(American)
Eliot: The Waste Land: ‘The Burial of the Dead’; ‘Game
1.Henry James
2. Alternatives of Modern Poetry:
Sandburg, Masters, Frost, Pound, Williams, Cummings, Stevens.
3. The Lost Generation: Fitzgerald, Hemingway.
4. William Faulkner. The Harlem Renaissance.
5. American Drama: O’Neill, Miller, T. Williams
6. Post-war Fiction and Poetry: Malamud, O’Connor, Carver,
Nabokov, Vonnegut, Morrison; Ginsberg, Lowell, Plath
(British)
1. Transition to modernism: Thomas Hardy’s poetry
2. Modernist Poetry: W. B. Yeats and T. S. Eliot
3. The Modernist Novel: Joseph Conrad, Virginia Woolf, James
Joyce
4. Absurd Drama: Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter
5. Poetry after the II. World War: Philip Larkin and Seamus Heaney
6. The postmodern novel: Kazuo Ishiguro or Salman Rushdie
Required Reading
Poetry:
(British)
 Thomas Hardy: ‘Hap,’ ‘Convergence of the Twain’. ’Neutral
Tones’ OR ’The Oxen’
 W. B. Yeats: ‘Easter 1916’; ‘The Second Coming’; ‘Sailing
to Byzantium OR ’Leda and the Swan’
 T. S.
of Chess’ OR ‘Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’
 Philip Larkin: ‘Church Going’, ‘High Windows’
 Seamus Heaney: ‘Bogland,’ ‘Digging’ OR ‘Punishment’
(American)
 Robert Frost: “Design”, “Apple Picking,” “Stopping by
Woods on a Snowy Evening”
 Ezra Pound: “In a Station of the Metro”
 William Carlos Williams: “The Young Housewife” OR
“Spring and All”
 Allen Ginsberg: “A Supermarket in California”
 Robert Lowell: “For the Union Dead”
 Sylvia Plath: “Daddy”, “Lady Lazarus”
Drama:
(British)
 Harold Pinter: The Birthday Party OR Samuel Beckett:
Waiting for Godot
(American)
 Arthur Miller: Death of a Salesman
 Eugene O’Neill: Long Day’s Journey Into Night
 Tennessee Williams: A Streetcar Named Desire
Prose fiction:
(British)
 Virginia Woolf: Mrs. Dalloway OR Joseph Conrad: Heart
of Darkness
 Kazuo Ishiguro: The Remains of the Day OR Salman
Rushdie: Midnight Children
 (American)
 Henry James: “The Turn of the Screw”
 William Faulkner: “A Rose for Emily”
 Ernest Hemingway: The Snows of Kilimanjaro
 F. Scott Fitzgerald: Babylon Revisited
 Bernard Malamud: The Magic Barrel
 Flannery O’Çonnor: “A Good Man is Hard to Find” OR
Good Country People
 Raymond Carver: “What We Talk About When We Talk
About Love”
 Vladimir Nabokov: Lolita OR Toni Morrison: Beloved
OR Kurt Vonnegut: Slaughterhouse Five
RECOMMENDED READING:
Randall Stevenson: Modernist Fiction: an Introduction. Harvester
Wheatsheaf, 1992.
Brian McHale: Postmodernist Fiction. Routhledge, London and NY,
1987.
(British )
Malcolm Bradbury: The Modern British Novel, 1993.
Innes, Christopher, Modern British Drama, 1890-1990. Cambridge,
1992.
Esslin, Martin, The Theatre of the Absurd. Harmondsworth, 1968
(1961).
Perkins, David, A History of Modern Poetry. 2 vols. Cambridge MA,
1976 and 1987.
(American)
Richard Ruland, Malcolm Bradbury: From Puritanism to
Postmodernism: A History of American Literature. Routledge, 1991
Peter B. High: An Outline of American Literature (Longman Inc.,
New York, 1986)
Charles Altieri: The Art of 20th Century American Poetry:
Modernism and After. Blackwell, 2006.
Relevant Chapters from The Norton Anthology of American
Literature (ed. Nina Baym, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New
York, 1998.)
 (existing between two becomes convinced that the admired Whitman, addresses the
nations) grounds are haunted. city in his most famous poem,
 Short stories and “Chicago”, rhetorical voice,
novels: Introduction to Modernist Poetry structure – shorter poems than
Whitman’s, but the diction is very
o 1879
Poe, Whitman and Dickinson flowing, a piece of Naturalism
Hawthorne (the idea of the survival of the
monography Walt Whitman had a huge impact
fittest) – finality is not taken into
o 1878 The on 20th century – he opened up the
consideration
verse, the poet is responsible for
HENRY JAMES (1843- Europeans – (the personified city would never
the poem
1916) sketch get old) – “Grass” – “Happiness”
o 1878 Daisy Dickinson’s condensed forms will (is it really about
Miller – study have an effect on Imagist poets Hungarians...? :D): happiness can
 Half English, half (eg. Pound) be presented, but not explained
American o 1881 The
Portrait of a Genteel tradition: literature is for Edgar Lee Masters (1869-
 “It is a complex faith
Lady - his ladies, far away from life, 1950): originally a lawyer, only
to be an American.” beautiful unlike real life -> this
‘second best’ wrote poems for himself until he
 American nationality degraded by the end of the 19th published a volume: “Spoon River
turning according to
century, with local colour writing, Anthology” – imaginary small
him
 Sensitive and refined naturalism, etc. – Literature has to town called Spoon River, dead
o 1888 Heart of
personality deal with real life, should be in people coming back from the
Fiction – essay unison with real-life problems
 All his life he’s been grave to talk about their lives –
o 1903 The the dead try to be sincere to
migrating between By the turn of the century,
the US and Britain Ambassadors themselves – huge criticism on
Chicago became the new cultural
 Friends with Emerson o 1902 The centre – unique throbbing the life of a small town (eg. Little
Wings of the discovered at the turn of the House on the Prairie-like
and Carlyle structure, a huge family) – very
 His brother, William Dove century, it became the heart of the
o 1904 The US rare examples of positive thinking
James – there is no communication
 Cosmopolitan Golden Bell Chicago Renaissance between dead people, they speak
education (school in The Turn of the Screw (1898) in monologues – death is not a
1912. Poetry – magazine, very
Switzerland) influential, like Nyugat – Harriet boundary of becoming wise, it’s
A gothic, horror novella just the boundary of becoming
 Nathaniel Hawthorne Classified as both gothic fiction and Monroe was the editor, in search
introduced the of new American voices sincere – “village virus”
a ghost story, the novella focuses
international theme on a governess who, caring for two
Carl Sandburg (1878-1967): Robert Frost (1874-1963) –
children at a remote estate, New England poet, very
the prototypical Chicago poet,
intellectual, excellent scholar –
inherited a farm from his
grandfather, this is where he
realised he wanted to be a poet –
he needed a persona: a simple
American farmer – wanted to
write poems that could be actually
understood by simple farmers –
the wisdom of the farmers,
however, his poems are not
simple at all – he subverts basic
American ideas like progress and
productivity - “Stopping by
woods on a snowy evening” –
very song-like structure – but “the
woods are lovely, dark and deep”
– stepping aside from a road, the
danger of another world – resists
temptation, the repetition of the
last line is convincing himself
*Design Classical Modernism –
High-Modernism
T. S. Elliot and Ezra Pound
Being a poet is an
international affair – followed the
thoughts of Poe – no emphasis on
being American. Gathering
together everything that culture
had already accumulated and
create something new from them.
The new text would revive the old
text – quoting from other poets
and writers and referring to others
as well to make them new. They
are modernists in the sense that
they are experiencing the
fragmentation of the universe –
broken images. Human experience
cannot be anything else but
fragmentation. The world war
made people realised that
everything was destroyed, wasted.
This destruction cannot be placed
in the same themes, patterns like
before, new ones had to be
created.
There is a very strong
belief in poetry – it is still possible
to construct a kind of structure.
They believed in the value of the
poems.
Legendary friendship:
edited each other’s poems. The
Wasteland – Pound cut several
lines from that poem and Elliot
was very grateful for that. “To the
better craftsman” – the poem was
dedicated to Ezra Pound. Very
rare, exceptional friendship.
Ezra Pound
1885-1972
The Father of Modernism
– he outlived several people he
actually taught. He was very self-
confident, trusted in his sense of
quality. He helped Yeats perfect
his poetry. He had faith in his
poets – helped to promote them –
William Carlos Williams, Joyce,
Hemingway, Frost, D. H.
Lawrence, etc. His death marked
the end of the literary era of High-
Modernism. His interest was not
confined to American literature.
It hadn’t happened before
that an American poet
influenced European
literature.
He was born in Idaho,
raised in Pennsylvania. He studied
Latin and tons about poetry. He
taught for four months but a
scandal happened and he was
dismissed. He got on a boat and
went to Venice where he
published his first collection of
poetry. Then he went to London
and became one of the most
influential poets. Imagism: In the
Station of the Metro – focusing on
one image. “Direct treatment of
the thing either subjective or
objective” – follow the spoken
language, don’t force the words
into the rhythm of a metronome –
don’t be too abstract or you’ll
never be understood – “Use either
no ornaments or good ornaments”
He was a very good editor
– but it was very difficult to find
his own style and words. He
thought later that Imagist poetry is
not very good, since it’s too static
– he developed Vorticism (as in
vortex): something has to be
dynamic. He translated Japanese
and Chinese poetry and drama.
Canto: his special genre –
each of them wanted to revive
some kind of an ancient myth.
“Hugh Selwyn Mauberly”: a
reflection on the World War, self-
reflective, criticises himself – the
old traditions are no longer
applicable on a world that has
fallen apart. “Canto I.”: rewrites
the 8th book on the Odyssey – it is
revived. The “dead art of poetry”
has to be brought back to life.
After staying in Paris, he
went to Italy and got influenced
by the ideas of Mussolini. He was
mislead completely, of course –
huge break. Until then, he was
very generous, open-handed – but
then, he started criticising
America and capitalism. After the
war, he was arrested for treason,
even put in an open prison. In the
Pisan prison, he kept writing.
In America, he was
declared to be mentally ill
and put in a mental
asylum.
He was released
from the asylum with
the help of Elliot and
 Hemingway and he t Ezra Pound – he helped him to Matthew Arnold – 1822-1888: in
prove several poems. He was an an age when spiritual needs are
died in Italy. A Pact in editor of two magazines. His wife not very fulfilled, literature and
a was mentally unstable. poetry fulfils this need. Stevens
T was greatly influenced by this
ve He was hospitalised in
idea.
Switzerland after a nervous
.
ry breakdown. He compiled the Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)
S. material for The Wasteland there.
dif He wrote 52 notes for the poem He was very far from poetry in
Ell and mentions two books: Jesse his everyday life.
fer
iot Weston – From Ritual to His first book of poets was
ent Romance on the Grail legends and published late in his life – it was
(1 Sir James Frazer – The Golden very badly criticised.
wa
Bough.
88 He has to set out a new
y. 1927. He was naturalised as a intelligence – new language,
8- British citizen. He turned Anglo- experimentation – strange style,
Poetry is an escape from
19 personality and emotions – but Catholic, and became a music of instruments – he thinks
only those can practice it, who Conservative the poem is a complex experience
65 have personality and emotions. Politian. He became a religious of music and images
poet – the religious experience is
) Objective correlative: He was trying to come to terms
more important than poetic
instead of talking about one’s own with the confusion of his times,
In experience.
emotions, one should pick the world wars, etc. He tried to
no something that correlates with the Wallace Stevens, William separate the unreal from real.
poet and the reader. The aim is to Carlos Williams & E. E. Supreme fiction: replacing
vat create an atmosphere. Cummings religion and the obsolete styles of
or, He was born in St Louis, literature – fulfilment is the
All the three of them had another
Missouri. His family was highly primary aim, the spiritual need of
lik occupation, were not full-time
intellectual and religious. He went the public (to satisfy, to suffice) –
poets: Stevens – businessman,
e to Harvard. He rediscovered some the old styles, old frameworks are
Williams – medical doctor,
poets whom were not very unable to do that, nor in literature
Cummings – painter
Po popular – eg. John Donne and the or in academic life as well
metaphysical poets. He went to They wanted to be more direct
un Of Modern Poetry: an essay in a
England before the World War and and wanted to change the
poem  Earlier the scene was set
d, was unable to go home. He meaning of literature for the
and there was a kind of repetition
became a banker. In 1917, he met general public
bu on what poetry could be, but then
came the war, and it set a new
stage. The audience is invisible,
but there is definitely a presence –
the poet has to keep it in mind that
there are people reading his
poems. The role of poetry is to
help the audience find itself, what
they actually need to know about Whitman –
themselves, not so much to
convey a message. “As of two
emotions becoming one.” Poetry
can create a community – it is a
way of communication, it
resembles a string being played –
heartstrings  The subject-matter
of the poem is of secondary
importance – the most important
thing is the poem to be satisfying.
William Carlos
Williams(1883-1963)
Ordinary life – ordinary
experience.
Colloquial, vernacular style speec
Long epic poem, published in h i
instalments – Peterson (?)
He became enormously m
popular by the end of his
expressions in poetry. Spontaneity life – high-modernism a
is very important – he is a bit like
A Sort of a Song: a poem about g
writing poems. Snake, a symbol
freed e
of evil and cleverness – to wait
for the perfect moment and strike.
poetry
A poet should be alert, aware. The
from organic and the inorganic – o
through a metaphor, create a f
its harmony. Saxifrage = kövirózsa –
confin not very beautiful and not very
big, but if there are a lot of them,
es, a rock can break. t
comm A different attitude h
onpla towards the human body, e
ce humanity <- medical practice –
Ameri Chekov, Csáth Géza E. E. p

The ideas should not be separated can Cummings (e. e. cummings) o

from the immediate experience. e
topics 1894-1962
Ezra Pound, Hilda Doolittle
simpl Only one official job for three m
Studied in Germany, came back months – too confining.
to New Jersey, practiced medicine e
– in the meantime, he wrote his verna i
poetry, while he remained a
doctor cular T s
1909. at his own cost, he Ameri h
published his first book of poetry
– only 4 copies sold can e v
e r 3
r e a .
y x p
p h T
i e y u
m r l
p i 1/a i
1
o m p
e
r e s
a
t n
f
a t a
n s f
n
a
t d
w l
l
– i C
t s/ one 1 iness
h
Harvard graduate
p h i
He was put in a concentration
a camp in France – wrote a novel m
about it – Lost Generation
i t n
n y e
t p 1 y
e o 9
r g 2 –
 e i  meanings of ’loss’: WWI.:
values, faith in progress,
h m e
identity, wasted talent,
i s t money, loss of a future 
term: Gertrude Stein /
s
Hemingway: A Moveable
U Feast
H  Ernest Hemingway, his
f n
e principles for writing
i i (iceberg theory, a ’true
r o sentence’), his typical hero
w (masculinity, strength,
s n
fight, contest, wound),
e
t . ’The Snows of
n Kilimanjaro’,
t autobiographical
v Eccentric and playful style, elements, flashbacks, past
deliberate grammatical tricks – vs. present, in relation to
o curiously conventional in his
t messages (quite simple) – writing (Harry: dying in
l
reviving commonplaces, since the his boots?), symbols:
o
u form he presented them in is very gangrene, animals, snow
new  F.Scott Fitzgerald, his role
m
t He was the only poet who spoke in ’the Jazz Age’, partying,
e up for the 1956 Hungarian fascination with richness,
h revolution – America should help, ’Babylon Revisited’,
or bury the Statue of Liberty autobiographical elements,
e
o In Just Spring symbolic name: Honoria,
f Topic 2.: The Lost possibility and
S Generation: Fitzgerald, impossibility of a future,
Hemingway. past vs.
o
p present
v
o
-----------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------
--------------------------
The lost generation
The real enemy is the war
machinery itself. Shock  these
young people had to experience.
The proximity of death was
always there: complex experience.
Hemingway: the intensity and the
ordinariness were unrelatable (?)
in human language. Soldier’s
home: He cannot communicate:
He cannot find himself after the
war: after the war= a new
America  these soldiers were
heroes. Or not? They felt like they
were broken and lost people!
Nothing heroic! Shock and loss of
their future, didn't know what to
do, many of these Americans
went back to Europe
intellectual life. People started to
write about paint= express their
feelings, but still they didn't have
aims and future,
Hemingway- The sun also rises
(fiesta) everything is vanity but
the sun also rises! Group of
young people, they don't have
aims, only intellectual life. And
none of them has children, there's America, inhumane situation,
no next generation and continuity. creating equal individuals from
t
He is in love with a woman but people (the immigrant status
they have no future together. The itself!) the Great Grander, U.S.A. a
mentality of these young people! Trilogy
k
Gertrude Stem: she was the 2. Earnest Hemingway:
first that called Hemingway as a 1898~1961 e
member of the “Lost generation”
Theory of the iceberg: good story
the term itself comes from her! A tells you only the top of the
moveable feast garage keeper said iceberg which is above the water n
and after that she insisted to the but there are many things under
term because it can express the the “surface” o
characteristics of these people.
Great test, Competition: huge t
animals big game hunting, always
Malcolm Cowley: being lost in so
struggling with forces (natural or h
many ways in life. He realized
human) violent theory
this was essentially an American
i
expedience! Well organized state The old man and the sea: man
and purposes but the individual can be destroyed but not n
doesn't have a special aim in life. defeated= there are 2 levels of a
person: ethical nature, and g
1. John Dos Passos-
physical loss but can be a
Three soldiers: wrote about champion of ethical nature ?
the 1st World War experience, W
devastating, v
i
Manhattan Transfer: a Pillsbury of i
documentation, montage of New n
York life, and features of o
n
immigrants, the Great Side Maker l
(?), these people go through gates e
as individuals and after that gain e
r
the same life of immigrants in
n
c t Hemingway was accused of being same time several wounds 
sexist, only 2 real female literally and physically too.
e y (Death and vulnerable.) Later
characters; most of his heroes are
father figure! For whom the bell
men go out of nature without
tolls
equipment, know how to hunt,
s He was a journalist, cabalist fight, drink... But also and artistic He became suicide. He never
language= like a telegram, only know how! Your life is a work of thought he achieved his aims. His
h the most important information, type of modernism from T.S. Eliot
art and the way you live it
Impressionism= be able to find or Pounds but: direct and simple
o the most appropriate word for the matters! Live it to the most, life at the same time. He had a great
impression,. your moment of the full. cult: noble prize.
w Everything can become a kind of
Vygnettes: violent events, f.e. 3. F. Scott Fitzgerald
ritual. You have a kind of dignity
s Public hanging of someone. 1896~1940
Brutal scenes. and ethical code in spite of that
the world is falling apart around Most of his works take place in
In war time 1924 you. Every situation is a challenge America, the Jazz Age or the
v whether you can create something
In our time 1925 comes from a “Roaring Ages”. Financial boom
u prayer. 6th story: after the 5th he unique. The snows of in everyday life: the attitude to
was wounded as a soldier  Nick Kilimanjaro. Compose in spite of money has changes, luxurious.
l everything, what is value. Life's aim is a great party. He
Adams only turns out in the end
of the story and he is the symbol celebrated beauty, something
n His style: not complicated, easy to
of his “lost” generation. In our read, Alfred K.: computing clan beautiful was really important to
e time doesn't really deal with Nick come into your mind: create a him, he compares these things to
Adam's story: later another book: transparent text! Cleanses purity, a butterfly. He is the chronicler of
r sterility what he is writing. Fish: his age and different from
A soldier in the war: the soldier image (kibelezett hal)???? Hemingway. Beautiful
a WHAT? XD
fell in love with a nurse, they descriptions!
decided to escape but during child
b Public image of him: champion
birth she dies, no happiness. The great Gatsby, passages
who struggles with strong forces
i Finding the right word is the aim  Success became corruption which are beautiful, uses
of writing. Write the truest until he started to write again (?) symbolic things: the green light.
l
sentence of you! Nick ... (?) He always felt that he
Public image of a strong man who
i keeps his life in order but at the was left out of the roaring
twenties. He was fascinated about
money, and the rich are a kind
different species. Valid is also
measured by money. The value of
money is the value of love.
