Literature L3S5

What was the Edwardian era like ? (literature, society, context of the empire)

What was the Edwardian era like ? (literature, society, context of the empire)

1901-10.

Changed the face of British fiction.

Beliefs of the Vic period (strict, rigid class system) questioned. It used to be a glorious period due to London => financial centre of the world, then later overtaken by the USA.

1901 : Queen Victoria’s death => symbol + embodiment of British empire. The Empire : 

• 35,5 million km².

• 24% of the earth’s total land area.

• A quarter of the world’s pop.

What were Rudyard Kipling beliefs ? What were his origins ?

Strong believer of the glory of the British Empire + patriotic writer + convinced of white man’s superiority and had masculinist views.

Born in Mumbay (Bombay), educated in Britain w/ British values and returned to India as a teenager (Lahore). Known for The White man’s Burden (educate and civilize other pop), The Jungle Book and If.

Kipling’s work we studied and what it is about (genre, summary, themes, differences)

Kim : in Lahore, India. Bildungsroman -> MC is the son of an Irish soldier, an orphan, struggles and becomes a beggar then gets entangled in British pwr by becoming a spy while at the same time being a religious disciple.

2 worlds :

• Spiritual reality of India.

• Colonial reality of Britain.

Identity not given straight away -> has to construct who he will become. Diff from mainstream Victorian fiction where heroes are defined by lineage, social classes ≠ here no sense of family, no real social classes here.

Who is Kim ? Politics of spirituality ? EU or Asia ? = waiting room : waiting to see who he will become.

“He squatted in a corner of the clanging waiting-room, rapt from all other thoughts; hands folded in lap, and pupils contracted to pin-points. In a minute — in another half-second — he felt he would arrive at the solution of the tremendous puzzle; but here, as always happens, his mind dropped away from those heights with a rush of a wounded bird, and passing his hand before his eyes, he shook his head.”

What did H.G Wells criticized ? How ?

Atm 2 philosophical ways of thinking :

• Positivism (Auguste Comte) : scientific method can solve all issues.

• Utilitarianism (John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham) : moral values are determined by their usefulness => beginning of industrialization and technology. Disregard effect on workers, environment, children.

The Time Machine (1895) : wants to explore past, but something goes wrong w/ the machine and he travels to the distant future = hell creatures called the Morlocks living underground = future of mankind if industrialization goes on -> consequence of the miners living underground -> critic of Victorian values.

Who were the 3 forerunners of modernism ?

Joseph Conrad, EM Forster and Henry James.

Who is J. Conrad ?

Born in Poland, learned English at 21, sailor originally. Became a master of the British prose style, but his spoken English was bad. His opinion = whatever you do is no use, all human endeavours are doomed from the start, man is evil.

What did he critised ? In which book ?

Heart of Darkness (1899) : colonial absurdities.

Impact on later fiction. MC is called Marlow → young sailor hired by a company to transport ivory down the Congo river = implication of animal abuse & murder ≠ purity.

“Once, I remember, we came upon a man-of-war anchored off the coast. There wasn't even a shed there, and she was shelling the bush. In the empty immensity of earth, sky, and water, there she was, incomprehensible, firing into a continent. Pop, would go one of the six-inch guns; a small flame would dart and vanish, a little white smoke would disappear, a tiny projectile would give a feeble screech. There was a touch of insanity in the proceeding, a sense of lugubrious drollery in the sight; hidden out of sight somewhere.”

Darkness -> mysteries of Africa and the human heart. In our heart, we are barbarians.

How did EM Forster explore the seeking of connections in Howard’s End ?

Howard’s End (1910) -> “Who shall inherit England ?” (Wilcox/Schlegel) = sense of change of time, old aristocracy is gone. Industrialists or the educated ?

Forster’s novels seek harmony btwn :

• body / soul, the seen / the unseen.

• Materialistic / Idealistic

• “Concentrate” / “Only connect”

“able to help him to the building of the rainbow bridge that should connect the prose in us with the passion. Without it we are meaningless fragments, half monks, half beasts, unconnected arches that have never joined into a man… . Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect, and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die.”

