The Dyers Hand and Other Essays

Flyting seems to have vanished as a studied literary art and only to survive in the impromptu exchanges of truckdrivers and cabdrivers. The comic effect arises from the contradic­tion between the insulting nature of what is said which appears to indicate a passionate relation of hostility and agres­sion, and the calculated skill of verbal invention which in­dicates that the protagonists are not thinking about each other but about language and their pleasure in employing it inventively. A man who is really passionately angry is speech­less and can only express his anger by physical violence. Playful anger is intrinsically comic because, of all emotions, anger is the least compatible with play.

Satire

The object of satire is a person who, though in possession of his moral faculties, transgresses the moral law beyond the normal call of temptation. The lunatic cannot be an object of satire, since he is not morally responsible for his ac­tions, and the wicked man cannot be an object because, while morally responsible, he lacks the normal faculty of conscience. The commonest object of satire is the rogue. The rogue trans­gresses the moral law at the expense of others, but he is only able to do this because of the vices of his victims; they share in his guilt. The wicked man transgresses the moral law at the expense of others, but his victims are innocent. Thus a black marketeer in sugar can be satirized because the ex­istence of such a black market depends upon the greed of others for sugar, which is a pleasure but not a necessity; a black marketeer in penicillin cannot be satirized because, for the sick, it is a necessity and, if they cannot pay his prices, they will die.

After the rogue, the commonest object of satire is the monomaniac. Most men desire money and are not always too scrupulous in the means by which they obtain it, but this does not make them objects of satire, because their desire is tempered by a number of competing interests. A miser is satirizable because his desire overrides all desires which normal selfishness feels, such as sex or physical comfort.

The Satirical Strategy

There is not only a moral human norm, but also a normal way of transgressing it. At the moment of yielding to tempta­tion, the normal human being has to exercise self-deception and rationalization, for in order to yield he requires the illusion of acting with a good conscience: after he has committed the immoral act, when desire is satisfied, the normal human being realizes the nature of his act and feels guilty. He who is incapable of realizing the nature of his act is mad, and he who, both before, while, and after committing it, is ex­actly conscious of what he is doing yet feels no guilt, is wicked.

The commonest satirical devices therefore, are two: i) To present the object of satire as if he or she were mad and unaware of what he is doing.

Now Night descending, the proud scene was o'er, But lived in Settle's numbers, one day more.

(pope.)

The writing of poetry which, even in the case of the worst of poets, is a personal and voluntary act, is presented as if it were as impersonal and necessary as the revolution of the earth, and the value of the poems so produced which, even in a bad poet, varies, is presented as invariable and therefore subject to a quantitative measurement like dead matter.

The satiric effect presupposes that the reader knows that in real life Setde was not a certifiable lunatic, for lunacy over­whelms a man against his will: Settle is, as it were, a self- made lunatic.

2,) To present the object of satire as if he or she were wicked and completely conscious of what he is doing without feeling any guilt.

Although, dear Lord, I am a sinner,

I have done no major crime;

Now I'll come to Evening Service

Whensoever I have time.

So, Lord, reserve for me a crown,

And do not let my shares go down.

(John Betjeman.)

Again, the satiric effect depends upon our knowing that in real life the lady is not wicked, that, if she were really as truthful with herself as sh.e is presented, she could not go to Church.

Satire flourishes in a homogeneous society where satirist and audience share the same views as to how normal people can be expected to behave, and in times of relative stability and contentment, for satire cannot deal with serious evil and suffering. In an age like our own, it cannot flourish except in intimate circles as an expression of private feuds: in public life the evils and sufferings are so serious that satire seems trivial and the only possible kind of attack is prophetic de­nunciation.

DON JUAN

Hort ihr Kindeslieder singen, Gleich ists euer eigner Scherz; Seht ihr mich im Takte springen, Hiipft euch elterlich das Herz.

faust, Part II, Act III