SATIRICAL STYLES
Direct satire is directly stated
Indirect satire is communicated through characters in a situation
TYPES OF SATIRE
There are two types of satire.
Horatian:
Horatian satire is tolerant, funny, sophisticated witty, wise, self-effacing and aims to
correct through humor. Named for the Roman satirist from the Augustan period in
Rome, Horace, this playfully criticizes some social vice through gentle, mild, and
light-hearted humour. It directs wit, exaggeration, and self-deprecating humour
toward what it identifies as folly, rather than evil. Horatian satire's sympathetic tone
is common in modern society.
Juvenalian:
Juvenalian satire is angry, caustic, personal, relentless, bitter, and serious. Named
after Augustan periods Roman satirist Juvenal, this type of satire is more
contemptuous and abrasive than the Horatian. Juvenalian satire provokes a darker
kind of laughter; addresses social evil and points with contempt to the corruption of
men and institutions through scorn, outrage, and savage ridicule. This form is often
pessimistic, characterized by irony, sarcasm, moral indignation and personal
invective, with less emphasis on humour.
SATIRICAL DEVICES
1. Humor:
Exaggeration or overstatement: Something that does happen, but is exaggerated to
absurd lengths. This is the most common type of satire. For example, a caricature,
the formalized walk of Charlie Chaplin.
Understatement: A statement that seems incomplete or less than truthful given the
facts. Think sarcasm with the intentions of evoking change. For example, Fieldings
description of a grossly fat and repulsively ugly Mrs. Slipslop: She was not
remarkably handsome.
Incongruity: A marked lack of correspondence or agreement.
Deflation: the English professor mispronounces a word, the President slips and
bangs his head leaving the helicopter, etc.
Linguistic games / Malapropism: A deliberate mispronunciation of a name or term
with the intent of poking fun; weird rhymes, etc.
Surprise: Twist endings, unexpected events
2. Irony: Literary device conveying the opposite of what is expected; in which there
is an incongruity or discordance between what one says or does, and what one
means or what is generally understood. It is lighter, less harsh in wording than
sarcasm, though more cutting because of its indirectness. For example, Marge
reading Fretful Mother as she ignores her child.
The ability to recognize irony is one of the surest tests of intelligence and
sophistication. Irony speaks words of praise to imply blame and words of blame to
imply praise. Writer is using a tongue-in-cheek style. Irony is achieved through such
techniques as hyperbole and understatement.
Verbal Irony: Simply an inversion of meaning
Dramatic Irony: When the words or acts of a character carry a meaning unperceived
by himself but understood by the audience. The irony resides in the contrast
between the meaning intended by the speaker and the added significance seen by
others.
Socratic Irony: Socrates pretended ignorance of a subject in order to draw
knowledge out of his students by a question and answer device. Socratic irony is
feigning ignorance to achieve some advantage over an opponent.
Situational Irony: Depends on a discrepancy between purpose and results. Example:
a practical joke that backfires is situational irony.
3. Invective: Name calling, harsh, abusive language directed against a person or
cause. Invective is a vehicle, a tool of anger. It is the bitterest of all satire.
4. Mock Encomium: Praise which is only apparent and which suggests blame
instead.
5. Grotesque: Creating a tension between laughter and horror or revulsion; the
essence of all sick humor: or black humor
6. Comic Juxtaposition: Linking together with no commentary items which normally
do not go together; Popes line in Rape of the Lock: Puffs, patches, bibles, and
billet-doux.
7. Mock Epic / Mock Heroic: Using elevated diction and devices from the epic or the
heroic to deal with low or trivial subjects.
8. Parody: A mocking imitation, composition imitating or burlesquing another,
usually serious, piece of work. Designed to ridicule in nonsensical fashion an original
piece of work. Parody is in literature what the caricature and cartoon are in art.
9. Inflation: Taking a real-life situation and blowing it out of proportion to make it
ridiculous and showcase its faults.
10. Diminution: Taking a real-life situation and reducing it to make it ridiculous and
showcase its faults.
11. Absurdity: Something that seems like it would never happen, but could.
12. Wit or word play: The title The Importance of Being Earnest. It is a play on the
word earnest, meaning honest, and the name Earnest.
13. Euphemism: The substitution of an inoffensive term for one that is offensive.
14. 1Travesty: Presents a serious (often religious) subject frivolously it reduces
everything to its lowest level. Trans= over, across vestire = to clothe or dress.
Presenting a subject in a dress intended for another type of subject.
15. Burlesque: Ridiculous exaggeration achieved through a variety of ways. For
example, the sublime may be absurd, honest emotions may be turned to
sentimentality. STYLE is the essential quality in burlesque. A style ordinarily
dignified may be used for nonsensical matters, etc.
16. Farce: Exciting laughter through exaggerated, improbable situations. This
usually contains low comedy: quarreling, fighting, coarse with, horseplay, noisy
singing, boisterous conduct, trickery, clownishness, drunkenness, slap-stick.
17. Sarcasm: A sharply mocking or contemptuous remark. The term came from the
Greek word sarkazein which means to tear flesh.
18. Knaves & Fools: In comedy there are no villains and no innocent victims.
Instead, there are rogues (knaves) and suckers (fools). The knave exploits someone
asking for it. When these two interact, comic satire results. When knaves & fools
meet, they expose each other.
