See literary
history.
Puritans: they than
wanted to settle. Had their thought of how to live in the new world.
With link to their religion. They thought that in England Henry the
VIII with hiss ix wifes that Europe was „bad“.
Apocalyptic Tales of
Encounter between European Settlers and Native Inhabitants: Aspect of
how distraction is seen. (Spiderman). Changes that have happened.
Aspect oft he Spanish
Settlement:
Alvar Nunez Cabeza de
Vaca. Idea: finding something. He expected to find streets paved with
gold. Reporting about cities with gold. Imagination, they are only
there, has never seen them. Where intersted in exploiting.
Stories of captivity.
How it was in the captivity, they discribed. (Pocahontas).
Become the voice of
native Americans. Two different ways of seeing the world (couldnt
convince them that we were also white christians).
Glossary:
Apocalypse. Captivity narrative, convenant theology (Half way
covenant), election, inner light, Jeremiad, Plain Style, Puritans,
Separatist and Non- Seperating Typology, Weaned Affections.
Two Religious groups
Puritans and the Quackers coming in search fort he promised land.
(Around 16 hundred).
Plain style: the prose
was suposed tob e more pure than poetry.
Utopian Literature in
America.
Captivity narrative:
hardship, illness and death. Zerstören die idealisierten Hoffnungen.
The use of powerful
methaphors oft he bible.
Shipwreck:
Puritans: end oft he
world, which they believed was on hand. Gemeinschaft war wichtiger
als das persönliche Wohl. Saw themselves as „crossing the red sea“
by shipping to America. „promise of a new Christian world“. Saw
the Native Americans in two ways, 1. Those who tried to take away
theircountry but also allies to help them understand the new world.
Mary Rowlandson: was a
captive of an Indian tribe. Classic example of a Jeremiad = stories
that Puritans told when they failed. God will punish us now. When we
return to our original way of behaviour, God will return to us.
Moralisation: every bodies life is a wilderness life. Story of
demnation and salvation. It seems everything is lost but then you
survive and everything goes out well. She didnt write the story only
herself, but her husband and the chef oft he colony helped her. They
wanted an inspiring story.
Salem witch trials:
they lost faith. Salem story ended by about 17 hundred.
Puritans and Quackers.
Ideas clashing against each other. They saw the Puritans as working
fort he devil. Had different ideas. 4 Quackers were hanged by
Puritans.
Quackers: were more
inclusive in their believes, less stern (Stubern). Pacifism. Live
soberly and kindly. Therefore more peaceful co-existent with the
native Americans.
Constitution: quite
radical not durchführbare Ideen at that time, but they have proved
themselves till today.
Nation: chosen,
exceptional, everytime an American thinks that he thinks the same
thoughts as the Puritans did.
Questions:
How did the Puritans
and QQuakers respond tot he social and political…
See moodle!!
4.Stunde,
Moving from Colonialism
to Enlightenment. Moving away from Religion to what is possible for
humans.
Transcendentalism
In the midst of self
determination, we are. No longer god to guide us. French Revolution
was important. American Revolution: aspect of independence. (1776).
ïƒ establishment
of a middleclass, increasing literacy rate. More is being published
and written. Puritan period: little amount of things that were
written. Now: Literature as such is being established.
Benjamin Franklin
(1706- 1790): still important for what America believes to be. Being
a politican, inventing things (Blitzableiter), he was a true
enlightent person. Believed in creating oneself. He did not refer to
god (was more a higher being, but he basically believed in what he
himself could do). he was very dominant fort he culture at that time
and still. Wrote an autobiography. Of Plymoth plantation: could be
said as a Group autobiography). Published in 1880 20 years after his
death. Begins with his comming to Philadelphia. How tob e successful,
he writes about. From Rags to Riches.
Quote: Dear son….
References to
ancestors. Not important where you come from and who your family is.
Power oft he individual, and not listen to others. Trust yourself.
Powers within the own self. Wrote how emerged from poverty. The how
is something new. He wants tob e instructing. There is a certain
selfpurpose there. He is sometimes quite arrogant in the text.
Reforcing the aspect of his own! Abilities. Pointing out on the fact
that he did it on his own. Self-promotion!. Self help book. If you
cant do it yourself it is your fault, you are not trying hard enough.
(Gods out of her, but he uses him here.) ïƒ
ist your fault. (secular aspect that comes in here). Writing also
fort he sociatal context ->. Not just about himself. -> also
level of education. He becomes in his imagination the prototypical
American. New beginnings: went from Boston (old center) to
Philadelphia (new center). New beginning and old ending, the same
thought again as we talked bei den Puritanern.
Quote: I have been the
more particular.
Looking back from his
now established position. Progress aspect. Autobio journey. The
person who gives more has little. How Franklin culturally constructs
himself. Even as a person with little money he had enough to pay
people on the ship. Not the person for mercy he is. He is not pitting
himself. It was just a moment in time. He is a hero – the selfmade
man. Later again as a hero in other books, the self made man.
