The satire has no particular literary form. It is used as a means to ridicule a vice or folly, which the rater holds in contempt. It is found in all forms of literature. To Dryden it is ‘the amendment of vices by reaction.’ It comes out of a personal grievance or passion for reform. The attack is on a person, an ‘institution, a social evil or an individual folly. It aims ‘to ridicule and not to abuse.’ In general it hates the panda not the sinner.
The satire has classical origin. It is richly found in Greek and Latin literature. Greek Aristophanes land Roman Horace, Persist and Juvenal are great satirists. They are the models for English satirists. The satire helps the writer to laugh at hypocrisy vanity and immorality.
English literature is rich in satire. Chaucer is a great satirist. His Prologue to Canterbury Tales is lacharming piece of satire on religion. The eighteenth century is an age of satire. Dryden and Pope are great satirical poets. Swift, Addison and Steele are known for their prose satire. Dryden’s Absalom and Acidophil and Mac Flecknoe and Pope’s Duncan are remarkable satires. MacFlecknoe satirizes Shadwell as the sole monarch of poetasters and the prince of the realm of nonsense absolute.Literary jalousie and political animosity underlie Dryden’s caricature or Shadwell. Shadwell’s father MacFlecknoe ion his son’s nobility:
Shadwell alone my perfect image bears,
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Mature in dullness from his tender years:
Shadwell alone of all my sons is he
Who stands confirmed in full stupidity.
The rest to some faint meaning make pretence
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But Shadwell never deviates into sense.
Dryden adorns Shadwell with sublime contempt and batters him beyond redemption by stating that he never deviates into sense. The eighteenth century employed heroic couplet for satire. It contains two lines which rhyme together like sense and pretence. Each line contains ten iambs. Eliot’s ‘ The Waste Land is a satire on man’s fallen nature.
In the modern age satire is abundant in all literary forms. The daily and the periodical give a new dominion to the satire.