This paper, by presenting several prevailing definitions of satire, surveys the background and status of satire in the classical Persian literature. It first deals with the development and evolution of socio-political satire as a unique literary genre during the ‘Iranian Constitutional Movement’ and the following decades. The writer then discusses the formal structure of contemporary socio-political satire with respect to the usage of figures of speech. To show the application of stylistic literary devices and rhetoric, the writer compares Persian and English irony using examples. Finally, the writer discusses the difficulties of translating figures of speech used in the satires of a given language into another.