Kakko, Tommi

tuntiopettaja

Vastuuoppialat ja -alueet

Englantilainen filologia

Yhteystiedot

tavattavissa opetuksen yhteydessä
sähköposti: sähköpostiosoitehaku
huone: Pinni B 4072

Research interests

17th and 18th century satire and criticism, philosophy of language, rhetoric and argumentation

Ongoing research

Debating English Satire

My Ph.D. thesis examines the critical and literary debates concerning the proper form and function of satire in early eighteenth-century England. It focuses on the kinds of arguments poets and critics used in defending and attacking various kinds of satirical writing. These include arguments based on religious, political and philosophical views as well as philological explanations. My intention is not only to catalogue critical views of satire but to highlight certain strains of argument and show how they are derived from earlier Renaissance debates. As a topic of debate, satire can be seen as an important focal point that gathers forceful rhetoric whose examination sheds light on the strength of the grounds (religious, political, philosophical, philological, etc.) on which individual arguments are built. By approaching these grounds from an argumentative perspective we can get a clear picture of their importance in debates concerning satire and hence their relative importance in early eighteenth-century thought.