The Use of Satire
Satire is described as “the employment of sarcasm, irony, or keenness of wit in ridiculing vices, abuses, or evils of any sort”. “Irony” is saying one thing when one means just the opposite ; as, when I say, “Well, you are a clever fellow!” with a sneer, meaning you are an incompetent fool. “Sarcasm” is saying exactly what we mean, but saying it cuttingly and in such a way as to excite ridicule or contempt—for example, Swift’s sarcastic saying, “We Christians have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another”.
There are two ways of showing up men’s follies and vices. One is to denounce them directly with righteous indignation, and in hot words of scathing condemnation. “Woe unto you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which outwardly appear beautiful, but inwardly are full of dead men’s bones and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but inwardly ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.”
The other, and sometimes more effective way, is to hold men’s vices and follies up to ridicule. The satirist laughs derisively at their follies and vices, and makes others laugh at them too. Listen to how Pope makes a mock at the solemn earnestness with which men esteem and toil for worldly honours, titles, wealth, and reputation :-
“Behold the child, by Nature’s kindly law, Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw: Some livelier play-thing gives his youth delight, A little louder, but as empty quite: Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his ripper stage, And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age ; Pleased with this bauble still, as that before ; Till tired he sleeps, and life’s poor play is o’er”.
The main use of satire, then, is to hold up evil to ridicule; to laugh men out of their vices and follies. Fools and villains would rather be solemnly denounced than held up to the world as laughing-stocks.
The ancient Greeks used satire, and satire had a prominent place in Latin literature. Juvenal’s satires on contemporary life and manners in ancient Rome are famous. In English literature, Dryden is, perhaps, the greatest satirist ; but most of his satires are political. Pope’s satires are well known ; and Dr. Johnson based his satires, “London” and “The Vanity of Human Wishes” on Juvenal’s. Satire has not always been used fairly; for example, Dryden’s “Mac-Flecknoe” is a bitter and unfair attack on a brother poet, Shadwell even though it is very clever. A good example of his sarcasm is:-
“The rest to some faint meaning make pretense,
But Shadwell never deviates into sense.”
