The artistic originality of a satirist

A resourceful French artist painted Rabelais's portrait in an interesting composition: behind the great satirist stand Homer and Socrates - the one the embodiment of poetry, and the other - of wisdom. In front of Rabelais's brilliant work "Gargantua and Pantagruel" one can see a "crowd" of writers who have more or less experienced the influence of his ironic laughter. Among the crowd of artists are depicted such brilliant masters of the pen as Moliere, Swift, Lesage, Voltaire, Balzac, in whose satirical works, according to the artist, the unfading tradition of the cheerful French monk lives. Whatever the extent of Rabelais's influence on the work of these writers, their satire is still so peculiar, so "theirs" that we call it "Moliere's satire", "Swift's satire", "Balzac's satire", thereby expressing its peculiarity. Every gifted author who wields a Juvenal whip in his hand, without necessarily being in the ranks of those great morons I mentioned above, has his own characteristic sarcasm, or, so to speak, as many satirists exist in literature as there is bitter laughter.