Satirist

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The distinguishing note of satire is the angry one of reprobation. Here vices and follies are no longer set before us as a diverting spectacle, but emphasis is laid on their moral indignity. The satirist is at the point of view of the moral judge; only, instead of the calmness of the judge, he has something of the fierce attitude of the prosecutor who aims at exposing and denouncing the turpitude of an offence. ”

“ They combine with the intemperate tone and the satirist’s concluding confession, his self-identification with the object of satire, to create a sense of an unheroic satirist, one who does not represent a highly commendable satiric alternative. Satire must now turn its vision from the heroic, the apocalyptic, the broadly philosophical, even from the depraved, and become exceedingly ordinary. It must recognize that there is little hope in going back to lofty Augustan ideals. ”

“ To recognize the satirical at sight, to know whether a man is telling the truth, either when he claims to be a satirist or when he disclaims the charge, is something of an accomplishment. For the complex and Protean nature of satire, varium et mutabile semper, has naturally led to much disagreement not only as to its existence in certain cases, but as to its justification in general. ”

“ Too much of the studious humour, too much of the versatile and laborious realism, displayed in the conduct and evolution of this satirical drama, may have been lavished and misused in the reproduction of ephemeral affectations and accidental forms of folly: but whenever the dramatic satirist, on purpose or by accident, strikes home to some deeper and more durable subject of satire, we feel the presence and the power of a poet and a thinker whose genius was not born to deal merely with ephemeral or casual matters. ”

“ In the province of satire the real internal stimulus is temperament. If a man has a critical disposition, he is bound to criticise. If he has a keen sense of humor, he will be alive to the absurd. If he possesses both, he is a natural-born satirist and cannot escape his manifest destiny,—so long as he is not inarticulate. ”

“ This human tendency to justify its instinctive behavior by ex post facto morality has produced an impressive symposium on the thesis that satire has a definite purpose and moreover a noble one. Thus while the satirist admits his malice aforethought, he protests that the malicious suffers a sea change into the beneficent, for that he must be cruel only to be kind. ”

“ When a consciousness of this variance is dissolved in a humorous solution, it precipitates a satire. The satirist is not always a victorious Saint George, and the satirized a downed and disgraced Dragon. Still, if the Saint could be secularized to the extent of a mocking light in his eye, and a taunting finger pointing at a removed disguise under which the Dragon had been masquerading, we might take the picture as a symbol of an ideal relationship between them, both ethically and artistically. ”

“ The fantastical style of the satirist, his countless allusions to contemporary persons and events, his [Pg 186] out-of-the-way learning, the care with which he conceals at such length the seriousness of his purpose, and the incredible grossness of manners which so often disfigures his pages, are obstacles which can with difficulty be surmounted. The last-mentioned characteristic is, indeed, a grave and ingrained fault, which must for ever be a slur upon the writer's fame. ”

“ So very right, that I believe no satirist could breathe this air. If another Juvenal or Swift could rise up among us to-morrow, he would be hunted down. If you have any knowledge of our literature, and can give me the name of any man, American born and bred, who has anatomized our follies as a people, and not as this or that party; and who has escaped the foulest and most brutal slander, the most inveterate hatred and intolerant pursuit; it will be a strange name in my ears, believe me. ”

“ Of a bitter satirist,—of Swift, for instance,—it might be said, that the person or thing on which his satire fell shrivelled up as if the Devil had spit on it. ”

“ Accordingly, the term satire is sometimes used to denote humorless criticism,—which is really invective, denunciation, any sort of reprehension; and sometimes uncritical humor,—which is mere facetiousness and jocularity. Not every prophet, preacher, or pedagogue is a satirist, nor yet every merry clown, or exuberant youth, or mild worldly-wise man enjoying the blunders of innocent naïveté.
Professor Dewey reminds us that the ideal state of mind is “a nice balance between the playful and the serious.” [6] But in the satiric circle a nice balance would be found only at the center. ”

“ Then judge of Satire’s merit by her end:
To guilt alone her vengeance stands confin’d,
The object of her love is all mankind.”
The sober eighteenth century brings us back to reality with a characteristic comment by the best satirist of the period, who admires his favorite predecessors, “not indeed for that wit and humour alone which they all so eminently possessed, but because they all endeavoured, with the utmost force of their wit and humour, to expose and extirpate those follies and vices which chiefly prevailed in their several countries.” ”

“ To make this clear—this aversion might proceed from a purely sensuous source, and repose only on a want of which the satisfaction finds obstacles in the real. How often, in fact, we think we feel, against society a moral discontent, while we are simply soured by the obstacles that it opposes to our inclination. It is this entirely material interest that the vulgar satirist brings into play; and as by this road he never fails to call forth in us movements connected with the affections, he fancies that he holds our heart in his hand, and thinks he has graduated in the pathetic. ”

“ The third type of great satire is that in which he satirist is enabled to rise superior to his victim in the only serious sense which superiority can bear, in that of pitying the sinner and respecting the man even while he satirises both. ”

