Lecture: 19.03.2009

Periods of English literary history

·         Elizabethan period: ~ 1550 -~ 1600, Renaissance – Shakespeare’s time

·         Jacobean period (+ Caroline, + Commonwealth) ~ 1600 – 1660, Civil war

·         Restoration period:    1660 - ~ 1700 (Monarchy restored)

·         18th cent. („Augustan“ period): ~ 1700 -~ 1780 à England: as highly culture as Rome under Augustus

·         Romantic period: ~1780 - ~ 1830

·         Victorian period (19th cent.): ~ 1830- ~ 1900 (named after Queen Victoria)

·         20^th century:

o   Modernism: till ~2^nd world war

Elizabethan p.:   Shakespeare, Sidney, Spenser, Ben Jonson, Marlowe, Revenge tragedy (eg. The Spanish tragedy), romantic and realistic comedy

Jacobean p.:        Metaphysical poets (Donne, Herbert), Cavalier poets (Lovelace, Suckling), horror tragedy (Webster)

Restoration p.:    epic poems (Paradise Lost), verse satires, pastorals; heroic tragedy, Restoration comedy

Augustan p:        verse epistles, mock heroic poems (Pope), neo-classical tragedy, sentimental comedy; rise of the novel (Defoe, Fielding, Richardson): picaresque novel, epistolary novel

Romantic p:       poetry (Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats´, Byron), historical novel (Scott)

Victorian p:         age of the novel (Dickens, Eliot, Bronte sisters, Hardy), apprentice novel; revival of comedy of manners (Wilde)

20th century:       modernism: free verse poetry, stream of consciousness novel (Joyce, Woolf) epic theatre

 

Dates are approximations, helps for students à it doesn’t work in blocks!!!

 

è differ in styles, writing styles, different tastes, believes, mind sets and cultural characteristics

è Foucault called this “ episteme”

Characteristics:

-          true for many works

-          not all follow those rules

-          there were also rebels who wrote differently

-          writings are not completely uniform à they are just abstractions and simplifications; generalized and simplified

Important historical dates in the 18^th century

1688: Glorious Revolution; William III of Orange/Mary ascend throne
Revolution; New Dynasty: William III of Orange/Mary ascend throne à Stuarts (Scottish house) were dethroned and a new dynasty was called in à they were throned out because they were Catholics and England was protestant – Stuarts tried to introduce absolute monarchy in Britain (they wanted to rule without Parliament) à Britain rebelled against it and from 1688 became a constitutional monarchy (not a democracy nevertheless) , but king couldn’t rule without parliament

1702-14: War of the Spanish Succession (Duke of Marlborough)

1707: Act of Union: united England and Scotland
united England and Scotland à before that the crowns had been united, but the countries hadn’t à and now they formed one country

From 1714: Hannovarian Dynasty (George I): Protestant Succession ensured

1719: Defoe publishes Robinson Crusoe

1726: First circulating library in Edinburgh. larger reading public could be reached – help in development of reading habits) J. Swift publishes Gulliver's Travels

1729: Alexander Pope publishes Dunciad

1737: Walpole (Prime Minister)passes Licensing Act (censorship in theatre)
(à introduced censorship in theatre because of an attack and because he feared that theatre is getting troublesome àlasted until 1967), political theater was killed

1742: Fielding publishes Joseph Andrews

1745/46: Jacobite Rebellion ("Bonnie Prince Charlie”) àJacobites were people of the former dynasty àtried to win back the English throne. Jacobites had the biggest support in Scotland (Scottish kilts and dialect was forbidden àprison à only in romantic period “refashioned”)

1747/48: Richardson publishes Clarissa

1759: Gen. Wolfe (The English)captures Quebec and expels the French from Canadaà Canada under British rule

1761: L. Sterne publishes Tristram Shandy

1769: James Watt patents the steam engine àindustrial period started

1769-70: Captain Cook's first voyage to Pacific

1773: 'Boston Tea Party': American colonists protest at East India Company's monopoly over tea exports to the colonies

1775: American War of Independence begins

4th July 1776: Declaration of Independence

1787: First Fleet with convicts sails for Australia

1789: Outbreak of the French Revolution

The 18th century:

-          class hierarchy was extremely strict à you were born in a class and this is where your place in society was (you didn’t rebel against that place) à but still you could raise or fall à you could make a lot of money but you could also lose it à but basically no revolutionary changes in society happened

-          17^th century: England was a patchwork of small villages and communities, transportation was bad, roads were bad, à only one big city in England and that was London (centre of fashion, trade…)

-          18^th century:  transportation improved à canals were built, roads were built àtravel opportunities increased and it became fashionable to travel and go to Spa’s

-          Ireland was not yet part of Great Britain, but it was under British rule à Ireland was treated as a colony, treated as India or Canada

-          Poor people emigrated to the colonies (Australia, India…) but rich people gained money by important goods (cotton, beans….but also slave trade)à ships took good, traded them to slaves àbrought Britain a lot of money

-          Hierarchy:

 

1.       Aristocrats (Duke or Earl) at the top à High Aristocracy “Peers” à you couldn’t buy these titles àParliament was dominated by Aristocrats à they decided who is going to be a member of Parliament

2.       Lower Aristocracy “Gentry”:Ladies and Gentlemen of good birth

3.       Middle Class: was quite diversified à rich traders but also poor shop keepers

4.       Lower Class: majority of peopleà no industrial proletariat yet

5.       Criminal Class: this class was booming

Law was extremely strict and severe à punishable with death à you could be hanged for stealing à you could be put in prison if you had debts

-          Improvement for agriculture à social problem: people wanted to have their land to have animals  there

-          Life was pretty brutal àmedical improvement was very thin, lack of hygiene… àexecution was public àblood sports were an amusement à a lot of alcohol consumption (you couldn’t drink water because it was polluted)

-          18^th century more tolerant regards religion à people were more broadminded and tolerant à there was an established church (Church of England ) à full political rights were granted to members of the church.

Dissenters (outside the church of England: hard working, middle class) were very hard working (middle class people) à few people could vote and you couldn’t sit on parliament à many emigrated to the colonies because they thought they weren’t given enough rights in Britain

-          Education: rich people went to public schools à only boys, women didn’t receive any education à some were also taught by private tutors à Dissenters had their own schools à the poor didn’t receive any education, except in Sunday schools. Rich boys learned Latin and Greek but little else.

-          Market for literature widened à more people were richer and were interested in buying literature àfirst time writers could live by being writers (before you needed the support of an aristocrat)

-          Women had no rights at all!! à they were servants or just “the wife/daughter/mother” of someone. à not supposed to be educated (they could draw and sew etc.) à their mission in life was to catch a husband à if you didn’t, you didn’t have any chance to have a job.

“Chastity” àfemale chastity was an absolute must àthose who weren’t, were excluded from society and ended up as prostitutes.

Women were supposed to be decorative and not active à husbands had to take care of their wives and it was their duty to protect them in the outside world but also from their purity.

Men and women were constitutionally different (they have a different nature) àwomen have a womb and this dissembled them of thinking (that is why they are emotional and men rational) “SENSIBILITY” (à they can easily be affected)

“Conduct Book”à to show women how they should behave

Art and Literature:

-          no literature is completely uniformed

-          Whigs = the town party (liberal) vs. Tories = the rural party (conservative)

-          first six decades: shared the same tastes, themes, attitudes, fashions à used often satire to ridicule those who believed were outside the agreement, who didn’t correspond to the common fashion

-          in last decades this fashion was lost

It was the task of art to “follow nature”. Nature however was not understood as we today understand nature. Not wild nature opposed to civilization. Nature was understood as the divine order of the universe. (God had made the world, he gave the world its laws and you should write in harmony with these divine laws that govern the world)

Nature = laws that God has given the world!!

To follow nature means to follow divine order of the world. This would include: balance between the emotion and reason. Reason must be in control. You control the emotions, by exercising your reason.

It is the duty of writers to describe order & harmony, what was general and permanent and universal (not what was unusual or momentary) à the UNIVERSAL truth, not the INDIVIDUAL and UNUSUAL. !!! (big difference to the romantic period)

Express truth. NO ORIGINALITY! They shouldn’t invent something new, they could rewrite a story in an elegant and truth and witty manner. Express old truth in a new and elegant manner àemphasis on reason and not emotion!!!

Witt was important and meant intelligence of expression, not humor or comedy.

Literature must express general and permanent truth à this you can find in average society. à also involved GENERALISATION à you described recognizable types à Class and species NOT individual!!!

There was a useful nature in connection with men.  à A nature which is domesticated. Nature is made useful to people.

Painting:

-          they leave out individual marks of a human being

-          leave out what is unusual, paint what is common

-          regular and symmetrical

-          art is there to show and reveal God’s laws in nature

Homework: Read Robinson Crusoe + Reader 1-10!  + Answer questions

 

TUTORIAL, 1st session, 26.03.2009

Texts of the 18^th century

Alexander Pope – An Essay in Criticism

When reading these texts from the reader, consider the following questions

Alexander Pope: Essay in Criticism

What does Pope say about “nature”? How does he define it?

What models does he propose? which authors should be followed and imitated?

What kind of people (professions) does the “essay” describe?

What /whom does he criticise or attack?

Find simple, every-day comparisons in which Pope shows that his approach is “commonsensical”.

What verse form does he use?

Look at the language and style Pope uses: is it difficult? metaphorical? elevated?

What kind of audience does he address (if you think of the style and content)

What does Pope say about nature? How does he define it?

Nature = stays always the same and is made by God; it is the universal truth and God’s creation, meaning perfect and unchangeable.

The idea of nature never changes because it is something divine. God gives nature its laws. Everything, especially men, follows certain rules of nature.

Nature= order and harmony.

You generalize and idealize. Everything which is not the norm is left out.

Models:

In the 18^th century people adored the Romans and Greeks. They tried to follow the Ancient rules.

How does he criticise nature?

Pope wants people to make sounds and judgements and he wants to give reasons. People should think properly and judge in a good way – not attack them!

Pope shows in simple everyday comparison that his approach is “common sensual” and based on reason and on nature.

Verse line:iambic pentameter or heroic couplet (unstressed – stressed)

This verse line refers to a high, elevated literature of the Ancient art

Heroic couplet: two pairs of rhyme (rhymed pairs)

Language:

The essay is written for an educated readership and on a high intellectual level. Poets stroke for this order and laws.

Audience: critics and writers

 

Alexander Pope: The rape of the lock

Alexander Pope: Rape of the Lock

This is a mock epic poem. Look at the style (level of language, choice of words)

Can you find lines in which he uses words, situations, images which are typical of a serious, heroic epic poem.

Find lines in which he is obviously satirical and attacks the aristocratic society of his time

How are women presented? What activities do they indulge in? How do they behave?

The poem uses a high-flown language for a trivial subject to satirise society. Point out where  he combines serious and trivial things (that should not really be combined in a serious poem and make you laugh).

Style:

-          similes

-          heroic tone

-          high level of language

-          subject is low

Content:

‘Mock’ makes fun of the fact that a Baron has stolen 2 locks of a young lady. The lady is very upset about her 2 missing locks.

Class: aristocracy, words like LORD indicate that.

Lord: no one, especially no young lady, is able to reject a Lord.

The aristocratic behaviour:

-          sleep all day and night

-          have numerous lovers

 

Lady: has no chance to refuse the Baron who is very dominant.

‘Mock’: the text makes fun in order to mix serious and funny things. The serious things are, for example, using the heroic couplet verse scheme which usually is used for serious subject matters. But in Pope’s work the subject matter is very low and this makes it funny.

Lock= kind of symbol

It stands for the young lady’s virginity. It symbolizes an untouched, holy and shiny girl.

Addison/Steele: Women & wives

What picture of women does the article pain? How are women characterised in this essay?

What values does he praise? what does he attack?

Think of the style (level of language, choice of vocabulary, quotations – what literature does he quote and why?)

…commenting on the behaviour of women and presenting types of women (creating certain pictures).

Woman:

à a good housewife who is married (that was considered as good and positive)

à many women were only interested in appearance, beauty, money, wealth and clothes (that was considered as negative)

à also negative: want to go to major events letting themselves to be seen e.g. balls, birthday parties, weddings etc.

à why behaving like this?

-          they were raised and trained in that kind of way by their mothers and by society

àpraise:

-          true happiness (beneath the surface/inner values/normal life/domestic life/family life – to care about others)

àattack:

-          false happiness (they have a strong need to be seen by others; to seek admirations from others otherwise they feel that they don’t exist)

àstyle:

-          describing language

-          many adjectives

-          emotional language

-          not written for highly educated people

-          but for middle class people

-          a lot of examples/experiences

-          quotes

-          female audience

 

Richardson: From: Clarissa

Compare the letters of Mr Lovelace and Clarissa: what kind of style does he use? how does he behave towards his friend and to women? what character qualities does he reveal?

what kind of style does Clarissa use? How does she present herself (what character qualities does she reveal)? How does she behave towards her friend?

 

Fielding: From: Joseph Andrews

What kind of scene is described here?

How do the various characters react to this emergency? And how is their behaviour evaluated (implicitly) in the text

Which characters are we supposed to find likeable and why? which characters do we find horrible, and why?

Does this evaluation correspond with ‘conventional’ social and moral norms of the 18^th century?

 

Thomas Gray: From: Elegy written in a Country Churchyard

Where is the scene set?

what atmosphere is conveyed?

which elements in the description contribute to a spooky, “Gothic” atmosphere?

What class of people is described in the poem?

Does the poem accept each man’s place in society or does it call for revolution?

 

When reading Robinson Crusoe, consider the following questions:

Before Robinson is shipwrecked on the island, he has a number of other adventures. In what way do different ethnicities play a role in these adventures?

His shipwreck is not understood as mere 'chance' by Robinson but as a punishment by God. What is he punished for?

How can Robinson survive on the island? What does he do? Consider the detailed way in which his survival is described.

What is his attitude to the 'cannibals'? and later to Friday?

Consider the way in which the ‘savages’, and Friday in particular, are described (outward appearance, imagery, mental abilities, social structure etc)

Is there a clear-cut moral division between Europeans and ‘others’, or does Robinson occasionally realise that the contrast cannot be conceptualised as a binary opposition?

Robinson is often considered as a prototypical colonist. Can you find arguments for such a view? What does he do on the island that might resemble the work of a coloniser?

Religious belief and the mentality of a successful entrepreneur sometimes combine in the way he describes his situation. In what way do both these attitudes influence his view of other ethnicities?

Look at the Preface. What does Defoe pretend? and why?

 

Lecture, 26.03.2009

18^th century = age of reason à passion must be controlled by reason (goes back to the civil war of the 17^th century, people had to be rational)

Art ought to be reasonable and you should follow certain rules that God gave to nature. These could be found in the model of ancient Greek and Roman. Antique literature was a model (Homer, Ovid,… )

Homer etc. were considered as model. If you imitate them you will achieve elegance.

Critics speak about neo-classical rules:  à show on the one hand that people should follow these rules and that it is an imitation of ancient Greek. Rules, that they believed the classics made, but when you look at the classics àthat’s not true.

No split between science and art (which is very alien to us). They were believed to work together. Science investigated the rules of nature and art presented the rules of nature. They were doing very much the same thing.

Style in which people wrote was ordered, no difficult metaphors, no difficult style, but it was believed that art should use a style that is different from everyday speech. They used poetic diction “the bird”  - “ the winged choir”.

Satire was extremely popular at that time. It was an instrument to attack those who were not rational.

Literaturebecame a trade. Reading public was getting greater. Writers could live with money they earned through their writing (it was a profession). You could live from writing, earlier you needed an aristocratic paper to support you. Literature no longer listened to the taste of the patron but to the taste of the market.  à the aim was to educated the readers and teach them a new taste/lifestyle. To educate die audience in elegance; life became dominated by middle-class and they should become more educated and elegant (before the aristocracy was the leading class) à Beginning of circulating libraries à you didn’t buy a book, you could lend it in the library it. Only 7 % was literature, 93 % were religious tracks, essays, conduct books etc. Importance of literature only grew slowly.

ALEXANDER POPE:

He is the most famous poet of the 18^th century. Pope was a Roman Catholic and a cripple and was in every way disadvantaged. Nevertheless he achieved great fame and acceptance. His style aimed at clarity and order, no complicated and difficult style, but art should use a style different to everyday speech à poetic diction (eg.: “the winged choir = the birds à for us it sounds extremely artificial)

In his poetry he combined poetic elegance with a claim to authority. He started out with imitation of classical art. He also wrote translations of Homer. His most important original works are 2 “essays” (verse-essay):

1.)      Essay on Criticism by Alexander Pope

-          stresses the neoclassical rules of literature and reason

-          attacks bad taste and bad education

-          appeals and educated audience

-          he speaks about good and bad writing, but also about good and bad criticism à if people don’t follow the rules they won’t write well, and won’t be criticized well

He says:

-          what is important,  is to follow nature (which rules are given by god) à then you will write good poetry

-          use reason in order to discipline your art

-          nature is not something wild, which you discover by intuition à nature you follow by certain rules àdiscover these laws and follow them

-          study Homer, because he is a mode example how to apply these rules of nature à if you copy ancient writers, you copy nature

-          he was quite convinced that what he was saying was generally acceptable and commonsense

Verse:

-          heroic couplet (2 lines of rhymed iambic pentameter ) à very strict and regulated meter

Language and Style:

-          it’s not metaphorical

-          it was written for educated people, for the kind of class Pope himself belonged to

 

2.)    Essay on Man by Alexander Pope

 

-          sums up the attitude of the 18^th century and the position of men in the world

-          elegant manner

Alexander Pope – “The Rape of the Lock”:

-          mock (heroic) epic poem = uses the style and language of an epic poem in order to present a ridiculous and trivial subject

Style:

-          elevated language

-          grand style used for a trivial subject à effect is satire àmaking fun of a class, by presenting their stupidity in an elevated style

Story:

-          incident that really happened

-          aristocrat in love with a lady, he cut off a bit of her hair

-          he shows the trivial and stupid aristocrats

What he says:

-          why would a lord attack a young lady? and why should the lady say “no”?

