"A satire should expose nothing but what is corrigible, and make a due discrimination between those who are, and those who are not the proper objects of it."
The best modern expression[1] of this idea happens to
be an interpretation of a pioneer satirist. And it is distinctly
modern in its recognition that while the real object
of satire must be an abstraction,—the sin not the
sinner—it must, to be artistic, have a concrete embodiment,—the
sinner rather than the sin. The Greek dramatist
explains:
"Yet spiteless in a sort, considered well,
Since I pursued my warfare till each wound
Went through the mere man, reached the principle
Worth purging from Athenai. Lamachos?
No, I attacked war's representative;
Kleon? No, flattery of the populace;
Sokrates? No, but that pernicious seed
Of sophists whereby hopeful youth is taught
To jabber argument, chop logic, pore
On sun and moon, and worship Whirligig."
But while the good satirist must have these assets, it does not follow that the possession of them will guarantee good satire. It can only be said that without them he cannot be ranked high, though, having them, he may not be ranked at all. It may be difficult for a Juvenal not to write satire, but it is difficult for anyone to produce a fine example of this, as of any other form of art. No more than any art is it exempt from a recognition of truth[2] and*
