What is Satire?
An art form (literary, dramatic, visual) that uses humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings with the intent of shaming individuals, corporations, and/or society itself into improvement or reform. Satire typically "says what needs to be said" by veiling any controversial topics in a "tongue-in-cheek" fashion.
The best satire typically doesn't admit that it is satirical at all.
The "Big" Topics for satire often include:
Types:
An art form (literary, dramatic, visual) that uses humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings with the intent of shaming individuals, corporations, and/or society itself into improvement or reform. Satire typically "says what needs to be said" by veiling any controversial topics in a "tongue-in-cheek" fashion.
The best satire typically doesn't admit that it is satirical at all.
The "Big" Topics for satire often include:
- Politics
- Religion
- Racism
- Gender
- Media
Types:
- Horatian satire--After the Roman satirist Horace: Satire in which the voice 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.
- Juvenalian satire--After the Roman satirist Juvenal: Formal satire in which the speaker attacks vice and error with contempt and indignation Juvenalian satire in its realism and its harshness is in strong contrast to Horatian satire. Mean & harsh, verbally ripping someone apart.
- Sarcasm: praise to personally mock/insult someone; a form of verbal irony
- Hyperbole: exaggerating something so much that is becomes ridiculous
- Parody: take the style of the author/ work & replicate but doing so in a way of humor
- Burlesque: an artistic composition, especially literary or dramatic, that, for the sake of laughter, vulgarizes lofty material or treats ordinary material with mock dignity; any ludicrous parody or grotesque caricature.
- Caricature: takes a particular aspect of a subject and exaggerates it to create a comedic effect
- Double Entendre: a word/phrase open to two interpretations, one of which is usually risqué
- Incongruity: presenting something next to something else that is completely different
- Juxtaposition: putting together a person, concept, theme, etc. to highlight the contrast between them
- Malapropism: when you say the wrong word and are trying to sound smart
- Oxymoron: opposite word put together
- Travesty: a false, absurd, or distorted representation of something
- Understatement: make a situation seem less important than it really is
- Lampoon: a sharp, often virulent attack directed against an individual or institution; a work of literature, art, or the like, ridiculing severely the character or behavior of a person, society, etc.
- Epigram: any witty, ingenious, or pointed saying tersely expressed.
- Quantification: the act of counting and measuring human observations and experiences into members of some set of numbers. It reduces humans to numbers.
- Dehumanization: describes the denial of "humanness" to other people
On the Birth of his Son
Families, when a child is born
Want it to be intelligent.
I, through intelligence,
Having wrecked my whole life,
Only hope the baby will prove
Ignorant and stupid.
Then he will crown a tranquil life
By becoming a Cabinet Minister.
Su Tung-p'o (1036-1101 CE)
[phonetically Su Dong Bo --Raj]
translated by Arthur Waley (1919)
The Confucian examination system for recruiting officials into the bureaucracy may have been far more egalitarian than anything comparable in its heyday; yet it had its limits. Wealthy men were able to hire tutors to ensure their success, and poor but intelligent men seldom rose to the top.
Su Tung-p'o, usually considered the greatest poet of the Sung Dynasty, often commented cynically on the system he considered corrupt and was dismissed from various positions for his pains. His sarcasm in the following poem sounds a strikingly contemporary note in this age of cynicism about politicians. The poet's revenge lies in the fact that his poems are still read and memorized when all those who persecuted him have been forgotten.
Sheldon Getting Good at Sarcasm
Stephen Colbert - A Modest Porpoisal
Families, when a child is born
Want it to be intelligent.
I, through intelligence,
Having wrecked my whole life,
Only hope the baby will prove
Ignorant and stupid.
Then he will crown a tranquil life
By becoming a Cabinet Minister.
Su Tung-p'o (1036-1101 CE)
[phonetically Su Dong Bo --Raj]
translated by Arthur Waley (1919)
The Confucian examination system for recruiting officials into the bureaucracy may have been far more egalitarian than anything comparable in its heyday; yet it had its limits. Wealthy men were able to hire tutors to ensure their success, and poor but intelligent men seldom rose to the top.
Su Tung-p'o, usually considered the greatest poet of the Sung Dynasty, often commented cynically on the system he considered corrupt and was dismissed from various positions for his pains. His sarcasm in the following poem sounds a strikingly contemporary note in this age of cynicism about politicians. The poet's revenge lies in the fact that his poems are still read and memorized when all those who persecuted him have been forgotten.
Sheldon Getting Good at Sarcasm
Stephen Colbert - A Modest Porpoisal