-          Caryl and Sylph would normally be expected in classical poetry

-          style totally inappropriate to the subject

-          attack on triviality on women but also on lifestyle of aristocracy

-          men interested only in the young girls

-          women seen as a object, which men posses à women have to oblige, should be a decoration

Alexander Pope – “Dunciad”

-          presents the goddess of stupidity and their followers

-          he portrayed all people he didn’t like

 

JAMES THOMPSON – “The Seaons”:

-          a nature poem, which describes the passages of the seasons

-          Typical for the 18^th cent. the nature poetry is combined with didactic and philosophical thoughts

-          nature portrayed in harmony with human beings 

THOMAS GRAY – “Elegy written in a Country Churchyard”: (still 18^th century writer)

-          features which point to a change of taste

-          belongs to a genre which is called “graveyard poetry”

-          speaker is in a C.C. and begins to think who is in the grave there and what lives they might have had

-          in atmosphere the poem points to romantic period (“gothic atmosphere”) – dark, frightening, old castles, graveyards)à in attitude it is typically 18^th century

-          it is not a rebellious poet à it says that every person has it’s correct place in life

DRAMA:

-          drama wasn’t performed anymore  

-          1^st reason is: people liked sentimentality and melodrama à but this spoils drama

-          sentimental comedy values the goodness of heart ( not cleverness) and wanted to move the audience ànowadays we don’t like this kind of plays

-          drama was no good, court etc. lost interest, middle class rose à their taste in drama wasn’t very sophisticated àrestoration comedy was amoral (it didn’t matter whether you were moral or not just to be clever was what counted)

Tragedy:

-          neo-classical tragedy was full of rules à rules in drama didn’t make very good drama

-          3 unities:

 

1.)     time  (within 24 hours, otherwise unrealistic)

2.)     place (play must be set in one place only à it wasn’t realistic to have more sets)

3.)     action (only one action, no subplot)

 

è that is why Drama went into a decline

 

-          2^nd reason for decline of drama was the license à people need a play to be permitted à so writers stop to write plays

-          no good plays were written in 18^th century 

-          therefore prose became popular

What become important were PROSE and the NOVEL:

-          new genre

-          developed in England only in the 18^th century

-          in response to new reading public and license

-          reason was the larger reading public (in order to sell you need people to buy it)

-          reading done in a family circle (father reads out to the family)

-          then the attitude to women changed à it become problematic to read to women who were immoral (father could read sexual novels to his daughters)

-          novel had an unheard freedom and developed in many directions

Newspaper and Journals:

ADDISON / STEEL: Women and Wives

-          wrote to educated taste of audience

What they say:

-          women are trivial, interested in clothing and jewelry 

-          he recommends a domestic life in a country, where husband and wife live together in harmony and live a happy life

-          aimed for men not for women

Style:

-          aims clarity, so that educated reading public understand it

-          remarkable is that it quotes from classical poems à this shows how highly classical literature was valued

DANIEL DEFOE:

-          father of the English Novel, but novel grew from many sources

-          came from dissenting family (not part of church of England) , he received education in trade

-          one of his famous writing “The Shortest Way with Dissenters”  in which he defended the dissenters in an ironic manner

-          Other novels:

 

1.)     Moll Flanders

-          moll is an orphan who has to survive in life à in the end she gets rich in America

-          she is a prostitute and a thief

-          her body was the only thing she could use to survive

-          shows picture of the London underclass = individual characters BUT representative and therefore not individual, ALSO someone who is typical, not someone who was unique

-          these characters are representatives of a certain class (individual, but also typical)

-          satirical picture of society, London underground

 

2.)     Roxanna

Both focus on women. It is remarkable how much understanding he had for women. The form the novels take are nowadays called “picaresque novels”. (derived from Spanish “vagabond”. One of the early forms of the novel.

Characteristics of picaresque novels:

-          focuses on some kind of vagabond who travels around and has a number of adventures

-          episodic in structure

-          he meets many people and has many adventures

Robinson Crusoe:

Defoe pretends to be the editor of the text not the author. It’s not a novel it’s a real life story. Why did he tell this: because people at that time were interested in reading real things. The novel gives the impression that there was a Robinson who wrote the story. Dissenters were quite critical of literature (you don’t work, just read) à so it was clever to pass of the novel as a “real life story”. Original name “foe” à double meaning: “enemy”. “Defoe” à to sound more upper class.

Novel in general

-          appeals to the middle class readers

-          family matter

-          focuses on individual experience and tries to be realistic ( in the sense of portraying real life )

-          novel had much more freedom, because it was such a new genre à developed in a great number of forms

SAMUAL RICHARDSON: illustration from Pamela

-          wrote around the middle of 18^th century

-          came from a middle class background (lower middle class)

-          one of his first professions was that he wrote model letters for people who didn’t know how to write a letter à became successful

-          new idea to write novels in letter (“epistolary novels”)

àconsists of many letters, which various people write to one another

à advantage: variety of letters, you hear emotions and speech of characters, great authenticity

à effect: little  distance between the narrating I and the experiencing I

àgreat immediacy, lively

Two famous novels:

1.)     Pamela

 

-          very popular

-          servant in the house of a rich aristocrat

-          aristocrat tries to seduce the servant à when she says “no”, he tries to rape her, but is being disturbed à so he is frustrated and marries her because he can’t get her otherwise

-          written in lively matter ( letters from Pamela….)

 

2.)    Clarissa

 

-          she runs away from home because she doesn’t want to marry the man her parents selected

-          a young aristocrat rapes her and regrets and wants to marry her à but she doesn’t want

SWIFT and FIELDING:

Fielding came from a different social background (upper class). Attitude is different from Richardson. Started to write for stage and turned to novels. His answer to Pamela’s “Joseph Andrews” ( a parody to it) àsituation very similar to Pamela à only the gender roles are reversed – rapist is a woman, servant a man

è “picaresque novel”

è He developed to SATIRE on 18^th century life.

è Attack on hypocrisy.

 

Summary of 26.03.2009

 

18^th century literature:

“follow nature”

expresses general and permanent truths with wit and elegance

describes order and harmony, what is general and permanent

involves generalisation and idealisation

portrays recognisable types, representative characters

average people, characteristic forms, the ordinary and normal but rejects the peculiar, uncommon

no split between science and art

values clarity and precision and order

modelled on classical antiquity

literature became a trade

 

Alexander Pope:

translations, imitations of classical poetry

Essay on Criticism, Essay on Man

Rape of the Lock, Dunciad = mock heroic poems (mock epic poems): grand, elevated style and trivial subject for satirical purposes

Pope uses heroic couplets= rhymed iambic pentameter lines

 

James Thomson: The Seasons: nature poem

 

Thomas Gray: Elegy written in a Country Churchyard (1751). “Gothic” atmosphere, genre: graveyard poetry

 

Drama: sentimental, melodramatic, didactic, rule-bound

sentimental comedy, neo-classical tragedy

some plays are still performed: eg Gay: Beggar’s Opera, or plays by Goldsmith or Sheridan

Novel:

In England the novel only developed in the 18^th century, it is a middle class genre, since it was new, it was not bound by rules. Typical elements see reader p 10

 

Daniel Defoe:

called father of the English novel

Dissenter, pilloried for “Shortest Way with Dissenters” = pamphlet

wrote Robinson Crusoe (< spiritual autobiography, travel literature, adventure tales)

Moll Flanders

Roxana

the latter are picaresque novels = feature a picaro (=rogue, vagabond) who travels around and has a number of adventures; episodic in structure

 

Samuel Richardson

started out by writing model letters, then wrote epistolary novels (novels in letters, have great immediacy, no distance between experiencing and narrating I)

Pamela

Clarissa

 

Henry Fielding

wrote for the stage, after the Licensing Act turned to the novel

Joseph Andrews: picaresque novel; started out as a parody of Pamela, then turned into a satirical survey of 18^th century life.

Tom Jones

Contrary to Richardson, Fielding uses omniscient, intrusive narrators. His novels are comic epics in prose, give a satirical portrait of 18^th century society

 

 

LECTURE, 02.April 2009

Fielding - Tom Jones:

Satirical portrait of 18^th century society

Picaresque novel = novel in episodes, vagabond travels around the world and has many adventures, meets many social classes. Author has opportunity to criticize society.

è Fielding came from the gentry à he had a much secure position and spoke with greater authority.

è omniscient intrusive narrator = narrator knows everything, evaluates characters, comments on the action and the morality of people, and he comments on novel writing in general (what he is going to do) à this will appear again in Victorian novels

è his novels are comic epics in prose (mock heroic epic)

Fielding had a lot of imitators: 

-          Laurence STERNE: “Tristram Shandy”

o   wrote in the 2^nd half of century

o   has some elements of romantic writing

o   sensibility, softness of heart is particularly important

o   he is 18^th century but some of his interest is romantic

o   in this novel he reports the life of Tristam Shandy (he narrates what happens when his parents made him, the novel ends when Tristam is 8 years old)

o   he makes fun of conventions (which is unusual to find in the 18^th century) à he is not a truly 18the century poet

JONOTHAN SWIFT:

An early 18^th century writer. Contemporary of Defoe. His works are not really novels, they are prose satires. He came from Ireland and originally he hated Ireland (one couldn’t make a career there, therefore he longed to go to London). But eventually he developed a new attitude to Ireland, and he defended Ireland to English exploitation.

He wrote “A Modest Proposal”:

-          ironic, satirical narrative piece (short essay) in which he tries to attack Britain for the way it treats Irish economy.

-          he puts up a poker face and says “why don’t you all kill and cook Irish children” ? Because then the death will be productive, because they will die anyway àarose horror in the way England treated Ireland.

“Gulliver’s Travels”:

-          is no children’s book at all

-          one of the most controversial books

-          the book has many translations (people say different things to that novel)  à it is dangerous to trust the 1^st person narrator (DON’T trust Gulliver) à he is meant to fool the reader.

-          it’s a satire on English cruelty, materialism…

-          takes the form of a travel report, which was very popular at that time ( = imaginary travel report àtravel to the land of the giants etc…it sounds like fairytale countries, but they actually defamiliarize our own worlds )

SAMUAL JOHNSON:

-          middle of the 18^th century

-          best known literary critic of that age

-          remembered for the first proper dictionary of the English language

-          he also brought out an edition of Shakespeare’s plays and in it he evaluate his plays (wrote criticisms) à he called him the “poet of nature”

 

INTERPRTATION OF ROBINSON CRUSOE (by Daniel DEFOE):

Defoe came from a dissenting background (dissenters were usually trained in trade).

Book doesn’t say that it is an invented story, it says that it is a real story. Defoe is just the editor and the book is written by Robinson Crusoe. People at that time believed that. Story inspired by a Scottish sailor who was shipwrecked.

The intention of Defoe was to be as realistic as possible. He describes landscape in great detail. Such description may seem boring. At that time this was really impressive, because they thought they are reading a real story.

Travel reports about exotic countries were extremely popular. It is also an adventure story, telling about being a slave, and fights with creatures… à”spiritual autobiography” à religious people were used to keep this kind of literature.

è Defoe’s invention that he combined these traditions to write a novel. It is also a “moral tale”.

R.C. was punished by God, to the island. à he runs away from England and from his father

God in the book has a long patience. He doesn’t immediately cast him to an island.

But he is never satisfied and restless. He always wanted to be rich àtherefore God punished him for his sins.

Religious element is combined with the economic aspect. When God forgives him, R.C. is also a rich man. Some of his religious thoughts are like book keeping (pros and cons).

Defoe combines a narration which looks back on the time of his island stay (retrospective narration). From a great distance he looks back. àGreat distance between the narrating I and the experiencing I. The other part is the Journal, which he writes on the island (Narrating and experiencing is the same).

It also contains moral criticism, especially of the Spanish behavior in the new world. (when he realizes that cannibals come to the island). Also religious and moral criticism.

Realism of the book:

-          it is realistic, describes everyday life

-          on the island, everything needs to be reinvented by him (his own house, chair and table, food, clothes) à he describes this in great detail àcelebration of human inventiveness à he brings civilization to the island à he is methodical and gives beliefs in reason ( if you think reasonably you can master anything àcommon belief in the 18^th century)

-          typical colonizer

R.C. reconstructs English civilization on the island because he is convinced that this is the superior civilization. He speaks about his plantation, and about “beach house” and “country house” (something aristocratic).

First contact with Friday à his head other R.C. foot.

Cannibals = the ultimate savage (they eat human meat);

many modern writers wanted to write new versions of RC because they felt that there was a total lack of women in the book or the way Friday was treated should be reworked

 

Romantic Period (1780-1820)

-          French revolution at the end of 18^th century  àpropagated equality and liberty àcomplete shake up of the traditional social structure

-          many intellectual were very enthusiastic about the revolution

-          complete swing to the other side

-          romantic age saw the invention of some of the first machinery à begin of industrial revolution

-          first invention that was commercial used were “Webstühle” (looms) à this revolutionized work àfactories followed à no single worker anymore you needed a factory and an owner who has his workers à speed of work couldn’t be determined of the worker, but of the machine ( you had to keep up with the machine) àmonotonous work!!! à long working hours à salaries lower for women and children

-          building of factories led urbanization à with the result of slums and bad housing, no proper sanitation, extremely bad living condition, heavy pollution of air and water (cholera and epidemics)

 

è all this is not mentioned in Romantic Literature

 

-          good heart and sentimentality, emotions became interesting

-          folk songs became interesting, which were produced by normal people

2 separate spheres have developed (men and women)

men belonged to the public world, women belonged to the house (à they should be good wives and women and shouldn’t go to work, because they were too sensitive)

a new class has risen prominence:  middle class imitating aristocracy

women should be decorative, entertaining and a pleasure for her husband, amuse the husband àtherefore she didn’t need any education

 

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT and her “Vindication of the Rights of Woman”

-          protest against this kind of picture of the women

-          answer to narrative text by Payne “The rights of Men” à she said that there are also rights for women:

Main right was education! She says that women are in that position because they are badly educated, and therefore are only interested in beauty. Women need a better education.

Religion = new religiosity came back in romantic period, more pious, strict à “Evangelical Movement”  (or “Low Church”) à many similarities with the dissenters àengaged in humanitarian projects (most important is the abolishment of slavery and slave trade à late 18^th century slavery in Britain forbidden)

Literary tastes:

-          changed radically

-          many fashions of the 18^th century were totally rejected (opposed ideas)

-          stress now is on individualism and imagination and not universal rules and rationality àindividual soul of the poet is important and what he sees original and new

-          they listen to the HEART and not to the REASON

-          individual imagination of the poet  (no reproducing)

-          new interest in wild nature à new difference between nature and civilization ànature = true feeling , civilization = corrupting

-          only in nature we can have our true feelings

-          instead of London being the centre of the world, landscape is now important

-          many pot lived in the lake district “lake poets”

Romantic painting:

-          subjects are entirely different (to 18^th century)

-          man far removed from civilization on top of the hill

-          subject: wild mountain scopes, waterfalls, sea in a storm, hostile, wild nature

Artists were interested in “the sublime”

-          sublime is an impression that creates admiration and fear 

-          landscape should be dangerous and people should fear it

New interest in the middle ages (because they were dark and mysterious) à neo-gothic became popular à Horace Walpole and “Strawberry Hill” àrecreation of the middle-ages “Gothic Style”

 

 

Interest in the past and middle ages, wild nature. Distrust in civilization. Interest in 2 types of people:

1. simple people (rural people) à the were believed to live nearer the nature, less spoilt

2. children, which were uncorrupted by nature. Children were nearer to God. They were born innocent. (Nature and society spoil them). They are unspoilt. Children became a subject in literature

Summary 02.04.2009

 

Development of the 18^th century novel (continued)

Henry Fielding: Joseph Andrews, Tom Jones

picaresque novels; comic epics in prose

Laurence Sterne: Tristram Shandy

unusual; ridicules conventions; digressive; new interest in emotions and “sensibility”

 

other prose writers

Jonathan Swift: contemporary of Defoe

wrote prose and poetry

“A Modest Proposal”: ironic pamphlet to defend Ireland against exploitation

Gulliver’s Travels: consists of 4 satirical stories; imaginary travelogue; meant as satirical attack on England

Dr. Samuel Johnson: most eminent critic of the age, also wrote poetry and drama

Dictionary of the English Language

Edition of Shakespeare’s Works: called Shakespeare “the poet of nature” who describes not individuals but “species”, i.e. human nature in general.

 

Robinson Crusoe

travelogue, spiritual autobiography, adventure story, moral tale, colonial narrative, 1^st novel

pretends to merely edit Crusoe’s narration, i.e. that the novel is fact, not fiction

importance of realism: many details of how he builds tools, etc.

Providenceplays an important role: punishes Crusoe for his sins

mixture of religion and economic thinking

Crusoe is also a typical colonist; description and treatment of Friday and Xury problematic in modern eyes

reproduces English civilization on the remote island, regards European culture as desirable and superior

Crusoe is also occasionally critical of Europeans

 

Romantic age

Historical background

Loss of America, but expansion in India, Australia, Canada

French Revolution (ideals of brotherhood, liberty, equality antithetical to 18^th century social hierarchy): at first enthusiasm in Britain, but with the “terror” in France rejection of revolution, conservative swing, fear of a revolution and social upheaval in Britain

first wave of industrialisation in Britain: home industry died (e.g. power looms instead of hand looms for weavers), people had to work in factories, long work hours, mechanical labour adapted to speed of machine, breakup of families, woman and child labour, pollution, development of an industrial proletariat, urbanisation, slum developments, bad hygiene – but literature only concerned itself with Industrial Revolution in the Victorian period

religious renewal, new piety; Evangelicals: earnest, devout, involved in humanitarian movements (e.g. abolition of slavery and slave trade)

middle and upper classes: 2 separate spheres for men and women; women: in household (working class women of course had to work!), wealthy women did not work, few work opportunities, were expected to attract a husband and marry, bluestockings regarded as threatening;

protest by: Mary Wollstonecraft: Vindication of the Rights of Woman (inspired by Payne’s Vindication of the Rights of Man = pro French Revolution)

Romantic art

stress on individualism of the poet and imagination instead of universal rules and rationality

important is individual soul and its emotions not the general and typical

originality not general truths

interest in wild nature

tries to depict the sublime (beauty + horror, inspires awe)

nature seen as a contrast to civilization (=corrupting); see Rousseau: back to nature

interest in childhood, in simple people

Homework for next class:

read the romantic texts



Start reading Tess of the D'Urbervilles (it is a long novel, so start in time!)

 

Typical features of the Romantic period:

• values individual imagination
• originality
• individualism
• interest in emotions
• interest in nature
• nature vs civilization
• the sublime
• childhood, simple rural people
• simpler language
• science vs. art

 

 

TUTORIAL, 2nd session, 2.4.2009

Homework for next class:

read Robinson Crusoe



and read the "Romantic" texts: Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley. Answering the model questions will help you find out the important things.

There is a list of questions for the preparation of each of these texts (see the extra file!)

 

Questions you should ask when reading Mary Wollstonecraft:

What does she criticise? What or whom does she blame for the situation?

What picture of women does she paint?

What does she want to change or improve?

 

Questions you should ask when reading the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads

How does Wordsworth define the purpose of poetry?

What style should a poem use?

Where does the poet find inspiration?

What does he value? rationality or feeling?

How does he define nature?

Who is nearest to nature?

 

Questions you should ask when reading “Daffodils”

How are the ideals of the Preface realised in this poem?

Read the last stanza and compare it to what Wordsworth says in the Preface

 

Questions you should ask when reading “Tintern Abbey”

What does Wordsworth describe? what is the subject of the poem?

Trace the progression in time, what “stages” does he describe?

How does the appreciation of nature change in the various stages?