Puritans: sign of god
for everything. Now secular level: sort of welth is something you are
proud of. Welth is something that you deserve because you really
worked hard on it.
Self help, self
reliance, self reinvention. Franklin doesnt want tob e rich. Is just
because he worked so hard and now he deserves it. (moral aspect).
Quote: It was about…
Wants tob e this model
perfect person. He devises a method: Age of reason (everythings
checked). His virtues, he sets up:
Temperance
Silence
Order
Resolution
Frugality
Industry
Sincerity
Justice
Moderation
Cleanliness
Tranquility
Chastity
Humility (certain
irony to himself)
Like manager tips.
Ambivalence: He thinks ist important to write down things and refelct
on them (Geisteswissenschaften oft als useless seen in comparision to
engeneering.)
Used a week chart:
using his virtues. To embody this in the routine oft he day.
Individual has
potential to change himself and help himself. Common sense =
Hausverstand.
Finding quick
solutions, not doing things like people did before ( but valuing the
traditions). But why should web e enslaved by old traditions. Why
not do it new.
Hard work, reason,
common sense i spart of the American dream.
Others help you: in Eu
good, positive, but in America mercy is something bad.
Self reliance, helping,
you do it fort he public but not fort he mercy. Communal aspect. A
lot of volunteering. What you can do for public service (American
students).
Franklin: Almanach, he
wrote. Like a calendar. Literary style, the content is important.
Europeans first said: they have no literary tradition, they just
mimic us. But they didnt, wrote in plain style (not that flowery
stuff from Europe).
Writes about: What is
an American and what he can do. Art is useful, but not art for ist
own sake.
Letters from an
American Farmer (1782) Michel St.John de Crevecoeur.
What ist he new
American man? Cultural narrative oft he newness, new beginning.
Shagging oft he past, establishing something new. What devides oft he
others (independence). Becoming ist own nation, not abhängig oft he
EU, no colony anymore.
Born in France, then
England, than Canada, then New York State. Was a Torey. Developing
the newness oft he american. Writes is from the perspective as a
quaker, farmer. One hand: religious aspect, trying to keep pure and
being strict about their religion ïƒ
which imploded. Couldnt keep community together. Other hand: believed
in equality and pacifism.--> Inlcusion of diversity and different
voices in the Americanness.
Another myth: the
Pioneers, explorers. Doesnt know what hes going to find
(Fronteersman). The searchers (John Wayne)
He here is establishing
the settler, the farmer. Travel, philosophy, describing different
customs (comparing). ïƒ
to European habbits. Experiences,
Summary: juxtaposing,
who is an American, what is an American, to not be special to do
something special.
Thomas Paine:
(1737-1809)
Culture imbedded in the
ideas!/in the abstract.
Paine believed in the
revolution (Crevecour is torn in this terms). He is an American by
conviction.
Published „common
sense“. There are no structures there. So he asks for structures.
We can construct a government now. He is talking about plain style.
Dont be against the tyranny but the tyrant. Started Americas self
idenitification. Arrousing opposition = > in terms of common
sense.
Thomas Jefferson:
picture with quote.
Declaration of
independence: Stilll used for people who feel excluded from the
American dream-„ ist still valid for us“. From 18th century,
still valid today. Dont have that in Europe. Even in the 21st century
text of inclusion. (4.July 1776)
James Madison: Notes on
the State of Virginia. Establishing a national identity.
Quote: question oft he
land. Simple, independence. Question of arming oneself. Being
independent in terms of a tyranny. Which role should government take
and have. Abilities and promise of a new government. Land, ownership
plays an important role. New Governement: how it deals with the
native Americans.
Abigail Adamas:
Remember the Ladies (1776). Wife of President John Adams. Talks oft
he Declaration of independence in terms oft he women. Early voice of
inclusion, feminist voice. Dont exclude, remember the ladies.
At this time the
husband: the father who was had of household had power over many
aspects of life. Women getting disobedient. Women movement grew out
oft he antyslavery movement. Women fighting against slavery, that was
how it started but they realiced that they even themselves dont have
the rights, for exmaple to speak in public.
Samson Occom: native
voice talking about independence, dependence, nation, government. He
was not positive about the American Independence Revolution. Wanted
to stay native people to stay neutral.
Lemuel Haynes:
(1753-1833). Not only voice in terms of slavery but in terms of
political aspects. Position of american africans he discusses.
Prince Hall (1735 –
1807), tob e a voice oft he African American community,
Transcendentalism:
Ralph Waldo Emmerson (1803- 1882), self reliance, trust thyself.
Referred back to nature („Nature“, 1844, quote) romantic aspect
(nature) if you associate that with the wild nature. Britain
everything is very cultivated. Nature important in terms of
asthetics. Next quote: Balance loving….
