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Jane Austen: Satire and Scandal Syllabus (Summer 2021)

 


English 5993: Jane Austen: Satire and Scandal

Course website: grassobrit2.blogspot.com (this is my normal website for British Literature from 1800, so don’t worry about what’s already there; I’ll post new blogs each week once our class starts)

Description: Jane Austen’s work has most often become conflated with Regency romances and romantic Hollywood adaptations. However, Austen herself avoided overtly romantic sentiment and never had her characters kiss or show any kind of unseemly PDA. Instead, Austen was at heart a satirist, who used wit and an almost theatrical sense of caricature to lampoon her society and point out its flaws. In this class, we’ll explore the ‘real’ Austen in some of her earliest works, where she emerges as an audacious literary hellion, to her later works, where the satire becomes more subdued, but no less potent. As we read these works, we’ll also ask the question why is the 21st century so desperate to re-write Austen in its own image, rather than read the actual works she bequeathed us?

Required Texts: (I can lend you these)

  • Austen, Love and Friendship and Other Youthful Writings (Penguin)
  • Austen, Northanger Abbey (any edition)
  • Austen, Persuasion  (any edition)
  • Austen, Sandition (Penguin)

Required Works:

  • Bi-Weekly Meetings (if possible) to discuss the works
  • Weekly Response Blogs & Questions: for each reading, as the books will be broken up into multiple days of reading
  • Two Short Papers (one on each pair of works)
  • One Final Project (TBA)

MEETINGS: Let’s try to meet every other week on the day of your choice so we can discuss the works in person and I can give you some instruction beyond the questions and the blogs.

BLOGS & QUESTIONS: Each week I’ll post a blog video (about 11-15 minutes) discussing that week’s reading. The blog will also have a series of questions to respond to, which you can e-mail me afterwards. All questions are due by the Saturday of that week.

SHORT PAPERS: Each one will cover 2 paired works (the early works, the late works). I will give you assignment sheets for each one well in advance. They will be due on Saturday, June 25 and Saturday, July 17.

FINAL PROJECT: We will discuss possible ideas for this project together, and you can decide what you want to do (within reason) and how you want to do it.

 

Tentative Calendar:

JUNE

1-6: Short Juvenilia: “Love and Friendship” and “Catherine”

7-12: Lady Susan

14-19: Northanger Abbey

21-25: Northanger Abbey  + Paper #1 due

JULY

28-3: Persuasion

5-10: Persuasion  + Sandition

12-17: Sandition + Paper #2 due

19-24: Discuss Final Project

31: Final Project due

 

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