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http://www.cosmolearning.com/courses/introduction-totheory-of-literature/video-lectures/ collectedfromhttp://www.grammardoc.com/eng205/lect 1.htm Introduction to English Literature; The Role of Poetry in Early Cultures
Life in Merrie Olde England
Think about your typical day, from morning to night. The details will vary from person to person, of course, but most likely you will rise with the alarm clock, shower, eat breakfast, drive to work or school, drive home, eat dinner, watch t.v. or read, and go to bed. Now think about how different this day would be if you lived in the Middle Ages or earlier, and were not among the aristocracy. You would rise when the sun did; there would be no alarm clocks or clock radios, and of course no electricity. Your bed would be a pallet of straw on the floor, or just the floor. You would eat, at best, a thin gruel or oatcakes for breakfast, if you had food for breakfast. You would go outside to the field where you would farm by hand (no machines) for the rest of the day. At the end of the day, which would be much longer than eight hours, you would eat a meagre dinner consisting of whatever you had grown on your own property or bartered with one of your neighbors and you would go to sleep. Food would be scarce, especially in the winter; people starved to death frequently, and many lived their whole lives in a state of malnutrition. Health care would be non-existent, except for home remedies. Your life expectancy would be 35-40 years. Many lived to be older than that, but many died much younger. It was common for women to die in childbirth, and infant mortality rates were high. It was not uncommon to die from a cold (hence the warning, "You'll catch your death of cold.")

Both men and women married at young ages; gender roles were clearly defined, but everyone worked hard. The social structure was almost completely static: if you were born a peasant, you would die a peasant. You would probably have no education (and no use for one). You would, during the course of your life, probably never venture more than twenty miles from your home, since you had no money and the roads were very dangerous. You would, if you went anywhere, visit neighbors or attend religious services (the type of service or ritual would vary, depending on the century and your geographic location). You would walk everywhere you went; most peasants could not afford to keep a horse, and if they could, it was used only for work. Communication systems were nonexistent; no one had phones, cell-phones, or fax machines--and for that matter, there were no banks or ATMs. If you needed to speak to someone who was not a member of your immediate family, you went to them and spoke. Entertainment occasions were infrequent and consisted of religious rituals or ceremonies and oral storytelling. You would wear the same clothing all week, since you would own only one set of clothes (some owned two: one for the week and one for church on Sundays, but this was rare for many years); you might wash it once a week, but this was not always thought to be necessary. Bathing occurred at most once a week, since gathering bath water and heating it was a laborious chore, involving carrying lots of buckets and gathering lots of firewood. Bathing was also avoided because it was common for water supplies to be polluted, and bathing was thus dangerous to one's health. No one knew about germs yet, so they didn't know about basic sanitation rules: for example, no one knew that you shouldn't build the cemetery up the hill from the well. And it was common in villages and cities to dump raw sewage in the streets. Life wasn't always boring, though. Sometimes the monotony would be broken by plagues, wars, or invasions. The Romans had "colonized" (that is, moved in, taken over by force, and forced the local people to conform to their way of life) the British Isles from about 20 B.C. on. (In fact, Pontius Pilate was born in what is now Scotland.) They brought with them their religions, including Christianity. By 500 A.D., their influence in Great Britain was declining, partly due to problems in the Roman Empire, but mostly due to the migration of Germanic tribes, beginning in about 410 A.D. By 600 A.D., these Germanic tribes controlled all of what is now England, where their customs and beliefs blended with Christianity. Thus Beowulf, which was an old Germanic tale, was adapted and retold by Christian minstrels, and acquired Christian overtones which at times seem at odds with the words and actions of the characters. (More on that in Lecture 2.) At this time, there were four nations: the English (or the Angles, located in southern England), the British (or the Britons, located in Northern England), the Picts (located in Scotland), and the Scots (located, believe it or not, in Ireland), each with its own language and sharing Latin. London was controlled by the Angles, as was Canterbury, which was the center of Christianity in the British Isles. Canterbury's cathedral attracted pilgrims from many places, especially London; it took them 4 days to cover the 60 miles from London to Canterbury (more on that in Lecture 4). The four groups kept to themselves and didn't form a single, unified large nation, or even large governing bodies. They operated for a long time as tribes, not taking advantage of the Roman roads even to

unite among their own kind. But eventually, trade began to unite the cultures, and by the 7th and 8th centuries, there was a flourishing civilization. The 9th and 10th centuries saw the Viking invasions, which were brutal and effective. The Vikings took over large areas of land; those who remained were assimilated into the larger culture, and left their own mark on its literature. The Catholic Church was the major unifying force in the country. Church patronage, education, and influence cannot be overemphasized; it touched every area of almost everyone's life, as you'll see in future lectures and works of literature.

The Role of Poetry

The poet, or bard, was a valued member of the primitive court: he could entertain, immortalize, and give inspiration to others in leading their own lives. The form in which most stories were told was the "epic," which was characterized by a solemn dignity of tone and elevation of style. It was not written down, but recited from memory; thus, most of the epics from that age have been lost. Beowulf is one of the few which survive. Stories and epics began to be written down only after Christianity, with its written language, became dominant. The individual who provided the greatest impetus for the development of a written and national culture during this time was King Alfred, king of the West Saxons from 871-899. He united all of the southern kingdoms, and defeated and constrained the Vikings. He was an enthusiastic patron of literature. He himself translated many works into the English of the time (we now call it Old English); he also began the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which recorded yearly events until the mid-twelfth century. And he preserved many old Germanic works, among them Beowulf. We don't know who wrote most of the Old English stories and epics. This is partly because records were lost, but more because of the medieval system of values. An individual's achievement was not important. All was submerged in the spiritual, not the material. Human civilization and its arts functioned (at least, ideally, if not practically) to assist man on the way to his union with God. The author was not important, therefore; only the work mattered. Another factor adds mystery to the matter of authorship of early tales: the oral tradition was hard to trace: stories were passed on by word of mouth, with no thought of copyright or plagiarism. Often the credit for the stories (if any credit was given) was given to the man who wrote them down. And writing down old tales was a low priority. Most of those who could write were monks, and they were occupied with copying the Bible or other religious works. Since copies of everything had to be made laboriously by hand (there was no printing press until much later), the number of works recorded and the number of copies made were few.

Thus, most poetry was handed down orally, in performances by minstrels, accompanied by a harp in noble households--an important feature of any feast. For some examples of the different types of things that have been preserved from that time, read the following (all of these are in your Norton Anthology): "Caedmon's Hymn"; "The Dream of the Rood"; "The Wanderer"; "The Wife's Lament". There are no discussion questions to answer on these first readings; they're just for your edification.

John Gay: The Beggar's Opera

John Gay was born in 1685 in Barnstaple. He went to London to serve as an apprentice to a mercer (a silk merchant), but he began to associate with statesmen, courtiers, and wits. Along with Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift, his closest friends, he helped found the Scriblerus Club, a group of writers who were famous for their political satires. Swift is said to have given him the idea for The Beggar's Opera when he suggested Gay write a "Newgate pastoral." Gay supported himself for a while in London as the secretary to Lord Clarendon, a Tory envoy to Hanover. But with the death of Queen Anne and the Tories' fall from grace in 1714, his own position ended. Under King George I, Robert Walpole became Prime Minister. Walpole despised all writing that was not political journalism--and he despised all of those who did not favor him. The atmosphere became very unfriendly: Swift fled to Dublin, Pope to Twickenham. Gay was denied all patronage until 1727, when he was insulted by being offered a position as Gentleman Usher to 2-year-old Princess Louisa; he declined. In later years, the Duke and Duchess of Queesnbury were his patrons. In the interim, he worked as a journalist, published poetry, and lived off gifts from friends. The Beggar's Opera was begun in 1727. There are obvious correlations between Peachum and Jonathan Wild, a notorious leader of London criminals, who had recently been hanged. But there are also more subtle likenesses between Peachum and Walpole: their success at gaining and retaining command, their brazenness, their duplicity, their materialism, and their manipulation and corruption of the public. Through Peachum, Gay excoriates Walpole as someone who cares for nothing but the material, the commercial, and the expedient; he reminds his audience that Peachums flourish in the atmosphere set in London by their leaders. The comparison between Peachum and Walpole was not lost on the play's audiences, and just in case it was, Swift wrote of Gay's "comparing those common robbers to robbers of the public; and their several stratagems of betraying, condemning and hanging each other to the several arts of politicians in times of corruption" (The Intelligencer, May 25, 1729). The other rogues in the play--Macheath and Lockit, particularly--are meant to remind the public of the rogue's gallery with which Walpole had surrounded himself. Walpole attended a performance of the play, and is said to have saved face by rising and calling for an encore of the most damaging song, "When you censure the age."

The Beggar's Opera is also a burlesque of Italian opera, which had become fashionable in England. Gay saw the upper classes' affectation of love for the opera, which they did not understand, as another folly of aristocratic pretension and corruption. In the rivalry between Polly and Lucy, Gay is mocking the rivalry between Italian singers. The beggars' poor technique satirizes the corrupting influence of the liberettists, and the corruption of the age itself. Gay is also parodying many standard literary conventions. The Lucy-Polly episodes, for example, parody cliched dramatic revenge scenes. There is also a parody of Aristotelian tragedy, where a great man's fall derives from a tragic flaw. Macheath's "tragic flaw" is a weakness for women; and Macheath's weakness for women implies also his miscalculation in believing that the society in which he lives values anything except money. Gay uses Macheath to make the point that, as in The Beggar's Opera, England is a society in which everything and everyone is up for sale. Many readers and audiences are disconcerted by the fact that there seems to be no one to like in this play. This is a deliberate choice on Gay's part. The play is not about virtue opposing corruption, but about corruption's destruction of virtue. Macheath is a seducer, and his borrowing of quotes from Shakespeare only reminds the audience of a vanished nobility.

Lecture 11: The Seventeenth Century

John Milton
John Milton was born December 9, 1608, in London. His father, also named John Milton, had been disinherited by his family because he turned from Roman Catholicism to the Church of England. He earned his living as a scrivener (i.e., he copied documents by hand, a necessary profession in the days before Xerox machines). Milton's father was devoted to him, and gave him the best education he could afford. He provided him with a private tutor, who stayed with him even after Milton entered St. Paul's School in 1620. Even as a child, Milton was studious; he often studied until midnight, long after the rest of the family was in bed. He loved knowledge: "Even at that time," he wrote, "the knowledge of natural and divine things seemed to me the highest pleasure and felicity imaginable." He began writing poetry early, and fully intended to be a poet, whatever his profession might be. In 1625, he entered Christ's College at Cambridge University. It was probably his and his parents' intention that he study for a profession in the Puritan church. But Milton was not a happy or a popular student, challenging professors and fellow students alike; in addition, the atmosphere in England was becoming much less friendly to Puritanism, and Milton was becoming much more interested in poetry. He received his B.A. in 1629 and his M.A. in 1632, and left Cambridge to live on his father's estate at Horton, where he spent the next five years writing and studying. During this time, he wrote "L'Allegro," "Il

Penseroso," "Arcades," and Comus. His mother died in 1637; shortly thereafter, Milton embarked on a Grand Tour of Europe. Milton was on the Continent for two years. He met, among others, Galileo in Italy. He also wrote sonnets to a young lady in Bologna, who is unknown and may have been imaginary. In Bologna, also, Milton wrote Lycidas, an elegy for his college friend, Edward King, who had drowned in 1637; and Epitaphium Damoni, an elegy for another college friend, Charles Deodati, who died in 1638. Political affairs in England were, at this time, reaching a crisis. Revolution loomed, and Milton felt he had a role to play. He came back to England and settled in London. There, he took on several students and began a school of sorts. More importantly, Milton cast his lot with the political reformers by writing several pamphlets supporting their ideas. In 1642, Milton, who was 34, married Mary Powell, who was 17. It was clear almost immediately that the marriage was a mistake. About a month later, she left him and returned to her family's home; she was not to return for three years, and then she probably only came back to get Milton's help for her family. Mary's family was on the Royalist side, and after the overthrow of Charles I, they were expelled from their home and lands in Oxford. In 1646, the entire family moved into Milton's home. It is said that Milton made Mary beg on her knees to be allowed to come back to him. Milton's family had also been affected deeply by the civil war: his brother Christopher served on the Royalist side. Milton's first child, a daughter, Anne, was born in 1646; his second, Mary, in 1648. His son, John, was born in 1651, and another daughter, Deborah, was born in 1652. His wife, Mary, died three days later, due to complications of childbirth. His son, John, who was less than a year old, died the next month, possibly after being neglected by a nurse. Meanwhile, in 1649, Charles I was executed; Milton was probably present for the execution. About a month later, Milton took a job with Cromwell's government as Secretary for the Foreign Tongues, a post dealing with diplomatic correspondence in Latin. In February of 1652, Milton became totally blind, probably due to glaucoma; in 1653, the poet Andrew Marvell became his assistant. In 1655, Milton began to work less on government affairs and more on his own literary pursuits, possibly on Paradise Lost. On November 12, 1656, Milton married Katherine Woodcock. In October 1657, they had a daughter, Katherine, but there were medical complications, and the following February, Katherine Woodcock died; her daughter died a month later. Those were not the only changes to occur in Milton's life in 1658. On September 3, Oliver Cromwell died. His son's government failed, and Charles II was restored to the throne. In the political backlash, Milton's books and pamphlets were burned. Milton went

into hiding, but was arrested and imprisoned in October 1659; he was released two months later, probably due to the intercession of Marvell and other friends. Many others were not so lucky; there were plenty of public executions over the next few months. Milton had lost a great deal of his money and property when the government changed hands; he was never really poor, but now he needed to economize. He and his daughters lived quietly in a small house in Bunhill Fields in London, where he worked on his masterpieces: Paradise Lost (published 1667), then Paradise Regained, and finally Samson Agonistes (both published in 1671). Milton's daughters served as his secretaries, reading to him and taking dictation for hours. They were treated as secretaries, too. After the death of their mother, they had been raised by Milton without attention or affection; he seems to have educated them solely so they could be of service to him, and they responded by hating him. Milton married for a third time in 1663. His third wife, Elizabeth Minshull, seems to have been better suited to him than his other wives, but his daughters hated her too. In 1665, Milton and his family rented a house in the village of Chalfont St. Giles, where they moved temporarily to escape the Plague in London. (This house has been preserved as a museum.) The publication of Paradise Lost was delayed due to the Plague; it was delayed again by the Great Fire of London in 1666, which destroyed most of the printing houses (as well as Milton's father's house). Milton died November 8, 1674, and was buried near his father in the Church of St. Giles in Cripplegate.

Paradise Lost
Milton's intention in Paradise Lost was to write a great national epic, to celebrate the accomplishment of the New English Jerusalem under Cromwell. Milton believed that England had been chosen by God to be the expression of His will on earth; Paradise Lost was originally intended to inspire Englishmen to live up to their mission, and to glorify God. But after the failure of the Protectorate, Milton's intentions changed. He now believed that an earthly paradise was not possible to achieve, and turned his attention to individual atonement and regeneration. One of the major themes in Paradise Lost is hubris, or pride. Satan, for example, is destroyed because of it. Later, Satan uses pride to induce Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. Another theme is the issue of personal responsibility. God is never blamed for what happens to those who disobey Him. Satan, Adam, and Eve, it is made clear, have only themselves to blame. They exercised their free will and chose the actions; the responsibility for the consequences lies with them. But the consequences do not end with them: one of Milton's points is that every act of disobedience against God affects not only the individual who performs it but many others.

Milton also addresses the meaning of evil in a universe created by a benevolent God. Many critics have argued over Milton's portrayal of Satan: some feel that Milton miscalculated, making Satan too sympathetic (perhaps, after the Fall, identifying with his loss of Heaven). Others argue that Milton aroused our sympathy for Satan so that we could feel the full consequences--the full pain--of his loss. In addition, Milton explores the theme that good may come out of evil: Christ's sacrifice and our redemption would never have happened if Satan had failed. On the other hand, evil may come out of good, as well: Eve, in succumbing to Satan's charms, believes she is gaining knowledge and making it available to Adam, as well as to herself. And speaking of Satan: Milton also addresses the idea that appearances can be deceptive, thus stressing the spiritual dangers and temptations that are always at hand. Eve is charmed by the snake, and is therefore more easily fooled. And speaking of Eve: many critics have noted that Milton's disdain for women is showing in his portrayal of Eve. To readers today, Milton seems uncomfortably sexist. But to be fair, Milton was not the first to state that women were responsible for Original Sin, and Paradise Lost reflects the general attitude of Milton's time toward women. One of the most important themes in Paradise Lost is knowledge. Eve's sin is disobedience to God, but significantly, she eats from the Tree of Knowledge. Satan convinces her to do so by telling her she can know as much as God. Later, Michael rebukes Adam for asking about the stars and the heavens, telling him that some things are God's alone to know (Book XII)--this, from Milton, the lover of knowledge, in the time of Galileo!

