Satire Quiz- AP Lit

What is Satire?

-A literary technique in which behaviors or institutions are ridiculed for the purpose of improving society

What sets satire apart from other forms of political and social protest?

-HUMOR

-Satirists use irony and exaggeration in order to poke fun at human faults and foolishness and correct human behavior

What is often the target of satire?

-Social or political issues

Where and with whom did satire begin?

-Began in ancient Greece and Rome

-The fathers of satire are considered to be Horace and Juvenal, whose names are given to the two basic types of satire

What is Horatian Satire?

-playfully amusing and seeks to correct vice or foolishness with gentle laughter and understanding

-Alexander Pope's satire is Horatian

What is Juvenalian Satire?

-provokes a darker kind of laughter. It is often bitter and criticizes corruption or incompetence with scorn and outrage.

-Swift, in "Gulliver's Travels," tended toward this type of satire

In what period did satire flourish?

-The second half of the 17th century and continued in the 18th century

-In England, this "Golden Age" of satire encompassed the talents of the Restoration dramatists, as well as Dryden, Pope, Swift, and Samuel Johnson.

Satirists, as guardians of the culture, sought to protect their highly developed civilizations from problems such as....

-hypocrisy, arrogance, greed, vanity, and stupidity.

How does satire mainly present itself today?

-Political cartoons, comic strips, TV programs, and movies

Strategies for Reading Satire:

1. Determine the object of the satire

2. Use your knowledge of what the satirist criticizes to infer what he or she believes is right and proper

3. Watch for irony, which often points directly to the object of the satire

4. Evaluate whether the satire is more Horatian (playful and sympathetic) or Juvenalian (bitter and critical)

5. Pay attention to what makes you laugh or what sounds ridiculous

What was the satirist Jonathan Swift known for?

-his bitter, ironic style

What were some key aspects of Swift's style?

-the use of a persona- a narrator or speaker other than Swift- as an object of satire

-words, phrases, and situations that are shocking or disturbing

-ironic statements and situations that point out human shortcomings or faults

-use of understatement to expose a mindless acceptance of surface facts without regard to their deeper meaning

What caused the abrupt shift towards satire and a new literary style in the last third of the seventeenth century?

-a different cultural temperament influenced by the Enlightenment ideals introduced under the Restoration of Charles II as monarch in 1660, and a new period of religious thought

-Since there was no longer any shared agreement on religion, society had to find some other middle ground/commonality.

Out of this grew a new basis of social and political life on _________

REASON

What were some aspects of the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason?

-limit of emotional excesses

-paying attention to all forms of language and limiting passionate rhetoric and misleading metaphors. Literature was codified in dictionaries and became more public, refined, and polite.

-The term of highest praise was to be "sensible."

-a new rising middle class

-increase in concern over manners and politeness

The ________ couplet was especially popular in this time, reflecting a desire for a poetic style that is inherently more restrained.

-heroic

Words like "imaginative" or "visonary" were viewed as words of ____________.

-criticism

-They indicated a form of thinking or behavior in which reasonableness surrendered to passionate feeling

The development of a new faith in reasonableness in England, speaking generally, we can see going in two directions....

1. Many traditional christians maintained their faith in scripture

2. Another group saw the growing power of science as a way of reforming society

Satire is different from normal comedy because there is a clear _________. Normal comedy reminds us of our ________________

-lesson, limitations

Satire depends on a shared sense of ______________ ____________.

-community standards

Modern satire tends to make everything look equally _______________.

-ridiculous

-because of this, there is no underlying vision of what right conduct is, and the total effect is very bleak- a sense that we might as well laugh at the ridiculousness of everything.

-clearly at odds with the traditional state, which encourages us to work towards a moral vision

Satire invites readers to ________ in the joke

-share

Invective:

-very abusive, usually non-ironical language aimed at a particular target

-degradation or devaluation of a victim

-A lengthy invective is sometimes called a diatribe

-"You're a dog!"

Caricature:

-exaggerating for comedic and satiric effect one particular feature of the target, usually to achieve a grotesque or ridiculous effect

Burlesque:

-exaggeration in language, usually one that makes the discrepancy between the words and the situation or the character silly.

-Ex. To have a king speak like an idiot or a workman speak like a king

Mock Heroic:

-a form of burlesque, is a satiric style which deliberately sets up a disproportionate and witty distance between the elevated language used to describe an action and the triviality or foolishness of the action

-Ex. The Rape of Lock

Irony:

-a stylistic device in which the real meaning of the words is different from (and opposite to) the literal meaning.

-Double meaning, verbal irony, situational irony, dramatic irony, double entendre

Lampoon:

-a very harsh and personal attack on a very particular, recognizable target, focusing on the target's character or appearance

Parody:

-deliberately seeks to ridicule another style. Can involve offering up a silly version of the original, or imitating the original well, pushing beyond its limits, and making it ridiculous

Reductio ad absurdum:

-a popular satiric technique (especially in Swift), whereby the author agrees enthusiastically with the basic attitudes or assumptions he wishes to satrize and, by pushing them to a logically ridiculous extreme, exposes the foolishness of the original attitudes and assumptions.

Innuendo:

-an indirect attack or insinuation

-Ex. Madame Pernelle says that if she were in charge, Dorine would be gone, insinuating she does not like Dorine and would have kicked her out to the streets long ago.

Double entendre:

-a word or phrase that is open to two interpretations, one of which is usually risque or indecent

Paradox/Juxtaposition:

-contradictory statement

Zeugma:

-listing of things of greatly differing value as if they were of equal value

Deus Ex Machina:

-a seemingly unsolvable problem in a story is suddenly resolved by an unexpected and unlikely event, character, or divine intervention

Hyperbole:

-characters' flaws and actions are exaggerated for comedic effect

The central message of satire is often very simple and can be stated quickly. It's like a ___________ insistence on the foolishness of certain kinds of behavior

-repetitive

The satirist will typically exaggerate and distort the target in certain ways in order to emphasize the characteristics he wishes to attack. From here the attack is ______________, ranging from direct __________, to physical humour, to more complex assaults often parodying various forms of _____________ or ________.

-unrelenting, insults

-language or belief

-Satire often pushes hard at the edge of what the audience is prepared to accept. After all, the purpose is to wake people up and get them to change. What risk does this present?

-The risk of offending the audience

What did Swift observe about satire and its effect?

-Satire is like a mirror in which people see everyone's faces but their own

-It's not just about attacking the target but also those who believe in the target and do not see the moral imperfections at the basis of a particular social or political stance

-essentially while others may see the flaws in the characters and recognize them in others around them, they may not recognize these flaws within themselves.