English Literature in the First Half of the Twentieth Century (seminar)
BTANN509SZM
or
the utter uselessness and supreme value of literature
Ruth K. Lévai
Office: A/6 fsz.3
Office hours: Tuesday, 10-11 am, Wednesday 11am-1pm, Friday 11am-3pm
The purpose of this course is to challenge the way you think about literature, life and yourself by more thoroughly acquainting you with some of the greatest English writers of the early 1900s. You will be expected to actively listen and participate in each lesson, in addition to preparing a ten minute presentation and writing a five page paper on one of the topics listed below. In the words of Thomas Hardy you may think, „So little cause for carolings of such ecstatic sound was written on terrestrial things afar or nigh around…”, however my goal is to help you see, „…some blessed Hope, whereof he knew and I was unaware.” (The Darkling Thrush)
Your grade will be based on:
· class participation—40%
· presentation—30%
· paper—30%
Presentation topics:
For each topic and/or author covered you may choose one of the questions for further exploration in the lecture notes by Dr. Dósa Attila.
Paper topics:
1) Michael Irwin, in the introduction to the Wordsworth Poetry Library Edition of the collected poems of Thomas Hardy, writes, „For the hyper-responsive Hardy, the capacity for joy came repeatedly into collision with his ineradicable awareness of its brevity and of its unimportance in the larger scheme of things. But the bleakness of that awareness should be directly proportioned to the fullness of the joy.” (xv.) Do you agree? Describe how you see this principle at work in specific works by Hardy.
2) „I am convinced that fine art is the subtlest, the most seductive, the most effective instrument of moral propaganda in the world, excepting only the example of personal conduct…I have pointed out again and again that the influence of the theatre in England is growing so great that whilst private conduct, religion, law, science, politics, and morals are becoming more and more theatrical, the theatre itself remains impervious to common sense, religion, science, politics, and morals.” –G. Bernard Shaw. Discuss these words by Shaw as they relate directly to changes in English society after the death of Queen Victoria and/or specifically to the reception of his play „Mrs. Warren’s Profession.” In what sense does the theatre remain impervious to common sense, religion, science, politics, and morals?
3) „Yet each man kills the thing he loves, by each let this be heard, some do it with a bitter look, some with a flattering word, the coward does it with a kiss, the brave man with a sword!” –Oscar Wilde, The Ballad of Reading Gaol. Discuss the implications of this quote for the cultural satire contained in Wilde’s play „The Importance of Being Earnest.”
4) „For reasons which can certainly use close psychological inquiry the West seems to suffer deep anxieties about the precariousness of its civilization and to have a need for constant reassurance by comparison with Africa. If Europe, advancing in civilization, could cast a backward glance periodically at Africa trapped in primordial barbarity it could say with faith and feeling: There go I but for the grace of God. Africa is to Europe as the picture is to Dorian Gray—a carrier onto whom the master unloads his physical and moral deformities so that he may go forward, erect and immaculate.” –Chinua Achebe, „An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness” Do you agree? Discuss specific passages from the text of Conrad’s novel that you believe either prove or disprove Achebe’s scathing criticism.
5) Cedric Watts, in the introduction to the Wordsworth Poetry Library Edition of the collected poems of W.B. Yeats, writes of „The Second Coming” that it is a poem, „…in which romanticism has burgeoned into Modernism, with its shock tactics, dense allusions and compactness of imagery and implication.” And Yeats himself remarked that, „My work has got far more masculine. It has more salt in it.” Discuss at least three of these „dense allusions” in the poem, commenting specifically on how they implicate a departure from romanticism.
6) „…the fact that the world becomes picture at all is what distinguishes the essence of the modern age.” –Martin Heidegger. „Whereas Joyce’s apparent verbal density is ultimately transparent, allowing the reader to possess its world and know there are no other transcendental meanings…” –Michael Bell, „The Metaphysics of Modernism” in The Cambridge Companion to Modernism. Discuss possible understandings of the term „world” int he above quotes, specifically as they relate to either ’Araby’, ’Eveline’, or ’The Dead.’
7) „The remnants of religious vision are confided, in an ironic gesture, to novels that do not really have supernatural power. Yet, if the gesture is ironic, it also points to the ambitions of Woolf’s novel: to preserve a sense of sacred power in the modern, disenchanted world.” –Pericles Lewis, „Modernism and religion,” in The Cambridge Companion to Modernism. Cite and discuss specific examples from Mrs. Dalloway to either prove or disprove Lewis’ hypothesis that it was Woolf’s ambition to „preserve a sense of sacred power” in the modern world through her writing.
8) „Poetry is speech framed for contemplation of the mind by way of hearing or speech framed to be heard for its own sake and interest even over and above its interest of meaning. Some matter and meaning is essential to it but only as an element necessary to support and employ the shape which is contemplated for its own sake.” --Gerard Manley Hopkins. Discuss to what extent this is an accurate description of modern poetics, specifically that of T. S. Eliot.
9) „It is impossible,” murmured Lucy, and then, remembering the experiences of her own heart, she said: „No—it is just possible.” –E.M. Forster, A Room with a View. Explore various instances illustrating this principle in the novel.