The Origins of Satire

The emergence of satire, if not as a formal genre, then at least as a distinct type of literature, is probably very ancient. It can apparently be found in the literature of the primitive peoples whose words have been recorded and who may be thought to have preserved the most ancient traditions of mankind. It is striking that two of these literary traditions appear in the special combination of realism and fantasy which, is the keynote of true satire. One is the 'lampoon' or personal attack; the other is the 'travesty', or fantastic vision of the world transformed.

In the literature of primitive people both types can be seen clearly, sometimes separately and sometimes in combination. 'Literature' is not a very satisfactory word, since it implies letters, while the most primitive peoples are illiterate; but no one has found a better word for the art of verbal expression, so I shall use it without further apology. Nor shall I apologise for discussing primitive literature, since it is not essentially different from the more sophisticated literature of higher civilisations. The problems of living, the experiences of love and death, the delights and miseries of primitive men are not so very different from ours; and many men from a simpler world even than Homer's have found out how to express such things movingly in words. The anthropologist Paul Radin has pointed out that every primitive society has a highly developed literary culture, in which nearly all the genres of sophisticated literature appear more or less distinctly, sometimes presented with astonishing poetic or narrative skill, with satire conspicuous among them.

I know of no tribe where satires or formal narratives avowedly humorous have not attained a rich development. Examples of every conceivable form are found, from broad lampoon and crude invective to subtle innuendo and satire based on man's stupidity, his gluttony and his lack of a sense of proportion.

The simplest example of the first type (lampoon, invective) is the Eskimo song of derision. Eskimo society was until recently on about the same level as that of the late Stone Age, it lacked any distinct system of law, let alone police or magistrates to enforce the law, or school-masters or preachers to warn against misconduct its religion has no strong supernatural sanctions such as hell where evil-doers will be punished. The chief means of punishing bad social behaviour is by the satirical song, which makes the delinquent hang his head in shame. The Eskimo satirist has precisely the same aim as Alexander Pope, to make "Men not afraid of God afraid of me". This is said to work in practice: the man who is worsted in a satirical song-contest will try to reform himself; in extreme cases one can picture him stumbling wretchedly out of the igloo, like Captain Gates on Scott's polar expedition, to rid the community of an obnoxious burden - which is more than Pope's victims ever did. Satire-duels of this kind are also found among the Indians of the north-west coast of America and in Melanesia. They cannot all be described as moral in intention, since some consist of direct attacks on individuals for the purpose of revenge or the assertion of superiority; but in so far as literature is a public activity and thus preferable to private violence, they contain the germ of moral and also of political satire that is, of literature as propaganda for right action, which "heals with morals what it hurts with…”

The primitive lampoon is closely related to the curse, and the curse or imprecation is based on beliefs in the magical power of the word. By an effective combination of images and rhythms, and by the invocation of supernatural forces the curse is intended to exert a positive influence over its victim, to make him shrivel up or die, or a negative influence, to restrain his powers of doing evil. That, at least, is one way of putting it. In this view, satire springs from primitive witchcraft; it is thus the verbal equivalent of pointing the death-bone and causing an Australian aborigine to die of sheer terror, or perhaps better, of making a wax image of your victim and sticking pins in it.

But this only raises the question: why is the word considered to be magical? The answer may be simply that the word is magical because of its satirical, that is, literary power. A curse, like other literary forms, is effective just as far as it is well composed, in compelling rhythms skilful rhetoric, relevant argument and true content - which are among the normal criteria for all good literature. Wizards, of course may sometimes mumble a curse in a dead language or in nonsense words, but even then the literary qualities of sound and rhythm would seem to be important. Most primitive curses and lampoons, however, seem to be lucid and meant for effective communication, like this love-curse from the Ba-Ronga of south-eastern Africa:

Refuse me as much as you wish, my dear!

The corn you eat at home it is made of human eyes!

The goblets that you use, they are of human skulls!

The manicoc roots you eat, they are of human shin-bones!

The potatoes you eat, they are of human hands!

Refuse me as much as you wish!

No one desires you!

That could hardly make its point more tellingly...The word used with literary art really can affect people in a striking way, even to the point of sickness and death...In this view, written word precedes magic in history: the proven power of the word to cause acute shame and demoralization led to the attribution of magic powers to the word. I presume therefore that primitive literature has a practical purpose and effect, just as the purpose of a love-lyric is to win the beloved, so the purpose of primitive satire is to get the better of the enemy; and primitives try to achieve these ends, less by invoking magical sanctions than by normal literary means, by graphic style and telling content.

That kind of primitive satire connected both with the curse and with the personal lampoon, is one of the origins of modern political and moral satire, which calls for repentance and reform. But it is not the only origin. Complaint and moral teaching alone, even when expressed with wit and point, do not of themselves make satire. In all literary satire, we can recognise another dimension which also has primitive roots. Satire at all levels must entertain as well as try to influence conduct, and the entertainment comes, I think, chiefly from the joy of hearing a travesty, a fantastic inversion of the real world. The type figure of primitive travesty is the trickster, who is at the centre of many legends of the North American Indians, fully described by Radin; while a variant of the trickster, Eshun-Elegba, is well-known in West African folktale and sculpture. The Winnebago trickster is a semi-divine man, who breaks all the most sacred taboos and consequently is driven out of society and forced to go alone on a fantastic journey on which he has many absurd and often violent adventures. He is totally anarchic, especially in his sexual behaviour: ...and yet part of his education is to change sex and bear children. The trickster is both sinned against and sinning, both fool and rogue, shark and gull, a Priapic buffoon - and among other things the probable ancestor of the moral hero of the picaresque novel. Trickster stories belong to the religious mythology of the tribe, and are told on solemn occasions, yet they treat with levity everything that is most sacred in the tribe's religious life:...(The most sacred institutions are} held up to ridicule in the trickster, then is profoundly subversive, it is as Kerenyi says, "to add disorder to order and so make a whole to render possible, within the fixed bounds of what is permitted and experience of what is not permitted.”

The name of the Winnebago trickster (Wardunkaga} means 'spider' and his myths are related to stories of cunning-foolish animals found all over the world; the best known to Europeans are those of Reynard the Fox. In west Africa in particular, stories are told about the clever spider; and among the Yoruba there is a special trickster, a divine creature in human form whose adventures sexual and criminal, are not unlike those of the African spider and the Winnebago trickster. He is described by Joan Westcott as "a creature of instinct and great energy who serves a dual role, as a rule-breaker he is...a spanner in the social…”