Theories of the novelput down your own definition

Romance and Novel

chivalric romance: Sir Thomas Malory: The Legends of King ArthurAt that time King Arthur had a marvellous dream, which gave him great disquietness of heart. He dreamed that the whole land was full of many fiery griffins and serpents, which burnt and slew the people everywhere; and then that he himself fought with them, and that they did him mighty injuries, and wounded him nigh to death, but that at last he overcame and slew them all. When he woke, he sat in great heaviness of spirit and pensiveness, thinking what this dream might signify, but by-and-by, when he could by no means satisfy himself what it might mean, to rid himself of all his thoughts of it, he made ready with a great company to ride out hunting. As soon as he was in the forest, the king saw a great hart before him, and spurred his horse, and rode long eagerly after it, and chased until his horse lost breath and fell down dead from under him. Then, seeing the hart escaped and his horse dead, he sat down by a fountain, and fell into deep thought again. And as he sat there alone, he thought he heard the noise of hounds, as it were some thirty couple in number, and looking up he saw coming towards him the strangest beast that ever he had seen or heard tell of, which ran towards the fountain and drank of the water. Its head was like a serpent’s, with a leopard’s body and a lion’s tail, and it was footed like a stag; and the noise was in its belly, as it were the baying or questing of thirty couple of hounds. While it drank there was no noise within it; but presently, having finished, it departed with a greater sound than ever.

Daniel Defoe: Robinson CrusoeI searched for the cassava root, which the Indians, in all that climate, make their bread of, but I could find none. I saw large plants of aloes, but did not then understand them. I saw several sugar-canes, but wild, and, for want of cultivation, imperfect. I contented myself with these discoveries for this time, and came back musing with myself what course I might take to know the virtue and goodness of any of the fruits or plants which I should discover; but could bring it to no conclusion; for, in short, I had made so little observation while I was in the Brazils, that I knew little of the plants in the field, at least very little that might serve me to any purpose now in my distress.

The next day, the 16th, I went up the same way again; and after going something farther than I had gone the day before, I found the brook and the savannas began to cease, and the country became more woody than before. In this part I found different fruits, and particularly I found melons upon the ground in great abundance, and grapes upon the trees. The vines had spread indeed over the trees, and the clusters of grapes were just now in their prime, very ripe and rich. This was a surprising discovery, and I was exceeding glad of them; but I was warned by my experience to eat sparingly of them, remembering that when I was ashore in Barbary the eating of grapes killed several of our Englishmen, who were slaves there, by throwing them into fluxes and fevers. But I found an excellent use of these grapes; and that was, to cure or dry them in the sun, and keep them as dried grapes or raisins are kept, which I thought would be, as indeed they were, as wholesome as agreeable to eat, when no grapes; might be to be had.

(He considered this poor girl as one whose happiness or misery he had caused to be dependent on himself. Her beauty was still the object of desire, though greater beauty, or a fresher object, might have been more so; but the little abatement which fruition had occasioned to this was highly overbalanced by the considerations of the affection which she visibly bore him, and of the situation into which he had brought her. The former of these created gratitude, the latter compassion; and both, together with his desire for her person, raised in him a passion which might, without any great violence to the word, be called love; though, perhaps, it was at first not very judiciously placed. Fielding: Tom Jones)

1. Compare the protagonists: social class, main concerns, names etc.2. Compare the narration and the style: its scope, its focus/interest, use of figures of speech, syntax etc. (How is the world described and characterized? What aspects are the authors focussing on? What aspects avoid their attention altogether?)

I. Ian Watt: The Rise of the Novel

If the novel were realistic merely because it saw life from the seamy side, it would only be an inverted romance; but in fact it surely attempts to portray all the varieties of human experience, and not merely those suited to one particular literary perspective: the novel's realism does not reside in the kind of life it presents, but in the way it presents it. (Ian Watt, introductory chapter)

excerpts from Robinson CrusoeI have already described my habitation, which was a tent under the side of a rock, surrounded with a strong pale of posts and cables: but I might now rather call it a wall, for I raised a kind of wall up against it of turfs, about two feet thick on the outside; and after some time (I think it was a year and a half) I raised rafters from it, leaning to the rock, and thatched or covered it with boughs of trees, and such things as I could get, to keep out the rain; which I found at some times of the year very violent.

excerpts from ?????I had settled my little economy to my own heart's content. My master had ordered a room to be made for me, after their manner, about six yards from the house: the sides and floors of which I plastered with clay, and covered with rush-mats of my own contriving. I had beaten hemp, which there grows wild, and made of it a sort of ticking; this I filled with the feathers of several birds I had taken with springes made of _Yahoos’ hairs, and were excellent food. I had worked two chairs with my knife, the sorrel nag helping me in the grosser and more laborious part

I was pressed to do more than one thing which another could not do for me, and therefore endeavoured to make my mistress understand, that I desired to be set down on the floor; which after she had done, my bashfulness would not suffer me to express myself farther, than by pointing to the door, and bowing several times. The good woman, with much difficulty, at last perceived what I would be at, and taking me up again in her hand, walked into the garden, where she set me down. I went on one side about two hundred yards, and beckoning to her not to look or to follow me, I hid myself between two leaves of sorrel, and there discharged the necessities of nature.I hope the gentle reader will excuse me for dwelling on these and the like particulars, which, however insignificant they may appear to groveling vulgar minds

Summary of the differences between classical and modern outlooks

Literary Philosophical SocialCLASSICAL Ideal Universal CorporateMODERN Discrete/particular Directly apprehended

dataAutonomous individual

summary: part of a larger change -- that vast transformation of Western civilisation since the Renaissance which has replaced the unified world picture of the Middle Ages with another very different one- one which presents us, essentially, with a developing but unplanned aggregate of particular individuals having particular experiences at particular times and at particular places. (Ian Watt)

the novel is a full and authentic report of human experience, and is thereforeunder an obligation to satisfy its reader with such details of the story as the individuality of the actors concerned, the particulars of the times and places of their actions, details which arepresented through a more largely referential use of language than is common in other literary forms.

II. Eric Auerbach: Mimesis. The Representation of Reality in Western Literature

(Odüsszeia: XIX. könyv, ford. Devecseri Gábor)

az anyó meg a fényes edényt odavitte azonnal,melyben a lábát mosni akarta; hideg vizet öntöttjó sokat, és meleget vegyitett bele. Ámde Odüsszeuszoldalt ült le a tűz mellé, s a homály fele fordult:mert az eszébe jutott, hogy az agg asszony kitapintvalába sebét, majd ráismer, s minden kiderülhet.Gazdájához ment az anyó és mosta: azonnalráismert a sebére, melyet vadkan foga vágott,míg Odüszeusz Parnasszoszon át járt Autolükosznál;apja ez anyjának, ki felülmúlt bárkit a földöntolvajlásban is és hamis eskütevésben: az isten,Hermész adta e képességet, mert neki kecskéks bárányok combját égette, s az őt segitette.Autolükosz hajdan maga jött el a dús Ithakába,és akkor született lányának kisfia éppen:Eurükleia a kis csecsemőt térdére helyeztenéki, ebédjük után, s a nevén szólítva kimondta:"Autolükosz, magad adj te nevet lányod gyerekének,ennek a kedvesnek, kire régen vágyakozol már."Erre meg Autolükosz szólalt és adta a választ:"Vőm s lányom, neki íly nevet adjatok: erre-utambanoly sok szívből vette körül lobogó düh személyem,férfiak- és nőktől, kik a termő földeken élnek:éppenezért Odüszeusz légyen neve. Én pedig akkor,hogyha legény lesz és ellátogat anyja lakába,Parnasszoszra, ahol sok kincsem fekszik a házban,abbol adok neki, és hazaküldöm a kedvrederültet."Elment hát Odüszeusz, átvenni a nagyszerü kincset…..És az anyó, amikor tenyerével megtapogatta,ráismert, s Odüszeusz lábát ejtette le nyomban:visszaesett az edénybe a láb, kongott a nagy érc-üst:félreborult megdőlve, s a víz zúdult ki a földre.És az anyó szívét az öröm s kín elszoritotta,két szeme könnyel telt, elakadt torkában a hangja.Majd, Odüszeusz állát kitapintva kezével, ekép szólt:"Lám, hisz Odüsszeusz vagy, kedves fiam. Én meg a gazdámmeg sem is ismertem, míg végig nem tapogattam."