He wanted to go to the war,
training camp. Zelda Zye:
Fitzgerald proposed: she said not
until he becomes a famous writer.
Great success: This side of
Paradise. After: she said yes.
After the war he learned from
Pound and Hemingway. He
becomes more and more famous.
In 1925: The Great Gatsby. Zelda
had weak nerves. End of
family life and success.
The great depression: great failure
for him too. The idea of pulling
himself together: but no. He could
not bring the family back together.
Flappers and Philosophers:
flapper: not depending on a
husband or a father, independent
personality (New woman
character)
Tales of the Jazz age
The beautiful and the Damned
Tender is the Night
The last Tyeoth
Attitude: collecting saving disintegration of a value
money, virtue to save money, shift Topic 3.: William Faulkner. system.
came when the consumer attitude The Harlem Renaissance.  Racial discrimination int
was introduced in America. he South: Jim Crow laws
 Faulkner: loosely related  The Harlem Renaissance
Enormous pleasure. Money is the
to the Lost Generation, 1920s, Harlem, New York:
solution: to solve problems. Only Southern past and
growth of African
thing that cannot be bought is problems of history
American population,
time. Money is time. Cannot buy
 Imaginary artists!
back time! This philosophy ’Yoknapatawpha County’,
Night life, clubs: for a
occurs in many of his stories. ’Jefferson’, Mississippi white audience!
 Topics: decline of  W.E.B. DuBois ’The Souls
Southern aristocracy, rise of Black Folks’, 
of the ’redneck’ Claude McKay: ’The
 Recurring characters, Harlem Dancer’
stories NAACP
 Collective memory of a Hughes:’Song for a Dark Girl’, ’I,
community  ’Back to Africa’
 Storytelling: not linear, no movement too’
chronology; time layers:  P.L. Dunbar: ’We wear the
mythical past (Civil War), Mask’  Zora Neale
tragic past Hurston: Their Eyes
(Reconstruction), present Were
(1920s) oscillating
 Countee Cullen: ’Yet do I
 The Sound and the marvel’ Watching
Fury, four sections, God
Compson family, different -----------------------------------------
viewpoints (Benjy, -----------------------------------------
Quentin, --------------------------
Jason, Authorial focusing William Faulkner (1898 –
on Dilsey), Caddy’s role. 1962)
Framework: religious
(Easter), secular (circus),
differences in style –
Nobel Prize winning author, 1949
loosely part of the Lost
Generation never went to war –
no war-experience, since by the
time his training ended, the war
was over – he was disappointed
that he couldn’t write about the
war since he had no experience
Sherwood Anderson, excellent
short-story writer – 1925. advice
for Faulkner – focus on topics he
was familiar with: that is, the
South – very different area from
the rest of the US in the South,
people were more aware of family
history, had a more powerful
sense of history – generation after
generation, history had been kept
– it was injured by the Civil War
(1861-1865) – abolition of slavery
and keeping the country together
– the future is hopeless as soon as
the country is torn – Civil War:
last traditional (in the sense that
they fought for a cause) and first
modern war (they realised that the
real enemy is not the other party
but the war machinery itself)
Southerners were the losers – a
sense of defeat creates extremely
powerful sense of community
Reconstruction period after Civil
War – Northern military
occupation – two choices:
assimilation or death –
futurelessness – the sense of being
doomed also develops a sense of
community – tragic identity
without a future – suicidal,
poisonous community
in contrast of Hemingway’s clear
world, Faulkner’s is poisonous,
murky – very conventional writer
as opposed to Hemingway and
Fitzgerald – characters, sets – The
Sound and the Fury:
Yoknapatawpha County (inspired
by his own county, LaFayete
County, Mississippi) – Jefferson,
Mississippi (based of Oxford,
Mississippi) Yoknapatawpha –
Indian word, water on a flat land
all of his stories take place in
these two places
main
topic:
disintegrat
ion of one
time
aristocrati 2. Reconstruction Era
– tragic past (1865- 1910s)
c families
3. present (1920s) – a
(Gone bit more objective, and also
with the humorous sometimes it is
Wind) indicated by italics,
sometimes not, but the
other main
sentences constantly switch
topic: “the
back and forth between these
rise of the three layers – the timeline is
Redneck” not linear – very hard to set up
a chronological order A Rose
“white trash” community: poor
whites, even below slaves
for Emily – short story
Rednecks: very racist, assimilated
to the North, but not out of Faulkner is extremely interested
in the past, you cannot live
patriotism, but out of wealth-
seeking, selfish purposes without it
“Jim Crowe Laws” – separation a great compression of time –
almost 60 years – these layers can
of black people recurring
be applied to any country’s
characters – Balzac handling of
history, but it usually takes
time: very modern way – future is hundreds and hundreds of years –
contained in the present, present cf. Hungarian history lot of
is contained in the past, etc. complexity
– three kinds of time layers can be Göncz’s translation of The Sound
distinguished: and the Fury
1. Civil War – further reading: As I Lay Dying, A
mythical past Rose for Emily, That Evening
Sun,
Go Down, Moses – man in nature,
contrasting with the portrayal of
Hemingway – lack of know-how,
barefooted, barehanded, maybe a
knife, BUT becomes one with
nature (Bear, Red Leaf) – a
human being confronted by a kind
of animal – the animal is related
to the human being, instead of a
prey, like with Hemingway
not sterile – organic decay
celebrated as beautiful – A Rose
of Emily: necrophiliac, murderer
lady – fragrance of the rose and
the smell of a decaying body –
horrifying, but extremely
beautiful at the same time organic
feeling, fusion of beauty and
decay – it must be experienced
Marquez
William Faulkner: The Sound
and the Fury
Very conservative and
conventional writer from one
sense and extremely innovative
from another.
Keeps oscillating between the
timelines – he gives an outlook of
the plot to help the reader look at
the novel from a distant.
Title comes from Macbeth – from
the last monologue – signifies
nothing – that type of Southern
value system he is writing about is
not there anymore The novel was
written in 1929.
The main topic is the
disintegration of one-time
Southern aristocracy – his other
theme is the rise of the redneck,
who took advantage of the
Reconstruction period (Jason
Compson) Four pillar structure:
1. the narration of Benjy
(mentally retarded) – he is
the only character who
cannot pretend, cannot lie
– his recordings are
authentic – a huge trust is
needed from the reader to
handle such an
unconventional beginning
– Benjy is not the agent of
his own life (“the spoon
came”) – this section
begins in 1928 April 7
(Saturday -> Easter
Saturday), his 33th
birthday (Christ Age)
2. the narration of Quentin –
1910 June 2 (Thursday ->
the Day of Ascension) –
the eldest Compson boy –
he committed suicide – he
is a conscious narrator,
very intelligent, he was
sent to Harvard – he
is absolutely aware of the
value that is being lost –
he thinks that to prevent
the value to getting lost,
he has to destroy himself –
“idealistic suicide” to
prove something, not to
deny something
3. the narration of Jason –
1928 April 6 (Friday ->
Good Friday) – the third
Compson boy
4. the narration of the author
– third person singular as
opposed to the latter
narrations (first person
singular) – Dilsey is the
focaliser (the woman who
basically raised the boys)
– 1928 April 8 (Sunday
-> Easter)
Caddy has no separate section for
herself – her personality is not in
a focus – she is the representative
of the value that is in the
background
That Evening Sun – the Compson
family’s other appearance
Twilight – the working title of the
novel, now a short story – the
whole novel grew out of the short
story
Faulkner considered all the four
sections failures
Religious framework (dates) –
Secular framework (the circus
visiting the town) and they mirror
each other
Benjy: childhood, innocence –
imagist style, he talks about
immediate perceptions
Quentin: adolescence,
questioning, trying to make sense
of the world – poetry, no
punctuation
Jason: adulthood – vernacular
speech, prose
Author: objective, preacher
French translator Maurice
Coindreau even gave musical
instructions to the characters:
Benjy – moderato, Quentin –
adagio, Jason – allegro, Narrator –
allegro furioso, andante religioso,
allegro barbaro, lento
Benjy doesn’t have a sense of the
past, the past is more present than
the present – present is in italics,
past is in normal type – Caddy
took care of him, she loved him
dearly – he misses Caddy, so the
past when she was alive is more
real to him than the present,
which is in brackets basically
Caddy losing her innocence –
important for Benjy and Quentin
as well
Quentin reacts rationally and also
emotionally
Even Jason loses the most
important thing for him, his
money
Quentin’s last day – he may have
been in love with Caddy... incest?
hm... according to Faulkner, the
incest was not consummated, it is
only in Quentin’s mind – if Caddy
could keep her virginity, the
symbol of their identity, their
harmony as children, they could
keep their value – when she loses
her virginity, she loses the
community of the South –
Quentin realises that he cannot
prevent her from losing her
virginity, but in that case, he
should be the one who takes it, he
believes – committing this taboo
and burning in hell is much more
in value than a very cheap and
contaminated story – his other
problem is with the disillusioned
Mr. Compson: tragedy can be
second-hand – he cannot accept
this and he proves Mr. Compson
otherwise when he proves that
tragedy can be first-hand when he
kills himself and his father loses
his son (another proof of his
suicide being positive) – his
character represents what the
Southern system means: a sense
of belonging to the South – it is a
place where it is impossible to
live, but it is impossible to live
outside as well
Jason – the return of the
grammatical structures :) – the
most unbearable character –
vernacular prose representing a
totally different attitude from the
previous two – he is outside the
community of Quentin and Caddy
– he is trying to represent
normalcy, he is earning money, he
is trying to be a functioning
individual, annoyed by the
rubbish of Southern value, beauty,
etc. According to him, what really
counts is to earn money – little
Quentin lives with him – very-
very-very evil – he is a true
Compson though, since he loses
all his money, little Quentin takes
all of it and elopes with a
circusman
Narrator: African Americans –
they endured, they survived, the
power of life is in them – Dilsey
brings up all of the children
instead of the neurotic mother
who really likes Jason – Benjy,
Quentin and Caddy are closer to
their father
By the end: Benjy is in an asylum,
Quentin dies, Caddy disappears
and Jason is poor – the white
community disintegrates
But what about the black
community? Benjy is the only one
in the black service – innocence
might survive
----------
.After the Civil War and during
the Restoration, tension between
white and black population
peaked (Jim Crow laws).
There is a past of African-
American writing, however,
around the 20s they started to be
regarded as artists.
Harlem Renaissance
Harlem – New York
(Remember the terms: American
Renaissance, Chicago
Renaissance, Southern Literary
Renaissance) Roaring 20s
Harlem Renaissance is the era
from the end of WWI until the
Great Depression. Jazz and blue
became very popular during the
roaring 20s – the term “jazz-age”
was coined by Fitzgerald
Booker T. Washington and W. E.
B. DuBois:
- the first two people who
basically started the
Harlem Renaissance
- DuBois: “The Souls of
Black Folk” (book) –
founder of NAACP
- the problem of the 20th
century is the problem of
“twoness” – every black
person has two identity -
DuBois was more
radical, wanted to solve
this identity problem as
well
- circle “The Talented Ten”
- black people should prove
that they are intellectually
equal to white people
- DuBois didn’t like those
movements that
represented the primitive
side of the black culture
(back to Africa
movements, jazz and
blues, etc)
 - influenced Martin Luther
King, Malcolm X
Marcus Garvey – the leader of the
Back to Africa movement
Alain Locke – The New Negro
anthology
Paul Lawrence Dunbar – “We
wear the mask” – referring to
the stereotypical blackface
portrayed by white people – it
is hard to see the individual
behind the mask of smiling
face
Claude McKay – Jamaican
origin – copying European
forms (he wrote several
Shakespearean sonnets) –
“The Harlem Dancer” – “If
we must die” – “The
Lynching” The photo of a
lynching
Zora Neale Hurston – “Their
Eyes were Watching God” – novel
Jean Toomer – “Cane” – novel,
experimental
He was not black, but one of
his grandfather was black – if
you have one drop of black
blood, you are counted as one
Georgia
Langston Hughes – He was the
first one who felt like he
should be speaking to his own
fellow black people, in a style
they understand
“Song for a Black Girl” – Dixie, a
pattern of a white song for his
 Arthur Miller: Death of a
own poem
Topic 4.: American Drama:
O’Neill, Miller, T. Williams,
Albee
 why American drama was
not significant before the
20th century
 influence of European
playwrights: Ibsen,
Strindberg, Chekhov,
domestic plays, family
 T.Williams: South, A
units, life-lies  illusion
vs. reality!
 Eugene O’Neill: the
burden and bliss of Irish
origin, Long Day’s
Journey Into Night :
autobiographical
elements, the question of
performability (stage
directions, length,
 Edward Albee: absurd,
authenticity); special
’choreography’: the
rhythm of offense and
apology, loving one
another can also be a
burden; tragic problems:
drug addiction,
tuberculosis; the role of
quotations and the role of
literature in a family crisis
Salesman – tragedy of
the American dream,
Willy Loman=’low man’,
the average good-willing
American, a victim of his
own ideals. Question of
success Present and past
scenes separated on stage.
Miller’s essay: ’Tragedy
and the Common Man’
Streetcar Named
Desire -- conflicts
between tradition vs.
immigrant American
values, sensitivity vs.
violence, erudition vs.
vulgarity, sanity vs.
madness; light and sound
effects, illusion vs. reality
Who is Afraid of Virginia
Woolf – late night party,
two childless marriages,
old couple: more vitality,
games: torturing each
other and the guests,
humiliation. Possible
’wolves’: ageing, losing a
sense of humor, no future,
empty life. Virginia Woolf:
literature in general?
Death wish? Imaginary
child killed in the end:
hope for a ’normal’ life?
Or loss of all hopes?
-----------------------
-----------------------
-----------------------
-----------------------
----------------
The American Drama
American drama is basically non-
existent until the 20th century –
only propaganda dramas
Puritanism: no theatre at all,
banned – ritual aspect rejected
18th century: propaganda plays
didn’t become significant
Broadway: large income – adjust
to the needs of the audience –
they wanted to be entertained, not
finding themselves in the theatre
experience
The beginning of the 20th century:
Chekov, Ibsen – European 19th
century plays arrived – domestic
problems, an individual’s life is
based on an illusion – truth versus
illusion/pretension – problem is
whether the truth should come out
or not – explosion of the family
unit, of the individual – if the
illusion is kept, the unit is also
kept – middle-class and upper
middle-class
The Little Theatre movement:
1910s – formed out of university
playgroups
Off-off Broadway – Off-
Broadway – Broadway -
Hollywood
Film-making started around the
same time as playwriting – theatre
had to compete with cinema
immediately
Eugene O’Neill: basically grew
up in the theatre – after
hospitalized with TBC, he
devoted his life to writing – one-
act theatre, experimentation:
psychology, black casting,
simultaneous casting, ship – his
best works are his autobiographic
pieces: “Long Day’s Journey Into
Night”: is there remedy in
literature? does it help or not?
From one sense, it doesn’t – the
family collapses nonetheless –
From another sense, it does – the
family keeps talking to each other,
in quotes, instead of being
isolated from each other –
tragedy: no alternative
Arthur Miller: Jewish origin – The playwriting didn’t flourish
“Death of a Salesman” – Willy from the mainstream but from the
Loman – low-man – the illusion marginal
of American Dream: if you want
something, you can achieve
anything – innovation in staging:
a special place for Willy’s
reminiscence – Linda, Biff,
Happy – life insurance doesn’t
work after the suicide – “Tragedy
and the Common Man” an essay:
you don’t need to be a hero, you
can be a common man, if you are
willing to sacrifice your dignity, it
is a tragedy – the tragic hero is not
passive – tragedy enlightens –
pedagogical genre – tragedy leads
to a positive ending – “The
Crucible” = “Salemi
boszorkányok” in Hungarian -
“un-American activity”, political
witch-hunt
Tennessee Williams: Southern
writer, homosexual, his sister
Rose was treated with lobotomy,
several of his female figures come
out of the figure of his sister,
sensitivity, vulnerability, “A
Streetcar Named Desire”, “The
Glass Menagerie”
Edward Albee: was an orphan,
“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf”,
the absurdist of the American
theatre, “The American Dream”

Topic 5.: Post-war Fiction:
Malamud, O’Connor, Carver,
Nabokov, Vonnegut
 short fiction: Ihab Hassan:
Radical Innocence :
Jewish American writers
and Southern women
writers became
spokespersons of ’the
tragic underground’ of
mainstream literature
 common elements: special
sense of humor and self-
irony, minority without
inferiority complex
(speaking in the name of
humanity, not just in the
name of the
ethnic/regional
community)
 Jewish American writers:
different degrees of
assimilation; Jewish
tradition: special (selfish)
intimacy with God;
Bernard Malamud
(’teacher’): indirect ethical
lessons for life in his
stories. ’The Magic
Barrel’ – match maker:
poor, weak character vs.
magic power. Was it all
planned or did things
happen by accident?
 Flannery O’Connor:
Catholic and Southern –
not pious, avoiding all
sentimentality! Grace: an
intrusion into everyday
lives, violence! ’A Good
Man Is Hard to Find’ –
grotesque story, caricature
family – accident!
Characters become
’humanized’ by death.
Theological questions
while in the background,
the family is killed. The
Misfit (well chosen name)
vs. the Grandmother
(Southern lady) – moment
of grace: a gesture!
 Raymond Carver:
minimalism, dirty realism.
’One More Thing’: ’low-
rent tragedy’ – a family
falling apart. Significance
of objects: fragility! ’What
We Talk About When We
Talk About Love’ –
longing for spirituality, a
sense of belonging. Heart
surgeon, problems of
hearts. Ideal love: old
couple? Silence and
darkness in the end, but:
heartbeat!
 Post-modern fiction:
intertextuality, metafiction
(text refers to itself), no
significance of the unity or
integrity of the work,
’faction’ (mixture of fact
and fiction), popular
genres involved, riddles
(unsolved)
 Vladimir Nabokov, writing
both in Russian and
English, Lolita ’a love-
affair with the English
language’, references to
Poe and many other
American, English, French
authors – detective story:
crime – scandalous topic
calling attention to the
importance of beauty
 Kurt Vonnegut (German
ancestors, but didn’t speak
Geman): humor, absurdity.
Slaughterhouse Five – it
is only possible to talk
about mass massacres with
the help of another
dimension: science fiction
(Tralfamadore). Billy
Pilgrim: anti-hero,
’unstuck in time’.
Repetitions, ’so it goes’,
’poo-teeweet’
-----------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------
--------------------------
Post-War American Literature
The short story seemed to be a
suitable genre to express
American culture. After the shock
of WWII (not as much of a shock
as in Europe, but still), writers
started to reflect on the
devastation, the incredibility, the
amount of deaths were incredible,
it created a dubious feeling
towards the world. Reality was no
longer something people agreed
upon – new genres emerged, very
experimental.
Short story started to flourish after
the WWII.
Jewish American writers: self-
irony, laughing with somebody,
always including yourself
- had a little tradition
- used to be marginal
- they became
spokespersons
- assimilation (concerning
culture and language
usage)
- Isaac Singer - Saul Bellow - very strong and intimate
- Bernard Malamud: bond between the human
being and God
“everybody is a Jew,
- suffering is the basis of
except they don’t know it”
= to be a Jew is basically human life – if you live,
to be human - universalist you suffer – suffering also
view (many objected makes you laugh – very
against that) understandable from
- specific language usage Eastern Europe
- Philip Roth
- Arthur Miller
Southern Women writers:
- some hardly ever mention
grotesque
Jewish traditions - Paul
Auster - region is still in the
- J. D. Salinger (doesn’t foreground, the nature, the
mention ever) landscape
- Dixie Line: difference in
- Rebecca Goldstein
the attitude of Northerners
- Grace Paley
and Southerners
- all speak up for humanity
- very inclined to write
- question: to what extent a
about grotesque and
community can speak for
impossible situations
the whole of humanity?
