Dorothy Parker and New Yorker satire.

Abstract

Satire is central to the New Yorker magazine, an influential arbiter of taste in American life for sixty years. This study analyzes the satiric voice of the New Yorker as exemplified in the works of Dorothy Parker and, secondarily, Ring Lardner and H. L. Mencken. The study is primarily concerned with Parker, an early and influential New Yorker writer who helped to invent the typical New Yorker satiric style. During the first fifteen years of its publication, 1925-1940, her satiric touch is present in nearly all of the 149 pieces she published in the New Yorker. The sophistication and style of the satire of the New Yorker are also evident, to a lesser extent, in the contributions of Lardner and Mencken.

Chapter I of this study is an analysis of Parker's New Yorker short stories, Chapter II an analysis of her poems, and Chapter III an analysis of her book reviews. Chapter IV compares the satire of Lardner and Mencken to that of Parker. Three appendices list the contributions to the New Yorker of each of the three satirists.