TEXTE LITERARE, CONTEXTE CULTURALE I PREDAREA LOR

A.OBIECTIVE

Candidaii vor dovedi capacitatea de : a nelege i analiza un text literar la prima vedere prin utilizarea corect a termenilor i conceptelor, noiunilor de teorie i critic literar prin care un text se plaseaz n context istoric i cultural; a contientiza i transmite atitudini culturale (cultural awareness); a adecva predarea termenilor i a conceptelor de teorie i critic literar la diverse tipuri de clase; a selecta texte literare n predarea limbii engleze ca limb strin; a aborda temele generale de mai jos cu referire la operele incluse n bibliografie.

B.TEME GENERALE

Power, identity, love in Shakespeares plays and sonnets Enlightenment ideas reflected in the English novel The Victorian character: values in action Approaches to narrative and character in British and American literature - the realist, modernist and postmodernist paradigms. Values, symbols and myths in British and American literature

Literatura britanic

Austen, Jane: Pride and Prejudice or Emma Bronte, Emily: Wuthering Heights Carroll, Lewis: Alices Adventures in Wonderland Conrad, Joseph: Heart of Darkness sau Lord Jim Defoe, Daniel: Robinson Crusoe Dickens, Charles: Great Expectations sau Oliver Twist Forster, E. M.: A Passage to India sau A Room With a View Fowles, John: The French Lieutenants Woman sau The Magus Golding, William: Lord of the Flies Hardy, Thomas: Tess of the DUrbervilles sau Jude the Obscure James, Henry: The Portrait of a Lady sau The Ambassadors Joyce, James: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man sau Dubliners Shakespeare, William: Sonnets XVIII, CXXX; Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, A Midsummer Nights Dream. Swift, Jonathan: Gullivers Travels Woolf, Virginia: Mrs. Dalloway sau To the Lighthouse

Literatura american

Faulkner, William: Absalom, Absalom sau The Sound and The Fury Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea; The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber Melville, Herman. Moby Dick Poe, Edgar Allan. The Tell-Tale Heart; The Fall of the House of Usher Pynchon, Thomas. The Crying of Lot 49 Twain, Mark. Huckleberry Finn Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse 5

Oral Exam

William Falkners Absalom, Absalom: from literary text to cultural context.

Written Exam

Consider the following text:

Contextualize it from a historical and cultural point of view, and discuss its relevance with reference to its authors literary canon (2 paragraphs). Which of the next thematic approaches do you find best able to reveal its meanings and stylistic preferences? Argument your opinion. (1 paragraph). Analyse the text with the above in view (3 paragraphs).

Power, identity, love in Shakespeares sonnets and plays

The Shakespearean Sonnet: themes and poetic style in Shakespeares comic worlds: rhetoric and personation in Shakespeares tragic hero: infringement and identity in

Sonnet XVIII

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date; Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed: But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st, Nor shall Death brag thou wand'rest in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st. So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

A Midsummer Nights Dream, Act V, Scene One

PUCK: If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumber'd here While these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme, No more yielding but a dream, Gentles, do not reprehend: if you pardon, we will mend: And, as I am an honest Puck, If we have unearned luck Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue, We will make amends ere long; Else the Puck a liar call; So, good night unto you all. Give me your hands, if we be friends, And Robin shall restore amends.

Hamlet, Act III, Scene One

HAMLET : To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heartheart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. wish'd. To die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause: there's the respect That makes calamity of so long life; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, The insolence of office and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscover'd country from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pith and moment With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action.-Soft you now! action.--Soft The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons Be all my sins remember'd. remember'd.

Enlightenment ideas reflected in the English novel

Swift, Jonathan: Gullivers Travels Defoe, Daniel: Robinson Crusoe Austen, Jane: Pride and Prejudice

Neoclassicism

A principle according to which the writing and criticism of literature should be guided by the rules and principles derived from the best of Greek and Roman writers. It dominated French literature during the 17th and 18th centuries. It had a significant influence in England from the Restoration until 1798. Characteristics:

A regard for tradition and reverence for the classics, with an accompanying mistrust of innovation; A sense of literature as art (i.e. artificed), hence the value put on rules, conventions, decorum, the properties of received genres; A concern for social reality and the communal commonplaces of thought which hold it together (art is pragmatic and man is its most appropriate subject); A concern for nature, i.e. the way things are and should be; A concern with pride (standing for individual self-assertion against the status quo).

Jonathan Swift (1667 1745)

Born in Ireland, of Anglo-Irish parents Writings:

Characteristic style:

satires

A Tale of a Tub (1704) The Battle of the Books (1704) Gullivers Travels (1726)

It combines parody, with its imitation of form and style of another work/author, and satire in prose. It moves away from simple satire or burlesque:

essays Pamphlets

The Story of an Injured Lady (1707) A Short View of the State of Ireland (1727) A Modest Proposal (1729)

Satire: argues against a habit, practice, or policy by making fun of its reach or composition or methods; Burlesque: imitates a despised author and quickly moves to reductio ad absurdum by having the victim say things coarse or idiotic.

poems

It pretends to speak in the voice of an opponent and imitate the style of the opponent and have the parodic work itself be the satire: the imitation would have subtle betrayals of the argument but would not be obviously absurd.