1. (Style) Compare the attention to detail in the two stories. Which of them is more sensual (visual)? Which is more emotional? 2. In what ways is the reader’s curiosity roused and how is it satisfied in the two stories?3. How are characters introduced in the two texts? Characterize the characters’ direct discourse in both.4. How many time levels are present in the texts under comparison? How do the two stories handle the past? Which creates more suspense?

„Homer's personages vent their inmost hearts in speech; what they do not say to others, they speak in their own minds, so that the reader is informed of it”

„a continuous rhythmic procession of phenomena passes by, and never is there a form left fragmentary or half-illuminated, never a lacuna, never a gap, never a glimpse of unplumbed depths.”

„Homeric style knows only a foreground, only a uniformly illuminated, uniformly objective present.”

(Genesis 22, the sacrifice of Isaac)And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. 2 And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.3 And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him. 4 Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off. 5 And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you. 6 And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together. 7 And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? 8 And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together. 9 And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. 10 And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. 11 And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I. 12 And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me. 13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son. 14 And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-jireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the LORD it shall be seen.15 And the angel of the LORD called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, 16 and said, By myself have I sworn, saith the LORD, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: 17 that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; 18 and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice. 19 So Abraham returned unto his young men, and they rose up and went together to Beer-sheba; and Abraham dwelt at Beer-sheba.

(Auerbach)„The personages speak in the Bible story too; but their speech does not serve, as does speech in Homer, to manifest, to externalize thoughts-on the contrary, it serves to indicate thoughts which remain unexpressed. God gives his command in direct discourse, but he leaves his motives and his purpose unexpressed; Abraham, receiving the command, says nothing and does what he has been told to do. … Everything remains unexpressed.”„Homeric heroes, destiny is clearly defined and who wake every morning as if it were the first day of their lives: their emotions, though strong, are simple and find expression instantly.”

(New Testament)„The true heart of the Christian doctrine-Incarnation and Passion-was, totally incompatible with the principle of the separation of styles. Christ had not come as a hero and king but as a human being of the lowest social station. His first disciples were fishermen and artisans; he moved in the everyday milieu of the humble folk of Palestine; he talked with publicans and fallen women, the poor and the sick and children. Nevertheless, all that he did and said was of the highest and deepest dignity, more significant than anything else in the world.”

… it engenders a new elevated style, which does not scorn everyday life and which is ready to absorb the sensorily realistic, even the ugly, the undignified, the physically base.

what is portrayed here is the birth of a spiritual movement in the depths of the common people, from within the everyday occurrences of contemporary life, which thus assumes an importance it could never have assumed in antique literature

III. Mikhail Bakhtin - Dialogism

Novel and time (similar to Ian Watt’s theory)

The novel is the only developing genre and therefore it reflects more deeply,more essentially, more sensitively and rapidly, reality itself in the process of its unfolding. Only that which is itself developing can comprehend development as a process. The novel has become the leading hero in the drama of literary development in our time precisely because it best of all reflects the tendencies of a new world still in the making; it is, after all the only genre born of this new world and in total affinity with it.

Epic and the novelSamuel Johnson (Life of Milton: „By the general consent of criticks, the first praise of genius is due to the writer of an epick poem, as it requires an assemblage of all the powers which are singly sufficient for other compositions

familiarization of the world through laughter and popular speech is an extremely important and indispensable step in making possible free, scientifically knowable and artistically realistic creativity in European civilization (Bakhtin)

Individuality

Indirect Discourse, Dialogue in the novel

„language of the poet is his language, utterly immersed in it, inseparable from it, pure and direct expression of his own intention”„In poetry, even discourse about doubts must be cast in a discourse that cannot be doubted”„all there is to know about the world is not exhausted by a particular discourse about it

History

II. The Rise of the Novel in the 18th century

1. Social, cultural, economic background:

Daniel Defoe (1660-1731)

Samuel Richardson (1689-1761)

Pamela, 1740A young maidservant in a wealthy household, the son of the household, Mr B conceives a passion for her and repeatedly schemes with his servants to have his way with her. Squire B is fist bent on Pamela’s seduction and then on rape, he is dishonest and malevolent, finally, successful resistance turns lust to love and the Squire offers marriage. epistolary novel:

“Once Squire B has got over his weakness for seduction and rape he is seen by R as a wholly admirable person not only worthy of the love of a virtuous girl like Pamela but deserving of her hublest obedience and veneration. If a man is a wealthy land-owner and handsome and graceful in manner to boot, he must be considered wholly good so long as he is not being actively bad. Printers do not become angels by merely ceasing to threaten girls with sexual violance, but evidently squires do. Richardson of course would have been horrified by such a comment. He claimed that he was showing a genuine reformation of character, wrought by Pamela’s virtue in a young man who had the advantage of an excellent moral grounding in childhood. But the reader knows better.” (David Daiches)

From Letter II (from Pamela’s parents)I hope the good 'squire has no design: but when he has given you so muchmoney, and speaks so kindly to you, and praises your coming on; and, oh,that fatal word! that he would be kind to you, if you would do as youshould do, almost kills us with fears.I have spoken to good old widow Mumford about it, who, you know, hasformerly lived in good families; and she puts us in some comfort; for shesays it is not unusual, when a lady dies, to give what she has about herperson to her waiting-maid, and to such as sit up with her in herillness. But, then, why should he smile so kindly upon you? Why shouldhe take such a poor girl as you by the hand, as your letter says he hasdone twice? Why should he stoop to read your letter to us; and commendyour writing and spelling? And why should he give you leave to read hismother's books?--Indeed, indeed, my dearest child, our hearts ache foryou; and then you seem so full of joy at his goodness, so taken with hiskind expressions, (which, truly, are very great favours, if he meanswell) that we fear--yes, my dear child, we fear--you should be toograteful,--and reward him with that jewel, your virtue, which no riches,nor favour, nor any thing in this life, can make up to you.

No, my dear father andmother, be assured, that, by God's grace, I never will do any thing thatshall bring your grey hairs with sorrow to the grave. I will die athousand deaths, rather than be dishonest any way. Of that be assured,and set your hearts at rest; for although I have lived above myself forsome time past, yet I can be content with rags and poverty, and bread andwater, and will embrace them, rather than forfeit my good name, let whowill be the tempter. And of this pray rest satisfied, and think betterof Your dutiful DAUGHTER till death.

After repeated attempts at seduction on part of Pamela’s young master, Squire B., Pamela resolves to go home to her parents, and she dresses up in her country clothes.

From Letter XXIVAnd so, when I had dined, up stairs I went, and locked myself into mylittle room. There I tricked myself up as well as I could in my newgarb, and put on my round-eared ordinary cap; but with a green knot,however, and my homespun gown and petticoat, and plain leather shoes; butyet they are what they call Spanish leather; and my ordinary hose,ordinary I mean to what I have been lately used to; though I shall think agood yarn may do very well for every day, when I come home. A plainmuslin tucker I put on, and my black silk necklace, instead of the Frenchnecklace my lady gave me; and put the ear-rings out of my ears; and whenI was quite equipped, I took my straw hat in my hand, with its two bluestrings, and looked about me in the glass, as proud as any thing--To saytruth, I never liked myself so well in my life…….

[The Squire accidentally meets the „country wench” and the housekeeper, Mrs.Jervis. He asks the housekeeper who she is because he does not seem to recognise her.]

