|
Instructors: Dr. Claudia Görg
Event type:
online: Seminar/proseminar
Displayed in timetable as:
05.866.123
Hours per week:
2
Language of instruction:
Englisch
Min. | Max. participants:
- | 45
Registration group: AS 123
Priority scheme: Senatsrichtlinie
Requirements / organisational issues:
Jonathan Swift characterized the satire as "a sort of glass, wherein the beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own." This pointed definition of the satire in general points at an important feature of the satire: the beholder's perspective influences the message the beholder gets while reading or listening to satire. The fact that satire communicates in indirect ways and leaves room for interpretation creates its special appeal, but also is the source of potential misunderstandings on the part of the readership.
In this course we will look at satirical writing that contributes to the political and social discourse of the respective times. We will explore whether Henry ´C. Carlisle's claim is justified that "In the United States the way satire has made itself irresistable is to be humorous." While many of you might be familiar with Mark Twain as a satirist, it might come as a surprise that Edgar A. Poe, too, wrote in a satirical way at times. Amongst other writings, we will discuss Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankke in King Arthur's Court and Edward Albee's Who Is Afraid of Virgina Woolf? Shorter readings by Benjamin Franklin, Edgar A. Poe, and Sinclair Lewis will be part of the syllabus as well.
|
