Introduction

This book is about satire—that seemingly elusive mode of representation that has been used to mock and ridicule society and culture for thousands of years. From its earliest incarnation, satire was associated not only with the written word, but also with public performance.2 Over time satire has come in many forms and genres as well as in different types of media (verse, drama, rhetorical per-formance, prose, cartoons, journalism, film, TV, Internet), making it quite difficult to encapsulate.3 Indeed, the stylistic and formal variety that is possible within the “framework” of satire precludes defining it as a clearly delimitated unit. As early as 1960 Robert C. Elliott wrote that “[w]e shy from using the category ‘a satire’ today, at least when we are trying to speak precisely, because the term has lost for us any sense of formal specification.”4 If this was the case in 1960, imagine what has happened to satire since then, as the media landscape has grown ever larger and more varied.