- freak show: twisted
- in multiculturalism, take a
entertainment, human
story as information on
being shown in a distorted
how that group of people
way, in vulnerability – it
live
makes you laugh and
- Malamud: topics of
makes you cry
alienation,
unpredictability, etc. –
- Eudora Welty: Jackson,
God can do whatever He
Mississippi all her life –
likes
she wrote about Southern
characters with perfect
Southern dialects – she
was also a photographer –
optical metaphors:
“Petrified Man” – lacking
beauty, even the beauty
parlour – caricature – calls
attention to basic loss of
values – the women are
the bread givers – a man
turning into stone – Death
of a Travelling Salesman -
a bit like a fairy tale:
varied palette of styles –
isolation, alienation,
possibility of living a life
without loving someone
- Carson McCullers: she
started in the South and
moved elsewhere – not in the conventional
became famous at the age
of twenty – The Heart is a
Lonely Hunter, novel
(MINDENKÉPP
OLVASD EL) – love in
the focus, the difficulties
of love, unreciprocated
love – The Ballad of the
Sad Café: Miss Amelia,
falls in love with the
hunchback cousin, a energetic – a human being
criminal is in love with her
– criminal destroys the
café with the help of the
hunchback who loves him
– being a beloved is a
burden, it is better to be a
lover than a beloved –
Clock without Hands –
another novel about a
teenage girl in love with
her brother, Frankie (the
we of me)
- Flannery O’Connor: the
most talented of these
three writers, Catholic
writer in the South (not
very common, Bible Belt
Protestant congregations)
she was comfortable with
this – religious stories but
way – tried to avoid
sentimentality, talks about
the intrusion of divine
intervention – the moment
of grace sometimes causes
harm, injury, even death –
full of violence – A Good
Man is Hard to Find – no
reassurance, except there
is something elementary
can reach beyond the
limits – the Grandmother
who touches the Misfit:
she exceeds the limit of
 her humanity, does
something that is not
possible humanly because
of the moment of grace –
Good Country People:
wooden legged Helga,
heroine – she wants to go
against her mother, so she
named herself
Ihab Hassan: Radical Innocence,
“tragic underground”
Topic 6.: Post-war Poetry:
Ginsberg, Lowell, Plath
 Beat generation: revolt
against ’square’-ness of
post WWII. America.
(’beaten’, musical ’beat’,
’beatus’=happy). Counter-
culture – by now: classics!
 Allen Ginsberg: breath-
units, ’A Supermarket in
California’: where is the
role of poetry in a
consumer society?
Imaginary meeting with
Walt Whitman: parallels
and differences between
the two poets.
Homelessness? Concern
about America, influence
of buddhism and eatern
thinking, ’Sunflower
Sutra’ nature vs junkyard
 Robert Lowell: eminent
New England family
(heritage and burden),
conscientious objector in
the war: West Street prison
– ’confessional’ poetry:
Life Studies (most
important volume) ’For
the Union Dead’ Boston
monument, past vs.
present, black soldiers
fought for this?
Sylvia Plath: Lowell’s student –
confessional: scrutiny of the self:
destructive! Immense energy,
tension. Husband: Ted Hughes.
Images of the Holocaust – self-
victimization. Perpetrators: male!
’Lady Lazarus’, ’Daddy’ –
Rhymes, form: as if it were ’light
verse’.
-----------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------
--------------------------
Post-War Poetry (Robert Lowell,
Alan Ginsberg, Sylvia Plath)
- after WWII, poetry went
through a shock, in the
same way as prose
- reality is questioned
- huge change in university
system – universities were
opened to a larger public –
Civil Rights’ Movements:
women, Afro Americans
- literature was found to be
a useless thing to study –
kinda like today
- new critical attitude to
study literature – New
Criticism was rooted in
the Southern Literary
Renaissance Movement
- New Criticism: more
about the dynamism of the
text, independent from the
life of the author – was
deemed too complex,
unnecessary by the newer
students ->
experimentation with a
new style, a new way of
expressing themselves
- after WWII – very strict
political era – McCarthy
Era (“un-American
activities”)
- a set pattern of a family
was accepted, mainstream
-> they wanted a society
based on American values
(absolutely traditional) ->
many spoke up against
this squareness
- with the help of New
Criticism, they started to
criticise criticism
- overall intellectual
movement
- counter-culture developed
against the propaganda
culture (interesting to see
how Ginsberg for example
is a classic – how would
he feel about it? :D)
- counter-culture is
incorporated into classic
culture
- Robert Lowell (1917-
1977)
- New England family
- aunt also was an Imagist
poet
- many great ancestors
- burden of the ancestors ->
he had to live up to them
and he turned against them
- started at Harvard – left it
after 2 years - wrote in the
style of T.S. Elliot
- converted to Christianity
in 1940 – he cannot go to
war – conscientious
objector (considered to be
a crime) – one year in
prison, New York
- this prison year changed is
world-view
- change in view: American
history is a history
towards Apocalypse –
very contemporary, very
up-todate
- he gradually became a
confessional poet
- he has to come to terms
with his own life – very
different from the
confessional poetry of
Dickinson – his poetry
discovers the territory of
the psyche without
civilisation (that has no
future anyway) – no
territory left to discover
but the inside
- it is not happy and
enthusiastic – it is self-
destructive – the self is
split, a fantastic energy is
created (like radioactive
energy)
- Sylvia Plath’s teacher
- created several personas
which are closer to the
poet themselves
- “For the Union Dead”:
historical poem, walking
through Boston, not really
civilised – childhood
memory of being
fascinated by the aquarium
– no longer there – it is
inadequate to have a statue
there – black people who
died – no WWII statue –
photo of Hiroshima – the
money survived – what we
see is the jungle that is let
loose in Boston – the
savage servility remains
- Allen Ginsberg (1926-
1997)
- beat generation - counter
culture
- beat = rhythm, beating
- beat music
- beatus (Latin) = happy
- a poet has to use
uncomplicated language to
be understood
- say what you want to say
naturally
- Walt Whitman, William
Wordsworth
- spoken, oral language new values – they don’t
became much more seem to have any more
important possessions than their own
- poetry readings in San bodies
Francisco - they spoke up in the name
- “Howl”: of some kind of human
http://www.poetryfoundati integrity
on.org/poems-and- - “A Supermarket in
poets/poems/detail/49303 California”
- a bit like the Lost
Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)
Generation: they feel like
their thoughts are not - the territory of inner
needed in America psyche
- only by destroying - “Lady Lazarus”
themselves - confessional poetry
- breath unit gives a - very early tragedy: the
pulsation death of Otto Plath
- drugs - “Daddy” – Nazi imagery
- he was inspired to write - the sin of the parent is that
poetry under the influence the parent died
of some psychedelic drug self-identification with a victim of
– he saw William Blake the Holocaust
reciting his poem “The
Sunflower”
Postmodernism
- “Sunflower Sutra”:
- grotesque, surreal, beat
http://www.poetryfoundati
on.org/poems-and- generation, confession
poets/poems/detail/49304 poetry, scrutinizing the
self resulting in
- energy of nature in spite
destruction, letting loose
of everything
radiation, upsetting
- the beat generation is
standards, subverting
“suffocating in junk” –
rules, rejection of
they have to find some
 expectation of others,
intertextuality (references
on others directly or
indirectly), mixture of
styles
- meta-fiction: the self-
referentiality of the fiction
– it is not truth, it is being
written – Slaughterhouse
Five (first chapter)
- the author has the
authority to write
whatever they want – they
are not even obliged to
finish the story - temporal
distortion: no beginning,
middle, ending, no
coherence in time, non-
linear
- faction: a mixture of fact
and fiction – is this the
history or is this the thing
the author is making up?
the disturbed sense
- unreliable narrative
- involvement of popular
literature, pop-culture –
not only literary pieces
that are referred to –
intermingling of styles,
registers
- very intensive
involvement of the reader
– the narrator would
somehow influence the
reader, provoke them –
participation is required
- the definition is not ready
– it is being written
- the term is controversial –
different opinions how it
differs from modernism
- the main difference
between Modernism and
Postmodernism is that
Modernists feel the world
is falling apart – still, for
them, the fact that the
world has fallen apart is
significant as a you – the associations
phenomenon - the work
born from this still has its
integrity – the speaker
expresses the shock and
the disaster
- in Postmodern times, there
is more playfulness and
less responsibility – this
fragmentedness is
celebrated rather than
regretted – the possibility
of significance is
questioned and
undermined – therefore,
there is no real
significance or weight to
the words, the action – events – it can be very
you can see it from several amusing as well as
points of views with annoying – enjoying and
different interpretations – feeling horror at the same
it is a game that is time
enjoyable to play – of
course, there is an intrinsic
horror and fear that Vladimir Nabokov (egyik doksi
nothing is important for us vége)
– Kundera: The
Unbearable Lightness of
Being – you can’t really
grab an aspect from which
this and that is important,
significant, and in the end,
nothing is significant for
seem to be accidental, the
intertextualities are
distracting – the patterns
cannot be understood – the
work of art is broken up –
it is relative whether you
call it a work of art or not
– the writer may call
attention to the relativity
of clues
- the aim of Postmodern is
to reveal the absurdity of
the world that seems to be
organised on the surface,
but in fact, there is a total
chaos in the core of the
 most of his works are set in the
same place :
 Yoknapatwhpha Co. ->
represented La Fayette Co.
 Yefferson, Miss. -> Oxford, Miss.
His venture is conservative –
many characters reappear in a
different light
 balzacian way – the author gets
mingled with the characters
He was also experimental –
doesn’t follow chronological
order
 the fragments are to be represented,
but he also talks about the collective
memory
Sense of belonging – rather a
negative community, which
William Faulkner
becomes unified because of the
Contemporaries with Fitzgerald
loss of the C.W. (sense of doom
He was loosely connected to the
like in Europe)
Lost Generation because he didn’t
His mythology:
share the experience of war. He
felt it was a big drawback at the
beginning of his career and he felt
he had to write about this topic –
early works.
He was advised later to write
about his own world, which was
the South. Despite slavery, most
of the white people weren’t slave
holders, they only fought for the present (late 1920’s) –
maintenance of the hierarchial more objective and
society, rather than to keep the comical
slaves during the Civil War.
Faulkner created a mythology of These layers are mixed
the C.W. in his works. He had the
greatest literary output in the era –
Collective memory – you live
together with your past
The constant vibration of time
layers gives a great amount of
energy to F.’s works.
He has 3 great topics:
1. decline of the Southern aristocratic
families – how the family standards
detoriate (The Compsons)
2. the rise of the redneck – white in the
South, not from an aristrocratic
family, they made use from the loss
of the war and became rich (The
Snopes Family in Faulkner’s world)
3. man in nature – Faulkner hero would
be an outdoor hero, part of nature,
doesn’t bring utensils to nature
Faulkner’s writing represents sg.
that isn’t clear – murkiness
The fact that he
rose as a major mythical past (the C.W.) 1861-65
writer created a
certain Reanissance in the South
(1920’s) – the intellectual life
flourished
F’s works are mainly tragic
The Sound and
reconstruction period – recent past (tragic) military
the Fury
occupation by the North 1865 – 1910’s
Same story told
from 4 different
perspectives:
1. Benjy – 1928.apr.1 – Saturday
33rd birthday (Jesus was 33 when
he died) – his perception is
different, the world comes to him.
He also sees and feels things
others don’t yet. Most reliable
narrator because he records things
and events. He is a child. His
poetry is imagism.
2. Quentin – June 2, 1910 – Thursday
(ascention)
Studies at Harvard. He imagines
an incestuous relationship with
his sister, Caddy. Her virginity
meant the pureness of being
Southern to him. Commits
suicide. He is an adolescent, his
poetry is lyrical intensity.
3. Jason – April 6th, 1928 – Friday
He wants to get rid of his
Southerness – becomes a redneck.
His mother loves him the most
because he is more like her
family, not a Compson. Poetry:
prose poetry – vernacular. He is
an adult. In the end Jason loses
the most precoius thing to him: all
of his money, and by this he truly
becomes a Compson.
4. Authorial – focalizer: Dilsey (mother
figure – servant slave)
All of the brothers have a special
relationship with Caddy (her
daughter is Miss Quentin)
 French translator of the novel:
Maurice Coindreau – he stated
that he novel is like an orchestra:
Benjy – moderato
Quentin – adagio
Jason – allegro
Authorial – allegro furioso, andante
religioso, allegro barbaro, lento
American drama/theatre
Why wasn’t it popular?
 First settlers didn’t think it was
important. According to the Puritan
leaders it created a community but
that can’t be elsewhere than in the
church, for a wholy purpose.
 the society was always on the move,
there was no need for a settled
community -> theaters not built,
mobile entertainment
When the need come for theatre –
mid 19th century
Entertainment became a business
-> Broadway - people went there
to laugh and not to feel down –
most shows were quite light. No
genuine American play became
famous at the time, unlike in
Europe (facing problems was an
unpleasant experience)
The movie industry started
flourishing at the same time as the
drama – when a play became
successful it became a movie
Flourishing started on the
influence of Chekov, Ibsen – main
theme: the average middle class
home where is a big a lie usually
-> the Americans realized that
they built their lives on a dream –
the audience were touched (the
dream can become a nightmare)
Change happened in the 1910’s –
small university group plays
(Little Theatre Movement) with
personal authors – dealt with
American context (tradition is a
question, living up to the
expectations)
Eugene O’Neill (1888 – 1953) –
know 2 plays for the exam from
him!
Roaring 20’s – booming literature
His themes:
- the question of African
Americans – created a play with
an all black cast
- Irish background – identity that
can’t be easily americanized
- several personal tragedies in his
own life: his best plays focuses on
his own family, their tragedy
Arthur Miller (1915 – 2005)
He wrote in the McCarthy era –
those who were suspected of not
sharing the American ideology
were hunted down and questioned
– he was one of these people too
because he questioned the
American ideology in his plays
Tragedy and the Common Man,
Death of a Salesman
Tennessee Williams (1911 -
1983) – came from the South –
brought a new flavour: trap of
traditions (good background for
the main tension)
A Streetcar Named Desire
Edward Albee (1928 – 2016)
Who is afraid of Virginia Woolf?
-Univesity scenery
-Old couple: George and Martha –
love each other, family illusion: they
don’t have a child, but they are
pretending they have one
-they are constantly playing games
with their guests
-special names for special games:
humiliate the host etc.
Post WWII prose
1.
ollowed the nationalistic tradition –
war novels
-Irving Shaw – The Young Lions
-Norman Mailer – The Naked and
the Dead
-James Jones – From Here to Eternity
Common characteristics: follow
the nationalistic tradition, it is
impossible to write about WWII.
James Jones and his novel stands
out: living up to the expectations
in the war as a soldier is
impossible: destruction of the
character – you can’t be heroic in
a war, your own army undoes you
Joseph Heller – Catch 22 (22-es
csapdája)
Kurt Vonnegut – Slaughterhouse-Five
(Az ötös számú vágóhíd)
2. J
ewish – American literature
Many high prize winning writers
came from a non-English
speaking country after WWII
F
Ihab Hassan – critic – Radical
Innocence – the Jewish writers
and the Southern women acted as
spokespersons of the „tragic
underground” of the mainstream
culture
Bernard
Double identity,
Malamund question of
Philip Roth traditions
Cynthia Ozick

3.
outhern Women - strong sense of
belonging to a community
Flannery O’Connor
Katherine Anne Porter
Carson McCullers
4.
he New Yorker - Forum to discover
new talents:
John Chever - master of short stories
– The Swimmer
Shirley Jackson – The Lottery
J. D. Salinger – A Perfect Day for
Bananafish
5.
inimalism
Saying the max with the min
amount of words
Dirty realist writers – focus on the
boring lifestyle, on the average
American lives – isolation
alienation, alcohol, loss of
S communication
Raymond Carver – What We Talk
About When We Talk About Love
6. grotesque humour,
alienation, isolation,
loneliness
Multiculturalism
T 20th century literature grouped by
the background of the writers
(native-Am., Spanish-Am., Asian-
Am. etc.)
Post WWII Poetry
1.
eat Generation - favorize oral poetry
M Jack Kerouac – being always on the
move, self destruction
Allen Ginsberg – he felt he was a
spokesperson for the outcast
He became a poet after having a
dream vision of William Blake
whispering one of his poems to
him
Howl – explains how the
generation has been destroyed
Sunflower Sutra –
influence of Buddhism and
Eastern thinking
A Supermarket in
California – where is the role of
poetry in consumer society?
2. Confessional Poets
They focus on themselves, they
create a poetic persona which is
really similar to their own selves
-> energy is gained from the
splitting of the self
B Their confessions are not pleasant
confessions, rather self-
destructive. The subject matter is
their everyday lives -> biography
is important.
Robert Lowell
 Came from a prestigious
Protestant family from New England.
There were patterns in his life which
he couldn’t come to terms with,
burden of family history
 serious religius conversion
 consciencious objector -> in
prison for a while
 met with the New Critics ->
change in subject -> focus on
everyday life
Night Sweat – midlife crisis
For the Union Dead
Sylvia Plath
 loss of her father at a young
age (she turnes against him in her
poems because he died so early)
 several nervous breakdowns
-> serious treatment, hospitalized
 The Bell Jar –
autobiographical novel, discusses
her breakdown
 she married Ted Hughes
(also a poet) – their marriage
couldn’t bear the intensity of their
poetry, Ted cheated on her – divorce
(2 children)
 Tulips – the family brought
tulips to her after an operation
(when they were still together), the
tulips represent life for her
Post-modern artists – still not
clearly defined
 intertextuality
 pastiche? - mixing of
different styles
 metafiction – when fiction
reflects itself
 emphasizing the fictiveness
of the characters
 temporality – linearity of
timing is upset
 fact modernism
 unreliability of many
narrators
 involvement of popular
culture and the reader
Differences between modernist
(1) and post-modernist(2)
1, Heap of broken images – fallen
apart status of the univers
2, The author is no longer sad
about the fallen universe -> he
accepts and celebrates it
- no real significance or weight
to human actions
- temporary patterns, the
clear understanding is impossible ->
relativity
Is there anything at stake for the
post-modernist writer? – death <-
> love
Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977)
- emigrated to England and
then to the U.S.
- only started writing in
English when he moved to the U.S.
Lolita – scandalous story (about
pedophilia) – only a French
publisher was willing to publish
it. It is a very interesting structural
play at the same time. We find
references to previous poems
(Annabel Lee) and novels. Real
love affair is on a literary level,
between poetry and novels. (fb
csoportból –Hunor)
(KÁLLAY KIDOLGOZOTT
TÉTELEK)
1. Alternatives of Modern
Poetry:
Sandburg, Masters, Frost,
Pound, Williams, Cummings,
Stevens.
The Genteel Tradition (East coast,
distance between life and
literature)
Against it: new voices:
naturalism in prose (harsh reality
can be the subject matter of
literature)
poetry: Chicago (pulsating city,
new center, not only for industry
but for culture as well):
“The Chicago Renaissance”,
Poetry, a Magazine of Verse,
1912. Editor: Harriet Monroe
(comparable to the Hungarian
Nyugat) – aim: to collect new
voices of American poetry
Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)
Voice: resembles Whitman’s
“Chicago”: an ode to the city
circular structure, celebrating the
energy, action!
city: compared to a young man,
laughing, “survival of the fittest”
– maybe unpoetic and industrial,
still young, brave, strong, healthy,
surviving – knows no death
“Grass”: counterpoint?
great battlefields – power of
nature “I am the grass. Let me
work.” grass: the fittest – survives
Edgar Lee Masters (1869-1950)
Spoon River Anthology 1914
(influenced by a volume of Greek
epitaphs)
dead people speak in a cemetery –
no conversation, monologues
about their frustrations in life
important topic: American small
town! ideal social formation,
idyllic stereotypes – in reality:
hypocrisy, suppressed frustrations,
secrets, unhappiness! Masters
subverts the idyll.
hidden little tragedies of many
people that were ignored by
previous writers, now critically
shown
“Elsa Wertman”, “Hamilton
Greene” (mother and son, the son
never knew)
“Lucinda Matlock” (the only
person content with her life: “It
takes life to love life”)
Robert Frost (1874-1963)
b. in San Francisco, but moved to
New England, Harvard
University, but after 2 years, got a
farm from his grandfather. Poetic
persona: a simple farmer.