How are the ideals of the Preface realised in the poem?

 

Questions you should ask yourself when reading “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

What is described in the poem?

In what form does “nature” appear in the poem?

How is the speaker punished, and why?

What is the atmosphere of the poem?

What form and style does the poet use?

 

Questions you should ask yourself when reading “A Defence of Poetry”

What does Shelley say about poets and their importance or function?

What abilities do poets have?

How is a poem defined?

 

Features of the new novel: (how a novel is described actually by Hunter)

-          novel is always one context – all is connected in some way

-          picture of a real and everyday life

-          novel gives sense/feeling how it would be like to be someone else

-          different awareness of feelings and thoughts

-          easier to identify with characters in a novel (self-consciousness)

 

How does Wordsworth define the purpose of poetry?

You present ordinary things in a usual way of language that ordinary men use but COLOUR it!

-          inspiration: emotion/people from the country/low& rustic life

-          time: beginning of the industrialisation (lot of factories were built àdestroyed the beautiful picture of landscape)

-          social life: usually live together with their family à and live together in harmony with nature

-          importance: loneliness/tranquillity à to reflect what you had experienced – you need time in order to let impressions sinking; after that one can produce poetry

-          Wordsworth says that one needs to experience nature to value nature (nature = beautiful and permanent

-          Due to industrialisation landscape changed dramatically in the north of England

 

Daffodils by Wordsworth

-          a speaker

-          poem describes nature

-          description of a wanderer who is fascinated by nature and describes all which is in front of him

-          inward eye= imagination/ you can experience nature and then think of it

-          last stanza includes a hint to how poetry should be produced

 

Tintern Abbey by Wordsworth

-          many references to nature

-          describes landscape and the experiences of the speaker

-          speaker remembers the happy experiences of the past

-          somebody came back to a place where he/she had been some years before

-          now: it’s different!!

-          Two stages of the speaker: a) past – when he was a young boy

                                                        b) present – now he is an adult (aware of nature)

- his wonderful experiences provide him with lots of memories for the future

- he went back to the city and he recreates the picture of nature in his mind

- experience of nature – recreation of it

- NATURE: place for thoughts and imagination; nature is compared to art timeless

 

MARY Wollstonecraft

-          is about women who do not have a profession/ no education

-          at that time most books were written by men and men wrote about how women should behave and how they should be educated by society and how they should be beautiful; the general aim of women is to catch a rich husband in order to survive

-          a man gets education and can improve in his job; he is there to protect a woman

-          Wollstonecraft said: a) women should be educated

                                       b) should be more respected by men

                                       c) men and women should be like friends

                                       d) women should not be treated as slaves

 

TUTORIAL, 3rd session, 23.4.2009

Types of narrator:

 

1)       omniscient narrator:

-          knows everything and is godlike

-          words like believe, think, combined with words that express feelings show you that the author uses an omniscient narrator

 

1st person narrator:

-          narrating I = looks at the story in retrospective

-          experiencing I = he writes on the spot/ immediately after he/she experienced something

 

Industrial Revolution:

-          people had to move from the countryside to the towns where the factories were built

-          result of the it àfamily members were not so close anymore

-          living conditions in the cities were much worse à pollution, illnesses, high child mortality, hunger, slum developments, water pollution etc.

 

Important aspects in the Romantic period:

-          individualism – NOT universal rules

-          individual soul, emotion

-          interest into WILD nature

 

Romantic poems value:

-          heart, emotions,

-          interest in folk literature

-          interest in exotic influence

 

 

Distinction between women:

a)       upper class women = be decorative housewives, create a certain pleasure for their husbands; were not allowed to work – that was not respectable!

b)      lower class women = were factory workers à like men

 

Evangelism:

-          new movement

-          engaged in humanity movements e.g. slavery was forbidden and abolished in Britain

-          stronger belief in religion

 

The term nature in the Romantic period:

-          new interest in WILD nature – no longer the cultivated fields

 

NEW interests in the Romantic period:

To be interested in

      a)   simple life and people

c)       children

d)      gothic castles: very mysterious à poets and artists wanted to recreate the middle ages in a fashionable way

 

Relationship between science and art:

 

-          science discovers laws (= is more rational)

-          art presents laws (= more emotional)

 

Daniel Defoe’s “ROBINSON CRUSOE”

 

Content:

Robinson Crusoe leaves home without the permission of his father because he is not satisfied with his life. On his first journey he gets into a storm. He thinks that God punishes him for running away from home against his father’s will. Then he prays to God and swears that he will never be unhappy with his life and that he will travel back to his family.

After he has survived the storm, he buys a ship with whom he travels to Africa. During the journey he gets caught by pirates where he stays two years in slavery. Then he tries to escape with another slave who is a young boy. The boy is very thankful and promises Crusoe to stay with him. The young fellow is a Spanish Moar, meaning he is a European Muslim. Together they go along the African coast and strike a village of black people who are not presented as cannibals. These people provide Crusoe with food and water. Then they meet trading ship which goes to Brazil. Crusoe decides to go with them and then he stays in Brazil for a while. Although he becomes a planter and has a good life, the desire for travelling starts again. The Portuguese captain of the trading ship visits Crusoe. He brings Crusoe money and a European servant. Then Crusoe gets the idea of possessing slaves who can work at his plantation. This was the reason for another journey, but then he gets into a storm again. Crusoe becomes shipwrecked and he lands on this island where he restarts his life.

 

Ethnicities in Defoe’s work:

Portuguese, Turkish pirates, Africans, than the boy who is Muslim

 

Punishment

-          is a major topic of the book

-          Crusoe believes that all these terrible things happen to him in order to get punished for running away from home without his father’s agreement

-          Then he thinks of getting punished because he never feels satisfied with his life à he is restless, unhappy and displeased àwants more and more!

-          Finally, God forgives him and grants him with money and riches

 

Island situation:

-          Crusoe tries to get as most things as possible out of the ship

-          He finds some tools and makes use of them

-          He tries to establish British civilization on the island

-          Step by step he recreates his British way of life

-          He does not want to adapt/ he wants to live the English way of life style

-          In order not to become insane and mad he fills the days with exercises

-          Before starting his journeys he was a member of the middle class

-          Now he is “king of the island”

-          Somehow he creates his own little world where he is the ruler of the land

 

Detailed way of description:

-          reader believes that this is a real story and the detailed descriptions make it authentic

 

 

Christianity is a very essential aspect in the book:

 

Cannibals:

-          are described as ignorant to the world of God and do not have the light of God; they are not Christians

-          Crusoe is terribly afraid of the cannibals

-          Yellow skin

-          First, Crusoe wants to kill them, but then he says that it’s not his but God’s right àhe has NOT the right to judge them

 

Friday:

-          is his Crusoe’s servant and he is treated by him not equally; Friday is originally Spanish and therefore a Christian

-          Friday is not really a savage = positive description of him

-          He always stays Crusoe’s slave

-          Friday is not as intelligent as British people

-          He always speaks a broken English language

-          Appearance of Friday: perfect body

 

A Clear-cut moral division between Europeans and others:

 

-          Muslim boy, e.g., is lower stated than Crusoe because of his religious belief; the boy is just a tool for him; Crusoe only sees him in turns of his usefulness; the boy is not a savage; he is not naked, but civilized

 

 

-          European are: dressed, civilized, have weapons, same skin colour, are Christians and have international economy and trade; they have one common desire: to spread Christianity and to colonize and exploit the natural resources and African labour.

 

Crusoe:

-          is a prototypical colonist:

a)       agriculture

b)      established a monarch system (absolute authority)

c)       reconstructs civilization on the island

d)      rational attitude: kills the cat in order to survive

e)       Christianity is the ONLY right thing

f)        Other ethnicities are tools for him à shows the supremacy of the Europeans

 

Preface of the book:

-          pretends that it is a true story and that Defoe is only the editor!

-          It seems that it is a true and real story that happened

-          Story: seems to be historical fact and so creates realness

 

LECTURE, 23 April 2009

Folk literature became fashionable.

Political believes:

-          Some romantics were quite conservative. Others were politically radical.

Not all romantic period writers were romantic writers. It was a dominant fashion but not all subscribed to it.

Jane Austin wrote in de romantic period, but she is certainly not a romantic writer.

For-runners of romanticism already in the 18^th century: (e.g. “Graveyard” literature) in the romantic period

Poetry:

-          most popular and important in the romantic period

-          most of writers wrote nature poetry

-          they deal with impact of nature on their selves ( on their imagination, influence on their souls)

-          usually reject conventions used in the 18^th century , especially the stylistic conventions à in the romantic period, they used simpler rhyme schemes and simpler style and language  à they rejected “poetic diction”

 

WORDSWORTH, William  - “Preface to the Lyrical Ballad”

-          simple people from common life

-          language used by men

-          coloring of imagination

Rustic life is less sophisticated.

He wants to describe elementary feeling - no intellectual feed and because simple people show that openly he uses simple people.

Nature: unspoiled and influencing humans.

“All good poetry is spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” à doesn’t mean that is sentimental.

It’s no automatic writing from some kind of inspiration à you receive inspiration, cherish it, think about it and put it down on paper.

SHELLEY - “A Defence of Poetra”

-          poetry as a true prophet of the world

-          poets are not only creators of art but also the teachers and the founders of society  à essential people for civilization

-          legislator (showing what is beautiful and true ) and prophet ( has an extra sensibility – feels sense in the air, which only he can feel) àpoets are these two kinds of people

-          poet catches the important things of life

-          poet has an insight in internal truth (which other people don’t have) à not the universal truth but he is extra sensitive, he sees what other people don’t see

The Sublime: (romantic)

-          nature wild and impressive

-          poet solitary and overlooking the world

Romantic Poets in Detail:

BLAKE William  - “The Tyger”

ü  Blake was a visionary – he had visions of all kinds

ü  illustrated his poems himself

ü  “Songs of Innocence”, “Songs of Experience” àfamous two collections

One describes the innocent world of the child and the other the more sophisticated and corrupted view from an adult, who sees the evil of the world

ü  the tiger = beautiful but also dangerous animal , typical for songs of experience

Wordsworth

-          main representatives of romantic movement

-          he also theorized on romantic movement

-          lived in the lake district à that is why his poetry is called “lake poetry”

“Prelude”

à poem in which he tells about his childhood and the way in which he responded to nature in childhood. Later when he grew up he lost this harmony because he was involved in the civilized world. He returned and tried to take a harmonious relationship with nature through imagination.

As a child you have a innocent relationship to nature. You lose it, but you should try to get it again through imagination.

“Daffodils”

-          typical nature poetry – unspoiled nature

-          he is delighted, his imagination is fired by beauty

-          poem is written after he has reflected his experience in tranquility

-          nature has an effect not only when you look at it immediately but also after you reflect on it.

“Tinten Abbey”

-          opposes town and country

 

town = negative connotations

country = inspirational and better part for men

 

-          poet outlines various phases in his relationship to nature

-          1. phase = boyhood, when he is a child à he is one with nature, no boarder between him and nature, he enjoys nature

-          when he is older nature for him is inspirations and appeals to his heart

-          last phase = contrasts himself as old men with his younger sister, who has still her childlife. he himself has to work on that relationship (spontaneous emotions recollected in tranquility)

-          then he looks in future: in nature we should find the memory, when one is dead àhappy moment of recollection even when he himself is dead

COLERIDGE - “The rime of the Ancient Mariner”  

-          new interest in folk literature à also an inspiration

-          this rime in modeled on a folk ballad à imitates both the theme and the rhyme and rhythm of a folk ballad

-          situation = strange men, old sailor stops a men on the wedding and insists on telling his story. main part is the story: sailed to the ocean and bird  follows the ship. the sailor shoots the bird. killing the animal for pure fun and sport ( = not valuing or treating nature with respect). suddenly wind stops and the boat is calmed and can’t leave the spot. he looks into the water and sees some ugly snakes. he can see the beauty even of the snakes.

-          interesting for us is  =  the imitation of the folk form and idea of the importance of nature, of valuing nature. the magic and gothic atmosphere and the attempt to convey the sublime. (“beautiful and frightended)

SHELLEY:

-          rejected of bourgeois morality

-          political radical àsupporter of French revolution

-          “Defense of Peosy” and “Ode to the West Wind”

BYRON:

-          he was a freedom fighter and died in his struggles

-          he colored the English imagination

-          he described such rebellious characters in his poetry (life and writing overlapped)

-          “Don Juan” + “Manfred”

-          the kind of heroes he describes has influence on later writing

-          bionic hero = outsider of society, never integrated, celebrated individualism, laughs at bourgeois

KEATS:

-          died very young

-          “Ode to a Grecian Urn” + “Ode to a Nightingale”

-          importance of imagination

-          by using imagination you can create poetry

-          beauty is also truth àthings that are beautiful are true

DRAMA:

-          NO ROMANTIC DRAMA!!!

 

 

FICTION:

Not everyone who wrote in the romantic period is a romantic writer!!

Two genres which are typical of romanticism:

1.)     Gothic Fiction:

Concentrates on the irrational, unconventional and tries to excite horror. Its only reason seems to be exciting violent emotion in the reader. It creates a typical gothic atmosphere. Gothic refers to the setting of these novels. (castles, dark corridors, corpses…) Settings that are spooky, dark, mysterious. All of gothic literature suggests the superstition and unexplained events. Story centers on a young innocent preferably blond girl who is presumed by a frightening man. Interest lies in the thrilling plot.

(Folie)

-          Horace Walpole: The Castle of Otranto (1764)

-          Ann Radcliff: The Mysteries of udolpho (1764)

-          Mary Shelley: Frankenstein (1818)

-          Parodied by: Jane Austen: Northanger Abbey

-          Gothic fiction continues to be popular

-          Rober Louis Stevenson: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886)

-          modern Gothic fiction

Gothic fiction is not simply a period piece. It has survived until the present day. It has a starting point but continued popular throughout.

Jane Austen parodied Gothic Fiction.

2.)    Historical Novel

Inventor of the historical novel is Walter Scott. “Waverley Novels”

A historical novel is set in the past and tries to recreate what was like to live at that time. It describes social situations, political situations and living conditions of a particular time. However the main characters in such historical novels are always fictional (invented). Heroes are invented. They live in a construction of the past period.

In order to create greater authenticity, historical people are there in the background. (Napoleon appears but doesn’t play the main role). à New Formula, which still is popular.

Scott created a new fashion for Scotland.

AUSTEN Jane:

-          not a romantic writer àcompletely unromantic in her attitude

-          she ridiculed that fashion and the values and excessive sensibility. (that you have to be touched by everything)

-          there must be a balance between rationality and sensuality

-          she’s also conservative socially à she did not question the social system à didn’t question the role of aristocracy , but they have to earn that position

She is valued for various reasons:

-          portrait of her rational, witty heroines

-           satirical picture of society

-          presents a comedy of manners

-          she is ironic in tone

Ironic tone requires detachment and rationality. Values go back to the 18^th century.

INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION:

Romantic writers didn’t deal with the industrial revolution.

England’s foreign policy:

1840-1880 = semi isolationism in terms of European affairs

è with the defeat of Napoleon, England was interested in expansion.

19^th century = great age of imperialism

è England in fact became a huge empire.

There were problems in Ireland:

19^th century = already part of the UK. Irish always felt that they were treated unfairly. Great discrimination of the Catholic part. à Semi-Independence was demanded by Ireland. This was always turned down. Irish problem remained unsolved for the whole 19^th century. Situation in Ireland was bad.

Democratic situation improved slowly.

 

TUTORIAL, 30 April 2009

The 18^th century

How would you describe the style of writing of a typically 18th century writer? What are the poet’s aims?

There is no originality in the 18^th century. It’s just reflection of what it is in the nature. Aims: mock epics – he makes fun in his poems (p. 2 reader), to make fun of the conventions of the 18^th century. They believed in the laws of nature. They were made by god. Art were supposed to present them in a very elegant way. They wanted to present the universal/general truth in a very elegant and witty way. Style: witty (being intelligent), elegant manner, also in a very rational way (they valued rationality), Art should be reasonable

They followed certain models: Romans, ancient Greek
They believed that science (investigates nature) and art (presents nature) work together

Style: higher, elevated style of writing, complicated, clearly structured (for us it seems very complicated but it is supposed to be very clearly structured and “easy” to understand”), they tried to use nice expressions and nice words.

Aims: Presenting the general and universal truth

e.g. Alexander Pope (he uses the style of an epic poem. But he uses it for a rather ridiculous topic, so he makes fun of the aristocrats – mock style)

What are neo-classical rules and what is poetic diction?

They tried to imitate the Greeks and Romans. Poetic diction: they followed certain rules, poetry language, it seems not very real (instead of birds the winged choir or something, not what you would use in everyday speech) they use metaphors, or they use special poetic words. More elevated because the wanted to remove the language from everyday speech.

Why was satire used in 18^th century writing?

The once who called the convention mocked them who didn’t. It was an instrument to mock those who didn’t follow the rules. There was a strong agreement with this following the nature thing. So as a criticism they use satire among those who didn’t follow the rules. (e.g Alexander Pope: Aristocracy, Hypocracy, being self-obsessed)

Alexander Pope. In what period did he write? What does he say in his Essay in Criticism?

People who don’t follow the rules cannot write well and cannot criticize well. You need reason to produce good art. To be critic you have to be able to write well. You need to be educated in order to write good poetry, the critics as well as the writers. He presents it as it is all this is general knowledge.

How could you define nature in the 18^th century? What did the term nature mean in the Romantic period?

It always was in connection with men and in connection with god. People had to follow God’s rules. The universal truth – it was used as an inspiration. It had a certain dark and frightening aspect.

 

What is the heroic couplet and when was it used? Name an example text from our reader where this form is used and describe the effect it creates.

It is used to imitate the ancient poems. It was used in the 18^th century. Effect: that it is elevated and educated and refers to antiquity E.G. Alexander Pope. It sounds very educated. Meter: iambic pentameter (two lines of rhyme)

Example: An Essay in criticism

What type of poem is The Rape of the Lock? What effect does the poem create and what is satirically attacked by the writer? How are upper class men and women portrayed in the poem?

Mock heroic epic. It makes fun of the aristocracy and the sensibility of women. He also makes fun of the lords and all upper class men so to speak. Aristocrat women didn’t really care about their husbands, they were just living for society – he also criticizes this. They don’t do anything all day long basically. What creates this satirically effect? That he uses this heroic epic which is usually used for serious issued and here it is used for very trivial things.

How can you describe the atmosphere in Thomas Gray’s Elegy written in a Country Churchyard? How would you describe the attitude?

Gothic, dark atmosphere. Reverse to ghosts, How does he see death? He is not really rebellious, like everyday life. Atmosphere is more romantic (than 18^th century). Attitude is more 18^th century, or typically 18^th century actually (he is not rebellious, he accepts social hierarchy, death is sort of an equalizer)

Was drama a successful genre in the 18^th century? How can you define the term neo-classical tragedy?

