LGERM 1124

English Literature: Critical Approaches

6. Drama & media

ben.debruyn@uclouvain.be
Overview of the lectures

1. Literature and genres February 6

2. Literary studies & close reading February 13
3. Poetry and formalism February 20
4. Narrative and structuralism February 27
5. Novels and characters March 5
6. Drama and media March 12
7. Texts and contexts, part 1 March 19
8. Case study: Red Velvet March 26 WORKSHOP 1
9. Authors and readers April 16
10. Texts and contexts, part 2 April 23
11. Gothic fiction April 30
12. Texts and environments May 7 WORKSHOP 2
13. Case study: A Children’s Bible May 14

2
Arriving at your destination, you see a whitewashed building with a plaque declaring
its name and function. This is your school, and it is wedged between a tire-repair stall
and a corner kiosk … Until the age of about twelve, … most children in your area do
in fact manage to go to school. … A boy your height is working shirtless in the
tire-repair stall. He watches you now as you pass. There are fifty pupils in your class
and stools for thirty. - Mohsin Hamid, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, p. 20-21
heterodiegetic and omniscient second-person narrator
I have told my Reader, in the preceding Chapter, that Mr. Allworthy inherited a large
Fortune; that he had a good Heart, and no Family. Hence, doubtless, it will be
concluded by many, that he lived like an honest Man, owed no one a Shilling … and
was charitable to the Poor … - Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, p. 39
extradiegetic & omniscient third-person narrator, talking to reader in first person
I have somehow become a woman who yells, and because I do not want to be a
woman who yells, whose little children walk around with frozen, watchful faces, I have
taken to lacing on my running shoes after dinner and … leaving the undressing and
… reading and singing and tucking in of the boys to my husband, a man who does
not yell. - Lauren Groff, Florida, p. 1
homodiegetic and intradiegetic first-person narrator
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith,
his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly
through the glass doors of Victory Mansions … The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage
and old rag mats. - George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, p. 3
extradiegetic third-person limited narrator
Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself. For Lucy had her work cut
out for her. The doors would be taken off their hinges; Rumpelmayer's men were
coming. And then, thought Clarissa Dalloway, what a morning--fresh as if issued
to children on a beach.
What a lark! What a plunge! For so it had always seemed to her, when, with a
little squeak of the hinges, which she could hear now, she had burst open the
French windows and plunged at Bourton into the open air. How fresh … the air
was in the early morning … chill … and yet (for a girl of eighteen as she then
was) solemn, feeling as she did, standing there at the open window, that
something awful was about to happen …
She stiffened a little on the kerb, waiting for Durtnall's van to pass. A charming
woman, Scrope Purvis thought her (knowing her as one does know people who
live next door to one in Westminster); a touch of the bird about her, of the jay,
blue-green, light, vivacious, though she was over fifty, and grown very white since
her illness. There she perched, never seeing him, waiting to cross, very upright.
x first-person / second-person / third-person narrator?
x camera-eye narrator / 3rd-person limited / omniscient narrator?
x who is focalizer? / is focalizer internal/external? / fixed/variable?
x free indirect style: character’s mindset yet 3rd person/past tense
5. Novels and characters

5.1. Characters and actants

protagonist/antagonist, six actants linked to three axes
5.2. Types and protagonists
round vs flat characters, protagonist vs minor characters
5.3. The novel and realism
18th century, subgenres, Auerbach & Watt on realism
5.4. The novel and language
Bakhtin on heteroglossia, theory of language / of novel
so we have encountered a basic definition:

a novel = “a flexible genre in prose, usually long, that concentrates

on credible events experienced by a small circle of characters in a
specific social world”

as well as three more detailed definitions:

> 1: novel = a serious story about ordinary characters

Eric Auerbach
> 2: novel = a lifelike description of particular inds in particular ccs
Ian Watt
> 3: novel = a mix of perspectives/sociolects vs standard language
Mikhail Bakhtin
6. Drama and media

6.1. Drama, theatre, history

6.2. Performative and performance

6.3. Literature and other media

6.4. Literature and the internet

6.5. Literature and intertextuality

6.1. Drama, theatre, history
theatre: old human fascination with imitation and storytelling
often storyteller adopting diff roles & voices & using entire body
see metaphor and narrative
basic formula: ‘A impersonates B while C looks on’
often contrasted with dance / opera
basic terminology/distinctions

drama: the text originally created by the playwright

script: the text created for a particular production

theatre: movements/gestures of performers enacting the script

performance: entire event, incl audience/technicians (or 1 actor)

10
1. comedy: a term typically applied to drama & derived from ancient
drama, in opposition to tragedy. Comedy deals with humorously
confusing situations, in which the ending is, nevertheless, happy. A
comedy frequently involves people from the lower and middle classes
and often ends in one or more marriages.
2. tragedy: a term typically applied to drama, and derived from
ancient drama, in opposition to comedy. Tragedy deals with the fall of
kings or nobles, beginning in happiness and ending in catastrophe.
Later transferred to other social settings. [remember Auerbach]
3. tragicomedy: a play in which potentially tragic events turn out to
have a happy, or comic, ending.
4. theatre of the Absurd: form of tragicomic post-war theatre similar
to existentialist philosophy, which explores the absurd condition by
revealing the meaningless nature of human language and existence.