Gullivers Travels

Both a satire on human nature and a parody of the "travellers' tales" literary sub-genre. It is divided in 4 parts:

Part I: A Voyage to Lilliput Part II: A Voyage to Brobdingnag Part III: A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Glubbdubdrib, Luggnagg and Japan Part IV: A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms a satirical view of the state of European government, and of petty differences between religions. an inquiry into whether men are inherently corrupt or whether they become corrupted. a restatement of the older "ancients versus moderns" controversy. each part is the reverse of the preceding part; Gulliver's view between parts contrasts with its other coinciding part.

Themes:

Construction:

Part 2, Chapter 7
In hopes to ingratiate my self farther into his Majesty's Favour, I told him of an Invention discovered between three and four hundred Years ago, to make a certain Powder, into a Heap of which the smallest Spark of Fire falling, would kindle the whole in a Moment, although it were as big as a Mountain, and make it all fly up in the Air together, with a Noise and Agitation greater than Thunder. That a proper Quantity of this Powder rammed into a hollow Tube of Brass or Iron, according to its Bigness, would drive a Ball of Iron or Lead with such Violence and Speed, as nothing was able to sustain its Force. That the largest Balls thus discharged, would not only destroy whole Ranks of an Army at once, but batter the strongest Walls to the Ground, sink down Ships, with a Thousand Men in each, to the Bottom of the Sea; and, when linked together by a Chain, would cut through Masts and Rigging, divide hundreds of Bodies in the Middle, and lay all waste before them. That we often put this Powder into large hollow Balls of Iron, and discharged them by an Engine into some City we were besieging, which would rip up the Pavements, tear the Houses to pieces, burst and throw Splinters on every Side, dashing out the Brains of all who came near. That I knew the Ingredients very well, which were cheap, and common; I understood the Manner of compounding them, and could direct his Workmen how to make those Tubes of a Size proportionable to all other Things in his Majesty's Kingdom, and the largest need not be above an hundred Foot long; twenty or thirty of which Tubes, charged with the proper Quantity of Powder and Balls, would batter down the Walls of the strongest Town in his Dominions in a few Hours, or destroy the whole Metropolis, if ever it should pretend to dispute his absolute Commands. This I humbly offered to his Majesty, as a small Tribute of Acknowledgment in Return of so many Marks that I had received of his Royal Favour and Protection. The King was struck with Horror at the Description I had given of those terrible Engines, and the Proposal I had made. He was amazed how so impotent and grovelling an Insect as I (these were his Expressions) could entertain such inhuman Ideas, and in so Familiar a Manner as to appear wholly unmoved at all the Scenes of Blood and Desolation, which I had painted as the common Effects of those destructive Machines, whereof he said some evil Genius, Enemy to Mankind, must have been the first Contriver. As for himself, he protested that although few Things delighted him so much as new Discoveries in Art or in Nature, yet he would rather lose half his Kingdom than be privy to such a Secret, which he commanded me, as I valued my Life, never to mention any more.

Daniel Defoe (1660-1731)

Sometimes called the founder of the modern English novel, Defoe established:

a dominant unifying theme with a serious thesis convincing realism (through an almost-journalistic first-person narrative) a middle class viewpoint His works are written in the form of fictional autobiography or diaries to make them more realistic. There is no real plot, just a chronological series of connected episodes featuring a single protagonist. The protagonist must struggle to overcome a series of misfortunes, using only his or her physical and mental resources. Defoes self supporting hero/heroine combines the virtues of Puritanism and merchant capitalism. There is no psychological development of the characters, only in their external condition. His fictional autobiographies anticipate semi autobiographical novels such as Jane Eyre.

Characteristics:

Robinson Crusoe

It reworks the memoirs of an actual sailor (Alexander Selkirk) in the story of Robinson Crusoe; Plot: Crusoe is a mariner who takes to sea despite parental warnings and, after suffering a number of misfortunes at the hands of Barbary pirates and the elements, is shipwrecked off South America, where, according to his journal, is able to resist for some 28 years, two months and nineteen days. Interpretations:

James Joyce: "He is the true prototype of the British colonist the manly independence, the unconscious cruelty, the persistence, the slow yet efficient intelligence, the sexual apathy, the calculating taciturnity". J.P. Hunter: Robinson is not a hero, but an everyman (he begins as a wanderer, and ends as a pilgrim, entering the promised land.) Like Jonah, Crusoe neglects his 'duty' and is punished at sea. Puritan morality: Crusoe often feels himself guided by a divinely ordained fate (Providence), thus explaining his robust optimism in the face of apparent hopelessness. Protestant work ethic: Crusoe's experiences on the island represents the inherent economic value of labour over capital. Defoe's point is that money has no intrinsic value and is only valuable insofar as it can be used in trade.

