Early_Satire

448 BCE -1800's

Ancient Egypt


 * rough sketches, mostly about the royalty of egypt
 * scene at the temple of Hatshepsut at [| Deir el-Bahri] that portrays the overweight figure of the queen of Punt, followed by a small donkey. The caption reads, "the donkey that had to carry the queen",
 * scribes also made satirical comments about every trade (other than their own)
 * partly because scribes believed they were far more superior than the ordinary man
 * some people assert that these descriptions were meant to be serious
 * sketches and paintings depicting animals enjoying human activities



Ancient Greek Satire
 * The Greek had no word for what later would be called a satire, although [|cynicism] and parody were used.


 * oldest form of satire still in use is the [|Menippean satire] by Menippos of Gadara.
 * His own writings are lost, but his admirers and imitators mix seriousness and mocking in dialogues and parodies before a background of [|diatribe], a cynicistic criticism, a very biting comment by [|cynics].
 * 500 B.C. Early Greek satires ("Satyrs" or "Satyric dramas") were in essence comedy plays and often involved men dressed as Satyrs
 * Satyrs were mythological creatures with the upper half of a man and the bottom half of a goat or horse.
 * "Satyr" was one of three forms of Athenian drama, nestling comfortably as a new genre alongside tragedy and comedy.
 * Satyr was quickly developed between the writers Pratinas, Aristeas, and Aeschylus.
 * used as interval pieces to relieve the seriousness of tragic plays.
 * became extremely popular devices and led to the extension of the form
 * only one existing Greek Satyr play written by Euripides and called //Cyclops//.
 * works of Greek comedy plays by Sophocles, including //The Wasps// or //The Clouds// also demonstrate instances of satire as well

Ancient Roman Satire 
 * the first to discuss satire critically was Quintilian, who invented the term to describe the writings of Lucilius.
 * the term **satire** came from the Greek //satyr//; satyrs were the companions of Dionysos and central characters of the satyr plays of the Theatre of Ancient Greece.
 * Pliny reports that the 6th century BC poet Hipponax wrote //satirae// that were so cruel that the offended hanged themselves.
 * Roman structure of writing Satire that has become the model for writing satire in the modern ages
 * split into two individual forms
 * that which exists merely to poke amiable fun of its subject
 * that which indignantly sets out to humiliate its subject.

Satire from the [|Early Middle Ages].
 * Satirical poetry
 * although little satirical poetry has survived over the ages, it was quite popular
 * it was once again revived in the 12th century, most notably by Geoffrey Chaucer
 * Moral satire
 * in the Early Middle Ages, moral satire was used to mock the Christian behavior of those in the church
 * one can find examples of this in Chaucer's __Canterbury Tales__


 * [[image:http://docs.google.com/File?id=dc8ffrwc_0hh2232ht width="197" height="321"]]

The [|epos] was mocked, and even the feudal society, but there was hardly a general interest in the genre. After the Middle Ages in the [|Renaissance] reawakening of Roman literary traditions, the satires //[|Till Eulenspiegel]// and //[|Reynard the Fox]// were published, and also in [|Sebastian Brant]'s //[|Narrenschiff]// (1494), [|Erasmus]' //[|Moriae Encomium]// (1509) and [|Thomas More]'s //[|Utopia]// (1516).  [[|edit]] Persia

//Main article: [|Persian satire]// Satire in Victorian England Novelists such as [|Charles Dickens] often used passages of satyric writing in their treatment of social issues. On the whole however, their social comment is perhaps too earnest to be counted as true satire. On the other hand, the [|Savoy Operas] of [|W.S. Gilbert] are riddled with satire. In [|The Yeomen of the Guard], a jester is given lines that paint a very neat picture of the method and purpose of the satirist:


 * Greek Old Comedy holds examples of the use of satirical speeches
 * Used to discredit or even kill, like a magic weapon
 * FIND EXAMPLE
 * Irony is the essence of satire because satire is writing about a lack of wholeness in a subject
 * Greeks and Romans formalized the use of satire
 * Romans satire presented through poetry
 * FIND EXAMPLE
 * Greeks satire presented in plays and performances
 * Aristophanes- best known early satirists
 * famous for his political satire against Cleon (like in his play //The Knights//)
 * Satire provided crucial resources to which early Stuart writers could define new models of political identity and construct new discourses of decent
 * Stuart writers- the Stuart throne
 * The oldest form of satire is the Mennipean satire by Menippos of Gadara
 * broadly to refer to prose satires; that are rhapsodic in nature, combining many different targets of ridicule into a fragmented satiric narrative, similar to a novel.

Information from: www.pafaculty.net, http://wikipedia.org, www.touregypt.net. www.nottheonion.com[|], http://images.amazon.com [|]