Jonathan Swift

• “satire is a glass wherein beholders generally discover everybody's face but their own, which is the chief reason [...] that so very few are offended with it”

Genre vs Mode

• Genre: a type or category of art/text defined by structural (or formal) and thematic criteria (e.g., epic, novel, essay, short story)

• Mode: a broader category which is thematically specific but non-specific as to literary form of representation.

Northrop Frye

• Satire is a tone or attitude in which “two things are essential”

• “One is wit or humour, the other, an object of attack.”

• If the attack or denunciation is weak, satire veers closer to comedy, if too strong it becomes aligned with tragedy.

Comedy vs Satire

- Comedy involves a milder attack on its subjects; it is less invested in serious criticism and more prone to eliciting laughter for laughter’s sake.

- Satire involves an attack upon targets that are considered immoral or destructive.

Quintillian (1st Century AD)

• “satura … tota nostra est” (“satire… is totally ours”

• He refers to a specific form of verse written by the Roman satirists, Lucilius, Horace, Persius, and Juvenal

Diomedes’ Etymology of SatireEither satire is derived from…

1) satyroi or satyri because it is a poem that is as unruly as the Greek Satyr plays

2) the Latin singular of satus, meaning full, which relates to lanx satura, a platter full with a variety of fruits to be offered to the gods

3) the legal satury (one bill encompassing multiple provisions)

Diomedes’ Definition of Satire

“…a verse composition amongst the Romans. At present certainly it is defamatory and composed to carp at human vices in the manner of the Old (Greek) Comedy: this type of satire was written by Lucilius, Horace, and Persius…”