SATIRE A literary manner that blends a critical attitude with humor and wit for the purpose of improving human institutions or humanity

INVECTIVE If critics simply abuse, they are writing INVECTIVE From the mouth of a wit, INVECTIVE can be a piercing tool, but when delivered from a shallower mind, invective invariably is simple abuse

JEREMIAD If critics are sad and morose over the state of society, they are writing a JEREMIAD From Jeremiah bemoaning the state of the Hebrews to Jonathan Edwards espousing Puritan beliefs to the Christian Coalition trying to restore “values” in the country, the JEREMIAD has always had a popular appeal

GREECE AND ROME: Classical Ancestors of Satire Aristophanes Juvenal Horace Martial Petronius

THE MIDDLE AGES Geoffrey Chaucer – The Canterbury Tales – Fabliau: “The Miller’s Tale,” “The Reeve’s Tale” – Beast Fable “The Nun’s Priest’s Tale”

SPAIN Picaresque Novel – Don Quixote pícaro = rogue or rascal

18 TH -CENTURY ENGLAND John Dryden – Mac Flecknoe Jonathan Swift – A Modest Proposal, Gulliver's Travels Joseph Addison & Richard Steele – The Spectator & The Tatler Alexander Pope – The Rape of the Lock Henry Fielding – Shamela

19 TH -CENTURY ENGLAND George Gordon, Lord Byron – Don Juan William Makepeace Thackeray – Vanity Fair

20 TH -CENTURY ENGLAND George Bernard Shaw – Pygmalion Noel Coward – The Vortex Evelyn Waugh – Decline and Fall Aldous Huxley – Brave New World

DIRECT SATIRE The satiric voice speaks, usually in the first person, either directly to the reader or to a character in the satire, called the ADVERSARIUS DIRECT or FORMAL satire is fundamentally of two types: HORATIAN and JUVENALIAN

INDIRECT SATIRE The satire is expressed through a narrative and the characters or groups who are the butt are ridiculed not by what is said about them but by what they themselves say and do

THE NOVEL The chief vehicle for satire in the modern world. CERVANTES, RABELAIS, VOLTAIRE, SWIFT, FIELDING, AUSTEN, THACKERAY, TWAIN, HUXLEY, ORWELL, JOSEPH HELLER, and THOMAS PYNCHEON have made extended fictional narratives the vehicles for the satiric treatment of human beings and their institutions

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SO! CAN YOU WRITE SATIRE? Consider the modern courtship ritual: What forms does it take? What roles do the two parties typically play? What does each demand or expect of each other? What is the aim of the whole process? Can you write a satiric examination of the modern courtship ritual?

THE ASSIGNMENT Work alone or with a partner Create a satire to present to the class on Friday It may be prose or verse It may be Juvenalian or Horatian – Are you bitterly condemning? – Are you humorously skewering?