Lampoon

Lampoon is a virulent attack on a person, institution, or society in prose, verse, or graphic caricature. It is a sharp and funny (or not funny) satire that is malicious and severe. The origin of lampoon is from the French word lampon or lampons “let us drink” and the verb lamper means “to booze,” which suggests excess. The word is attested in 17th-century French. However, it dates back to as early as the 3rd century BCE when Aristophanes lampooned Euripides in Frogs and Socrates in Clouds. The form was popular in English literature during the Restoration and the 18th century when writers such as John Dryden, John Wilkes, Alexander Pope, and Samuel Butler lampooned particular aspects of their times. One of the notable examples of the form can be seen in the poem “Absalom and Achitophel,” written by Dryden, who lampooned Thomas Shadwell (here Og) with these lines (Cuddon, 1999, p. 449):

Examples of lampoons appearing in 17th- and 18th-century English literature include Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal, which lampoons then influential William Petty; Francis Beaumont's The Knight of the Burning Pestle, lampooning the pretensions of the middle class; and Samuel Butler's Hudibras, a long lampoon in which the Puritans were likened to a hunchback monster and the Commonwealth was satirized.

Apart from these, the lampoons of Alexander Pope are also notable. His The Rape of the Lock lampoons 18th-century society as a whole, and Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot is a direct attack on John Hervey. He also lampoons bad writers and their dull-witted verses in The Dunciad. His An Essay on Man was lampooned by John Wilkes's An Essay on Woman.