CHAPTER IV
WHEN I waked it was broad day, the weather clear, and the storm abated, so that the sea did not rage and swell as before. But that which surprised me most was, that the ship was lifted off in the night from the sand where she lay by the swelling of the tide, and was driven up almost as far as the rock which I at first mentioned, where I had been so bruised by the wave dashing me against it. This being within about a mile from the shore where I was, and the ship seeming to stand upright still, I wished myself on board, that at least I might save some necessary things for my use. When I came down from my apartment in the tree, I looked about me again, and the first thing I found was the boat, which lay, as the wind and the sea had tossed her up, upon the land, about two miles on my right hand. I walked as far as I could upon the shore to have got to her; but found a neck or inlet of water between me and the boat which was about half a mile broad; so I came back for the present, being more intent upon getting at the ship, where I hoped to find something for my present subsistence. A little after noon I found the sea very calm, and the tide ebbed so far out that I could come within a quarter of a mile of the ship. And here I found a fresh renewing of my grief; for I saw evidently that if we had kept on board we had been all safe - that is to say, we had all got safe on shore, and I had not been so miserable as to be left entirety destitute of all comfort and company as I now was. This forced tears to my eyes again; but as there was little relief in that, I resolved, if possible, to get to the ship; so I pulled pulled off my clothes - for the weather was hot to extremity and took the water. But when I came to the ship my difficulty was still greater to know how to get on board; for, as she lay aground, and high out of the water, there was nothing within my reach to lay hold of. I swam round her twice, and the second time I spied a small piece of rope, which I wondered I did not see at first, hung down by the forefore-chains so low, as that with great difficulty I got hold of it, and by the help of that rope I got up into the forecastle of the ship. Here I found that the ship was bulged, and had a great deal of water in her hold, but that she lay so on the side of a bank of hard sand, or, rather earth, that her stern lay lifted up upon the bank, and her head low, almost to the water. By this means all her quarter was free, and all that was in that part was dry; for you may be sure my first work was to search, and to see what was spoiled and what was free. And, first, I found that all the ship ships provisions were dry and untouched by the water, and being very well disposed to eat, I went to the bread room and filled my pockets with biscuit, and ate it as I went about other things, for I had no time to lose. I also found some rum in the great cabin, of which I took a large dram, and which I had, indeed, need enough of to spirit me for what was before me. Now I wanted nothing but a boat to furnish myself with many things which I foresaw would be very necessary to me.

Jane Austen (1775-1817)

Jane Austen contributed to what has been called as the NOVEL OF MANNERS: a kind of fiction focused on everyday routine life and events:

Basic premise: there is a vital relationship between manners, social behaviour and character. Set in those levels of society where people do not have to struggle for survival and where they are free to develop more or less elaborate RULES, CODES and CONVENTIONS of daily behaviour. It explores character, personal relationships, class distinctions and their effect on character and behaviour; the role of MONEY and PROPERTY in the way people treat each other; the complications of LOVE and FRIENDSHIP within this social world. CONVERSATION plays a central role in these novels and PASSIONS and EMOTIONS are not expressed directly but more subtly and obliquely. The traditional values of the families of the landed gentry and upper middle class (PROPERTY, DECORUM, MONEY and MARRIAGE ) provides the basis of the plots and settings of her novels. Her preoccupation was with people, and the analysis of character and conduct. She remained committed to the common sense and moral principles of the previous generation. The happy ending is a common element to her novels: they all end in the marriage of hero and heroine. What makes them interesting is the concentration on the steps through which the protagonists successfully reach this stage in their lives. She treats love and sexual attraction according to her general view that strong impulses and intensely emotional states should be REGULATED, CONTROLLED and BROUGHT TO ORDER by private reflection in order to fulfill a social obligation. The heroine's reflection after a crisis or climax is a usual feature of J. Austen's novels because understanding and coming to terms with her private feelings allows her personal judgement to establish itself and secures her own moral autonomy.

Characteristics:

Pride and Prejudice

IT is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters. "My dear Mr. Bennet," said his lady to him one day, "have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?" Mr. Bennet replied that he had not. "But it is," returned she; "for Mrs. Long has just been here, and she told me all about it." Mr. Bennet made no answer. "Do not you want to know who has taken it?" cried his wife impatiently. "You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it." This was invitation enough. "Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs. Long says that Netherfield is taken by a young man of large fortune from the north of England; that he came down on Monday in a chaise and four to see the place, and was so much delighted with it that he agreed with Mr. Morris immediately; that he is to take possession before Michaelmas, and some of his servants are to be in the house by the end of next week." "What is his name?" "Bingley." "Is he married or single?" "Oh! single, my dear, to be sure! A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls!" "How so? how can it affect them?" "My dear Mr. Bennet," replied his wife, "how can you be so tiresome! You must know that I am thinking of his marrying one of them." "Is that his design in settling here?" "Design! nonsense, how can you talk so! But it is very likely that he may fall in love with one of them, and therefore you must visit him as soon as he comes." "I see no occasion for that. You and the girls may go, or you may send them by themselves, which perhaps will be still better; for, as you are as handsome as any of them, Mr. Bingley might like you the best of the party." "My dear, you flatter me. I certainly have had my share of beauty, but I do not pretend to be any thing extraordinary now. When a woman has five grown up daughters, she ought to give over thinking of her own beauty." "In such cases, a woman has not often much beauty to think of." "But, my dear, you must indeed go and see Mr. Bingley when he comes into the neighbourhood." "It is more than I engage for, I assure you." "But consider your daughters. Only think what an establishment it would be for one of them. Sir William and Lady Lucas are determined to go, merely on that account, for in general, you know they visit no new comers. Indeed you must go, for it will be impossible for us to visit him, if you do not." "You are over-scrupulous, surely. I dare say Mr. Bingley will be very glad to see you; and I will send a few lines by you to assure him of my hearty consent to his marrying which ever he chuses of the girls; though I must throw in a good word for my little Lizzy."