Seemingly simple poems – but
they subvert basic American
ideals, e.g. productivity (“After
Apple-Picking”), or progress
(“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy
Evening”)
discovered in England, by Ezra
Pound
“Design”: major philosophical
questions – simple observation
white spider, white flower, white
moth: nature – death
accidental or designed?
Ezra Pound (1885-1972)
discovering European cultural and
literary tradition and “making it
new”! Leaving America for
Europe: Italy, England
father of modernism –
cosmopolitan version of American
high modernism: the world is
falling apart but it is still possible
to write with the aim of
professional perfection
legendary friendship with T.S.
Eliot (who dedicated “The Waste
Land” to him)
on the basis of artistic quality
influenced and discovered many
other authors (Yeats, Eliot, D.H.
Lawrence, Joyce, Frost,
Hemingway, etc)
overseas editor of the Poetry
magazine: founder of imagism
(direct treatment of the subject, no
word that does not contribute to
the presentation, rhythm: in
sequence of a musical phrase, not
the metronome, no abstractions,
no ornaments)
“In a Station of the Metro”
translations of Chinese poetry and
Japanese drama
“Hugh Selwyn Mauberley”: long
poem after WWI, expression of
his disillusionment
“A Pact” – coming to terms with
the heritage of Walt Whitman
cantos: his unique form, highly
allusive poems, turning to a myth
and trying to revive it (e.g. Canto
I: Ulysses’ descent to the
underworld, rewriting Chapter XI
of the Odyssee)
WWII: influenced by the ideas of
fascism, saw a kind of
Renaissance hero in Mussolini –
turned anti-capitalist, anti-
American. After the war: Pisa:
war camp prison, tried for treason.
Later: mental illness, asylum in
Washington D.C., after being
released. he went back to Italy
Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)
two seemingly incompatible
careers: lawyer – poet
vice-president of the Hartford
Accident and Indemnity Company
First book of poetry: 1923
Harmonium, critical attention:
only in 1931,
rebelling against the “stale
intelligence” of the past, setting
out “to make a new intelligence
prevail”
comic, strange, bizarre –
experimental styles, exotic
imagery, reflective poetry
trying to come to terms with the
confusions of his time
inner world vs. outer world,
subject vs. object, perceiver vs.
perceived, fiction vs. fact,
imagination vs. reality
concept of a “supreme fiction”,
modern mythology – replacement
for the mythologies of the past,
new vision with “which men
could propose to themselves a
fulfilment”
“Of Modern Poetry”: what will
suffice – spiritual satisfaction
metaphors alluding to drama
(stage, insatiable actor) and music
(twanging an instrument)
later. turning more meditative,
philosophical – seen as an
intellectual elitist
William Carlos Williams (1883-
1963)
medical doctor, Rutherford, New
Jersey (birthplace, where he
returned to practice medicine for
40 years)
break away from poetic
convention, reproducing
immediate experience
“no ideas but in things”
simple, direct, seemingly formless
poetry, ‘nonliterary’ freshness,
spontaneity (but: constant
rewriting, refinement!) American
vernacular language
innovator: small range –
openness!
“The Red Wheelbarrow”, “This Is
Just To Say”, “The Young
Housewife”
e.e. cummings (1894-1962)
visual artist, painter (low-case
letters)
Harvard, graduation –
commencement address: “The
New Art”
1917: Europe, volunteer
ambulance driver (like many
members of the Lost Generation)
imprisoned for 3 months (refused
to say he hated the Germans, he
only admitted that he loved the
French) – dedication to individual
freedom, opposition to
dehumanizing forces
After WWI.: Europe, Paris,
studied painting, participated in
the life of American expatriates
1923: first volume of poetry:
Tulips and Chimneys
eccentric, playful style, unusual
typography and spelling,
deliberate grammatical tricks
curiously conventional subject
matter: love-poetry, romantic
tradition “in Just”, “1/a”,
satirical voice as well: “a
salesman is an it that stinks”,
“buffalo bill’s defunct”

2. The Lost Generation:
Fitzgerald, Hemingway
term: coming from Gertrude Stein
: “une generation perdue”
(described in Hemingway’s A
Moveable Feast)
first generation of American
writers that had a great influence
on European literature
“getting lost”: many times!
 trauma: WWI. --
upbringing: progressivism,
optimism, sense of duty;
WWI: volunteers: collapse
of traditional values, big
words = big lies, no
heroism, only the killing
machine of the army – war
experience: double nature:
also a “study tour”,
excitement, initiation into
manhood
 trauma 2: going home,
America has changed
(new conservativism,
banning of alcohol, etc) –
celebrated as veterans, but.
no sense of being heroes.
War-experience: cannot be
communicated
 trauma 3: back to Europe
– they do not belong there,
either
futurelessness, no
perspective
Malcolm Cowley (critic):
complex trauma: creative
impulse, inspiration! from
a distance they discover
how much ‘being lost’ is
part of the American
experience!
themes of American
naturalism, elaborated in
an intensive/poetic form,
innovations in narrative
technique – modernists!
re-enactment of the proximity of
death in powerful metaphors:
John Dos Passos (1896-1970):
“the great grinder” (Three
Soldiers , Manhattan Transfer)
F.Scott Fitzgerald: “the great
party” (waste of time, energy,
money, life)
E. Hemingway: “the great
test/fight” (images of violence)
Francis Scott Fitzgerald (1896-
1940)
chronicler and embodiment of
“The Jazz Age”
America in the 1920s: economic
boom: new attitude to money and
wealth: beginnings of consumer
ethics, new woman-image, in
contrast with the generation of
their mothers: “flapper”, short
“bobbed” hair, short skirt,
independent, self-supporting
woman (e.g. Jordan Baker in The
Great Gatsby)
Fitzgerald’s life: in parallel with
the “boom and bust”: leading to
crisis (Great Depression)
b. St Paul, Minnesota (middle
class family), volunteer for WWI.:
military camp in Alabama – Zelda
Sayre: a “Southern belle”: getting
married after the publication of
This Side of Paradise – fairy tale
– but: excessive partying,
travelling, drinking, nervous
breakdowns – heart attack age 44
success: The Great Gatsby, 1925
fascination with money and
wealth – aesthetic value!
“Babylon Revisited” (1931) –
later story, painfully
autobiographical
Honoria: symbolic name, Charlie
Wales would like to regain his
honor. Can the past be erased? Is
there a meaningful future?
Babylon: Paris: a city of great
culture and a city of sin
Marion and Lincoln: also victims
– is their home a more favorable
alternative?
Charlie: humor! strong affection
between him and his daughter –
but: ghosts of the past: Dunc and
Lorraine – ambivalent ending:
total failure or some hope?
Ernest Hemingway (1898-1961)
- style: conscious study of
writing: journalist,
telegram-style, “vignettes”
Flaubert: “le mot juste” –
Hemingway: “write a true
sentence”
Afred Kazin: “More than
anyone else in that great
generation that believed in
the religion of the word,
Hemingway managed, by
one word after another, to
make the world as linear
as his prose, as stripped as
a prize ring, as clean as an
operating room” (The
Bright Book of Life, p.6.)
the principle of the
iceberg: to say the most
with the least amount of
words
in our time (1924): only
the vignettes
In Our Time (1925):
stories as well – powerful
collection! vignettes: one
short scene of violence,
seemingly not connected
to the stories
title: from a prayer: “Give
us peace in our time”
 Nick Adams – a novel of
education? Nick is missing
from the middle of the
book –“ as if the novel
were hit by a bomb”
- his type of hero:
outdoor/champion/artist of
life/man – but: wounded!
(physically/spiritually:
“The Snows of
Kilimanjaro”, The Sun
Also Rises / A Farewell to
Arms) – women:
submissive or “femme
fatale” – debatable! His
portrayal is not
stereotypical!
- ethical code: the how of
things: Malcolm Cowley:
“His motto through life
was […] ‘I want to know
how’. How to write, first
of all, but also how to
fight, how to box, how to
ski, how to act in the
bullring, how to remember
his own sensation, how to
nurse his talent, how to
live while learning to
write, and more broadly
how to live in the sense of
mastering the rules that
must be followed by
anyone who wants to „positivism” (materialism,
respect himself.” ((A rationalism) in philosophy,
Second Flowering, p. 50) : „realism” in literature
epistemological certainty
life: ritual of the moment! Christian norms held up:
God, Immortality, Duty
- never relaxed, ever the „Second Industrial
Revolution (1865-1900):
- y situation: a challenge,
industrial, economic and
every challenge must be technological developments
answered – but: “Winner Mass production,
Take Nothing” (title of one mechanization of
of his works); still: “Man manufacture, employment
for increasing numbers
can be destroyed but not
Long Depression (1873-
defeated” (The Old Man
1896)
and the Sea)
Second World War
* social changes: widening
gap between rich and poor,
1. Introduction to 20th alienation, break-up of
century British literature traditional ties,
individualism, the loneliness
examination topics and of the crowds
required reading at the * intellectual changes:
back!!!!! . belief in progress,
shattered
modernism (first 2-3 decades of rationalism
questioned
the 20th century)
rejection of 19th century (Nietzsche,
optimism in general Kierkegaard)
in art: experimentalism, rejection
of traditional forms previous optimism
questioned
Economic, social, intellectual (Schopenhauer was
labelled
changes:
"pessimistic")
the Victorian age: stabilizing
era
evolution by
undermined religious
certainty (Darwin:
On the Origin of
Species: 1859)
Karl Marx:
contradictions within
the "capitalist"
system..
scepticism: no
absolute certainty
(Einstein’s theory of
relativity, 1916),
questioning
coherence and
meaning (Nietzsche)
experience of time
and space radically
altered
CHANGE is
emphasized: Henri
Bergson: existence =
duration, to exist = to
change
mind and world:
trend from the
objective to the
subjective:
„everything is in the
mind”,
only certainty:
individual soul
inward look: interest
in unreality and
dream, in psychology
(Freud)
Modernism in the ARTS in general
Impressionism (Manet)
cubism, surrealism (Picasso, Gustave
Klimt, Matisse)
expressionism: (Kandinsky)
Arnold Schoenberg’s atonal music
the modernist artist: elitist,
alienated from society
art =
salvation, a substitute of faith
escape from
history
POETRY:
* Rejection of prevalent Victorian
values (also Romanticism)
L’Art pour L’art: / Aesthetic
Movement at the turn of the century
(Walter Pater, Oscar Wilde)
Art should be
independent of all
claptrap —should
stand alone [...] and
appeal to the artistic
sense of eye or ear,
without confounding
this with emotions
entirely foreign to it, as
devotion, pity, love,
patriotism and the like
(James McNeill
Whistler1834-1903)
divorce between art and
nature (Baudelaire)
Decadence (George Moore:
Ode to a Dead Body)
Impressionism
Symbolism: (W. B. Yeats, French
symbolists)
To name a thing is to
do away with three
quarters of your
meaning (Mallarmé)
Imagism: (Ezra Pound): An image is
that which presents an emotional
and intellectual complex in an
instant of time (Ezra Pound)
2. Thomas Hardy (1840-
1928)
1. Life:
Born in Dorset, love of country,
architect, two unhappy marriages
14 novels (critical of Victorian
society)
began to publish poetry in 1898
((918 poems altogether)
2. Age, background:
awareness of modern problems:
collapse of values, starting point:
Darwin
rise of agnosticism: (Thomas
Henry) Huxley –
agnosticism =
everything
outside scientific
reach is
unknowable
(theology, God)
morality: has no basis
value of individual cannot be
stated
3. His philosophy and poetic style
Seem fantasies to me,
a religious man deprived of And mirage-mists their Shining Land,
Is a drear destiny.
belief
first he believes in the notion of Why thus my soul should be consigned
progress: „evolutionary To infelicity,
meliorism” Why always I must feel as blind
To sights my brethren see,
after the World War: Why joys they've found I cannot find,
consciousness is an accident, Abides a mystery.
universe: a machine
the only reality = change: Since heart of mine knows not that ease
Which they know; since it be
That He who breathes All's Well to these
Then we looked Breathes no All's Well to me,
closelier at Time, My lack might move their sympathies
And saw his And Christian charity!
ghostly arms I am like a gazer who should mark
revolving An inland company
To sweep off Standing upfingered, with, "Hark! hark!
The glorious distant sea!"
woeful things with And feel, "Alas, 'tis but yon dark
prime, And wind-swept pine to me!"
Things sinister
Yet I would bear my shortcomings
with things sublime With meet tranquillity,
Alike dissolving But for the charge that blessed things
(from ’Going and I'd liefer have unbe.
Staying’)
O, doth a bird deprived of wings
Go earth-bound wilfully!
modern: questioning age-old ....
Enough. As yet disquiet clings
conventions of poetry: About us. Rest shall we.
„anti-religous” poems, „anti-
love” poems A Drizzling Easter Morning’
intensely personal
expressionism: sacrifices beauty And he is risen? Well, be it so. . . .
for the expressive function And still the pensive lands
poems expressing his loss of complain,
religious faith: And dead men wait as long ago,
The Impercipient
As if, much doubting, they would
know
THAT from this bright believing band What they are ransomed from,
An outcast I should be,
That faiths by which my comrades stand
before
They pass again their sheltering
door.
I stand amid them in the rain,
While blusters vex the yew and
vane;
And on the road the weary wain
Plods forward, laden heavily;
And toilers with their aches are
fain
For endless rest—though risen is
he.
deliberately breaks the
conventions of Easter poems,
ironical
speaker feels excluded from the joy
of Easter
„if way to the Better
there be, it exacts a
full look at the
worst.”
1 What kind of a „god” does the
Hap (1866)
If but some vengeful god would
call to me
From up the sky, and laugh:
’Thou suffering thing,
Know that thy sorrow is my
ecstasy,
That thy love’s loss is my hate’s
profiting!’
Then would I bear it, clench
myself, and die
1 God for Hardy = „Immanent Will”
The text of these poems are reproduced
in my seminar course kit as well.
Steeled by the sense of ire
unmerited;
Half-eased in that a
Powerfuller than I
Had willed and meted me the
tears I shed.
But not so. How arrives it joy
lies slain,
And why unblooms the best
hope ever sown?
- Crass Casualty obstructs the
sun and rain,
And dicing Time for gladness
casts a moan. …
Thes purblind Doomsters had
as readily strown
Blisses about my pilgrimage as
pain.
Questions:
speaker desire for himself and
why? (first two stanzas) Why
would he be „half-eased” by a
vengeful, cruel god?
What is the real nature of the
universe (the real nature of
„god/s”) as described in the third
stanza? (Why the capital letters?)
expressionism: consonant clusters,
alliterations, high-brow, latinized
words express alienation and threat
bitter irony (see questions)
See parallel with his famous novel:
Tess of the D’Urbervilles:
„The President of
the Immortals
finished his sport
with Tess.”
Neutral Tones (1867)
We stood by a pont that winter day,
And the sun was white, as though
chidden of God,
And a few leaves lay on the starving sod;
- They had fallen from an ash and
were gray.
Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove
Over tedious riddles of years ago;
And some words played between us to
and fro
On which lost the more
by our love.
The smile on your mouth was the deadest
thing
Alive enough to have strenght to die;
And a grin of bitterness swept thereby
Like an ominous bird a-wing.
Since then, keen lessons that love
deceives,
And wrings with wrong, have shaped to
me
Your face, and the God-curst sun, and a
tree,
And a pond edged with grayish
leaves
*famous poem about the loss of love
*traditional devices of a love poem
reversed
*hopelessness, expressed by gray,
faded colours
* framed structure
* a personal experience becomes a
symbol of universal truth
1. Establish the dominant meter of
the poem by indicating stressed and
unstressed syllables (do this at least
for the first stanza).
2. How do we know that this text is
a reversal of a love poem? How are
the traditional devices of a love
poem reversed?
3. Characterize the relationship of
this couple. What are some of the
poetic figures expressing that? What
is the main source of the figures?
4. Characterize the structure of the
poem. It helps to compare
thoroughly the first and last stanzas.
What makes the last stanza special
and different from all the rest? Think
about images and motifs that appear
in both. What changes can you
observe? (Look at the tenses of the
verbs for example.)
The Convergence of the Twain
I
biblical idea: a cosmic
wedding/marriage/union at the end of
time (the Lamb [Christ] and his
Bride [the church]; history has a
purpose, an outcome
this hope is bitterly parodied: the
cosmic consummation consists of the
encounter between ship and iceberg
Study Questions
Structurally, the poem can be
divided into two parts. Can you
identify them? (A grammatical
change, among other things,
indicates the shift.)
What is described in the first
section? What is described in the
second section? What does “she”
refer to? (There is a clue later.)
Can you identify the historical event
behind the poem?
The poem contains a narrative but it
does not follow the chronological
order. Can you reconstruct the
proper chronology/timing?
A contrast is set up in the first stanza
which then dominates the poem.
Point out the contrasting images in
stanzas 1 to 5.
Can you find the synonym of the
expression “human vanity”?
What philosophical/theological idea
is parodied in the second section? In
other words: a historical event is
described, but extremely ironically.
In what does the irony lie?
Find the phrase which has the same
referent as “Immanent Will.”
Explain the title.
The irony is strenghtened by the use
of a metaphor to describe the
“august event.” Consider the
expressions. “prepared a mate”;
“consummation.” Which area of life
do these images come from?
3. William Butler Yeats
(1865—1939)
Important role in the revival of
Irish literature
central theme: Ireland, her history,
folklore and contemporary public
life
Yeats and Endre Ady: similarities
* national identity: crucial
*symbolism a complex of  Celtic twilight: vague
* the great cataclisms of their metaphors/images, atmosphere, dream,
time, esp.first world war: evoking/conjuring up some  landscape: vaporous, gray;
„things fall apart; the emotion half lights
centre cannot hold” (The emotion: NOT a feeling, it is
Second Coming) a power that moves The Lake Isle of Innisfree
„Minden egész eltörött”
(Kocsiút az éjszakában) a Romantic notion of art: I will arise and go now,
poets (and painters and And go to Innisfree,
1. Life musicians) are continually And a small cabin build there,
triangle of three cities: Dublin- making and unmaking the world
Of clay and wattles made;
London-Sligo
Nine bean rows will I have
It is indeed only those things
Sligo: Celtic tradition there,
which seem useless or very
London: cosmopolitan experience A hive for the honey bee,
feeble that have any power and
Dublin: a Romantic, nationalistic And live alone in the bee-loud
all those htings that seem
shelter glade
useful or strong (armies,
architecture, reason) would
important personalities in his life: And I shall have some peace
Maud Gonne: frustrated have been a little different if
there,
love: unquenchable source for some mind long ago had not
For peace comes dropping
poetry given itself to some emotion
slow,
and shaped sounds or colours
Dropping from the veils of the
Lady Augusta Gregory: friend or forms or all of these, into a
a writer, morning
musical relation, that their
dramatist, To where the cricket sings;
emotion might live in other
has a There midnight's all a glimmer,
minds.
collection of And noon a purple glow,
Irish folk- * belief in a mythic unity of being And evening full of the linnet's
tales (Romantics!) wings
* importance of form:
2. symbolism: I will arise and go now,
„your words are as subtle, as
complex, as full of For always night and day
through the use of symbols poetry mysterious life as the body of I hear lake water lapping
helps you discover an unseen, a …. woman”
With low sounds by the shore;
spiritual world woman (dancer):
While I stand on the roadway
embodiment of poetry/art Or on the pavements gray,
The Symbolism of Poetry
(important esssay) I hear it in the deep heart's core
3. Early poetry:
(from The Rose,
 Romantic:sweet melody,
a symbol = 1893)
daydreaming

written in London:
wish to escape (influence of
Romanticism and “Celtic
twilight”)
directness of style and simplicity
but also subtle poetic devices
(rhythm, sound symbolism)
complex symbolism:
nine: magic number, of birth,
new life
honey: reference to Canaan;
glade to Greek mythology
How do alliterations,
metrical irregularities
and other devices express
the direction of the poem
towards a sense of
calmness and peace?
