L208 29971 TOPICS IN ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE AND CULTURE

Richard Nash



Second eight-weeks only.



5:45p-8:15p MW (30 students) 3 CR.		Satisfies A&H
Distribution Requirement



TOPIC:  “BritWit”



The French have farce, Americans have comedy; the British have wit.
It can be dry, wry, and sometimes sly; it can be caustic, biting,
sardonic or malicious; it can be pregnant, poignant, painful, or
delicious; it can make you laugh or make you smile; it is, above
all, a matter of style. And always, in all its forms, wit is about
language; about the play inherent in language, and frequently about
the awareness of the profound difference that separates language
from what it hopes to represent.  Often wit is about style and
personality--those markers of individual character--and in England
as nowhere else it has come to be identified with a national
character: a widely adopted pose as various as it is distinctive.
What is it that we mean when we invoke the idea of "British Wit"?
In deference to the nature of our subject, this course is designed
not to exhaust the topic, but to stimulate the student; not to plumb
the depths, but (like an accomplished dairy-maid) to skim the
surface; our goal will be not a detailed portrait, but a quick
caricature; we will be unabashedly more concerned with brilliant
observations, than with profound examinations.  But out of respect
to our subject, always we will strive to be correct.  Anyone can be
glib, who is willing to be wrong; wit combines rapidity with
accuracy. Our readings will be drawn from the past 350 years, and
include a variety of genres: poetry, essay, fiction and drama.  No
period of British literature is more closely identified with wit
than the eighteenth century, and we are likely to read Addison and
Locke, as well as Pope and Swift.  We will pay attention to
Restoration comedy of wit and its various descendants, including
playwrights such as Congreve, Wycherly, Sheridan, and Wilde.  Among
novelists, we are likely to encounter such figures as Sterne,
Austen, Forster, Joyce Cary or David Lodge.  Our discussions of
these works will, inevitably, direct our attention from language to
issues of class, for the highly stratified class structure at the
heart of British culture produces much of the energy of British
wit.  Students will write two brief papers (4-6 pages) and take
three exams.



Readings will be drawn from the following list:

The Country Wife

The Man of Mode

Pride and Prejudice

The Importance of Being Earnest

Room With a View

Travels With My Aunt or Our Man in Havana

Changing Places or Nice Work