LINGUIST List 15.1990

Tue Jul 6 2004

Books: Sociolinguistics: Agudo

Editor for this issue: Neil Salmond <neillinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. lincom.europa, Historical and Theoretical Approaches to English Satire: Agudo

Title: Historical and Theoretical Approaches to English Satire
Series Title: LINCOM Studies in English Linguistics 08

Publication Year: 2004
Publisher:	Lincom GmbH
		http://www.lincom-europa.com
		http://lincom.at

Author: Juan Francisco Elices Agudo, Universidad Nacional de Educaci�n
	a Distancia

Paperback: ISBN: 3895867438, Pages: 200, Price: Europe EURO 64

			
Abstract:

From its early origins, satire has been significantly present in most
cultural and literary expressions. As can be observed in the satiric
pictures of eighteenth-century English painter William Hogarth or in
the caricatures that are daily published in the most prestigious
periodicals worldwide, satire has allowed many artists to channel
their critical opinions through wit, irony and verbal
playfulness. Therefore, satire emerges as a mechanism that enables to
analyse the social, political and religious reality from indirect,
pungent, sombre or humorous perspectives. Although its intention or
objective might be clear to the eyes of the reader, critics have cast
many doubts upon its nature and functioning. This vagueness explains
why most attempts to conceptualise satire have clashed with the
ambivalence of the mode. It is no wonder, thus, that it is still very
difficult to categorise satire as a literary genre, mode or sub-mode,
an ongoing debate that is causing a great deal of theoretical
divergences.

Considering these antecedents, the present study seeks to clarify the
complexities that underlie satire from both a theoretical and
historical point of view. The monograph is divided in two main
sections. The first is devoted to define satire and delimit its formal
and thematic boundaries, for which we draw on the critical paradigms
postulated by critics such as Alvin Kernan, Robert C. Elliott, Leonard
Feinberg, Matthew Hodgart, Ronald Paulson or Dustin Griffin. This
tentative definition is complemented by a typological classification,
in which the aim will be to examine the most recurrent types of
satire. To finish with this first section, the monograph includes a
chapter that centres on rhetorical strategies such as irony, parody,
fantasy or wit that satirists employ in their works.

Along the second part, this study will trace an overview on the
evolution of satire, from its origins in the early Eskimo communities
up to the twentieth century. This historical and literary survey tries
to observe not only the stylistic development of the mode but also the
way authors have adapted their works to the socio-political, religious
or economic reality of their times. We will first explore the state of
satire until the nineteenth century, to move on to the twentieth
century in order to analyse the changes undergone by the mode and to
comment on its literary prospects.


Lingfield(s):	Sociolinguistics
		
Written In:	English (Language Code: ENG)


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 http://linguistlist.org/get-book.html?BookID=10735.