From The Onion to The Colbert Report, satire is one of the most engaging and powerful forms of protest. However, before the media of web and TV, literature led the charge in bringing this entertaining mode of political debate to the fore. Authors including Jonathan Swift, Mark Twain, and Dorothy Parker wrote scathing critiques of contemporary society, while still entertaining audiences with traditional elements of essay writing, storytelling, and poetry. We’ll discuss Swift, Twain, and Parker as well as the eras in which they lived. What do these writers do well? Where do they fall short? In what type of social climate did each author live?

• Literature