Not Your Grandmother's Typical Romance Novels

This is in belated celebration of Valentine's Day...

After class today I thought quite a bit about our discussion on the Romantic movement in English Literature and tried to link it to our modern notion of "Romance" (yes, with a capital R). It seems as though we associate the descriptor more with popular media such as the Romantic Comedies or Romance Novels (with or without a shirtless hunk on cover), rather than the philosophical ideals of Blake and Wordsworth.

I wonder, do we still value a notion of Romance similar to that of Romantic Poets of the late 18th and early 19th century? Let us think of this kind of Romanticism as at least one (or more) of the following: emotional and less rational, idealistic of innocence and nature over corrupt society, a romantic idealization of one's country, and a direct connection with the transcendental/spiritual through nature. In your opinion, do we see any resemblance of this Romanticism in today's politics, culture, media, beliefs? Do we rather seem to exhibit the Enlightenment values Voltaire and Rousseau? Is one way of thinking about the world better than the other? If helpful, give some relevant examples and explain how they demonstrate your point.

Satire

Many of the authors that we have read thus far in the semester such as Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope and Voltaire have used fiction to make commentaries on contemporary issues. Voltaire's Candide is one of the best examples of comedic satire in the tradition of Western literature. It is well known that Voltaire's work is a direct commentary on Gottfried Wihelm Leibniz's philosophy of optimism in which he insists that "all is for the best, in the best of all possible worlds." Voltaire uses an illustration in Candide of the 1755 earthquake in Lisbon to criticize Leibniz's position, which incidentally launched a discourse on optimist philosophy and the role of religion in governance.

In consideration of the satires that we have been reading by Pope, Swift and Voltaire, what I would like you to do is select a modern satire that you feel is interesting and compare it to a satire that we have read in class. The satire that you wish to discuss does not necessarily have to be in the written form: you can choose a movie, TV show (think political satires on SNL), or any other visual media that might be circulated online (please share a link with us if you do). The point is to think about the ways in which we use satire today to comment on society and determine whether it has changed significantly or remains essentially the same.

When comparing the two pieces of satire you might like to think about a couple of the following questions (you don't have to answer all of these, it's just to help you brainstorm):

Are these two satires poking fun at the same thing? That is, are they both commenting on politics, current events, societal standards, gender roles, etc, or do the topics seem quite different?

Why do you think that the satire that you are looking at is so effective for you personally? How does it compare to the satire(s) that we read in class?

In general, does satire have an effect on politics and society today as much as it did in the time period that you are looking at? (For example, Voltaire became the hero of the French Revolution)

I'm curious to see what examples you bring to the discussion, and please, share a link to YouTube or other sites if you find something that we might all be interested in seeing :)