= Lost the connection between prose and passion due to industrialization which severs man from the natural world.

How did EM Forster explore the seeking of connections in another book ? (not HE)

A Passage to India (1924)

Mr Fielding and Pr. Godbole want to be friend, but friendship impossible due to misunderstanding btwn British and Indian and the ingrained superiority of the British. Perhaps one day the two pov will be reconcilable, when both are equal.

'Why can't we be friends now?' said the other, holding him affectionately. 'It's what I want. It's what you want.’ But the horses didn't want it — they swerved apart: the earth didn't want it, sending up rocks through which riders must pass single file; the temple, the tank, the jail, the palace, the birds, the carrion, the Guest House, that came into view as they emerged from the gap and saw Mau beneath: they didn't want it, they said in their hundred voices 'No, not yet,' and the sky said 'No, not there.'

What was Henry James interested in ?

Interested in the human mind, “the tangle of life”, not interested in the outside world, delivering a message or dealing with social reality.

“To illumine the mind within rather than the world without” = processes of the mind. Lots of interior monologues. Individual consciousness, not the outside world. States of mind, shades of emotions. No linear development to highlight the way the human mind works.

Came from a family of psychologist and adapted that to the purposes of the novel.

Context of poetry in the ealry 20th century

Not much had changed = leading poets still reliant on the older established forms from Victorian tradition : regular rhythm, soft sounds, alliterations, lyrical tone, descriptions of nature and domestic matters, nostalgia.

The Birthnight (Walter De La Mare, 1906) : Orion’s stars → ref to mythology, s alliteration (starry silence, spring, stealthy…), personified nature, sweet and peaceful. But new : free form, no regular rhymes.

Sense that it could not continue : not in touch w/ the changing nature of the time.

Who were the War poets (2 ex) ?

World entering a more brutal phase → Vic poetry deemed irrelevant to the modern world.

Mostly 20yo young men w/ poetic gift but were sent to war and died on the front → poems published after their death.

Anthem for Doomed Youth (Wilfred Owen, 1918) : Rhyming, regular length -> sonnet. Personification. But the themes are not traditional -> horrors of war.

Break of day in the Trenches (Isaac Rosenberg, 1917) : More chaotic, no rhymes, more like a story, like it is spoken. Pov of a dead soldier.

What was Imagism and Vorticism ?

Imagism : founded in 1910 + principles concerning poetry :

• Direct treatment of the “thing” (straightforward), whether subjective or objective.

• To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation (making things present through poetry).

• Regarding rhythm : to compose in sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of the metronome (ex : no iambic pentameter).

“It is better to present on image in a lifetime than to produce voluminous works.” - Ezra Pound

Vorticism : show the rhythm of the modern world : inhuman, brutal. Made known through a magazine called Blast! in 1915. In their opinion, the old world was responsible of the war and thus must be destroyed. Blanks used to indicate how to read the poem.

Luigi Russolo, Dynamisme d’une automobile (1913)

The Game of Chess (Ezra Pound, 1915) : like a duel, many exclamations marks, mechanical.

What are the differences btwn Imagism, Vorticism and Modernism ?

Imagism : direct representation, concise, musical.

Vorticism/Futurism : impersonal, hard, emphasizes speed and tech.

Modernism : collage of voices and fragments.

What theme did T.S Eliot explore ?

Reconstruction out of the ruins.

The Waste Land (T.S Eliot, 1922) : title refers to Arthurian legend -> sterile and desolate land. The world is a ruin, everything has to be rebuilt. bring ruins together.

• Jerusalem : religious centre, temple destroyed.

• Athens : centre of European democracy, ruins.

• Alexandra : knowledge destroyed.

• Vienna : capital of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, destroyed during WW1.

• London : centre of modern world -> the next destroyed city.

Ending : many different languages and cultures brought together. Cultural and material ruins assembling to create a new form of beauty.

“Poetic originality is largely an original way of assembling the most disparate and unlikely material to make a new whole.” – T.S Eliot

What was Modernism about and when did it happen ?

1914-39.

