Listverse - Top 10 Great Satirists

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Top 10 Great Satirists Posted: 31 Oct 2011 12:30 AM PDT Satire is the form of humor that holds people, or society in general, up for examination, and ridicules the follies revealed. Good satire should offer improving examples or at least make us consider choices we often take for granted. In this sense, satire is of huge value to society. While satire can be cruel to the victims it mocks, it should always be funny. These ten individuals are the best satirists that have ever lived. As with so many lists, that last sentence requires the caveat ‘In my opinion.’ If you think I missed anyone, pop them in the comments. 10 Aristophanes “You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding and a vulgar manner.” Classical Athens was a deeply political city, as you would expect from a democracy. In a democracy the voters like to be informed, and they like to laugh at the people in charge. Aristophanes was a master of comedic plays in Athens. Special festivals were held each year for comedy, and attendance was considered a religious necessity. A deeply conservative thinker, Aristophanes took aim at all the innovations he saw as dangerous. His targets included politicians (like the demagogue Cleon), the new thinkers (sophists, with whom he lumped Socrates) and fellow dramatists (such as Euripides, with his low born characters). His plays range from absurd situations (the search for the city of the birds) to the familiar (jury service), but all are packed with wit. Translation can be hard as his works are hugely topical and contain references we might miss. A good translation, when performed well, can still have people roaring with laughter and make a point. In the run up to the second Iraq War Aristophanes’ Lysistrata was performed world-wide as a call for peace. Aristophanes may have had the last laugh as at least some people, myself included, see the Lysistrata as an argument to see a war through to the end.

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