Lecture 9: The Seventeenth Century

James I
The 1600s in England were marked by religious strife, which led to significant political and social change. When James I became King of England in 1603, upon Elizabeth's death, he had already been King of Scotland for a number of years, and he brought with him to England some preconceived ideas about how he would rule which were not very popular in England. In Scotland, for example, the divine right of kings was still recognized. But in England, the king and the Parliament were considered the source of laws, not the king alone. Parliament, particularly the House of Commons, resented James's attitude that their positions and decisions were dependent on royal favor. Their power lay in the fact that they were the legislative body that raised funds by levying taxes, and James' extravagance required lots of funds. Parliament attempted to restrict his spending, and in retaliation, he dissolved Parliament and levied his own, extremely unpopular, customs taxes. But

eventually, even this was not enough to cover his expenses, and he was forced to call Parliament back into session and concede to them a great measure of power. James also faced a precarious situation in his relations with other European countries, particularly Spain and Germany. The major European powers were constantly attempting to conquer each other, or at the least, maintain and extend their own influence. In addition, these struggles were complicated by religious alliances. Germany, for example, was ruled by Ferdinand II, a Catholic who was dedicated to restoring Catholicism to predominantly Protestant Central Europe. But Bohemia, a region of Germany, was governed by Frederick the Elector Palatine of the Rhine, a Protestant. In an attempt to keep peace and establish an alliance with Germany, James married his daughter Elizabeth to Frederick. When in 1619, the Protestants in Bohemia revolted against King Ferdinand, Frederick the Elector was expelled from Bohemia by Ferdinand and his Spanish allies, who also hoped to restore Catholicism to Europe, and in the process, take over more territory there. In a naive attempt to curry favor with the Spanish and get his son-in-law's lands restored to him, James travelled to Madrid to propose a marriage between his son, Charles, and the Spanish Infanta, the Princess Donna Maria, and was contemptuously dismissed. England's resulting involvement in what came to be called the Thirty Years' War was disastrous and expensive. But James's greatest problems arose from religious conflict in Britain. When he took the throne, the Catholics and Protestants were still at odds, and to further complicate matters, the various denominations of Protestants all found each others' beliefs and practices unacceptable. James firmly allied himself with the Church of England, and determined to issue a new translation of the Bible; the King James Version appeared in 1611. James's policies restricting religious freedom were relatively moderate for his time, and precluded the sort of wholesale persecution and death that had occurred at previous times. But even James found the Puritans to be a threat and took steps to suppress them and force them into exile. Many of them fled to the Netherlands, and from there to the New World, where, in 1630, they established the first of the New England colonies. James also reintroduced the laws which meted out penalties for not attending Church of England services. This was a severe setback to Catholics, who felt betrayed. James was the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, a Catholic, and he had promised that when he took the throne of England, he would cease to persecute Catholics. But when he was actually crowned, he reneged on this promise. In response, a number of men (how many and who is still a matter of debate) joined in the failed Gunpowder Plot in 1605. The five core members of the group, Robert Catesby, Thomas Percy, Thomas Wintour, John Wright, and Guy Fawkes, swore to blow up James and the Parliament during the next session of Parliament. They rented a house near the Parliament House and (so the story goes--some historians doubt it) began digging a tunnel which would lead under it. But the tunnel had to be abandoned because of water seeping in. So Thomas Percy rented a cellar in the Parliament House itself, and there the conspirators hid 36 barrels of gunpowder. On Oct. 26, 1605, ten days before the session

of Parliament was due to open, an anonymous letter warning of a "calamity" was delivered to a member of Parliament; the conspirators heard of the letter, but, as no action was taken, they concluded that the letter had not been believed. On Nov. 4, the night before Parliament was scheduled to meet, Guy Fawkes was caught in the cellar with the tools necessary to explode the powder. He was arrested and tortured, and over the next few days he revealed details of the plot and the names of the other plotters. At the news of Fawkes's arrest, the other conspirators fled to Staffordshire, where they were confronted several days later by the Sheriff of Worcestor and a posse. Catesby, Percy, Wright and his brother Christopher were all killed in the skirmish that followed, and the other members of the plot were rounded up over the next few weeks and imprisoned. Thomas Wintour made a confession at the end of November. Its authenticity is still in doubt. Thomas Tresham, who was one of the plotters and was suspected of having written the anonymous letter betraying the plot, supposedly died in the Tower in December of a urinary tract infection; there is speculation that he may have been poisoned by other conspirators, or that reports of his death were false and that he was allowed by the government to escape. All of the captured conspirators were tried, found guilty, and condemned to death. In January of 1606, they were hanged, drawn and quartered, and some of their heads were removed to be displayed on pikes. In addition to the upheaval in Europe and England, James had his troubles in Ireland. He wanted extend Scotland's influence and establish more control over Ireland, so he established the plantation of Ulster beginning in 1610. This allowed thousands of (Protestant) Scots to settle on lands that rightly belonged to the (Catholic) Irish. To this day, the disputes that thus began between the British and the Irish, the Catholics and the Protestants, have not been resolved.

Charles I
At the death of James I in 1625, the throne passed to his son, Charles I. He was unpopular with Parliament even before he took the throne because of his friendship with the Duke of Buckingham (his father's best friend and, some say, James's lover) and his marriage: in the wake of the humiliating rejection by Spain, James had arranged for Charles a marriage to French Catholic Princess Henrietta Maria. Parliament refused to allot him any money until he dismissed Buckingham, and in retaliation, Charles dismissed Parliament, but was forced to recall them to raise revenue. The members of Parliament immediately pressured Charles into accepting a Petition of Right, which guaranteed certain basic rights to the English people; these later became the basis of the United States's Bill of Rights. Charles again dissolved Parliament and tried to rule without it, but his onerous taxation policies alienated the population. He created even more dissent when he increased the

power of the clergy, who began arresting and torturing Puritans. Nevertheless, by 1635, his government was relatively stable. But then, there was the matter of Scotland. Charles, although born there, had little understanding of the country. His attempts to unite the various religious factions and force the Scottish Church to conform to Church of England practices created a revolution. In July 1637, the first reading of the Revised Prayer Book for Scotland created a riot. The Bishop of Brechin conducted his service with a pair of loaded pistols aimed at the congregation. The clergy met in Edinburgh to draw up a manifesto of its beliefs and goals; this document was called "The Tables." In effect, it declared Scotland independent of England, and refused to recognize Charles's religious authority. Charles revoked the authority of Scotland's General Assembly and declared war. This was a mistake; Charles's forces were easily defeated by the experienced soldiers of the Scottish army. The First Bishops' War, as it was called, was settled by the Pacification of Berwick, in which Charles reluctantly restored the power of the Scottish General Assembly (or Scottish Parliament). When the Scottish Parliament attempted to further weaken Charles's control and strengthen its own, Charles again resorted to arms, and the Second Bishops' War began. Charles was forced to call the British Parliament back into session in order to raise an army of his own. Parliament took advantage of Charles's weakness to impeach and execute some of Charles's supporters, and to pass a law stating that no more than three years could pass between Parliaments, and that it could not be adjourned by the King, but only by its own consent. Now, Charles went to Scotland to try to gain support against his own Parliament. He distributed titles and lands and gave the General Assembly all the authority it wanted. Charles gained enough support in Scotland to win several important victories against the British army, when war broke out in 1642. But now the British Parliament sought help in Scotland too, and since the Scots were divided in their support of Charles, they got it. The Scots would provide an army, and in return, the Parliament would pay the government 30,000 pounds per month, guarantee them religious autonomy, and eradicate "popery and prelacy"; this referred not only to Catholics but to High Church (Episcopalian) denominations. Charles's forces (the Royalist Forces) were defeated at Marston Moor by the Parliamentary Army (heavily supplemented by Scotsmen), led by Oliver Cromwell. The Highlanders (who had traditionally been at odds with the Lowlanders of Scotland) raised an army to try to help Charles, but Cromwell's army was too much for the Royalist forces, even with their help. Charles was defeated and turned over to Parliament in 1646. Charles was tried for treason and executed in 1649, in his own banquet hall.

Cromwell and the Republican Government

History's opinion on Cromwell is divided. Some see him as a ruthless tyrant; others, as a brilliant ruler who brought peace and unity to Great Britain. Oliver Cromwell was born April 25, 1599, in Huntingdon. He was raised in a family of country Puritans. In 1616, he entered Sidney Sussex College at Cambridge. His early years appear to have been quite ordinary, but at the age of 27, he had a religious revelation and thereafter felt it was his duty to uphold and spread the word of God. Nevertheless, he was a quiet man; he farmed, prayed, fasted, and occasionally spoke at church services. He became a justice of the peace and once rounded up the men drinking in a local tavern and forced them to sing a hymn. He was elected to Parliament for Huntingdon in 1628, and was elected as the representative for Cambridge in 1640. When the Revolution against Charles began in 1642, Cromwell became a member of the Parliamentary Army. He rose quickly through its ranks and showed a gift for military strategy. He created his own regiment of a thousand hand-picked Puritan farmers who were used to the countryside. Under his iron discipline, they would recite the Westminster Confession and march into battle signing the Psalms of David. They prayed, paid fines for drunkenness and profanity and were never defeated. Due to his successes, Cromwell was named commander-in-chief, and after Charles was defeated and executed, Cromwell emerged as the new leader of the Parliament. Under his leadership, the "Rump Parliament" abolished the monarchy and then, for good measure, abolished the House of Lords. On New Year's Day 1651, Scotland crowned Charles II King of Scotland and raised an army to defend him. Cromwell commanded an army which crushed the Scottish resistance, and Charles II fled to France. In 1652, he forced the Scottish to sign a Treaty of Union with England, which made Scotland part of the Commonwealth. Cromwell also ruthlessly subdued resistance in Ireland and forced it to accept the authority of England. He confiscated and sold large Irish properties to English landlords, further antagonizing the Irish. In 1653, the Parliament offered him the British Crown; he turned it down and accepted instead the title "Lord Protector." Under the "protectorate," as his government was called, religious tolerance was extended to all except Roman Catholics. Jews, who had been expelled from England under Edward I in the 13th century, were allowed back into England. He also granted congregations the right to choose their own form of worship, no longer requiring that all use the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. In 1655, after a Royalist uprising, Cromwell divided England into eleven military districts; most were governed by puritannical army colonels, who were responsible for creating the so-called "blue laws," under which drinking, gambling, and swearing were punishable by fines or imprisonment. In some areas, even taking a walk on Sunday was

outlawed. These new governors were almost universally unpopular, and were dismissed in 1657. Cromwell died September 3, 1658, at Whitehall. His death is supposed by most historians to have been caused by malaria, although a new (and debatable) theory has been advanced which posits that he was poisoned by his doctor as part of a royalist plot. Cromwell was succeeded as Lord Protector by his son, Richard, who was not interested in the job; nor did he have the experience necessary to govern a nation. He left London and went to live on his farm, ignoring the demands of government. Into this vacuum stepped General Monck, who had served loyally under Cromwell in Scotland. He assembled a Parliament and invited Charles II to return as King. Charles accepted and was crowned in 1660. In 1661, after loyalties had shifted back to the monarchy, Cromwell's body was exhumed and "executed": he was hanged as a traitor; his body was buried beneath the gallows at Tyburn and his head was mounted on a pike above Westminster. In 1960, his head was bequeathed to his old college at Cambridge and buried near the Sidney Sussex College chapel.

The Metaphysical Poets

Critic and scholar H. J. C. Grierson has defined metaphysical poetry in this way: "Metaphysical Poetry, in the full sense of the term, is a poetry which...has been inspired by a philosophical conception of the universe and of the role assigned to the human spirit in the great drama of existence...The distinctive note of 'metaphysical' poetry is the blend of passionate feeling and paradoxical ratiocination." The term "metaphysical" is misleading, because it gives the impression that metaphysical poetry discusses the nature of the universe. In this case, "metaphysical" refers to style, not subject matter. The metaphysicals were looking for a connection between emotion and intellectual concepts; they connect the abstract with the concrete, the sublime with the commonplace, the emotional with the rational. Metaphysical poetry is self-conscious and analytic: But since my soul, whose child love is, Takes limmes [limbs] of flesh, and else could nothing doe [do], More subtile [subtle] then the parent is, Love must not be, but take a body too... This passage is from Donne's "Aire and Angels," and it presents, as so many of Donne's poems do, a logical argument designed to persuade: the soul must be housed in a body or it can do nothing; the soul is the source of love; love, like the soul, must "take" a body, or, like the soul, it cannot reveal itself. It is not an appeal to the emotions, but to the intellect of its audience.

One of the most striking characteristics of metaphysical poetry is its deliberately odd or shocking juxtaposition of images and ideas. In "Hymne to God My God, in my Sicknesse" for example, Donne compares the human body to a map: Whilst my Physitians by their love are growne Cosmographers, and I their Mapp, who lie Flat on this bed, that by them may be showne That this is my South-west discoverie Per fretum febris, by these streights to die, I joy, that in these straits, I see my West; For, though theire currants yeeld returne to none, What shall my West hurt me? As West and East In all flatt Maps (and I am one) are one, So death doth touch the Resurrection. The metaphysical poets were rebelling against the established literary traditions of the Elizabethan era. In the metaphysical poets, especially in their love poetry, there is an attempt to write about the ugly as it coexists with the beautiful; the dissonant as it coexists with the melodious; the physical as it coexists with the spiritual. Wonder and awe have not completely given way to cynicism, but innocence has been lost, and emotion is submissive to logic, as Herbert Read says: "Metaphysical poetry is determined logically: its emotion is a joy that comes with the triumph of reason, and is not a simple instinctive ecstasy." The central figure in the group of poets who are referred to as "metaphysical" is John Donne, not necessarily because he is typical of the genre (each poet brings his own unique qualities to the poetry), but because he is the most "metaphysical," and because he was the most influential of the group. Critics have never known what to make of Donne. Some accuse him of poetic sins such as faulty meter, and others argue that his philosophy is shallow and inconsistent, even blasphemous. Albert C. Baugh says that the only purpose of Donne's imagery is to make his poetry "appear more thoughtful than it is...What this most metaphysical of all poets lacked was a little real philosophy, an ability to come to terms with his world and trust his own reason and his faith..." On the other hand, Joan Bennett argues that in much of Donne's poetry, "The interplay of sound and meaning is masterful," and that in many of his poems, there is a "successful fusion of wit and passion...He rescued English love poetry from the monotony which was threatening to engulf it at the end of the sixteenth century."

Lecture 7: The Sixteenth Century

Christopher Marlowe
Christopher Marlowe was born on February 26, 1564 in Canterbury, a busy cathedral city. His father, John Marlowe, was a leatherworker, and was frequently in trouble for

debt; Christopher's sisters were said to be noisy and quarrelsome; his sister Dorothy was probably promiscuous. Even the apprentices John Marlowe took on caused trouble: three of them were involved in bastardy cases, one with Mrs. Marlowe's maid. Christopher entered the King's School in January 1579, at the age of 15. The headmaster had a large private library with volumes and volumes of plays and medieval romances; these were probably the sources for Marlowe's plays. In 1581, Marlowe moved to Corpus Christi College at Cambridge, as a "Canterbury student": he had been given one of three scholarships for students interested in pursuing a career in the Church. He is said to have been a good scholar who wrote excellent verses. He was granted a bachelor's degree in 1584. When Marlowe applied for his master's degree in 1587, the university decided to withhold it. Marlowe had been absent from the college for long periods of time; in addition, the university officials suspected him of being a Catholic (a capital crime at the time). He only received his degree when the Queen's Privy Council stepped in and requested that it be granted. It is now assumed by most scholars that Marlowe's absences from Cambridge were in the service of the government, either as a secret agent or a confidential messenger. Her Majesty's Privy Council said, in its request to Cambridge, that Marlowe had gone to France for the Queen; Marlowe was probably in the employ of the Queen's Secretary of State, Sir Francis Walsingham, who maintained an elaborate espionage system. After leaving Cambridge, Marlowe lived in London. He had been writing plays at Cambridge, and he brought them with him. Tamburlaine Part One was produced by November 1587 and Tamburlaine Part Two shortly after. The two plays made his reputation. But his life was not a quiet, reputable affair. In September 1589, Marlowe became involved in a fight with William Bradley. Thomas Watson, the poet, came to Marlowe's aid, and in the brawl, Watson fatally stabbed Bradley. Both Marlowe and Watson were imprisoned in Newgate, Marlowe for two weeks (he was exonerated legally in December) and Watson until the following February, when he was discharged on grounds that he had killed Bradley in self-defense. By 1591, Marlowe was part of a circle of intellectuals which included Thomas Hariot, a distinguished mathematician; Matthew Roydon, a poet; and Edward Blount, the bookseller who formed one of the first syndicates to publish Shakespeare's plays. Sir Walter Raleigh and Thomas Walsingham, Sir Francis Walsingham's cousin, visited occasionally, as well. In the summer of 1591, Thomas Kyd and Marlowe shared a room which they used as a study for writing. Kyd had had enormous success several years earlier, at about the same time as Tamburlaine was produced, with a play called The Spanish Tragedy, and both Kyd and Marlowe were under the patronage of Thomas Walsingham.

Two years after sharing the study, Thomas Kyd was arrested and questioned about his religious views; he had in his possession a pamphlet, apparently, which was considered heretical and atheistic. Under torture on the rack, he said that the paper belonged not to him but to Christopher Marlowe. He said his and Marlowe's papers had become confused in the shared room. Under further duress, Kyd wrote a statement in which he reported that Marlowe had "monstrous opinions," and used to "jest at the divine scriptures, gibe at prayers..." He also claimed that Marlowe, among other things, accused Christ of having "an extraordinary love" for St. John. On May 18, 1593, a warrant was issued for Marlowe's arrest; he was apprehended in the home of Thomas Walsingham. He appeared before the judges on May 20. Instead of prison and torture (the sentence Kyd received), he was "commanded to give his daily attendance on their Lordships until he shall be licensed to the contrary." Marlowe's powerful friends apparently interceded in his behalf once again. On May 30, Marlowe and several of his friends went to Deptford, a village down the Thames from London. Present were Ingram Frizer, Lady Walsingham's business agent and a wealthy man; Robert Poley, who had frequently been employed on secret missions for the government; and Nicholas Skeres, a wealthy man. They ate lunch at Eleanor Bull's Tavern, spent a quiet afternoon talking in the garden, and then went inside to supper. A dispute concerning the bill arose, and Marlowe grabbed Frizer's dagger and gave him a couple of cuts on the head. In the struggle that followed, Marlowe was stabbed and died. He was 29 years old. A coroner's inquest was held on June 1 and a jury of sixteen men quickly acquitted Frizer. But the inquest was hurried, and the report was incomplete; parts of the matter were hushed up. This, along with Marlowe's record of espionage and his associates on that day--especially Poley--has given rise to speculation that perhaps the facts were not as they were stated for the record.

Dr. Faustus
Dr. Faustus is a dramatic play, full of spectacle. A story is told that on one occasion when the play was first being performed, the actor playing Dr. Faustus actually conjured up a devil. Even in our more skeptical times, the play still fires our imaginations; Fauststories, in which an individual sells his soul to the devil in return for some great prize, are common. One of the criticisms of the play has been that Dr. Faustus, as a character, is so vague: we know almost nothing of his life or his circumstances before the play begins: does he have a family? Did he have a happy or unhappy childhood? Even the minutiae of daily life are absent from the play. Faustus is not a fully developed individual in the sense that we have come to expect in modern theatre, especially compared to a character such as Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman, for example, or Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire. He is not even as individuated as Hamlet. But he is not meant to be. Dr. Faustus is meant to raise philosophical inquiries, not psychological speculation. We are not meant to be

concerned with him as an individual, but to identify with his conflicts. The play's structure supports this. It follows a pattern of "statement-variation": a statement is made near the beginning of each act, and then is illustrated in variations for the rest of the act. Dr. Faustus is the ultimate humanist: he sees the world in rational and legalistic terms. In humanism and in Protestantism, the individual is the object of interest; Faustus evaluates actions only as they affect him. Faustus rationally and logically makes his decision in Act I, and he knows the consequences of his choice. As soon as Marlowe chooses Satan, the Good Angel and the Bad Angel appear. These can be seen as voices of Faustus's conscience, but they can also be taken as a representation that Good and Bad exist independently in nature, outside of any one man. Next we see that Valdes and Cornelius have enticed Faustus to magic and that they hope to use him for their own purposes. But Faustus is committed to knowledge for its own value. Marlowe is presenting us with two attitudes toward knowledge: that knowledge is only useful if it can be used for some practical purpose or gain, and the opposite opinion that knowledge is valuable for its own sake. This is an issue that Marlowe certainly would have encountered in his time at Cambridge, and that he probably encountered daily in a time of growing commercialism. The comedy of Wagner and the clowns keeps Faustus's actions in perspective and highlights the ludicrous nature of Faustus's aspirations. It also illustrates the way in which an individual's evil influences and corrupts others. In Acts III and IV, Faustus seems content with trickery and magic. He has been reduced by his corruption and, ironically, limited to smaller and smaller spheres of influence and knowledge, even as he deceives himself and revels in his fame. In Act V, as his time runs out, Faustus is in despair, but is still too prideful to repent. He still believes in his human and legal contract rather than the merciful power of God. In Dr. Faustus, fact and faith conflict: Faustus sees the world in human terms, refusing to believe that God has the power to void any contract, to forgive any sin. His pride will not allow him to see that God might have more power than he, himself, has--and so he believes redemption and salvation are impossible for him.