Key words/ glossary on
the powerpoint.
America ist he new
Rome: establishing something new.
5.Stunde 25.03.2014
1629, Seal oft he
Massachusetts Bay Company. This was when this Trading Company was set
up.
Im Kreis steht: Come
over anf help us.
His arrow is pointing
down so he is not agressive.
1637 Mary Rowlandson
….sailing out to Massachusetts to make a good marriage.
William Bradford, Of
Plymoutj Plantation: describes of 400 native americans shooting.
Put them in a Thal and shooting all oft hem.
„Victory seemed a
sweet sacrifice.“ïƒ
from the bible (Leviticas).
Set fire to another
bunch of native Americans.
Some oft he natives
were are already Christianised, ïƒ the
„prayed“ indians, so he descirbes them in his text.
Things were going very
wrong at plymouth plantation.
Also the laws of
Leviticas: buggery, with animals, sex with animals. He hast o
identify the animals. The animals are executed and Thomas Granger is
hanged in front oft he animals.
Bradford: What is going
wrong with this Christian community.
Why has this Utopian
idea of a community gone wrong.
Gives several reasons:
The reason, lord is
testing us!
These are the dark
corners of American history.
Mary Rowlandson: losing
her children… he has seen people being slaugthered. Survival
strategies. She smokes 3 pipes a day -> decides to give up
smoking. Tobacco, she becomes then popular for trading it.
Traumatic experiance.
Corruption, decay,
bestiality. That she was afraid of.
One oft he reasons to
write the book was money. They needed money. Her book becomes quite a
bestseller. Thrilling story.
Last sermon: Is god
actually testing our chosen people with destruction. Proof: that you
can overcome all things god throws at you. 9/10 of her qotes tot he
bible ar from the old testament. Nly 1/10 from the New Testament.
Savage, Warefare,
Escape, Captivity. ïƒ
old Testament.
Presence of Jesus
Christ -> New Testament.
New Testament:
forgivingness, and Martyrdom.
Relationship between
natives and the white settlers, how the settlers saw themselves at
that time:
Hostility, that brakes
out between settlers and natives.
They do not see the
natives as people who can own land because they only fish, and jagen,
and wander around.
They dont follow any
laws, they dont fight like gentlement, settlers say.
We are now shocked that
the settlers took for granted to enslave the Indians. World view that
they all had at that time, first they start trading with them, but
then warfare.
Cease people, get hold
oft hem and turn them into slaves.
Slavery is taken for
granted and fully important sanction.
Early captive
narrative: John Smith.
Pocahontas-> native
simplicity and beauty -> she represents.
He was an army officer
fighting the Turks before coming to America.
1624. General history,
he describes that he was captured by Indians.
There are three
versions oft he 1624 version.
1630 Pocahontas falling
herself in captivity. Pocahontas is not returned but converted to
Christianity and married to one of her capturers.
On the picture: she is
dressed up like a European but still has some exotic touch: e.g. the
feather.
She dies 1670
Firstly: they find a
Utopian new country. But there are brutal, wild, savage natives
there. Demonic, diabolic.
Picture: Smith with the
huge, handsome Indian Chief.
Assaulting the mother
with the children on the picture. Always troubling.
Picture with Woman on
floor. The natives seem quite heroic with muscles.
Sacrifical figure,
nursing mother. Catholic represantitative for this time. Archetype.
Woman, blond hair, blue eyes and pregnant being slaugthered.
Forgiveness, generosity
on the one hand. ( the natives) on the other hand they see them as
wild, brutal daemons. Why this opposition.
Smith: the story of
Pocahontas was made up.
Rowlandson: new kind of
heroin. Allthough her husband helped her and provided all the
quotations from the bible.
Captive narrative
becomes crucial fort hat time. Because more or less the only written
things from the new world and was near to their lives. They also got
literature from Britain.
Happened the other way
to: natives adopting people oft he whites and intecrating in their
lives. One girl: ïƒ
native language, and became mother.
Her parents several
times tried to persuade her to come back but she didnt want to.
Rowlandson: afraid that
the Indians could win this kind of „war“. (like the Greeks and
the…Both sides had a hero..)
The Indians ar
extinguished but it also could have gone the other way round (also
accrording to Rowlandson)
Quotation: new female
kind of heroity. („home to my masters wigwamâ€œâ€œïƒ â€œhome“)
Hole network of slavery
trading. Imposes on native American. Social structure there that she
assambles tot he European structure (King Phillip as being very bad).
Slavery comes from the
old Testament.
Jeremiah (old
Testament).
Very first biblical
allusion: oft he old Testament, („Lot“). Punishmetn for being in
a state of absolute sin (Sodum and Gomorra).
Mary: „Lots wifes
temptation“ she knows that she hast o resist.