Drama wasn’t very successful in the 18^th century because of the license act and because of the strict parameters of the Ancient model, namely the 3 unites:

a)       Place (only one setting)

b)      Time (within 24 hours)

c)       Action (only one plot)

…drama had to follow the rules given by God!

The novel becomes successful, action had to happen within 24 hours and without change of place.

What is a picaresque novel? Name an example text from our reader and illustrate what the term means.

à one of the early forms of a novel which deals with a vagabond who travels around and experiences a lot. Focuses on some kind of vagabond who travels around and has a number of adventures, episodic in structure, he meets many people and has a lot of adventures.

àe.g.: Moll Flanders, Robinson Crusoe

What was special about the novel in the 18th century? What types of novels were the first ones?

Totally new genre à no rules formulated. It became typical for women who where sexually explicit (you should not poison the ears of a woman) types: picaresque, epistolary novel, travel report (convention just to read to the family à it became more difficult to read it out to women who where sexually explicit à women were to soft to hear that)

 

What type of novel do you associate with Samuel Richardson? Shortly describe Clarissa’s and Lovelace’s style of writing in Clarissa.

Type: it is an epistolary novel (consists of letters) – many letters à various people writing to each other

Lovelace: he is very passionate; thinks he can manipulate women, he is extremely self-assure, uses swearwords, explanations and exclamations, he is not very controlled in his writing, he thinks he can manipulate with his writing

Clarissa: escapes from home because she does not want to marry the man her parents have chosen for her; she thinks an aristocrat can help her

When you look at the different style of letters you see different attitudes and role models people had of women, men and classes of that time.

STYLE:

Lovelace: exclamations, swearwords, he is NOT very controlled in his writing

Clarissa: she is very weak and rational, mild à doesn’t use many swearwords

What type of novel is Joseph Andrews? What is satirically attacked? How could you define the type of narration?

à Type of narration: omniscient narrator

à is a parody on Pamela

à Content: man is raped by women à SATIRE

Picaresque novel, typically role model turned around à man “almost” raped by a woman, woman was extremely embarrassed by naked man

 

LECTURE, 30 April 2009

Important historical dates in the 19^th century

1789: Outbreak of the French Revolution

1791: Thomas Paine publishes The Rights of Man

1792: M. Wollstonecraft publishes Vindication of the Rights of Women

1798: Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge

1800: Act of Union with Ireland (unites Parliaments of England and Ireland), 1803 - 1815: Napoleonic wars

1815: Defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo. Peace on Europe. Corn Laws passed by Parliament to protect British agriculture from cheap imports (Corn laws)

1832: 1st Reform Bill extends vote to a further 500,000 people and redistributes Parliamentary seats on a more equitable basis (the first great reform bill was 1832. Richer people and middle class people got the vote. The distribution of seats was changed. Industrial Revolution has led to urbanization. Where nothing has been before there is a big city now. So the seats had to be redistributed.

1833: Abolition of Slavery throughout the British Empire. Parliament passes Factory Act, prohibiting children aged less than nine from working in factories, and reducing the working hours of women and older children. Start of the Oxford (ritualist) Movement in the Anglican Church.

1834:Parliament passes the Poor Law Act, establishing workhouses for the poor.

1837: Dickens publishes Oliver Twist, drawing attention to Britain's poor.

1844-45: Railways mania explodes across Britain. Massive investment and speculation leads to the laying of 5,000 miles of track

1845-49: Irish Potato Famine kills more than a million people (many people emigrated to America)

1846: Corn Laws repealed (Corn Laws: high taxation of agricultural products, the price of agricultural products was high: advantage: farmers made good income, disadvantage: prices were high)

1847: Ch. Bronte publishes Jane Eyre

1854-56: Crimean War (Britain + France against Russian expansion; F. Nightingale) to prevent Russia to gain access to the Mediterranean countries

1859: Darwin publishes Origin of the Species

1867: 2nd Reform Bill: franchise for urban labourers. Canada becomes dominion.

1869: Suez Canal is opened

In the following decades: scramble for African colonies

1870: Primary education compulsory. Women's Property Act extends rights of married women

1871/2: Eliot publishes Middlemarch

1876: Queen Victoria made Empress of India

1884: 3rd Reform Act: franchise for rural labourers (vote was given to all men, all classes)

1891: Hardy publishes Tess of the d'Urbervilles

1899-1902: Boer War in South Africa

1901: death of Queen Victoria, succeeded by her son, Edward VII

 

ManchesterLiberalism: the free market forces, let the market dominate or rule the economic situation

Results of industrial revolution: slummed valleys, pollution, long work hours, very mechanical kind of work, separation of living and working place. Various ways of epidemics (Cholera, …) à no sanitary system at this time.

Social mobility was possible on another scale than it had been in the 18^th c. Many factory owners made lots of money. We need to remember that in order to be a “gentleman” you were not allowed to work with your hands, manual labor was considered to be demeaning in order to understand 19^th c. writing. 1) You had to have a respectable job (no manual labor – you didn’t dirty your hand (even if you were very reach – money was not essential in class status), rather a lawyer or a clergyman or a doctor).  2) Your behavior: you had to behave like a gentleman: fair, kind, responsible, honorable, etc.  In the 19^th c. these two conceptions of the gentlemen were fighting against each other and in literature they were combined.  Women had no social status of their own. They took on the status of their husband.

It also brought a great number of innovations (especially in sciences: medicine, biology, chemistry, etc.) Marxism. Karl Marx and Charles Darwin. Evolutionary theory developed in Britain.

 

Contrasts (many due to Darwin’s theories)

Upper and the Middle classes vs. the lower/working class

Middle class (conservative) vs. the artists (“immoral”, more liberal)

Art vs. Science

Science vs. Religion

 

Charles Darwin (Origin of species):  strict separation between men and animal. Bible was believed literally at this time. (God created men within 7 days). Evolutionary theory – men descended from the ape.  àGreat contrast between science and religion àreligious crisis. The fittest survive: those who are best adapted to the environment. The one species is going to survive whereas the others are going to be extinct.  Darwin’s followers apply that to human beings. Who are the fittest? Those who were white (highest peak of civilization) . They try to depress the “weak species”. Racist theories were based on Darwin’s theory but also lower class people where believed to belong to the “weak species”. This insecurity is reflected in the literature of that time.

 

Family: was celebrated as the center and basis of society and it was believed that men and women occupied spheres. Men went out and did the work, the fighting and the intellectual tasks. Women stayed at home and create a perfect home for her husband when he came back. “The angel in the house”. Women were by nature weak and mild, quiet, they liked to sacrifice themselves so it was believed. They were supposed to attracted the men and learned to make family life attractive. (Learning to play piano or something like that). Women had no right for their children. A man could easily separate them. Divorce was hardly possible. (if a woman was unfaithful a men could divorce her but not the other way round). When a woman worked the income would belong to the husband – she had no right for her own income. So it was really hard to leave the man. They couldn’t go to university (too stupid and they would have been a distraction to the men there). And they didn’t have a vote. Class specific & gender specific education.

Agnosticism spread. Evangelicals were very strict and pious. In the 19^th century novels evangelicals are usually presented as stupid, hypercritical, etc.

Problem of the situation of women, conflict with religion etc. you can find in the novels of this time.

In the Victorian time literature responded to the problems of this time.

Writers made their income through the numbers of volumes they sold. And the responded to what the audience wanted to read. We do not yet distinguish between high and popular literature. Most literature in the 19^th c. was still very popular; it was read by a wide number of classes. Split occurred in the late 19^th century.

 

Victorian poetry

They did not really work against the romantics. Not a lot of difference at least at the beginning. Many poets did not tackle contemporary problems.

Alfred Tennyson:

He wrote beautifully, harmonious poems, melodious, full of melancholy emotion, very lyrical poetry. His attitude changed (In Memoriam eg). Poem is about the death of his best friend. He reflects all the debts and problems about religious belief. Two forces at work: orthodox religious belief on the one hand and Darwinian science on the other.

Lady of Shalott,

In Memoriam (p. 23 reader): First 3 stanzas addressed to traditional Christian God. Man will not die eternally but arise again after death. Death is not the end.

Then: what other people tell him. Everybody has to die. We all suffer.

Then: language of Darwinism. “God and Nature then at strife… “ à the species survives but the single individual will die. 50 seats but only 1 flower will grow. Nature doesn’t care for the individual but for the species.

“I care for nothing all shall go” à many species have died out (dinosauries, etc.) Nature not only disregards the individual but also species. Nature will kill whole species.

Conflict between nature, which doesn’t care whether you live or die and the belief in the god, who loves each and everyone of you. Should he believe in God or in Darwin?

End: No way of knowing!

Robert Browning

He is famous for poems that are called dramatic monologues: a poem and in this poem a speaker reveals his character at a critical moment in his life. A speaker is in a crisis and by speaking he reveals his character. These are quite sophisticated character portraits.  Unreliable speaker – you should not trust a speaker in a dramatic monologue. You are meant to be critical. It is a character portrait not a truthful picture of the world.

His Last Duchess, Andrea del Arto (dramatic monologues) My last duchess (p. 22)

A Renaissance Duke. The situation: He is walking through his picture gallery and showing another man around. The other man never says a word. By what he says he reveals his character. He is a man who is only interested in power. He is an unscrupulous man who is very proud of his family and ruthless in this behaviour. He is planning to marry a second time.  To this man he shows a picture of his first wife (who is dead – last duchess = dead duchess). How did she die? Not clear. He had her killed, because he was jealous without having a reason to be so. The duchess was kind and happy to everyone. She wasn’t grateful enough that he married her. She laughed about everything and he couldn’t bear this. He wanted to be more exclusive. He gave commands. Now he had her painted and can completely control her, she is part of his art collection, she is no better or worse than the other art. Now he possess her completely. You are meant to be shocked by what he said, by his evil character and by what he almost confesses to have done. Reveals the nature and the character of the speaker at a critical moment and we are meant to criticize and not to believe and accept everything that the speaker says. Your are not supposed to like and accept him.

Married to E. Barrett-Browing

Remarkable poet in her own right, but as soon as she married Robert he gained all the attention and respect.

Sonnets from the Portuguese (love poems addressed to her future husband), Aurora Leigh (feminist poem about a female artist)

p. 15 (John Ruskin – Sesame and Lilies)

Woman needs protection, she is the weaker, she protects the house, distinction is something natural and who’s going to be the better to survive is going to survive

Pre-Raphaelites

Most of them were also painters. Term goes back more to the painting than to the poetry. They wanted to go back to a style of painting (medieval) before Raphael. Style is always quite artificial, very melodious and their topics are usually removed from present day reality. They deal with literally topics (Shakespeare, Chaucer, Dante or whatever) or they deal with religious topics (life of Christ) or with medieval legends.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The blessed Damozel (religious poet)

His sister: Christina Rossetti

Goblin Market

The paintings were quite shocking. Colourful and sensual.

 

Victorian novel (1830-1900)

Great age of the novel! Novel was the most important literally form. Also a great age of realism à the realistic novel. It wants to reveal a true picture of life and of character. How do you do that? Trick: reality effect. It tries to recreate the way in which the reader experiences reality. When you walk into a room you don’t just focus on the face of the person you see but when you walk into a room you see a person and know the clothes, hair, the surroundings etc. – this is exactly the way in which these writers describe a scene. They focus on the clothes, the appearance of the room, furniture, things that are irrelevant for the plot, but this is how you experience reality. It would be unnatural if you didn’t notice. It describes reality the way you as a reader tend to experience a scene often by descriptions that are not essential for the plot.

It works with two kinds of reality:

Outside realism: you describe the clothes, food, housing, street – external things

Psychological realism: emotions, motivations, thoughts of the characters. These are described in a way so that it is convincing to the reader.

!!! If you plan to describe life as realistically as possible, if you belief that there is such a thing as reality and can describe it you will naturally choose an omniscient narrator, a narrator who knows everything and looks at the world from outside!!! The narrator is someone who presents the reality; who comments on it and who describes it.

In the 20^th c. there is no longer a belief in a objective external reality.

The alternative to the omniscient narrator is the reliable first person limited narrator. He tells his story, his development, but someone who tries to tell you the truth.  (both quiet typical for the 19^th c. novel)

Apprentice novel:

A character finds his place in the world. From being a child to being integrated into a meaningful place in the world.

Social novel/ “condition of England”-novel:

It is a novel that deals with the industrial revolution.

Writers tried to describe the effects of the industrial revolution, especially the misery of the working class, the living condition, the exploitation etc.

Problem: all writers came from the middle class themselves and their inside into the working class culture was limited. Most of them were quite conservative in their politics. They advocated a slow development rather than revolution (never revolution). No important political suggestions made. àLet’s cooperate, let’s give arms to the poor, let’s show Christian charity. Marxism as a theory was not available yet. (socialist evolution). There were no other solutions available at the time. Influential in changing particularly bad situations.  Most famous writer:

Charles Dickens.

He came from a lower middle class family. For some time in his early life he had to work in a factory. He was extremely upset about this. The advantage: in his later life he had an understanding of lower middle class and working class people. In many of his novels he attacked social ills and aroused pity for the situation of the poor.  Read by upper, middle and working class. Especially his early novels were influenced by 18^th c. novels (especially Henry Fielding) -àpicaresque pattern. Oliver Twist for example is a picaresque novel. He also wrote apprentice novels later (from the childhood to the adulthood). He is very digressive. He loved to describe humorous and eccentric characters. People who have a odd outward experience.  Dickens published instalment (didn’t publish in one book but instalments, chapter per chapter more or less) this helped to keep up excitement of the audience. Cliff-hanger- endings. Novels contained a lot of small climaxes to keep the readers on buying and reading. These defining characteristics are necessary if a work is published in something like a year and a half in instalment. He is not a behaviourist. He believes hat people are basically good or bad by nature. He is often influenced by melodrama. He loved the theatre à a lot of scenes are therefore very effective

Section from Hard times (reader p. 18)

W.M. Thackeray

Summary 30.04.2009

 

Victorian times

High time of imperialism; colonies esp. in Africa and Asia

Act of Union: Ireland part of Great Britain; from 2^nd half of 19^th century: Irish fought for Home Rule – Irish question not solved in 19^th century

Industrial Revolution: urbanisation, slums, long work hours, etc.

But also new inventions, progress also in sciences

Charles Darwin: idea of survival of fittest; fight for survival among species and within species – lead to widespread religious doubt

 

New conflicts: not only art vs. science (Romantic period) but also science vs. religion

Also working class vs. middle and upper classes

Middle class vs. artists (end of century; considered to be “immoral”)

 

Several reforms: factory laws, compulsory primary education (1870), 3 reform bills giving the vote to working class males and redistributing seats in Parliament to the new urban centres in the North of England

 

Idea of the “gentleman”: depended on descent and profession (A “gentleman” could not work with his hands) but also on decent, fair, responsible behaviour;

a woman took on the status of her husband

 

Family: two separate spheres for men and women. Women considered to be naturally submissive; married wives had no right to their children and income; divorce only possible for rich (by Act of Parliament); ideal of the “angel in the house”; female education in “accomplishments but no higher education; feminists founded women’s colleges to enable women to study; suffragettes fought for vote.

 

Religion: widespread religious doubt (new findings of sciences seemed to contradict the Bible); within Church of England: Oxford Movement: return to ritualism, Church hierarchy, Church decoration and music. Another faction within the Church of England were the Evangelicals: strict, pious; suspicious of literature – therefore often presented negatively in the fiction of the time

 

Literature: adapted to the market

 

Victorian poetry: no real split or reaction against Romanticism; unlike fiction, poetry only rarely dealt with pressing social problems of the time.

Alfred Tennyson: early poetry is melodious, rhythmical, almost hypnotic: eg. “Lady of Shallott”: medieval setting; woman who experiences life only in a mirror, when she turns to face the real world, she dies. But his “In Memoriam”(written in memory of the death of his best friend) responds to the religious doubts of the time: speaker is torn between hope of Christian eternal life and his knowledge of evolutionary theory and the idea that nature is cruel and does not care for the individual.

 

Elizabeth Barrett-Browning: married to Robert Browning. “Sonnetts from the Portuguese”: love poems from a woman to a man. “Aurora Leigh”: poem about a female artist.

 

Robert Browning: wrote dramatic monologues (poems in which a speaker reveals his character at a critical moment of his life). “My Last Duchess” (speaker = Duke of Ferrara, a Macchiavellian villain), “Andrea del Sarto”

 

Pre-Raphaelites: were also painters; wanted to go back to a style before Raphael; in their paintings and poetry: lush, sensual, colourful; dealt with religious themes from the Bible, with themes from literature (Shakespeare, Dante, Chaucer, etc.) and myth.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti: “The Blessed Damozel”

Christina Rossetti: “Goblin Market”

 

Victorian novel

most successful genre; many of the best-known novelists wrote in the Victorian period

frequently: publication in instalments; every instalment ended with a cliff-hanger; novels were rambling, digressive, many characters; used repetition to remind readers of what was said before.

Victorian novel = realist novel; i.e. outward realism and psychological realism; uses reality effect. Novelists wanted to reveal “the truth” about life and people: since they believed that there was one universal “truth” that can be conveyed they tended to use omniscient, intrusive narrators. Sometimes also reliable first person narrators were used.

 

2 genres particularly popular: social novel (also called condition of England novel) and apprentice novel

 

Charles Dickens: appealed to a wide reading public of all classes; in the beginning wrote picaresque novels influenced by 18^th century (Fielding), later his novels are built around one central theme; social novels: Oliver Twist, Hard Times; apprentice novels: David Copperfield, Great Expectations; portrayed humorous and eccentric characters; influenced by theatre: melodramatic and sentimental scenes; social criticism; sympathy for poor, but like all other social novelists came from middle class and did not advocate revolution but a change of heart and Christian altruism.

 

Homework:
Read the texts from the Victorian period (19th century) pp 15-25
Questions you might ask when reading the texts:

Ruskin: Sesame and Lilies
How does Ruskin construct the gender differences? What is the task of men? What is the task of women? What implicit qualities are women given?

Charles Darin: The Origin of Species
How does Darwin describe evolution and the survival of the fittest? What role does nature play?

Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre
What kind of atmosphere is created in the first section? How is this mood created?
What character qualities does Jane show when she saves Rochester from the fire?
How does Jane behave in the second section? Relate her behaviour to the ‘ideal’ behaviour of an ‘angel in the house’.

Charles Dickens: Hard Times
How is Coketown described? What is life in Coketown like? What does the ‘fine lady’ know about it?

Elizabeth Gaskell: Mary Barton
How is the relationship between millowners and workers (industrialists and working class) described?
What living conditions are described?
How do the working class people treat one another?

George Eliot: Adam Bede
This is obviously a programmatic statement of what a realist author ought to do.
What does the author want to describe in her novels?
In contrasts, what do some readers expect of her?
What paintings does she compare, and how does that relate to the things she wants to describe?
How does Eliot define beauty? Evidently, there are 2 types of beauty.
What characters should we sympathise with?

