English Modernism + James Joyce, Dispense di Inglese

Scarica English Modernism + James Joyce e più Dispense in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! MODERNISM At the beginning of the 20th century the forms and styles of the Victorian literary tradition continue to exist and proliferate, but many of the aspects that were traditionally associated with it started to be replaced by new theories and ideas that would eventually revolutionise the concept of life and of the world. The spread of Einstein's Theory of Relativity, for instance, which destroyed the faith in objective reality and discarded the concept of time and space, which he saw as subjective dimensions. The idea of time was also questioned by the American philosopher Henri Bergson. He made a distinction between historical and psychological time; the first one is linear and external, the second one is internal, subjective and measured by emotions. Also, the influence of the Freud’s psychoanalysis revealed the world of the unconscious and of the inner self. Finally, the 1° World War was the final blow to Victorian optimism and inaugurated an era of anxiety and uncertainty. These trends were reflected in the literary and artistic production of the period, which was characterised by a growing technical and stylistic experimentalism and by the attempt to use literature to explore the hidden sides of the modern human mind. The literature and the arts of the early 20th century were marked by the birth of a cosmopolitan literary and artistic movement called 'Modernism'. It was influenced by different artistic movements, all of which were united in their attempt to rebel against the past and create new forms and styles. The works of Modernist writers are heterogeneous and show strong experimentalism, but it is possible to point out the following common recurring features: • fragmentation of the narrative point of view and of a traditional plot in favour of a multi-layered and complex narration. • redefinition of the traditional concepts of time and place, which are represented as subjective, rather than objective dimensions. • use of experimental narrative techniques showing the flux of thoughts that characterise the working of the mind. • rejection of traditional grammar and punctuation in favour of unorthodox forms of expression. • use of free verse and rejection of traditional verse forms in poetry. • use of complex vocabulary and concepts. The general idea that emerges from Modernist literature is that the human mind is at the centre of the writer's scrutiny —> the writer tries to render its complexity, anxiety and fragmentation, while also trying to express subjective, rather than objective truths. In the attempt to build a new system of references, novelists and poets drew inspiration from classical as well as new cultures to create a new subjective mythology. For instance, James Joyces use of the stream-of-consciousness technique, it is certainly indebted to Sigmund Freud, William James and Henri Bergson, but derives from the process of dissolution of the novel that Laurence Sterne had started in the 18th century. Modernist literature The shift from the Victorian to the modern novel was caused by a gradual but substantial transformation of the British society, which passed from the comfortable, prosperous world of the Victorians to the inter-war years, which were marked by unrest and ferment. The urgency for social change and the need for different forms of expression, forced novelists into a position of moral and psychological uncertainty. The novelist had a new role, which consisted in mediating between the solid and unquestioned values of the past and the confused present, highlighting the complexity of the unconscious. The narrative technique most employed by the modern novelist was the “stream of consciousness”. This expression was coined by the philosopher William James (1842- 1910), the brother of the novelist Henry, who probably gave one of the most famous definitions of the modern self in his book “The Principle of Psychology”. James definition contains a revolutionary idea: by saying subjective life is not a chain or a train, he affirms that it cannot be organised in a rational way and cannot be described objectively. Human consciousness is a constantly flowing stream in which past and present events and perceptions coexist without boundaries. With “stream of consciousness” we define the continuous flow of thoughts and sensation that characterise the human mind, and, in novels, it is expressed with the literary device of the interior monologue. —> there are two kinds of interior monologue indirect and direct. In the indirect interior monologue, the narrator never lets the characters thoughts flow without control and maintains logical and grammatical organisation (used in Virginia Woolf’s book). In James Joyce’s Ulysses, instead, he brought to perfection the direct interior monologue employing it where the narrator seems to not exist, and the characters’ inner self is given directly. The two factors that contributed the most to produce the modern novel were: the new concept of time and the new theory of the unconscious which derived from the Freudian influence. Freud’s theory of the human psyche, which are explained in the work “The Interpretation of Dreams”, proposed the revolutionary idea that human consciousness is a multi-layered entity and that most of it is unknown. This 'mysterious' part of the mind is called 'the unconscious': it is the reign of the irrational, of the subjective and of primordial impulses and cannot be explained or described in rational terms. He elaborated a theory of the unconscious, developing a model of the psyche made up of the Id (uncontrolled, instinctual trends), the Super-ego a moralising trend that can stop a person from doing what the id suggests) and the Ego (the realistic element of the psyche that mediates between the id and the super-ego). Freud's influence on 20th-century literature was immense: in fact the 'stream of consciousness' technique can be see as a technical attempt made by Modernist writers to use words to describe the new concept of the modern self described by him. The French philosopher Henri Bergson, on the other hand, revolutionised the concept of time itself by introducing the revolutionary idea that time is structured not as a series of discrete units, but as a constant flow. Bergson's influence on the narrative technique of Modernist writers can be seen both in their interest in subjective rather than objective time and in their disintegration of traditional linear plots. —> In Modernist novels plots become less and less important and stories usually have open endings. The reader of the first half of the 20" century is thus supposed to be an overhearer, an individual who rather casually hears the conversations of the characters and has the chance to listen to their inner train of disconnected thoughts. partially why Eveline is unable to make a decision and she feels she needs a male figure, either God or Frank, to “save” her from her present situation. Eveline sees marrying Frank as a way to gain respect, so she is aware