4. Change in Yeats’ poetry:
turbulent first decades of
the 20th century
Abbey Theatre 1904
Yeats: manager, involved, more
realism
style: „talk”, much more vulgar,
ugly and harsh
later: symbolism returns
transformed (intensive and
shocking)
second decade of the century:
turbulent
(Major Robert Gregory, husband
shot in the war)
intensification of the
independence movement
Easter Rising 1916 (“the Irish
’56”)
revolution and civil war,
declaration of the Irish Free State
in 1921
leaders = poets, teachers,
dreamers, executed
’Easter 1916’
(last lines):
I write it out in a verse—
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
elegiac feeling
antithetical: a debate with
himself:
on the one hand:
eulogistic, ordinary
people are transformed by
their sacrifice, on the
other hand: an
unnecessary tragedy?
“The Second Coming”
TURNING and turning in the
widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the
falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre
cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon
the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is
loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is
drowned;
The best lack all conviction,
while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at
hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at
hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly
are those words out
When a vast image out of
Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere
in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the
head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the
sun,
Is moving its slow thighs,
while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant
desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but
now I know
That twenty centuries of stony
sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a
rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour
come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to
be born?
written after 1919
the gyre: two whirling cones
interpenetrating
complementary opposites (like
yin-yang)
narrowing VERSUS spreading
movement
subjectivity VERSUS objectivity
inward VERSUS outward
movement
both
in history and in the individual
 general disintegration
 the rhyming falls apart,
dissonances
 iambic rhythm but full of
irregular caesuras
 falcon –falconer: man
disconnected from God
 ceremony of innocence:
baptism
 beast to be born in
Bethlehem = Christ’s birth:
reversed!
5. The aging Yeats
’Sailing to Byzantium’,
’Byzantium’, ’Among
Schoolchildren’
(In The Tower, 1928)
How to escape from the body? How
to overcome the confines of matter)?
Growing preoccupation for the aging
Yeats
Two different solutions:
 Sailing to Byzantium: a
complete rejection of nature,
body and matter
Byzanthium and Among
Schoolchildren: synthesis
between the spiritual and the
physical/material
“Sailing to Byzantium”
I soul.
That is no country for old men.
The young
In one another's arms, birds in the
trees
--Those dying generations--at
their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-
crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl commend all
summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and
dies.
Caught in that sensual music all
neglect
Monuments of unaging intellect.
II
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick,
unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and
louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but
studying
Monuments of its own
magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the
seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium. 2. Contrasting stanzas 1-2 with 3- midnight oil.
III 4. How would you describe the O chestnut-tree, great-rooted
O sages standing in God's holy governing tension or contrast of blossomer,
fire this poem. Find references to the Are you the leaf, the blossom
first part of the poem in the last
As in the gold mosaic of a wall, or the bole?
two stanzas.
Come from the holy fire, perne in O body swayed to music, O
3. What kind of quest does the
a gyre, poet undertake in this poem? brightening glance,
And be the singing-masters of my What does the voyage symbolize? How can we know the dancer
4. Contrast the last two lines of from the dance?
Consume my heart away; sick stanza 1 with the previous lines.
with desire What exactly is described in the
And fastened to a dying animal first 6 lines? What are some of the 4. T. S. Eliot (1888--1965)
It knows not what it is; and gather poetic devices used?
me 5. What is the dominant metaphor Let
of stanza 2?
Into the artifice of eternity. us
6. What do you think fire can be a go
IV
symbol for (stanza 3)? then
Once out of nature I shall never 7. What kind of utterance is
take ,
stanza 3?
My bodily form from any natural you
8. What exactly does he want to
thing, become (in stanza 4) in ordet to and
But such a form as Grecian defeat mortality? I,
goldsmiths make Whe
Of hammered gold and gold “Byzantium” and “Among n
enamelling Schoolchildren”: the
To keep a drowsy Emperor great synthesis is achieved even
vision of unity: artist becomes
awake; ing
one with the creative process, thus is
Or set upon a golden bough to
overcoming human limitations spre
sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium ad
(last stanza of Among
Of what is past, or passing, or to out
Schoolchildren)
come Labour is blossoming or agai
dancing where nst
Study Questions
The body is not bruised to the
1. Establish the dominant meter of sky
the poem by indicating stressed
pleasure soul.
Nor beauty born out of its own Like
and unstressed syllables (do this a
at least for the first stanza). despair,
Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of pati
ent
 ethe
rise
d Fletcher
upo
na
tabl
e 3. Critical ideas:
(’The
Love
Song
of J.
Alfre
d quarterly: The Criterion
Prufr
ock’)
1. What makes it “modernist”?
 ordinary language,
conversational style
 surprise, incongruance: a
cold, medical image
intruding
 sarcastic, urban irony
 juxtapose and fuse the
opposite or the discordant
 precise image grasping a
mood
2. Life:
 born in USA, St.
Louis, Unitarian
family
 Harvard: philosophy
+ doctoral studies
 Paris - Sorbonne
 left the USA in 1914:
settled in England
 in London: Vivien
Haywood, first wife –
disastrous marriage
 second late marriage Edinburgh church the artistic
with secretary Valerie festival, 1935) process, the
pressure, so to
 Nobel prize: 1948, died at speak, under
 Wasteland: 1922: the age of 77 which the fusion
recovering from a takes place, that
nervous breakdown
counts.
Ezra Pound’s editorial advice
 in London: book reviews, a) the impersonality of poetry and
schoolteacher, worked for (’Tradition
the „objective correlative”
a bank (for several years) and Individual
* against the Romantic
 editor of a newly founded Talent’, 1919)
cult of personality and
subjectivism:
(publishing Proust, Gide, (Wordsworth: poetry = b) The importance of the literary
Thomas Mann) 1922- spontaneous overflow of tradition
1939
powerful feelings”) originality: not to be
The Waste Land: in valued, poets are part of a
first issue of Criterion the more perfect living literary tradition
 director of Faber and
the artist, the
Faber:
more completely
aiding many young 4. The Wasteland (1922)
poets, writers (Pound, Auden, separate in him
Joyce) will be the man Five chapters: I. The Burial of the
 in 1927: joined the who suffers and Dead, II. A Game of Chess, III.
Church of England: the mind which The Fire Sermon, IV. Death by
conversion to creates; the Water, V. The Thunder Said
Christianity, important more perfectly
outcome of a long will the mind wasteland = modern world
spiritual quest digest and futility, barrenness-
 declared himself transmute the infertility (physical and spiritual),
“classical in literature, alienation
passions which
royalist in politics, and principally expressed
are its material.
Anglo-Catholic in through the alienation of the
religion.” it is not the sexes:
’greatness’, the My
 turn to theatre: rejects intensity of the nerves are bad to-night. Yes,
earlier elitism emotions, the bad. Stay with me
(Murder in the components, but 'Spe
Cathedral: the intensity of ak
written for
to Thin many religions and rituals involve a symbols:
me. k.' sacrificial death union by eating
Why from (sacramental food
do Game of a) Greek, Phoenician, Egyptian symbolism)
dying god mythology: Attis, union by sex/love
you Chess
Adonis, Osiris (sexual symbolism)
neve three-day ritual: a god
r structured by a spiritual quest for
associated with vegetation is alienated, apathetic modern people:
spea renewal or rebirth)
usually put to death on the spiritual journey resisted
k? a descent to the zero point
first day, is buried, no rebirth in the Waste Land
(the lowest point)
Spe disappears and his absence is Waste Landers are not aware
ak mourned on the second, and of this dimension of life
first to the
'Wh earth (The
risen on the third not aware of sacred subtext
at Burial of the
are b) the quest for the Holy Grail O the moon shone bright on Mrs
Dead)
you (cup with Christ’s blood) Porter
descent
(Gawain, Perceval, Galahad) And on her daughter
thin under water = zero point
old and ailing king = Fisher They wash their feet in soda water
king reached in
king = Adam (fallen man)
of? The Fire
(it can be dead king, O the moon shone bright on Mrs
Wha Sermon and
wounded king, sick king or Porter
t Death by
extremely old) And on her daughter
Water
thin aim of quest: to restore the They wash their feet in soda water
beginning of
king king and the land by finding the
an ascent: What the Thunder Said
? Grail prostitutes washing themselves after
Wha the visit – subtext: ancient spring rite
structure borrowed from
t, the hero who comes, the
ancient and Christian mythology: (From the Fire Sermon)
'I knight, the saviour – (= Orpheus and
unless one first At the violet hour, when the eyes and back
Christ)
neve spiritually dies one Turn upward from the desk, when the human
hero and sick king in one engine waits
r cannot experience
(Christ = „Ecce homo” = Adam) Like a taxi throbbing waiting,
kno spiritual rebirth and
a mediator - so he is also a I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between
w fulfillment two lives,
fisher
wha first: the worst has to Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can
be faced (about oneself and the see
t ancient symbol of the At the violet hour, the evening hour that
world)
you fish/fisher – who fishes strives
are humanity out of the chaotic Homeward, and brings the sailor home from
cycle of nature provides the sea,
thin waters of death
structure – death and new life The typist home at teatime, clears her
king the passing from winter to breakfast, lights
. fertility comes from UNION Her stove, and lays out food in tins.
spring, from darkness to dawn
with the divine life Out of the window perilously spread
 Her drying combinations touched by the formulated in ou subjective
sun's last rays, Christian consciousness
On the divan are piled (at night her bed) r
Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays. theological terms, Q  attention is directed
I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs but other religious ua to processes in the
Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest— traditions also mind
I too awaited the expected guest. rt
present  inward look, interest
He, the young man carbuncular, arrives, et
A small house agent's clerk, with one bold in dreams
central themes: s
stare,  no privileged point
One of the low on whom assurance sits 1. incarnation – God became of view
As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire. human
The time is now propitious, as he guesses,
 impressionistic
2. death and rebirth / wound and style: recording
The meal is ended, she is bored and tired, 5. Joseph Conrad and the
Endeavours to engage her in caresses healing impressions, not
Which still are unreproved, if undesired. humanity is so diseased that beginnings of modernist facts
Flushed and decided, he assaults at once; saving is painful, like an operation prose
;
His vanity requires no response,
And makes a welcome of indifference. The dove descending breaks the No, it is
(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all air 1. Victorian age: impossible;
Enacted on this same divan or bed; With flame of incandescent terror
I who have sat by Thebes below the wall it is
And walked among the lowest of the dead.) Of which the tongues declare  epistemological optimism = impossible
Bestows on final patronising kiss, The one discharge from sin and society and people
to convey
And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit... error. are knowable, writers
…...' can grasp reality can
the life-
The Thunder Said: still no rebirth, The only hope, or else despair sensation of
be grasped
but a longing for it, symbolized Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre any given
 narrative method: typically
by thirst —To be redeemed from fire by epoch of
intrusive omniscient godlike
attention directed to great fire. narrator: eminently reliable one's
religious traditions (Hinduism, existence,
Buddhism, Christianity) Who then devised the torment? 2. Modernist agnosticism --that which
Love.  agnosticism and scepticism: makes its
5. Eliot’s late work Love is the unfamiliar Name no absolute certainty: “God truth, its
Behind the hands that wove is dead” meaning--
explicitly Christian, religious The intolerable shirt of flame  to believe in coherence = an its subtle
poems and plays Which human power cannot act of faith »»» no God = no and
most famous theatrical play: Murder remove. coherence
in the Cathedral penetrating
We only live, only suspire  authority and tradition –
essence. It
Consumed by either fire or fire. increasingly undermined
Four Quartets: mystical, is
meditative quest: how to find f impossible.
mind and world:
fulfillment by union with the ro We live, as
 heightened concern
divine m
with individual,
F
we dream-- impo
alone. . . ." sed
by JOSEPH CONRAD
The mind of 3. World as chaos: myth (1857−1924) Jozef Teodor
, Konrad Korzeniowski
man is
effects of first world war: time,
capable of
shatters belief in progress psyc 4. His life
anything-- holo  born in Poland (now part
 departure
because gical of Ukraine)
from
everything patte  father Apollo: a
chronologica
is in it, all l story- rns revolutionary and a man
the past as telling: of letters
esca
well as all  history is not pe  involvement in political
the future. going from conspiracy resulted in an
Joseph anywhere histo exile in Russia
Conrad: (unlike ry  parents die, uncle his
Heart of traditional throu guardian
Darkness stories and gh
plots) myth  Marseilles: 20 years of
It is when we  narration ic sea career, In 1878:
try to ruled by visio service on English ships
grapple with memory and n:  naturalized British subject
another associations sense in 1886
man's  fiction: often of  expedition into Africa:
intimate unresolved timel source for Heart of
need that we (no ess darkness
perceive how marriage, no and  This turned him to
incomprehen death) trans writing
sible,  time in the cend  first novel 1894 –
wavering, mind rather ental altogether 31 novels
and misty than time on order  isolated from principal
are the the clock writers or movements
 memory – great
beings that literature:  friends: old-fashioned
share with us central
freedom writers, no contact with
the sight of structuring
from modernists, unaware of
the stars and device
space and Freud
the warmth time (see
of the sun. but: need for transcendence: ecstatic
vision and order (or at least its also the 5. Heart of Darkness 1899!
(Conrad: motto of
Lord Jim) memory)
imagism!)
Plot: The narrator Marlow (an
Englishman) recounts his
adventure into the Congo to a
group of men aboard a ship
(Nellie) anchored in the Thames
estuary. Marlow takes a foreign
assignment as a ferry-boat
captain, employed by a Belgian
trading company, employed to
transport ivory down the Congo
river; and to return the mysterious
Kurtz to civilization.
Kurtz: an ivory trader, initially
high colonizing ideals but turning
savage and amoral during his long
stay in Africa
interest in inner, spiritual
realities:
Conrad and Freud pioneers
in stressing the irrational
elements in human behaviour
Marlow’s journey is
symbolical/spiritual:
recognition of an obscure
link between himself and the
manifestation of evil
darkness: personified by
Kurtz, which every human
being may be forced to meet
within himself
„Kurtz’s savage career is
every man’s wish-
fulfillment” Frederick R.
Carl
Marlow: a morally sensitive,
naive Englishman with 19th
century certainties enters an
avaricious, predatory, almost
psychopatic world.
„He matures. The 19th
century becomes the 20th
century.” F. R. Carl
(Marlow about Kurtz):
The original Kurtz had been educated partly
in England, and--as he was good enough to
say himself--his sympathies were in the right
place. His mother was half-English, his father
was half-French. All Europe contributed to
the making of Kurtz; and by-and-by I learned
that, most appropriately, the International
Society for the Sup- pression of Savage
Customs had intrusted him with the making
of a report, for its future guidance. And he
had written it too. I've seen it. I've read it. It
was eloquent, vibrating with eloquence, but
too high-strung, I think. Seventeen pages of
close writing he had found time for! But this
must have been before his--let us say--nerves,
went wrong, and caused him to preside at
certain midnight dances ending with
unspeakable rites, which--as far as I
reluctantly gathered from what I heard at
various times--were offered up to him--do
you understand?--to Mr. Kurtz himself. But it
was a beautiful piece of writing. The opening
paragraph, however, in the light of later
information, strikes me now as ominous. He
began with the argument that we whites, from
the point of development we had arrived at,
'must necessarily appear to them [savages] in
the nature of supernatural beings--we
approach them with the might as of a deity,'
and so on, and so on. 'By the simple exercise
of our will we can exert a power for good
practically unbounded,' &c., &c. From that
point he soared and took me with him. The
peroration was magnificent, though difficult
to remember, you know. It gave me the
notion of an exotic Immensity ruled by an
august Benevolence. It made me tingle with
enthusiasm. This was the unbounded power
of eloquence --of words--of burning noble
words. There were no practical hints to
interrupt the magic current of phrases, unless
a kind of note at the foot of the last page, would have been a splendid leader of an
scrawled evidently much later, in an unsteady extreme party.' 'What party?' I asked. 'Any
hand, may be regarded as the exposition of a party,' answered the other. 'He was an--an--
method. It was very simple, and at the end of extremist.' Did I not think so? I assented. Did
that moving appeal to every altruistic I know, he asked, with a sudden flash of
sentiment it blazed at you, luminous and curiosity
terrifying, like a flash of lightning in a serene
sky: Narration:
'Exterminate all the brutes!' The curious part
was that he had apparently forgotten all about first person narration, also: a
story within a story –
that valuable postscriptum, because, later on,
when he in a sense came to himself, he there is a first narrator telling
repeatedly entreated me to take good care of us how Marlow narrated his
'my pamphlet' (he called it), as it was sure to
have in the future a good influence upon his
story to a group of British
listeners
career. I had full information about all these
things, and, besides, as it turned out, I was to
have the care of his memory. I've done realization: British
enough for it to give me the indisputable right imperialism is corrupt and
to lay it, if I choose, for an everlast- ing rest
in the dust-bin of progress, amongst all the brutal in practice
sweepings and, figuratively speaking, all the
dead cats of civilization. But then, you see, I Postcolonial critique:
can't choose. He won't be forgotten. Whatever Chinua Achebe: "An Image
he was, he was not common. He had the
power to charm or frighten rudimentary souls
of Africa: Racism in
Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness'"
into an aggravated witch-dance in his honor;
Massachusetts Review. 18.
he could also fill the small souls of the
pilgrims with bitter misgivings:
full text at
…. To this day I am unable to say what was
http://social.chass.ncsu.edu/wyrick/d
Kurtz's profession, whether he ever had any--
which was the greatest of his talents. I had ebclass/achcon.htm)
taken him for a painter who wrote for the
papers, or else for a journalist who could black people / Africa is used as a
paint --but even the cousin (who took snuff metaphor for the brutal and
during the inter- view) could not tell me what
he had been--exactly. He was a universal
bestial in the human personality
genius-- ……………... Ultimately a
very offensive generalizing
journalist anxious to know something of the
fate of his 'dear colleague' turned up. This blacks for Conrad are muscular
visitor informed me Kurtz's proper sphere savages jumping around in frenzy
ought to have been politics 'on the popular
side.' He had furry straight eyebrows, bristly
hair cropped short, an eye-glass on a broad
ribbon, and, becoming expansive, confessed
his opinion that Kurtz really couldn't write a
bit--'but heavens! how that man could talk! 6. Introduction to 20th century
He electrified large meetings. He had faith-- British drama
don't you see?--he had the faith. He could get
himself to believe anything--anything. He
G. B. Shaw, J. M. Synge, W. B. dependant marri e
Yeats, T. S. Eliot, John Osborne on his ed a ph
mum, fello ili
bohemian w- sti
drama in the 19th century: , Fabi ne
two main trends: later an: s
frivolous entertainment, interested Char th
book drama: in lotte e
not meant to be acted politics: Payn re
socialist e- ali
ideas Tow sts
revival of drama at the beginning Fabi nshe :
of 20th century: two directions: an nd w
1. Irish revival (renaissance) Soci ho
high poetic quality ety: working: reviewer se
2. reappearance of the drama midd e
of ideas (G. B. Shaw) le drama criticism: thr
class literary realism! ou
George Bernard Shaw (1856-- orga main source: Ibsen gh
1950) nizat famous pamphlet: all
ion ’The Quintessence of Ibsenism’ thi
Life: estab the s
born in lishe ideali Shaw’s aim in theatre:
Ireland d in sts: destroy illusions, ideals, masks
father: 1884 decei
business to ve drama: a forum for
man, a prom thems considering moral, social,
drunkard ote elves political issues
mother: a the th (Widowers’ Houses: the
professio grad e abominable housing
nal singer, ual m conditions in England;
moved to sprea aj Mrs Warren’s Profession:
London d of ori prostitution)
Shaw in socia ty
Dublin lism w heighten the awareness of the
with by ho audience
father peac do a writer of comedies!