But, pray, what pretty neat damsel was with you? She says, she smiled, and asked, If his honour did notknow who it was? No, said he, I never saw her before. Farmer Nichols,or Farmer Brady, have neither of them such a tight prim lass for adaughter! have they?--Though I did not see her face neither, said he. Ifyour honour won't be angry, said she, I will introduce her into yourpresence; for I think, says she, she outdoes our Pamela.Now I did not thank her for this, as I told her afterwards, (for itbrought a great deal of trouble upon me, as well as crossness, as youshall hear). That can't be, he was pleased to say. But if you can findan excuse for it, let her come in.At that she stept to me, and told me, I must go in with her to hermaster; but, said she, for goodness' sake, let him find you out; for hedon't know you. O fie, Mrs. Jervis, said I, how could you serve me so?Besides, it looks too free both in me, and to him. I tell you, said she,you shall come in; and pray don't reveal yourself till he finds you out.So I went in, foolish as I was; though I must have been seen by himanother time, if I had not then. And she would make me take my straw hatin my hand.I dropt a low courtesy, but said never a word. I dare say he knew me assoon as he saw my face: but was as cunning as Lucifer. He came up to me,and took me by the hand, and said, Whose pretty maiden are you?--I daresay you are Pamela's sister, you are so like her. So neat, so clean, sopretty! Why, child, you far surpass your sister Pamela!I was all confusion, and would have spoken: but he took me about theneck: Why, said he, you are very pretty, child: I would not be so freewith your sister, you may believe; but I must kiss you.O sir, said I, I am Pamela, indeed I am: indeed I am Pamela, her ownself!He kissed me for all I could do; and said, Impossible! you are a loveliergirl by half than Pamela; and sure I may be innocently free with you,though I would not do her so much favour.This was a sad trick upon me, indeed, and what I could not expect; andMrs. Jervis looked like a fool as much as I, for her officiousness.--Atlast I got away, and ran out of the parlour, most sadly vexed, as you maywell think.

Question: Henry Fielding and most modern critics here suspect underlying motives which neither Pamela nor possible the author Richardson was aware of. What do you think?

From Letter XXVStrange things I have to tell you, that happened since last night, that good Mr.Jonathan's letter, and my master's harshness, put me into such a fluster;but I will not keep you in suspense………I went to Mrs. Jervis's chamber; and, O dreadful! my wicked master hadhid himself, base gentleman as he is! in her closet, where she has a fewbooks, and chest of drawers, and such like. I little suspected it;though I used, till this sad night, always to look into that closet andanother in the room, and under the bed, ever since the summer-housetrick; but never found any thing; and so I did not do it then, beingfully resolved to be angry with Mrs. Jervis for what had happened in theday, and so thought of nothing else.I sat myself down on one side of the bed, and she on the other, and webegan to undress ourselves; but she on that side next the wicked closet,that held the worst heart in the world……………………Hush! said I, Mrs. Jervis, did you not hear something stir in the closet?No, silly girl, said she, your fears are always awake.--But indeed, saidI, I think I heard something rustle.--May be, says she, the cat may begot there: but I hear nothing.I was hush; but she said, Pr'ythee, my good girl, make haste to bed. Seeif the door be fast. So I did, and was thinking to look into the closet;but, hearing no more noise, thought it needless, and so went again andsat myself down on the bed-side, and went on undressing myself. And Mrs.Jervis being by this time undressed, stepped into bed, and bid me hasten,for she was sleepy.I don't know what was the matter, but my heart sadly misgave me: Indeed,Mr. Jonathan's note was enough to make it do so, with what Mrs. Jervishad said. I pulled off my stays, and my stockings, and all my clothes toan under-petticoat; and then hearing a rustling again in the closet, Isaid, Heaven protect us! but before I say my prayers, I must look intothis closet. And so was going to it slip-shod, when, O dreadful! outrushed my master in a rich silk and silver morning gown.I screamed, and ran to the bed, and Mrs. Jervis screamed too; and hesaid, I'll do you no harm, if you forbear this noise; but otherwise takewhat follows.Instantly he came to the bed (for I had crept into it, to Mrs. Jervis,with my coat on, and my shoes); and taking me in his arms, said, Mrs.Jervis, rise, and just step up stairs to keep the maids from coming downat this noise: I'll do no harm to this rebel.O, for Heaven's sake! for pity's sake! Mrs. Jervis, said I, if I am notbetrayed, don't leave me; and, I beseech you, raise all the house. No,said Mrs. Jervis, I will not stir, my dear lamb; I will not leave you. Iwonder at you, sir, said she; and kindly threw herself upon my coat,clasping me round the waist: You shall not hurt this innocent, said she:for I will lose my life in her defence. Are there not, said she, enoughwicked ones in the world, for your base purpose, but you must attemptsuch a lamb as this?He was desperate angry, and threatened to throw her out of the window;and to turn her out of the house the next morning. You need not, sir,said she; for I will not stay in it. God defend my poor Pamela till to-morrow, and we will both go together.--Says he, let me but expostulate aword or two with you, Pamela. Pray, Pamela, said Mrs. Jervis, don't heara word, except he leaves the bed, and goes to the other end of the room.Ay, out of the room, said I; expostulate to-morrow, if you mustexpostulate!

I found his hand in my bosom; and when my fright let me know it, I wasready to die; and I sighed and screamed, and fainted away. And still hehad his arms about my neck; and Mrs. Jervis was about my feet, and uponmy coat. And all in a cold dewy sweat was I. Pamela! Pamela! said Mrs.Jervis, as she tells me since, O--h, and gave another shriek, my poorPamela is dead for certain! And so, to be sure, I was for a time; for Iknew nothing more of the matter, one fit following another, till aboutthree hours after, as it proved to be, I found myself in bed, and Mrs.Jervis sitting upon one side, with her wrapper about her, and Rachel onthe other; and no master, for the wicked wretch was gone. But I was sooverjoyed, that I hardly could believe myself; and I said, which were myfirst words, Mrs. Jervis, Mrs. Rachel, can I be sure it is you? Tell me!can I?--Where have I been? Hush, my dear, said Mrs. Jervis; you havebeen in fit after fit. I never saw any body so frightful in my life!

Clarissa (1748): a tragic novel

Henry Fielding (1707-1754)

In the diction I think, burlesque itself may be sometimes admitted; of which many instances will occur in this work, as in the description of the battles, and some other places not necessary to be pointed out to the classical reader; for whose entertainment those parodies or burlesque imitations are chiefly calculated.

  5

  But tho’ we have sometimes admitted this in our diction, we have carefully excluded it from our sentiments and characters; for there it is never properly introduced, unless in writings of the burlesque kind, which this is not intended to be. Indeed, no two species of writing can differ more widely than the comic and the burlesque: for as the latter is ever the exhibition of what is monstrous and unnatural, and where our delight, if we examine it, arises from the surprising absurdity, as in appropriating the manners of the highest to the lowest, or è converso; so in the former, we should ever confine ourselves strictly to nature, from the just imitation of which, will flow all the pleasure we can this way convey to a sensible reader. and perhaps, there is one reason, why a comic writer should of all others be the least excused for deviating from nature, since it may not be always so easy for a serious poet to meet with the great and the admirable; but life everywhere furnishes an accurate observer with the ridiculous. (From: Preface to Joseph Andrews)

Introduction to Tom Jones

Questions:1. Which metaphor is used in Fielding’s introduction to express the work of an author (all of this introduction is in fact an extended metaphor)?2. Why is there only one item/article in his menu and what is it?3. Fielding is writing this intro to anticipate the criticism of neoclassical aesthetes. 4. What possible objection does he mention? What is his answer to the objection?4. Another metaphor, expressing writing, also appears. What is it?

Another (common metaphor): style (stylization) is a dress in which authors cloth their raw material, „naked nature”. „Exactest copying” is clothed in the distorting garments of burlesque diction (according to Preface to JA)An author ought to consider himself, not as a gentleman who gives a private or eleemosynary treat, but rather as one who keeps a public ordinary, at which all persons are welcome for their money. In the former case, it is well known that the entertainer provides what fare he pleases; and though this should be very indifferent, and utterly disagreeable to the taste of his company, they must not find any fault; nay, on the contrary, good breeding forces them outwardly to approve and to commend whatever is set before them. Now the contrary of this happens to the master of an ordinary. Men who pay for what they eat will insist on gratifying their palates, however nice and whimsical these may prove; and if everything is not agreeable to their taste, will challenge a right to censure, to abuse, and to d—n their dinner without controul.

