as well as the printed word. In satire, human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, or other methods, ideally with an intent to bring about improvement.. This "militant irony" (or sarcasm) often professes to approve the very things the satirist actually wishes to attack.
Satirical works often contain "straight" (non-satirical) humour - usually to give some relief from what might otherwise be relentless "preaching". This has always been the case, although it is probably more marked in modern satire. On the other hand some satire has little or no humour at all. It is not "funny" - and nor is it meant to be.
Humour about a particular subject (politics, religion and art for instance) is not necessarily satirical because the subject itself is often a subject of satire. Nor is humour using the great satiric tools of irony, parody, or burlesque always meant in a satirical sense.
(late 2nd millennium BC) contains the text of a satirical letter in which the writer at first praises the virtues but then mercilessly mocks the meagre knowledge and achievements of the recipient of the letter.
and parody were used. In retrospect, the
) and for the persecution he underwent. The confusion with the satyr supported the understanding of satire as biting, like Juvenal, and not mild, like Horace, method of criticism in Early Modern Europe until the 17th century.
ironical terms - but the term when applied to Latin works actually titled as "satires" 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.
satirists. Other important Roman satirists are
.
. Satirical poetry is believed to have been popular, although little has survived. With the advent of the
. The disrespectful manner was considered "Unchristian" and ignored but for the
, which mocked misbehavior in Christian terms. Examples are
. The
was mocked, and even the feudal society, but there was hardly a general interest in the genre. After the Middle Ages in the
(1516).
Main article: Persian satire Persia The
Elizabethan (i.e. 16th century English) writers thought of satire as related to the notoriously rude, coarse and sharp satyr play. Elizabethan "satire" (typically in pamphlet form) therefore contains more straight forward abuse than subtle irony. The French
Huguenot Isaac Casaubon pointed out in 1605 that satire in the Roman fashion was something altogether more civilised. 17th century English satire once again aimed at the "amendment of vices" (
Dryden).
Direct social commentary via satire returned with a vengeance in the 16th century, when farcical texts such as the works of
François Rabelais tackled more serious issues (and incurred the wrath of the crown as a result). In the
Age of Enlightenment, an intellectual movement in the 17th and 18th century advocating rationality, began the breakthrough of English satire, largely due to the creation of
Tory and
Whig groups and the necessity to convey the true meaning of criticism, especially true for
Daniel Defoe,
Jonathan Swift,
John Dryden and
Alexander Pope. Here, astute and biting satire of institutions and individuals became a popular weapon. Although
Isaac Casaubon discovered and published Quintilian's writing and presented the original meaning of the term (satira, not satyr), Early Modern satire was already an established genre, but the sense of wittiness (reflecting the "dishfull of fruits") became more important again.
Jonathan Swift was one of the greatest of Anglo-Irish satirists, and one of the first to practice modern journalistic satire. For instance, his
A Modest Proposal suggests that poor Irish parents be encouraged to sell their own children as food, while his
The Shortest-Way with the Dissenters suggests that
dissenters (from established Church doctrine) be vigorously persecuted. Also in his book
Gulliver's Travels he greatly suggests the flaws in human and english society. Swift creates a moral fiction, for instance a world in which parents do not have their most obvious responsibility, which is to protect their children from harm, or in which
freedom of religion is reduced to the freedom to conform. His purpose is of course to attack indifference to the plight of the desperately poor, and to advocate freedom of conscience.
John Dryden also wrote an influential essay on satire that helped fix its definition in the literary world.
Early modern western satire Ebenezer Cooke, author of "The Sot-Weed Factor," was among the first to bring satire to the British colonies;
Benjamin Franklin and others followed, using satire to shape an emerging nation's culture through shaping its sense of the ridiculous.
Mark Twain was a great
American satirist: his novel
Huckleberry Finn is set in the
antebellum South, where the moral values Twain wishes to promote are completely turned on their heads. His hero, Huck, is a rather simple but good-hearted lad who is ashamed of the "sinful temptation" that leads him to help a runaway
slave. In fact his conscience – warped by the distorted moral world he has grown up in, often bothers him most when he is at his best. Ironically, he is prepared to do good, believing it to be wrong.
Twain's younger contemporary
Ambrose Bierce gained notoriety as a cynic, pessimist and black humourist with his dark, bitterly ironic stories, many set during the
American Civil War, which satirized the limitations of human perception and reason. Bierce's most famous work of satire is probably
The Devil's Dictionary, in which the definitions mock
cant,
hypocrisy and received wisdom.
Anglo-American satire Novelists such as
Charles Dickens often used passages of satiric writing in their treatment of social issues. Several satiric papers competed for the public's attention in the
Victorian era and
Edwardian period, such as
Punch and
Fun.
Perhaps the most enduring examples of Victorian satire, however, are to be found in the
Savoy Operas of
W. S. Gilbert and Sir
Arthur Sullivan. In fact, in
The Yeomen of the Guard, a jester is given lines that paint a very neat picture of the method and purpose of the satirist:
"I can set a braggart quailing with a quip, The upstart I can wither with a whim; He may wear a merry laugh upon his lip, But his laughter has an echo that is grim!" Satire in Victorian England In the 20th century, satire was used by authors such as
Aldous Huxley and
George Orwell to make serious and even frightening commentaries on the dangers of the sweeping social changes taking place throughout Europe and United States. The film,
The Great Dictator (1940) by
Charlie Chaplin is a satire on
Adolf Hitler. Many social critics of the time, such as
Dorothy Parker and
H. L. Mencken used satire as their main weapon, and Mencken in particular is noted for having said that "one horse-laugh is worth ten thousand
syllogisms" in the persuasion of the public to accept a criticism. Joseph Heller's most famous work,
Catch-22, satirizes bureaucracy and the military, and is frequently cited as one of the greatest literary works of the Twentieth Century. Novelist
Sinclair Lewis was known for his satirical stories such as
Babbitt,
Main Street, and
It Can't Happen Here. His books often explored and satirized contemporary American values.
