Evolution of Stream of Consciousness in Modernist Literature: Eliot, Pound, Woolf, Schemi e mappe concettuali di Letteratura Angloamericana

Scarica Evolution of Stream of Consciousness in Modernist Literature: Eliot, Pound, Woolf e più Schemi e mappe concettuali in PDF di Letteratura Angloamericana solo su Docsity! Modernism. The term Modernism was used for the first time in the years following the I World War in order to designate a literary movement which represents a break up with the traditional writing methods and which gives a new form to the literature. Indeed, the modernist writers meant to follow Ezra Pound's motto 'Make it new'. In the literary field we can identify a group of experimental writers, such as T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound (in America) or Virginia Woolf and James Joyce (in the UK). 1922 is considered the higher moment of Modernism, because of the publication of Ulysses by James Joyce and The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot, the most important works, whose main characteristic is the linguistic inaccessibility. In these two works we can identify the main characteristics of modernist prose and poetry:  Prose: o Large use of the stream of consciousness, a kind of interior monologue of the character, which goes through memories and thoughts without any filter; o The presence of revealing moments, moments in which the narration stops on something which seams to be meaningless, but at the same time reveals something important to the protagonist. It is what Woolf calls 'moment' and Joyce 'epiphany'  Poetry: poets didn't follow a scheme in the writing of a poem, indeed often we will not find rhymes or a particular structure, but there is a vast use of free verse. Some important characters of Modernism, not only in literature, are: o Einstein: he is the father of the theory of relativity; o Henry Ford: he was the owner of Ford, he lived between XIX and XX century and he invented the assembly line; o Ernest Hemingway: he was a writer and a fighter and he wrote during the war and about the war. During the I World War he was involved in the armed force from 1916 to 1918; o Francis Scott Fitzgerald; o George Orwell; o Henry James: his brother, William James, was a psychologist. He was linked to Freud and he invented the idea of the stream of consciousness. In Modernism we can find different cultural currents, like Surrealism, Futurism, Dadaism. Futurism. Futurism is the movement which more represents the concept of "avant-garde" in the XX century. This movement starts with the publication of 'The Founding and the Manifesto of Futurism' by F.T. Marinetti in 1909 on the Parisian newspaper Le Figaro. Especially in the years from 1912 to 1914, Futurism became the central point of a debate which stretched across Europe and the United States. Futurism expanded into nearly all the arts, including literature, music, visual arts, architecture, drama, photography, film, dance, fashion. Moreover, it proves that there is a kind of link between art and power, aesthetic and politics. From a historical point of view, the outbreak of the IWW in 1914 put an end to Futurism's influence in Europe, but its afterlife in Italy was another matter. From the moment that war broke out, Marinetti became an advocate of Italian intervention and he was elated when Italy joined in 1915. He himself enrolled promptly just like other Futurists (Umberto Boccioni or Antonio Sant'Elia). In 1917 Marinetti had his first meeting with a dissident Socialist who had early broken with the Socialist party, Benito Mussolini. He would be named prime minister of Italy in 1922. From this year to the outbreak of the Second World War Marinetti and the Futurists would occupy a strange place within Fascist culture, because Futurist style was favoured for projects in the visual arts and design which involved new technology, aviation and other indices of modernity. At the same time, they were distrusted by many leaders within the Fascist regime, viewed as potential dissidents or anarchists. Manifestos. Modernism in the early twentieth century proclaimed itself in the writing of manifestos, which are public declarations of artistic convictions, relatively brief, which almost always used an aggressive declaration of artistic independence. Hostility is often a rhetorical tool of the manifesto. Modernist manifesto tried to separate not only the new from the old but also the creative us from a vulgar them. This division was intended to offend traditionalists as well to unite the believers in new artistic movements. Moreover, this boundary between us and them will always push forward and leave someone behind, as Pound says in "Retrospect". Manifesto of Futurism - F.T. Marinetti In this manifesto we have 11 points which represent the ideals of the Futurist movement. Futurists exalt energy, courage, revolt, action, in contrast to the immobility, sleep and ecstasy which were protagonists of the traditional literature and art in general. They say that the world has been enriched with the beauty of speed and of new technologies, thanks