than he makes in a year -on this "art." The guy becomes angry, VERY angry. He's about to hurl the
paper down in fury, but then, suddenly, while sitting there ... he has a vision. Arid as he does, it dawns on him that he has a
golden opportunity here, a chance to make, at last, some serious money.
I'm talking, of course, about art forgery