martedì 15 febbraio 2011
domenica 13 febbraio 2011
T.S.Eliot Criticism
Yet if the only form of tradition, of handing down, consisted in following the ways of the immediate generation before us in a blind or timid adherence to its successes, "tradition" should positively be discouraged. We have seen many such simple currents soon lost in the sand; and novelty is better than repetition. Tradition is a matter of much wider significance. It cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labour. It involves, in the first place, the historical sense, which we may call nearly indispensable to anyone who would continue to be a poet beyond his twenty-fifth year; and the historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence; the historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer and within it the whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order. This historical sense, which is a sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal and of the timeless and of the temporal together, is what makes a writer traditional. And it is at the same time what makes a writer most acutely conscious of his place in time, of his contemporaneity.
No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists. You cannot value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead. I mean this as a principle of æsthetic, not merely historical, criticism. The necessity that he shall conform, that he shall cohere, is not one-sided; what happens when a new work of art is created is something that happens simultaneously to all the works of art which preceded it. The existing monuments form an ideal order among themselves, which is modified by the introduction of the new (the really new) work of art among them. The existing order is complete before the new work arrives; for order to persist after the supervention of novelty, the whole existing order must be, if ever so slightly, altered; and so the relations, proportions, values of each work of art toward the whole are readjusted; and this is conformity between the old and the new. Whoever has approved this idea of order, of the form of European, of English literature, will not find it preposterous that the past should be altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past. And the poet who is aware of this will be aware of great difficulties and responsibilities.
From 'Tradition and the Individual Talent' (1919) – T.S.Eliot
What is the gist of the passage?
What is the gist of the passage?
T.S. Eliot's Criticism
I do not minimize the services of modern poets in exploiting the possibilities of rhymeless verse. They prove the strength of a Movement, the utility of a Theory. What neither Blake nor Arnold could do alone is being done in our time. 'Blank verse' is the only accepted rhymeless verse in English--the inevitable iambic pentameter. The English ear is (or was) more sensitive to the music of the verse and less dependent upon the recurrence of identical sounds in this metre than in any other. There is no campaign against rhyme. But it is possible that excessive devotion to rhyme has thickened the modern ear. The rejection of rhyme is not a leap at facility; on the contrary, it imposes a much severer strain upon the language. When the comforting echo of rhyme is removed, success or failure in the choice of words, in the sentence structure, in the order, is at once more apparent. Rhyme removed, the poet is at once held up to the standards of prose. Rhyme removed, much ethereal music leaps up from the word, music which has hitherto chirped unnoticed in the expanse of prose. Any rhyme forbidden, many Shagpats were unwigged.
And this liberation from rhyme might be as well a liberation of rhyme. Freed from its exacting task of supporting lame verse, it could be applied with greater effect where it is most needed. There are often passages in an unrhymed poem where rhyme is wanted for some special effect, for a sudden tightening-up, for a cumulative insistence, or for an abrupt change of mood. But formal rhymed verse will certainly not lose its place. We only need the coming of a Satirist--no man of genius is rarer--to prove that the heroic couplet has lost none of its edge since Dryden and Pope laid it down. As for the sonnet I am not so sure. But the decay of intricate formal patterns has nothing to do with the advent of vers libre. It had set in long before. Only in a closely-knit and homogeneous society, where many men are at work on the same problems, such a society as those which produced the Greek chorus, the Elizabethan lyric, and the Troubadour canzone, will the development of such forms ever be carried to perfection. And as for vers libre, we conclude that it is not defined by absence of pattern or absence of rhyme, for other verse is without these; that it is not defined by non-existence of metre, since even the worst verse can be scanned; and we conclude that the division between Conservative Verse and vers libre does not exist, for there is only good verse, bad verse, and chaos.
From 'Reflections on Vers Libre (1917) T.S.Eliot
What is the gist of the passage?
Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (extract)
E.P. ODE POUR L'ELECTION DE SON SEPULCHRE (1920) Ezra Pound
The age demanded an imageOf its accelerated grimace,
Something for the modern stage,
Not, at any rate, an Attic grace;
Not, not certainly, the obscure reveries
Of the inward gaze;
Better mendacities
Than the classics in paraphrase!
The "age demanded" chiefly a mould in plaster,
Made with no loss of time,
A prose kinema, not, not assuredly, alabaster
Or the "sculpture" of rhyme.
Ezra Pound in 1913
IV
These fought in any case,and some believing,
pro domo, in any case. . .
Some quick to arm,
some for adventure,
some from fear of weakness,
some from fear of censure,
some for love of slaughter, in imagination,
learning later . . .
some in fear, learning love of slaughter;
Died some, pro patria,
non "dulce" non "et decor". . .
walked eye-deep in hell
believing in old men's lies, then unbelieving
came home, home to a lie,
home to many deceits,
home to old and new infamy;
usury age-old and age-thick
and liars in public places.
Daring as never before, wastage as never before.
Young blood and high blood,
fair cheeks, and fine bodies;
fortitude as never before
frankness as never before,
disillusions as never told in the days,
hysterias, trench confessions,
laughter out of dead bellies.
V
There died a myriad,
and of the best, among them,
For an old bitch gone in the teeth,
For a botched civilization,
Charm, smiling at the good mouth,
Quick eyes gone under earth's lid,
For two gross of broken statues,
For a few thousand battered books.
martedì 8 febbraio 2011
The Gothic Novel
Today, the word Gothic primarily describes a style of European architecture which flourished from the twelfth through the sixteenth centuries, though the word seems originally to have referred to any non-classical (Greek or Roman) architecture.
Gothic architecture used pointed arches and vaults, flying buttresses, narrow spires, stained glass windows, intricate traceries, and varied details; its upward movement was meant to suggest heavenward aspiration.
The words Goth and Gothic also described the Germanic tribes (e.g., Goths, Visigoths, Ostrogoths) which sacked Rome and also ravaged the rest of Europe in the third, fourth, and fifth centuries. From this source, the words came also to mean barbarian, barbarous, and barbaric. By the eighteenth century in England, Gothic had become synonymous with the Middle Ages, a period which was in disfavor because it was perceived as chaotic, unenlightened, and superstitious. Renaissance critics erroneously believed that Gothic architecture was created by the Germanic tribes and regarded it as ugly and barbaric. This erroneous attribution continued through the eighteenth century.
As a result of an upshot of interest in the Middle Ages, Gothic architecture experienced a revival in the late eighteenth century; Horace Walpole rebuilt Strawberry Hill as a medieval castle and William Beckford spent a fortune on his medieval, elaborate imitation, Fonthill Abbey. The revival flourished in the nineteenth century and Gothic buildings were constructed throughout England.
The Gothic novel took shape mostly in England from 1790 to 1830 and falls within the category of Romantic literature. It acts, however, as a reaction against the rigidity and formality of other forms of Romantic literature. The Gothic is far from limited to this set time period, as it takes its roots from former terrorizing writing that dates back to the Middle Ages, and can still be found written today by writers such as Stephen King. But during this time period, many of the highly regarded Gothic novelists published their writing and much of the novel's form was defined.
As Ann B. Tracy writes in her novel The Gothic Novel 1790-1830 Plot Summaries and Index to Motifs, the Gothic novel could be seen as a description of a fallen world. We experience this fallen world though all aspects of the novel: plot, setting, characterization, and theme.
The setting is greatly influential in Gothic novels. It not only evokes the atmosphere of horror and dread, but also portrays the deterioration of its world. The decaying, ruined scenery implies that at one time there was a thriving world. At one time the abbey, castle, or landscape was something treasured and appreciated. Now, all that lasts is the decaying shell of a once thriving dwelling.
