Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Topic: Satire


Quote A Day

Satire…essentially an art of over-simplification since it concentrates on a few if not only a single characteristic, is inevitably in danger of overlooking the complexity of human nature. Mark Schorer, Afterword. Sinclair Lewis, Main Street, p. 437. 

Comment: There's satire and there's satire. One is mean-spirited as for example the kind of vicious satire that spread meanness toward Abraham Lincoln, in many of the newspapers of his day and that led to his being viewed as either a monster or a baboon that eventually led to his assassination. Then there's the more gentle satire as in Barak Obama's elongated face and large ears used in caricatures in contemporary political cartoons  when making points about issues of the day. And then there's the satire like Swift's "A Modest Proposal" that makes its point directly. Of course, there's always a concern that some readers will interpret the satire literally. RayS.

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