She begins to adapt.
Spirito of Christian forgiveness not quite part here.
Slavery: you learn how
to trade, how to have an outcome with the Indians.
Daniel Day Lewis
(Movie)
The Last oft he
Mohicans
6.Stunde 26.03.2014
Rowlandson: no sexual
assault, never, quite surprising.
Fear of interrational
sexuality. Wider issue of early american history. Racial
mixes.forbidden kind of desires.
The Last of The
Mohicans (James Fenimore Cooper),
Eu alle wollten die
Koloniale Herrschaft an sich reisen. (Sugar, Tobacco, Tomatoes, Mais,
Gold, …)
Has America a bigger
history of violence?
Business of violence,
special meaning given to violence (certain style) -> why they
enjoy horror stories, films about stalker, Quentin Tarantino (Django
Unchained). Pleasure in seeing violence performed ( scream murderer
with big knife,)
The Last oft he
Mohicans (excitment, violence,)state of permanent arousel (erotic
excitement, the beautiful young woman) stylish story of captivity
(captivity narrative).
Indian alies involved
with French army. General: you can march out fully weaponed.
Both sides had Indian
alies and used it against éach other.
Carrying their arms and
flags, allowed to go. No prisoners.
The massaker: how many
were killed, was it 15 or 1500…
How where the Indians
involved (blooddthursty, always a good moment to kill some white
people?)
Written in a odd
literary style.
All the chapters
contain a quote by Shakespeare or someone else.
Identity, fear, desire,
unexpectedness (when you go into an American wood at that time).
Chapter 1: hosts, ->
flavour to peculiar conditions, universal kind of Echo.
Impervious, expended
(expend). In quest (host and inquest narratives).
Complex contradictory
reading, quote from chapter 1
Dark black comedy:
also, why would they run through dark, savage forrests to kill each
other?!
„Woods so dark, nor
any secret place so lovely“ – Blut und Kampfgeil
Erotic kind of language
Style of American
violence
Permanent to and fro
between the French and English.
Wanting of dangerous
situations. Make it tot he struggle of death, appealing, ecxiting.
Coronel Munro, two
daughters want to join him. Setting out with Duncan Hayward.
Accompanies them through the forrest with an Indian runner, the bad
hero of this novel. ïƒ Devious,
powerful, betrayes by the English.
Younger sister: pure
quality, blue, blond hair, somehow he is blaiming her (Fenimore).
Linking it up with some
kind of older greek narrative.
The Indian, the bad one
gliding through the woods (devil gliding)
Interethnic desire,
they didn talk about that. Were aware oft hat but not talk. She is
looking at the Indian with desire, pity and also Abneigung/Angst?
Handsome nattive American.
The veil is crucial.
Slight movement oft he veil. Lifting it and than replacing it.
Rowlandson: Indians,
you can sleep besides them and they would never lay a hand on you and
assault you sexualy.
Scalping, knifing,
torture.
Indians: mainly eat
deer (Fleisch), mainly Fleisch Diät.
Töten des Tieres in
Chapter 3, pleasourous kind oft hing. Blood spitting around and the
deer falling on the floor.
Chapter 6
Hurons perceived as
crouching (animallike). In a sense pornography of violence.
Hawkeye. Staged as a
kind of weired pornographic spectacle.
Chapter XXIX: Cora
Hawkeye are all captive now.
Speech in one oft he
chapters: they were just, they were, happy, they were brave.
Magua,
thrilled, erotic scene.
Suffering like Jesus on the cross. Again gliding, as at the beginning
oft he story.
Di 01.04.14 habe ich
gefehlt
Mi 02.04.14
Moby Dick, Herman
Melville.
Whale oil, industrial
revolution.
Explanation oft he
whole whaleing history in the book.
Then they find the
white whale.
The hole crew are
committed to success. When they come back with the whale, they dont
get there money right away but they get a part (180stel or whatever)
and when the whale is sold, they get the money.
When they got the whale
on the harpune they then stab him until they get tot he heart and
they stirr around, and when blood comes out oft he whale hole they
know that they killed him.
Economic importance,
moral and spiritual ethnical, what constitutes civilization. That is
what interests Melville and not no much the heroic nature oft he
people.
Etymology:
In the book. What is
the meaning of whale.
Verbal and visual
imagination of Melville.
Massive industry, the
whale industry, at that time.
1859 they discovered
oil in America (Pennsylvania). So the whal oil was not that important
any more. Also discovered gold fields in…
Chapter 10:
Thirty dollars in
silver (Christian story ->)
Circum navigation.
Chapter 11:
Wicked mother, haunting
Ismael.
Nothing extists in
itself. Melville anticipating the voice. Burgoir class that has
emerged in America. He wants to represent the working class of
America.
Phylosophical question:
what the man is about, in this chapter. In the dark parts of our
identity weg et closer tot he truth, our identity.