To prevent, therefore, giving offence to their customers by any such disappointment, it hath been usual with the honest and well-meaning host to provide a bill of fare which all persons may peruse at their first entrance into the house; and having thence acquainted themselves with the entertainment which they may expect, may either stay and regale with what is provided for them, or may depart to some other ordinary better accommodated to their taste.The provision, then, which we have here made is no other than Human Nature. Nor do I fear that my sensible reader, though most luxurious in his taste, will start, cavil, or be offended, because I have named but one article. The tortoise—as the alderman of Bristol, well learned in eating, knows by much experience—besides the delicious calipash and calipee, contains many different kinds of food; nor can the learned reader be ignorant, that in human nature, though here collected under one general name, is such prodigious variety, that a cook will have sooner gone through all the several species of animal and vegetable food in the world, than an author will be able to exhaust so extensive a subject.An objection may perhaps be apprehended from the more delicate, that this dish is too common and vulgar; for what else is the subject of all the romances, novels, plays, and poems, with which the stalls abound? Many exquisite viands might be rejected by the epicure, if it was a sufficient cause for his contemning of them as common and vulgar, that something was to be found in the most paltry alleys under the same name. In reality, true nature is as difficult to be met with in authors, as the Bayonne ham, or Bologna sausage, is to be found in the shops.But the whole, to continue the same metaphor, consists in the cookery of the author; for, as Mr Pope tells us—    "True wit is nature to advantage drest;    What oft was thought, but ne'er so well exprest."*The same animal which hath the honour to have some part of his flesh eaten at the table of a duke, may perhaps be degraded in another part, and some of his limbs gibbeted, as it were, in the vilest stall in town. Where, then, lies the difference between the food of the nobleman and the porter, if both are at dinner on the same ox or calf, but in the seasoning, the dressing, the garnishing, and the setting forth? Hence the one provokes and incites the most languid appetite, and the other turns and palls that which is the sharpest and keenest.In like manner, the excellence of the mental entertainment consists less in the subject than in the author's skill in well dressing it up.

*Some to conceit alone their taste confine, And glitt'ring thoughts struck out at ev'ry line; Pleas'd with a work where nothing's just or fit; One glaring chaos and wild heap of wit. Poets, like painters, thus, unskill'd to trace The naked nature and the living grace, With gold and jewels cover ev'ry part, And hide with ornaments their want of art. True wit is nature to advantage dress'd, What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd, Something, whose truth convinc'd at sight we find, That gives us back the image of our mind. As shades more sweetly recommend the light, So modest plainness sets off sprightly wit. For works may have more wit than does 'em good, As bodies perish through excess of blood.

(From A. Pope: Essay in Criticism)

Plot: Short version: the real identity (gentle birth) of the protagonist, a disinherited young man is revealed through a series of complications, his growing misfortune is ultimately reversed and he is reinstated morally, financially and emotionallyLonger version: The adventures of Tom Jones who is found as a new born infant in the bed of the benevolent S Allworthy and brought up by that good man until the evil machinations of the Squire’s nephew, Blifil result in Tom being banished in disgrace for crimes he did not commit but which his imprudence and his passionate nature make it easy for Blifil to fasten

on him. After Tom’s adventures on the road all the major characters are brought to London for the denouement where Tom turns out to be Blifil’s half brother, Blifil’s evil schemes are discovered, Tom wins through to reconciliation with A, to fortune and to the hands of Sophia.

A taste of Fielding’s narrative voices:

1) TOM JONES DISCOVERS SQUARE IN MOLLY’S BEDROOM as Molly pronounced those last words, which are recorded above, the wicked rug got loose from its fastening, and discovered everything hid behind it; where among other female utensils appeared- (with shame I write it, and with sorrow will it be read)- the philosopher Square, in a posture (for the place would not near admit his standing upright) as ridiculous as can possibly be conceived. .... I question not but the surprize of the reader will be here equal to that of Jones; as the suspicions which must arise from the appearance of this wise and grave man in such a place, may seem so inconsistent with that character which he hath, doubtless, maintained hitherto, in the opinion of every one. But to confess the truth, this inconsistency is rather imaginary than real. Philosophers are composed of flesh and blood as well as other human creatures; and however sublimated and refined the theory of these may be, a little practical frailty is as incident to them as to other mortals. It is, indeed, in theory only, and not in practice, as we have before hinted, that consists the difference: for though such great beings think much better and more wisely, they always act exactly like other men. They know very well how to subdue all appetites and passions, and to despise both pain and pleasure; and this knowledge affords much delightful contemplation, and is easily acquired; but the practice would be vexatious and troublesome; and, therefore, the same wisdom which teaches them to know this, teaches them to avoid carrying it into execution. (5/5)

2) BLIFIL VERSUS TOM The vices of this young man were, moreover, heightened by the disadvantageous light in which they appeared when opposed to the virtues of Master Blifil, his companion; a youth of so different a cast from little Jones, that not only the family but all the neighbourhood resounded his praises. He was, indeed, a lad of a remarkable disposition; sober, discreet, and pious beyond his age; qualities which gained him the love of every one who knew him: while Tom Jones was universally disliked; and many expressed their wonder that Mr. Allworthy would suffer such a lad to be educated with his nephew, lest the morals of the latter should be corrupted by his example. (3/2)

Victorian culture and literature I.The Victorian novel

Queen Victoria (1837–1901) after the Georges and one William

I. Cultural, social background:

Victorian view of art:

a) moralizing and didacticseriousness, moral weightiness Art: vehicle for conveying social valuescriticism also: social evils of modern life etc.critic also a moralist, primarily concerned with the ideologies of art works

b) demand for realism

most admired works of visual and literary art seemed to engage directly with the ’real’ world, artist expected to represent the immediate material environment

novelist: careful mirroring of ’real social behaviour and thought processes was central to the artists role as moral teacher

novel primarily concerned with the contemporary or near contemporary: everyday, social setting

Publishing background: 19th centurytechnological development: paper making machine, steam powered printing pressincreasingly higher literacy rate adult education classes for working class peoplefee-based, lending or circulating library (inexpensive)

female authors taking equal status with male ones

Mudie’s Select Library, in its heyday 50 thousand subscribers

main bulk of readership respectable novels: middle class women

effect on content: typically domestic and family oriented, necessity to conform to middle-class moral code which aimed to protect a predominantly female readership

“Since the author of Tom Jones was buried, no writer of fiction among us has been permitted to depict to his utmost power a MAN” (Thackeray, preface to Pendennis, 1848-50)

formats of publishing: three deckers (or sometimes 4 volume sets): costly

serialization: popularized by Dickens’ Pickwick Papers: slim individual monthly parts

effect on content: cliff-hanging episode endings, melodramatic plottingneed for memorable characters: exaggerated characterization

part publication in literary magazines (eg. C. Dickens ran such magazines)effect on content: explicit censorship by editors

single volume editionspaperbacks from the 1850s

II. Periods of 19th century British fiction

pre-Victorian period (1800–1830):

typical subgenreshistorical novelsdomestic novelgothic = supernatural, marvellous elements + emphasis on feelings

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), Waverly (1814), Rob Roy (1817), etc.

Jane Austen (1775-1817), Northanger Abbey (begun 1790s/publ.1818), Sense and Sensibility (1797/1811), Pride and Prejudice (1797/1813), Mansfield Park (1811/14), Emma (1814/16), Persuasion (1815/18)

Maria Edgeworth (1767-1849), Castle Rackrent (1800), Belinda (1801), The Absentee (1812) etc.

Mary (Wollstonecraft) Shelley, Frankenstein (1818), Valperga (1823), The Last Man (1826), etc.

Early Victorian period (1830–1848) a “Time of Troubles”:

typical subgenres:

- Newgate fiction = need for reform in penal code and penal system; based on actual criminal cases, romanticisation and glamorisation of criminals as rebellious individual posed against relentless social forces

silver-fork novels = fashionable novel — life, manners, food, furniture, etc. of “high society”; aimed at upwardly mobile middle-class audiencesindustrial novels = social conditions in industrialized areassocial panorama = wide social range (variety of contexts and social classes)problem novels = novels with a purpose (to solve a problem, eg. workhouses in Dickens’ Oliver Twist)sensation fiction = “female gothic”: terror, mystery, suspense, secrecy, deception, persecution and incarceration of heroine; Victorian process of domesticating and psychologising the gothic — e. g. horror transferred from gothic castle to modern country or city house

William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-63) Vanity Fair: A Novel Without a Hero (1847-8)

Charles Dickens (1812-70) Great Expectations (1860-61), Bleak House (1852-53), David Copperfield (1850)

Charlotte Brontë (1817-55) Jane Eyre (1847), Shirley (1849), Villette (1853)

Emily Brontë (1818-48) Wuthering Heights (1847)

Anne Brontë (1820-49) Agnes Grey (1847); The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848)

Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881), Vivian Grey (1826), Coningsby, or, The New Generation (1844), Sybil, or, The Two Nations (1845); Tancred, or, The New Crusade (1847) etc. (MP from 1837, PM 1868, 1874-80)

Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865), Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life (1848), Ruth (1853), North and South (1855) etc.