Lecture 5: The Middle Ages

The Book of Margery Kempe
Margery Kempe was born in the town of Bishop's Lynn (now King's Lynn) in 1373. The daughter of a wealthy and influential man, she married at 20, and then went into business for herself, first as a brewer and then as a miller. This was unusual, but not as unusual as one might think: women often ran their own businesses. More often, they ran businesses belonging to their husbands, when the husbands were too busy, disinterested, or incompetent to do it themselves. Although it was more usual for a woman of Kempe's

social and economic class not to work, poor women worked as a matter of course. And women of all classes had children, as did Margery--she had 14 of them. The very difficult and traumatic birth of her first child plunged her into a depression; she may even have attempted suicide. She recovered after the first of what would be numerous religious visions. Her resulting religious fervor and her determination to live according to her religious beliefs caused a great deal of strife between Margery and her husband; it also caused conflict with her friends and neighbors, with whom she was not hesitant to share her wisdom. After the birth of her fourteenth child, she negotiated an agreement of celibacy with her husband and undertook a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Upon her return, her constant sermonizing, combined with the loud weeping which accompanied her religious worship and her visions, caused some to see her as an heretic. She had to defend herself several times, once in front of the Archbishop of York. These were not insignificant encounters; Margery was fighting not only for her beliefs and the right to express them, but for her very life: heretics were frequently executed; Joan of Arc was burned at the stake during Margery's lifetime. As irritating as Margery Kempe must have been, her book is a remarkable record of an unconventional and controversial life.

Malory: Morte Darthur

The authorship of Morte Darthur is commonly attributed to Sir Thomas Malory, a knight born in Newbold Revel in Warwickshire, possibly around the year 1416 (although the date, like so much about Malory's life, is a matter of debate; he may have been born any time from 1396 on). Malory's great-grandfather came to England with William the Conqueror and married an heiress, thereby becoming one of the landed gentry. Malory's father was John Malory, a sheriff, justice of the peace, and Member of Parliament. His mother was Philippa Chetwynde. Nothing is known of Malory's childhood, but in 1428, he was placed in the service of the Earl of Warwick, Richard Beauchamp, and went to war with him against France. It is probable that Malory was present when, in 1431 in Rouen, Joan of Arc was burned. He certainly fought in a number of battles, and may even have accompanied Beauchamp on a world tour. By 1445, he had returned to England, been knighted and was serving as the Member of Parliament for Warwickshire. From this point on, there are many mentions of Sir Thomas Malory in the public records, almost all of them criminal in reference. Apparently, in 1450, Malory was arrested for several unknown offenses and imprisoned to await trial. According to the indictments against him, he escaped from prison during the night, swimming across a deep, wide, sewage-filled moat. The next night, he and a dozen others broke into The Abbey of Blessed Mary of Coombe and stole money, gold and jewelry. On January 4, 1450, he and 26 others attempted to ambush and stab Humphrey, Duke of Buckingham in Coombe

Abbey Woods. He and another man robbed several individuals on August 31, 1450 and May 31, 1450. On July 30, 1450, he broke into the home of Hugh Smyth and raped his wife, Joan Smyth; on August 1, 1450, he again broke into Hugh Smyth's house, again raping Joan Smyth and this time also stealing goods and money. On Thursday, July 29, 1451, he and more than a dozen others again broke into Coombe Abbey and stole money, jewelry, and other valuables, and assaulted the Abbot, his monks, and his servants. On June 4, 1451, he stole 9 cows and 335 sheep and took them home to Newbold Revel. How an apparently law-abiding pillar of the community became such a violent outlaw is puzzling, but it helps to take several factors into account. First, there was tremendous anger against the government for the high rate of taxation and the repressive laws, and an even greater amount of hatred against the Church. It is common for people today to assume that the people of the Middle Ages respected and revered the Church and its members, but that was hardly the case. The bishops and clergy were among the largest landowners and the slowest to institute reforms. The peasants under their control were little more than slaves, and in the 1400s, the abbots and bishops began demanding even more tithes, along with higher death duties and other fees. Riots and unrest set in motion by these frustrations were common, and the clergy were often under attack. The men who accompanied Malory on his attacks on Coombe Abbey were not all peasants; some were, like him, noblemen. It has been speculated that Malory was repossessing property he felt had been taken unfairly from members of the community. The attack on Humphrey, Duke of Buckingham, seems to have had its roots in a longstanding dispute between the two families over a specific piece of property, and over injustices done to Malory by the Duke and members of his family (including, perhaps, the awarding of Malory's seat in Parliament to Humphrey's ally in the matter, Sir Edmund Mountford). It is worth noting that none of the 24 local jurors called for the trial of Malory appeared; Malory was tried later, at Nuneaton; one of the presiding judges was Humphrey, Duke of Buckingham. The most serious charge against Malory was that of rape against Joan Smyth. Legal scholars point out that the term "raptus" which appeared in the indictment against Malory can have many meanings. It can mean rape; it can also refer to abduction or any use of force. If Mrs. Smyth was restrained or removed from her house during the robbery, that would qualify as "raptus." In this case, we have no way of knowing how the term was being used. We know that Malory served at least some of his sentence in the Tower of London. In 1454, he was released from prison on bail (a prisoner could be released before serving his full term if enough reputable and influential men were willing to put up enough cash and guarantee his good behavior), and in 1455 was pardoned by the King for any offenses he had committed before July 9, 1455. But he was back in prison again for unspecified crimes by January of 1456. This time, no bail was granted, since many of those who had previously provided guarantees were unwilling to do so again. He was back in prison

again two years later "for divers causes"; and again two years after that. This time, there would be no pardon. Although some of Malory's crimes (and some of his prosecution) may have been politically motivated, by this time, he had alienated anyone of influence who might have pleaded for him. Malory was finally committed to Newgate Gaol. He was not held in the dungeons, where he would have died in a matter of weeks. In fact, his life as a prisoner was probably not as unpleasant as one might imagine. Through his wife and family, he would have been able to buy various goods and privileges (as all but the poorest prisoners did--jailers were often quite wealthy). One of the privileges he certainly bought was the right to use books from the Grey Friars Library, which was located across the street from the prison, and was London's first library. By 1425, the huge building was filled with books, including many French and English romances and tales. Malory probably spent the better part of 20 years in prison, reading them and then writing Morte Darthur. Malory probably finished Morte Darthur some time between March 1469 and March 1470. In March 1471 (either on the 12th or the 14th) he died. There was a terrible outbreak of the plague that year, and that may have caused his death. He was buried in Grey Friars' sanctuary.

Lecture 4: The Middle Ages

Geoffrey Chaucer
The England in which Chaucer lived was in transition between the Middle Ages and the modern world. During Chaucer's lifetime, there were two outbreaks of the Black Plague; the Peasants' Revolt occurred in 1381. Feudalism still existed, but it was becoming increasingly easy for peasants to run away from estates and find more lucrative jobs in the city, or, due to the labor shortage caused by the Plague, hire out as independent agricultural workers. The king still had immense power, but the rise of cities and largescale manufacturing and trade created a wealthy and influential middle class of merchants and artisans who had a great deal of power in the governing of London. Chaucer's father was a member of this class; he was a prosperous wine merchant, with connections at the Court. We don't know much about Chaucer's education, but he probably got most of his learning at the court of Prince Lionel, the third son of King Edward III, where he was a page during his teens. Somewhere along the line, he learned bookkeeping, civil law, philosophy, astronomy, French, Italian, and Latin. In 1359, at the age of 16, he participated in Edward III's attack on France, and early in 1360, he was captured by the French and eventually ransomed for 16 pounds (about $5000 or more in today's currency). During the 1360s, Chaucer was appointed valet (an honorary position) to the King; he married; and his first poetry was published. He was beginning to be a trusted and ever-more-important member of the Court; he was sent on diplomatic missions several times. He became the Controller of Customs and Subsidies

on Wool, Skin and Hides for the Port of London. This was a lucrative post, since the wool trade was London's most important industry at the time. He held a series of public offices, was given various grants of money, wine, and homes, and had his share of public honors and recognition. He also had his share of scandal. We know very little of what went on in Chaucer's mind, however, since almost all we know of his life is pieced together from documents, records, and references to him in other people's writings. We know he was accused of rape; but we don't know if he was innocent or guilty, or even in what sense the word was being used (the word "raptus" in a legal document could have many meanings). We know his wife died in 1387, but we don't know how, and we don't know if their marriage was a happy one or not. Chaucer was heavily influenced by French literature; we know that he was also strongly influenced by Italian literature. In 1372, a trip to Italy introduced him to Dante and Boccacchio, whose Decameron is an obvious influence on The Canterbury Tales. (The Decameron, for example, consists of 100 tales told by ten characters; The Canterbury Tales was intended to be 120 tales, told by 29 or 30 characters.) Chaucer was the first English poet to introduce Italian literature to England; he was also the first to use many of the metric and stanza forms would become common in English poetry. He was one of the first to deal extensively with contemporary life and to draw sharply individualized portraits or to analyze characters psychologically. The Canterbury Tales were probably conceived when Chaucer lived in Greenwich, on the road the pilgrims regularly took to Canterbury. It is doubtful that Chaucer himself made a pilgrimage to Canterbury, but he may have travelled with groups of pilgrims (since the roads were unsafe, travel in groups was wise). In the opening of The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer (as a character in his own tale, much as Dante was a character in The Divine Comedy) meets 29 or 30 people at the Tabard Inn (a real inn, at the time) and joins them to make a pilgrimage to the popular shrine of Thomas a Beckett in Canterbury Cathedral. At the suggestion of the innkeeper--the Host, who has made himself the Master of Ceremonies--each pilgrim agrees to tell four stories: two on the way to Canterbury, and two on the way back. The Host will decide which is the best tale; the other travellers will reward the winner with a banquet. In the General Prologue, Chaucer describes each pilgrim, adding details and characterization as the tales progress. The pilgrims are individuals, but each is also representative of a professional or social group. We thus get a panorama of the whole range of the society and the age. There is a great deal of humor in the tales themselves and in the interactions between the characters. But there are also serious themes: the value of truth, dignity, and integrity; fate; and free will, among others. Chaucer began working on The Canterbury Tales about a year before his wife's death, and he began working on the "marriage group" the year she died. The "marriage group" includes the prologues and tales of the Wife of Bath, the Friar, the Summoner, the Clerk, the Merchant, the Squire, and the Franklin. Some critics have speculated that his wife's death may have had an impact on the content and tone of this group of tales; it probably

did, but in what way, we can't know. Certainly, some of the issues that arise in this set of tales were those that a man in his position would probably have on his mind: whether to remarry or not, for example, and if so, on what terms. There is a cynicism about marriage, certainly, and its deceptions and indignities. But there are also passages of romantic yearning and joy. And throughout the tales runs the theme that things are not what they appear to be, and that our hopes and dreams are frail impossibilities against the backdrop of a harsh and unforgiving world. "The Wife of Bath's Tale" has never been traced to any one source, but it is of a fairly common type known as "Transformed Hag" or "Loathsome Lady" stories. In stories of this type, a beautiful young woman has been transformed into an ugly old hag, and can only be changed back by a display of love from a young and handsome man. Chaucer adapts the form to make it humorous, and to examine a number of social and religious issues. To audiences today, the Wife's story is simply funny, but in Chaucer's time, it bordered on the heretical: Biblical doctrine of the time clearly stated that a woman was to be subject to her husband. When Chaucer died in 1400, The Canterbury Tales was unfinished, whether because he had abandoned the project, or because he didn't have time to finish it before his death, we don't know. Chaucer is buried in the Poet's Corner at Westminster Abbey; he was the first poet to be so honored. (Some of the other poets and writers sharing the Corner with him are Edmund Spenser, John Dryden, Tennyson, Robert Browning, John Masefield, Dr. Samuel Johnson, Charles Dickens, Rudyard Kipling and Thomas Hardy.)

Lecture 14: The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century

Jonathan Swift: Gulliver's Travels
Gulliver and his Travels were probably conceived sometime in 1714, during one of the meetings of the Scriblerus Club in London. Swift began writing the book in 1721 and worked on the manuscript over a number of years, finally publishing it in 1726. Of the book, he wrote to Pope in 1725, "...the chief end I propose to myself in all my labors is to vex the world rather than divert it." And over the centuries, Gulliver's Travels has vexed readers and critics, who can't agree on how to perceive or interpret it. In the character of Gulliver, Swift is using a familiar device: the traveller who journeys to strange places and is sooner or later forced to make comparisons between his native land and the wondrous places he has seen. Gulliver is an average Englishman: he is a member of the middle class, a middle son, from Nottinghamshire, in the middle of England. He serves as Swift's mask. Critics have disagreed about how much Gulliver represents Swift; some see him as Swift's comic tool; others see him as expressing Swift's own opinions and feelings; yet others say that sometimes Swift preserves a detachment from Gulliver, while at other times the mask slips and Swift shows through.

There are various ways to read Gulliver's Travels:

First, it is a satire on travel books and those who write them. Gulliver overwhelms his readers with unnecessary detail, never sorting out what is important from what is trivial. Gulliver's Travels can also be read as simply a very funny story. It is also a satire on people and events of the day, notably Robert Walpole, the Prime Minister; most of the overt political satire appears in the first book, which details Gulliver's voyage to Lilliput. It is an allegory which exposes man's pride, abuse of his neighbors, and moral blindness.

One of the structurally unifying devices of the book is the use of an "accident" to force Gulliver into each of the countries on which he reports. In the first book, this accident is a simple shipwreck, which is not really anyone's fault. By Book IV, however, the "accident" is Gulliver's betrayal by his own shipmates; and it is in Book IV that Gulliver becomes most acutely aware of human faults. In Book I, Swift lets us know that Gulliver's judgments and evaluations are not entirely to be trusted. Gulliver does not lie to us; but he fails to see, for example, after putting out the fire in the palace by urinating on it, why the Queen should be so offended and would wish to live elsewhere. In the case of the Lilliputian lady accused of immoral behavior with him, he attempts to defend her honor with protestations of their virtue, missing the obvious and compelling reason why there could be nothing between them: he is six feet tall and she is six inches tall. Thus, by the time Gulliver reaches the land of the Houyhnhnms, we know not to accept all his evaluations at face value. But Gulliver's utter sincerity and anguish can cause us to forget that, so that we are inclined to believe, with him, that the Yahoos are despicable and the Houyhnhnms are ideal. In fact, given Swift's famous misanthropy, it is tempting to think that Gulliver's opinion, that we are all Yahoos, dirty, disgusting, and corrupt, is also Swift's opinion. But Swift gives us many signals that Gulliver's perception is flawed, the most obvious of which is Gulliver's irrationality upon his return to England. Many critics see Swift's satire in Book IV as double-edged: against all people, for their Yahoo-like qualities, and against Gulliver, for his certainty that human nature is irredeemable. Gulliver's Travels may also be read as a document opposing the more popular ideas of the time. Swift opposed intellectualism which relied solely on human reason, since he doubted that the human mind was capable of attaining metaphysical and theological truth. He also disliked the preoccupation with physics and astronomy; he thought people were far too concerned with the physical universe, at the expense of the spiritual life. In addition, science gave humans the illusion that progress had unlimited potential, in Swift's opinion an absurd idea, since humans were so limited by their human nature. He also disliked the prevailing attitude that human nature was essentially good. Another of

his targets was the new wealthy class, whose fortunes were created by trade or speculation; he regarded them as irresponsible, corrupt and dangerous. And most of all, he disliked and feared the increasing power of the centralized government, believing its power was in opposition to ordinary human needs. He takes careful aim at all of these ideas in Gulliver's Travels. In Book IV, for instance, Gulliver finds himself stranded between the purely rational Houyhnhnms and the purely sensual Yahoos. Gulliver believes he has to choose one side or the other, and chooses to be as much like the Houyhnhnms as he can; but he fails, because man is not a wholly rational animal. But he is not a wholly sensual animal either, and need not be so degraded as the Yahoos, who have no spirituality at all. Gulliver recoils in horror from the Yahoos (much as the intellectuals of Swift's day, to his sour amusement, recoiled from the real unpleasantness of human nature); but he can never be a Houyhnhnm--they, in fact, logically but unfeelingly reject him. They have no concept that a being who understands his own corruption can improve or redeem himself; Swift gives the Houyhnhnms a religion, but their actions reveal that they do not believe in salvation, since salvation is an emotional journey rather than a rational one. They are not capable of human bestiality, but neither are they capable of human glory. http://www.literature.org/authors/bronte-emily/