George Eliot: The Mill on the Floss
What is Maggie’s character like?
What does her mother expect her to be like?
Relate this to the ideal of the Victorian woman.

Robert Browning: My Last Duchess
Who is the speaker of the poem?
What is he doing and who is he speaking about?
What character qualities does the speaker have?
What was the duchess like and what happened to her?
What does the count value and think important?
What did the Duchess value and think important?
Where does the whole conversation take place?
Who is the speaker talking to and what is he obviously planning to do soon?
What is the attitude of the reader to the speaker and the Duchess?

Alfred Tennyson: In Memoriam
The poem is about the death of a beloved friend.
What two concepts (or belief systems) are opposed in the poem?
Who is addressed in the first three stanzas? and what hope is expressed in them?
How do people try to console him (stanzas 4 and 5) and is this helpful?
How is “nature” defined in the following stanzas? What theory does this refer to?
Why does the author refer to “scaped cliff and quarried stone”?
How does the poem end?

Oscar Wilde: The Importance of Being Earnest
Think about the style in which this play is written?
What picture of society is presented in this passage?

TUTORIAL, 07.05.2009

 

Victorian Novel

 

-          Social novel: “condition of England” novel; describes miseries of the working class. People move to towns which became bigger and bigger, housing was bad, illness was spread, water was polluted, authors belonged to the middle class – so inside into working class lives was rather limited, Christian charity and altruism (selflessness; if you care for other people), they didn’t come up with any political suggestions that would have been necessary to change the situation, they basically attacked social evil.

 

Examples: Oliver Twist, Hard Times (an industrial novel),

 

How can we describe a realistic novel (what a Victorian novel basically is), what does it do?! Tries to give a true picture of life and characters, very detailed (not just focusing on faces but also on surrounding and all the little details you would recognize in real life as well)

Realistic novel à reality effect
Outside realism: landscape, rooms, appearing of people, food, streets, … all the surroundings
Psychological realism: motivations, portraits of characters, everything that comes from inside, emotions, …

 

Form of narration: omniscient narrator (knows everything), alternatively: 1^st person limited narrator

reliable first person limited narrator in for example Jane Eyre

 

-          Apprentice novel: A character finds his place in the world, from being a child to being integrated into a meaningful place in the world.

 

 

Dramatic monologue: is a poem in which characters reveal their characters in a critical situation. Narration is a first person unreliable speaker. We should be shocked and critical.

 

 

Romantic period

 

 

In what way did the industrial Revolution change the life of the people; the country in general?

People moved to towns, bad working conditions, illness was spread, factories were build, child labour and women had to work in factories as well, not featured in the literature at that time but it was there à background information

 

 

How can you describe the role of women in the Romantic period and how did Mary Wollstonecraft comment on it in her text Vindication of the Rights of Women?

 

Married women took status of their husband, they had no right (for voting e.g. or the children), they were not educated (lower class women had to work), middle and upper class women were the “angels of the house”, supposed to be soft, sensitive, decorative and amuse their husbands. Wollstonecraft: she was a revolutionary woman and writer

 

 

What are the features of Romantic writing? Contrast the values of Romantic writing with typically 18^th century writing. How was an ideal poet described in the 18^th century? And in the Romantic period?

 

Romantic period writers wrote about the nature basically. In the Victorian period they wrote about the industrial revolution, working conditions and so on. Element of the sublime (romantic writing), in the romantic period writers rather wrote poems and stuff like that, not so much novels

 

19^th century is the great age of the novel

 

Romantic Period: Stressed emotion, imagination, children, and individualism (no universal rules and rationality à that was all back in 18^th century), listen to your heart not so much to reason like in the 18^th century. The poet listens to his heart and there is this individual imagination of the poet (daffodils), originality is very important, they turned to wild nature because the cities were so unpleasant (terrible living conditions)

The sublime: That you are interested in the dark side of something but at the same side you are afraid of it àfear. (e.g. Rime of the Ancient Mariner)

 

Describe the relationship between science and art in the 18^th century. How did it change in the Romantic period?

 

They split it (before they were seen as one), Science was seen as rational and mechanical, related to machinery and factory. Art was the emotional, living imagination

 

What is meant by the sublime? What new milieu were the Romantics interested in?

 

On the one hand the children (mirror to god, unspoiled) and into rural people (because they were nearer to nature). New interest in folk literature (you can see that in the ancient mariner for example)

 

How does Wordsworth define good poetry in this Preface to the Lyrical ballads? How is this applied in the Daffodils?

 

It has a language that is used by “normal” people, talking about simplicity, recollects thoughts and writes it down afterwards

 

How does Shelley define a Romantic poet in his A Defence of Poetry? What is special about the typically Romantic poet?

 

Tutors of laws and inventors of the arts of life, seen as teachers, poet describes the present, they are extra sensitive (they can sense what other people can’t; they have a special feeling about society, able to see the important things in life)

 

Which two terms are opposed in Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey? What is seen as good and what is seen as bad?

 

How he experiences nature as a child (unspoiled, enjoying it) and when he was an adult (spoiled by civilization), but he had these memories about childhood and this helped him to find back to nature

Good: country is the inspiration  , bad: town
describes his various phases in relationship with nature

 

What form does Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner imitate? What atmosphere is created in the poem?

 

Model: folk poem (rhyme and rhythm), the folk ballad basically. Story about a mariner who killed a bird just for fun. He didn’t treat nature with respect. Now he tells the story. Snakes àrealized that they were beautiful à he realizes beauty of nature à he is relieved from the curse and he no longer rejects nature but respects it. Magic and gothic atmosphere, element of the sublime.

 

What is meant by a Byronic hero? How can you define this type of character?

 

Don Juan, Manfred first appeared

 

He is an outsider of society, mysterious, he mocks the bourgeois beliefs, rejects all the norms from bourgeoisie.

 

What are typical features of Gothic Fiction? What does the story usually centre on? Give three famous literary examples.

 

Atmosphere = bloomy, dark, frightening

Setting is often in graveyards or castles; in the center is a woman (mostly blonde) and a man who chases her (eg. Frankenstein, Jekyll & Hyde, Jane Eyre), sexual innuendo (Andeutung/Anspielung), danger of rape and murder

 

What are the features of the Historical Novel? What can you say about the main characters?

 

Placed in the past, historical people involved in the background, fictional characters are main characters, still popular

 

Was Jane Austen a typically Romantic write? How can you classify/describe her style of writing? What did she ridicule in her novels, eg.: in Sense and Sensibility? What did Jane Austen value? What types of characters are most of her heroines?

 

No! not a typically romantic writer

She is rational and makes fun of this sensibility, she respects the system

 

Sense and Sensibility: She makes fun of sensitive writers. She shows two types of women (rational and one emotional), satirical style

Valued: balance of rationality and emotionality, the system and hierarchies (she accepts it and didn’t attack it)

Typical heroines: witty and independent, strong, intelligent women, more satirical tone, comedy of manners,
irony: you need to be rational and intelligent to be ironic.

 

Typical features of the Romantic period:

 

Imagination

Emotions, individualism

Interest in childhood, rural people

Nature as wild nature (the sublime element

Simplicity (language)

Split between science and art

Originality

 

TESS the D’Urbervilles

 

What is important?

 

Characters (Tess, Angel, Alec, Tess’ family)

Friends (Izz, Marian, …)

Rural life, nature

Angel’s family àclass and gender

Clergy, role and importance of religion

Role of women/men

Marriage, Society, Atmosphere, Working life

 

LECTURE, 07.05.2009

Exam:

Sign up: ELECTRONIC, UVO

New rule: if you are ill you have to cross yourself out electronically otherwise you can’t take the next exam. 

Model exam on e-learning platform next week!

 

Victorian Novel

Most novels are extremely long. Published within months. They feature many characters and they use repetition (to remember what has happened). Cliff hanger endings are typical, so that you’ll buy the next magazine where the stories continue.

Picaresque novel also published by dickens (eg. Oliver Twist). Later he published novels that were arranged around a certain theme.

Popular in the Victorian period: social novel! Concerns itself with the effects of the industrial revolution. It always tried to arrows pity and understanding for the working class and the poverty, for the difficult housing and working conditions and so on. All the writers came from middle and upper class and were not born into the working class à limited understanding for the working class. It may seem naïve today but certain approaches (eg Marxism) were not available at that time. Dickens is famous for his humor. The other novel: apprentice novel: development from childhood to the adulthood (eg. David Copperfield)

Thackeray was his rival. Dickens for a very wide readership, Thackeray appeared to a more intellectual, educated readership. Whilst Dickens loved melodrama and sentimental scenes, Thackeray totally hated this and wrote in a rather ironic and sarcastic tone à for that you have to be intelligent. His novels didn’t deal with social life but he wrote satires about contemporary society “comedies of manners in pros” à comedies about contemporary life (e.g. Vanity Fair: two main contradicting characters à you have to pick)

 

Two more social novelists:

Elisabeth Gaskell (famous social novelist) e.g. Mary Barton or North and South. She came from the middle class. She had a very good knowledge of the working class. Wife of a non conformist priest who worked in the poor part of Manchester. In her descriptions he painted a realistic picture of living and working conditions in Manchester and  she could also appreciate working class culture.

Reader: p. 18: Mary Barton: focuses on working class radicalism. It portrays feelings of working class. Marie’s father commits a political murder. Ends in forgiveness, the murderer dies. Solution: Christian charity and understanding.

North and South: Contrasts the life of the mill owners and the working class. Contrasts the north and south of England: North: heavily industrialized whereas the south: was still quite rural. The heroine of north and south lives in the south and then is forced to go to the north but she appreciates the industrial life. Solution: change of heart. Christian charity.

Benjamin Disraeli: (later prime minister) Sybil or The 2 Nations: argued that middle and upper class know nothing about the situation of the working class. And the novel argues that the upper and middle class on the one hand and the working class on the other are like two nations à they are aliens to each other. It is the task of the novelist to make the problems of the working class known to the middle class reader and agenda understanding from the middle class. They wanted to sell and so they included some kind of love story and sentimental plot because that sold well. Mix of social criticism with a sentimental love plot.

Important: Not all writers of the Victorian period wrote social novels. Many did but it is a distinctive feature but not ALL wrote.

 

3 sisters who have remained extremely popular:
The Bronte sisters: (Charlotte, Emily, Ann) (eg Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Villette), lived in a remote village in Yorkshire. They had very little contact to the fashionable society of London. Reading they got was from the library of their father àstocked with writings form the romantic period àthat’s why they were extremely influenced by romantic writing. What is romantic? They were especially influenced by poetry by Lord Byron. à Byronic heroes  (extremely Macho like, sexually thrilled and outside society and mysterious, sexually attracted)

Unusual, because they do write about the woman’s picture of the submissive picture of the angel in the house. Heroines reject self-sacrifice and beauty, they want passionate love and self fulfilment.

Jane Eyre: a female apprentice novel. It outlines the life of a rebellious girl. She becomes passionately involved with a man.  Gothic tale, fairy tale and apprentice novel.

p. 16 + 17

1 scene: Jane Eyre hears something move around the corridor and realizes that her master’s chamber has been set on fire. (change: ‘cause usually women had to be saved), atmosphere is that of a gothic novel (dark chamber, ghost who commits a crime)

Second part: central love scene, she behaves in a very a-typical manner (not ladylike) she rejects custom, “I am a free human being with an independent will” à she claims to have the same rights as a (much richer) man à very unusual at that time,

Wuthering Heights: very a-typical Victorian novel. (use of an omniscient intrusive narrator was typical for a Victorian novel). Now Wuthering Heights uses two unreliable first person narrators. Very unusual, Story of passionate love and revenge, It features two narrators who you should not trust: a city man and a servant (her own prejudices and wants to hide her own responsibility in the situation) as a reader you are faced with a very passionate tale but you don’t know how to interpret it, you have to make your own opinion à very un- Victorian (it is modern).

 

George Eliot: is the most intellectual of Victorian novelist, she was a woman! She chose a male synonym because women writers where usually criticized by male critics. She wanted to have a fair criticism.  (the Bronte sisters also used a male synonym but was forgotten) She was a very emancipated woman and lived with a married woman openly, she was famous, so how should people who met her address her? Couldn’t address her Miss or Mrs. Because she had sexual experience and wasn’t married. So you could address her as George Eliot àthat’s why she’s still known under this synonym. She had lost her Christian faith because of the new findings of science and criticism. But she always retained belief in Christian ethics! She rejected Christian metaphysics (life after death and God) but believed in charity, responsibility; kindness … Her belief was called the “religion of humanity”. In all her books she shows that every action we do or commit has inevitable consequences. (You will have to pay for bad actions, if you do something good the world is going to progress.) All characters are facd with the decision: act selfishly and unkindly or responsibility

The narrator is always typically omniscient and intrusive and passes judgement.

p. 19 and 20: She doesn’t want an idealised picture of women, she wants to paint a truthful picture and human beings are not either very good or very bad but in between. She compares her own writing to the Dutch painters (Rembrandt). She likes Dutch painting ‘cause they painted working class people and made them beautiful. (not just idealized Madonnas) We as a reader we must sympathize with the normal people not just with the perfect and the best.  You have to create sympathy for common and normal people and paint them truthfully and not in an ideal manner:

Realism: outside and psychological realism.

There is a young girl, Very naive who is seduced by an upper class man. Gets pregnant, kills it à she was sent to Australia (because of her sin) and dies there.

Middlemarch: life in a small provincial town; Problem of making a decision, Two main characters, an enthusiastic woman who wants to do good (she marries the wrong man who is very jealous and dry and she becomes very unhappy but she takes her responsibility and stays with him until he dies and then she marries a second time) and a enthusiastic young doctor who wants to advance medicine and also marries the wrong women. Once you’ve made the wrong decision,

p. 21: The Mill on the Floss: It takes up the problem of the ideal female in the Victorian novel, you can see in this passage that Maggie is not confirming to the idea of the angel in the house. Even her own mother (who is narrow-minded and stupid) is upset by the fact that she dirt her clothes, that she’s not kind etc. (all what society expects of a woman). Novel ends tragically because in real life such a woman could not stand in such an intolerant society.

Victorian novel is extremely varied. Not each and everything was realistic.

Lewis Caroll: Alice in Wonderland

It’s a children story (written for children). Victorian period also saw the beginning of children’s literature. This novel enjoys turning the Victorian world on its head (order, logical, etc), it is a parody of the pomposity of the Victorians. Usually didactic religious tales were written for children. Alice is a middle class child who is somehow confronted with the word upside down. At the end Alice escapes back into her old normal life.

Sensation novel: the predecessor of crime fiction and detective fiction (influenced by American writers Wilkie Collins [the Woman in White], Edgar Allen Poe)

Mary Braddon(sensation novelist): Lady Audely’s Secret. Written in the 60’s of the Victorian period and it became an international bestseller. It also was one of the first books which drove middle class critics up the wall, a popular book (no longer high literature), What was so shocking? It focuses on crime in the middle class and it featured a blonde, blue eyed, innocent, angel like looking who is actually a murder. Modern and feminist critics argue female readers were fed up of the angel in the house and like to read something naughty.

The fact that all people seemed to like the same thing was breaking up towards the end of the Victorian period.

 

Stevenson: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
A gothic tale.

Stoker: Dracula

Also a gothic tale.

 

Thomas Hardy: Is a typical Victorian novelist on one hand and the form in which he wrote is typically 19^th century (omniscient intrusive narrators, comment on the actions and explain it to the reader), on the other hand the values he propagated and the things he attacks are no longer typical of the Victorian period, but typically of the end of the period when Victorian values broke up. Hardy lost his belief in Christianity. Christianity has lost his meaning and leads to the frustration of the characters. (Tess can not burry her baby in a Christian church à Tess of the d’Urbervilles). And simply makes life difficult. He was influenced by evolutionary theories (Darwin). Not idyllic à nature is cruel. The fittest are not those who are morally the best. If you are nice you have less chance to survive in Hardy’s world as if you are selfish and less kind. Those who have a soft heart suffer even more than those who have no heart at all. He seems to pretend that the gods in heaven are simply playing cruel games with Tess.  Setting: Wessex (South of England, imaginary, it’s a rural area which has not been touched by industrialization which does not mean that it is idyllic à nature is very cruel). Life is not made better by machinery. The landscape is very important because especially in Tess, the landscape reflects the mood of the characters (most obvious: between the Dairy (beautiful, where she falls in love with angel and is happy) and where she works when angel has left her à it’s harsh, stony and so on àreflects the characters mood). In all of his novels Hardy sees his characters against a vast panorama of history. Not just contemporary life but it is seen in a historical dimension (Tess is a descendent of an old aristocratic family à this is her ruin if you think about it). There is a scene when she flees with Angel and the police catch up with them in Stonehenge. It was belief that it was a place of pate and sacrifice à so he meant to show that Tess is a human sacrifice (he made a sacrifice by middle class society. It’s not only Alec who is to blame; Angel is such as bad as Alec à both contribute in ruining Tess.

What causes a particular scandale? In the subtitle Hardy calls Tess a pure woman. Acceptable to feel sorry for her but you can’t say he is pure women (he had an illegitimate child)

You would think Alec is the evil and Angel is the good. But it’s not like that. Angel is not angelic, just as narrow minded as most of his contemporaries.

Tess is ruined because of her best qualities.

Naturalism

Distinguish naturalism and realism!

Naturalism was a style that was developed in France. In Britain like Henry Moore or George Gissing wrote in Naturalism. It’s a style that concentrates of the negative aspects of life, on working class people and their misery, in the sense of determinism. Focuses on sexual instinct, extreme poverty, drink, etc. It considered to be alien (a French style).

 

Victorian Drama

Played a minor role. Most writers are forgotten nowadays.

Two names remain:

Oscar Wild:revived the restoration tradition, the late 17^th century tradition of the comedy of manners (eg The importance of being earnest), sparkling and witty and extremely artificial style, but they give a satirical picture of the superficiality of contemporary upper class society

 

G.B. Shaw:Drama of ideas, he was influenced by Ibson (?) and social drama.  Points at problems of ideas, social problems, social conventions which have gone wrong, he was a socialist and he used drama to propagate socialist ideas.

Turn of the Century: the colonial theme

Always behind the scenes (They went to America and became rich, but you never know what happened)

Rudyard Kipling(more in attitude with the Victorians)

“White Man’s Burden”, Kim, Jungle Books

Joseph Conrad(must be classed already with the modernists)

Heart of Darkness, Nostramo, Lord Jim

E.M. Forster(must be classed already with the modernists)

Summary 07.05.2009

 

Other social novelists

E. Gaskell: North and South (comparison of rural South and industrialized North); Mary Barton (working class culture and solidarity, but also political radicalism; solution: forgiveness, change of heart, altruism)

B. Disraeli: Sybil or the Two Nations: middle class knew as little about workers as about an alien nation

not all novelists: social novelists

Bronte sisters: influenced by Romantic writing, a-typical of the Victorian period, partly in subject matter (eg. the heroine in Jane Eyre) and narrative technique (e.g. 2 unreliable narrators in Wuthering Heights)

 

most accomplished realist writer: George Eliot: agnosticism but "religion of the heart"; responsibility for one's actions; progress only through selflessness. Adam Bede, Middlemarch (story of 2 failed marriages of 2 idealists in a small town) ; Mill on the Floss (gifted woman stifled by repressive society).