The Gothic hero becomes a sort of archetype as we find that there is a pattern to their characterization. There is always the protagonist, usually isolated either voluntarily or involuntarily. Then there is the villain, who is the epitome of evil, either by his (usually a man) own fall from grace, or by some implicit malevolence. The Wanderer, found in many Gothic tales, is the epitome of isolation as he wanders the earth in perpetual exile, usually a form of divine punishment.
The plot itself mirrors the ruined world in its dealings with a protagonist's fall from grace as she succumbs to temptation from a villain. In the end, the protagonist must be saved through a reunion with a loved one. For example, in Matthew G. Lewis's The Monk, the monk Ambrosio is tempted by Matilda. She lures him into succumbing to his lust until he turns fully to rape and murder of another young girl. In the end, he makes a deal with Satan and dies a torturous death on the side of a mountain. Emily of Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho does not have the same kind of temptations but finds that she cannot escape her evil uncle's castle (called Udolpho) without the help of a suitor. In the end she does find retribution in her affection for her once-lost love, Valancourt.
Even though the Gothic Novel deals with the sublime and the supernatural, the underlying theme of the fallen hero applies to the real world as well. Once we look past the terror aspect of this literature, we can connect with it on a human level. Furthermore, the prevalent fears of murder, rape, sin, and the unknown are fears that we face in life. In the Gothic world they are merely multiplied.
Because of the supernatural phenomena and the prevailing morbid atmosphere of Gothic novels, this genre is traditionally brushed off as "un-academic". But as George Haggerty writes in Gothic Fiction/Gothic Form, "the Gothic novel is a liberating phenomenon, which expands the range of possibilities for novelistic expression" (Haggerty 34).
The Gothic novel has received much literary criticism throughout the years. Critics of the genre have engaged in analysis of the various elements of the Gothic novel and tie those elements with the repressed feelings of individuals and, in a twentieth century perspective, the unconscious of the human psyche. Vijay Mishra, in his essay entitled "The Gothic Sublime," states the Gothic novel is a "presentation of the unpresentable" (Mishra 1). The Gothic novel deals with understanding attained through horror. Mishra also believes the Gothic novel, in the afore-mentioned sense, is a foil to the typical Romantic novel, wherein the sublime is found through temperance (Mishra 2).
Literary critic, Davis Morris, believes the Gothic novel addresses the horrific, hidden ideas and emotions within individuals and provides an outlet for them (Morris 1). The strong imagery of horror and abuse in Gothic novels reveals truths to us through realistic fear, not transcendental revelation. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick writes about the same idea in her essay, "The Structure of the Gothic Convention," and she adds that the idea of a protagonist having a struggle with a terrible, surreal person or force is a metaphor for an individual's struggle with repressed emotions or thoughts (Sedgwick 1). Personifying the repressed idea or feeling gives strength to it and shows how one, if caught unaware, is overcome with the forbidden desire.
Another author, Joyce Carol Oates, writes of how the repressed emotions, which are personified in the Gothic novel, are horrible not only because of what they are, but also because of how they enslave a person (Oates 1). These desires are mysterious, and mystery breeds attraction, and with attraction, one is easily seduced by them. With this in mind, it is easy to understand how Bertrand Evans points out the hero in the Gothic novel is consistently weaker than the antagonist and usually flees from it rather than defeating it. The similar themes of repression of forbidden desires, and the horror surrounding and penetrating them, are clearly focal points of most Gothic critics. The enlightenment gained from these aspects is the driving force behind the Gothic novel.
( Adapted and abridged from the Literary Gothic Page and the Gothic Novel by David De Vore
Anne Domenic, Alexandra Kwan and Nicole Reidy).
Anne Domenic, Alexandra Kwan and Nicole Reidy).
- What are the main characteristics of the Gothic Novel?
- Can you find any relationship with today’s novels, films or songs?
