<?page no="4"?> Umschlagabbildung: Atelier Reichert unter Verwendung eines Fotos von Michael Flaig. Bibliografische Information Der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über <http: / / dnb-nb.de> abrufbar. 4., vollständig überarbeitete und erweiterte Auflage 2011 3., überarbeitete und erweiterte Auflage 2008 2., überarbeitete Auflage 2005 1. Auflage 2004 © 2011 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen ISBN 978-3-7220-8409-6 Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen. Gedruckt auf chlorfrei gebleichtem und säurefreiem Werkdruckpapier. Internet: http/ / www.francke.de E-Mail: info@francke.de Satz: Informationsdesign D. Fratzke, Kirchentellinsfurt Layout und Einbandgestaltung: Atelier Reichert, Stuttgart Druck und Bindung: CPI - Ebner & Spiegel, Ulm Printed in Germany ISBN 978-3-8252-3550-5 (UTB-Bestellnummer) Michael Meyer ist Professor für englische und amerikanische Literaturwissenschaft und Fachdidaktik an der Universität Koblenz-Landau. <?page no="5"?> V Prefaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VII 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.1 What is literature? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 1.2 Literary criticism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 1.3 Literary history . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 1.4 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 2 Poetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 2.1 What are poetic texts and what do we (ab)use them for? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 2.2 Communication, speaker, situation and topic . . . . . . . 26 2.3 Rhetorical form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 2.4 Poetic form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 2.4.1 Metre and rhythm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 2.4.2 Phonological forms, stanzas and types of poems . . . . . 50 2.5 Postmodern poetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 2.6 Guiding questions and exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 2.7 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 3 Narrative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 3.1 Oral and written narratives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 3.2 Discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 3.2.1 Narrative situations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 3.2.2 Voice and focalisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 3.2.3 Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 3.3 Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 3.4 Fiction and metafiction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 3.5 Guiding questions and exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 3.6 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 4 Drama . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 4.1 Dramatic text and theatrical performance . . . . . . . . . . 114 4.2 Dramatic speech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 4.3 Character and action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 Contents <?page no="6"?> 4.4 Space and time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 4.5 Genres and metadrama . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 4.6 Guiding questions and exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 4.7 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 5 Literary Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 5.1 The Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 5.1.1 Psychoanalysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 5.2 Text and code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 5.2.1 New Criticism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 5.2.2 Formalism, structuralism and semiotics . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 5.2.3 Deconstructivism, post-structuralism and postmodernism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176 5.3 Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 5.3.1 Marxism and cultural materialism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 5.3.2 New Historicism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 5.3.3 Feminism and gender studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 5.3.4 Postcolonialism and multiculturalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195 5.4 Reader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 5.5 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 6 Research papers, presentations and examinations . . . . . . . . . . 213 6.1 Academic standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214 6.2 Getting organised . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214 6.3 Writing a term paper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 6.3.1 Defining topic, purpose and approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 6.3.2 Research for and use of secondary material . . . . . . . . . 220 6.3.3 Writing the first draft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228 6.3.4 Revising the paper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229 6.3.5 Documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232 6.4 Presentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234 6.5 Oral and written examinations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238 6.6 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240 7 Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247 7.1 Analyses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248 7.2 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254 7.3 Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264 VI C O N T E N T S <?page no="7"?> VII This introduction to analysing literature is intended to bridge the gap between students’ needs and academic requirements. It addresses students’ difficulties with technical terms and issues in literary studies without oversimplifying matters. Providing helpful tools for reading and research, this book primarily addresses students in the first semesters but is designed to be also helpful for preparing final examinations. The text ˘ concentrates on the major literary genres, ˘ provides many examples from various historical periods, ˘ explains how and why to use approaches and technical terms, ˘ presents a set of guiding questions for the analysis of texts, ˘ offers exercises to practise analysis and interpretation, ˘ comments on and recommends further reading, ˘ gives comprehensive checklists to enable students to cope with papers, presentations and examinations, ˘ concludes with an index of technical terms, authors and titles. The text highlights key terms in bold letters at their first appearance and central statements in italics. Wherever the German term differs markedly in spelling, it is provided (in parentheses). This book cannot sketch the histories of literatures in English around the world but gives a first overview of the generic and historical variety of literary texts mainly from Great Britain and the United States. The selection of examples follows that of major anthologies and literary histories. The nationality and biographical dates of authors as well as the year of publication are given where available. At the end of each chapter, the lists of works mark titles strongly recommended for further reading with an asterisk*. The chapters subsequent to the introduction can be read in any order. The structure of the book follows systematic and pragmatic considerations for teaching and studying literature and literary theory. Beginning with the basic analysis of texts from each genre al- Preface <?page no="8"?> lows you to see how additional approaches provide new questions about and insights into these texts. The initial interpretation of poetry has the advantage of dealing with short texts at the beginning of the semester and of introducing terms of rhetorics, which are helpful for understanding texts from other genres as well. An additional reading of a few short stories and a drama would perfectly complement the texts discussed here. This introduction is dedicated to my students, whose questions made me repeatedly search for better explanations and examples. My warm thanks go to my students, colleagues and friends Kerstin Eichler, Andreas Eul, Karin Lange, Elin Meek, Anja Müller-Muth, Mary Reid, Monika Reif, Christoph Reinfandt, Isabella Rotsch, Alexander Stützer and Kenneth Wynne, whose comments on various chapters helped me to reconsider and rewrite them. I also thank the editor Stephan Dietrich for his great patience and support. Of course, all remaining mistakes are entirely my fault. If you have any comments, questions or suggestions, feel free to write to mimeyer@uni-koblenz.de. Preface to the third edition The third edition defines more subgenres and adds examples in order to provide a better insight into the historical development of the genres and to offer more texts for discussion. The section on literary theory has been expanded to accommodate more concepts and present a more comprehensive, but still concise, overview of major contemporary approaches to literature. Many thanks go to colleagues and students who provided me with feedback on the third edition, such as Sandra Bornstedt, Christoph Houswitschka and Paul Schmuecker, to Karoline Oeser and the editor Kathrin Heyng for their help, my wife Stephanie and my daughter Sarah for their patience. Preface to the fourth edition This edition offers more concepts, examples and explanations. Material for teaching and learning has been posted on UTB Mehr Wissen (http: / / utb-mehr-wissen.de). Many thanks are due to Susanne Niemeier, Fred Thompson and Rebecca Farivar for comments on various chapters, and to Christian Alef for helping with the bibliographies and index. M. M. VIII P R E F A C E <?page no="9"?> 1 Introduction 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 | 1 This chapter gives a brief sketch of the scope of English and American literatures and of the basic disciplines that define literary studies, theory, criticism and history, all of which are interrelated. What is literature? 4 Literary criticism 10 Literary history 14 Bibliography 18 Abstract Contents <?page no="10"?> Studying English and American literatures gives you access to a wealth of numerous cultures around the world. Besides the obvious suspects of English nationality, “English” literatures include literature written in English by Welsh, Scottish, Anglo- Irish and “Black British” authors, an awkward umbrella term for non-white immigrants or residents in Britain. Anglistik also covers the huge variety of New English Literatures or postcolonial literatures in English written by authors from former colonies. Besides literature written by white authors in (American) English, American literature also comprises “ethnic” (and sometimes multilingual) literatures written within the United States, such as African American, Asian American, Chicano, Indian and Jewish. For historical, political, cultural and geographical reasons, Caribbean and Canadian literatures in English are contested territories between Anglistik and Amerikanistik. It is impossible to read everything. Take a look at the Studienordnung and the Prüfungsordnung in order to get an overview of the requirements and your options, and take the opportunity to broaden your horizon beyond the traditional canon of books by “dead white men”. Reading literature lets us share imaginatively other interpretations of the world. Literature can make us more aware of language, ourselves and others, and various eras and cultures. Studying literatures in English improves our understanding of texts and cultures through systematic reflections on what literature is, how it relates to history and culture, and how we arrive at interesting and well-founded insights. Literary Studies (roughly: Literaturwissenschaft) are defined by three disciplines, which are interrelated: literary theory, criticism and history. Literary theory (Greek theorein: to observe) simply means reflection and poses the questions: what is literature, how does it come into existence, and what does it do for which reasons? The answers to these questions usually imply assumptions about individual identity, society and culture, and suggest a particular approach (Zugang, Methode), a guideline on reading texts. If you think that you do not need any theory to understand literature, ask yourself why you understand literature the way you do. 2 I N T R O D U C T I O N Literary studies: theory, criticism, history Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgement and disposition of business. Francis Bacon, “Of Studies” (1625). <?page no="11"?> 3 I N T R O D U C T I O N Literary theory ˘ raises our awareness of what we are doing when we read literature, ˘ provides us with new perspectives and concepts to analyse texts, ˘ helps us to understand secondary material, and ˘ to communicate our own insights to others (Nünning & Nünning 44-45). Literary criticism (Literaturkritik, Analyse, Interpretation) describes, analyses, interprets and evaluates literary works in two basic ways: the reader either records his/ her more or less subjective impressions of the text or presents an approach that explains its questions and terms of analysis in theoretically informed criticism, which is the aim of literary studies. Its result would be a critique, a serious and profound essay or article. Literary history (re)constructs the development of literature, taking into account theoretical assumptions, criticism and historical contexts. Literary histories establish and revise a canon of works (a list of important texts) and therefore influence what is mainly read at schools and universities. All disciplines are subject to change, and so is literary history. Feminist theory and criticism, for example, boosted the re-reading of “forgotten” women’s texts and the rewriting of literary histories in order to include the female tradition. | Fig. 1.1 Literary studies. Criticism Theory History Literary studies <?page no="12"?> 4 I N T R O D U C T I O N What is literature? It is easier to say why we read literature than to define what literature is. However, our motivation to read literature implies fundamental ideas about what it is, which are in turn closely related to how we read it. Readers are often interested in (1) the world that literature reveals, (2) the entertainment and/ or instruction it provides, (3) the author’s experience or view of life expressed in it, or (4) the artistic quality of the text itself. We use extrinsic information to study the mimetic image of reality, the pragmatic effect upon readers and the expressive origin within the writer. Intrinsic readings focus on the text itself (Abrams 6-7). All of these motives have figured for centuries in debates about the nature and function of literature. These discussions show that literature does not own essential qualities but is rather defined by writers’ and readers’ negotiations of literary conventions. Here, I will simply introduce some implications of the various interests, preparing the ground for the presentation of major modern theories in chapter 5. 1 Aristotle (384-322 BC) defined mimesis, the imitation of reality, as a major function of literature in response to Plato (429-347 BC), who denigrated literature as a lie because it represented “appearance rather than truth” (Abrams 9). Aristotle conceded that literature does not give us the factual truth of history but probable truth, something that might have happened as against what did happen. However, he considered literature superior to history because it deals with general and fundamental truth rather than that of particular characters and events (Aristotle 29-31). The English poet Sidney (1554-1586) supported Aristotle’s view when he maintained that literature cannot deceive anyone because it does not claim that it is literally true (NAEL 1: 947). However, the boundary between fact and fiction does not allow a foolproof definition of literature. Non-mimetic literature, such as fairy tales, fantasy or science-fiction, does not stick to the rules of probability and usually does not pass for reality. A famous exception proves the rule: when H.G. Wells’s (GB, 1866-1946) novel War of the Worlds (1898) was broadcasted as a radio play in the US (1938), thousands of listeners panicked, fearing an attack on the US from Mars. - Travel writing, historiography and the essay may cross the border into fictional ter- 1.1 | Aristotle: mimesis <?page no="13"?> 5 W H A T I S L I T E R A T U R E ? ritory, shaping characters and events according to aesthetic criteria, whereas novels and plays sometimes cannibalise reality for their characters, stories and settings, even if the fictional frame changes their function. - How can we understand the ways in which literature imitates reality? Literature transforms conceptions of reality with the help of aesthetic means, such as particular images, constructions of characters, sequences of action, etc. Literature creates possible worlds that can serve as a comment about the “real” world. 2 The Roman writer Horace (65-68 BC) claimed that literature serves the readers’ need for pleasure and/ or profit (Latin aut delectare aut prodesse). To define literary pleasure in more modern terms: literature provides an aesthetic experience (Greek aisthesis: perception; ästhetische Erfahrung). This experience can be described as an emotional and imaginative involvement in literature, which often takes the form of sympathy, delight in beauty, amusement, suspense, terror, horror, often accompanied by an intellectual stimulation to reflect on the language, order and meaning of art. “People mutht be amuthed. They can’t always be a’learning and a’working”, says the lisping director of the circus in Charles Dickens’s novel Hard Times (1854: 308). Dickens’s novel, which resembles contemporary soap operas, is not only sentimental and entertaining but appeals to the reader’s moral and political judgement. Hard Times criticises the heartless and greedy employer and the furious and manipulative unionist alike, opting for a mutually respectful and humane cooperation between capitalists and workers: literature, the school of the nation? Some genres often carry explicit moral messages: fables, didactic poetry, satires or Christian literature, such as John Bunyan’s (England, 1628-88) Pilgrim’s Progress (1678/ 84), which shows the model way to resist temptation in order to enter heaven. In reverse, Puritans have argued that plays and novels corrupt people because they present examples of immoral behaviour. Even recently, Harry Potter came under Christian fire for allegedly leading children astray by promoting interest in magic, occult and evil forces. However, literature does not claim to serve as a guidebook to practical life. The famous Spanish author Cervantes (1547-1616) ridiculed Don Quixote (1605/ 15), who sees the early modern world according to medieval romances and mistakes himself for a knight in Horace: pleasure and profit <?page no="14"?> shining armour in heroic struggle against giants, which are nothing other than windmills. The fictional character Joe Savage, whose values of love, manners and dignity are based upon Shakespeare’s plays, cannot cope with the futurist Brave New World (1932) by Aldous Huxley (GB, 1894-1963) and would be lost in today’s permissive and consumerist society. - Books or films may influence what people think about but do not determine how they think about it. We can hardly claim that “readers of literature do it better”, that they are per se superior human beings and citizens or that literature presents universal values. Contemporary western female readers would not accept the gendered norms of Hard Times, which idealises very gentle, submissive and selfless women. Due to historical and cultural changes in taste and in values, contemporary readers may find neither delight nor instruction in literary works which were bestsellers in their time. Thus, the provision of entertainment and learning is not a steadfast criterion of literature itself but subject to changing attributions. While the mimetic model of literature stresses its function as a mirror of reality and the pragmatic model its effect upon the reader, the expressive model emphasises the role of the author as the origin of art (Abrams 26). 3 The English Romantic William Wordsworth (1770-1850) regarded literature primarily as the author’s subjective expression of his/ her emotions and imagination, and in turn read literature as an image of the author’s personality (NAEL 2: 250). If the spontaneous and true expression of the inner self was the goal, the perception of external reality, the conventional literary rules and the traditional expectations of the audience were rather in the way. The individual genius created poetic rules of his/ her own and was his/ her own best reader. The poet ignored or tried to shape the taste of the reader, who could appreciate the text and share the subjective experience in an imaginative response. While all literature is expressive in the restricted sense that it must have been experienced in the author’s mind before it is written down on paper, the question is whether the search for the author’s expression finds or rather constructs the personality that is assumed to be behind the text. Apart from the three extrinsic models mentioned above, the intrinsic one deals with the text itself. 4 The American Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49) proclaimed that literature is a purely aesthetic object with no reference to reality: it is art 6 I N T R O D U C T I O N Wordsworth: expression Poe: art for art’s sake <?page no="15"?> 7 W H A T I S L I T E R A T U R E ? for art’s sake. Poe’s “Poetic Principle” (1848) rejects the mimetic and moral functions as criteria of literary value: “this poem which is a poem and nothing more - this poem [is] written solely for the poem’s sake” (NAAL 1: 1470). Poe stressed the musical language and “The Rhythmical Creation of Beauty” (NAAL 1: 1472) in poetry. The English writer Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) even went beyond Poe when he claimed that art not only influences our perception of life but life itself: “Things are because we see them, and what we see, and how we see it, depends on the Arts that have influenced us” (79). Art makes us “realise” what would otherwise go unnoticed. “Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life […] Life holds the mirror up to Art, and either reproduces some strange type imagined by painter or sculptor, or realizes in fact what has been dreamed of in fiction” (79). In a simple sense, readers imitate fiction, just as some spectators intentionally or subconsciously copy forms of speaking, behaviour, and fashion from music videos or films. In a more refined way, the dandy and hedonist Wilde aspired to turn his life into a work of art. In sum, the four traditional perspectives on literature as aesthetic imitation, effect, production and object hardly reveal any self-evident essence of literature but contradictory as well as complementary attributions of its nature, function and value. - As an aesthetic object, every literary text is bound to a genre and to a medium. Genres form a system of groups or families of texts defined by sets of conventions, which guide both the writing and reading of texts. Genres are often distinguished by the form of communication (e.g. narrative, drama), mood or attitude (elegy, satire), content (crime, science-fiction), the relation to reality (mimetic vs. non-mimetic) and aesthetic effect (comedy, horror) or a combination of these criteria. For example, besides content and aesthetic effect, Aristotle used the form of communication in order to distinguish between three basic literary genres: in poetry, only the poet speaks; in drama, actors/ characters act and speak, and in epic narrative, the author reports other characters’ actions. A genre is a useful if fuzzy model of a text, which is distinguished by differences from other genres of its time, but which also changes over time. Contemporary poetry, for example, often ignores metre and rhyme, which have been hallmarks of the genre for centuries. Individual texts follow a genre or deviate from Literary genres <?page no="16"?> models by combining genres (e.g. verse novel, epic drama) or by introducing new elements to a genre (physical love, three quartets and a couplet in English Renaissance sonnets in contrast to the Petrarchan model of idealised love, two quartets and two tercets; see 2.4.2). The function of the medium cannot be reduced to the mere material form of literature because it is closely related to the ways of communication. Orality (Mündlichkeit) is based on contact, participation and community. Oral literature or orature takes place in faceto-face interaction and therefore includes voice, facial expression, gesture and movement to support understanding. Oral presentations of poems or stories take into account the kind, situation and response of the audience, a fact that results in unique performances, which vary the topic, length and complexity of the texts. Orature has existed since time immemorial and is still of great importance in many cultures in Africa, Australia, New Zealand and among Canadian and American Indians. Voice and sound in radio plays and audio books appeal to the ear and the imagination. Poetry slams revive the communal experience of the oral tradition. In comparison to oral texts, the texts of written literature in print (versus manuscript versions) are much more stable. The rise of literature is related to a market of literate customers served by publishers. Print allows the distribution of a text among a large circle of readers even beyond its contemporary culture and history, which considerably increases not only an author’s potential readership but also his/ her distance from it. In turn, individual readers often need considerable aesthetic knowledge in order to relate to the position of the potential addressee of a text and may want additional cultural and historical knowledge in order to understand it. Literature is transformed into an audiovisual spectacle in the theatre and the cinema. In contrast to the individual reader of a written text, who can determine the pace of his/ her own reception, the communal audience is subject to the rhythm and duration of the performance. The relatively short duration of a show demands the reduction of content and complexity in comparison to a novel. The interplay of verbal and visual signs makes high demands on the spectator. Films combine the audiovisual quality of the theatre with the telling of a story. In addition to setting, lighting, sound, actors and performance, films mediate visual infor- 8 I N T R O D U C T I O N Medium: oral literature Medium: written literature Medium: audiovisual literature <?page no="17"?> 9 W H A T I S L I T E R A T U R E ? mation by (1) camera work, its distance, angle and movement relative to the object, determining the point of view, and (2) editing, i.e. the structuring of the cuts, sequence and rhythm of shots. Modern video-recorders and DVD-players allow the spectator to individualise his/ her reception of a film as if he/ she was reading a book, winding backwards and forwards, slowing down or speeding up the film. Finally, hypertext literature can integrate voice, text, image and film, and create various options for the user to listen to, read, view or even co-author the multimedia text. The following diagram of literary communication adds the element of codes, the rules that govern the writing and reading of texts. The previous discussion revealed that the aesthetic quality of literature is hardly an inherent essence of the text but results from the historical negotiation of conventions that prescribe how to write and read literature of various genres in various media and cultures. This model reduces literary communication to the author and the reader, ignoring for the sake of clarity publishers, critics, teachers and booksellers, who convey books to buyers and therefore enable literary communication. Usually, literary communication is asymmetric, excluding a dialogue between reader and author, and non-pragmatic, ignoring immediately practical information, such as how to repair a bicycle or to prepare mulligatawny soup. In contrast to the precise factual information of a good newspaper article, which should leave no doubt about its meaning, literature offers ambiguous (vieldeutige) aesthetic information, which is open to different interpretations. The codes, the rules of language and aesthetic conventions of genres, are closely related to changing cultural norms. The | Fig. 1.2 Literary communication (compare Korte 79 and Nünning & Nünning 12-13). Codes Author Reader Contexts Literary text Medium Codes and contexts <?page no="18"?> contexts are formed by cultural circumstances in a wide sense. In a novel about contemporary life, the author, the text and the first generation of readers share the social, economic and political contexts. If we want to understand historical literature written before our time, it is useful to relate the context of its writing to the historical era referred to in the text: the play The Crucible (1953) about the witch-hunt in 17 th century Puritan Salem by the American Arthur Miller (US, 1915-2005) can be read as a scathing comment on Senator McCarthy’s persecution of left-winged Americans in the 1950s. The production of the text, as we have noticed, is not only based on the author’s subjective imagination but also on aesthetic conventions or codes, the medium and the historical context. In turn, the reader needs to activate his/ her everyday knowledge and literary competence in order to understand the text in its particular medium, assuming the role of a listener, reader, spectator or co-author as need be. Depending upon the expressive or mimetic function of the text, the reader would consider biographical or historical information useful. However, due to the mass of information a detailed reading would usually focus on one of the concepts or relationships of the model, the author and the production, the text itself, the aesthetic codes, the mimetic relationship between content and context or the reader’s response to the text. Literary criticism Editing is a form of literary criticism of prime importance because it precedes our reading of books. A reliable text is fundamental to literary criticism. Careful editors compare different versions of a text, often in manuscript, in order to establish a critical edition of the text that comes close to the author’s last intentions. Recently, editors have also returned to print the early versions of the text in order to come close to the original intention. A critical edition often records various versions of the text and the editor’s emendations in a critical apparatus. An annotated edition (kommentierte Ausgabe), which explains particular uses of words, references and allusions to the historical context, supports an adequate historical understanding of a text. Literary scholars often make a distinction between interpretation (Deutung, Auslegung), which tries to understand what a text means in 10 I N T R O D U C T I O N 1.2 | <?page no="19"?> 11 L I T E R A R Y C R I T I C I S M terms of its intention, content and concepts, and analysis (Zerlegung, Zergliederung), which tries to describe and explain how a text creates meaning through its structure or composition (Culler 58). This difference in focus does not imply that interpretation does without rhetoric and aesthetics because it deals with expression in language (Gadamer 28). Art criticism may serve as a vivid example of the difference between interpretation and analysis. We can look at the content and at the artistic form of representation in alternation but hardly at the same time. If you look at the content of Van Gogh’s drawing, you can almost see the wind sending ripples across the field on a cloudless summer day and assume that the grain in the foreground has been flattened by a thunderstorm, which disturbed the rural idyll and ruined a part of the harvest. A reading for content could interpret the picture as an expression of the bouts of madness, from which the painter and his | Fig.1.3 Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), Field , 1888 (Collection J.W. Böhler, Lucerne). ˘ Look at the content and at the composition of Van Gogh’s picture and draw your conclusions of what the picture means and how it creates meaning. Task <?page no="20"?> productivity suffered, or generalise the meaning as the intrusion of chaos in peace or as the containment of disorder, given the “right” visual, temporal or cognitive distance towards events. Looking at the composition, you can see the hand of the artist in the vivid strokes of his pen. Broad, circular and irregular lines in the foreground create movement and perspective in combination with more regular, parallel lines and small, seemingly random dots in the middle ground. The dynamic design of the foreground and the centre of the picture is framed by parallel, closely set lines in the left and right of the picture, which end in a ridge of vertical lines, contained by a double horizontal line (the ridge of hills), which is occasionally pierced by irregular, spiralling strokes. It is a perfect composition that creates harmony of strong opposites (concordia discors), in the extreme between the blank, nearly untouched space of the sky in the background and the strongly, almost violently marked foreground. The composition could be read as self-referential in the sense that a wide panorama and far distance towards objects suggest a sense of order and control, which is lost if things are too close at hand. The aesthetic analysis is less interested in the representation of a field in a rural landscape, which is an ordinary topic, than in its particular artistic shape, which is rather interesting. The interpretation of the content above draws on experience, historical and cultural knowledge, but is also based on the reading of the aesthetic signs of the drawing: you have to know what the lines represent in order to talk about their meaning. Reading a text, you also have to make sense of the words, the syntax and the imagery to understand characters, actions and circumstances, and vice versa. The strategies of reading this picture can be transferred to a text, taking external circumstances as an expression of an internal state of mind (landscape - Van Gogh), the literal meaning as a basis of the metaphorical one, and the particular as an instance of general significance (danger of disorder in peace; control by distance). Hermeneutics (Kunst der Deutung) defines interpretation as a circular process of the whole and the part: our experience and presuppositions (Vorwissen) form the basis of comprehending new information, which, in turn, adds to and alters our previous knowledge. Contextual knowledge is as important to understanding as intertextual knowledge, i.e. the relationship between the text in question and others. A general knowledge of literary conventions is a prerequisite to reading a 12 I N T R O D U C T I O N Hermeneutics <?page no="21"?> 13 L I T E R A R Y C R I T I C I S M novel as fiction and not as history. In turn a particular novel may expand our conception of aesthetic rules. On a smaller scale, a complete sentence or poem makes sense due to the selection and combination of its words, and the meaning of each word is related to its context in the sentence or the poem. As presuppositions shape our understanding, we run the risk of limiting our experience because we may only see what we know. In order to diminish the danger of merely reasserting our own opinion, it is useful to reconsider what we know of a particular subject and genre at the beginning of an interpretation. If interpretation means entering into a dialogue with a text (Gadamer 30), the text must not be reduced to giving answers to our questions, which would mistake literature of the more or less remote past as a solution to contemporary problems of making sense of life. An open dialogue with a text includes the option that the text might question our identity, knowledge or values. If the process of reading alternates between an involvement in aesthetic experience and a detachment from it, we can become aware of how our presuppositions influence our understanding of the text and how the text changes our assumptions. Therefore, the hermeneutic circle also refers to the interrelationship between the reader’s understanding of him/ herself and of a text or an other. A hermeneutic interpretation would start with reflecting on our general assumptions about the author and the text in its historical context. We would modify and deepen our initial understanding step by step in a careful reading of passage after passage to arrive at a more comprehensive interpretation (see also 5.4 Reader). The circular nature of understanding implies that reading is an unending process and only arrives at preliminary interpretations. An adult re-reading of children’s books, especially highly ambiguous ones, such as A. A. Milne’s (GB, 1882-1956) Winnie the Pooh (1926) or Lewis Carroll’s (GB, 1832-98) Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), would certainly result in utterly different interpretations from those of childhood times. (For more information on hermeneutics, please see 5.1 and 5.4). Whether scholarly literary criticism emphasises the question of composition or content, it is required to proceed with awareness of its theoretical assumptions, using well-defined concepts in a systematic and comprehensible way. The subsequent chapters on analysing poetry, narrative and drama, as well as the chapter on theory will suggest useful approaches. <?page no="22"?> Literary history Literary history (re)constructs literary traditions in particular contexts and periods, posing these questions: why should certain texts and genres be included in or excluded from the canon of “important” texts? How and why did certain texts and genres come into existence? How does a text derive from and depart from specific genres? Which non-literary contexts are relevant to a text? What is the function of literature in its cultural context? The answers to these questions are themselves subject to history and depend upon changing contemporary perspectives on literatures and cultures. The selection of “important” authors, genres and texts is related to a canon of established writers and works. Even if some literary histories cover thousands of titles, the great majority of all the texts that have ever been written has been discarded or forgotten. What is important? Innovative texts and/ or popular books have a claim to fame. For example, Horace Walpole’s (England, 1717-97) The Castle of Otranto (1765) initiated the rise of the Gothic novel but probably amuses rather than terrifies readers today. Literature which used to be popular may no longer find favour with readers now, but it can still provide insight into the cultural mentality of the past. Recently, the canon of writers and works has been expanded due to the reconsideration of race, gender, additional genres and subgenres. Thus, Hans Ulrich Seeber’s Englische Literaturgeschichte devotes its last section to the English literatures from Africa, Australia, Canada, the Caribbean, New Zealand and India. Hubert Zapf ’s Amerikanische Literaturgeschichte also includes a chapter on Canadian literature. Both volumes include extra chapters on women’s literature and multicultural literatures written by immigrants to GB and the US because these texts reveal different topics, perspectives or forms. Childrens’ literature, crime fiction or science-fiction are now deemed worthy of attention. While poetry, drama and narrative still form the main focus of literary histories, the number of texts included from other genres has expanded, such as autobiography, biography, the essay, historiography and literary theory. The same problem of selection and combination applies to the contexts of literature, economics, society, politics, education, philosophy, the arts, etc. It is difficult to represent the contexts in a 14 I N T R O D U C T I O N Canon Contexts 1.3 | <?page no="23"?> 15 L I T E R A R Y H I S T O R Y comprehensive way or to select merely one because different contexts are relevant to literature at different times. Finally, literary history requires the formation of concepts of periods, of boundaries and transitions between them. Particular events, texts and contexts, shared assumptions and values are used to define a period. However, an era is often marked by characteristic contradictions and conflicts, and it is difficult to say where one ends and another begins. It is of no use to deliver a fast-forward overview of literary histories, which must be simplistic and therefore false, and to drop dozens of names, titles and dates. Instead, a brief comparison of two versions of British literary history between the end of the 18 th and the beginning of the 20 th century reveals two major developments in the recent historiography of literature: literature is no longer considered as a mirror of reality but part of an ongoing cultural negotiation of values, identities and truths; culture is no longer regarded as a coherent unity but a process of different forces and ideas in rivalry with each other. As a result, these literary histories have reassessed marginalised issues (gender, race), writers (women, “ethnic” writers) and genres (conduct books, scientific treatises, etc.). The guiding principle of Hans Ulrich Seeber’s Englische Literaturgeschichte (2004) is modernisation, which means secularisation, rationalisation, the formation of national identities and nation states, the industrial revolution, the development of democracy, individualisation, etc. (ix). Ina Schabert’s Englische Literaturgeschichte. Eine neue Darstellung aus der Sicht der Geschlechterforschung (1997) concentrates on gender as a cultural construct in contrast to the biological concept of sex. Schabert analyses the literary negotiation of gender in connection with social, economic, scientific and ideological contexts. She reverses the traditional bias that privileged men over women as authors, literary characters and readers. The following juxtaposition of Seeber’s and Schabert’s table of contents of two periods represents the major headlines only, which clearly reveal the differences in guiding principles and the construction of periods. In Seeber’s history, the Pre-Romantic period between 1760 and 1800 is part of the previous development. Pre-Romanticism reveals a turn from “objective”, “timeless” and rational neoclassical views of nature and society towards subjective, time-bound and sentimental (empfindsam, sentimental) Romantic views. Seeber combines Romanticism and the Victorian Age under the key concept of Seeber’s periodisation A comparison of literary histories Periods <?page no="24"?> modernisation in the 19 th century but marks differences in responses to these changes. The French Revolution and the industrial revolution at the end of the 18 th century initiated the fall of the old political and economic order and prepared the ground for the rise of capitalism and bourgeois society. For Seeber, highlighting individuality, subjective imagination and nature as a substitute for religion was the male poets’ answer to economic and competitive individualism, mechanical rationalisation and metropolitan mass society. Whereas the (male) Romantic poets juxtaposed individual needs and social rules, Victorian novelists tried to achieve a 16 I N T R O D U C T I O N Fig. 1.4 | Selections from table of contents of Seeber’s and Schabert’s literary histories. Hans Ulrich Seeber, Englische Literaturgeschichte (2004): ROMANTIK UND VIKTORIANISCHE ZEIT Modernisierung und Literatur im 19. Jahrhundert Die Literatur der Romantik Der Roman des 19. Jahrhunderts Fortschrittsglaube und Kulturkritik. Zur Prosa der Viktorianer Die Lyrik der Viktorianer VORMODERNE UND MODERNE Die Krise des Liberalismus und der Modernisierung Die Literatur der Übergangszeit um 1900 Keltische Renaissance und irische Literatur Shaw und die Erneuerung des britischen Dramas Die modernistische Revolution um 1910 Wirtschaftskrise, politische Radikalisierung und Literatur in den dreißiger Jahren Ina Schabert, Englische Literaturgeschichte. Eine neue Darstellung aus der Sicht der Geschlechterforschung (1997): 5. DIE NACHAUFKLÄRERISCHE ZEIT (1760-1830) 5.1. Die binäre Geschlechterordnung als Anliegen der Erzählliteratur 5.2 Die exklusive Männlichkeit der Romantik 5.3 Begehren und Angst: der Schauerroman 5.4 Schreibende Paare 5.5 Lyrik von Frauen 1790-1838 6. DIE VIKTORIANISCHE EPOCHE (1830-1900) 6.1 Autorschaft und Geschlechtermaskerade 6.2 Geschlechterdifferenz in der Lyrik 6.3 Der Kult des Begehrens im Roman 6.4 Masculinities 6.5 Die Frau zwischen weiblicher Bestimmung und Selbstgestaltung <?page no="25"?> 17 L I T E R A R Y H I S T O R Y compromise between individuals and society in spite of criticising the social and moral problems of modernisation. Seeber also takes into account the female tradition of Victorian novelists, Jane Austen, Anne, Charlotte and Emily Brontë, and George Eliot (male pen-name of Maria Ann Evans) but he mainly presents the canon of male authors, Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, Anthony Trollope and George Meredith. Schabert avoids the term Romanticism as the designation of a whole period because the concept does not adequately represent women’s writing in what she calls the Post-Enlightenment Period, 1760-1830. She highlights the development of the binary model of gender between 1760-1830, which establishes a “natural” difference between men and women. The biological difference is linked to differences in sentiment and intellect and justifies the construction of segregated spheres, which reserves the public sphere of economic production for men and relegates women to the private sphere of biological reproduction at home. Whereas most male poets endorse the binary model of gender according to Schabert, women authors are divided over the issue. Schabert stresses that women poets, such as Anna Laetitia Barbauld and Helen Maria Williams, enjoyed popularity in their time, interacted and competed with the male poets William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats (448-455). In addition to the canonical novelists Ann Radcliffe and Jane Austen, Schabert presents women writers who have been neglected in traditional literary histories, such as Frances Burney, the novelist and poet Charlotte Smith or the poet and playwright Joanna Baillie. Schabert retains the conventional term Victorian Age (1830- 1900), which refers to Queen Victoria’s rule between 1837-1901, but redirects attention to the growing participation of women in aesthetic production as against their discriminating segregation. She claims that authors, above all female authors, question the prevalent opposition of gender constructions, combine male and female concepts and promote women’s social and political emancipation. Schabert underlines the ambiguity of the Victorian ideal of manliness, which has homoerotic connotations, and gives voice to discontent with the marriage plot as a conservative patriarchal pattern, which subordinates women as wives to husbands. She stresses that the final decades of the 19 th century pave the way for Schabert’s periodisation <?page no="26"?> 18 I N T R O D U C T I O N Bibliography 1.4 | the modernist novel of consciousness and innovative female poetry, and dissolve the boundaries between gendered identities: “new” men deviate from heterosexual patriarchal norms and “new” women create autonomous selves. Thus, it seems that Schabert favours a history of women’s progress, which overcomes setbacks by the end of the 19 th century, whereas Seeber, who combines the late 19 th and the early 20 th century, stresses a development towards crisis and pessimism. For all the differences between these valuable literary histories, they do not exclude but complement each other. (For further reading, see also 6.6 Bibliography). PRIMARY SOURC ES Abrams, M. H., et al., eds. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 7 th ed. 2 vols. New York and London: Norton, 2000. (NAEL 1 and 2). Baym, Nina, et al., eds. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 3 rd ed. 2 vols. New York and London: Norton, 1989. (NAAL 1 and 2). Bunyan, John. The Pilgrim’s Progress. With an Introd. and Notes by Roger Sharrock. Repr. London et al.: Penguin, 1987. Carroll, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Reissue. New York et al.: Penguin, 2001. Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de. Don Quixote de la Mancha. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Dickens, Charles. Hard Times: an Authoritative Text; Backgrounds, Sources, and Contemporary Reactions, Criticism. 2 nd ed. Ed. George Ford. New York et al.: Norton, 1990. Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New ed. London: Vintage, 2004. Milne, A. A. Winnie-the-Pooh. Illustr. E. H. Shepard. Ed. Barbara Rojahn-Deyk. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1988. Rowling, Joanne K. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. London: Bloomsbury, 2000. Walpole, Horace. The Castle of Otranto: a Gothic Story. Ed. W. S. Lewis. Reissued with New Apparatus. Oxford et al.: Oxford University Press, 1996. Wells, Herbert G. War of the Worlds. London et al.: Penguin, 2005. Wilde, Oscar. “The Decay of Lying.” De Profundis and Other Writings. Ed. Hesketh Pearson. London: Penguin, 1986. 55-88. SECONDARY SOURCES Abrams, M. H. The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition. New York: Norton, 1958. (Traditional introduction to literary theories, yet very clear and concise). Aristoteles. Poetik. Griechisch/ Deutsch. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1982. (Famous fundamental treatise). Beck, Rudolf, Hildegard, and Martin Kuester. Terminologie der Literaturwissenschaft. Ein Handbuch für das Anglistikstudium. Ismaning: Hueber, 1998. (Very clear definitions and examples). <?page no="27"?> 19 B I B L I O G R A P H Y Böker, Uwe, and Christoph Houswitschka, eds. Einführung in das Studium der Anglistik und Amerikanistik. 2 nd ed. München: Beck, 2008. (Very sophisticated introduction to linguistics, literature, British and North American culture, literature and media, and teaching English; cp. Korte, Müller and Schmied). *Carter, Ronald, and John McRae. The Routledge History of Literature in English, Britain and Ireland. 2 nd ed. London: Routledge, 2001. (Readable and comprehensive, relates developments in language and literature). *Cuddon, J. A. A Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. 4 th ed. Rev. C. E. Preston. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998. (Concise and helpful explanations). Culler, Jonathan D. Literary theory: a very short introduction. Reissued. Oxford et al.: Oxford University Press, 2000. (Concise, thoughtful and entertaining). *Eckstein, Lars, ed. English Literatures Across the Globe. A Companion. Paderborn: Fink, 2007. (Innovative collection on international English literatures according to nations and regions, such as Britain, Australia or the Caribbean; brief overviews of literary developments in contexts, incl. concise readings of key texts with a stress on interand transcultural issues). Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Wahrheit und Methode. Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik. 2 nd ed. Tübingen: Mohr, 1965, quoted in: Kimmich/ Renner/ Stiegler 28-40. *Gray, Richard J. A History of American Literature. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2004. (Very accessible and very comprehensive: closely relates literary history to the formation of American identities and cultures). Hickethier, Knut. Film- und Fernsehanalyse. 4 th ed. Stuttgart and Weimar: Metzler, 2007. (Very helpful introduction with good examples). Hügli, Anton. Philosophielexikon. 7 th ed. Hamburg: Rowohlt, 2007. (Brief and clear characterisations of philosophers and explanations of important theories and concepts). Kimmich, Dorothee, Rolf Günter Renner, and Bernd Stiegler. Texte zur Literaturtheorie der Gegenwart. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1996. Korte, Barbara, Klaus Peter Müller, and Joseph Schmied. Einführung in die Anglistik. 2 nd ed. Stuttgart and Weimar: Metzler, 2004. (Comprehensive, incl. excellent annotated bibliography; cp. Böker and Houswitschka). Korte, Helmut. Einführung in die systematische Filmanalyse. 3 rd ed. Berlin: Schmidt, 2004. (Very clear and helpful guide). Löffler, Arno, Rudolf Freiburg, Dieter Petzold and Eberhard Späth. Einführung in das Studium der englischen Literatur. 7 th ed. Tübingen and Basel: Francke, 2006. (Case studies of individual texts, hands-on approach). *Marcus, Greil, and Werner Sollors. A New Literary History of America. Harvard: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009. (Very broad range of essays on history, literature and culture, such as comic strips, music, the arts, films, architecture, sports, etc.). Monaco, James. Film verstehen. Kunst, Technik, Sprache, Geschichte und Theorie des Films. 6 th ed. Reinbeck: Rowohlt, 2005. (Easily accessible, comprehensive, and richly illustrated overview of film as an art). *Nelmes, Jill, ed. An Introduction to Film Studies. 4 th ed. New York: Routledge, 2007. (Comprehensive and fascinating overview of institutions of film production, approaches to films, various genres, topics and national film traditions with numerous illustrations). *Nowak, Helge. Literature in Britain and Ireland. A history. Tübingen and Basel: Francke, 2010. (Well written and comprehensive; connects topics and styles across history). <?page no="28"?> 20 B I B L I O G R A P H Y Nünning, Ansgar, and Vera Nünning. An Introduction to the Study of English and American Literature. 5 th ed. Stuttgart: Klett, 2008. (Very concise and systematic but few examples). *Poplawski, Paul, ed. English Literature in Context. Cambridge et al.: Cambridge University Press, 2007. (Unique combination of detailed presentations of history, summaries and excerpts of historical documents, and contextual readings of individual major works). *Schabert, Ina. Englische Literaturgeschichte. Eine neue Darstellung aus der Sicht der Geschlechterforschung. Stuttgart: Kröner, 1997. (In German; unique focus on gender issues in general and women’s positions in particular). *Schabert, Ina. Englische Literaturgeschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts: : eine neue Darstellung aus der Sicht der Geschlechterforschung. Stuttgart: Kröner, 2006. (In German; unique focus on gender issues in general and women’s positions in particular). *Seeber, Hans Ulrich, ed. Englische Literaturgeschichte. 4 th ed. Stuttgart and Weimar: Metzler, 2004. (In German; comprehensive and sophisticated account of literature in context, well written, illustrated). *Wagner, Hans-Peter. A History of British, Irish, and American Literature. 2 nd ed. Trier: WVT, 2010. (All in one for those who need a concise overview of canonical works with a very brief introduction of the context; includes CD-ROM with complete text and numerous illustrations of authors, historical events and works of art). *Zapf, Hubert, ed. Amerikanische Literaturgeschichte. 2 nd ed. Stuttgart and Weimar: Metzler, 2004. (In German; comprehensive and sophisticated account of literature in context, well written, illustrated). *Strongly recommended. Please take a look at the bibliography in the chapter 5.5 for more relevant works in the fields of literary and cultural theory and history. <?page no="29"?> 21 Poetry What are poetic texts and what do we (ab)use them for? 22 Communication, speaker, situation and topic 26 Rhetorical form 30 Poetic form 45 Metre and rhythm 45 Phonological forms, stanzas and types of poems 50 Postmodern poetry 57 Guiding questions and exercises 58 Bibliography 62 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.4.1 2.4.2 2.5 2.6 2.7 Contents | 2 This chapter offers an overview of central concepts for a systematic analysis of poetry, which relates content and form. The author’s choice of a speaker in a particular situation is connected to the nature and treatment of the topic. The meanings of a poem result from the interplay between the speaker’s situation, the sequence of statements, the rhetorical and poetic forms. Patterns of sound, lines, metre and rhythm create a poetic order that can support or qualify the content. Abstract <?page no="30"?> 22 P O E T R Y What are poetic texts and what do we (ab)use them for? Poetry seems to be out of step with the rapid pace of modern life dominated by technology and the economy. However, even today poems, would-be poems and texts that use poetic forms are our faithful companions from the cradle to the grave: lullabies, nursery rhymes, proverbs, hymns, advertising slogans, Christmas carols, toasts, pop songs, rap, national anthems, birthday poems and funeral marches. How do you explain the wide gap between the interest in poetic texts outside and inside the classroom? In everyday life, songs and melodious, rhythmic texts are often easily understandable in order to support the act of memorising, to make every-one happily sing along or quickly grasp the message, for example “Max, don’t have sex with your ex”, “Wave your hands in the air like you just don’t care”, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away” or “Guinness is good for you” (“Milch macht müde Männer munter”). In the classroom, the immediate pleasure in the audible harmony, mood, images of poetic texts and in the communal experience of singing songs together is often displaced by the mechanical analysis of rhyme schemes and the counting of stressed syllables or “worse”, by the painful attempt to make sense of the strange uses of words in stranger poems that do not even have rhyme or metre. However, many poems share quite a few features with nursery rhymes (Kinderreime), which we used to like in our childhood: Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall, All the king’s horses and all the king’s men Couldn’t put Humpty together again. This poem draws attention to its poetic language by the repetition of words, rhymes and rhythmic patterns in verse (“verse” designates a single line or poetry in general as opposed to prose; Vers/ zeile). It poses a riddle: who or rather what is Humpty Dumpty? The follow- 2.1 | Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar things be as if they were not familiar. Percy Bysshe Shelley, A Defence of Poetry, 1821. Poetry should be elbowed out of our working world to make room for machinery. Sarah Ellis, 1839. Nursery rhymes as riddles <?page no="31"?> 23 W H A T A R E P O E T I C T E X T S ? ing example of a common nursery rhyme is a little more demanding because the solution of its riddle is not obvious: Three blind mice, three blind mice, See how they run, see how they run. They all ran after the farmer’s wife; She cut off their tails with a carving knife, Did ever you see such a sight in your life As three blind mice? (anon., Whittaker 169) As in the first traditional children’s song, the speaker remains anonymous. The striking connection of key words by the diphthong / ai/ creates a strong order and harmony in opposition to the gruesome content this chain of words suggests: blind, mice, wife, knife, sight, life. The story it tells is ambiguous and provokes many questions: why are the three mice blind? Why are they running? Why did they run after the farmer’s wife? Why did she cut off their tails instead of chasing or killing them? Children might have received or come up with the answers that if the mice had not been blind they would not have come near the woman, or that she was annoyed by the mice and taught them a lesson, which they learned because now they are fleeing from her (for “adult” interpretations see psychoanalytic and structuralist criticism, 163-69, 171-75). The poem stresses the opposition between (in)sight and blindness by the repetitions of “see” and “blind”. The nursery rhyme makes us vividly imagine three mice on the run, but what is the lesson? Should children beware of mice or of women except their own mothers? The final question of the poem draws our attention to the fact that art makes us see something new that, in all probability, we never observe in real life. The American modernist Ezra Pound (1885-1972) also wanted poetry to show new and challenging views at the beginning of the 20 th century: In a Station of the Metro The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough. (1913, NAAL 2: 1206) Modernist poetry: new images <?page no="32"?> 24 P O E T R Y The title of the poem refers to the underground railway in Paris. There is no explicit speaker but rather an anonymous voice. This imagist poem presents two sights but leaves the insight up to you: it is a sort of riddle. Regular commuters on the underground railway tend to ignore the familiar hustle and bustle and look inward rather than outward. Here, a vague phenomenon suddenly sparks off an association and acquires beauty in the eye of the beholder: faces set off from the background of the crowd parallel with light petals on a dark bough. The analogy between the images and the fact that the (back)ground is essential to the appearance of visual figures is stressed by the similarity of the dark vowels in “crowd” and “bough”. In a unique way, the poem combines two images related by visual parallels and divided by the difference between culture and nature. The speaker is implicit as a voice, a site of observation and association in order to stress the significance of the images themselves. The special impact of the poem is less based on the reference to a real underground station or on the subjective expression of innermost feelings but on its own self-referential value due to its particular juxtaposition of two images. This poem generates a new aesthetic experience of beauty and defamiliarises (verfremdet) our perception of ordinary sights. These brief examples show that poetry can be anything between epic, a story in verse, and lyric, a short, subjective, melodious poem (not to be mixed up with lyrics, the words of a song; dramatic features can be found in monologues and ballads). Differences in poetic Fig. 2.1 | The American poet, critic and editor Ezra Pound (1885-1972) lived mainly in England, France and Italy. He wrote epigrammatic, imagist poems as well as highly elaborate, wide-ranging sequences of poems (e.g. Hugh Selwyn Mauberley, 1920; Cantos, 1915-40) that combine his extensive knowledge of Asian and European culture and history with the criticism of capitalism. He translated poetry from many languages and promoted other writers, such as James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway and T.S. Eliot. His close association with Italian fascism in World War II led to his confinement in an American mental asylum until 1958. <?page no="33"?> 25 W H A T A R E P O E T I C T E X T S ? Poetry as mirror of reality or expression of subjectivity modes and forms are related to changing cultural functions of poets and poetry. For example, the neo-classical English author Alexander Pope (1688-1744) saw himself as a representative of society, taste, reason and order. He claimed that poetry should form a mirror of reality and represent general truth in a clear and elevated style: “What oft was thought, but ne’er so well expressed” (An Essay on Criticism, 1709/ 11, NAEL 2: 2515). In opposition, the English Romantic poet William Wordsworth (1770-1850) maintained that “poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from the emotion recollected in tranquillity” (Preface to Lyrical Ballads, 1800/ 1802, NAEL 2: 250) in a language that resembles the ordinary one but is pleasantly refined by poetic means. He stressed the function of the subjective imagination in visionary poetry, in which “ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual way” (NAEL 1: 241) in order to stimulate and sharpen minds blunted by the monotonous modern life and the flood of sensational information. Thus, Wordsworth’s poetry is also politics. His expressive subjectivity stresses the value of individual insight as against public opinion. His predilection for nature as a home and source of inspiration leaves society with its alienating social conventions behind, and the attention the poet gives to outcasts as valuable poetic subjects inverts social disrespect and marginalisation. In turn, modernist poetry takes features from both traditions because it was more interested in impersonality than in soul-searching, but presupposed that individual consciousness is our reality. Whatever differences in subjectivity, topic and style, poetry can be primarily defined as ˘ language cast in verse, frequently revealing these additional features: ˘ a subjective first-person speaker or voice, ˘ brevity, concentration and reduction, ˘ an unusual use of words and phrases, ˘ suggestive imagery, ˘ rhythm and metre, ˘ repetition of sounds, ˘ lines grouped in stanzas. Poetry: definition and features <?page no="34"?> 26 P O E T R Y Communication, speaker, situation and topic It would be wrong to identify the explicit speaker or persona (lyrisches Ich or Maske) or the implicit voice (Stimme) with the real author because every poem defines its speaker by his/ her mood (Stimmung), tone (attitude, Haltung), questions and statements in a fictional situation, which need not be based on autobiographical experience. Within the text, a persona or a voice presents his/ her present feelings, observations and reflections to an implicit or explicit listener or fictive addressee (Adressat). If you merely talk about the content, you ignore the fact that the poem itself is based on literary conventions, which provide a framework for writing and reading. The speaker on the level of the content usually does not know that he/ she is in a poem. The author’s composition of imagery, verse, rhythm, sound and stanza can support or counteract the persona’s utterance to various degrees. The reader has to respect the signals of verse: “Attention! Read slowly and move on in rhythmic steps. Watch the language.” Names and personal pronouns tell us who speaks to whom. The question is in which way the speaker, who assumes the self-reflexive pronoun “I”, characterises him/ herself directly and indirectly via his/ her relationship to the content and the addressee. Therefore, a circular analysis identifies the pronouns and the topic, and then expands the first insight by a close reading of the complete text. The way the speaker addresses a listener or him/ herself, the time and place of the situation, the presentation and unfolding of the topic are of great importance. 2.2 | Fig. 2.2 | Poetic communication. External communication of the poem [ Composition - literary conventions [ Internal communication of the poem Speaker/ voice Y Explicit/ implicit addressee Real author Y Real reader Author - speaker - addressee <?page no="35"?> 27 C O M M U N I C A T I O N , S P E A K E R , S I T U A T I O N A N D T O P I C The English author Michael Drayton (1563-1631) explores the love between “I” and “you” from the perspective of the first person: Since there’s no help, come, let us kiss and part; Nay, I have done, you get no more of me, And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart That thus so cleanly I myself can free. Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows, And when we meet at any time again, Be it not seen in either of our brows That we one jot of former love retain. Now at the last gasp of love’s latest breath, When, his pulse failing, passion speechless lies, When faith is kneeling by his bed of death, And innocence is closing up his eyes; Now if thou wouldst, when all have given him over, From death to life thou mightst him yet recover. (NAEL 1: 967-68) The speaker wavers between attraction and separation, expressed in the appeal to “kiss and part”, and the use of the pronouns “we” and “us” versus “I” and “you”. The speaker already apprehends what it will be like after they have broken up but, after having detailed the dying of love, suddenly turns to ask the partner to revive their love. The author’s composition of the English sonnet (engl. Sonett: abab cdcd efef gg) establishes a framework for the development of the argument. In the first quatrain (four lines), the excited speaker expresses relief about the end of the relationship, stressed by short phrases, emphatic expressions (“nay”, “yea”) and repetitions of “no” and “glad”. The second quatrain anticipates the future after their separation but ambiguously suggests that the speaker is not as free from love as claimed before by ruling out the possibility of betraying any sign of love in the future. The author’s rhymes belie the speaker’s denial of love: “vows” - “again” - “brows” - “retain”. This tension between the persona and the author is confirmed in the next quartet because the persona delineates the slow death of “love”, which the author wraps in an allegory of personifications that is clearly at some remove from the direct expression of emotions. The couplet at the end offers a sudden turn, which is neatly captured in the semantic reversal of the eye rhyme “over” - “re- Love in the English sonnet <?page no="36"?> 28 P O E T R Y cover” (similar spelling but different pronunciation). The speaker, who proposed to break up the relationship, asks his/ her partner to save it in the end. After all, the basic opposition between life and death parallels that between being together and apart and undermines the initial happiness about the separation. In a way, Drayton explores subjective emotions that characterise difficult love-relationships in general. The Romantic Wordsworth takes care to express unique subjective emotions: She dwelt among the untrodden ways Beside the springs of Dove, A Maid whom there were none to praise And very few to love: A violet by a mossy stone Half hidden from the eye! - Fair as a star, when only one Is shining in the sky. She lived unknown, and few could know When Lucy ceased to be; But she is in her grave, and, oh, The difference to me! (1799/ 1800, NAEL 2: 252) Fig. 2.3 | The English poet William Wordsworth (1770-1850) lost both of his parents quite early. He considered childhood as the formative period in life: “The Child is Father of the Man” (“Ode. Intimations of Immortality”). His poetry of loss and memory gave preference to imaginative and visionary experience rather than mere sense perception. The poor and the social outcasts seemed to him subjects worthy of serious poems. He published a seminal collection of Romantic poetry, the Lyrical Ballads, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1798. Love in Romantic poetry <?page no="37"?