This seminar in "Satire" is divided into two broad sections: the theoretical and the historical. For the first six weeks, we shall focus on how outsiders view the satirist (including biographical and psychoanalytic approaches to satire), how the satirist doubts and defends himself, how different kinds of irony may imply different kinds of alliance between satirist and reader, what part violence and obscenity play in satire, and why satire appropriates fantasy and allegory. We shall try out various definitions of this protean genre. During the second six weeks, we shall study the history of satire from the Roman poets Horace and Juvenal to Nathanael West and Evelyn Waugh. Toward the end of the course, we shall use the example of Jane Austen to explore differences between male and female satirists. Besides Austen, the reading list will include Swift, Pope, Gibbon, Fielding, Rochester, Twain, Vonnegut, Hawthorne, Fitzgerald, Shakespeare, Byron, and Melville. Students will have the opportunity to compose an original satire, as well as to write a longer essay (10 to 12 pages) on a subject of their choosing.

The course fulfills requirement 3B for the English major. No pre-requisites.