ABSTRACT
If satire is marked by its predilection for certain subjects, and by its special approach to these subjects, it is not limited to any special forms. Nevertheless there are certain forms that have been favoured by the satirists over many centuries, sometimes merely because of the conservativeness of literary tradition, and sometimes because they offer particularly good possibilities for imaginative invention. What follows is not meant to be an exhaustive list of the possible forms, but it will show some of the commoner and more interesting formal structures that have supported the satirist's vision. The two shortest literary forms of satire, though by no means the simplest, are the aphorism and the epigram. The only good satirist of eighteenth-century Germany - and still one of the few satirists of all German literature - is the great master of the aphorism, Lichtenberg: his most notable successor in the twentieth century is Karl Kraus.
