Make it new
Modernism
A radical break with aesthetic conventions of previous periods
Art became more abstract (reduced to the minimum, and more ambivalent
Art became a thing of its own where people could escape to -not a pure mirror of reality
Imagism
Specific form of Modern Poetry
An extreme degree of poetic reduction: one singular image
Not much room for interpretation, pushing the limits of the form
Stream of Consciousness
narrative technique
Imitates the process of thinking to capture the way our mind works
change from Realism to Modernism
Realism left a detailed picture of the scene;
Modernism is less detailed, the painting doesn’t try to be real, it acknowledges that it is a painting
Realism tries to create something that feels real while modernism tries to distance itself from that.
Literature liberates itself from Realism and tries to create something of its own.
The new dress by Virginia Woolf (1925)
Stream of consciousness
thoughts and feelings of Mabel Waring are central to the narrative
focus on the character instead of the plot
no logical progression of ideas in the story; they occur randomly, as Mabel’s thoughts drift to and from the party
mimics what people think (jumps from thought to thought
Pause as we get additional information
Strech through the description of a mental process
extradiegetic level
no interdiegetic level
heterodiegetic
fixed internal focalization as we are in the head of the character
covert narration
internal conflict of Mabel
second guessing herself and her dress
symbolized through the comparison of flies vs dragonflies and butterflies (impermanence vs power, energy and eternity)
thinking everyone is looking at her and making comments
social class, loneliness, poverty, and insecurity
A clean, Well-Lighted Place by Hemingway (1933)
Emphasis on lateness especially in age
Loneliness, isolation, depression
Rather showing than telling
implies Isochrony through dialogues between two waiters
homodiegetic
Covert narration
external focalization as we do not know what the drunken man knows
dynamic focalization as it changes to internal focalization
Modern prose due to its themes
well lighted cafe as a symbol for the small pleasures in life
old drunken man and waiter enjoys staying late in the cafe
comparison to bars as they are not well lighted and clean
meaning to the different persons
younger waiter cant enyoy staying late at the cafe as he wants to go to his family
older water and drunk old man just want to feel comfortable at the cafe
youth and age differences as only the older ones can enjoy the present moment
texts tries to break with conventions
Realism: would make the text feel more real; But this text is not, it´s not written in an emotional or real way
Realism often uses an all-knowing narrator to depict all “relevant” perspectives
uses a narrator that has a limited perspective (only one perspective, or in Well-Lighted Place a narrator who knows or/describes very little)
text can not look at all perspectives
Metafiction
fictional writing that consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artifact
Questions about the relationship between fiction and reality
Usually uses irony and self-referentiality
Pastiche
An entire text that uses nothing but intertextuality
An extreme form of intertextuality
Often the rewriting of a specific genre - at least one (interested in deconstructing them)
Modernism (1910 - 1945)
Modernism tries to represent the world subjectivity
social shift, movements, and reinventing itself
New century so make it new
Radical reduction
Imagism is concerned with giving one picture
Breaking with the aesthetic conventions of Romanticism, Victorianism, and Realism
Growth of the working class
Social and international conflicts
Modernist Prose as a stream of one Consciousness
Stream of Awareness
Narrative technique gives us more insight into a character’s mind and thought process
long description implies the thought process
thinking is not logical
Picasso by Gertude Stein (1910)
Gertrude Stein as the most modernist writer
Text is reduced and simple
Word loses meaning
no Stream of Consciousness (more Consciousness)
different perspectives of Picasso
contain all perspectives
multiple perspectives in the world but she can only describe her own
we don’t know the truth
emphasis of subjectivity
Postmodernism (1960 - 1990)
no complete cut
continuation of Modernism
we can’t make anything new
remix of existing things to make it kind of new
self-referential
endless reflection of the reflection
postmodernism what does reality begin with
Text is just text not reality
How to Tell a True War Story by Tim O’Brien (1991)
capture the truth about political things
Examines the complex relationship between war experience & storytelling
hard to seperate what happend vs what seemed to happen
war is crazy and so is the truth about the story
right turns into wrong and your sense gets lost which is why a true war story can not be absolutely true
Truth vs fiction (Truth depends on the audience)
important literary representation of the Vietnam War and the trauma it inflicted upon individuals
friend died and made him go crazy
he shot a baby water buffalo (it was to hurt not to kill - that how war was to him - but why do it to others)
war makes you not only a man it makes you dead
Postmodern because it plays with fiction, it deconstructs
intradiegetic level as he tells a story within the story
homodiegetic as he is not the main character
overt narration through comments
isochrony as we have dialogues in some parts
summary as there are 7 days of just listening within one or two sentences
Stretch as there are descriptions of the scene
foreshadowing (order in terms of discourse)
Historiographic Metafiction
form of writing
get history from texts
exists in writing
The Hollow Men by T.S. Eliot (1925)
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us-if at all-not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
…
five sections differentiated by numerals
stanzas vary in length
free verse indicating an American poem
After WWI
he was devasted by the war
everything is falling apart and is broken
straw as a symbol for the emptiness of the hollow men
their thoughts are empty, useless, and worthless.
he made the argument even stronger with the wind which is meaningless
Enjambement
Anaphora
Repetition
Simile
Structural Anthropology by Adam Mars Jones
written like an academic text
divided into 5 categories to explain the issue
play with form and function
women find her husband cheating on her
she was coming home earlier
started cooking and put some sleeping pills in his food so that she can glue his hand to his penis as a revenge
the man’s behavior is analyzed in the 5 categories (opposites)
nature and culture
limp and stiff
food and drug
private and public
comedy and tragedy
Zuletzt geändertvor einem Jahr