to the presence of the cars, railways, planes, locomotives. All these concepts were represented in painting, for example, with the adoption of different perspectives, just like the cubism did, and in the theatre, were there was a violation of the traditional boundaries between actors and audience. As far as poetry is concerned, the poet must work with ardour, using primordial elements and poetry must be violent and aggressive in order to be a masterpiece. There's no need to look back: what represents the past (museum, libraries) must be destroyed. Revolution, destruction and war are considered the hygiene of the world. Also scorn for women is demonstrated. In answer to this we have the Feminist Manifesto by Mina Loy. From a stylistic point of view, we can see the presence of short sentences and the repetition of the word "we", which recalls that generational division between us and them, old and new, traditionalism and modernism. Feminist Manifesto - Mina Loy. It was written during Loy's association with F.T. Marinetti but never published during her lifetime. Starting from a stylistic point of view, the presence of bigger words immediately catches the eye and the writer probably uses this expedient in order to put in evidence key words. We also have no standard sentences (many of them are interrupted or unfinished), indeed when she talks about an absolute demolition, she probably refers to a demolition of the syntax. Moreover, we can notice the use of dashes, unusual marks which can be substituted by commas. Switching to the content, the writer speaks to women, saying them to be brave in order to change their condition. She destroys the rhetoric by which "woman is the equal of man", because as things stand at that moment, the relation between men and women is like the relation between the parasite and the exploited. But this happen in a context like a family, because the women can choose In the summer of 1917, Frederic, hospitalised at the Ospedale Maggiore in Milan following a wound, gets to know a young English nurse, Catherine Barkley (whom he had previously met at a field hospital). A relationship developed between the two, which at first seemed casual but quickly became intense and passionate. In October 1917, the Italian front collapses at Caporetto. The group of ambulances (among which Frederic himself is among other chauffeurs) finds itself overwhelmed by the mass of soldiers in chaotic retreat, so much so that the drivers are forced to abandon their vehicles. At the moment of crossing a bridge over the Tagliamento river in retreat, Frederic is stopped by the military police of the Carabinieri, who had orders to interrogate the officers who had strayed and were considered deserters. He narrowly escapes by diving into the river and then manages to reach Catherine in Stresa amidst various adventures, but the two are forced to leave Italy as the military police are on Frederic's trail and are about to arrest him. The couple manages to reach the Swiss shore of the lake. This happiness is unfortunately short- lived: Catherine, who was pregnant, dies in a hospital in Lausanne during childbirth and Frederic's son is born dead. The protagonist will therefore find himself alone and aimless in the novel's sad ending, wandering bitterly around the city. Gertrude Stein. Her parents were well-off German Jewish immigrants who, at the time of her birth, were established in business in Baltimore. She was born in Pennsylvania. Her parents died when she was an adolescent. For many years Stein made a family with one of his brothers, Leo. When he went to Harvard she was admitted to Harvard's annex for women (now Radcliffe College). There she studied with the psychologist William James. Some of her early writing, like The Making of Americans, are probably trying to apply his theories of consciousness. Then Leo went in Europe because of his interest in art and she followed him. In this period she started to write. There they became friends with painters like Picasso and Matisse. She also had contacts with E. Hemingway and F. S. Fitzgerald. She and Alice Toklas (her lover) made both something for France during the wars. Stein was an ambulance driver during the I WW. We cal talk about three different phases in Stein's writing. In all three phases she wrote lesbian love poems which developed an obscure symbolism, created for socially unacceptable feelings and which needed to be decoded if the poems were to be understood. 1. Interest in representing the present time; 2. She treated words as things, ignoring the connection between words and meaning and undercutting expectations about order and coherence. This kind of poetry appears to be in contrast with what she called patriarchal poetry, an orderly, hierarchical and rule-based poetry. 