- Explain the different kinds of criticism expressed by:
Vijay Mishra | |
David Morris | |
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick | |
Joyce Carol Oates | |
Burke and sublime
INTRODUCTION
On the Sublime, which is traditionally attributed to Longinus (the first or second century AD?), analyzes the sources of the sublime in literature. They include nobility of mind, the ability to feel powerful emotions, aesthetic structure, beautiful prose, and enormous natural phenomena, like the ocean or mountains. When this treatise was translated into English in 1674, it set off a widespread debate about the sublime to become what Hugh Honour calls "the most confused and confusing aesthetic notion of our time." . In this welter of contradictory opinions, Edmund Burke produced A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Idea of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757); it became the definitive essay on this subject and provided a theoretical basic for the contradictory emotions of pleasure and fear that the Gothic novel aroused in readers.
Burke permanently separated the beautiful from the sublime and made them incompatible categories; that is, a landscape might be beautiful or sublime, but not both. The sublime, he asserted, has only one cause, terror.
A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Idea of
the Sublime and the Beautiful
PART I
Section VI.–of the Passions Which Belong to Self-preservation
Most of the ideas which are capable of making a powerful impression on the mind, whether simply of Pain or Pleasure, or of the modifications of those, may be reduced very nearly to these two heads, self-preservation and society; to the ends of one or the other of which all our passions are calculated to answer. The passions which concern self-preservation, turn mostly on pain or danger. The ideas of pain, sickness, and death, fill the mind with strong emotions of horror; but life and health, though they put us in a capacity of being affected with pleasure, make no such impression by the simple enjoyment. The passions therefore which are conversant about the preservation of the individual turn chiefly on pain and danger, and they are the most powerful of all the passions.
Section VII.–of the Sublime
Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that, is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling. I say the ,strongest emotion, because I am satisfied the ideas of pain are much more powerful than those which enter on the part of pleasure. Without all doubt, the torments which we may be made to suffer are much greater in their effect on the body and mind, than any pleasures which the most learned voluptuary could suggest, or than the liveliest imagination, and the most sound and exquisitely sensible body, could enjoy. Nay, I am in great doubt whether any man could be found, who would earn a life of the most perfect satisfaction, at the price of ending it in the torments, which justice inflicted in a few hours on the late unfortunate regicide in France. But a pain is stronger in its operation than pleasure, so death is in general a much more affecting idea than pain; because there are very few pains, however exquisite, which are not preferred to death nay, what generally makes pain itself, if I may say so, more painful is, that it is considered as an emissary of this king of terrors. When danger or pain press too nearly, they are incapable of giving any delight, and are simply terrible; but at certain distances, and with certain modifications, they may be, and they are, delightful, as we every day experience.
1802, John Constable, Dedham Vale
Quotes from the Text:
- "Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain, and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling." [50]
- "Astonishment, as I have said, is the effect of the sublime in its highest degree; the inferior effects are admiration, reverence and respect." [53]
- "Indeed terror is in all cases whatsoever, either more openly or latently the ruling principle of the sublime." [54]
- "To make any thing very terrible, obscurity seems in general to be necessary. When we know the full extent of any danger, when we can accustom our eyes to it, a great deal of the apprehension vanishes." [54]
- "And I think there are reasons in nature why the obscure idea, when properly conveyed, should be more affecting than the clear. It is our ignorance of things that causes all our admiration, and chiefly excites our passions. Knowledge and acquaintance make the most striking causes affect but little." [57]
- "But let it be considered that hardly any thing can strike the mind with its greatness, which does not make some sort of approach towards infinity; which nothing can do whilst we are able to perceive its bounds; but to see an object distinctly, and to perceive its bounds, is one and the same thing. A clear idea is therefore another name for a little idea." [58]
