Satire Note 1

Satire is that which calls for the dissolution of its object of ridicule, all else is mere irony. The presence of this first element is where most descriptions or criteria of satire have hitherto placed emphasis, but it not only calls for the abolition of its target and the conditions that make it a possibility, but also itself and its friends. For example, Verity Spott’s GIDEON is an attack on George Osborne (addressed as “dear legitimate target”) and includes a Stalinist-style purge of friends: “Next purge (party sadness, end of madness): I shot bullets into almost every one of my comrades killing most of them, mortally wounding some, firing novelty ‘bang’ flags into a few.” [Verity Spott, GIDEON (Brighton: Barque, 2014), unpaginated.] I think this has some relation to Marina Vishmidt’s distinctions between negative critique and positive critique, where the latter seeks the dissolution not only of its object but also the object’s conditions of possibility. We might, tenuously, say positive critique is Horatian satire and negative critique Juvenalian – tenuously because those names are so long dead, they no longer seem adequate.