Image of peace, smoking
(native American image).
Part oft he love match
-> smoking together.
Examples of whale
skelettons.
Captain Ahab: leg
eaten. Flesh vs. Skeletton.
Reminders of mortality.
Scientific research and
the talking oft he flesh, that is what Melville tries to bring
together again and again. So to say the science and the normal life.
Chapter 42:
Why is whiteness so
terrifying. ïƒ
white domination over all the ethnic groups.
City of Lima frozen in
whiteness.
Silent whiteness ist he
creepiest of all and even more i fit spreads over the world.
ïƒ source of terror and
horror. Ist indefinetness.
It is about the whole
universe. Where is god? Not only our world.
Do people create
religion to make sense oft he universe?
Milky way ïƒ not
unlike a white whale in the sky.
Want to get the heart
oft he mystery oft he universe.
Chapter 87:
East Indian ocean,
heading to Japan. Surrounded by whole school of whales. Like a little
city of whales. And the pet them, as if they were domasticated
animals.
Nursing scene, child at
the breast. Try to get the baby whale so that the mother follows.
Collective silence that
comes from the eyes oft he whale. Language tries to annact the
sansation.
Etymology:
Edgar Ellen Poe: „the
pale USher“ ….that was how he was found dead.
Melvilles way of
revealing his universe.
His breath (unspelled…)
h..
He is setting out what
he would do. cyclopedia story and scientific.
Roling and…they are
all in the name oft he whale, if correctly spelled.
Melville playful
subversiveness.
Chapter 94: businessman
structure. Hierarchy.
Chapter 111:
Enter the pacific
ocean, coming home. Classical pacan god.
Mississippi Delta.
Overladen brooks: coming oft he civil war.
Chapter 135:
Grews of railroads.
Native American history
retold in this last chapter in some way.
Burd of heaven
–>Jupiter and the devil.
5500 BC. Refers back
to…
Leaves of grass: Whalt
Whitman.
Based on old testament
biblical parts.
06.05.14
Prüfung: Wichtig ist
das wir die Topics, die für das Buch/ den Text wichtig sind (die im
Buch sind) das wir die wissen. Was taucht im Text/ Buch auf , was
sticht hervor, was kann man analysieren, die Jahreszahlen sind nicht
so wichtig. How to analyse a text properly. Book and culture of this
time how are they linked.
A text is always a
representation oft he culture at that time.
Filter material
realities that are in the text.
Literature pushes our
boundaries, of what we think. Apreciate the unexpected difference
about it. Literature fulfills expactations but also subvertes
expactations (unexpected stuff)
Look at our reading
journals in that way. Expecting unexpected things. (toolbox = what
does author use)
1900 or 1914 could be
marke das the modern period.
Great Depression
World War 2
The golden Twenties
And the decade after
WW2 were prosperous times.
Wilson, Franklin,
Trueman, Kennedy. Important leaders
War, depression,
question of communism, Threat of communism,
Level of technology:
the radio (1920, invention of radio) was also important in terms of
literary production, later television, computer,….
Change: fluidity in
change, continuity, these topics oft he new were also there, how do
you deal with the new.
The Roaring 20s, Jazz
age, flaming youth, America (young, young nation, new beginnings).
Rebellion against the conventions in the 20s, then again with the
hippy movement (communism), rebellion again. Throuh radio, cinema,
technique, all ideas are more spread. Relationship between sexes, ïƒ
even stronger afterwards!. Changes happen on different level. Motion
cinema: influencing literature, 1920s, 30.000 televisions exist.
Advertisements.
Establishment of
institutions: national broadcasting station, many important football
players (Babe Ruth). 20s, also age of consuming starts. Establishment
of mail catalogues (Otto, Heine). Feeling of picking and choosing and
not only take what is really necesarry for you. Advertisments are
very important: make products seem atractive. Automobile: Ford Model
T, was very important fort hat time. Also important fort he civil
rights movement, blacks could own a car before they could own
property. Democratization: the right to consume. Question of
mobility.
The crash oft he stock
exchange: 1929. Short period of prosperity.
The Great Depression:
extreme poverty, rural America were the poverty struck even more.
People struggling to make ends meet. New Deal (Roosevelt): there
should be more State control, look more after their population.
Roosevelt social program. Couple of institutionalisations, he got
through. Goes against a certain cultural grain.
Dislike of state
involvement in the USA. Not giving to much power to a group of
people.
Understand it in terms
of a different approach and not ideologize it. !!
2nd new deal in 1935:
Social security act.
1939: aspect of export
import become difficult. Shipping supplies for France and England
during the War.
Pearl Harbour.
Hiroshima, Nagasaki.
Entmilitarization:
after war is not that easy. (oft he soldier).
Longing for peace,
suburbian dream after WW2, long sooking: simmering for six hours,
not like during war, very short cooking recipies. People move tot he
suburbs to flee the chaos.
Marshal Plan.
Educational Program in
the 50s. Students coming to America to study. Babyboomers.
Question of
containment, US was no global political player before WW2. Only began
after WW2.
Carthy: the new
Witchhunts in terms of communism, Artits, filmmakers,
communists….Anti American commity. Alleged aspect of being
communists. Lead tot he cold war.
How do you analyse
these texts in terms of modernism:
Aspect of change, in
modernism there was still this hope. Through Art you could still
create hope. Framing of Art as something whole, as an answer tot he
dictation oft he 20s that god is dead. Clamed divsion between state
and church (no interference in either way). Not being taken care of
in these kind of levels (God, religion). Feeling of hope, optimism,
Utopian feeling. Ungleich Postmodernism.
Manifestos of Art were
written at that time, a certain radicalism at that time ( even if you
can not save the world, art can still save something). That i staken
away in postmodernism.
PM: so what?!
Enlightenment were seen
as suspekt. Loss in faith, that this enlightennment things could do
anything for us. Questioning of values, their is nothing stable
there, we have to question them. (narrative referentiality, aspect of
progress, domesticity, capitalism, Empire, Industry, )
Primitive and
uncouncious, ïƒ Art:
stream of consciousness, new radical ways of talking of this.
Marcel Duchant: Ready
made art, already made (ist there), he took a mans pisoure and put it
in the museum and called it: Fountain. ( was something very radical
at that time, now it isnt any longer. In the everyday: find something
new, unusual ( that ist he radical about it). Use ready made stuf fas
Art. ïƒ point
tot he conventions. Taking it out oft he contexts and make it to us,
to see something new.
The period of Imagism
(TS Elliott, Ezra Pound). Made a break with romanticism. This period
didnt want to say it but SHOW it. That was radical. Make it new, make
it imediate,
objective correlative:
Metaphor vs. Simille. Radical Jaxtaposition that have nothing to do
with each other. Lions and Ulysses. Ulysses: king of Jungle, power
(doesnt sleep 20 hours a day like a real lion). Wow: now I see
Ulysses differently and the Lion as well. To sides oft he metaphor.
TS Elliot: The Waste
Land (Poem). He reastablished understanding of poems. No more
overflow of romantic feelings. Reasablished metaphysical poets. Talks
about the objective correlative = that you cant anymore say I love, I
say, I suffer. Want this feeling tob e there. We need to find objects
that correlate. You put an object there, within that context, and
that evokes that feeling of love, admirance……
Lovers as a compass. ?
komisch. Zirkel.
Williams: The Red
Wheelbarrow. There is no ideology in it. It is exactly about an
objective correlative,
about this moment of something feeling something. Moment of suddenly
seeing in an everyday object something new, something visual.
Something unpopular, muddy, is being centered because it i staken out
of ist everyday context.
What modernism does: it
points us tot he gaps that there are in literature. They were always
there, but modernism highlights them. Something new, something
unexpected = modernism.
The Great Figure:
Figure five is moving.
(3D effect). Somebodies house is on fire, truck moving to the fire.
Just on moment: very unimportant moment. Then the poem speeds up.
Question of image
(modernism).
Self reflexivity:
talking about the process of literary production. Reflecting on the
process of Art production. Why you are writing. How you are writing.
You are lokking at yourself. Selfies. Putting th author within it.
Psychological and
subjective state: Why are you doing that? Putting youself in the
focus of reflection. Reject the question of realism. Art produces
something else.
Rejection of realism or
objective representation
Alternative ways of
thinking about representation.
Postmodernism: you cant
understand the world.
Radical
experimentation:
Fragmentation
Ambiguity: you dont
guide, you dont explain, distrust of language: uncertainty. We loose
the feeling of certainty in our world.
Simultaneity:
Past: in terms of
reinterpretation
Difference between high
and low: no what one should read or can read. Trash literature and
reinventing it.
Use of irony and
parody: not taking it seriously but also not making fun o f it.
Gertrude Stein,
Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, very important authors.
Alienation: gap between
us and the others, being an outsider. A whole generation felt
alienated.
Paris: American
context was not that tolerant. Creation of countersociety in Paris.
Lost generation, unease, not knowing any more were you belonged,
didnt know how to behave = lost generation (Gertrude Stein) – loss
of values, what they learned in school and at home didnt match their
reality.
Intolerance,
materialistic, unspiritual – that was what they saw in America. So
they moved to Paris.
New
Art: they produced.
Jazz
Age: reaction against. Finding of identity, subconcious (feeling
yourself as a sbuject), freedom of choice as an individual.
„A
rose, is a rose, is a Rose“ (Gertrude Stein), it is a definition.
