Wed 10-12 A2093 (KAKKO)

Eighteenth-Century Satire and Criticism

The course will focus on the period of British literature that gave birth to modern literary criticism. We will examine critical and literary texts by, among others, John Dryden, Joseph Addison, Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope and Dr Johnson. Satire as a popular critical genre is intrinsically linked to the early critical project and hence the sceptical wits of the age are viewed as writers of essentially critical literature. The aim of the course is to provide an introduction to the major critical problems of eighteenth-century thought and literary life, many of which are central to literary criticism even today. Topics of discussion will include the role of criticism and the critic in society, the quarrel between the ancients and the moderns, imitation and nature, meaning and interpretation, censorship, neo-classical theories of art and the sublime.

Assessment: essay and class contribution.

http://www.uta.fi/ltl/en/english/studies/options.html