The Victorian character: values in action

Bronte, Emily: Wuthering Heights Dickens, Charles: Great Expectations Hardy, Thomas: Tess of the DUrbervilles

Victorian Age

Chronologically comprised between 1837 and 1901 (reign of Queen Victoria) It is equated with Englands rise to the pinnacle of her economic and political power as revealed by the Great Exhibition of 1851 or the Queens Diamond Jubilee of 1897

The British colonial empire (covering a vast territory from Canada to India) Industrialisation: material progress coupled with the exploitation of the poor and the emergence of a class-conscious working-class (the Chartist movement, the popularity of the doctrine of socialism among some intellectuals like the Webbs and G.B. Shaw. )

As a state of mind and pattern of behaviour: Victorian Orthodoxy manifested by middle-class self-complacency, respect for authority and rules, nave confidence in the societys concern to reward the individual according to his merits. Anti-Victorian attitudes: writers and artists who did not share the general enthusiasm with material progress. Darwinism further divided the intellectual world (many Victorians lost their belief in the immortality of the soul.)

The Victorian Novel

leading literary form publication of novels in instalments (serialisation): part-issue serial publication in weekly newspapers advantages:

keeping contact with the readers testing their opinion necessity to keep their interest awake to buy the next instalment the necessity to use too many characters and plots Inconsistencies

disadvantages:

chronological presentation the writers often feel the necessity to teach a moral lesson (Ch. Dickens) many discuss the heros actions with the readers (W. M. Thackeray) narrative technique: 3rd person narration omniscient author more objective (W. M. Thackeray, Ch. Bront in Shirley, George Eliot 1st person narration autobiography more subjective (Ch. Bront in Jane Eyre) using narrators (E. Bront in Wuthering Heights) generations of writers spokesperson of the epoch, confident in Victorian institutions, science and progress, the possibility that the individual can be improved (C. Dickens, W. M. Thackeray, Ch. and Anne Bront, E. Gaskell, George Eliot) popular at the time more pessimistic, less confident in Victorian values, explore the darker sides of the human personality (George Meredith, Th. Hardy) less popular during the age Link and transition between romanticism and modernism

Emily Bronte author of one single novel, Wuthering Heights ( a novel of passion, love and hatred) story driven by profound and primitive energies - out of space, time and moral Structure: a cyclical novel, moving in a tragic circle from relative peace and harmony to violence, destruction, and intense suffering, and finally back into peace and harmony again. a work of extreme contrasts: Heathcliff: bipolar personality dominated by love and hatred genius of evil, rules and manipulates everybody obsession for revenge mythic dimensions principle of evil and destruction

Wuthering Heights is the name of Mr. Heathcliff's dwelling. 'Wuthering' being a significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station station is exposed in stormy weather. Pure, bracing ventilation they must have up there at all times, indeed: indeed: one may guess the power of the north wind blowing over the edge, by the excessive slant of a few stunted firs firs at the end of the house; and by a range of gaunt thorns all stretching their limbs one way, as if craving alms alms of the sun. Happily, the architect had foresight to build it strong: the narrow windows are deeply set in the wall, and the corners defended with large jutting stones. Before passing the threshold, I paused to admire a quantity of grotesque grotesque carving lavished over the front, and especially about the principal door; above which, among a wilderness wilderness of crumbling griffins and shameless little boys, I detected the date '1500,' and the name 'Hareton 'Hareton Earnshaw.' Earnshaw.' I would have made a few comments, and requested a short history of the place from the surly surly owner; but his attitude at the door appeared to demand my speedy entrance, or complete departure, and and I had no desire to aggravate his impatience previous to inspecting the penetralium. penetralium. One stop brought us into the family sittingsitting-room, without any introductory lobby or passage: they call it here 'the house' prepre- eminently. It includes kitchen and parlour, parlour, generally; but I believe at Wuthering Heights the kitchen is forced to retreat altogether into another quarter: quarter: at least I distinguished a chatter of tongues, and a clatter of culinary utensils, deep within; and I observed no signs of roasting, boiling, or baking, about the huge fireplace; nor any glitter of copper saucepans and tin colanders on the walls. One end, indeed, reflected splendidly both light and heat from ranks of immense pewter pewter dishes, interspersed with silver jugs and tankards, towering row after row, on a vast oak dresser, to the very roof. The latter had never been underunder-drawn: its entire anatomy lay bare to an inquiring eye, except where where a frame of wood laden with oatcakes and clusters of legs of beef, mutton, and ham, concealed concealed it. Above the chimney were sundry villainous old guns, and a couple of horsehorse-pistols: and, by way of ornament, three gaudilygaudily-painted canisters disposed along its ledge. The floor was of smooth, white stone; the chairs, highhigh-backed, primitive structures, painted green: one or two heavy black ones lurking in the shade. In an arch under the dresser reposed a huge, liverliver-coloured bitch pointer, surrounded by a swarm of squealing puppies; and other dogs haunted other recesses.

The apartment and furniture would have been nothing extraordinary extraordinary as belonging to a homely, northern farmer, with a stubborn countenance, and stalwart limbs set out to advantage in kneeknee- breeches and gaiters. Such an individual seated in his armarm-chair, his mug of ale frothing on the round table before him, is to be seen in any circuit of five or six miles among these hills, if you you go at the right time after dinner. But Mr. Heathcliff forms a singular contrast to his abode and style of living. He is a darkdark- skinned gypsy in aspect, in dress and manners a gentleman: that is, as much a gentleman as many many a country squire: rather slovenly, perhaps, yet not looking amiss with his negligence, because he has has an erect and handsome figure; and rather morose. Possibly, some people might suspect him of a degree of under -bred pride; I have a sympathetic underchord within that tells me it is nothing of the sort: I know, by instinct, his reserve springs from an aversion to showy displays of feeling - to manifestations of mutual kindliness. He'll love and hate equally equally under cover, and esteem it a species of impertinence to be loved or hated again. again. No, I'm running on too fast: I bestow my own attributes overover-liberally on him. Mr. Heathcliff may have entirely dissimilar reasons for keeping his hand out of the way when he meets a wouldwould-be acquaintance, to those which actuate me. Let me hope my constitution is almost peculiar: my dear mother used to say I should should never have a comfortable home; and only last summer I proved myself perfectly unworthy of one.