> 29 C O M M U N I C A T I O N , S P E A K E R , S I T U A T I O N A N D T O P I C The poem does not praise the girl’s individual nature as an attractive feature. On the contrary: the speaker undermines his comparison of the girl to a star in an almost ironic way because she is considered beautiful only when no rival is around. The speaker distinguishes himself from others by the particular way he sees and loves Lucy, whom he seems to commemorate less for her sake than for his own. The poem displays an egocentric self because it begins like an epitaph to the unknown girl, putting her down rather than praising her in the middle, and ends with his own elegiac feelings. The poem moves from “She” to “me”, and the speaker talks to himself. Even in poems with an explicit addressee, the “I” and “you” need not take turns as in a real dialogue if the other is addressed in the mind of the persona. Usually, the reader overhears the persona talking to him/ herself rather than listening to a conversation. A dramatic monologue (dramatischer Monolog) implies the presence of a listener and insists on the difference between author and persona, who is given a name that defines the pronoun “I”. In T. S. Eliot’s (US/ GB, 1888-1965) dramatic monologue “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, the persona asks an addressee to come along: Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherised upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent To lead you to an overwhelming question . . . Oh, do not ask ‘What is it? ’ Let us go and make our visit. [. . .] (1918/ 19, NAAL 2: 1268) It soon becomes obvious that we learn less about the party to be visited than about the melancholy mind of a shy and introspective character: the author’s title “Love Song” is ironic and creates a distance towards the persona. The rhyme alludes to the fact that “our Monologue versus dialogue Love in modernist poetry <?page no="38"?> 30 P O E T R Y visit” contains the answer to “What is it? ” because the company of others triggers his tortured self-reflections and sets off his uncertainty and isolation. In many poems, we cannot find a speaker or an explicit addressee at all. For example, Ezra Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro” (see above, 2.1, 23) foregrounds images of objects. The question is whether and how subjectivity figures in poems without an explicit speaker. In sum, we have to ask who says what to whom in which way and for which reasons. The author has numerous options to shape the persona’s utterance: figurative speech, sound, metre, rhythm, verse, stanzas and types of poems. Rhetorical form Why don’t we say directly what we mean but use figurative language (uneigentliche Sprache)? What do you mean when you say that someone is “cool”? This individual may be in control of his/ her feelings, uninvolved and disinterested or attractive and interesting. Figurative language often helps to “grasp” phenomena by replacing abstract concepts with concrete ones. The traditional definition of “cool” emotions forms the opposite of our images of warm feelings and hot passion. Modern definitions of “cool” vary according to user, reference and situation. The frequent use of images no longer draws attention to its difference from literal language (eigentliche Sprache). Native speakers are familiar with the expressions “to pull Fig. 2.4 | The poet, dramatist, critic and editor Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965) emigrated from the US to England. His poems The Waste Land (1922) and The Four Quartets (1935-42) reveal an in-depth knowledge of the European cultural tradition and a sharp, disillusioned perception of contemporary life expressed in versatile poetic form. Andrew Lloyd Webber turned his book of children’s verse, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (1939), into the lyrics of his musical Cats. 2.3 | <?page no="39"?> 31 R H E T O R I C A L F O R M someone’s leg”, the “leg” (part) of a race, and the legs of a chair, and would not think about the image. Kurt Seligmann’s sculpture plays with this image: The term “figurative language” refers to tropes (Wortfiguren) and schemes or figures of speech (Satzfiguren). The most common trope is the simile (Vergleich), which connects two concepts by “like” or “as”. If a simile (or a metaphor) links two extremely different concepts in a striking and often complex way, it is called a conceit (ital. concetto: concept). For example, T. S. Eliot begins “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” with the lines: “Let us go then, you and I / when the evening is spread out against the sky / like a patient etherised upon a table”. The initial harmony in content, rhythm and sound evokes a romantic mood, which is undermined by the strange simile of an anaesthetised patient. The benighted consciousness compares to the dusky sky and comments unfavourably on sentimentality. - The Northern Irish writer Louis MacNeice (1907-63) compares the readers in the “British Museum Reading Room”, who flee everyday life and reality, with bats in a cave: Cranks, hacks, poverty-stricken scholars [. . .] Some are too much alive and some are asleep Hanging like bats in a world of inverted values, Folded up in themselves in a world which is safe and silent: This is the British Museum Reading Room. [. . .] (Rosengarten/ Goldrick-Jones 563) The metaphor (Metapher) has been defined as 1) a shortened or implicit comparison, which substitutes one concept for another, or 2) as an interac- | Fig. 2.5 Kurt Seligmann inverts the metaphor that attributes legs to a chair in Das Ultra-Möbelstück (1938). Here, you would sit down as if on a woman’s lap. The bare knees (before miniskirts were known) carry an erotic connotation. Forms of figurative language Metaphor <?page no="40"?> 32 P O E T R Y tion between two concepts, which transfers meanings. According to the first understanding, the metaphor presupposes a ground of similarity between the tenor (Gemeintes, Bildempfänger) and the image or vehicle (Bildspender). According to the second definition, the metaphor does more because it asks us to see x as y, to regard something in a new light (Bode 94). A metaphor appears in many forms: it combines two nouns (“Jessica, the bird of paradise”), a noun and a verb (“Time flies.”), a qualifier and a noun (“stinging pain”), or it takes the shape of a statement (“Edmund is a pig.”). Even the common last example shows that a metaphor does more than a simile (e.g.: Edmund eats like a pig) because we can rephrase the metaphor in many ways: Edmund is as fat/ dirty/ greedy/ noisy/ vulgar as a pig. Pound’s poem “In a Station of the Metro” (see above, 2.1, 23) offers the “Petals on a wet, black bough” as a metaphor for “these faces in the crowd”, which sparks off associations and asks us to transfer meanings. If the metaphor suggests the promise of new life in a fresh spring rain, how does that relate to people that might have fled from the rain into the station, waiting in dripping wet coats for the train? In recent decades, Cognitive Linguistics has explored metaphor and metonymy as conceptual tools in everyday language, which forms the basis of their imaginative use in poetry. Cognitive linguists argue that metaphor is founded on experience in cultural contexts, and that a conceptual metaphor forms a matrix for linguistic metaphors expressed in words. For example, “food” as a source domain serves to conceptualise “ideas” as a target domain. In his essay “Of Studies” (1625), the English politician and philosopher Francis Bacon (1561-1626) writes: “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to Fig. 2.6 | Conceptual metaphor and linguistic expressions. —————————Y Expressions: tasting, chewing, swallowing, digesting Source domain FOOD Target domain IDEAS <?page no="41"?> 33 R H E T O R I C A L F O R M Cognitive Linguistics looks at the basic source and target domains of conceptual metaphors in Western cultures (following Kövecses 17-31). | Fig. 2.7 be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention” (NAEL 1: 1268). Sometimes we have to deal with half-baked ideas, swallow a claim or chew over proposals: the mental processing of ideas is understood in terms of Source domain Target domains Linguistic expressions The human body Politics; society; thought She’s the head of the family/ nation. He probed the heart of the problem. Health and illness Mental activities; society A sick mind; the ills of society Animals Events and actions; Hogging the road; a dogeconomy; life and eat-dog business; a dog’s relationships life; going to the dogs Plants Economy, relationships Exports flourished last year. Their love was budding. Cooking and food Thought, communication He cooked up a story. She spiced up her conversation with humour. Games and sport Politics, economy He’s a heavyweight politician. BP is a global player. Forces, movement Thought; action; She solved the problem step and direction emotions; relationships by step. She was moved. You’re driving me nuts. Heat and cold Emotions; desire A cold reception; in the heat of the moment; burning with desire Light and darkness Morality; thought; A shady character; a cloud of emotions; life and death suspicion; he left me in the dark about his plans; a dark mood; eternal night Machines and tools Communication; thought He hammered the point home; the hardware of the brain Buildings and Economy; relationships He is in ruins financially. constructions They built a strong marriage. Economic Time; morality Spend your time wisely. Transactions I’ll pay you back for this. <?page no="42"?> 34 P O E T R Y Fig. 2.8 | A metonymy singles out a target entity within one conceptual domain, a strategy often applied in stereotyping. Conceptual domain: HUMAN BEING Cripple Cyclist Black Jew A new face Farm hand White-collar worker the more palpable, material processing of food (cp. Kövecses 6-7). To give another example, concepts of “emotions” are often captured in terms of “temperature” and “fluids”. We may admire someone who keeps a cool head in a heated debate but feel better around a warm(-hearted) individual (cp. Niemeyer). Our experience of body temperature rising with excitement and warmth felt at bodily contact forms the basis of this metaphor. The concept of “anger” is conceived as hot “fluid” in a “container”. The temperature signifies intensity, the fluid visualises anger, the container the body, the cause of increasing pressure the cause of anger, which may build up, well up, steam up until we burst with anger, blow a fuse or explode (Kövecses 123-26). Metaphor constructs similarity between two different conceptual domains that are not related to each other in the real world (“Life is a journey”). Metonymy employs contiguity, the difference of related elements within one and the same conceptual domain, for example highlighting a part that is related to the whole or a whole related to a part in the real world (McDonald’s for the U.S., the continent of America for the U.S). Sometimes, a part represents another part of an event, in which (a) an agent (b) performs actions (c) in particular ways (d) with certain results (“to author a book”; “she tiptoed to her bed”; Kövecses 181-82). While metonymy involves a single domain, metaphor involves two distant domains. [. . .] While metonymy is largely used to provide access to a single target entity within a single domain, metaphor is primarily used to understand a whole system of entities in terms of another system. (Kövecses 192) <?page no="43"?> 35 R H E T O R I C A L F O R M The metonymy (Metonymie) does not, like the metaphor, explore new meanings but rather varies the focus within the same frame of reference. Typical examples are: ˘ The crown as a sign of status and function replaces the queen. ˘ An abstract noun stands for an institution (“Faith against abortion.”). ˘ The name of a place represents its inhabitants (“Manchester welcomes the champions.”). ˘ The place indicates the product (“He drank java from a China cup.”). ˘ The place alludes to an event (“Iraq may become another Vietnam.”). ˘ The name of an author signifies his/ her work (“Have you read Virginia Woolf? ”). ˘ The cause replaces the effect or vice versa (“Have you got a light? ”; the drugs “ecstasy”; “speed”). ˘ The means are used instead of the end (“She spoke her native tongue.”). ˘ The container refers to the content (“Have one more glass.”). ˘ The possessor is replaced by the possessed (“She married money.”). ˘ The instrument stands for the action (“She shampooed her hair and went skiing.”). ˘ The agent signifies the action (“He butchered a cow.”). ˘ The action aims at the object (“Give me a bite, please.”). ˘ The action represents the result (“He had a deep cut in his forehead.”). ˘ The effect typifies the cause or vice versa (“He was her ruin.” “The car screeched to a halt.”). The synecdoche, which is often understood as a kind of metonymy, uses the part for the whole (pars pro toto) or the whole for the part (totum pro parte) for reasons of variation or foregrounding particular aspects or general functions: ˘ A part replaces the whole (“a roof over one’s head”) or vice versa. ˘ The singular is used instead of the plural (“Man is selfish and cruel.”) or vice versa. ˘ The material reduces the object (“the woolly kind”: sheep). Synecdoche Metonymy <?page no="44"?> Example: Cognitive poetic analysis 36 P O E T R Y Poets often transform the metaphoric source domains of everyday use in an unusual way, combine sources or question metaphors (Kövecses 49-55). The American poet Robert Frost (1874-1963) employs the familiar concept of “Life is a journey” in a unique way in his poem “The Road not Taken” (1916) by depicting diverging roads and pointing out that taking a turn few others took singles the traveller out from the mass (Lakoff and Turner 3-4, 121; Kövecses 35, 53): Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. Representative Poetry Online (http: / / rpo.library.utoronto.ca/ poem/ 854.html) <?page no="45"?> 37 R H E T O R I C A L F O R M The cognitive perspective spells out the conceptual metaphor of “life is a journey” as follows: an individual is a traveller, the time of his life a movement through space with the beginning in birth and the ending in death. These fairly simple equations become more ambiguous in the poem, as does other imagery. The specific quality of the location, “a yellow wood”, and the problem of a decision between two equally valid alternatives pose crucial problems. In the poem associated with New England via the poet’s residence, the colourful “wood” and the leaves on the roads suggest Indian Summer, but the future retrospect at the end of the poem alludes to a situation early in life, so that the poem seems to pre-empt taking the seasons as a metaphor for stages in life. The bright colour of the forest suggests a positive mood and outlook on life, in defiance of the more conventional metaphor of the dark forest as a space of fear and the potential loss of orientation. However, the poem qualifies this optimism by a specific use of the cognitive metaphors of “seeing is knowing” and “time is space”. Looking down the road as far as one can see can be taken as a metaphor of the attempt to anticipate the future in order to assess one’s present options. The bend in the road and the undergrowth limit the sight and metaphorically express ignorance and uncertainty about the future. An aspect that “perhaps” makes the chosen road more attractive, the grass, becomes ambiguous given the connotation of the proverb that the grass is always greener on the other side of the hill, which metaphorically alludes to the (delusive) hope for better opportunities elsewhere. The desire to return one day and explore the alternative, to have the cake and eat it, is foiled by doubt and the anticipated retrospect. Picking the road less traveled makes a difference, but the metonymic “sigh” expresses uncertainty whether the choice was truly better. While simile and metaphor discover similarities in two words that sound differently, the pun (Wortspiel, Paronomasie) plays with the meanings of two words that are pronounced in the same way. Puns are often used in jokes: Who invented the four-day working week? Robinson: he had all his work done by Friday. - Grandma says: “Men are like linoleum floors: Lay them right and you can walk over them for 30 years.” Allegory and personification transform a general, abstract concept into a human agent. Sometimes, a whole story is considered as an allegory, such as John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (see 1.1, 5), Pun Allegory and personification <?page no="46"?> which conveys a Puritan understanding of an ideal life in the protagonist “Christian” and his journey through the earthly valley of humiliation to the celestial city. Personification is not restricted to poetic use. If a “currency is ailing” or a “war ravages” a country, the origins of the problems and the responsibilities of agents are conveniently ignored in order to convey the impression of an event beyond human intervention. Without personification, cartoons and animated movies would be half as entertaining. 38 P O E T R Y Fig. 2.9 | Uncle Sam has personified the United States of America for almost 200 years, most famously on a poster with the slogan “I want you for U.S. Army” before WW I and WW II. The stars and stripes metonymically refer to the national banner and, here, the empty hands and pockets with holes stand metonymically for the immense national debt in the early 21 st century. Task Fig. 2.10 | Discuss the imagery combined to define Justice. <?page no="47"?> 39 R H E T O R I C A L F O R M In the allegory of justice, a young woman personifies innocence as opposed to the corruption she is to judge. The blindfold is a metaphor of her lack of prejudice inverting the conceptual metaphor “seeing is knowing”, the scales a metaphorical guarantee of the fair “weighing” of evidence and guilt, and the sword a metonymy of punishment (since it was an instrument of justice). The function of a trope has to be explained in context. Drayton’s sonnet (see above, 2.2, 27) personifies love, passion, faith and innocence, who enact a minute play of dying emotions. In “Daffodils”, Wordsworth personifies flowers in order to convey the isolated poet’s enjoyment of nature as a substitute for alienating society: I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o’er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed - and gazed - but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought: For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils. (1804/ 1807, NAEL 2: 284-85) The function of tropes <?page no="48"?> 40 P O E T R Y The symbol evokes a concrete phenomenon which points to abstract, often more general and ambiguous meanings. We consider many things “symbolic” in a very general sense in everyday life: white symbolises innocence, a red rose love, black clothes mourning, a dove peace, a flag a nation, broad white stripes on the tar a pedestrian crossing. Cultural conventions specify the meanings of traditional symbols. Artists recycle conventional symbols or create new ones, which challenge the reader to discover new and complex meanings. For example, the American poet Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49) expands the traditional meaning of the bird of ill omen, “The Raven”. A young man, who fell asleep while reading a strange old book around midnight, envisions a raven, which responds with the single answer “Nevermore” to all of his questions. The young man asks the raven whether he would relieve him of his painful memory of the dead Lenore or he would meet her again after death, but then he becomes annoyed with the obscure bird: “Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore! Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken! Leave my loneliness unbroken! - quit the bust above my door! Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door! ” Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.” And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting [. . .] And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor; And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted - nevermore! (1845, NAAL 1: 1372) Fig. 2.11 | The poet, short story writer and critic Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849) suffered from poverty and alcoholism. He appreciated a sense of mystery and the macabre, the musical quality and aesthetic effect of language. His fascination with passions and madness in his poems and his tales of horror complement his interest in the intelligent analysis of crimes in his tales of ratiocination. Symbol <?page no="49"?> 41 R H E T O R I C A L F O R M This raven symbolises the powers of frustration, meaninglessness, melancholy, despair and darkness, which haunt the young man. The Irish poet William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) creates the symbol of the “gyre” (zirkuläre Bewegung) in “The Second Coming” (1920/ 21): Turning and Turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. [. . .] (NAEL 2: 2106-07) The widening circulation, which is calm and graceful to observe in the flight of birds of prey, assumes a general significance as it is connected to a growing spiral of disruption and chaos in an apocalyptic world. Other prominent tropes include emphasis (Betonung), which is often highlighted by an unusual position of a word in the line (“mercy” in the example below), euphemism (Beschönigung), which embellishes a phenomenon (“the big sleep” for death), exaggeration in hyperbole (Hyperbel) and understatement in the negation of litotes (“The dinner was not bad.”). In verbal irony, the opposite of what is said is meant. In situational irony, the opposite of what is expected occurs. How do you spot irony? The de- | Fig. 2.12 Further forms of tropes The Anglo-Irish poet, dramatist and prose writer William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) was torn between his commitments to art and to politics. He promoted the Irish folk tradition, wrote poems and plays based on Celtic mythology, served in the new Irish senate, directed the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, and created modernist poetry with accomplished style and powerful symbols based on his own visionary system of ideas. Irony <?page no="50"?> 42 P O E T R Y tection of irony depends upon the frame of reference and the underlying values. In the following text, the ex-slave and first African American poet Phillis Wheatley (ca 1753-84) shows no evidence that denies her embracing of Christianity as a liberating force in spite of its discriminating colour symbolism: ‘Twas mercy brought me from my pagan land, Taught my benighted soul to understand That there’s a God, that there’s a Saviour too: Once I redemption neither sought nor knew. Some view our sable race with scornful eye, “Their colour is a diabolic die.” Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain, May be refin’d, and join th’angelic train. (1773, NAAL 1: 729) A secular reader may think that “mercy” was used ironically because the gain of faith could hardly outweigh the loss of freedom by slavery. However, instead of verbal irony we can find situational irony in the fact that temporal slavery initiates the captive into Christianity and therefore helps her to acquire eternal spiritual liberation. At a time when poetry was highly appreciated and many white Americans considered African slaves as subhuman, Phyllis Wheatley’s writing of a formally accomplished poem in itself was a political act, making a claim to humanity and demonstrating a superb cultivation most American citizens did not even dream of acquiring. Fig. 2.13 | Phillis Wheatley (ca 1753-1784) was kidnapped as a girl in West Africa and sold into slavery in the US. Having learned to read and write, the teenager began to compose poetry, combining traces of Africa with ideas of Western culture in European poetic forms. Her popularity may have contributed to her liberation but did not prevent her from dying in poverty. The meaning of form <?page no="51"?> 43 R H E T O R I C A L F O R M Schemes (Satzfiguren) deviate from ordinary syntax by the special arrangement of words or phrases. The inversion of the word order is a favourite means of emphasis in a language that prefers a rather rigid word order of subject + verb + object: “A woman’s face with Nature’s own hand painted / Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion” (Sonnet 20, 1609, Shakespeare, 1564-1616, NAEL 1: 1031). Figures of repetition insist on importance and urgency. The use of anaphora (Anapher) repeats words at the beginning of lines, epiphora (Epipher) at the ending of lines as compared to the immediate repetition (Geminatio) of words: “Tyger! Tyger! burning bright / In the forests of the night, [. . .] Did he smile his work to see? / Did he who made the Lamb make thee? ” (1789-94, William Blake, GB, 1757- 1827, NAEL 2: 54). Parallelism, the parallel construction of phrases, is varied by chiasmus, repetition in inverted order. John Donne (GB, 1572-1631) uses chiasmus in his poem “The Sun Rising” in order to present love as the perfect conjunction of opposites in the chauvinist metaphors of female states that need male rulers. In parallelism, he neatly captures the statement that, in comparison to love, honour is just as inferior as money: | Fig. 2.14 The English poet and artist Blake (1757- 1827) earned his living by illustrating texts, engraving designs and printing books. His Songs of Innocence and Experience (1794) reveal the irreconcilable contradiction between good and evil, an idyllic paradise and a fallen, corrupt world. The provocative and prophetic rebel expressed his radical ideas of sexual, religious and political liberation in visionary and mythical poems. Parallelism and chiasmus Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare seize the fire? And what shoulder, & what art Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? & what dread feet? What the hammer? What the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? What dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors clasp? When the stars threw down their spears And water'd heaven with their tears, Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? (1790-92; NAEL 2: 54) Schemes <?page no="52"?> 44 P O E T R Y She is all states, and all princes I, Nothing else is. Princes do but play us; compar’d to this, All honor’s mimic, all wealth alchemy. [. . . ] (1633, NAEL 1: 1239) The asyndeton joins words or phrases by commas only, the polysyndeton by conjunctions. These forms often serve emphasis or gradation. The American poet Carl Sandburg (1878-1967) stresses the activities and functions of Chicago by using the means of asyndeton at the beginning and the end of his poem on this city: Hog Butcher for the World, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and the Nation’s Freight Handler; Stormy, husky, brawling, City of the Big Shoulders: They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys. And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again. And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger. And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them: Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning. Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities; Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness, Bareheaded, Shoveling, Wrecking, Planning, Building, breaking, rebuilding, Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth, Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs, Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle, Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his ribs Asyndeton and polysyndeton <?page no="53"?> 45 P O E T I C F O R M the heart of the people, Laughing! Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation. (1914/ 16, NAAL 2: 1139) Matthew Arnold (GB, 1822-88) uses polysyndeton to emphasise despair about the world in “Dover Beach”: [. . .] Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain [. . .] (1867, NAEL 2: 1492) Oscar Wilde was a master of the epigrammatic paradox, which is a statement that seems to be contradictory and true at the same time (“The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it”; “In this world, there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. The last is much the worst.”). The oxymoron can be seen as a condensed version of the paradox because it combines two contradictory terms, such as the interesting expression “wise fool” and the deceptive phrase “war for peace”. In order to understand figurative language, you need to know the basic literal and metaphorical uses of a word, but above all, ask the question: “What does figurative language do to the meanings of individual words or phrases in this context? ” Poetic form Metre and rhythm Generations of intelligent students have despaired over the questions of how to find out about poetic metre and rhythm, and what they mean. To begin at the beginning: each of us has rhythm - at | 2.4 | 2.4.1 The difference between rhythm and metre Paradox Oxymoron <?page no="54"?> least the rhythm of breathing, heartbeat and the way we walk. If your heart beats with the metric regularity of a metronome, your health may be sound but something in your life may go wrong. Life and poetry are interesting if marked by a dynamic tension between the expected regularity and unforeseen irregularity. Our hearts and poems call for particular attention at missing or extra beats, the speeding up and slowing down of rhythm. Oral speech has a dynamic rhythm that is based on the volume of our breath, the word accent, the word order, the syntactic pattern of phrases and the stress of particular words for emphasis. Metre (Metrum, Versmaß) is a highly artificial and perfectly regular sequence of stressed and unstressed syllables in lines of verse. A first very slow and mechanical reading of a poem tells you whether it has a metre. If you mark the stressed and unstressed syllables of the metre, your second reading for sense will show where you stress other syllables and deviate from the pattern of the metre. Thus the question is less metre or rhythm but the tension between them. In particular, attention is due to 1) the word accent (see dictionary), 2) the maintenance of a harmonic pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables, 3) the emphasis on specific words according to their relevance for the statement, and 4) the relationship between syntax and verse. 46 P O E T R Y Finding out about metre and rhythm 1 Convention determines stress in words. The “record” (/ x) takes a stress on the first syllable, “to record” (x / ) on the second. 2 The metre is defined by the kind and number of feet (Versfüße), a particular sequence of stressed and unstressed syllables: ˘ iamb (Jambus): unstressed - stressed (x / , “above”), ˘ trochee (Trochäus): stressed - unstressed (/ x, “falling”), ˘ spondee (Spondäus): two stressed (/ / , “artwork”), ˘ dactyl (Daktylus): stressed - two unstressed (/ x x, “damnable”, “Daktylus”), ˘ anapaest (Anapäst): two unstressed - stressed (x x / , “marguerite”, “Anapäst”). The most frequent numbers of feet are called: ˘ trimeter (Dreiheber): “That I did always love” (Emily Dickinson, US, 1830-86), <?page no="55"?> 47 P O E T I C F O R M ˘ tetrameter (Vierheber): “Goe, and catche a falling starre” (John Donne, “Song”), ˘ pentameter (Fünfheber): “When I do count the clock that tells the time” (William Shakespeare, Sonnet 12). 3 We usually emphasise adjectives, verbs and nouns but not articles, prepositions and conjunctions. Stress makes a difference. The question “You did that to him? ” (/ x / x / ) can make various points: a special emphasis on “You” expresses surprise about the character of the agent (/ x x x x), on “that” implies that the action is unusual or incredible (x x / x x), and on the last word that “he” is a person who would not accept anything of the sort (x x x x / ). 4 The boundaries of lines and syntactic units influence the tempo and breaks of the rhythm. The end-stopped line (Zeilenstil) requires a little pause at the end of the line that agrees with a syntactic unit. The run-on line (Zeilensprung, Enjambement) demands that the reader passes over the end of the line because the sentence moves on into the next verse. A comma, colon or full stop within a line of verse indicates a pause (caesura, Zäsur). The rhythmic dynamics of a poem is determined by the tension between the line of verse and the syntactical order (Bode 41). Task Read out and scan (to mark the stresses, skandieren) the first stanza of Wordsworth’s “Daffodils” (see above, 2.3, 39), and analyse in which way it supports or qualifies the content. Your metric reading of the iambic tetrameter would stress “as” in the first line, “-ils” in the fourth and “in” in the sixth. However, the sense of rhythm according to meaning and the conventional stress of “daffodil” (/ xx) allows for minor stresses only. The beginning of the sixth line inverts the iamb and adds one syllable: “Fluttering” (/ xx). The first line runs on into the second, whereas line four and five are marked by caesuras. The regular metre creates an underlying harmony. The drifting movement is mirrored by the run-on line. The caesuras suggest that the speaker struggles to come to terms with the sudden overwhelming impressions of nature. The rhythmic deviation of “fluttering” performs the irregular movement expressed by this word in contrast with the regular “dancing”. <?page no="56"?> 48 P O E T R Y Free verse Scan the nursery rhymes “Humpty Dumpty” and “Three blind mice”, quoted above (2.1, 22-23). They do not have one regular metre but are certainly very rhythmic, using a combination of various feet which is called sprung rhythm. Whereas “Humpty Dumpty” prefers trochees and dactyls, “Three blind mice” begins and ends with a sequence of single stressed syllables and privileges iambs and anapaests in the middle. Sprung rhythm provides a particularly vivid and dynamic pattern that comes close to emphatic oral speech. Free verse (freier Vers) in verse paragraphs is even more akin to ordinary speech or prose. Metric poetry can be compared to the regular figures of classical ballet, free verse to the variable movements of modern dance, whose patterns are very flexible but nevertheless follow a choreography. T. S. Eliot’s poetry wavers between metric patterns and free verse, a form that corresponds to his belief that a good knowledge of poetic tradition is the basis of innovation (see “The Love Song”, 2.2, 29). The American poet Walt Whitman (1819- 92) celebrated the ordinary man and liberty in democray in a poetic language liberated from the chains of rhyme, metre and traditional stanza. His form of free verse creates rhythm on top of the stress on meaningful words by the repetition of sounds, words and phrases in rather long lines: Task Fig. 2.15 | Walt Whitman (1819-1892) worked as a schoolteacher and journalist. He continuously revised and expanded his verse collection Leaves of Grass (1855ff.), which provoked the public by celebrating the body, himself, the individual and the common people in highly emotional free verse. <?page no="57"?> 49 P O E T I C F O R M Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son, Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking and breeding, No sentimentalist, no stander above men and women or apart from them. No more modest than immodest. Unscrew the locks from the doors! Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs! Whoever degrades another degrades me, And whatever is done or said returns at last to me. [. . .] (“Song of Myself” 24, 1855/ 81; NAAL 1: 1990) Another form of free verse is given by Ezra Pound’s poem about the Metro, in which rather short lines correspond to syntactical units, as opposed to William Carlos Williams’s (US, 1883-1963) poems, which cut down the lines considerably, fragment the syntax, stress the individual word and the visual structure of verse paragraphs (Steele 260-64). For example, “The Locust Tree in Flowers” (1935) evokes how the branch of an old tree, which seems to be almost dead, sprouts new flowers in spring: Among of green stiff old bright broken branch come white sweet May again. (Link, Make it New: 190) <?page no="58"?> 50 P O E T R Y Rhyme and metre were dominant poetic features until the middle of the nineteenth century but slowly gave way to free verse, which also abandoned traditional forms of stanzas in favour of verse paragraphs. Stanzas provide order for thought. The Japanese haiku “simply” demands the poet to write a poem in three lines of verse with five syllables, seven, and again five, which is a concise form for the presentation of brief images or insights. The first example is a trans- Phonological forms, stanzas and types of poems Speech sounds create harmony, support memory, connect lines and mark stanzas (Strophen; the Engl. term “strophe” is rare). Poetry is traditionally associated with the use of rhyme, the identity of the last stressed vowel and its subsequent letters in two or more words, in its diverse forms and variations: ˘ masculine rhyme (männlicher Reim), the similarity of the last syllables stressed in two lines (“man - fan”), ˘ feminine rhyme (double rhyme, weiblicher Reim), a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one (“gender - bender”), ˘ triple rhyme parallels three syllables (“treacherous - lecherous”), ˘ identical rhyme (rührender Reim) includes the consonants before the vowel (“know - no”), ˘ eye-rhyme (Augenreim) looks similar but sounds different (“move - dove”), ˘ half-rhymes (impure/ slant/ oblique rhyme, Halbreime) are less “perfect” than pure or true rhymes because they connect two words by identical consonants (consonance, “loads - lids”) or identical vowels only (assonance, “foam - moan”), ˘ alliteration links words by the initial letter and is a favourite feature of proverbs (“He who laughs last, laughs longest.”), ˘ internal rhyme (Binnenreim: “East, West, home’s best.”), ˘ end rhyme (Endreim) in the shape of the ˘ couplet (Paarreim): aabb, ˘ alternate rhyme (Kreuzreim): abab, ˘ envelope pattern (umarmender Reim): abba, ˘ tail rhyme (verschränkter Reim/ Schweifreim): abcabc. Rhyme patterns 2.4.2 | <?page no="59"?> 51 P O E T I C F O R M lation from the Chinese by Ezra Pound about the fate of an emperor’s courtesan, the second a more prosaic expression of our contemporary experience with computers. Both haikus are about loss: O fan of white silk, clear as frost on the grass-blade, You also are laid aside. (Link, Make it New: 138) Your file was so big. It might be very useful. But now it is gone. (anonymous) English stanzas are often defined by the number of syllables, the rhyme scheme and the metre. Couplets (Zweizeiler) are two lines linked by an end rhyme, called heroic couplets if written in iambic pentameter, which was frequently used in 17 th century drama. The three lines of a tercet (triplet, Terzett) form a terza rima (Terzine) if the middle line of one tercet is turned into the envelope pattern of the following (aba bcb cdc, etc.). The quatrain (Quartett) often comes with an alternate rhyme or in the shape of the ballad stanza (Balladenstrophe), which rhymes abcb dbeb or defe, etc., and alternates tetrameter and trimeter, providing a very flexible form. The oral folk ballad (Volksballade), a popular song from the Middle Ages to the 19 th century, combines features from all genres because it tells a story and presents dialogue in poetic stanzas. The folk ballad sings about love and tragic death, the street ballad (Straßenballade) about crime and politics since the 16 th century. Written literary ballads (Kunstballaden) have found favour since the 18 th century (Bode 126-30). Edgar Allan Poe’s ballad “Annabel Lee” embodies his rather morbid idea that the melancholy death “of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world - and equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such topic are those of a bereaved lover” (NAAL 1: 1463): It was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom you may know By the name of ANNABEL LEE; Types of stanzas Ballads <?page no="60"?> 52 P O E T R Y And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me. I was a child and she was a child, In this kingdom by the sea; But we loved with a love that was more than love - I and my ANNABEL LEE - With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven Coveted her and me. And this was the reason that, long ago, In this kingdom by the sea, A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling My beautiful ANNABEL LEE; So that her high-born kinsman came And bore her away from me, To shut her up in a sepulchre In this kingdom by the sea. The angels, not half so happy in heaven, Went envying her and me - Yes! - that was the reason (as all men know, In this kingdom by the sea) That the wind came out of the cloud by night, Chilling and killing my ANNABEL LEE. But our love it was stronger by far than the love Of those who were older than we - Of many far wiser than we - And neither the angels in heaven above, Nor the demons down under the sea, Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE: For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE; And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE; And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side Of my darling - my darling - my life and my bride, <?page no="61"?> 53 P O E T I C F O R M In the sepulchre there by the sea - In her tomb by the sounding sea. (NAAL 1: 1375-76) The ottava rima is a stanza of eight lines rhyming abababcc. Wordsworth shortens the pattern to ababcc in the “Daffodils” (see above, 2.3, 39). Two quatrains and two tercets form the Italian sonnet (Latin sonare: to sound; Sonett). The quatrains (abab abab or abba abba) form the octett, which precedes the tercets (cde cde or cdc dcd) of the sestett (Sextett). The English poets Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-42) and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-47) translated Italian sonnets and transformed their structure into the English sonnet with three quartets and a couplet. The Italian form suggests a development of the argument in two steps, such as thesis and antithesis or problem and solution. The English version motivates a variation of one thesis or an alternation of positions in three steps, concluding with a summary or a surprising turn (see Drayton above, 2.2, 27). The English Renaissance poets changed the idealising Petrarcan sonnet from the 14 th century into poems on friendship and passionate love that did not exclude physical aspects. The metaphysical poets of the 17 th century dared to combine bodily desire and spiritual needs in witty poems. At the end of the 18 th century, the English Romantic poets no longer indulged in the great rhetorical show of their predecessors but varied its form and widened the range of topics to include subjective reflections on private situations as well as on history, contemporary society and politics (Bode 131-41). Percy Bysshe Shelley (GB, 1792-1822) reflected on the relationship between art and politics in his sonnet about Ozymandias (1817), the Egyptian ruler also known as Ramses II. I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said - “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desart . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal, these words appear: Poetry and politics Types of sonnets <?page no="62"?> 54 P O E T R Y My name is Ozymandias, king of kings, Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.” (NAEL 2: 725-26) Shelley’s “Ozymandias” can be read as a political comment on the limits of power. In the wake of the French Revolution, the conservative British government fought France under Napoleon abroad and domestic efforts by British republicans to push for reforms at home. The emperor Napoleon was defeated in 1814, but the conservative government continued to repress progressive forces at home. The inscription on the pedestal yields an ironic comment beyond the ancient king’s intention of impressing others with his godlike power: “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair! ” The sculpture in ruins in the empty desert is a metonymy of the fact that nothing of his works remained except for second-hand knowledge of a fragment by the hands of a sculptor, which is preserved by another artist, the poet, in the sophisticated form of the sonnet to raise political awareness in contemporary readers. In his sonnet “The White House”, the Jamaican Claude McKay (1889-1948) appropriated the European tradition for political purposes and gave vent to his frustration with racism and segregation in the United States, where he had moved in 1912. Your door is shut against my tightened face, And I am sharp as steel with discontent; But I possess the courage and the grace To bear my anger proudly and unbent. The pavement slabs burn loose beneath my feet, A chafing savage, down the decent street; Consider the politics, the meaning of the form and the form of meaning of McKay’s sonnet in the context of the racist politics and laws of the US in the first half of the 20 th century. Task <?page no="63"?> 55 P O E T I C F O R M And passion rends my vitals as I pass, Where boldly shines your shuttered door of glass. Oh, I must search for wisdom every hour, Deep in my wrathful bosom sore and raw, And find in it the superhuman power To hold me to the letter of your law! Oh, I must keep my heart inviolate Against the potent poison of your hate. (1925, Burnett 144) McKay’s writing of a sonnet, one of the most prestigious poetic forms in the English language, makes a claim to equality and cultivation, if not superiority, in a racist society that denies the black Jamaican the human rights of a free citizen. The title and the racial identification of the author as black suggest a contextual reading. The White House of the title with its closed door metonymically represents the white politics of segregation and the white majority of the population in the U.S., who kept their “white” houses free from black “intrusion” unless it was in the functions of cooks and maids through the back door. The poem clearly expresses the deep frustration and anger at the way blacks, represented in the “I”, are treated by white people, the addressee (“you”) of the poem. The poem ironically registers the white perspective and abuse of him as a “savage”, who is out of place in the “decent street”. He would be suspiciously eyed through “shuttered doors of glass” that prevent the outsider to look in or break in. The racist perspective is exposed as a hateful projection, and opposed to the noble qualities necessary to bear the “denigration” and injustice. The potential danger created by the racial conflict is not based on the inherent “barbarity” of the other but on white discrimination, which provokes violent emotions. The simile “sharp as steel” evokes the pain of the hurt soul but alludes to the white fear of the black man with a knife. However, the black self claims to obey white law, if only the metaphorical “letter” of the law, i.e. the literal meaning of the words, not the racist spirit of the law. Thus, the political plea for reform rather than rioting is made palatable to white readers. The politics of the poem are expressed in its careful deployment of poetic and rhetoric form, which builds upon and inverts the construction of a racist opposition and the claim to cultivation as a marker of ethnic superiority. <?page no="64"?> 56 P O E T R Y The ode is defined by its solemn and often exalted mood and can take the shape of regular or irregular stanzas of various length and number. John Keats (GB, 1795-1821), who suffered from the death of his parents as a boy and from the loss of his brother as a young man, expressed his delight in sensuous experience and his melancholy awareness of the brevity of life in his poem “To Autumn”: 1 Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease, For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells. 2 Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep, Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers: And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a brook; Or by a cyder-press, with patient look, Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours. 3 Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, - While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, borne aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; <?page no="65"?> 57 P O S T M O D E R N P O E T R Y Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; And gathering swallows twitter in the skies. (1819; NAEL 2: 872-73) Postmodern poetry Beginning in the 1960s and 1970s, postmodern poets have expressed their scepticism about the possibility to find order and meaning in reality, about language as representation of reality and poetry as the expression of subjectivity. Traditional forms of poetry could not appropriately render the sense of the indeterminacy and arbitrariness of experience (cp. Link 666-90). An approach that tries to find a composition that integrates form and content into a coherent and meaningful whole would be inadequate. Instead, it is interesting to see how postmodern poetry invites a rethinking of traditional expectations. In his poem “Our Youth”, John Ashbery (US, 1927-) refuses to give an accessible retrospect, which would explain how the present self builds on the past. Instead, he compiles fragments and associations that sometimes verge on surrealism: Our Youth Of bricks . . . Who built it? Like some crazy balloon When love leans on us Its nights . . . The velvety pavement sticks to our feet. The dead puppies turn us back on love. [. . .] Do you know it? Hasn’t she Observed you too? Haven’t you been observed to her? My, haven’t the flowers been? Is the evil In’t? What window? What did you say there? He? Eh? Our youth is dead. From the minute we discover it with eyes closed Advancing into the mountain light. Ouch . . . You will never have that young boy, That boy with the monocle Could have been your father He is passing by. No, that other one, Upstairs. He is the one who wanted to see you. [. . .] | 2.5 <?page no="66"?> Blue hampers . . . Explosions, Ice . . . The ridiculous Vases of porphyry. All that our youth Can’t use, that it was created for. It’s true we have not avoided our destiny By weeding out the old people. Our faces have filled with smoke. We escape Down the cloud ladder, but the problem has not been solved. (Hall 190-91) Some phrases remain incomplete like fragments of memory. The poem hardly gives any answers. The questions about the heterosexual gaze take an ironic view of adolescence, the question about the flowers ridicules the adult’s nostalgia. Instead, the boyhood of the past seems to be as fleeting as the impression of the boy passing by in the present. Present and past seem to merge. The poem takes the paradoxical perspective that we can neither grasp our past nor free ourselves from the traditions that shape our lives. Guiding questions and exercises Every critic is first and foremost an individual reader, who develops a subjective understanding of a poem on the basis of personal associations related to experience in life and the knowledge of texts. The interpretation of the meaning, why a poem says something, is certainly influenced by how a poem says it: therefore, it is essential to combine the interpretation of the content with an analysis of the formal composition. The interpretation of the meaning, why a poem says something, is certainly influenced by how a poem says it: therefore, it is essential to combine the interpretation of the content with an analysis of the formal composition, exploring the form of the meaning and the meaning of the form. The intrinsic analysis of a poem, which disregards its context, has two basic options: 1) to go through the whole poem under the consideration of one level after another (communication, voice, content, figurative speech, metre and rhythm, phonological forms and stanza), or 2) to connect all levels in a reading that proceeds line by line, stanza by stanza. The first alternative seems to be easier because you can 58 P O E T R Y 2.6 | Connecting content with composition <?page no="67"?> 59 G U I D I N G Q U E S T I O N S A N D E X E R C I S E S Guiding questions for analysing poetry A) Communicative situation ˘ External: what does the title tell us about the poem? ˘ Internal: who speaks to whom? ˘ Persona or voice, implicit or explicit subjectivity and addressee. ˘ What is the mode? (lyric or epic/ narrative) ˘ What are the mood (melancholic, happy. . .) and the tone (formal, ironic attitude . . .)? B) Topic ˘ Who are the characters and how do they relate to each other? ˘ Explicit and implicit characterisation, perspectives, actions (see also 4.3 Character and action) ˘ What are the situation and subject matter? ˘ Space as location and atmosphere, semantic space and cultural space: borders as barriers or thresholds ˘ Subjective and objective time, linear or circular time, anachrony; time as event, as motion (see also 4.4 Space and time) ˘ How is the topic developed? ˘ Impression, reflection, similarity, contrast, variation . . . ˘ Which concepts structure the meaning? ˘ Love - hate, life - death, nature - culture, self - other . . . C) Rhetorical form ˘ Which tropes are used and how do they convey meaning? ˘ Simile, metaphor, conceit, metonymy, synecdoche, symbol, personification, allegory, hyperbole, litotes, euphemism, irony . . . concentrate on one aspect after another, but it requires a subsequent synthesis of the results from each level of analysis. An extrinsic approach may be of particular interest if the poem is autobiographical, refers to other forms of representation or to historical circumstances. The following checklist merely suggests a way of proceeding which can combine questions and/ or vary their order. An up-to-date interpretation would combine an appropriate contemporary approach to literature (see 5) with questions on analysing poetry. <?page no="68"?> ˘ Which schemes are used and how do they convey meanings? ˘ Parallelism, chiasmus, inversion, anaphora, epiphora, repetition, ellipsis, antithesis, oxymoron . . . D) Poetic form ˘ Does the poet use metre or free verse? ˘ Kind and number of feet: iambic: x / , trochaic: / x, anapaestic: x x / , dactylic: / x x . . . ˘ What is the rhythm and how does it relate to the metre, the syntax and the content? ˘ Major and minor stresses, end-stopped lines, run-on lines, caesuras, sprung rhythm . . . ˘ Which phonological features fulfil which functions? ˘ Internal or external rhyme, masculine or feminine, continuous, alternate, pure or impure, assonance, consonance, alliteration: harmony, order, unity, memory . . . ˘ Do traditional forms of stanzas order the content? ˘ Couplet, triplet, terza rima, quatrain, ballad stanza, sestett, octett . . . ˘ Does the poem follow or transform a traditional type or create a form of its own? ˘ Nursery rhyme, song, ballad, dramatic monologue, sonnet, haiku . . . E) Where, how and why do the author’s rhetorical and poetic forms support or qualify the persona’s position and utterance? F) Extrinsic approach ˘ How does the text relate to the author’s biography or cultural contexts? ˘ Personal, social, political and economic situations . . . ˘ Ideas in religion, philosophy, the arts and science . . . ˘ In which way does the text interact with other texts/ media? ˘ Responses to texts, pictures and/ or graphic depiction of still lives and landscapes, ˘ Music as topic and/ or musical rhythm of language, ˘ Reflection about theatre and film or use of cinematic techniques, such as short scenes and quick transitions. 60 P O E T R Y <?page no="69"?> 61 G U I D I N G Q U E S T I O N S A N D E X E R C I S E S Exercise 1 Analyse Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s (US, 1807-82) poem “Nature” (see appendix for a reading). As a fond mother, when the day is o’er, Leads by the hand her little child to bed, Half willing, half reluctant to be led, And leave his broken playthings on the floor, Still gazing at them through the open door, Nor wholly reassured and comforted By promises of others in their stead, Which, though more splendid, may not please him more; So Nature deals with us, and takes away Our playthings one by one, and by the hand Leads us to rest so gently, that we go Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay, Being too full of sleep to understand How far the unknown transcends the what we know. (1876, Link, Amerikanische Lyrik: 57-58) | Fig. 2.16 Lorna Dee Cervantes (1954-) was born of Mexican American parents in California. The Chicana writes poems that are frequently concerned with gender, race and ethnicity. She taught English at the University of Colorado in Boulder until 2007. Exercise 2 Analyse the poem by the Mexican American Lorna Dee Cervantes (1954-). “The Body as Braille” He tells me “Your back is so beautiful.” He traces my spine with his hand. <?page no="70"?> 62 P O E T R Y PRIMARY SOURC ES Abrams, M. H., et al., eds. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 7 th ed. 2 vols. New York and London: Norton, 2000. (NAEL 1 and 2). Baym, Nina, et al., eds. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 3 rd ed. 2 vols. New York and London: Norton, 1989. (NAAL 1 and 2). Burnett, Paula, ed. The Penguin Book of Caribbean Verse in English. London: Penguin, 1986. Erzgräber, Willi, and Ute Knoedgen, eds. Moderne Englische Lyrik. Englisch und Deutsch. 3 rd ed. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1994. Ferguson, Margaret, Mary Jo Salter and Jon Stallworthy. The Norton Anthology of Poetry. 5 th ed. London and New York: Norton, 2005. Hall, Donald, ed. Contemporary American Poetry. 2 nd ed. Rev. and expanded. London et al.: Penguin, 1972. Kemp, Friedhelm, Werner von Koppenfels, Manfred Pfister, et al., eds. Englische und Amerikanische Dichtung. Zweisprachig. 4 vols. Munich: Beck, 2000. Kennelly, Brendan, ed. The Penguin Book of Irish Verse. 2 nd ed. London: Penguin, 1981. Lehman, David, and John Brehm, eds. The Oxford Book of American Poetry. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Link, Franz, ed. Amerikanische Lyrik. Vom 17. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart. Bilingual. Trans. Franz and Annemarie Link. 4 th ed. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1998. McClatchy, J. M., ed. The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry. Rev. and exp. ed. New York: Vintage, 2003. Löffler, Arno, and Eberhard Späth, eds. English Poetry. Eine Anthologie für das Studium. 4 th expanded ed. Tübingen and Basel: Francke, 2003. Parini, Jay, ed. The Columbia Anthology of American Poetry. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995. 2.7 | I’m burning like the white ring around the moon. “A witch’s moon,” dijo mi abuela. The schools call it “a reflection of ice crystals.” It’s a storm brewing in the cauldron of the sky. I’m in love but won’t tell him if it’s omen or ice. (1981, NAAL 2: 2795) Analyses: see 7.1 Appendix. Bibliography <?page no="71"?> 63 B I B L I O G R A P H Y Paterson, Don, and Charles Simic, eds. New British Poetry. New York: Graywolf Press, 2004. Poulin, A., and Michael Waters, eds. Contemporary American Poetry. Wadsworth Publishing, 2003. Ramazani, Jahan, Richard Ellmann, and Robert O’Clair. The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry. 2 vols. 3rd ed. New York: Norton, 2003. Representative Poetry Online. Version 3.0. Ed. Combined Departments of English, University of Toronto. 16 October 2002. University of Toronto. Date of access: 29 August 2010. <http: / / rpo.library.utoronto.ca/ display/ index. cfm>. (Major anthology of poetry in English from the 16 th to the early 20 th century; six indexes). Ricks, Christopher. The Oxford Book of English Verse. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Rosengarten, Herbert, and Amanda Goldrick- Jones, eds. The Broadview Anthology of Poetry. Peterborough (CDN), Orchard Parks (USA), and Hadleigh (GB): Broadview, 1993. Whittaker, Mervyn and Nicola, eds. 100 Songs. Words and Music. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1998. Woodring, Carl, and James Shapiro, eds. The Columbia Anthology of British Poetry. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995. SECONDARY SOURC ES Acheson, James, and Romana Huk, eds. Contemporary British Poetry: Essays in Theory and Criticism. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1996. *Baldick, Chris. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. 2 nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. (Very helpful definitions of central terms). Beach, Christopher. The Cambridge Introduction to Twentieth-Century American Poetry. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2003. *Beck, R. H., and M. Kuester. Terminologie der Literaturwissenschaft. Ein Handbuch für das Anglistikstudium. Ismaning: Hueber, 1998. (Very helpful definitions and examples of technical terms). *Bode, Christoph. Einführung in die Lyrikanalyse. Trier: WVT, 2001. (Very readable, clear and entertaining). Freeman, Margaret H. “Poetry and the Scope of Metaphor: Toward a Cognitive Theory of Metaphor.” Metaphor and Metonymy at the Crossroads. Ed. Antonio Barcelona. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2000. 253-81. Gavins, Joanna, and Gerard Steen, eds. Cognitive Poetics in Practice. London: Routledge, 2003. (Series of case studies of texts from all genres that continues issues introduced by Stockwell, see below). Hamilton, Ian, ed. The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry in English. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. (Biographical information and lists of publications of poets from the USA, GB and the Commonwealth; concise information on genres and movements). Hanke, Michael. Interpretationen: englische Gedichte des 20. Jahrhunderts. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1997. (Short and readable interpretations). *Hühn, Peter. Geschichte der englischen Lyrik. 2 vols. Tübingen and Basel: Francke, 1995. (Excellent history of poetry in the form of case studies of individual authors and model interpretations of important poems). Kövecses, Zoltán. Metaphor: A Practical Introduction. 2 nd ed. Oxford et al.: Oxford University Press, 2010. (Easily accessible study of conceptual metaphor from a cognitive linguistics perspective with numerous examples and tasks that refer to everyday language but can also be applied to poetry). <?page no="72"?> 64 P O E T R Y Lakoff, George and Mark Turner. More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor. London and Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989. (Seminal and very readable study on the largely unconscious structure of conventional metaphors and their transformation in poetry). Lennard, John. The Poetry Handbook: A Guide to Reading Poetry for Pleasure and Practical Criticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. (Basic, hands-on introduction with glossary after each chapter on form, metre, rhythm, rhyme, etc.). Link, Franz. Make It New. US-Amerikanische Lyrik des 20. Jahrhunderts. Paderborn: Schöningh, 1996. (Very helpful overview of major poets and movements; brief interpretations of selected poems). *Ludwig, Hans-Werner. Arbeitsbuch Lyrikanalyse. 5 th ed. Tübingen: Narr, 2005. (Very good and reader-friendly textbook with basic information on various approaches to poetry and numerous quotes from critics and poets). McRae, John. The Language of Poetry. London and New York: Routledge, 1998. (A poet’s hands-on approach to poetry). Müller-Zettelmann, Eva, and Margarete Rubik, eds. Theory into Poetry: New Approaches to the Lyric. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2005. (Innovative collection that looks into cognitive approaches to poetry, narrative and dramatic perspectives in and on poetry, collective identities in poetry and postmodern poetry). Niemeier, Susanne. “Straight from the Heart: Metonymic and Metaphorical Explorations.” Metaphor and Metonymy at the Crossroads. Ed. Antonio Barcelona. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2000. 195-211. Parini, Jan, ed. The Columbia History of American Poetry. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993. (30 essays on movements, poets and forms in context). Preminger, Alex, and T. V. F. Brogan, eds. The New Princeton Encyclopaedia of Poetry and Poetics. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. (Comprehensive guide to history, techniques, genres and criticism of poetry). Quinn, Justin, ed. The Cambridge Introduction to Modern Irish Poetry, 1800-2000. Cambridge et al.: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Riggs, Thomas, ed. Contemporary Poets. 7 th ed. Detroit: St. James-Gale, 2001. (American, Australian, Canadian and Indian poets’ biographies and lists of publications, short critical essays and selective lists of criticism). Steele, Timothy. All the Fun’s In How You Say a Thing: An Explanation of Meter and Versification. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1999. (Clear, readable and entertaining). *Stockwell, Peter. Cognitive Poetics: An Introduction. London: Routledge, 2002. (Basic introduction to the uses of the cognitive turn for literary analysis in general, i.e. not restricted to poetry; covers the function of scripts and schemas, conceptual metaphor, possible worlds etc. in the process of reading and interpretation). Wheatley, David. The Cambridge Introduction to Contemporary British Poetry. Cambridge et al.: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Woodring, Carl, ed. The Columbia History of British Poetry. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. *Strongly recommended. <?page no="73"?> 65 Narrative Oral and written narratives 66 Discourse 69 Narrative situations 70 Voice and focalisation 77 Time 87 Story 90 Fiction and metafiction 98 Guiding questions and exercises 102 Bibliography 108 3.1 3.2 3.2.1 3.2.2 3.2.3 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 | 3 Narrative texts present ways of seeing the world in the stories they tell. Stories are about characters in a sequence of actions and happenings in particular circumstances. It is possible to restrict the analysis of a narrative to the level of the content but it is also important to see that the way a story is perceived and told shapes its significance. Contents Abstract <?page no="74"?> Oral and written narratives Every day, we tell stories about our experience to each other. For the better or worse, we also figure in the stories of others. Young children love to be told stories over and over again, and old people love to tell stories over and over again. The fact that even well-behaved and intelligent couples vehemently argue about who is entitled to tell a particular story in which way and what happened in the first place reminds us to pay close attention to both the manner and the matter of story-telling. Stories come in all shapes and sizes, and it is hard to tell whether they reconstruct or construct the past. Historiography often reconstructs the past from traces of the ‘real’ and documents in narratives that are structured like fictional genres (Hayden White). Psychoanalysis reveals the ‘real’ story hidden behind the client’s dreams and memories. To some extent, the success of politicians, journalists and lawyers depends upon selling convincing stories and deconstructing those of opponents. Narratives serve to inform and entertain, to provide identity, meaning and orientation in the world. Talking vaguely of “stories” in real life reveals our predilection for “what happened” in spite of knowing that the way of their telling makes a big difference. Literary scholars differentiate between these two levels. A narrative (Erzählung) combines discourse (Diskurs, Erzählweise), the form of how something is told by whom to whom, and story, the content of what is told. We know what a good story is when we hear one, and we can sense that we told a good story if the listener no longer asks “what’s next? ” and “why? ”. The novelist E. M. Forster used this insight when he presented a sequence of two events as a story (Geschichte): “‘The king died and then the queen died’”. He continued that the plot (Handlungsstruktur) provided the logical connection between the events, adding “. . . of grief” (in Genette 20, German trans. 203; see plot as (re-)organisation of the story in 3.2.3 Time). In response, the narratologist Genette said that the simple headline “The king died” (20) already qualifies for a minimal story because “as soon as there is an ac- 66 N A R R A T I V E Change the name, and it’s about you, that story. Horace, Satires We live immersed in narrative, recounting and reassessing the meaning of our past actions, anticipating the outcome of our future projects, situating ourselves at the intersection of several stories not yet completed. Peter Brooks, Reading for the Plot, 1984 3.1 | Narrative: story and discourse Story and plot <?page no="75"?> 67 O R A L A N D W R I T T E N N A R R A T I V E S tion or an event, even a single one, there is a story because there is a transformation, a transition from an earlier state to a later and resultant state” (19, Germ. trans. 