Any attempt to account for satire in a general way is caught between two undesirable alternatives. A strong reading of satire is likely to produce sharp and stimulating definitions and distinctions that, if not actually fallacious, are reductive and incomplete. A general, conventional description is likely to be more various and open but also to seem familiar or superficial or disconnected. If the present study fails to steer a safe course between these hazards, it is more likely to become grounded on the shoals than wrecked on the rocks. Although it proposes a governing view of satire, encapsulated in the phrase “the satiric frame of mind,” it is more concerned to uncover what satire does than to make authoritative statements about its essential nature. Its explorations begin with linguistic assumptions, though not technical ones, and tend to focus on the pragmatics of satire. Its scope is shamelessly broad: Archilochus to Zoshchenko implies the alpha and omega of the study, although I actually have nothing to say about either author. The selection of examples is based primarily on their relevance to my topics and their interest to me. But others will note relevant and canonic examples that I cannot include, and I could not make room for many satires and authors that I like. Thus I have little to say about A Tale of a Tub, although I recognize it as a central and almost defining satire, and I neglect a number of recent Russian satirists – Aksyonov, Zinoviev, Sokolov, and Aleshkovsky, among others – whose work strikes me as significant.