1 / 18

Background

Background . A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift. Historical Note. End of 1600s abrupt change in literary style 1660 date of Restoration & end of Oliver Cromwell’s reign Restoration Charles II (monarchy) – new court French influence Religion: Catholic Church in decline

gurit
Download Presentation

Background

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Background A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift

  2. Historical Note • End of 1600s abrupt change in literary style • 1660 date of Restoration & end of Oliver Cromwell’s reign • Restoration Charles II (monarchy) – new court French influence • Religion: Catholic Church in decline • No agreement on word of God or accepted moral authority • Social/political basis needed to avert religious strife

  3. New rationalism • Limit emotional excess • Attention to forms of language • Purification of language to clear, simple style

  4. Language reform • Great age of dictionaries • Purge language of complex metaphors, especially religious • Style move from passionate lyric to more public, restrained, polite forms

  5. Rising middle class • Literate with considerable spending power and leisure • Rising concern with public manners + how people should spend leisure time • Development of magazines and journals • Importance of literature shaping public taste

  6. Two political groups Whigs Tories • Conservative, Anglican traditionalists • Defended state religion + existing institutions • Liberal, committed to rational reform + dismissing the irrational from religion as much as possible • Improve trade, society, make political system more inclusive

  7. dissenters • Not visibly powerful politically • Radical Protestants, Baptists, Methodists, Quakers, etc. • Growing appeal with working class

  8. Rise of satire • Form of literature directly concerned with addressing public issues w/strong didactic intent • Use of ridicule, irony, sarcasm, etc., in speech or writing to expose + discourage vice or folly • Particular use of humor for overtly moral purposes

  9. Ways to change behavior • Force (threats of punishment) • Deliver moral lectures • Engage in conversation to discover roots of beliefs • Encourage everyone to see target as ridiculous + object of scorn

  10. Basis of Satire • Sense of moral outrage must exist in audience as well • Most successful satires focus on lasting characteristics of human experience • Challenge for writer is to be subtle + varied enough keep reader interested in wit while making clear satiric intent • Insensitivity to levels of irony in language causes difficulty in following satire

  11. Key satiric terms • Invective: abusive, non-lyrical language aimed at particular target • Curses, name-calling • Least inventive • Diatribe = lengthy invective • Limited and can be boring

  12. Key satiric terms • Caricature: exaggerating one feature of target achieve ridiculous effect • In writing reader amused by distorted detail in constantly witty ways

  13. Key satiric terms • Burlesque: ridiculous exaggeration in language – makes discrepancy b/w words + situation or character silly • Example: have a king speak like idiot or workman speak like king • Serious situation have characters speak in in appropriate ways • Creates large gap b/w situation/character and style in which they speak or act • Developed into risque performance genre

  14. Key satiric terms • Mock heroic: form of burlesque – sets up deliberately disproportionate + witty distance b/w elevated language (to describe action) and foolishness of action • Urges reader see ridiculousness of heroic pretentions of really trivial people • mocks classical stereotypes of heroes: Don Quixote, by Cervantes

  15. Key satiric terms • Irony: real meaning different from literal meaning - tends to be ambiguous - becomes satiric when real meaning appears to contradict surface meaning - “A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift

  16. Key satiric terms • Lampoon: harsh personal attack on recognizable target, focusing on target’s character or appearance • Example: "Nightlight" takes on the "Twilight" series with the story of Belle Goose, a young girl who travels to Switchblade, Oregon, only to meet Edwart Mullen, a vampire computer nerd who isn't into girls.

  17. Key satiric terms • Parody: ridicule of a style • Less talented version = silly version of original • More skillful = imitates original well + goes farther to make more ridiculous • Depends on reader knowledge of original • Example: Christmas Afternoon, by Robert Benchley (Done in the Manner, If Not the Spirit, of Dickens)

  18. Key satiric terms • Reductio ad absurdum: author agrees enthusiastically w/basic attitudes or assumptions he satirizes + by pushing to logically ridiculous extreme, exposes foolishness of original attitudes • can be dangerous when reader fails to recognize satire or target • Example: A Modest Proposal

More Related