3. A campaign of self-promotion. From The Making of Americans. This is the introduction of her novel. The main themes are repeating and remembering. As we said, Stein treats words as thing and she usually ignores the meaning of them. Indeed in this text there is the repetition of some phrases many times, like 'I am writing for myself and strangers' or 'Everyone in an individual being'. She usually makes combination with words which are in assonance with each other (repeating, hearing, loving) or the same words (know, it). I think there is a connection between this theme of repetition and the introduction of this text: the son repeats what his father has done, but the father says that it's not true. From The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. It is one of the most accessible Stein's major works. Stein and Toklas were travelling in England when the war broke out. They returned to France, where they helped transport supplies for war relief efforts and provided hospitality to American soldiers after the U.S. entry into the war. In this text she talks about the French landscape which was completely destroyed because of the war and in general it is described how they were useful during this period of war. An interesting passage is about the Arc de Triomphe. Francis Scott Fitzgerald. He was born in a middle-class family in Minnesota. He attended the Catholic boarding school and the he entered Princeton University. After three years of college he quit to join the army, but the war ended before he could see the active During the years of college he started writing a novel named This Side of Paradise, which was published in 1920 and was accepted as the voice of the younger generation in a society increasingly oriented towards youth. In 1924 he and his wife moved to Europe to live cheaper and made friends with Hemingway, Stein and Pound During this years he published The Great Gatsby. It is a novel which tells the story of a self-made young man whose dream of success, personified in a rich and young woman named Daisy, turns out to be a fantasy. The novel is narrated from the point of view of Nick Carraway. al During the 20s Fitzgerald wrote many short stories. In 1931 he re-established himself permanently in the USA. In 1934 a new novel, Tender Is The Night, appeared. This novel follows the emotional decline of a young American psychiatrist. As in The Great Gatsby, the protagonist begins as a disciple of the work ethic and turns into a pursuer of wealth, so that the American Dreams turns out in a nightmare. Fitzgerald died of a heart-attack at the age of fourth-four. The Great Gatsby. The narrator is Nick Carraway. The novel starts with him talking about himself and a certain Gatsby. He says that he settled in Long Island, on the West Egg, near Gatsby's mansion. Then he drove to East Egg, where his cousin Daisy with her husband Tom Buchanan lived. Here we find out that Tom cheat on Daisy with Myrtle Wilson, wife of George Wilson. About Gatsby we can see that he was used to organise big parties where everyone went. 0g полі зн One day Nick was invited to one of this parties and here he met Gatsby for the first time. Another day Gatsby and Nick met and Gatsby tells that he belonged to a poor family and his name was James Gats. He was educated at Oxford, he participated to the Great War and he became so rich because he "came into a good deal of money". Then he decided to change his name in Jay Gatsby, because he was a Jew and this new name sounded more American. Then we find out that Gatsby is in love with Daisy, because they had been lovers before Gatsby went to war and before he was so rich. So they met at first at Nick's house and then Daisy and Iom are invited to one of Gatsby's parties. Gatsby convinces Daisy to tell Tom that she never loved him and this happens to Hotel Plaza, in New York. While they were coming back to Long Island, Gatsby hits Myrtle with his car (even though Daisy was driving) and kills her. George Wilson, also influenced by Tom, thinks that Gatsby was his wife's lover and so at the end he kills Gatsby and then kills himself. A Farewell to Arms vs The Great Gatsby. o Style: in Hemingway's style there are a lot of dialogues; o A Farewell to Arms is more linear from a chronological point of view; The Great Gatsby is more subjective (1" person), while A Farewell to Arms is more objective (3 person). Thomas Stearns Eliot. During his lifetime he attended Harvard and then studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and at Oxford. He started writing traditional poems as a college students, but then he read Arthur Symons's The Symbolist Movement in Literature, which altered his view of the poetry, as for example The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock showed. Ezra Pound, reading this work, introduced Eliot in literary circles. Eliot settled in England marrying Vivian Haigh-Wood in 1915. In Eliot's social essays of the 20s and 30s we can find an emphasis on order, hierarchy and racial homogeneity, in addition to a crude anti-Semitism. Eliot's, and also Pound's fascist sympathies, together with their influence on poetry, had the result of linking the modernist movement with reactionary politics in the public perception. About poetry, Eliot put forth a poetics by which poetry existed in a realm of its own, in which poems were to be considered only in terms of their