RIDICULE:
Poe.
I have said that humor is good-natured and winning. This is always
true, though the winning of one reader may be at the expense of some
other. Humor used to win one at the expense of another is called
_satire_ and _sarcasm_. The simplest form of using satire and sarcasm
is in direct _ridicule_.
Ridicule, satire, and sarcasm are suitable for use against an open
enemy, such as a political opponent, against a public nuisance which
ought to be suppressed, or in behalf of higher ideals and standards.
The one thing that makes this style of little effect is anger or morbid
intensity. While some thing or some one is attacked, perhaps with
ferocity, results are to be obtained by winning the reader. So it comes
about that winning, good-natured humor is an essential element in really
successful ridicule. If intense or morbid hatred or temper is allowed
to dominate, the reader is repulsed and made distrustful, and turns away
without being affected in the desired way at all.
The following, which opens a little known essay of Edgar Allan Poe's,
is one of the most perfect examples of simple ridicule in the English
language. We may have our doubts as to whether Poe was justified in
using such withering satire on poor Mr. Channing; but we cannot help
feeling that the workmanship is just what it ought to be when ridicule
is employed in a proper cause. Perhaps the boosting of books into
public regard by the use of great names is a proper and sufficient
subject for attack by ridicule.
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING.
By Edgar Allan Poe.
In speaking of Mr. William Ellery Channing, who has just published a
very neat little volume of poems, we feel the necessity of employing the
indefinite rather than the definite article. He is _a,_ and by no means
_the,_ William Ellery Channing. He is only the _son_* of the great
essayist deceased… It may be said in his favor that nobody ever heard
of him. Like an honest woman, he has always succeeded in keeping
himself from being made the subject of gossip. His book contains
about sixty-three things, which he calls poems, and which he no doubt
seriously supposes to be such. They are full of all kinds of mistakes,
of which the most important is that of their having been printed at all.
They are not precisely English―nor will we insult a great nation by
calling them Kickapoo; perhaps they are Channingese. We may convey
some general idea of them by two foreign terms not in common use―the
Italian _pavoneggiarsi,_ “to strut like a peacock,” and the German word
for “sky-rocketing,” _Schwarmerei_. They are more preposterous, in a word,
than any poems except those of the author of “Sam Patch;” for we presume
we are right (are we not?) in taking it for granted that the author of
“Sam Patch” is the very worst of all the wretched poets that ever existed
upon the earth.
In spite, however, of the customary phrase of a man's “making a fool of
himself,” we doubt if any one was ever a fool of his own free will and
accord. A poet, therefore, should not always be taken too strictly to
task. He should be treated with leniency, and even when damned, should
be damned with respect. Nobility of descent, too, should be allowed
its privileges not more in social life than in letters. The son of a
great author cannot be handled too tenderly by the critical Jack Ketch.
Mr. Channing must be hung, that's true. He must be hung _in terrorem
——and_ for this there is no help under the sun; but then we shall do
him all manner of justice, and observe every species of decorum, and
be especially careful of his feelings, and hang him gingerly and
gracefully, with a silken cord, as Spaniards hang their grandees of
the blue blood, their nobles of the _sangre azul_.
*Really the _nephew_.
To be serious, then, as we always wish to be, if possible, Mr. Channing
(whom we suppose to be a _very_ young man, since we are precluded from
supposing him a _very_ old one), appears to have been inoculated at the
same moment with _virus_ from Tennyson and from Carlyle, etc.
Notes.
The three paragraphs which we have quoted illustrate three different
methods of using ridicule. The first is the simple one of contemptuous
epithets——“calling names,” as we put it in colloquial parlance. So long
as it is good-humored and the writer does not show personal malice, it
is a good way; but the reader soon tires of it. A sense of fairness
prevents him from listening to mere calling of names very long. So
in the second paragraph Poe changes his method to one more subtile: he
pretends to apologize and find excuses, virtually saying to the reader,
“Oh, I'm going to be perfectly fair,” while at the same time the excuses
are so absurd that the effect is ridicule of a still more intense and
biting type. In the third paragraph Poe seems to answer the reader's
mental comment to the effect that “you are merely amusing us by your
clever wit” by asserting that he means to be extremely serious. He then
proceeds about his business with a most solemn face, which is as amusing
in literature as it is in comic representations on the stage.
In practising upon this type of writing one must select a subject that
he feels to be decidedly in need of suppression. Perhaps the most
impersonal and easy subject to select for practice is a popular novel
in which one can see absurdities, or certain ridiculous departments in
the newspapers, such as the personal-advice column. Taking such a
subject, adapt Poe's language to it with as little change as possible.