joined his eful n’t his humour
mother at mean ca unmatched by his
the age of s re: contemporaries
twenty th
 Mrs Warren’s Profession life itself is a mysterious, unwomanly Play
impersonal force = life force woman, boy
not performed for 8 years (1894-- objective of this life force = masculinity of
1902), bad reputation greater and greater understanding overemphasized, the
of itself modern West
basic conflict between mother and woma dialectical view
ern
daughter! n: of history: Joan =
questionable financial specia an agent of Worl
foundations of mother’s wealth l role history/life force d’ as
Mrs Warren: a prostitute (operated on – (progressive and in
the contintent, Vienna, Bp, English prima regressive forces) my
morality, more hypocritical) ry othe
helper not a tragedy: in r
tension: Mrs W: uses corruption of the the long run Joan play
and at the same time wants to rise life will be justified s, I
above it? force, have
bearin the revival of Irish drama used
later: returns to the Fabian g
on
position: you you stay within the childr poetry brought back
system and reform it gradually en influenced by Irish nationalism or
from within turns to Irish past for writing two
plays exhibiting material wor
serious moral concern this philosophy: Irish mythology, the ds
art is justified by Man and legends of pre- and early only
affecting the morals of society Superman Christian era that
aim: shock the (parody of one central I
audience, make them parliamentary hero: have
uncomfortable, make democracy, attack Cuchulain, not
them think on Fabian defender of hear
socialism, plot: Ulster,
d
Later phase: flows Don known for
no longer believes world can Giovanni, but the his terrifying amo
be changed socially woman takes the battle frenzy ng
salvation in the personal, initiative) Back to theme: rural life, the
biological sphere Methuselah peasantry cou
language of the peasants ntry
influenced by Henri Bergson Saint Joan peo
(Creative Evolution) long preface In ple
Nietzsche, Hegel, 20th century writi of
Schopenhauer recast of St. Joan ng Irela
’The
 nd, write start with all of them in verse, short one-act w
or a chance that is plays ill
spok not given to b
early phase: longing desire,
en writers in e
search for ideal beauty
a
in places where first play: Countess
d
my the springtime Cathleen
m
own of the local life C
itt
nurs has been o
e
ery forgotten, and u
d
…. the harvest is a nt
to
es
memory only, h
in countries s
and the straw ea
where the of
v
has been turned fe
imagination of e
into brick rs
the people, and n
from J. h
the language =
M. er
they use, is rich e
Synge’s so
and living, it is m
Preface ul
possible for a b
to The to
writer to be rich o
Playboy sa
and copious in di
of the v
his words, and m
e
Western e
at the same time th
World nt
to give the e
of
reality, which is p
[National Literary Society (1892)] se
the root of all o
aim: lf
poetry, in a or
to promote Irish literature, music, -
sa
comprehensive art sa
cr
and natural cr
ili
form. lectures, concerts, lending ifi
gi
libraries ce
In Ireland .. .we o
Abbey Theatre: 1904 a
have a popular us
W. B. Yeats: his n
imagination that ac
manager d
t:
is fiery, and dramatists of the b
b
magnificent, revival: Yeats, Sean O’Casey, J. ut
ea
and tender; so M. Synge, Lady Gregory ut
sh
that those of us y
e
who wish to W. B. Yeats’ dramas
 p no setting, no luck and villagers turn against him
o expensive props, company I’ve he attempts to kill his father a
et dependant on won me in the second time to regain his
in actor and words end of time – popularity
th two fine women
e reception: nationalistic riots in
fighting for the Dublin
dr John Millington Synge
a like of me – till depiction of Irish
m The Playboy of the Western I’m thinking this peasants
a: World: performed at the Abbey night wasn’t I a unsettling:
A Theatre in 1907 foolish fellow subversion of
le tragicomedy (3 acts) set in not to kill my accepted sexual roles
el Michael James Flaherty’s public father in the antithetical to the
= house on the west coast of Ireland years gone by. Abey Theatre’s
bi Language a dynamic force to mission ???
o transform life In act 2 father turns up and
gr destroys the illusion Christy ambivalent reference to the poet-
a insignificant Christy Mahon created figure: Christy presented as a
p appears in the village, claiming he Old Mahon: poet:
hi killed his own father by driving a Running wild, is Pegeen: it’s the
ca spade (’loy’) into his head it? If he seen a poets are your like
l celebration of the villagers – fine, fiery fellows
red petticoat
Cathleen Ní with great rages
Houlihan
Bravery is a coming
treasure in a swinging over when their
spirit of
lonesome place the hill, he’d be temper’s roused
Ireland
personifie and a lad would off to hide in the
kill his father, I ’m also: truly ambiguous and ironic
d by an sticks, and
idea of heros and heroism
old thinking, would you’d see him great talkers are synonymous
woman face a foxy divil shouting out his with bravery and heroism
who with a pitchpike on sheep’s eyes
rouses her the flags of hell. between the fantasy and reality: What matters?
people to little twigs and
the pubkeeper’s daughter Pegeen Words or deeds?
the
falls in love with him the leaves, and use of imagination to
national
his two ears escape from reality
struggle also several village women rising like a villagers: unable
second phase: international, Christy: Well, hare looking out to accept the fact
interest in Japanese drama (Noh it’s a clean bed through a gap. that they have
drama) created the
and soft with it, Girls, indeed!
fantasy and now
and it’s great
 it has become belligerent, dissatisfied working- intellectual famous
reality. class male protagonist environment economist John
traumatic Maynard
expressed in novels: Kingsley Amis – adolescence: Keynes)
1930s: resurgence of poetic Lucky Jim, John Wain: Hurry on
(religious) drama (in England) death of mother Here met
Down; Alan Sillitoe: The Loneliness
T. S. Eliot: Murder in the when she was Leonard Woolf,
of the Long-Distance Runner
Cathedral – 1935, commissioned 13 married: 1912
for the Canterbury festival half sister Stella Hogarth Press:
John Osborne (1929-1994): Look
martyrdom of St. Thomas a two years later: 1917
Back in Anger (1956)
Becket – breakdowns for Lesbian
realistic drama, no novelty in
influence of Greek tragedy, the rest of her relationship
form, but in content
medieval morality plays –
life with Vita-
liturgical The hero,
Jimmy Porter:
minor revival of religious plays Father died Sackville West
although the son of a worker,
followed 1904, favourite 1941: drowned
education: » on the border
of the middle class brother: two herself
upward mobility years later
(1930s, 1940s, 1950s: absurd threatened by the provoked an Her last letter to her husband:
drama, see later lecture) more privileged alarming
Jimmy Porter collapse I feel certain that I am going mad again.
1950S: Angry young men = I feel we can't go through another of
continues to work in also possible those terrible times. And I shan't recover
dominant literary force of the a street-market and sexual abuse by this time. I begin to hear voices, and I
fifties vents his rage on his half brothers can't concentrate. So I am doing what
middle-class wife seems the best thing to do. You have
George and given me the greatest possible happiness.
disaffection with class system, and her middle-class
pedigreed families, elitist Gerald You have been in every way all that
friend. anyone could be. I don't think two people
universities, hypocrisy Cornvall:
could have been happier 'til this terrible
dislike for anything high brow 7. Virginia Woolf: memories of a disease came. I can't fight any longer. I
and phoney modernism, feminism, lighthouse know that I am spoiling your life, that
without me you could work. And you will
impressionism (1882—1941) I know. You see I can't even write this
social background: part of properly. I can't read. What I want to say
after WWII, creation of welfare Bloomsbury is I owe all the happiness of my life to
state, living living standards for Life: you. You have been entirely patient with
father: editor Group with
the poor had increased drastically, me and incredibly good. I want to say
and critic Leslie sister, painter that — everybody knows it. If anybody
but power still in the hands of the Vanessa Bell (E. could have saved me it would have been
elite Stephen, you. Everything has gone from me but the
London M. Forster,
certainty of your goodness. I can't go on
uncertainty about traditional educated at biographer and spoiling your life any longer. I don't think
gender roles home in a essayist Lytton two people could have been happier than
Stratchey, we have been.
highly
 importance to a women as mirrors concept of a female
patriarch who
Theories of maleness and has to conquer, reflecting the figure of literary tradition
femaleness (feminism) who has to rule, man at twice his natural
of feeling that size (hindering the The weight, the
two books of feminist polemic: great numbers pace, the stride
improvement of the
Room of One’s Own, Three of people, half of a man’s mind
the human race situation of women) are too unlike
Guineas indeed, are by her own for her
nature inferior to lift anything
3.
Room of One’s Own to himself. …
But it is obvious
substantial from
Women have him
1. served all these that the values successfully.
One cannot centuries as of women differ
think well, love looking- very often from
well, sleep well the values difference. cultural rather
glassess
if one has not possessing the which have than biological
dined well. magic and been made by need for „the study of the
A woman must delicious power the other sex;
have money and naturally, this is psychology of women by a
of reflecting the
a room of her figure of man at so. Yet it is the woman”
own if she is to twice its natural masculine
write fiction size. …. mirrors values that
are essential to prevail.
imaginary life of all violent and Speaking 4.
crudely, And there is
Shakespeare’s sister: heroic action.
football and the girl behind
… if she begins
emphasis on financial to tell the truth, sport are the counter too
independence and the figure in the ’important’; the – I would as
worship of soon have her
autonomous space looking-glass
fashion, the true history as
shrinks; his
fitness for life is buying of the hundred
2. diminished. clothes ’trivial’. and fiftieth life
Without self- How is he going … This is an of Napoleon or
confidence we to go on giving insignificant seventieth
are as babes in judgement, book because it study of Keats
the cradle. And civilizing deals with the … All these
how can we natives, making feelings of infinitely
generate this laws, writing women in a obscure lives
imponderable books, dressing drawing-room. remain to be
quality which is up and A scene in a recorded
yet so speechifying at battlefield is
invaluable, banquets, more important exploration of the private
most quickly? unless he can than a scene in
a shop … sphere: „women have sat
By thinking that see himself at
other people breakfast and at indoors all these millions
are inferior to dinner at least assumption of women’s of years, the very walls are
oneself. ….. twice the size he „difference” permeated by their
Hence the really is?
enormous creative force”
 Mrs Dalloway uses all its the typical rs.
faculties.
(1925) one day of male How
an average society androgynous mind: associated do
lady: „Mrs modernist desire for with the they
Dalloway said she totality, unity: aggressive exhi
would buy the Tires aspects of bit
flowers herself.” ias Western thes
anticipating postmodern in civilisation: e
views Eliot power, char
’s dominance, acte
5. The colonisation risti
in each of us (first world cs?
two powers Wast
reside, one e war: To the Can
male, one Lan Lighthouse, you
female; and in 1928) iden
the man’s brain d
the man Orla also: with tify
predominates ndo language, sym
over the words and boli
woman, and in (192
the woman’s 8): reason but cal
brain the fanta lacking obje
woman intuition cts
predominates stica
over the man. l and asso
The normal and biog sensitivity ciat
comfortable ques ed
state of being is raph
when the two y tions with
live in harmony for mal
together, stud e
spiritually in her age men are now
cooperating. writing only with the male y: self-
Coleridge side of their brains Iden asse
perhaps meant tify rtio
this when he also political implications:
said that the connection between „pure, som n?
great mind is self-assertive virility” and e Wha
androgynous. It such t
is when this fascism
fusion takes mal kind
place that the reflection in Mrs e of
mind is fully char hum
fertilized and Dalloway (1925):
acte an
 qual Monday or Let us record
Tuesday, the the atoms as
ities accent falls they fall upon in her novels:
are differently from the mind in the narratives are uneventful,
cont of old; the order in which common place, hardly any plot
moment of they fall, let us
rast importance trace the (Mrs Dalloway: how a middle-
ed came not here pattern, aged housewife prepares for
with but there; so however her evening party)
that, if a writer disconnected
mal were a free man and incoherent narrative filtered through, even
e and not a slave, in appearance, dissolved in the characters’
aggr if he could write which each consciousness
what he chose, sight or
essi not what he incident scores intensely lyrical prose:
on must, if he upon the abundant with auditive and
and could base his consciousness. visual impressions
work upon his Let us not take
who own feeling and it for granted
exhi not upon that life exists
bit convention, more fully in Mrs Dalloway 1925
there would be what is
the no plot, no commonly
m? comedy, no thought big Mrs. Dalloway said
tragedy, no love than in what is she would buy the
interest or commonly flowers herself.
Literary impressionism, catastrophe in thought small. For Lucy
poetic style (the essay: the accepted had her
from the work cut
’Modern fiction’) style, and
perhaps not a essay out for her.
single button ’Modern The doors
The mind sewn on as the would be
receives a Fiction’ taken off
Bond Street
myriad tailors would their
impressions— have it. Life is attention to details, nuances, hinges;
trivial, not a series of Rumpelmay
fantastic, processes rather than hard er’s men
gig lamps
evanescent, or symmetrically facts, descriptions were
engraved with arranged; life is coming.
the sharpness of a luminous And then,
steel. From all „materialist” opposed to the thought
halo, a semi-
sides they come, transparent „spiritual writer”: „the Clarissa
an incessant envelope flickerings of that innermost Dalloway,
shower of surrounding us what a
innumerable flame which flashes its morning—
from the
atoms; and as beginning of messages through the brain”, fresh as if
they fall, as consciousness disregard of standard narrative issued to
they shape to the end. children on
themselves into conventions such as coherence, a beach.
the life of probability
What a lark! she had gone out techniqu the
What a plunge! on to the terrace
For so it had —Peter Walsh. e) different
always seemed to He would be back dominat characte
her, when, with a from India one of ed by rs about
little squeak of these days, June
the hinges, which or July, she forgot the each
she could hear which, for his working other
now, she had letters were s of the
burst open the awfully dull; it She
French windows was his sayings mind: would
and plunged at one remembered; memorie not
Bourton into the his eyes, his say of
s any
open air. How pocket-knife, his
fresh, how calm, smile, his time- one in
stiller than this of grumpiness and, span: the
course, the air when millions of world
one day, now
was in the early things had utterly
morning; like the vanished—how but that
flap of a wave; strange it was!— memorie they
the kiss of a a few sayings like were
s this or
wave; chill and this about
sharp and yet (for cabbages. embrace were
a girl of eighteen a whole that....
as she then was) she
life: would
solemn, feeling as
she did, standing narrative technique: free especiall not
there at the open indirect discourse y one say of
window, that Peter,
narrated summer she
something awful
was about to in the at would
happen; looking third Bourton not
at the flowers, at say of
person literary hersel
the trees with the
smoke winding off singular, cubism: f, I am
them and the but several this, I
rooks rising, am
author perspecti that
falling; standing
and looking until and ves in
Peter Walsh said, characte play important themes:
“Musing among r no aging and death
the
vegetables?”— discours „reliable lives of men and women:
was that it?—“I e merges knowled different possibilities and
prefer men to (stream- ge”: perspectives
cauliflowers”—
was that it? He of- only alienation: especially male-
must have said it consciou impressi female
at breakfast one sness ons of
morning when
contrasted say cont sym
with an and rast: boli
idealized Lily Clari ze
female- Bris ssa effic
female coe is in ienc
relationship (mal love y,
which es: with civil
psychologic alwa civil izati
ally ys izati on?
corresponds an on, Whi
to pre- intru refus ch
Odipal sion) ing char
mother- sensitivity: to experience life to to acte
daughter the full, the role of the artist ackn r
relationship, Septimus owle adm
and is Warren dge ires
looked for Smith: a the civil
in the past war veteran, aggr izati
Mrs shell shock, essiv on
Dall psychologic e, the
owa ally mas most
y: unstable, culin ?
Clari commits e How
ssa suicide aspe does
and ct of Sept
Sall parallels the imus
y between worl reac
Seto Clarissa and d t to
n Septimus! ques thes
in tions e
To question: : aspe
the Find Whi cts
Ligh parallels as ch of
thou you are obje the
se: reading the cts worl
Mrs novel! mig d?
Ram ht How
 does
he
ulti
mat
ely
help
Clar
issa
expe
rien
ce
life
on a
deep
er
level
? beauty; made her feel the fun. But she must
(at the party towards the end)
Then (she had felt it only this morning) there
was the terror; the overwhelming incapacity,
one’s parents giving it into one’s hands, this
life, to be lived to the end, to be walked with
serenely; there was in the depths of her heart
an awful fear. Even now, quite often if
Richard had not been there reading the
Times, so that she could crouch like a bird
and gradually revive, send roaring up that
immeasurable delight, rubbing stick to stick,
one thing with another, she must have
perished. But that young man had killed
himself.
Somehow it was her disaster—her disgrace.
It was her punishment to see sink and
disappear here a man, there a woman, in this
profound darkness, and she forced to stand
here in her evening dress. She had schemed;
she had pilfered. She was never wholly Jesuit boarding school, but had to course of civilisation in Ireland by
admirable. She had wanted success. Lady leave it
Bexborough and the rest of it. And once she
preventing the Irish people from
had walked on the terrace at Bourton. Jesuit Belvedere College, Dublin having one good look at themselves
(join the order) in my nicely polished looking-
University of Dublin, studying glass.”
…..
(letter to Grant Richards, 23
modern languages.
June 1906, SL 89-90)
The clock began striking. The young man had When mother was dying of
killed himself; but she did not pity him; with cancer, he refused to kneel and
the clock striking the hour, one, two, three, pray attention on lower middle class
she did not pity him, with all this going on. the ruling elite: the Protestant
There! the old lady had put out her light! the minority, Catholics – low-paid
whole house was dark now with this going In 1904 he met Nora Barnacle and
on, she repeated, and the words came to her, on June the 16th (!): first date jobs
especially women (Ireland =
Fear no more the heat of the sun. She must From 1904-1920 he and Nora
go back to them. But what an extraordinary lived in Trieste Zürich image as wronged woman)
night! She felt somehow very like him—the
from 1920-1941: in Paris and the source of most misery:
young man who had killed himself. She felt English domination, the
glad that he had done it; thrown it away. The Zürich
clock was striking. The leaden circles two children: Giorgio and Lucia Protestants and
dissolved in the air. He made her feel the the
difficulties with making money;
Holy
go back. She must assemble. She must find
Joyce teaching English in schools
and also privately Rom
Sally and Peter. And she came in from the
little room. financial difficulties ceased by the an,
last 25 years of his life: Harriet Cath
Shaw (English feminist and olic
publisher) his patron and
[omitted in 2019 spring) Apos
James Joyce (1882-1941) tolic
after undergoing surgery for a
perforated ulcer, he died Chur
Irish novelist, short story writer ch:
and poet the Irish government denied Nora
permission to repatriate his exerc
undisputed influence ising
remains
an
Life: even
mostly outside Ireland: still Dubliners (1914)
short stories: about Dublin with more
Dublin provides the setting for all disab
his works clinical dispassion and realism
influenced by Ibsen ling,
born in middle class family in beca
meanness, poverty, abuse,
Dublin, use
first comfortable, well to do, but paralysis
It is not my fault that the odour of
unop
father squandered their money pose
ashpits and old weeds and offal
Catholic family of strong d
hangs round my stories. I seriously
nationalist outlook
believe that you will retard the
 auth as eternity too of experience into the radiant Molly
ority (Stephen in body of everliving life” (Portrait) Bloom:
Portrait) the
fairly conventional in technique epiphany: a sudden spiritual woman
but also: uncertainties of human I fear more than transformation in the course of and wife
consciousness that the which everyday realities become and
free indirect discourse chemical action radiant and signficiant whore
to individualize a fictional which would be
set up in my
portrait (Maria and the use of the one day = a whole lifetime
word ’nice’) soul by a false Ulysses 1922 different organs = total man
homage to a
fragments of human different arts = sum total of
symbol behind * Set in Dublin, events unfold
experience: ambiguities, which are
human activity
uncertainties over 24 hours, beginning on the each event is related to
massed twenty morning of Thursday 16th June
centuries of typical events in human
The Portrait of the Artist as a 1904. The work has 18 chapters history, literature and myth:
authority and
Young Man (1916) which „correspond” to episodes in orchestration!
veneration
a biographical novel: the story of The Odyssey of Homer.
the personal development of the ultimate value: freedom, It is the epic of two races (Israel-
* Two myths of Western culture
artist liberation; isolated, lonely Ireland) and at the same time the (symbolic, esoteric level and
interior monologue, interest in individual cycle of the human body as well as realistic level):
a little story of a day (life)... It is
psychic reality „the enemy of Bright also a kind of encyclopaedia. My
Odyssey
focus on a single mind: Stephen Young Rebels for more intention is not only to render the The Father and the Son
Dedalus myth sub specie temporis nostri but (Christian)
than a century had been also to allow each adventure (that
other people” (Wayne is, every hour, every organ, every
elevation of art as the supreme Booth) art being interconnected and archetypal story of wondering
value: prototypical tale of the interrelated in the somatic scheme and homecoming
of the whole) to condition and even
modernist artist representative modern moment: to create its own technique. (James In the climactic Circe chapter
relying on the supreme Stephen seeks to „learn in my Joyce, Letters, 21st September Bloom meets the drunken Stephen
1920)
principle of individualism: own life and away from home and in a brothel, they leave together,
friends what the heart is and how * greatest totalizing effort of but Stephen finds himself in a
aim: to find his private it feels” modernist literature: street fight from which Bloom
vision never before the individual = microcosm saves him and takes him home.
known or imagined Theory of art: epiphany Three protagonists = As Bloom gazes on the
absolute, total honesty story of the complete unconscious Stephen, he
And I am not to seek the spiritual in the „man” experiences a vision about his
afraid to make invisible world but in the ordinary Stephen Dedalus: dead son, Rudy.
a mistake, even world „the artist” = Ireland
a great mistake, analogue with the Eucharist: My head is full of pebbles and
Leopold Bloom:
a lifelong rubbish and broken matches and
„everyman” = Israel bits of glass picked up 'most
mistake and
the artist: „a priest of the eternal (also outsider, alien) everywhere. The task I set myself
perhaps as long imagination, transmuting the daily bread technically in writing a book from
 eighteen different points of view
and in as many styles, all
apparently unknown or
undiscovered by my fellow
tradesmen, that and the nature of
the legend chosen would be enough
to upset anyone's mental balance.