Nobel Lecture
Nobel Lecture, December 7, 1991

Writing and Being

In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God, signified God's Word, the word that was Creation. But over the centuries of human culture the word has taken on other meanings, secular as well as religious. To have the word has come to be synonymous with ultimate authority, with prestige, with awesome, sometimes dangerous persuation, to have Prime Time, a TV talk show, to have the gift of the gab as well as that of speaking in tongues. The word flies through space, it is bounced from satellites, now nearer than it has ever been to the heaven from which it was believed to have come. But its most significant transformation occured for me and my kind long ago, when it was first scratched on a stone tablet or traced on papyrus, when it materialized from sound to spectacle, from being heard to being read as a series of signs, and then a script; and travelled through time from parchment to Gutenberg. For this is the genesis story of the writer. It is the story that wrote her or him into being. It was, strangely, a double process, creating at the same time both the writer and the very purpose of the writer as a mutation in the agency of human culture. It was both

ontogenesis as the origin and development of an individual being, and the adaptation, in the nature of that individual, specifically to the exploration of ontogenesis, the origin and development of the individual being. For we writers are evolved for that task. Like the prisoners incarcerated with the jaguar in Borges' story , 'The God's Script', who was trying to read, in a ray of light which fell only once a day, the meaning of being from the marking on the creature's pelt, we spend our lives attempting to interpret through the word the readings we take in the societies, the world of which we are part. It is in this sense, this inextricable, ineffable participation, that writing is always and at once an exploration of self and of the world; of individual and collective being.
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Being here. Humans, the only self-regarding animals, blessed or cursed with this torturing higher faculty, have always wanted to know why. And this is not just the great ontological question of why we are here at all, for which religions and philosophies have tried to answer conclusively for various peoples at various times, and science tentatively attempts dazzling bits of explantation we are perhaps going to die out in our millenia, like dinosaurs, without having developed the necessary comprehension to understand as a whole. Since humans became self-regarding they have sought, as well, explanations for the common phenomena of procreation, death, the cycle of seasons, the earth, sea, wind and stars, sun and moon, plenty and disaster. With myth, the writer's ancestors, the oral story-tellers, began to feel out and formulate these mysteries, using the elements of daily life - observable reality - and the faculty of the imagination - the power of projection into the hidden - to make stories. Roland Barthes asks, 'What is characteristic of myth?' And answers: 'To transform a meaning into form.' Myths are stories that mediate in this way between the known and unknown. Claude Levi-Strauss wittily de-mythologizes myth as a genre between a fairy tale and a detective story. Being here; we don't know who-dun-it. But something satisfying, if not the answer, can be invented. Myth was the mystery plus the fantasy gods, anthropomorphized animals and birds, chimera, phantasmagorical creatures - that posits out of the imagination some sort of explanation for the mystery. Humans and their fellow creatures were the materiality of the story, but as Nikos Kazantzakis once wrote, 'Art is the representation not of the body but of the forces which created the body.'
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There are many proven explanations for natural phenomena now; and there are new questions of being arising out of some of the answers. For this reason, the genre of myth has never been entirely abandoned, although we are inclined to think of it as archaic. If it dwindled to the children's bedtime tale in some societies, in parts of the world protected by forests or deserts from international megaculture it has continued, alive, to offer art as a system of mediation between the individual and being. And it has made a whirling comeback out of Space, an Icarus in the avatar of Batman and his kind, who never fall into the ocean of failure to deal with the gravity forces of life. These new myths, however, do not seek so much to enlighten and provide some sort of answers as to distract, to provide a fantasy escape route for people who no longer want to face even the hazard of answers to the terrors of their existence. (Perhaps it is the positive knowledge

that humans now possess the means to destroy their whole planet, the fear that they have in this way themselves become the gods, dreadfully charged with their own continued existence, that has made comic-book and movie myth escapist.) The forces of being remain. They are what the writer, as distinct from the contemporary popular mythmaker, still engage today, as myth in its ancient form attempted to do. How writers have approached this engagement and continue to experiment with it has been and is, perhaps more than ever, the study of literary scholars. The writer in relation to the nature of perceivable reality and what is beyond - imperceivable reality - is the basis for all these studies, no matter what resulting concepts are labelled, and no matter in what categorized microfiles writers are stowed away for the annals of literary historiography. Reality is constructed out of many elements and entities, seen and unseen, expressed, and left unexpressed for breathing-space in the mind. Yet from what is regarded as old-hat psychological analysis to modernism and post-modernism, structuralism and poststructuralism, all literary studies are aimed at the same end: to pin down to a consistency (and what is consistency if not the principle hidden within the riddle?); to make definitive through methodology the writer's grasp at the forces of being. But life is aleatory in itself; being is constantly pulled and shaped this way and that by circumstances and different levels of consciousness. There is no pure state of being, and it follows that there is no pure text, 'real' text, totally incorporating the aleatory. It surely cannot be reached by any critical methodology, however interesting the attempt. To deconstruct a text is in a way a contradiction, since to deconstruct it is to make another construction out of the pieces, as Roland Barthes does so fascinatingly, and admits to, in his linguistic and semantical dissection of Balzac's story, 'Sarrasine'. So the literary scholars end up being some kind of storyteller, too.
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Perhaps there is no other way of reaching some understanding of being than through art? Writers themselves don't analyze what they do; to analyze would be to look down while crossing a canyon on a tightrope. To say this is not to mystify the process of writing but to make an image out of the intense inner concentration the writer must have to cross the chasms of the aleatory and make them the word's own, as an explorer plants a flag. Yeats' inner 'lonely impulse of delight' in the pilot's solitary flight, and his 'terrible beauty' born of mass uprising, both opposed and conjoined; E. M. Forster's modest 'only connect'; Joyce's chosen, wily 'silence, cunning and exile'; more contemporary, Gabriel Garca Mrquez's labyrinth in which power over others, in the person of Simon Bolivar, is led to the thrall of the only unassailable power, death - these are some examples of the writer's endlessly varied ways of approaching the state of being through the word. Any writer of any worth at all hopes to play only a pocket-torch of light - and rarely, through genius, a sudden flambeau - into the bloody yet beautiful labyrinth of human experience, of being. Anthony Burgess once gave a summary definition of literature as 'the aesthetic exploration of the world'. I would say that writing only begins there, for the exploration of much beyond, which nevertheless only aesthetic means can express.
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How does the writer become one, having been given the word? I do not know if my own beginnings have any particular interest. No doubt they have much in common with those

of others, have been described too often before as a result of this yearly assembly before which a writer stands. For myself, I have said that nothing factual that I write or say will be as truthful as my fiction. The life, the opinions, are not the work, for it is in the tension between standing apart and being involved that the imagination transforms both. Let me give some minimal account of myself. I am what I suppose would be called a natural writer. I did not make any decision to become one. I did not, at the beginning, expect to earn a living by being read. I wrote as a child out of the joy of apprehending life through my senses - the look and scent and feel of things; and soon out of the emotions that puzzled me or raged within me and which took form, found some enlightenment, solace and delight, shaped in the written word. There is a little Kafka parable that goes like this; 'I have three dogs: Hold-him, Seize-him, and Nevermore. Hold-him and Seize-him are ordinary little Schipperkes and nobody would notice them if they were alone. But there is Nevermore, too. Nevermore is a mongrel Great Dane and has an apperance that centuries of the most careful breeding could never have produced. Nevermore is a gypsy.' In the small South African gold-mining town where I was growing up I was Nevermore the mongrel (although I could scarely have been described as a Great Dane ...) in whom the accepted characteristics of the townspeople could not be traced. I was the Gypsy, tinkering with words second-hand, mending my own efforts at writing by learning from what I read. For my school was the local library. Proust, Chekhov and Dostoevsky, to name only a few to whom I owe my existence as a writer, were my professors. In that period of my life, yes, I was evidence of the theory that books are made out of other books . . . But I did not remain so for long, nor do I believe any potential writer could.
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With adolescence comes the first reaching out to otherness through the drive of sexuality. For most children, from then on the faculty of the imagination, manifest in play, is lost in the focus on day dreams of desire and love, but for those who are going to be artists of one kind or another the first life-crisis after that of birth does something else in addition: the imagination gains range and extends by the subjective flex of new and turbulent emotions. There are new perceptions. The writer begins to be able to enter into other lives. The process of standing apart and being involved has come. Unknowingly, I had been addressing myself on the subject of being, whether, as in my first stories, there was a child's contemplation of death and murder in the necessity to finish off, with a death blow, a dove mauled by a cat, or whether there was wondering dismay and early consciousness of racism that came of my walk to school, when on the way I passed storekeepers, themselves East European immigrants kept lowest in the ranks of the Anglo-Colonial social scale for whites in the mining town, roughly those whom colonial society ranked lowest of all, discounted as less than human - the black miners who were the stores' customers. Only many years later was I to realize that if I had been a child in that category - black - I might not have become a writer at all, since the library that made this possible for me was not open to any black child. For my formal schooling was sketchy, at best. To address oneself to others begins a writer's next stage of development. To publish to anyone who would read what I wrote. That was my natural, innocent assumption of what publication meant, and it has not changed , that is what it means to me today, in spite of

my awareness that most people refuse to believe that a writer does not have a particular audience in mind; and my other awareness: of the temptations, conscious and unconscious, which lure the writer into keeping a corner of the eye on who will take offense, who will approve what is on the page - a temptation that, like Eurydice's straying glance, will lead the writer back into the Shades of a destroyed talent. The alternative is not the malediction of the ivory tower, another destroyer of creativity. Borges once said he wrote for his friends and to pass the time. I think this was an irritated flippant response to the crass question - often an accusation - 'For whom do you write?', just as Sartre's admonition that there are times when a writer should cease to write, and act upon being only in another way, was given in the frustration of an unresolved conflict between distress at injustice in the world and the knowledge that what he knew how to do best was write. Both Borges and Sartre, from their totally different extremes of denying literature a social purpose, were certainly perfectly aware that it has its implicit and unalterable social role in exploring the state of being, from which all other roles, personal among friends, public at the protest demonstration, derive. Borges was not writing for his friends, for he published and we all have received the bounty of his work. Sartre did not stop writing, although he stood at the barricades in 1968. The question of for whom do we write nevertheless plagues the writer, a tin can attached to the tail of every work published. Principally it jangles the inference of tendentiousness as praise or denigration. In this context, Camus dealt with the question best. He said that he liked individuals who take sides more than literatures that do. 'One either serves the whole of man or does not serve him at all. And if man needs bread and justice, and if what has to be done must be done to serve this need, he also needs pure beauty which is the bread of his heart.' So Camus called for 'Courage in and talent in one's work.' And Mrquez redefined tender fiction thus: The best way a writer can serve a revolution is to write as well as he can.
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I believe that these two statements might be the credo for all of us who write. They do not resolve the conflicts that have come, and will continue to come, to contemporary writers. But they state plainly an honest possibility of doing so, they turn the face of the writer squarely to her and his existence, the reason to be, as a writer, and the reason to be, as a responsible human, acting, like any other, within a social context. Being here: in a particular time and place. That is the existential position with particular implications for literature. Czeslaw Milosz once wrote the cry: 'What is poetry which does not serve nations or people?' and Brecht wrote of a time when 'to speak of trees is almost a crime'. Many of us have had such despairing thoughts while living and writing through such times, in such places, and Sartre's solution makes no sense in a world where writers were - and still are - censored and forbidden to write, where, far from abandoning the word, lives were and are at risk in smuggling it, on scraps of paper, out of prisons. The state of being whose ontogenesis we explore has overwhelmingly included such experiences. Our approaches, in Nikos Kazantzakis' words, have to 'make the decision which harmonizes with the fearsome rhythm of our time.'
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Some of us have seen our books lie for years unread in our own countries, banned, and we hve gone on writing. Many writers have been imprisoned. Looking at Africa alone Soyinka, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Jack Mapanje, in their countries, and in my own country, South Africa, Jeremy Cronin, Mongane Wally Serote, Breyten Breytenbach, Dennis Brutus, Jaki Seroke: all these went to prison for the courage shown in their lives, and have continued to take the right, as poets, to speak of trees. Many of the greats, from Thomas Mann to Chinua Achebe, cast out by political conflict and oppression in different countries, have endured the trauma of exile, from which some never recover as writers, and some do not survive at all. I think of the South Africans, Can Themba, Alex la Guma, Nat Nakasa, Todd Matshikiza. And some writers, over half a century from Joseph Roth to Milan Kundera, have had to publish new works first in the word that is not their own, a foreign language. Then in 1988 the fearsome rhythm of our time quickened in an unprecedented frenzy to which the writer was summoned to submit the word. In the broad span of modern times since the Enlightenment writers have suffered opprobrium, bannings and even exile for other than political reasons. Flaubert dragged into court for indecency, over Madame Bovary, Strindberg arraigned for blasphemy, over Marrying, Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover banned - there have been many examples of so-called offense against hypocritical bourgeois mores, just as there have been of treason against political dictatorships. But in a period when it would be unheard of for countries such as France, Sweden and Britain to bring such charges against freedom of expression, there has risen a force that takes its appalling authority from something far more widespread than social mores, and far more powerful than the power of any single political regime. The edict of a world religion has sentenced a writer to death. For more than three years, now, wherever he is hidden, wherever he might go, Salman Rushdie has existed under the Muslim pronouncement upon him of the fatwa. There is no asylum for him anywhere. Every morning when this writer sits down to write, he does not know if he will live through the day; he does not know whether the page will ever be filled. Salman Rushdie happens to be a brilliant writer, and the novel for which he is being pilloried, The Satanic Verses, is an innovative exploration of one of the most intense experiences of being in our era, the individual personality in transition between two cultures brought together in a post-colonial world. All is re-examined through the refraction of the imagination; the meaning of sexual and filial love, the rituals of social acceptance, the meaning of a formative religious faith for individuals removed from its subjectivity by circumstance opposing different systems of belief, religious and secular, in a different context of living. His novel is a true mythology. But although he has done for the postcolonial consciousness in Europe what Gunter Grass did for the post-Nazi one with The Tin Drum and Dog Years, perhaps even has tried to approach what Beckett did for our existential anguish in Waiting For Godot, the level of his achievement should not matter. Even if he were a mediocre writer, his situation is the terrible concern of every fellow writer for, apart from his personal plight, what implications, what new threat against the carrier of the word does it bring? It should be the concern of individuals and above all, of governments and human rights organizations all over the world. With dictatorships apparently vanquished, this murderous new dictate invoking the power of

international terrorism in the name of a great and respected religion should and can be dealt with only by democratic governments and the United Nations as an offense against humanity. I return from the horrific singular threat to those that have been general for writers of this century now in its final, summing-up decade. In repressive regimes anywhere - whether in what was the Soviet bloc, Latin America, Africa, China - most imprisoned writers have been shut away for their activities as citizens striving for liberation against the oppression of the general society to which they belong. Others have been condemned by repressive regimes for serving society by writing as well as they can; for this aesthetic venture of ours becomes subversive when the shameful secrets of our times are explored deeply, with the artist's rebellious integrity to the state of being manifest in life around her or him; then the writer's themes and characters inevitably are formed by the pressures and distortions of that society as the life of the fisherman is determined by the power of the sea. There is a paradox. In retaining this integrity, the writer sometimes must risk both the state's indictment of treason, and the liberation forces' complaint of lack of blind commitment. As a human being, no writer can stoop to the lie of Manichean 'balance'. The devil always has lead in his shoes, when placed on his side of the scale. Yet, to paraphrase coarsely Mrquez's dictum given by him both as a writer and a fighter for justice, the writer must take the right to explore, warts and all, both the enemy and the beloved comrade in arms, since only a try for the truth makes sense of being, only a try for the truth edges towards justice just ahead of Yeats's beast slouching to be born. In literature, from life, we page through each other's faces we read each looking eye ... It has taken lives to be able to do so. These are the words of the South African poet and fighter forjustice and peace in our country, Mongane Serote.
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The writer is of service to humankind only insofar as the writer uses the word even against his or her own loyalties, trusts the state of being, as it is revealed, to hold somewhere in its complexity filaments of the cord of truth, able to be bound together, here and there, in art: trusts the state of being to yield somewhere fragmentary phrases of truth, which is the final word of words, never changed by our stumbling efforts to spell it out and write it down, never changed by lies, by semantic sophistry, by the dirtying of the word for the purposes of racism, sexism, prejudice, domination, the glorification of destruction, the curses and the praise-songs.

English Literature Glossary of Literary Terms

This is a reprint from The Essentials of Literature in English Post-1914. Words in bold within the text indicate terms cross-referenced to other articles in the book

More details

Abstract Expressionism
A form of art in which the artist expresses himself purely through the use of form and colour. It is non-representational, or non-objective, art, which means that there are no concrete objects represented. It was one of the first purely American art movements and is usually associated with New York in the 1940s - 60s. In terms of art history, the movement can be broadly divided into two groups: action painters such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning who put the focus on the physical action involved in painting, and colour field painters such as Kenneth Noland and Mark Rothko who were primarily concerned with exploring the effect of pure colour on a canvas. Abstract Expressionism is closely linked to several literary movements, particularly Imagism and Postmodernism. The New York School of writers, led by poets John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch and Frank O'Hara, were actively involved in the appreciation and promotion of Abstract Expressionism in America. Many of their poems attempt to replicate in lyric form what the painters were doing on canvas. [Jonathan Ellis]

Aestheticism
The doctrine that aesthetic values - judgements about beauty - are the most important in assessing a work of art, and that art is an end in itself and does not require a religious, moral, or didactic purpose. The outlook, encapsulated in Theophile Gautiers dictum lart pour lart, (art for arts sake), was popular in France through much of the nineteenth century, and gave rise to the English Aesthetic Movement of the late nineteenth century, influenced particularly by the critic and Oxford University tutor Walter Pater (1839-1894). Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was one of the most outspoken proponents of the movement, which influenced the poetry and painting of the preRaphaelites, and the early poetry of W. B. Yeats (1865-1939).

Alliteration
In poetry: the repetition of sounds in closely associated words. The term is usually applied to the repetition of consonants, particularly when they are the first letter of the words, but can apply to any stressed consonants. The term is sometimes used to refer to repeated vowel sounds, though the term more often used in this case is assonance. e.g. O wild West Wind

Angry Young Men

A term coined by literary journalists in the 1950s to describe the writers at the forefront of a new trend of social realism and anti-establishment attitudes in fiction and drama. The phrase Angry Young Man was used in 1951 as the title of the autobiography of Leslie Allen Paul, a co-founder of the Woodcraft Folk youth movement, but its application in 1956 was inspired by the title of John Osbornes play Look Back in Anger, which struck the keynote for the new trend. Other writers often grouped under this heading are Arnold Wesker, Kingsley Amis, John Braine, John Wain, and Alan Sillitoe.

Anti-hero / anti-heroic
A protagonist in a work of literature who lacks, and may be opposed to, traditional heroic virtues such as courage, confidence, and virtue, and may have characteristics traditionally associated with a villain. He may be a flawed character who fails where a conventional hero would succeed, or his attitudes might be intended to subvert the idea of a literary hero, or of what society might consider to be heroic. Examples are Jimmy Porter in John Osbornes Look Back in Anger (1956), and many of the protagonists in the works of the Angry Young Men, particularly Smith in The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1959) by Alan Sillitoe. Absurdist antiheroes appeared in the Theatre of the Absurd, for example Vladimir and Estragon in Waiting for Godot (1952) by Samuel Beckett, and their counterparts, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (1966) by Tom Stoppard.

Assonance
In poetry: a repetition of similar vowel sounds in words of close proximity, particularly in stressed syllables. A form of imperfect rhyme, where the vowels rhyme but not the consonants. e.g. know - home - goat - go.

Beat literature / Beat writers / Beat generation

A style of literature which emerged in America in the 1950s, influenced by the poet Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) and the novelist Jack Kerouac (1922-1969), two of the bestknown works being Ginsberg's Howl (1956), and Kerouac's On the Road (1957). They

themselves were influenced by William Burroughs (1914-1977), best known as the author of The Naked Lunch (1959). Beat writers had little regard for the formal conventions of literature, and put all the emphasis on spontaneity and self-expression, their loosely-structured style reflecting the influence of the jazz music of the time. The term's origins are variously said to be the 'beatitude' of the state of mind to which they aspired, the 'beat' of jazz music, or 'beaten' as in 'worn out', or defeated. The movement was associated with the idea of 'dropping out' of materialistic middleclass life, to pursue a form of freedom and spiritual exploration. They were forerunners of the Hippie counter-culture of the 1960s. Ginsberg visited England in the 1960s, and his spontaneous style and emphasis on poetry as live performance influenced The Liverpool Poets.