202). Oral storytelling is the origin of narrative texts (Fludernik, Natural Narratology). Oral stories distinctly reveal central narrative features. In order to be interesting and meaningful to a listener, a good story needs to be wrapped and presented like a gift. Mark how the narrator presents her experience in Alice Childress’s (US, 1920-94) short story “Health-Card” (1956), which imitates oral storytelling: Well, Marge, I started an extra job today. . . . Just wait, girl. Don’t laugh yet. Just wait till I tell you. . . . The woman seems real nice. . . . Well, you know what I mean. [. . .] Comes the afternoon, I was busy waxin’ woodwork when I notice her hoverin’ over me kind of timid-like. She passed me once and smiled and then she turned and blushed a little. I put down the wax can and gave her an inquirin’ look. The lady takes a deep breath and comes up with, “Do you live in Harlem, Mildred? ” [. . .] she backed away and retired to the living room and I could hear her and the husband just a-buzzin’. A little later on I was in the kitchen washin’ glasses. I looks up and there she was in the doorway, lookin’ kind of strained around the gills. First she stuttered and then she stammered and after beatin’ all around the bush she comes out with, “Do you have a health card, Mildred? ” That let the cat out of the bag. I thought real fast. Honey, my brain was runnin’ on wheels. “Yes, Mrs. Jones,” I says, “I have a health card.” Now Marge, this is a lie. I do not have a health card. “I’ll bring it tomorrow,” I add real sweet-like. [. . .] “Mildred,” she said, “I don’t mean any offense, but one must be careful, mustn’t one? ” Well, all she got from me was solid agreement. “Sure,” I said, “indeed one must, and I am glad you are so understandin’ ‘cause I was just worrying and studyin’ on how I was goin’ to ask you for yours, and of course you’ll let me see one from your husband and one for each of the three children.” [. . .] “Mildred, you don’t have to bring a health card. I am sure it will be all right.” I looked up real casual kind-of and said, “On second thought, you folks look real clean, too, so . . .” And then she smiled and I smiled and then she smiled again . . . Oh, stop laughin’ so loud, Marge, everybody on this bus is starin’. (Nischik 58-9) This narrative reveals typical features of oral storytelling: the teller (1) introduces the story by mentioning what it is about, (2) specifies who takes part in it at which place and time, (3) talks about the de- Oral storytelling <?page no="76"?> velopment of a conflict, (4) its evaluation, (5) its resolution, and (6) finally marks that the story has come to an end and takes the listener back to the here and now (Martinez/ Scheffel 146). In most oral stories, the narrator’s explanations and evaluations are prominent at the turning point between the complication and the resolution of the problem, but they occur throughout the story in order to repeatedly convey its significance to the listener (Martinez/ Scheffel 146). In this case, Mildred explains to her listener that her lie is the key problem before she introduces her clever resolution with implicit irony: “Well, all she got from me was solid agreement.” Her story reverses the stereotype of the inferior poor black woman on the level of the story and the discourse. She turns the tables on her employer, who displays prejudice and anxiety. Mildred presents herself as a self-reliant actor and as a clever storyteller with a voice of her own. She not only informs and entertains her friend but creates a black female bond against discrimination. In everyday life, the actual teller of the story is identical with its first-person narrator, and the real listener with the addressee (Adressat) in the story. In Alice Childress’s simulated first-person narrative, the real author is as different from the narrator as the addressee from the real reader. Regardless of the question whether the real reader of this story is black or white, the story implies a reader, who would be able to understand and appreciate that the story is critical about conflicts of class and race and gender: the employer worries about Mildred’s residence in Harlem, consults her husband before she acts, uses “white” 68 N A R R A T I V E Fig. 3.1 | Model of narrative communication (compare Jahn and Nünning 285). Nonfictional communication Implied fictional communication Fictional discourse Fictional story Character Y Character Narrator Y Narratee Implied author Y Implied reader Author Y Reader Author and reader - real and implied <?page no="77"?> 69 D I S C O U R S E language, and is outwitted in the end. In turn, real readers construct an image of the implied author from the whole text, someone who would be responsible for the values and the structure of the story. Here, the implied author would question the racist and patriarchal white culture and promote a resourceful black culture and identity. Thus, a model of narrative communication would distinguish between the real author (Alice Childress) and her readers (you and me), the implied author and reader, the narrator and the narratee (Mildred and Marge) and the figures who talk to each other on the level of the story (Mildred and the white lady) (see fig. 3.1). Short stories resemble oral stories in small size, flexible subject matter, style and form. They often concentrate on one character, action, place and time, and select a particular moment of crisis, reversal and insight. Short stories tend to be less explicit than oral stories and therefore demand great attention to details, images, beginnings and endings. They compensate for brevity by being ambiguous, allusive and suggestive. Due to their sheer size, novels (Romane) have the option to present a great number of characters and strands of action (Handlungsstränge) as well as comprehensive descriptions of both external settings and “internal experientiality”, such as scenes of consciousness (Fludernik, Natural Narratology 79-80, 158). They can probe the depth of characters, discuss a range of different perspectives and give a large panorama of society. The basic strategies of narrative analysis are useful to explore how short stories and novels construct fictional worlds. You can analyse a narrative by beginning with the story or the discourse. We start with the discourse because it determines the quantity and quality of information about the story. Discourse Narrators tell something (story) to someone in particular ways (discourse). Narrators describe characters and objects, tell or show characters’ speech and thought, report actions and happenings, and comment on the story world. Description transmits information about the external appearance of characters and objects in settings. Comments and value judgements are offered by overt narrators as interpretations readers can adopt or resist, helping the reader to position | 3.2 The narrator’s functions <?page no="78"?> himor herself towards the story (e.g. “fortunately, she arrived just on time…”; “as it is to be expected…”). In the absence of explicit comments, readers have to take a greater effort at interpretation and pay more attention to implicit evaluations in the form of irony, expressions or imagery with negative or positive connotations, the specific selection and combination of perspectives (contradiction, hierarchy). Concepts from rhetoric and communication analysis (see 2.3 Rhetorical form and 4.2 Dramatic speech) help to understand the drift and strategies of the narrator’s style. Often, the report of action or incidents and the description of characters or objects in time and space are combined with comment. The communication in the text between a narrator and a narratee can be analysed according to the following questions: Who speaks to whom? Which position does the narrator have inside or outside the world of the story? In which way and in which order does the narrator speak about which characters and events? Two major approaches dominate this field, Franz K. Stanzel’s concept of three narrative situations, and the structuralists’ more detailed analysis of the verbal, visual and temporal organisation of narrative discourse, following Seymour Chatman and Gérard Genette among others. Narrative situations Stanzel’s first-person narrator (Ich-Erzähler) shares the characters’ world. The authorial narrator (auktorialer Erzähler) is beyond the characters’ world and looks at it from the outside but also has the ability to look 70 N A R R A T I V E Fig. 3.2 | An illustration of Daniel Defoe’s (1660-1731) Robinson Crusoe (1719). The Englishman Defoe was an entrepreneur, secret agent, editor and writer. He published widely on education, commerce and politics before turning to novels, such as the allegorical narrative of the colonial and Puritan Robinson Crusoe or the fictional autobiography of the thief and prostitute Moll Flanders (1722). Due to the rather simple, straightforward style and the detailed descriptions of circumstances, Defoe’s novels are considered an early form of realism. Separated from his family, Defoe died in hiding from his creditors. 3.2.1 | Who tells a story from which point of view? <?page no="79"?> 71 D I S C O U R S E into characters. The figural narrative situation (personale Erzählsituation) has no visible narrator and presents events through a character’s perspective. The first-person narrator is involved in the world of the story. The extent and variation of the temporal and cognitive distance between the narrating I (erzählendes Ich) and the experiencing I (erlebendes Ich) determines the quality of the narrative. For example, in the beginning of Daniel Defoe’s (1660-1731) Robinson Crusoe (1719), the narrator looks back with regret at the former disobedience of his parents, who did not want him to go to sea: I consulted neither father or mother any more, nor so much as sent them word of it; but leaving them to hear of it as they might, without asking God’s blessing, or my father’s, without any consideration of circumstances or consequences, and in an ill hour, God knows, on the first of September 1651 I went on board a ship bound for London. Never any young adventurer’s misfortunes, I believe, began sooner, or continued longer, than mine. (31) The narrator also reveals his past perspective, for example by quoting from his diary, which vividly conveys the immediate emotional impact of his recent experience on the island: September 30, 1659. I, poor miserable Robinson Crusoe, being shipwreck’d, during a dreadful Storm, in the offing, came on shore on this dismal unfortunate island, which I called the Island of Despair, all the rest of the ship’s company being drowned, and my self almost dead. All the rest of that day I spent in afflicting my self at the dismal circumstances I was brought to, viz. I had neither food, house, clothes, weapon, or place to fly to, and in despair of any relief, saw nothing but death before me [. . .]. (87) Robinson forms the centre of his own story (I-as-protagonist), whereas the first major female English author Aphra Behn (1640-89) uses the first person as a minor character and observer (I-as-witness) in her exotic narrative Oroonoko, or the Royal Slave (1688). She comments on the natural limits of awareness without direct access to others’ feelings and thoughts: “I was myself an eye-witness to a great part of what you will find here set down; and what I could not be witness of, I receiv’d from the mouth of the chief actor in this history, the hero himself” (NAEL 1: 2171). The narrator as witness often juxtaposes his/ her own point of view with that of the protagonist and of society, revealing interesting contradictions and conflicts between positions. First-person narrators <?page no="80"?> The rise of the first-person narrative between the sixteenth and the nineteenth century can be explained in various ways. Of course, oral stories about personal experience privilege the first person. In addition, diaries, letters, essays and autobiographies offer models of writing in the first person, which are connected to the central position of the individual since the early modern age in Western culture. For example, Puritanism demands individual inspiration and responsibility for moral acts, sobriety and a personal relation to God, inspiring soul-searching diaries and spiritual autobiographies. Empirism favours individual experience as against traditional authority. Capitalism idealises the individual homo oeconomicus, whose self-interest would also promote public welfare. The bourgeois society does away with the absolutist external control of its subjects and demands the citizen’s internal discipline and civilised behaviour. The concepts and values of Puritanism, empirism and capitalism pervade Benjamin Franklin’s (US, 1706-90) famous autobiography (1771-88) about his rise from rags to riches. The self-made man does not hesitate to proclaim himself a role-model and a representative of his society: Having emerg’d from the Poverty and Obscurity in which I was born and bred, to a State of Affluence and some Degree of Reputation in the World, and having gone so far thro’ life with a considerable share of Felicity, the conducing Means I made use of, which, with the blessing of God, so well succeeded, my Posterity may like to know, as they may find some of them suitable to their own Situations, and therefore fit to be imitated. (43) Sentiment (Empfindung, Empfindsamkeit) as a new eighteenth century ideal is promoted and explored in the English novelist Samuel 72 N A R R A T I V E Cultural context of first-person narratives Fig. 3.3 | Aphra Behn (1640-1689) was the first Englishwoman to make a living from writing. She was well-known for her daring lifestyle and literary output. She worked as a spy and served a term in prison for debt. Her satirical plays focus on sexual relationships and her colourful novel Oroonoko (1688) on the evil effects of slavery without, however, opting for equality among the races and social ranks. <?page no="81"?> 73 D I S C O U R S E Richardson’s (1698-1761) epistolary novel (Briefroman) Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1740). Pamela’s letters explore in detail her intense emotional responses to her encounters with the wealthy and unscrupulous Mr. B., who pursues her as a sexual object but is tamed by her virtue and marries her in the end. Late eighteenth century philosophy and Romantic literature argued that individual perception and subjectivity necessarily shape our world since we have no access to the world apart from our perceptual and cognitive grasp. The subjectivity of the first-person invites the reader’s identification but limits the general validity of its point of view. In sum, religious, philosophical, social and economic ideas stress the prominence of the individual, who finds an appropriate form of self-expression in first-person narratives. In opposition to the subjective presentations of the world in the first person, the “objective” authorial narrator is detached from the characters and their concerns. The authorial narrative offers a godlike panoramic view from an Olympic position outside and above the story world. The misleading term “authorial” narrator does not mean that this narrator is identical with the real author. The fact that authorial narrators behave like the creators of their world is an artistic choice. The authorial narrator mediates between the world of the characters and that of the reader, creating the illusion of a fictional world but also breaking it by intrusive comments and reader addresses. The English novelist Henry Fielding (1707-54) introduced the authorial narrative in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1740): Reader, I think proper, before we proceed any farther together, to acquaint thee, that I intend to digress, through this whole history, as often as I see occasion: of which I am myself a better judge than any pitiful critic whatever [. . .] I have told my reader in the preceding chapter, that Mr. Allworthy inherited a large fortune; that he had a good heart, and no family. Hence, doubtless, it will be concluded by many, that he lived like an honest man, owed no one a shilling, [. . .] And true it is, that he did many of these things; but, had he done nothing more, I should have left him to have recorded his own merit [. . .] Matters of a much more extraordinary kind are to be the subject of this history, or I should grossly misspend my time in writing so voluminous a work; and you, my sagacious friend, might, with equal profit and pleasure, travel through some pages [. . .] (Bk 1, ch. 2 and 3; 26-27) The authorial narrator takes the personal pronoun “I” like the firstperson narrator. However, the first-person narrator has a fully Authorial narrators <?page no="82"?> fleshed bodily existence in the world, while the authorial narrator has a rather ghostly presence. The first-person narrator’s perspective is always limited, the authorial narrator’s omnipresent (überall anwesend) and omniscient (allwissend). The authorial narrator can see into the future, read various characters’ thoughts and even their subconscious. Sharing his/ her distance and supernatural insight with the reader, he/ she can expose secrets that characters hide from each other or those that are hidden from themselves with the effect that the reader gains an insight into hypocrisy and blindness. The authorial narrator’s superior insight conveys the notion that the world is transparent and comprehensible. This optimistic view, which prevailed from the middle of the eighteenth to the nineteenth century, is loosely connected to the idea that the universe is ruled by divine laws and by providence. The authorial narrative situation can be seen as an imitation of the divine perspective on the human world, which may parallel religious faith or compensate for its absence. The term personale Erzählsituation (figural narrative situation) wrongly suggests that the narrator takes the shape of a fully blown person, but it actually refers to the character’s perspective. Readers get the impression that they share the thoughts, feelings and perceptions of a character, who serves as a (subjective) reflector of the fictional world. Figural narratives show scenes in the world through the eyes of characters, whereas first-person and authorial narrators often foreground their discourse and tell us about the world with a certain distance. Reality television serves as a good example for the difference between figural narrative and first-person narrative. Reality television which reenacts crimes presents the views of characters in action 74 N A R R A T I V E Fig. 3.4 | The Irishman James Joyce (1882-1941) left Catholicism and Ireland behind in 1904, only to return to his home country time and again in his collection of short stories, Dubliners (1914), his autobiographical Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), and his singular novel Ulysses (1922), which delineates a single day in the life of three inhabitants of Dublin, establishing a mock-heroic correspondence of their ordinary modern lives to Homer’s Odyssey. Joyce’s experiments with language and style to convey subjective experience culminated in Finnegan’s Wake (1939). Showing versus telling Figural narrative situation <?page no="83"?> 75 D I S C O U R S E and the description of their experience in voice-over at the same time. The combination of the immediate visual presence of the subjective perspective, simulated with a hand-held camera, and the parallel third-person description is akin to figural narrative. These scenes are often framed by retrospective first-person comments from the victims or the perpetrators of the crimes and by more or less neutral explanations from experts. Figural narrative texts show third-person characters’ perspectives: Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo. . . . His father told him that story: his father looked at him through a glass: he had a hairy face. [. . .] When you wet the bed, first it is warm and then it gets cold. His mother put on the oilsheet. That had the queer smell. (James Joyce, GB, 1882-1941, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man , 1916, 1) The beginning refers to a story that the father told his little son. The second sentence suggests that the little boy perceived this story. The choice of words imitates a small child’s language to some extent. The father certainly looked at him through a monocle and not a simple glass. The illusion of an immediate access to a third person’s mind is particularly interesting if that character could not or would not talk about himor herself to anyone. The information is not censored, as it would be in a first-person narrative due to the fear of exposing oneself to others. Who would volunteer information on wetting the bed? The increasing use of figural narrative towards the end of the nineteenth century relates to the decline of trust in “omnipotent” and reliable authorities (and authorial narrators), to advances in psychological research into mental processes and to the rise of impressionism in painting. Stanzel arranged the three prototypes of narrative situations in a circle. The circular model allows for positions and movements between the first-person, authorial, and figural narrative. Positions and shifting between first person and third person, telling and showing, external and internal perspective create mixed forms of narrative situations. The first-person narrator can hardly become an authorial one since the perspective will always be limited and never omniscient in realistic fiction (but see 3.4 Fiction and metafiction). The first-person Intermediate stages <?page no="84"?> narrator may shift the focus from the present to the past experiencing self. If the inner world of the past self predominates, for example in the shape of interior monologue, the perspective comes close to the reflector of the figural narrative. The authorial narrator may occasionally suggest that he/ she is close to the fictional world, e.g. having been a witness within the world. However, since the authorial narrator is by definition omniscient and outside the fictional world, this step into the character’s world would break the reader’s illusion of sharing the highly artificial omniscience established so far. The most frequent case of mixing can be found in the shading of authorial into figural narrative situations. After having introduced the reader to the story and established the setting, the authorial narrator occasionally recedes from explicit mediation. The narrator can yield his prominent position of telling and commenting to (1) a scenic presentation of dialogue and action, or (2) the presentation of the world from a character’s point of view as in figural narrative. In the story “To Room Nineteen” (1963) by the German-British writer Doris Lessing (1919-), the tentative value judgement of the first sentence suggests a first-person narrative: “This is a story, I suppose, about a failure in intelligence: the Rawlingses’ marriage was grounded in intelligence” (3). However, it soon becomes apparent that the narrator has insight into various characters’ minds and thus has to be an omniscient authorial narrator: “A good many of their friends had married young, and now (they felt) probably regretted lost opportunities” (3). The narrator stresses - with a tinge of irony - how the apparently perfect marriage was breaking apart because the wife could not cope with the “reasonable” patriarchal conventions of relegating her to the domestic role of the mother and housewife: “they would buy a house and start a family. And this is what happened. […] Everything right, appropriate, and what everyone would wish for […] And yet…” (5). The frustrated and restless wife’s internal withdrawal from the family and her external retreat into a hotel room is aptly shown in gradually narrowing down the view of the world to her perspective as a reflector: The room was ordinary and anonymous, and was just what Susan needed. She put a shilling into the gas fire, and sat, eyes shut, in a dingy armchair with her back to a dingy window. She was alone. She was alone. She was alone. She could feel pres- 76 N A R R A T I V E <?page no="85"?> 77 D I S C O U R S E sures lifting off her. First the sounds of traffic came very loud; then they seemed to vanish; she might even have slept a little. A knock on the door: […] (29). It could be argued that this narrative is situated on the authorial-figural continuum between the prototypes of narrative situations. Stanzel presents a fairly simple but comprehensive model of major historical prototypes and transition zones that cover a large range of narratives (cp. Bode 145-51). However, the terms of the narrative situations are confusing because they carry different meanings from those attributed to them in ordinary language. The authorial “I” is not identical with the real author but displays the control of a potential author over his or her fictional universe, a position that is implicitly connotated as masculine. The authorial “I” takes an “external perspective” and is classified as “third-person narrative” not because “his” view is restricted to external appearances but because “his” position lies outside the story world. The authorial “I” has an unlimited knowledge as opposed to the firstperson narrator, who is a real character confined to his or her limited perspective in the fictional world. The “internal perspective” of the first-person and the figural narrative is not restricted to the psyche of the characters but means that the point of view is located within the fictional world. The “figural narrative” does not reveal a narrator in the shape of a fully developed character but seems to offer us a direct insight into a third person. Stanzel’s model provides for transitions between narrative situations but not for the metafictional play with narrative conventions (see 3.4 Fiction and metafiction). As an alternative to Stanzel’s model, structuralists have put forth a model of narrative discourse as a system. Voice and focalisation Gérard Genette was neither happy with Stanzel’s concept of the narrative situation nor with the broad use of the term point of view (Gesichtspunkt, Standpunkt) because both combine the way a narrator tells a story and how its world is perceived. Instead, he made a clear difference between the questions “Who speaks? ” (voice) and “Who perceives? ” (focalisation; Genette 64, German trans. 132). The question of the voice can be extended to “Who speaks to whom from which position in relation to the story? ” Focalisation has “perceptual, psychological Criticism and summary | 3.2.2 <?page no="86"?> and ideological facets” (Rimmon-Kenan 82), which are sense impressions, emotional and cognitive processes and a system of norms. In order to answer the question “Who speaks? ”, we have to find who and where the narrator is in the first place. In some cases, the invisible, covert narrator (verborgener Erzähler) is merely a voice that reports information. The author passes on the task of evaluating the story to the reader. In contrast, an overt narrator (expliziter Erzähler) appears as a mediator in the discourse. Overt narrators introduce themselves and the stories to the reader and give comments that guide the reader’s understanding. There are many variations in between a mere neutral voice and a narrator who seems to be a complex character. What is the narrator’s position? A heterodiegetic narrator (heterodiegetischer Erzähler) does not belong to the world of the characters. A homodiegetic narrator (homodiegetischer Erzähler) belongs to the story world and is called an autodiegetic narrator if he/ she tells the story of his/ her own life. These technical terms roughly correspond to Stanzel’s third-person and first-person narrative situation. 78 N A R R A T I V E . . . in which part of a narrative? Heterodiegetic narrator outside the world of the characters Homodiegetic narrator inside the world of the characters Fig. 3.5 | Heterodiegetic and homodiegetic narrators. Who speaks . . . . . . from which position . . . In a story-within-a-story, an embedded narrative (Binnenerzählung) within a frame narrative (Rahmenerzählung), the intradiegetic narrator tells his/ her embedded story from within the primary or frame narrative, which is told by the extradiegetic narrator. Embedded narratives mostly take an introductory but rarely a terminal framing, and often both. What is the use of this distinction? Framing narratives directs the reader’s attention to the ways and uses of storytelling itself in the specific transition zones between one story and another, and indirectly in the relationship between the embedded and the frame narrative. In The Scarlet Letter (1850), the American novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-64) introduces the story about a proud adulteress in Puritan Salem in the 17 th century with a contemporary scene from the 19 th century, “The Custom House”. In this frame, the nar- Initial and terminal framing <?page no="87"?> 79 D I S C O U R S E rator, who was suffering from bureaucracy and the oppressive atmosphere, found the fascinating papers and documents of a story that he has (re)constructed. The embedded story of the Puritan past presents both the origins and a mirror image of New England culture in the nineteenth century. The terminal framing of the novel Atonement (2001) by Ian McEwan (GB, 1948-) provokes a reassessment of the narrative as a whole because what the reader has taken to be a convincing (fictional) reality reflected through several characters turns out to be the deceptive fabrication of one of them, who imagined the other characters’ perspectives and changed the past. In the initial and terminal framing of the novella Heart of Darkness (1899/ 1902) by Joseph Conrad (GB, 1857-1924), the first-person narrator meets his friends on a boat on the river Thames at sunset and tells the story of his journey to Africa. He finishes his story in utter darkness, which turns out to be a metaphor of corruption and blindness connecting imperial Europe and colonial Africa. Unless we are suspicious per se in real life, we trust in the reliability of information as the default mode. Usually, we only question the reliability of a speaker if we assume that he or she intends to falsify the truth, or is not able to tell the truth due to a lack of memory, the influence of drugs or mental problems (cp. Bode 269-70). It is difficult to pin down how to detect unreliability. Upon suspicion of unreliability, we need to make a greater effort at interpretation because in addition to reading the more or less obvious meaning of the message we need to take a guess at hidden truths. Unreliability is a nuisance in real life but of great aesthetic interest in fiction. In general, an omniscient and detached heterodiegetic narrator inspires confidence. We have to be more careful with homodiegetic narrators because of their limited perception and insight. In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s (US, 1860-1935) story “The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892), the Extradiegetic narrator in frame narrative Intradiegetic narrator in embedded narrative | Fig. 3.6 Extradiegetic and intradiegetic narrators. Introductory framing Terminal framing Reliability and unreliability <?page no="88"?> autodiegetic narrator confronts the reader with different assessments of her condition: John is a physician, and perhaps - (I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind -) perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster. You see he does not believe I am sick! And what can one do? If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression - a slight hysterical tendency - what is one to do? (NAAL 2: 649) If the female narrator maintains - in secret and against male authority - that her health is even worse than “nervous depression” and a “hysterical tendency”, how far does the reader believe her version of the story? What, in turn, should the reader make of her husband’s downplaying her illness? This ambiguous situation draws the reader’s attention to trust and credibility related to social position, mental problems, motives and strategies (concerning both husband and wife). It is difficult to believe someone who openly confesses to uncertainty and mental problems or profoundly disagrees with “common sense” voiced by authorities. Ironically, Gilman’s narrator is right as her growing madness proves her husband’s diagnosis wrong. Her vision of a woman creeping behind prison bars in the pattern of the wallpaper and her attempt at freeing that woman metaphorically express her desire for freedom from patriarchal domination in a persuasive way. Three strategies may help to test the reliability of a narrative: to check its (1) consistency, (2) coherence and (3) correspondence. None of these criteria gives us a foolproof indication of reliability. A very consistent and coherent story may correspond to the truth or convey a perfect lie, which is difficult to spot since we hardly ever have uncontrovertable evidence of the truth. An inconsistent and incoherent account given directly after an overwhelming experience may be the most truthful version we can get. A lack of correspondence between an individual view and the generally accepted construction of reality can point to a deranged mind or the blind spot of a whole society. (1) A consistent narrative does not reveal contradictions between the narrator’s words and acts, values and judgements, selfimage and images by others, his/ her version of events and those of 80 N A R R A T I V E Checking reliability <?page no="89"?> 81 D I S C O U R S E others. (2) A coherent narrative presents a story in which one event leads to another without significant temporal or logical gaps. (3) There is no direct correspondence between reality and fiction, which creates its own world, but rather one between the fictional models of reality and the dominant view of the world at the time of writing. The contextual frames of reference (historical background) define implicit and explicit norms, such as the “nature”, relationship and function of men and women, black and white, rich and poor, the individual and society, insider and outsider, home and abroad, reason and emotion, good and evil, etc. Of course, the criterion of correspondence is more helpful with realistic stories than fantastic ones, which have more options to create alternative worlds. In Donald Barthelme’s (US, 1931-89) short story “The Baby” (Nischik 52-54), the self-righteous first-person narrator is obsessed with the breaking and enforcement of rules in education. He punishes his baby for tearing pages out of a book by locking her up for hours. This treatment, the narrator continues, was “worrying my wife. But I felt that if you made a rule you had to stick to it” (52). His view of education verges on tyranny and contradicts both his wife’s and our contemporary notion of the psychology and upbringing of babies. In the end, he has sentenced the baby to years of confinement and realises that he has a problem: I solved it by declaring that it was all right to tear pages out of books, and moreover, that it was all right to have torn pages out of books in the past [. . .] The baby and I sit happily on the floor, side by side, tearing pages out of books, and sometimes, just for fun, we go out on the street and smash a windshield together. (54) We do not only question the narrator’s judgement but also his basic perception of reality when he tells us that “We gave the baby some of our wine, red, white, and blue, and spoke seriously to her” (53). The narrator gives no hint that his statement is ironic or metaphoric. In literal terms, giving wine to a baby would be irresponsible, but giving blue wine and arguing seriously with a baby makes us ask whether the narrator is in his right mind. However, we can read this statement as authorial irony about the United States because the colours of the national flag are transferred to those of an intoxicating drink. Strange characters and unreliable narrators defamiliarise the vision of the world and challenge our views. Thus, Barthelme’s Unreliability <?page no="90"?> story gives rise to a discussion of the relationship between the individual and society, the questions of freedom, responsibility and justice in education and in the law. There is no statement and no observation without an observer. Focalisation (Fokalisierung) asks who perceives what in which way. You can spot the focaliser by tracing the reference of the verbs of perception, feeling and thinking to the subject of the statement. Internal focalisation locates the perspective within a character, limiting the information to his/ her perceptual and conceptual grasp of the world. Internal focalisation can vary between fixed focalisation, which is restricted to one and the same perspective throughout the narrative (Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man), variable focalisation, which presents different scenes through different perspectives (Wilkie Collins, GB, 1824-89, The Woman in White, 1860), or multiple focalisation, which invites comparisons between several perspectives of the same event (Julian Barnes, GB, 1946-, Talking It Over, 1991). External focalisation presents information of characters’ external behaviour, such as speech and action, excluding feelings and thoughts. The awkward term zero focalisation does not mean that no perspective is given but that the perspective cannot be attributed to someone in particular or has no restrictions and thus can vary, such as that of Stanzel’s omniscient narrator. The question is whether the different points-ofview can be subsumed under one comprehensive or monologic view of 82 N A R R A T I V E Fig. 3.7 | narrative report of speech acts report (telling) narrative report of thought acts indirect speech indirect discourse indirect thought free indirect speech free indirect discourse (erlebte Rede) free indirect thought narrated monologue direct speech direct thought free direct speech free direct thought MIMETIC DISCOURSE DIEGETIC DISCOURSE psychonarration interior monologue direct discourse (showing) SPEECH THOUGHT Narrative representation of characters’ words and thoughts (Jahn and Nünning 294). The focus of perception <?page no="91"?> 83 D I S C O U R S E the world or fall apart into conflicting or dialogic perspectives, multiplying options to make sense of the world. A narrator has different options to represent a character’s mental processes and utterances, which can be ordered along a line that ranges from (diegetic) telling to (mimetic) showing (see fig. 3.7 and 3.8). The following examples clarify the narrator’s choice between different forms of revealing the characters’ inner lives: Psychonarration, the narrative report of thought (Erzählerbericht) or indirect thought, represents a character’s thought in the narrator’s style. The reader gets an insight into a character with a certain distance marked by tagged phrases, which are introduced by the character’s name or a pronoun, the narrator’s choice of words or brief comments. Often, it takes the form of a summary, as in the beginning of Chinua Achebe’s (Nigeria, 1930-) story “Dead Man’s Path”: Michael Obi’s hopes were fulfilled much earlier than he had expected. He was appointed headmaster of Ndume Central School in 1949 [. . .] Obi accepted this responsibility with enthusiasm. He had many wonderful ideas and this was an opportunity to put them into practice. (Nischik 67) A later passage from the same story reveals how the narrator shifts his representation of Ms Obi’s thoughts and words in indirect discourse (id; indirekte Rede/ Gedankenwiedergabe), “untagged”, free indirect discourse (fid; freie indirekte Rede, erlebte Rede), narrative report (nr; Erzählerbericht), and “tagged” direct discourse (dd; direkte Rede): Example Mary pondered her next move Mary wondered what she should do What on earth should she do now? She thought, “What on earth shall I do now? ” What on earth shall I do now? Type report of thought act indirect thought free indirect thought direct thought free direct thought Characteristics narrator’s summary narrator = main clause, character = subordinate clause character’s language with shift in person and tense character’s language unshifted no reporting clause; no quotation marks Narrative presentations of consciousness (Jahn and Nünning 295). | Fig. 3.8 <?page no="92"?> (id) She began to see herself already as the admired wife of the young headmaster, the queen of the school. (fid) The wives of the other teachers would envy her position. She would set the fashion in everything . . . (id) Then, suddenly, it occurred to her that there might not be other wives. (nr) Wavering between hope and fear, she asked her husband, looking anxiously at him. (dd) “All our colleagues are young and unmarried,” he said with enthusiasm, (nr) which for once she did not share. (Nischik 68) In a perfect example of zero focalisation, the heterodiegetic narrator zooms into and out of the wife’s mind and presents her husband’s utterance from the outside. The narrator introduces her reflection with the tag clause “She began to see” and paraphrases the content of her thought in indirect discourse. The phrase “queen of the school” is ironic because it suggests a traditional role that contradicts the couple’s idea of modernisation. The focalization foregrounds her revealing dreams of prominence in free indirect discourse, exposing their narcissistic quality. The narrator moves a step back and records the change of her thought in indirect discourse. The specific thoughts of hope and fear are not given in detail because it seems more important that her expectations will be disappointed. The narrator does not quote her question, which is implied in her thought, but her husband’s answer. Her emotional response is summarized in a matter-of-fact style that prevents the reader’s identification with her. The narrator exposes the gendered difference between Mr and Ms Obi’s “wonderful ideas”, stressed by the fact that she does not reveal these thoughts to her husband, who may disapprove of them. However, her secret aspiration to become “the queen of the school” 84 N A R R A T I V E Fig. 3.9 | The Nigerian Ibo Chinua Achebe (1930-), who emigrated to the US, stresses the didactic and mediating functions of journalism and literature. His novels, beginning with Things Fall Apart (1958), provide a fictional chronicle of Nigeria from precolonial to neo-colonial times. He assesses the impact of culture and society on the individual and of Europe on Africa. Achebe enriches the English language with Ibo turns and phrases (usu. in translation), creating a unique atmosphere and communicating African perspectives to readers of English. <?page no="93"?> 85 D I S C O U R S E also reflects back on his presumption of an absolute leading role in the village. Free indirect discourse (erlebte Rede) lies on the border between telling and showing. The narrator marks mediation by transforming the first person and present/ future tense to the third person and past tense/ conditional: “The wives of the other teachers would envy her position” would have been “The wives of the other teachers will envy my position.” Free indirect discourse mixes the narrator’s and the character’s voices and therefore has been called “dual voice”. Virginia Woolf’s (GB, 1882-1941) short story “The New Dress” (1924) in her collection Mrs. Dalloway’s Party explores how the ageing Mabel, who is tortured by self-doubt, conceives herself as an ugly fly caught in the milk she has been craving for: That wretched fly - where had she read the story that kept coming into her mind about the fly and the saucer? - struggled out. Yes, she had those moments. But now that she was forty, they might come more and more seldom. By degrees she would cease to struggle any more. But that was deplorable! That was not to be endured! That made her feel ashamed of herself! She would go to the London Library tomorrow. She would find some wonderful, helpful, astonishing book […] or she would walk down the Strand […] and suddenly she would become a new person. (65-66) This passage gives the impression of being close to the character’s emotions and orientation, for example in the affirmative “Yes”, the exclamation marks, the temporal adverb “now”, and the emphatic demonstrative pronouns (“that”). However, the third person pronouns, past tense, and conditional reveal the narrative mediation of her thought. The alternation of despair and hope indicates severe suffering, but it is difficult not to feel a tinge of irony at her projected sudden change. The free direct representation of thought in interior monologue (innerer Monolog) basically “quotes” the character’s inner language or mental images. Interior monologue can take the shape of complete sentences (usually with punctuation marks) or the fragmentary phrases of stream of consciousness. In Toni Morrison’s (US, 1931-) Beloved (1987), the African slave’s memory of the middle passage across the Atlantic, crammed with others under deck, intrudes upon the present in complete phrases: Interior monologue <?page no="94"?> I am always crouching the man on my face is dead [. . .] I do not eat the men without skin bring us their morning water to drink we have none [. . .] I am not big small rats do not wait for us to sleep someone is thrashing but there is no room to do it in if we had more to drink we could make tears (210) In stream of consciousness, narrative mediation gives way to the character’s seemingly random associations. Being half asleep in bed, Molly Bloom thinks about her first encounter with her husband at the very end of James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922): [. . .] all the queer little streets and pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes then I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls use or shall I wear red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I [. . .] (643-44) The showing of free direct thought gives us an “immediate” insight into another person’s mind, which is inaccessible to us in real life. Students - as well as critics - have complained that Genette’s complicated technical terms “are all Greek to them”. They have also argued that it is difficult to clearly separate voice from focalisation because the words voiced are hardly neutral and free from connotations. In order to render the perspective of someone in a very precise way, we would have to repeat his or her very words. As soon as we use words of our own, we colour someone else’s 86 N A R R A T I V E Fig. 3.10 | The English novelist, critic and publisher Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) was a sensitive intellectual. Her experimental style, above all the use of leitmotifs and stream of consciousness in the novels To the Lighthouse (1927) or The Waves (1931), represents fleeting impressions and inner experience. Woolf’s witty essay A Room of One’s Own (1929) expresses her feminist stance on the socio-cultural hindrance to the development and expression of women’s creativity. She suffered from depressions and drowned herself. Criticism <?page no="95"?> 87 D I S C O U R S E perspective, if ever so slightly. However, the concepts voice and focalisation mark a relevant distinction between giving voice to one’s own opinion and being represented by someone else with a difference. In addition, Genette’s terms are very useful for the analysis of time in narrative (see below). Recent approaches often draw on structuralist concepts but have moved from the consideration of narrative as an abstract system to narratives in context or from the point of reading. Beyond the general cultural contexts that gave rise to the development of diverse narrative situations I briefly outlined above, critics have argued that race, class and, above all, gender inflect the status, contact and perspective of a narrator. A male, white middle class narrator may assume a position of authority and respect in a formal relationship to an addressee in a Victorian novel, a black, female and lower class narrator a position of inferiority in a more informal relationship to an addressee, for example in fictional or nonfictional slave narratives. (In many non-fictional slave narratives, this narrative position may have been imposed upon the narrator by a white amanuensis, who wrote the text for an illiterate slave). Research has analysed how readers ascribe a gendered identity to unmarked narrators, and how writers of both sexes have explored voices and perspectives of the other sex (see Fludernik, Einführung 119-20; Lanser; Nünning and Nünning, Erzähltextanalyse und Gender Studies). This approach has yielded interesting results but the problem is that definitions of what a masculine or a feminine voice are runs the risk of reiterating rather than dismantling gendered stereotypes (see Bode 281-82; 5.3.3 Feminism and gender studies; for the influence of cognitive psychology, see 5.4 Reader). Time A present narrator tells a past story at a variable point of time after its last event. Even utopian novels or science fiction, which deal with the future, usually tell stories as if they happened in the past. The narrator has many options to shape the story by manipulating the temporal duration, order and frequency of relating story elements. Often, the specific temporal organisation of the story is called a plot in contrast to Forster’s definition of plot as the logical structure of a story (see above, 3.1). | 3.2.3 Recent approaches <?page no="96"?> The duration of a narrative (Erzähldauer) results from the relationship between the discourse time (Erzählzeit, roughly: the time you need in order to tell and listen or read the story) and the story time (erzählte Zeit). We are all bored by people who tell never-ending stories because they do not select important things but dwell on every detail with minute attention. We expect narrators to omit aspects of no importance (ellipsis; Auslassung), telescope or zoom events of average or minor importance (summary; Raffung), and show events of importance in the same time of their occurrence (scene; szenische Darstellung) or even in slow-motion (stretch; Zeitdehnung; Chatman 67-68). A pause in the relation of events occurs at the description of the setting, reflections or comments. Of course, all of these techniques can be turned to particular uses: the narrator may omit an important feature for reasons of suspense, briefly mention fundamental incidents in order to focus on their effects, and expand short events for comic or symbolic purposes. Laurence Sterne’s (GB, 1713-68) novel Tristram Shandy (1759-67) is, among many other things, a comic novel about writing a novel and a book on time and timing. Tristram Shandy’s intention is to give a complete picture of his life from its very beginning, “to go on tracing everything in it, as Horace says, ab Ovo” (from the very beginning, vol. I, ch. 4) rather than in medias res (in voranschreitender Handlung). In the fourth volume of the book, the autodiegetic narrator Tristram has not yet proceeded farther than the first day of his life. He is afraid that he will never be able to tell the story of his life because a day of his life contains much more than he can write of in one day, and so his writing will never catch up with the life he lives. Frequently, he interrupts the story for reflections on the process of his writing, for general considerations and reader addresses, for example: I enter upon this part of my story in the most pensive and melancholy frame of mind [. . .] - I won’t go about to argue the point with you, - ‘tis so, - and I am persuaded of it, madam, as much as can be, ‘That both man and woman bear pain or sorrow, (and, for aught I know, pleasure too) best in a horizontal position.’ (Vol. III, ch. 28-29) In addition, Tristram struggles with the order of the narrative. A simple oral story begins with the beginning, arranges the events in 88 N A R R A T I V E Discourse time versus story time Laurence Sterne: Tristram Shandy Temporal order <?page no="97"?> 89 D I S C O U R S E chronological sequence and ends with the ending. Where do you begin with the story of a life? Tristram does not begin with his birth but the strange circumstances of his conception. Instead of omitting details himself, he gives readers who are not as curious about it the advice to skip parts of the text. His attempt to trace relationships between everything that is remotely connected to the story of his life leads to frequent interruptions, associative digressions (Abschweifungen), and an anachronic (non-chronological) combination of diverse stories about his father and his uncle rather than himself. The narrator interrupts the present chronology of the story and connects it to the future by flashforward (prolepsis; Vorausdeutung) and to the past by flashback (analepsis; Rückgriff). Besides the beginnings, endings are of prime importance for the interpretation of a story. Sterne’s novel does not end with Tristram Shandy’s practical achievements or conclusive opinions, but with an embedded nonsensical story, which reflects the playful book as a whole. A short fairy tale or a short story will usually relate every event or situation once. In a novel, the frequency of referring to events or situations can be handled in a more flexible manner. Tristram Shandy comes back repeatedly to his birth because being intent on telling everything, he digresses and has to return in order to relate particular circumstances. A significant variation of frequency is the repetition of the same situation by various narrators or focalisers. Julian Barnes’s (GB, 1946-) novel Talking It Over (1991) is about an eternal triangle of two friends who fall in love with the same woman. The novel sports the motto “He lies like an eye-witness”, which prepares the reader for the protagonists’ different subjective versions of the same situations. The reader can reconstruct the basic external events, which, however, are of less importance than the differences be- | Fig. 3.11 Cover of Talking It Over (1991) by Julian Barnes (1946-). The highly sophisticated, ironic and versatile English author is fascinated with obsessive relationships, the arts, French culture and the (re)constructions of individual and collective memory. His novel Flaubert’s Parrot (1984) delineates the futile but entertaining attempt to reconstruct literary biography. In A History of the World in 10 1/ 2 Chapters (1989), outsiders revise stories of chaos and survival from the Biblical Flood to the Titanic. Under the pen-name of Dan Kavanagh, he writes detective novels, such as Putting the Boot In (1985). How many times is something told? <?page no="98"?> tween the first-person narratives. It is ironic that although the characters never seem to agree with each other at any given moment, they gradually change and take over the others’ perspectives and positions in the triangle. Story There are good reasons for paying close attention to the content apart from the discourse because one can tell the “same” story in many different ways. For analytic reasons, structural approaches make a difference between static existents, which are characters and the (spatial) setting, and temporal events, which are actions and happenings. In real life and in our experience of stories, space, time and certain events, such as the weather, can hardly be separated. Even detailed descriptions of places and objects never come up to the fullness of phenomena which the real world offers to perceptive observers, but form verbal scaffolds that the reader imaginatively transforms into pictures. Space in the story can be constituted through the perception and the action of characters. Perceived space is often defined by particular objects and relations, a chair, table and bed of a certain shape, size and colour arranged in a particular way in a room, or smoke rising from chimneys of a village nestling in a lush valley. The topography is structured by boundaries between spaces of different size and value, as the grand drawing-room on the first floor differs from the maid’s bare room in the attic, or “progressive” lowlands from “backward” highlands. Boundaries present real or symbolic barriers that prevent interaction or thresholds that enable contact and development. The perceived space is also experienced as atmosphere, influenced by (changing) light, the weather or the action (beach as resort or battlefield). The perceived space of fictional reality can be radically different from the imagined space that characters remember, dream of, would like to escape to at present or project as a future habitation. Characters “enact” space through their positions and movements in space (near - far, up - down, centre - margin, real - imagined). The boundaries that demarcate meaningful territories can promote or prevent mobility. The dynamics of spatial relationships among the characters within a setting and in the succession of settings is closely related to social and psychological conditions in the cultural context of class, race and gender. A room can serve a 90 N A R R A T I V E 3.3 | Space: perception, atmosphere Space and action <?page no="99"?> 91 S T O R Y woman as a refuge or a prison, a door as a barrier or a threshold. Robinson Crusoe firstly regards the sea as an opportunity of financial and social mobility, and after having been stranded on a remote island as an absolute barrier. African slaves, as Toni Morrison suggests in Beloved (see above, interior monologue), experienced the middle passage across the Atlantic below deck as a horror trip, while the slave traders on deck considered it as a profitable business venture. It is difficult to separate space from time on the level of the story. The choice of a historical instead of a contemporary fictional setting suggests that the historical period in question has something to do with the contemporary world. The past serves as a mirror, precondition or an alternative to the present. The fictional time in a novel can cover anything from a single day to an individual life or the history of a family. Time can be objectively measured in minutes, hours and days, subjectively perceived as boredom or pressure, and interpreted in a symbolic way. The course of an individual life may find its symbolic parallel in the morning, noon, evening and night of a day or in spring, summer, autumn and winter. The rhythm of life is often related to particular places. Slow life in the countryside is often juxtaposed to hectic life in the city. Events like changes in the weather indicate both a change of time and atmosphere. Time Task Look at a scene from the beginning of Charlotte Brontë’s (GB, 1816-55) novel Jane Eyre (1847) and mark how the protagonist perceives and acts in space and time. Consider also the potential symbolic meaning and cultural significance of the circumstances. The poor orphan Jane was excluded for alleged misbehaviour from the happy gathering of her foster-family in the living-room: A small breakfast-room adjoined the drawing-room, I slipped in there. It contained a book-case; I soon possessed myself of a volume, taking care that it should be one stored with pictures. I mounted into the window-seat: gathering up my feet, I sat cross-legged, like a Turk; and, having drawn the red moreen curtain nearly close, I was shrined in double retirement. Folds of scarlet drapery shut in my view to the right hand; to the left were the clear panes of glass, protecting, but not separating me from the drear No- Perceiving and using space and time <?page no="100"?> The house of Jane’s foster-family does not offer her the warmth of a home. She responds to her exclusion by the double retreat into the room next door and a precious private space of her own, marked off by the permeable boundary of the curtain. The colour red returns as a symbol of her passions, which are the cause of her separation from the other children and made her rebel against being abused. The curtain is not quite closed and the window offers a view, signifying that her place as an outsider is neither here nor there but in-between, subject to influences from the private and the public sphere, society and nature. The bleak and freezing afternoon, however, does not provide an escape from her situation but rather mirrors her inner desolation. So does the shrub in the storm-driven rain, which adds to the sad and melancholy effect of the setting. The book she is reading, Bewick’s History of British Birds, does not provide an escape into an alternative possible world. Pictures of bleak and solitary scenes draw her attention, symbolising her loneliness and sombre mood. The orphan’s gender and class relegate her to the margins of spaces defined by social and cultural boundaries. Throughout the novel, oppressive houses, retreats into private places, vistas through windows, escapes and the change of seasons mark Jane’s internal and external development from an ugly duckling into a beloved and respected wife. 92 N A R R A T I V E Fig. 3.12 | Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855), the daughter of an Irish clergyman in England, worked as a governess and teacher. Her experience fed into her novels, such as Jane Eyre (1847) and Villette (1853), long-time favourites with female readers in particular due to the portrayals of poor but honest and self-confident young women, who fight for independence in a world dominated by men and money. Multiple meanings of space vember day. At intervals, while turning over the leaves in my book, I studied the aspect of that winter afternoon. Afar, it offered a pale blank of mist and cloud; near, a scene of wet lawn and storm-beat shrub, with ceaseless rain sweeping away wildly before a long and lamentable blast. (39-40) <?page no="101"?> 93 S T O R Y Circumstances, which combine space, time and events, serve as locations for characters in action, and provide a scenery and an atmosphere characters perceive and respond to in various ways. In addition, settings acquire aesthetic meaning in terms of their symbolic function and in comparison to similar or opposite settings in the whole story. Finally, the setting is related to the social, political and cultural field in the sense of social inclusion and exclusion as well as the drawing and transgression of boundaries marked by race, class, gender, region, nation, etc. The term “character” suggests an interesting and unusual individual in real life. The fictional character in a text is made of words and influenced by literary, historical and cultural concepts and conventions. In opposition to the theatre, where an actor performs a role on the stage, the story merely presents the verbal skeleton of a figure, which the reader imaginatively fleshes out in a similar way as the sketch of the setting. However, the narrative is superior to the theatre in representing the inner lives of fictional characters (by internal focalisation). A character can be defined by: ˘ a name, which suggests an individual, ˘ a bundle of character traits (psychological disposition), ˘ the internal activities of perceptions, emotions, thought and subconscious phenomena, and ˘ the external appearance and activities of speech and action. Characterisation is given directly by the self-image in comparison to images by the narrator or other characters, and indirectly by the quantity and quality of perceptions, emotions, thought, speech and action. The fictional character is positioned within a constellation of characters, which can be analysed according to (1) the social structure of the fictional world (generation, gender, class, race, etc.), (2) the structure of Conception of characters in narrative texts ˘ Flat or round (simple types or complex individuals) ˘ Static or dynamic (unchanging or developing) ˘ Transparent or opaque (fully explained, closed or enigmatic, open) ˘ Psychological or transpsychological (ordinarily or extraordinarily selfaware and perceptive; Pfister 176-83; see 4.7) Who’s in the story? <?page no="102"?> perspectives (including the narrator’s and the characters’ concepts and values), and (3) the aesthetic structure of similarity and contrast, symmetry and asymmetry. The selection and combination of characters’ perspectives has to be assessed in relationship to the narrator’s comments, which should not be identified with the author’s opinion. A character’s perspective gains its significance in the relationship to corresponding and contrasting perspectives of others. Differences in the persuasive quality of perspectives and the amount of thought and speech allocated to specific characters create a certain hierarchy directing the reader’s understanding. In addition to the quantity and quality of perspectives, the process of their development has to be taken into account in order to understand the meaning of the narrative as a whole. The various perspectives in a narrative can share similar basic assumptions and value judgements, moving towards monological consensus, or contradict each other without any possibility of a compromise in a discrepant and disruptive way in dialogic fiction (see ideology in 5.3.1 Marxism). In Hard Times by Charles Dickens, the alleged self-made man and employer Bounderby represents the reckless capitalist and the class enemy of Slackbridge, the radical unionist. The middle-class politician Gradgrind, who advocates drill and facts as the only “useful” education, sides with heartless capitalism and social order in opposition to the circus director, who represents liberal humanism and individual freedom in comparative poverty. The radical position is allocated very little space in comparison to the good and obedient worker Stephen Blackpool, who refuses to be taken in by political manipulation. The staunch capitalist perspectives are given much room, although only to expose them to satiric laughter. The gendered perspectives of the younger generation, Tom and Louisa Gradgrind, serve as a test of the validity of their parents’ positions. The individual egoist Tom drifts into crime for money, disregarding social obligations, while his selfless sister Louisa sacrifices herself in a functional marriage that fails. The circus girl Sissy seems to represent an ideal female helper, whose practical intelligence and good heart amply compensate for her missing formal education. The dialogic quality of the characters’ perspectives is qualified by the satiric devaluation of the extreme positions. Sentiment dominates towards the end, which suspends but does not solve the class conflict because it calls for a change of heart rather than the economic or political system. 94 N A R R A T I V E Character and perspective <?page no="103"?> 95 S T O R Y Possible worlds theory presents an interesting alternative approach to analysing characters, perspectives and action that can easily be applied to our own lives. The lives we live are related to and valued in comparison to the lives we imagine and others’ perspectives on life. In fiction, the reality of the textual actual world differs from the private and alternative worlds in characters’ minds. Their knowledge, obligations and wishes may tally with or conflict with the fictional reality or the private worlds of other characters. This model enables a precise analysis of conflicts within and between characters, and the discrepant or congruent development of the imagined and the realised plot (Busse in Wenzel 33-37). Characters can be analysed according to their mere function within the action or as individual agents. The functional view of a character is not interested in its psychological dimension but rather in its position as the subject or object of the action, the sender or receiver, helper or opponent. In this view, characters can assume various functions at the same time or in succession. This form of analysis is more adequate for texts that use stereotypical characters and emphasise action, such as fairy tales, soap-operas and adventure novels. For example, James Bond is sent on a mission by the secret service, fights the opponent, meets a beautiful woman, who is an object in the game or turns from an opponent to a helper; Bond defeats his opponent and retrieves a material good or creates a general good by saving the world (receiver) from evil. In opposition to novels of action, novels of character demand a more detailed analysis of the interrelationship between character | Fig. 3.13 Charles Dickens (1812-1870), who suffered from his father’s bankruptcy as a child, succeeded in making a comfortable living from writing. His novels, first published in serial form in periodicals, still fascinate readers across the world due to their great sense of humour, concise character sketches, sentimental melodrama and social criticism. The Pickwick Papers (1836-37) represent his early, light-hearted comic mode, the autobiographical David Copperfield (1849-50) his ironic but reconciliatory vision, and Great Expectations (1860-61) a more sarcastic and pessimist mood. Functions of characters Possible worlds <?page no="104"?> and action. In order to become an agent in the first place, a character needs to have the ability, motivation and intention to act, and has to be in the position to act (Ludwig 148). A minimal action can be seen as sequence of three states: (1) a situation that reveals the option to act, (2) the refusal to take action or the realisation of a possible action, and (3) the failure or success of the action (Ludwig 133). Besides actions, an analysis of the plot also includes incidents (Ereignisse) if they change the circumstances and thus lead to a new situation. Comprehensive structures of action often follow conventional and gendered patterns, such as the episodic and adventurous male quest for money, knowledge or fame, the female courtship or marriage plot, a love story with its “appropriate” ending, or an initiation plot, a story of growing up and achieving maturity. In cases of multiple strands of action (mehrsträngige Handlungsführung), an analysis of the relationships between plots should complement that of particular plots. A minor plot often highlights the particular qualities of the main plot by comparison. Different plots can be linked by similar topics, individual characters that have a part in various strands, specific events or actions that have different effects on different people. An individual character may act in an admirable way in one strand of the action but in a corrupt way in another. One man’s profit may be another’s loss. The beginning, the turning points and the ending of stories are of crucial importance. The beginnings of narratives are designed to capture the reader’s interest, generate curiosity and suspense and set the scene, as well as introduce characters, the action (ab ovo, in medias res, in ultimas res) and the background (see also discourse time above, 3.2.3). The initial exposition concentrates on crucial information at the beginning of the narrative. The integrated exposition reveals in a gradual way relevant information to understand the beginning. The short story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” (1890) by Ambrose Bierce (US, 1842-1914), which starts in ultimas res with an execution, raises suspense concerning the identity of the man and the reasons that led to his punishment: A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet below. The man's hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord. A rope closely encircled his neck. It was attached to a stout cross-timber above his head and the slack fell to the level of his knees. Some loose boards laid upon the ties supporting the rails of the railway sup- 96 N A R R A T I V E The structure of action Beginnings <?page no="105"?