Virtually all theories of satire define it as a criticism of contemporary society. Some argue that satire criticizes the present in favor of a standard of values that has been superseded, and thus that satire is generally backward-looking and conservative. While this is often true of poetic satire, in this study Frank Palmeri asserts that narrative satire performs a different function, that it parodies both the established view of the world and that of its opponents, offering its own distinctive critical perspective. This theory of satire builds on the idea of dialogical parody in the work of Russian theorist Mikhail Bakhtin, while revising Bakhtin's estimate of carnival. In Palmeri's view, the carnivalesque offers only an inverted mirror image of authoritative discourse, while parodic narrative satire suggests an alternative to both the official world and its inverted opposite. Palmeri applies this theory of narrative satire to five works of world literature, each of which has generated sharp controversy about the genre to which it rightly belongs: Petronius' Satyricon, Jonathan Swift's A Tale of a Tub, Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Herman Melville's The Confidence-Man, and Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49. He analyzes the features that link these works and shows how the changing pairs of alternatives that are parodied in these satires reflect changes in the terms of social and cultural oppositions. Satire in Narrative will appeal to comparatists, specialists in eighteenth-century and American literature, and others interested in theories of genre and the relations between literary forms and social history.

Here is the ideal introduction to satire for the student and, for the experienced scholar, an occasion to reconsider the uses, problems, and pleasures of satire in light of contemporary theory. Satire is a staple of the literary classroom. Dustin Griffin moves away from the prevailing moral-didactic approach established thirty some years ago to a more open view and reintegrates the Menippean tradition with the tradition of formal verse satire. Exploring texts from Aristophanes to the moderns, with special emphasis on the eighteenth century, Griffin uses a dozen figures—Horace, Juvenal, Persius, Lucian, More, Rabelais, Donne, Dryden, Pope, Swift, Blake, and Byron—as primary examples. Because satire often operates as a mode or procedure rather than as a genre, Griffin offers not a comprehensive theory but a set of critical perspectives. Some of his topics are traditional in satire criticism: the role of satire as moralist, the nature of satiric rhetoric, the impact of satire on the political order. Others are new: the problems of satire and closure, the pleasure it affords readers and writers, and the socioeconomic status of the satirist. Griffin concludes that satire is problematic, open-ended, essayistic, and ambiguous in its relationship to history, uncertain in its political effect, resistant to formal closure, more inclined to ask questions than provide answers, and ambivalent about the pleasures it offers.

Satire plays a prominent and often controversial role in postcolonial fiction. Satire and the Postcolonial Novel offers the first study of this topic, employing the insights of postcolonial comparative theories to revisit Western formulations of "satire" and the "satiric."

This collection of twenty-nine original essays, surveys satire fromits emergence in Western literature to the present. Tracks satire from its first appearances in the prophetic booksof the Old Testament through the Renaissance and the Englishtradition in satire to Michael Moore’s satirical movieFahrenheit 9/11. Highlights the important influence of the Bible in the literaryand cultural development of Western satire. Focused mainly on major classical and European influences onand works of English satire, but also explores the complex andfertile cultural cross-semination within the tradition of literarysatire.

Provides a comprehensive overview for both beginning and advanced students of satiric forms from ancient poetry to contemporary digital media.

How are we to think of satire if it has ceased to exist as a discrete genre? This study proposes a novel solution, understanding the satiric in the postwar era as a set of writing practices: figures of inversion, myth-making, and citation. By showing how writers and theorists alike deploy these devices in new contexts, this book reexamines the link between German postwar writing and the history of satire, and between literature and theory.

This volume addresses the teaching of satire written in English over the past three hundred years. For instructors covering current satire, it suggests ways to enrich students' understanding of voice, irony, and rhetoric and to explore the questions of how to define satire and how to determine what its ultimate aims are. For instructors teaching older satire, it demonstrates ways to help students gain knowledge of historical context, medium, and audience, while addressing more specific literary questions of technique and form. Readers will discover ways to introduce students to authors such as Swift and Twain, to techniques such as parody and verbal irony, and to the difficult subject of satire's offensiveness and elitism. This volume also helps teachers of a wide variety of courses, from composition to gateway courses and surveys, think about how to use modern satire in conceiving and structuring them.

Narrative satire was one of the dominant literary forms of the 18th century, but it came to be displaced by novelistic and historical forms of narrative. Palmeri (English, U. of Miami) argues that these new forms defined themselves in opposition to satire, but also by appropriating elements of satir

This handbook is a guide to the kinds of satire written in English during the 'long' eighteenth century and it focuses on texts that appeared between the restoration of the Stuart monarchy in 1660 and the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789.

Why the Good Book Is a Great Read If you want to rightly understand the Bible, you must begin by recognizing what it is: a composite of literary styles. It is meant to be read, not just interpreted. The Bible’s truths are embedded like jewels in the rich strata of story and poetry, metaphor and proverb, parable and letter, satire and symbolism. Paying attention to the literary form of a passage will help you understand the meaning and truth of that passage. How to Read the Bible as Literature takes you through the various literary forms used by the biblical authors. This book will help you read the Bible with renewed appreciation and excitement and gain a more profound grasp of its truths. Designed for maximum clarity and usefulness, How to Read the Bible as Literature includes * sidebar captions to enhance organization * wide margins ideal for note taking * suggestions for further reading * appendix: "The Allegorical Nature of the Parables" * indexes of persons and subjects