own structures and he denigrated any didactic, expository or narrative aim. The love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. This is a poem about existential loneliness and the impossibility of communication. In this poem we can find various literary and cultural allusions, e.g. to Dante, Shakespeare, myth and the classical world. At the beginning we find an epigraph that is a quotation from the 17th canto of the Divina Commedia and it is Guido da Montefeltro talking to Dante. At the beginning we see Prufrock talking to himself, even though he says 'you and I', in a city that seems to be desolate. The most important event in London's early life occurred in 1897, when, at the age of 21, he headed to Alaska to take part in the Klondike Gold Rush His first book was The Son of The Wolf, published by Houghton-Mifflin. London's writings reflect the social and intellectual turbulence of the turn of the 20th century, including his competing sympathies with socialism, Social Darwinism and Nietzschean individualism, and his combination of urban settings and characters with the pastoral and exotic. London's writings have attracted new interest from scholars not only for their literary artistry but also for what they show about the cultural and historical issues of his era, especially race and class. London was the best-selling author in America and was on his way to become the most popular American writer in the world. To Build A Fire. A man travels in the Yukon (near the border of current day Alaska) on an extremely cold morning with a husky wolf-dog. He walks along a creek trail and then he stops for lunch and builds a fire. The man continues on and, in a seemingly safe spot, falls through the snow and wets himself up to his shins. He curses his luck; starting a fire and drying his foot-gear will delay him at least an hour. The man unties his icy moccasins, but before he can cut the frozen strings on them, clumps of snow from the spruce tree above fall down and snuff out the fire. The man sets himself to building a new fire, gathering twigs and grasses. He manages to start the fire, but it soon goes out. The man decides to kill the dog and puts his hands inside its warm body to restore his circulation. He calls out to the dog, but something fearful and strange in his voice frightens the dog. The dog finally comes forward and the man grabs it in his arms. But he cannot kill the dog, since he is unable to pull out his knife or even throttle the animal. He lets it go. l Then he panics and runs along the creek trail, trying to restore circulation. But his endurance gives out, and finally he falls and cannot rise. He fights against the thought of his body freezing, but it is too powerful a vision, and he runs again. He falls again, and makes one last panicked run and falls once more. He decides he should meet death in a more dignified manner. He imagines his friends finding his body tomorrow. The man falls off into a comfortable sleep. The dog does not understand why the man is sitting in the snow like that without making a fire. As the night comes, it comes closer and detects death in the man's scent. It runs away in the direction of the camp, "where were the other food-providers and fire-providers." Zitkàla-Sà / Gertrude Simmons Bonnin She was a writer, editor, translator, musician, educator and politica activist. Co-founder of the National Council of American Indians in 1926, which was established to lobby for Native people's right to United States citizenship and other civil rights they has long been denied. She wrote the libretto and songs for The Sun Dance Opera, the first American Indian opera. It was comped in romantic musical style and based on Sioux and Ute cultural themes. Why I Am A Pagan. In "Why I am a Pagan," Bonnin worships a God that created the beauty in the world. She argues that God did not call the white man to destroy a beautiful Native American culture, steal their homelands, pen them up on reservations, or beat Indian children for speaking in their mother tongue. Bonnin still aimed at bridging a gap between the vast differences of the dominant white and Native American cultures. As a person of mixed blood, her life could be looked upon as an example of the beauty and accomplishments that can be made when the two cultures can live cooperatively. Bonnin realised that to hate difference was to hate life. Frederick Jackson Turner. During the 19th century in America there was the spread of two different ideas of national identity: the germ theory and the frontier theory. The germ theory held that American democracy had been racially transmitted through Anglo-Saxon immigration, first from northern Germany to England and then from England to America. The frontier theory, by F. K. Turner, stated that American democracy lay within the soil which took the mixed seeds which fell upon it and transformed them into something new, the American race. The West is considered to be a region where older institutions meet the transforming influences of free land, creating a new environment where freedom of opportunity is