Thomas Hardy: late Victorian novelist; in style, typically Victorian, in values: attacks the Victorian double sexual morality and divorce laws

Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Jude the Obscure

novels set in Wessex (rural South of England, historical dimension; not idealized, cruelty of fate, agnosticism, Darwinian view of cruelty of nature)

 

Children's literature: Lewis Carroll: Alice in Wonderland: subverts Victorian logic, playful.

 

sensation novel: forerunner of detective fiction: Wilkie Collins: Woman in White

Mary Braddon: Lady Audley's Secret: angel in the house turns out to be bigamist and murderer; beginning split between "high" literature and popular literature

 

Naturalists: described the dark sides of life, poverty, drink, brutality. wrote at end of the century. Believed in social determinism: Moore, Gissing (New Grub Street)

 

drama: in 19th century mostly sentimental, melodramatic; but towards the end of the century:

Oscar Wilde: comedies of manners; Importance of Being Earnest

G.B. Shaw:drama of ideas, socialist. Mrs. Warren's Profession, Candida

Homework: read “White Man’s Burden” p. 26, p 28 – 33, Heart of Darkness

Homework for 14 May

Questions you should ask yourself when reading Heart of Darkness

The tale is a so-called “frame” narrative – the main part is framed by a narrative set at a different time and place. Where are the two parts of the story set?
There are two narrators in the story. What does each of them narrate? What attitudes do these two narrators take, for instance towards imperialism? How is the first narrator influenced by Marlow’s tale?
Are the two narrators reliable? Find arguments for or against reliablity.
Why does Marlow want to go to the Congo and how does he achieve his aim?
What does he experience in the “white city” = Brussels? How is Brussels described?
What does the doctor who examines him tell him (is this significant later in the story?)
How would you explain the symbolism of the three knitting women?
When he gets to Africa – how does Marlow experience imperialism there? Think about what happens in the various stations.
What is his attitude towards the Africans? Is the book “racist”?
What kind of reputation does Kurtz have? What character does he seem to have? Is this impression confirmed when we finally come to meet Kurtz?
What did Kurtz do and why?
How are the other imperialists  (“the pilgrims”) portrayed?
What attitude does Marlow take towards Kurtz?
Why does he lie to the Intended?
The story has been read both as a political tale about imperialism and as a psychological journey into the darkness of the human heart. Can you find arguments for both interpretations?

Questions you should ask when reading “Professions for Women”.

What experience does V. Woolf describe?
What kind of ideal is she expected to fulfil?
How is she expected to treat men?
How does she react to this ideal in the end?
Relate this passage to other texts in the reader

Questions you should ask when reading A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

What age is Stephen in the various chapters? How can you guess his age?
What point of view is used in the book?
Look at the language used? Why is this kind of language used? Why does the style change?
The style works with associations. Can you find a few examples? Why are these associations used?
Is everything described “reality”?
What decision does Stephen come to in the end? What kind of “epiphany” (=sudden important insight) does he have?
Compare the style used by Joyce to the sections from Victorian novels

Questions you should ask when reading “Dulce et Decorum Est”

What subject is described in the poem?
In what way are the soldiers described? Was this description “usual” at the time?
What effect does the poisonous lime gas have on the man? What kind of details does Owen give?
What does Owen attack? What is the meaning of the last two lines?
What metre and rhyme is used? is the metre regular?

Questions you should ask when reading “The Love Song of Alfred Prufrock”

 

Tutorial 14.05.2009

 

·         What is typical of Dickens’ novels that were published in monthly installments?

cliffhanger endings – to keep up suspense

lots of little details

repetition

2-3 years

variety of characters – special characteristics

·         What is the difference between the social novel and the apprentice novel?

social: Industrial Revolution, difficult housing conditions, poverty, working class

apprentice: development of character from childhood to maturity

·         What is typical of Thackeray’s writing?

for educated readership, rejected sentimentality in drama

sarcastic, ironic, satirizes contemporary society, comedies of manners in prose

·         What can you say about the writings of the Bronte sisters?(heroines, flair, atmosphere, etc.)

father’s library – Romantic writing

lived outside of Yorkshire?? – not much contact to the city

influenced by poetry of Lord Byron

heroines – witty – standing on their own feet, demand equality

rejected the idea of female self-sacrifice

published novels under male pseudonyms in the beginning

 

·         Why is “Wuthering Heights” an atypical Victorian novel?

unreliable 1^st person narrator instead of omniscient intrusive narrator

 

·         How could you describe the term “realist writing”? What kind of picture did writers paint?

outside realism: landscapes, clothes, rooms etc.

psychological realism: thoughts, feelings

usually uses omniscient narrator sometimes reliable 1^st person

did NOT want to paint an idealized picture

truthfully represent reality

 

·         What kind of story is Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland”? How is the Victorian world portrayed? What does it make fun of?

written for children
wake of children’s literature

parody of the pomposity of Victorians – makes fun of pretentious, serious and didactic children’s literature

illogical

makes fun of ordinary perception – logic of a nightmare or dream

in the end Alice escapes into the safe normal world

 

·         The sensation novel is a predecessor of ………………………..?
Name 2 famous sensation novels

modern detective & crime fiction
(detective fiction very much influenced by Edgar Allan Poe)
Wilkie Collins: The Woman in White
Mary Braddon: Lady Audley’s Secret (1860s) became international bestseller, ‘catering to the low instincts of the working class’ – split between popular and high literature

focuses on crime in the middle class, featured blond blue-eyed angel in the house – bigamist and murderess

consensus (all people seemed to like the same thing) was breaking up towards the end of the Victorian period

Dr Jekyll & Mr. Hyde

Dracula

 

·         Naturalism. Where did this style develop? What does it concentrate on?

France

concentrates on life of the working class in a negative way – does not present solution of Christian charity – Darwin-determinism

alcoholism, poverty, etc.

‘survival of the fittest’

 

·         Victorian Drama. What picture does Oscar Wilde portray in his plays? What styles does he use?

revived the restoration(late 17^th century) tradition of the ‘comedy of manners’ e.g. The Importance of Being Earnest
satirical picture of contemporary society – superficiality of upper class
witty, artificial

 

Tess of the D’Urbervilles

 

·         Analyze/Look at the role of men and the role of women. Are men dominating women? + provide examples from the book

double-standard – Angel had premarital relationship as well

Tess idolizes Angel to an ‘unhealthy’ degree

                        Angel does not see T. as equal – does not respect her

            he paints idealized picture of her – she doesn’t live up to his standards – he deserts her

            Alec dominates her from the beginning – in the end she kills him BUT she is persecuted by men

            T.’s life is ruined because of her best qualities

            ?better to have a stable marriage with sb. whom one does not love than being deserted by  the one person one loves?

            Angel’s parents – rather equal!?

            women are never asked what they want – Lizalou gets married to Angel

·         Analyze the main character + give examples from the book

Is Tess a fallen woman?

beautiful, childlike

went crazy because of terrible incidents that happened – horse died, baby died – she buried it etc.

fallen? raped, illegitimate child, ostracized, she fought but since her personality was not fully developed she never managed to cope

·         Men? Alec, Angel

Alec – upper class, was not called D’Urberville before, sexually active, pretentious – impressionable (changes his mind a lot)

blames T. for his weakness

when he pretends to help – it is out of self-interest

·         Analyze the role of society!

low vertical mobility

women can only marry into higher class

premarital sexual relationships – condemned by society

not very explicit – subtle

Angel’s parents do not strongly object but in a way they would like him to marry Mercy Chant

boundaries between classes got blurred towards the end of the century

criticizes Industrial Revolution – threshing machine (people being treated like machinery)

T.’s father – drunk, T. feels responsible for her family   

 

LECTURE, 14.05.2009

Colonial theme was THE new theme at the end of the 19^th century!

Kipling:

ü  glorification of empire

ü  was born in India; his parents were colonialists

ü  was sent to Britain for education but he felt very alien there

ü  a lot of poetry & prose

ü  KIM: interesting survey of India at turn of century

ü  reader p.25: The Whiteman’s Burden

 

Joseph Conrad:

      Polish by birth

      fled because Poland came under Russian rule;

      lived in France before becoming a soldier – here he learned English;

      settled down in Britain

      very adventurous life

      topics he wrote about differ quite a lot from Victorian novel (apprentice or social novel; place of action always Britain) – HE wrote about political themes which were rarely set in Britain (no love themes – too mundane in his opinion); motivated also by personal history (Poland under Russian rule – betrayal)

      NOSTROMO: political novel about South America

      LORD JIM: set in East Asia

      was a modernist;

      HEART of DARKNESS:

= not straight-forward, linear narration; little chronology throughout the book; it has a frame, which is why it is often called a frame narrative; it contains 2 narratives set at different places & times;

a)      frame:        England; on board of a ship;

b)      Marlowe:    Africa; 1^st person narrator;

both make use of a not very reliable 1^st person narrator;

 

ad a) Marlowe contradicts himself quite often and even lies sometimes;

“Words fail to convey what experience is really like, I can merely try” → unreliable 1^st pers. narrator → stress on subjectivity of experience → VERY new and totally unvictorian;

ad b) dreams about golden times of Imperialism; Thames and its greatness (of having produced so many successful seafarers and conquerors); Marlowe’s tales really shock him; @ end of frame he is changed in his attitude;

 

2 attitudes towards imperialism can be found:

ad a) very enthusiastic about imperialism;

ad b) considers England NOT superior just by nature; just a question of development; in early history, when the Romans came, it were the English who were considered savages  & who had to be civilized; contradicts himself very often [likes Britain / its flag & its possessions BUT believes that imperialism is not a pretty thing to do, it’s only exploitation]

1^st part of Marlowe after frame: Marlowe’s journey to the Congo; snake-like river resembles the river Congo which was under Belgian rule at that time; the Belgians committed large-scale murder & exploitation in its colonies ( = worst colonial rule by far) & Conrad HAD the real experience because he was there;

®Marlowe is an adventurous explorer;

® White City (1^st stage of his trip) compared to Brussels (like a grave);

® He meets people there that are very symbolic [knitting women – German mythology – life threads are being cut; doctor – measures his head since shape of head tells you if you’re mad or criminal         (= common belief at that time)

 

Picture of Imperialism you get in this book is very bad [people are starved to death, killing natives is fun for colonizers, exploitation (esp. for ivory), total mismanagement & cruelty] ® bad attitude towards white people, attack on white colonialism;

It seems controversial on what Conrad himself thinks about black people; difficult to gain his position from the book (some even consider his view racist)

further storyline: trip to Curts ( = greatest evil-doer; only driven by self-interest; “pilgrims are no better”); Marlowe prefers Curts to the pilgrims who are simply despicable;

Marlowe doesn’t tell the reader if things are good or bad; reader is only left with shock but has to come to his own conclusion

è In topic & narrative technique this book is very modernist

 

Historical dates / facts of the early 20^th century (see power point slides)

µ       idea that there is one undividedly clear universal truth for all of us is breaking up

µ       things are only true from a particular viewpoint ® relativity of truth (!!)

µ       experience gathered from wars & cruelty

µ       Modernism is very doubtful of human rationality; stresses passion

µ       beginning time of decolonialisation

µ       economic problems (1930s) – Great Depression

µ       political problems – Rise of Fascism ®socialism developed and got around; let to widespread fear of the working class masses among middle class writers

µ       SPLIT between high culture and popular culture in FULL swing (!!)

high culture – for elite; popular culture was looked down upon; many modernist writers were elitist & didn’t want to write for the masses and therefore wrote in an intentionally difficult style

µ       Literature also reflects failure of 19^th century solutions;

µ       Idea of apocalyptical endphase (“Where is it all going to end?”)

µ       belief in universal truth ends; truth becomes subjective & relative

µ       also a sense of fragmentation & abstraction (you, as an individual play many roles in your life, you are different in different situations)

µ       Modernist Art moves away from pure mimesis = imitation of reality (cf. 19^th cent.) – new interest in form

µ       new distrust in language (cf. Heart of Darkness) – can words really convey subjective experience??

µ       not completely unified; language has many facettes;

µ       focus on urban life; modernism no longer idealized the countryside but focus on body, instincts, sex

µ       culture critique

µ       completely new narrative technique & style – no longer straight-forward & linear but works with associations & symbols & montage& collage ® it’s more difficult to follow plot line; loss of faith in order & rationality but still there is a longing for it;

accepting chaos & not caring about it = post-modernism

accepting chaos but actually longing for order = modernism

features of modernist literature:

ü  formal experiment with form of poetry & novel;

ü  dislocation of syntax

ü  new subject matters: cruelty of war, sex

 

ü  elitism; texts are consciously difficult

ü  ambiguous: no clear-cut interpretation; many different meanings – polysemy

ü  a lot of intertextuality – reference to earlier texts as comparison / contrast; not written for work. Class

ü  frequent use of symbolism

ü  no longer any guiding help from narrator to help interpret (often unreliable narration)

 

Modernist PROSE

English realist tradition was very strong & still throughout modernism many realistic novels were written;

In the following famous modernist works are being dealt with.

Features:

·         experimental in structure & form

·         achronological

·         open ending (NO solution)

·         works with association

·         gives up use of 3^rd person narrator because belief in universal truth ceased to exist; truth is relative & subjective ®omniscient narrators can’t be used ®often limited 3^rd pers. narrators

·         often Stream of Consciousness-Technique: derived from psychology; “Bewusstsein” is not happening step by step but is a river that flows;

in novels: makes you listen to thought processes of a character; flow of consciousness = full of associations & weird thoughts;

·         no longer interested in grand subject matters because they are things not usual in real life; much higher interest in describing the feeling of a day in your life; seemingly trivial;

 

Virginia Woolf

      attacked naturalists & realists because they wasted time;

      wanted to convey what it feels like to be alive

      doesn’t convey “big” events BUT everyday life & feelings

      To the Lighthouse

      The Waves

      one of the 1^st female & feminist critics

 

Catherine Mansfield – from New Zealand; esp. famous for her short stories

 

James Joyce

      Irish; left Ireland in disappointment of its provinciality;

      all of his writings are “stream-of-consciousness”-writings

      Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man:development of young Stephen Dedalus to becoming an artist; 3^rd person narration; reader sees world through little Stephen’s eyes; reader follows thoughts & associations of little boy; NO linear development; even a whole dream is included; autobiographical elements; later: sudden inspiration (=epiphany) that he wants to be an artist ( epiphany = sudden insight into important aspect of your life that is triggered by a very trivial incident)

      Ulysses: rewriting of classical Ulysses = classical example of intertextuality; story set in modern Ireland

 

T.H. Lawrence

      also a modernist; but entirely different in style;

      not so experimental in form but in subject matter [caused scandal by writing extensively about love & sex]

      father was a minor;

 

      he rejected Christian morality; celebrated body / flesh as solution; sexuality assumes almost mythical proportion

      Sons & Lovers

      Women in Love

      Lady Chatterley’s Lover

      he developed symbolic language to describe passion & desire in order to avoid sounding too pornographic

 

Joyce & Lawrence exemplify two different forms of modernism – Joyce was experimental in form while Lawrence was experimental in subject matters;

 

Modernist POETRY                                                                         (see power point slides)

§  rejection of the regular Victorian form

§  modernist poets didn’t refrain from describing ugly things (war as ugly & NOT as heroic enterprise (cf.Victorian times)

§  many use intertextuality, use broken up syntax;

§  avoid logical development

Summary 14.05.2009

 

Rudyard Kipling: White Man's Burden
Imperialism justified on humanitarian grounds; Kim = novel set in India, survey of Indian society and religions

  Modernism:

fear of mass culture, consciously elitist
culture cretique, idea of living in aplcalyptic end phase
relativity of truth
sense of fragementation
no more trust in language
often concentration on urban life, war, instincts, body
no longer grand moments described but feeling of being alive every moment
narratives no longer linear or chronological but fragmented, associative
formal experiment
dislocation of conventional syntax
associations, dreams, hallucinations, random thoughts
new topics which were formerly taboo
ambiguity, polysemy
use of symbols
intertextuality
nostalgia for a time of order, though no longer belief in order and progress
Writers looked for a system of order eg in religion, socialism, fascism, the body, etc.
third person limited narration, stream of consciousness technique

 Modernist Novel:

Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, Nostromo: new colonial and political themes; relativity of truth
Virginia Woolf: The Waves, To the Lighthouse: stream of consciousness
typical modernist writing. "Profession of Women" attacks angel in the house ideal
K. Mansfield: modernist short stories
James Joyce: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man; Ulysses (=rewriting of the Ulysses story in modern Ireland)
Lawrence: Sons and Lovers, Women in Love, Lady Chatterley's Lover (pornography trial!-see important dates of 20th century)

 Modernist poetry

 

 

TUTORIAL, 28.05.2009

            Twentieth Century Writing

What does modernist writing reflect?

Everything is relative, there is no universal truth, everything is relative, subjective, no right or wrong, doubt that language can reflect strong emotions e.g. horror, fear etc.

They were disappointed about everything that happened in the 19^th century. Historical background: war (first WW, colonial wars,… )à influence, sense of fragmentation: we play in different roles in our lives, in different situations we behave differently (weather we are at home or at work or somewhere else, clear split between high (elite) and popular culture (rather seen as primitive) à modernist writer were elites, so they didn’t want to write for the masses

What can you say about modernist art?

Artists: Klee (?), Mondrean (??)

Very subjective, everything is breaking up, they don’t imitate reality anymore, but we have absolutation, distrust in language and new interest in form, focus on urban life, war and instincts of the body, on sexuality
So imitation of reality anymore, but abstraction

When it comes to language there is distrust – weather words can convey the subjective experience of a person

Novels are not chronological, a lot of symbols used, associations, and people believe in order and rationality (people were still nostalgic about the time before war)

Describe the characteristic elements of modernism.

Dislocation of normal syntax, no longer conventional sentences subject matters that were formally taboo in the 19^th century now were focused on (e.g. war, sex, …), no longer chronological narrative, polysemy(?), elitism (complicated and ambiguous texts – you don’t know how to interpret them) intertextuality, texts are structured by association, symbolism, no longer help by the part of the narrator, formal experiment in style and language

What is typical of modernist prose?

