"Candide" and "Catch-22"

Usage examples of satires.

Libels and satires, whose rude strains sometimes disturbed the peace of an illiterate city.

The device of transferring contemporary anomalous states of things to an imaginary world on the Moon, forgotten valleys or the future, in order to subject them to a hard-hearted scrutiny in the disguise of overstatement, is still used in science fiction, but whereas the Moon-and-Forgotten-Valley satires dealt with contemporary problems, the science fiction author of today particularly works with subjects of a social, political or scientific nature that are likely to become topical in the near or foreseeable future.

This was why satires were always sloppy and ill-timed, with sudden silences and absurd non sequiturs abounding.

Abu Simbel laughs at minstrels singing vicious satires, vitriolic odes commissioned by one chief against another, by one tribe against its neighbour.

Now there was no demand for satires -- the general fear of Mahound had destroyed the market for insults and wit.

I said, thinking of the silly, bawdy satires on Homer which I used to make up so quickly and freely that everyone marveled.