What parallel courses did Bloom and
(Letters, 24 June 1921) Stephen follow returning?
Starting united both at normal walking pace
* Literary „cubism” from Beresford place they followed in the
Eighteen different order named Lower and Middle Gardiner
streets and Mountjoy square, west: then, at
perspectives: there are
reduced pace, each bearing left, Gardiner's
different ways of seeing place by an inadvertence as far as the farther
chapter 17 corner of Temple street: then, at reduced
(Ithaca): pace with interruptions of halt, bearing right,
Bloom and Temple street, north, as far as Hardwicke
place. Approaching, disparate, at relaxed
Stephens walking pace they crossed both the circus
heading for
before George's church diametrically, the
home: chord in any circle being less than the arc
apparently a which it subtends.
narrative of ([they were talking during the walk]
severe
Did Bloom discover common factors of
objectivity similarity between their respective like and
in unlike reactions to experience?
re Both were sensitive to artistic impressions,
al musical in preference to plastic or pictorial.
it Both preferred a continental to an insular
manner of life, a cisatlantic to a transatlantic
y place of residence. Both indurated by early
a climax (see above)
domestic training and an inherited tenacity of
p heterodox resistance professed their disbelief
ar in many orthodox religious, national, social
o
and ethical doctrines. Both admitted the
alternately stimulating and obtunding
d equal distance
influence of heterosexual magnetism.
y (beginning of chapter 17, Ithaca)
of
sc * language draws attention to
ie
itself: not a transparent medium
nt style is all: style takes the place of
ifi moral attitude, of any normative
c view
o to discuss the affairs of the
bj
Structure:
ec
ti first 3 chapters: Stephen Dedalus
vi - story of „Telemachus” longing
ty for his father)
second 3 chapters: Leopold
Bloom, his wonderings in Dublin;
the story of Odysseus” deprived
of his wife and son, longing for
home
chapter 7 (Aeolus): newspaper-
office scene: we see both
protagonists
following episodes:
unconsciously chase each other;
sometimes appearing together for
a moment
chapter 14 (Oxen of the Sun) (the
parody of 9 different prose
styles): takes place in a hospital
where both Bloom and Stephens
et al. go visiting: Bloom is invited
to their party
chapter 15: (Circe), night town
scene: their association reaches a
chapter 16—17: joint journey
home
chapter 18: Molly Bloom wakes
up at dawn – stream of
consciousness
CYCLOPS and its antecedents
Bloom is going to a pub named
Barney Kiernan's to meet a
lawyer, Martin Cunningham and
Dignam family. There was a
funeral earlier in the day, and
Bloom wants to help the widow
arrange affairs of inheritance.
Homeric parallel: Odysseus’s
adventures with the one-eyed
giant
Story: At the pub Bloom is
provoked, insulted and chased out by
an obnoxious Irish nationalist, the
Citizen
study of the
development of
racial (anti-semitic)
prejudice
one-eyed = narrow minded
The memory of the dead, says the citizen
taking up his pintglass and glaring at Bloom.
-- Ay, ay, says Joe.
-- You don't grasp my point, says Bloom.
What I mean is...
-- Sinn Fein! says the citizen. Sinn fein
amhain! The friends we love are by our side
and the foes we hate before us.
Narrative techniqe: two thoroughly
unharmonious voices
1) a debt-collector, socially
low: malevolent, satirical: keeping
[366] So we turned into Barney
Kiernan's and there sure enough
was the citizen up in the corner
having a great confab with
himself and that bloody mangy
mongrel, Garryowen, and he
waiting for what the sky would
drop in the way of drink.
There he is, says I, in his
gloryhole, with his cruiskeen
lawn and his load of papers,
 working for the cause.
The bloody mongrel let a grouse
out of him would give you the
creeps. Be a corporal work of
mercy if someone would take the
life of that bloody dog. I'm told
for a fact he ate a good part of
the breeches off a constabulary
man in Santry that came round
one time with a blue paper about
a licence.
[412]-- But do you know what a
nation means? says John Wyse.
-- Yes, says Bloom.
-- What is it? says John Wyse.
-- A nation? says Bloom. A nation
is the same people living in the
same place.
-- By God, then, says Ned,
laughing, if that's so I'm a nation
for I'm living in the same place
for the past five years.
So of course everyone had a
laugh at Bloom and says he,
trying to muck out of it:
-- Or also living in different
places.
-- That covers my case, says Joe.
-- What is your nation if I may
ask, says the citizen.
-- Ireland, says Bloom. I was
born here. Ireland.
The citizen said nothing only
cleared the spit out of his gullet
and, gob, he spat a Red bank
oyster out of him right in the
corner.
-- After you with the push, Joe,
says he, taking out his
handkerchief to swab himself dry.
question: What effect does such a
narrative viewpoint possibly have on
readers?
2) other „voice”:
the first narration
is interrupted by
passages in vastly
different styles
(„interpolations”,
„asides”)
caricatures of
vastly different
styles: the legal,
the journalistic,
the scientific, the
biblical etc.
The figure seated on a large boulder at
the foot of a round tower was that of a
broadshouldered deepchested
stronglimbed frankeyed redhaired freely
freckled shaggybearded wide-mouthed
largenosed longheaded deepvoiced
barekneed brawnyhanded hairylegged
ruddyfaced sinewyarmed hero. From
shoulder to shoulder he measured
several ells and his rocklike
mountainous knees were covered, as was
likewise the rest of his body wherever
visible, with a strong growth of tawny
prickly hair in hue and toughness similar
to the mountain gorse (Ulex Europeus).
The widewinged nostrils, from which
bristles of the same tawny hue projected,
were of such capaciousness that within
their cavernous obscurity the field-lark
might easily have lodged her nest. The
eyes in which a tear and a smile strove
ever for the mastery were of the
dimensions of a goodsized cauliflower. A
powerful current of warm breath issued
at regular intervals from the profound
cavity of his mouth while in rhythmic
resonance the loud strong hale
reverberations of his formidable heart
thundered rumblingly causing the
ground, the summit of the lofty tower
and the still loftier walls of the cave to
vibrate and tremble. ……. From his
girdle hung a row of seastones which
dangled at every movement of his
portentous frame and on these were
graven with rude yet striking art the
tribal images of many Irish heroes and
heroines of antiquity, Cuchulin, Conn of
hundred battles, Niall of nine hostages,
Brian of Kincora, the Ardri Malachi, Art
MacMurragh, Shane O'Neill, Father
John Murphy, Owen Roe, Patrick
Sarsfield, Red Hugh O'Donnell
Chapter 18 (Penelope)
authorial presence apparently
disappears: we enter into Molly’s
mind which is like a flowing river
(no punctuation marks, no
selection, no comment)
Molly is lying in bed thinking
about her past and present, Bloom
and her other lovers
8 gigantic, incomplete sentences
(lurid pornographic details as
well)
flow = flow of nature
flow of urine (water and
blood)
Joyce’s presentation of „the
eternal feminine” (8: laid on its
side, the sign of infinity),
Woman = great cycle of nature, a
home to return to
last sentence: she is planning to
give Bloom one more chance to
reestablish full sexual relations
with her
chapter begins and ends with YES
(a female word according to
Joyce)
the sun shines for you he said the day we
were lying among the rhododendrons on
Howth head in the grey tweed suit and
his straw hat the day I got him to
propose to me yes first I gave him the bit
of seedcake out of my mouth and it was
leapyear like now yes 16 years ago my
God after that long kiss I near lost my
breath yes he said I was a flower of the
mountain yes so we are flowers all a
womans body yes that was one true thing
he said in his life and the sun shines for
you today yes that was why I liked him
because I saw he understood or felt what
a woman is and I knew I could always
get round him and I gave him all the
pleasure I could leading him on till he
asked me to say yes and I wouldnt
answer first only looked out over the sea
and the sky I was thinking of so many
things he didnt know of Mulvey and Mr
Stanhope and Hester and father and old
captain Groves and the sailors playing
all birds fly and I say stoop and washing
up dishes they called it on the pier and
the sentry in front of the governors house
with the thing round his white helmet
poor devil half roasted and the Spanish
girls laughing in their shawls and their
tall combs and the auctions in the
morning the Greeks and the jews and the
Arabs and the devil knows whoelse from
all the ends of Europe and Duke street
and the fowl market all clucking outside
Larby Sharons and the poor donkeys
slipping half asleep and the vague
fellows in the cloaks asleep in the shade
on the steps and the big wheels of the
carts of the bulls and the old castle
thousands of years old yes and those
handsome Moors all in white and
turbans like kings asking you to sit down
in their little bit of a shop and Ronda of on re
with the old windows of the posadas 2 pu s st
glancing eyes a lattice hid for her lover rp be or
os co e
to kiss the iron and the wineshops half
e.. m th
open at night and the castanets and the .. e e
night we missed the boat at Algeciras the C se im
watchman going about serene with his ut ns po
lamp and O that awful deepdown torrent of el rt
O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes f es an
like fire and the glorious sunsets and the fr s, ce
figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and o ab of
all the queer little streets and the pink m su m
hi rd yt
and blue and yellow houses and the
s , h
rosegardens and the jessamine and re us an
geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar li el d
as a girl where I was a Flower of the gi es rit
mountain yes when I put the rose in my ou s" ua
hair like the Andalusian girls used or s, ( l
shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed m M to
me under the Moorish wall and I thought et ar ou
well as well him as another and then I ap ti r
hy n ag
asked him with my eyes to ask again yes si Es e,
and then he asked me would Iyes to say ca sli by
yes my mountain flower and first I put l, n) m
my arms around him yes and drew him an . ak
down to me so he could feel my breasts d in
all perfume yes and his heart was going tr “ g
like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes. an A m
sc bs an
en ur a
8. Theatre of the Absurd de d w
nt T ar
" al he e
A ro at of
bs ot re th
ur s, ca e
d m n ul
is an be ti
th is se m
at lo en at
w st; as e
hi al an re
ch l at al
is hi te iti
de s m es
vo ac pt of
id ti to hi
s he en emphasises action,
co at t. freedom and decision as
nd re It
iti ho is fundamental to human
on pe fel existence
, s t opposed to the rationalist
by to th tradition and to positivism.
in ac at
sti hi th indifferent, objective,
lli ev er "absurd" universe without
ng e e
in th is
a given meaning
hi is m
m by ys
ag sh tic "The Theatre of the Absurd”:
ai oc al European plays in the late 1940s,
n ki ex 1950s, and 1960s, also: a
th ng pe particular style of theatre
e m ri
lo an en
st ou ce term coined by critic Martin
se t in Esslin,.
ns of co
e an nf Departure from
of ex ro
co ist nt
traditional
s en in theatrical
mi ce g conventions:
c th th
w at e
realistic characters:
on ha li
de s mi * characters appear
r be ts as automatons
an co of speaking in clichés
d m hu * failing memories
pr e m
im tri an fail (in Godot they
ev te, co are not sure who
al m nd Pozzo is when he
an ec iti turns up the second
gu ha on
time)
is ni .”
h. ca (J * they hardly
T l an remember
he an K their past (in
A d ul Godot:
bs co ik
ur m )
fragments
d pl about a warm
T ac philosophical roots: existentialism summer day;
 Birthday P: Life: Irish Protestant well-to-do "You ask me for my What is the purpose of life: To
ideas on Waiting for
Stanley has family (born on a Good Friday, Godot and my ideas on grow old!!!! To pass the time
illogical, 13, Friday) the theatre," he wrote to
Michel Polac on Godot's experience of time: circular,
incoherent Relations with women: complex, publication a year before repetitive
memories) often abortive it was produced. "I have
* recognition Postgraduate studies: in Paris no ideas on the theatre. I represented
know nothing about it. I
scenes, (dissertation on Proust) never go. That's
by the structure: symmetrical
discursive influenced by Joyce reasonable. What is
Christian hope is parodied by the
thought ruled After death of father: settled in rather less so," he added,
"is . . . to write a play, waiting in the play
out Paris, active in French resistance and then to have no
realistic situations: Earlier work: fiercely difficult ideas on that either." Was I sleeping while the others suffered?
Am I sleeping now? Tomorrow when I
* Time, place and 1930: Whoroscope, a verse "I know no more about
wake, or think I do, what shall I say of
identity: ambiguous monologue in the voice of René this play than anyone
who just reads it today? That with Estragon, my friend, at
and fluid (we don’t Descartes attentively," Beckett this place, until the fall of night, I waited
know where Godot 1938: first novel: Murphy wrote. "I don't know for Godot? That Pozzo passed, with his
takes place; the what spirit I wrote it in. I carrier, and that he spoke to us?
know no more about the Probably. But in all that what truth will
characters are not After 1940: write about characters than what there be? (ESTRAGON, having struggled
sure about the time, impotence and ignorance, they say, what they do with his boots in vain, is dozing off again.
and what happens to
how many days have essential experience of human life them . . . everything I
VLADIMIR looks at him.) He’ll know
passed etc.) abandon rhetoric and have been able to learn, I nothing. He’ll tell me about the blows he
have shown. It's not a received and I’ll give him a carrot.
* even basic virtuosity (Pause.) Astride of a grave and a difficult
great deal. But it's
causality frequently clean and analytical French, enough for me, quite birth. Down in the hole, lingeringly, the
breaks down. three novels: enough. I'd go so far as grave-digger puts on the forceps. We
to say that I would have have time to grow old. The air is full of
(Birthday P: We Molly, Malone Dies and The been content with less . .
don’t know what Unnameable (1946-50) our cries. (He listens.) But habit is a
. Estragon, Vladimir,
great deadener. (He looks again at
Goldberg and Pozzo, Lucky, I have
Estragon.) At me too someone is looking,
only been able to know
McCann want from Waiting for Godot: them a little, from far of me too someone is saying, He is
Stanley) French premier: 1953, English: off, out of a need to sleeping, he knows nothing, let him sleep
* Meaningless plots, 1955 understand them. They on. (Pause.) I can’t go on! (Pause.) What
owe you some have I said?
repetitive or growing artistic „asceticism” explanations, perhaps.
nonsensical dialogue Let them unravel.
Without me. Them and
* dream-like, or even antecedents. Me, we're quits." HAROLD PINTER (1930)
nightmare-like Extension of the symbolist line in
"If by Godot I had born in a
moods. (Estragon: British poetic drama (from Yeats meant God I would lower middle class Jewish family
several dreams; to E) have said God, and
in London
Birthday Party = a Minimalism of his work: derive not Godot." [godillot
nightmare) from Yeats Noh plays = boot]
compared to Beckett his dramatic
French existentialism (Sartre and
world is firmly grounded in
Samuel Beckett: 1906-1989 Camus) and surrealism (André theme: meaninglessness of human
contemporary society
(Nobel prize: 1969) Breton) existence
Pinter’s plays: interested in theme: how a helpless individual, alienated from the centres rebellion against the
the nature of power, of power a one time artist is depressed, of power, authority establishment and the traditional
structures brainwashed and subdued: by class system: „anger”
he offended against „Holy
* dominance, what / whom? (Question: What examples:
Authority”: individual is
control, may the two intruders Osborne: Look back
crushed below the weight
exploitation, symbolize?) in anger: class
of social expectations
victimization antagonism as major
* number of plot: unsociable boarding-house or simply: his crime is his conflict (a play)
his figures: resident (Stanley) is terrorized by being born at all Kingsley Amis:
related to the two sinister men (Goldberg and or: ust an undefined, Lucky Jim: anger
arts (Stanley: McCann) who have come in existential angst (feeling manifest in the
a concert search of him, of terror) relentless exposure
pianist, reduced to blind violence at a of hypocrisy,
victimized birthday party thrown for him by the underlying fear a working-class novel:
by society) his landlady sensitive individual has of more committed and
* the and taken away by them the next the outside world value-centred:
psycholog morning, incapable of speech or Allan Sillitoe The
y of resistance Loneliness of the
power but ’reorientated’ and ’integrated’ 9 British fiction after the Long Distance
in a respectable suit and white War; postmodernism Runner: a sense of
expressed by means of collar „them” and „us”:
pinteresque dialogue: „have”s and „have-
British fiction in the 50s: return
everyday fear hugely pervasive in Western nots”, the powerful
to realism and Englishness
conversation, culture: and the powerless
traditional 19th themes: interest
BUT a „somebody will come at get interest in moral issues
in social relations
darker sense you”: the bogeyman story Christian doctrine
violent reaction against
of a man’s a crime or misdeed in the of human
modernist technical innovations:
insecurity, past comes to haunt the depravity :
„Writing is not a
aggressivene present William
private game to
ss Golding:
be played at a
figure of Stanley: ambivalent, Lord of the
private party.”