"Dear Pip," said Biddy, "you are sure you don't fret for her?" "O no - I think not, Biddy."

Dickens his novels are fables about the good and the evil and their purpose is obviously to educate he uses elements of the detective novel, parallelisms, sensational incidents, melodrama, etc. he deals chiefly with the life of the middle and lower classes of society his novels are filled with humour, grotesqueness and pathos. he is satirical satire associated with caricature his characters are often depicted in a funny way but always with sympathy Dickenss criticism is commonly directed against institutions and not individuals. Great Expectations (1860-1861) based on his own autobiographical experience

"Tell me as an old, old friend. Have you quite forgotten her? "My dear Biddy, I have forgotten nothing in my life that ever had had a foremost place there, and little that ever had any place there. But that poor dream, dream, as I once used to call it, has all gone by, Biddy, all gone by!" Nevertheless, I knew while I said those words, that I secretly intended intended to revisit the site of the old house that evening, alone, for her sake. Yes even even so. For Estella's sake. I had heard of her as leading a most unhappy life, and as being separated from her husband, who had used her with great cruelty, and who had become quite renowned as a compound of pride, avarice, brutality, and meanness. And I had heard of the death of her husband, from an accident consequent on his illill-treatment of a horse. This release had befallen her some two years before; for anything anything I knew, she was married again. The early dinnerdinner-hour at Joe's, left me abundance of time, without hurrying my talk talk with Biddy, to walk over to the old spot before dark. But, what with loitering on the way, to look at old objects and to think of old times, the day had had quite declined when I came to the place. There was no house now, no brewery, no building whatever left, but but the wall of the old garden. The cleared space had been enclosed with a rough fence, fence, and, looking over it, I saw that some of the old ivy had struck root anew, and was growing green on low quiet mounds of ruin. A gate in the fence standing ajar, I pushed pushed it open, and went in. A cold silvery mist had veiled the afternoon, and the moon was not not yet up to scatter it. But, the stars were shining beyond the mist, and the moon was coming, coming, and the evening was not dark. I could trace out where every part of the old house had been, and where the brewery had been, and where the gate, and where the the casks. I had done so, and was looking along the desolate gardenwalk, gardenwalk, when I beheld a solitary figure in it. The figure showed itself aware of me, as I advanced. It had been moving towards me, but it stood still. As I drew nearer, I saw it to be the figure of a woman. As I drew nearer yet, it was about to turn away, when it stopped, and let me come up with it. Then, it faltered as if much surprised, and uttered my name, and I cried out: "Estella!"

Hardy he believed that modern civilisation corrupts and crushes the individual mans destiny is tragic he developed a philosophy of pessimism human beings are crushed by a triple superior force: of nature of hostile chance of personal errors his characters struggle against ill fortune and try to escape predestination he is the creator of an imaginary country (in the SW of England): Wessex

The city of Wintoncester, Wintoncester, that fine old city, aforetime capital of Wessex, Wessex, lay amidst its convex and concave downlands in all the brightness and warmth of a July morning. The gabled brick, tile, tile, and freestone houses had almost dried off for the season their integument of lichen, the streams in the meadows meadows were low, and in the sloping High Street, from the West Gateway to the mediaeval cross, and from the mediaeval cross to the bridge, that leisurely dusting and sweeping was in progress which usually ushers in an oldold-fashioned marketmarket-day.

From the western gate aforesaid the highway, as every Wintoncestrian knows, ascends a long and regular incline of the exact length of a measured mile, leaving the houses gradually gradually behind. Up this road from the precincts of the city two persons were walking rapidly, as if unconscious of the trying unconscious through preoccupation and trying ascent-ascent--unconscious not through buoyancy. They had emerged upon this road through a narrow barred wicket in a high wall a little lower down. They seemed anxious to get out of the sight of the houses houses and of their kind, and this road appeared to offer the quickest means of doing so. Though they were young they they walked with bowed heads, which gait of grief the sun's rays smiled on pitilessly. One of the pair was Angel Clare, the other a tall budding creature --half half girl, half woman-a spiritualized image of creature-woman--a Tess, Clare's sister-Lu. Their pale faces seemed to Tess, slighter than she, but with the same beautiful eyes-eyes--Clare's sister-inin-law, 'Liza 'Lizahave shrunk to half their natural size. They moved on hand in hand, hand, and never spoke a word, the drooping of their heads being that of Giotto's "Two Apostles". When they had nearly reached the top of the great West Hill the clocks in the town struck eight. Each gave a start at the notes, and, walking onward yet a few steps, they reached the first milestone, standing whitely on the green margin of the grass, and backed by the down, which here was open to the road. They entered upon the turf, and, impelled by a force that seemed to overrule their will, suddenly stood still, turned, and waited in paralyzed suspense beside the stone. The prospect from this summit was almost unlimited. In the valley valley beneath lay the city they had just left, its more prominent buildings showing as in an isometric drawing-among them the broad cathedral tower, with its Norman drawing--among windows and immense length of aisle and nave, the spires of St Thomas's, Thomas's, the pinnacled tower of the College, and, more to the right, the tower and gables of the ancient hospice, where to this day the pilgrim may receive his dole of bread and ale. Behind the city swept the rotund upland of St Catherine's Catherine's Hill; further off, landscape beyond landscape, till the horizon was lost in the radiance of the sun hanging above it. Against these far stretches of country rose, in front of the other other city edifices, a large redred-brick building, with level gray roofs, and rows of short barred windows bespeaking captivity, captivity, the whole contrasting greatly by its formalism with the quaint irregularities of the Gothic erections. It was somewhat somewhat disguised from the road in passing it by yews and evergreen oaks, but it was visible enough up here. The wicket wicket from which the pair had lately emerged was in the wall of this structure. From the middle of the building an ugly ugly flatflat-topped octagonal tower ascended against the east horizon, and viewed from this spot, on its shady side and against against the light, it seemed the one blot on the city's beauty. Yet it was with this blot, and not with the beauty, that the two gazers were concerned. Upon the cornice of the tower a tall staff was fixed. Their eyes were riveted on it. A few minutes after the hour had struck something moved slowly up the staff, and extended itself upon the breeze. It was a black flag. "Justice" was done, and the President of the Immortals, in Aeschylean phrase, had ended his sport with Tess. Tess. And the d'Urberville knights and dames slept on in their tombs unknowing. The two speechless speechless gazers bent themselves down to the earth, as if in prayer, and remained thus a long time, time, absolutely motionless: the flag continued to wave silently. As soon as they had strength they arose, joined hands again, and went on.