Contradiction w/ Vic beliefs : eur superiority, personal identity, history is progress and scientific knowledge.

Exemple of contradiction to Eur superiority

Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, Picasso (1907)

Inspiration from African culture (Bénin) -> time to turn away from European culture.

Ex of contradiction w/ personal identity

Freud → we are all made of parts we cannot claim or aren’t aware of : superego, ego, unconscious, conscious, preconscious, id.

Ex of contradiction w/ history → progress

Hegel → history would lead to the triumph of human reason. However -> impact of war.

Ex of contraction to scientific knowledge

Uncertainty principle of Wener Heisenberg (1927). It used to be believed that everything in the world could be predicted once you knew everything.

What is impressionism ? + first ex

Aim : represent reality as the impressions you get + reconnect man w/ nature + re-invent mythology.

“The whole world for me is like spots of color on an immense canvas.” – Ford Madox Ford.

In his books, there is no real subject/plot, what matters is the impressions and sensations of the various characters.

The Good Soldier : each chapter correspond to one viewpoint. Reality is a collection of viewpoints. He rendered subjective impressions → isolated perceptions to reach a global vision and one story.

Virginia Woolf and impressionism

The inner self : successive impressions, emotions and feelings, flashbacks, mental associations… = capture the ideas and sensations of everyday life.

Subjectivity : no omniscient narrator -> inside the mind. The narrative goes from one perception to the next. Ex : Kew Gardens, perspective of a snail.

She tries to capture moments of being (coined by her) -> moments of insight, where we perceived reality beyond appearances.

Tunnelling process : “I dig out beautiful caves behind my characters” -> telling the past by instalments. One character sees/hear smth, and it will remind them of smth which happened long before and then connect several characters -> new form of unity.

What was D.H Lawrence’s goals ?

Man cut off from its environment bc industrialization → some authors saw this as some kind of disease.

Distinction btwn :

• Organic : working together as a community and share their produce.

• Mechanic : chainwork, one specific and repetitive task for each worker, alienating, no sense of achievement and nothing to bring home. Ex : Coal mining, impact on man and animals such as horses.

Lady Chatterley’s Lover : lost use of his legs in WW1. She is in direct contact w/ nature while Lord Chatterley has lost all connection w/ nature. He disregards her wishes and desire -> insensitive. She starts an affair w/ her gardener.

What was James Joyce’s goal ?

Dubliners (1914) -> Irish society paralyzed, various characters who all seem to be affected by paralysis from the Catholic Church, the demand of Britain, nationalist pressure. Epiphany : moment of revelation.

Ulysses (1922) : stream of consciousness -> render thoughts as faithfully as possible. 18 chapters, none of them similar, each correspond to one episode from Homer’s Odyssey = 1 place = 1 hour = 1 organ = 1 colour = 1 symbol = 1 art/science = 1 narrative technique (play, newspaper, conversation, essay). Ex : hospital at 10pm, womb, white, mothers, medicine, embryonic development.

However, what was the ugly truth about modernists ?

• No intelligible plot

• Detached from political/social events = complicity w/ Facism.

“Usury is the cancer of the world, which only the surgeon’s knife of Fascism can cut” – Ezra Pound. Usury : lending money at high rates of interest (= practised by Jews).

Wyndham Lewis : book praising Hitler.

1940-50 : backlash against modernism and other avant-garde movement. Literature was now easier to read, accessible to everyone and socially and politically committed to the analysis of the state of western.

What was poetry about in the mid 20th c ? 1rst ex myth

New mythology : greek, egyptian, latin.

Edwin Muir, Robert Graves : both used classical culture (Greek and Arthurian myth), wrote about pagan divinities, roman empire. Used archetypes (images that come from the collective unconscious). Bring into contact the western world and the rest of the world. Used traditional forms; sonnets w/ rhymes.

What was poetry about in the mid 20th c ? 2nd ex

Surrealism and New Apocalypse : let the unconsciousness express itself; anxieties linked to the context of WW2. Bringing together psychological and metaphysical things.

- David Gascoyne, Snow in Europe : The snowfall stand for the calm before the storm = war.

