Satire

Satire is often strictly defined as a literary genre or form, although in practice it can be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are censured by ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, or other methods, ideally with the intent of improvement. Although satire is usually meant to be funny, its purpose is often not so much humour for its own sake as an attack on something strongly disapproved by the satirist, using the weapon of wit.

A common feature of satire is strong irony or sarcasm -- "in satire, irony is militant -- but parody, burlesque, exaggeration, juxtaposition, comparison, analogy, and double entendre are all frequently used in satirical speech and writing. This "militant" irony or sarcasm often professes to approve (or at least accept as natural) the very things the satirist actually wishes to attack. A satire is a technique generally used in poems. It is a combination of humour and criticism.

Satire and humour

Satirical works often contain "straight" or non-satirical humour, usually to give relief from what might otherwise be relentless preaching. Although this has always been so, it is probably more marked in modern satire. Yet some satire is not "funny," nor is meant to be. And not all humour is satiric, even when the humour involves such topics as politics, religion or art, frequent matters for satire. And a passage of irony, parody, or burlesque can serve simple humour, though the techniques are also tools of satire.

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