This will be a genuine research seminar, not a glorified survey course. The object is to do serious, original work in a field of your own choosing, with whatever help and advice I can give you. Each member of the seminar is expected to produce two drafts of a substantial essay whose ultimate aim is publication. I would urge you to write the best paper you are capable of by 1 November. It will be returned within 48 hours with extensive commentary and suggestions for revision. I will be happy to read as many drafts as you need to write, during the present semester or in future months. Each member of the group is expected to share a cogent précis of his or her investigation and conclusions with the rest of us on the evening of 3 December. This is an opportunity to ‘‘teach’’ part of a graduate seminar; to present your work to others; and to receive their advice and comments. Under penalty of dismemberment on the spot, you are not to read your paper drafts aloud. Preferably, you should not read aloud at all.

As I see the course, it has four parallel objectives. (1) To expose all of you to interesting and important "satires" written in all genres during the century and a half or thereabouts that constitutes "the long 18th century." There are many hundreds of poems, plays, novels, and pamphlets that we could read: obviously "coverage" is radically selective. (2) To give you at least nominal familiarity with all of the important "general" books about satire since David Worcester’s classic study of 1940. I will be talking briefly about each of them, not in chronological order. Library copies of the most significant ones are on reserve: I suggest that you dip and skim enough to give yourself a feeling of what each is good for. (3) To give you a sense of how literary theory applies to satire. A particularly quirky requirement of this course is that each member must pick a "theorist" (whether ancient or current, famous or obscure) and give the seminar a one-to-two page summary comment (and a ten-minute maximum oral discussion) of what the theorist says about satire (if anything) and how the theory might be used in approaching satire in general or satiric works in particular. Negative conclusions—i.e., that the particular theorist cannot be fruitfully applied to satire—are acceptable. A list of people to investigate is part of this syllabus. One report per theorist please, so investigate promptly and sign up with me to claim the person you want. (4) To give you a chance to do serious, original research in material you find attractive. All genres and all critical methods are welcome. I do expect you to situate yourselves firmly in whatever conversation currently exists. Enormous heaps of books and articles have already been written on some writers; others have gone virtually without critical commentary. There are advantages and disadvantages to both states of affairs.

The group sessions will be as good as we jointly make them. I expect to put a large part of my effort into individual attention/assistance. I have listed office hours above, but I am happy to talk to any of you whenever I am in my office and not otherwise engaged. I have no objection to your calling me at home if you have specific questions or problems to address. I try not to come to campus every day, but I am perfectly willing to see graduate students at home any day of the week or weekend if you can get yourself to my house. I check my e-mail virtually every day, and sometimes several times a day: e-mail is usually a good way to reach me for a reasonably prompt answer.

You need to start work immediately: writing papers in a wild week at the end of the semester rarely produces good scholarship or criticism. I expect to see each of you regularly throughout the term: perhaps relatively briefly each week, perhaps longer every two or three weeks. I would also urge you to talk with one another (and other people) about what you are trying to do; the methods you are employing; the problems you are encountering. I know from experience that people tend to procrastinate on ‘‘seminar papers,’’ and that they tend to keep conferences to a minimum. Such a modus operandi defeats the whole point of this kind of seminar. In this case you are expected to work seriously on something of importance to you, with as much consultation and help as I can give you. Please take advantage of it. The two-draft (minimum) requirement is meant to give you the best possible chance at getting a good grade and writing a potentially publishable paper.

A note about books. I have ordered two standard critical works (Wayne Booth’s A Rhetoric of Irony and Dustin Griffin’s Satire: A Reintroduction) which should be available in the Penn State Bookstore under this course number. Library copies of the general/critical books I consider most pertinent are on reserve in Pattee. Poems, plays, novels, etc., I am assuming you will chase down for yourselves. Some works you probably already have in paperbacks or anthologies. The library has multiple copies of many works (in different editions). If you want to buy particular books cheaply, I would strongly recommend trying Abebooks.com which will give you a wide array of used copies at varying prices for an amazing range of books. This is not a course in close-reading and it makes no pretense at systematic coverage: therefore I see no reason to "require" texts.

August 27: organization

September 3: Some Critical Backgrounds I

Discussion of Dustin Griffin, Satire: A Reintroduction. Some classics: David Worcester, The Art of Satire (1940); Maynard Mack, "The Muse of Satire," Yale Review (1951); Northrop Frye, The Anatomy of Criticism (1957).

September 10: Some Critical Backgrounds II

Discussion of Wayne Booth, A Rhetoric of Irony. Discussion of Connery and Combe, Theorizing Satire.

September 17: Dryden and Rochester

Discussion of Ian Jack, Elkin, and Zimbardo

September 24: Topicalia and Farragos

Samuel Butler, Hudibras; Poems on Affairs of State [in both original versions and the 7-volume Yale modern collection—not based on the original volumes—gen. ed. George deF. Lord].

Discussion of Paulson, Fictions of Satire and Kernan, The Plot of Satire

October 1: Sex Comedy:

Wycherley, The Country-Wife; Etherege, The Man of Mode; Southerne, The Wives Excuse

October 8: Guest performance by Clem Hawes on Swift, Gulliver’s Travels

NB: This meeting to be held at Clem’s house, 923 McKee Street, just north of campus.