What was poetry about in the 20th c ? 3rd ex

Group of poets : Oxford, left-wing or Marxist => aware of class struggles, global inequalities. Classical, traditional forms => make themselves understood. Give a critique of western civilization.

Winston H Auden, The Embassy → Sonnet, rhymes.

• 1rst stanza : conversation btwn 2 ambassadors.

• 2nd stanza : implies that if one of the ambassadors uses the wrong word => misunderstanding => war => death. The fate of generations depends on one word.

How did poets explore apocalyptic visions in mid 20th c litt ?

Discovery of concentration camps, use of the atomic bomb, cities destroyed => impact on writers.

William Golding, Lord of the Flies (1954) = war in the background, evacuated from war. Origins of violence in communities, how a group targets a victim.

• John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids (1951)

• Richard Matheson, I am Legend (1954)

• Walter M. Miller Jr, A canticle of Leibowitz (1959)

2 Examples of heroic fantasy in mid 20th c litt

J. R. R Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (1955) : medieval poetry, influences of world wars. Sauron => giving up autonomy, obey a charismatic leader.

C.S Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia (1949-54)

2 Examples of dystopia in mid 20th c litt

Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (1932) : problems that come w/ industrialization, embryos in factories, fate sealed, risks of producing smth that is inhuman, metaphors of how we live and how life might be in the future.

George Orwell, 1984 (1948) : If we don’t pay attention, all societies will become totalitarian. “Newspeak” = restrict critical thinking.

What is the theatre of the absurd + 1 ex

Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter

According to some philosophers of the 1940s, the human situation is absurd. Examines our situation; we have lost our sense of purpose. Reflected in plays : not much action, no plots, no clear structures.

Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot : 2 characters waiting for another who never comes. Godot => god. Examines how we use languages. Comic on the surface, but pessimistic underneath. Clichés.

What is post-modernism ?

Basis : we do not have access to truth. We only have the stories that we tell. Instead of historical truth, we have our own interpretation; It’s impossible to reconcile all stories. It also mean we are free to create our own stories.

Sadness and melancholy in modernism ≠ post modernism considers of “having fun”.

Try to fulfil oneself : quest -> wandering. All the signs along the way are misleading; language itself is misleading, can have multiple meanings.

Nietzsche stated that there is no absolute meaning; only illusion we take for granted and have forgotten they are illusions → choose which illusion is the most convincing.

What is pastiche and rewriting + 3 examples

Architecture => associate elements from the past as we’ve reached the end of all possibilities. Ex : Romanesque arches w/ roman pillards.

Before -> new art should be unique. But postmodernism encourages parody and imitation.

A.S Byatt, Possession (1990) : Two American academics trying to find evidence of the existence of an imaginary Victorian poet. As they communicate through letters, they are influenced by Victorian ways of writing.

Peter Ackroyd, The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde (1983) : Claiming that O. Wilde kept a diary, and he tried to replicate it.

John Fowles, The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1969) : Imitates the style of Thomas Hardy, 3 possible endings = for the reader to decide.

3 examples of fictions about history

B.S Johnson, The Unfortunates (1969) : No bindings => can read it any way you like, 25 sections.

Martin Amis, Time’s Arrow (1991) : Told backwards. Begins in a hospital, character sees every action is reverse. The MC is a nazi war criminal; the extermination becomes creation of ppl → stories have power to redeem History ?

Ian McEwan, Atonement (2001) : Before WW2, imitates 1930s.

Ex of gender story in postmodernism

Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber (1979) : Rewrote fairytales w/ diff ending, w/ strong heroine who don’t need a chaperone. These stories originally contain morals but also fostering submission for women.

Examples of intertextuality in popular culture

Bridget Jones = pride and prejudice

Phillip Pullman, His Dark Materials : William Blake, Milton, how religion is seen

What is a canon in literature ? Why is it needed ? And how does it evolve ?

Canon : precise proportions and measures, illustrated by Leonardo da Vinci through the Vitruvian man. + Greek statues : height of a man -> head x8 → The Birth of Venus, Sandro Botticelli.

