which they function. I stress the ubiquitousness of
the satirist and suggest that there are a great many
people with satiric temperaments who fail to
attain literary expression.

I hope that this book will serve as an intro-
duction, and that the reader will be sufficiently
stimulated by the evidence of how much has been
said about the satirist -- and how little of it is con-
clusive -- to investigate the subject further in some
of the excellent books listed in the Reading List.
A handbook of this kind is necessary because each
proponent of a special theory has, naturally
enough, applied his own point of view to the sati-
rist he studied.

Whenever possible I have quoted verbatim, to
keep the flavor of the writers' statements and to
avoid distorting their remarks. In addition to sum-
marizing the traditional and the psychoanalytic
speculations, I have from time to time expressed
my own opinions, trying to indicate clearly when
those opinions differ from the conventional liter-
ary theories and the unconventional psycho-
analytic interpretations.

For reading the manuscript and offering helpful
suggestions I am very grateful to four of my col-
leagues at Iowa State University -- Albert L.
Walker, Keith Huntress, Robert Orlovich, and
Norris Yates.

LEONARD FEINBERG