KMS-Newsletter-Issue

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

KMS-Newsletter-Issue 12 ISSN 2040-2597 (Online) NEWSLETTER Issue 21 August 2015 Published by the Katherine Mansfield Society, Bath, England ‘I love the rain’ portrait of Katherine Mansfield by Roger Daniell Inside: Conference at the Newberry Library, Chicago by Rishona Zimring, page 10 KMS News and competition results, page 2 Announcement: Katherine Mansfield Research in New Zealand at the Alexander Annual Birthday Lecture, page 13 Turnbull Library by Gerri Kimber, page 3 In the footsteps of Katherine Mansfield by Recent discoveries: The Earth Child by Gerri Joanna Fitzpatrick, page 14 Kimber, page 6 Finding Katherine by Emma Timpany, page 16 Katherine Mansfield and the ‘Blooms-Berries: by Karen R. Daubert page 8 Going Home by Kirsty Gunn, page 18 2 Issue 21 August 2015 Welcome to the autumn edition of the Katherine Mansfield Society Newsletter. It is appropriate to celebrate our twenty-first newsletter with a thank you for the work of our chair Gerri Kimber, who recently found time to trowel the Mansfield archives while presenting papers at the Newberry Library in Chicago and the Turnbull Library in Wellington. I am excited that Gerri has personally written reports on her marvellous discovery of the Earth Child poems as well as on her time as fellow of the Friends of the Turnbull Library. In Wellington I was not disappointed by the intriguingly titled ‘Tea, Zen and Cosmic Anatomy: The mysticism of Katherine Mansfield’ nor by the breadth of questions drawn from a large audience. In this edition we also have reports by Karen Daubert and Rishona Zimring from the conference Katherine Mansfield and the ‘Blooms-Berries’ held in Chicago, and a photo essay from Switzerland by Joanna Fitzpatrick. You will find details of the forthcoming Katherine Mansfield Society Annual Birthday Lecture 2015 and ordering information for Anna Plumridge’s edition of The Uruwera Notebook and Katherine Mansfield and Literary Influence edited by Sarah Ailwood and Melinda Harvey. Creative responses to the work of Mansfield are a testament to the potency of her output. Her on- going influence to writers of today can be sampled in the works of two expatriate New Zealanders: Kirsty Gunn’s Going Home and Emma Timpany’s Finding Katherine. Finally, please consider making a written contribution to the next newsletter published in December. These should be sent to [email protected] by November 30. Martin Griffiths Competition: The winner of the competition Judy O’Kane correctly noted that twenty KMS newsletters have been published and she wins a copy of my CD ‘Cello for a Song’ which features music by Arnold Trowell. To be in the draw for the next competition send us an email giving the street numbers for the two different houses on the Tinakori Road in Wellington that Katherine Mansfield’s family lived in. Please note that for the first house, we will accept either of two numbers, as it was subsequently renumbered! The prize is a beautiful New Zealand Paua shell ornament (see picture below). Send answers to: [email protected] Correction KMS newsletter would like to offer an apology for an error in the April edition on page 10: the caption of the photo of the New Zealand ambassador should read H. E. James Kember not H.E. Harry Kember. 1 3 Issue 21 August 2015 Research in New Zealand at the Alexander Turnbull Library by Gerri Kimber As the recipient of the 2015 Friends of the Turnbull Research Grant, I was fortunate to spend a month in Wellington, researching at the Alexander Turnbull Library (ATL), which houses the world’s largest collection of material pertaining to Mansfield. I have been fortunate to visit the library before, but it was wonderful to be able to devote an extended period of time on the collection, following up leads and various avenues of enquiry, without the ticking of a clock beckoning me back to Europe! My forthcoming biography, Katherine Mansfield’s Early Years, will be published by EUP some time next year. Some of you might remember us posting a copy of a previously unknown poem in a recent newsletter (see no. 18, August 2014). The poem is called ‘Limbo’ and I discovered it last year amongst the Middleton Murry archive acquired by the ATL in late 2012. As it was not signed and was unknown, there was some doubt as to whether it might in fact have been by Murry himself. However, having now located a second copy in the archive, I think it is reasonable to claim that the poem was written by Mansfield. It’s a strange little poem, written in 1911, shortly after the Earth Child cycle. During my time in Wellington, I was invited to give three talks. The first was at the ATL itself on 4 August when I gave a talk entitled ‘Tea, Zen and Cosmic Anatomy: The mysticism