> 97 S T O R Y plied a footing for him and his executioners - two private soldiers of the Federal army, directed by a sergeant who in civil life may have been a deputy sheriff. (in Geisen 168-69) The title of the story suggests an event of special importance in a rural place. The very beginning makes us assume that the man would witness something of importance soon but certainly not, as we learn from the second sentence, his own death. With an integrated exposition, the story not only takes a close look at a dehumanising military ritual but also - in true analytic form - unravels the past that led to the present situation. The ending shapes the meaning of initial expectations and further developments in retrospect (see above, 3.2.3, 87-90). If characters achieve their goals, resolve conflicts or die, if the good are rewarded and the bad are punished (poetic justice), we talk about the closure of a narrative (geschlossenes Ende) rather than an open ending. The particular significance of beginnings and endings becomes especially apparent if you rewrite them. In Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre, the heroine falls in love with Mr Rochester, who keeps his wife, a madwoman, locked up in the attic. The white Caribbean Jean Rhys (1894-1979) presents Mrs Rochester’s early life in Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), explaining how the sensitive, beautiful Caribbean heiress went mad, living with the man who married her for financial reasons but did not love her. - Charles Dickens (GB, 1812-70) altered the ending of his novel Great Expectations (1860-61) in order to meet readers’ demands for a happy ending. The first version ended on a sober note: after many years spent abroad, the disillusioned hero meets again the woman he loved in vain, but now he keeps his distance towards her, who haughtily rejected him before. The second version leaves them walking hand in hand in the mellow light of the evening. - Some women authors rewrite fairy tales, transforming gender roles, focalisation and especially the endings. Thus, Angela Carter’s (GB, 1940-92) Little Red Riding Hood sleeps with the wolf in the end, and Sara Maitland’s (GB, 1950-) wicked stepmother tells Cinderella to work rather than daydream of Prince Charming (“The Company of Wolves”, 1979, “The Wicked Stepmother’s Tale”, 1987, in Puschmann-Nalenz 35-56, 81-92). The relationship between characters, actions and circumstances (setting in the sense of situation and incidents) helps to explain the dynamics of a story: Rewriting stories Endings <?page no="106"?> A fictional character’s psychological disposition or potential is realised in internal and external actions (or inaction due to fear, weakness, laziness). Either way, action or inaction indirectly characterise the figure. The particular circumstances that characters live in have a certain influence on their material and psychological existence. In reverse, characters perceive, react to and change circumstances, which may offer or restrict options to act. Fiction and metafiction In a historical perspective, the options of how to tell stories have expanded. Non-realistic narratives (myths, parables, tales, etc.) have existed since time immemorial. The term romance has been applied to medieval stories of heroic knights and to non-realist narratives about extraordinary lives, incidents and settings, including supernatural intervention. Since the eighteenth century, realistic narratives have created the illusion of a probable world by imitating external reality. The representation of external reality has shifted to that of internal reality or the consciousness of reality in modernist narratives since the late nineteenth century. After the second world war, anti-illusionist postmodernist fiction, which takes up the subjective, ambiguous and fragmentary style of modernist texts, refuses to tell realistic stories any longer and rather talks about fiction itself. If we are caught up in an illusion in the real world, we remain unaware of the truth. As readers of fictional literature, we knowing- 98 N A R R A T I V E 3.4 | Historical development Aesthetic illusion Characters Circumstances Actions Fig. 3.14 | The dynamics of a story <?page no="107"?> 99 F I C T I O N A N D M E T A F I C T I O N ly indulge in aesthetic illusion. A parallel or alternation of identification and detachment characterises aesthetic experience. We believe in the aesthetic world and are aware of the fact - at the same time or intermittently - that it is “only” fiction. The aesthetic experience of shocking violence is followed by relief that it only happened on the page or screen. Illusion is mainly possible if the making of the story is hidden, and the story world forms a meaningful whole (cp. Wolff; Bauer and Sander in Wenzel 197-222). Illusion is easily generated if the world in the story compares to our understanding of the real world. However, readers are also willing to believe in a fictional world if it contains non-realistic elements. In romance or Gothic novels, the supernatural is a normal element of the fictional world by convention and does not violate probability. Harry Potter thrives on the existence of a magic parallel world, which is accessible to us “muggles” only in fiction. Many so-called realistic novels sport an unrealistic and intrusive authorial narrator. The authorial comments would be rather short and just briefly interrupt the comprehensive story world the reader indulges in. Which features enhance the reader’s imagination of a realistic world? A certain amount of concrete details evokes the image of a specific world and has been called “circumstantial realism”. Concerning the description of characters, a few features are often sufficient to make readers imagine a character they flesh out via schemata used to conceive reality, e.g. those of gender, race or age. If descriptions are long, readers who get bored are distracted from the content and their illusion. The appropriate use of the medium makes a difference: a richly decorated Victorian sitting-room can be readily shown in a film but hardly described in minute detail in a novel without foregrounding that it is a description rather than the room we are looking at. Readers perceive the fictional world through the perspectives offered. We can easily follow as long as the perspective can be clearly attributed to a focaliser, as speech to a speaker. If we are confused about who perceives or who speaks, we feel compelled to reflect on how the information is organised. The total amount of information has to add up to a temporally and logically coherent world. Sustained interest in the story prevents the disruption of the illusion. Suspense can rivet the reader to the story. Suspense situations basically require (1) an open question or conflict a character is confronted with, (2) confusion about (3) two equally probable answers or out- Illusion in narrative Suspense <?page no="108"?> comes that would lead to opposite situations, and, (4) usually after a blocking of the resolution to enhance the suspense, (5) the decision and decrease of suspense (Wenzel in Wenzel 183-188). In Gothic horror and crime fiction, suspense allows the reader to live through powerful and contradictory emotions, such as fear and hope. Suspense can be created through a mystery at the beginning of the discourse, which reconstructs the past story that explains the mystery. In the opposite case, suspense is generated through a conflict or threat at the beginning of the narrative that unfolds the story towards a resolution in the future. In illusionist fiction, the discourse seems to be transparent like a window to the story. Anti-illusionist fiction renders discourse opaque, making us look at the lens of language rather than the world we see through it. The foregrounding of discourse is called metafiction, fiction about fiction, raising awareness of its own construction or commenting on genre conventions. Implicit metafiction calls attention to its language by foregrounding style or form, explicit metafiction by the direct discussion of its construction. The mystery novel Hawksmoor (1985) by Peter Ackroyd (GB, 1949-) starts with the description - in the style of English around 1700 - of the architect Hawksmoor designing a Gothic church with dark lines and shadows. The design of the church mirrors the design of the dark Gothic novel, forming a mise en abyme, a self-referential repetition of one element in another that raises structural awareness. Ackroyd’s choice of a historical style implicitly questions the mimetic convention of realist historical novels, which allow the present reader to experience the past without any impediment. The imitation of historical language slows down reading and maintains the sense of a different period. The historical story is juxtaposed to a detective story in contemporary London that echoes the past in eerie ways: a troubled police inspector called Hawksmoor investigates a crime that seems somehow connected to the past. The detective fails to make sense of dark elements, a fact that questions the optimistic belief in progress, which often underlies historical fiction. The novel Atonement (2001) by Ian McEwan (GB, 1948-) mixes implicit and explicit forms of metafiction in a story of love and jealousy that is successively unfolded from the perspectives of three young characters. The reader obtains an insight into the discrepant subjective perspectives but may be aware of an authorial presence in the shaping of the highly rhetorical language (cp. Bode 242-46). What is 100 N A R R A T I V E Disrupting illusion: implicit metafiction Implicit and explicit metafiction <?page no="109"?> 101 F I C T I O N A N D M E T A F I C T I O N more, the budding writer Briony transforms her experience and desire into drama and narrative. Her own and a critic’s comments on her writing implicitly ask the reader to think about the narrative itself. The last part of the novel explicitly questions the whole story. In retrospect, the figural narrative turns out to be the figment of a first person’s imagination. At the end of her life as a novelist, Briony confesses in the first person that she invented a romantic ending to the story in order to atone for the haunting guilt of having destroyed her sister’s love. The ending plays with the distinction of fiction and lying, and with our belief in aesthetic illusion and desire for good endings and poetic justice. John Barth’s (US, 1930-) ironic “Life-Story” (1968) does not tell the story of someone’s life but rather discusses how to tell it: Without discarding what he’d already written he began his story afresh in a somewhat different manner. Whereas his earlier version had opened in a straightforward documentary fashion and then degenerated or at least modulated intentionally into irrealism and dissonance he decided this time to tell his tale from the start to finish in a conservative, “realistic,” unselfconscious way. He being by vocation an author of novels and stories it was perhaps inevitable that one afternoon the possibility would occur to the writer of these lines that his own life might be a fiction, in which he was the leading or an accessory character. He happened at the time* to be in his study [. . .] *9: 00 A.M., Monday, June 20, 1966 (NAAL 2: 2144) The writer is no longer an author in the traditional sense of a godlike creator because he seems to lack control over his story. The statement that the writer aspires to a “realistic” version is qualified by the inverted commas, which make the reader wonder what “realistic” means. The story will neither be realistic nor come into being in the first place. The following sentences and the footnote suspend the clear separation between the author, the third-person narrator and the writer in the story. The writer in the story has the same profession as the author. The beginning of the sentence, “He being by vocation an author”, refers to the writer in the story, who needs not to be “the writer of these lines”, who could be the author or the thirdperson narrator. The fact that the writer within the fictional story gets the idea that “his own life might be a fiction” is as paradoxical as the expression “perhaps inevitable”. The footnote, a feature of <?page no="110"?> documentary texts, points to an identity between the author and the writer by referring to a plausible time and date of writing. If the writer’s own life was a fiction, a fictional story would be the most “realistic” form to represent it. Barth teases the reader, who expects to find “life” in this story, by telling that the narrator himself prefers traditional romances, tales of adventure and realistic narratives to experimental literature (NAAL 2: 2145). The ambiguous, confusing discourse criss-crosses the boundaries between fiction and fact, challenging the reader’s predilections and assumptions about the representation of reality. In a way, postmodernist (meta)fiction continues the tradition of Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, which plays with the conventions of literature and highlights discourse rather than story. The heyday of postmodernism in the 1960s and 70s was informed by the post-war questioning of authorities, conventions and progress. Instead, subjective perspectives, relative values and shifting identities became prominent, which were linked to uncertainty, alienation and chaos, but also promised liberating alternatives to outdated and restrictive traditions. Although the days of radical postmodernism are past, its legacy is still visible in the mingling of the serious and the comic mode, high and low art, literature and theory, life and art, and in the foregrounding of the processes of writing and reading rather than the story. Guiding questions and exercises The following set of questions serves as a rough guideline to interpretations. Ideally, a thorough analysis would deal with both story and discourse in any order. A research paper could deliver a comprehensive analysis of a short story but not of a novel due to its sheer amount of information. The intrinsic analysis of a novel can (1) combine discourse and story with regard to a few selected scenes, (2) examine one level in detail and sketch the other, (3) concentrate on either the story or the discourse, or (4) focus on one question or topic only (time, settings, characters, etc.). Some questions overlap: for example, an analysis of characters includes characterisation by internal and external action, and in turn, action needs characters as agents or functions in opposition to happenings without human intervention. An enquiry into intertextual relationships of novels 102 N A R R A T I V E 3.5 | Context <?page no="111"?> 103 G U I D I N G Q U E S T I O N S A N D E X E R C I S E S needs to restrict the number of general features and of details under discussion even more. An extrinsic approach to a short story or a novel often begins with an analysis of the context, continues with that of the text, explains the relationship between them, or relates features of context and text in a parallel succession of comparisons. An up-to-date interpretation would combine an appropriate contemporary approach to literature (see 5) with questions on analysing narrative. A) Discourse 1 How is the story related? Why did the author choose this particular form of narrative communication? Decide whether to use Stanzel’s or Genette’s model: ˘ Which narrative situation prevails? (Stanzel) ˘ Authorial (third-person narrator outside of the story world, omniscient, intrusive), ˘ first-person (narrating I vs. experiencing I; protagonist vs. witness), ˘ figural (third-person narrator outside story world, figure as reflector), ˘ neutral scenic (external perspective on dialogue and action), ˘ “intermediate positions”. ˘ Who speaks to whom from which position and in which way? (Genette) ˘ Covert or overt narrators and narratees, ˘ heterodiegetic (third-person) or homodiegetic/ autodiegetic (first-person) narrators, ˘ extradiegetic (frame) narrators or intradiegetic (embedded) narrators, ˘ style of communication (choice of words, imagery, leitmotif, communicative functions; cp. 2.3 Rhetorical forms and 4.2 Dramatic speech). ˘ Where and to which extent does the narrator show the story, tell the story, or reflect about the story or storytelling itself? ˘ How reliable or unreliable is the narrator? 2 Who perceives what in which way? (Focalisation) ˘ External, internal or zero focalisation, Guiding questions for analysing narrative <?page no="112"?> ˘ fixed, variable or multiple focalisation, ˘ monologic or dialogic structure of perspectives. ˘ How are the characters’ thoughts, feelings and words mediated? ˘ Narrative report, indirect discourse, free indirect discourse, direct discourse, interior monologue. 3 What is the duration, order and frequency of mediation? (Time) ˘ How does the discourse time relate to the story time? ˘ Ellipsis, summary, scene, stretch, pause. ˘ Where does the narrative begin? ˘ Ab ovo, in medias res, or in ultimas res. ˘ Does the narrative follow the chronological order of events or rearrange it? ˘ Does the narrator anticipate the future or look back into the past? ˘ Flashforward/ prolepsis or flashback/ analepsis. ˘ Does the narrator relate an event, which regularly happens, once only or a single event several times in various versions? B) Story 1 When and where does the story take place? What is the function of the circumstances? ˘ Single setting or multiple settings/ circumstances, structure and function of one site and relation to other sites, ˘ objective location and perceived atmosphere, ˘ relationship between internal space and external space (subjective mind vs. “real” setting), ˘ social, political, cultural spaces and boundaries (inclusion, exclusion, transgression in the context of class, race, gender, etc.), ˘ symbolic function of space (externalised mirror image of character), ˘ objective and subjective time (linear or cyclical time of individual life, nature, history), ˘ selection of contemporary or historical setting (relationship to cultural context; past as condition, parallel or alternative to the present). 2 Who takes part? What is the significance of the fictional characters? ˘ (Telling) name, ˘ psychological disposition, 104 N A R R A T I V E <?page no="113"?> 105 G U I D I N G Q U E S T I O N S A N D E X E R C I S E S ˘ internal activities (perceptions, emotions, thought and subconscious phenomena), ˘ external appearance and activities (speech, action), ˘ non-psychological construction without inner depth, psychological one with plausible behaviour, trans-psychological one with superior insight, ˘ position within the social structure (generation, gender, class, race, etc.), ˘ direct or indirect characterisation by self and others (overlaps with focalisation), ˘ position within the structure of perspectives (overlaps with focalisation), ˘ position within aesthetic structure: major or minor character, similar/ opposed to others, flat type or round character, well-defined (closed) or fuzzy and obscure (open) figure. 3 What is the structure and function of the action? ˘ Chronological order and logical order? ˘ Are the beginning, middle and ending clearly marked? (Initial or integrated exposition? Open or closed ending? ) ˘ Is the action linear, circular or fragmentary? ˘ Does chance or action propel the plot? ˘ How do the internal action and the external action relate to each other? (Parallel or different conflicts within and between characters? Relationship of private worlds and textual actual world? ) ˘ How does the action relate figures and circumstances? ˘ How do multiple strands of action relate to each other? C) Why does the narrative combine this particular discourse with this story? Test: What would happen if someone else told or perceived the story, if the beginning or the ending were changed, if another character was foregrounded or placed in another setting or society, if different actions were highlighted, condensed or omitted? What does the narrative do to the reader? ˘ Suspense, ˘ manipulation of empathy or ironic distance, ˘ motivation of political/ cultural/ aesthetic reflection and awareness or escapist fantasy, etc. <?page no="114"?> D) Extrinsic approach ˘ In which way does the text interact with other texts/ media? Are newspapers, pictures, music, film or theatre singular events in the story or of structural value for the narrative? ˘ E.g. inclusion of factual information, news clippings and/ or novel as “faction”, a blending of fact and fiction, ˘ description of pictures and/ or graphic depiction of still lives and landscapes, ˘ music as topic and/ or musical rhythm of structures, ˘ theatrical performance of characters in the novel, theatrical technique of representing dialogues, or presentation of the novel as a puppet show manipulated by the narrator, ˘ talking about film or using cinematic techniques, such as short scenes and quick transitions. ˘ How does the text relate to cultural contexts? ˘ Social, political and economic ideas and situations, ˘ gender, class and race (see 5.3 Context), ˘ positions in philosophy, art and science. 106 N A R R A T I V E Analyse the voice, focalisation and the setting of Ernest Hemingway’s (US, 1898-1961) “Banal Story”, taking into account its title (Nischik 41-45). So he ate an orange, slowly spitting out the seeds. Outside, the snow was turning to rain. Inside, the electric stove seemed to give no heat and rising from his writing-table, he sat down upon the stove. How good it felt! Here, at last, was life. He reached for another orange. Far away in Paris, Mascart had knocked Danny Frush cuckoo in the second round. Far off in Mesopotamia, twenty-one feet of snow had fallen. Across the world in distant Australia, the English cricketers were sharpening up their wickets. There was Romance. Patrons of the arts and letters have discovered The Forum, he read [. . .] (Nischik 41) Exercise 1 <?page no="115"?> 107 G U I D I N G Q U E S T I O N S A N D E X E R C I S E S Analyse the beginning of Rose Tremain’s (GB, 1943-) story “My Wife is a White Russian” (Bradbury 382-388). I’m a financier. I have financial assets, world-wide. I’m in nickel and pig-iron and gold and diamonds. I like the sound of all these words. They have an edge, I think. The glitter of saying them sometimes gives me an erection. I’m saying them now in this French restaurant, where the table-cloths and the table-napkins are blue linen, where they serve sea-food on platters of seaweed and crushed ice. [. . .] Opposite me, the two young Australians blink as they wait (so damned courteous, and she has freckles like a child) for me to stutter out my hard-word list, to manipulate tongue and memory so that the sound inside me forms just behind my lips and explodes with extraordinary force above my oysters: ‘Diamonds! ’ But then, I feel a soft, perfumed dabbing at my face. I turn away from the Australians and there she is. My wife. She is smiling as she wipes me. Her gold bracelets rattle. She is smiling at me. (Bradbury 382) Analyses: see appendix. | Fig. 3.15 The American war correspondent, novelist and short story writer Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) was as famous for his adventurous life-style as his themes of sports, war, danger, death and for his “masculine”, simple, spare and detached style. His characters display heroic ambition, experience loss and stoically bear disillusionment in his short story collections Men Without Women (1927) and Winner Take Nothing (1933), in his war novels A Farewell to Arms (1929) and For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940). The man, who turned into a myth during his life-time, suffered from depression and shot himself. Exercise 2 <?page no="116"?> 108 N A R R A T I V E PRIMARY SOURC ES Abrams, M. H., et al., eds. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 7 th ed. 2 vols. New York and London: Norton, 2000. (= NAEL 1 and 2) Ackroyd, Peter. Hawksmoor. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1993. Barnes, Julian. Talking It Over. London: Cape, 1991. Baym, Nina, et al., eds. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 3 rd ed. 2 vols. New York and London: Norton, 1989. (= NAAL 1 and 2) *Bradbury, Malcolm, ed. The Penguin Book of Modern British Short Stories. London: Penguin, 1988. Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Ed. Q. D. Leavis. London: Penguin, 1986. Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe. Ed. Angus Rose. London: Penguin, 1985. Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. Complete, authoritative text with biographical and historical contexts, critical history, and essays from five contemporary critical perspectives. Ed. Janice Carlisle. Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin’s Press, 1996. Dickens, Charles. Hard Times: an Authoritative Text; Backgrounds, Sources, and Contemporary Reactions, Criticism. 2 nd ed. Ed. George Ford. New York et al.: Norton, 1990. Fielding, Henry. The History of Tom Jones. Ed. R. P. C. Mutter. Rpt. London: Penguin, 1985. *Ford, Richard, ed. The Granta Book of the American Short Story. London: Granta, 1993. Franklin, Benjamin. Autobiography. Eds. Leonard W. Labaree, Ralph L. Ketcham, Helen C. Boatfield and Helene H. Fineman. New Haven and London: Yale University, 1964. Geisen, Herbert, ed. American Short Stories of the 19 th Century. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1997. Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter and Selected Tales. Ed. Thomas E. Connolly. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970. Hill, Susan, ed. The Penguin Book of Contemporary Women’s Short Stories. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1995. Joyce, James. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Ed. Seamus Deane. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2000. —. Ulysses. Student’s Edition. Eds. Hans Walter Gabler, Wolfhard Steppe, and Claus Melchior. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986. Lessing, Doris. To Room Nineteen. Ed. Günther Jarfe. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1983. McEwan, Ian. Atonement. London: Vintage, 2002. Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York: Plume, 1988. *Nischik, Reingard M., ed. Short Short Stories Universal. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1993. Puschmann-Nalenz, Barbara, ed. Ten British Women Writers. Contemporary Short Stories. Stuttgart: Reclam, 2000. Richardson, Samuel. Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded. Eds. Thomas Keymer and Alice Wakely. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Sterne, Laurence. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. Ed. Graham Petrie. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967. Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway’s Party. Ed. Hans-Christian Oeser. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1985. Bibliography 3.6 | <?page no="117"?> 109 B I B L I O G R A P H Y SECONDARY SOURC ES *Abbot, H. Porter. The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative. 3 rd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. (Very accessible textbook for students and teachers; relates the analysis of narrative in literature, film, drama and comics to the universal and everyday ordering of events in time; recommends primary and secondary literature in each chapter). *Ahrens, Günter. Die amerikanische Kurzgeschichte. Theorie und Entwicklung. 2 nd ed. Stuttgart et al.: Kohlhammer, 1992. (Very readable systematic and historical introduction). Bal, Mieke. Narratology. Introduction to the Theory of Narrative. 2 nd , rev. ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998. (Very clear and helpful). Bauer, Matthias. Romantheorie. 2 nd , rev. ed. Stuttgart and Weimar: Metzler, 2005. (Very clear overview of historical theories about the novel from antiquity until today, foregrounding different contemporary approaches). *Bode, Christoph. Der Roman. Eine Einführung. 2 nd ed. Tübingen and Basel: Francke, 2011. (Excellent, vivid, sophisticated and comprehensive introduction to analysing novels, using many German, English and American examples). Borgmeier, Raimund, ed. Englische Short Stories von Thomas Hardy bis Graham Swift. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1999. (Short interpretations). *Brosch, Renate. Short Story. Textsorte und Leseerfahrung. Trier: WVT, 2007. (New, comprehensive, and very accessible cognitive approach to short fiction with numerous examples from all over the English-speaking world). Chatman, Seymour. Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film. 2 nd ed. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1980. (Readable basic study). Emory, Elliott, ed. The Columbia History of the American Novel. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991. (Comprehensive overview of novel writing from the United States, Canada, the Caribbean and Latin America). *Fludernik, Monika. Erzähltheorie. Eine Einführung. 2 nd ed. Darmstadt: WBG, 2008. (Lucid and critical introduction with many examples from literatures in German, English and occasionally French). Fludernik, Monika. Towards a ‘Natural’ Narratology. Repr. London and New York: Routledge, 2010. (Comprehensive study of narrative forms from the Middle Ages until today). Genette, Gérard. Narrative Discourse Revisited. Reprint. Trans. Jane E. Lewin. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990. (Selection of essays on key categories of narrative analysis). —. Die Erzählung. Trans. Andreas Knop, ed. Jürgen Vogt. Munich: Fink, 1994. (Original theory; at times difficult, in-depth study of Proust). Hanke, Michael, ed. Amerikanische Short Stories des 20. Jahrhunderts. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1998. (Brief and helpful interpretations). Hanson, Clare. Short Stories and Short Fictions, 1880-1980. London: Macmillan, 1985. Herman, David, ed. Narratologies: New Perspectives on Narrative Analysis. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1999. Herman, David, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Narrative. Cambridge et al.: Cambridge University Press, 2007. (Overview of basic concepts in recent approaches to narrative in fiction, film, digital media, and in the contexts of ethics, gender, ethnicity and ideology). Herman, David, Manfred Jahn and Marie- Laure Ryan, eds. Routledge Companion to Narrative Theory. London and New York: Routledge, 2005. <?page no="118"?> 110 N A R R A T I V E Jahn, Manfred. Narratology: A Guide to the Theory of Narrative. Part III of Poems, Plays, and Prose: A Guide to the Theory of Literary Genres. English Department, University of Cologne. Version: 1.8.2005. <http: / / www. uni-koeln.de/ ~ame02/ pppn.htm>. Date of access: 29 August 2010. (Short and accessible overview). Jahn, Manfred, and Ansgar Nünning. “A Survey of Narratological Models.” Literatur in Wissenschaft und Unterricht 27 (1994): 283-303. (Very useful and simple explanation of key concepts). Lanser, Susan Sniader. Fictions of Authority. Women Writers and Narrative Voice. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992. Lothe, Jakob. Narrative in fiction and film. An introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. *Korte, Barbara. The Short Story in Britain. A Historical Sketch and Anthology. Tübingen and Basel: Francke, 2003. (Very good and readable, systematic definition of genre, historical overview and texts). *Ludwig, Hans-Werner. Arbeitsbuch Romananalyse. 6 th ed. Tübingen: Narr, 1998. (Excellent introduction: very readable and critical presentation of systematic approaches with many diagrams and quotes from theoretical sources and illustrations from primary texts). Lubbers, Klaus. Typologie der Short Story. 2 nd ed. Darmstadt: WBG, 1989. (Systematic depiction of types, subject matter and techniques of short stories). Lubbers, Klaus. Die englische und amerikanische Kurzgeschichte. 2 nd ed. Darmstadt: WBG, 2001. (Short interpretations of American and some British short stories). *Martinez, Matias, and Michael Scheffel. Einführung in die Erzähltheorie. 8 th ed. Munich: Beck, 2009. (Very helpful introduction to structuralist analysis of narrative, incl. chapter on narrative in disciplines beyond fiction). May, Charles E. ed. The New Short Story Theories. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1994. (Presents essays on key elements of short fiction, on various subgenres, such as the tale, the fable or the novella, and the historical and international development of the genre). *Neumann, Birgit and Ansgar Nünning. An Introduction to the Study of Narrative Fiction. Stuttgart: Klett, 2008. (Very comprehensive and accessible overview of relevant concepts with examples). Nünning, Ansgar, ed. Unreliable Narration. Studien zur Theorie und Praxis unglaubwürdigen Erzählens in der englischsprachigen Erzählliteratur. Trier: WVT, 1998. (Major collection about un/ reliability in narrative texts). Nünning, Ansgar, and Vera Nünning, eds. Multiperspektivisches Erzählen. Zur Theorie und Geschichte der Perspektivenstruktur im englischen Roman des 18. bis 20. Jahrhunderts. Trier: WVT, 2000. (Useful studies on a large variety of multiple narrative perspectives). Nünning, Ansgar/ Vera Nünning, eds. Erzähltheorie transgenerisch, intermedial, interdisziplinär. Trier: WVT, 2002. (Covers narrative structures in the arts, music, comics, movies, hyperfiction and historiography). Nünning, Ansgar and Vera Nünning, eds. Neue Ansätze in der Erzähltheorie. Trier: WVT, 2002. Nünning, Vera, and Ansgar Nünning, eds. Erzähltextanalyse und Gender Studies. Stuttgart and Weimar: Metzler, 2004. (Explains how gender influences all aspects of writing and reading fiction, such as the construction of and response to narrative discourse, characters and plots). Phelan, James. A Companion to Narrative Theory. Malden, MA, et al.: Blackwell, 2008. *Prince, Gerald. A Dictionary of Narratology. Rev. ed. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2003. (Very useful, short and clear definitions of key terms for narrative analysis). <?page no="119"?> 111 B I B L I O G R A P H Y Richetti, John J., John Bender, Deirdre David and Michael Seidel, eds. The Columbia History of the British Novel. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. (Comprehensive and accessible coverage of major genres, authors and works from Defoe in the 18 th century to women’s novels of the 1980s and early 1990s). *Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith. Narrative Fiction. Contemporary Poetics. 2 nd ed. London: Routledge, 2002. (Excellent presentation of structuralist approach to narrative). Schlager, Neil, and Josh Lauer, eds. Contemporary Novelists. 7 th ed. Contemporary Writers Series. Detroit: St. James-Gale Group, 2000. (Brief biographical and bibliographical information on primary texts and selected secondary material, often with a short critical essay). Shaw, Valerie. The Short Story. A Critical Introduction. 7 th impr. London et al.: Longman, 1995. (Systematic analysis of key problems). Stanzel, Franz. Theorie des Erzählens. 8 th ed. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 2008. (Very readable original study of narrative situations). Steinecke, Hartmut, and Fritz Wahrenburg, eds. Romantheorie: Texte vom Barock bis zur Gegenwart. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1999. (Comprehensive, annotated and illuminating selection). *Wenzel, Peter, ed. Einführung in die Erzähltextanalyse: Kategorien, Modelle, Probleme. Trier: WVT, 2004. (Concise and critical discussion of the key areas of narrative analysis. With numerous tables and diagrams). White, Hayden. Metahistory. Baltimore, London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975. *Strongly recommended. <?page no="121"?> 113 Drama Dramatic text and theatrical performance 114 Dramatic speech 118 Character and action 127 Space and time 135 Genres and metadrama 141 Guiding questions and exercises 146 Bibliography 153 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 Contents | 4 This chapter will point out the differences between reading drama as a literary text and as a script for a theatrical performance. It is of great interest to explore the relationships between the verbal communication in the text and the audiovisual communication in the theatre, between character and actor, action in drama and stage performance, fictional location and stage-design, fictional time and performance time. Abstract <?page no="122"?> Dramatic text and theatrical performance On the stage of our social lives, we are constantly performing roles. You will find directors, actors and spectators among children playing mother and child, in families organizing weddings and in companies designing sales strategies. Apart from deliberate acting in games, social rituals and strategic communication, our everyday behaviour often erases the difference between “being oneself” and performing a role. In our everyday life we habitually follow scripts, which define certain roles with particular speech acts and forms of behaviour, in specific situations conceptualized in cognitive frames, which are spatio-temporal structures saturated with meaning (such as “home”, “school”, “pub”). We become aware of scripts and frames if people do not behave according to our expectations and if we find ourselves in unfamiliar settings. The negotiation of social norms and roles in interactions are of particular interest in dramatic dialogues. Dramatic texts may give stage directions in the secondary text (Nebentext) but mainly present the direct communication among characters in dialogues in the primary text (Haupttext). Drama shows characters interacting here and now and is therefore more immediate than narrative texts, in which a narrator tells a story from the past. 114 D R A M A 4.1 | All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts. Shakespeare, As You Like It, 2.7, 1598-1600. [W]hile he certainly felt rather often that he was merely acting his own role or roles he had no idea who the actor was. John Barth, “Life-Story”, 1966. Fig. 4.1 | William Shakespeare (1564-1616) wrote intricate sonnets and narrative verse before turning into an actor and playwright, who owned shares in a professional theatre that enjoyed great popularity due to its bad reputation of good entertainment (and moral corruption). Borrowing heavily from European history, legend and literature, he considerably enriched the English stage and language. <?page no="123"?> A theatrical performance on stage replaces the individual reader’s imagination as a site of realising the fictional dramatic world. The theatre company, including the producer, director, designers, technicians and actors, transforms the dramatic text into a multimedia performance. Each performance is an unrepeatable, simultaneous and collective production and reception, in which actors play characters in fictional settings for spectators (Fischer-Lichte, Semiotics 15-17). The spectators’ response to the players forms an essential part of the dynamics of a performance as a unique event: Performances always exceed the text, no matter whether it gives no, few or many stage directions. Stage directions about the choice of actors, their appearance and performance, the stage design, lighting and music suggest one way of staging a play but hardly exhaust the possibilities of a performance. The following table shows thirteen sign-systems of the theatre according to Tadeusz Kowzan (Fig. 4.4). A traditional analysis of the dramatic text would be restricted to the verbal sign-system only. We will deal with the use of verbal communication, characters, action, space and time both in the dramatic text and in the theatrical performance. | Fig. 4.3 Theatrical communication. 115 D R A M A T I C T E X T A N D T H E A T R I C A L P E R F O R M A N C E | Fig. 4.2 Dramatic communication. See also the cartoon of Shakespeare above. External communication of the dramatic text Internal communication in drama Character ZY Character Author Y Y Reader External communication of the multimedia performance in the theatre Internal communication on stage Character ZY Character Theatre company Y ZY Audience <?page no="124"?> The gap between the external communication of the whole performance and the internal communication among characters on stage often leads to discrepant awareness, the fact that spectators and characters have different levels of information. Reviews and brochures, as well as the genre and title of the play, may provide the spectators with some advance information that influences their expectations before they watch the performance. The genre prefigures the rough outline of the plot for the spectators, yet the characters do not know whether they live in the world of comedy or tragedy. William Shakespeare’s promising title As You Like It (1600) suggests to the audience that the characters who are threatened with death will not come to harm and that harmony will be restored in the end. However, the audience often knows little or nothing in detail about individual characters, their relationships and the setting at the beginning of plays. In The Dumb Waiter (1957, first perf. 1960) by Harold Pinter (GB, 1930-2008), we find a rare instance of almost congruent awareness since the spectators are as ignorant and confused as the two killers Gus and Ben, who are waiting in a strange basement room to do their job but get orders for extravagant food via the dumb waiter (NAEL 2: 2594-616). The dramatic introduction of a play establishes the situation, atmosphere and the relation to the audience, appealing to its attention. The initial or isolated exposition, which is presented in a pro- 116 D R A M A Transmission of information Fig. 4.4 | Auditive signs (actor) Visual signs (actor) Space Auditive signs (outside the actor) Visual signs (outside the actor) 12 Music 13 Sound effects 9 Properties 10 Settings 11 Lighting 6 Make-up 7 Hair-style 8 Costume 3 Mime 4 Gesture 5 Movement 1 Word 2 Tone Spoken text Expression of the body Actor’s external appearance Appearance of the stage Inarticulate sounds Auditive signs Auditive signs Visual signs Actor Outside the Actor Time Space and time Space and time Time Kowzan’s classification of theatrical sign-systems (in Aston and Savona 105). Introduction versus exposition <?page no="125"?> 117 D R A M A T I C T E X T A N D T H E A T R I C A L P E R F O R M A N C E logue (before the play proper) or informative reports and dialogues early in the first act, introduces some characters and gives the spectators the relevant context. The prologue foreshadows that Romeo’s and Juliet’s plan to outwit their parents, who are at enmity with each other, will fail: “From forth the fatal loins of these two foes/ A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life; / Whose misadventure’d piteous overthrows/ Do with their death bury their parents’ strife […]” (ll. 5-8). The integrated exposition successively reveals relevant information to understand the initial situation or the major problems in the course of the play, a feature brought to perfection in the so-called analytic drama. In Long Day’s Journey into the Night (1941; first prod. 1956) by the American playwright Eugene O’Neill (1888- 1953), the reasons for the family’s desolate situation are revealed over the course of a day. In Top Girls (1982) by Caryl Churchill (GB, 1938-), the foundation of Marlene’s career is only revealed in the second of two parts of the play. In order to succeed in her profession, the protagonist has her daughter raised by her sister, who, in turn, has adopted the roles of the mother and housewife spurned by the career woman. In the course of the performance, spectators are invited to share certain characters’ knowledge by witnessing confidential conversations, soliloquies of characters alone on stage or asides, speeches directed at the audience but concealed from others on stage. The initial exposition creates suspense concerning how the action will develop. Information withheld or deferred generates suspense about what happened and for which reasons. Intentional irony among characters on stage differs from dramatic irony communicated to the audience. Intentional irony expresses the opposite of what is meant. In As You Like It, Rosalind is being intentionally ironic to Orlando, whom she loves, when she tells him that she would have twenty of his sort: “can one desire too much of a good thing? ” (4.1.111) Dramatic irony exploits the difference between external and internal communication because the spectators realise that a character is not aware of the implications and consequences of what he/ she says or does. Rosalind, who cross-dressed as “Ganymede” in order to protect herself from her enemy, plays the beloved “Rosalind” for the passionate Orlando. Rosalind’s performance of the beloved to cure the doting lover ironically makes herself love-sick. Rosalind ridicules Orlando’s notion of dying for love, but moments later she feels like dying because Orlando will be merely gone for Suspense and dramatic irony <?page no="126"?> two hours (4.1.85-170). Dramatic irony does not always serve a comic purpose: Romeo, who thinks that Juliet is really dead instead of merely seeming to be dead under the influence of drugs, is amazed at Juliet’s lifelike beauty but kills himself in grief shortly before she wakes up (5.3.90-121). Dramatic Speech Dramatic language is based on, but differs from, ordinary language due to dramatic conventions and theatrical requirements. Dramatic speech has to communicate much information because it addresses both the characters on stage and the spectators in the theatre. The lack of a narrator and detailed stage directions in many forms of drama demand that characters present retrospectives and comment on and foreshadow events (however, see open form in 4.3 Character and action, epic drama in 4.5 Genres and metadrama). Characters often introduce themselves and others, as well as topics and conflicts, in speech. They negotiate meanings and relationships, and plan and perform actions in dialogues. As opposed to ordinary conversation, every word is meaningful - even if it only signifies empty talk to the audience and thus characterises a superficial contact. In everyday life, we may consider a monologue rendered loudly in public as rather odd but accept it as perfectly normal on stage. In the theatre, a whisper, which is addressed to only one listener on stage, is 118 D R A M A 4.2 | Difference from everyday speech Fig. 4.5 | James Northcote, Romeo and Juliet 5.3, 1792. <?page no="127"?> 119 D R A M A T I C S P E E C H usually loud enough to be heard by everyone in the audience. Speech on stage must be comprehensible (unless intentionally obscured) because the spectator can hardly ask a character to repeat or explain what he/ she said. We can analyse the content (what), form (how) and function (why) of an individual speech by itself and in relationship to the preceding and following speeches by the same character and others. The norms for co-operative communication help to understand dramatic speech in general: speakers should respect each other and tell the truth, give the adequate amount of information and say in a comprehensible way what is relevant to the matter at hand. The intentional or unintentional violation of these rules in a dialogue reveals insecurity, incompetence, alienation, domination or deception. In terms of content, the logical coherence within and between utterances is telling (see Pfister 147-54). A character’s utterance or a series of utterances can be well structured and logically coherent or rather chaotic and incoherent due to a lack of knowledge, memory, confidence, self-control, health, etc. The reasons for an incoherent utterance may be found in the speaker’s disposition or situation, for example in the character’s constitutional nervousness or the temporary shock due to an accident. According to the ideals of cooperative communication, characters respond to previous utterances in an appropriate and comprehensible way, achieving some sort of a consensus. In the opposite case of disrupted communication, characters cannot find a common ground for understanding or actively refuse to do so, e.g. by ignoring what someone said or interrupting someone. Thus, incoherence tells us as much as coherence, if not more, about characters and conflicts. So does silence. In a very basic sense, we can never know for certain but usually trust that what we say is understood on the basis of shared knowledge and codes, which we leave unspoken unless we realise that there are problems of interpretation. Pauses or gaps in or between speeches mark a literal form of silence, which may be caused by the inability to find the right words or the unwillingness to disclose information (1) for fear of a negative response, (2) for the purpose of manipulating someone to draw (certain) conclusions, or (3) for putting someone under pressure. Harold Pinter comments on the interdependence of speech and pregnant silence, which is concealing and revealing at the same time: Analysing speech Coherence Speech and silence Co-operative communication (Grice) <?page no="128"?> The speech we hear is an indication of that which we don’t hear. It is a necessary avoidance, a violent, sly, and anguished or mocking smoke screen which keeps the other in its true place. When true silence falls we are left with echo but are nearer nakedness. One way of looking at speech is to say that it is a constant stratagem to cover nakedness. (NAEL 2: 2594) Interruptions are related to silence as they metaphorically “silence” other speakers, as does passing over someone’s remarks in silence. Quantity matters. As in real life, it is interesting to see how many characters actively participate in an interaction and how many just listen to it openly or secretly. How many turns do different speakers take? How long does someone speak? Dominant characters are usually given more and longer speeches in order to reveal their individual complexity, their prominence as agents or their social power. Style matters. The skills in language and communication can be rather limited or sophisticated. Colloquial or formal language, a very limited or a large range of vocabulary, simple or complex phrases, incomplete or complete sentences, and incoherent or coherent utterances and dialogues (see above) define the quality of the communication, the social status and relationship of the participants. Versatile characters adapt their speech to changing addressee(s) and situations. We can identify six core functions of speech (see Jakobson in 5.2.2). The expressive, referential and appellative functions are self-explanatory. Characters express their subjective emotions, attitudes or motives. They exchange information by referring to characters, events and circumstances. They appeal to other characters in the form of questions or imperatives. The so-called phatic, metalingual and poetic functions require more comment. The phatic function initiates or maintains contact between characters, for example in terms of minimal responses (“mmh”) or by saying anything just to keep the conversation going (“Very nice, isn’t it? ”). The metalingual function explicitly reflects on language as a topic, for example in comments on others’ speeches or in requests for explanations of what was said (“What do you mean? ”). The poetic function of speech foregrounds language, such as its imagery, sound and rhythm. These aesthetic features of language usually remain without comment on stage but are noticed by the audience, becoming aware of the creative and evocative qualities of language, e.g. as markers of 120 D R A M A Form: quantity and style Functions <?page no="129"?> 121 D R A M A T I C S P E E C H character or atmosphere. Shakespeare’s aristocrats speak in blank verse (iambic pentameter), their servants in prose. An individual utterance can carry multiple meanings. The simple remark “I am cold” may express that the speaker is feeling chilly, but also that the he/ she is ill, lonely, feels alienated from his/ her partner, or appeals to the addressee to shut the window or to pay more attention. The positioning of this remark in the context of speeches and its particular performance on stage indicate which of the meanings are realised. If a character whispers “I am cold” in a broken voice at the end of a soliloquy, followed by silence and fading light, we can safely infer that the phrase metaphorically expresses the hurt soul. Dialogue and polylogue, talking in turns by two or more speakers, are the hallmark of drama. A short excerpt from Edward Albee’s (US, 1928-) play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1962) illustrates the multiple meanings, forms and functions of dramatic language. After a reception at university, Martha, the president’s daughter, invites Nick, a new young lecturer of biology, and his wife Honey for a drink at their home. Martha’s husband George, a professor of history, is not amused. Just before the young couple arrives, George and Martha have been quarrelling. In order to develop a deeper awareness of the situation and the interaction, it pays to recall the cultural frame of a home, the script of a first invitation to someone’s home, and the norms for co-operative communication. MARTHA (a little too loud . . . to cover). HI! Hi, there . . . c’mon in! HONEY and NICK (ad lib). Hello, here we are . . . hi . . . (etc.) GEORGE (very matter-of-factly). You must be our little guests. MARTHA. Ha, ha, ha, HA! Just ignore old sour-puss over there. [. . .] HONEY (giggling a little as she and Nick advance). Oh, dear. GEORGE (imitating Honey’s giggle). Hee, hee, hee, hee. MARTHA (swinging on George). Look, muckmouth . . . you cut that out! GEORGE (innocent and hurt). Martha! (To Honey and Nick). Martha’s a devil with language; she really is. MARTHA. Hey, kids . . . sit down. HONEY (as she sits). Oh, isn’t this lovely! [. . .] NICK (indicating the abstract painting). Who . . . who did the . . .? MARTHA. That? Oh, that’s by . . . GEORGE. . . . some Greek with a moustache Martha attacked one night in . . . Dialogue and polylogue <?page no="130"?> HONEY (to save the situation). Oh, ho, ho, ho, ho, HO. NICK. It’s got a . . . a . . . GEORGE. A quiet intensity? NICK. Well, no . . . a . . . GEORGE. Oh. (Pause.) Well, then a certain noisy relaxed quality, maybe? [. . .] What it is, actually, is it’s a pictorial representation of the order of Martha’s mind. (Act 1, pp. 18-20) The home appears to be the married couple’s theatre of war, which is clearly at odds with Martha’s, Nick’s and Honey’s attempts at following the script of the first invitation and co-operative communication. The characters seem to follow the script, the invitation to come in, take off their coats, sit down, have a drink and chat. However, the hosts violate the rules of politeness and respect among themselves, and George is abusive to the guests. For a more detailed analysis, we revert to the forms and functions of speech. Among the four characters, the older couple George and Martha speak more often and slightly longer than the younger couple. Honey has the shortest turns, and Martha and Nick are interrupted by George, indicating that he tries to dominate the other characters. The rather informal and aggressive style on the part of George and Martha is motivated by the fact that they have been drinking and quarrelling. Martha’s welcome, the guests’ response, and their attempt at making small talk are marked by the phatic function, trying to establish a good atmosphere and contact. Martha’s appeal to make the guests comfortable is foiled by George. The guests are forced to witness the war of the sexes. They are also treated as fools by George, who expresses his dislike in his condescending welcome. Instead of mirroring Honey’s giggling in a friendly way to create good feelings, George inverts its function with a mocking imitation. Martha appeals to his sense of decorum, which she violates in turn by insulting him in the “poetic” form of alliteration and an explicit metaphor. George expresses his hurt feelings and retorts with a metalingual comment on the use of language and another provocation. Martha ignores the challenge with an appeal to the guests to make themselves comfortable, but seems to have taken on George’s condescension. Nick’s question about the painter’s name has a phatic and a referential aspect. George literally and metaphorically interrupts the attempts at establishing good re- 122 D R A M A Analysing functions of speech <?page no="131"?> 123 D R A M A T I C S P E E C H lations. He counters the small talk with loaded questions and ironic, mock-expert comments on the aesthetic quality and the referential content of the painting, which are actually provocations appealing to the others to respond to his challenge. George seems to insert the pause to savour his superiority over Nick, and to leave Nick in the lurch of silence before George offers another ironic phrase that pretends to relieve but actually increases Nick’s embarrassment. George, the mediocre, middle-aged professor, expresses his dislike by toying with the referential function and with Nick, the promising young scholar. From a gendered perspective, the women’s attempts at creating rapport, a cooperative relationship, are contrasted with the men’s competition in the field of knowledge by report. A further analysis of dialogue in the play would look into selected passages that reveal changes in the distribution of turns and the forms and functions of speech used by the characters in order to see how the conflicts escalate and are resolved. A particular dramatic form of dialogue is the line-by-line exchange (Stichomythie), which may convey passion or wit but also reticence and alienation. In the English playwright George Etherege’s (ca 1634-91) comedy of manners The Man of Mode (1676) the aggressive Dorimant tries to seduce Bellinda and gradually talks her into coming to his apartment on the following morning: BELLINDA I tremble when you name it. DORIMANT Be sure you come. BELLINDA I sha’ not. DORIMANT Swear you will. BELLINDA I dare not. DORIMANT Swear, I say! BELLINDA By my life, by all the happiness I hope for - DORIMANT You will. BELLINDA I will. (3.2) Her resistance crumbles as his entreaties become more urgent. He appeals to her in more and more dominant imperatives, whereas her resistance seems half-hearted from the start. Her trembling could be an expression of rage in response to his impertinent demand, of fear or of excitement. Her subsequent replies point to the latter emotion. She may have wanted to say that her life and hap- Particular forms of dialogues <?page no="132"?> piness depended upon staying safely at home but he cuts her short and leads her into temptation. In The School for Scandal (1777), a play in the tradition of the comedy of manners by the Anglo-Irish playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816), Lady Teazle displays her sarcasm in repartees (witty replies): MRS. CANDOUR They’ll not allow our friend Miss Vermilion to be handsome. LADY SNEERWELL Oh, surely she’s a pretty woman. CRABTREE I am very glad you think so, ma’am. MRS. CANDOUR She has a charming fresh color. LADY TEAZLE Yes, when it is fresh put on. MRS. CANDOUR Oh, fie! I’ll swear her color is natural - I have seen it come and go. LADY TEAZLE I dare swear you have, ma’am - it goes of a night, and comes again in the morning. (2.2) We find many line-by-line exchanges in the absurd drama of the 20 th century, albeit with a very different function because here, long pauses, short utterances and replies signify skepticism in language as a means of communication. In an absurd world that does not make sense, characters without a definite identity, a coherent past or a promising future spend or rather waste time together but remain lonely. In Endgame (1958) by the Irish writer Samuel Beckett (1906-89), Clov and Hamm are dependent upon, but dislike, each other: CLOV Why do you keep me? HAMM There’s no one else. CLOV There’s nowhere else. [Pause.] HAMM You’re leaving me all the same. CLOV I’m trying. HAMM You don’t love me. CLOV No. HAMM You loved me once. CLOV Once! (NAEL 2: 2474) The curt remarks lead to nowhere. The characters would part from each other but Hamm has no other person to take care of him and Clov has no other place to go to. In spite of their alienation, they 124 D R A M A Dialogue in absurd drama <?page no="133"?> 125 D R A M A T I C S P E E C H maintain (but do not develop) their relationship by talking to each other, which sounds more like a repeated performance than an intimate conversation. If the dialogue is completely dominated by one character or if two or more characters share the same opinion, dialogues tend to become monologic. A monologue tends towards a dialogue if a character talks to him/ herself, torn between two positions, or speaks to a potential but absent addressee. A monologue is a speech that is addressed to nobody on stage but expresses a character’s inner life to the audience. A monologue is called a soliloquy if the speaking character is alone (Latin solus) on stage. In addition to expressing emotions and judgements about the self and others, monologues reveal information about onstage and off-stage situations, point to past events and expose plans, consequently creating suspense, sympathy or antipathy. In Shakespeare’s King Lear (1605/ 06), the “bastard” Edmund ironically justifies his evil action by the mean and contemptible character that “unnatural” society attributes to him. | Fig. 4.6 The Anglo-Irish novelist and dramatist Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) developed a unique style and vision of the absurd . He depicted both the comic aspects and the despair of grotesque characters, who are reduced to existential needs, caught in repetitive communication, cyclical actions and barren, adverse circumstances. Living mainly in France, Beckett often wrote in French and translated his texts into English, such as the play En attendant Godot/ Waiting for Godot (1952/ 55) and the novel Malone meurt/ Malone dies (1951/ 58). Monologue and soliloquy Task Analyse the functions of speech in Edmund’s soliloquy. Thou, Nature, art my goddess, to thy law My services are bound. Wherefore should I Stand in the plague of custom, and permit <?page no="134"?> 126 D R A M A The curiosity of nations to deprive me, For that I am some twelve of fourteen moonshines Lag of a brother? Why bastard? Wherefore base? [. . .] Why brand they us With base? With baseness, bastardy? Base, base? [. . .] Well then, Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land. Our father’s love is to the bastard Edmund As to th’ legitimate. Fine word, “legitimate”! Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed And my invention thrive, Edmund the base Shall [top] th’ legitimate. I grow, I prosper: Now, gods, stand up for bastards! (1.2.1-22) Edmund appeals to the authority of nature in opposition to arbitrary norms of culture, which disapprove of so-called “illegitimate” children. The repetitions of “base” and the poetic alliteration of “brand”, “base” and “bastardy” express his suffering from humiliation and his anger. Edmund repeatedly questions the reference and function of the word “legitimate” in a metalingual reflection. He expresses his desire for beating his brother and for social esteem. He foreshadows his plot to displace his legitimate brother by writing a slanderous letter, and appeals to the gods for support. Edmund ignores the social and economic functions of legitimacy. His highly rhetorical soliloquy frames the metaphorical “plague of custom”, the highly contagious cultural disease, by natural law and divine order, which Edmund considers to be more fundamental and powerful. Speeches present perspectives. A character’s perspective gains its significance in the relationships to corresponding and contrasting perspectives of others. Differences in the persuasive quality of perspectives and the amount of speech allocated to specific characters create a certain hierarchy directing the spectators’ understanding. Nevertheless, we should not identify a single character’s perspective with the author’s opinion. Rather, the interplay and development of perspectives in relationship to the stage directions or the performance have to be taken into account in order to understand the meaning of the play as a whole. In the soliloquy men- Perspective <?page no="135"?> 127 C H A R A C T E R A N D A C T I O N tioned above, Edmund clearly takes a stand against society, and his argument about arbitrary social norms carries some conviction, but his own gross violations of filial duty to his father put him in the wrong. The various perspectives in a play can share similar basic assumptions and value judgements, moving towards consensus, or contradict each other without any possibility of a compromise or an alternative in a discrepant and disruptive way. Speech and action are interrelated in many ways (see also 4.3 Character and action). Speech triggers off action, as writing does in the example of the slanderous letter above: Edmund’s father, Gloucester, disinherits his legitimate son Edgar. What is more, Edmund accuses his father of being a traitor, who is thereupon blinded by his enemies (King Lear 3.5, 3.7). Speech itself can be considered as action in general, and promises, apologies, requests, curses, condemnations, etc., as performative speech acts in particular. The utterance: “I promise to pick you up tomorrow” performs the promising - not the thing promised itself, of course, because we can fail to fulfil the promise. In a more general sense, conflicts are often enacted or performed in verbal struggles, which range from a harmless battle of wits to a painful quarrel between serious antagonists, such as the battle of the sexes in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Towards the ending of plays, speeches often terminate the action, form judgements and draw conclusions. Character and action In everyday life, our image of people depends upon many sources and kinds of information, such as who gives us which sort of information about them before we meet them, how our experience of individuals relates to the images others have of them and the images they have of themselves, whether they confirm or disappoint our preconceptions, where we meet them and how they behave towards us and others. When we meet someone for the first time, we often form an image of him or her within seconds without being fully aware of it. The first direct impression is often based on the person’s age, gender, colour of skin and hair, size, posture, clothes, movements, charisma, facial expression, gestures and voice in addition to what he/ she says and does. Drama Speech and action | 4.3 Constructing characters in everyday life <?page no="136"?> 128 D R A M A employs many of these sources and kinds of information in order to construct fictional characters or figures to be performed by actors. The image of a dramatic figure is defined by all the information given within the limits of the play on the basis of dramatic conventions. Drama constructs a fictional character as a complex sign defined by psychological disposition, external appearance, speech, action, and relationships to other characters and circumstances. Dramatic conventions influence both the conception of characters or figures and the styles of acting. An actor impersonates a character, identifying with the role, or shows a character, maintaining a distance towards the role. The styles of acting are related to differences in the design and function of the character, genre and theatre. Beside the dramatic genre, the theatrical form privileges certain kinds of characters and acting. In non-illusionist theatre, roles are more often displayed than embodied. In medieval Christian plays performed on simple open-air stages, it would have been presumptuous for a craftsman to identify with, rather than to show, Christ or the devil. Medieval morality plays displayed the Everyman’s moral struggles on the way to salvation and personified abstract concepts, such as Folly or Temptation, which were didactically exposed to the audience. In satires or soap operas actors tend to exaggerate roles, which are often reduced to static types or stock characters, such as the cunning bad guy, the rich bitch and the innocent beauty. Illusionist theatre privileges rounded, complex individuals, which call for impersonation. The realist theatre of the 19th century presented psychological or transpsychological protagonists, whereas the naturalist theatre in the late 19 th century stressed that the characters’ ordinary psychological insight falls Personification, type, individual Dramatic conventions Conception of characters in dramatic texts ˘ Flat or round (simple types or complex individuals) ˘ Static or dynamic (unchanging or developing) ˘ Transparent or opaque (fully explained, closed or enigmatic, open) ˘ Psychological or transpsychological (ordinarily or extraordinarily selfaware and perceptive; Pfister 176-83) <?page no="137"?