The word satire derives from the Latin satira, meaning "medley."
A satire, either in prose or in poetic form, holds prevailing
vices or follies up to ridicule: it employs humor and wit to
criticize human institutions or humanity itself, in order that
they might be remodeled or improved. Satire as an English
literary form derives in large part from Greek and Roman
literature. Aristophanes, Juvenal, Horace, Martial, and
Petronius all wrote satires of one kind or another, and the
tradition maintained a tenuous existence in England down through
the Middle Ages in the form of the fabliau and the Beast-epic.
The eighteenth century, however, in which poetry, drama, essays,
and literary criticism were all imbued with the form, was the
golden age of English satire. Dryden, Swift, Pope, Addison,
Steele, and Johnson were all great satirists, and self-described
heirs of the Roman poets Horace and Juvenal. Horatian satire
tends to be gentler and more sympathetic than the more biting
and bitter Juvenalian satire, in which