of Katherine Mansfield’. In the talk I explored Katherine Mansfield’s spiritual development during her life, culminating in her decision to enter Gurdjieff’s ‘Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man’ in Fontainebleau in the autumn of 1922, claiming that ‘I want to be all that I am capable of becoming so that I may be – […] a child of the sun’. It is hoped that a version of this talk will be published in the next volume of the Turnbull Library Record (2016). On 5 August I was invited to give a talk on behalf of the Katherine Mansfield Birthplace Society, who work so tirelessly to maintain the house in Wellington where Mansfield was born. This talk took place in the marvelous setting of Wellington’s City Gallery. Here I discussed my poetry find in Chicago, to a very receptive audience, eager to find out more about these exceptional poems. Finally on 18 August, I was invited to talk to the U3A at the Paramount, Courtenay Place, an iconic venue in the heart of Wellington. Here I discussed Mansfield connections with Poland, via Floryan Sobieniowski and Stanislaw Wyspianski. A version of this talk has recently been published in Katherine Mansfield and Continental Europe: Connections and Influences, edited by Janka Kascakova and myself. Even though it was winter in New Zealand, the inclement weather could not dampen my enthusiasm for this wonderful city that Mansfield knew so well. I hope to return again very soon! 2 Issue 21 August 2015 4 Gerri with Nicola Saker, President of the Katherine Mansfield Birthplace Society, and Emma Anderson, Director of the Birthplace. Tea, Zen and Cosmic Anatomy at the Turnbull Library, Wellington City Art Gallery, Wellington 5 Issue 21 August 2015 12 6 Issue 21 August 2015 Exciting discovery of previously unknown Katherine Mansfield manuscripts at the Newberry Library by Gerri Kimber The Earth Child It was whilst working my way through the rich holdings of Katherine Mansfield materials at the Newberry Library in May 2015 that I came across a thick folder of poems. On opening the folder and leafing through the contents, I realized that I had uncovered a large number of previously unknown poems by Mansfield dating from 1909/10, written when she was just 22. This is a period of her life where biographical information is at its most scant, since she systematically destroyed all her personal papers from this difficult youthful period in her life. Of the 35 poems in the folder, only 9 have been published. The others are completely unknown and are mostly of the very best quality, representing, I believe, some of the finest poems she ever wrote, and, moreover, containing information about people, places, and events for which almost no other biographical evidence is available. In addition, the significance of the collection is that it reveals for the first time that just when Mansfield was starting to have stories accepted for publication in London journals, she was also taking herself seriously as a poet. A couple of years earlier, when in New Zealand, together with her friend Edith Bendall she had also tried to publish a little illustrated book of children’s verse, but that venture also came to nothing. Those poems, however, which are all now published, have no literary merit, whereas the unknown collection in the Newberry reveals Mansfield perhaps at the height of her poetic powers. According to the two handwritten letters that accompany the poems, it appears Mansfield sent the collection in late 1910 to the London publisher Elkin Matthews regarding possible publication. Having heard nothing from the publisher, Mansfield sent a follow- up letter in early January 1911, written in an amusing style, explaining her frustration at not having received a response and asking that Matthews put her out of her misery. The Newberry Library, Chicago manuscript was clearly never accepted for 3 7 Issue 21 August 2015 publication, but if she did receive a rejection note, it no longer survives. Evidently the publisher retained the two letters, together with Mansfield’s original manuscript, and many years later they found their way into an auction (the cut-out auction listing is also to be found in the folder, but with no date) and subsequently, in 1999, were bequeathed to the Newberry by the estate of Jane Warner Dick, a prolific collector of materials related to Mansfield. The folder also contains a small calling card, which must have been attached to the manuscript or one of the letters, inscribed with the name “Katharina Mansfield,” and her address in Cheyne Walk, London. This was Mansfield’s self-styled nom de plume at the end of 1910/early 1911, deliberately made to sound vaguely Eastern European. It was also the name she (illegally) used on the official U.K. National Census for April 1911.
