ENGL43030: Twentieth-Century Satire

• Students must hold a good BA degree in English or a related subject to be eligible for entry onto the MA in English Literary Studies.

• None

• None

• This module aims to:
• examine in depth a range of prose and verse satires written in the first half of the twentieth century, in part through comparison and connections between works of several modern satirists
• challenge students to consider the cultural, social and political contexts underpinning these prose and verse satires
• give students an enhanced understanding of the rhetorical techniques employed in satire as a sophisticated literary genre
• develop analytical, interpretative, critical skills to postgraduate level

• Texts will be selected from a range of twentieth-century satires, including:
• Verse satire: Thomas Hardys verse sequence Satires of Circumstance (1911); Siegfried Sassoons anti-war poetry collected in Counter-Attack (1918); T. S. Eliots controversial quatrain poems collected in Poems (1920)
• Prose satire: Aldous Huxleys dystopian treatment of progress and modernization in Brave New World (1932); George Orwells attack on respectable conformism in the age of dictators in Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936); Evelyn Waughs satire of Fleet Street war reporting Scoop in (1938)

Subject-specific Knowledge:

• An extensive and detailed knowledge of the texts covered
• A sense of the different uses to which the satire was put during the twentieth century
• An awareness of the rhetorical techniques employed by modern satirists
• An appreciation of the political and social contexts in which these satirists worked
• A knowledge of the reception and critical debates surrounding these satires

Subject-specific Skills:

• Students studying this module will develop:
• Advanced critical skills in the close reading and analysis of literary and historical texts;
• An ability to offer advanced analysis of formal and aesthetic dimensions of literature;
• An ability to articulate and substantiate at a high level an imaginative response to literature;
• An ability to demonstrate an advanced understanding of the cultural, intellectual, socio-political contexts of literature;
• An ability to articulate an advanced knowledge and understanding of conceptual or theoretical literary material;
• An advanced command of a broad range of vocabulary and critical literary terminology.

Key Skills:

• Students studying this module will develop:
• an advanced ability to analyse critically;
• an advanced ability to acquire complex information of diverse kinds in structured and systematic ways;
• an advanced ability to interpret complex information of diverse kinds through the distinctive skills derived from the subject;
• expertise in conventions of scholarly presentation and bibliographical skills;
• an independence of thought and judgement, and ability to assess acutely the critical ideas of others;
• sophisticated skills in critical reasoning;
• an advanced ability to handle information and argument critically;
• a competence in information-technology skills such as word-processing and electronic data access;
• professional organisation and time-management skills.

• Students are encouraged to develop advanced conceptual abilities and analytical skills as well as the ability to communicate an advanced knowledge and conceptual understanding within seminars; the capacity for advanced independent study is demonstrated through the completion of two assessed pieces of work.
• Typically, directed learning may include assigning student(s) an issue, theme or topic that can be independently or collectively explored within a framework and/or with additional materials provided by the tutor. This may function as preparatory work for presenting their ideas or findings (sometimes electronically) to their peers and tutor in the context of a seminar.

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