The Art of Satire

Download or read book The Art of Satire written by David Worcester and published by . This book was released on 1969 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Because satire cannot be fixed in a conventional form or genre, it resists analysis, but as David Worcester demonstrates in this lively and helpful book, satirical literature can be showed to have followed a definite evolution, with complex and sublte forms arising out of simple and primitive ones. Mr. Worcester traces the progression of satire from invective to burlesque and from there to the varied modes of irony. He discusses the various forms satire has taken in English literature, and the motives behind its impetus at different periods in its history, and touches on the possibilities of satire and the uses of irony in literature in our own time. 'The Art of Satire' provides both a historical and critical introduction to the uses of literary satire, and in analyzing the technique of irony clarifies one of the most subtle and powerful principles of literary art.