> 129 C H A R A C T E R A N D A C T I O N short of understanding their own existence. In the 20 th century, anti-illusionist, radical and experimental theatre deconstructs the notion of consistent and independent individuals and tends to stress the theatrical quality of the performance (Aston and Savona 91-95; Pfister 177-83). Dramatic figures are presented through authorial and figural information in explicit and implicit ways (Pfister 183-95). Explicit authorial information is given in telling names, such as Sheridan’s Mrs. Candour and Lady Sneerwell (see above), and in direct descriptions in the secondary text. Implicit authorial information is conveyed in the structure of characters and relationships. The individual character is also defined by his/ her position within the constellation of characters (Struktur des Personals). Dramatic texts usually present a list of roles (dramatis personae), which ranks characters according to social position, generation and gender. The performance unfolds a character’s relationship to others in a sequence of scenes with specific configurations of characters (Konfiguration). The number of dramatis personae is usually limited for pragmatic reasons, i.e. the number of actors in a company and the amount of characters and relationships an audience can reasonably absorb during the two or three hours of the performance. Often, characters appear in pairs, which call for comparisons of similarities and differences between them: ruler and counsellor, master and servant, husband and wife, parent and child, brother and sister, lover and beloved. A character can serve as a mirror of or a foil for another one inverting the other’s features, setting off their particular strengths and weaknesses. In Romeo and Juliet, the old Montague and the old Capulet harbour the same old hate for each other, as opposed to their children’s love for each other. The romantic Juliet, in turn, is juxtaposed to her pragmatic nurse as the sentimental Romeo is to his light-hearted friend Mercutio, who is murdered by the passionate Tybalt. Romeo’s rival for Juliet is the noble Paris, whose conventional considerations of marriage are opposed to the lover’s passion. A partner, such as Friar Laurence, can serve as a confidant/ e (Vertraute/ r), whose interaction with a major character allows the audience insight into the protagonist’s private feelings and thoughts. It is useful to capture the characters’ basic positions, roles and relationships towards each other in a diagram: Authorial information Characters in pairs <?page no="138"?> Dramatic figures characterise themselves and others explicitly in dialogues and monologues and implicitly through the quality of their voice, the way they talk, their physical appearance and their behaviour. 130 D R A M A Fig. 4.7 | Diagram of relationships between characters in Romeo and Juliet. hate love hate Escalus, Prince of Verona Montagues Romeo friendship Benvolio Mercutio Capulets marriage? Juliet Paris help Friar Laurence Tybalt Implicit figural characterization ˘ The manner and timing of entrances and exits, ˘ the external appearance: stature (Statur), physiognomy (Physiognomie), costume (Kostüm), mask (or make-up: Maske) and hair-style (Frisur), ˘ body language: facial expression (Mimik), gesture (Gestik), choreographic grouping (Gruppierung) and movement (Bewegung), ˘ the characteristic vocal quality (or timbre: Stimmqualität), pitch (Stimmlage), volume (Lautstärke), stylistic features (Figurenstil) and the delivery of speeches, varying according to pace (Sprechgeschwindigkeit), rhythm (Rhythmus), intonation (Melodie), emphasis (Betonung) and emotional tone (Tonlage). Explicit figural characterization ˘ Direct comments about oneself ˘ Direct comments by others Compare the external appearance and the body language of the characters in two scenes from King Lear (see fig. 4.14 and 4.15), and reflect on their social and psychological meanings. Task <?page no="139"?> 131 C H A R A C T E R A N D A C T I O N As in ordinary life, it is worthwhile to observe how the various signs that define a character agree or disagree with each other: How does a character’s status, position and appearance compare to what he/ she says in which manner and in which type of language (restricted or elaborate code, standard, dialect, sociolect, individual style/ ideolect)? In The Importance of Being Earnest (1899), for example, the Anglo-Irish author Oscar Wilde (1856-1900) presents the elegant and arrogant Lady Bracknell, who is unaware of the fact that she undermines her pretension to superiority when she tests her daughter’s suitor. Her questions and ridiculous replies to Jack Worthing’s embarrassed answers contradict any serious values: LADY BRACKNELL Do you smoke? JACK Well, yes, I must admit I smoke. LADY BRACKNELL I am glad to hear it. A man should always have an occupation of some kind. There are far too many idle men in London as it is. How old are you? JACK Twenty-nine. LADY BRACKNELL A very good age to be married at. I have always been of the opinion that a man who desires to get married should know either everything or nothing. Which do you know? JACK [After some hesitation.] I know nothing, Lady Bracknell. LADY BRACKNELL I am pleased to hear it. I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. (NAEL 2: 1771) It is also of interest to see whether words agree with acts, support acts or differ from acts (Pfister 44), whether a humiliated character (1) says “I tremble with rage” and does so, (2) says “I tremble with rage” with rolling eyes and raising a fist in complement or (3) utters that sentence in a calm and firm voice, conveying irony by the discrepancy between content and form. Samuel Beckett presents a case of extreme discrepancy between verbal and bodily performance at the very end of the first and second acts in Waiting for Godot (1952): ESTRAGON Well, shall we go? VLADIMIR Yes, let’s go. (They do not move.) Consistency or discrepancy Words and acts <?page no="140"?> 132 D R A M A The difference between their words and acts expresses a lack of motivation, intention or ability in a situation with little meaning and less change, which are typical features of the absurd drama. Discrepancy in a character suggests internal conflicts, which are often related to external conflicts between characters, motivated by an imbalance of power and differences in passions, opinions and interests. The central conflict is enacted in the struggle between the protagonist (Hauptfigur) and the antagonist (Widersacher) or adverse circumstances. In opposition to a happening that may be caused by nature or chance, external action traditionally requires a character’s motivation, intention and ability to change a situation, which can be impeded by powerful forces or circumstances. Of course, a character can also act from impulse or habit, leading to consequences beyond his/ her intention and control. Actions and events follow the chronological arrangement of the story (Geschichte), “whereas the plot already contains important structural elements, such as causal and other kinds of meaningful relationships, segmentation in phases, temporal and spatial regroupings, etc.” (Pfister 197; my emphasis). In addition to the logical or internal structure of the action, acts and scenes provide an external structure for the action. Acts are larger stages of the action and composed of scenes, which are marked by changing character configurations and situations. Scenes that succeed each other can reveal a linear development of the action, or a juxtaposition of actions. In As You Like It, the development of Rosalind and Orlando’s love is juxtaposed to scenes about complications in other love-relationships. The Aristotelian or closed form (geschlossene Form) of drama conceives characters as agents in a coherent story with a well-defined Story and plot, acts and scenes Fig. 4.8 | The Anglo-Irish author Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was as least as famous for his scandalous lifestyle as for his provocative epigrams, his fairy-tales, his aestheticist novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) and his witty comedies, such as Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). Having been imprisoned for homosexual activities for two years, he was divorced and spent the last years of his life in exile in France. Conflicts and action Closed form <?page no="141"?> 133 C H A R A C T E R A N D A C T I O N beginning, a logical development in the middle and a solution to the conflict at the end. In comedies, the harmony that had been disturbed at the beginning of the action is re-established in marriages and celebrations. In tragedies, the violent conflict is followed by a ritual mourning of the dead, and usually also by the restoration of the public order. Often, the five acts of the closed form present a plot in the shape of a pyramid: For example, the satiric comedy Volpone (1607) by the English playwright Ben Jonson (1572-1637) (1) introduces the avaricious protagonist Volpone (the fox) and his clever sidekick Mosca (the fly), who put up hilarious performances to pretend that Volpone is fatally ill and talk greedy acquaintances into doing favours for Volpone in order to inherit his fortune upon his death within a short time. (2) They succeed in deceiving several fools but (3) are unmasked and (4) dragged into court, where they manage to turn the tables on those who discovered their fraud. (5) Finally, the protagonists are caught because they continue to play their game to excess and turn against each other. | Fig. 4.10 The poet, critic and dramatist Ben Jonson (1572- 1637), who used to be a bricklayer and a soldier, became one of Shakespeare’s great if less versatile rivals. In contrast to Shakespeare, he maintained the three unities of place, time and action in drama. He excelled in the genre of the satiric comedy, ridiculing immoral passions that motivate human actions. His masterly play Volpone (1605/ 06) castigates false pretence and greed. | Fig. 4.9 Closed form of plot in five acts. (3) climax (Höhepunkt) (5) catastrophe/ dénouement (Katastrophe/ Lösung) (1) exposition (Einleitung) (4) reversal (Fall, Umkehr) (2) complication (Steigerung) <?page no="142"?> 134 D R A M A Some plays add a sub-plot (Nebenhandlung) to the main plot (Haupthandlung). The sub-plot often highlights the particular qualities of the main plot by comparison. For example, King Lear’s banishment due to his misplaced trust in his abusive daughters is mirrored by Gloucester’s blinding after his misplaced trust in his son Edmund. In Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream (1594-98), one of the subplots takes the shape of a play-within-a-play. In the main plot, young lovers flee from the court of Athens to a forest, where craftsmen rehearse a love tragedy and the jealous king of the fairies is quarrelling with his wife. Love in the world of the fairies, human beings and staged characters is fraught with difficulties. The lovers’ passions are clearly beyond their control and turn into a farce - for the spectators only: the artisans’ clumsy performance of the tragic lovers renders their fate ridiculous in the view of the onstage and offstage audience; under the influence of a magic potion, the human lovers’ affections and the objects of their desire change suddenly, and the fairy queen has a crush on a simpleton transformed into the shape of a donkey. The links between the plots create comic effects and critical distance towards a form of love that makes individuals leave reason and the patriarchal social order behind. Reconciliation and marriage seem to contain the unruly passions in the end of the comedy. The open form of drama (offene Form) violates the (neoclassical) demand for the unities of time, space, and linear action, which were thought to promote a convincing illusion of reality on stage. In the open form of drama, characters tend to be determined by circumstances rather than mastering them by goal-directed action. The scenes are often episodic, fragmentary, loosely connected to each other and may not end with a definite solution to problems. Open form Main plot and sub-plot Forms of drama (Klotz) Closed form ˘ Immediate presentation of characters ˘ Coherent and linear sequence of actions (plot) ˘ Human being as central agent ˘ Involves spectator’s feelings Open form ˘ Narrative elements of presentation ˘ Loose sequence of scenes ˘ Circumstances tend to determine thought and action ˘ Appeals to reason and reflection <?page no="143"?> 135 S P A C E A N D T I M E Space and time The three unities of one coherent action, one place and a performance time that comes close to the fictional time limit the scope of plays. In the extreme, this demand for mimesis would require the action to take place in one room in one evening, as does the English playwright Peter Shaffer’s (1926-) Black Comedy (1965). However, its farcical action of improbable surprises, ironic accidents and downright chaos at a party in an apartment that is dark because of a blown fuse destroys any notion of verisimilitude (Wahrscheinlichkeit). In the dramatic text, stage directions and characters locate the action by descriptions of the fictional locale (Ort, Schauplatz), which is transformed on the stage by the ˘ stage design (related to the size, form and equipment of the stage), such as the setting (Bühnenbild) and the properties (or props: Requisiten), ˘ lighting (Beleuchtung), ˘ sound effects (Geräusche) and music, ˘ special effects (fog, projections, etc.). The external appearance of the stage ranges from a neutral setting to a realistic and stylised one. Each setting can simply form the backdrop of the action or take on a symbolic meaning, supporting or contrasting characterisation, topics and conflicts by structuring space and creating atmosphere. Sound, colour and lighting can express the inner state of characters. Boundaries define territories of different shapes and sizes, and symbolise barriers that prevent interaction or thresholds that enable contact and development. The relationships between different spaces within one setting (up - down, centre - margin, onstage - offstage, real - imagined), are as important as that between settings in succession. Characters express their subjective perception of locales in the primary text and “enact” space through their positions and movements, which in turn build the rhythm of the performance. The manner and meaning of entries and exits divide and connect the onstage and offstage areas, specifying whether a locale represents a place of action or rest, danger or refuge. Characters can assume the prominent central position or the foreground on stage based on their importantance or exposure to others. They can be relegated off-centre or to the background because they observe others or | 4.4 Unity of place, time and action Semantic space Dynamics of space <?page no="144"?> 136 D R A M A are excluded from the group or action. The dynamics of spatial relationships among the characters within a setting and in the succession of settings symbolise social and psychological conditions. Of course, the construction of locales is limited by the form and the technical equipment of the stage, which reflects back on the dramatic texts. Open-air theatres in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance did not have the intention and the technical means to create a real- Fig. 4.11 | Reconstruction of the Swan theatre, built in 1592 for about 3.000 spectators. The stage Analyse the setting and the spatial positioning of the characters in Füssli’s engraving of King Lear 1.1 (fig. 4.14). Compare this situation in the palace with the one of Lear’s exposure to the elements outdoors (fig. 4.15). Comment on the differences between the stylised and the neutral stage design. Task <?page no="145"?> 137 S P A C E A N D T I M E istic locale and did not clearly separate the stage from the audience. Medieval theatres performed in public places, on platforms and pageants (Bühnenwagen), carts with a symbolic stage-setting. In Shakespeare’s time, big public theatres sported a large apron stage, which was surrounded on three sides by up to 3.000 spectators. The poverty of the stage design and props was made up for by word scenery, characters’ descriptions of locales, which allowed fast changes of place. From the 17 th century onwards, indoor theatres gradually separated the stage from the audience. At first, private theatres had actors perform on the proscenium stage (Vorderbühne) in front of a more or less elaborate setting on the scenic stage behind them. Later, the picture frame stage (Guckkastenbühne) presented realistic settings with the help of elaborate technical equipment and gave the spectators the illusion of watching the world on stage through a “transparent” fourth wall. The “invisible” fourth wall separates the stage from the audience: the actors behave as if there were no spectators, who are invisible observers in the darkness of the theatre. | Fig. 4.12 Reconstruction of the Cockpit in Court, built in 1629-30. The King, whose position is elevated and juxtaposed to the stage, is just as important a spectacle as the action on stage. <?page no="146"?> 138 D R A M A Contemporary theatre continues to use the picture frame stage, but prefers the thrust stage, where the actors have closer contact to the spectators, who sit around the front part of the stage on three sides. Performances in alternative spaces, such as pubs or parks, tend to do away with the separation of the stage and auditorium and literally involve the spectators in the action. The relatively short duration of a performance, between two to four hours, forces the playwright to carefully select, concentrate and telescope the fictional time of a drama, which can last for a few hours or many years. If the playwright chooses a historical instead of a contemporary fictional setting, the question remains what the historical period in question has to do with the contemporary world. Does the past serve as a mirror, precondition or an alternative to the present? The staged action can be performed from the very beginning of the whole story (ab ovo, early point of attack) or start in the middle of the story (in medias res, late point of attack) or at the end (in ultimas res). Fig. 4.13 | The Empire Music Hall, Newcastle, built in 1891. The advanced machinery of the picture frame stage, detailed paintings and the separation of actors and spectators help to create the illusion of observing real life in the theatre. Time: point of attack <?page no="147"?> 139 S P A C E A N D T I M E If the action begins in medias res or in ultimas res, retrospectives provide information that explain the previous development in order to understand the present situation. Foreshadowing and time limits (a threat, deadline or emergency) create suspense. Usually, a loose succession of disconnected scenes requires a greater effort from the spectator to find meaningful links than a coherent temporal sequence of actions. Time can be measured objectively in minutes, hours and days, perceived subjectively as boredom, pressure, etc., or interpreted symbolically. For example, Eugene O’Neill’s analytic drama Long Day’s Journey into Night (1940) takes place from morning to midnight, slowly unveiling repressed conflicts. The short external time moves on in linear chronology, but the characters go back in circles to the past and are entangled in the long and painful history of the family. The course of the day symbolises the movement of life towards death both for the old parents and their sons Jamie, who has grown old before his time due to a reckless life, and Edmund, who suffers from consumption. In contrast, Wendy Wasserstein’s (US, 1950-2006) Heidi Chronicles (1988) present eleven scenes in anachronic order about women’s lives before, during, and after women’s liberation between 1965 and 1989. The disrupted chronology mirrors the setbacks and halted progress of emancipation. The anachronic order, which places scenes from different years next to each other, underlines similarities in women’s positions, a fact that is supported by references to women’s portraits over the centuries. Chronology and anachrony Task Note the multiple significations of place and time in Beckett’s Endgame (1958), and draw sketches of the stage design and the movements in order to visualise the stage directions and to support your interpretation: Bare interior. Grey light. Left and right back, high up, two small windows, curtains drawn. Front right, a door. Hanging near door, its face to wall, a picture. Front left, touching each other, covered with an old sheet, two ashbins. <?page no="148"?> Centre, in an armchair on castors, covered with an old sheet, HAMM. Motionless by the door, his eyes fixed on HAMM, CLOV. Very red face. Brief tableau. [CLOV goes and stands under window left. Stiff, staggering walk. He looks up at window left. He turns and looks at window right. He goes and stands under window right. He looks up at window right. He turns and looks at window left. He goes out, comes back immediately with a small step-ladder, carries it over and sets it down under window left, gets up on it, draws back curtain. He gets down, takes six steps (for example) towards window right, goes back for ladder, carries it over [. . .] CLOV: [Fixed gaze, tonelessly.] Finished, its finished, nearly finished, it must be nearly finished. [. . .] I can’t be punished any more. [Pause.] I’ll go to my kitchen, ten feet by ten feet by ten feet, and wait for him to whistle me. (Pause.) Nice dimensions, nice proportions. I’ll lean on the table, and look on the wall, and wait [. . .] (NAEL 2: 2472-73) 140 D R A M A The naked, grey interior with small windows recalls a cold prison cell. The bareness and Clov’s isolation are enhanced by the fact that everything is veiled: the windows, the picture (in a metaphorical way), the ashbins and the figure in the middle of the room. Clov’s clumsy, mechanical and repetitive movements suggest that he has been confined to this room for a long time and passes his time like an imprisoned animal, pacing up and down but lacking its energy. His initial words, spoken to the auditorium, are ambivalent because they promise an end to this situation and possibly a dramatic change but also suggest the end of the performance at the beginning of the play: either way, these words convey pain and resignation. Clov’s reference to punishment supports the impression that the room is like a prison cell. The relationship between the onstage and the offstage locales is as important as the change of locales on stage. The kitchen seems to be his room as opposed to the staged room. The exact size of the kitchen can be taken literally or read symbolically as another prison cell, an interpretation confirmed by Clov’s ironic comment and his waiting for the whistle. The two windows connect the room with the world outside, which seems to be just as bleak as the room inside from which the characters cannot escape. <?page no="149"?> 141 G E N R E S A N D M E T A D R A M A Genres and metadrama The fundamental genres of drama are tragedy and comedy, from which various sub-genres and the hybrid tragicomedy derive. Aristotle’s seminal model of tragedy was based on specific examples of ancient tragedy. According to Aristotle, tragedy is the mimesis or imitation of a serious, heroic and complete action through a direct representation on stage. The noble character transgresses against the order. Because of his misbehaviour or an error in judgement (hamartia), the protagonist’s fortune turns from good to bad and often incurs the loss of several lives. The tragic action incites terror because something like it may happen to us and invites pity because we empathise with the suffering hero/ ine (Aristotle 100). If the protagonist is of a high social status, the reversal or fall appears to be more tragic because of the greater loss (Fallhöhe). The protagonist’s suffering due to his/ her recognition (anagnorisis) of his mistake or guilt compounds the effect of his loss (Aristotle 99). Our identification with the tragic hero/ ine and our experience of pity and fear (Mitleid und Furcht) has the effect of a catharsis (Reinigung, Klärung; Aristotle 95), presumably some form of detachment from these emotions. Shakespeare’s powerful King Lear wants to pass on the responsibility for his country by dividing it up among his daughters according to the level of their love for him. Being blinded by the flatteries of his two older daughters and offended by his youngest daughter’s | 4.5 | Fig. 4.14 Johann Heinrich Füssli, King Lear 1.1, 1792. The furious King Lear dismisses his youngest daughter from his court because he considers her to be disloyal. His loss of emotional control foreshadows that of his country to his older daughters, who watch the spectacle with cool detachment. Tragedy King Lear <?page no="150"?> 142 D R A M A sober response, the enraged king gives all his land to his deceitful daughters and banishes the latter. However, her sisters drive their father from court and into despair, which he suffers from immensely, albeit with a limited degree of insight into his own faults. His young daughter ultimately comes to his aid but is killed, and he dies with her body in his arms. The conceptions of tragic characters and action vary to some extent. Later, tragic characters are no longer noble heroes but of mixed quality and from the middle ranks of society. The reversal of fortune may be initiated by fate (the gods) or the force of circumstances (e.g. poverty and tuberculosis), a flaw in character (e.g. rage, credulity), an error of judgement (e.g. misplaced trust or a misinterpreted situation) or subconscious forces (e.g. the deathdrive). The domestic tragedy (bürgerliches Trauerspiel) replaces noblemen and public life with middle-class characters and private life because these would bring pity and fear as well as a moral message closer to the middle-class audience of the 18 th century. In the 20 th century, the Eugene O’Neill succeeded in depicting American life with tragic grandeur, drawing on psychoanalysis and ancient tragedy. He combined external social and economic conflicts with devastating internal struggles of outsiders and lost souls in a mix of realist and symbolic elements. In his trilogy Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), a family is falling apart as individuals are driven by desire and aggression in the context of the Puritan heritage and the American Civil War. William Shakespeare, King Lear (Klaus Michael Grüber, director, Berlin 1985). Having lost his kingdom, Lear is reduced to a mad, homeless beggar in need of help. In this performance, the choice of a child as Lear’s guide highlights the king’s deviation from his socio-political function as the wise father and leader of his country. Fig. 4.15 | Historical development <?page no="151"?> 143 G E N R E S A N D M E T A D R A M A Comedy often stages ordinary people of the middle or lower classes as flat types with stereotyped forms of behaviour that may hold the mirror up to society for its pleasure or education. Spectators may identify with the superior wit (geistreicher Witzbold) and laugh at the inferior dupe (Tölpel). Comic characters reveal shortcomings (Schwächen), make mistakes, violate rules and are frustrated by failure, but their weaknesses, transgressions and defeats as well as the consequences are not as serious as in tragedy. The action is usually marked by stock elements, such as cross-dressing, deception, mistaken identities, surprising turns and revelations, all of which may transgress the laws of probability. In general, quarrels are settled without any serious harm to either party, such as the battle of wits and the sexes, and poetic justice prevails in the end. Romantic comedies differ to some extent from satiric comedies in tone, the selection of characters, plot, and the response invited from the spectators. The light-hearted romantic comedy conceives romantic lovers, who are able to remove impediments to happiness, often with supernatural help, and a happy ending that includes almost everyone. The happy ending represents the ideal commonwealth of good life and harmony. The romantic comedy favours tolerant humour and entertainment. Shakespeare’s romantic comedy As You Like It (1600) displays its cultural function as wish-fulfillment in the title. Political rivalry for power, which drove the legitimate ruler and the potential lovers Orlando and Rosalind into exile, is overcome by the wonderful change of the usurper in pursuit of his enemies in exile. In this alternative space, all forms of love-relationships are budding. In the end, the political enemies are reconciled, the right couples married and almost everyone returns with the legitimate ruler to the court. This romantic comedy The American playwright Eugene O’Neill (1888-1953) won the Pulitzer Prize four times and the Nobel Prize in 1936. He experimented with many dramatic styles and often based his plays on his own troubled and restless life. He transformed the tragic concept of fate as an external force of divine intervention into the internal force of inescapable psychic conflicts. His pessimistic assessment of human suffering from neurosis and complexes flies in the face of the American optimistic trust in self-reliance. | Fig. 4.16 Comic subgenres Comedy <?page no="152"?> 144 D R A M A suggests that private experience (love) in a sphere that is segregated from the ordinary world (as the space of the theatre is from that of the real world) provides some solutions to public problems (power), even if the alternative sphere is not free from social and economic rivalry. Satiric comedies subject individual flaws and social vices to ridicule for the sake of the spectators’ laughter, recognition and motivation to amend the problems. The sharp focus on blatant transgressions and their bad social consequences, which can hardly be tolerated, stresses the relevance of values and rules. Instead of reconciliation, poetic justice is called for in order to drive the moral message home that virtue is rewarded and vice is punished. Jonson’s satire Volpone (see also 4.3 Character and action) hit hard because most of the offenders are members of the social establishment, a nobleman, an old gentleman, a merchant and a lawyer, who should embody rather than mock traditional values and meet their deserved end. The comedy of manners (Sittenkomödie), which thrived in the second half of the 17 th century, was less strict in moralising than its predecessor, the comedy of humours. The comedy of manners celebrated sophisticated taste and manners, delighted in battles of wit and the sexes and in worldly pleasures as opposed to naivety, sobriety and hypocrisy. The objects of laughter were those who failed to meet these elevated standards because they were morally and intellectually innocent or exaggerated fashionable style or behaviour. In The Man of Mode by George Etherege, the rake or womaniser Dorimant is able to manipulate women until he finds his equal in the witty Harriet, as opposed to Sir Fopling Flutter, whose extraordinary efforts to dress fashionably and converse politely fail miserably to achieve the (intended) effect. Oscar Wilde’s Importance of Being Earnest builds on the tradition of the comedy of manners in his delineation of fashionable society and witty conversations, which do not always go together. Tragicomedy combines serious conflicts or topics with light-hearted elements. Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot deals with physical, emotional and spiritual suffering, moral problems, and the meaning of life and death. The ridiculous characters, absurd dialogues and slapstick actions do not provide any solutions to problems but a comical counterweight to misery. Since Beckett’s characters continuously reflect on who they are, what to say and what to do, his play is implicitly metadramatic. <?page no="153"?> 145 G E N R E S A N D M E T A D R A M A Metadrama discusses the nature and function of drama and the theatre itself. The play Our Country’s Good (1988) by Timberlake Wertenbaker (US/ GB, 1909-) is set in the first years of Australia as a penal colony and is mainly based on historical sources about the transportation of convicts, their harsh existence and the performance of a play in 1789. In the metatheatrical play, an open-minded officer has to negotiate hard for the permission to put on a play with the convicts, who are regarded as hopeless cases by many other officials except the governor. The repressive penal system is juxtaposed to the edifying rehearsals. Taking on fictional roles, the underdogs discover their cultural and social potential to change if they get a chance in reality. Wertenbaker negotiates attitudes towards the theatre and social outcasts, and had her play performed by prisoners for prisoners in Great Britain, doubling the historical play in its contemporary performance. In opposition to Aristotelian drama, which is defined by the immediate presentation of characters in speeches and a coherent sequence of actions, epic drama uses narrative techniques, such as a figure who introduces characters and conveys the (episodic or openended) action of the play to the spectators. The American playwright Thornton Wilder (1897-1975) created an epic narrator in Our Town (1938), the “Stage Manager”. He addresses the audience and describes the world of a prototypical small town, which the spectators’ imagination has to flesh out since the neutral stage is almost empty. He introduces the characters and the action, sometimes even takes over minor parts, interrupts the play, presents retrospections and foreshadowing: Here’s the Town Hall and Post Office combined; jail’s in the basement. [. . .] First automobile’s going to come along in about five years - belonged to Banker Cartwright, our richest citizen . . . lives in the big white house up on the hill. [. . .] (Two arched trellises, covered with vines and flowers, are pushed out, one by each proscenium pillar.) There’s some scenery for those who think they have to have scenery. This is Mrs. Gibb’s garden. Corn . . . peas . . . [. . .] Nice Town, y’know what I mean? Nobody very remarkable ever come out of it, s’far as we know. (7-8) Manfred Pfister remarks about the Stage Manager: “Transcending the merely explanatory and reflective function of the chorus, he appears as the fictional and authorial subject presenting the internal dramatic system” (75-76). The effect is ambiguous: history is Metadrama and -theatre Epic metadrama <?page no="154"?> 146 D R A M A presented here and now in order “to bring the events home more emphatically” (Pfister 76), but this narrator, who is ironic at times, also creates a distance between the audience and the dramatic world and its characters, whose ordinary lives serve as a parable of our own, in order to promote reflection rather than identification. The Stage Manager, who is responsible for the stage design, belittles those who prefer realistic illusion by his condescending statement about those spectators who expect scenery. The praise of the “Nice Town” is ironically counteracted by the question and the implication that its culture apparently does not foster remarkable talent but only mediocrity. At the end of the day and the play, the Stage Manager takes the audience back to reality. He marks both the boundary and the similarity between the stage and reality, appealing to the spectators’ reflection on their own lives. He draws the curtain and the conclusion that our busy lives are unhappy, ruled by ignorance and a waste of time and energy. Guiding questions and exercises A detailed analysis of a complete drama or a performance would require a book-length study. Therefore, it is advisable to focus on one of the following tasks: ˘ explore a topic (such as “The American Dream in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman”), ˘ concentrate on one level (epic communication, dialogues, monologues, characters, action, place or time), or ˘ select scenes for a comprehensive analysis of multiple aspects. In addition, you have to decide whether to analyse the dramatic text as a literary artefact, as a script for a potential performance, or the performance (or its recording) in itself. The analysis of the enactment of a text can first consider the text, then the performance, and conclude with a comparison, or compare text and performance according to selected aspects in a parallel proceeding. Check which current approach to literature would promise interesting results if applied to the play under discussion, and combine this approach with questions on particular features of the genre, such as the negotiation of gender constructions in the characterisation and the plot of an individual comedy. 4.6 | <?page no="155"?> 147 G U I D I N G Q U E S T I O N S A N D E X E R C I S E S A) Communication 1. Which forms of communication fulfil which functions? ˘ What is the significance of the title? ˘ How does the dramatic introduction relate to the exposition? Initial exposition: ˘ character’s or epic narrator’s speech, ˘ prologue, dialogue, monologue informing audience, ˘ report about offstage world, retrospective and foreshadowing, ˘ creating suspense about how action will develop. ˘ Integrated exposition: ˘ information offered, withheld or deferred, ˘ suspense about what did or will happen. ˘ Does the play aim at congruent awareness or discrepant awareness? ˘ Backlog of information, ˘ advance information via soliloquy, confidential conversation, aside overheard or ad spectatores, ˘ intentional or dramatic irony. 2. Dramatic speech: who says what to whom? In which way? For what reasons? ˘ How many speakers and turns can be identified (quantity)? ˘ Number of speakers (monologue, dialogue, polylogue), ˘ number and duration of turns. ˘ Which style do individual or most characters use? ˘ Limited skills in vocabulary, phrasing, rhetoric, or ˘ sophisticated imagery, witty repartees, versatility. ˘ How is the content of speeches organised? ˘ Norms for co-operative communication (respect, truth, quantity, quality and relevance of information) followed or ˘ violated in disrupted communication, ˘ logical coherence in a single utterance or a series of utterances by one or more characters or ˘ incoherence of utterances based on disposition or situation, silence, interruptions, etc. due to insecurity, alienation, domination or deception. Guiding questions for analysing drama and theatre <?page no="156"?> ˘ What are the functions of speech? ˘ Expressive, referential, appellative, phatic, metalingual and poetic. ˘ Which perspectives are chosen and how are they related to each other? ˘ Selection and combination, ˘ correspondence and contrast, ˘ stasis or development, ˘ consensus or discrepancy. B) Character and action 1. Which basic conceptions shape the construction of characters? What is the effect? ˘ Personification, type or individual: ˘ flat or round (simple types or complex individuals), ˘ static or dynamic (unchanging or developing), ˘ transparent or opaque (fully explained, closed or enigmatic, open), ˘ psychological or transpsychological (ordinarily or extraordinarily self-aware and perceptive). 2. Which sources inform us in which ways about characters? ˘ Authorial information: ˘ general constellation of characters (dramatis personae: hierarchy of race, class, gender? ), ˘ changing configurations in scenes, ˘ groups (families, peer groups) and individuals (leaders, outsiders), ˘ social pairing: couples, master-servant, etc., ˘ dramatic pairing: protagonist and antagonist, foil, confidant/ e, ˘ settings characters are associated with (overlaps with space). ˘ Figural information: ˘ explicit characterisation of selves and others in speech, ˘ implicit characterisation, ˘ the manner and timing of entrances and exits, ˘ external appearance: stature, physiognomy, costume, mask and hair-style, ˘ body language: facial expression, gesture, choreographic grouping and movement, ˘ characteristic vocal quality, pitch, volume, stylistic features, 148 D R A M A <?page no="157"?> 149 G U I D I N G Q U E S T I O N S A N D E X E R C I S E S ˘ delivery of speeches, varying according to pace, rhythm, intonation, emphasis and emotional tone. ˘ Acting: ˘ Do words agree with acts, support acts or differ from acts? ˘ Do actors impersonate characters or display characters with role distance? . What are the structure and the function of the action? ˘ Segmentation and order: ˘ acts and scenes, ˘ chronological order of events and actions (story), ˘ logical order and temporal presentation (plot), ˘ closed form (coherent, linear order of exposition, rising action, peripety/ climax, falling action, catastrophe/ resolution) or ˘ open form (episodic, fragmentary). ˘ Genre: ˘ Story with tragic elements of noble or mixed characters, serious action, error of judgement, recognition, suffering and catastrophe or ˘ comic elements of wits and dupes, mistakes and transgressions, resolution of conflicts and reconciliation. ˘ Conflicts: ˘ Within characters, ˘ between protagonist and antagonist, ˘ between character and circumstances (agents in control of circumstances or not). ˘ Combination of plots: How is the main plot connected with the sub-plot? ˘ Links or overlaps in terms of characters, motifs, actions (what), similarities and differences (how), ˘ function as mirror or foil (why). ˘ What is the function of the play-within-a-play? ˘ Limited significance as entertainment on the level of the story, or ˘ more general function as mirror of play, reflection of dramatic conventions. C) Space and time 1. Where does the story take place? How is space defined and used? What does it mean? 3 <?page no="158"?> 150 D R A M A ˘ Single setting or multiple settings, ˘ individual, social, political, cultural spaces as territories, boundaries as barriers, thresholds or contact zones (inclusion, exclusion, transgression), ˘ objective location and perceived atmosphere (e.g. familiar - unfamiliar), ˘ relationship between internal space (mind) and external space, ˘ symbolic function (semantic space, externalised mirror image of character), ˘ dynamics of positioning and movement: up - down, centre - margin, onstage - offstage, real- imagined, ˘ succession and relationship of spaces (similiarities and differences). 2. How is the fictional locale realised on the stage? ˘ Stage design related to the size, form and equipment of the stage: ˘ semantics of neutral, realistic or stylised setting, ˘ props, ˘ lighting, ˘ sound and music, ˘ special effects (fog, projections, etc.). 3. When does the play take place and how is time conceived? How do you account for these choices? ˘ Which era and culture does the play refer to? ˘ Contemporary setting and cultural context or ˘ historical setting: past as mirror, precondition, or alternative to the present. ˘ What are the concepts of time and timing? ˘ Linear time and sense of progress, ˘ cyclical time as natural succession, ˘ inverted or anachronic sequence of time (overlaps with plot). ˘ Point of attack: early/ ab ovo, later/ in medias res, or at the ending of a story/ in ultimas res. ˘ Rhythm by change of scenes, actors’ movements and actions. ˘ Objective measure of time vs. subjective perception of time (pressure, suspense). <?page no="159"?> 151 G U I D I N G Q U E S T I O N S A N D E X E R C I S E S D) General considerations ˘ How does the composition of the drama or the performance as a whole relate to its topics and conflicts? ˘ How does the drama relate to its cultural context? How does a contemporary performance use a past script in relationship to previous performances of the play and the present cultural context? ˘ How did or do spectators respond to performances? Why? How do Arthur Miller’s (US, 1915-2005) stage directions in Death of a Salesman (1949) characterise the protagonist (verbal and non-verbal information, setting)? A melody is heard, played upon a flute. It is small and fine, telling of grass and trees and the horizon. The curtain rises. Before us is the Salesman’s house. We are aware of the towering, angular shapes behind it, surrounding it on all sides. [. . .] we see a solid vault of apartment houses around the small, fragile-seeming home. [. . .] From the right, WILLY LOMAN, the Salesman, enters, carrying two large sample cases. The flute plays on. He hears but is not aware of it. He is past sixty years of age, dressed quietly. Even as he crosses the stage to the doorway of the house, his exhaustion is apparent. He unlocks the door, comes into the kitchen, and thankfully lets his burden down, feeling the soreness of his palms. A word-sigh escapes his lips - it might be “Oh, boy, oh, boy.” [. . . ] LINDA, his wife, has stirred in her bed. She gets out and puts on a robe, listening. Most often jovial, she has developed an iron repression of her exceptions to WILLY’s behavior - she more than loves him, she admires him, as though his mercurial nature, his temper, his massive dreams and little cruelties, served her only as sharp reminders of the turbulent longings within him [. . .] (NAAL 2: 1996-97) Analyse the relationship between the external situation, the action and the dialogue of Tyrone, an old but vital actor, and his son Edmund, both of whom are drunk. They meet in the barely lit liv- Exercise 1 Exercise 2 <?page no="160"?> ing-room around midnight in a summer house surrounded by a wall of fog, which is pierced by sounds of a foghorn in the fourth act of Eugene O’Neill’s autobiographical Long Day’s Journey into Night (1941; first prod. 1956): EDMUND She’s [the mother] coming downstairs. TYRONE We’ll play our game. Pretend not to notice and she’ll soon go up again. EDMUND [Staring through the front parlour - with relief.] I don’t see her. She must have started down and then turned back. TYRONE Thank God. EDMUND Yes. It’s pretty horrible to see her the way she must be now. With bitter misery. The hardest thing to take is the blank wall she builds around her. Or it’s more like a bank of fog in which she hides and loses herself. Deliberately, that’s the hell of it! You know something in her does it deliberately - to get beyond our reach, to be rid of us, to forget we’re alive! It’s as if, in spite of loving, she hated us! TYRONE [remonstrates gently] Now, now, lad. It’s not her. It’s the damned poison. EDMUND [bitterly] She takes it to get that effect. At least, I know she did this time! [abruptly] My play, isn’t it? Here. [He plays a card.] TYRONE [plays mechanically - gently reproachful] She’s been terribly frightened about your illness, for all her pretending. Don’t be too hard on her, lad. Remember she’s not responsible. Once that cursed poison gets a hold on anyone - EDMUND [His face grows hard and he stares at his father with bitter accusation.] It never should have gotten a hold on her! I know damned well she’s not to blame! And I know who is! You are! Your damned stinginess! If you’d spent money for a decent doctor when she was so sick after I was born, she’d never have known morphine existed! [. . .] TYRONE [goaded into vindictiveness] Or for that matter, if you insist on judging things by what she says when she’s not in her right mind, if you hadn’t been born she’d never - (NAAL 2: 1358-59) Analyses: see appendix. 152 D R A M A <?page no="161"?> 153 B I B L I O G R A P H Y PRIMARY SOURCES Albee, Edward. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Ed. Ferdinand Schunck. Stuttgart: Reclam, 2000. Beckett, Samuel. Waiting for Godot. A Tragicomedy in Two Acts. Ed. Manfred Pfister. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1987. —. Endgame. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Eds. M.H. Abrams, et al. 7 th ed. Vol. 2. New York and London: Norton, 2000. 2472-99. (NAEL 2) Churchill, Caryl. Top Girls. Repr. London: Methuen, 1984. Etherege, George. The Man of Mode. Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Comedy. Ed. Scott McMillin. New York: Norton, 1973. 79-152. Gilbert, Helen, ed. Postcolonial plays: an Anthology. London and New York: Routledge, 2001. Internet Shakespeare Editions. University of Victoria, 1996-2010. 1 December 2010. <http: / / internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/ >. (Editions of Shakespeare’s plays and those of his contemporaries; selected secondary material about Shakespeare and the Renaissance; links to online journals). Jonson, Ben. Volpone. Three Comedies. Ed. Michael Jamieson. London: Penguin, 1972. 49-174. Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Eds. Nina Baym, et al. 3 rd ed. Vol. 2. New York and London: Norton, 1989. 1996-2056. (NAAL 2) O’Neill, Eugene. Long Day’s Journey into Night. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Eds. Nina Baym, et al. 3 rd ed. Vol. 2. New York and London: Norton, 1989. 1302-75. (NAAL 2) Pinter, Harold. The Dumb Waiter. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Eds. M. H. Abrams et al. 7 th ed. Vol. 2. New York and London: Norton, 2000: 2594-616. (NAEL 2). Shakespeare, William. The Riverside Shakespeare. Ed. G. Blakemore Evans. 2 nd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997. Sheridan, Richard Brinsley. The School for Scandal. Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Comedy. Ed. Scott McMillin. New York: Norton, 1973. 277-340. Twentieth Century North American Drama. 1 December 2010. <http: / / solomon.nadr. alexanderstreet.com/ >. (More than 1500 plays in full-text version and detailed extra information). Wasserstein, Wendy. The Heidi Chronicles and Other Plays. New York: Vintage, 1991. Wertenbaker, Timberlake. Our Country’s Good. Methuen Student Edition. With Commentary and Notes by Bill Naismith. London: Methuen, 1995. Wilde, Oscar. The Importance of Being Earnest. A Trivial Comedy for Serious People. Ed. Manfred Pfister. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1990. Wilder, Thornton. Our Town. A Play in Three Acts. Ed. Eva-Maria König. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1984. INTRODUCTIONS AND THEORY Aristotle. Poetics. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Eds. Vincent B. Leitch et al. New York and London: Norton, 2001. 90-117. Asmuth, Bernhard. Einführung in die Dramenanalyse. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2004. Bibliography | 4.7 <?page no="162"?> 154 D R A M A *Aston, Elaine, and George Savona. Theatre as Sign System. A Semiotics of Text and Performance. London: Routledge, 1991. (Very readable and systematic). Balme, Christopher B. The Cambridge Introduction to Theatre Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. *Baumbach, Sibylle, and Ansgar Nünning. An Introduction to the Study of Plays and Drama. Stuttgart: Klett, 2009. (Concise and very helpful, good examples). Bentley, Eric. The Theory of the Modern Stage. London: Penguin, 2008. Carlson, Marvin. Performance: A Critical Introduction. London: Routledge, 2004. Down, William M., et al. Experiencing the Art of Theatre: A Concise Introduction. Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 2007. *Fielitz, Sonja. Einführung in die anglistischamerikanistische Dramenanalyse. Darmstadt: WBG, 2010. (Very readable and useful overview, includes historical survey and reference to film analysis). Fischer-Lichte, Erika. Semiotik des Theaters. Eine Einführung. 3 vols. 5 th ed. Tübingen: Narr, 2007. The Semiotics of Theatre. Transl. Jeremy Gaines, and Doris L. Jones. Bloomington/ Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1992. (Major study; shortened translation preferable for beginners). Fischer-Lichte, Erika. The Transformative Power of Performance: A New Aesthetics. London: Routledge, 2008. Jacobus, Lee A., ed. The Bedford Introduction to Drama. 3 rd ed. Boston et al.: Bedford St. Martin’s Press, 2005. (Comprehensive anthology of plays and criticism from ancient drama to Miller’s Death of a Salesman). Klotz, Volker. Geschlossene und offene Form im Drama. 14 th ed. München: Hanser, 1999. McConachie, Bruce, and F. Elizabeth Hart. Performance and Cognition: Theatre Studies and the Cognitive Turn. London/ New York: Routledge Classics, 2007. Meisel, Martin. How Plays Work: Reading and Performance. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. (Very readable, with examples from European theatre). *Pfister, Manfred. Das Drama: Theorie und Analyse 11 th , revised ed. München: Fink, 2001. The Theory and Analysis of Drama. Trans. John Halliday. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. (References are to the English edition of this excellent standard work, well structured and readable, very useful technical terms). *Pickering, Kenneth. Key Concepts in Drama and Performance. Houndmills et al.: Palgrave, 2005. *Pritner, Cal, and Scott E. Walters. Introduction to Play Analysis. Columbus: McGraw-Hill, 2004. (Concise and helpful). Shepherd, Simon, and Mick Wallis. Drama, Theatre, Perfomance. London: Routledge, 2004. Sofer, Andrew. The Stage Life of Props. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002. Szondi, Peter. Theorie des modernen Dramas. 25 th ed. Frankfurt/ Main: Suhrkamp, 1999. Wallace, Jennifer. The Cambridge Introduction to Tragedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. (Easily accessible, broad coverage of tragic theory, tragic drama from ancient Greek to modern American and British drama, and tragedy in novels, film, and visual culture). Wallis, Mick, and Simon Shepherd. Studying Plays. 2 nd ed. London: Arnold, 2002. (Very helpful guide to understanding plays). Weitz, Eric. The Cambridge Introduction to Comedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. (Covers broad range of comic elements, laughter and humour from ancient comedy to postmodern plays). <?page no="163"?> 155 B I B L I O G R A P H Y GENERAL SOURCES Allain, Paul. The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Performance. New York: Routledge, 2006. Artslynx International Arts Resources. Ed. Richard Finkelstein. updated regularly. Date of access: 1 December 2010. <http: / / www. artslynx.org>. (International arts resource registers directors, actors, diverse forms of theatre, magazines, organizations; sections on the visual arts, film, etc.). *Banham, Martin, ed. The Cambridge Guide to Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. (Concise information about playwrights, directors, actors, theatres and movements around the world, including overviews of national traditions). —. The Cambridge Guide to African and Caribbean Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. (Entries about national traditions, theatre companies, individual playwrights, lists of primary works and highly selective lists of secondary works). Berney, K. A., and N. G. Templeton, eds. Contemporary American Dramatists. London: St James Press, 1994. (Biographical and bibliographical information mostly on American, Australian, British and Canadian playwrights; lists of primary works and sometimes of critical studies). Bigsby, Christopher. Contemporary American Playwrights. 2 nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. (Brief biographical and bibliographical information). *—. Modern American Drama, 1945-2000. 2 nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. (Good overview of postwar American drama and theatre). Bigsby, Christopher, and Don Wilmeth, eds. The Cambridge History of American Theatre. 3 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998-2000. (Comprehensive overview). Bordman, Gerald. The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. 3 rd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. (Focuses on Broadway theatres, summarises plays and comments on performances). *A Brief Guide to Internet Resources in Theatre and Performance Studies. Ed. Ken McCoy. 1993- 2010. 1 December 2010. <http: / / www2. stetson.edu/ csata/ thr_guid.html>. Brown, John Russell, ed. The Oxford Illustrated History of Theatre. Reprint. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. (Collection of articles that focus on central European traditions). Die Deutsche Shakespeare-Gesellschaft e.V. Updated regularly. Date of access: 1 December 2010. <http: / / www.shakespeare-gesellschaft. de/ >. (Numerous links to online and offline material on Shakespeare, incl. performances, pictures, courses, etc.). *The German Society for Contemporary Theater and Drama in English (CDE). 1 December 2010 . <http: / / www.english.uni-mainz.de/ projects/ cde/ about/ >. (Bibliographies on all aspects of drama and theatre in English; many links to journals, theatres, performances, etc.). Grabes, Herbert. Das amerikanische Drama des 20. Jahrhunderts. Stuttgart: Klett, 1998. (Brief overview). *Gray, Terry A., ed. Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet. Version 4.0. 1995-2009. 1 December 2010. <http: / / daphne.palomar.edu/ shakespeare/ >. (Large amount of scholarly and entertaining material about Shakespeare for students). *Innes, Christopher. Modern British Drama: The Twentieth Century. Rev. and updated ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. (Very valuable standard book; covers major playwrights, plays and forms in five sections: context, modernism, social and realist theatre, comic and poetic theatre). <?page no="164"?> 156 D R A M A *Kennedy, Dennis, ed. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. (Covers a huge range of international theatrical traditions and performances of all kinds, and provides explanations of key concepts and approaches to drama and theatre). Krasner, David. A Companion to Twentieth- Century American Drama. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006. (More than 30 essays on movements, genres, and individual writers). Krieger, Gottfried. Das englische Drama des 20. Jahrhunderts. Stuttgart: Klett, 1998. (Brief and selective overview). Mengel, Ewald. Das Englische Drama des 20. Jahrhunderts. Eine Einführung in seine Klassiker. Tübingen: Stauffenburg, 2004. Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet. Version 4.0. Ed. Terry A. Gray. 1995-2003. 1 December 2010. <http: / / shakespeare. palomar.edu/ >. (Large amount of useful material about Shakespeare for students). Müller, Klaus Peter, ed. Englisches Theater der Gegenwart. Geschichte(n) und Strukturen. Tübingen: Narr, 1993. (Good essays on theatres, genres and movements, women in theatre, new media, political and historical theatre). Müller, Klaus. Das amerikanische Drama. Eine Einführung. Berlin: ESV, 2006. (A good combination of historical overviews and discussions of individual authors and plays, mostly 20 th century; white male canonical authors, but also ethnic and female playwrights). Riggs, Thomas, ed. Contemporary Dramatists. 6 th ed. Contemporary Writers Series. London: St. James, 1998. (Biographical and bibliographical information on contemporary playwrights, including selective lists of critical writings). *Schabert, Ina, ed. Shakespeare-Handbuch. 4 th ed. Stuttgart: Kröner, 2000. (Comprehensive standard reference work about Shakespeare’s time, life, work and reception). *Schnierer, Peter Paul. Modernes englisches Drama und Theater seit 1945. Eine Einführung. 2 nd ed. Tübingen: Narr, 2001. (Very readable overview of major developments in postwar drama, including sample passages from plays). Theatre History on the Web. Ed. Jack Wolcott. 1996-2010. 1 December 2010. <http: / / www. videoccasions-nw.com/ history/ jack.html>. (Links to resources on the history of theatre). *Trussler, Simon. The Cambridge Illustrated History of British Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. (Excellent and comprehensive study of British drama, theatre, actors, all forms of staged entertainment and the audience in cultural context). UK Theatre Web. 2010. Updated daily. Oxon. 1 December 2010. <http: / / www.uktw.co.uk/ >. (Listings of contemporary performances of all kinds). *Wells, Stanley, and Margreta de Grazia, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare. Cambridge University Press, 2001. (Comprehensive standard reference work in English on Shakespeare's time, life, work and reception). Wilmeth, Don B., and Tice L. Miller, eds. The Cambridge Guide to American Theatre. Updated ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. (Brief articles on individuals, plays, performances of all kinds and theatres). *The WWW Virtual Library: Theatre and Drama. Ed. Barry Russel. 1 December 2010. <http: / / vltheatre.com/ >. (International and multilingual virtual library of plays and theatres; provides texts and pictures of performances, links to conferences and online journals). *Strongly recommended to undergraduate students. <?page no="165"?> 157 Literary Theory The Author 161 Psychoanalysis 163 Text and code 169 New Criticism 169 Formalism, structuralism and semiotics 171 Deconstructivism, post-structuralism and postmodernism 176 Context 181 Marxism and cultural materialism 181 New Historicism 187 Feminism and gender studies 190 Postcolonialism and multiculturalism 195 Reader 201 Bibliography 207 5.1 5.1.1 5.2 5.2.1 5.2.2 5.2.3 5.3 5.3.1 5.3.2 5.3.3 5.3.4 5.4 5.5 | 5 Literary theories provide stepping stones for informed readings of literature. They offer reasons, perspectives and concepts for particular approaches to the text, its aesthetic codes, its production, reception and representation. Abstract Contents <?page no="166"?> This chapter continues the sketch of literary theories given in the introduction (review chapter 1.1) and complements the sections on poetry, narrative and drama. In many cases, particular questions concerning poetry, narrative or drama are based on specific literary theories (the rhetoric of poetry, structure of narrative, semiotics of the theatre). The British Terry Eagleton, professor of literary and cultural theory, has an appropriate answer to those who think that theory spoils the fun of reading literature: “without some kind of theory, however unreflective and implicit, we would not know what a ‘literary work’ was in the first place, or how we were to read it. Hostility to theory usually means an opposition to other people’s theories and an oblivion of one’s own” (viii). It is important to acquire not only one but various theories since not every theoretically informed method generates interesting results with any kind of text. An approach adopts a certain perspective and highlights some aspects of a text while disregarding others. The reader has to ensure that the information ignored is not important to the issue in question. Otherwise, the validity of the interpretation, which depends upon adequate answers to the questions raised, is compromised. Many theories of literature are challenging. Literary theory has taken up ideas from philosophy, psychology, sociology, linguistics and cultural theory. Students are often confused at first since many contemporary theories undermine “self-evident” ideas about who we are, how language and representation work and what an appropriate reading of literature is. However, rather than rejecting theory, it is relevant to become aware of one’s own basic concepts of literature and other ideas of literature that can help us to develop new insights. The changes in literary theories can be related to the history of the so-called Copernican revolutions, which triggered fundamental alterations in understanding God, human beings and the world. A brief survey introduces major shifts. Copernicus’s (1473- 1543) scientific explanation that the world moves around the sun shocked the Catholic belief in the motionless centre of the universe and in the eternal truth of the Bible, which placed human 158 L I T E R A R Y T H E O R Y A professor must have a theory as a dog must have fleas. H. L. Mencken. If you know what they mean, things make sense. Bob Perelman, “4. Clippings,” 1988. Copernicus <?page no="167"?> 159 L I T E R A R Y T H E O R Y beings in the centre of the cosmos under divine rule. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) challenged two fundamental beliefs in things that are beyond experience: metaphysical concepts, such as God or immortality, which could not be proven, and the idea of the objective knowledge of the world as it is because the world we know is always formed by the structure of human perception. Charles Darwin’s (1809-82) theory of evolution reduced human beings from divine creatures and potential angels to descendants from apes. His contemporaries were not only disturbed by the questioning of Christian dogma but also by the idea that evolution and progress can be reversed by regression and decadence. Karl Marx’s (1818-83) theory of the determination of existence by economic conditions and material forces undermined the notion of individual human beings as the shaping forces of history. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) saw psychoanalysis as an insult of the self-love of human beings because he questioned the dominant function of consciousness in human beings, whose drives (Triebe) and unconscious or subconscious were beyond its control. Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) initiated the linguistic turn in literary studies because he claimed that language is a system that creates meaning by itself instead of expressing individual intentions or mirroring the world. The cultural turn was initiated by theories which claim that identity, truth and meaning are not simply given but cultural constructions and subject to change. Psychoanalysis, structural linguistics and cultural theories dismantle concepts of the stable, coherent identity of a unique, autonomous and rational individual, of language as a neutral medium of intentional communication and of universal truths and values. These attacks on liberal humanist ideals do not merely destroy traditional notions but open up new perspectives to see ourselves, literature and the world in new ways (Tyson 2-3). Three tendencies characterise many approaches to literature since the 1960s: ˘ Meaning is less based on factual reality or the individual mind but rather on texts, linguistic and cultural conventions. ˘ Reading is no longer understood like cracking nuts, revealing the meaning concealed beneath the surface in the “depth” of the text but rather like taking strands from texts and weaving patterns of meaning. ˘ Instead of adding up towards a definite or unifying result (A and Kant Darwin Marx Freud de Saussure <?page no="168"?> B = C), readings tend to arrive at contradictory or indeterminate meanings (A versus B = X). In the following model, the theories are grouped around the elements and relationships of literary communication that they primarily explore. Author-oriented and reader-oriented theories are often based on hermeneutic ideas of interpretation. Text-oriented theories, New Criticism and Formalism, and the more recent ones from structuralism to post-structuralism, tend to prefer analysis. Context-oriented theories often combine analytic and hermeneutic methods. Some theories have branched out in different directions or taken up ideas from other theories and put them to new uses. For example, feminism and postcolonialism could be located in all fields of the diagram. Psychoanalysis, structuralism and post-structuralism have influenced feminism and postcolonialism, which are concerned with social and historical contexts but also the production, codes and reception of literature. 160 L I T E R A R Y T H E O R Y Text/ Medium Fig. 5.1 | Fields of literay theories, some of which cover more areas than the ones marked here. Post-structuralism, Deconstructivism, Postmodernism Structuralism, Semiotics Reader-response Theory Reception Theory Psychoanalysis New Criticism, Formalism Marxism, Cultural Materialism New Historicism Feminism, Gender Studies Postcolonialism, Multicultural Studies Code Context Author Reader Text in medium <?page no="169"?> 161 T H E A U T H O R I will briefly present the central assumptions, aims and concepts of each theory in response to others. The major insight of each approach will be juxtaposed to its blind spot. A selection of key questions serves as a guideline for putting the approach into use. An example and a brief exercise - where particularly needed or possible within the allotted space - conclude the presentation. For the sake of brevity and accessibility, the presentation of current approaches and scholars is highly selective and most quotes will be taken from major anthologies rather than individual works of theory. The Author The idea that individual authors and their creation of the work are of prime importance for its understanding is essentially Romantic but persistent, as the constant flow of biographies reveals. Authorcentered approaches considered three aspects to be important: historical evidence, the conscious intention and the unconscious or subconscious. The positivist biographical approach, which originated in the 19 th century, records “positive” (certain, objective) facts about an author’s life and times, which are considered to be the cause of his/ her literary output. The approach seems to be attractive because it “grounds” the ambiguous literary text in palpable facts. However, the approach requires interesting biographical facts in the first place, which are often hard to come by, especially if personal documents and other sources are scarce or if the personal data hardly bear any relationship to the literary work. In addition, if the biographical approach is used in a stereotypical way, it reduces literature to an effect of reality and underestimates that the author’s intention and aesthetic aims may carry him/ her far away from factual experience. Parallels between an author’s life and work suggest cause and effect, but differences are more difficult to understand. Thus, rather than asking how the text mirrors life, it is more interesting to ask how life is transformed in the literary text, and how to account for its reasons. | 5.1 Biography: facts and transformation <?page no="170"?