Is something that natural science does. Reafirmation. Rose= beautiful
woman,….specific symbol in English speaking country. ïƒ
leaves us unsure about what is a rose. Fluidity of identity. Certain
feeling of explanation. So we are not completely hopeless.
Hemingway:
innovation, style. Iceberg: top part, the rest under the water. He
only wrote about the top part. Had to interprete a lot. The
underwater thing was clipped. Clipped sort of style.
Civil
war in Spain: he went there. Macho Heroism, he talked about. More
like a journalist. Characters in simingly exotic places.
Fitzgerald:
often seen as the representative oft he Jazz Age. He was a social
climber. Loss in his novels. Central topic.
07.05.14
A
rose for Emily –Faulkner
Südstaatenschönheit.
Rose= junges Mädchen. Reise von der Vergangenheit ind die Gegenwart.
Race relationships, south.
2nd
feminist movement: granting these aspects. Rediscovering of many
women writers.
1st
movement: to vote, right to own posession, political aspect
Alice
Walker:
Zora
Neale Hurston: we are not just victims. She didnt get that
recognition in her lifetime.
Martin
Luther King. Civil rights movement. Bussing system (children from
richer/poorer parts going to school in other parts). To regionalize
them would give to much borders.
2.
Aspect: southern agrarians. Local atmosphere was important. Regional
aspect oft he South. Asociation with slavery. Aspect of having kids
born as slaves, didnt move over new ones. Reinforced slavery.
Industrial North.
Southern
Bell. Miss Emily as a warped Southern Bell.
Faulkner:
Aspect of slavery, against all grains of honour.
Modernism:
interweaving time and place. Emphasizes aspect of time. Continuity
and change. The South was less flexible to change. But there was also
not so much industry. –Seemingly unaffected places in the South.
Entanglement. Nor from time nor from change. There is no garden of
Eden.
Content:
radical changes in terms of style. (Modernism).
When
was something new, when was it going against the conventions, that is
important in terms of interpreting a text.
Faulkner:
streem of counciousness, and tob e in ones head. It is not as
structured as it was before (particular fort he modernism and also
becomes a standard in postmodernism). Ones own perception is
questioned. Ones own identity is no longer seen as whole and entire
in terms of fitting in the society. How does content and style
subvert each other or unterstützen each other. By rebelling against
the linear structure he shows it in the sense of using different
voices. Plot twist, something unexpected. Soulsearching. His talking
about races and having plus and minuses on both side, which leads to
a collapse in the end.
Humans
are both good and bad, there is only grey and no black and white. Not
that easy to say in modernism who is good, who is bad. Faulkner,
white South, he talks about.
Zora
Neale Hurston: intersectionality, ïƒ race,
class, gender. Not one or the other, complicated structure.
„How
it feels tob e colored me“ quite radical to talk about that things.
Assumptions:
talk about it in terms of creation (man –association in terms of
biology, women, black, white..)
Biology
is not destiny, ist what we associate with that biology.
Moment
of feelings ones race: experience with discrimination.
Jewish,
Black not just her identity, but it also affects somebody in his
everyday life. Social measures, segregation …not getting the job
Rediscovered
in 1973. She was.
Question
of Postmodernism:
Includes
all this aspects. Not just certain sophisticated blabla…
Similar
to modernism ïƒ
break with the enlightenment. Question of orientalism plays a role.
We are rational human beings (enlightenment) does not work. Humanism
is no longer seen as possible.
Question
of reverentiality: distrust of language. You can use language to
explain something, but that has got los. There s no possibility. We
can try to come closer and look at the world.
Literature:
to create something whole (still in modernism) but in postmodernism
there is no whole, scepticism.
Ambivalence:
Post modernism is passe.
Inability
to understand the world.
Scepticism
in terms of temporality and progress.
Question
of impericism. All we do is seen through our eyes and done with our
hands.
Using
the past tob e ironic within it. (ïƒ Starting
points) Using the Metalevel.
They
adopt, they steel, they recicle, that is what the authors do.
cinematic tecniques.
Post
Modern Culture:
Inability
to say exactly what postmodernism is. We are constructing these
aspects.
Question
of historical, political, cultural context (Vietnam war)
Tim
O’Brien „How to write a True War story“
Writes
a whole text about a true war story. But also says there is no way to
tell a true war story. So he leaves us with uncertainty.
Deconstruction, even oft he evil. Ist taken away.
Question
of truth and fiction. There is no truth. There is no way to tell a
truth or a story. ïƒ
on the level on the meta narrative. Deconstructing the master
narrative –aspect of establishing truth, conventions of truth. ïƒ
deconstructing this master narrative.
Postmodernism
1945 till now: many different aspects o fit.
Extreme
self-reflexivity. (meta fiction, = fiction about fiction).
Irony
and parody. Irony is a certain kind of emotion. Parody is also a
distancing device.
Breakdown
between high and low cultural forms.