A poet needs some inspiration, stream of consciousness – just write whatever comes to your mind, no complete sentences, it’s in a persons mind basically – you follow the thought process of a person, it’s not clear, linear or objective. Limited 3^rd person narrator seems to be objective but is not, presents only one person’s believes and point of view, stream of consciousness technique in prose, the loss of interest in Victorian things and interest in life, their works are about life (how is it to be alive), usually open endings, experimental in structure and form, a-chronicle, associations are used, Why did they give up the omniscient 3^rd person point of view? àdidn’t believe in one universal truth anymore, you don’t know how it will go on (no happiness ever after)

What is meant by “stream of consciousness” technique?

 

Oxforddictionary: 1) Psychology a person’s thoughts and reactions to events, perceived as a continuous flow. 2) a literary style which records as a continuous flow the thoughts and reactions in the mind of a character.

What is typical of modernist poetry?

They rejected Victorian form (rhyme, regular meter, etc.), not afraid to describe ugly things, describe modern things (modern cities, metropolis, war àrealistic and cruel), used broken up syntax and intertextuality, poems difficult to read because of style and subject matter

Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness

The tale is a so-called “frame” narrative – the main part is framed by a narrative set at a different time and place. Where are the two parts of the story set?

Congo and the river Thames (frame story)

There are two narrators in the story. What does each of them narrate? What attitudes do these two narrators take, for instance towards imperialism? How is the first narrator influenced by Marlow’s tale?
limited first person narrator àMarlow, another man on the boat
attitudes: Marlow is critical towards Imperialism, because he sees what happened in a country that has been exploited
also: pro Imperialism, heroic glorious

Are the two narrators reliable? Find arguments for or against reliability.

No, Marlow contradicts himself, lack of memory

Why does Marlow want to go to the Congo and how does he achieve his aim?

He wants to explore the African land, for the adventure, it’s like a temptation (Darkness, the place)
aunt in prison, she supports him à she gets him the job
he was fascinated, a place he doesn’t know what it’s like, the river

What does he experience in the “white city” = Brussels? How is Brussels described?

Brussels – the white city
he has a job interview there and he was also with a doctor (who thinks that all people who go the Congo are crazy)

What does the doctor who examines him tell him (is this significant later in the story?)

 

How would you explain the symbolism of the three knitting women?

Reference to mythology, powerful woman who can decide over life and death in a way, they don’t talk, his aunt is given a voice

When he gets to Africa – how does Marlow experience imperialism there? Think about what happens in the various stations.
Something happens in the head of the people àmaybe at the end Marlow gets a different attitude towards the people, Imperialism: cruelty, natives were beaten to death à fun for the white people (reasons for money), they used slaves

What is his attitude towards the Africans? Is the book “racist”?

He has his prejudices as Marlow, even though he thinks it’s not ok what happened there à no one is free of prejudices at that time (almost) 

What kind of reputation does Kurtz have? What character does he seem to have? Is this impression confirmed when we finally come to meet Kurtz?

He is ideal, intelligent, Marlow is very fascinated by him, but when he meets him actually he’s really disappointed, be became one of the Cannibals, he became the leader of them

What did Kurtz do and why?

He killed people (went crazy), was out of control, he lost civilization
His last words: the horror, the horror (but he tells his fiancée something else à that he said her name actually) women were not taken seriously, conservative picture of women

How are the other imperialists  (“the pilgrims”) portrayed?

 

What attitude does Marlow take towards Kurtz?

 

 

Why does he lie to the Intended?

 

 

The story has been read both as a political tale about imperialism and as a psychological journey into the darkness of the human heart. Can you find arguments for both interpretations?

 

 

 

Wilfred Owen: Dulce et Decorum Est

 

What subject is described in the poem?

 

 

In what way are the soldiers described? Was this description “usual” at the time?

 

 

What effect does the poisonous lime gas have on the man? What kind of details does Owen give?

 

 

What does Owen attack? What is the meaning of the last two lines?

 

 

What metre and rhyme is used? is the metre regular?

 

T.S. Eliot:
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

 

What basic situation is described in the poem?

 

 

What kind of character is Alfred Prufrock?

What is he anxious about? What questions does he consider?

 

 

What social activities are described in the poem? What picture of fashionable society emerges in the poem?

 

 

The poem is full of intertextual references. What famous texts, artists or myths does the poem refer to? For what purposes are these famous intertexts used in the poem?

 

 

What is Prufrock’s relation to these famous models?

 

 

Rudyard Kipling:
The White Man‘s Burden

 

What kind of “burden” does the white man have? What should he do?

 

 

How are the colonised people presented?

 

 

How is their culture presented?

 

 

What profit does the white man get from doing his duty?

 

 

Why does the white man take up this burden, according to Kipling?

 

LECTURE, 28.05.2009

Modernism: was a radical reaction against Victorian norms, a counter reaction, radically different, it is highly experimental, this experiment could take two forms: protest against Victorian norms as it regards content (different subject matter, if people wrote about war than about the cruelty and the horror of it, or sexuality, no longer wrote about the great events (marriage, birth, death) but about daily, trivial events, the meaning to be alive, what it means to think every day, to describe the thoughts that cross the mind, the flow of consciousness, the flow of thoughts in the mind,) OR as it regards form, or both

 

Modernist writing attacks the modern way of life and is a culture critic (mainly because of the experience of the first world war), people have lost the belief that there was a shared reality outside, a universal truth, truth was considered to be subjective, each of you experiences reality in a subjective manner, experience of war, loss of meaning à certain nostalgia in some works for a lost time (the time before the war), when people had still meaning in life.

Expressed in form, structure and style of these texts, characteristics:

§    Texts are very often A-chronological (they don’t follow a linear sequence, not a logical strait forward line), often they work by association

§    Unity of these works often achieved through symbols, through occurring motifs and not through conventional logic

§    No clear cut ending, no losure (not like the good live happily ever after and the bad were punished or something), a day perhaps ends and you don’t know how the story will go on, they seem fragmented (they jump from one thought to the other by association, and because the figures described are often not unified characters and fragmented, they play a number of roles or personalities)

§    You no longer find the use of an omniscient intrusive narrator (who explains the world to the reader), now: limited 3^rd person narration àfocalized narrator through the eyes of the narrator or stream of consciousness narration (following the thoughts of a person)

§    Often free verse (no longer any metrical rhythms)

§    Very unconventional syntax, sentences are broken off

§    Ambiguous or polysemic meaning (a work of art can have a variety of meanings, and it is not clear what it means and the writer does not tell you, you have to find your own interpretation)

§    References to old myths

§    All this makes modernist works elitist à addressed to elite readers, many modernist writers acted against popular culture; clear split: high vs. popular (uneducated) culture; the texts are difficult

 

(war poem discussed)

 

Elliot, p. 34 ff, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

What is this text? It is a dramatic monologue (reveals a speaker at a decisive moment of his life, speaker is Prufrock and the listener is the reader à he is addressed various times

Written in irregular metre, heavily intertextual à a lot of explanations below

Hence, very elitous and difficult to understand

Contrast a heroic and ordered past with a meaningless and small minded present

Subject matter: modern antihero, a man of society who has absolutely no meaning in his life à the way he talks resembles stream of consciousness

He talks about very trivial incidences, a whole life consists of society events but he never does anything there

His life is as shallow as a coup of coffee; he is very upset that for a modern man myth no longer works, he longs for the time of Shakespeare etc, when heroism was still possible

No linear, clear narrative, but whole poem is structured by his associations àvarious asterisks, he drifts off and thinks about something else, he keeps returning to some issues and these in fact structure the whole texts, he keeps to refer back to society events

They talk about Michelangelo and actually don’t know anything about him – he is just one more trivial subject in their lives

He keeps coming back to a strange unasked question, we don’t know what the question is “what is meaning of life?” we don’t know. The meaning is polysemic

 

Starts with a reference to Dante’s inferno in Italian (a clear reference to intertextuality and to elite), this prepares you for the confession

You and I addresses the reader and confesses to the reader

In the beginning he describes the evening à compared to a patient under emphatic

“do not ask what is it” àdoesn’t even dare to formulate the question, and we never know what the question actually is

Society women talking about “educated subjects”, and Elliot makes fun of these women in a way, who do not belong to the educated

Description of the fog, the fog resembles a cat

Next page à And indeed there will be time………

à a number of explanations

He must prepare his face to meet other faces, because he is afraid to give away his emotions à he has to put on a mask, so that nobody can read his emotions à you don’t show your true face in this society

The idea that the artist must destroy and create something new à later we realize that Prufrock never is going to destroy anything à he is much too weak

Intertextual reference is clearly ironic à in the past lovers had no time à in the present they have all the time in the world

“for a 200 visions.. and revisions…”

The taking of toast and tea àthat’s what his life consists of à he never dares to do anything, he changes his opinion all the time, do I dare? We do not know what he doesn’t dare (a woman, or something else??)

Should he run away from the party? He is afraid that people will talk about him and gossip about him, he is not an attractive man and he is very conscious of that (his lack of masculinity)

No meaning in his life

Last stanza (p. 35):

People will sum him up in one phrase (e.g. he is not interesting) à he compares himself to an insect which is pinned upon a wall and is observed by society

p. 36:

He is quite clearly attracted to women but doesn’t know how to approach them, these women are all cool and white an unapproachable but if you look close, they have hair on their arms which indicates animalism

Reference to the bible (prophet) story of John the Baptist

But he is no prophet, not strong and gifted enough à prophesy was possible in the past, heroism is no longer possible, Even if I were a Lazarus people wouldn’t even believe me

p. 37:

middle of the page:

…. Prince Hamlet…….

The role of prince Hamlet is no longer possible; the only role that is open for a modern man is the one of a fool

Shall I eat a peach? What’s the problem with it? Your not supposed to suck and smack in this society, he is so anxious about his reputations à he doesn’t even dare to eat a peach because he is afraid that people will look at him and speak about him, it’s so trivial.

Again the regrets àmermaids à no access to the magic of poetry or love

Exemplifies many of the characteristic features of modernist poetry

The text compares a heroic meaningful past to a meaningless unheroic present

England in modernist times = waste land

Eliot (born in America à but lived in England later)

Wilfried Owen:Dulce et Decorum Est Anthem for Doomed youth

T.S. Eliot

Ezra Pound e.g. Cantos

W.B. Yeats(Irish poet) e.g. The Second Coming

 

Political writers of the 30s

Aldous Huxley: Point counterpoint, Brave New World
à started out as a modernist writer (point counterpoint), but then became more concerned with the future of man kind (brave new world àdystopia novel à very negative version of a future), BNW is much more down to earth and realistic, not particularly elitist à why? à if you have a political message to transmit you don’t want to make it unnecessarily complicated for your reader à they tried to reach the reader

George Orwell: Animal Farm, 1984 (both later works)

He started in the 30s, wrote about the Russian revolution

 

Important historical dates

§    From 1933: Rise of fascism in Europe; British policy of appeasement

§    1936-39: Spanish Civil War. Republicans supported by international Brigades, Falange by Hitler.

§    1939-45: 2^nd WW, Churchill British PM

§    After war: Britain loses status as a major power: debts, austerity policy, welfare state

§    1947: Independence for India and Pakistan

§    1949: Republic of Eire

§    1940s, 50s

§    1952

§    1953

§    1958: 1^st immigrant ship “Windrush” from W-Indies, followed by waves of immigration into Britain

§    1959: Pornography trial or Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover

§    1968: Censorship ends in the theatre. Student revolt, Counter-culture

§    1972: Britain joins EU

§    1970s: Second Wave Feminism; rise of postcolonial criticism (claim that women were treated as a minority)

§    1970s-1998: Civil War in Northern Ireland (between Protestants and Catholics)

§    1979-90: M. Thatcher PM: neo-liberal programme, cuts in subsidies for the arts

§    1982: Falklands War; Churchill’s Top Girls performed

§    1986: Coetzee publishes Foe (rewriting of Robinson Crusoe in a postcolonial and feminist way)

§    1997: T. Blair PM (“New Labour”)

§    1998: Good Friday peace agreement in Northern Ireland

 

Postmodern art

Postmodernism not very easy to define (because we are in the middle of the development), things are not really clear cut in the 20th century. Postmodernism is the usual term by which we designate the second half of the 20^th century and the present. It has two different meaning: 1) the time that came after modernism (defined in purely temporal terms) or 2) some critics define it as a stylistic movement (in terms of style) à difficult, because it’s very anti-essentialist à everything that is true for everything doesn’t exist à there is no universal truth

Philosophically: PM has its root in quite radical doubt in rational (?) man, they reject any single explanation of things, they attack all established frameworks and believes, the want to destroy before they create, “An attack on all master-narratives (the famous time honoured ideologies of the west, stories of the west, texts of the west; eg: the bible, hamlet, Robinson Crusoe because it’s so famous, a received view of history à what’s important in history, feminists have long attacked historyàherstory”, they wanted to look at history from a woman’s point of view) master-narrative is defined in a very broad way à seen from a new point of view.

In postmodernism tries not to be elitist and it combines elements of popular

culture and high culture, it uses elements from all kinds of cultures. (eg detective, erotic stories, poetry, drama, narratives à all into one things à this we call HYBRID à mixing a great variety of styles and cultures, it is also playful, it likes to play with genres or with language or with concepts, satirical, non serious)

Combination of thigh art and comic art is very popular,

This makes postmodernist texts very fragmental, but in many cases this is much more contradictory and much more hybrid than a modernist text à it enters in a critical view (?)

The information you get about the characters are so contradictory that you cannot get a single image of them, additionally many of the main characters are outsiders at the edge of society, because this allows them a much more critical view of the mainstream culture, if you are an outsider you tend to be critical towards the believes and customs of the mainstream culture.  (e.g. Midnight’s children à narrator is more or less a freak)

Self-consciousness is showed by many meta-fictional (references to the act of narrating itself; self reflexive) references. The Interest lies in the act of presentation rather than in the story itself. Mixture of language: high language mixed up with slang and four-letter-words. Whatever you expect in a work, they try to get you at this and show you that it is totally different. Often new versions of former works à they try to refer and give answers to older works. Writing of new versions of famous writings from different standpoints (feminists, etc .. eg: you write Noah’s flood from the standpoint of a woodworm)

They also dramatize the break down of communication, language no longer functions as a means of communications, language very often fails to carry meaning, language can be used as a power game for instance, mixture of styles also entails that the comedy and tragedy are mixed just as high and low language are mixed.  Revision of old master narratives resulted in feminist literature. Literature tries to focus on the issues of women, and criticizes social structure that disadvantages women.

 

1970: Postcolonial literature started:

§    written by immigrants and their children

§    In Britain, but also in India and Africa

§    postcolonial writers tried to produce a version of formal colonized people (black people) – people who had no voice before

§    can take up a variety of form: highly political, realistic methods

 

Postmodern texts are extremely diverse, and it will maybe take another 100 or 1000 years before we can see what it really was.

 

 

 

LECTURE, 04.06.2009

SIGN UP for the exam NOW!!!! We are allowed to bring the books (without notes) Come in time!

(deconstructive revisionist poem)

Postmodern art

Contrary to modernism it is playful; it combines popular culture and high culture, so it’s not strictly elites as modernist art. It mixes genres, tragedy + comedy, various styles àbecause of this mixture it is hybrid and fragmentic. It doesn’t regret the loss of high culture like modernists; it celebrates this new freedom and relativity. Postmodern art is very self-conscious, self-reflexive, it makes the reader aware that it is a made up story (a made up thing) à many meta-fictional remarks àcomments on the act of art (eg. 3 possible endings)

It is quite difficult do sum up the characteristic features of PM because it is anti-essentialists, it hates universal lists of characteristics, in the texts we will read you will find some characteristics, but rarely all of them à they try to be very individualistic

Typical: it disappoints expectations, that’s part of the playfulness

Often narrated by outsides àpeople who are at the fringe of society (woodworm who narrates Noah’s flood for example)

PM art always distrusts master-narratives, the important texts of our culture (examples: religion àBarnes: History of the world in 10 ½ chapters àtitle already indicates a funny approach to historiography, or the story of Noah’s flood) à subject is de-constructed

Part of this deconstruction and new perspective on this old master-narratives, is that PM literature tries to give a voice to people who did not have a voice before (eg women, black people, colonized people,… )

Two famous subcategories: feminist and post- colonial literature

Feminist literature:

Feminism started in the 60s and 70s of the 20^th century. (Second wave feminism -àbefore eg Virginia wolf)

They try to tell stories from a female perspective. They claimed that this will shed new light on these stories and will also reveal the hidden ideologies of these stories.  Try to tell not history but HERstory. They are concentrating on the problems of women, and trying to deconstruct and question traditional gender roles and traditional images and views of women. In western culture (perhaps even until the present but certainly until the 60s) women were shown in two roles: housewife and mother (the saint, the Madonna) or that of the sex object (the whore). Obviously feminists try to deconstruct these roles à there are neither this nor the other. They want a much more down to earth picture of women.

Think of the attributes and qualities of men (active, rational, strong,… ) and women (passive, emotional, weak,… )

Women also address the question/problem that in our culture for a long time women were excluded from political, economic and artistic life and what it takes to break through these barriers. What is the price women pay in order to succeed for example economic rights? (eg. Top girls)

Several of this feminist’s texts do not fulfil ALL of these criteria à because often they are highly political texts à they try to change the situation and therefore trying to be realistic à they tend to use MORE realistic features at least

Some postmodern texts completely give up realism, some combine different genres and features and stylistic devices

Reader: last page

Carol Ann Duffy à one of the famous feminists poets (in which she deconstructs master narratives)

“Eurydice” (she deconstructs the story of Orpheus and Eurydice)

Expectation: She’s longing for her husband …………

But:

She’s furious, I can’t even have my peace and my inner brave, and she wants to get rid of him, so she tricks him to turn around

Go into detail:

Girls, I was dead àimmediately addresses a female audience, written for a female audience, it starts out with a seemingly negative description of the underworld (no when)

Even though we expect her to be unhappy in the black world she’s glad because Orpheus has no power)

 

“girl would be safe….. and one sulked for a night…. Knock-knock-knock. Big O” -à the language is clearly racy and colloquial, adequate for the heroic myth, she combines addresses to the gods with a very low and slangy language, she’s unavailable and can’t be constantly harass by the men, he is immediately angry à he only expects flattery from her, he can’t take her criticism, he only wants her as his muse (Big O à out of a soap opera not of a myth à mix of high and popular culture àtypical PM elements), she calls him larger than life à but it’s deconstructive, she is the price for him, he never asks her “do you want to come back with me” -àthese men decide over her head à this is criticized, you never thought about these things à the poem simply turns the table and deconstruct it

“Things were different….”

“Bollocks. (I’d….) … “

The poem does: in the myth Orpheus was claimed to be such a good poem that the even animals came to listen to it à suddenly the shock of slang (bollocks) the woman doesn’t want a man to sing about her, she wants to speak for herself (people had talked about her as Beloved, Dark lady, etc.), voice must be given to people who had no before

“In fact girls..”

The male gods of the underworld make an arrangement to make her come back without even come back àpower is in the hands of men and they usually don’t ask what women want.

