Satire

Satire, in literature or cartoons, on stage or screen, use of broad humor, parody, and irony to ridicule a subject. More serious than burlesque, it often contains moral or political criticism. In literature, classical satirists Aristophanes, Horace, and Juvenal were followed by such writers as Rabelais, Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, Voltaire, Oscar Wilde, and Mark Twain.