FALL 2001

This information effective for Fall 2001.
Check with instructor the first day of class for any changes..

Pre- and Early Modern Literature

[LTPR-140]

140. Satire

Fall 2001
TTh 4:00 - 5:45 p.m., College Eight 252
Instructor: William Jones
E-mail: rustylis@cats.ucsc.edu

Course Syllabus

Basic Course Description: An introduction to satire, as both an individual genre with a unique literary history, and as a discursive technique present in other literary genres. Students will investigate a range of satiric works from the Classical, Early Modern, and Modern periods.

Course Description: This course is designed to help students better understand the concept of "satire," as both an individual genre with a unique literary history and unique discursive characteristics, and as a kind of protean literary mode present in other genres and influencing their structures. In order to accomplish this, students will investigate a range of satiric primary texts from the ancient, early modern, and modern eras. These primary texts will be drawn primarily from English language sources, although a few examples will be translations from non-English sources. A select number of critical secondary articles will also be included in this course in order to investigate the issues involving satire. Modern examples of satire will be drawn primarily from novels, but also from film, television, radio, and newspapers.

Critical Issues Addressed in this Course:

What is satire, or the debate over what literary characteristics qualify a work as a "satire"--is it a matter of specific tropes, tone, or purpose/ goal?
How different satires function, or analyzing the range of satiric techniques available to the authors of satire. Some examples of the satiric techniques to be addressed will include parody, irony, invective, genre-mixing (i.e., the Mock Heroic and Mock Epic), voice (persona), character typology, exaggeration versus reduction, and allegory (animal fables, temporal and spatial relocations, etc.).
The interplay between culture and various styles of satire; satire as a suspect cultural mirror.
The reoccurring cultural targets of satire, or the issues of class, gender, nationality, politics, religion, etc., that inhabit many satires.
Censorship and satire; the conservative history of satire, or validations of the status quo versus challenges to the status quo as they have altered over time.
Interpreting the changes displayed in satire across genres, across eras, across national boundaries, etc.
Satire and the grotesque; satire and "carnival."
Examples of satire in modern popular culture and their implications.

Course Requirements: as the course is designed to rely on discussion as much as on lecture, regular attendance is required (more than 3 unexcused absences will be considered grounds for a "No Pass"). This course also relies on a good deal of reading, so students are expected to have completed all of the scheduled readings prior to the start of each class. Students will hand in three two-page response papers based on one of the texts covered and incorporating material from at least one of the critical sources assigned. Students will hand in a six- to eight-page research paper at the end of the course based on issues covered in their previous response papers. The course will also have a final exam intended to assess the student's familiarity with the texts covered in the course, as well as their ability to interpret those texts and the critical issues they raise. The course will also require arranging a time for several "Film Nights" which will be held outside the scheduled class time.

Course Reading List: (arranged in chronological order)

Aristophanes - selections from The Birds
Horace - "The Epistle to Augustus" (satiric theory), Sermones (satires) I.v. (travels with Maecenas), I.ix. (the Bore), I.x. (Lucilius and the satiric tradition), II.i. (the lawyer who tries to dissuade him from satire), and II.vi (the country mouse and the city mouse).
Martial - selection of epigrams.
Petronius - "The Dinner At Trimalchio's" from the Satyricon.
Juvenal - satires 1 (satiric theory), 4 (a satire on the court), 6 (a satire on women), and 10 ("The Vanity of Human Wishes").
Langland - selection from Piers Plowman.
Chaucer - "The Nun's Priest Tale" from The Canterbury Tales.
Erasmus - selection from The Praise of Folly.
Wyatt - "Mine Own John Poynz" (satire of court. I will also include the Italian source in translation: the 10th satire of Luigi Alamanni), and satire 2 (based on Horace's satire II.vi.).
Rabelais - selection from Gargantua and Pantagruel.
Spenser - selection from "Mother Hubberd's Tale."
Donne - satires 1, 3, and 5.
Marston - selections from The Scourge of Villanie.
Ben Jonson - Selections from Volpone, and selections from Epigrams and The Forest.
Dryden - selection from Absalom and Achitophel and The Medal.
Rochester - "A Satire on King Charles II," and "A Satyr Against Reason and Mankind."
Behn - "The Disappointment."
Pope - Canto I from The Rape of the Lock, "The Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot," "Epistle II: To a Lady," and Pope's revision of Horace's "Epistle to Augustus."
Finch - "The Answer to Pope's Impromptu."
Montague - "The Lover: A Ballad."
Samuel Johnson - "The Vanity of Human Wishes" (revision of Juvenal 10).
Swift - "A Modest Proposal," Gulliver's Travels.
Orwell - Animal Farm.
Films: Dr. Strangelove, Being There, Life of Brian, Dogma.
Television: prerecorded scenes from The Simpsons, Futurama, and Saturday Night Live.
Audio: selections from Dennis Miller's The Rants, selections from Weird Al Yankovic's satiric music.

Note on the Course Reading List: although the reading list appears somewhat heavy, it should be noted that for many of the longer works, only specific sections of the works are being assigned (see "Syllabus"). I will require that students complete all of the readings assigned for a specific day, however, I plan to focus each class on 2-3 main texts. Such a focus will allow more opportunity for student participation, as well as greater specificity within which to address the most prevalent critical issues.

Critical Texts:

Coffey, Michael. Roman Satire. London: Methuen and Co. Ltd., 1976.
Dryden, John. A Discourse on the Original and Progress of Satire (1692).
Elliot, Robert C. The Power of Satire: Magic, Ritual, and Art. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960.
Guilhamet, Leon. Satire and the Transformation of Genre. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987.
Kernan, Alvin. The Cankered Muse: Satire of the English Renaissance. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959.
Kupersmith, William. Roman Satirists in Seventeenth-Century England. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1985.
Peter, John. Complaint and Satire in Early English Literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956.
Puttenham, George. The Arte of English Poesie (1588).
Valle-Killeen, Suzanne D. The Satiric Perspective: A Structural Analysis of Late Medieval, Early Renaissance Satiric Treatises. New York: Senda Nueva de Ediciones, Inc., 1980.
Watson, Robert N. Ben Jonson's Parodic Strategy: Literary Imperialism in the Comedies. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987.

Assignments for secondary readings listed in the syllabus will consist of single chapters or portions of chapters from the books listed above and will be bound as part of the reader. Another option would be to put these texts on reserve in the library.

Note: I have structured the course so that students will have to buy the 1973 Norton Critical Edition of Swift's Gulliver's Travels, and I plan to use the critical essays present in this book. Students will also have to buy a critical edition of Orwell's Animal Farm (I have yet to determine the edition) and I hope to use the critical essays in that edition as well. All the other works required for the course will be gathered in a reader (a rather large reader, but since I plan to use many "partial" examples from satiric texts, it seems more cost efficient to prepare them as a large course reader).

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