Approaches to narrative and character in British and American literature the romantic, realist, modernist and postmodernist paradigms.

Romantic:

Modernist:

Bronte, Emily: Wuthering Heights Melville, Herman. Moby Dick Edgar, Alan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice Charles Dickens, Great Expectations Twain, Mark. Huckleberry Finn

Realist:

Joyce, James: A Portrait of the Artist Woolf, Virginia: Mrs. Dalloway* Foster, E.M.: A Passage to India* Faulkner, William: Absalom, Absalom Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea Golding, William: Lord of the Flies Fowles, John: The French Lieutenants Woman*

Postmodernist:

_____________________________ * See the information and the text selection in Michaela Praisler, On Modernism, Postmodernism and the Novel (EDP, 2005).

Romaticism

Romanticism is a movement in art and literature that began in Europe in the late 18th century and was most influential in the first half of the 19th century. Romanticism fosters a return to nature and also values the imagination over reason and emotion over intellect. One strain of the Romantic is the Gothic with its emphasis on tales of horror and the supernatural.

(Robert Kiely, The Romantic Novel in England)

Romantic elements in Wuthering Heights

The dynamic antagonism or antithesis in the novel tends to subvert, if not to reject literary conventions; often a novel verges on turning into something else, like poetry or drama. In Wuthering Heights, realism in presenting Yorkshire landscape and life and the historical precision of season, dates, and hours co-exist with the dreamlike and the unhistorical; Bront refuses to be confined by conventional classifications. The protagonists' wanderings are motivated by flight from previously-chosen goals, so that often there is a pattern of escape and pursuit. Consider Catherine's marriage for social position, stability, and wealth, her efforts to evade the consequences of her marriage, the demands of Heathcliff and Edgar, and her final mental wandering. The protagonists are driven by irresistible passionlust, curiosity, ambition, intellectual pride, envy. The emphasis is on their desire for transcendence, to overcome the limitations of the body, of society, of time rather than their moral transgressions. They yearn to escape the limitations inherent to life and may find that the only escape is death. The longings of a Heathcliff cannot be fulfilled in life. Death is not only a literal happening or plot device, but also and primarily a psychological concern. For the protagonists, death originates in the imagination, becomes a "tendency of mind," and may develop into an obsession. As in Gothic fiction, buildings are central to meaning; the supernatural, wild nature, dream and madness, physical violence, and perverse sexuality are set off against social conventions and institutions. Initially, this may create the impression that the novel is two books in one, but finally Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights fuse. Endings are disquieting and unsatisfactory because the writer resists a definitive conclusion, one which accounts for all loose ends and explains away any ambiguities or uncertainties. The preference for openendedness is, ultimately, an effort to resist the limits of time and of place That effort helps explain the importance of dreams and memories of other times and location, like Catherine's delirious memories of childhood at Wuthering Heights and rambles on the moors.

American Gothic

The gothic explores the dark or uncertain sides of human nature. Rapid social changes in the nineteenth century cause anxiety in America, nurturing a gothic sensibility in literature. In stories of obsessive or tormented characters who find their most basic assumptions about the world turned upside-down, these writers challenge their readers to question their own values and beliefs through exploring the ever-evolving character of American identity. Hawthorne s works explore the construction of reality through subjective perception, the pasts inevitable and often malevolent hold on the present, and the agonizing ethical dilemmas encountered by individuals in society. The Scarlet Letter works through the painful inheritance of rigid Puritan faith, dealing with the wrenching implications of its conception of sin; it also expresses anxiety about the torments of gender inequality Melvilles Moby-Dick shares a similar interest in the dark truths of humanity; the white whale is a symbol of ambiguity and uncertainty, and the ship functions as a microcosm of midnineteenth century society; Ahabs hunt is symbolically a rage against God. Often set in exotic, vaguely medieval, or indeterminately distant locations, Poes work seems more interested in altered states of consciousness than history or culture: his characters often swirl within madness, dreams, or intoxication, and may or may not encounter the supernatural, functioning as allegories of human consciousness. For example, there are many doubles in Poe: characters who mirror each other in profound but nonrealistic ways, suggesting not so much the subtleties of actual social relationships as the splits and fractures within a single psyche trying to relate to itself.