> 162 L I T E R A R Y T H E O R Y Wordsworth’s poem “I wandered lonely as a cloud” (see 2.3) is based on a walk with his beloved sister Dorothy, who wrote about it in her diary (NAEL 2: 391). Although he probably used her diary to compose his poem because there are verbal echoes, he did not mention her. It would not amount to a satisfactory interpretation to say that he lied since we know that literature does not have to be literally true. But why did he exclude her from his text? In terms of the artistic intention, Wordsworth wrote a poetological poem, which explains the creation of a poem in the unique and solitary poet’s mind. An inspiring subjective encounter of nature served as a counterpart to society, which he considered to be alienating. This intense sense experience at times “flash[es] upon that inward eye” (NAEL 2: 285), and the resulting happiness is expressed in this text. The poem illustrates his idea of poetry as an expression of “emotion recollected in tranquillity” (NAEL 2: 250; feminists have more to say about this intertextual relationship as an exploitation of female creativity). Hermeneutics, the theory of interpretation, also places authors in their historical context but rejects the scientific explanation of cause and effect in favor of the humanist understanding of individual motivation and intention. The process of understanding, as we have seen in the first chapter of this book, is based on the reader’s presupposition. Thus, it is a difficult if not impossible leap from our understanding of a text to finding the answer to the teacher’s question everyone knows: “What was the author’s intention? ” The American scholar E. D. Hirsch, Jr.,who advocates an extreme position within hermeneutics, claimed that the author’s intention determines the meaning of a text. He concedes that the fixed meaning of a text (Sinn) hardly ever corresponds to its significance (Bedeutung) for readers, ˘ Which aspects of the author’s life and times are relevant to the text? ˘ What are the functions of autobiographical elements and their transformation? Do aesthetic invention or psychological motivation account for the changes? Biographical questions Example Wordsworth's “Daffodils” Hermeneutics: intention <?page no="171"?> 163 T H E A U T H O R which can change over time. Nevertheless, he proclaims that readers should aim at an objective interpretation of the author’s meaning in the text as opposed to the more or less subjective criticism of its significance for us (Hirsch in Leitch 1686). However, Gadamer’s version of hermeneutics stresses the role of the reader and a dialogic interaction with the text (see 1.2 and 5.4). New Critics, who focus on the text itself, regard the search for authorial intention as invalid and an answer to this question as intentional fallacy (intentionaler Trugschluss) because here, readers mistake their own understanding for the author’s meaning. Structuralists and post-structuralists go further and deny the importance of the author, maintaining that meaning is based on processes in language itself and explored by the reader (see 5.2.2 and 5.2.3). However, psychoanalysis also undermines intention as the central source of meaning without neglecting the author. Psychoanalysis Our understanding of literary characters is usually based on popular psychology, such as understanding aggression as a response to frustration. Psychoanalysis would not necessarily disregard these views but seriously question that we are aware and in control of what we are doing by rational and conscious decisions. Apart from dreams, the slip of the tongue (Freudscher Versprecher) probably is the most familiar evidence of the unconscious or subconscious in everyday life (it also occurs in writing: in spite of being consciously open to semiotic theory, I wrote “sigh” instead of “sign”). The Romantics discovered the relevance of the unconscious but Sigmund Freud elevates it to the central problem of the human psyche, decentering the conscious self, which had formed the core of identity: “I think, therefore I am” (Descartes). Freud’s model of the human psyche consists of three areas, the super-ego (Über-Ich), which contains the social and cultural norms, the id (Es), which harbors the drives (Triebe) and the rational ego (Ich), which tries to mediate between social norms and individual drives. These three parts roughly correspond to the conscience, the unconscious and the consciousness. In spite of decentering the individual, Freud aimed at an integrated self with some insight into the subconscious and the rational management of life, mediating between individual needs and social norms. | 5.1.1 Freud's model of the human psyche Criticism <?page no="172"?> 164 L I T E R A R Y T H E O R Y Fig. 5.2 | The Austrian Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) developed the theory of psychoanalysis as a model of the human psyche related to social and cultural pressures. His focus on the dominant forces of sexuality, repression and the unconscious has been as disturbing as influential. Among his major works are Die Traumdeutung ( 1899; The Interpretation of Dreams), which understands dreams as a working through of desires, fears and problems of everyday experience, and Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie (1905; Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality) . Freud identifies childhood as the formative period of identity and (sexual) desire (libido, Eros) as the predominant motivation (besides the destructive death drive: Thanatos). Infant libidinal energy moves from oral and anal to phallic pleasure, which goes along with the discovery of the sexual difference between the penis and the vagina. Freud attributes penis envy to girls and the anxiety of castration to boys (in a patriarchal model of gender). In the beginning, the infant directs all its libidinal energy upon itself in a narcissistic way, but later projects his/ her desire upon objects (Freud in Kimmich 163). Problems arise if the self is caught up in one of his/ her stages of infant development and in narcissistic self-love, being unable to form mutually satisfying relationships with others. The family becomes the first site of psychological conflicts between individual desire and social rules. According to Freud’s interpretation of the Oedipus complex, the son first imitates the father as a model (identification) and later rivals his father for the love of the wife and mother (object-choice). The boy’s “identification with his father then takes on a hostile coloring and becomes identical with the wish to replace his father in regard to his mother as well” (Freud, qtd. in Rivkin and Ryan, henceforth RR, 438). In a parallel and equally ambivalent way, a little girl identifies with her mother and desires to replace her mother as the lover of her father. Since these children’s desires for their parents are illegitimate, as expressed in the incest taboo, they may be accompanied by guilt. Social norms make individuals repress their desires, which live a life of their own in the subconscious but resurface in what is called the return of the repressed (Rückkehr des Verdrängten). Often, the return of Psychological conflicts Childhood Repression <?page no="173"?> 165 T H E A U T H O R the repressed reveals the uncanny (das Unheimliche), something that is heimlich in the sense of familiar and secret and at the same time unheimlich: “this uncanny is in reality nothing new or foreign, but something familiar and old - established in the mind that has been estranged only by the process of repression […] something which ought to have been kept concealed but which has nevertheless come to light” (Freud qtd. in RR 429). Freud relates the uncanny to “the idea of a ‘double’ in every shape and degree, with persons […] doubling, dividing, interchanging the self ” (qtd. in RR 425). While Freud does not ignore the conscious creation of art, he is more interested in the expression of the unconscious as a revelation of the author’s core psychological conflicts. He considers literature to work like dreams because the overt or manifest meaning on the surface of the text conceals the latent or covert meanings in the hidden depth of the text. Criticism resembles therapy: the reader reveals what has been concealed and subjects the unconscious to rational interpretation. Two patterns of dreams and texts have to be deciphered: condensation (Verdichtung), which combines and concentrates multiple experiences in complex images, and displacement (Verschiebung), which substitutes one thing for another closely related to it. The death of a relative may trigger the dream of a bird that is flying away, expressing a feeling of loss, the soul leaving the dead body, etc., or the dream of a strange character, dressed in black, haunting the dreamer. On the part of the author, writing can reveal the return of the repressed, a dreamlike wish-fulfilment or serve as a therapy parallel to the talking cure the client is subjected to in psychoanalysis. The psychoanalytic approach, while concentrating on the origin of conflicts, can be applied to the production of literature, to the work itself and to its reception. ˘ What do images and what do conflicts between and within characters reveal or conceal? How do characters’ words, acts, emotions and subconscious states relate to each other? Do forms of repression, repetition, doubling and the uncanny mark conflicts of social conventions and individual desire? ˘ In which way do the manifest and the latent elements of the text reveal the author’s conscious craft or subconscious conflicts? Freudian psychoanalytic questions Art and dreams <?page no="174"?> ˘ What is the function of writing for the author? (Wish-fulfillment, escapism, therapy, etc.). ˘ What is the effect of the text on the reader? Does my response reveal subconscious motives? Does a text allow us to imaginatively reenact subconscious conflicts? Freud’s interpretation of Hamlet’s hesitation to kill the murderer of his father, which has fascinated and puzzled generations of spectators and critics, is a famous example of psychoanalytic criticism. Freud sees the Oedipus complex at work in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Hamlet’s uncle Claudius killed Hamlet’s father and married his mother, fulfilling Hamlet’s secret Oedipal desire. Thus, the uncle serves not only as Hamlet’s opponent but also as his alter ego. The great success of the play with spectators is explained in a similar way since the play shows the fulfillment (Hamlet’s uncle), the repression (Hamlet) and the punishment of the forbidden Oedipal desire (the deaths of Claudius and Hamlet). Robert Louis Stevenson’s (GB, 1850-94) Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) is one of the most famous literary expressions of the uncanny and doubling. The educated gentleman Dr. Jekyll lives up to Victorian ideals and his alter ego Mr. Hyde embodies antisocial drives. Jekyll’s repetition-compulsion (Wiederholungszwang) motivates him time and again to transgress social norms in the body of the uncanny Mr. Hyde. Jekyll’s rational ego (the “I”) is no longer master in his own house and of his own self: “Think of it - I did not even exist” (Stevenson 90). When Jekyll realises that he has lost control over his passions and can no longer change from Hyde into the respectable citizen, he commits suicide. 166 L I T E R A R Y T H E O R Y Examples Interpret the limerick “Three blind mice” (read the text in 2.1; the appendix gives an interpretation). Exercise <?page no="175"?> 167 T H E A U T H O R The French psychoanalyst and critic Jacques Lacan reverses Freud’s insight that literature works like dreams, taking into account the linguistic turn: the individual subject (Latin subjectum: unterworfen) comes into being in language, and the unconscious is structured like a language (Barry 111). According to Lacan, the subconscious processes of condensation and displacement follow the patterns of metaphor and metonymy. If you are secretly afraid of the fact that you will not meet the deadline of your paper, you may dream of missing a train (metaphor) or of no longer knowing how to write any more or of writing words that disappear (metonymy). Due to his understanding of the psyche as a linguistic process, Lacan has been associated with post-structuralism. Like Freud, Lacan regarded the child’s early development as crucial for human identity and its problems. Whereas the baby has no conception of an identity apart from its mother (narcissism, symbiotic unity where it is the center of desire), the discovery of its mirror image initiates the imaginary sense of the self as an individual. If a baby realises for the first time that the movements in the mirror are an image of its own behavior, it develops a visual sense of itself as a person apart from others, especially its mother. Instead of recognizing the identity of the self and its mirror image, Lacan stresses the separation of the observer from his/ her image, the other. The identification with the specular image, Lacan maintains, forms a matrix (pattern) of identity formation that precedes “the dialectic of identification with the other” (qtd. in RR 442) and its conception as a subject in language. Learning language provides the infant with a symbolic order (here, symbolic does not refer to the rhetorical figure but to words used as signs). In opposition to the baby’s symbiotic unity with the mother, the infant is now subject to the symbolic order, which Lacan associates with the father, because language embodies patriarchal rules, knowledge and power. The acquisition of the “father’s language” goes along with the birth of the unconscious because the desire for the lost unity with the mother or the mother as object has to be repressed. According to Lacan, the split between the self and the mirror image, the “I” and the “me”, the signifier and the signified, the self and the m/ other, the consciousness and the subconscious, generates the desire for unity, which is unattainable, so that lack and absence become central features of the subject’s identity in language. Lacan Mirror stage Symbolic order <?page no="176"?> Donald Barthelme’s short story “The Baby” (see 3.2.2; Nischik 52- 54) can be read in Freudian and Lacanian terms. Freudian psychoanalysis would stress that the father has a strong super-ego, projects his own drive of destruction onto his baby and punishes it for what he would like to do. The ending, which appears to be completely arbitrary, acquires a psycho-logic in Freudian terms as the return of the repressed in the father’s indulgence in destructive behaviour. In a Lacanian perspective, the story reveals the baby’s subconscious resistance against being separated from its mother and subjected to the law of the father. The baby continues to tear pages out of books that the father offers to it in spite of - or rather because of - knowing what will happen. These books represent the father’s symbolic order, which is enforced by the baby’s separation from the mother, which may have been the (jealous) father’s subconscious motive all along, treating the baby as if it already knew language and could be held responsible for transgressions against his order. However, the regressive return of the father to tearing pages out of books with the baby in the end reveals that he subconsciously suffers from the split self due to his own entry into the symbolic order, which separated him from his own mother. The psychoanalytic approach has met with criticism that considers it arbitrary because it privileges subconscious revelation to conscious communication. What is more, if psychoanalytic critics and their readings are in turn subjected to psychoanalytic interpretation, their special interest in the sexual motives and subconscious repression of authors appear to be an outcome of their own prob- 168 L I T E R A R Y T H E O R Y ˘ Does the text reveal conflicts of the mirror stage or the entry into the symbolic order? ˘ In which way is the speaking subject different from or undermined by what he/ she says about him/ herself ? ˘ How is the conscious search for meaning, order, unity or an object/ other frustrated by subconscious elements? Lacanian questions Example Barthelme’s “The Baby” <?page no="177"?> 169 T E X T A N D C O D E lems or projections. While the psychoanalytic interpretation of fictional characters and relationships can be fruitful, we must not forget that they are, after all, aesthetic creations and not real people. Both Freud and Lacan have been criticized by feminists for their “phallocentric” construction of human identity and gender, which privileges male over female identity. Nevertheless, the unconscious is one of the central concepts of contemporary thinking and figures in various forms in recent political, cultural and feminist theory. Text and code All of the subsequent approaches in this section are sometimes labeled text-centered because they neglect the dimensions of expression, mimesis and reception or conceive writing and reading as (inter)textual processes rather than intentional acts. New Criticism The British practical criticism and the American New Criticism (1920s-60s) reject the extrinsic readings of literature in favour of an intrinsic approach (werkimmanenter Ansatz). They denigrate an interpretation that refers to the author’s meaning as intentional fallacy, and an impressionist reading as an affective fallacy because it allows the critic’s emotions to attribute significance to the text. Literature is regarded as an autonomous aesthetic object independent of authorial intention, historical circumstances and its emotional effect upon the reader. In this respect, they follow Matthew Arnold’s interest in an “objective” theory of art and criticism (see 1.1), and T. S. Eliot’s ideal of the poet’s impersonality. The tag “objective approach” for New Criticism is misleading. While ignoring a subjective response to the text, the interpretation of the text as an object and its reading are not free from any consideration of values. The mere recognition and understanding of a text as a work of art implies intersubjective values, which the reader of a certain sensibility can find materialised in the literary text (see Wellek and Warren 156, 250). Important literature, the New Critics maintain, has an intrinsic value of its own, revealing universal meaning. | 5.2 | 5.2.1 <?page no="178"?> Since “a literary work of art is not a simple object but rather a highly complex organisation of a stratified character with multiple meanings and relationships” (Wellek and Warren 27), it requires close reading (detaillierte textimmanente Lektüre). Close readings aim at the exact description and sound interpretation of form and content, including metre, rhythm, rhyme, imagery, grammar and verbal meaning. In contrast to expository prose, literature is considered to be especially sensitive to and rich in connotative meanings. The denotation (Grundbedeutung), which refers to the primary meaning or the referent of words, is not more relevant in literature than the connotation (Mitbedeutung), the secondary meaning, such as the association of fox and cleverness or steel and coolness. Connotations follow conventions of style, register, region or history. The method of New Critics corresponds to their ideal of art, using rhetoric and poetics to scrutinize a text for the aesthetic organisation of its elements into an organic whole. They appreciate complex texts that are rich in imagery, ambiguity, irony and paradox, for example poetry or Shakespeare’s plays. ˘ Do denotative and connotative meanings, literal and metaphorical meanings generate a complex unity of the text? ˘ Does the composition integrate content and form? Does the work of art create a whole or fail to do so? ˘ Do the particular positions of the text allow for generalization or even universal truth and values? The conservative New Critical conception of universal values in life and in (high-brow) literature was attacked by virtually all extrinsic positions as being unhistorical and far too general. Close readings were held to be inappropriate because they avoided addressing the 170 L I T E R A R Y T H E O R Y Look up the different connotations of African-American, Black, Afro, negro, nigger and coon. Task Questions of practical criticism and New Criticism <?page no="179"?> 171 T E X T A N D C O D E | 5.2.2 importance of readers, history and culture to literature. Deconstructive critics would scorn the New Critical attempt to subsume ambiguous and paradoxical meanings under an idealising concept of unity rather than acknowledging irreconcilable contradictions. Formalism, structuralism and semiotics Like the New Critics, Russian Formalists (1910s-30s) largely ignore authorial intention, historical circumstances and the effect upon the reader. However, they are more interested in the general (linguistic) features of literature than the unique individual work of art that the New Critics privilege. The author is no longer considered an original genius but a craftsman or writer, who works with artistic devices. In a simplified way, formalism is concerned with the deviation of literature from ordinary language, structuralism with the system of literature itself (as langue), which enables the generation of actual texts (as parole). Sometimes, semiotics or semiology is used in a similar way as structuralism, at other times, a difference is made between the structuralist focus on the abstract system of signs and the semiotic interest in the communicative process of encoding and decoding signs by users. These approaches refuse the idea of literature as authorial expression and concentrate on textual structures or on readers, who use their literary competence in order to structure texts. Structuralism and semiotics analyse an individual text as a realisation of the deep structure of its genre, and cultural systems of fashion, food, sports, etc., as texts, or relate models of reality in literature to those in other cultural systems. Saussure’s linguistics has profoundly influenced the following approaches. According to Saussure, language cannot be defined as the expression of intentions or the mirror of reality but as a system of dynamic relationships between signs, which generates meaning in itself. The virtual system of the rules and signs of language (langue) is realised in individual performances (parole) with a difference, which can change the meanings of signs and rules in the long run. Saussure’s definitions of the sign and its meaning were groundbreaking. A sign does not connect a name and a real thing but rather a sound image or graphic image (signifier, Signifikant) and a mental concept (signified, Signifikat) in an arbitrary (arbiträr, willkürlich) relationship. René Magritte’s painting illustrates this insight: Literature as system Language as sign system <?page no="180"?> The meanings of signs are defined by the relationships between paradigms (Paradigma, Beispiel), that is by differences from other signs within the same category. The subject in the sentence “The cat is on the sofa” is meaningful since the subject is not the dog or the elephant. It may be difficult to understand Saussure’s statement that language creates meaning based on the difference between signs rather than the content of individual signs. If “black” means the opposite of “white” and we only know what “black” means if it is related to “white”, it is hard to see how one can choose between paradigms of colors if none of them means anything as such. However, Saussure’s insight that binary oppositions form the basic semantic units of a language, such as man/ woman, earth/ sky, human/ animal, etc., is generally accepted. Sentences mean something by the selection of paradigms and their syntagmatic combination: “The cat/ dog is/ sleeps under/ behind the armchair/ sofa.” Saussure’s concepts have influenced the definition of literature as a system, writing and interpretation as competence (langue) put into performance (parole), and meaning as a relationship between signs. The Russian writer Viktor Shklovsky defines literature by its deviation (Abweichung) from the conventional rules of language. Literature does not differ in content from ordinary language because it deals with topics from everyday life, for example education, love, morals, money and death. Literature foregrounds how it expresses content. Literature can be defined as the sum or the system of stylistic 172 L I T E R A R Y T H E O R Y René Magritte (1898-1967), La clef des songes (1930). Fig. 5.3 | Shklovsky’s theory of deviation Selection and combination <?page no="181"?> 173 T E X T A N D C O D E devices, which raises our awareness of language and defamiliarises (verfremden) our perception of the ordinary world that is so familiar to us that we no longer notice it: “‘If the whole complex lives of many people go on unconsciously, then such lives are as if they had never been.’ And art exists that one may recover the sensation of life; it exists to make one feel things, to make the stone stony” (Shklovsky 9, qtd. in RR 16). Art raises our awareness for language and life, Shklovsky maintains, by describing things as if they were unknown, compelling readers to slow down and concentrate on their new perception. The formalists find many of these deviant stylistic devices in poetry, which uses metre, rhythm, rhyme and imagery, and sometimes violates semantic, grammatical and syntactical rules. In narrative, formalists comment on the functional use of the perspective and the plot, which draw the reader’s attention to how something is seen and to connections between the events of a story (see 3.3). Formalists are also interested in metafictional, self-referential narrative texts, which foreground their literary devices, such as Sterne’s Tristram Shandy (see 3.2.3). However, literary language is not per se different from ordinary language and sometimes uses and endorses its readers’ stereotypes. Ordinary language itself, especially oral discourse, is full of imagery, grammatical and syntactical deviations from elaborated language. Language is not a univocal system but reveals many differences according to region, class, gender, generation, styles, registers and individuals. Novels, drama and also modern poetry often explore the various uses of ordinary language, defamiliarising literary conventions (see RR 19). The Russian linguist and literary critic Roman Jakobson moved from formalism to structuralism and semiotics. Jakobson developed an influential model of communication, which served to define the aesthetic function of literature in a slightly different way than Shklovsky. According to Jakobson, language has six functions: the emotive, referential, conative, phatic, poetic and metalingual function. The emotive or expressive function externalises a speaker’s emotions and thoughts, and the referential serves to convey information. The conative or imperative function aims at convincing the addressee, and the phatic serves to maintain the contact with the addressee (e.g. the particle “well…” or the tag “…isn’t it”). The poetic or aesthetic function reflects on the structure of the utter- Jakobson: functions of language (see example in 4.2) Criticism <?page no="182"?> 174 L I T E R A R Y T H E O R Y ance itself, for example its diction, whereas the metalingual refers to the codes used in this process of communication (e.g. questions about the use or meaning of a specific phrase). Jakobson stressed that literature foregrounds the poetic or aesthetic function, which points to its use of language at the expense of the referential function. His definition of poetry in particular has acquired fame because it explains its characteristic repetition of diction, metre and rhyme: “The poetic function projects the principle of equivalence from the axis of selection into the axis of combination” (qtd. in Ludwig 18). This means that a poem asks us not only to see similarities and differences between the choice of “house”, “hut” or “hovel” in the paradigms for “building”, but also between these words and those connected to them through syntactic or poetic means: for example, “the metrical parallelism of lines or the phonic equivalence of rhyming words prompts the question of semantic similarity and contrast” (Jakobson qtd. in RR 79). The limerick “Three blind mice” combines words not only according to the rules of semantics and syntax but also according to poetic similarities, for example, rhyme (“Three”/ “See”), assonance (“blind mice”) and alliteration (“cut”/ “carving”, see 2.1, 22). Form follows function according to structuralists. The basic binary opposition in the poem is rendered equivalent by rhyme: “blind”/ “sight”, paralleled by the assonance “mice”/ “wife”. The opposition of blindness and insight is equivalent to that of animal and human being. However, the poem implicitly establishes an equivalent opposition in life/ poem, stressing its own function as art to make us see something that we have ignored in life. Structuralism would be interested in how the poem generates meaning, not what it means. The interpretation of its content would be of interest to the psychoanalytic critic (see 7.1). Structuralism is very useful for the analysis of poetry, but it achieved greater prominence in the theory of narrative, establishing a detailed system of narrative voice and focalisation, time and the function of characters and plots (see 3.2.2-3.3). ˘ What are the central elements, their relationships and their functions in the deep structure of the genre in the period in question? Structuralist Questions (compare the guiding questions in 2.5, 3.5, 4.5) Poetry: equivalence of oppositions Example: limerick <?page no="183"?> 175 T E X T A N D C O D E ˘ What are the fundamental semantic, syntactic, rhetorical and poetic binary oppositions and equivalences in the text under analysis? How are they interrelated? What is their function in comparison to the conventions of the genre? ˘ How does the fictional model of reality relate to other cultural models of reality, such as designed by the systems of kinship, psychology or the law? Determine the fundamental binary oppositions and equivalences in Phillis Wheatley’s poem “On being brought from Africa to America” (see 2.3) on the level of semantics, sound and metre. Find out how these oppositions relate to each other and how their combination changes in the poem. Compare the realignment of oppositions to those of Christian culture and North American slavery and explain its function (see Zapf, Literaturgeschichte 1-34, 402-406; for an answer, see 7.1). It has been debated to which extent the insight resulting from the structuralist approach reveals patterns implied in the object or imposed by the critics (cp. Eagleton 116, 122). The Marxist scholar Terry Eagleton conceded that the basic insight of structuralism into the construction of meaning by “shared systems of signification” (107) forms a decisive advantage over the liberal humanist conception of meaning as originating in a unique individual or in universal ideas. However, he criticises that structuralism goes too far in eliminating the human subject and in isolating literature from the material conditions of social practices and historical changes (Eagleton 109-114). Structuralism in the narrow sense of establishing rather static systems seems to be outdated. Semiotics in the general sense of understanding various fields of culture as system and communication is still flourishing. For example, Erika Fischer-Lichte developed a semiotic understanding of the complex theatrical system of audiovisual signs and its communication in performances, which helps enormously to analyse plays (see 4.1, 4.3). Roland Barthes’s concise analyses of the different structures of advertising detergents and soap-powders, like Persil and Omo, or Task Criticism <?page no="184"?> 176 L I T E R A R Y T H E O R Y of an exhibition of photographs, The Great Family of Man, which presents the myth of a unity in diversity of humanity, stressing a common nature instead of cultural and historical inequality, are still relevant and entertaining (qtd. in RR 81-89). Deconstructivism, post-structuralism and postmodernism In spite of numerous differences between them, deconstructivism, post-structuralism and postmodernism (1960s-) share a few tenets, such as dismantling the fictions of essence and truth in metaphysical philosophy, objective knowledge in rational science and universal values in liberal humanism. The French deconstructivist philosopher Jacques Derrida questions traditional concepts of truth, based on the given identity, essence and presence of things and people in the world. According to common sense, a text re-presents something that is absent, as a letter conveys our thoughts to someone else in our absence. The ordinary reader of the letter would suppose that the meaning and the truth of the letter ultimately rely on the facts of our identity, our presence and our past experience in the substantial world we share. However, Derrida would stress that the letter’s origin and its reference (the writer and his/ her experience) are not only absent, deferred in time and space. In a more radical sense, every thing, concept or identity can only mean something in the first place due to their difference from other things, concepts or identities. Therefore, everything is textual because it only makes sense to us due to differences from something else, as a sign in the text means something due to its differences from other signs. Whereas Saussure takes the relationship between signifier and signified as the two different but inseparable pages of a sheet of paper, Derrida stresses the separation between them, which renders the relationship unstable, slippery and indeterminate. He coins the artificial term differance (French différance ), which includes the notions of “to differ” and “to defer”. Differance encompasses “the sense of not being identical, of being other” (Derrida qtd. in RR 283) and of the temporal and spatial gap between signs that is necessary in order to generate meaning. This process cannot be explained by equivalent binary opposition, which defines black as not white and white as not black. Derrida decentres the system of binary oppositions, which organises the meaning of texts according to structuralists. Instead of forming a simple opposition of equivalent terms, binary 5.2.3 | Derrida: absence of reference Decentering the system <?page no="185"?> 177 T E X T A N D C O D E oppositions convey a hierarchy, in which the “minor” term disturbs the stable balance. The oppositions man/ woman, culture/ nature, heaven/ earth privilege the first term, which, however, is always “contaminated” by the trace of its “lesser” counterpart. If the term “civilised” needs the term “barbarian” to define it, it is difficult to use the one without a trace of the other. Differance is what makes the movement of signification possible only if each element that is said to be “present”, […] is related to something other than itself but retains the mark of a past element and already lets itself be hollowed out by the mark of its relation to a future element. This trace […] constitutes what is called the present by this very relation to what it is not, to what it absolutely is not […] (Derrida qtd. in RR 287) If you want to know the exact meaning of a word, you look it up in a dictionary, where the word/ signifier is explained by other words/ signifieds, which are signifiers in themselves and in turn are explained by other words in an endless chain of signification. You can read the whole dictionary without getting closer to the exact meaning of the word but will rather end up with more and more words. The meaning of the word that you want to find is related to the definitions you have looked up, those you will have to look up and those you might look up. There is no logical point where to stop but a practical one. Ultimately, the complete meaning of a sign would be constituted by its ‘différance’ to all other signs. In other words, the meaning of signs remains incomplete, but we accept provisional meanings for pragmatic purposes. Language consists of an interminable play of signifiers, which disseminates or disperses rather than fixes meanings. A deconstructive analysis proceeds in two steps. It figures out the principles that serve as the bedrock of the text, and then unearths the quicksand beneath it. Its reading the text against the grain reveals where the text says something that it does not mean, such as multiple and contradictory meanings in addition to “obvious” ones. Something a text presents as natural, normal or self-evident would appear to be based on what is considered to be cultural, arbitrary and strange. The Eurocentric “universal” definition of humanity as mankind or “man” turns out to be an artificial patriarchal construction that serves as the norm for men and women of any culture around the world, containing (including and repressing) multiple gendered and ethnic differences, which, if addressed, question the universal assumption. Signification as process Reading for subversive contradictions <?page no="186"?> 178 L I T E R A R Y T H E O R Y ˘ How are privileged terms of binary oppositions undermined by their negative other? ˘ Which passages present arguments or images of profound ambiguity or contradiction? ˘ What is considered to be self-evident or natural but appears to be arbitrary? ˘ Where do shifts in perspective and judgment occur and disrupt the coherence of the central argument of a text? ˘ Do blind spots or omissions hide potentially subversive information? ˘ Where do self-referential statements and intertextual links undermine basic assumptions of the text? After violent struggles over life and death for honor and power, Shakespeare’s Macbeth arrives at an insight which questions all of his goals and values: Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more; it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. (5.5.24-28) Hubert Zapf comments that here, life is marked by absence rather than presence, the shadow rather than the real thing; life is but a text, and what is more, one that is beyond the control of its speaker and does not make any sense; it is a sign without a referent, a signifier without a signified, or in short: nothing (201-202). However, this statement hardly represents the play as a whole because it is voiced by the hero after his recognition of the futile and amoral strife for the crown (Zapf 202), and because law and order are restored in the end. In Phillis Wheatley’s poem, the phrase “Christians, Negroes, black as Cain” disrupts the binary hierarchy between the heathen Deconstructive questions Macbeth Examples Macbeth Phillis Wheatley <?page no="187"?> 179 T E X T A N D C O D E Africans and the “chosen people”, white American Christians. The analogy of Christians and Negroes renders white and black equivalent: evil Christians are black as Cain, Africans can be “white” as Christians. The hierarchy is even inverted: since the soul counts more than the body, the moral corruption of Christians is worse than the dark skin of the “Negroes”. The intertextual reference to the Bible reveals more ambiguity and contradiction. The “black” Cain is the bad brother and negative other of the “white” Abel. The black br/ other is relevant to the construction of the “pure” white individual but also (literally and metaphorically) undermines white identity as a separate racial identity: Cain murdered Abel and was marked by God in order to protect him from the revenge of people. Cain was white before he turned black. The black color of Cain is not a diabolic sign, as racists say, but rather a sign of God’s mercy. If that was true, there would have been no Christian basis for the essentialist racial and religious discrimination against Africans. If the color black signifies both God’s mercy and God’s opponent, the devil, and if God’s favorite, Abel, is killed and his killer is saved, Christian ethics and God as the transcendental principle of Christian faith (and the poem) are contradictory and arbitrary. Roland Barthes, who developed famous structuralist/ semiotic readings of cultural signifying systems, such as fashion, sports and advertisement (see above), has promoted post-structuralist positions under the influence of Derrida. In his later writings, Barthes claims that texts can hardly be reduced to binary oppositions but reveal multiple and indeterminate meanings. He argued that the death of the author gives birth to the reader (Barry 66): the author’s “life is no longer the origin of his fictions but a fiction contributing to his work” (qtd. in Leitch 1474). The reader employs codes to unfold the meanings of a text, which are potentially endless because each text (and each reading) is intertextual in a wide sense, that is, connected not only to the texts it explicitly refers to, as Wheatley’s text is based on the Bible and the genre of poetry, but to the universe of other texts: The intertextual in which every text is held, it itself being the text-between of another text, is not to be confused with some origin of the text: to try to find the ‘sources’, the ‘influences’ of a work, is to fall in with the myth of filiation; the citations which go to make up a text are anonymous, untraceable, and yet already read: they are quotations without inverted commas. (Barthes qtd. in Leitch 1473) Barthes: death of the author, intertextuality <?page no="188"?> Writers and readers are no longer considered individuals in a psychological sense but sites of intertextual intersections, which form the basis to construct meanings. Readers do not find meaning within or outside the text but rather weave words and strands from other texts into and around the given text. Barthes distinguishes between readerly texts, realistic texts that are easy to decode, and writerly texts, experimental texts that challenge the reader to cowrite the text, establishing a network of signs within this text and between this and other texts. According to the French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard, metanarratives, which combine a vision of history as progress and the justification of institutions, have lost credit in our postmodern age. He couches his disbelief in the Enlightenment narrative in ironic terms: it is a story “in which the hero of knowledge works toward a good ethico-political end - universal peace. […] The narrative is losing its functors, the great hero, its great dangers, its great voyages, its great goal” (qtd. in RR 356). Instead of enlightenment and liberation, Lyotard maintains that the dominant groups in a state “allocate our lives for the growth of power” and legitimize their wielding of power over the people by “optimizing the system’s performance - efficiency” (qtd. in RR 356), His insight (from 1979) that “the growth of power, and its self-legitimation, are now taking the route of data storage and accessibility, and the operativity of information” (qtd. in RR 356) seems prophetic. In opposition to questionable grand narratives and dominant groups, numerous small narratives give voice to multiple points of view that resist integration in a master narrative. These counter-narratives might be texts by feminists, lesbians, American Indians, Mexican Americans, Black British, etc. Deconstructivists, post-structuralists and postmodernists like to work with texts that thematise writing, representation or reading in a self-referential way, such as Romantic or postmodern texts (see John Ashbery, 2.5, and John Barth, 3.4). These approaches reverse the aesthetic (and moral) norms of New Critics. Instead of looking for harmony, unity, order and universal ideas, they reveal discord, contradiction, incoherence and indeterminate, relative concepts. What appears to be self-evident is revealed as arbitrary. Their sceptical relativism favours the pluralism of competing opinions and interpretations. Deconstructive readings have been attacked as “the French plague” or “Derridadaism” because being aware of indeterminacy and contradictions in every text they do not aim at 180 L I T E R A R Y T H E O R Y Lyotard: master narrative versus counter-narratives Summary and criticism <?page no="189"?> 181 C O N T E X T | 5.3 | 5.3.1 coherent and conclusive interpretations but playful and associative readings/ re-writings, which can be challenging and obscure. They have been accused of being destructive, dependent on the concepts they undermine and arbitrary: “anything goes.” However, their insight into the contradictory and indeterminate structure of texts has sharpened readers’ awareness of arbitrary claims to authority, power, truth and universal values, liberating readers from the compulsion to ignore those textual problems that cannot be integrated in a coherent interpretation. Deconstructivism, post-structuralism and postmodernism have had an enormous impact on approaches that deal with the social and historical context, turning attention away from the mimesis of real conditions of existence to the arbitrary social construction of reality (see also Michel Foucault’s post-structuralist discourse analysis in 5.3.2 New Historicism). Context Many approaches reflect on the relationship between text and context, which is defined as social, political and economic reality or as a system of signifying cultural practices. Marxism, cultural materialism, New Historicism, feminism and postcolonialism primarily deal with the holy trinity of contemporary literary and cultural theory: class, race and gender. Marxism and cultural materialism According to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the material reality of economic circumstances forms the base (Basis, Unterbau) that conditions the social, political and cultural life of the superstructure (Überbau). Marx reverses the idealist notion that consciousness determines our existence into the slogan that being determines consciousness (“Das gesellschaftliche Sein bestimmt das Bewusstsein”). Marxists differ in the assessment of the relationship between base and superstructure. The founders of the theory specify that it is a dialectical relationship of mutual influence but some followers hold that the base determines or conditions the superstructure. Ideology is usually defined as a falsifying collectively held system of ideas and beliefs that interpret the world. Deceptive ideology expresses the inter- Marx: base and superstructure <?page no="190"?> Trying to explain how ideology works and why it has such a powerful hold on our minds, the French philosopher Louis Althusser analyses how ideology is implemented in and by the individual. He considers ideology as practice, which is enacted by individual subjects in specific performances according to their conscious beliefs, “ideology existing in a material ideological apparatus, prescribing material practices governed by a material ritual” (qtd. in RR 701). For example, we subject ourselves to the ideological apparatuses - systems of institutions, ideas, values, practices - of religion, education or politics when we willingly participate in church services, university courses or elections. Ideologies interpellate (address) individuals as subjects in the double sense of “(1) a free subjectivity [. . . and] (2) a subjected being who submits to a higher authority, and is therefore stripped of all freedom except that of freely accepting his submission” (qtd. in RR 701). Ideology would certainly deny that it is ideology and endorse a certain “existing state of affairs (das Bestehende), that ‘it really is true that it is so and not otherwise’” (qtd. in RR 701). The fact that we share the attitudes and practices of these ideologies reproduces the imaginary relationships to reality that obscure relations of production and exploitation. Literature can be identified as a mere vehicle of ideology or as a reflection on ideology if it is granted a certain degree of autonomy. ests of those who are in power, covers up contradictions and conflicts in society and legitimises the status quo. 182 L I T E R A R Y T H E O R Y The German political thinker Karl Marx (1818-1883) wrote his monumental treatise Das Kapital (1867-1895) with the support of Friedrich Engels in exile in England. Marx relates the historical development of society to that of economics and politics, aiming to overcome alienating working conditions, exploitation and the class system under capitalism by proletarian revolution. Fig. 5.4 | Althusser: ideology as practice Literature <?page no="191"?> 183 C O N T E X T In the first case, literature serves as an expression of a particular ideology of the dominant class, in the second, as a potential criticism of ideology. Both perspectives presuppose insight into the material conditions of existence and the ideology of a certain period, and appreciate the ideological function of literature rather than its aesthetic quality. The Russian literary theorist Michail Bakhtin had a more optimistic view of ideology than Althusser and took a closer look at the aesthetic structure of literature, especially discourse (Rede) in the novel. His basic insight is that the words (and ideas) we use have been someone else’s and will be taken up by someone else, never being completely our own: “in real life people talk most about what others talk about - they transmit, recall, weigh and pass judgement on other people’s words, opinions, assertions, information” (qtd. in RR 681). According to Bakhtin, ideology is the other’s discourse that tries to determine our “interrelations with the world, the very basis of our behaviour” (qtd. in RR 682). Ideology can take the form of authoritative discourse, like normative ethics or the words of a conservative father, which we have to abide by, or internally persuasive discourse, which we adopt willingly (in RR 682-83). Authoritative discourse can be paralysing both in individuals and novels because it is essentially a monologue that stifles freedom and creativity. Bakhtin considers monological novels with an unqualified moral or political message an aesthetic failure. He is more interested in dialogical novels that question monologues and those that reveal the struggle of persuasive discourses both between and within individuals, drawing an analogy to identity-formation: “Our ideological development is just such an intense struggle within us for hegemony among various available verbal and ideological points of view, approaches, directions and values” (qtd. in RR 685). The competition of ideologies finds its equivalent in heteroglot language, which “represents the coexistence of socio-ideological contradictions between the past and the present, between differing epochs of the past, between different socio-ideological groups in the present, between tendencies, schools, circles and so forth” (qtd. in RR 676). For example, these differences are manifest in the different languages of generations, varying and intersecting with those of class, gender and professional background. The creative novel plays with heteroglossia, the duality or multiplicity of voices between and within utterances. Bakhtin celebrates the subversive potential of Bakhtin: ideology and aesthetics <?page no="192"?> contradictory voices in dialogical novels, which cannot be subsumed under a single overarching system or ideology. Double-voiced discourse would reveal another style within an utterance, a fact that could be exploited for ironic effects. In his novel The Scarlet Letter (1850) about the failure of Puritan culture in New England, the American Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804- 64) juxtaposes the authoritarian discourse of dogmatic Puritanism, which dominates society and politics, and the persuasive discourse of humanist ethics, which guides the outcast Hester Prynne. The public perception of Hester Prynne, who was condemned to wear the scarlet letter “A” because she had committed adultery, is slowly changing due to her charitable behavior. However, the narrator remarks with irony that the male elite of the Puritan community is less forgiving than the people: The rulers, and the wise and learned men of the community, were longer in acknowledging the influence of Hester’s good qualities than the people. The prejudices which they shared in common with the latter were fortified in themselves by an iron framework of reasoning, that made it a far tougher labor to expel them. (181) The narrator undermines the legitimacy of the leading Puritan men, who were expected to be models of virtue and wisdom but whose narrow-minded reasoning ironically confirms rather than questions stereotypes. The “reformed sinner” becomes the model of true virtue without any pretension to social power as opposed to the despotic Puritan regime. The dialogic principle is also of relevance for drama. In Ben Jonson’s play Volpone, the protagonist’s opening speech reveals the conflict between the discourses of economics, religion and society: Good morning to the day; and next, my gold: Open the shrine, that I may see my saint. Hail the world’s soul, and mine. [. . .] let me kiss, With adoration, thee, and every relic Of sacred treasure in this blessed room. [. . .] 184 L I T E R A R Y T H E O R Y Examples <?page no="193"?> 185 C O N T E X T Thou being the best of things: and far transcending All style of joy, in children, parents, friends, Or any other waking dream on earth. […] Thou art virtue, fame, Honour, and all things else! (1.1.1-26) Volpone’s monologue, which takes the form of a prayer, elevates gold to the status of a sacred relic, personifies it as a saint and worships it as a divine principle (“the world’s soul”). His materialism does not simply ignore and replace religion and society but couches his material values in religious and social terms. His speech is doublevoiced in the sense that the style of a prayer is used to elevate a materialist doctrine that is fundamentally opposed to religious dogma. That is why Volpone’s revaluation of traditional values would appear to be ironic or provocative to early 17 th century spectators, who experienced the rivalry for hegemony between the capitalist discourse of competition and monetary value and the idealist discourse of cooperation and shared spiritual and moral values. The British writer and political activist Raymond Williams is a representative of the development from Marxist literary criticism to cultural materialism, which locates a text in its material context but greatly enhances the relevance of language, communication and culture. Cultural forces coexist in complex and conflicting relationships. Dominant cultural forces have to cope with residual and emergent ones, defenders of an old order and critics who clamor for reform. In The Country and the City (1973), Williams delineates economic, social and political developments in connection with multiple literary responses from the Renaissance to the 20 th century, e.g. the social, scientific and literary reflections of and on the changes from feudalism to capitalism in the long 18 th century (in RR 508-32). ˘ What are the key features of the base and superstructure of the period in question? ˘ How does the text represent social and economic conflicts? Are the characters determined by circumstances or in control of them? ˘ How does the text represent ideologies? Are the narrator and Marxist and cultural materialist questions Cultural materialism: dominant, residual and emergent forces <?page no="194"?> the characters aware of economic, social and ideological conflicts? Does the text explore the rivalry of ideologies for hegemony between and within characters in dialogic and doublevoiced discourse? ˘ What are the political and cultural positions of the text on the material conditions, the ideological and cultural context? A traditional Marxist would criticise Phillis Wheatley’s poem for its neglect of North American slavery and capitalism. Wheatley’s adherence to religion takes the effect of opium, which helps her to ignore her own economic and social situation and those of other slaves. She hopes for a solution to repression and exploitation in life after death instead of aiming at a social, economic and political change. She falls prey to the appeal of Christian faith, which lulls her into accepting the status quo. A cultural materialist would be more careful to specify Wheatley’s position in historical circumstances and in the tensions between and within cultural forces. As a slave who had the rare opportunity to learn how to read and to write, Wheatley was in a privileged position but still dependent upon the goodwill of her owner. Thus, she could only criticise slavery in an indirect way if she wanted to have any chance of publishing her poems. Her poems were first published in 1773 in London, catering to abolitionist circles. Beginning in the 1770s mainly within Great Britain, a minority among middle-class Christians opposed slavery for humanitarian reasons. Wheatley’s poems dovetailed with abolitionist views of Africans, who can be converted to Christianity and raised from ignorance, endorsing the abolitionist missionary zeal. Wheatley’s discussion of faith is ambivalent. It takes sides within the conflict between pro-slavery Christians, who formed the dominant cultural force in the 1770s, and the emergent faction of British anti-slavery Christians. While Wheatley cannot openly appeal to free herself and all the slaves, her claim to a soul, to conversion and to equality implies the hope for liberation from slavery as a Christian human being, which was the central argument of the British abolitionists. She shares their moral superiority by assuming the position of a preacher, who appeals to the conscience of those who 186 L I T E R A R Y T H E O R Y Example Phillis Wheatley: religion as opium Emergent humanitarian faction among Christians <?page no="195"?> 187 C O N T E X T discriminate against African-Americans. Thus, Wheatley’s potential impact on the debate of emancipation depends upon her positioning in an ideological conflict within Christian culture. Staunch adherents of the idea that the Marxist view of history is objective, that the base determines the superstructure and that capitalist ideology is determinist would have difficulties to convince us why their analyses escape or penetrate the dominant system. The primarily ideological view of literature could be considered as imbalanced, whereas political critics like Bakhtin and Williams open up to the aesthetics of literature. British cultural materialists share the left-winged politics of their predecessors and are interested in the critical and progressive function of literature. The New Historicists, their American colleagues, regard questions of power in history and politics with more detachment. New Historicism Some traditional historiographers claim to discover the (empirical) truth about the past, and some traditional literary critics understand literature as a mirror of reality or a creative response to objective historical circumstances. New Historicists (1980s-) maintain that literature does not ref lect a “given” historical moment but negotiates cultural concepts and values. The problem of historiography, they argue, lies in the contradiction between past events and their retrospective representation: the past was never the way we see it in retrospective. Historians cannot be objective because they are themselves subject to history. The past is not a stable, coherent entity, and therefore cannot serve as an objective background and reference point of literature, as Marxists see it (Selden 95). History exists in multiple sources and texts, which historiography often shapes into narratives that follow plots recalling literary genres (Hayden White). The post-structural New Historicists, Louis Montrose states, are concerned “with the historicity of texts and the textuality of history” (qtd. in RR 588): By the historicity of texts, I mean to suggest the cultural specificity, the social embedment, of all modes of writing - not only the texts that critics study but also the texts in which we study them. By the textuality of history, I mean to | 5.3.2 History and literature: from mirror to negotiation Criticism <?page no="196"?> 188 L I T E R A R Y T H E O R Y suggest, firstly, that we can have no access to a full and authentic past, a lived material existence, unmediated by the surviving textual traces of the society in question […] and secondly, that those textual traces are themselves subject to subsequent textual mediations when they are construed as the “documents” upon which historians ground their own texts, called “histories.” (Montrose qtd. in RR 588) New Historicist have profited from the research of Michel Foucault, who analysed the historical formation of thinking and knowledge in discourses and their relations to practices. Discourses in a narrow sense regulate the ways in which we think and speak about certain topics in particular forms of statements with specific functions. For example, religious, medical and legal discourses establish and legitimise different authorities, fields of knowledge, forms of arguments and claims to power (The Order of Discourse). If a relative of yours died in the hospital and the doctor would remark: “God’s will was done” instead of giving a medical explanation of the cause of death, you might become suspicious and resort to the authority of other doctors or employ legal discourse in order to find out whether the doctor violated medical standards and could be held responsible by the law. Foucault was particularly interested in the relationship between knowledge and power (Wissen ist Macht). According to Discipline and Punish, the authorities use knowledge and power to control individuals by policing, imprisoning and corporal punishment, but individuals have also internalised techniques of power as they observe and form themselves according to the norms of certain discourses and practices. For example, education, psychology and medicine have increasingly defined individuals according to sexual preferences or deviations from “normality”, which in turn has led people to define themselves as individual subjects along these lines (The History of Sexuality I). Any violation of the norm would be a part of the system. Thus, resistance is less an independent counterforce to the dominant power but rather its complement. Power generates resistance, which in turn motivates repression or containment and paradoxically legitimises those who wield power. Donald Barthelme’s story “The Baby” exemplifies power, surveillance (Überwachung) and punishment at work. The father’s educational maxim is to be strict in enforcing rules in order to prepare his Example Foucault: discourse, knowledge and power Barthelme’s “The Baby” (in Nischik 52-54) <?page no="197"?> 189 C O N T E X T baby daughter for life in society. He defines tearing pages out of a book as a transgression of his rule, ignoring the fact that the baby cannot understand it. His regulation creates the “crime”, motivates the surveillance of his daughter, and legitimises her punishment. He continues to offer books to the baby, inviting her transgression, which in turn calls for and asserts his authority and power. His locking her away without any effect can be read as a comment on the failure of the American judicial system, which seems to aim at revenge rather than reform. Here, New Historicists would come up with an episode about the law and punishment to explore the literary negotiation of cultural concepts, a step that I omit for reasons of space. The authoritarian father copes with his failure to change the baby’s mind and behavior by arbitrarily reversing the rules, legitimising his new stance on normality and transgressive behavior. Focussing on the textuality of history does not mean that the touch of the real gets lost. New Historicists are often interested in the relationship between individual subjects and discourses, forms of subversive opposition and containment in literary and non-literary texts, which are embedded in a dynamic network of interdependent cultural discourses and social practices, circulating social energy. Social energy is “[p]ower, charisma, sexual excitement, collective dreams, wonder, desire, anxiety, religious awe, free-floating intensities of experience” (Greenblatt 19). For example, Stephen Greenblatt, who initiated New Historicism, compared Elizabeth I’s display of power in theatrical performances on the public stage of political representation to the performance of power on the Elizabethan stage. Like in the theatre, the queen’s and the king’s power depend upon their self-fashioning, instigating and containing conflicts, and manipulating the imagination of their subjects. The theatre, which had a low reputation, had a subversive potential. If ordinary actors could impersonate a king, the real king might have been an ordinary human being or an impostor simply performing as the head of state. Renaissance drama thrives on conflicts, often putting the abuse of power and resistance to power on show, strategies that can be regarded as subversive. However, any reversal of the status quo is usually followed by the restoration of law and order. In addition, the potential subversion of the theatre was contained by censorship. Circulation of social energy: Elizabethan theatre <?page no="198"?> 190 L I T E R A R Y T H E O R Y The New Historicists have been blamed for effacing the difference between documentary and fictional texts and for underestimating the critical potential of literature. However, they have been praised for research on the forms and uses of historical texts, in particular their rhetorical quality, and on the use of literature, negotiating social, political and cultural values. Feminism and gender studies Feminists, gender theorists, lesbian and gay critics take issue with material forms of social, economic and political discrimination, with discursive gender constructions or the link between practices and discourses. Most of them assert that the notion of universal values and meanings of humanity is a patriarchal ideology which ignores the specific experience and needs of women, lesbian women and gay men. Most of them stress the difference between the biological sex and the cultural construction of gender (see 1.3) but disagree over the relative importance of these categories concerning experience, identity and representation. The two “founding mothers” of 20 th century feminism are Virginia Woolf and the French philosopher and writer Simone de Beauvoir. In A Room of One’s Own (1929), Woolf complains that potential female authors have been frustrated because women’s voices have been muted under patriarchal restrictions of women to domestic duties and among the relationships between women have been passed over in silence in fiction. Woolf calls for the androgynous writer, who uses both the male and the female aspects of the mind. De Beauvoir exposes the patriarchal myth of woman’s body as nature and of her mysterious essence as her reduction to an object, “the absolute Other, without reciprocity, denying against all experience that she is a subject, a fellow human being” (qtd. in Leitch 1407). The cultural myth legitimises repression and exploitation, “for instance by refusing to grant to woman any right to sexual pleasure, by making her work like a beast of burden” (qtd. in Leitch 1409). The cultural construction of women, the question of women’s identity and representation as well as their roles as writers and readers of literature have become dominant issues of feminist theory and fiction. The American literary and cultural theorist Elaine Showalter proposes that feminist readings of literature should go beyond ex- 5.3.3 | Criticism Woolf and de Beauvoir: patriarchal repression Retrieving women’s literature <?page no="199"?> 191 C O N T E X T posing masculine stereotypes of women. She demands a new form of gynocriticism that retrieves neglected literature by women, based on a female subculture, “including not only the ascribed status, and the internalized constructs of femininity, but also the occupations, interactions and consciousness of women” (qtd. in Mary Eagleton 256). American feminism goes beyond recording the female tradition and sometimes puts forth a prescriptive concept of literature, which is based upon its contribution to women’s liberation: literature is valuable if it provides a forum for the authentic self-expression of women, raises consciousness about women’s issues, presents positive role-models, fosters sisterhood and promotes “cultural androgyny […] humanizing and equilibrating the culture’s value system, which historically served male interests” (qtd. in Mary Eagleton 236-37). Toril Moi takes issue with a feminist position that searches for the direct expression of experience in a woman’s text in a humanist way but reserves a deconstructive approach for texts written by men, a “‘Hermeneutics of suspicion’, which assumes that the text is not, or not only, what it pretends to be, and therefore searches for underlying contradictions and conflicts as well as absences and silences” (qtd. in Mary Eagleton 259). Deconstructive feminism questions whether “authentic” female expression is possible within the “phallo(logo)centric” cultural construction of masculinity and femininity in patriarchal societies. French theorists have explored the possibility of an écriture féminine different from and beyond the masculine binary system of either/ or, which positions woman as the negative Other of man. “The ‘feminine’, in this scheme, is to be located in the gaps, the absences, the unsayable or unrepresentable of discourse and representation” (Jacobus qtd. in Mary Eagleton 301). The French psychoanalyst and critic Julia Kristeva claims that signs, meanings and the subject are unstable. Her concept of the subject in process takes into account both the patriarchal curtailing of female liberty and its subversive expression. The “subject in process” recalls “the sense of a legal proceeding where the subject is committed to trial, because our identities in life are constantly called into question, brought to trial, over-ruled.” (qtd. in Mary Eagleton 351). Following Lacan, Kristeva holds that the (illusory) sense of a stable identity, initially formed by the identification with one’s mirror image, exists side by side with the prelinguistic and fluid Woman as the Other Voice Hermeneutics of suspicion Kristeva: subversive instability <?page no="200"?