Scarica Pearl Buck: A Forgotten Novelist and Her Cultural Impact e più Appunti in PDF di Letteratura Angloamericana solo su Docsity! Anglo-American LM I Gennero (2 anno) 57200/57213 1 lezione 8.10 MODULO A Pearl Buck (1892-1973) She was the most famous novelist throughout history. SLIDE She was awarded the Nobel Prize but before that the Pulitzer Prize (crucial important recognition for a writer). The Good Earth was considered the best book, best-seller for 2 years. Dragon Seed also reached success. But at a certain point it was forgotten and disappeared. The general reader continues to appreciate her as a writer. SLIDE She became to write in the 1940s and continued to write until 1973. Throughout these 3 decades she published novels, plays and essays. She published so much, and this affected both the style and the quality. From the 1930s until 1973 Buck was one of the most popular writers and produced dozens of bestsellers. In 1969 Times published an article about the most popular writers and she was still there. She was no longer appreciated by critics, literary community. WHY? WHAT HAPPENED TO HER REPUTATION? In order to answer the question and analyse the history of the reception of Pearl Buck we deal with keywords: - Canonicity - Cultural work - Cultural appropriation - Orientalism - Middlebrow In order to focus on the 1st key word, we have to go back to the US culture in the 1930s and to her representation of Chinese people that it was available in the US. One of the aspects that characterised Buck’s fiction that it is often set in China. WHY? Because she was raised in China. Her parents were missionaries, and she was born in the US, but she returned to China when she was a baby. She grew up in China and often stated that Chinese was her mother tongue. She grew up in the Chinese countryside and the only people who spoke English were her parents. Her family was presbyterian missionaries. She had intimate knowledge of Chinese culture and she went back to the US only to attend college in Virginia, just for 3 years. but most her life was spent in China. Her stories depicted Chinese people with sympathy, respect, interest, and that was something completely new in the American context. SLIDE Quotation from Isaacs (critic) It is to remind us that until Buck (1941) the representation of China and Chinese people in the US and UK was characterised by the use of stereotypes. Chinese people were described as blurred sub-humans. Buck offered a view characterised by respect and admiration. STEREOTYPES in the US and UK: the most popular representation of China was Fu Manchu, was popular that the novels written by Sax Rohmer, published from 1913-1959. Novels successful and many comics were made. Then, during the 1930s Dr. Fu Manchu became protagonist of comic books, movies, tv series. Americans linked the idea of Chinese culture to this character. “tall, lean, high shoulders, face like Satan, long magnetic eyes”; smart, intelligent, powerful and evil, insidious, delights in the suffering of the enemies. This image was reinforced by the way in which China was represented also in Hollywood movies. “Hollywood Chinese” directed by Arthur Dong contains comments about the impact and cultural effect of the representation of China. The issue that the documentary deals with is the issue of CULTURAL WORK. Literature, drama, movies, novels are capable of cultural work. But what is and how can we study literature through the lenses of cultural work? this is useful to understand her role in the culture in America. This notion is useful because it enables us to redefine literature, the role, and the nature of literary studies. Why? SLIDE 13 Cultural work Texts are examples of the way a culture thinks about itself. The success of a text enables us to understand that both the status quo and the attempts to redefine. It’s a different way of approaching literature. Is that correct to say that the reputation is determined by the circumstances that surround that particular writer? The conventional vision is that you can tell masterpieces, there is such a thing as the intrinsic value of a work of art. Can we speak of intrinsic merit? How it is built? What did go wrong? SLIDE TOMKINS It’s a complex field of elements that compete, it’s a struggle that determines the outcome and unpredictable. The formal features of a work of art are relevant but we need to learn and look at a text as an object of interpretation. Traditionally a book is determined by its formal features, interpretation, and evaluation. TOMKINS invites us to look from another perspective We need to study texts not only as objects but as agents of cultural formation cultural work CULTURAL APPROPRIATION SLIDE DEFINITION A crucial issue in American culture today. It became popular 10 years ago and now it is impossible to understand some cultural tensions if you do not know what it is. For instance: music that was develop in a certain cultural context (Afro-American music can it be appropriate and played by people who do not come from other traditions?)