Realism

Realism is an aesthetic mode which broke with the classical demands of art to show life as it should be in order to show life "as it is." The work of realist art tends to eschew the elevated subject matter of tragedy in favour of the quotidian; the average, the commonplace, the middle classes and their daily struggles with the mean verities of everyday existence (these are the typical subject matters of realism.) Realism and the novel: George Levine: a selfconscious effort, usually in the name of some moral enterprise of truth telling and extending the limits of human sympathy, to make literature appear to be describing directly [] reality itself. Ian Watt: realism portrays all the varieties of human experience and identifies a belief in the individual apprehension of reality through the senses. The texts characters within their environment, the used language, a realistic plot and the authors claim of truth, all attempt to reflect a correspondence between life and literature . Roland Barthes: the narrative or plot of a realist novel is structured around an opening enigma which throws the conventional cultural and signifying practices into disarray. But the story must move inevitably towards closure, which in the realist novel involves some dissolution or resolution of the enigma: the murderer is caught, the case is solved, the hero marries the girl. The realist novel drives toward the final re-establishment of harmony and thus re-assures the reader that the value system of signs and cultural practices which he or she shares with the author is not in danger. The political affiliation of the realist novel is thus evident; in trying to show us the world as it is, it often reaffirms, in the last instance, the way things are.

Modernism

A radical shift in aesthetic and cultural sensibilities evident in the art and literature of the first half of the 20th century. It rejected nineteenth-century optimism, presenting a profoundly pessimistic picture of a culture in disarray. This despair often results in an apparent apathy and moral relativism. Literary tactics and devices:

the radical disruption of linear flow of narrative; the frustration of conventional expectations concerning unity and coherence of plot and character and the cause and effect development thereof; the deployment of ironic and ambiguous juxtapositions to call into question the moral and philosophical meaning of literary action; the opposition of inward consciousness to rational, public, objective discourse; and an inclination to subjective distortion to point up the evanescence of the social world of the nineteenth-century bourgeoisie.

Postmodernism

The term postmodernism implies a movement away from and perhaps a reaction against modernism. If modernism sees man rejecting tradition and authority in favor of a reliance on reason and on scientific discovery, postmodernism stretches and breaks away from the idea that man can achieve understanding through a reliance on reason and science. Postmodernist fiction is generally marked by one or more of the following characteristics:

playfulness with language experimentation in the form of the novel

less reliance on traditional narrative form less reliance on traditional character development experimentation with point of view

experimentation with the way time is conveyed in the novel mixture of "high art" and popular culture interest in metafiction, that is, fiction about the nature of fiction

Narrative discourse (Gerard Genette)

narrative: story (histoire): the succession of events being narrated; it provides the content of the tale in the order in which events actually happened to characters, an order that does not always coincide with the order in which they are presented in the narrative; discourse/narrative (rcit): the actual words on the page, the text itself from which the reader constructs both story and narration (narrative is produced by the narrator in the act of narration); narration: the act of telling the story to some audience, and thereby producing the narrative. However, just as the narrator almost never corresponds exactly to the author, the audience (narratee) almost never corresponds exactly to the reader. tense: the arrangement of events with respect to time; it involves the notions of order (i.e. the relationship between the chronology of the story and the chronology of the narrative); duration (i.e. the relationship between the length of time over which a given event occurs in the story and the number of pages devoted to it; that which produces the sense of narrative speed); frequency (the relationship between the ways in which events may be repeated in the story - the same event may occur more than one - and in the narrative - a single event may be described more than once.) mood: the atmosphere of the narrative which is created by the distance between narration and story[1] and perspective, which refers to the point of view of the narrative. voice: the voice of the narrator; it helps determine the narrators attitude to the story being told and his reliability in relation to the way in which the story is told. [1] The greatest distance is achieved when the narrator is one of the characters in the narrative, filtering the events through his consciousness, as well as by the absence of descriptive detail which greatly diminishes the effect of reality; consequently, the least distance requires a minimum presence of the narrator and a maximum of information

Point of View

The perspective from which the reader views the action and characters. The point of view determines the limitations and freedoms that the author has in presenting the plot and theme to the reader. Major types of point of view:

first-person (observations of a character who narrates the story): the narrator speaks as I, and is himself a participant in the story as:

a fortuitous witness of the matters he/she relates, a minor or peripheral participant in the story, the central character in the story OMNISCIENT: the convention in a work of fiction that the narrator knows everything that needs to be known about the agents and the events; is free to move at will in time and place, to shift from character to character, and to report (or conceal) their speech and actions; and also that the narrator has privileged access to the characters thoughts and feelings and motives, as well as to their overt speech and actions. Within this mode, the narrator may be:

third-person:

INTRUSIVE (not only reports, but freely comments on and evaluates the actions and motives of the characters, and sometimes expresses personal views about human life in general) UNINTRUSIVE (IMPERSONAL or OBJECTIVE) (i.e. describes, reports, or shows the action in dramatic scenes without introducing his own comments or judgements.)

