Political satire

“ So far this fine ironical satire may be inspected as a model; the polished weapon he strikes with so gracefully, is allowed by all the laws of war; but the political criticism on the literary character, the party feeling which degrades a man of genius, is the drop of poison on its point. ”

“ The grouping is indeed easily discernible. Political parties stand out, social strata, various professions and institutions and movements. But to look upon these as ridiculed for themselves is to be satisfied with a superficial view. The fault is not in themselves but in their stars that they are underlings. What are these evil stars that seem in their courses to fight against them?
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The terms oftenest on the lips of satirists and historians of satire are Vice and Folly. But these fine large entities are taken at their face value and given a conventional interpretation. ”

“ These were the distinguishing characteristics of our satiric literature during the closing decade of the eighteenth century until the horrors of the French Revolution, and the sympathy with it which was apparently being aroused in England, called political satire into requisition once more. ”

“ Political satire in the middle ages appeared chiefly in the form of poetry and song, and it was especially in England that it flourished, a sure sign that there was in our country a more advanced feeling of popular independence, and greater freedom of speech, than in France or Germany. ”

“ He knows very well that the weak spot in the armor of nearly all politicians of the old school is their assumption of superiority, a sort of mask of benignant political venerability. They dread satire. They shrink from ridicule. A well-directed critical outburst freezes them. Such has been the Harvey method of approach. ”

“ It is not a placid or untroubled position to be Mr Henley's enemy, though we know that it is certainly safer than to be his friend. And yet, despite all this, these people produce no satire. Political and social satire is a lost art, like pottery and stained glass. ”

“ I always hated politics, in the ordinary sense of the word, and I am not likely to grow, fonder of them, now that I have learned how rare it is to find a man who can keep principle clear from party and personal prejudice, or can conceive the possibility of another's doing so. I feel as if I could in some sort claim to be an emeritus, and I am sure that political satire will have full justice done it by that genuine and delightful humorist, the Rev. ”

“ A third tendency is shown in the prevalence of satire, resulting from the unfortunate union of politics with literature. We have already noted the power of the press in this age, and the perpetual strife of political parties. Nearly every writer of the first half of the century was used and rewarded by Whigs or Tories for satirizing their enemies and for advancing their special political interests. Pope was a marked exception, but he nevertheless followed the prose writers in using satire too largely in his poetry. ”

“ The satire, therefore, to be met with in the following lines, upon the several professions and callings, and almost every degree and station of people, was not made to injure and point to particular persons, but only to show the vileness of the ingredients that altogether compose the wholesome mixture of a well-ordered society; in order to extol the wonderful power of political wisdom, by the help of which so beautiful a machine is raised from the most contemptible branches. ”

“ To-day the very oldest issues of the common life of that queer "political animal" named man are discussed by our popular newspaper satirists in the presence of a democratic audience that stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
Is there, then, a distinctly American type of humor and satire? I think it would be difficult to prove that our composite American nationality has developed a mode of humor and satire which is racially different from the humor and satire of the Old World. All racial lines in literature are extremely difficult to draw. ”

“ By this means the reader is in some degree kept from view of any particular place; nor will he perhaps be so likely to determine where those persons reside, and what their connexions, who are so intimately known to this man of straw.
From the title of this Poem, some persons will, I fear, expect a political satire,—an attack upon corrupt principles in a general view, or upon the customs and manners of some particular place; of these they will find nothing satirized, nothing related. ”

“ Political molehills were exaggerated into mountains, and even those elements of vulgar vituperation and cheap personal abuse—features of political campaigns which we are happily outgrowing—were eagerly seized upon for the purpose of pictorial satire. ”

“ It is difficult to imagine that any party, in those days of comparatively arbitrary power, would venture a public satire so unveiled and so menacing as that of the Register, unless supported by some confidence in the immediate fall of their opponents. Without such confidence the political tactics of such an onslaught would be simple foolhardiness. Signs of these false hopes are not wanting in the slight, but equally bold, satire on the sycophants represented as composing Walpole's levée, which was shortly added to the Register. ”

“ It has already been said that occasions on which toasts are given call for friendliness and good humor. Yet the temptation to use irony and satire may be strong. Especially may this be true at political gatherings where there is a chance to grow witty at the expense of rivals. Irony and satire are keen-edged tools; they have their uses; but they are dangerous. ”

“ His own love of satire and ridicule which is apt to paralyse his private initiative and political action, makes him prone to suspect ridicule in others. He will then brood silently over his offended feelings, and nurse his susceptibilities till they have vent in one of those sudden outbreaks not unknown to quiet natures. ”

“ The work embraces the most varied topics—political parties, religious eccentricities, the flights of literature, and the absurdities of pretenders to learning, all come in for their share of satire; while we have specimens of genuine American exaggerations and graphic pictures of social and domestic life as it is. ”

“ The most vigorous poems produced in America between 1765 and 1807 were the numberless satires that marked every stage of the fight with England and of the internal strife between Whigs and Tories and, later, between Republicans and Federalists. Hudibras, The Dunciad, The Rolliad, The Anti-Jacobin, and the satires of Churchill, of Gifford, and of “Peter Pindar” bred in America songs, mock-heroics, burlesques, and satires of direct attack, in lyric measures, heroic couplets, and octosyllabics.
§ 15. John Trumbull. American political satire began with the Stamp Act. The Times (1765) by the Rev. ”

