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satire
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Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove
Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove
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Category: Arts & Culture
Key People:
Voltaire
Molière
Erasmus
Horace
Alexander Pope
Related Topics:
parody
burlesque
mock-epic
fool’s literature
Menippean satire
See all related content →

satire, artistic form, chiefly literary and dramatic, in which human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, parody, caricature, or other methods, sometimes with an intent to inspire social reform. Satire is a protean term. Together with its derivatives, it is one of the most heavily worked literary designations and one of the most imprecise. The great English lexicographer Samuel Johnson defined satire as “a poem in which wickedness or folly is censured,” and more elaborate definitions are rarely more satisfactory. No strict definition can encompass the complexity ...(100 of 4607 words)

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