LIMITED: the narrator tells the story in the third-person, but within the confines of what is experienced, thought, felt by a single character (or at the most by very few characters) within the story. This technique later evolved into STREAM-OF-CONSCIOUSNESS narration, in which we are presented with outer observations only as they impinge on the current of thought, memory, feelings, and associations which constitute the observers awareness

Characterisation

The process by which an author presents and develops a fictional character. Character: a textual representation of a human being (or occasionally another creature). Key points to note:

we learn about individual characters from their own words and actions; from what other characters say about them and the way others act towards them characters help to advance the plot believable characters must grow and change in response to their experiences in the novel. protagonist: a storys main character antagonist: the character or force in conflict with the protagonist round character: a complex, fully developed character, often prone to change flat character: a one-dimensional character, typically not central to the story

Types:

James Joyce, A Portrait

Narration:

Narrative voice changes greatly over the course of the book The narrator is neither simply the protagonist telling his own story, story, nor an omniscient outsider capable of describing the general social consensus - rather he is a projection of the individual and idiosyncratic perspective of the protagonist himself. Fusion of objective and subjective modes of description The diary at the end, written in first person, offers an apparent apparent resolution of the tension: the young man with his subjective impressions impressions becomes the narrator and a purely subjective firstfirst-person account replaces the tainted objectivity that has constituted the narrative narrative up to that point. Projection of the consciousness of an individual protagonist

Stephen: archetypal hero of a buildungsroman with a dissilusionment plot

the obscure young man from an impoverished but respectable country country family, closely identified with the author, who wants to become his country's national novelist; his identification with Jesus Christ, Napoleon, Parnell, the Count Count of Monte Cristo, Cristo, Dante, and St. Stephen (the first Christian martyr) each chapter Joyce repeats the same pattern of showing Stephen embracing a dream in contempt of reality, then seeing that dream destroyed (e.g. his loss of innocence; his disappointment in romantic romantic love and his subsequent turn to prostitutes) his prodigality at his devoted family's expense followed by his attempted return to the fold of family and church; the novel's conclusion with his apparent but suspect arrival at maturity

A girl stood before him in midstream, alone and still, gazing out to sea. She seemed like one whom magic had changed into the likeness of a strange and beautiful seabird. Her long slender bare legs were delicate as a crane's and pure save where an emerald trail of seaweed had fashioned itself as a sign upon the flesh. Her thighs, fuller and soft-hued as ivory, were bared almost to the hips, where the white fringes of her drawers were like feathering of soft white down. Her slate-blue skirts were kilted boldly about her waist and dovetailed behind her. Her bosom was as a bird's, soft and slight, slight and soft as the breast of some dark-plumaged dove. But her long fair hair was girlish: and girlish, and touched with the wonder of mortal beauty, her face. She was alone and still, gazing out to sea; and when she felt his presence and the worship of his eyes her eyes turned to him in quiet sufferance of his gaze, without shame or wantonness. Long, long she suffered his gaze and then quietly withdrew her eyes from his and bent them towards the stream, gently stirring the water with her foot hither and thither. The first faint noise of gently moving water broke the silence, low and faint and whispering, faint as the bells of sleep; hither and thither, hither and thither; and a faint flame trembled on her cheek. - Heavenly God! cried Stephen's soul, in an outburst of profane joy. (A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Chapter IV.)

Literary devices:

stream of conciousness abrupt tranisions/lack tranisions/lack of plot/ flashbacks mythical Daedalus (Stephen's imaginary flights and the maze of Dublin's streets; like Dedalus, Dedalus, he plans his escape from Ireland) role of epiphany (arrest and embody artistic meaning in a single moment) Stephen embraces a dream in contempt of reality and has his dream destroyed language plays a critical role in defining Stephen's life (Irish
vernacular, Latin, word association)

W. Golding, Lord of the Flies (1954)

Well build a fire now. The greatest ideas are the simplest. Now there was something to be done, they worked with passion. Piggy was so full of delight and expanding liberty in Jacks departure, so full of pride in his contribution to the good of society, that he helped to fetch wood. The wood he fetched was close at hand, a fallen tree on the platform that they did not need for the assembly; yet to the others the sanctity of the platform had protected even what was useless there. The twins realized they would have a fire near them as a comfort in the night and this set a few littluns dancing and clapping hands. The wood was not dry as the fuel they had used on the mountain. Much of it was damply rotten and full of insects that scurried; logs had to be lifted from the soil with care or they crumbled into sodden powder. More than this, in order to avoid going deep into the forest the boys worked near at hand on any fallen wood no matter how tangled with new growth. The skirts of the forest and the scar were familiar, near the conch and the shelters and sufficiently friendly in daylight. What they might become in darkness nobody cared to think. They worked therefore with great energy and cheerfulness, though as time crept by there was a suggestion of panic in the energy and hysteria in the cheerfulness. They built a pyramid of leaves and twigs, branches and logs, on the bare sand by the platform. For the first time on the island, Piggy himself removed his one glass, knelt down and focused the sun on tinder. Soon there was a ceiling of smoke and a bush of yellow flame.

Values, symbols and myths in British and American literature

Bronte, Emily: Wuthering Heights Defoe, Daniel: Robinson Crusoe Golding, William: Lord of the Flies Hardy, Thomas: Tess of the DUrbervilles Joyce, James: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Swift, Jonathan: Gullivers Travels Woolf, Virginia: Mrs. Dalloway Foster, E.M.: A Passage to India Fowles, John: The French Lieutenants Woman

Faulkner, William: Absalom, Absalom Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea; Melville, Herman. Moby Dick Twain, Mark. Huckleberry Finn Edgar, Alan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter