texte literare, contexte culturale şi predarea lor

TEXTE LITERARE,
CONTEXTE
CULTURALE ŞI
PREDAREA LOR
A.OBIECTIVE
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Candidaţii vor dovedi capacitatea de :
a înţelege şi analiza un text literar la prima vedere prin utilizarea
corectă a termenilor şi conceptelor, noţiunilor de teorie şi critică
literară prin care un text se plasează în context istoric şi cultural;
a conştientiza şi transmite atitudini culturale (cultural awareness);
a adecva predarea termenilor şi a conceptelor de teorie şi critică
literară la diverse tipuri de clase;
a selecta texte literare în predarea limbii engleze ca limbă străină;
a aborda temele generale de mai jos cu referire la operele incluse
în bibliografie.
B.TEME GENERALE
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Power, identity, love in Shakespeare’s 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 britanică
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Austen, Jane: Pride and Prejudice or Emma
Bronte, Emily: Wuthering Heights
Carroll, Lewis: Alice’s 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 Lieutenant’s Woman sau The Magus
Golding, William: Lord of the Flies
Hardy, Thomas: Tess of the D’Urbervilles 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 Night’s Dream.
Swift, Jonathan: Gulliver’s Travels
Woolf, Virginia: Mrs. Dalloway sau To the Lighthouse
Literatura americană
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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
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William Falkner’s “Absalom, Absalom”: from
literary text to cultural context.
Written Exam
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Consider the following text: ……
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Contextualize it from a historical and cultural point
of view, and discuss its relevance with reference to
its author’s 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 Shakespeare’s
sonnets and plays
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The Shakespearean Sonnet: themes and poetic
style in …
Shakespeare’s comic worlds: rhetoric and
personation in …
Shakespeare’s tragic hero: infringement and
identity in …
Sonnet XVIII
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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 Night’s 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
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Swift, Jonathan: Gulliver’s Travels
Defoe, Daniel: Robinson Crusoe
Austen, Jane: Pride and Prejudice
Neoclassicism
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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:
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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)
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Born in Ireland, of Anglo-Irish
parents
Writings:
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satires
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Characteristic style:
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The Story of an Injured Lady
(1707)
A Short View of the State of
Ireland (1727)
A Modest Proposal (1729)
poems
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:
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essays
Pamphlets
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A Tale of a Tub (1704)
The Battle of the Books (1704)
Gulliver’s Travels (1726)
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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.
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.
Gulliver’s Travels
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Both a satire on human nature and a parody of the "travellers' tales" literary
sub-genre.
It is divided in 4 parts:
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Themes:
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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.
Construction:
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each part is the reverse of the preceding part;
Gulliver's view between parts contrasts with its other coinciding part.
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:
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a dominant unifying theme with a serious thesis
convincing realism (through an almost-journalistic first-person narrative)
a middle class viewpoint
Characteristics:
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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.
Defoe’s 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”.
Robinson Crusoe
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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:
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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’
ship’s 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)
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Jane Austen contributed to what has been called as the NOVEL OF MANNERS: a kind of
fiction focused on everyday routine life and events:
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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.
Characteristics:
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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.
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
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Bronte, Emily: Wuthering Heights
Dickens, Charles: Great Expectations
Hardy, Thomas: Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Victorian Age
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Chronologically comprised between 1837 and 1901 (reign of Queen Victoria)
It is equated with England’s rise to the pinnacle of her economic and political
power as revealed by the Great Exhibition of 1851 or the Queen’s Diamond
Jubilee of 1897
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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, naïve
confidence in the society’s 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
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leading literary form
publication of novels
 in instalments (serialisation): part-issue
 serial publication in weekly newspapers
 advantages:
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disadvantages:
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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
chronological presentation
the writers often feel the necessity to teach a moral lesson (Ch. Dickens)
many discuss the hero’s actions with the readers (W. M. Thackeray)
narrative technique:
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3rd person narration – omniscient author – more objective (W. M. Thackeray, Ch. Brontë in Shirley,
George Eliot
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1st person narration – autobiography – more subjective (Ch. Brontë in Jane Eyre)
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using narrators (E. Brontë in Wuthering Heights)
generations of writers
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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 Brontë, E. Gaskell,
George Eliot) – popular at the time
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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
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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
under--bred pride; I have a sympathetic
chord 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
 Dickens’s 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 – man’s 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-creature-woman--aa spiritualized image of
Tess,
Clare's sisterTess, slighter than she, but with the same beautiful eyes-eyes--Clare's
sister-inin-law, 'Liza
'Liza--Lu. Their pale faces seemed to
have 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:





Bronte, Emily: Wuthering Heights
Melville, Herman. Moby Dick
Edgar, Alan Poe, The Fall of the House of
Usher
Nathaniel Hawthorne, The
Scarlet Letter
Realist:





Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
Twain, Mark. Huckleberry Finn
_____________________________
* See the information and the text
selection in Michaela Praisler, On
Modernism, Postmodernism and the Novel
(EDP, 2005).
Modernist:






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
Postmodernist:


Golding, William: Lord of the Flies
Fowles, John: The French Lieutenant’s
Woman*
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.
Romantic elements in Wuthering Heights
(Robert Kiely, The Romantic Novel in England)






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; Brontë 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 passion–lust, 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
past’s 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
Melville’s 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; Ahab’s hunt is symbolically a rage against God.
Often set in exotic, vaguely medieval, or indeterminately distant locations, Poe’s 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 text’s characters within their
environment, the used language, a realistic plot and the author’s 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 (récit): 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 narrator’s 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
third-person:

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:



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 observer’s 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.
Types:




protagonist: a story’s 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
James Joyce, A Portrait …

Narration:






Stephen: archetypal hero of a buildungsroman with a
dissilusionment plot






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
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
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)

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.)
W. Golding, Lord of the Flies (1954)
‘We’ll 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 Jack’s 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
D’Urbervilles
Joyce, James: A Portrait of the Artist
as a Young Man
Swift, Jonathan: Gulliver’s Travels
Woolf, Virginia: Mrs. Dalloway
Foster, E.M.: A Passage to India
Fowles, John: The French Lieutenant’s
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