Satire

satire, term applied to any work of literature or art whose objective is ridicule. It is more easily recognized than defined. From ancient times satirists have shared a common aim: to expose foolishness in all its guises—vanity, hypocrisy, pedantry, idolatry, bigotry, sentimentality—and to effect reform through such exposure. The many diverse forms their statements have taken reflect the origin of the word satire, which is derived from the Latin satura, meaning "dish of mixed fruits," hence a medley.

Classical Satirists

Outstanding among the classical satirists was the Greek dramatist Aristophanes, whose play The Clouds (423 B.C.) satirizes Socrates as the embodiment of atheism and sophistry, while The Wasps (422) satirizes the Athenian court system. The satiric styles of two Roman poets, Horace and Juvenal, became models for writers of later ages. The satire of Horace is mild, gently amused, yet sophisticated, whereas that of Juvenal is vitriolic and replete with moral indignation; Shakespeare later wrote Horatian satire and Jonathan Swift wrote Juvenalian satire.

The Golden Age of Satire

From the beast fables, fabliaux, and Chaucerian caricatures to the extended treatments of John Skelton, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Erasmus, and Cervantes, the satirical tradition flourished throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, culminating in the golden age of satire in the late 17th and early 18th cent. The familiar names of Swift, Samuel Butler, John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Richard Steele, Henry Fielding, and William Hogarth, in England, and of Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux, La Fontaine, Molière, and Voltaire, in France, suggest not only the nature of the controversies that provided a target for the satirist's darts in both nations, but also the rediscovery and consequent adaptation of the classical models to individual talents. Pope, for example, wrote The Rape of the Lock (1714), a mock epic about the crisis that occurs when a lock of Lady Belinda's hair is snipped off by a suitor as she sips her coffee. The poem is based upon an actual happening, and Pope's Horatian tone gently castigates the frivolous life of London society. Swift, on the other hand, echoes Juvenal's "savage indignation." In Gulliver's Travels (1726), Swift exposes humanity in all its baseness and cruelty. Throughout his encounters with the inhabitants of imaginary lands, starting with the Lilliputians and ending with the Houyhnhnms—the latter are horses endowed with noble attributes, while their servants are bestial, filthy humanoids called Yahoos—Gulliver's (and Swift's) misanthropy grows, culminating in his refusal, once he is reunited with his family, to eat with creatures so closely resembling Yahoos.

The Nineteenth Century

In the 19th cent., satire gave way to a more gentle form of criticism. Manners and morals were still ridiculed but usually in the framework of a longer work, such as a novel. However, satire can be found in the poems of Lord Byron, in the librettos of William S. Gilbert, in the plays of Oscar Wilde and G. B. Shaw, and in the fiction of W. M. Thackeray, Charles Dickens, Samuel Butler, and many others. American satirists of the period include Washington Irving, James Russell Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Mark Twain.

The Twentieth Century

Although 20th-century satire continues to register Horatian or Juvenalian reactions to the enormities of an age dominated by fear of the atom bomb and plagued by pollution, racism, drugs, planned obsolescence, and the abuse of power, critics have discerned some shifts in its source. In some instances the satirist is the audience rather than the artist. Hence the enthusiasm in the 1960s for "camp"—defined by Susan Sontag as meaning works of art that can be enjoyed but not taken seriously, even though they may have been created seriously—indeed, works that are enjoyed for the very qualities that make them second-rate. Sontag's examples of "camp" include Tiffany lamps, the ballet Swan Lake, and the movie Casablanca. Occasionally the audience is the victim of the satire. The so-called put-on, whether a play (Samuel Beckett's Breath, in which breathing is heard on a blacked-out stage), a joke (Lenny Bruce's nightclub routines), or an artifact (John Chamberlain's smashed-up cars), seeks to confuse its audience by presenting the fraudulent as a true work of art, thus rendering the whole concept of "art" questionable. More conventional contemporary satirists of note are Sinclair Lewis, James Thurber, Aldous Huxley, Evelyn Waugh, W. H. Auden, Philip Roth, and Joseph Heller.

Bibliography

See G. Highet, The Anatomy of Satire (1962); L. Feinberg, The Satirist (1963); A. Kernan, The Plot of Satire (1965); critical anthology ed. by J. Russell and A. Brown (1967); J. R. Clark, ed., Satire—That Blasted Art (1973); M. Seidel, The Satiric Inheritance (1979); H. D. Weinbrot, Eighteenth Century Satire: Essays on Text and Context from Dryden to Peter Pindar (1988).

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satire

Artistic form in which human or individual vices, folly, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, or other methods, sometimes with an intent to bring about improvement. Literature and drama are its chief vehicles, but it is also found in such mediums as film, the visual arts (e.g., caricatures), and political cartoons. Though present in Greek literature, notably in the works of Aristophanes, satire generally follows the example of either of two Romans, Horace or Juvenal. To Horace the satirist is an urbane man of the world who sees folly everywhere but is moved to gentle laughter rather than to rage. Juvenal's satirist is an upright man who is horrified and angered by corruption. Their different perspectives produced the subgenres of satire identified by John Dryden as comic satire and tragic satire.

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Satire

Arbuthnot, Mr

. cliché expert who spoke exclusively in the clichés of each subject on which he was interviewed. [Am. Lit.: Frank Sullivan columns in The New Yorker]

Clouds, The

attacks Socrates and his philosophy. [Gk. Drama: Haydn & Fuller, 144]

Frogs, The

lampoons the plays of Euripides and his advanced thinking. [Gk. Drama: Haydn & Fuller, 276]

Joseph Andrews

satirizes the sentimentality of contemporary fiction. [Br. Lit.: Fielding Joseph Andrews]

Knight of the Burning Pestle, The

play by Beaumont and Fletcher burlesques the excesses of tales of chivalry. [Br. Drama: Haydn & Fuller, 399]

M°A°S°H

medical farce on the horrors of war. [Am. Cinema and TV: Halliwell, 474]

Pogo

comic strip rife with political satire. [Comics: Berger, 172]

Praise of Folly, The

uses tongue-in-cheek praise to satirize contemporary customs, institutions, and beliefs. [Dutch Philos.: Erasmus The Praise of Folly in Haydn & Fuller, 607]

Scourge of Princes

Pietro Aretino (1492-1556), wrote wicked satires on nobles and notables. [Ital. Lit.: Benét, 47]

Teufelsdrockh, Herr

fictitious professor, Carlyle’s mouthpiece for criticism of Victorian life. [Br. Lit.: Sartor Resartus]

Troilus and Cressida

Homer’s heroes are reduced in character and satirized. [Br. Drama: Shakespeare Troilus and Cressida]

Ubu Roi

burlesques bourgeois values through outlandish political adventurism, including assassination, mock heroics, and buffoonery. [Fr. Drama: Alfred Jarry Ubu Roi in Benét, 1036]

Zuleika Dobson

burlesques sentimental novels of the Edwardian era. [Br. Lit.: Magill II, 1169]