Bildungsroman
A German word meaning a 'novel of education', referring to a novel taking as its theme the development of an individual from childhood to adulthood, following the protagonist's search for his or her own identity. The form was common in German literature, the archetype being Goethe's Wilhelm Meister Lehrjahre (1795-6). In English literature the term is more applicable to novels of the 19th century, such as David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, but can also be applied to A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) by James Joyce.

Black Mountain Poets

A group of avant-garde American poets writing during the 1950s that included Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, and Robert Creeley. These poets shared ties to Black Mountain College, in North Carolina, an experimental school of art that operated from 1933 until its closing in 1956, and to its literary review, The Black Mountain Review. The poets are also sometimes referred to as projectivist poets because of their shared interest in Charles Olsons projectivist verse. [Trenton Hickman]

Bloomsbury Group
A group of writers, artists, and critics centred around Vanessa and Virginia Stephen (later Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf) and their home in the Bloomsbury area of London in the early years of the twentieth century. Opposed to the social constraints of their age, they had a modernising liberal outlook, and made significant achievements in their fields, though they were accused by some of elitism.

Chicana / Chicano
See Latino/a literature

Confessional poetry
An approach to poetry in which the poet employs his or her own life and feelings as subject matter, often using verse as an outlet for powerful emotions. The attitude was a break from the view that poetry should be impersonal, advocated by T. S. Eliot. The style emerged in America with Robert Lowells volume Life Studies (1959), other practitioners being John Berryman (1914-1972), Anne Sexton (1928-1974), and Sylvia Plath (19321963).

Constative
The use of language to indicate a state of affairs which exists, in contrast to language used performatively - to initiate an action. See Performative.

Dadaism
A European art movement, characterised by an anarchic protest against bourgeois society, founded in 1916 by the Rumanian-born French poet, Tristan Tzara (1896-1963). Part of the motivation behind the movement was the wish to express a sense of outrage in response to the First World War, and the culture which had brought it about. The main centre of Dadaism was Paris, but it also flourished in America, the main proponents of the two centres being Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) and Man Ray (1890-1976) respectively. The movement was superseded by Surrealism from around 1922.

Deconstruction / deconstruct
A concept originating in poststructuralist critical theory, deriving from the work of Jacques Derrida (1930- ), which is used in many ways. It refers to the analysis of a text taking into account that its meaning is not fixed but can vary according to the way in which the writer, and reader, interpret language. Instead of looking for meanings, deconstruction aims to analyse concepts and modes of thought to expose the preconceived ideas on which they are founded.

Dystopia / dystopian
A Greek term which means a bad place, or the opposite of Utopia. The negative characteristics of a dystopia serve as a warning of possible social and political developments to be avoided. Examples of modern novels which depict dystopias are Nineteen Eighty-four by George Orwell (1903-1950), and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1894-1963).

Existentialism / Existential

A European movement in philosophy which became particularly influential after the Second World War. Some of the leading proponents were Martin Heidegger (18891976), Albert Camus (1913-1960), and Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980). The existentialist world-view sees human existence as ultimately meaningless - a situation which causes angst, or dread - but at the same time emphasises the importance of each individual taking responsibility for his or her own choices concerning decisions and actions. Existentialism was a direct influence on the dramatists of the Theatre of the Absurd, such as Samuel Beckett, and on the British novelists Iris Murdoch, John Fowles, and Muriel Spark.

Feminist / womanist
Feminist writing and criticism highlights the position of women in literature, society, and world culture, emphasising that the roles and experiences of women tend to be marginalised by patriarchal societies. Feminist writers and critics attempt to redress the balance by writing literature and criticism from the point of view of women. A key feminist work from the modern period is A Room of Ones Own (1929) by Virginia Woolf. The term womanist is sometimes used to refer to black feminists, to distinguish their approach from that of mainstream white middle-class feminism.

Formalism
An artistic and critical sensibility in American and British literature and criticism which reached its greatest influence between 1930 and 1950, and which promoted a view of art as objective - that is, that the work in itself was more important than the subjective contexts of its artistic production. In formalism, the proper focus of artistic creation and criticism is the art object itself, rather than the author or artists thoughts, intentions, or other personal sensibilities. In the case of literature, formalism assumes that well-wrought form (the structure of the literary piece, its constituent images, metaphors, and other building blocks) can carry the most important dimensions of content from the author to the reader without reference to contextual elements. Much of post-war literature in both Great Britain and the United States can be seen as a reaction to this extreme view, as poets and writers actively sought to reintroduce subjectivities into literary production and study as a way of reclaiming the personal in literary experience. [Trenton Hickman]

Freud, Sigmund / Freudian

By revolutionising our understanding of the inner workings of the human mind, the process of personality development, and the motives behind human behaviour, the Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was a major influence on twentieth century thought. Freud showed the importance of the unconscious in all aspects of human life, and developed techniques of psychoanalysis and dream interpretation as ways of

gaining access to it. In art Freud was a direct influence on Surrealism, and in English literature was a direct influence on W. H. Auden, D. H. Lawrence, and Iris Murdoch.

Georgian poets
Poets active during the early part of the reign of George V, (1910-1936), including Rupert Brooke, Edmund Blunden, Walter de la Mare, and Edward Thomas. They wrote delicate lyrical poetry, often concerned with nature. Their style was a break from the poetry of the late nineteenth century, and the decadence which had evolved from aestheticism. In the 1920s they were overshadowed by the Modernist innovations of Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot.

Gothic / Southern Gothic

Gothic literature deals with macabre, supernatural, subject matter, aimed at inducing fear and a sense of dread. The form became popular in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, classics of the genre being The Castle of Otranto (1765) by Horace Walpole (1717-1797), The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) by Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823), The Monk (1796) by Matthew Gregory Lewis (1775-1818), and Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley (1797-1851). In the context of modern literature the term is still used to describe literature with macabre, horrifying subject matter, such as much of the work of Beryl Bainbridge. In modern American literature the term Southern Gothic is applied to works by writers from the Southern States of the USA, whose stories are often set in that region, and include macabre or fantastic incidents in their plots. Examples are, William Faulkner (1897-1962), Tennessee Williams (1911-1883), Carson McCullers (1917-1967), Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964), and Harper Lee (1926- ).

Group, The
A name sometimes given to a group of British poets who, in the late 1950s and 1960s, wanted to take poetry in a new direction by liberating it from the restraints favoured by The Movement. The main poets were Ted Hughes, Peter Porter, George Macbeth, Peter Redgrove, and Alan Brownjohn.

Harlem Renaissance
A flourishing of African-American literature which took place in the 1920s and was centred around the Harlem district of New York City. The movement took AfricanAmerican life and culture as its subject matter, some of its major writers being James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938), Zora Neale Hurston (1903-1960), Langston Hughes (1902-1967), and Countee Cullen (1903-1946).

Hippie / Hippy movement

A movement of young people, in America and Europe in the 1960s, who rejected conventional values and morality and adopted a rootless, or communal style of living. Many used, and advocated the use of, psychoactive drugs, such as marijuana and LSD, to achieve altered states of awareness. Their ideals were those of peace and love, and they congregated at rock festivals, culminating in the Woodstock festival of 1969. Their main art forms were psychedelic music, posters, and light shows. The American writers Allen Ginsberg and Ken Kesey were associated with the movement.

Imagism / Imagist
The Imagists were a group of poets who were influenced by Ezra Pound, who in turn had been influenced by the French Symbolist poets, Japanese haiku, and the writings of the poet and critic T. E. Hulme (1883-1917). The Imagist movement, which originated in London and was prominent in England and America from around 1912 to 1917, was crucial to the development of Modernist poetry. These poets aimed to free poetry from the conventions of the time by advocating a free choice of rhythm and subject matter, the diction of speech, and the presentation of meaning through the evocation of clear, precise, visual images. Among the poets associated with Ezra Pound in this movement were Hilda Doolittle, Amy Lowell, and William Carlos Williams. Pound later associated himself with Vorticism, and Amy Lowell took over the leadership of the Imagist movement. Many English and American poets were influenced by Imagism, such as D. H. Lawrence, T. S. Eliot, Conrad Aiken, Marianne Moore, and Wallace Stevens.

Intertext
A term used to denote a text referred to within a text. The Bible, the works of Shakespeare, and Classical myths, for example, are frequently found as intertexts in works of literature. [Julie Ellam]

Intertextuality
A term which can refer to a texts inclusion of intertexts, but is also a concept introduced by philosopher and semiotician Julia Kristeva, and used in poststructuralist criticism, according to which a text is seen as not only connecting the author to the reader, but also as being connected to all other texts, past and present. Thus there is a limit to the extent to which an individual text can be said to be original or unique, and a limit to the extent to which an individual author can be said to be the originator of a text. [Julie Ellam]

Irish Cultural Revival / Irish Literary Revival

Also called Irish Literary Renaissance, Celtic Renaissance, or Celtic Revival. A revival of Irish literature in the late nineteenth century, driven primarily by W. B. Yeats. The aim was to create a distinctive Irish literature by drawing on Irish history and folklore. In the 1880s the Gaelic League attempted to revive the Irish language, but the use of Gaelic was not a requirement of the revival led by Yeats in the 1890s. The movement developed simultaneously with a rise in Irish nationalism, and a growth of interest in Gaelic traditions.

Jung / Jungian
The theories of the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) grew out of those of Sigmund Freud. Having been originally closely associated with Freud, he broke away and developed his own theories, which placed less emphasis on sexuality, and more on symbolism, the collective unconscious, and archetypes. Many artists, including the British novelist John Fowles, have been influenced by Jungs ideas, particularly his emphasis on the importance of myths and symbols.

Latino/a literature
Literature written in English for an English-speaking audience by American writers of Latin-American heritage, such as the Puerto Rican American (sometimes called Nuyorican, since many of these writers are New York Puerto Ricans), CubanAmerican, Dominican-American, and Mexican-American (often called Chicano/a) writers. Latino/a (Latino if male, Latina if female) writers were the big literary phenomenon of the 1990s in the United States. [Trenton Hickman]

Magic realism
Fiction which displays a mingling of the mundane with the fantastic, giving the narrative dual dimensions of realism and fantasy. One of its purposes is to draw attention to the fact that all narrative is an invention. The technique is mainly associated with South American writers, such as Jorge Luis Borges and Gabriel Garca Mrquez, but has also been used by writers such as the British Angela Carter, and the Anglo-Indian Salman Rushdie.

Marx, Karl / Marxist

The theories of the German social scientist and revolutionary Karl Heinrich Marx (18181883) have had a profound effect on political and economic thought throughout the world since the mid-nineteenth century. His best-known works are The Communist Manifesto (1848), written with Friedrich Engels (1820-1895), and Das Kapital (1867-95). His writings, based on an analysis of capitalist society in which he saw the workers as being exploited, emphasised the importance of class struggle and change through conflict.

In English Literature Marx was an influence on the political dimension of works by writers of the 1930s such as W. H. Auden and Cecil Day-Lewis.

Marxist criticism
Literary criticism deriving from the theories of Marx, which emphasises the cultural and political context in which the text was produced.

Metafiction / metanarrative
Fiction about fiction. An approach in which the writer draws attention to the process by which the author and the reader together create the experience of fiction, implicitly questioning the relationship between fiction and reality. This postmodern technique was used in The French Lieutenants Woman (1969) and other novels by John Fowles.

Modern
The term modern can apply to a wide variety of different historical periods in different contexts. In the context of modern literature it is generally taken to refer to the period from 1914, the outbreak of the First World War, to the present day. When capitalised, Modern can refer to Modernism.

Modernism / Modernist
A movement in all the arts in Europe, with its roots in the nineteenth century but flourishing in the period during and after the First World War. The period 1910 to 1930 is sometimes called the period of high Modernism. The War having undermined faith in order and stability in Europe, artists and writers sought to break with tradition and find new ways of representing experience. Some of the characteristic features of modernist literature are: a drawing of inspiration from European culture as a whole; experimentation with form, such as the fragmentation and discontinuity found in the free verse of The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot; the radical approach to plot, time, language, and character presentation as seen in Ulysses by James Joyce and the novels of Virginia Woolf; a decrease in emphasis on morality, and an increase in subjective, relative, and uncertain attitudes; in poetry, a move towards simplicity and directness in the use of language. Dada, Surrealism, The Theatre of the Absurd, and stream of consciousness are all aspects of Modernism.

Movement, The

The name given to a generation of British poets who came to prominence in the 1950s, of whom the best-known was Philip Larkin (1922-1985). Disliking the free form and emotional tone of poets such as Dylan Thomas and W. S. Graham, they initiated a style of verse which was intellectual, witty, and carefully crafted. Their work gained prominence in the anthology New Lines (1956), edited by Robert Conquest. Other Movement poets included Thom Gunn, Kingsley Amis, D. J. Enright, and John Wain.

Naturalism / naturalist
A term often used interchangeably with Realism, but which has a more specific meaning suggesting that human life is controlled by natural forces such as those explored in the natural sciences, particularly those expounded by Charles Darwin (1809-1882). Naturalist writers aimed to create accurate representations of characters and their interaction with their environment based on scientific truth. The movement was particularly associated with the nineteenth-century French novelist Emile Zola (1840-1902), and influenced the English writers George Gissing (1857-1903) and Arnold Bennett (1867-1931).

New Apocalypse / New Romantics

Movements in British Poetry which flourished in the late 1930s and early 1940s, when Dylan Thomas was the foremost poet. The poets behind the movements were Henry Treece (1911-1966), George Granville Barker, (1913-1991), W. S. Graham (1918-1986), J. F. Hendry (1912-1986), and Dorian Cooke. They reacted against the politicallyorientated realist poetry of the '30s by drawing inspiration from mythology and the unconscious. Their work is generally regarded by critics as having little merit, being vastly inferior to that of Thomas.

The New Criticism

A movement in literary criticism which developed in the USA in the 1940s, and which aimed to approach literary texts in an objective way, as self-contained objects of study, without reference to such contextual factors as the authors biography, or intentions. One of the main texts of the movement was Understanding Poetry (1938), by Cleanthe Brooks (1906-1994) and Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989). The movement was influenced by the British critic I. A. Richards (1893-1979), and his books Principles of Literary Criticism (1924), Science and Poetry (1926), and Practical Criticism (1929). Richards, in turn, had been influenced by the critical stance of F. R. Leavis (1895-1978), and T. S. Eliot (1888-1965).

The New Journalism

A mid-twentieth-century American literary aesthetic practised by writers such as Thomas Wolfe and Norman Mailer, which privileges a lively, newspaper-style novelization of actual events but from a subjective narratorial point of view, fusing the art of novel

writing with the quirky accessibility of the journalist as character and participant. [Trenton Hickman]

New York School

A group of American poets who lived and worked in and around New York City during the mid-twentieth century, including Frank OHara, John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, and James Schuyler. The aesthetic of these poets evidences a shared interest in abstract expressionist art as well as in American popular cultural subjects such as jazz and movies. Their poetry magnifies these interests and elevates them through sophisticated intellectual treatment into smart, witty, verbal gymnastics of verse. [Trenton Hickman]

Omniscient narrator
See viewpoint.

Onomatopoeia
In poetry: a word whose sound resembles the sound to which it refers, or whose sound suggests the sound of something associated with its meaning. e.g. buzz, splash.

Other / otherness
A concept central to postcolonial criticism, referring to the way colonised people and places were seen as alien, subordinate, and implicitly, inferior, from the point of view of the colonising culture. The concept can be extended into other areas, such as when feminist criticism sees women as being put in the position of other by a patriarchal point of view.

P.E.N.
International Association of Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists, and Novelists. International P.E.N. was founded in London in 1921 by Mrs. C. A. Dawson Scott. Its first president was John Galsworthy. The only world-wide association of writers, its aims are to: 1. Promote intellectual co-operation and understanding among writers. 2. Create a world community of writers that would emphasise the central role of literature in the development of world culture. 3. Defend literature against the many threats to its survival which the modern world poses. [www.internationalpen.org.uk]

Performative / performativity

'Performative' indicates the special qualities brought out through a 'performance' of something (for example, a play text or poem) or in some cases, an artistic event which has no originating text (such as in performance art). The 'performance' is a time-andspace bound event, which is ephemeral (it never happens exactly the same way twice). A further, related meaning (derived from the philosophy of J. L. Austin) is that of doing or making something happen, rather than stating or representing it. This leads to the idea that the 'performative' is how symbolic systems (language, art, theatre) both represent things from the world, but are also simultaneously making that world. 'Performativity' is a related term. It is the ability of something to be 'performative' or else that it should be seen as constructed through performative means. Judith Butler, the cultural theorist, argues that 'gender' for example is constructed through performance. [Steven Barfield]

Point of view
See viewpoint

Pop art
Art movement in Britain and America in the late 1950s and 1960s in which elements from everyday life, popular culture, and the mass media were used as subject matter. Not always taken seriously by critics or the public, pop art could be seen partly as a liberating attack on more conventional art, and partly as a response to a mechanised, media and advertising-saturated, modern world. American pop artists included Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. British representatives included Peter Blake and David Hockney. Pop art had a direct influence on The Liverpool Poets.

Postcolonial literature
Literature written in the language of former colonisers by natives of their colonies. Usually, literature written in English by writers from former colonies of Great Britain. The term usually applies to literature written after the country has ceased to be a colony, but can also include literature written during the time of colonisation.

Postcolonial criticism
Branch of literary criticism which focuses on seeing the literature and experience of peoples of former colonies in the context of their own cultures, as opposed to seeing them from the perspective of the European literature and criticism dominant during the time of the Empire.

Postmodern / Postmodernism

In a general sense, literature written since the Second World War, i.e. after the Modernist era. In a more specific sense the concept of postmodernism as a subject of study emerged in the 1980s, applying across many disciplines, encouraging inter-disciplinary studies, and being interpreted in many ways. The postmodern outlook is associated with the erosion of confidence in the idea of progress, as a result of such phenomena as the holocaust, the threat of nuclear war, and environmental pollution. In literature one of its manifestations is the attempts by some writers to examine and break down boundaries involved in such issues as race, gender, and class, and to break down divisions between different genres of literature. Other aspects of the postmodernist outlook are: a spirit of playfulness with the fragmented world, the awareness of fiction as an artifice, and the creation of works as a pastiche of forms from the past. Postmodern writers include Thomas Pynchon, John Fowles, Angela Carter, and Salman Rushdie. In literary criticism such approaches as structuralism, poststructuralism, deconstruction, and postcolonial criticism are postmodern methods.

