Northanger Abbey Vol. I, Ch. XIV and XV Group Activity

Reimagine one of the following scenes from Ch. XIV and XV as a modern-day text conversation using texting language, syntax, punctuation, and emojis. Your text conversation should capture the comedic nuances of the scene and illustrate key characteristics of the two characters involved.

Conversations to adapt:
1. Henry and Catherine discussing novels (pp. 102-104)
2. Catherine and Eleanor discussing “something very shocking soon to come out in London” (pp. 107-108)
3. Isabella telling Catherine she’s engaged to James (pp. 112-113)
4. James’s farewell to Isabella, as he’s leaving to seek his parents’ approval for his engagement (p. 115)
5. John’s farewell to Catherine (pp. 117-118)
6. Your choice! Choose one of the above conversations
7. Your choice! Choose one of the above conversations

Step 1: As a group, re-read your scene and discuss what’s happening in it.

Step 2: Discuss the conversation’s subtext and satirical elements to ensure everyone in the group is on the same page about what’s happening and why it’s funny.

Step 3: Work together to compose a text conversation reimagining your assigned scene. Create this conversation using the website iphonefaketext.com. You should use your computer instead of your phone for this activity, so to use emojis, you’ll need to copy and paste emojis from https://getemoji.com/.

Step 4: At the end of the activity, download your conversation as an image and email it to unilanguageandlit2@gmail.com.

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Group 1: Henry and Catherine discussing novels (pp. 102-104)

Group 2: Catherine and Eleanor discussing “something very shocking soon to come out in London” (pp. 107-108)

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Group 3: Isabella telling Catherine she’s engaged to James (pp. 112-113)

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Group 4: James’s farewell to Isabella, as he’s leaving to seek his parents’ approval for his engagement (p. 115)

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Group 5: John’s farewell to Catherine (pp. 117-118)

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Group 6: Your choice! Isabella telling Catherine she’s engaged to James (pp. 112-113)

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Group 7: Your choice! John’s farewell to Catherine (pp. 117-118)

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Resources for Understanding the Gothic

To read about Gothic motifs, visit https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/gothic-motifs.

For background information about Ann Radcliffe, author of The Mysteries of Udolpho (which Catherine is reading in Vol. I Ch. VI, visit https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/an-introduction-to-ann-radcliffe.

You can read an excerpt from The Mysteries of Udolpho here or the entire novel here.

Exploring Bath

Visit “Dancing in Regency Bath” to learn more about the Upper Assembly rooms and rules for historical rules for dances.

Visit “Pump Room’s Little-Known and Well-Known Facts” to read about Bath’s mineral springs and the Pump Room as a social gathering space.

Analyzing Thomas Rowlandson’s The Comforts of Bath series

Discussion questions:
– Look carefully at your group’s image. What details stand out to you?
– What does your group’s image suggest about Bath? Based on this drawing, how do you think Rowlandson feels about Bath and the people there?

Satire and parody: definitions and examples

Satire: artistic form, chiefly literary and dramatic, in which human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, parody, caricature, or other methods, sometimes with an intent to inspire social reform.

Satire is a protean term. Together with its derivatives, it is one of the most heavily worked literary designations and one of the most imprecise. The great English lexicographer Samuel Johnson defined satire as “a poem in which wickedness or folly is censured,” and more elaborate definitions are rarely more satisfactory. No strict definition can encompass the complexity of a word that signifies, on one hand, a kind of literature—as when one speaks of the satires of the Roman poet Horace or calls the American novelist Nathanael West’s A Cool Million a satire—and, on the other, a mocking spirit or tone that manifests itself in many literary genres but can also enter into almost any kind of human communication. Wherever wit is employed to expose something foolish or vicious to criticism, there satire exists, whether it be in song or sermon, in painting or political debate, on television or in the movies. In this sense satire is everywhere.

In literary works, satire can be direct or indirect. With direct satire, the narrator speaks directly to the reader. With indirect satire, the author’s intent is realized within the narrative and its story. Although this article deals primarily with satire as a literary phenomenon, it records its manifestations in a number of other areas of human activity as well.

Parody, in literature, an imitation of the style and manner of a particular writer or school of writers. Parody is typically negative in intent: it calls attention to a writer’s perceived weaknesses or a school’s overused conventions and seeks to ridicule them. Parody can, however, serve a constructive purpose, or it can be an expression of admiration. It may also simply be a comic exercise. The word parody is derived from the Greek parōidía, “a song sung alongside another.”

(Definitions from Encylopedia Britannica)

Contemporary examples of satire and parody:
The Onion – a satirical digital media company
The Daily Show
The Colbert Report
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
Saturday Night Live (like these toy commercial parodies)
Scary Movie
South Park
Christopher Guest mockumentaries (A Mighty Wind, Best in Show)