This is an incomplete list of writers, cartoonists and others known for involvement in satire—humorous social criticism. They are grouped by era and listed by year of birth. Included is a list of modern satires.
This is an incomplete list of writers, cartoonists and others known for involvement in satire—humorous social criticism. They are grouped by era and listed by year of birth. Included is a list of modern satires.
Isaac Baer Levinsohn (Yiddish: יצחק בער לעווינזאהן; October 13, 1788 – February 13, 1860), also known as the Ribal (ריב״ל), was a Jewish scholar of Hebrew, a satirist, a writer and Haskalah leader. He has been called "the Mendelssohn of Russia." In his Bet Yehudah (1837), he formulated a philosophy and described Jewish contributions to civilization in an effort to improve Jewish-Christian relations.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger (/ˈsɛnɪkə/ SEN-ik-ə; c. 4 BC – AD 65), usually known mononymously as Seneca, was a Stoic philosopher of Ancient Rome, a statesman, a dramatist, and in one work, a satirist, from the post-Augustan age of Latin literature.
Seneca was born in Colonia Patricia Corduba in Hispania, and was trained in rhetoric and philosophy in Rome. His father was Seneca the Elder, his elder brother was Lucius Junius Gallio Annaeanus, and his nephew was the poet Lucan. In AD 41, Seneca was exiled to the island of Corsica under emperor Claudius, but was allowed to return in 49 to become a tutor to Nero. When Nero became emperor in 54, Seneca became his advisor and, together with the praetorian prefect Sextus Afranius Burrus, provided competent government for the first five years of Nero's reign. Seneca's influence over Nero declined with time, and in 65 Seneca was executed by forced suicide for alleged complicity in the Pisonian conspiracy to assassinate Nero, of which he may have been innocent, although there is still no consensus agreement. His stoic and calm suicide has become the subject of numerous paintings.
Giuseppe Parini (23 May 1729 – 15 August 1799) was an Italian satirist and Neoclassical poet.
Sebastian Brant (also Brandt; 1457/1458 – 10 May 1521) was a German humanist and satirist. He is best known for his satire Das Narrenschiff (The Ship of Fools).
Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish writer, essayist, satirist, and Anglican cleric. He was the author of the satirical prose novel Gulliver's Travels (1726) and the creator of the fictional island of Lilliput, and he is regarded by many as the greatest satirist of the Georgian era and one of the foremost prose satirists in both English and world literature.
Swift also authored works such as A Tale of a Tub (1704) and An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity (1712). He originally published all of his works under pseudonyms—including Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff, M. B. Drapier—or anonymously. He was a master of two styles of satire, the Horatian and Juvenalian styles. In 1713, he was appointed the dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, and was given the sobriquet "Dean Swift". His trademark deadpan and ironic style of writing, particularly in later works such as A Modest Proposal (1729), has led to such satire being subsequently termed as "Swiftian". During the early part of his career, he travelled extensively in Ireland and Great Britain, and these trips helped develop his understanding of human nature and social conditions, which he would later depict in his satirical works. Swift was also very active in clerical circles, due to his affiliations to St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin. He had supported the Glorious Revolution and joined the Whigs party early on. Swift was related to many prominent figures of his time, including John Temple, John Dryden, William Davenant, and Francis Godwin.
Henry Louis Mencken (September 12, 1880 – January 29, 1956) was an American journalist, essayist, satirist, cultural critic, and scholar of American English. He commented widely on the social scene, literature, music, prominent politicians, and contemporary movements. His satirical reporting on the Scopes Trial, which he dubbed the "Monkey Trial", also earned him attention. The term Menckenian has entered multiple dictionaries to describe anything of or pertaining to Mencken, including his combative rhetorical and prose styles.
As a scholar, Mencken is known for The American Language, a multi-volume study of how the English language is spoken in the United States. As an admirer of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, he was an outspoken opponent of organized religion, theism, censorship, populism, Prohibition, and representative democracy, the last of which he viewed as a system in which inferior men dominated their superiors. Mencken was a supporter of scientific progress and was critical of osteopathy and chiropractic. He was also an open critic of economics.
Aulus Persius Flaccus (/ˈpɜːrʃiəs, ˈpɜːrʃəs/; 4 December 34 – 24 November 62 AD) was a Roman poet and satirist of Etruscan origin. In his works, poems and satire, he shows a Stoic wisdom and a strong criticism for what he considered to be the stylistic abuses of his poetic contemporaries. His works, which became very popular in the Middle Ages, were published after his death by his friend and mentor, the Stoic philosopher Lucius Annaeus Cornutus.
François Rabelais (UK: /ˈræbəleɪ/ RAB-ə-lay, US: /ˌræbəˈleɪ/ -LAY; French: [fʁɑ̃swa ʁablɛ]; born between 1483 and 1494; died 1553) was a French writer who has been called the first great French prose author. A humanist of the French Renaissance and Greek scholar, he attracted opposition from both Protestant theologian John Calvin and from the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. Though in his day he was best known as a physician, scholar, diplomat, and Catholic priest, later he became better known as a satirist for his depictions of the grotesque, and for his larger-than-life characters.
Living in the religious and political turmoil of the Reformation, Rabelais treated the great questions of his time in his novels. Rabelais admired Erasmus and like him is considered a Christian humanist. He was critical of medieval scholasticism and lampooned the abuses of powerful princes and popes.