POETRY : THE SATIRE

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  • Satire is a literary composition in prose or verse whose principal aim is to ridicule folly or vice.
  •  It keeps the reader in good humor. 
  • As Dryden said the true end of satire is the amendment of vices by correction. 
  • Satire originated in Greece. 
  • The plays of Aristophanes were satires. 
  • In Latin literature Horace and Juvenal were the chief exponents of satire. 
  • Spanish writer Cervantes's 'Don Quixote' published in 1605 remained a model for satiric writing for several centuries. 


  • In English, Swift's 'Gulliver's Travel' is the first great satire. 
  • Shakespeare's comedy elements of satire are found as in the character of Malvolio. 
  • In English poetry the most famous satires are Dryden's 'Absalom and Achitophel', Butler's 'Hudibras' and Pope's 'Dunciad'.



  • Satire is intended to ridicule, not to abuse. But it must be forceful and effective. 
  • It may be direct or indirect but always aims at censure. 
  • The tradition of satire continued in the writings of the Restoration playwrights and in Addison's essays. 
  • In the 19th century Byron wrote a versified satire 'Don Juan'. 
  • The essays in the 'Punch' and by the several essayists like Hilaire Belloc, G.K. Chesterton and A.G. Gardiner and others are full of satiric remarks. 
  • Satire reached its artistic perfection in the plays of Bernard Shaw. 



  • George Orwell's 'Animal Farm' is a powerful satire on totalitarianism. 
  • Similar satires on society are common in modern times. 
  • The absurd plays of Samuel Becket and his school abound in satiric sentiments. 
  • Even T.S. Eliot's 'The Waste Land' can be considered as a satire on the spiritual barrenness of the modern age. 


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