Why is a canon needed ? → Not enough time to read all, so a guide is needed on which books should be read.

Who decides ? → Institutions, schools and universities, critics, literary awards. The Booker prize : created in 1969, until 1981 it was mostly given to writers from Brit Isles, only 3 recipients were from outside.

Why ? → Bc history is written by the victors, canon depends on social and political factors → perpetuates cultural hegemony → so necessary to revise the canon and introduce alternatives to the dominant discourses. Our standards change overtime.

How should foreign representation change ? (2 writers)

Orientalism by Edward Said (1978), Palestinian writer

During the 19th c, Eur knowledge from texts rather than experiences. Most representations were biased, based on binary constructions (savage // civilized). Edward Said noticed that the oriental was portrayed as irrational, depraved, childlike, different → to reassure Eur that they are the opposite; rational, virtuous, mature, normal => norm.

S. Rushdie (Anglo-Indian) = necessary to have another look of the books written by Eur on other civilisations “at the heart of the post-colonial enterprise”. Rewrite history from the pov of the minorities (= ppl who have been seen as secondary and inferior).

How was Jane Eyre rewritten from the pov of minorities ?

Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (1847) : Edward Fairfax Rochester is married to a locked away wife called Bertha Mason, Creole-English origins. She is said to be insane; “mad woman in the attic”. Never speaks, never get her pov of events, “some strange wild animal”.

Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys (1966) : Bertha Mason’s name was originally Antoinette Cosway but had to use an English name to fit in. Her insanity is the result of colonial attitudes, of mistreatment and prejudice.

Australia : geography, type of ppl and history

2% of the population lives in the centre, only a small portion can be inhabited. It is made of 8000 islands => “Commonwealth of Australia”.

It has been inhabited for 40 000 years. It was used by the British in the 18th as a prison => penal transportation of convicts, 180 000 convicts from 1767-1868.

It is situated as the antipode of Europe => “Devil’s land” (black swans)

Wild areas in Australia : the Bush, the Outback (Back of Beyond) → only live in groups like the Swagmen who are itinerant workers. The swag carries their belongings. Or squatters; ppl who occupy a piece of land which doesn’t belong to them, they use it for their animals. The Drovers moved livestock over long distances. Bushrangers are criminals and escaped convicts who formed gangs in the bush. In such danger → notion of mateship; unconditional help and equality. Collective values prevail over individual heroism.

How are aboriginal narratives constructed ? How are they told ? 1 type

No written languages → spoken → chants, songs, legends and stories. Most stories are told by women to children.

Dreamtime (Alcheringa) : time of ancestral figures (heroic, spn).

Corroborees : meeting of tribes to exchange songs, song cycles.

The main subject is the land : where to find food, water, shelter. They also have a social role; they explain the roles of the members of the tribes. They serve a ritual purpose.

Songlines are long songs about the journeys of the ancestors and the creation sites => performance (dance, gesture, mime, drawings in the sand).

Art to show the main places on the land : meeting places, water spots, shelters.

1rst type of Australian litt in english + 3 examples

19th c Bush realism : about wildlife, new lands, exploration, convict songs, bush ballads.

Henry Savery, Quintus Servinton (1831) : autobiography as convict.

James Tucker, Ralph Rashleigh (1844)

Henry Kingsley, Recollections of Geoffry Hamlyn (1859)

3 examples of 20th c Australian literature

1930 and 1940 : the Jindyworobak movement → inspired from liberation Eur influence, concern for Aboriginals and the Outback.

Outback gothic (ppl losing their ways in the Outback) :

• Thomas Keneally, The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith (1972)

• David Malouf, Remembering Babylon (1933)

• Peter Carey, Jack Maggs (1997), True Story of the Kelly Gang (2000)

• Patrick White, Voss (1957)

• Kim Scott, That Deadman Dance (2011)

Poem : Oodgeroo Noonuccal, We Are Going (1964)

Nigeria (population, groups, languages, geography, fertility, age, life expectancy)

• East Africa

• 6th most populous country (234 million inhabitants). By 2050, it will be the 3rd lost populous country w// over 400 million inhabitants.

