Department of English

Fulfills Distributional Course in Arts & Letters (for students admitted before Fall 2006)

This course will explore the idea and practice of satire in Western culture by focusing on the long eighteenth century in Great Britain (1660-1832). We will read works by some of the most influential English and American satirists, such as Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, Jane Austen, Lord Byron, Lewis Carroll, Mark Twain and Evelyn Waugh. If we have time, we will also see how satire shifts into various other media, such as caricature, cartoon, and film in graphic works by William Hogarth, James Gillray, and Thomas Rowlandson and films by Amy Heckerling and Monty Python. Requirements will include spirited class participation, short weekly writing assignments, a final exam and a satire of your own creation.