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Learn from the Master

The merely foolish, satire may be content to “take down a peg or two”; the dangerous and vicious it would reduce to ruin. But in both the important thing to note is a kind of unmasking. The foolishness shown up is a foolishness that usually passes for sense. The ugliness revealed in its true colors has masqueraded as merit.¹

— Edgar Johnson

Notes

1. A Treasury of Satire edited by Edgar Johnson, Simon and Schuster, 1945. The quote comes from Johnson's introductory essay, "The Nature and Value of Satire."