satire

‘An Emblematic Print on the South Sea’ by William Hogarth, 1724. To the left, the Devil carves up the figure of Fortune and throws it to the crowd. In the centre of the scene, investors ride the financial merry-go-round. Honesty is strapped to the wheel at the bottom, being tortured by Self-Interest. At the bottom right, Trade lies languishing on the ground. Hogarth (1697–1764) was an English painter and engraver who used his artwork as a medium for critical social commentary.

Genre of literary or dramatic work that ridicules human pretensions or exposes social evils. Satire is related to parody in its intention to mock, but satire tends to be more subtle and to mock an attitude or a belief, whereas parody tends to mock a particular work (such as a poem) by imitating its style, often with purely comic intent.

The Roman poets Juvenal and Horace wrote Satires, and the form became popular in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, used by Voltaire in France and by Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift in England. Both satire and parody are designed to appeal to the intellect rather than the emotions and both, to be effective, require a knowledge of the original attitude, person, or work that is being mocked (although much satire, such as Gulliver's Travels by Swift, can also be enjoyed simply on a literal level).