ABSTRACT
Some works may resemble others so extensively and persistently as to be classifiable as travesty, parody or burlesque. In others the satire may be less pervading, more partial, and perhaps more concentrated. In Tom Jones and Vanity Fair the satire is pervasive. They are satiric novels. There are other novels in which the satire is established through form that the novel takes, or more likely, imitates. John Dryden’s use of the beast-fable convention is not so rich. He employs it for controversial purposes; his milk-white hind is pure Roman Catholic Church, his spotted panther the Church of England, and the whole poem a debate on the positions of the two churches, with some additional allegorical beasts to represent various types of dissent. Satire often uses epic, though not usually in so straight a parallel as this. As the most elevated of literary forms epic offers ample scope for the distortions of satire, either by direct deflation or by oblique mock-exaltation.
