Satire

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        The literary technique of making a subject seem ridiculous and inspiring feelings of amusement, contempt, scorn, or indignation toward it is known as "satire." Comedy elicits laughter primarily as an end in itself, whereas satire derides; that is, it uses laughter as a weapon, and against a butt that exists outside the work itself. This is where satire differs from comedy. That butt could be a specific person (in "personal satire"), a group of people, an institution, a country, or even the entire human race (as in the Earl of Rochester's "A Satyr against Mankind," published in 1675, and much of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, particularly Book IV). However, the line separating comedy from satire is only clearly defined at its extremes. Shakespeare's Falstaff is primarily a comic creation meant for our amusement; Ben Jonson's Volpone (1607), a clear satire of the type of person whose cleverness—or stupidity—is used to serve his cupidity; and John Dryden's MacFlecknoe (1682), while representing a recurring type.

        By its practitioners, satire is typically justified as a remedy for human vice and foolishness; Alexander Pope, for instance, said that "those who are ashamed of nothing else are so of being ridiculous." Its frequent claim—which is not always supported by actual practice—has been to limit its mockery to corrigible faults, excluding those for which a person is not accountable, and to mock the failing rather than the individual.         

        In many works whose overall mode is not satiric, satire can be found as an incidental element in a particular character or circumstance or in an interpolated passage of ironic commentary on a certain aspect of the human condition or of contemporary society. However, the central theme of some literary works, whether in verse or prose, is the attempt to denigrate the subject at hand. These writings fall under the formal genre of "satires." The following distinctions are helpful in discussing such writings:

1. Formal Satire (or "direct") and indirect satire are generally divided by critics. The satiric persona speaks in the first person in formal satire. This "I" may be used to address the reader (as in Pope's Moral Essays, 1731–1735) or a character within the work whose main artistic purpose is to elicit and lend credence to the satirical speaker's comments. This character is known as the adversarius. (Dr. Arbuthnot serves as the adversarius in Pope's "Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot," written in 1735.) Horace and Juvenal, two of the greatest Roman satirists, gave rise to two distinct categories of formal satire that are frequently distinguished. The persona that the author uses to satirise in the first person as well as the attitude and tone that persona exhibits toward both the subject matter and the audience of the work serve to define the types.
            In Horatian satire, the speaker is an urbane, witty, and tolerant man of the world who uses a relaxed and informal language to evoke from readers a wry smile at human failings and absurdities—sometimes even his own. He is more moved to wry amusement than to outrage at the spectacle of human folly, pretentiousness, and hypocrisy. In his own words, Horace said that his goal was "to laugh people out of their vices and follies." Most of Pope's Moral Essays and other formal satires maintain a Horatian viewpoint.

In Juvenalian satire, the speaker is a serious moralist who uses a dignified and public utterance to denounce vices and errors that are no less dangerous because they are absurd. The speaker attempts to arouse from readers contempt, moral indignation, or an unfulfilled sadness at the aberrations of humanity. Juvenalian satire is best represented in Samuel Johnson's "London" (1738) and "The Vanity of Human Wishes" (1749). This form of satire is similar to the jeremiad, whose model is Hebraic rather than Roman, in its most denunciatory instances.

2. Indirect satire is written in a style other than one that addresses the reader directly. The most typical indirect form of satire is a fictional narrative in which the targets are characters who, through their thoughts, words, and deeds, make themselves and their opinions ridiculous or offensive. Occasionally, the author's comments and narrative technique serve to further compound the absurdity of the characters. 

        Menippean satire, based on a Greek style created by the Cynic philosopher Menippus, is one type of indirect satire. It is sometimes referred to as Varronian satire, after a Roman imitator named Varro;  

    Northrop Frye suggests an alternative name, the anatomy, after a significant English example of the genre, Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, on pages 308–312. (1621). Such satires are typically written in prose with interspersed verse, and they belong to a variety of literary genres that are frequently held together by a shoddily put together story. In a series of lengthy dialogues and debates (often held at a banquet or party), a group of talkative eccentrics, pedants, writers, and representatives of various professions or philosophical points of view serve to make ridiculous the attitudes and viewpoints they model by the arguments they urge in support. Examples include Thomas Love Peacock's Nightmare Abbey (1818) and other satirical novels, Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel (1564), Voltaire's Candide (1759), and Aldous Huxley's Point Counter Point (1928); in this last book, as in those of Peacock, the central satiric scenes are discussions and disagreements during a weekend at an English country manor. The two Alice in Wonderland books by Lewis Carroll are also categorised by Frye as "perfect Menippean satires."