• 371 ethnic groups

• 521 languages

• capital : Lagos (16,5 million inhabitants).

• Fertility rate : 5 children by woman. Median age : 18yo. Life expectancy : 54 (ranked 234/242).

Ethnicity and religion in Nigeria

3 major groups : Hausa and Fulani (Muslim, 31% of the pop), Yoruba (Own religion, practice both 21%) and Igbo (Christian, 18%).

50% of the pop is Muslim, 48% is Christian → reflected in the way ppl vote; vote for the person who will represent their religion. This is bc they were colonized by the Brit Empire, and they established 2 protectorates : one in the south and the other in the north, then both were united in the 20th c. This brought together ppl who had nothing in common (political, religious, language, culture).

Languages in Nigeria

Standard EN is used in order to communicate for education, business = official purposes. But they also speak their own native language, know the neighbouring languages and also speak pidgin English (simplified, words from diff origins, doesn’t follow grammar rules).

Purpose of Nigerian oral tradition

• To preserve ancient experiences and beliefs (social)

• To preserve social values (moral instructions)

What is African storytelling like ?

• No neat moral lesson

• No single, definitive text

• Incomplete, paradoxical, ambiguous

• Open-ended narratives (participation of the public on the building of the story)

Instead, those stories are meant to stick w/ you.

How did Nigerian culture evolve ?

8th century : Arabic culture spread to Nigeria due to merchants.

14th to 17th century : Hausa literature was translated into Arabic = still oral.

18th century : Christian missionaries arrived.

2 examples of 20th c Nigerian literature

Forest of a Thousand Daemons, Daniel Fagunwa (original name : Akara-ogun) : to preserve old tales, about a man who has to prove his worth by fighting spn creatures. Everything has a soul => animism. Episodic structure; different fights and characters.

Amos Tutuola, The Palm-Wine Drinkard, 1952 : written in “broken” English, reflecting the way ppl actually speak and doesn’t conform to the standards of english. The book tells the story of a young boy from a rich family, and he has his own Tapster (palm-wine from the sap of a tree). Later, the Tapster dies and goes to Dead’s Town. Thus, he travels there to retrieve him => faces dangers and creatures. The narrator is uneducated, speak and write in “bad English”. Inspired of folk tales and popular beliefs.

Critic of these 2 examples of 20th Nigerian lit

Many considered that it gave a bad image of Africans (illiterate and superstitious) to the Occidental world. One of these critics was Chinua Achebe. He urged a movement from fantasy to realism in the 1950s; draw inspiration from Eur writings. He is called the father of modern African literature.

1958, Things Fall Apart : destructive impact of colonisation on local communities. “Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.”

Problem : realism and standard English → end of tradition ?

The Yoruba spirit world

Higher divinity : Olodumare.

Ashe : life force that flows through everything.

Aye : visible world ≠ Orun : invisible world, cannot see, everywhere.

Orishas : intermediary spirits/divinities (human and spirits at the same time; cool or hot).

Rituals : Egungun w/ masked participants, like a carnival, the mask of the ancestors makes you become the ancestor.

Reincarnation (Babatunde / Yetunde = father and mother being born again) = 10% of children die before they reach the age of 5.

What is an Abiku ? Example of Abiku litt

Abiku (Yoruba) / Ogbanje (Igbo) : child who dies in infancy. The children can travel btwn the 2 dimensions, some spirits do not wish to be incarnated = explains the death of a child. Abiku means “born to die”, Aiyedun : “life is good”, Durosinmi : “stay and bury me” = names to encourage the child to stay and live.

Ben Okri was born in Nigeria, but his parents moved to London in 1961, then the family relocated to Nigeria in 1968, but he left again to study in England in 1978. = he always was btwn 2 continents.

The Famished Road : narrator is an Abiku named Azaro, left for dead and begun to be able to travel btwn the living and spirits world. His father is a violent man who beats him, making him decide to go back to live w/ the spirits → take refuge in a fantasy world after experiencing violence. Personal metaphor for the author who travelled a lot and also is a metaphor btwn Nigerian tradition and the influence of colonialisation.