Mid-Victorian period (1848–70) typical subgenres:novels of religious controversyproblem novels; realism

George Eliot (Mary Ann/Marian Evans, 1819-80) Adam Bede (1859); Middlemarch (1871-72), Daniel Deronda

(Charles Dickens, W. M. Thackeray, Elizabeth Gaskell continuing)

Anthony Trollope (1815-1882), Barsetshire novels (1855-67, regional), Palliser novels (1862-80, society +politics)

+ John Ruskin (1819-1900), Modern Painters i-v (1843-60), The Stones of Venice (1851-3), etc.

Late Victorian period (1870-1901)

regional novel“New Woman” fiction = a questioning of male gender roles and “manliness”, work, marriage and sex (+ double standards

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891); Jude the Obscure (1895)

Samuel Butler (1835-1902, The Way of All Flesh, 1870s)

Henry James (1843-1916), (1st novel in 1871), The American (1877), The Portrait of a Lady (1881), What Maisie Knew (1897), The Turn of the Screw (1898), The Ambassadors (1903)

+ Walter Pater (1839-94) Studies in the History of the Renaissance (1873), etc.

The Nineties (1890-1901) — “Gay Nineties” and fin de siècle — adventure stories, gothic, science fiction

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), dramas: A Woman of No Importance (1893), An Ideal Husband (1895), The Importance of Being Ernest (1895), The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-94), Treasure Island, 1883, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), Kidnapped (1886), The Black Arrow (1888), etc.

Sir Henry Rider Haggard (1856-1925, King Solomon’s Mine (1885), She: A History of Adventure (1887)

Bram Stoker (1847-1912), Dracula (1897), The Lair of the White Worm (1911)

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1836), short stories from 1890s, The Jungle Book (1894), Kim (1901)

H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells (1866-1946), The Time Machine (1895), The War of the Worlds (1898), etc

Joseph Conrad (1857-1924), The Nigger of the Narcissus (1897), Lord Jim (1900), etc.

III. Examples

From pre-Victorian Jane Austen to Victorian Elizabeth Gaskell

Austen: domestic novel, theme: everyday life, relationships, class issuesemphasis on private psychology

Austen’s strength: STYLE: JA: „an artist cannot do anything slovenly’

Elizabeth Gaskell unassuming, homely Victorian housewife

following Austen in many ways:- similar plots (PP and North and South)- similar values, similar views of relationships- psychological analysis using Jane Austen’s techniques

difference! wider social panorama – wider scope – social problem novelidentification with working-class characterscharacters with full psychological existence and voice

North and South (1855) — combines the social and the private in one story another ‘Condition of England novel’/industrial novel (after her previous Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life, 1848)

Margaret Hale, daughter of imporished southern family moves to the north, first hates then falls in love with northern factory owner, John Thornton

symbolic reconciliation: aristocratic genteel south and harsh but industrious north;

The Brontës (Charlotte: 1816–1855; Emily 1818–1848)

their significance: the life and possibilities of women in Victorian society

WH = unique!social expectations VERSUS individual freedom!nature VERSUS culture

Jane Eyregenre: Bildungsroman (novel of development); („female gothic”): the mystery, suspense and medievalism of earlier gothic is domesticated: scene no longer abandoned castle but English country housemythic, archetypal layer: a Cinderella story

plot summary:The story of Jane Eyre, a bright, but not very pretty orphan girl who works as a governess in the house of an English aristocrat and falls in love with his master. Going against social conventions, she accepts his marriage proposal only to find out that he has a wife, a deranged woman locked up in the attick of the house (Thornfield Hall). Escaping, Jane almost starves to death but she miraculously saved and taken in by two sisters and a brother who turn out to be her cousins and she is offered a teaching job in their village. When Jane unexpectedly comes into an inheritance, she returns to Rochester who lives maimed and blinded and lonely, after trying to unsuccessfully rescue the mad wife from the fire she caused. Jane now being his equal in every way, they finally marry.

realism: What makes it realistic as well?

I wiped my tears and hushed my sobs, fearful lest any sign of violent grief might waken a preternatural voice to comfort me, or elicit from the gloom some haloed face, bending over me with strange pity. This idea, consolatory in theory, I felt would be terrible if realised: with all my might I endeavoured to stifle it--I endeavoured to be firm. Shaking my hair from my eyes, I lifted my head and tried to look boldly round the dark room; at this moment a light gleamed on the wall. Was it, I asked myself, a ray from the moon penetrating some aperture in the blind? No; moonlight was still, and this stirred; while I gazed, it glided up to the ceiling and quivered over my head. I can now conjecture readily that this streak of light was, in all likelihood, a gleam from a lantern carried by some one across the lawn: but then, prepared as my mind was for horror, shaken as my nerves were by agitation, I thought the swift darting beam was a herald of some coming vision from another world. My heart beat thick, my head grew hot; a sound filled my ears, which I deemed the rushing of wings; something seemed near me; I was oppressed, suffocated: endurance broke down; I rushed to the door and shook the lock in desperate effort…

Shirley third person narrator, begins with the dinner of a group of young clergymen background: the Luddite riots, organized machine-breakingimpact of new technology on moorland industry

Classic Victorian realism: Elizabeth Gaskell, Charles Dickens, Makepiece Thackeray (social panoramas, social problem novels)

general features:

Emphasis shifting from the psychologies of individuals to a more detailed exploration of individual relationships within a recognizable social structure

Epistemological presuppositions are: people and their relationships and the social structure are essentially knowable and communicable: people can be known and described through the web of their relations within the social structure (positivism)

Narrative method: typically third person omniscient, reliableImpression of a reality fully understood and transparently presented

Charles Dickens:harrassed childhoodextremely sensitive to social problems

features of his novelistic art: social passion humour, satiremelodrama, sentimentality (fairy tale shaped plots)immensely creative imagination

greatest novels are the longest – third person narrator most typical

complex social panoramas (Bleak House, Little Dorrit, Mutual Friend)(best novels in 1st person: Great Expectations, David Copperfield

„hold-all”: Bildungsroman, domestic novel, comedy/satire, mystery and crime, social critique, (BH: first and third person narration combined)

(excerpt from Little Dorrit)[Mr Merdle – a capitalist, a businessman who turns out to be a con man and a fake, and when he goes bankrupt, crowds go down with himMrs Merdle – his empty, haughty, pseudo-aristocratic wife]

Harley Street, Cavendish Square, was more than aware of Mr and Mrs Merdle. Intruders there were in Harley Street, of whom it was not aware; but Mr and Mrs Merdle it delighted to honour. Society was aware of Mr and Mrs Merdle. Society had said 'Let us license them; let us know them.' Mr Merdle was immensely rich; a man of prodigious enterprise; a Midas without the ears, who turned all he touched to gold. He was in everything good, from banking to building. He was in Parliament, of course. He was in the City, necessarily. He was Chairman of this, Trustee of that, President of the other. The weightiest of men had said to projectors, 'Now, what name have you got? Have you got Merdle?' And, the reply being in the negative, had said, 'Then I won't look at you.' This great and fortunate man had provided that extensive bosom which required so much room to be unfeeling enough in, with a nest of crimson and gold some fifteen years before. It was not a bosom to repose upon, but it was a capital bosom to hang jewels upon. Mr Merdle wanted something to hang jewels upon, and he bought it for the purpose. Storr and Mortimer might have married on the same speculation. Like all his other speculations, it was sound and successful. The jewels showed to the richest advantage. The bosom moving in Society with the jewels displayed upon it, attracted general admiration. Society approving, Mr

Merdle was satisfied. He was the most disinterested of men,—did everything for Society, and got as little for himself out of all his gain and care, as a man might. …Surely the goods of this world, it occurred in an accidental way to Bishop to remark, could scarcely be directed into happier channels than when they accumulated under the magic touch of the wise and sagacious, who, while they knew the just value of riches (Bishop tried here to look as if he were rather poor himself), were aware of their importance, judiciously governed and rightly distributed, to the welfare of our brethren at large. Mr Merdle with humility expressed his conviction that Bishop couldn't mean him, and with inconsistency expressed his high gratification in Bishop's good opinion.