Recommended publications
  • Your Paper's Title Starts Here
    International Journal of Science Vol.5 No.1 2018 ISSN: 1813-4890 Representation of Modernism in Mansfield’s Short Stories Jialing Ding Nantong University, Nantong 226001, China [email protected] Abstract The modernist thought itself has a very complex background. Strictly speaking, modernism is not a genre, but a literary trend that is revealed in many modernist creative fictions. Kathrine Mansfield’s works have this unique feature. She uses modernist techniques in her short stories very skillfully and tactfully. The aim of the thesis is to explore representative modernist techniques in Mansfield’s short stories. Through the research, I want to prove that she is an innovator of English short stories. The thesis mainly discusses stream of consciousness in Mansfield’s short stories which includes association, time and space montage and illusion. The thesis also analyses symbols in her representative short stories and different perspectives of narration in her works. I sincerely hope that readers can understand her works better through my efforts. Undoubtedly, Mansfield opens up a path to a higher literary standard. Keywords Mansfield; modernism; stream of consciousness; symbolism; perspectives of narration. 1. Introduction Katherine Mansfield(1888-1923) is a splendid English short story writer in the early 20th century. In order to get a better development, Mansfield gave up her pleasant and affluent life. Surprisingly, she chose to travel to London by herself. From the moment she set foot in London, she has become a wandering soul who didn’t have a complete home. Mansfield had complex personality, at the same time, she went through the same intricate life journey.
    [Show full text]
  • And Maupassant's “An Adventure in Paris”
    LANGUAGE IN INDIA Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow Volume 11 : 12 December 2011 ISSN 1930-2940 Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D. Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D. Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D. B. A. Sharada, Ph.D. A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D. Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D. Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D. S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D. G. Baskaran, Ph.D. L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D. The Enigma of Aberration: Critiquing Katherine Mansfield’s Story “A Cup of Tea” and Maupassant’s “An Adventure in Paris” Bibhudutt Dash, Ph.D. _____________________________________________________________________________ Probing the Hidden Recesses of the Human Mind This essay probes into the hidden recesses of the human psyche where primordial urges and emotions operating at a subterranean level manifest themselves in capricious behavioural changes. The stories examined for the purpose, Mansfield’s “A Cup of Tea” and Maupassant’s “An Adventure in Paris” reveal the characters’ reflexes to adultery in which, as in Mansfield’s, a wife’s increasing possessiveness toward her husband is contrasted with another wife’s studied entry into vice, in “An Adventure in Paris”. Displaying Two Different Traits – Influence of Baser Passions Language in India www.languageinindia.com 11 : 12 December 2011 Bibhudutt Dash, Ph.D. The Enigma of Aberration: Critiquing Katherine Mansfield’s Story “A Cup of Tea” and Maupassant’s “An Adventure in Paris” 129 Katherine Mansfield 1888 – 1923 Whereas jealousy remains the linchpin in Mansfield’s, in the latter, the intractable ‘curiosity’ of the provincial lawyer’s wife leads to a perfidy in trust. Rosemary Fell, the chief character in the Mansfield story and the lawyer’s wife in Maupassant’s display two traits, possessiveness and faithlessness respectively, two apparently antithetical things in matters of love.
    [Show full text]
  • Modernism Reloaded: the Fiction of Katherine Mansfield
    DAVID TROTTER Modernism Reloaded: The Fiction of Katherine Mansfield It’s very largely as a Modernist that we now know Katherine Mansfield. Successive waves of new emphasis in the study of literary Modernism have brought her work ever closer to the centre of current understandings of how, when, where, and why this decisive movement arose, and of what it can be said to have accomplished at its most radical. Gender and sexual politics, the interaction of metropolis and colony, periodical networks: whichever way you look, the new emphasis fits.1 No wonder Mansfield has recently been hailed as Modernism’s “most iconic, most representative writer.”2 The aim of this essay is to bring a further perspective in Modernist studies to bear on Mansfield’s fiction, in order primarily to illuminate the fiction, but also, it may be, the perspective. The one I have in mind is that provided in broad outline by enquiries into the historical sequence which leads from nineteenth- century sciences of energy to twentieth-century sciences of information. Introducing an important collection of essays on the topic, Bruce Clarke and Linda Dalrymple Henderson explain that the invention of the steam engine at the beginning of the nineteenth century resulted both in the technological reorganization of industry and transport, and in a new research emphasis on the mechanics of heat. 1 Respectively, Sydney Janet Kaplan, Katherine Mansfield and the Origins of Modernist Fiction (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991); Elleke Boehmer, “Mansfield as Colonial Modernist: Difference Within,” in Gerry Kimber and Janet Wilson, eds, Celebrating Katherine Mansfield: A Centenary Volume of Essays (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 57-71; and Jenny McDonnell, Katherine Mansfield and the Modernist Marketplace: At the Mercy of the Public (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).
