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Menippean Satire Attitudes Prose Form Points Mental Varronian

Front Menippean or Varronian satire
Back written in prose , usually with interpretations of verse, and constitute a miscellaneous form often held together by a loosely constructed narrative
extended dialogues and debates in which a group of loquacious eccentrics, pedants, literary people, and representative of various professions or philosophical points of view serves to make ludicrous the attitudes and viewpoints they typify by the arguments they urge in their support
Rabelais' Gargantua 1564
Voltair's Candide 1759
Love peacock's Nightmare's Abbey 1818
Huxley's Point Counter Point 1928

The genre of Menippean satire is a form of satire, usually in prose, which has a length and structure similar to a novel and is characterized by attacking mental attitudes rather than specific individuals or entities.[1] Other features found in Menippean satire are different forms of parody and mythological burlesque,[2] a critique of the myths inherited from traditional culture,[2] a rhapsodic nature, a fragmented narrative, the combination of many different targets, and the rapid moving between styles and points of view.[3]

The term is used by classical grammarians and by philologists mostly to refer to satires in prose (cf. the verse Satires of Juvenal and his imitators). Typical mental attitudes attacked and ridiculed by Menippean satires are "pedants, bigots, cranks, parvenus, virtuosi, enthusiasts, rapacious and incompetent professional men of all kinds," which are treated as diseases of the intellect.[1][4] The term Menippean satire distinguishes it from the earlier satire pioneered by Aristophanes, which was based on personal attacks.[5]

Terminology


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