The use of humour, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.
Jonathan Swift (From The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations in Quotations)
Aesop - (c. 620–560 BCE) - Fables
Aristophanes - (c. 448–380 BCE) The Frogs, The Birds, The Clouds
Chaucer - Canterbury Tales
Rabelais - Gargantua, Pantagruel
Cervantes - Don Quixote
Shakespeare - A Midsummer's Night Dream
Moliere - The Misanthrope
Jonathan Swift - Gulliver's Travels
Voltaire - Candide
Poe - A Predicament
Dickens - Hard Times, A Tale of Two Cities
Lewis Carroll - Alice in Wonderland
Mark Twain - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Ambrose Bierce - The Devil's Dictionary, Tales of Soldiers and Civilians
Oscar Wilde - The Importance of Being Ernest
Aldous Huxley - Brave New World
George Orwell - Animal Farm, Nineteen-Eighty-Four
Dr, Seuss - The Lorax, Butter Battle Book
Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse-Five, Cat's Cradle, Breakfast of Champions
Joseph Heller - Catch-22
Gunter Grass - The Tin Drum
Heinlein - Starship Troopers
Ray Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451
Bertolt Brecht - Beggar's Opera
Karel Capek - R.U.R.
Gore Vidal - A Visit to a Small Planet
Margaret Atwood - A Handmaid's Tale
Tom Wolfe - Bonfire of the Vanities
Terry Pratchett - Discworld Series
Dave Barry - humorist
Lenny Bruce - stand-up comedian
Stanley Kubrick - film, Dr. Strangelove
Mel Brooks - film, Blazing Saddles
Woody Allen - films and plays
George Carlin - stand-up comedian
Frank Zappa - musician
Gary Trudeau - cartoonist - Doonsberry
Gary Larson - cartoonist - The Farside
Matt Groening - The Simpsons, Futurama
Howard Stern - radio
High Laurie - actor
Jon Stewart - The Daily Show
Stephen Colbert - The Colbert Report
Seth MacFarlane - Family Guy
Ann Coulter - political pundit and satirist
Trey Parker & Matt Stone - South Park
Sacha Baron Cohen - Borat
Humor Times (magazine)
The Onion (magazine)
MAD Magazine
The Simpsons
Howard Stern Show
The Daily Show
The Colbert Report
South Park
Nip/Tuck
Seinfeld
Monty Python's Flying Circus
Family Guy
30 Rock
Monty Python and the Holy Grail - religion
Blazing Saddles - racism
Casino Royale - spies
This is Spinal Tap - heavy metal
Clueless -
Dr. Strangelove - war
Starship Troopers - military
Harold and Kumar fims -
South Park movie - censorship
Fight Club - life and mental health
American History X - racism
American Psycho
1984
Brave New World
Gattaca
Animal House
Slaughterhouse-Five
Brazil
M*A*S*H
Being There
A story, poem, or picture which can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one.
Sometimes, animals are used to represent humans.
Aesop, according to legend, was put to death for using his allegorical fables to criticize the powerful.
Ovid - Metamorphoses (Orpheus Myth) - archetypal journey
Apuleius - Psyche and Cupid - soul's struggle with sexual passion
Everyman - lead righteous life for heavenly reward
Gilgamesh - quest for immortality
Plato - The Repblic - change from the world of the senses to the "eternal good"
Homer - The Odyssey - epic as allegory
Beowulf - paganism & Christianity
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - original sin & the triumph of chivalry over evil
Chaucer - Canterbury Tales - everyone's pilgrimage toward spirituality
Thomas Malory - le Morte d'Arthur - quest for the Holy Grail
Dante - Divine Comedy - free wil and heaven or hell
Jonathan Swift - Gulliver's Travels - scientific, political & intellectual worlds of the 18th century
Daniel Defoe - Robison Crusoe - spiritual journey or political exile
Henry Fielding - Tom Jones - allegorical aspects
Christopher Marlowe - Dr. Faustus - price for self-knowledge
John Bunyan - The Pilgrim's Progress - Christian 's life journey
Nathanial Hawthorne - The Scarlet Letter - morality
H.G. Wells - The Time Machine - man's exploitation of man
Eugene O'Neill - The Hairy Ape - alienation of modern man
Joseph Conrad - Heart of Darkness - "native" human experience
Saul Bellow - Henderson Rain King - chooing meaning in life
J.M. Coetzee - In the Heart of the Country - life under apartheid
Edgar Allen Poe - Masque of the red Death - rationalism, mortality
Lewis Carroll - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
C.S. Lewis - Chronicles of Narnia - Christian
The Space Trilogy - materialism & perverted science
Robert Lewis Stevenson - Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde - duality of good and evil
Karel Capek - R.U.R. - mechanization and spiritual sterility
Samuel Beckett - Endgame - physical & psychological devastation of atomic warfare
Waiting for Godot - man's need for salvation
George Orwell - Animal Farm - establishment of the Soviet Union
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray - problems of aestheticism, "life as art" or fall from innocence
Herman Melvile - The Confidence Man - assult on political & moral crisis of the 19th century
Moby-Dick - allegorical elements
Voltaire - Candide - attack on optimist philosophy of Leibniz
Ralph Ellison - Invisible Man - African American experience
Stephen King - Running Man - desensitized and dehumanized society
Albert Camus - The Plague -
William Golding - Lord of the Flies - origin of original skin
J.R.R. Tolkien - Lord of the Rings - said to be confrontation between the Axis & Allied powers during WW II
Thomas Mann - The Magic Mountain - civilization on te brink of WW I
Jane Austin - Mansfield Park - Virtue is rewarded, sin is punished
Art Spiegelman - Maus - portrayal is allegorical, not story
Ken Kesey - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Christ-like figure & sacrifice
Harold Pinter - The Birthday Party - pressures of conformity
Mario Vargas Llosa - The War at the End of the World - messianic dreams are questionable
Richard Adams - Watership Down - modern "progress", bravery
Edward Albee - Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? - decline of America & the values of the founders
Henrik Ibsen - The Wild Duck - modern life in the industrial age
Aesop - Fables
Fairy Tales - archetypal characters
Kenneth Grahame - The Wind & the Willows - social class system
L. Frank Baum - The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - election issues of 1896
Philip Pullman - His Dark Materials series - Heaven & Hell, Christianity
Alien - the body and pregnancy
Godzilla - effects of radioactivity after Hiroshima
Planet of the Apes - racism
Silent Running - ecological responsibility, civic duty and self-interest
Day of the Dead - Reaganite militarism
Night of the Living Dead - satire on family life
E.T.: The Extra Terestrial - savior
Starship Troopers - fascism
District 9 - apartheid
Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country, the Cold War
The Matrix, Plato's Allegory of the Cave