[analphilosopher] Keith Burgess-Jackson: Ambrose Bierce

[analphilosopher at lists.powerblogs.com]

Posted by Keith Burgess-Jackson:
Ambrose Bierce
http://www.analphilosopher.com/posts/1121370981.shtml


   Satire, n. An obsolete kind of literary composition in which the vices
   and follies of the author's enemies were expounded with imperfect
   tenderness. In this country satire never had more than a sickly and
   uncertain existence, for the soul of it is wit, wherein we are
   dolefully deficient, the humor that we mistake for it, like all humor,
   being tolerant and sympathetic. Moreover, although Americans are
   "endowed by their Creator" with abundant vice and folly, it is not
   generally known that these are reprehensible qualities, wherefore the
   satirist is popularly regarded as a soul-spirited knave, and his ever
   victim's outcry for codefendants evokes a national assent.

     Hail Satire! be thy praises ever sung
     In the dead language of a mummy's tongue,
     For thou thyself art dead, and damned as well--
     Thy spirit (usefully employed) in Hell.
     Had it been such as consecrates the Bible
     Thou hadst not perished by the law of libel.
     Barney Stims.

   (Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)