“ In its cause and effect satire is serious, nominally at least. In the connecting link, the means reaching from design to end, it must use wit or humor.
A certain object is perceived by a certain observer to be ridiculous. How is he to make it seem ridiculous to other observers, whose unaided perception may not equal his? He is able to do it by drawing upon the common fund of human experience and idea in regard to humor. If the satirist can subsume his object under one of the universally recognized categories, he makes it ipso facto absurd. ”

“ Satire and the satirist have been in evidence in well-nigh all ages of the world's history. The chief instruments of the satirist's equipment are irony, sarcasm, invective, wit, and humour. The satiric denunciation of a writer burning with indignation at some social wrong or abuse, is capable of reaching the very highest level of literature. ”

“ The satirist, as Robert C. Elliott points out, has always, in art, satirized himself. [6] But there is here as throughout this satire, some attempt to develop a style which will express the belief that the world will always be disorderly and that the disorder stems from man’s “Zeal within.” ”

“ POETRY claims her due from the ladies. 50POETRY enlarges and strengthens the mind, refines the taste and improves the judgement. It has been asserted that women have no business with satire—now satire is but a branch of poetry. I acknowledge, however, much false wit is sent into the world, under this general title; but no critick with whom I am acquainted ever called satire false wit—for as long as vice and folly continue to predominate in the human heart, the satirist will be considered as a useful member of society. ”

“ An ironical writer knows the good; a satirist need only know the evil.”
The superb eulogy of the first statement may be dismissed as a bit of rhetoric, but the doom pronounced in its corollary, is based on a double confusion; first between the ironist and the humorist, and second between the satirist and the misanthrope. In a recent discussion the same fallacy is promulgated at greater length: [173]
“The satirist is the aggressive lawyer, fastening upon particular people and particular qualities. ”

“ A review of the satiric strain in literature gives an interesting clew both to the fact and the significance of the relation of satire to the total literary product.
[48]
Nor can one be estimated independently of the other. There is, of course, no such thing as a pure, or mere, satirist. Even a saturated solution involves two elements. The dissolved substance must have a medium to be dissolved in. Starting from this point, we may classify the most conspicuous names according to this relationship. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Here the satirist bids the audience to provide themselves with clearer understandings, if they would enjoy the poets thoroughly. “Henceforth, good gentlemen,” are his words, “have more love and regard for such of your poets as treat you to something original. Preserve their sayings, and keep them in your chests with your apples. If you do this, there will be a scent of cleverness from your clothes, that shall last you through a whole year.” In his ‘Peace,’ the finest touch of satire is not in what is said, but in what is left unsaid ”

“ The satirist is obsolete, but the satiric writer, or even better, the writer with a satiric touch, is more in evidence than ever. It is perhaps too much of a challenge to say that Shakespeare is a greater satirist than Aristophanes, Jonson, or Molière ”

“ One of her biographers, G. W. Cooke, evidently holding to the old idea of satire, makes the opposite deduction, that “she is too much in sympathy with human nature to laugh at its follies and its weaknesses. * * * The foibles of the world she cannot treat in the vein of the satirist.” ”

“ The pasquils formed a body of satire which struck indiscriminately at everybody within its range, but satirists were now rising who took for their subjects special cases of the general disorder. Rotten at the heart, society presented an external glossiness, a mixture of pedantry and affectation, which offered subjects enough for ridicule in whatever point of view it was taken. ”

“ XVII. THE SATIRIST. From Gruffydd Hiraethog. He who satire loves to sing,
On himself will satire bring.
XVIII. ON GRUFFYDD HIRAETHOG. From William Lleyn. In Eden’s grove from Adam’s mouth
Upsprang a muse of noble growth;
So from thy grave, O poet wise,
Cross Consonancy’s boughs shall rise.
XIX. LLANGOLLEN ALE. (George Borrow) . Llangollen’s brown ale is with malt and hop rife ”

“ 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?
[21]
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. ”

“ The satirist who writes nothing but satire should write but little,—or it will seem that his satire springs rather from his own caustic nature than from the sins of the world in which he lives. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Colossal in blunder as in achievement, stupendous in fanaticism as in imagination, nevertheless he may maintain, on the authority of a deterministic philosophy, that he has literally done the best he could. His very faculty of deception is often but an adoption of that protective coloring recognized as one of Nature’s most admirable devices. The human race is indeed provocative, but who that understands can have the heart to yield to the provocation? Even the most accomplished satirist of his time concluded that he would stick to sober philosophy,— [469]
“And irony and satire off me throw. ”

“ As the target to the missile, so is its object to satire. A target is in itself a thing of sufficient identity to be amenable to definition,—even if that can be no more precise than “something aimed at.” But in the concrete there are targets and targets. So, while the satirized may be reduced to an abstract entity, as deception or some other ubiquitous trait of human nature, there exist in fact as many varieties of the satirized as of satirists. Anything which any one may criticise, if it be subject to humorous treatment, may be a satirical object. ”