> bodily experience (in Mary Eagleton 352-53). She stresses that the feminine expression of the bodily drives, which she calls “semiotic”, disrupts the linear, logical and symbolic structure of “masculine” language. Whereas ordinary communication represses these forms of instability, creative writing explores it. These semiotic ruptures are primarily visible in non-linear imagery and the (bodily) sound and rhythms of poetic language and modernist novels. For the French writer and theorist Hélène Cixous, écriture feminine is not self-indulgence but politics: “writing is precisely the very possibility of change, the space that can serve as a springboard for subversive thought, the precursory movement of a transformation of social and cultural structures” (qtd. in Leitch 2043). Cixous exhorts women to liberate their desire and their desire to write as women, not as neutral or masculine voices: “When someone says ‘I’m not political’ we all know what that means! It’s just another way of saying: ‘My politics are someone else’s! ’” (qtd. in Mary Eagleton 323). Literature becomes women’s politics if it “goes beyond the bounds of censorship, reading, the gaze, the masculine command, in that cheeky risk taking women can get into when they set out into the unknown to look for themselves” (qtd. in Mary Eagleton 324). Opposite to the masculine segregation of body and mind, the female body is intricately related to writing: “writing her self, woman will return to the body which has been more than confiscated from her, which has been turned into the uncanny stranger on display” (qtd. in Leitch 2043). Cixous stresses that it is necessary to “‘de-phallocentralize’ the body” (qtd. in Mary Eagleton 322) in order to liberate bodily pleasure and sexuality. However, it is as impossible to define (and thus contain) the heterogeneous and dark process of female bodily pleasure as the feminine practice of writing (in Leitch 2046). The French psychoanalyst and philosopher Luce Irigaray performs écriture féminine, straddling the boundary between theoretical and creative texts. Her poetic and philosophical texts explore “the way in which, within discourse, the feminine finds itself defined as lack, deficiency, or as imitation and negative image of the subject” (qtd. in Mary Eagleton 318). Irigaray takes the women’s labia as a central metaphor in order to define écriture féminine by privileging the sense of the touch, simultaneity and f luidity rather than masculine sight, linearity and fixity. Feminine texts do not privilege right or wrong, origins or endings, but resistance to dichotomies and to closure (see Mary Eagleton 318-19). 192 L I T E R A R Y T H E O R Y Liberating the body from the male gaze and control Irigaray: écriture féminine Cixous: politics of desire and writing <?page no="201"?> 193 C O N T E X T The American academic Domna C. Stanton defends French feminists against the charge of critics who consider their “écriture feminine as too intellectual and elitist to be feminist” (qtd. in Mary Eagleton 335). Stanton argues that the French feminists dismantle reductive patriarchal myths and “practice what they preach by subverting the syntax, the semantics, and even the Cartesian logic of the Logos” (knowledge based on insight beyond doubt; qtd. in Mary Eagleton 335). However, if woman is defined as the silenced and repressed Other of patriarchal speech, how can woman speak and assert her otherness or a feminist critic speak as a woman or for other women (Felman in Mary Eagleton 58)? The answer would be that patriarchal discourses are not monolithic and do not determine each and everything but contain gaps and contradictions that allow for alternative subject positions. Lesbian and gay critics share the feminist rejection of the heterosexual or heterosexist matrix but go beyond the attempt to reconstruct the female position because lesbians and gays neither fit the category of femininity nor masculinity (see Wittig in Leitch 2012-24). In the so-called post-feminist era since the 1980s, gender studies have expanded the feminist perspective on woman as difference and femininity as an embodied experience and expression. Gender studies question the thesis that woman can be associated with a biological body and sex beyond culture. Gender studies are interested in differences within and between women as well as men, in the intersection of gender with race and class. They look at the culture of gender and the gender of culture. Teresa de Lauretis maintains that the heterosexual construction of gender, both masculine and feminine, is a fundamental cultural technology that forms bodily and sexual experience, social relationships, knowledge, political and economic power (1-3). The question is whether individual men and women are determined by or can escape the gender system. Seyla Benhabib concedes that the individual is certainly constituted by social and discursive practices but maintains that the subject is not determined and incapacitated by them: as actors, we are not mere performers of cultural scripts but have the “chance to stop the performance for a while, to pull the curtain down, and only let it rise if one can have a say in the production of the play itself ” (qtd. in Mary Eagleton 375). For Judith Butler, gender is neither “a stable identity or locus of agency” (qtd. in RR 900) nor a role because a role implies that there is a substantial sexual self beyond culture. She claims that we Benhabib and Butler: performance Feminism and gender studies <?page no="202"?> 194 L I T E R A R Y T H E O R Y Questions from feminism, gender theory, lesbian and gay perspectives enact gender in our everyday repetition of the gendered stylisation, gestures and movements of the body, our use of language and interaction, all of which “constitute the illusion of an abiding gendered self ” (qtd. in RR 900). Thus, identity does not precede performance but performance constitutes identity: “if gender is the cultural significance that the sexed body assumes, and if that significance is codetermined through various acts and their cultural perception, then it would appear that from within the terms of culture it is not possible to know sex as distinct from gender” (qtd. in RR 904). The very fact that the heterosexual gender system is not a natural given but a cultural construction based on multiple performative acts allows for different and subversive repetitions of arbitrary gender scripts. ˘ How does heterosexual discourse construct femininity, masculinity and same-sex relationships? Which effects does it have on the identities, the experience, the social, economic and political positions of men and women? ˘ Do heterosexual, lesbian or gay writers adopt, transform or subvert the masculine conventions of writing and representing gender? How do particular characters in texts experience or perform masculinity and femininity in terms of (1) the privileged voices and perspectives (as opposed to silencing women and marginalising female bodies as objects of the male gaze), (2) the positioning and mobility in real and symbolic space and time, (3) agency in terms of self-determination and influence on others. ˘ What is the position of female, lesbian or gay authors in the literary market? ˘ What is the role of women as buyers and readers of literature? ˘ How are female readers addressed by gendered texts and how do female readers respond to them? For examples of gendered readings of literature, see Lorna Dee Cervantes’ poem “The Body as Braille” (2.5 and appendix), Ernest Hemingway’s “Banal Story” and Rose Tremain’s story “My Wife is a White Russian” (3.5 and appendix). <?page no="203"?> 195 C O N T E X T The feminist questioning of the patriarchal agenda has been groundbreaking but has also weathered criticism. It has been argued that feminists run the danger of reiterating white patriarchal stereotypes by focusing on the difference from man, the female body and the subversion of masculine logic. The African American bell hooks reproaches white feminists for hypocrisy because talking about difference and Otherness, they should incorporate the voices of the displaced, marginalized, exploited, and oppressed black people. It is sadly ironic that the contemporary discourse which talks the most about heterogeneity, the decentered subject, declaring breakthroughs that allow recognition of Otherness, still directs its critical voice primarily to a specialized audience that shares a common language rooted in the very master narratives it claims to challenge. (Qtd. in Mary Eagleton 282) The American academic of Bengal descent, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak would agree to that argument but minimise the relevance of the strife between French and Anglo-American versions of feminism in comparison to the difference between the few well-educated first-world feminists and the many illiterate third-world women, divided by culture, class, language and access to communication. Spivak warns of turning third-world women into the subject of an ethnocentric analysis that is likely to repeat colonial hegemony, and she invites Western critics to listen to their perspectives (see Mary Eagleton 61). Likewise, Chandra Talpade Mohanty, an American feminist with Indian roots, rejects Western feminist notions of privileging themselves as the ideal norm of the modern emancipated woman and reducing third world women to ignorant, poor, backward and exploited victims rather than acknowledging specific differences between and among women from various cultures (see Mary Eagleton 392-393). Postcolonialism and multiculturalism Since the 1960s, race and ethnicity have emerged as hot topics in politics and the academia. The demise of the British Empire has confronted Great Britain with a loss of its international power and waves of immigration from its former colonies. The Civil Rights Movement in the United States confronted white society with its | 5.3.4 Gender and race Spivak and Mohanty: “third-world” women Race and ethnicity in context <?page no="204"?> racial discrimination that belied its egalitarian and democratic legacy. Postcolonial studies have been concerned with the impact of colonialism and postcolonialism on both British cultures and identities and those of the countries under and after the British Empire. The concept of postcolonialism is an ambiguous umbrella term, which signifies the temporal and/ or conceptual difference to colonialism in spite of the neocolonial conditions in many of the countries and cultures subjected to global capitalism. Postcolonial theory does research on the economic, political and cultural conditions and effects of colonial encounters and the postcolonial aftermath. The historical slave-trade of Africans to America, mostly organised by the colonial powers of Europe, is of mutual interest to African American studies and postcolonial studies. Large-scale immigration to Great Britain, the Caribbean, Canada, Australia, South Africa and the United States of America has given rise to multicultural societies with great achievements and specific social, economic and political problems. Recent theories of multiculturalism attempt to leave the conceptual link of postcolonial theory to historical colonialism behind. Postcolonial theory scrutinises the colonial representation of selves and others in connection with imperial practices, and the reverse postcolonial representation of selves and others under the influence of the colonial heritage. Postcolonial and (multi)cultural theory have dismantled the biological or genetic essence of race and defined it as a significant social and cultural construction, which has been used to classify others as subordinate and legitimise social, economic and political practices, such as segregation, exploitation and disenfranchisement. The alternative term ethnicity includes the language and culture of peoples, but has been criticised as culturally racist if used to define “others” simply by being deviant from “white” Western culture. In his study Orientalism, the Palestinian thinker Edward W. Said explores how the Western nations have constructed a version of the exotic Orient as the other, an image that was primarily fed by Western fear (the threat of Islamic power) and desire (the promise of luxury and sensuality of the harem). Representing the repressed and the subconscious of the West, the Orient was both strange and familiar, always already known. The knowledge of the Orient, laid down in positive autostereotypes of Europeans and negative heterostereotypes of Orientals in travel reports and academic studies, is closely related to the subjection of colonized oriental countries to Western justice and discipline, e.g. in schools and prisons (Said, Orientalism 40). 196 L I T E R A R Y T H E O R Y Cultural construction of race Said: East and West <?page no="205"?> 197 C O N T E X T The present discussion about the clash of civilisations between “enlightened” Western and “backward” Islamic cultures (among others), Said maintains, reiterates the orientalist misrepresentation of separate and opposite cultures, disregarding that “cultures are hybrid and heterogeneous and […] are so interrelated and interdependent as to beggar any unitary or simply delineated description of their individuality” (Orientalism 347). Said has a point but he has also been criticised himself for continuing Orientalism because he tends to ignore works that portray the Orient in a more complex and balanced way. Under the influence of Derrida, Homi Bhabha, a postcolonial theorist of Indian descent, developed a more ambivalent view of the construction of identity and alterity (Latin alter: other) than Said. The Western binary opposition of self/ other has subsumed those of white/ black, mind/ body, consciousness/ subconscious, masculine/ feminine, culture/ nature, civilised/ barbarian and progress/ stasis. This binary discrimination of self and other establishes a clear hierarchy of values, which is undermined by hybridity on a conceptual level and mimicry on a social level. Bhabha uses the term hybridity to mark the interdependent construction of post/ colonial identities, which combine and intersect binary oppositions in complex and ambiguous ways. Thus, the identities of coloniser and colonised are not clearly separate but “contaminated” with each other. In addition, the colonial or neocolonial other would be motivated to imitate (mimic) the codes of the dominant group, such as language, dress and manners. This form of mimicry, however, is very ambivalent since the imitators would never be quite accepted by the dominant group even if they embodied the standards in perfection (being more British than the British), and the “superiors” could never be sure whether the imitation was in earnest or mocking their ways: “The menace of mimicry is its double vision which in disclosing the ambivalence of colonial discourse also disrupts its authority” (Bhabha 26). The problems of hybridity and mimicry seem to be particularly visible in individuals of mixed ethnic descent, whose affiliations are expressed by doubling or hyphenation, such as Black British or Anglo-Indian, but are in no way restricted to these individuals. The postcolonial construction of British identity is also affected by the diaspora of immigrants. The migrant from the periphery of the former British Empire disturbs the British sense of a unified history and identity. The diasporic space “on the home turf ” contests the cultural boundaries of Britishness and forms a Bhabha: interdependence and ambivalence of identities <?page no="206"?> supplement to the dominant culture that cannot be integrated (Bhabha 241). Stuart Hall stresses the historical process of constantly changing identities in cultural exchanges and representations, a transformation of differences between and within cultures (394). The novel White Teeth (2000) by the Black British Zadie Smith’s (1974-) presents multicultural hybridity and immigrant life in a very ironic and entertaining way, portraying the lives of two families over two generations, related by curious incidents and divided by differences of race, gender, sexual predilections, religious and political views. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak demanded that scholars observe the heterogeneous circumstances of race, class and gender within various cultural and historical contexts. She claimed that the majority of the subaltern (underprivileged, lower class) post/ colonial populations have hardly ever had the chance to articulate their positions in contrast to the post/ colonial elites, who have been in close contact with Western cultures. Her postcolonial approach is informed by feminism and Marxism, asking to which extent the underprivileged can escape dominant social, cultural and economic structures. Recently, it has been claimed that the paradigm of the colonial and postcolonial relationships between the West and the rest of the world is no longer adequate to understand contemporary societies in the postmodern process of globalization. Two dominant visions of contemporary intercultural developments and understanding rival each other: 1) culturalists argue that cultures are ethnocentric, radically different and therefore basically inaccessible to each other. They warn of a clash between cultures and call for mutual tolerance in a multicultural world; 2) universalists maintain that the global economic exchange, mass media and mass migration tend to dissolve cultural boundaries, a process that leads to a transcultural and transnational fusion of elements by cosmopolitan individuals in a postmodern capitalist world. The universalists argue that the difference between cultures is not as radical as to preclude any mutual understanding if the participants in the interaction are willing and able to adopt each others’ perspectives and to move to a third space in-between cultures. Both positions, if held in the extreme, should be qualified. While it is true that intercultural encounters over centuries have given evidence of colonial ignorance and the destruction of foreign cultures, the profitable economic and cultural exchange between different cultures is also well documented. The universalists’ praise of the cosmopolitan migrant tends to diminish the import- 198 L I T E R A R Y T H E O R Y Hall: process Spivak: differences within cultures Intercultural understanding and transcultural fusion <?page no="207"?> 199 C O N T E X T ance of cultural boundaries and to ignore the very origins of migration and the diaspora, often owing to rigid boundaries within nation states, which exclude minorities from economic and political participation. Some universalists also underestimate the difficulties of moving between cultures. The following approaches argue for a third position between culturalists and universalists, which pays close attention to the various ways of negotiating multiple boundaries between and within cultures. In African American studies, Paul Gilroy defies narrow views of a particular African ethnicity. Instead, he traces African American culture back to the complex and violent cultural “exchange” during the slave trade, in particular by (European) ships which brought Africans via “the middle passage” across the Atlantic to the Caribbean and America. Roots in Africa and routes across the Atlantic are of equal importance to African-American culture and identity (Gilroy 190). Instead of an essentialist view of race, Gilroy favors a historical perspective, the chaotic and complex “structure of the transcultural, international formation” of what he calls “the black Atlantic” (4). Gilroy has been criticized for his concentration on the negative process of the forced African migration and diaspora. However, his take of African American culture as a heterogeneous and fragmentary historical process meets with contemporary interest in memory and narrative, as in Toni Morrison’s (US, 1931-) postmodern historical novel Beloved (1987) about slaves who escaped from bondage but can hardly cope with their terrible past that surfaces in fragments of haunting memories. The Mexican American theorist and writer Gloria Anzaldua takes the borderlands between Mexico and the United States as a real and metaphorical barrier and contact zone between cultures, which is reproduced within Mexican Americans. The Chicanos, people with Mexican ancestry (and/ or mestizo descent, i.e. Indian and Spanish) in the United States, are in-between languages and cultures. They speak neither “real” Spanish nor English, feel at home neither north nor south of the border, can neither identify with Mexican culture nor with North American culture. “Chicanos straddle the borderlands” (qtd. in RR 1029), take part in both cultures but do not really belong to any. In addition, Anzaldua is very critical of the Hispanic machismo and the gendered division within Hispanic culture. Chicano and Chicana writing explores the divisions between and within these cultures, often mixing American English and Mex- Gilroy: transcultural African American identity Anzaldua: Mexican Americans in-between <?page no="208"?> 200 L I T E R A R Y T H E O R Y ican Spanish. A sequence of stories and sketches, The House on Mango Street (1983) by the Chicana Sandra Cisneros (1954-), vividly presents the plight and fight of a poor Mexican American girl for independence in a Chicano neighbourhood in the United States. The Asian American expert on culture, migration and globalisation, Lisa Lowe, takes a double position on Asians in America: 1) she is well aware of the multiple differences between and within Korean, Japanese, Chinese or Filipino cultures in America due to differences in cultural origins, generation, class and gender; 2) for political reasons she finds it useful to talk about Asian Americans as a group. Lowe suggests to “conceive of the making and practice of Asian American cultures as nomadic, unsettled, taking place in the travel between cultural sites and in the multivocality of heterogeneous and conflicting positions” (qtd. in RR 1045). However, she would use the term Asian American as an ethnic category in order to fight discrimination against them in an act of strategic essentialism, using specific features as ethnic markers for limited purposes, being aware of the changing and contradictory features within ethnic cultures. Maxine Hong Kingston’s (1940-) autobiographical fiction The Woman Warrior (1976) explores the difficult positions of Chinese women in America, who are torn between traditions and stories from the East and the role-models and demands of contemporary western society in the United States. ˘ How and for which reasons do Western, colonial or neocolonial representations construct selves and others in certain ways? ˘ How are identities and differences between and within cultures or individuals portrayed? How do nationality, history, space, power, race, class and gender relate to each other? Do the texts stress intercultural or transcultural relationships? Do the constructions of self and other endorse, invert or undermine the binary categories often manifest in autoand heterostereotypes? Do texts foreground essentialist or constructivist positions? For which reasons do texts present oppositions, hierarchies, or the third space, mutual interdependence and hybridity? ˘ Do the postcolonial or multicultural authors imitate, rewrite, appropriate, subvert or transcend Western concepts of the self and the other? Lowe: politics of identity Postcolonial and multicultural questions <?page no="209"?> 201 R E A D E R | 5.4 Phillis Wheatley’s poem reveals the difficulty and ambivalence of establishing an identity of one’s own in a cultural discourse which would define her as an other. The speaker in the poem is ambiguous because she can be taken as the unique and gendered representation of Phillis Wheatley and/ or the representative of all slaves. The speaker seems to ignore the economic and material conditions of slavery in order to avoid white readers’ resentment but thereby also refuses to be identified as a slave. She replaces her bodily enslavement by spiritual liberation, appropriating Christianity in order to emancipate herself from being reduced to an “animal” under slavery. Moreover, she even assumes the pulpit of moral superiority by preaching to the reader against the Christian discrimination of Africans. Her message that African souls can be saved is juxtaposed by two sinister implications: white American Christians, favored by God like Abel, could be killed by their “black brothers”, and white Christians with blackened souls could be punished by God. Thus, Christianity allows Wheatley to send the double message of African emancipation and revenge on white Americans. However, the Christian discourse of conversion denies any significance to African culture and identity other than a negative and obscure condition that has to be overcome. In other words, Phillis Wheatley is compelled to swap positions in order to become a self in a culture that denigrates her as an other. (Other poems of hers reveal hybrid features in imagery and tone, see Zapf, Literaturgeschichte 406. For a reading of multicultural literature, see Lorna Dee Cervantes’ poem “The Body as Braille”, see 2.5 and appendix). Postcolonial and multicultural critics have researched the ethnic re-reading and rewriting of canonised literary and historical texts, the (difficult if not futile) recuperation of indigenous cultures as well as the construction of multicultural identities and literatures. Reader Reader-response theory (late 1960s-) refuses to accept the notion that a text contains meaning in itself since any analysis or inter- Phillis Wheatley: conflicts and politics of identity construction Example <?page no="210"?> pretation depends upon the process of reading. Reader-oriented approaches are influenced by phenomenology, which maintains that we have only access to something by (more or less conscious) experience, i.e. as phenomenon, hermeneutics, which asserts that meaning is generated in a dialogue between the reader and the text, situated in historical circumstances (see also 1.2), and cognitive psychology, which defines all forms of mental activities as information processing. Reader-oriented theories differ in the way they conceive the particular process of reading as (1) a self-less process dominated by the author’s ideas in the text, (2) a dialogue between text and reader, (3) a re-writing of the text and (4) a fundamental historical condition that already influences writing. (1) The French phenomenologist Georges Poulet rejects the structuralist notion of the text as a system independent of its author: “there is no spider-web without a center which is the spider” (qtd. in Leitch 1331). Poulet conceives of reading as the passive reception of an author’s ideas: “I surround myself with fictitious beings; I become the prey of language. Language surrounds me with its unreality […] I am thinking the thoughts of another […] as my very own” (qtd. in Leitch 1322). Adopting the perspective of the author transforms the reader’s mind, who becomes an other as long as s/ he identifies with the thinking subject presented to us in fiction. The problem of interpretation is to account for the transcendental subject we experience in the form of a literary object since “all subjective activity present in a literary work is not entirely explained by its relationship with forms and objects within the work” (qtd. in Leitch 1333). Poulet suggests alternating between identification and detachment in order to understand how the creative power is expressed in - but not contained by - particular literary forms. (2) The German literary theorist Wolfgang Iser regards reading as a much more active process than Poulet. Iser argues that the work results from the interaction of text and reader: “the artistic pole is the author’s text, and the aesthetic is the realization accomplished by the reader. In view of this polarity, it is clear that the work itself cannot be identical with the text or with its actualization but must be 202 L I T E R A R Y T H E O R Y The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story. Ursula K. Le Guin, “Where Do You Get Your Ideas From? ” (1989) Poulet: reading as transformation Iser: interaction <?page no="211"?> 203 R E A D E R situated somewhere between the two” (qtd. in Leitch 1674). In order to explain reading, Iser refers to interpersonal communication: since we do not know how others experience us and vice versa, we continually have to make up for the information gap by imagining and interpreting their perspectives on the basis of what is revealed to us and what is concealed from to us. As in a conversation, the reader is “made to supply what is meant from what is not said. What is said only appears to take on significance as a reference to what is not said; it is the implications and not the statements that give shape and weight to the meaning” (qtd. in Leitch 1676). Iser discriminates between the real reader and the implied reader, which is the virtual role of the reader implied in the text, actualised in various forms by real readers. The text forms something like a fragmented script for constructing “the work” in the reader’s mind, based on the interaction between explicit and implicit information. The reader’s wandering viewpoint takes in individual segments of textual perspectives at a time. Blanks or gaps appear when the plot is interrupted, the point-of-view is shifting from one character to the next, a new chapter begins, etc., motivating the reader to anticipate developments and to connect perspectives. The present theme of a segment “becomes the background against which the next segment takes on its actuality, and so on” (qtd. in Leitch 1679). Thus, the past segments form a horizon, which prefigures the reader’s understanding of the following segments and is continually changing with the intake of new information in a process that recalls the hermeneutic circle. The pleasure of reading depends upon a delicate balance between the confirmation and disappointment of expectations. Cognitive psychology analyses reading or “discourse processing” in a different way. Processing discourse works in two complementary modes, top-down, which applies cultural patterns of knowledge, and bottom-up, which decodes information from the text, such as letters, words, sentences. Patterns of knowledge come in the shape of (1) hierarchically organized categories, (2) holistic frames, which are spatio-temporal structures that imply social and emotional values (such as “home”, “school”, “office”), and (3) scripts, sequences of events or actions that include certain roles for agents. Characters and their behaviour in particular situations evoke cultural mental models in the reader, which motivate searching for further information and formulating hypotheses about the development of the story. In turn, new information can ask the reader to revise his or her mental Gaps and the imagination Cognitive psychology <?page no="212"?> 204 L I T E R A R Y T H E O R Y Reader-response questions models. Research on discourse processing tries to establish empirical evidence of reading via cloze tests, requiring readers to fill in gaps, or thinking-aloud protocols, recording how readers verbalize what they think and feel while reading. (3) The American Stanley Fish, who is influenced by post-structuralism, maintains that the “text” we discuss in the classroom is not the one written by the author and constituted by the words on the page. He calls for an explanation of the relative similarity of responses to a text among students in the classroom and of the different interpretations of the “same text” by the same reader over time. Fish does not believe in a pure act of reading as Poulet does: “interpretive strategies are not put into execution after reading […] they give texts their shape, making them rather than, as it is usually assumed, arising from them” (qtd. in RR 218). Readers construct texts, using interpretive strategies “for writing texts, for constituting their properties and assigning their intentions” (qtd. in RR 219). Shared strategies of interpretation form interpretive communities: if we belong to the same interpretive community, we share ideas about “the same text”, if we belong to different ones, we talk about “different texts”. For example, readers can attribute different meanings to Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe as a religious, a realist, a capitalist, a colonial or an adventure novel. ˘ What do you expect from the text in question (author, title, genre, context)? ˘ What is left unsaid in the text and how does it relate to what is told? How do you respond to the textual information and to the gaps? How do you imagine, i.e. flesh out the limited information on characters (appearance, perceptions, values, behaviour), scripts and frames (formal dinner in a restaurant, family reunion at home, romantic encounter in a park, etc.)? ˘ How do your understanding and your anticipation change step by step, e.g. by the addition, change and combination of different perspectives? Are you invited to identify or resist positions? Is your understanding confirmed in the course of the text or do you need to revise it? Fish: interpretive strategies construct text <?page no="213"?> 205 R E A D E R ˘ Why do you respond in a certain way? (Individual presuppositions or cultural cognitive models and/ or interpretive community). Detective stories provide a good example since they redouble the reading of signs. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson or Mrs. Marple and Mr. Stringer represent readers who have to fill gaps with the help of clues, which, however, may be red herrings and lead them on the wrong track. The real reader would be as surprised as Watson and Stringer about Holmes’s and Marple’s findings but probably feels superior to the companions of the protagonists. The text implies the role of a virtual reader somewhere in-between the protagonist and the helper, inviting real readers to decode signs without letting them in on the secret until the end of the story. If the interpretation of the evidence was too simple, there would be no suspense; if it was too complex, the reader would feel frustrated. (4) The German literary scholar Hans Robert Jauß goes beyond studying the individual and subjective response to literature in his version of reception theory (Rezeptions- und Wirkungsästhetik). The reception of literature has a formative influence on writing itself because the literary text is written in response to, or anticipation of, the readers’ horizon of expectations, constituted by models of reality and of art shared by the potential audience. A text follows, transforms or rejects the paradigm, the model of the text that defines the dominant conventions at a certain time. A text can introduce a new paradigm if it successfully challenges the prevailing models of writing. The new paradigm redefines the standards of expectations and of writing as well. A literary history of reception records the changing series of dominant and emerging paradigms in relationship to the readers’ horizons of expectations. Ideal case studies in reception history are provided by “works that evoke the reader’s horizon of expectations, formed by a convention of genre, style, or form, only in order to destroy it step by step” (qtd. in Leitch 1555). For example, Angela Carter’s short stories recall myths and fairy tales but give them a feminist twist, changing the narrative voice and focalisation from men to women and elevating women to protagonists of revised stories; the film Shrek (I) plays with fairy tales and popular television shows in an entertaining way, reiterating but ridiculing traditional plots, gender roles and romantic expect- Detective stories Jauß: writing as response to readers <?page no="214"?> 206 L I T E R A R Y T H E O R Y ations. A literary history is completed if it represents systems of aesthetic paradigms in a historical sequence and its relationship to social history, for example “where the literary experience of the reader enters into the horizon of expectations of his lived praxis, preforms his understanding of the world, and thereby also has an effect on his social behaviour” (qtd. in Leitch 1564). ˘ How does the text relate to the readers’ horizon of expectations concerning literature and culture? ˘ How does the text relate to the dominant paradigm of its particular genre? ˘ What is taken for granted in the text and what is foregrounded or explained? ˘ How did readers and critics actually respond to the text? ˘ How do the interpretations of the text change over time? Initially, Phillis Wheatley’s poems met with mixed responses not because she violated poetic norms but because she followed them. She was a slave and the first African American poet. Sceptical racist readers could not believe that an African could learn to read or even write accomplished poetry. These readers suspected that a white abolitionist had written the poems in order to support their case against slavery. Now her poems are widely acknowledged as the original paradigm of (feminine) African American poetry. Beckett’s absurd plays puzzled and frustrated spectators in the 1950s. Waiting for Godot and Endgame (see 4.2, 4.3, 4.4) do not present realistic characters and settings or a linear sequence of action. They do not make sense in a traditional way, and leave the spectator between laughter and empathy, producing an effect of alienation (Selden 130-32). However, the theatre of the absurd in the meantime has evolved into an important paradigm among dramatic genres. Critics have remarked that reader-response theory is subjective and cannot directly access the process of reading in the mind. Retro- Questions of reception history Examples Responses to Wheatley Beckett Criticism <?page no="215"?> 207 B I B L I O G R A P H Y PRIMARY SOURCES OF LITERATURE, CULTURE AND THEORY Abrams, M. H. et al., eds. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 7 th ed. 2 vols. New York and London: Norton, 2000. (= NAEL 1 and 2). *Ashcroft, B., Griffiths, G. and Tiffin, H., eds. The Post-colonial Studies Reader. 2 nd ed. London and New York: Routledge, 2006. (Short passages of relevant theoretical texts concerning central questions of postcolonialism, such as language, representation and resistance, place, history, ethnicity, etc.). Baym, Nina, et al., eds. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 3 rd ed. 2 vols. New York and London: Norton 1989. (= NAAL 1 and 2). Bhabha, Homi. The Location of Culture. London and New York: Routledge, 1994. Carter, Angela. Burning Your Boats. The Collected Short Stories. London: Penguin, 1997. Chrisman, Laura and Patrick Williams, eds. Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory. New York, London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993. (Anthology of longer excerpts from central critics with good introductions). Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage, 1991. Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1976. *Davis, Robert Con, and Ronald Schleifer, eds. Contemporary Literary Criticism: Literary and Cultural Studies. 4 th ed. New York and London: Longman, 1998. (Excellent collection of major theoretical texts with brief critical introductions and discussions of their concepts). Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe. Ed. Angus Rose. London: Penguin, 1985. *Eagleton, Mary, ed. Feminist Literary Theory. A Reader. 2 nd ed. Malden, Oxford, Victoria: Blackwell, 1996. (Very comprehensive compilation of texts; sometimes excerpts very short). Foucault, Michel. Die Ordnung des Diskurses. Tr. Walter Seitter. Frankfurt/ Main: Fischer, 1992. Foucault, Michel. Der Wille zum Wissen. Sexualität und Wahrheit 1. 6 th ed. Tr. Ulrich Raulff and Walter Seitter. Frankfurt/ Main: Suhrkamp, 1994. Foucault, Michel. Überwachen und Strafen. Die Geburt des Gefängnisses. Tr. Walter Seitter. Frankfurt/ Main: Suhrkamp, 1994. Gilroy, Paul. The Black Atlantic. Modernity and Double Consciousness. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1993. spective reports of the reading experience shape the information according to preconceived notions of cognitive activity based on phenomenology, hermeneutics and psychology. In addition, it could be argued that the logic of reception history is flawed and circular because it derives the horizon of expectations from the text which is considered to be the answer to these expectations. However, reader-oriented approaches have been valuable in drawing attention to the target of texts, the particular ways in which texts appeal to readers and readers “realise” fictional worlds. Bibliography | 5.5 <?page no="216"?> Goldberg, David Theo, ed., Multiculturalism. A Critical Reader. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. (Collection of essays on the significance of knowledge, power, self and other, history, and representation within and between cultures). Gordon, Avery F., and Christopher Newfield, eds. Mapping Multiculturalism. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 1996. (Collection of essays on the concept of multiculturalism and its effect on politics, the subject, narratives, capitalism and communication). Greenblatt, Stephen. Shakespearean Negotiations. The Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England. Regents of the University of California: 1988. Hall, Stuart. “Cultural Identity and Diaspora.” Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory. Eds. Laura Chrisman and Patrick Williams. New York, London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993. 392-403. Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter and Selected Tales. Rpt. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979. Iser, Wolfgang. Die Appellstruktur der Texte: Unbestimmtheit als Wirkungsbedingung literarischer Prosa. Konstanz: Universitätsverlag, 1970. Iser, Wolfgang. Der implizite Leser. München: Fink, 1972. Iser, Wolfgang. Das Fiktive und das Imaginäre. Perspektiven literarischer Hermeneutik. 2 nd ed. Frankfurt/ Main: Suhrkamp, 2001. Jauß, Hans Robert. Literaturgeschichte als Provokation. Frankfurt/ Main: Suhrkamp, 1970. *Kimmich, Dorothee, Rolf Günter Renner, and Bernd Stiegler, eds. Texte zur Literaturtheorie der Gegenwart. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1997. (Good selection of key texts with readable introductions). Kingston, Maxine Hong. The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts. New York: Vintage, 1989. Lauretis, Teresa de. Technologies of Gender. Essays on Theory, Film and Fiction. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987. *Leitch, Vincent B., ed. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York and London: Norton, 2001. (Very comprehensive: from antiquity to the present; excellent introductions; further reading). Lodge, David, and Nigel Wood, eds. Modern Criticism and Theory: A Reader. 3 rd ed. Harlow: Pearson, 2008. (A very comprehensive reader of the same high quality as Leitch’s Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism). Ludwig, Hans-Werner. Arbeitsbuch Lyrikanalyse. 1994. 5 th ed. Tübingen: Narr, 2005. (Reference to 1994 ed. Lucid discussion of basic theories and concepts with clear examples). Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York: Vintage, 2004. *Nischik, Reingard M., ed. Short Short Stories Universal. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1993. *Olaniyan,Tejumola and Ato Quayson. African Literature. An Anthology of Criticism and Theory. Malden, Oxford and Victoria: Blackwell, 2007. (Excellent collection of pertinent contributions of medium length on major aspects of African literature and culture, from languages and genres to politics, queer theory, ecocriticism, etc.). *Rivkin, Julie, and Michael Ryan. Literary Theory: an Anthology. 2 nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004. (RR; excellent selection of longer excerpts with brief introductions). Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Vintage, 1994. Said, Edward W. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Vintage, 1994. Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. Ed. Kenneth Muir. London and New York: Routledge, 1988. Smith, Zadie. White Teeth. London: Penguin, 2001. 208 L I T E R A R Y T H E O R Y <?page no="217"?> 209 Stevenson, Robert Louis. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1984. Storey, John. Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: A Reader. 4 th ed. Harlow: Pearson Education, 2009. (Very useful introductions to key excerpts from theories of Marxism, feminism, psychoanalysis, race, structuralism, post-structuralism and postmodernism; concepts applied in Storey’s Introduction with the same title; see below). Wellek, René, and Austin Warren. Theory of Literature. 3 rd ed. New York: Harvest, 1970. Wolfreys, Julian, ed. Literary Theories. A Reader & Guide. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999. (Comprehensive collection of texts with accessible introductions). Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One’s Own. London: Penguin, 2002. INTRODUCTIONS TO THEORY Allen, Graham. Intertextuality. London and New York: Routledge, 2000. *Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory. An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. 3 rd ed. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2009. (Very clear and helpful; includes key questions and good examples of approaches). Bennett, Andrew, and Nicholas Royle. An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory: Key Critical Concepts. 3 rd ed. Harlow: Longman, 2004. (Unique because it subsumes different approaches under topics, such as author, desire, history, suspense, pleasure, etc.). Berensmeyer, Ingo. Literary Theory: An Introduction to Approaches, Methods and Terms. Stuttgart: Klett, 2009. (Concise and mostly accessible). Bertens, Hans. Literary Theory. The Basics. 2 nd ed. London and New York: Routledge, 2007. (Clear and readable introduction to thinkers and ideas). Boehmer, Elleke. Colonial and Postcolonial Literature. Migrant Metaphors. 2 nd ed. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. (Very readable introduction to key problems of colonial and postcolonial literature in historical perspective, focus on the 19 th and 20 th century, incl. short discussions of many literary texts, chronology of events and publications, bibliography). Broich, Ulrich, and Manfred Pfister, ed. Intertextualität. Formen, Funktionen, anglistische Fallstudien, Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1985. Childs, Peter, Jean Jacques Weber, and Patrick Williams. Post-Colonial Theories and Literatures. African, Caribbean, and South Asian. Trier: WVT, 2006. (Thorough discussion of central concepts and good overviews of literary histories). Culler, Jonathan. Literary Theory. A Very Short Introduction. 1997; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. (Concise and entertaining). Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory: An Introduction. Anniversary ed. London: Blackwell, 2008 (Fluent and vivid; critical survey of theory from leftwing perspective). *Green, Keith, and Jill LeBihan. Critical Theory and Practice: A Coursebook. Rpt. London and New York: Routledge, 2002. (Very helpful combination of introductions to approaches, sample passages from theoretical and literary texts, many interesting exercises, glossaries of key terms and bibliographies for further reading). Greenblatt, Stephen, and Catherine Gallagher. Practising New Historicism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. *Guerin, Wilfred L. et al. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. 6 th ed. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. (Very readable introduction to major approaches, all of which are applied with great insight to four texts, a poem, a play, a short story and a novel). B I B L I O G R A P H Y <?page no="218"?> Gymnich, Marion, and Ansgar Nünning, eds. Funktionen von Literatur: Theoretische Grundlagen und Modellinterpretationen. Trier: WVT, 2005. *Hopkins, Chris. Thinking About Texts. An Introduction to English Studies. 2 nd ed. Houndmills and New York: Palgrave, 2009. (Accessible approach to theories under the general topics of texts, authors, critics, genre, history and identities; numerous excerpts from theoretical and literary texts with accessible discussions). Jacobs, Richard. A Beginner’s Guide to Critical Reading. An Anthology of Literary Texts. London and New York: Routledge, 2001. (Provides excerpts from major literary texts and brief comments on useful approaches designed for undergraduate student readers). Kramer, Jürgen. British Cultural Studies. München: Fink, 1997. (Useful discussion of the use of theories from Marxism to post-structuralism in cultural studies; includes introductions to several case studies). Lausberg, Heinrich. Elemente der literarischen Rhetorik: Eine Einführung für Studierende der klassischen, romanischen, englischen und deutschen Philologie. München: Max Hueber, 2000. Loomba, Ania. Colonialism/ Postcolonialism. 2 nd ed. London: Routledge, 2005. (Excellent and easily accessible introduction to central questions and answers of postcolonial theory concerning texts, knowledge and power, race, class, gender, culture, nationalism and post-modernism; incl. very useful bibliography). Meyer, Michael. The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Reading, Thinking, and Writing. 8 th ed. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin’s Press, 2008. (Combination of anthology of primary texts and hands-on guide to approaches in very readable form). Nünning, Ansgar, ed. Literaturwissenschaftliche Theorien, Modelle und Methoden. Eine Einführung. Trier: WVT, 2004. Nünning, Vera, and Ansgar Nünning, eds. Methoden der literatur- und kulturwissenschaftlichen Textanalyse. Stuttgart and Weimar: Metzler, 2010. (Good introductions to and discussions of theories with usually accessible model readings). Selden, Raman, Peter Widdowson, and Peter Brooker. A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory. 5 th ed. New York and London: Prentice Hall and Harvester Wheatsheaf, 2005. (Introduction to 20 th century theories from New Criticism to Lesbian and Queer Studies). Selden, Raman. Practising Theory and Reading Literature. An Introduction. Harlow: Pearson Education, 2000. (Very readable introduction to central questions of theories, brief examples of readings and a series of exercises). Storey, John. Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction. 5 th ed. Harlow: Pearson Education, 2009. (Lucid and entertaining). Tyson, Lois. Critical Theory Today. A User-Friendly Guide. 2 nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2006. (Comprehensively discusses principles of contemporary theories and significance for everyday life and literary analysis, presents helpful questions, advantages, and weaknesses of theories; applies all approaches to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby). Ueding, Gert, and Bernd Steinbrink. Grundriß der Rhetorik. 4 th , updated ed. Stuttgart and Weimar: Metzler, 2005. *Zapf, Hubert. Kurze Geschichte der angloamerikanischen Literaturtheorie. 2 nd ed. München: Fink, 1996. (Excellent critical introduction to major theorists from Plato to New Historicists). REFERENCE WORKS Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin. Postcolonial Studies: The Key Concepts. 2 nd ed. London: Routledge, 2007. (Clear and comprehensive definitions). 210 L I T E R A R Y T H E O R Y <?page no="219"?> 211 B I B L I O G R A P H Y Beck, R. H., and M. Kuester. Terminologie der Literaturwissenschaft. Ein Handbuch für das Anglistikstudium. Ismaning: Hueber, 1998. (Very helpful definitions and examples of technical terms). Childs, Peter, ed. The Routledge Dictionary of Literary Terms. Oxford and London: Routledge, 2006. Childers, Joseph, and Gary Hentzi. The Columbia Dictionary of Modern Literary and Cultural Criticism. New York: Columbia UP, 1995. Groden, Michael and Martin Kreiswirth. The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory & Criticism. 2 nd ed. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004. (Longer articles on major theorists and critical approaches, few on individual terms). Hawthorn, Jeremy. A Glossary of Contemporary Literary Theory. 4 th ed. London: Arnold; New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. (Clear, sometimes too brief). Lentricchia, Frank, and Thomas McLaughlin, eds. Critical Terms for Literary Study. 2 nd ed. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1995. (Fairly comprehensive articles on a few key concepts of literature and culture, such as discourse, gender, race, etc.). *Makaryk, Irena R. Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory, Approaches, Scholars, Terms. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993. (Comprehensive and reliable). McLeod, John, ed. The Routledge Companion to Postcolonial Studies. Oxford and London: Routledge, 2007. Murfin, Ross C., and Ray Supryia. The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms. 3 rd ed. London: Macmillan, 2009. Nöth, Winfried. Handbuch der Semiotik. 2 nd , rev. and expanded ed. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2000. *Nünning, Ansgar, ed. Metzler Lexikon Literatur- und Kulturtheorie. 4 th ed. Stuttgart and Weimar: Metzler, 2008. (Excellent; best German encyclopedic dictionary in the field; for advanced students). *Payne, Michael, ed. A Dictionary of Cultural and Critical Theory. Reprint. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998. (Excellent contributions on authors, movements and concepts). Schneider, Ralf, ed. Literaturwissenschaft in Theorie und Praxis. Eine anglistisch-amerikanistische Einführung. Tübingen: Narr, 2004. (Good and student-friendly discussion of pros and cons of concepts and methods). *The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2009 Edition). Ed. Edward N. Zalta. Date of access: 1 August 2010. <http: / / plato.stanford.edu/ archives/ >. (Free, comprehensive, and usually very accessible). Waugh, Patricia, ed. Literary Theory and Criticism: An Oxford Guide. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. (Over 30 essays on movements and thinkers in theory and criticism, including the philosophical origins and future directions). *Strongly recommended. <?page no="221"?> 213 Research papers, presentations and examinations Academic standards 214 Getting organised 214 Writing a term paper 215 Defining topic, purpose and approach 215 Research for and use of secondary material 220 Writing the first draft 228 Revising the paper 229 Documentation 232 Presentation 234 Oral and written examinations 238 Bibliography 240 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.3.1 6.3.2 6.3.3 6.3,4 6.3.5 6.4 6.5 6.6 Contents | 6 In order to meet academic standards when writing papers or giving presentations, you are required to retrieve information systematically, to develop rational arguments and to present them as clearly as possible. Reading these suggestions carefully will help you to save time and to work more efficiently and successfully. Abstract <?page no="222"?> Academic standards In the beginning was the word, not Word® or other word-processing software. The skillful designing of a paper by computer is a means rather than an end. Philology (literally: the love of the word) or studying literature requires you to pay close attention to reading and writing. Sloppy wording, incoherent arguments, plagiarism and incomplete documentation are not acceptable. Papers and presentations offer an opportunity to reflect in depth on a topic of your interest, to develop new points of view and to share your insight with an interested audience. Doing research can be stimulating, but you need to know about its strategies and rules in order to make academic writing, presentation and discussion a rewarding experience. Studying offers the opportunity to practise retrieving information, developing arguments, presenting results and managing discussions, all of them central skills required in our information age. These standards serve as guidelines for academic work and its assessment: Getting organised Plan and time your work well. Do not submit a panicky lastminute paper without an introduction, a conclusion and proof- 214 R E S E A R C H P A P E R S , P R E S E N T A T I O N S A N D E X A M I N A T I O N S 6.1 | 6.2 | ˘ Well-defined purpose and topic ˘ Systematic approach and precise definition of terms of analysis ˘ Clear and understandable presentation of individual questions and answers supported by evidence ˘ Consistent and coherent argumentation ˘ Critical discussion and precise documentation of secondary material Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it. Dr. Samuel Johnson (1775) Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Francis Bacon, "Of Studies" (1625) Standards for academic work <?page no="223"?> 215 W R I T I N G A T E R M P A P E R reading because you finish at five o’clock in the morning on the day of your deadline. Do not hand in a “cut-and-paste paper”, which contains everything that you could find about your topic but does not contribute to your argument. Meet the deadline and make sure you observe the requirements, for example a research paper of 2.000-3.500 words within a given space of two weeks (workload: 90 hours or three credits) or a paper of 4.500-6.000 words within four weeks (workload: 150 hours or five credits). Use about one third of your time for finding ideas, defining the topic and approach and selecting and reading primary and secondary sources; one third of your time for structuring your arguments and writing the first draft; and one third for careful revisions of your text. One third of the time for the first draft may seem like a lot, but writing is a process that requires and inspires thinking. One third for revisions may seem like too much, but many aspects of the draft demand your attention, and re-readings generate new ideas. Do not forget that interlibrary loans (Fernleihen) may take up to four weeks. Writing a term paper Defining topic, purpose and approach Usually, the course guide tells you which edition of a primary text to buy. Annotated editions, such as those by Norton and Bedford St. Martin’s Press, can help you in two important ways: their introductions and notes will allow you to understand contemporary references or contexts, and their authoritative texts as well as selected criticism will provide you with a reliable and comprehensive basis for your own research. You can find numerous works for free on the internet because the copyright has expired. Project | 6.3.1 | 6.3 Timing Selecting an edition | Fig. 6.1 Calvin and Hobbes on the art of academic writing. <?page no="224"?> Gutenberg offers mostly works of fiction before 1935. Bartleby is a free online library with numerous primary works of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, such as essays, religious texts, (mostly U.S.) political and social history, and some reference works, such as dictionaries of quotations and a thesaurus (for more free online databases see the bibliographies 2.7, 4.7 and 6.6). If you are given a topic, rephrase it into a question to guide your in-depth reading of the primary text. If not, take a text that you are interested in and find your own topic. Read the text closely, mark interesting passages and take notes of problems, questions and points of interest; record the references with page numbers for quick access to relevant passages for your subsequent analysis. You may end up with too many ideas and feel at a loss about a suitable topic. Arrange your findings systematically and try to draw preliminary conclusions in writing. A good topic is based on a major question, problem, contradiction or conflict in your text that you find worth exploring in greater depth. In order to decide on a topic, it helps to recall the approaches and concepts you are familiar with, and to see how others analyse the text by scanning secondary material. It is not very challenging to ask 216 R E S E A R C H P A P E R S , P R E S E N T A T I O N S A N D E X A M I N A T I O N S Avoid topics that are too general, such as “Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet”, and superficial statements about everything in the play, or topics that are too specific, such as “Herbal Medicine in Romeo and Juliet”, to avoid limiting your perspective to details. “Love in Shakespeare’s tragedy Romeo and Juliet” would be a topic that can be handled within the confines of a term paper (in four weeks). The title can be transformed into various questions: What is love or rather, what does love mean in Shakespeare’s time? What is a tragedy and which function does love fulfil in a tragic plot? What does love mean, especially to the characters of Romeo and Juliet? A careful reading of the play would draw your attention to the fact that love is a broad term defining relationships between men and women, men and men, women and women, parents and children, masters and servants, and that love takes on a spiritual, emotional or sexual quality for various characters in different situations, leading to conflicts between and within characters. Example: topic Finding ideas and a topic <?page no="225"?> 217 W R I T I N G A T E R M P A P E R whether Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a Gothic novel since that is the genre conventionally attributed to it. It is more interesting to look at the critique or endorsement of male and female roles (gender, history), the problem of individual desire and social conventions (psychoanalysis, gender, history) or the conflict between the East and the West (imperial history, postcolonial approach). In order to specify your approach and terms of analysis against existing criticism, read a general article on your topic, such as a comprehensive introduction to your primary text, an article in a companion or a handbook or an overview of the writer’s central concerns in a literary history. In addition, check relevant approaches and concepts in scholarly introductions or dictionaries of literature and culture. It is by no means sufficient to take your definitions of concepts from general reference works, such as the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary or Wikipedia. General sources describe the ordinary meanings of a concept, which are usually fuzzier than or even different from the special definition of the term in literary and cultural studies. In everyday language, we often do not make a difference between metaphor and symbol, narrative and story, meaning and significance or sex and gender. If you aim at a systematic analysis or interpretation, these distinctions matter. Applying well-defined, scholarly concepts leads to more insight into texts and cultures. You would not like a surgeon to operate on you with a plastic knife obtained at a fast-food restaurant. Concepts are cognitive tools: you need expert tools to get the job done in a professional way. An approach suggests the perspective on a topic, the direction of questions and answers with the help of particular concepts. An appropriate answer is not a mere assertion that something is just the way you say it is, but an argument that proves its validity with evidence. Avoid over-generalizations. The evidence is convincing if it covers major points of the material at hand, does not contain factual errors and does not ignore relevant or even contradictory aspects. For example, the argument that Lucy in Dracula is a selfdetermined “New Woman”, defined by rejecting the restrictive norms Victorian women were subject to, because she admits to her sexual desire, is flawed because her particular way of deviation fits the traditional stereotype of the temptress and fallen woman, who is in want of helpers to save her. When you look for evidence for an argument, also ask yourself whether there is im- Scholarly approach and concepts Questions, arguments and evidence <?page no="226"?> portant evidence that contradicts your statement, and qualify your argument if need be. The key to good research is: ask simple questions and question simple answers. When you have made up your mind about the topic, approach, key questions, concepts and major argument, write a first sketch of your introduction (about 500-1.000 words, depending on the length of the assignment), which at the same time serves as a research proposal you hand in with your outline and preliminary bibliography to your supervisor for feedback, especially in the case of a longer thesis. The preliminary outline reveals the structure of the paper either by means of topics or full sentence arguments, socalled thesis statements. Argumentation can follow various patterns or combine them: ˘ In temporal order, a conflict is analysed from its beginning to the turning point and the resolution in a drama or a story. The structure is very simple but you have to avoid re-telling the plot. ˘ The hermeneutic circle moves from the general understanding of a problem to a more refined one on the basis of specific passages or aspects, which in turn qualify and deepen the general insight. Using a reader response approach, you can present your general understanding of a central issue evoked by the beginning of a text, and reflect on your presuppositions as the condition of your reading. Then, you can account for major changes of your understanding triggered by new information in selected passages that complement or question your assump- 218 R E S E A R C H P A P E R S , P R E S E N T A T I O N S A N D E X A M I N A T I O N S Ina Schabert’s Shakespeare-Handbuch and her Englische Literaturgeschichte aus der Sicht der Geschlechterforschung provide a historical framework of gender constructions and titles for further reading, which help to assess the representation of love in Romeo and Juliet. In addition, the chapters on communication, character and action in a book on drama (e.g. Pfister or Fielitz) help to specify the analysis of the characters’ opinions and positions in a structure of perspectives, actions and incidents. Example: approach and concepts Introduction, research proposal, topic outline Structuring arguments <?page no="227"?> 219 W R I T I N G A T E R M P A P E R tions, and come up with a more comprehensive and sophisticated interpretation in your conclusion. ˘ The rhetorical order can move from (1) general to specific aspects or vice versa, (2) the familiar to the unfamiliar or (3) simple to complex issues. You could start a paper on Jane Austen’s (GB, 1775-1817) Pride and Prejudice (1818) with (1) the general situation of women around 1800 or a concise, provocative quote from the novel that points out a specific problem, (2) gender issues in the novel we are familiar with today and move on to specific differences due to historical conditions (similar to hermeneutics), or (3) simple solutions to the problem of love versus money in marriage, such as opting for either love (Lydia) or money (Charlotte), and continue with the more difficult combination of both motives (Elizabeth). ˘ The logical order can take various forms: (1) a statement about a fact or situation is followed by the explanation of its conditions, causes and consequences. (2) You discover two opposite arguments, argue for one position first (A), then for the opposite (B), and come up with more evidence for the plausibility of the first or the second, or (3) a combination of both (A+B). In Doris Lessing’s story “To Room Nineteen” (see also 3.2.1 Narrative situations), we can argue from a feminist point of view that the repressive social conditions drive the wife crazy (A). We can also find psychological or psychoanalytic arguments that locate the motivation of her suicide in her individual disposition (B). Ultimately, a combination of social conditions and psychological disposition leads to a comprehensive understanding of the case (A+B). Or, you discover oppositions and contradictions in your material, try to account for them and explain the pros and cons of the solution. In Joseph Conrad’s short story “An Outpost of Progress”, there seems to be an opposition between white British civilization, embodied in the director of the colonial company, and African barbarism, represented in a tribal chief. However, the clear-cut opposition (A versus B) is undermined by revealing qualities of the self in the other (B in A) and the other in the self (A in B) because the white agents turn out to be stupid and aggressive, their African employee well-educated and clever. One agent kills the other and commits suicide. The contradiction and the resolution critically expose the gap between imperial ideology and practice. <?page no="228"?> Research for and use of secondary material Usually, academic studies combine the researcher’s own observations with results from research by others. At first glance, reading secondary material before finding arguments of your own seems to save time and effort. On second thought, the sheer quantity of ideas by others may frustrate your search for your own ideas. 220 R E S E A R C H P A P E R S , P R E S E N T A T I O N S A N D E X A M I N A T I O N S 6.3.2 | Fig. 6.2 | Illustration by Sepp Buchegger. If you do not systematically select secondary material, you will suffer from information overkill. How to use secondary literature The paper “Love in Shakespeare’s tragedy Romeo and Juliet” may have the following topic outline: 1. Introduction 2. Love and gender in Shakespeare’s age 3. Love in Romeo and Juliet 3.1 Contradictory constructions of love due to gender, generation and class 3.2 Love and dramatic conflicts 3.2.1 The comedy of love 3.2.2 The tragedy of love 3.2.2.1 Fate or chance 3.2.2.2 Love and death 4. Conclusion List of works cited (or Bibliography - includes more than the works cited) Example: topic outline <?page no="229"?