11
12
1. classical Greece, 5th century BCE (‘Before Common Era’)
famous genres of tragedy & comedy
costumes, masks, chorus / ‘theatre’ built into slope, ‘orchestra’ and ‘skene’
vs Rome: free-standing, semicircle, larger ‘scene’
2. liturgical plays in Middle Ages
English guilds of craftsmen organize outdoor ‘cycles’ lasting several days
representing events from the Bible and the Christian history of the world
close ties to Catholicism, so banned by Elizabeth I in sixteenth century
3. Renaissance: after rediscovery of Aristotle, Italian & French theorists develop
neoclassicism x strict separation between comedy & tragedy
x three unities of time, place, and action
x yet clearly modern too: indoor + perspective scenery
> model spreads to rest of world via colonization (vs plays with puppets, f.ex.)
in England: forced shift from medieval religious drama to secular theatre
thriving theatre culture between ca 1590-1615 (Shakespeare)
vs continent: open-air structures, not indoor
vs classical model: vs unities + ‘tragedy’/‘comedy’ yet mixture
4. English Civil War and Puritans: closure of theatre between 1640-1660
when theatre returns after 1660: Restoration comedy
French influence, female actors, indoors
13
5. 18th century: European-style theatre in Australia & North America too
serious theatre about middle-class subjects vs kings/heroes

6. 19th century: romanticism vs neoclassicism

x acting/scenery/writing now more ‘realistic’
but typically extreme emotions: restraint > madness
x rise of nationalism: language & history crucial to identity
mix of Eu methods & indigenous materials in colonies
middle of century: subdued drama of everyday life (Ibsen)
standard: middle-class, domestic settings, realistic style

7. 20th century: dominance of Ibsenesque realism but challenges

1. search for indigenous theatre forms in former colonies
2. non-realistic forms of Brecht and Beckett
see Theatre of the Absurd
3. broader shift: dominant figure not actor or playwright
but director (and truly international)
4. recent trends: site-specific and immersive theatre
actors & audience share common space / objects
encouraged to interact & co-create performance
15
6.2. Performative and performance
‘performance’ established term in theatre: entire event (or 1 actor)
shift in 1970s: new meaning of ‘performance’
1. trend in art world: conceptual artists interested in living body
see piece Shoot 1971
see feminist performance art (see later lecture)
2. performative turn in sociology and anthropology
Erving Goffman/Victor Turner: culture = theatrical element,
social roles performed in contexts watched by observers
3. ‘speech act theory’ in linguistics
Austin & Searle: constative vs performative utterances:
1) describe vs create state of affairs (‘you now man & wife’)
2) not true/false but felicity conditions: context!
> diff fields: everyday life similar to a theatrical performance
4. theatre: shift away from canon/Europe/written text (postdramatic)
> performance not 1 form of theatre but theatre 1 form of performance
18
19
6.3. Literature and other media
21
literature and media (see cultural studies and media studies)
study interaction between literature and the gramophone
between poetry and instagram / painting
between novel and film etc

media = technological devices (radios, phones, books etc)

● that enable communication and/or block communication
● devices + ideas (good/bad) + protocols (‘going to movies’)
● ‘media are always plural’ (vs the internet, the book etc)

media have always existed but many new mechanical media in

period between ca 1850-1950 (telephone, photograph, film, tv etc)

1. some believe that these media are not simply positive

2. some study different types of interaction between media
3. some analyze exchanges between literature and the internet
22
Walter Benjamin & Theodor Adorno (Frankfurt School)

WB on “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”

photography & film change traditional view of art: made to be
reproduced quickly, so not 1 unique original for contemplation but
many copies & distraction > vs genius/authenticity, decay of ‘aura’

TA on the ‘culture industry’

modern culture: realm of reason & freedom (now more readers,
production is faster/more reliable) but also unreason & unfreedom
(clichés, stereotypes, standardization)
not folk culture (so not the ‘will of the people’) but culture industry
(metaphor: logic of market spreading to other sectors of society)
and this leads to unfortunate loss of individuality & critical potential
23
we can distinguish between different types of media interaction

1. media combination
when different media are present in the same work
f.ex. film combines images & music
video game combines images, music, text

