Tag - Literary Satire

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6 Historical Satires
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Satire in Literature

6 Historical Satires

Feb 17 2017
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This post is dedicated to six of history’s most famous literary satires. Click on the links to read my reviews.

Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift (1726)

gullivers-travels

Gulliver’s Travels is a humorous and vulgar satirical work that mocks politics, non-conformist churches, science, the social order and the accepted role of the family.

My Review: Intrepid English adventurer Lemuel Gulliver’s fictional memoirs are divided into four parts. In the first our shipwrecked protagonist is washed ashore in the land of Lilliput, a place populated by people so…(more)

Subjects Satirised: Pretty much everything

Candide by Voltaire (1759)

Candide

Candide is an eighteenth-century satirical classic that evaluates optimism; the prevailing philosophical ideology of The Enlightenment. Voltaire sought to dispel the belief that all is for the best when it is not.

My Review: Brought up in the household of a German baron, cheerful protagonist Candide has been instilled with the philosophy of Leibniz, notably – That all is for the best in this, the best of all possible worlds…(more)

Subjects Satirised: The Church & The Enlightenment

Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol (1842)

Dead Souls is an uncompleted, satirical novel that parodies Imperial Russia and provincial Russian life. Targets for ridicule include the gentry and rural officials.

My Review: Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov is travelling around provincial Russia, visiting landowners. His purpose is to purchase papers relating to their serfs who have died since the last census. By doing so Chichikov relieves…(more)

Subjects Satirised: Provincial Russian life & more besides

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (1884)

Huckleberry Finn

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a satire of American southern antebellum society that parodies religion, morality, literature and above all the practice of slavery.

My Review: 13-year-old Huckleberry Finn is living in Missouri with a widow who plans to ‘sivilize’ him. That is until his alcoholic father relocates him to an isolated cabin in the woods. Huck fakes his own death and escapes…(more)

Subjects Satirised: Slavery & numerous others

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932)

Brave New World

This dystopian work utilises erudite social commentary and subtle satire to explore mankind’s inherent nature. Huxley’s portentous vision has proven to be prescient.

My Review: Brave New World is set in a society where everything is controlled. The parentless, manufactured, free-loving population are dependent on a state-endorsed hallucinogenic, happiness drug called Soma…(more)

Subjects Satirised: Society, technology & totalitarianism

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons (1932)

Light-hearted and wryly humorous, this satirical work lampoons the romanticised, often doom-laden ‘loam and lovechild’ novels of the 19th and early 20th century.

My Review: Although harbouring concerns about countryside living, recently orphaned, 19-year-old Flora Poste decides to go and live with relatives in rural Sussex. Her destination, the ramshackle and backward Cold…(more)

Subject Satirised: Loam and lovechild novels

Satire in Literature

Apr 11 2014
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Satire Definition: A literary work holding up human vices and follies to ridicule or scorn.

Satirical literature generally comments on current issues, particularly those of a political nature, but also economic, religious and symbolic. Although satire is more often than not amusing, it is designed to provoke a serious reaction.  Many satires make use of humour, but not all comedies are satires.

My book, Necropolis (Release Date: April 24th) is a humorous work of dark Fiction about a sociopath, who works for the Burials and Cemeteries department in his local council.  Necropolis is a black comedy that utilises satirical methods such as humour, exaggeration, understatement, ridicule and mock seriousness to parody the sociopath/psychopath genre, as well as to comment on aspects of contemporary society, such as bureaucracy, political correctness and our attitudes towards death.

Historically significant satirical works include:

Candide by Voltaire – This humorous story ridicules optimism, a central component of Enlightenment philosophy, in addition to criticising organised religion.

Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift – So concerned was the publisher with being charged with treason for publishing Gulliver’s Travels that he tried to tone down the book’s political content, resulting in Swift finding a new publisher.

Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray – The amusing and verbose Thackeray adroitly presents a panoramic portrait of English society during this period.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain – Written shortly after the Civil War, this iconic work embraces satire to mock aspects of the modern world, particularly slavery.

Animal Farm by George Orwell – This serious satirical work can be viewed as an indictment of Stalinism.  So effectively did the book achieve this that it was banned in the Soviet Union.

Necropolis

This is the blurb for Necropolis:

Dyson Devereux works in the Burials and Cemeteries department in his local council.  Dyson is intelligent, incisive and informed.  He is also a sociopath.  Dyson’s contempt for the bureaucracy and banality of his workplace provides ample refuge for his mordant wit.  But the prevalence of Essex Cherubs adorning the headstones of Newton New Cemetery is starting to get on his nerves.

When an opportunity presents itself will Dyson seize his chance and find freedom, or is his destiny to be a life of toil in Burials and Cemeteries?

Brutal, bleak and darkly comical, Necropolis is a savage indictment of the politically correct, health and safety-obsessed world in which we live.

 

‘Not only a funny, twisted, erudite satire on the psychopath genre, this novel also boasts a compelling plot and finely sculpted characters’

‘A black comedy of true distinction’

‘I was at once fascinated and disturbed by the devious Dyson Devereux with his malicious pedantry, wicked schemes and grotesque good taste.  A barbed joy’

 

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