Retro:
retelling of greek mythology,…
Questioning
of grand narratives
Simulacrum:
not be able to get tot he truth, referring to it
Late
capitalism: capitalism in general
Disorientation
Secondary
orality.
Postmodernism:
A Philosophy
See
Folie
Reality
and fiction: we are writing our own stories, we are in the fiction.
Constructedness:
deconstruction, no longer valid. There are „truthS“, „historieS“.
Sign
has no referential value: Statue refers back to iteself.
Artistic
Style:
No
longer to say in which category a short story often falls. Often it
is a poem, and a poem is something else in terms of category, no
clear boundaries
Short
story written like a dictionary.
Pastiched
= collage effect. Borrowing, steeling, doing something else with it.
Ist
not snobbish. ïƒ break
down of High and low culture. But you always have to work with your
brain to get tot he grain (meta level, stepping out of story and
looking at it), contradictory fact. Very playfull.
Mix
fact and fiction: in ordert o point tot he meaning that there is no
established fact. There is no fact, it is also fiction. The gaps,
that wat is not there is also important.
A
historical period
Lyotard:
The Postmodernism explained.
Distrust
in language. Language games. The certainty oft he subject is
questioned. We do have these longing for truth and who ist he bad
and…. But it is just not possible. We have to live with this
distrust of reality.
Lost in the Funhouse –
John Barth
Funhouse (Prater,
Labyrinth mit Spiegeln, sometimes ist scary)
Funhouse is something
unneccesary, ist fun but thats it.
How can you be lost in
a Funhouse (prison house of language).
Thomas Pynchon- Entropy
Has been very
influential but not through his texts. Extreme inteletualism in his
text. Huge enciclopedic knowledge, referring to a lot in the past.
Paranoia in his texts, conspiracy theories.
Dont expect tob e
sucked into a story, there are many levels and you have to really
think about it to get the clue, ist like a riddle.
His life: there is very
little known of him.
20.05.2014
Ich habe, glaube ich
die letzten 2 oder 3 Stunden gefehlt
Efficient learning, on
the moodle to literary histories for preparation (exam)
American literature
short text on moodle (summary)
Main advice: Just read
a page of each of this aspects.
Peter Cohens
ïƒ recomendation
Cambridge History of
American Literature
Classical Definition of
Drama: it is a performance or just as a reading text, but they are
interlinked. Aspect of Acting plays a differentg kind of role. Comedy
and tragedy.
Other aspect: Drama as
imitation. Mimesis: reference to reality, what is reference to
reality. There is this connection there in different forms.
Drama as Action
Written text ïƒ
as a piece of literature, but it is definitely different from the
performance (who does the light, how to do the acting,…),
historical text, what the drama ment at that time. Vs. Performance =
what they want to say at that moment. The leway that the director
has, reanact it in terms of puppets. Visual images, sound,
who has written the
play, who has staged it.
Colonial Theater and
Drama/Revolution/ Post Revolution
Indian, fronteersman,
George Washington, the heroine are characters in the Drama.
They become a specific
type, (as reasurance of American indipendence)
What is an American,
who is he, how is he?
William Dunlap, called
the father of American drama.
Ralf Waldo Emerson,
Edgar Ellen Poe.
Nationalism was
imortant in Drama.
Themes are popular
(like the Pocahontas thing that was a Disney film than)
Minstrel Show:
King Shotaway.
Grotesk
Making fun of African
American tradition
„Ist not just a
playwright it also depends on how it is produced,“ïƒ
Drama
On Broadway /of
Broadway Theater, Drama is very established in America.
Eugene O’Neill:
„greatest American dramatist“. He wrote very different texts. Son
of famous actor. Began writing Melodramas and there different
varitations. He decided seriously to become a playwright. Realistic
plays with an epic dimension (Aristotle + Realistic), American
History Aspects, geography, American history themes but also
extential and lot of death.
Tennesse Williams
Arthur Miller:
Married to Marylin
Monroe. Death of a Salesman (failing oft he American Dream) The
Crucible.
Theater has become an
industry.
Anger
Witch hunts put into
the time of 1955 ( the Crucible, Witch hunts-> comunism)
Edard Albee – The Zoo
Story
American Dream
Whos Afradi of Virginia
Wolf.
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
(novel by Truman Capote, than it became a theater production and than
a film)
Langston Hughes
„Harlem“ „What happens to a dream deferred?“ hope that the
dream someday might be fulfilled
Raisin in the Sun
Violence, question of
explosion
Lorraine Hansberry ( A
Raisin in the Sun, 1959)
Genuine realism. If I
portray reality, Im talking abour posibilties that are not there
(Utopian, in yer face). She was critised for being to littl
challenging.
Waiting for Godot
(Becket)
The question of civil
rights, and for their position in society.
Pursuit of happiness,
this looking for it, claiming it.
Think about the
cultural narratives! Prüfung!!!