    [Show full text]
  • Editorial Board |Submission Guidelines |Call for Paper Paper Submission | FAQ |Terms & Condition | More……
    IJELLH International journal of English language, literature in humanities ISSN-2321-7065 About Us | Editorial Board |Submission Guidelines |Call for Paper Paper Submission | FAQ |Terms & Condition | More……. ISSN :2455-0108 IJO-Science (INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL ONLINE OF SCIENCE) Volume V, Issue V May 2017 121 IJELLH International journal of English language, literature in humanities ISSN-2321-7065 SUNIL DATTATRAYA ALONE ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH SHRI LEMDEO PATIL MAHAVIDYALAYA MANDHAL, DISTRICT: NAGPUR, MAHARASHTRA RASHTRASANT TUKADOJI MAHARAJ NAGPUR UNIVERSITY NAGPUR, MAHARASHTRA INDIA NARRATIVE TECHNIQUES AND CHARACTERISATION IN KATHERINE MANSFIELD’S “A CUP OF TEA” Abstract Katherine Mansfield, a pioneer modernist short story writer, wrote many interesting short stories in her short life which show psychological working of the human mind. Her most famous collection is “The garden Party and Other Stories”. A number of her stories such as “Bliss”, “The Fly”, “Miss Brill”, “The Doll’s House” and “The Dove’s Nest” are very popular among readers all over the world. She is an amazing storyteller who demonstrates a mastery over the craft of story writing. The purpose of the present paper is to study her famous and much-anthologized story “A Cup of Tea” so as to bring out the brilliant use of narrative techniques to delineate the protagonist’s character. A close study of the short story shows that the protagonist is not really like what she wants others to think of her as. Mansfield achieves this effect by cleverly controlling the narration of the story and effectively using point of view, characters, dialogues, themes, indeterminacies, and gaps to get the desired result.
    [Show full text]
  • Katherine Mansfield and Conceptualisations of the Self
    Katherine Mansfield and Conceptualisations of the Self Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy of English Literature At the University of Northampton 2018 Louise Jane Edensor © Louise Jane Edensor 2018 PhD This thesis is copyright material and no quotation from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. Abstract The thesis aims to show how Katherine Mansfield’s desire to discover aspects of the self shaped her strengths and distinctiveness as a writer, particularly in the development of her own modernist aesthetic. Mansfield’s letters and notebooks often betray a preoccupation with issues of the self. In one notebook entry she exclaims, ‘if one was true to oneself . True to oneself! Which self? Which of my many – well, really, that’s what it looks like coming to – hundreds of selves’ (CW4, 349). By examining this and many other scattered references to the self throughout Mansfield’s letters and notebooks, this thesis aims to uncover the relationship between Mansfield’s personal comments and questions on the self and the development of her literary techniques. The beginning of the twentieth century, when Mansfield was writing, saw many advancements in science and technology as well as new psychological theories popularised by William James and Sigmund Freud. These theories added to a discourse on the psychological make-up of the individual as modernity caused a crisis in understanding the construction of the self, calling identity into question. By examining these theories, this thesis provides a framework for the analysis of Mansfield’s writing, integrating current critical commentary on her fiction, Mansfield’s private thoughts and her experimental fiction.
    [Show full text]
  • Journal of the Short Story in English, 51
    Journal of the Short Story in English Les Cahiers de la nouvelle 51 | Autumn 2008 Theatricality in the Short Story in English Electronic version URL: https://journals.openedition.org/jsse/883 ISSN: 1969-6108 Publisher Presses universitaires de Rennes Printed version Date of publication: 1 December 2008 ISSN: 0294-04442 Electronic reference Journal of the Short Story in English, 51 | Autumn 2008, “Theatricality in the Short Story in English” [Online], Online since 01 December 2011, connection on 09 August 2021. URL: https:// journals.openedition.org/jsse/883 This text was automatically generated on 9 August 2021. © All rights reserved 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword Laurent Lepaludier and Michelle Ryan-Sautour Part 1: Theatricality and the Short Story Theatricality in the Short Story: Staging the Word? Laurent Lepaludier Chekhov’s Legacy: the influence of the implicit and the dramatic effect Jacqueline Phillips Part 2: Theatricality and the Modernist Short Story Theatricality, Melodrama and Irony in Stephen Crane’s Short Fiction Martin Scofield Charades and Gossip: The Minimalist Theatre of Joyce’s Dubliners Valérie Bénéjam Staging Social and Political Spaces: Living Theatre in Joyce’s “The Dead” Rita Sakr The dramaturgy of voice in five modernist short fictions: Katherine Mansfield’s “The Canary”, “The Lady’s Maid” and “Late at Night”, Elizabeth Bowen’s “Oh! Madam…” and Virginia Woolf’s “The Evening Party” Anne Besnault-Levita "Wash" as Faulkner's Prose Tragedy Françoise Buisson Part 3: Theatricality and the Contemporary Short Story Behind