2. media transposition
when a work is transformed from one medium into another
f.ex. a novel is turned into a movie
a video game is turned into a TV-series

3. intermedial references
when a work in 1 medium imitates aspects of another medium
f.ex. a movie-like novel
a photo-like painting
24
see media transposition

25
26
This is his gift; enthusiastic,
light, into realms of magic;
light old forms dispersed
a wave take fresh
that sweeps us shapes
from old fears out of nothingness;
and powers light
and disenchantments renders us spell-bound,
this is his gift, enchants us
light and astounds;
bearing us aloft, …
see intermedial references - from H.D., “Projector II” (1927)
27
6.4. Literature and the internet
one example: research on relation between literature & internet
Jim Collins: most recent shift is not the rise of a new literary
movement but a drastic transformation of literary infrastructure
individual reading of texts and appreciation of their style and
history with the help/expertise of professionals >>
social reading of texts-and-adaptations in pursuit of pleasure
via help of Amazon, e-readers, platforms such as Goodreads
this has left its mark on recent literary texts, as they often reflect on
these changes by strongly embracing or rejecting this trend
post-literary texts that aim to deliver quality entertainment
(story/world/pleasure is more important than literary style)
or very bookish ‘Lit Lit’ texts that reject the world of social
media & celebrate print culture & literary reading (style > story!)
29
30
31
32
33
McGurl: economy today = shaped by Amazon & online shopping
● part of shift from production of goods to provision of services
f.ex. not about printing books but getting them to you quickly
● competition so market segmentation/product differentiation
stand out by appealing to specific niche audience/subculture
this economic context shapes contemporary literature, esp in US
● literature = genre literature (epic/“male” or romance/“female”)
searchable genre categories helpful for marketing/algorithms
● writing = do not focus on book/finished product but provide a
cheap & reliable service akin to newsfeed, see trilogies/tweets
● reading = not challenge that transforms reader but escapism/
relaxation (“can find its meaning” vs online info overload)
cf Collins: is serious literary fiction still different from genre fiction?
genre fiction = fast ‘real time’ vs literary fiction = slow ‘quality time’
34
35
6.5. Literature and intertextuality
37
text : 1. in everyday language = things composed of words
2. technical meaning = the physical form of a narrative
> ‘text’ then applies to book but also film, video game etc
> because narratives need to be ‘read’/‘deciphered’
hypertext: text/narrative in an electronic medium (computer or Internet) that
uses hypertext/hyperlinks to allow reader to navigate from one segment of the
text/narrative to another (these segments are called ‘lexia’)
allusion: an individual author skillfully selects & deliberately refers to a specific
pre-existing text (via a quotation, location, name etc), often thematic contrast?
parody: the text borrows & exaggerates elements from a pre-existing text or
broader genre conventions with a strong critical/satirical intent (see hyperbole)
pastiche: also imitates another text/genre but usually less critical than parody,
the aim here is to pay homage to this text/genre, f.ex. westerns, Hitchcock etc
intertextuality: allusion, parody, pastiche are all examples of intertextual
relations. But the term was originally introduced by Julia Kristeva in the 1960s to
refer to the fact that all texts are composed of preexisting texts. We can only
express ourselves through words that are already available to us & so the work
of even the most original artists draws from the work of predecessors. [Bakhtin]
> distinguish specific/intentional allusion & broad/inevitable intertextuality
stresses role of author/unity of work vs ‘actually cultural web is talking’
should be noticed by the reader vs can be activated by the reader 38
 Richardson’s Pamela vs Fielding’s Shamela
epistolary novel, love idealized sceptical version: not humble etc
sham = false, fake
39
exercise: can you identify passages related to Barthes’ 5 codes here?

There was a small picture of Gatsby, also in yachting costume, on the

bureau—Gatsby with his head thrown back defiantly—taken apparently
when he was about eighteen.
"I adore it!" exclaimed Daisy. "The pompadour! You never told me you had a
pompadour—or a yacht."
"Look at this," said Gatsby quickly. "Here's a lot of clippings—about you."
They stood side by side examining it. I was going to ask to see the rubies
when the phone rang and Gatsby took up the receiver.
"Yes. . . . Well, I can't talk now. . . . I can't talk now, old sport. . . . I said a
small town. . . . He must know what a small town is. . . . Well, he's no use to
us if Detroit is his idea of a small town. . . ."
He rang off.
"Come here quick!" cried Daisy at the window.
The rain was still falling, but the darkness had parted in the west, and there
was a pink and golden billow of foamy clouds above the sea.
"Look at that," she whispered, and then after a moment: "I'd like to just get
one of those pink clouds and put you in it and push you around."
 LGERM 1124
English Literature: Critical Approaches

6. Drama & media

ben.debruyn@uclouvain.be