Studies in Satire
English 556, Autumn 2003
Go directly to:
September —
October —
November —
December
Office: (973) 353-5279 x 516; 516 Hill Hall.
Hours: Tuesday and Thursday, 10:30-11:30, and by
appointment (appointments are best).
Home: (609) 882-4642 (before 10:00 p.m.!).
E-mail: jlynch@andromeda.rutgers.edu
(the best way to reach me).
Listserv: satire @ andromeda.rutgers.edu
(for the whole class)
Course Requirements
- Written Assignments: There will be two argumentative
and analytical papers, the first of around ten pages (2,500
words), the second either a new paper of around ten
pages, or an expansion of your first paper to fifteen to
twenty pages (3,500 to 5,000 words).
- Readings: The readings will be pretty heavy and
therefore, I'm afraid, a little expensive — though not, I
hope, unmanageable. I've picked the cheapest reputable editions I
can find, and those who've looked at the reading list for the
M.A. Exam will note that I've drawn many works from it. The
following books are available from New Jersey Books (not
the Rutgers Bookstore). If you already own editions of these
books, there's no need to buy them again; if you don't, though,
try to get these editions:
- Thomas More, Utopia, ed. Sacks, Bedford, $13.75.
- Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels, ed. DeMaria,
Penguin, $7.00.
- Jonathan Swift, A Tale of a Tub, ed. Ross and Woolley,
Oxford, $8.95.
- Samuel Johnson, Rasselas, ed. J. P. Hardy, Oxford,
$8.95.
- Voltaire, Candide and Related Writings, ed. Wootton,
Hackett, $5.95.
- Jane Austen, Emma, ed. Kinsley, Oxford, $6.95.
- Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, ed. McSweeney and
Sabor, Oxford, $11.95.
- Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's
Court, Modern Library, $7.95.
- Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49, HarperCollins,
$11.95.
There's also a photocopy packet of both primary materials and
critical essays available from Affordable Copies (68 Halsey St.).
Many of the readings will be available on-line; if you want to
save money, you can use the Web instead of the books and
photocopies for many materials.
Schedule of Class Meetings
- Tuesday, 2 Sept.
- INTRODUCTION: Class business,
&c.
- Tuesday, 9 Sept.
- Horace, Satires 1.9,
2.1,
2.2,
and 2.6;
Juvenal, Satires 6
and 10; Gilbert Highet, Conclusion to The Anatomy of
Satire; Ulrich Knoche, "Satire: A Roman Literary
Genre."
- Tuesday, 16 Sept.
- William Langland, Piers
Plowman, Prologue (in Middle English) and Passus I-VII
(in translation); John A. Yunck, "Satire" (from A Companion to
Piers Plowman).
- Tuesday, 23 Sept.
- Thomas More, Utopia; Robert C.
Elliott, "The Shape of Utopia."
- Tuesday, 30 Sept.
- John Dryden, A
Discourse concerning the Original and Progress of Satire
(abridged); John Donne, Satyr
4; Alexander Pope, "The
First Satire of the Second Book of Horace, Imitated," and "The
Second Satire of the Second Book of Horace, Paraphrased";
Samuel Johnson, The
Vanity of Human Wishes; Howard D. Weinbrot, "The Pattern
of Formal Verse Satire in the Restoration and the Eighteenth
Century."
- Tuesday, 7 Oct.
- John Dryden, Mac
Flecknoe and Absalom
and Achitophel; John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, "Satyr
upon Charles II," "Signor
Dildo," "Satyr
against Reason and Mankind"; Dustin Griffin, "Theories of
Satire in Polemical Context."
- Tuesday, 14 Oct.
- Alexander Pope, The
Rape of the Lock, Epistle
to Arbuthnot; Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, "Verses
Addressed to the Imitator of Horace"; Howard D. Weinbrot,
"Masked Men and Satire and Pope."
- Tuesday, 21 Oct.
- Jonathan Swift, A Tale of a
Tub, "Cassinus
and Peter," "Strephon
and Chloe," "A
Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed," "The
Lady's Dressing Room"; Robert C. Elliott, "Swift's Satire:
Rules of the Game." FIRST PAPER
DUE.
- Tuesday, 28 Oct.
- Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's
Travels, "Verses
on the Death of Dr. Swift"; Louis I. Bredvold, "The Gloom of
the Tory Satirists."
- Tuesday, 4 Nov.
- Samuel Johnson, Rasselas;
Voltaire, Candide;
James F. Woodruff, "Rasselas and the Traditions of
'Menippean Satire.'"
- Tuesday, 11 Nov.
- Jane Austen, Emma;
David P. Demarest, "Reductio ad Absurdum: Jane Austen's
Art of Satiric Qualification."
- Tuesday, 18 Nov.
- Thomas Carlyle, Sartor
Resartus; Anne K. Mellor, "Carlyle's Sartor
Resartus: A Self-Consuming Artifact."
- Tuesday, 25 Nov.
- NO CLASS: Thursday
schedule.
- Tuesday, 2 Dec.
- Mark Twain, A
Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court; Everett
Carter, "The Meaning of A Connecticut Yankee."
- Tuesday, 9 Dec.
- Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49; Theodore D.
Kharpertian, "Thomas Pynchon and Postmodern American Satire."
FINAL PAPER
DUE.