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THE ANATOMY OF SATIRE by Gilbert Highet

THE ANATOMY OF SATIRE

By

Publisher: Princeton

For a of radio listeners Gilbert Highet has gone well beyond the classroom tospread ""the pleasures of appreciation"" to a wider field. To many Poets in a landscape opened new horizons added a familiar sense of intimacy in relation to classic poets. Some rater suggest that he is poet master of middlebrow elegance, and do not fully appreciate his sometime delightful, occasionally dazzling approach, and charge him with being sketchy. This volume may expose to that criticism as he dips into satire, classical and modern- what it is, how it works. Originally delivered as a Trask Lecture at Princeton, this is self termed an essay in morphology"" and scans the horizon:- from Horace, Juvenal and Lucian on to and , Pope and Swift, even Mayakovasky and Tonesco. He examines and , , both literary and journalistic, and focusses upon ""the distorting mirror"", a longish study of fantasy, animal tales, social visions and histories. Basically in a corrupt world ( Blas) and Pegler's take-off on Mrs. and of London Society (Decline and Fall) may garner high marks while sorties from Flaubert and France are shown up as . For Professor Higher some of the best men were not the most blessed, others bubbled ever, most were at heart idealists driven to contempt or hatred.(). Possibly too much ground covered but refreshing.