Satire takes as its subject the absurdity of human beings, their
societies, and the institutions they create. For centuries,
satirists themselves, scholars, critics, and psychologists have
speculated about the satirist's reasons for writing, temperament,
and place in society. The conclusions they have reached are
sometimes contradictory, sometimes complementary, sometimes
outlandish. In this volume, Leonard Feinberg brings together the
major theories about the satirist, to provide in one book a summary
of the problems that specialists have examined intensively in
numerous books and articles.
In part 1, Feinberg examines the major theories about the
motivation of the satirist, and then proposes that "adjustment"
comes most closely to answering this question. In his view, the
satirist resolves his ambivalent relation to society through a
playfully critical distortion of the familiar. The personality of
the satirist, the apparently paradoxical elements of his nature,
the problem of why so many great humorists are sad men, and the
contributions of psychoanalysts are explored in part 2, where
Feinberg contends that the satirist is not as abnormal as he has
sometimes been made to seem, and that if he is a neurotic he shares
traits of emotional or social alienation with many others. Part 3
explores the beliefs of satirists and their relation to the
environment within which they function, particularly in the
contexts of politics, religion, and philosophy. Feinberg stresses
the ubiquity of the satirist and suggests that there are a great
many people with satiric temperaments who fail to attain literary
expression.
Ranging with astonishing breadth, both historical and
geographical, The Satirist serves as both an introduction to the
subject and an essential volume for scholars. Brian A. Connery's
introduction provides an overview of Feinberg's career and situates
the volume in the intellectual currents in which it was
written.
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