“Satire is of the nature of moral philosophy, as being instructive;”
- Date
- 1693
Meaning of “Satire is of the nature of moral philosophy,…”
Dryden treats satire as a literary form whose purpose includes moral instruction, then compares how classical satirists pursue that end.
Where does it come from?
A Discourse Concerning the Original and Progress of Satire, represented in Project Gutenberg #2615. 'Satire is of the nature of moral philosophy, as being instructive' occurs inside Dryden's comparison of Persius, Juvenal and Horace, immediately before his account of Persius's Stoic moral teaching. The source does not expose a formal subsection corresponding to the queue parser's incidental 'Discourse C' clue, so this record is routed directly to the reviewed passage without inventing a structural heading. It remains Restoration literary criticism and moral theory rather than a timeless definition binding every modern satire.