- "And indeed the ideas of pain, and above all of death, are so very affecting, that whilst we remain in the presence of whatever is supposed to have the power of inflicting either, it is impossible to be perfectly free from terror." [59]
- "But whilst we contemplate so vast an object, under the arm, as it were, of almighty power, and invested upon every side with omnipresence, we shrink into the minuteness of our own nature, and are, in a manner, annihilated before him." [63]
- "Another source of the sublime, is infinity; if it does not rather belong to the last. Infinity has a tendency to fill the mind with that sort of delightful horror, which is the most genuine effect, and truest test of the sublime." [67]
- "A true artist should put a generous deceit on the spectators, and effect the noblest designs by easy methods. Designs that are vast only by their dimensions, are always the sign of a common and low imagination. No work of art can be great, but as it deceives; to be otherwise is the prerogative of nature only." [70]
- "without a strong impression nothing can be sublime" [73]
- "But darkness is more productive of sublime ideas than light." [73]
- "opposite extremes operate equally in favour of the sublime, which in all things abhors mediocrity." [74]
- "sublimity must be drawn [..] with a strict caution however against any thing light and riant; as nothing so effectually deadens the whole taste of the sublime." [75]
- "Whatever either in sights or sounds makes the transition from one extreme to the other easy, causes no terror, and consequently can be no cause of greatness. In every thing sudden and unexpected, we are apt to start; that is, we have a perception of danger, and our nature rouses us to guard against it." [76; Suddenness]
- "Things which are terrible are always great; but when things possess disagreeable qualities, or such as have indeed some degree of danger, but of a danger easily overcome, they are mere odious, as toads and spiders." [79, Smell and Taste. Bitters and Stenches]
- "the idea of bodily pain, in all the modes and degrees of labour, pain, anguish, torment, is productive of the sublime" [79, Feeling. Pain]
Questions:
- What does Burke define as the Sublime?
- How does he differentiate between the Sublime and Beauty?
- How does he see language?
- What is similar, what is different with regard to Longinus?
- What about his definition of passion / pathos? (Introd. P. XX): "an odd mixture, revealing [..] the overlap between pain and pleasure" (XXI)
Burke
EDMUND BURKE
Burke, Edmund (1729-97), British statesman and orator, who championed many human rights causes and brought attention to them through his eloquent speeches. Burke was born in Dublin and educated at Trinity College. He studied law briefly in London before embarking on a literary career. His first important work was Vindication of Natural Society (1756), a satire ridiculing the reasoning of the British statesman Henry Bolingbroke. This work, published anonymously, attracted considerable attention. Soon afterward he published an essay, The Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas on the Sublime and Beautiful (1756). The following year he began a 30-year association with The Annual Register, a British yearbook.
After 1761, when he became private secretary to the British chief secretary for Ireland, William Hamilton (1729-96), he demonstrated his aptitude for political service. Four years later he became private secretary to the new British prime minister Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2d marquis of Rockingham, and in 1766 Burke was elected as a Whig to Parliament. Almost immediately Burke sought repeal of the Stamp Act. In a pamphlet, Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770), and in two speeches, "On American Taxation" (1774) and "Conciliation with America" (1775), he urged justice and conciliation toward the American colonies. Burke took a deep interest in India and advocated a reversal of the British policy that allowed the East India Co. to exploit the population of that country. On Feb. 15, 1788, Burke began a four-day-long opening speech in Westminster Hall in the unsuccessful impeachment proceedings against the statesman and colonial administrator Warren Hastings for high crimes and misdemeanors committed in India. Although Hastings was acquitted after a trial that lasted seven years, Burke had made the English aware of the oppression in India.
Burke later appeared as the champion of the feudal order in Europe, with the publication of Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). The text, which was read throughout Europe, encouraged European rulers in their hostility to the French Revolution. Burke became more and more vehement in his denunciation of the French Revolution as time went on.
Burke retired from Parliament in 1794, after a career remarkable for its laborious, earnest, and brilliant discharge of duties.
Wright of Derby – Cavern Near Naples
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