CLA 76 — Watch Out, Watchmen! Roman Satire Then and Now
Quarter: Spring
Day(s): Tuesdays
Course Format: On-campus (About Formats)
Duration: 10 weeks
Date(s): Apr 4—Jun 13
Time: 7:00—8:50 pm (PT)
Refund Deadline: Apr 6
Units: 2
Tuition: $520
Instructor(s): Christopher Krebs
Class Recording Available: No
Status: Open
Please Note: This course has a schedule than what appears in the digital catalog. The course will meet April 4 - June 13. There will be no class on May 16.
DOWNLOAD THE SYLLABUS »
(subject to change)
Spring
On-campus
Tuesdays
7:00—8:50 pm (PT)
Date(s)
Apr 4—Jun 13
10 weeks
Refund Date
Apr 6
2 Units
Fees
$520
Instructor(s):
Christopher Krebs
Recording
No
Open
Please Note: This course has a schedule than what appears in the digital catalog. The course will meet April 4 - June 13. There will be no class on May 16.
DOWNLOAD THE SYLLABUS »
(subject to change)
At the height of the Roman Empire, Juvenal resigned himself to writing satire: it was simply too “difficult not to write” (Sat. 1.30). Apparently so; before him, various writers had already targeted life in Rome, including the Augustan poet Horace, who set out “to speak the truth laughing” (Serm. 1.1.25), and the Neronian philosopher and political advisor Seneca, whose Pumpkinification parodied the late Emperor Claudius’s alleged deification: “One ought to be borne a king—or a fool” (Ap. 1), he quipped from firsthand experience. For all their differences in genre, satirical mode, and temperament, they would be celebrated by a Roman literary critic as having made the satirical genre their own; and not only would they contribute many a proverbial saying to our 21st-century dictionary, they would also inspire, time and again, later satirists, including Erasmus, Montaigne, and Jonathan Swift.
In this course, we will read a selection of the Roman satirists, with a particular interest in the satirical genre and the satirical mode, their themes and poetic personae, and their influences on later satirical work, including the Praise of Folly, Persian Letters, and A Modest Proposal. Throughout, we’ll reflect on the relevance of satire in the 21st century: Why did Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons title their graphic novel Watchmen? Why do they quote Juvenal asking, "Who watches the watchmen?"
In this course, we will read a selection of the Roman satirists, with a particular interest in the satirical genre and the satirical mode, their themes and poetic personae, and their influences on later satirical work, including the Praise of Folly, Persian Letters, and A Modest Proposal. Throughout, we’ll reflect on the relevance of satire in the 21st century: Why did Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons title their graphic novel Watchmen? Why do they quote Juvenal asking, "Who watches the watchmen?"
CHRISTOPHER KREBS
Gesue and Helen Spogli Professor of Italian Studies, Professor of Classics and, by courtesy, of German Studies and of Comparative Literature, Stanford
Christopher Krebs studied Classics and philosophy in Berlin and Kiel and at the University of Oxford and taught at Harvard before coming to Stanford. He is the author of A Most Dangerous Book: Tacitus’s Germania from the Roman Empire to the Third Reich and the co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to the Writings of Julius Caesar. Textbooks for this course:
(Required) Horace, Persius, Niall Rudd (trans.), Satires and Epistles of Horace and Satires of Persius (Penguin Classics) (ISBN 978-0140455083)
(Required) Juvenal, Peter Green (trans.), Sixteen Satires (Penguin Classics) (ISBN 978-0140447040)
(Required) Desiderius Erasmus, The Praise of Folly (ISBN 978-0691165646)
(Required) Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal and Other Short Works (ISBN 978-1711841687)
(Recommended) Daniel Hooley, Roman Satire (ISBN 978-1405106894)
(Recommended) Charles Knight, The Literature of Satire (ISBN 978-0521048705 )
(Required) Juvenal, Peter Green (trans.), Sixteen Satires (Penguin Classics) (ISBN 978-0140447040)
(Required) Desiderius Erasmus, The Praise of Folly (ISBN 978-0691165646)
(Required) Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal and Other Short Works (ISBN 978-1711841687)
(Recommended) Daniel Hooley, Roman Satire (ISBN 978-1405106894)
(Recommended) Charles Knight, The Literature of Satire (ISBN 978-0521048705 )