It was not the originality of the i

It was not the originality of the idea that made these satires popular. It was the manner of
expression, the satiric method, that made them interesting and entertaining. Satires are
read because they are aesthetically satisfying works of art, not because they are morally
wholesome or ethically instructive. They are stimulating and refreshing because with
commonsense briskness they brush away illusions and secondhand opinions. With
spontaneous irreverence, satire rearranges perspectives, scrambles familiar objects into
incongruous juxtaposition, and speaks in a personal idiom instead of abstract platitude.