“ The point of the satire consists in this: that the arguments by which the women get the upper-hand all turn on their avowed conservatism; men change and shift, women preserve their old customs, and will maintain the ἦθος of the State; but no sooner have they got authority than they show themselves more democratic than the demagogues, more new-fangled in their political notions than the philosophers. ”

“ And the amazing consideration is that in a nation which dislikes satire a satirist should be elected by the suffrage of his fellows.
Probably it is only in politics that we tolerate satire. In self-government we only half believe. We are divided in our own minds. We make laws furiously and laugh at the laws we make. We pretend that the little men of politics are great and then privately we indicate our real perception of the truth by telling how small they are. Politics is suspect and it stamps you as a person of penetration to show that you are aware what sham and dishonesty there is in them. ”

“ The generation that forms great satirists shines in the history of literature, but not in that of morals; for to supply with objects of satire such masters of the satiric arts as Hogarth, Swift, Pope, Gay, Steele, Arbuthnot, and Foote, there must be deep corruption in the State and radical folly in conspicuous persons. ”

“ Liberty has rendered the English government insensible to libels. Disdain is certain, before the work is commenced. If the satire is ingenious, people laugh at it, without believing it; if it is flat, they despise it. ”

“ It is, therefore, not surprising that mankind should be so impressive to the power of satire, whose object is to describe their vices and follies, for the finger of public infamy to point at their deformities and delinquencies. Thus, where law cannot extend its awe and authority, satire wields the scourge of disgrace; and where religion cannot convince the atheist, attract the attention of the debauchee, or reform those who are subject to the power of habit and fashion, satire affords effectually her assistance. ”

“ But these international satires are never just; and the real relations of an Englishman and an English bird are far more delicate. It would be equally easy and equally unjust to suggest a similar satire against American democracy; and represent Americans merely as birds of a feather who can do nothing but flock together. But this would leave out the fact that at least it is not the white feather; that democracy is capable of defiance and of death for an idea. ”

“ Seriously let it be as they say, that ridicule and satire are the supplement of publick laws; should not then, the ends of both be the same; the benefit of mankind? but where is the sense of a general satire, if the whole species be degenerated? And where is the justice of it if it be not? The punishment of lunaticks is as wise as the one; and a general execution as honest as the other. In short, a general satire, the work only of ill men or little geniuses, was proscribed of old both by the critick and the magistrate, as an offence equally against justice and common sense. ”

“ Less than the bitterness of Penguin Island and the Histoire contemporaine would not have served for France; more than the laughter of Dooley would have been disproportionate and unmanly for us.
Satire is like parody in admitting the integrity of the subject; it is a pruning knife applied for the good of the tree; and irony is a dagger with corrosive poison at the tip. Satire is proper to America because essentially the satirist believes that life is all right, and that only the extravagances and frailties of American life, at the moment of writing, need correction or are subject to mockery. ”

“ The thing to be remembered is that in all ages the satirist of manners has been of the utmost service to society in exposing its follies and lashing its vices. It is the work of a great satirist to apply the caustic to the ulcers of society; and if we are to let our dislike of satire overrule our judgment, we shall not only record our votes against a Juvenal and a Swift, but equally against the whole line of Hebrew prophets. ”

“ Rather than engaging in outright criticism or an exchange of polemics with the regime, many intellectuals employ satire and innuendo to express their dissatisfaction.
On the rare occasions when intellectuals have taken a firm stand against regime policies, retribution has been swift. ”

“ The profligacy of fashionable life at the capital and the various watering-places of the empire, and the degradation of the court gave venom and point to the shafts of those who were goaded by the spectacle into attacking the immoralities and vices which were silently yet rapidly sapping the foundations of both society and state. Hence arose a succession of writers whose mastery of sharp and stinging satire has caused their productions to become the models of all subsequent attempts in the same species of literature. ”

“ The drama thus bore marks of its origin in its extraordinary licentiousness of language and costume, and in the constant use of the mask. One of its most favourite instruments of satire was parody, which was employed unsparingly on everything which society in its solemn moments respected—against everything that the satirist considered worthy of being held up to public derision or scorn. Religion itself, philosophy, social manners and institutions—even poetry—were all parodied in their turn. ”

“ And although some things are too serious, solemn or sacred to be turned into ridicule, yet the abuses of them are certainly not, since it is allowed that corruption in religion, politics, and law, may be proper topics for this kind of satire.
There are two ends that men propose in writing satire, one of them less noble than the other, as regarding nothing further than personal satisfaction, and pleasure of the writer; but without any view towards personal malice; the other is a public spirit, prompting men of genius and virtue, to mend the world as far as they are able. ”

“ But it is precisely in their ultimately successful struggle for admission into the life and thought of the nineteenth century that we trace the evolution of the satire of the period, for the satiric reaction is merely one of the many reflections of that struggle.
A humanitarian democracy has turned the old ex cathedra criticism into the forensic. The satirist has been obliged, as one commentator observes, to descend from the upper window whence he had been haranguing the mob below ”