William Makepeace Thackeray

Vanity Fair: A Novel Without a Hero (1847-8)two careers, that of Becky Sharp, a gifted, calculating minx whose wit and sexuality are her means of getting a rich husband and entry into society, dissipation and vice; and that of Amelia Sedley, a gentle, earnest, loving girl

genre: realistic but comic-satirical social panorama wide socal range: bourgeoisie and gentry and nobility — but not working classes or lowerdevastating picture of materialistic English society wide geographic range:

narrative method: 3rd p. intrusive omniscient:given to commentary, often sentimental; narrative self-consciousness (cf. Fielding) ‘sort of confidential talk between writer and reader’

characters: ‘puppet’ metaphor; “without a hero” — gentry as incompetent, mediocre contrasting heriones: Becky, intelligence without honesty, Amelia: honesty without intelligence etc;

(comic) anti-heroism: ‘The Art of Novels is … to convey as strongly as possible the sentiment of reality as opposed to a tragedy or a poem, which may be heroical’

ridicule society through Becky Sharp’s exploitation of its hollowness and corruption, and at the same time to hold Becky’s course under severe judgement:

Thomas Hardygrows up in the country (Dorset): familiarity with village life architect, two unhappy marriagesloss of faith (Darwin)

late Victorian age: pessimistic; Hardy’s worldview – pessimistic, tragic, deterministic

Tess of the d’Urbervilles

Tess Durbyfield is a poor country girl, but family believes they are related to the aristocratic D’Urbervilles. She visits them to „claim kin”, and is raped by young Alec D. Back home she gives birth to a baby who dies and then she goes to work at a dairy farm. There he meets Angel Clare, apprentice farmer, they fall in love. Tess is uneasy about her past, writes a letter to Angel which he does not find. So they marry but Tess confesses that she is not a virgin on the wedding night, encouraged by a similar confession on Angel’s part. They separate, Tess goes to live at home. The old seducer reappears in her life, and finally, to save her family from starvation, Tess agrees to

become his mistress. Some years later Angel who finally repented of his treatment of his wife, return, but too late. Finally, Tess, in desperation, stabs and kills the man who ruined her life. Angel comes back to her, they flee together, planning to hide and go abroad. They break into a lonely mansion and consummate their marriage but discovered by the cleaning woman. They escape again, and arrive at Stonehenge in the middle of the night. Tess lies down to sleep on the altar. By morning they are surrounded by the police. She is condemned and hanged.

Thomas Hardy

grows up in the country (Dorset): familiarity with village life

architect, two unhappy marriages

loss of faith (Darwin)

late Victorian age: pessimistic; Hardy’s worldview – pessimistic, tragic, deterministic

Tess of the d’Urbervilles

Tess Durbyfield is a poor country girl, but family believes they are related to the aristocratic D’Urbervilles. She

visits them to „claim kin”, and is raped by young Alec D. Back home she gives birth to a baby who dies and then

she goes to work at a dairy farm. There he meets Angel Clare, apprentice farmer, they fall in love. Tess is uneasy

about her past, writes a letter to Angel which he does not find. So they marry but Tess confesses that she is not a

virgin on the wedding night, encouraged by a similar confession on Angel’s part. They separate, Tess goes to

live at home. The old seducer reappears in her life, and finally, to save her family from starvation, Tess agrees to

become his mistress. Some years later Angel who finally repented of his treatment of his wife, return, but too

late. Finally, Tess, in desperation, stabs and kills the man who ruined her life. Angel comes back to her, they flee

together, planning to hide and go abroad. They break into a lonely mansion and consummate their marriage but

discovered by the cleaning woman. They escape again, and arrive at Stonehenge in the middle of the night. Tess

lies down to sleep on the altar. By morning they are surrounded by the police. She is condemned and hanged.

main themes:

body and soul: the natural (bodily) determination of human existence (cf. naturalism):

(Angel and the just awakened Tess) “The brim-fullness of her nature breathed from her. It was a moment when a woman’s soul is more incarnate than at any other time; when the most spiritual beauty bespeaks itself in flesh; and sex takes the outside place in the presentation.… Having been lying down in her clothes she was warm as a sunned cat” (ch 27)

(Preface to 1st ed of Jude) “A novel addressed … to men and women of full age; which attempts to deal unaffectedly with the fret and fever, derision and disaster, that may press in the wake of the strongest passion known to humanity, to tell, without mincing of words, of a deadly war between flesh and spirit; and to point the tragedy of unfulfilled aims.”

very exact and unsentimental view of the relentless processes of nature (cf. ch 23-24, ch. 43), cf (after Angel carried the girls over the flooded lane in his arms:) “The air of the sleeping-chamber seemed to palpitate with the hopeless passion of the girls. They

writhed feverishly under the oppressiveness of an emotion thrust on them by cruel Nature’s law—an emotion which they had neither expected nor desired.” (ch 23)

God and human kind: Providence (increasingly) absent or unconcerned — instead, chance or fate and Nature’s (indifferent) law. chance as an instrument of an indifferent destiny/deity

ch 11: “But, might some say, where was Tess’s guardian angel? Where was the Providence of her simple faith? Perhaps, like that other god of whom the ironical Tishbite spoke, he was talking, or he was pursuing, or he was in a journey, or he was sleeping and not to be awaked.” — Ch 61, ending: ‘Justice’ was done, and the President of the Immortals, in Aeschylean phrase, had ended his sport with Tess.”, cf Preface to 5th and later eds quoting Gloster from King Lear: “As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport”

Women: double standard, sexuality and marriage and divorce rights (cf. “the marriage question”, “the woman question”)

Tess: reduction of (female) morality (and indeed identity) to sexual behaviour — cf. slogan painter “I must put one there—one that will be good for dangerous young females like yourself to heed…THOU, SHALT, NOT, COMMIT—” (ch 12)

ch 11: “An immeasurable social chasm was to divide our heroine’s personality thereafter from that previous self of hers who stepped from her mother’s door to try her fortune at Trantridge poultry-farm” — ch 35 (“The Woman Pays”) Angel, after Tess has asked him to “forgive me… I have forgiven you for the same”: “O Tess, forgiveness does not apply to the cause. You were one person: now you are another.”

IV. Modernist Prose

He was just a word for me. I did not see the man in the name any more than you do. Do you see him? Do you see the story? Do you see anything? It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream—making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is of the very essence of dreams...."He was silent for a while."... No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one's existence—that which makes its truth, its meaning—its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream—alone...."

Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness

It is when we try to grapple with another man's intimate need that we perceive how incomprehensible, wavering, and misty are the beings that share with us the sight of the stars and the warmth of the sun. (Conrad: Lord Jim)

She would not say of any one in the world now that they were this or were that. She felt very young; at the same time unspeakably aged. She sliced like a knife through everything; at the same time was outside, looking on. … She knew nothing; no language, no history; she scarcely read a book now, except memoirs in bed; and yet to her it was absolutely absorbing; all this; the cabs passing; and she would not say of Peter, she would not say of herself, I am this, I am that. (Author? Title?)

Question: Compare this attitude to fictional representation with that of the Victorians.

2. Time

His [Heraclitus] philosophy had been developed in conscious, outspoken opposition to the current mode of thought, as a matter requiring some exceptional loyalty to pure reason and its "dry light." Men are subject to an illusion, he protests, regarding matters apparent to sense. What the uncorrected sense gives was a false impression of permanence or fixity in things, which have really changed their nature in the very moment in which we see and touch them. And the radical flaw in the current mode of thinking would lie herein: that, reflecting this false or uncorrected sensation, it attributes to the phenomena of experience a durability which does not really belong to them. Imaging forth from those fluid impressions a world of firmly out-lined objects, it leads one to regard as a thing stark and dead what is in reality full of animation, of vigour, of the fire of life—that eternal process of nature, of which at a later time Goethe spoke as the "Living Garment," whereby God is seen of us, ever in weaving at the "Loom of Time." (Walter Pater: Marius the Epicurean)

QuestionsWhat kind of epistemological philosophies are contrasted here? What is the difference in the attitude to time? How does this attitude to time lead to relativism?

