what is the difference irony and satire?

Satire isprimarily a literary genre or form,although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies,abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule,ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, intoimprovement.[1] Although satire is usually meantto be funny, its greater purpose is often constructive socialcriticism, using wit as a weapon.

Acommon feature of satire is strong irony or sarcasm?"insatire, irony is militant"[2]?but parody,burlesque,exaggeration, juxtaposition, comparison, analogy, and doubleentendre are all frequently used in satirical speech and writing.This "militant" irony or sarcasm often professes to approve (or atleast accept as natural) the very things the satirist wishes to attack.

Satireis nowadays found in many artistic forms of expression, including literature,plays, commentary, and media such as lyrics.

Irony is a rhetoricaldevice, literary technique, or situation in whichthere is a sharp incongruity or discordance that goes beyond the simple andevident intention of words or actions. Ironic statements (verbal irony)usually convey a meaning exactly opposite from their literal meaning. Asituation is often said to be ironic (situational irony) if the actionstaken have an effect exactly opposite from what was intended. The discordanceof verbal irony is created as a means of communication (as in art orrhetoric). Descriptions or depictions of situational ironies, whether infiction or in non-fiction, serve a communicative function of sharpening orhighlighting certain discordant features of reality.

Other typesof irony:

Comic irony:Irony that is humorous (whereas much irony is not)

Dramatic irony:When the audience (or reader) knows a fictional character is making a mistake,because the reader has more information than the character.

Tragic irony: Atype of dramatic irony, in which the character's lack of knowledge leads totragic consequences.

Historical irony: Akind of situational irony that takes a long period of years for the irony tobecome evident.

Socratic irony:When a person asks questions, pretending not to understand, to lure theinterlocutor into a logical trap. (Socrates, in Plato's dialogues, was a masterof this technique.)

Verbal andsituational irony are often used for emphasis in the assertion of a truth. Theironic form of simile, used in sarcasm,and some forms of litotes emphasize one's meaning by thedeliberate use of language which states the opposite of the truth ? ordrastically and obviously understates a factual connection.

In dramaticirony, the author causes a character to speak or act erroneously, out ofignorance of some portion of the truth of which the audience is aware. In otherwords, the audience knows the character is making a mistake, even as thecharacter is making it. This technique highlights the importance of truth byportraying a person who is strikingly unaware of it.

In certainkinds of situational or historical irony, a factual truth is highlighted bysome person's complete ignorance of it or his belief in the opposite of it.However, this state of affairs does not occur by human design. In somereligious contexts, such situations have been seen as the deliberate work of Divine Providence to emphasize truths andto taunt humans for not being aware of them when they could easily have beenenlightened (this is similar to human use of irony). Such ironies are oftenmore evident, or more striking, when viewed retrospectively in the light oflater developments which make the truth of past situations obvious to all.