    [Show full text]
  • PART 1 Class, Colonialism, and the Great War
    PART 1 Class, Colonialism, and the Great War La Mitrailleuse, 1915. Christopher R. W. Nevinson. Tate Gallery, London. “What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of guns.” —Wilfred Owen, “Anthem for Doomed Youth” 1043 Tate Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY 11043043 U6P1-845482.inddU6P1-845482.indd Sec2:1043Sec2:1043 11/29/07/29/07 1:55:321:55:32 PMPM Comparing Literature Across Time and Place Connecting to the Reading Selections What is the best way to respond to a person in need? The four selections compared here—a short story by Katherine Mansfield, an essay by Bessie Head, a parable from the Bible, and verses from the Qur’an—explore this issue and offer insights about life. Katherine Mansfield A Cup of Tea ..................................................................short story ............... 1045 A chance meeting—a painful realization England, 1922 Bessie Head Village People .........................................................................essay ............... 1054 Sharing the individual’s pain Botswana, Africa, 1967 King James Version of the Bible The Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man ....parable ............... 1057 The tables turned England, 1611 from the Qur’an What is true generosity? ..................................................... sacred text ............... 1059 Arabia, c. 650 COMPARING THE Big Idea Class, Colonialism, and the Great War Wealth and poverty can generate rigid classes that divide people and erode society. The writers of these selections examine the misery of poverty, the power of wealth, and the true meaning of compassion. COMPARING Tone Tone is a reflection of the writer’s attitude toward a subject as conveyed through such elements as word choice, punctuation, sentence structure, and figures of speech.
    [Show full text]
  • The Doves' Nest, and Other Stories
    • • #z* • • •Z* •T* • • •T* • ft. ft ft |M»- ft. ft A ft. ft ft. ft ft ft ft ft u ft ft ft ft .ft ft ft ft Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from Brigham Young University-Idaho http://archive.org/details/dovesnestotherstOOmans THE DOVES' NEST AND OTHER STORIES BOOKS OF STORIES BY KATHERINE MAN S FIELD BLISS THE GARDEN PARTY THE DOVES' NEST NEW YORK: ALFRED -A 'KNOPF ' THE DOVES' NEST AND OTHER STORIES BY KATHERINE MANSFIELD ' "Reverence, that angel of the world. NEW YORK ALFRED . A . KNOPF MCMXXIII COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC. Published, August, 19i3 Second Printing, August, 1923 Third Printing, October, 1923 Fourth Printing. November, 1923 Set up, electrotyped, and printed by the Vail-Ballou Press, Inc., Binghamton, N. Y. Paper furnished by W. F. Etherington & Co., New York. Bound by the H. Wolff Estate, New York, N. Y. MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TO WALTER DE LA MARE CONTENTS Introductory Note 9 The Doll's House 25 Honeymoon 39 A Cup of Tea 50 Taking the Veil 65 The Fly 74 The Canary 85 Unfinished Stories: A Married Man's Story 92 The Doves' Nest 117 Six Years After 147 Daphne 156 Father and the Girls 166 All Serene! 177 A Bad Idea 186 A Man and His Dog 191 Contents Such a Sweet Old Lady 197 Honesty 202 Susannah 209 Second Violin 2I 4 Mr. and Mrs. Williams 22° Weak Heart 227 Widowed 2 34 INTRODUCTORY NOTE KATHERINE MANSFIELD died at Fontainebleau on January 9th 1923, at the age of thirty-four.
    [Show full text]
  • Three Cups of Tea
    THREE CUPS OF TEA THREE CUPS OF TEA ONE MAN’S MISSION TO FIGHT TERRORISM AND BUILD NATIONS… ONE SCHOOL AT A TIME ., GREG MORTENSON and DAVID OLIVER RELIN VIKING Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada MP4 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), Cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England First published in 2006 by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Copyright © Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, 2006 All rights reserved LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Mortenson, Greg. Three cups of tea : one man’s mission to fight terrorism and build nations— one school at a time / Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. p. cm. Includes index. ISB: 1-4295-1547-3 1. Girls’ schools—Pakistan. 2. Girls’ schools—Afghanistan. 3. Humanitarian assistance, American—Pakistan. 4. Humanitarian assistance, American—Afghanistan.