Poststructuralism
A postmodern approach to literary criticism, and other disciplines, growing out of structuralism. Like structuralism, it questions the relationship between language and reality, and it sees reality as something socially constructed.

Problematize
To produce or propose a debating point or problem out of given data. [Dr Margaret Sonmez]

Projectivism
A style of poetry innovated by American poet Charles Olson in his 1950 essay Projective Verse and adopted by others of the Black Mountain poets. Olson advocated a poetry that rebelled against the formalist, New Critical poetry that preceded it by insisting that form was never more than an extension of content and that the poem should emerge line by line, driven by the measure of ones breath and with one perception necessarily projecting itself into a further perception. In this manner, Olson and other projectivists hoped that the speed, immediacy, and lack of predetermined poetic form would reenergise the poetry of their time with a spontaneity and improvisational spirit that had been lost over the preceding decades. [Trenton Hickman]

Pylon Poets

A name given to British poets of the 1930s who included industrial artefacts such as pylons in their descriptions of landscape. The poets included W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, Louis MacNeice, and Cecil Day-Lewis. The nick-name originated in response to Stephen Spenders poem The Pylons.

Realism / social realism / Socialist realism

Broadly - writing about people and settings which could really exist, and events which could really happen. In particular the term Realism refers to a movement of nineteenthcentury European art and literature which rejected Classical models and Romantic ideals in favour of a realistic portrayal of actual life in realistic settings, often focusing on the harsher aspects of life under industrialism and capitalism. Forerunners in literature were the French novelist Honor de Balzac (1799-1850), and the English novelist George Eliot (1819-1880). In the twentieth century the writing of the Angry Young Men can be seen as a reassertion of the values of realism. Social realism, a term borrowed from art criticism, is often used synonymously with realism. Socialist realism refers to literature or criticism presented from the Marxist viewpoint.

Romantic
The term is used both in a general, and in a specific, way. The specific sense refers to Romanticism, a movement prevalent in European art, music, and literature in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The style was revolutionary in that it emphasised subjective experience, and favoured innovation over adherence to traditional or Classical forms, and the expression of feeling over reason. In English literature, William Wordsworth (1770-1850) and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) were firstgeneration Romantic poets, and Byron (1788-1824), Shelley (1792-1822), and Keats (1795-1821) were second-generation Romantics. In its more general application the term can refer to an attitude of mind which draws on imagination and emotion rather than reason, and favours subjective, dream-like, or exotic experiences over realism.

Sprung rhythm
A name given by Gerard Manley Hopkins to his technique of breaking up the regular metre of poetry to achieve versatile and surprising rhythms, which retained regularity but more closely resembled speech than did conventional poetry.

Stream of consciousness

Sometimes called continuous monologue. Literary technique developed in the 1920s, as part of Modernism which attempts to reproduce the moment-to-moment flow of subjective thoughts and perceptions in an individuals mind. The technique was used by Dorothy Richardson, James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf. The term was originally coined by the American philosopher and psychologist William James in Principles of Psychology (1890).

Structuralism
An approach to literary criticism which emphasises that a text does not have one fixed meaning, but is open to any number of interpretations, depending on the meanings attributed to words by both the writer and the reader. It is founded on the idea that the meanings of words are ultimately arbitrary, and instead of looking for the meaning of a text, structural analysis aims to explore oppositions and conflicts within the text, and the underlying structures of thought which produce meanings. The approach is based on the work of the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913), and has been influential in the humanities since the mid 1950s, being applied not only to literary texts but to a wide range of cultural phenomena.

Surrealism
An artistic and literary movement which grew out of Dadaism between 1917 and the 1920s. Influenced by the writings of Sigmund Freud, the practitioners explored the world of dreams and the unconscious in their art, emphasising the irrational dimensions of human experience. Leaders of the movement were the French artists Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918), who coined the term in 1917, and Andr Breton (1896-1966). Surrealists experimented with automatic writing, the technique, analogous to the free association method of psychoanalysis, involving the attempt to achieve a state of mind in which rational thought is disengaged, to allow words to arise spontaneously from the unconscious.

Symbolist / Symbolism
The Symbolist movement originated in France with the volume of poetry Les Fleurs du Mal (1857) by Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), and was taken up by such poets as Stphane Mallarm, Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, and Jules Laforgue. They aimed to break away from the formal conventions of French poetry, and attempted to express the transitory perceptions and sensations of inner life, rather than rational ideas. They believed in the imagination as the arbiter of reality, were interested in the idea of a correspondence between the senses, and aimed to express meaning through the sound patterns of words and suggestive, evocative images, rather than by using language as a medium for statement and argument.

The Symbolists were a major influence on British, Irish, and American writers such as W. B. Yeats, Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, e e cummings, Wallace Stevens, and William Faulkner.

Theatre of the Absurd

Avant-garde drama movement originating in the 1950s in Europe with dramatists such as Samuel Beckett (1906-1989), Jean Genet (1910-1986), and Eugene Ionesco (19121994). Influenced philosophically by Existentialism, and in particular by The Myth of Sisyphus (1943) by Albert Camus (1913-1960), they expressed a world view in which there was no God, and life was meaningless. They had no faith in logic or rational communication, feeling that attempts to construe meanings broke down into absurdity absurd in this context meaning out of harmony rather than ridiculous. In their approach to the theatre they drew upon a tradition of comedy which can be traced from Roman drama through the music hall, and into such as the silent comedies of Charlie Chaplin, and the surreal comedies of the Marx Brothers of the 1930s and 40s.

Unreliable narrator
A fictional narrator whose views do not coincide with those of the author, or do not accurately represent what really happened in the story. Henry James was a master of the unreliable narrator technique. Writers use subtle methods to let readers know that they cannot trust what the narrator says, setting up tension between reader and narrative. One extreme example is seen in the novel Spider (1990) by Patrick McGrath, in which the narrator, a schizophrenic, is unable to distinguish between reality and fantasy. Without intruding on the first-person viewpoint, McGrath gradually allows the reader to understand that what the narrator thinks is the truth is not the truth at all.

Utopia
A Greek term which means an imaginary perfect place. Even if the imagined place could never be achieved in reality, its positive qualities represent ideals to be striven for. The term was coined by Thomas More (1478-1535) who wrote his Utopia, a description of an ideal state, in 1516. Other examples of such descriptions in the history of literature, include Francis Bacons New Atlantis (1626), and The Republic by Plato (c.427-347 BC).

Viewpoint / Point of view

The viewpoint which the reader shares while reading a narrative. Fiction writers use three main viewpoints: 1. The omniscient (all-knowing) narrator's viewpoint. The narrator of the story theoretically knows everything about all the characters. Referring to them in the third-person, the author can tell us about the characters in an objective way and switch between them at will, showing us what each is doing thinking and feeling at any time. 2.

The first-person viewpoint, in which the narrator speaks as 'I' and conveys the story through his/her own subjective experience. 3. The viewpoint of the main character, or characters, in the story, but conveyed in the third-person. Here the narrative is ostensibly being presented by a narrator, in that we read 'she did this', or 'he did that', but the narrator's viewpoint is merged with that of the character(s) so that everything in the story is seen through the subjective experience of the character(s).

Vorticism
An approach to art and literature associated with the abstract artist Percy WyndhamLewis (1882-1957) which sought to address industrial processes through art. Although mainly a movement in painting and sculpture, Wyndham-Lewis, influenced by Imagist poetry, and collaborating with Ezra Pound, published two issues of a journal named BLAST.

The War Poets

Name given to a group of British soldier-poets who became prominent during the First World War, the best-known being Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967), Rupert Brooke (18871915), Isaac Rosenberg (1890-1918), and Wilfred Owen (1893-1918). The main impact of their poetry came through its depiction of the horrors of war, bringing the reality of events home to the British public.

Womanist
See Feminist. Author: Ian Mackean, except where otherwise credited. Other contributors: Jonathan Ellis, Trenton Hickman, Julie Ellam, Steven Barfield, Dr Margaret Sonmez.

Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness

By Gareth Rowlands

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Introduction
Joseph Conrad's short novel, or 'novella' Heart of Darkness was written in 1902 and is presented as a story within a story (frame tale). The protagonist, Charlie Marlow, recounts to a group of men an earlier incident in his life when he was working for a Belgian trading company in the Congo. (It is of interest to note the similarity of this technique to the technique used by Coleridge in his 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner', in which the mariner also begins the tale by addressing a listener about an ill-fated voyage.) Conrad must have drawn on his own experiences as a sea captain passing up the Congo river on a steam ship eight years prior to writing the book. Apparently he witnessed so many atrocities during that time that he actually quit his job. Marlow is a complicated and philosophical character. He is essentially a guide through whom the reader understands the moral and behavioural extremes and complexities of the other characters and provides us insight into Africa, colonialism and the Company's activities. He is physically and mentally damaged by his experiences during the trip though he (barely) survives to tell the tale on his return to Belgium.

Plot Summary
Marlow takes a job as a river captain with a Belgian trading company and is sent up the Congo to intercept another company employee, Kurtz. Kurtz is an intelligent and able yet deeply disturbing individual who during his time looking for ivory in the remote jungle has become an unrestrained and amoral megalomaniac. Marlow has a difficult passage up the Congo into the interior of Africa and one feels as though the river and the jungle are trying to repel this additional European incursion. This view is reinforced by the relative ease of his return from the inner station later:

'The brown current ran swiftly out of the heart of darkness, bearing us down towards the sea with twice the speed of our upward progress' During the trip up the Congo Marlow encounters the inefficiency of the Company's operations and brutal treatment of the natives and begins to question the morality of the system out of which Kurtz has emerged. He also starts to question the traditional European perception of the African natives as inferior though falls short of viewing them as equals. Marlow eventually arrives at the central station but gets stuck because his ship requires repairs and he hears that Kurtz is reportedly ill. There he meets the unsavoury manager and his colleague, the bricklayer, who are suspicious of Marlow. Eventually Marlow is able to carry on with the journey and takes the manager, some cannibals and some agents along with him. The tension builds along the quiet and foreboding river and jungle. At one point they find stacked firewood on the river shore with a note saying it is for them but to be cautious. After going back to their boat the ship is surrounded by fog and they are attacked by natives. The African helmsman is killed but they continue on towards Kurtz. Finally they reach the Inner Station where they first meet a crazy Russian trader who tells them that he had left the wood and that Kurtz is alive. The Russian trader says that Kurtz has enlarged his mind, freed himself of moral restraint and achieved god-like status with the natives. Part of this transformation has resulted in the use of brutal and violent methods in his search for ivory and the evidence of severed heads on posts at the inner station attests to this. Kurtz is brought out on a stretcher by the agents from the boat. A large group of natives appear but Kurtz sends them away and they disappear into the forest. Kurtz is taken on board the ship and is joined by the Russian trader. A native woman with whom Kurtz has been involved appears on the shore and the Russian trader indicates that she has had a troublesome influence on Kurtz during his time at the Inner Station. The trader tells Marlow secretly that Kurtz ordered the attack on the ship to try to deter them from coming to find him and to give them the impression he was dead. The trader then flees the boat concerned that the manager of the central station might find this out. The ailing Kurtz also tries to escape separately that night but is found back on the shore by Marlow who returns him to the boat. Kurtz's health worsens on the return trip but he confides in Marlow and hands him his personal documents including one on how he thinks the savage natives should be civilised, concluding with the shocking statement: 'Exterminate the brutes!' The boat is again delayed for repairs on the return trip and Kurtz dies in Marlow's presence uttering the famous yet ambiguous line:

'The horror! the horror!' Marlow himself later falls ill and barely survives before finally getting back to Europe where he goes to visit Kurtz's fiance. She is still in mourning and, totally unaware of the reality of events in the Congo, thinks of him as virtuous and successful. So as not to dispel this myth, Marlow tells her the last words he spoke were her name.

Themes and Perspectives

This work straddles the end of the Victorian era and the beginning of the modern era in a fascinating way. With regard to the former era it deals with the then common theme of imperialism and this underpins the work. Conrad describes the Victorian reality of European men adventuring far from home whilst European women were quietly tucked away in the domestic background, morally supportive but naive and oblivious to the outer reality, though materially benefiting from it. However, in a more modern way, Conrad fiercely challenges imperialism and uses it to examine related existentialist issues such as the inner personal conflict between good and evil and the human issues of alienation, confusion, doubt, personal restraint/excess and morality in general. The result is intriguing and shocking. Conrad's view is that to prevent such an existentialist crisis, the individual must exercise self-restraint to avoid giving into basic impulses and going mad. By the time Heart of Darkness was written the European powers had established colonies across most of the globe, though in the run up to the First World War they were already losing their political and administrative grip. The excesses, abuses and hypocrisy of the imperial system and the individuals within the imperial system are thoroughly explored. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, particularly when this is power over the fate of other human beings without the checks and balances of organised society. We are left wondering how to apportion blame towards the system (i.e. the Company) or the individuals within the system (i.e. Kurtz) and to what extent one individual is justified in criticising another (i.e. Company, Marlow and Kurtz). The theme of darkness first appears in the title and recurs throughout the book. Darkness is applied in different ways such as to contrast the supposed barbarism of the African natives with the light of European civilisation. At an individual level the theme is applied to the spiritual darkness of some of the characters and the contrast between supposedly 'civilised' characters like Kurtz and 'uncivilised' characters such as the Africans. The concept of darkness is also related to obscurity and ambiguity, particularly moral issues which are not clear-cut. One of the strong messages of the book is that what may be initially/superficially considered or expected to be 'light' is 'dark' (in whole or in part) and vice versa. For example, London and Belgium are both described as dark and gloomy places suggesting that it is these colonial capitals not places like the Congo that the real heart of darkness exists. This concept was in conflict with the commonly perceived wisdom of the time that Africa was being enlightened by the colonising forces within

Europe. Apparently the readership of the time did not understand the inherent criticism of European imperialism rather interpreting the plot as dealing with an errant outsider (Kurtz) who abused the opportunities of an otherwise acceptable system. Kurtz's betrothed was seen as the upholder of the expected moral standards and Kurtz seen as an example of someone who falls by the moral wayside. In addition, the fact that the location is in a Belgian colony allowed British readers to further dissociate themselves from the morally unsavoury aspects of the book.

Bibliography
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. Penguin. 1994 SparkNotes. Heart of Darkness Wikipedia. Joseph Conrad

Virginia Woolf Viewing Mrs. Dalloway Through the Lens of 'Modern Fiction'
By Ian Mugford

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In her essay "Modern Fiction," Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) comments on the flaws of writers such as H G Wells, Arnold Bennett, and John Galsworthy. Their narrow focus on the material and lack of affinity for the spiritual or realistic, is evidence enough

that they have fallen short in the literary sense. In Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf explores connections with truth, reality, and that which is above the material through her narrative techniques, complex imagery, and provoking themes, thus emphasizing through Mrs. Dalloway what she has so adamantly called for in "Modern Fiction." Woolf possesses the ability to create a work of fiction that evokes a pleasant reading experience for the reader without utilizing a central plot. In Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf chooses to explore the narrative possibilities of bringing several characters through one single day in time. This narrative technique works well in a text that mainly focuses on Mrs. Dalloway's world view, her inner workings, and her exploration and sensory experience of the world surrounding her. The organizational structure of the novel challenges Woolf to create characters that are deep enough to be realistic while dealing with only one day of their lives. Woolf creates within the character of Clarissa Dalloway the inherent sense of heightened awareness of living one day in time. Clarissa "had a perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, out, far out to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day" (16). Through Clarissa, Woolf creates a sense of the complexity each day is capable of bringing to individual characters, thus calling her readers to "look within life.examine for a moment an ordinary mind on an ordinary day. The mind receives a myriad impressions-trivial, fantastic, evanescent, or engraved with the sharpness of steel" (3). Clarissa, through her sensory perception of the world around her, feels the danger of living even one day. Woolf's embrace of the realistic and spiritual aspects of the world, asserted in "Modern Fiction," are set up within this novel so that those views will be challenged. Through the character of Clarissa, struggling through one day in time, Woolf compels the reader to consider the possibilities beyond the material world. This narrative technique moves the action forward, and simultaneously delves into the life and inner workings of Clarissa, baring her soul to the reader and opening up the possibilities and realities of the spiritual world. Woolf also employs imagery that similarly challenges the reader to explore the possibilities of what lies beyond the material. The imagery of death is quite prevalent in the text, and these images are mainly viewed through Clarissa, as she makes sense of her life. Critic Jacob Littleton, in his article, "Portrait of the Artist as Middle-Aged Woman," asserts that because Clarissa possesses a "heightened view of existence," she always possesses a "preternaturally vivid awareness and fear of the termination of the existence she loves so much" (38). Clarissa's "fear of termination" resonates most clearly in her isolated attic bedroom. The image of her bedroom symbolizes loneliness and death, and serves as a place where Clarissa frequently contemplates these subjects. Her bed, "no longer the marriage bed symbolizing fertility, is symbolized by her fertile mind as

shrinking into her world in a way that other outlooks available to her do not" (40). She has no one but herself in which to rely, and this is evidenced through her continual fascination with the concept of death and the end of existence. Clarissa's transcendental theory, which she uses as a reference to inform herself of the realities of the spiritual realm, causes her to surmise that "since our apparitions, the part of us which appears, are so momentarily compared with the other, the unseen part of us, which spreads wide, the unseen might survive, be recovered somehow attached to this person or that, or even haunting certain places after death.perhaps-perhaps" (79). The image of the spiritual transcending death through means of apparitions is another powerful image within the text, and interlocks with the image of death and presents itself simultaneously. In the case of Septimus, Clarissa is able to feel a connection with him after he has died that seems to transcend death. She assimilates herself with him after he took his life. She knows that "she felt glad that he had done it; thrown it away.He made her feel beauty; made her feel the fun. But she must go back. She must assemble" (185). Mrs. Dalloway sees herself in Septimus, even though she has never encountered him face-to-face; she sees something in Septimus that she desires for herself. Woolf, through Clarissa's transcendental theory and interactions with the image of Septimus, uses Clarissa's experience to assert her own views on the spiritual aspect of reality. There is something far above the material that causes Clarissa to feel this affinity with Septimus. There is something beyond herself that calls her to him, thus causing her to desire his fate for her own. The power of the imagery of death and the ability to transcend it is fully realized in the doubling of Clarissa and Septimus. Woolf uses themes that connect reality with the spiritual realm in an attempt to further her thesis in "Modern Fiction," for fiction to be modern and worth reading, it must explore that which is above the material world. Woolf's main concern in the novel seems to be the inner workings of Mrs. Dalloway, her thought processes, and how she engages with the world surrounding her. Woolf juxtaposes Clarissa's internal self with her external world, thus setting up one of the most prevalent, resonant themes within the text, and it is "against this system that Woolf places a world of private significance whose meaning is wholly irreducible to facts of the external world" (37). This struggle between the internal and external surrounds not only Clarissa, but her double, Septimus, and thus permeates the novel. Personality, according to Ellen Bayuk Rosenmann, in her article, "The Invisible Presence," seems to be a "private fact," which