October 15: Fall Break (no class)

October 22: Swift’s Poetry:

Take a look at "A Description of a City Shower," "Phillis, or, the Progress of Love," "The Progress of Beauty," "On Stella’s Birth-daym 1719," "A Satirical Elegy On the Death of a late Famous General," "The Lady’s Dressing Room," "A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed," "Strephon and Cloe," "Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift," "The Beasts’ Confession to the Priest," "On Poetry: A Rapsody," "The Day of Judgement." [All available in the Norton Critical paperback Writings of Jonathan Swift, ed. Robert A. Greenberg and William B. Piper.]

Discussion of Rosenheim, Swift and the Satirist’s Art, Bogel, The Difference Satire Makes.

October 29: Pope and Gay

Pope: "The Rape of the Lock," "Moral Essay III: To Bathurst," "Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot," dip into Peri Bathous, dip into the 1728 and 1743 versions of The Dunciad (especially the end of Book IV of the later version); Gay, The Beggar’s Opera

Discussion of various work by Weinbrot, Carretta, The Snarling Muse, and Kinservik, Disciplining Satire

November 5: no class

November 12: Smollett, Ferdinand Count Fathom

Discussion of Paulson, Satire and the Eighteenth-Century Novel, Palmieri, Satire in Narrative

November 19: Beckford, Vathek; Jane Austen, Persuasion and Northanger Abbey.

November 26: conferences [Thanksgiving Week]

December 3: group presentations

December 10: conferences

English 550 Fall 2002

SOME IMPORTANT (MOSTLY GENERAL) BOOKS ON SATIRE

English 550: List of Theorists to Consider

Here, in no particular order, is a list of ancient and modern theorists on whom short class reports might be done.

M. M. Bakhtin

Søren Kierkegaard on irony

Jacques Derrida

Luce Irigaray

Jacques Lacan

Jurgen Habermas

Roland Barthes

Julia Kristeva

Hélène Cixous

Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari [perhaps the Kafka book? Rich Doyle suggests Deleuze’s Coldness and Cruelty, particularly the chapter on humor and law.]

Fredric Jameson [particularly the essay on parody?]

Theodor Adorno

Pierre Bourdieu

Michel de Certeau

Clifford Geertz

Wolfgang Iser

John R. Searle

Quentin Skinner

Teresa Ebert [on ludic postmodernism]

Michael Hardt & Antonio Negri in Empire (2000)

Slavoj Zizek

Jean Luc Nancy, The Inoperative Community (non-referential theory of laughter).

Judith Butler [particularly Gender Trouble?]

Paul de Man [on irony in Rhetoric of Romanticism?]

Michel Foucault

Jeff Nealon [read the stuff; consult the author locally]

Homi K. Bhabha

Jill Dolan

Tom Frank (Conquest of Cool and One Market Under God).

Someone interested in contemporary pop/tech might like to look at "Negativland," a musical collective doing pastiche and satire (www.negativland.com) OR try "The Negative Beatles" or "Mashups" via Google. For "culture jamming" and hacker culture try http://web.nwe.ufl.edu/~mlaffey/cultcover.html or www.slashdot.com. On these realms, consult Rich Doyle.

 

INSTRUCTIONS

I do not want you to kill a lot of time on this assignment. The object is simple: to discover whether the theorist you choose either has things to say directly on the subject of satire OR can be used effectively as a critical tool in the analysis of satire. In NO MORE than TWO (2) pages, please summarize for us (a) who the person is; (b) list some of the major works (with dates); (c) give us a brutally succinct paragraph summarizing the nature of the theory proposed; and (d) state the explicit or potential connection of the theory to practical criticism of various sorts of satire. A negative conclusion is entirely admissible: if you think the theorist is perfectly useless to critics of satire, say so and explain why you think so.

You will deliver a BRIEF oral presentation about the theorist, having given all members of the group a printed copy of your 1-2 page summary. By brief I mean ten (10) minutes maximum. You are NOT to read aloud or paraphrase your summary. You will be unceremoniously cut off after 11 minutes if you run over time. You should be prepared to field questions from the rest of us.

Obviously I do not expect detailed and profound acquaintance with the theorist you choose. There are a very large number of theorists and quasi-theorists in print, and you cannot digest all of them with tender, loving care. You need to learn to riffle through enough of someone’s output in a very short time so that you can determine whether detailed investigation and absorption would repay the time and effort required. "Theory" is not a legitimate end in itself: it needs to be applicable to something. In a course on satire, we naturally want to discover whether Big Name A or Big Name B have something to say about satire or could be usefully invaded, colonized, or perverted to our critical ends. Pooling our resources, we should come away with useful snapshots of several interesting and important writers who are not particularly known as theorists of satire. Some have fairly obvious relevance; some can (in my opinion) be made useful; some (so far as I can see) are probably going to be little or no help in this realm. One of the functions of this assignment is to familiarize you not only with some theorists but with the bibliographical resources that will let you inform yourselves efficiently about them. Use the library’s physical and electronic resources. Use Google. Use friends and local faculty. Above all, use your own judgment. Theorists are potentially powerful tools: the question is, can you use a particular tool for the job you want to do? A monster backhoe is an awesome device, but it is no use at all in cutting floorboards, laying tile, or hanging wallpaper. So ask yourself

1. What is the theory supposed to be good for?

2. How might it be used in relation to satire?