that she is somewhat helpless without a husband. As a woman, she does not have a lot of mobility when it comes to her status. As she is trying to decide whether or not to leave, she reasons through her rights, saying “Why should she be unhappy? She had a right to happiness.” This need to justify her own desire to be happy is also a result of social oppression. Eveline is the caretaker of her father and two children, and she feels guilty leaving for the sake of her own happiness, knowing that they are relying on her. This is because society has told her that she is a caretaker and should be driven by others’ needs, not by her own desires or pursuit of happiness. Eveline’s role as a woman also affects her views and experiences with violence. As Eveline’s father begins to threaten her more, he also justifies it by threatening her “for her dead mother’s sake.” Eveline feels like she is becoming her mother and thus the new outlet for her father’s violence. However, since she grew up in this environment, she has been exposed to violence and is somewhat used to it. There seems to be a great deal of blame placed on Eveline’s mother. Eveline herself even says “She would not be treated as her mother had been,” implying that this is some sort of conscious decision her mother made that Eveline can choose not to make. When Eveline does in fact end up staying, it becomes clear that the decision to stay in an abusive relationship is complicated and much less of a decision than it seems, or perhaps not even a decision at all. Eveline has seen her mother sacrifice her well-being, and eventually sanity, and it is only natural that she does not question that she should do the same. When Eveline begins to have heart palpitations because of her father’s threats, this does not prevent her from staying behind. She has seen her mother put her health at risk for a man and it doesn’t seem unnatural for her to do the same. Eveline is motivated by what marrying Frank could give her – respect, more freedom, an escape – but at the final moment she comes to the realization that she does not really love Frank, and regardless of what changes would result from marriage, she will always be trapped in her role as a caretaker and rendered powerless by society. Through her inability to make a decision, she inadvertently decides to stay behind in Dublin. Eveline has a logical thought process as she considers her options. She observed her father’s violence toward her mother and brothers growing up, and resolves to leave so she will not end up in the same situation. At the same time, she knows that both her father and the children she takes care of are relying on her, but also reasons that she deserves to pursue her own happiness. Despite this logic, her emotions kick in and she begins to feel guilty for leaving them. She is also influenced by her fear of the unknown. She admits that her current life is “a hard life,” but now that she is making plans to leave, Eveline starts to think about all of the good things and the certainty that her current life provides. Nostalgia plays a large role in Eveline’s decision to stay as well. She is attached to the past, and even though the people from her past are long gone, she cannot bring herself to leave the city that she associates with them. Rather than focusing on her present relationship with her father, she uses their past experiences together to justify her bond with him, remembering when he read her ghost stories and made her toast while she was sick and another time when the family went for a picnic while her mother was still alive. Joyce is perhaps using “Eveline” as an opportunity to critique this type of glorification of the past, since here it prevents Eveline from escaping an abusive relationship and pursuing her own happiness. Her nostalgia causes her to sacrifice her future, and despite her logical thought process, her final decision is ultimately caused by a gut feeling. Ulysses (1922) —> is a long, complex novel set in Dublin on one single day, 16 June 1904. It contains 18 episodes that narrate the actions of three characters First we meet the young Stephen Dedalus, whom Joyce had already presented in his previous novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man He is the protagonist of the first three episodes, grouped as—> “The Telemachiad.” The next and main section is called “The Odyssey” and focuses on the urban wanderings of Leopold Bloom, a middle-aged salesman. Finally, the third section, called Nostos, (that in ancient Greek means “homesickness”) brings Leopold back home to his loving but unfaithful wife Molly. The section ends with the spectacular adventure of Mollys monologue, nearly 1600 lines of free-flowing stream of consciousness prose, concluding with a triumphant affirmation of love and acceptance of her husband, Leopold. In a narrative that wanders through the city of Dublin, ironically reflecting the travels of wanderers like Odysseus, Joyce's Ulysses is an epic novel which offers different visions of daily life, personal attitudes, political and cultural discussion and reflection on the human condition. Its styles are multiple and varied; its language and structure inventive and fanciful as Joyce delights in upsetting sentence structure, playing with and inventing words, delighting in sound patterns. Each episode offers its own style and joyce prepared his own outine for this immense creation, indicating for each episode: a title referring to a character or incident from Home's The Odyssey, a time and place, a part of the body (heart, liver, stomach.., an art (music, painting.., a colour, a symbol and a narrative technique. Joyce's constant references to Homer's The Odyssey and to the world of ancient mythology adds a layer of universality to the events narrated in the novel and at the same time ironically underlines the squalid reality of modernity, which lacks the heroism of the ancient world. In this sense the mythical method' adopted by Joyce in Ulysses is very similar to the one used by T.S. Eliot in The Waste Land: both writers use ancient myths to represent the modern world as a place where heroism has disappeared and sterility dominates. One of the most remarkable features of Joyce's Ulysses is the number and variety of narrative styles, and especially of one of the most interesting techniques of Modernist writing: the stream of consciousness. By relying on the massive use of this narrative technique, Joyce's novel tries to reflect the workings of the mind of its protagonist, Leopold Bloom, whose incoherent flux of ideas, thoughts, mental associations, impressions and memories is rendered on the page without any logical or rational organisation. Unlike Woolfs style, which is characterised by the poetical attempt to express the characters' free thoughts in a syntactically-controlled way. Joyce's style is an attempt to get rid of any kind of control over the character's thoughts, which flow on the page freely and incoherently as they do in Bloom's mind. The result is a kaleidoscopic, estranging, disturbing and shocking novel, which represents one of the best examples of Modernist experimentation in prose writing