is far "alienated from public and political culture" (77). Society at large is able to neither appreciate nor understand the inner workings of the soul, and thus stands at a distance. Woolf asserts in "Modern Fiction," that "Whether we call it life or spirit, truth or reality, this, the essential thing, has moved off, or on, and refuses to be contained any longer is such ill-fitting vestments as we provide" (3). In essence, the separation between the internal (soul) and the external (material world) is not navigable. Mrs. Dalloway is forced to break down the material barriers that bar her from knowing herself, and delve into the depths of her soul to find the spiritual, the truth. Another fascinating theme within the text is the intriguing concept of human interaction. Characters within the novel are being continually merged together through their experiences and through their own imaginations and memories as well (Littleton 39). One of the most interesting examples of this is the relationship between Mrs. Dalloway and Septimus. Clarissa never visually sees Septimus, yet he is the most significant part of her day. Clearly, Woolf is merging the two characters together, yet she blurs the lines a bit, thus furthering her assertions in "Modern Fiction," that "life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semitransparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end" (4). Septimus is a part of Clarissa's consciousness, even though she does not realize it. His life has a large impact on Clarissa, and he is the sole character that compels her to remain true to her soul. Critic J. Hillis Miller, in his article, "Repetition as Raising the Dead," explains that "no man or woman is limited to him or herself, but each is joined to the others.diffused like a mist among all the people and places he or she has encountered" (173). The characters are connected on various levels, and Woolf shows this connection quite acutely through the lens of Lady Bruton as she muses about the way in which Hugh and Richard remain with her after they leave, "as if one's friends were attached to one's body, after lunching with them, by a thin thread, which.became hazy with the sound of bells, striking the hour" (112). This statement furthers Woolf's ideal that there is an inherent spiritual connection within human beings, a "thin thread" which connects humanity. The interaction between the characters is remarkable, as Woolf continues to assert that there is a spiritual connection between human beings that surpasses any material, physical connection (8). Through means of narrative technique, fascinating imagery, and compelling themes, Woolf continues to assert her thesis in "Modern Fiction," that fiction must be concerned

with the reality of life, its inherent truth and spirituality. If fiction is only willing to explore the material, it will do a disservice to humanity, for there is a world beyond the material that begs to be explored. In Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf explores this other world, and brings to light fascinating possibilities that lie far beyond that realms of the material. Works Cited Littleton, Jacob. "Mrs. Dalloway: Portrait of the Artist as a Middle-Aged Woman." Twentieth Century Literature. Hempstead: Spring 1995. 41:1, 36-48. Miller, J. Hillis. "Repetition as Raising the Dead." Virginia Woolf. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea, 1986. Rosenmann, Ellen Bayuk. "The Invisible Presence: Virginia Woolf and the Mother Daughter Relationship." Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1986. Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. New York: Harcourt, 1925. Woolf, Virginia. "Modern Fiction", The Common Reader. 1st edition. 1925. Ian Mugford, November 2006 Email the author

Name: Ian Mugford (More often referred to as Mugz) D.O.B.: December 5th, 1985 Education: Currently, Ian is in his third year of his Bachelor of Arts program at Cape Breton University with his key focus within the fields of English literature and history. Upon completion, Ian intends to enroll in the University of Maine with aspirations of obtaining his Bachelor of Education degree with future plans of obtaining a PH.D. within a field of literature. Current Profession: Ian currently works as a technical support agent for the company of iBahn (A hotel based internet provider). Hobbies: Aside from writing, Ian enjoys various activities including sports, music, partaking in social gatherings amongst friends, and spending time with his family (Father - Eric, Mother - Sabina, Brother - Evan, Sister-In-Law - Candice, Girlfriend Lauren, and his two nieces which are also his God Daughters - Jessica Sabina-Lynn and Emma Sarah Noelle). Ian also has a great fascination with animals and loves pets. His dog, Maya, is a pure breaded basenji and is with him on most occasions. Favourite Writers/Inspirations: Ian enjoys reading such authors as James Joyce, Walt Whitman, E.M. Forster, Edgar Allen Poe, Graham Greene, Stephen King, Morley Callaghan, Ernest Hemmingway and most notably Shakespeare (Ian has current intentions of writing his thesis paper on Shakespearean writing) Other Favourites: Musical Artist - Eminem. Song - The Path (West Avenue). Actor Will Ferrell; Adam Sandler; Vince Vaughn. Show - House; Criss Angel Cartoon -

Family Guy Movie - Remember the Titans; Click. Colour - Blue. Literary Work - Good Night Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet, Modern adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet & Othello) Pet Peeves: Narrow-minded views and opinions Not finishing an intelligent conversation or debate. Life's Ambition: To see the world

The T. S. Eliot Page

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T S Eliot Links Other T S Eliot essays on this site The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock Prufrock and The Outsider Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965) Four Quartets, The Sign and the Symbol and Ezra Pound (1885-1972) were T S Eliot links Wikipedia | SparkNotes | Exploring The Waste two Americans who lived in Europe and altered the manner and Land | Modern American Poetry | What the Thunder Said | Literary History form of English poetry. Pound urged a conscious modernization Other T S Eliot sites

T. S. Eliot. An introduction

of verse, and, in Eliot he believed he found a poet who had modernized himself already; though Pound still made revisions to Eliot's work and cut almost half the lines of 'The Waste Land', Eliot's most famous poem. Their lives took very different ways. Pound became a fascist and made a hundred anti-American radio broadcasts from Mussolinis Italy, for which he was accused of treachery by the Allies and committed to an asylum for the criminally insane. Eliot, meanwhile, attempted to reach his Anglo-Saxon roots by taking British citizenship and becoming an Anglican, and, finally, he achieved the position of a grand establishment figure who received the Nobel Prize in 1948 along with the Order of Merit. T. S. Eliot was the Great Man of English Letters in the midtwentieth century while Pound languished in prison attempting to finish his Pisan Cantos. Pound might have grumbled that Eliot had got all the breaks. T. S. Eliot was born into a wealthy patrician family in St. Louis, Missouri, and had all the educational chances that money can pay for. He attended Harvard and the Sorbonne and admired the French Symbolist poets, especially Jules Laforgue who influenced his early flippant style of writing. He came into contact with Rimbaud, Corbire and Laforgue through Arthur Symons Symbolist

T S Eliot Web Search Books Books by and about T S Eliot Study guides York Notes on T S Eliot To suggest new links or report faulty links please contact the email address on the home page.

Movement in Literature (1899). Listening to the many recordings he made of his own verse, there is little of the trans-Atlantic in Eliots dry voice - wry, with a rasp of humour, and very English. He arrived in London in 1914 and decided to stay. Through Pound he met a vivacious and unstable ballet dancer whom he married possibly, as a recent commentator has suggested, to disguise his homosexuality. Vivienne Eliot caused him much grief and eventually, like Pound, was committed to a mental institution. Virginia Woolf observed of Eliot that he was a poet who lived by scratching and his wife was his itch. Eliot began work on his best known early poem 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' in 1910. He was a graduate student at Harvard, immersed in Sanskrit and Buddhism at the time, and wrote a number of light verses in a similar voice. Ezra Pound helped him finish the poem in London and it was published in Chicago in 1915. Prufrock is not a person but a style of living. Eliot was a deeply serious and scholarly man who was afraid of sounding so and hid behind facetiousness and his facility with words. Later he was to be taken very seriously indeed. To contemporary readers, Prufrock did not look like a poem at all: in 1915 poetry was what Rupert Brooke had written before he died. The nature of English poetry changed in the following

two years under the impact of the First World War. Descriptions of the no-mans-land at Passchendaele and the merciless anti-poetry of men like Sassoon, as well as the Russian Revolution and Oswald Spenglers Der Untergang (translated as The Decline of the West, volume I, 1918), provided the background to 'The Waste Land' in 1922 and, in part, prepared a readership to attempt it. The United States entered the war in 1917 and Eliot was liable for military service. He was found to be medically unfit but refused to appear idle or disdainful of ordinary working life so took a clerking job with Lloyds Bank that he held for the next eight years apart from a period of convalescence following a nervous collapse in 1919. During World War II he was to serve as an air raid warden and firewatcher in London while completing Four Quartets. 'The Waste Land' and James Joyces Ulysses both appeared in 1922. Leonard and Virginia Woolf hand-printed the early work of Eliot at the Hogarth Press and also accepted Ulysses for publication; however, the latter appeared in Paris because English printers refused to set it. 'The Waste Land' did not meet with any moral objections: it was simply regarded as weird. It was published originally in Eliots own journal The Criterion; but what was not known at the time was that Ezra Pound, who had moved to Paris,

cut 400 lines from the work with Eliots agreement. 'The Waste Land' has received much critical and scholarly attention. It was erudite. It drew on references to European and Indian culture with odd juxtapositions of the classical and colloquial. Eliot appeared to be exploring the possibilities of regeneration after the collapse of a culture that had lost its certainties and values. The Quest for the Holy Grail is a motif along with figures from Sir James Frazers anthropological work The Golden Bough (191115) that examined the role of myths in the progress of cultures. To embrace myth and readmit primitive behaviour was not, for C. G. Jung, to flee modernity but to face up to it: and Eliot agreed with Jung rather than Frazer for whom myth was superstition. The Great War had shown Europe to be more primitive than the great and the good cared to admit. 'The Waste Land' is a poem of moods in which the past foreshadows the present and the future waits in hope of grace descending. It even came with its own set of notes. A grasp of all the literary and historical references is not necessary to an appreciation of the poems musicality and the distinctive texture of Eliots syntax. No, it didnt rhyme and scan like 'proper' poetry from John Masefield and Walter de la Mare. The lines of Death by Water, for example, are close to Anglo-

Saxon verse, which both he and Pound admired, and imitate the rhythms of the sea Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead, Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell And the profit and loss. A current under sea Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell He passed the stages of his age and youth Entering the whirlpool. Gentile or Jew O you who turn the wheel and look to windward, Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you. Eliot looked for his own personal redemption in the Church of England and became an Anglican in 1927, the year that he took British citizenship. He left Lloyds Bank in 1925 and moved to the publishing house that is known by its later name Faber and Faber, becoming a director. Faber and Faber published all of Eliots poetry and plays and collected his numerous articles and reviews. Eliot rekindled interest in the Metaphysical poets, especially John Donne (1572-1631) and George Herbert (1593-1633). He also attempted to recreate modern verse drama, with less success; the most memorable example being Murder in the Cathedral (1935) which concerns the assassination of Archbishop Thomas Becket on 29 December 1170 in Canterbury

Cathedral. It recalled the original foundation of the English church by Augustine at Canterbury and the martyr whose tomb was an object of pilgrimage for four centuries until the Reformation the goal of Chaucers pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales. To Eliot it was an affirmation of his adopted Englishness: an affirmation that found an enduring place in the English literary consciousness through Four Quartets 'Burnt Norton', which appeared in Collected Poems (1936), 'East Coker' (1940), 'The Dry Salvages' (1941), and 'Little Gidding' (1942) published together in 1943. The last three poems were composed during the Blitz when Eliot nightly observed the blacked-out city of London in fireflash silhouettes of searchlights and anti-aircraft fire and incendiary bombs falling about the dome of St Paul's; and 'Little Gidding' contains the aftermath of an air raid and a strange meeting with the shade of William Butler Yeats and Stphane Mallarm before the All Clear sounds In the uncertain hour before the morning Near the ending of interminable night At the recurrent end of the unending After the dark dove with the flickering tongue Had passed below the horizon of his homing While the dead leaves still rattled on like tin

Over the asphalt where no other sound was Between three districts whence the smoke arose I met one walking, loitering and hurried As if blown towards me like the metal leaves Before the urban dawn wind unresisting. Little Gidding is a place a small manor house and church between Cambridge and Huntingdon where Nicholas Ferrer, a friend of George Herbert, established a religious community in 1626 and kept apart from the politics and tribulations of the English Civil War. It was here that the broken king Charles I came at night and took refuge before his capture by Parliament and subsequent execution. 'Little Gidding' concerns return and renewal in rediscovery We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. A lighter side of Eliot revealed itself in Old Possums Book of Practical Cats (1939) which was the basis for the musical play Cats in the 1980s. Also a long-standing friend was the comedian Groucho Marx who founded the club Groucho's on the grounds that he wouldnt join any club that was willing to have him as a member, so had to have his own. Eliot

declared that this was his most practical friendship because it gave him credit at the greengrocers shop where the proprietor was a great fan of Marx Brothers films. Stephen Colbourn, September 2006. Stephen Colbourn is a contributor to The Essentials of Literature in English Post-1914

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Samuel Beckett: Waiting for Godot Man's Battle With Himself

By Margaret Gumley

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Waiting for Godot is man waiting for life to unravel its mysteries. It is man and his conscience. It is man's inhumanity towards man. It is the question of meaning. Is there a meaning? Are we right to look for answers or should we go blindly forward while we can, pausing only to give our feet an airing, because the answers, like Godot, will never come and nothing we think or do will make any difference. Although it appears on the surface that Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot is a tragicomedy about two rather pitiful vagrants and their brief encounter with another pair of sad and confused men, I believe Beckett was writing about man's battle with himself. Estragon, whose main concern is releasing his sore feet from the constraints of their smelly, tight boots, takes life on the chin. He seems to believe that all one needs to do is go passively along with whatever life happens to put in our way and it will all sort itself out eventually. Why waste our time trying to mould life to the way we would like it to be? Why fight the inevitable? If 'they' are intent on giving us a beating, we might as well let them. It will come to an end and we may get away with less of a beating if we don't fight back: we can then relax again - until the next time. If, while allowing life to do its worst we die, that's okay too. Vladimir, on the other hand, wants more. He keeps hoping something will happen to make his life more agreeable. He hopes Godot will provide an answer; any answer. Vladimir can't understand why Estragon is so blas about allowing himself to be beaten and humiliated. Vladimir is the side of us that expects life to provide our answers. The side that looks to others for help in recognising the treasures we are sure are there just waiting for us to embrace them. Neither Vladimir nor Estragon is too fond of life to dismiss the idea of ending it by hanging from a nearby tree - but they both know it won't really happen. It's simply a way of passing the time: a sort of 'I Spy' - I spy with my little eye, a tree for hanging ourselves on - the way we sometimes dwell on our problems because, paradoxically, we enjoy feeling sorry for ourselves. Vladimir needs Estragon but the feeling isn't reciprocated, though Estragon is happy enough to spend time with Vladimir. We need to convince ourselves that we are worthwhile. We search our conscience for affirmations of our reason for being. If we don't care what happens to us, we have no need for a close association with our conscience. Vladimir and Estragon were each other's consciences. When Pozzo and Lucky appear on the scene, Vladimir sees another chance for a way out of the doldrums. Could Pozzo be Godot? No? Ah well, he still may be a welcome diversion while they continue to wait.

Pozzo uses Lucky while he has something to offer but as soon as he has run out of whatever Pozzo needed from him, Lucky loses his appeal and is allowed to slip backwards into abject misery; good only as a beast of burden to be sold to the highest bidder. Vladimir and Estragon feel sorry for Lucky but do nothing to help him, especially when it seems being helped is something Lucky no longer believes in nor wants. It's easier to believe Lucky is simply someone who has lost his sense of reason and might as well be left alone. Lucky's plight is put in the Too Hard basket. Often we see only what we can use in a person rather than seeing the person himself. When we grow weary of someone who no longer appeals to us or can no longer provide us with what we need, they become a burden. We become blind to the things that once attracted us to them and can no longer hear their pleas to be loved and needed. On a larger scale, once we stop caring about our fellow man, we become blind to the problems of the world and the oppressed can lose the ability to speak to us. Time, as Dylan Thomas said, passes. Was it yesterday? Was it last year? When did Vladimir and Estragon last wait here for Godot? When did they last see Pozzo and Lucky? Does it matter? In the scheme of things, what is a day; or a year, or a lifetime? Man lives his life waiting. He waits to be born, he waits to become a man, he waits to become successful, he waits to find true love, he waits to find peace; he waits to die. While he waits, he considers. Faced with many decisions, man argues with himself about which path to take. Should he, like Vladimir, keep hoping tomorrow will bring the answers? Should he, like Estragon, forget about looking for answers? Forget the questions. Should he let life unfold around him and simply 'go with the flow'? If those around him are suffering, if they are under threat, should he try to help? If he does and he receives a kick in the shins for his trouble, should he give up and let someone else deal with it or should he pick up the handkerchief and try again to wipe the brow of the oppressed? Waiting for Godot is man waiting for life to unravel its mysteries. It is man and his conscience. It is man's inhumanity towards man. It is the question of meaning. Is there a meaning? Are we right to look for answers or should we go blindly forward while we can, pausing only to give our feet an airing, because the answers, like Godot, will never come and nothing we think or do will make any difference.