My mental state, as it advances on the road of time, is continually swelling witht the duration which it accumulates: it goes on increasing – rolling upon itself as a snowball on the snow.

The mind of man is capable of anything--because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. (HD)

Question: What does this passage say about the individual’s consciousness of the past?

3. Sensibility, literary impressionism

a)It goes without saying that you will not write a good novel unless you possess the sense of reality; but it will be difficult to give you a recipe for calling that sense into being. Humanity is immense and reality has a myriad forms; the most one can affirm is that some of the flowers of fiction have the odour of it, and others have not; as for telling you in advance how your nosegay should be composed, that is another affair. It is equally excellent and inconclusive to say that one must write from experience; to our supposititious aspirant such a declaration might savour of mockery. What kind of experience is intended, and where does it begin and end? Experience is never limited and it is never complete; it is an immense sensibility, a kind of huge spider-web, of the finest silken threads, suspended in the chamber of consciousness and catching every air-borne particle in its tissue. It is the very atmosphere of the mind; and when the mind is imaginative--much more when it happens to be that of a man of genius--it takes to itself the faintest hints of life, it converts the very pulses of the air into revelations. The young lady living in a village has only to be a damsel upon whom nothing is lost to make it quite unfair (as it seems to me) to declare to her that she shall have nothing to say about the military. Greater miracles have been seen than that, imagination assisting, she should speak the truth about some of these gentlemen. I remember an English novelist, a woman of genius, telling me that she was much commended for the impression she had managed to give in one of her tales of the nature and way of life of the French Protestant youth. She had been asked where she learned so much about this recondite being, she had been congratulated on her peculiar opportunities. These opportunities consisted in her having once, in Paris, as she ascended a staircase, passed an open door where, in the household of a pasteur, some of the young Protestants were seated at table round a finished meal. The glimpse made a picture; it lasted only a moment, but that moment was experience. She had got her impression, and she evolved her type. She knew what youth was, and what Protestantism; she also had the advantage of having seen what it was to be French; so that she converted these ideas into a concrete image and produced a reality. Above all, however, she was blessed with the faculty which when you give it an inch takes an ell, and which for the artist is a much greater source of strength than any accident of residence or of place in the social scale. The power to guess the unseen from the seen, to trace the implication of things, to judge the whole piece by the pattern, the condition of feeling life, in general, so completely that you are well on your way to knowing any particular corner of it--this cluster of gifts may almost be said to constitute experience, and they occur in country and in town, and in the most differing stages of education. If experience consists of impressions, it may be said that impressions are experience, just as (have we not seen it?) they are the very air we breathe. Therefore, if I should certainly say to a novice, "Write from experience, and experience only," I should feel that this was a rather tantalising monition if I were not careful immediately to add, "Try to be one of the people on whom nothing is lost!" (From Henry James: The Art of Fiction)

Question: Find the amazing metaphor Henry James uses to explain what he means by „sensibility”.

b)The writer seems constrained, not by his own free will but by some powerful and unscrupulous tyrant who has him in thrall, to provide a plot, to provide comedy, tragedy, love interest, and an air of probability embalming the whole so impeccable that if all his figures were to come to life they would find themselves dressed down to the last button of their coats in the fashion of the hour. The tyrant is obeyed; the novel is done to a turn. But sometimes, more and more often as time goes by, we suspect a momentary doubt, a spasm of rebellion, as the pages fill themselves in the customary way. Is life like this? Must novels be like this?Look within and life, it seems, is very far from being “like this”. Examine for a moment an ordinary mind on an ordinary day. The mind receives a myriad impressions—trivial, fantastic, evanescent, or engraved with the sharpness of steel. From all sides they come, an incessant shower of innumerable atoms; and as they fall, as they shape themselves into the life of Monday or Tuesday, the accent falls differently from of old; the moment of importance came not here but there; so that, if a writer were a free man and not a slave, if he could write what he chose, not what he must, if he could base his work upon his own feeling and not upon convention, there would be no plot, no comedy, no tragedy, no love interest or catastrophe in the accepted style, and perhaps not a single button sewn on as the Bond Street tailors would have it. Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end.It is, at any rate, in some such fashion as this that we seek to define the quality which distinguishes the work of several young writers, among whom Mr. James Joyce is the most notable, from that of their predecessors. They attempt to come closer to life, and to preserve more sincerely and exactly what interests and moves them, even if to do so they must discard most of the conventions which are commonly observed by the novelist. Let us record the atoms as they fall upon the mind in the order in which they fall, let us trace the pattern, however disconnected and incoherent in appearance, which each sight or incident scores upon the consciousness. Let us not take it for granted that life exists more fully in what is commonly thought big than in what is commonly thought small. In contrast with those whom we have called materialists, Mr. Joyce is spiritual; he is concerned at all costs to reveal the flickerings of that innermost flame which flashes its messages through the brain, and in order to preserve it he disregards with complete courage whatever seems to him adventitious, whether it be probability, or coherence, or any other of these signposts which for generations have served to support the imagination of a reader when called upon to imagine what he can neither touch nor see. (from Virginia Woolf: „Modern Fiction”)

Question: What is the difference between the „materialist” and the „spiritual” writer?

4. World as chaos (on the basis of all this)

Question: Why do modernist novels lack the well-organized, exciting plot?

James Joyce (1882-1941)

Irish novelist, short story writer and poetundisputed influence

Life: mostly outside Ireland: still Dublin provides the setting for all his worksborn in middle class family in Dublin, Catholicsfirst comfortable, well to do, but father squandered their moneyJesuit Schoos, University of Dublin, studying modern languages.

In 1904 he met Nora Barnacle and on June the 16th (!): first dateFrom 1904-1920 he and Nora lived in Trieste Zürichfrom 1920-1941: in Paris and Zürich, two children: Giorgio and Luciafinancial difficulties

The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)a biographical novel: the story of the personal development of the artistinterior monologue, interest in psychic realityfocus on a single mind: Stephen Dedalus

elevation of art as the supreme value: prototypical tale of the modernist artistrelying on the supreme principle of individualism:

And I am not afraid to make a mistake, even a great mistake, a lifelong mistake and perhaps as long as eternity too (Stephen in Portrait)

I fear more that that the chemical action which would be set up in my soul by a false homage to a symbol behind which are massed twenty centuries of authority and veneration

Q: What is the ultimate value for him? „the enemy of Bright Young Rebels for more than a century had been other people” (Wayne Booth)

representative modern moment: Stephen seeks to „learn in my own life and away from home and friends what the heart is and how it feels”

Theory of art: epiphany

to seek the spiritual in the invisible world but in the ordinary world

the artist: „a priest of the eternal imagination, transmuting the daily breadof experience into the radiant body of everliving life” (Portrait)

epiphany: a sudden spiritual transformation in the course of which everyday realities become radiant and signficiant

Ulysses 1922I've put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that's the only way of insuring one's immortality.(Joyce cited in Richard Ellmann's James Joyce)

* Set in Dublin, events unfold over 24 hours, beginning on the morning of Thursday 16th June 1904. The work has 18 chapters which „correspond” to episodes in The Odyssey of Homer.

It is the epic of two races (Israel-Ireland) and at the same time the cycle of the human body as well as a little story of a day (life)... It is also a kind of encyclopaedia. My intention is not only to render the myth sub specie temporis nostri but also to allow each adventure (that is, every hour, every organ, every art being interconnected and interrelated in the somatic scheme of the whole) to condition and even to create its own technique. (James Joyce, Letters, 21st September 1920)

* greatest totalizing effort of modernist literature:the individual = microcosm

Three protagonists = story of the complete „man”Stephen Dedalus: „the artist” = IrelandLeopold Bloom: „everyman” = Israel (also outsider, alien)

Molly Bloom: the woman and wife and whore

one day = a whole lifetimedifferent organs = total mandifferent arts = sum total of human activityeach event is related to typical events in human history, literature and myth: orchestration!

* Two myths of Western culture (symbolic, esoteric level and realistic level):OdysseyThe Father and the Son (Christian)

archetypal story of wondering and homecomingIn the climactic Circe chapter Bloom meets the drunken Stephen in a brothel, they leave together, but Stephen finds himself in a street fight from which Bloom saves him and takes him home. As Bloom gazes on the unconscious Stephen, he experiences a vision about his dead son, Rudy.