opened and new institutions and new ideals are brought into existence. "Up to our own day American history has been in a large degree the history of the colonisation of the Great West. The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession and the advance of American settlement westward, explain American development." "Thus American development has exhibited not merely advance along a single line, but a return to primitive conditions on a continually advancing frontier line, and a new development for that area. American social development has been continually beginning over again on the frontier. This perennial rebirth, this fluidity of American life, this expansion westward with its new opportunities, its continuous touch with the simplicity of primitive society, furnish the forces dominating American character. The true point of view in the history of this nation is not the Atlantic coast, it is the Great west. Even the slavery struggle, which is made so exclusive an object of attention by writers like Professor con Holst, occupies its important place in American history because of its relation to westward expansion." Zora Neale Hurston. She was born in Alabama and moved with her family in Florida. After her mother's death, she moved from one relative to another until she was old enough to support herself. Although she had never finished grade school in her town, she was able to enter and complete college. The she decided to move to Harlem and to pursue a literary career there. Here she became a storyteller. Her career also take a second direction: indeed, she also developed an interest in black folks traditions. One of her most important writings is Their Eyes Were Watching God, a novel a bout an African American woman, which became a popular favorite, as a woman's story and a descriptive critique of Southern American folk society, showing its divisions and diversity. How It Feels to Be Colored Me. This essay aims at highlighting the life of Afro-American black women in the 1920s. The skopos of the essay is not merely a black audience but also white men living in America. This way she shares her experience of being black and treated prejudice. The essay opens by explaining the word 'colored' or Afro-American. The author calls herself unique among others and makes no excuse to hide her racial identity. She is determined not to exchange her black identity with Native American whiteness just like other people of her race. Hurston mentioned in the essay, at that time, she was aware of the only difference between white and black and that was white people do not live in their town and they paid her for singing, dancing and reciting. It was an amazing thing for her because she was not paid for these activities in her town. Only white people used to do it to her. Life was plain until she reached the age of 13. Due to family issues, she was sent to a boarding school in Jacksonville, Florida. As she left the town, she was no more Zora but a little colored girl. From this point forward, Hurston describes the present view where she is being discriminated against because of her skin color. She protests why everyone reminds her of servitude which is a past event. Both white and black are trying to heal from that incident. She wishes to run ahead instead of clinging to the past. Hurston often recalls her time in Eatonville. However, she sometimes finds herself in the backdrop due to her color especially when there is a white person. When she attends college at Barnard, she notices some differences between her and white people. She gives an example of her social importance when she went to a music club in Harlem accompanied by her white friend. She describes when the jazz music was played, it affected her whole body and she started swaying and dancing like an animal. But the song ended and bewildered feelings left slowly. She then turns towards her white friend who only praises the music without being touched with the emotions that she was gripped in a moment earlier. She realizes a gap between them and "He is so pale with his whiteness then and I am so colored." Hurston does not find conflict between her Americanness and Darkness. She considers herself as part of the country. She sees discrimination with surprise and not with rancor. Edgar Lee Masters Edgar Lee Masters was born in Kansas and grew up between the towns of Petersburg and Lewiston. He started the legal profession to please his father, but broke with both parents when he moved to Chicago in 1891. Here Masters met many of the writers and intellectuals involved in the Chicago Renaissance, a movement aiming to make the city a cultural centre. William Marion Reedy gave him a copy of J.W. Mackail's Selected Epigrams from the Greek Anthology. In this collection Masters found interconnected autobiographical poems, where the speaker in one poem talked about speakers in other poems. He took inspiration from this collection to write Spoon River Anthology, a collection in which all the speakers are dead and buried in a cemetery "On the hill" (the title of the first poem). The