William Golding Chaos Versus Civilization in Lord of the Flies

By Tahmina Mojaddedi

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For more on William Golding see The William Golding Page Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of a true, wise friend called Piggy. (Chapter 12) The plot of William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies suggests that Golding supports the biblical idea that every human is born tainted with evil, and that men are born savage, driven by their instincts. Chaos and savagery come about as a result of men trying to attain pleasure without making any sacrifice or applying any effort. While order and civilization are situations in which humans are forced to suppress their instincts and follow rules to attain higher goals. In a world with rule and order we're forced to put on a mask of respectability and sacrifice some pleasures for the greater good of society. The society we live in shapes and forms us to act the way we do, but it cannot completely wipe out the savage nature of men, for that is our base foundation. Golding demonstrates this world-view by putting English boys alone to fend for themselves on an island without any adults to enforce civilization. Each of the characters define parts of society. Ralph represents law and democracy, Piggy represents innovation and discovery, Simon represents the natural goodness in humanity, Jack represents

tyranny, Roger represents cruelty and injustice, the littluns represent the common poor people, and the bigguns represent the higher class in the society. The novel shows what happens when these elements of society clash without laws. At first, the idea of order and civilization is still fresh in the boys' minds as they decide to make laws and pick a leader. They pick Ralph as their leader because of his responsible attitude, which shows that they care for law and order. Ralph decides that whoever is holding the conch shell has the right to speak, a rule which suggests civilization through democracy, and which establishes the conch shell as an important symbol for civilization. The boys are then split into groups and are given certain tasks, an arrangement which also shows their civilized attitude. Ralph, sensing a savage streak in Jack, and feeling intimidated, decides to put Jack's savageness to use by making him the leader of the hunting team. Piggy is a rational and intellectual boy who gives them the best ideas. He is innovative and also represents order on the island. He wants to return to civilization so he tells them to light a fire so that passing ships might see it as an SOS signal. One night Jack and his hunters decide to steal Piggy's glasses (which they use to light the fire) and accidentally break them, causing Piggy to lose the ability to see the world as it is. The first time Jack tries to hunt he still has some feelings of order in him which make him afraid to kill the pig. Later his determination is driven by instinct, which releases his true human nature. With savagery awoken inside him he overthrows Ralph and persuades the rest of the boys to join his tribe. The boys, who are also now driven by their instinct as there is nothing enforcing civilization upon them, quickly agree. They hunt and kill a pig and fix its head to a pole. Flies then begin to circle around it, as do the boys themselves. The pig's head stands for the savagery of their hunt, which was motivated by instinct, an instinct that was driven by evil. Although Jack is the main representative of savagery, he is not the only one. Roger is another example. He is cruel and brutal, and his main goal is to please and impress Jack, from which he gets gratification. Instead of making an effort and trying different approaches, he follows his instincts which tell him to torture the other boys, and he eventually murders Piggy by rolling a boulder at him. Even the island serves as a symbol for order versus chaos. When they first arrive on the island everything is neat and beautiful, but once they are driven by instinct and savagery the island becomes dirty and damaged. Their savage instincts drive them to kill, they need something to believe in so they decide to believe in the Beastie. It gives them a reason to kill Simon. Their last shred of civilization is shattered along with the conch shell, which served as a

symbol for order from the beginning. With that gone, and the death of the boys who died on the island, their innocence is lost. Society's impact on the suppression of human instinct become clear when the Naval Officer arrives on the island to see why the fire is lit. He is dressed in uniform and leads others to order. Since he is the first adult to intervene he is seen as a suppresser of human instinct. He makes the boys realize what they have done. Realisation begins with Ralph, as he remembers the deaths of the other boys and the savage ways they turned to. Soon they all begin to cry as they realize that slowly and step by step they got carried away by instinct. Instinct was the only thing that taught them how to survive on the island but they see the faults and errors in it. Though I don't agree that man is born impure and evil I do believe there is instinct in man. Instinct is what pushes us through tough times when our judgement is clouded. But it isn't right to follow every instinct. As we have seen in this novel, if instinct is given free reign it can get out of our control.

ir Kingsley Amis and the era of Lucky Jim

By Stephen Colbourn

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Sir Kingsley Amis (1922-1995) was a modern and popular writer who began his career as a radical and ended up fostering an image of curmudgeonly conservatism. He was knighted in 1990. Amis is remembered first and foremost for Lucky Jim (1954). The title became a byword in the 50s along with I'm all right Jack - a film starring Ian Carmichael who also played Jim Dixon in the film adaptation of Lucky Jim. A problem for modern readers, over fifty years later, is to grasp why the book was a hit at the time. Post-war Britain was a very gray place. It was a world of rationing and earnest social policies that made George Orwells Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) seem possible and not far away. A Labour government was elected in 1945 after Victory in Europe but its members had been largely in control of domestic policy during the previous years. The 1944 Education Act allowed bright youngsters from lower-middle and working class backgrounds to attend university; and it was intended as a piece of social engineering to break down the old barriers of class and privilege and issue in a New Britain of fairness and equality after the most devastating war in history. Amis was the son of an office clerk. He did well at the City of London School and got into St Johns College, Oxford, where he declared himself to be a communist. The war interrupted his studies. He was drafted into the army and received a commission in the Royal Corps of Signals in 1943, going on to university after the end of the war. On graduation from Oxford in 1948 he became a lecturer in English Literature at University College Swansea where he taught for a dozen years. The underlying theme of Lucky Jim is that of a fish out of water. A working class boy has become a university lecturer and is trying to make sense of the whole academic business. What is the relationship between a knowledge of Latin and the works of Matthew Arnold and doing a job of work? Lucky Jim was not so lucky: he had come a long way from home and found himself with nowhere to go. Richard Hoggart was to describe the dilemma of the deracinated scholarship boy in The Uses of Literacy (1957). University novels were not that common. Beerbohms Zuleika Dobson, for example, had appeared in 1911. Yet, with the emergence of a newly educated readership, three such novels appeared in the 1950s and became well known: The Masters (1951) by C. P. Snow, Lucky Jim, and Eating People is Wrong (1959) by Malcolm Bradbury. The term campus novel has been misapplied to these books. The campus novel came into use twenty years later with David Lodges Changing Places and Malcolm Bradburys The History Man (both 1975). Other labels attached to Amis were Angry Young Man and member of The Movement. The latter term was coined in 1954, by the Literary Editor of The Spectator, to encompass the new writers Kingsley Amis, Philip Larkin, D. J. Enright, John Wain, Elizabeth Jennings, and Robert Conquest. John Wain disowned the existence of any such movement

in 1957. Angry Young Men is a more enduring catch-phrase that relates to John Osbornes play Look Back in Anger (1956); and twenty first century readers, who are unlikely to sit through a performance, are asked to take on trust that it was indeed electrifying in its day. Osborne, Amis, Colin Wilson, and Alan Sillitoe were all Angry Young Men. What they were angry about was the slow pace of social change. They may have been educated as the protgs of the New Britain but they found plenty of Old British opposition. To them the war had not been about the preservation of country house weekends and the leisures of the golf links. They found themselves in an equality of inopportunity or so it seemed at the time. Soon, the 1960s, for all its excess and silliness, was to sweep away a lot of dust from the closets of ancient Albion especially the old snobberies of class and deference beloved of the English gentry. Meanwhile, living standards rose slowly from their bleak wartime gloom. Martin Amis, who followed his father as a successful writer, recollected growing up in the 1950s in a world of nappies drying on the fire guard and tin baths in front of the open grate and bread and dripping and suet pud. The sun never shone in the fifties and all houses were remorselessly and irremediably damp and cold. Kingsley Amis had three children by his first wife and could not give up his teaching post and risk becoming a full-time writer, despite money coming in from his books and a payment for the film rights of Lucky Jim. After leaving Swansea, he worked at Cambridge and in the United States for two years. To make money in the 60s he completed Ian Flemings last James Bond book The Man With The Golden Gun (1965) and wrote a Bond book of his own entitled Colonel Sun (1968) under the pseudonym Robert Markham. He was a fan of science fiction along with Robert Conquest. Amis was also a poet and a life-long friend of Philip Larkin who wrote so well that Amis felt intimidated. They kept up a regular correspondence and most of their letters have been published. Larkin declared in his lugubrious fashion: We are the last generation that will write to each other. But he couldnt have anticipated the internet and email. Apart from novels and poetry, Amis also wrote non-fiction. Rudyard Kipling and His World (1975) is an examination of a writer who is endangered by Political Correctness. Memoirs (1990) shows Amis criticising all the people he had ever loathed which was a goodly number with especial vilification reserved for Dylan Thomas and Roald Dahl. Yet, there are photos of conviviality in the book and the pleasures of the pub. Figures in the background include Peter Quennell who helped with the publication of many Amis books and the American academic Paul Fussell who wrote appreciative criticism of Amis.

Sylvia Plath and Alice Walker

Two Women Writers Challenge Society's Conspiracy Against Women

by Catherine Cooper

Bookshop English Literature Sylvia Plath Alice Walker Feminist literature York Notes

English L it e r a t u r e

Literature L i n k s

English L it er at u re E ss a ys

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I find my own Small person O sister, mother, wife, A standing self Sweet Lethe is my life Against the world I am never, never, never, coming home! An equality of wills I finally understand
The difficulties of living in a society for an individual who is in some way different from the norm or somewhat nonconformist is a subject which is thoroughly explored not only in modern literature but in literature throughout the ages. In this essay I shall look at the problems which two women writers believe are inflicted on them because of their status as women: Sylvia Plath and Alice Walker. Both authors believe that stringent laws have been laid down by their predecessors, by the men and even by the women in their society. Much of the work of both women deals with their difficulty in coming to terms with these rules, the effect the rules have on them and sometimes (although more so in the work of Alice Walker) their attempts to overcome them.

Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) is as well known for her life, and particularly her death as she is for her work, it could be argued. She made her first suicide attempt at the age of twenty because the pressures put on her to conform to the role of a woman, in particular, a middle-class upwardly-mobile educated woman, by society, had become too much for her. She lacked either the strength or the courage to continue to fight against the ideals which were being continually foisted upon her. The reasons behind this suicide attempt can be clearly seen in her autobiographical novel The Bell Jar. Teresa de Laurentis described the novel as 'a heroine's struggle with herself and the world', [1] which is also the essence of much of Plath's poetry. The heroine, Esther Greenwood, appears to have everything she needs to be happy. She has won the chance to spend a month in New York working on a magazine, attending parties and generally living the high-life. Yet she does not feel she is in control, she feels rather that she is doing all this because it is expected of her, it is what she has been programmed from childhood to do, instead being what she herself wants to do. This feeling is reflected by words suggesting a kind of automaton existence early in the novel, such as describing herself as a 'zombie' and a 'numb trolley bus'. Esther wishes to discover herself, discover what she really wants to do rather than just accepting as her desires and ambitions those which society has set out for her. Teresa de Laurentis notes: Freedom for Esther is availability, refusal of classifications, growth diversity. She cannot accept the either-or of culturally-defined roles which seem to be the only alternatives open to her. What she is looking for, her own self development, is not yet visible, but by the end of the novel Esther has learned to keep looking. [2] The fact that Esther eventually breaks down as a consequence of the pressures of conformity is presented as a necessary progression of events. Her rejection of this life is shown in symbolic ways, such as the incident when, after almost being raped and called a slut, she throws all her new, expensive clothes out of the window. She no longer desires the trinkets and trappings of being a woman, and all that they encompass. The pressures on women to conform and Plath's desire to escape from these pressures is strongly in evidence in most of her poetic work. Although she wrote in one of her 'letters home': I shall be one of the few women poets in the world who is a fully rejoicing woman, not a bitter or frustrated or warped man-imitator, which ruins most of them in the end. I am a woman and glad of it, and my songs will be of fertility and the earth. [3] It appears that this must have been written in a state of uncharacteristic optimism as many of her poems express her feeling of imprisonment and a desire to find freedom, often

through death. This letter extract is also rather ironically prophetic, as it is through being 'bitter', 'frustrated' and 'warped' that she causes her own ruin. Erica Jong glorified Plath's poetry as the first to 'fully explore female rage' [4], a far cry from the intention expressed in her letter. A large number of Plath's poems deal with a feeling that as a woman she is treated as an object, a commodity, and not allowed to be an independent person. A good example of this is The Applicant where the woman is kept in a closet and sold like an item of clothing. The woman, which throughout is described as 'it', thus depersonalising her further, is advertised to the prospective buyer as a thing: . . . willing To bring tea cups and roll away headaches and do whatever you tell it And: It can sew, it can cook It is also described to the buyer as being his 'last resort'. There are other images of woman as being helpless and merely looked upon as objects, unable to fend for themselves. In Purdah women are described as 'jade', and in Childless Woman as 'ivory'. In Two Campers in Cloud Country the speaker complains: I lean to you, numb as a fossil. Tell me I'm here. In Face Lift the speaker is anaesthetised, another form of helplessness. In Gigolo the woman claims to be a mere pocket watch and in An Appearance the woman's body opens and shuts like a Swiss watch. These women retain no personal qualities at all, they have become mere objects. Furthermore there are examples of poems where even when the speaker retains some identity as a person (even if not a specific person) she feels unable to move, again illustrating the restrictions which Plath felt that society's conventions placed upon her. Examples of this are In Plaster and Paralytic. In In Plaster she (the inner woman) feels trapped by her outer casing (the front she has to present to fit in to society's rules). The poem begins: I shall never get out of this! There are two of me now This new absolutely white person and the old the yellow one The 'old yellow one' is her real self, the white the fake. She describes how at first she hated the white, fake front but eventually saw that it had advantages, began to accept the falsity, and eventually the falseness became a way of life and she almost forgot what her real self was. She writes:

I wasn't in a any position to get rid of her She'd supported me for so long I was quite limp I had even forgotten how to walk or sit The poem ends with the hope that she will someday be able to manage without the white and be accepted as herself. This is a poem in which the severity of Plath's hatred for the roles foisted on her as a woman can clearly be seen. In Paralytic she describes herself as entirely immobile, tended to and even kept alive by outside forces, as a 'dead egg'. In Witch Burning she writes: If I don't move about, I'll knock nothing over. The poet appears to have a wish to have no influence on the outside world, in the hope that it will not wish to influence her. This thought is also reflected in the final verse of Paralytic: The claw Of the magnolia, Drunk on its own scents, Asks nothing of life. These lines suggest that a hermit-like life would be easier of for her to deal with. In other poems she desires forgetfulness and even death as the oppression gets too much for her. At the end of Amnesia she writes: O sister, mother, wife, Sweet Lethe is my life I am never, never, never, coming home! These lines imply that she hates these roles which she must fit into, and forgetting about them is her only relief. In Lesbos she writes of her despair at the bleak existence of the average housewife. The poem begins with the simple statement: Viciousness in the kitchen. And the whole poem has an air of claustrophobia. The kitchen is described as 'windowless', implying that to this dirty noisy kitchen is the beginning and end of this woman's world, she is confined. The child is described as a 'puppet', perhaps implying that this young girl will grow up to be a 'puppet' operating at the whims of others, just like her mother. In Lorelei she longs for oblivion from this type of life, asking to drown:

Stone, stone, ferry me down there. In I am Vertical she implies that, as a woman, she feels she would be more use dead than alive. The poem ends: And I shall be useful when I lie down finally: Then the trees may touch me for once, and the flowers have time for me These lines imply that she does not feel that she receives the attention she deserves. In All the Dead Dears she identifies with the dead woman in the museum case, writing: This lady here's no kin Of mine, yet kin she is. In this poem she once again reiterates her belief that a mould has been set for her, a role she must fit into, although this time she suggests that the role has been set by her predecessors rather than by contemporary society. The fact that the glass is 'mercurybacked' emphasises that she sees herself and the dead woman as one and the same: From the mercury-backed glass Mother, grandmother, greatgrandmother Reach hag hands to haul me in Following the same kind of idea as in I am Vertical in Edge, which was probably her last poem, she writes that a woman has reached perfection when she is dead, and also suggests that this is the only thing that a woman can truly accomplish. The woman is perfected. Her dead Body wears the smile of accomplishment As is evident, much of Sylvia Plath's work dealt with the imprisonment that she felt was inflicted on her by her status as a woman, whether this is specific (as in Daddy when she likens her father to a Nazi, herself to a Jew) or more general as in many of her poems, when she feels that her role as a woman is inflicted on her by society in general, she does indeed seem to see it as a conspiracy, and the only way to escape from it as oblivion or death.

Alice Walker
An author who also felt that women, particularly black women, were typecast and have a lot to deal with is Alice Walker (1944 - ). However, her outlook on her plight is a lot more positive than that of Plath. Her work deals not only with the problems of being a black woman, but also with the possibility of change and progression, even if it is a slow process. The poem, On Stripping Bark from Myself, from her collection Good Night

Willie Lee, I'll See You in the Morning, embodies her ideas to an extent: I find my own Small person A standing self Against the world An equality of wills I finally understand Alice Walker believes that to bring about societal change, a person first has to change their own way of thinking. Her novel Meridian is about a young black woman who wishes to change the place black women have in society, but she attempts to do this mainly through her inner person, her pursuit of 'wholeness'. Although she is a member of the 'movement', she is chastised by her friends for saying that she would not kill for its sake, as she sees this as destroying something that she is trying to create, i.e. peace. One of the major issues in the novel is the fact that black women are often seen as little more than baby-making machines. Meridian tries to break out of this mould by giving away her child and going to college. Barbara Christian writes: Since, in the principle, society places motherhood on a pedestal, while in reality it rejects individual mothers as human beings with needs and desires, mothers must both love their role as they are penalised for it. True for all mothers, this double-edged dilemma is heightened for black women, because society does not value their children. As they are praised for being mothers, they are also damned as baby machines who spew out their product indiscriminately upon society. [5] Although Meridian is a strong individual, in many ways she is still portrayed as a victim of typecasting. Her first sexual encounters were sordid and demeaning and so she sees that what is expected of her is 'giving in', rather than mutual love or affection. She knows that, to an extent, her worth and person is to be seen (by others rather than by herself) in being 'so and so's girl'. So she indulges in it, although she eventually rejects this and, after her abortion, has her tubes tied to reinforce the idea that she is not going to succumb to the dubious 'ideal' of black motherhood. However, the novel is not merely about the problems faced by black women. The author acknowledges that white women also have a role set for them which is no better and equally difficult to break out from. She writes: Who would dream, in her hometown, of kissing a white girl? . . . they only seemed to hang about laughing, after school, until they were sixteen or seventeen they got married. Their pictures appeared in the society column, you saw them pregnant a couple of times, then you were no longer able to recognise them as girls you once 'knew'. They sank into a

permanent oblivion. One never heard of them doing anything that was interesting. The author also deals with the fact that because the roles of black and white are so set and so different it is difficult for them to mix. Lynne allows Tommy to rape her because of the guilt she feels at being white, or as Tommy says to her husband Truman: 'she's been atoning for her sins.' Also, the death of Cameron, the 'mulatto' baby, could be symbolic of the fact that blacks and whites will never naturally be able to live in harmony and equality. In a conversation with Claudia Tate, Alice Walker talked about the end of the novel. She said: I can see that the expected end to that kind of struggle his death. However, Meridian does not die at the end of the novel, nor does she get married (which the author suggested was the other end which an audience might expect). Instead of this, she passes her struggle on to Truman, so the hope for change is still there (although it is perhaps significant that she passes her struggle on to a man). The work of Alice Walker explores the conditions which society places on women, and black people in general. It is, however, more positive than the work of Plath in that it also explores the possibility of change. Meridian breaks away from the roles which are set for her and finds wholeness that way, whereas Sylvia Plath gets torn down by the demands of her society, which eventually caused her to commit suicide as she saw this as the only way of breaking free from the rules which constricted her, (rather like Hedda Gabler). Both writers however, see society both past and present in a conspiracy against women, it is just their ways of dealing with it which are different. References [1] Teresa de Laurentis p.124 [2] ibid. p.133 [3] Erica Jong p.207 [4] ibid. p.204 [5] Barbara Christian. Black Feminist Criticism. p.220 Bibliography Sylvia Plath. Collected Poems Claudia Tate. Black Women Writers at Work Barbara Christian. Black Women Novelists Barbara Christian. Alice Walker: 'The Black Woman Artist as Wayward' (in the collection Black Feminist Criticism) A. Alvarez. The Savage God Teresa de Laurentis. 'Rebirth in The Bell Jar'. In Sylvia Plath. (Critical Heritage Series) Sherry Zirley. 'Plath's Will-less Women'. in Literature and Psychology Vol. XX1 no. 3

Erica Jong. Letters Focus, Exquisite rage of Sylvia Plath. (Critical Heritage series)