20th Century Literature LECTURE 1

C 19 REVIEW

A Romanticism B Realism C Decadence, l’art pour l’art (art for art’s sake) new forms / European influence (symbolism, impressionism etc.) influence of the Gothic novel (C18)

Romantic subjectivity, emotional overflow (powerful feelings WW, Coleridge - imagination), 1. Early Romantics: looking at common things, people (Blake: The Chimney Sweeper, London, WW: interest in the poor- Old Cumberland Beggar), natural beauty corresponds to the feelings of the poet (influence of the sublime of C18) – Byron: apostrophe of the ocean 2. Late Romanticism: Nationalism, individualism (authentic personality, intensity), byronic hero (uprooted), revolt (Lord Byron: Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage), never ending journey, wandering, nomadic notion of life (Mácha, Byron, Shelley) x C18 classicism – imitate the perfection of nature, pattern – regular (Alexander Pope, John Dryden) Influence of the churchyard poetry: C18 pre-Romantic (Thomas Gray, Edward Young) - gloomy meditations on mortality, 'skulls and coffins, epitaphs and worms' in the context of the graveyard Romantic interest in the past (castles, idyllic, chivalric history gone, nostalgia, sadness) + revolt (Walter Scott: fight for independence of the Highlanders in Waverley) Scott – example of the blend of Romanticism and realism (collecting Scottish folk ballads, romantic notion of a hero, sublime, romantic nature) + “realistic” events, “a story”, life of common people x romantic individual, the other (exclusive, different from the rest of society) Similarly: Bronte sisters (esp. Emily, her poems, Wuthering Heights – Heathcliff, nature) – elements of the Gothic novel (the ghost of Catherine), Charlotte Bronte (independent, revolting heroines – Jane Eyre) Thomas Hardy – romantic heroes (Tess of the d Urbervilles), nature – power of the country, destiny, human fate

“ Critical realism”: Charles Dickens – social aspect, criticizes the state of poverty, living conditions of children, child labour, poorhouses etc. + humour (comical portraits of human follies - caricatures). Novels published in series in magazines – reading public enthusiastic about continuation of the series, the fate of heroes – authors sometimes forced to change the ending (a happy one). Sim. to Dickens: W. M. Thackeray: Vanity Fair – characters: puppets, life: a ridiculous play

C Decadence: Oscar Wilde in comedies – dandyism, nihilism as a provocation, humour, conversational comedy (The Importance of Being Earnest, Lady Windermere’s Fan). The only novel: The Picture of Dorian Gray 1891 – psychology, split of personality, l’art pour l’artism (interest in the relationship between art and reality – reversed: the point of The Picture of DG is the ageing picture and unspoiled beauty of the character. Paradox: the picture projects the sins of the main protagonists, seen on the face and decayed body: decadence), horror fiction – sim. to Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde 1886. Split of personality (dr. Jekyll – the good: as he appeals to society, the bad – distilled in the character of Hyde – hidden vices, pure evil, crime etc.) dark and positive sides of character combined in every person, psychopathology, bipolarity of character H. G. Wells The Invisible Man 1897 sim. to Stevenson: scientific experiment with light refraction – invisibility, as a result: social isolation, crime, mental instability (taking the advantage of not being seen – like Dorian Gray or Jekyll – leads to violence, crime)

D Towards the modern, the Modernist George Eliot: Middlemarch (like Henry James in Am. lit.) – psychology of characters

Victorian Poetry: G. M. Hopkins, Alfred lord Tennyson Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood – theoretical programme (painting before Raphael, before renaissance) the Victorians suppressed beauty, against materialism Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Christina R. Ford Madox Brown Algernon Charles Swinburne – controversial poet, irreligious, “immoral” William Morris – art: social change John Ruskin: Modern painters – W. M. Turner: predecessor of impressionism, Gothic architecture – interest in the moral state of society Mathew Arnold: Culture and Anarchy (Hebraism – Puritanism, materialistic social class, hates art - Philistines, Barbarians – aristocrats, Hellenism- Greek model) --- cultural crisis

C20 symbolic death of Queen Victoria 1901, the longest reign in British history (63 years) Colonialism continued 1902 South Africa added to the British Empire after the Boer War 1899 (Edward VII.) Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness E. M. Forster: reaction to the colonial issue Passage to India major changes after WWI Fabian society (G. B. Shaw, H. G. Wells)

Modernism C20 Stream of consciousness - method Fragmentation Psychology, inner perspective Leitmotif C20 tendency: l’art pour l’artism, Art Nouveau – stressing the ornament in art, literature Modernism: - 1920s, 30s – strong reaction to realism, criticism: V. Woolf x Arnold Bennett, John Galsworthy, H. G. Wells, Dickens - isolation from other literary and cultural streams - stressed individual character of the authors (no mainstream, authors – outstanding personalities) New Criticism: I. A. Richards, F. R. Leavis in GB, J. C. Ransom, W. K. Wimsatt - USA Emphasis put on close reading, minimum regard for history or biographical details of the author’s life, self-sufficiency of the work of art T. S. Eliot as a critic: work of art – self-referential, poetic function Eliot’s term “dissociation of sensibility“ – occurred in his essay on the Metaphysical Poets in 1921: poets have separated thought from feeling since the age of John Donne whereas Donne has direct sensuous apprehension of thought – recreation of thought into feeling (Eliot’s positive judgement on Donne), “objective correlative” (artist creates shareable images that correspond with his feelings – it is up to the reader to find them and share them) - aristocratic stance of New Criticism, privileged attitude to art - any author’s statement is an act of self-interpretation, the author is unreliable (“intentional fallacy”) Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888- 1965) Born in the U. S. (St Louis), studies in Harvard, Oxford, Sorbonne, British citizenship Reaction to WWI: collapse of Western tradition, disillusionment, conservativism, crisis of values, estrangement, impossibility of communication Influence of American poetry: Ezra Pound (imagism), E. L. Masters, French symbolism The Waste Land (1921) 5 sections: 1. The Burial of the Dead 2. A Game of Chess 3. The Fire Sermon 4. Death by Water 5. What the Thunder Said Correspondence with natural elements of the Earth, Air, Fire, Water

Language experiment (often compared to Joyce’s Ullysses) Different voices Fragmentary character Intensity, lyrical beauty The image of the city: emblem of alienation, melancholy, culture disintegrated, communication impossible Mythology: parallels between antiquity and contemporary world (similar to Joyce) Influenced by Frazer’s Golden Bough, legends of the Holy Grail Often described as “grim surreal comedy”, “collection of cultural fragments” “multicultural blend”, quoting world languages (Latin, Sanskrit, German, French, Italian etc.) Eastern religion: the final “Shantih, shantih, shantih” from the Upanishads Several pages of notes – explaining the metaphors and allusions Other poems: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, Hollow Men, Ash Wednesday, Four Quartets Drama in verse: Murder in the Cathedral – historical material (the murder of Thomas Becket) Cocktail party…

Sources: Dějiny anglické literatury. (1988) Praha: SPN. Hilský, M. (1995) Modernisté. Praha: TORST. Procházka, M. & co. (2002) Lectures on American Literature. Praha: Karolinum. ______(1997) Literary Theory. Praha: Charles University.