English 83200
Spring 2006
Professor David Richter
Swift, Fielding, Sterne: Satire and Comedy
Reading List
Primary Texts
Jonathan Swift: A Tale
of a Tub,
Henry Fielding: Jonathan Wild, Tom Jones
Laurence Sterne: Tristram Shandy, A Sentimental Journey
All these materials are available on BlackBoard.
Suggested in print
editions
Swift: Probably best single edition for use in classroom is Robert A. Greenberg and William Piper, eds., The Writings of Jonathan Swift (Norton Critical Editions, 1973), which has all the primary readings well annotated, and some interesting essays. $21 but I’ve seen many copies available on the web for as little as $7, and it’s also easily available as an examination copy from Norton.
Fielding: For Tom Jones, the Norton Critical Edition, ed. Sheridan Baker, is a good one to use, with some excellent secondary materials. Lists for $17, available on the web for as little as $1 plus postage. For Jonathan Wild, the Oxford World Classics edition, ed. Claude Rawson et al, is based on the 1743 edition; I think the David Nokes edition for Viking Penguin (1982) is based on the revised 1754 edition. Read either edition but we will be comparing them—I think we will be able to spot a shift from satire to comedy here.
Sterne: For Tristram Shandy, the best choices are (1) the Penguin Classics edition edited and annotated by Melvin New; (2) the old Odyssey Press edition edited and annotated by James Work. New, who is editing the Florida Sterne, is the top Sterne scholar working, but the notes can be longwinded and conjectural, and they are stuffed into the back of the book. The Work edition has the virtue of having the notes at the bottom of the page, where you don’t have to hunt for them. A Sentimental Journey is in a good Oxford World Classics edition edited by Ian Jack, together with two minor works by Sterne.
Secondary Texts
John Dryden: Discourse concerning the Original and Progress
of Satire (1693) (BlackBoard)
M.M. Bakhtin, on menippean satire, from Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics (1932)
pp. 92-100 (ERes)
W.H. Auden, “Satire” (1952) in Ronald Paulson, Modern Essays in Criticism (Prentice-Hall, 1971, hereafter known as Paulson tout court) 202-4 (ERes)
Robert Elliott, “The Satirist and Society” (1956) in Paulson 205-16 (ERes)
Northrop Frye, “The Mythos of Winter” from Anatomy
of Criticism (1957) in Paulson, 233-48 (ERes)
Alvin Kernan, “A Theory of Satire” (1959) in Paulson, 249-77 (ERes)
Edward Rosenheim, “The Satiric Spectrum”
from Swift and the Satirist’s Art
(1963) in Paulson, 305-29 (ERes)
Sheldon Sacks, from Fiction and the Shape of Belief (1964) in Paulson, 330-39 (ERes).
Ronald Paulson, “The Fictions of Satire,”
(1967), in Paulson 340-59 (ERes)
Patricia Meyer Spacks, “Some Reflections on Satire” (1968), in Paulson 360-78 (ERes).
Dustin Griffin, Conclusion to Satire: A Critical Reintroduction (1994)
(ERes).
Frank Palmeri, “Satiric Materialism in A Tale of a Tub,” from Satire in Narrative (1990) (ERes)
MORE TO COME
Course Calendar
January 26: Introduction to the course.
February 2: Discussion of history of ideas about comedy and satire. Please read at least the six secondary sources in sans-serif type on ERes for this meeting.
February 9: Swift: A Tale of a Tub
February 16: Swift: The
February 23: Swift: Gulliver’s Travels
March 2: Gulliver’s Travels
March 9: Fielding: Jonathan Wild
March 16: Fielding: Tom Jones
March 23: Tom Jones
March 30: Tom Jones
April 6: Sterne: Tristram Shandy
April 27 Tristram Shandy
May 4: Tristram Shandy
May 11: A Sentimental Journey -- Da capo: Contemporary theories of comedy and satire.
Course Requirements
One oral report during the term, one final paper of 12-25 pages. Those taking the course for two credits do one or the other; those taking the course for four credits do both. Those reporting on texts that will be covered in more than one session need to discuss matters with me and your colleagues to avoid repetition and overlap. Term papers are expected to be on Swift, Fielding, and/or Sterne, but I will entertain proposals for papers on other texts related to the course themes.
Contact information:
Office: GC 4105
Office Hours:
Thursday 2-4 and by appt
Office Phone:
817-8331
Email: drichter@nyc.rr.com; drichter@gc.cuny.edu
Webpage: http://qcpages.qc.cuny.edu/ENGLISH/Staff/richter/index.html