The film
Dr. Strangelove from 1964 was a popular satire on the
Cold War. A more humorous brand of satire enjoyed a renaissance in the
UK in the early 1960s with the
Satire Boom, led by such luminaries as
Peter Cook,
John Cleese,
Alan Bennett,
Jonathan Miller,
David Frost,
Eleanor Bron and
Dudley Moore and the television programme
That Was The Week That Was.
Contemporary satire Because satire often combines anger and humour it can be profoundly disturbing - because it is essentially ironic or sarcastic, it is often misunderstood. In an interview with
Wikinews,
Sean Mills, President of
The Onion, said angry letters about their news parody always carried the same message. "It's whatever affects that person," said Mills. "So it's like, 'I love it when you make a joke about murder or rape, but if you talk about cancer, well my brother has cancer and that's not funny to me.' Or someone else can say, 'Cancer's
hilarious, but don't talk about rape because my cousin got raped.' I'm using extreme examples, but whatever it is, if it affects somebody personally they tend to be more sensitive about it."
Common uncomprehending responses to satire include revulsion (accusations of
poor taste, or that it's "just not funny" for instance), to the idea that the satirist actually does support the ideas, policies, or people he is attacking. For instance, at the time of its publication, many people misunderstood Swift's purpose in "
A Modest Proposal" – assuming it to be a serious recommendation of economically-motivated cannibalism. Again, some critics of
Mark Twain see
Huckleberry Finn as
racist and offensive, missing the point that its author clearly intended it to be satire (racism being in fact only one of a number of Mark Twain's known pet bugbears attacked in
Huckleberry Finn).
Misconception of satire Because satire is stealthy criticism, it frequently escapes
censorship. Periodically, however, it runs into serious opposition.
In 1599, the
Archbishop of Canterbury John Whitgift and the
Bishop of London George Abbot, whose offices had the function of licensing books for publication in
England, issued a decree banning verse satire. The decree ordered the burning of certain volumes of satire by
John Marston,
Thomas Middleton,
Joseph Hall, and others; it also required histories and plays to be specially approved by a member of the Queen's
Privy Council, and it prohibited the future printing of satire in verse. The motives for the ban are obscure, particularly since some of the books banned had been licensed by the same authorities less than a year earlier. Various scholars have argued that the target was obscenity, libel, or sedition. It seems likely that lingering anxiety about the
Martin Marprelate controversy, in which the bishops themselves had employed satirists, played a role; both
Thomas Nashe and
Gabriel Harvey, two of the key figures in that controversy, suffered a complete ban on all their works. In the event, though, the ban was little enforced, even by the licensing authority itself.
In Italy the media
tycoon Silvio Berlusconi attacked RAI Television's satirical series,
Raiot,
Daniele Luttazzi's
Satyricon,
Enzo Biagi,
Michele Santoro's
Sciuscià, even a special
Blob series on Berlusconi himself, by arguing that they were vulgar and full of disrespect to the government. He claimed that he would sue the RAI for 21,000,000 Euros if the show went on. RAI stopped the show.
Sabina Guzzanti, creator of the show, went to court to proceed with the show and won the case. However, the show never went on air again.
In 2001 the British television network
Channel 4 aired a special edition of the spoof current affairs series
Brass Eye, which was intended to mock and satirize the fascination of modern journalism with
child molesters and
pedophiles. The TV network received an enormous number of complaints from members of the public, who were outraged that the show would mock a subject considered by many to be too "serious" to be the subject of humour.
In 2005, the
Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy caused global protests by offended Muslims and violent attacks with many
fatalities in the Near East. It was not the first case of
Muslim protests against criticism in the form of satire, but the Western world was surprised by the hostility of the reaction: Any country's flag in which a newspaper chose to publish the parodies was being burnt in a
Near East country, then embassies were attacked, killing 139 people in mainly four countries (see
article); politicians throughout Europe agreed that satire was an aspect of the
freedom of speech, and therefore to be a protected means of dialogue. Iran threatened to start an
International Holocaust Cartoon Competition, which was immediately responded to by Jews with a
Israeli Anti-Semitic Cartoons Contest. Although not really satirical, the response to
Salman Rushdie's
Satanic Verses from 1988 was similarly violent;
Khomeinei responded with a
fatwa, death sentence, for the author, resulting in a 10-year breach of Irano-British diplomatic relations and a continued threat to the author's life.
In 2006 British comedian
Sacha Baron Cohen released
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan a "
mockumentary" that satirized everyone, from high society to frat boys. Criticism of the film was heavy, from claims of
antisemitism (forgetting the author is Jewish), to the massive boycott of the film by the
Kazakh government; the film itself had been a reaction to a longer quarrel between the government and the comedian.
Satire as prophesy List of satirists and satires
Satire and Humour
Lefthit
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