Satire Vocabulary

Flashcards covering the vocabulary of satire, including types, elements and techniques.

Satire

Writing or art that employs irony, wit, and humor to expose societal shortcomings, human folly, or injustice.

Horatian Satire

Gentler, wittier, playful satire that seeks to criticize with sympathetic laughter, often pointing out vanity, foolish behavior, superficiality, or self-absorption.

Juvenalian Satire

Angrier, more bitter and sarcastic satire that expresses its disgust with a specific behavior, policy, or practice.

Parody

Imitation or mockery to achieve comedic effect, sometimes used to examine behavior or mock time periods, works of literature, art, or events.

Hyperbole

Overstatement; exaggeration in the service of truth, suggesting a deeper meaning and incongruity between what is literally said and what is actually meant.

Caricature

A representation in which the subject’s distinctive features are deliberately exaggerated to yield a comic or grotesque effect, calling attention to character faults.

Understatement

Opposite of hyperbole; often used to hide a wry jab in politeness.

Juxtaposition

Placing two ideas or words side by side to emphasize their incongruity, alerting the reader to the author’s purpose.

Puns

Deliberately misusing words that sound alike.

Double Entendres

Expressions with two meanings.

Non Sequitur

A conclusion that does not follow logically from the premises previously stated; a type of logical fallacy or strained, false logic.

Irony

The incongruity between expectation and reality or what is said and what is meant.