Birthday Party 1957 multpile layers of interpretation Flies (1954):
fiction becomes parochial: no
are possible: the fragility
traumatic experiences of
genre: tragicomedy? „comedy of of human
totalitarianism or defeat in war,
menace” the persecuted victim of civilization
continuities undisturbed
conventional structure of modern literature (Kafka: Anthony
conscious derivation from major
Greek tragedy The Trial) Burgess:
novelist of the past borrowings
but: comic stock Clockwork
the individual (typical of and allusions
characters Orange
the 20th century)
(1962): men
do evil
 because the
choose to,
and enjoy
doing it
Kingsley Amis
moral issues: a
matter for debate
and speculation
Kingsley Amis: Lucky Jim
Amis: admittedly anti-modern,
anti-experimental, anti-
cosmopolitan (The Movement)
traditionally English social
comedy, 18th c. tradition,
Fielding
university in a country town
James/Jim Dixon, a young
lecturer at the history department
under Professor Welch
exposure of the hypocrisy of
academic life, seen through the
eyes of Dixon
Dixon: a double life, a double
perspective symbolized by his
„public” face and his „private”
faces
„Chinese mandarin
face”
„Martian invader
face”
huge gap between private and
public faces:
in public hypocritical, also
insincere in his love life,
Whatever
passably
decent rise of postmodern architecture in
treatment the seventies VERSUS high
Margaret modernist buildings
had had instead of the inhuman,
mathematically precise „high
from him
modernist” buildings
was the
ornamented tower blocks
result of a imitation medieval squares
temporary and fishing villages,
victory of renovated factories and
fear over warehouses and rehabilitated
irritation, landscapes
and pity „pluralistic” and
over „organic” strategies
boredom.” urban development as a
’collage’ of highly
one possible interpretation: differentiated spaces:
Dixon’s advance to his own „collage city, urban
true self and his true feelings revitalization”
comic climax: his
but paradoxically: his widespread doubt in and
boldness is rewarded by questioning of the Enlightenment
winning Christine and a legacy:
better job
 end of modernity = end of
Philosophy of the novel? you scientific positivism (end of
simply need luck in life? Enlightenment certitudes)
„Nice things are nicer than nasty „pure reason”, „objectivity”
things.” is impossible, knowledge is
human and mediated (see
comic effects: Thomas Kuhn: The Structure
mostly linguistic: of Scientific Revolutions,
heroes: imitating various 1964)
styles  reason (intellectual know-
how and its resultant
POSTMODERNISM technology) has failed to
deliver the good life
1. „postmodernism” in general: o the belief in progress
the ’structure of feeling’ has shattered (Western
changed (the 80s) culture no longer
privileged)
 questioning of
metanarratives: deep
aversion to universal
emancipation
(metanarratives: broad
interpretative schemas)
the political promise of the
Enlightenment has failed
instead: there has to be a
plurality of language games
 link between power and
truth/knowledge (Michel
Foucault):
there is no objectivity: no
neutral reason: reason often
becomes the instrument for
power,
institutions, organisations
exercies control over
language games,
closed systems of knowledge
= „fascism in the head”
 concern with „otherness”
(based on pluralism):
all groups have a right to
speak for themselves
(colonized people, blacks
and gays, women, religious
groups etc.)
 the collapse of time horizons,
of historical continuity:
no „centred self” but
fragmented self (modernism:
alienation)
experience = a series of pure
and unrelated presents,
preoccupation with
instantaneity
history plundered
 superficiality, loss of depth
(no continuity of values and
 beliefs), images, appearance, EITHER left wing (paradox: es.org.uk/magazine/record.
attachment to surfaces sympathies (V. Woolf, W. „poetry asp?id=6300
H. Auden, C. D. Lewis) makes husband of Sylvia Plath
OR: authoritarianism, nothing
conservativism (Roman happens” problem/plight of modern man is that
10. Poetry before and after Catholicism) YET: the his rational and cognitive powers are
poet should cultivated too exclusively;
the II. World War; Philip Wystan Hugh Auden „persuade us
Larkin and Seamus Heaney How to turn instinctive, natural
[with Stephen Spender, to rejoice” energies creative?
Cecil Day-Lewis and and „In the ANIMALS: manifestation of
Introduction to mid 20th Louis MacNeice] New desert of the a life force, non-human, non-
century literature and art Country Poets) heart / let the rational
interested in history, healing
central event: second world politics fountains Hawk Roosting
war „I start” (’In
I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed.
fascism and am Memory of Inaction, no falsifying dream
communism your W. B. Yeats’) Between my hooked head and hooked feet:
social, choic Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.
economic e, after the war in the 40s: a The convenience of the high trees!
and political your movement of new The air's buoyancy and the sun's ray
turmoil Are of advantage to me;
decis romantic poetry And the earth's face upward for my inspection.
ion” main
reaction against high modernism (Spai representative: Dylan My feet are locked upon the rough bark.
It took the whole of Creation
n, Thomas (of Welsh origin) To produce my foot, my each feather:
the 1930s and 40s: artists 1937 interested in Now I hold Creation in my foot
sensitive to the problems of the ): spirituality,
time: says religion, Or fly up, and revolve it all slowly -
I kill where I please because it is all mine.
„hist nature (not in There is no sophistry in my body:
Great Depression ory” politics and My manners are tearing off heads -
(1929) to society) The allotment of death.
the rise of peop the 1950s: Ted Hughes (1930— For the one path of my flight is direct
Fascism le 1998) and Philip Larkin (1928— Through the bones of the living.
the Spanish Civil No arguments assert my right:
belief in the 1985)
War ethical The sun is behind me.
nature of Ted Hughes: neo-Romantic (poet = Nothing has changed since I began.
My eye has permitted no change.
necessity of poetry: to shaman) I am going to keep things like this.
commitment: hold up
Virginia Woolf human friend and translator of
The Leaning values in the János Pilinszky. See his
Tower midst of article on Pilinszky:
inhumanity http://www.poetrymagazin
PHILIP LARKIN (1928—1985) The Movement: a loose grouping going silenc
on e,
of the 50s, based on key I step Brewe
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
But they were fucked up in their turn friendships (Larkin and Amis) inside, d God
They may not mean to, but they do. * concerned with the Englishness letting knows
They fill you with the faults they had the how
of their work door long.
And add some extra, just for you
By fools in old-style hats and coats, * respect for clarity, intelligibility: thud Hatles
Who half the time were soppy-stern hostile to modernist literature, shut. s, I
And half at one another's throats. Anoth take
doubt about Eliot er off
Man * bored by the political churc My
hands preoccupations of the forties, even h: cycle-
on mattin clips
more by the dispair of the forties, g, in
miser
y to not interested in suffering seats, awkw
man. * nine writers: Kingsley Amis, and ard
It stone, revere
Robert Conquest, Donald Davie, And nce,
deepe
ns like John Holloway, Elizabeth little
a Jennings, Philip Larkin, John books;
coasta sprawl
Wain, Thom Gunn, Iris Murdoch ings
l
shelf. of (first
Get flower stanza
out as s, cut )
Church Going (in the volume: For
early
as you The Less Deceived 1955) Sunda * initial personal experience
can, * Movement identity y,
brown broadened into sg. universal: the
And characterized by an oscillation
don't ish need for transcendence and the
have between agnosticism and a now; loss of an organized framework of
any sensitivity to the Christian some
brass connection with it
kids tradition: A
yourse and
* CG: articulates this tension in stuff seriou
lf. s
three steps! Composite tension Up at
the house
Life: graduated at Oxford made up of layers of contrast holy on
(English literature) (modern sporty cyclist VERSUS end; seriou
the s earth
a librarian, writer of novels, tradition; past and present, it is,
small
reviewer of poetry secularism and religious belief, neat In
third volume of poetry (The nature and culture organ; whose
Once I blent
Less Deceived, 1955): the air all
am And a
preeminent poet of his sure tense, our
generation there's musty, comp
nothin unign ulsion
g orable s
 meet, syntax of the sentences in stanza
Are
recog 1)
nised, 3. How many structural units can
and we divide this poem into?
robed
4. What cultural process is
as
destini described in stanzas 3-5? What
es. are its steps? What is symbolized
And
by the invasion of the church by
that
much nature?
never 5. What are some of the
can be
ambivalences and ironies of the
obsole
te last two stanzas? How does irony
question even the positive
statements?
(last
stanza
) anchor" of our spirit within an
High Windows
* irony: each move towards a
When I see a couple of kids
positive statement is cancelled And guess he's fucking her and she's
Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm,
I know this is paradise
* Movement: not antiChristian:
still a sense of their parents’
Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives--
tradition Bonds and gestures pushed to one side
* „all negatives in poetry, once Like an outdated combine harvester,
And everyone young going down the long
stated, become a special kind slide
of poetic positive” (Barbara
Everett) To happiness, endlessly. I wonder if
Anyone looked at me, forty years back,
And thought, That'll be the life;
Study Questions No God any more, or sweating in the dark
1. Who is the speaker? What do
About hell and that, or having to hide
we learn about him from the first
What you think of the priest. He
stanza? And his lot will all go down the long slide
2. Characterize his attitude Like free bloody birds. And immediately
towards the church and what it Rather than words comes the thought of high
represents as it is expressed in the windows:
first two stanzas. How does the The sun-comprehending glass,
And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows
style express the attitude (note the Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.
Study Questions
1. How old is the speaker?
2. The basis of the poem is a
comparison: a very common
contrast or tension in human life
(society). What is it?
3. The poem is structured by two
movements. Can you identify
them? How does this affect the
meaning of the poem?
4. How is the speaker’s
ambivalent attitude to modern
emancipation expressed?
5. What can the windows
symbolize?
* young lovers and older
speaker: modernity, the break
with religion and with tradition
described ambivalently
(symbolic directions, down and
up, indicate this)
* ’four letter word’ modernity
VERSUS the exaltation of the
close!
* window in French
symbolism (Baudelaire,
Mallarmé): necessity and
absence of the ideal, an ideal
we imprint on the void sky by
the intensity of our longing
Seamus Heaney 1939-213
Irish, Nobel Prize in 1995.
Irish and not British: "Be advised, my
passport's green / No glass of ours was
ever raised / To toast the Queen."
Only the very stupid or the very deprived
can any longer help knowing that the
documents of civilization have been
written in blood and tears, blood and
tears no less real for being very remote.
And when this intellectual predisposition
co-exists with the actualities of Ulster
and Israel and Bosnia and Rwanda and a
host of other wounded spots on the face
of the earth, the inclination is not only
not to credit human nature with much
constructive potential but not to credit
anything too positive in the work of art.
(from Nobel Lecture, 1995)
but also: poetry "the ship and the
ocean of violent, divisive world
politics
Life:
born near Castledawson, County Derry
(orthern Ireland)
grew up on his father's cattle farm..
eldest in a Catholic family of nine
children.
graduating from Queen's University,
Belfast,
secondary school teacher, university
lecturer (second place: Queen Univ.
Belfast)
guest professor at American universities,
Living in Dublin he divides his time
between America and Ireland
popular public readings (pop-music
fanaticism)
a researcher of Old English: retranslated
Beowulf;
2004 EU Enlargement (a poem)
Main themes:
 1) exploration of the deep (based on To bodies preserved in nearb and a
personal memories and the Irish stare, few of our
big- the soil of neighbours
heritage)
2) violence and social injustice eyed Denmark and had got ther
Narciss Ireland photograph
3) individualistic and meditative (his us, into s in the
own poetry) some paper,
spring
(because of its peering out
1.) first volumes: Death of a Naturalist, Is chemical composition, across its
Door into the dark beneat peat has a preserving antlers. So I
h all effect, mummifying began to get
personal memories combined with adult corpses and ancient an idea of
images of Irish heritage and the dignity. objects bog as the
I rhyme memory of
landscape of Northern Ireland
To see „I had been the
(’Digging,’ ’Bogland’) myself, landscape,
vaguely
to set wishing to or as a
Digging: explores the poet’s the write a landscape
relationship with his family and national darkne poem about that
heritage ss bogland, remembered
digging up potatoes echoin chiefly everything
(father’s and g. because it is that
grandfather’s work) is (’Personal a landscape happened in
Helicon’) that has and to it. In
paralleled with the fact, if you
digging (’Digging’) strange
poet’s „digging with go round
fishing (’The assuaging
his pen” into the the
Casualty’) effect on
national heritage me, one National
exhumation
drawing on myth and unique with Museum in
rescuing from oblivion Dublin, you
aspects of Irish experience associations
probing of secrecy and will realize
fascination for the darkness and reaching
inwardness that a great
the depths (Door into the Dark) back into
concern with the early proportion
communion with „the mystery”:
subaqueous and childhood. of th most
the dark, cherished
subterranean We used to
violent aspect material
(’Bogland’, hear about
of nature bog-butter, heritage of
’Punishment’)
a „feared, butter kept Ireland was
maternal fresh for a „found in a
darkness the bog: central great bog’ (from
expressed through symbol number of Feeling into
Words)
the starting point years under
peering down wells the peat.
for the exploration Then when I bog = memory of the
Now, to
pry of the past was at landscape
into in several works school the
congruence between bogland – a
roots, skeleton of
Heaney has an elk had repository of the past and the
to
finger returned to the been taken internal world of the poet’s
slime, "bog people", out of a bog
preserving, shaping imagination, 2) violence (e. g. North, 1975) 3) later works (Station Island, Before. The air was thick with a bass
social injustice and violent history chorus.
and, the national consciousness Sweeney Astray) Right down the dam gross bellied frogs
bog = significant Irish myth of his country strong individualistic, were cocked
(equivalent to the frontier and the violence: also a permanent, mythic meditative mood On sods; their loose necks pulsed like
quality, as a constant of human history sails. Some hopped:
West in American consciousness) The slap and plop were obscene threats.
historical background: 1968-69: 'The Death of a Naturalist BY SEAMUS Some sat
’Bogland’ Troubles'. HEANEY Poised like mud grenades, their blunt
heads farting.
We have no prairies All year the flax-dam festered in the heart I sickened, turned, and ran. The great
To slice a big sun at evening-- * sectarian violence in Ireland, slime kings
Of the townland; green and heavy headed
Everywhere the eye concedes to addressing specific revenge Flax had rotted there, weighted down by Were gathered there for vengeance and I
Encrouching horizon, killings huge sods. knew
Daily it sweltered in the punishing sun. That if I dipped my hand the spawn
Is wooed into the cyclops' eye 'Casualty': about would clutch it.
Bubbles gargled delicately, bluebottles
Of a tarn.2 Our unfenced country Louis O’Neill, Wove a strong gauze of sound around the
Is bog that keeps crusting fisherman smell. 11. POSTMODERN
Between the sights of the sun. There were dragonflies, spotted
'The Strand at LITERARY THEORY,
butterflies,
They've taken the skeleton Lough Beg': But best of all was the warm thick
POSTMODERN FICTION
Of the Great Irish Elk Heaney’s cousin slobber SALMAN RUSHDIE, KAZUO
Out of the peat3, set it up Of frogspawn that grew like clotted water ISHIGURO
An astounding crate full of air. * the Bog poems: based on the bodies
recovered in the peat of Jutland In the shade of the banks. Here, every
spring postmodern turn: in France and
Butter sunk under 'Punishment'
I would fill jampotfuls of the jellied
More than a hundred years 'The Tollund Man' Specks to range on window sills at home, the United States rather than in
Was recovered salty and white. * religious prohibitions on sex that are On shelves at school, and wait and watch England
The ground itself is kind, black butter the cause of children being killed or until
hidden away The fattening dots burst, into nimble 1. Theory
Melting and opening underfoot, 'Limbo' 'Bye Child' Swimming tadpoles. Miss Walls would
Missing its last definition tell us how
By millions of years. The daddy frog was called a bullfrog (Ihab Hassan’s table, 1985)
They'll never dig coal here,4 public events, the statistics, intersect
with the personal life of the poet And how he croaked and how the mammy
frog modernism
Only the waterlogged trunks in ’Punishment’: Laid hundreds of little eggs and this was
Of great firs, soft as pulp. postmodernism
depicts a tribal revenge of Frogspawn. You could tell the weather by
Our pioneers keep striking frogs too metaphysics, transcendence
Inwards and downwards, adultery, but confesses his own
For they were yellow in the sun and irony, immanence
powerlessness in front of brown
Every layer they strip ancient, violent forces. In rain. to impose order
Seems camped on before. no centre, no
The bogholes might be Atlantic seepage. Then one hot day when fields were totality, fragments
The wet centre is bottomless.5 rank
5
Older people were afraid we might fall into the With cowdung in the grass the angry artist: dead serious
pools in the old workings (excavations for mining frogs self-irony
2 or quarrying) so they put it about (and we believed Invaded the flax-dam; I ducked through and play
Mountain lake or pool; the mythical cyclops had
them) that there was no bottom in the bog-holes.
only one eye. hedges
3 Little did they – or I – know that I would filch it for
To a coarse croaking that I had not heard
elitism
Carbonized vegetable tissue in the ground the last line of a book” (Heaney, Feeling into
4
Because the ground is too wet for it to form. Words)
 worked surfaces, to a collapsed sense of at landsca
democratization of time and space rather than solidly iv pes:
achieved cultural artefact. And these are double
taste all vital aspects of artistic practice in the e (sacred
aesthetic post-modern condition. (From David e -
craftsmanship Harvey: Condition of Postmodernity) n profane
di )
television, internet,
pop culture* 2. Postmodernist fiction (Brian n single (hardscore positivism)
McHale, 1987) gs
creation/totalization/synthesis
se plural
i. „Real, compared to what?” lf (postmodern
- : anarchic
creation/deconstruction/antithesis landscape of
modernism: multiple perspectives c worlds)
(centring on the same reality o
dispersal) ns reality between fact (or history)
genre/boundary postmodern novels: a plurality of u and fiction: blurred
text/intertext worlds (is there a single reality?) m the real is combined with the
„a large number in inexplicable and the fantastic (and
interpretation/reading
of fragmentary g sometimes with the Gothic)
against
possible worlds te postmodernists fictionalize
interpretation/misreading
coexist in an xt history: is history itself a form of
art object/finished work impossible space” , fiction?
(McHale) se
poliphony (Mihail lf Salman Rushdie: Midnight
process/performance/happening Bakhtin) - Children (1981)
er Gabriel García Márquez: Cien
* Television is the first cultural medium detective story: modernism as aňos de soledad (1967)
in the whole of history to present the science fiction: postmodernism
artistic achievements of the past as a
ur Mihail Bulgakov: The Master and
stitched together collage of equi- e Margarita (1966)
important and simultaneously existing if reality is constructed (humanly, (
phenomena, largely divorced from socially constructed): D rhetoric of contrastive banality:
geography and material history and there is any number er
transported to the living rooms and
studios of the West in a more or less
of possible worlds ri Midnight’s Children: historical
uninterrupted flow. It posits a viewer, John d fantasy: integrating the historical
furthermore, who shares the medium’s Fowles: The French Lieutenant’s a) and the fantastic
own perception of history as an endless Woman: , official version of
reserve of equal events. It is hardly th
surprising that the artist’s relation to history VERSUS
history (the peculiar historicism we have re Magic realism: the fantastic (= alternative, secret
already noted) has shifted, that in the era e coined by German art critic Franz history
of mass television there has emerged an al Roh in 1925)
attachment to surfaces rather than roots, te ontolog
to collage rather than in-depth work, to
Indian history linked to the fates
rn ical
super-imposed quoted images rather than of children born at the same time
(midnight, August 15, 1947: the neither English, nor Japanese: an Steven’s motoring trip = symbol in
day of Indian independence) outsider for a trip into his (and the g
national) past D
narrator: Saleem Sinai Novels: ar
the children: microcosms of the studies of character, of human first person narration: li
Indian macrocosm, paralleling or failings combination of reminiscences, n
mirroring public history in their great empathy, subtle depiction flashbacks, straightforward gt
private histories of the inner world of the narrative o
protagonists combined with the impossibility of reconciling n
ii. Literature in English subtle irony professional duties with private h
first person narratives which (emotional) life e
cosmopolitan concept of literature recollect emotional extremes and two irrevocable choices: rejected p
written in English) traumatic events ending on a his housekeeper’s (Miss ar
the dominant role of the West, note of melancholy resignation: Kenton’s) approach ti
esp. orientalism questioned characters facing and accepting uncritical support ci
their past to Lord p
(Colin MacCabe, Darlington’s at
1981): „the Remains of the Day 1989 sentimental e
multiplication of attempt to d
Englishes the first person narration of appease the Nazis in
throughout the Stevens, Lord Darlington’s butler contradictions: both th
world and their proud and ashamed of LD e
attendant social, cultural changes m m
literatures”; disappearance of old, aristocratic a a
„English values: civility, dignity, k ki
literature is dead professional perfection es n
– long live commercialization of the values m g
writing in of the past: „the head servant is u of
English” part of the package” c hi
(new owner, Farraday): „You are h st
examples for literature in English: the real thing aren’t you? That’s of or
Salman Rushdie: Midnight’s what I wanted, isn’t that what I th y
Children have?” e postmodern perspective: tension
Kazuo Ishiguro: Remains of postimperial transformations: the fa between the grand narratives of
the Day leveling of social hierarchy, the ct the war and the minor subjective
loss of imperial identity, th narrative of Stevens
Kazuo Ishiguro (1954) movement from Empire to at (macronarratives and the
globalized web) b micronarrative)
born in Nagasaki, Japan, family y
moved to England in 1960. the inward look: journey into the se (the butler’s) style: again subtle
lives in London, British wife past: rv ambiguity
dignified, aesthetic, civil and
fluent or is it the parody of that?

But I see I am
becoming
preoccupied
with these
memories and
this is perhaps a
little foolish.
This present trip
represents, after
all, a rare
opportunity for
me to savour to
the full the
many
splendours of
the English
contryside, and
I know I shall
greatly regret it
later if I allow
myself to be
unduly diverted.

Ishiguro: to examine the extent to

which such a style „is indeed
dignified and to what an extent it
is a form of cowardice”