    [Show full text]
  • The Garden Party Must Go On: Class Sympathy and Characterization in Katherine Mansfield’S Short Stories & “A Surprise” and Other Original Short Stories
    I give permission for public access to my thesis and for any copying to be done at the discretion of the archives librarian and/or the College librarian. Rebecca Richardson May 2, 2005 The Garden Party Must Go On: Class Sympathy and Characterization in Katherine Mansfield’s Short Stories & “A Surprise” and Other Original Short Stories Rebecca Joy Richardson May 2, 2005 Submitted to the Department of English of Mount Holyoke College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honors Faculty Advisor: Professor Corinne Demas Copyright © 2005 Rebecca Joy Richardson ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS When I began work on this project a year ago, I thought that writing a thesis would be a primarily solitary process. Fortunately, my advisors, professors, and friends have proven this initial impression incorrect. Professor Corinne Demas has been an unflagging source of inspiration and support. She has guided me through the process: from the first inspiration, to the nitty gritty details of the writing, to the final framework. She allowed me the freedom to change the scope of this project, while reminding me to stay true to the original vision. Whenever I had a crisis—either academic or personal—I knew that Professor Demas would have wise words of advice. My second reader, Professor Mary Jo Salter, has also helped me immensely. When I asked for her input during this busy time of year, she read the entire critical section as well as a number of the short stories. She brought to our meeting many fresh ideas that have found their way into this thesis.
    [Show full text]
  • By Katherine Mansfield
    UNIT 17 'A CUPOFTEA' BY KATHERINE MANSFIELD Structure 17.0 Objectives 17.1 Introduction 17.2 'A Cup of Tea' 17.2.1 Text 17.2.2 Glossary 17.3 Plot 17.4 Characters 17.4.1 Rosemary Fell 17.5 Background 17.6 Prose Style 17.7 Let Us Sum Up 17.8 Answers to Exercises 17.0 OBJECTIVES If you read this Unit carefully you will be able to: outline the plot of 'A Cup of Tea'; draw character - sketches; describe the atmosphere; point cut the main features of the prose style. 17.1 INTRODUCTION In Units 15 and 16 we discussed two short stories written by Indians -one by Raja Rao and the other by Mulk Raj Anand. In the present Unit, we shall discuss the short story 'A Cup of Tea' by Katherine Mansfield (1886-1923), a British writer. Katherine Beauchamp Mansfield was born in Wellington, New Zealand. She moved to England in 1911 and married John Middleton Murry, the literary critic in 1913. She died fairly young, at the age of 35 in 1928. Her works include : In a German Pension (1911), Bliss and other stories (1920), The Garden Farty (1922) and The Dove's Nest, (1923). After you have read the story, we shall discuss the plot and characters. We shall also analyse now Katherine Mansfield has created the atmosphere in the story and the style that has contributed to it. 17.2 'A CUP OF TEA' Let us now read the story. We hope you will read the text at least once. For difficult words, turn to the glossary given at the end of the story.
    [Show full text]
  • A Feminist Exploration of Katherine Mansfield's
    CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by Unisa Institutional Repository IS THERE A WOMAN IN THE TEXT? A FEMINIST EXPLORATION OF KATHERINE MANSFIELD’S SEARCH FOR AUTHENTIC SELVES IN A SELECTION OF SHORT STORIES by LUCILLE COOPER submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS in the subject ENGLISH at the UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA SUPERVISOR: DR M J WILLIAMS JUNE 2008 Summary: Is there a woman in the text? A feminist exploration of Katherine Mansfield’s search for authentic selves in a selection of short stories. Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923), British Modernist writer whose search for authentic selves in the lives of the characters in her short stories, is reflected in her innovative style of writing in which she examines the interior consciousness of their minds. Mansfield questions the inauthentic lives of the characters, revealing that the roles they play are socially imposed forcing them to hide their true selves behind masks. The stories which have been chosen for this study focus on women characters (and men also) who grapple with societal prescriptions for accepted actions, and are rendered mute as a result. The women characters include all age groups and social classes. Some are young and impressionable (The Tiredness of Rosabel, The Little Governess and The Garden Party), others are married and older (Bliss, Prelude and Frau Brechenmacher attends a wedding ), while there are also middle- aged women in Miss Brill and The Life of Ma Parker. Key terms: British Modernism; innovative style of writing; women isolated in society; constricting prescriptions for actions; mute; gender differences; examination of interior consciousness of characters; identification with women’s experience; masks; suppressed anger and despair.
    [Show full text]