My head is full of pebbles and rubbish and broken matches and bits of glass picked up 'most everywhere. The task I set myself 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.(Letters, 24 June 1921)

* Literary „cubism”Eighteen different perspectives: there are different ways of seeing

chapter 17 (Ithaca): Bloom and Stephens heading for home: apparently a narrative of severe objectivity

in reality a parody of scientific objectivity

What parallel courses did Bloom and Stephen follow returning?

Starting united both at normal walking pace from Beresford place theyfollowed in the order named Lower and Middle Gardiner streets andMountjoy square, west: then, at reduced pace, each bearing left,Gardiner's place by an inadvertence as far as the farther corner ofTemple street: then, at reduced pace with interruptions of halt, bearingright, Temple street, north, as far as Hardwicke place. Approaching,disparate, at relaxed walking pace they crossed both the circus beforeGeorge's church diametrically, the chord in any circle being less thanthe arc which it subtends.

Of what did the duumvirate deliberate during their itinerary?

Music, literature, Ireland, Dublin, Paris, friendship, woman,prostitution, diet, the influence of gaslight or the light of arc andglowlamps on the growth of adjoining paraheliotropic trees, exposedcorporation emergency dustbuckets, the Roman catholic church,ecclesiastical celibacy, the Irish nation, jesuit education, careers, thestudy of medicine, the past day, the maleficent influence of the

presabbath, Stephen's collapse.

Did Bloom discover common factors of similarity between their respectivelike and unlike reactions to experience?

Both were sensitive to artistic impressions, musical in preference toplastic or pictorial. Both preferred a continental to an insular mannerof life, a cisatlantic to a transatlantic place of residence. Bothindurated by early domestic training and an inherited tenacity ofheterodox resistance professed their disbelief in many orthodoxreligious, national, social and ethical doctrines. Both admitted thealternately stimulating and obtunding influence of heterosexualmagnetism. (beginning of chapter 17, Ithaca)

* language draws attention to itself: not a transparent mediumstyle is all: style takes the place of moral attitude, of any normative view

Structure:

Section I: Telemachiad (focusing on Stephen Dedalus: story of „Telemachus” longing for his father)1 Telemachus2 Nestor3 Proteus

Section II Ch. 4--15 (focusing on Leopold Bloom: his wonderings in Dublin; the story of Odysseus” deprived of his wife and son, longing for home)

Section III Nostos or return: they go home together to wife, Molly16 Eumaeus17 IthacaChapter 18 Penelope: focusing on Molly Bloom: stream of consciousness

relationship of Stephen and Bloomfirst 3 chapters: Stephen and his companions

second 3 chapters: Bloom

chapter 7 (Aeolus): newspaper-office scene: we someting of both

in following episodes: unconsciously chase each other; sometimes appearing together for a moment

chapter 12: Cyclops: Bloom in the pub

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 climax (see above)

16—17: joint journey home

Chapter 18 (Penelope)

Joyce’s presentation of „the eternal feminine”: Woman = great cycle of nature, a home to return to I love flowers Id love to have the whole place swimming in roses God of heaven theres nothing like nature the wild mountains then the sea and the waves rushing then the beautiful country with the fields of oats and wheat and all kinds of things and all the fine cattle going about that would do your heart good to see rivers and lakes and flowers all sorts of shapes and smells and colours springing up even out of the ditches primroses and violets nature it is as for them saying theres noGod I wouldnt give a snap of my two fingers for all their learning why dont they go and create something I often asked him atheists or whatever they call themselves go and wash the cobbles off themselves first then they go howling for the priest and they dying and why why because theyre afraid of hell on account of their bad conscience ah yes I know them well who was the first person in the universe before there was anybody that made it all who ah that they dont know nei her do I so there you are they might as well try to stop the sun from rising tomorrow 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 who else from all the ends of Europe and Duke street and the fowl market all clucking outside Larby Sharons and the poor donkeys slipping half asleepand 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 with the old windows of the posadas 2 glancing eyes a lattice hid for her lover to kiss the iron and the wineshops half open at night and the castanets and the night we missed the boat at Algeciras the watchman going about serene with his lamp and O that awful deepdown torrent O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and the pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed meunder the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

POSTMODERN FICTION

1. „postmodernism” in general: the ’structure of feeling’ has changed (the 80s)

rise of postmodern architecture in the seventies VERSUS high modernist buildings

widespread doubt in and questioning of the Enlightenment legacy:

end of modernity = end of scientific positivism (end of Enlightenment certitudes)„pure reason”, „objectivity” is impossible, knowledge is human and mediated (see Thomas Kuhn: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 1964)

reason (intellectual know-how and its resultant technology) has failed to deliver the good lifethe belief in progress shattered (Western culture no longer privileged)

questioning of metanarratives: deep aversion to universal emancipation (metanarratives: broad interpretative schemas)the political promise of the Enlightenment has failedinstead: 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 instantaneityhistory plundered

superficiality, loss of depth (no continuity of values and beliefs), images, appearance, attachment to surfaces

2. Postmodern literary theory, postmodern literature and fiction

(Ihab Hassan’s table, 1985)

modernism postmodernism

metaphysics, transcendence irony, immanence

creation/totalization/synthesis creation/deconstruction/antithesis

centring dispersal

genre/boundary text/intertext

interpretation/reading against interpretation/misreading

art object/finished work process/performance/happening

* Television is the first cultural medium in the whole of history to present the artistic achievements of the past as a stitched together collage of equi-important and simultaneously existing phenomena, largely divorced from geography and material history and transported to the living rooms and studios of the West in a more or less uninterrupted flow. It posits a viewer, furthermore, who shares the medium’s own perception of history as an endless reserve of equal events. It is hardly surprising that the artist’s relation to history (the peculiar historicism we have already noted) has shifted, that in the era of mass

television there has emerged an attachment to surfaces rather than roots, to collage rather than in-depth work, to super-imposed quoted images rather than worked surfaces, to a collapsed sense of time and space rather than solidly achieved cultural artefact. And these are all vital aspects of artistic practice in the post-modern condition. (From David Harvey: Condition of Postmodernity)

2. Postmodernist fiction (Brian McHale, 1987)

i. „Real, compared to what?”

modernism: multiple perspectives on the same realitypostmodern novels: a plurality of worlds (is there a single reality?)

detective story: modernismscience fiction: postmodernism

if reality is constructed (humanly, socially constructed):there is any number of possible worlds

John Fowles: The French Lieutenant’s Woman:three alternative endingsself-consuming text, self-erasure (Derrida),

Magic realism: the fantastic (= coined by German art critic Franz Roh in 1925)ontological landscapes: double (sacred-profane)single (hardscore positivism)plural (postmodern: anarchic landscape of worlds)

reality between fact (or history) and fiction: blurredthe real is combined with the inexplicable and the fantastic (and sometimes with the Gothic)postmodernists fictionalize history: is history itself a form of fiction?

Salman Rushdie: Midnight Children (1981)Gabriel García Márquez: Cien aňos de soledad (1967)Mihail Bulgakov: The Master and Margarita (1966)

rhetoric of contrastive banality:

Midnight’s Children: historical fantasy: integrating the historical and the fantasticofficial version of history VERSUS alternative, secret history

Indian history linked to the fates of children born at the same time (midnight, August 15, 1947: the day of Indian independence)

narrator: Saleem Sinaithe children: microcosms of the Indian macrocosm, paralleling or mirroring public history in their private histories

ii. Literature in English

cosmopolitan concept of literature written in English)the dominant role of the West, esp. orientalism questioned

(Colin MacCabe, 1981): „the multiplication of Englishes throughout the world and their attendant literatures”; „English literature is dead – long live writing in English”

examples for literature in English: Salman Rushdie: Midnight’s ChildrenKazuo Ishiguro: Remains of the Day

iii. Postmodern satire

„A poet's work .. to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world and stop it from going to sleep.' And [the novel goes on] if rivers of blood flow from the cuts his verses inflict then they will nourish him. He is the satirist, Baal” (Rushdie: Satanic verses)

characterized by exuberant excess, unbridled rage

carnivalized literature – typically scandalous