Northrop Frye on the "Anatomy" as literary genre

[Frye, Northrop. Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays. Princeton UP, 1957.]

"[The anatomy or "Menippean satire"] deals less with people as such than with mental attitudes. Pedants, bigots, cranks, parvenus, virtuousi, enthusiasts, rapacious and incompetent professional men of all kinds, are handled in terms of their occupational approach to life as distinct from their social behavior. The Menippean satire [or anatomy] thus resembles the confession in its ability to handle abstract ideas and theories, and differs from the novel in its characterization, which is stylized rather than naturalistic, and presents people as mouthpieces of the ideas they represent." (309)