“the bloodless…”

Deconstruction of the myth again, having a couple of beers, sudden impression of popular culture into the myth in order to ridicule the story

Middle of second column (so we walked, we walked…)

Forget the old story, forget the master-narrative, this is a new version à an alternative version of the old story,

“It was an uphill schlep” Yiddish word à colloquial atmosphere

Suddenly she has an idea how to trick him (through flattering: oh dear Orpheus, your master piece I would love to hear it again)

Typical deconstructive revisionist poem, master-narrative is written in a postmodern style.

 

Postmodern poetry

Rootlessness, hybridism, don’t know to what culture we belong à have to find a harmony between old roots and British roots, language: these colonized people had to learn English (hard to express their emotions and experienced because it was not there native language), So often in postcolonial literature they creolize language, they mix languages

Philip Larkin: post-modern (white) writer “this Be the Verse”

Parents give children traumas by their education à serious topic presented in a humorous, non-serious form, even though parents give children traumas and make mistakes because they were traumatized by their , solution by not having sex and children is completely realistic à non-serious, playful presentation combining a serious theme with a very shocking and unexpected language à disappointed expectations

John Agard: p. 39 “from MEMO to Crusoe” : deconstruction of the master narrative of Robinson Crusoe, from Friday’s perspective à he’s his own opinion and talks back to Crusoe, a post-colonial voice talking back who feels that R C was a colonized who had no right to take the land and paying no attention to this, noticeable: the language (tries to convey west Indian dialect and pronunciation) it uses typical West Indian elements (me inside of my), it has creolized the English language to include the feature of western Indian  language, also in terms of expression), tobacco is in the Caribbean (R C doesn’t land there, but it was notorious for it’s slave trade), Friday claims to keep a diary (like Robinson Crusoe which is the basis of the whole narrative, Friday can’t read and write, but here a different perspective: Friday is not without culture àsimply different culture à  a song, a calypso, a typical Caribbean cultural tradition, it’s written in this calypso. ) The poem sets a different culture. “A bone to pick with” à a pun, a joke, to have a quarrel with (idiom), but also refers to the fact that Friday is supposed to be a Cannibal (he was presented as a Cannibal), absurd discrepancy in style between threat to eat Crusoe up and the polite form at the end of the letter àcombination of high culture (story of Robinson Crusoe) and low culture (my ass etc)

Sujata Bhatt

Carol Ann Duffy

Post-colonial literature

Also part of PM category. It’s a political statement (also, like feminism), there are some works that use more realistic elements and others that are more experimental in style. It tries to give a voice to people who were former silenced àpeople from the colonies (Africans, Asians), the “subalterns” (these people were called like that), they were denied because o political power and denied their own culture and language and thus denied at voice, after 2^nd WW (when colonies come to an end) the writers started to deconstruct the old images connected with black and Asian people, they tried to write back, to give an alternative version of history and its problems.

Two MODERNIST texts: White mans burden, Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (one is critical about imperialism and the other not, both doesn’t give the voice to the people who were silenced) à but now u give perspective to the colonist’s people (they thought of England as their mother country à they thought they could start a new life there and get supports, but soon they were faced the reality: racism and discrimination)

Many of these people were the migrants, they had a migrant background and didn’t know what group of people they belong (still a problem) and hence never accepted as full British citizens (Asian-British, Pakistani-British, but not BRITISH), hybrid à you never know where your roots are, not only the immigrant generation but also the generations after them

PM literature topics: often deals with this hybrid identity, this rootlessness

Postmodern novelists:

Julian Barnes

Janet Winterson

Salman Rushdie“Midnight’s Children only Fruit” (set in India, magic-realist style, narrates the history of India)

J.M. Coetzee

H. Kureshi: “The Buddha of Suburbia” (Pakistani background)

 

Sujata Bhatt “A Different History” à p. 29 reader

 

First stanza: contrasts a very materialistic, capitalists and secular culture in the West, where we don’t believe in a God where we’ve lost any respect for nature, don’t respect books anymore with Indian where relationship to nature and religion is still possible. Idea of that you have to respect nature is still alive, there is a respect for nature and culture. Respect for old age and also former times. Sarasvati = God of Art (Indian). It was difficult to speak, write or create art in the conqueror’s language, but now à for the next generation it is easier and possible, but it took a long time

 

DRAMA

 

Modernist period:

Shawn introduced political drama, the drama of ideas, in the 20^th century this soon was forgotten and Drama went to comedies. There was Modernist poetry and fiction but no Modernist Drama.

 

Usually the modern British drama is dated with 1956 Osborne’s: “Look Back in Anger”, it was an innovation but it was not postmodernist writing

He was the first to use working-class characters and language and a working class milieu. Instead of middle-class comedy he wrote a play about working-class characters, using their slang and attacking the politics and the established of the time.

At the same time in France a new style developed: absurd drama (has as its background the philosophy of existentialism à there is no god, no afterlife, man has lost his metaphysical grounding/or roots and hence life on earth is really meaningless because it doesn’t lead anywhere à no closure in the next world àthat’s why the human condition as itself was absurd àwithout metaphysical aim, these absurd writers tried to put this kind of feeling, meaninglessness and absurdity into a form of a play), plays usually don’t achieve anything à they move in a circle àcircular in structure, they end were they began (example. P. 38: Samual Baket “Waiting for the Godot” àwaiting for a man called Godot but he never comes, they are constantly are saying “let us go” but in the end they are still there and nothing has been achieved). Communication also breaks down, language is no longer suitable as means of communication, they don’t longer listen to each other, they don’t answer each other’s questions, because the other one may get something to use against you and get power over you). Distrust in communication, language used as a power game, you use language to gain power (dialogue often seems trivial and meaningless, but in the subtext it is a power game), 3) The characters don’t have any unified personality, they are fragmented, you never know anything for sure about their past, you’re on your own in your interpretation.

Caryl Chruchill:Feminist drama: Top Girls

David Harepolitical/docudrama

Sarah Kane in yer face theatre

 

Other typical features of PM

Deconstruction of the story of the crucifixion of Christ, mixtures of serious topics and comedy, tragedy and comedy combined, inability to communicate and to remember what was in the past and this refusal to give your own opinion might put you into power over your conversation power

 

Next time: PM drama, top girls and foe

 

TUTORIAL, 04.06.2009

Post-Modernism

 

What are the two meanings of the post-modernism?

Either it is defines as a purely temporal term (everything after modernism) or a stylistic movement

What are typical features of post-modernist writing?

No universal truth, master-narratives are attacked and seen from a different point of view (eg. Feminist, history àherstory… ), mixtures of many genres, fragmented, combination of high and comic art is very popular, The information you get about the characters are so contradictory that you cannot get a single image of them, additionally many of the main characters are outsiders at the edge of society, Self-awareness is shown by many meta-fictional (references to the act of narrating itself; self reflexive) references, they are conscious of the fact this is something artificial, something created à that this is not reality. The Interest lies in the act of presentation rather than in the story itself. Mixture of language: high language mixed up with slang and four-letter-words, they play with it, great mixture of style, (Modernism is still nostalgic about former times and postmodernism completely reject that, postmodernism doesn’t try to be elites but Modernism is for example) Whatever you expect in a work, they try to get you at this and show you that it is totally different, unreliable narrators are popular, intertextuality (they refer to many text) àmodernism too but

Why is it difficult to describe post-modernism?

Postmodernism not very easy to define (because we are in the middle of the development), things are not really clear cut in the 20th century.

Post-modernism can be described as hybrid. What does it mean?

mixing a great variety of styles and cultures, it is also playful, it likes to play with genres or with language or with concepts, satirical, non serious

What is meant by meta-fictional references?

Meta-fictional references are references to the act of narrating itself; self reflexive, but in postmodernism it is more playful and with more funny references

Next Question:

We don’t have a clear overview, they are against every essentialism à they don’t want to be described. You can not define it because it’s quite new

Next Question:

Mixing of styles and cultures, playful (genres, language, concepts)

Next Question:

Proof that it is something created, about a narrative technique, example à end of a narrative with 3 possible endings, they clearly state that it is a piece of art (they make you aware of this àcharacters address the reader: why does the author make me do this?!)

 

TOP GIRLS

 

Look at the different acts! What is each of them about?

Act I:    pseudo-historical characters who meet up at a restaurant. Celebrating Merlene’s promotion. All fiction, surrealistic, a lot of overlapping characters àactually this act is chronologically in the middle

Act II:   Marlene’s office à Agency called “Top girls” à they get women jobs. Angie’s visiting her (her niece, actually her daughter) à chronologically the last one

Act III: Birthday of Angie àafter B. à earliest in time

Is there a chronological order?

No

Which act is chronologically the first one, which is the last one?

 1=3 Act

 2=1 Act

 3=2 Act

 

Look at the main characters

Marlene: lack of social responsibility

Joyce: completely opposite, very bitter

What are their aims in life?

 

What do you find shocking about them?

 

Do you think there is any female solidarity?

 

What kind of themes can you identify in the play? What happens to women who remain at the bottom and what is life like for women who rise to the top?

 

What kind of language do they use?

Mixed up, slang àidioms, Latin, high language, vulgar

1^st: “masculine” way of talking à overlapping, not listening

Great variation, Marlene is code-switching à professional vs. vulgar

Do they use masculine or feminine language?

Expense of femininity, ersatz-men

 

LECTURE, 18.06.2009

Exam: study the reading list!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Postmodern novel also postcolonial writers (refers NOT only to black writers, the majority is though):

Julian Barnes:Flaubert’s Parrot

Janet Winterson: “Oranges are not the only Fruit”             

Salman Rushdie: Midnight’s Children

J.M. Coetzee: Foe

Postmodern drama

Caryl Churchill: Feminist drama: Top Girls

David Hare/political/docudrama (a drama that is really routed in actual events in history and uses whole sections of interviews for example in a dramatic context)

Sarah Kane: “in yer face theatre” (being an extremely aggressive, cruel, bloodthirsty theatre that intends to shock it’s audience)

 

Top Girls

Is a product of the rise of feminism. In the 70s women were gaining a voice in literature, they also wanted to concern themselves with problem that specifically concerned women. It’s an all women play. (no male actor). Feminist drama must not be particularly sympathetic to each and every kind of women but also criticizes. It doesn’t claim: men are bad and women are good. Position of women and what they have in fact achieved. The play questions of top girls – or the price that is necessary in order to become a top girl. Top girls refers this employment agency but it also refers to women who have broken through the glass ceiling àachieved a high carrier. Marlene – just like man. She is extremely successful in her profession but not in her private life. The solution is not just to stay home as a housewife à her sister is also unhappy àself-sacrifice in her life isn’t any better àproblem: Churchill doesn’t offer you a solution, there is no solution of how women can combine a carrier with a satisfactory private life. Perhaps there is no solution within the social system (capitalist, competitive system) we live in. Not showing solidarity, not emotional à all the qualities that are typically associated with men à she has these qualities as well. “Even more balls than blabla”.

Shocked of the price she was willing to take in order to get her carrier.

Move to admiration to better knowledge to shock. First act is quite surreal/fantastic whereas the other two are realistic.

All of the realistic sections employ a modern, colloquial or business language and is set in a realistic British social background. The firs act however (even though the setting is realistic) is unrealistic; her guests are “historical” women. Why does Churchill do that? What do they have in common? They all did something exceptional, they all broke out of the gender roles of their time. They did things that weren’t thought to be fit for women. All things offended traditional gender roles. You expect that these things are ground for celebrations à they managed to achieve things, but when you look at all these women you begin so see parallels to Marlene, they all had to pay price that concerned their private life (loss of children, partnerships,… ) They are either unhappy about that, because what they really want didn’t turn out, or you can see that they enjoyed it but developed a terrible bad conscious about all this.

You would expect them to understand each other because they all did something exceptional à but they don’t, they never listen through one another (interloping dialogue). Marlene in her realistic part is also very self-centred.

Problem of the lack of female solidarity, the fact whenever women something exceptional they have to pay a very high price for us and they are very often unhappy with there position because they cannot reconcile career and private life.

Patient R. is also a role model? Marlene? Everyone is kind of problematic. We not particularly like her even though she’s got a good career.

Differences between women, who are successful and the ones who share traditional gender roles.
Clients: some are very shy, they don’t really receive a lot of help à the whole attitude is totally immoral in the agency.

Angie is not receiving any help either à shocking. Low-paid, uneducated job

 

FOE

 

Postmodern novel. Rewriting or question of the famous master narrative Robinson Crusoe. New version, revised version. The parallels are quite clear but also the differences. “Cruso” is even spelt differently. Again a ship wrecked person. The hut he builds in a way similar à but decisive differences: Crusoe doesn’t show any energy or initiative. In Robinson Crusoe was a representative of the 18^th century man à very reasonable, believing in reason à this believe in foe completely lost, he shows no energy. He is not able to salvage any tools out of the ship wreck à he has no modern tools, only stone tools à on a level of a stone age person, he is a hunter / gatherer, as that this completely destroys the picture that white people are superior to black people. Problem: As “Foe” who is actually “Defoe” àcomplains that the story is boring, why didn’t he has any tools etc. Meta fictional ideas about what is it that makes a good story, what story sells well? Foe wants to write an interesting story. No cannibals à no exiting conflict or Spence whether they will eat Cruso or not. And Foe step by step wants to invent them to make the story more interesting. Missing in Foe: the whole religious background (RC: the book is also a spiritual autobiography, telling you about his conversion, his coming to his trust in God) He is not really a religious person. On the whole there is no believe in providence or in a kind of God. The island in Foe is very  barren(unfruchtbar).  In Foe very lash and tropical in RB. Present of the women: In RB women hardly appear, women and sex don’t play any role in the 18^th c. novel. In Foe there is suddenly a woman. She is the active one and wants to get away from the island and she narrates (takes over what should be actually Cruso’s part) Somebody gets a voice, a woman which is completely excluded in RB. Narration similar: First person narration and mixture of narration and this journal, Susan narrates and there is also a journal, and in addition you get letters. Intertextuality plays a great role, most important to the 18^th c. novel. There are many many other references to other novels that Daniel Defoe wrote (Roxander and Flander, who deal with women/whores and their relationship to their children). Gives voice to people who were silenced in the master narrative.

Susan hopes to become famous by the novel. But as a woman in the 18^th c. she has very little self-confidence, she thinks she needs a professional writer to make it successful à she asks Foe, she is simply the secretary. She is the “father” the “getter” of the story, he is her move à he tells her how to write it and what style to use. This is not the traditional gender role à women are muses and men are father roles usually. Men have the power of the “PEN”. Susan reverses this gender role à she miscalculates the power relations in her society, he refuses to be simply the muse, he wants to go back to the traditional roles, it’s finally his story, that cuts out Susan as narrative. Foe takes the idea and the inspirations, he rubs her out from her own story, and makes her story a success of the story he has stolen à power relation, men had the power.

He tries to buy off Susan, to give her something so that she won’t complain constantly, he wants to put her in another story à lost her daughter and find her again story, she doesn’t want it written, this is her private story. Men refused to allow that different story àwomen either whores or saints (eg a mother waiting heartbrokenly for her daughter) that were the roles that were allowed for women in the 18^th century. Even Susan comes to realize that a plain narrative on a lonely island is not going to satisfy the audience. Inventing the sensational (that what you see in the Robinson Crusoe of Defoe). It’s a humorous rewriting, make the audience think about power relations in our society and the role of women in English literature.

Coetzee is not only a postmodern writer, also a post colonial writer. This is especially visible in the treatment of Friday. In Foe, Friday is not a South American Indian, but an African and an ex-slave. In 18^th c. RB Friday was described as good looking, brown rather than black, having straight hair etc. In Foe Friday is quite clearly a slave and we assume that he was transported to the island by a slave ship which was ship wrecked and he probably was the only survivor. Never completely clear what Cruso’s role in this slave trade was. In RC he was involved in the slave trade. Here, he may was but we do not know, we also don’t know what happened to Friday’s tongue à who cut it out? So that he cannot speak, Susan even suspects Cruso to have cut it out. We don’t know. We don’t have any clear evidence that in fact he has no tongue. Highly symbolic à in both cases à if he hasn’t got a tongue than deprived by whites of the right to speak and the possibility to speak. If he had a tongue à sign of his resistance, he will not cooperate with the white people (like Susan as she doesn’t want to talk about her private stuff before the island) He doesn’t want to because he knows they’re going to steal his story. Whatever you think (the book leaves it open intentionally whether he has a tongue or not à in both cases it is highly symbolic)

Cruso wasn’t interesting in teaching or hearing Fridays speak (in both books). But Susan wanted it badly. English as “Foreign” language for this people à it can’t tell the experience of another culture, she would have to teach him all the aspects? Of the language.

The really interesting story is Friday’s and that is what your are not going to get. Because a white writer cannot tell the story of a black man. Perhaps some time in the future the story will be told. But not now. Only in an utopia.

The last pages are not narrated by Susan. You are no longer in the 18^th c. You are in the present. You don’t know who is the “I” (visits the houses and then dives into the sea to hear the narration and stories of Friday and the other slaves). Maybe it’s Coetzee himself, but it’s difficult to tell. He dive down to see whether he can hear Friday’s story. He hears a stream of sounds but cannot interpret it and therefore cannot tell his story, maybe in the future. Coetzee cannot write the black man’s story; this cannot happen before it is written by a black man.

Indication: Foe: enemy. Foe is the enemy of Susan because he steals her story. The white people are also the enemies of the slaves. Patriarchal power is an enemy to women or other races. The book is both about the distribution of power within the sexes and genders (men take power away from women and cast them in traditional roles) and it’s about the power of white men to tell the story in their way and taking the voice away from the black men. Friday cannot speak because he has no tongue, uneducated, doesn’t speak English etc. Susan also disadvantages: inexperienced as a writer and she is a woman and therefore not taken seriously by society.  At one point she takes over his desk and tries to write on her own. “A room of their own” – she breaks into Foe’s house to take his room but nonetheless he takes away her story. Susan and Foe struggle for control over their narrative. He steals it and passes it on on his own.

Susan cannot really wash her hands off the guilt, she feels kind of responsible for Friday and cares for him.

 

No closure to that novel. There are a lot of questions but NO answer, just speculation and interpretation.

 

 

 

 

 

When was it written? Which period? What characteristics?

Also poems

Postmodernism

from 1930s
rise of fascism; political writing: usually more realistic
Aldous Huxley: first modernist writing, then dystopia Brave New World
George Orwell: Animal Farm, 1984
Postmodernism: can be understood temporally (coming after modernism) or as a particular style; diverse; rejects essentialism
playful
hybrid
does not mourn passing of culture
mixture of genres and styles
blurring of distinction between high and popular culture
mixing of tragedy and comedy
often narrated by outsiders
debunking of expectations
deconstruction of master narratives
language often fails as instrument of communication
metafictional, self-reflexive
gives voice to people who did not have a voice before: feminist or postcolonial writing