Introduction to Literary Studies
Authors and Works
Emily Dickinson
Nursery rhymes, “Because I could not stop for Death”
Walt Whitman (Romanticism)
Song of Myself
Alfred Lord Tennyson
“The Lady of Shalott” (events, lyrical subject, lyrical situation and lyrical character) narrative poetry – may identify lyrical situation which can be converted to events in a novel.
Graham Masterton
Rules of Writing
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
“The Three Feathers” (Simpleton, king, lazy brothers etc)
Henry James
The Art of Fiction and The Portrait of a Lady
Mark Twain
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (American motives, traditional Europe etc) (written in American English)
Edgar Lee Masters
The Hill
Jack London
Martin Eden – Chapter 1
Literary Concepts
Definition of Interpretation
“The interpretation is a darkening of the original light which shines in the myth itself.” It’s often more negative than the original (deeper meaning etc)
Dramatis Personae
“The people involved” – suggests counting people at the beginning and at the end.
Structure of the Story
- Troubles at the beginning – “peripeteia”- the ups and downs
- Climax – decisive point – can be tragic or happy
In primitive stories: no lysis or catastrophe – story just peters out or gets stupid. Also there can be a double end to the lysis – happy ending followed by a negative remark done by storyteller – “rite de sortie”
Psychological Interpretation
“Reading something into it which is not in it”
What will be on the test?
The art of transforming into something better. Interpretation is also a work of art itself. Interpretation takes some talent “stalking”. It’s unnecessary, because myth speaks for itself. According to the author it’s only half true (Marie Louise von France- student of Jung.) “art or craft” which can be practiced
Four Stages of Interpretation
- Exposition (time & place) once upon a time
- Dramatis personae – people involved
- Naming of a problem – define the trouble psychologically
- Peripeteia – the plot (ups and downs)
- Climax
- Lysis or catastrophe
- Rite de sortie
Hermeneutics
Etymology (from Greek god Hermes – a messenger), it’s understanding, interpretation, translation, we firstly need to understand; 1st phase
- Context of understanding is historically developed one.
- It asks us to take works of literature seriously with regard to the subject matter and to engage dialogically in a process of clarifying an issue.
- Later philosophical hermeneutics stems from the work of Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer (Hans – philosopher of language where world is already interpreted in a language; Martin – existence of “Being” – sein (force))
- Collection of observation – Schleiermacher’s generalization of hermeneutics that are specific to particular fields of discourse into systematic set of procedures applicable to any fields
- Interpreters need 2 talents: “research into the language” and “grasping the individual”. They need to have a good knowledge of language but should be able to refer to the author’s life and him/her as an individual
- Divination (roots) – from French deviner – to guess, to conjecture or from Latin: divinus – prophetic
- What kind of referee does hermeneutics attain? It attains understanding through both “reference to language and reference to the one who speaks” grammatical, technical, philosophical interpretation.
Literary Movements
Naturalism
Martin Eden – Naturalism is a literary movement that emphasizes observation and the scientific method in the fictional portrayal of reality.
Jack London
Wilderness, fight for survival. Call of the Wild, adventure novels
Chicago School of Poetry (Chicago Renaissance)
- Edgar Lee Masters
- Carl Sandburg (half-speaking, half-singing, simple language, no imagery, straight-forward)
- Edwin Arlington Robinson – realism
Spoon River Anthology – Edgar Lee Masters (he was a lawyer too) 1st poem The Hill: Where are Elmer, Herman, Bert, Tom and Charley, The weak of will, the strong of arm, the clown, the boozer, the fighter? (…) – dead people topic
Minerva
Carl Sandburg
“The Fog”, “Jones”, “The Sea” – the sea is never still, Child moon, Chicago
Modernism (1914-1945)
(page 60-61, 62) “The Old Man and the Sea”- Ernest Hemingway, naturalist and modernist
Characteristics of Modernism
Crisis of traditional values, crisis of identity. Civilization became something broken, messy, technical advancement, replacement of people; Fitzgerald, Crane, Stevens, Frost (modernist poetry)
Authors and Works
John Dos Passos
Manhattan Transfer
Calvin Coolidge
American politician (Big Boom) Roaring Twenties
Gertrude Stein
Poet
Last Generation
Freudian psychology – id, ego, superego.
Art
Vincent van Gogh
Post-impressionism – symbolism
Paul Gauguin
Pablo Picasso
Cubism
Paul Cézanne
Mathematical objects
Ernest Hemingway (born 1899)
Intense writing, adjectives are rare
- “The Sun Also Rises” – Spanish war
- “A Farewell to Arms” – “(…) just a dirty trick (some quote)”
- “For Whom the Bell Tolls”
John Donne
Robert Frost
“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”