> 221 W R I T I N G A T E R M P A P E R Therefore, closely read the primary text with the help of your specific questions for three important reasons: (1) developing your own arguments is stimulating, (2) helps you to find your own position in criticism, and (3) facilitates your selection of statements to support your own ideas. Do not follow others’ opinions blindly but discuss them critically. More often than you would think, publications do not fulfil the academic standards of consistent arguments and new insights. At best, secondary material improves your understanding of the subject and offers you the chance to rephrase your own questions and statements. The amount and the strategies of research for secondary material vary according to different assignments and requirements concerning the quantity and quality of primary and secondary material, the length of the paper and the time available. An overview of potential sources will let you know some major options for offline and online research. Then, the first steps of research for undergraduate essays will be explained, and afterwards the more comprehensive research often required for BA and MA theses. Your topic and approach with central questions, concepts and arguments serve as guidelines for further research of secondary material. It is very tempting to begin searching for material in the World Wide Web rather than going to the library. Checking the web for information seems to be fast and easy but the problems involved are obvious: (1) frequently, the high number of references to web sites makes the adequate selection of information difficult or even impossible. Researching and selecting take an enormous amount of time, and (2) web sites offer much that is neither up to date nor reliable, let alone innovative or of academic value. You need to know about sophisticated research strategies, specific search engines, databases and jump pages to use the web to your advantage (see below). Your university library offers more than good books: it provides access to online databases and powerful search tools, often through remote access from your private computer. However, you need to know which sources of information to select in order to get good results in an efficient way: specific bibliographies, catalogues and databases. From a systematic point of view, retrospective (abgeschlossene) and current (laufende) bibliographies provide the most systematic, efficient and reliable sources of secondary titles (but not the material Bibliographies <?page no="230"?> itself, which you have to order from the library). Retrospective bibliographies record titles within a specified period of time, which can range from one year to hundreds of years until the publication date of the bibliography. Retrospective bibliographies exist for most of the major authors and subjects. Many annotated and critical editions of primary works include a list of important secondary material (the so-called hidden bibliography), but depending on the year of publication, the editor’s choice and your topic, that list might be outdated or of limited value. Current bibliographies are updated regularly. Annotated bibliographies are most helpful since they specify the topic, approach, covered material and key words of a source, which help to decide whether the source is relevant to your topic or not. One of the most comprehensive current bibliographies is the International Bibliography of Books and Articles on Modern Languages and Literatures (MLA or MLAIB), published by the Modern Language Association of America. The current electronic MLAIB registers secondary material from 1963 until the present with brief information on the texts covered, the approach and key terms. If a title is not very specific, choose the subject terms, the subject headings or the full citation for the display of your search result in order to know more about the approach and the material covered in the source. The download of selected titles serves as a good basis for the bibliography of your paper. Cross-check your findings with those in the retrospective Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (ABELL). The ABELL records primary as well as secondary literature and may list titles that you did not come across in the MLA even if it is not as up to date as its rival. The Annotated Bibliography of English Studies (ABES) is a bibliography that claims to select only the most important secondary works each year, as does the Year’s Work in English Studies (YWES): both surveys help to decide whether a particular book or article deserves close reading. The British Humanities Index (BHI) gives abstracts and indexes of over 400 journals in the humanities and is updated monthly, which covers even more recent material than the MLA. Bibliographies also record university theses. Particular collections of abstracts help you to assess their content. Abstracts of university theses can be found in the Index of Theses with Abstracts (GB), Dissertation Abstracts International (USA) and English and American Studies in German: Summaries of Theses and Monographs (Ger). In 222 R E S E A R C H P A P E R S , P R E S E N T A T I O N S A N D E X A M I N A T I O N S <?page no="231"?> 223 W R I T I N G A T E R M P A P E R Germany, the university library of Göttingen probably holds the greatest number of academic theses in the form of copies on microfilm. Secondary material comes in the shape of dictionaries and encyclopaedias, which define individual terms, introductions, handbooks, companions, or histories, which give coherent overviews of topics, and more in-depth studies of issues in books or articles. Some of the most important general sources are the free online Merriam-Webster dictionary and thesaurus, the largest dictionary of the English language, the Oxford English Dictionary, which is indispensable if you need to know historical meanings of words, and the comprehensive Encyclopaedia Britannica, which are available online through your library. Up-to-date academic articles on literature and culture will be available in recent editions of journals. Many important journals are collected in fulltext databases, such as Literature Online (LION), JSTOR and Project Muse. You can easily search these databases and download articles in PDF or HTML through your library if your institution subscribes to them. LION or is a comprehensive virtual library and includes numerous primary works, the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature and offers much literary criticism in quite a few full-text journals. JSTOR is interdisciplinary and provides full-text journals but not recent issues of the past 3-5 years or so. Project Muse fills the gap to some extent because it provides many full-text journal articles published after 2000. If your search yields recent journal articles of interest that are not available online, consult the print periodicals holdings of your library. Offline and online sources | Fig. 6.3 Tullio Pericoli’s Secondary Sources (1982) depicts the scholar’s and the student’s dream of efficient research. <?page no="232"?> Two excellent online tutorials provide introductions to searching the World Wide Web efficiently. SAFARI, Skills in Accessing, Finding and Reviewing Information (www.open.ac.uk/ safari) offers sections on the whole process of online search, from initial planning to evaluating information. Intute’s Virtual Training Suite on the Internet (www.vts.intute.ac.uk/ he/ tutorial/ english) even allows you to pick tutorials in particular subjects. The regular online catalogue of your university can be searched by author, title and search keyword but usually yields only the titles of monographs, which are books and journals, but not individual articles. You have to resort to the individual bibliographies mentioned above to obtain a comprehensive overview of secondary material including articles, unless your university library offers a powerful meta-search tool. The meta-search allows you to select the bibliographies and the databases your institution subscribes to and the libraries you want to search in. The result of a meta-search lists titles of secondary material relating to the author, title or search keyword, gives you links to full-text sources where available, and indicates which of the libraries you picked holds the titles. Apart from specialised collections in databases with restricted access, the World Wide Web hosts a huge and continuously growing virtual library for free. Google Scholar (http: / / scholar.google.com) allows you to avoid scanning hundreds or thousands of links beyond your purpose and restrict your findings to academic publications. Google Scholar only provides the links to these publications, not the full texts. However, more and more primary and secondary material, whose copyright expired, is being scanned and new academic books and journals are published online, which can be found through the Google Book Search (http: / / books.google.com). The quality of these files varies considerably, especially concerning illustrations, so that you may have to resort to a copy from the library. Specific meta-pages or subject gateways serve as helpful guides to material on literature and culture in the digital jungle. The Anglistik Guide at the State and University Library at Göttingen is of enormous help because it does not only describe “scholarly relevant internet resources on Anglo-American language and literature” but also evaluates their use. The Voice of the Shuttle: Web Page for Humanities Research and Literary Resources on the Net are among 224 R E S E A R C H P A P E R S , P R E S E N T A T I O N S A N D E X A M I N A T I O N S Online search: tutorials The library Google Meta-pages or subject gateways <?page no="233"?> 225 W R I T I N G A T E R M P A P E R the most comprehensive and valuable meta-pages that host many valuable links to web sites on literatures in English, including numerous links to other fields, such as history, culture, the media etc. For undergraduate papers with comparatively little material to handle, it would be sufficient to use regular word-processing software for notes and quotes from secondary material, referencing and documentation. For a longer thesis, professional software can Whether you are searching for material via your library catalogue or Google Scholar, use the advanced search as often as possible because here you can specify your search by author, title or full text and search by keywords, type of material, language, publication date and file format. The finding and combination of appropriate search keywords is essential for efficient research. In order to find the right search keywords, it helps to draw a mind map of related terms and approaches in order to define what your focus is and what you want to exclude. If you are searching for a specific title or an exact quote, put it in quotation marks. You can combine words with “AND” or a simple “+”, include alternatives with “OR”, exclude something by placing “NOT” or a “-” before a keyword (always try both options), or search for synonyms by placing a tilde “~” before a search keyword. For example, the simple words Romeo and Juliet generate more than half a million titles in the Google Book Search, the search for Shakespeare AND “Romeo and Juliet” roughly half the number of hits, including various editions of the play itself (accessed 1 February 2011). If you want to focus on, let’s say, the psychoanalytic approach by adding “AND psychoanalysis” to your search, the hits are still far too many, but the restriction of the search to full texts reduces the number of hits to ten, which is manageable. In Google Scholar, the same search yields far more than two thousand hits, excluding editions of plays and including numerous references to books and articles in databases, which allow you to see the first page of the text, a fact that might help you to decide whether to get the title through your library. Cut and paste links of interest in order to be able to retrieve them quickly later instead of repeating your search. Example: advanced search Managing references <?page no="234"?> be a big help in managing your material (including PDF and images) and generating lists of your works cited by allowing the direct import of search results from bibliographies and databases. Three programs dominate the market: EndNote, Citavi and the online tool RefWorks. Your institution may offer a free version of these for students. For most undergraduate papers, take two steps: (1) the shortest path to important secondary material leads to the real and/ or virtual course-reader bookshelf (Semesterapparat), which offers material picked for the particular course. Introductions to authors, periods, or topics, handbooks, literary or cultural histories and collections of critical articles provide a good starting point for your research and will help you to find ideas, a particular topic and an approach. (2) However, this selection of books does not necessarily include the secondary literature on your specific text and perspective, some of which you will find through the online meta-search of your library. The course-reader bookshelf and the meta-search may provide you with sufficient material already, which means about ten articles and a few books for a paper that has to be delivered within two weeks, and fifteen articles and a few books for a paper you can spend four weeks on (unless specified otherwise). If these searches do not yield the required number of relevant titles, a more comprehensive search through standard bibliographies, Google Scholar, Google Book or jump pages will result in more titles (see above). The comprehensive search for secondary material is important for a final thesis. How do you proceed? ˘ Find a recent, retrospective (and annotated) bibliography on the author or the era of your primary text as a starting point for research. ˘ Search the MLA for secondary material, cross-check the findings against those of the ABELL (if at hand), and combine the downloads in one list. ˘ Compare this list with your selection of titles from the retrospective bibliography, and add those you consider important to the download so as to create your preliminary electronic file of secondary texts. ˘ Add, if necessary, further material of interest from (hidden) bibliographies (versteckte Bibliographien) in secondary material. How- 226 R E S E A R C H P A P E R S , P R E S E N T A T I O N S A N D E X A M I N A T I O N S Basic search for undergraduate papers Comprehensive search <?page no="235"?> 227 W R I T I N G A T E R M P A P E R ever, be as selective as you can in order to avoid drowning in too many texts. ˘ Select the most important works only. See which of them are available in your library and which have to be ordered via the interlibrary loan (allow four weeks for delivery). Narrow down your selection of secondary material to something between 10 and 15 articles and books for a paper that has to be delivered within two weeks, and to 15 to 25 in a paper you can spend four weeks on (unless specified otherwise). Before you order a book via the interlibrary loan, you may want to read a review of it. The Internationale Bibliographie der Rezensionen wissenschaftlicher Literatur (IBR) will help you to trace reviews. ˘ If you want to be up to date on secondary sources for a major thesis, check Whitaker’s Books in Print (GB), Bowker’s Books in Print (USA), the Verzeichnis lieferbarer Bücher (Ger) and the current journals that your university subscribes to or that the internet offers (see list on <http: / / utb-mehr-wissen.de>). ˘ Begin with one of the most recent of your selected texts, preferably one with a sound assessment of previous research, which supports your selection and your grasp of earlier material. Mark the most important titles in your preliminary bibliography. ˘ Obtain an overview of your material by closely reading the headline, introduction and conclusion of each text, and discard those texts which do not contribute any new and important argument. ˘ Scan the most important texts for relevant arguments; mark pertinent passages, take notes paraphrasing arguments in your own words, and quote important statements in full. ˘ Accurately reference every idea from secondary material in order to avoid plagiarism - and failing your paper - simply by recording the author and page of the reference in brackets in the body of the text (last name and page number: Gibaldi 204). Otherwise, you may no longer know whether notes are your own by the time you write your first draft. Plagiarism due to careless referencing will have the same consequences as intentional plagiarism. A paraphrase of ideas from secondary material in your own words has to be referenced as well as a direct quote of the exact word or phrase (even with mistakes) in quotation marks. ˘ Add notes to the titles in your bibliography or conveniently insert quotes at the appropriate place in the preliminary outline of Reading for and structuring arguments <?page no="236"?> your paper. In addition, an electronic database, the word-processing software or a mind-map (such as the MindManager®) are very useful for organising your findings. Writing the first draft Writing is a process: don’t expect your first draft to be the finished product in terms of argument and language. Otherwise, you may put yourself under too much pressure, which interferes with your writing and, in the worst case, can lead to writer’s block. The other extreme is rambling. ˘ Your preliminary introduction and outline define and structure the topic, approach, questions, concepts and topic statements, which provide the guideline to your first version (see above, 6.3.1). ˘ Repress your desire to fill a couple of pages with the author’s biography and a summary of the text, which are irrelevant unless they support a particular argument. Your instructor and reader will be familiar with the author’s life and work in most cases. ˘ Make sure that you have sufficient arguments that connect to your major topic statements, each of which should be illustrated by a reference to, or a quote from, the primary text. ˘ Reference ideas from others accurately. Put “direct quotes in quotation marks” but if a quotation runs to more than four lines in your paper, set it off from your text by beginning a new line, indenting one inch (or ten spaces if you are using a typewriter) from the left margin [. . .] without adding quotation marks. A colon generally introduces a quotation displayed in this way, though sometimes the context may require a different mark of punctuation or none at all. (Gibaldi 109) ˘ Check whether new insights from secondary material compel you to rephrase your questions, to qualify your statements or to revise your outline. ˘ Control the temporal, rhetorical and logical order of arguments in order to make sure that the arguments do not contradict but lead to each other. ˘ Examine whether comparisons account for similarities and differ- 228 R E S E A R C H P A P E R S , P R E S E N T A T I O N S A N D E X A M I N A T I O N S 6.3.3 | <?page no="237"?> 229 W R I T I N G A T E R M P A P E R ences between items of similar weight (a comparison between Juliet and her nurse would yield far less information than that between King Lear and his Fool). Draw your own conclusions. ˘ Begin your paragraphs with your topic sentence, which introduces the central idea. ˘ Keep the sentence structure simple (and elegant, if possible), use an elevated diction and avoid colloquialisms unless you want to make a particular point by using them. ˘ Provide links between the paragraphs and sections of your paper. ˘ Use images that enhance your arguments. ˘ Take great care to write a conclusion because it condenses your arguments and leaves a lasting impression on the reader. Explain why your approach has been useful in order to arrive at your results, and connect your insight into the primary text with its context. Summarise and evaluate your understanding in comparison to other sources. ˘ Once you are finished with the body of your text, rewrite the introduction, taking into account new ideas that occurred to you while writing. Revising the paper Revise your paper and put it into the final form by reading it several times, focusing each time on different sources of possible errors in (1) title and structure, (2) argumentation, (3) language, (4) referencing and documentation, and (5) formatting. Print out and read your paper aloud at last for your final revision and proofreading: as soon as you hesitate or get confused, you will probably detect a mistake in wording, syntax or argument. The great feature of cutting and pasting, which makes revisions easy, often leads to new mistakes in the shape of verbatim repetitions, incomplete sentences, paragraphs or missing links between arguments. | 6.3.4 1. Title and structure ˘ Title precisely indicates the topic and focus ˘ Clearly and logically structured outline Checklist <?page no="238"?> 230 R E S E A R C H P A P E R S , P R E S E N T A T I O N S A N D E X A M I N A T I O N S ˘ Introduction presents some core questions and positions of current research, ˘ specifies approach to topic and thesis statement, ˘ gives an overview of the paper’s structure, ˘ defines key questions and concepts. ˘ Main part answers central questions in a systematic way ˘ Comprehensive conclusion 2. Argumentation ˘ Statements based on arguments and evidence ˘ Correct and fruitful use of terms of analysis ˘ Arguments do not contradict each other ˘ Individual and original arguments ˘ Plausible order of and links between arguments ˘ Selection of relevant passages from primary texts ˘ In-depth interpretation of relevant primary material ˘ Sufficient selection of relevant secondary sources ˘ Critical reflection of relevant secondary material 3. Language ˘ Wording clear, precise, sophisticated ˘ Sentence construction clear and logical: word order, reference, no dangling modifiers ˘ Correct grammar: articles, pronouns, prepositions, adjective/ adverb, subject-verb agreement, tense and aspect ˘ Correct spelling ˘ Correct punctuation (relative clauses, if-clauses, that-clauses) ˘ Sentences and paragraphs well developed and linked 4. Referencing and documentation ˘ Accurate paraphrases and citation ˘ All quotes and sources acknowledged ˘ Sources accurately and completely documented 5. Formatting ˘ Title page: ˘ course title, semester, supervisor, ˘ title of paper, ˘ name, address and date. <?page no="239"?> 231 W R I T I N G A T E R M P A P E R For the planning, writing and especially the revision, it may help to recall general assessment criteria of undergraduate research papers that may roughly guide your supervisor’s grading. A very good grade will be awarded to a paper which clearly specifies the guiding questions related to a theoretically informed approach and correctly defines all terms of analysis. It develops original ideas against relevant secondary material, which it reflects critically. The outstanding paper presents a logical and coherent sequence of arguments, applies terms of analysis fruitfully and reveals a very convincing and individual, in-depth insight into most relevant passages, providing evidence for each argument. A comprehensive conclusion rounds off the argumentation. This paper displays a very good command of clear, correct, and sophisticated language, and accurately and completely documents all sources. A good grade will be given to an essay that employs a theoretically informed approach, briefly defines most terms of analysis and answers questions in a fairly systematic way. The sequence of arguments is mostly logical and coherent, applying terms of analysis fruitfully, presenting evidence and revealing a convincing - but not necessarily original - understanding of many important passages. Relevant secondary material is cited but not necessarily reflected in a critical way. The conclusion concisely summarizes the arguments. A good command of language and an accurate and complete documentation of all sources are needed for a good grade. A research paper will get an average grade if it presents a guiding question and concepts that are vaguely related to a theoretically informed approach. The paper comes up with some good arguments but does not develop a very coherent sequence of arguments. It reveals a fairly good understanding of several, but not most, relevant passages, and does not always provide evidence or references to relevant secondary material. The paper shows an average command of language and a complete if not always accurate documentation of all sources. ˘ Layout: ˘ Times New Roman or Arial, font size 12, ˘ adequate margins (for comments), ˘ double-spaced (unless specified otherwise), ˘ paragraphs indented. Assessment criteria and grading <?page no="240"?> 232 R E S E A R C H P A P E R S , P R E S E N T A T I O N S A N D E X A M I N A T I O N S A paper will pass if it reveals only basic skills of interpretation, defining the major question but not all of the concepts. The argumentation is not very systematic, at times without a correct use of concepts or evidence, but it develops a limited understanding of a few relevant passages. Some important secondary material is used, but not always in a convincing way. The conclusion is rather general. The text is characterised by a basic command of language and presents a complete but incorrect documentation of all sources. An essay will fail if it does not clearly specify the topic, approach or concepts, does not answer questions or apply terms of analysis in a systematic way. The paper presents assertions rather than arguments, summary rather than analysis, and gives irrelevant and wrong information. The conclusion is superficial or missing. An insufficient command of language is compounded by insufficient research, referencing and documentation or even plagiarism. Documentation Unless it is common knowledge, every idea obtained from someone else, whether paraphrased or quoted, has to be documented accurately. Various style sheets demand parenthetical references, footnotes or endnotes. The parenthetical documentation according to the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers is fairly simple and widely accepted. According to this model, paraphrases or quotes should be referenced in parenthesis by the author’s last name and the page number(s) of the borrowed information: (Gibaldi 204-205). ˘ If more than one text by the same author is to be documented, a shortened title has to be added: (Nünning, Grundkurs 10). ˘ If the author’s name already appears next to the passage in question and can easily be related to the referenced information, the page number in brackets will suffice: Schabert argues that . . . (10-12). ˘ If what you quote or paraphrase is itself a quotation in another source, put the abbreviation „qtd. in“ before the indirect source you cite in your parenthetical reference: Per Winther argues that in Ellison’s novel Invisible Man, „the hero is rewarded for his labors; he has achieved that freedom which 6.3.5 | <?page no="241"?> 233 W R I T I N G A T E R M P A P E R comes with the ability to give form to one’s ideas, feelings, and experiences“ (qtd. in Bourassa 3). ˘ Record further information that would hamper readability in a footnote, such as definitions of terms or references to more than two authors or sources. The parenthetical documentation refers the reader to the complete bibliographical information in the list of works cited or the bibliography at the end of the paper. References follow the subsequent forms according to the conventions of the MLA (document information [in square brackets] only if available or if applicable): ˘ A book is registered by the author’s or editor’s Last name, first name, [ed.] Title. [edition.] [volumes.] Place of publication: publisher, date. Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 6 th ed. New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 2003. ˘ An online book [within a database]: Last name, first name. Title. [Trans./ Ed. First name last name.] Place: publisher, year. [Database. Ed. First name last name. Version. Date of posting/ revision.] Date of access. <online address>. Keats, John. Poetical Works. London: Macmillan, 1884. Bartleby.com. 1999. Date of access: 1 November 2003. <www.bartleby.com/ 126/ >. ˘ An article in a book: Last name, first name. “Title of the article.” Title of book. [Trans./ ] Ed. First name last name. Place: publisher, date. Page[s]. Neumann, Fritz-Wilhelm. “Anglistik im Internet.” Einführung in das Studium der Anglistik und Amerikanistik. Eds. Uwe Böker and Christoph Houswitschka. München: C. H. Beck, 2000. 329-348. ˘ An article in a printed journal: Last name, first name. “Title of article.” Title of journal volume number. Issue number (date): page[s]. Jahn, Manfred, and Ansgar Nünning. “A Survey of Narratological Models.” Literatur in Wissenschaft und Unterricht 27 (1994): 283-303. Examples: bibliography <?page no="242"?> ˘ An article in an e-journal: Last name, first name. “Title of article.” Title of e-journal volume number. Issue number (year). Date of access. <online address>. (Add screenshot of web site if future access may be problematic). Bourassa, Alan. „Affect, History, and Race and Ellison’s Invisible Man.“ Comparative Literature and Culture. A WWWeb Journal 8.2 (2006). Date of access: 1 November 2007. <http: / / clcwebjournal. lib.purdue.edu/ >. ˘ An article from a newspaper: Last name, first name. “Title of article.” Title of newspaper date: page[s]. Baldwin, Tom, Tony Helpin and Rosemary Bennett. “Universities must raise private cash.” The Times 4 December 2003: 1. ˘ A part of an online publication: Jahn, Manfred. “Narratology: A Guide to the Theory of Narrative.” Part III of Poems, Plays, and Prose. A Guide to the Theory of Literary Genres. Version: 1.7. 28 July 2003. English Department, University of Cologne. Date of access: 1 November 2003. <http: / / www.uni-koeln.de / ~ame02/ pppn.htm>. ˘ A complete online scholarly project or database: Title of the project/ database. [Ed. first name last name.] Electronic publication information [incl. version number]. Date of publication or latest update. Institution or organisation. Date of access. <online address>. Britannica Online. 2003. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Date of access: 1 Nov. 2003. <http: / / www.eb.com/ >. The WWW Virtual Library: Theater and Drama. Ed. Barry Russell. Updated daily. Date of access: 1 November 2003. <http: / / vltheatre.com/ >. Presentation Presentations require sense in order to convey intelligent arguments and sensitivity to manage the social dimension of communication. Often, you will give a presentation and write your paper 234 R E S E A R C H P A P E R S , P R E S E N T A T I O N S A N D E X A M I N A T I O N S 6.4 | <?page no="243"?> 235 P R E S E N T A T I O N on the same topic, which allows you to prepare for both at the same time and to revise your paper after having received new input during the discussion of your topic in class. In spite of many similarities, a presentation and a paper address diverse audiences in different situations with the help of other media: think about the differences in goals, questions and proceedings. Your instructor and your peers usually differ in their expectations, knowledge and linguistic skills. In comparison to a paper, a presentation has to limit the number and complexity of questions and answers with regard to the academic standard of your peers. It may be required that you stimulate a discussion in the course rather than present an indepth analysis and a conclusive opinion as in your written paper. The presentation has to take into account the listening comprehension skills and the limited attention span and memory of the audience. The best arguments are of no use if you do not get them across to your audience for want of a clear structure, an audible voice, a distinct articulation and understandable language: “Think like a wise man but express yourself like the common people” (William Butler Yeats). Visual media can make up for the limitations of oral communication, but the visual information should support rather than replace speech. It is difficult to give a perfect presentation because you have to pay attention to yourself, to your subject matter, its mediation and to your audience. Find out your three major strengths and maintain them. Try to identify your three major weaknesses and to improve on them over time. | Fig. 6.4 William Hogarth, The Lecture (1736/ 37). Identify three ways of passing your time while listening to a boring lecture. Finding out about your audience <?page no="244"?> Think about these issues before the presentation: ˘ Who is the audience, what do they know and what do they expect? ˘ What can you offer them for their benefit? Explain questions, points of interest and goals. ˘ Structure your presentation not only along logical but also along rhetorical and psychological lines in an explicit way: first present general and then more specific information, the familiar prior to the unfamiliar, the simple issues before the complex ones, use a particular instance or story in order to explain a general argument and repeat central arguments. ˘ Anticipate potential questions from your audience and prepare answers. ˘ How do you present your arguments? Try to practise speaking on the basis of key arguments on cards or transparencies only. ˘ How much time do you have and need for a good presentation? (Practise speaking and eye-contact in front of a mirror if you like.) Measure the time and take into account the handling of media. Check your voice by recording your presentation. Where and when does the presentation take place? Consider the size and acoustics of the room, the time of day and the duration of the presentation. ˘ Which media are to serve which purpose? Less is more. ˘ Are the transparencies designed appropriately? PowerPoint offers good templates. Take large-sized letters (at least 16 pt.) of one font, do not use more than 3 to 5 statements per page and not more than 2 pages in 3 minutes. ˘ Does the audience need a handout and if so, when? The handout should include the outline, key definitions, arguments, quotes, tasks if needed and the works cited. ˘ Is the material arranged in a clear order to avoid confusion during the presentation? ˘ Are you motivated for the performance? Consider your own attitude towards yourself, your subject matter and your audience: develop a positive attitude by recalling your own good performances. Consider efficient ways of handling difficult questions, such as analysing these questions as a part of your response and returning those parts you cannot answer to the speaker or to the audience. 236 R E S E A R C H P A P E R S , P R E S E N T A T I O N S A N D E X A M I N A T I O N S <?page no="245"?> 237 P R E S E N T A T I O N ˘ Test your voice and your position in the room. ˘ Check the media and the technical equipment well before the presentation begins (microphone, overhead projector and screen, blackboard and chalk, flipchart and pens, television and video, laptop and projector, blinds). During the presentation: ˘ Establish a positive relationship to your audience: stand upright but comfortably, look at your audience in a friendly way, introduce yourself and welcome your audience, keep up eye contact. ˘ Control your timing: put your watch on the desk next to your paper in order to check it without much ado every once in a while. ˘ Present your topic, approach and outline. ˘ Begin to speak slowly and distinctly in your normal voice in order to let you and your audience get used to your voice, then vary your vocal presentation by shifting the pitch, the volume and the speed of speaking in order to stress important points and to create a vivid atmosphere; leave pauses after important statements and at the end of sections to give your audience time to comprehend your arguments. ˘ Underline your speech with your (natural) body language. | Fig. 6.5 The art of using transparencies differs from that of shadow puppets. <?page no="246"?> ˘ Repeat and paraphrase your key arguments, especially if you get the impression that the audience cannot follow your line of thought. ˘ What you say is what you show: the visual information should highlight the oral information. ˘ Present each transparency/ poster/ picture in 5 steps: announce what will be seen, show it, give the audience a moment to read or watch it, explain its function, remove the visual stimulus/ switch off the OHP/ insert a blank page in PowerPoint. ˘ Conclude your speech: summarise the key questions and arguments. After the presentation: ˘ Ask your audience or your instructor for questions, oral or written feedback. ˘ Take notes about the strong points and the weak points of your performance in order to improve your presentation skills. ˘ You may have to take questions or chair a discussion: remain standing upright in order not to lose momentum and not to miss anybody’s reactions or remarks in the room. ˘ Take notes of questions and arguments raised by participants in order not to lose track of important comments. ˘ Respond both to the speakers and their arguments in a positive and constructive way (politely thank them for comments, hints and advice if possible; discuss their opinions). ˘ Try to relate statements to your presentation in order to create a coherent and comprehensive unit of both presentation and discussion. ˘ Impress your audience by using additional information and visual material that refer to aspects your presentation could not cover within the given time. Oral and written examinations Contrary to widespread opinion, examinations are not intended to humiliate students or to reveal the extent of their ignorance under the eyes of embodied wisdom. Examinations give students the opportunity to show their knowledge and skills. Good performance 238 R E S E A R C H P A P E R S , P R E S E N T A T I O N S A N D E X A M I N A T I O N S 6.5 | <?page no="247"?> 239 O R A L A N D W R I T T E N E X A M I N A T I O N S pleases instructors for the student’s sake and his/ her own if taken as an indirect reflection of successful teaching. Since performance in examinations depends as much upon the questions as the answers, it is important to know the specific requirements and to try to meet them by appropriate preparation. Types of examinations ˘ Know exactly what is expected from you. ˘ Time your studying. ˘ Carefully read primary material with the help of secondary sources. ˘ Retrieve and reflect on relevant information; ask and answer questions in writing. ˘ Memorize important information, questions and arguments. ˘ If possible, practise mock exams with your peers or in preparatory courses. ˘ Try to relax in the hours before the examination instead of studying until the last minute: it is more important to be wide awake and able to concentrate than to be crammed to the brim with information. ˘ Listen carefully to the question, briefly reflect its direction and implications, and try to answer it precisely. Do not hesitate to ask for explanations if you do not know what the question aims at. ˘ Give a short overview of your arguments and begin with your most important answer before you unfold details. As a rule of thumb, talk as long as you are allowed to but talk wisely and avoid rambling. ˘ Pay attention to your examiner’s signs of approval or disapproval. If the instructor rephrases and specifies his/ her question, or points out shortcomings in your answer, you may have to give a better explanation for your opinion or to revise your arguments. Seven golden rules for exam preparations Special hints for oral exams <?page no="248"?> A written examination at the end of a course tests the knowledge covered and skills practised in class unless otherwise specified. In addition to intensive studying, a look at previous examinations and paying close attention to the instructions before the beginning of the exam will pave the way towards a good grade. The “Prüfungsordnung” and preparatory meetings or courses explain in detail the requirements of the final written examination of your degree programme or even let you practise by mock exams. Check the general proceedings, questions and demands by scrutinising previous examinations if available, by asking the examiner and students who passed. If you are given a range of topic areas to choose from in the examination, prepare for two areas in order to have an alternative if you find it difficult to handle the tasks given in one field. Essay questions follow a similar procedure as written papers. The implications of the topic or questions have to be explained and dealt with in a systematic way. An outline with key questions and arguments or a mind-map to structure your essay should not take more than 25 percent of your time, the (legible! ) writing 50 percent, and the final revision 25 percent. In oral examinations, time is very limited. Therefore, it is essential to present arguments in concise statements, which show considerable knowledge and reflection, and which can be unfolded if time permits. In general, the preparation is very similar to that of written examinations, but instead of dealing with a single topic in depth, you should be prepared to connect texts, topics and contexts that are far apart. For example, you may be asked to compare Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet with Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, taking into account the uses of character, action, language, or the staging of the plays with respect to their cultural contexts. Bibliography This bibliography is restricted to a very small selection of helpful books under the following headings (more titles on <http: / / utbmehr-wissen.de>): ˘ Guides to study skills ˘ Anthologies and databases of literary texts ˘ Bibliographies and subject gateways ˘ Dictionaries and encyclopaedias of general interest 240 R E S E A R C H P A P E R S , P R E S E N T A T I O N S A N D E X A M I N A T I O N S 6.6 | <?page no="249"?> 241 B I B L I O G R A P H Y The most accessible texts for beginners are marked by an asterisk*. For secondary sources on poetry, drama, narrative and literary theory, check the bibliographies of the previous sections. In general, titles are only annotated if they are very different from comparable sources. GUIDES TO STUDY SKILLS Andermann, Ulrich, Martin Drees, and Frank Grätz. Duden - Wie verfasst man wissenschaftliche Arbeiten? 3 rd , updated ed. Mannheim, Leipzig, Wien, Zürich: Dudenverlag, 2006. Correa, Delia da Sousa, and W. R. Owens, eds. The Handbook to Literary Research. 2 nd ed. London and New York: Routledge, 2010. (Good guide to online research on literature and interdisciplinary projects). Cottrell, Stella. The Study Skills Handbook. 3 rd ed. Houndmills: Palgrave, 2006. Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 7 th ed. New York, 2009. (Standard international reference source of how to research and document sources, incl. electronic media; here, references to 6 th ed.). *Intute’s Virtual Training Suite on the Internet. English. Matthew Steggle. 2010. Date of access: 7 August 2010. <www.vts.intute.ac.uk/ he/ tutorial/ english>. (Extremely helpful tutorial, which provides a subject-specific guide to the humanities and English studies, among other fields). *Ludwig, Hans-Werner, and Thomas Rommel. Studium Literaturwissenschaft. Arbeitstechniken und Neue Medien. Tübingen: Francke, 2003. (Comprehensive, incl. online sources and presentation techniques). *Reifegerste, E. Matthias. Anglistik elektronisch in Freiburg: Eine Einführung in die elektronischen Informationsmittel für das Fach Anglistik. Freiburg 2006. Date of access: 7 August 2010. <http: / / www.freidok.uni-freiburg.de/ volltexte/ 222>. (The overview is not restricted to the university library in Freiburg but provides general information about reference works and links to international sources on the web). *Skills in Accessing, Finding and Reviewing Information (SAFARI). The Open University. Date of access: 7 August 2010. <www.open.ac.uk/ safari>. (Very helpful online tutorial, comparable to Intute’s Virtual Training Suite, see above; with valuable links to free study units in the online LearningSpace in the Arts and Humanities). *Young, Tory. Studying English Literature: A Practical Guide. Reprint. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. (Very detailed und useful advice on writing and revising essays, with an explanation of the most common errors). ANTHOLOGIES AND DATABASES OF LITERARY TEXTS Abrams, M. H. et al., eds. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 8 th ed. 2 vols. New York and London: Norton, 2006. Alex Catalogue of Electronic Texts. Ed. Eric Lease Morgan. Date of access: 7 August 2010. <http: / / www.infomotions.com/ alex/ >. (1800 public domain e-texts of English and American literatures and philosophy). Bartleby.com. Date of access: 7 August 2010. <http: / / www.bartleby.com>. (Good collection of primary texts and a few, sometimes dated, reference works). <?page no="250"?> Bibliomania. Date of access: 7 August 2010. <http: / / www.bibliomania.com/ >. (Offers more than 2.000 e-texts in English, including reference books and study guides). CETH - Center for Electronic Texts in the Humanities. 2005. Rutgers University. Date of access: 7 August 2010. <http: / / harvest.rutgers. edu/ ceth/ etext_directory/ >. (Directory of electronic text centres mainly in the USA). Electronic Text Center. University of Virginia. Date of access: 7 August 2010. <http: / / www. lib.virginia.edu/ digital/ collections/ finding_ digital.html>. (Provides more than 70.000 texts from the humanities in various languages and more than 350.000 pictures). Gates, Henry Louis, ed. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. 2 nd ed. New York: Norton, 2004. Gilbert, Sandra M., and Susan Gubar, eds. The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women. 3 rd ed. New York: Norton, 2007. Gottesman, Ronald, Nina Baym, et al., eds. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 7 th ed. New York: Norton, 2007. Humanities Text Initiative (HTI). University of Michigan. Date of access: 7 August 2010. <http: / / quod.lib.umich.edu/ >. (Offers numerous links to databases of fictional and non-fictional texts, such as American Verse Project, British Women Romantic Poets, The Medieval Review, historical sources, etc.). Lauter, Paul, ed. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. 3 vols. 6 th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2009. (Probably the most comprehensive anthology of literature in the United States in three volumes). Literature Online (LION). ProQuest. 1996-2010. Date of access: 7 August 2010. <http: / / lion. chadwyck.co.uk>. (A comprehensive virtual library; next to primary works, includes the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature and literary criticism). The Online Books Page. University of Pennsylvania. Date of access: 7 August 2010. <http: / / digital.library.upenn.edu/ books/ >. (More than 20.000 e-texts, including specialty archives, such as Black literature, children’s literature, etc.). An Online Library of Literature. Date of access: 7 August 2010. <http: / / www.literature.org/ >. (Selection of 30 canonical authors, including great minds like Descartes and Darwin). The Oxford Text Archive. 5 August 2010. Oxford University Press. Date of access: 7 August 2010. <http: / / ota.ahds.ac.uk/ >. (Provides more than 2500 works of fiction as well as reference works in many languages). ProQuest. Information and Learning. 2010. The Quorum. Cambridge. Date of access: 7 August 2010. <http: / / www.proquest.co.uk>. (Commercial provider of comprehensive databases of primary and secondary sources, including dictionaries, bibliographies, and journals; free trials available). Questia. 2010. Date of access: 7 August 2010. <www.questia.com>. (A commercial but affordable online library; thousands of primary and secondary titles in the humanities and science). Representative Poetry Online. Version 3.0. 4 Ed. Combined Departments of English, University of Toronto. 2007. University of Toronto. Date of access: 7 August 2010. <http: / / rpo.library. utoronto.ca/ display/ index.cfm>. (Major anthology of poetry in English from the 16 th to the early 20th century; six indexes). Project Gutenberg. 1971-2002. Project Gutenberg & PROMO.NET. Date of access: 7 August 2010. <http: / / www.promo.net/ pg/ >. (More than 6.000 English e-texts of originals that were published before 1920). Thieme, John, ed. The Arnold Anthology of Post-colonial Literatures in English. London: Arnold, 1996. 242 R E S E A R C H P A P E R S , P R E S E N T A T I O N S A N D E X A M I N A T I O N S <?page no="251"?> 243 BIBLIOGRAPHIES AND SUBJECT GATEWAYS *Anglistik Guide at the State and University Library at Göttingen. Date of access: 16 August 2010. <http: / / www.anglistikguide.de>. (Very helpful guide to selected sources on Anglo- American language and literature). *The Annotated Bibliography of English Studies (ABES). Routledge. Updated regularly. Date of access: 16 August 2010. <https: / / www. routledgeabes.com/ sabe/ home>. (Subscription required; selects and comments on most relevant titles published each year). Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (ABELL or MHRA Bibliography). Leeds: Maney for Modern Humanities Research Association, 1920-. Date of access: 16 August 2010. <http: / / collections. chadwyck.com>. (Subscription required; free trial available; comprehensive international bibliography of literature and secondary material in English, which can be searched by keyword, title keyword, author, publication details and date; includes book reviews; listings considerably predate the MLAIB database, which begins in 1963 but covers more up-todate material than the ABELL after 1980). British Humanities Index (BHI). ProQuest. Updated regularly. Date of access: 16 August 2010. <http: / / www.csa.com/ factsheets/ bhi-set-c.php>. (Gives abstracts and indexes of over 400 academic journals and British quality newspapers). British National Bibliography (BNB). The British Library. Date of access: 16 August 2010. <http: / / www.bl.uk/ bibliographic/ natbib. html>. (Lists everything published in the United Kingdom). The British Library. Date of access: 17 August 2010. <http: / / www.bl.uk/ >. (Offers a number of online catalogues, which register millions of books, newspapers, journals, maps, images, recordings, etc.; search in individual catalogues or in integrated catalogue). Copac. Manchester Computing, Manchester University. Date of access: 17 August 2010. <http: / / copac.ac.uk/ >. (Offers access to the merged online catalogues of 24 university research libraries in the UK and Ireland, the British Library and the National Library of Scotland). Dissertation Abstracts International (DAI). Thomson. Updated monthly. Date of access: 17 August 2010. <http: / / library.dialog. com/ bluesheets/ html/ bl0035.html>. (Summaries of university theses of the USA since 1980; lists North American theses since 1861 and British theses since 1988; cp. Index to Theses with Abstracts). *Düsseldorfer Virtuelle Bibliothek: Anglistik. Heinrich Heine Universität Düsseldorf. Date of access: 17 August 2010. <http: / / www.ub.uniduesseldorf.de/ home/ ebib/ fachinfo/ ang/ dvb>. (Offers a great number of links to websites concerning English and American studies). Elektronische Zeitschriftenbibliothek (EZB). Date of access: 17 August 2010. <http: / / rzblx1.uni-regensburg.de/ ezeit/ >. (Offers numerous e-journals; some journals offer table of contents only, others full texts for free). English and American Studies in German. Summaries of Theses and Monographs. Ed. Horst Weinstock. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1968ff. (Abstracts of German university theses). EServer. Eserver.org. Iowa State University. 2010. Date of access: 9 August 2010. <http: / / eserver.org/ >. (Offers more than 35,000 texts from the humanities and links to American studies sites). *Fachbibliographien und Online-Datenbanken Anglistik, Amerikanistik (FabiO). Bibliotheksservice-Zentrum Baden-Württemberg. University of Konstanz. Date of access: 17 August 2010. <https: / / wiki.bsz-bw.de/ doku.php? id=linksammlungen: fabio: anglistik>. (Offers many links to international websites and databases on English and American studies; search by nationality, genre or topic). B I B L I O G R A P H Y <?page no="252"?> 244 Gender Inn. English department of Cologne university. Date of access: 17 August 2010. <http: / / www.uni-koeln.de/ phil-fak/ englisch/ datenbank>. (Offers bibliographies of gender studies and links to webpages that focus on gender studies). Global Books in Print. Bowker. Updated regularly. Date of access: 17 August 2010. <http: / / www.globalbooksinprint.com/ >. (Useful for search of recent publications on particular authors or topics). *Harner, James L. Literary Research Guide. An Annotated Listing of Reference Sources in English Literary Studies. 5 th ed. New York: MLA, 2008. (Enormously helpful annotated bibliography of fundamental reference works, such as bibliographies, dictionaries, encyclopaedias, handbooks, histories, etc.). Index to Theses with Abstracts. Updated regularly. 17 August 2010. <http: / / www.theses. com/ >. (Subscription required; comprehensive listing of British and Irish university theses with summaries since 1716). Internationale Bibliographie der geistes- und sozialwissenschaftlichen Zeitschriftenliteratur/ International Bibliography of Periodical Literature. 1896ff. Saur Verlag. 1983ff. Thomson. <http: / / gso.gbv.de/ DB=2.4/ LNG= DU/ LNG=EN/ >. (Subscription required; comprehensive international bibliography of articles in periodicals that cover the humanities and social sciences). The Internet Public Library. School of Information. University of Michigan. Date of access: 9 August 2010. <http: / / www.ipl.org>. (Offers electronic texts and links about all cultural topics, such as business, classics, health, literature, newspapers, etc.). Karlsruher Virtueller Katalog (KVK). Date of access: 17 August 2010. <http: / / www.ubka.unikarlsruhe.de/ kvk.html>. (Offers access to many German and international online library catalogues). Krikos, Linda A., and Cindy Ingold. Women’s Studies: A Recommended Bibliography. 3 rd ed. Westport and London: Libraries Unlimited, 2004. The Library of Congress Online Catalogue. The Library of Congress. Date of access: 17 August 2010. <http: / / catalog.loc.gov/ >. (The Library of Congress holds a collection of more than 126 million items, including books, recordings and manuscripts). Literary Resources on the Net. Jack Lynch. 7 January 2006. Date of access: 17 August 2010. <http: / / andromeda.rutgers.edu: 80/ ~jlynch/ Lit/ >. (Comprehensive subject gateway, not quite as up to date as the Voice of the Shuttle, see below). *MLA International Bibliography of Books and Articles on the Modern Languages and Literatures (MLAIB or PMLA Bibliography). New York: MLA, 1922ff. Date of access: 17 August 2010. <http: / / www.mla.org>. (Extensive and current bibliography that allows very quick and specific searches for secondary literature between 1963 and today; findings should be cross-checked with those in the ABELL). The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature 600-1950 (NCBEL). 2 nd ed. Eds. George Watson and I. R. Willison. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969-1987. (Records primary literature of Great Britain and highly selective secondary material from the year 600 to the mid 1980s. Useful for research on minor authors and selective historical criticism). OPAC der Zeitschriftendatenbank, Date of access: 17 August 2010. <http: / / zdb-opac.de>. (Lists more than 1 million titles of journals and thousands of libraries where you can find and order them). R E S E A R C H P A P E R S , P R E S E N T A T I O N S A N D E X A M I N A T I O N S <?page no="253"?> 245 Periodicals Content Index (PCI). ProQuest 2004. Date of access: 17 August 2010. <http: / / pci. chadwyck.com/ public? XXrequest=/ home.cgi>. (Campus licence required; free trial available; covers journals from the humanities and social sciences). Verzeichnis lieferbarer Bücher (VLB). München: Saur, 1971ff. Online <http: / / www.vlb.de/ portal.htm> or <http: / / www.buchhandel.de/ >. (Lists all titles currently available in Germany). *Voice of the Shuttle: Web Page for Humanities Research. Ed. Alan Liu, et al. University of California, Santa Barbara, English Department. Date of access: 9 August 2010. <http: / / vos. ucsb.edu/ >. (The most comprehensive and valuable meta-page on literatures in English in relationship to other fields, such as history, culture, the media etc.). WorldCat. Online Computer Library Center. Date of access: 17 August 2010. <http: / / www.oclc.org/ >. (Offers links to collections in libraries, archives and museums). The Year’s Work in Critical and Cultural Theory. Ed. Kate McGowan. 1991ff. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Companion volume to YWES, see below; summarises and comments on relevant books in critical and cultural studies, for example on gender, ethnicity, film, etc.). The Year’s Work in English Studies (YWES). Eds. William Baker and Kenneth Womack. 1920ff. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Summarises and evaluates selected secondary sources in major fields of literary research). DICTIONARIES AND ENCYCLOPAEDIAS OF GENERAL INTEREST Bartlett, John. Familiar Quotations: A Collection of Passages, Phrases and Proverbs Traced to Their Sources in Ancient and Modern Literatures. 16 th ed. Boston: Little, 1992. Date of access: 7 August 2010. <http: / / www.bartleby. com/ 100/ >. (Large collection of quotes, complemented by additional collections on the website). Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. Ed. Adrian Room. 16 th ed. London: Cassell, 2000. (Concise explanations of traditional words, names, and phrases in cultural contexts). Brewer’s Dictionary of Modern Phrase and Fable. Eds. John Ayto and Ian Crofton. 2nd, updated ed. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006. (Concise explanations of contemporary words, names, and phrases in cultural contexts). Die Brockhaus Enzyklopädie. 24 vols. 19 th , rev. and updated ed. Leipzig and Mannheim: Brockhaus, 1986-1994. A Dictionary of Literary Symbols. Michael Ferber. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English. Ed. Eric Partridge. 8 th ed. Ed. Paul Beale. London: Routledge, 2002. The Encyclopedia Americana. Grolier Educational Group. 1996. Date of access: 9 August 2010. <http: / / auth.grolier.com/ cgi-bin/ authV2? bffs=Y>. (Online access requires subscription). Encyclopaedia Britannica. 32 vols. 15 th ed. Ed. Daphne Daume. Chicago 2010. Also on CD- ROM. Date of access: 9 August 2010. <http: / / www.eb.com>. (Subscription required; largest encyclopaedia in English: a wealth of knowledge). Encylopedia.com. HighBeam Research. 2010. Date of access: 9 August 2010. <http: / / encyclopedia.com/ >. (More than 57.000 frequently updated articles from the sixth edition of the Columbia Encyclopedia; incl. links to newspapers and journals). Hügli, Anton. Philosophielexikon. 7 th , updated ed. Hamburg: Rowohlt, 2007. B I B L I O G R A P H Y <?page no="254"?> 246 *Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (DCE). 5 th fully revised ed. Ed. Della Summers. Harlow and Munich: Langenscheidt-Longman, 2009. (Includes very useful copy on CD-ROM). Longman Dictionary of English Language and Culture 3 rd ed. Harlow: Longman, 2005. (Includes 15.000 names, events, places and institutions of English-speaking cultures). Mautner, Thomas. A Dictionary of Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996. Merriam-Webster Dictionary and Thesaurus. Merriam-Webster. Date of access: 9 August 2010. <http: / / www.merriam-webster.com/ >. (The standard American dictionary; the unabridged version requires subscription). Meyers Enzyklopädisches Lexikon. 25 vols. 9 th , rev. and updated ed. Leipzig and Mannheim: Bibliographisches Institut, 1971-1992. Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia. Microsoft Corporation. 1997-2010. Date of access: 9 August 2010. <http: / / encarta. msn.com/ encnet/ features/ dictionary/ dictionaryhome.aspx>. *The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (SOED). 5 th ed. Ed. Lesley Brown. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002. *Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English (OALD). 8 th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press: Cornelsen, 2010. (Includes very useful copy on CD-ROM). The Oxford Classical Dictionary. 3 rd , rev. ed. Eds. Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature. 2 nd ed. Ed. M. C. Howatson. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. The Oxford Companion to the Bible. Eds. Bruce M. Metzger and Michael D. Coogan. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. 7 th ed. Ed. Elizabeth Knowles. Oxford University Press, 2009. (Complemented by the editor’s Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations. 2 nd , updated ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). The Oxford Dictionary of Slang. John Ayto. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2003. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED). 2 nd ed. Ed. J. A. Simpson and E. S. C. Weiner. 20 vols. Oxford: Clarendon-Oxford UP, 1989. CD-ROM, updated version 3.0, 2002. 1 November 2003. Date of access: 9 August 2010. <http: / / www.oed.com>. (The most comprehensive dictionary of the English language; particularly useful for historical meanings of words). The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols. Chevalier, Jean, and Alain Gheerbrant. London: Penguin, 2005. Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart: Handwörterbuch für Theologie und Religionswissenschaft. Ed. Hans Dieter Betz. 4 th , revised ed. Tübingen: Mohr, 1998. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Ed. Edward N. Zalta, et al. Metaphysics Research Lab at the Center for the Study of Language and Information. Stanford University. Regularly updated. Date of access: 9 August 2010. <http: / / plato.stanford.edu/ contents.html>. Theologische Realenzyklopädie. 36 vols. Ed. Gerhard Müller, Horst Balz and Gerhard Krause. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1976-2004. R E S E A R C H P A P E R S , P R E S E N T A T I O N S A N D E X A M I N A T I O N S <?page no="255"?> 247 Appendix | 7 The analyses given below suggest readings which are by no means comprehensive or complete. They point to approaches that can be productively applied to these texts. Analyses 248 Index 254 Acknowledgements 264 7.1 7.2 7.3 Contents Abstract <?page no="256"?> 248 The poem is an Italian sonnet with two quatrains and two tercets (abba abba cde cde) in iambic pentameter. The poetic division into two parts parallels the rhetorical one between the vehicle of the simile, the mother, who brings her child to bed at night, and the tenor, Nature, who leads human beings to death at the end of their lives. The key terms “playthings”, “leads”, and “by the hand” are repeated in the second part in order to stress the parallel between child and the adult. Caesuras in line one, three and eight to eleven, and the shift of stress towards “more splendid” and “not please” (line 8) stress the child’s hesitation. The discomforts of ageing and the fear of death are toned down by figurative language. Mother Nature is a comforting figure, who takes care of human beings as if they were her own children. The metaphor “playthings” signifies the activities we like to do but have to give up in old age. Being gently led to rest embellishes the process of ageing and dying. The metaphor of sleep, which clouds our understanding, points at the growing mental limitations of the elderly. The speaker includes everybody in the plural pronouns “we” and “us”. The mood is calm and the tone contemplative. Content, rhetoric and poetic form are harmoniously intertwined. The simile dispels any fear of death by safely putting humanity into the hands of Mother Nature, creating a Romantic contrast to the 19th century notions of evolution and progress through the enlightened mastery over nature 7.1 | Analyses Chapter 2: Poetry The simile of the title implies that the body is a system of signs that can be read by the blind with their hands, provided that they have learned how to read it. The lyrical poem is rather unusual because the female persona quotes three other utterances and positions herself in an ambiguous relationship to them. The speaker talks to herself rather than to her lover, marking the difference between physical and verbal communication. She conceals her thoughts Exercise 1. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem “Nature” (p. 61). Exercise 2. “The Body as Braille” by Lorna Dee Cervantes (pp. 61-62). A P P E N D I X <?page no="257"?> 249 A N A L Y S E S from him but the author allows the reader into her private thoughts. The speaker calmly reflects on how to define her passion rather than indulging in an immediate expression of emotion. His reading of her back with his hand results in an interpretation which is flattering but superficial in comparison to her expression of emotions and insights. His paying attention to her back rather than to her face corresponds to her reticence. They are together in a physical sense but apart in a mental and cultural sense. Her own vision of her passion takes the form of an ambivalent simile, which blends heat and coldness. The moon, which waxes and wanes, is a traditional symbol of female changeability and fertility. The white ring can be seen from two perspectives. The quote of the metaphor from her Latino grandmother ("dijo mi abuela") invokes a magic and supernatural quality of love. The utterance of (male American) scholars provide a contrasting “natural” explanation of love as a reflection of light, in metaphoric terms as a female response (moon) to male appreciation (sun). She combines and transforms both perspectives in the conceit of “a storm brewing in the cauldron / of the sky.” The brewing cauldron is associated with heat and witches, the beginning storm in the sky with coldness and power, images that convey the impression of the dangerous dynamics of her love. The speaker leaves her lover in the dark about her love, whether it has a future of whatever kind or whether he will be in for a cold shock. The title introduces an alliteration, which the body of the text (about the text of the body) continues: “body”, “braille”, “back”, “beautiful”, “burning”, “brewing”. The lover characterises her with the general term “beautiful” but does not realise her passion. The alliteration of “crystals” and “cauldron” supports the paradoxical combination of coldness and heat, which describe her love. The repetitions of “moon” and “ice” give more weight to the cool and changeable side of her. The graphic design suggests a rise and fall in the growing and waning of the lengths of lines, supporting the image of the moon and changeability. The gradual reduction of the last seven lines from seven to two words mirror the difference between her reflection on the relationship and the reticent communication with her lover. The male perspectives on the external beauty of the body and natural phenomena are juxtaposed with the female and multicultural vision, which transcend what is palpable and suggest a powerful dynamics beyond his reach. <?page no="258"?> 250 The autodiegetic narrator betrays no critical distance towards himself but rather presents his current thoughts and perceptions. The choice of the autodiegetic narrator corresponds to the character’s Exercise 2. Rose Tremain's story “My Wife is a White Russian” (p. 107). Chapter 3: Narrative The title raises curiosity because the banal story must be of some interest in order to be written and read. The covert heterodiegetic narrator mediates the nameless male character’s perspective in fixed internal focalisation. The story begins in medias res, indicated by the initial “So”, as if the man at the desk decided to take his time ("slowly") to eat an orange because he had difficulties with writing. The wintry turn outside and the lack of heat inside the room create an uncomfortable atmosphere. The man’s thoughts (in free indirect discourse) imply that he was freezing, and is relieved upon feeling the heat of the stove, which gives life in a very basic sense. His reaching for another orange without eating it reveals either that he has time or that his attention is drawn to the news in the paper he reads. Apparently, he is primarily interested in sensations, male sports and far away places, which promise adventurous romance or “Life” as opposed to his “life” in a rather dreary place. The fact that his situation seems to be rather boring and unpleasant motivates his escapist desire for heroic action elsewhere. On the other hand, the man is also interested in the arts and in writing, fields which refer back to his place at the writingtable and suggest his profession. The nameless man is a writer but also the general representative of autonomous masculinity, revealed in his detachment from any personal relationships and in the split between his own “life” and the “Life” he is fascinated by. The combination of the heterodiegetic narrator and the internal focalisation mirror the division between the man’s external and internal life. The story explores the banal but important difference between life, Life, and the vicarious experience of romance via reading. In a way, the story is all about Hemingway’s own obsession with masculinity, adventure, sports, exotic places and the need to retreat in order to write fiction. Exercise 1. Ernest Hemingway's “Banal Story” (p. 106). A P P E N D I X <?page no="259"?> 251 egocentric view of the world, which is indicated by the anaphoric repetition of “I” in the first four sentences, and his cold erotic obsession with talking about what he owns. His autoeroticism dominates his view of human and heterosexual relationships. The rich location symbolically supports his social status but also becomes the place of his public embarassment. He seems to have a problem with the young, apparently healthy, and courteous Australians because he himself cannot accept his speech impediment, which is probably the result of a stroke. His handicap counteracts his pride and power. Instead of stimulating him, uttering the “hard” word “Diamonds! ” turns into a grotesque performance. The rich and hard-hearted man is reduced to a pathetic spectacle. His beautiful wife’s smile is extremely ambiguous. Now he, who was so powerful, would be helpless without his wife. This new dependency creates a tension, which prefigures conflicts within and between characters. Hemingway’s and Tremain’s male figures have a limited, narrow perspective on life in these stories. They are egocentric and interested in autonomy and performance, whether in sports or in business, rather than in relationships. Their concept of romance focuses on male rivalry but seems to be emptied of love. However, Tremain’s rich man has an inkling that the use of his wife as a decorative object is closely related to her lack of love for him. A N A L Y S E S Chapter 4: Drama The author describes the music, place, time, props, the protagonist’s name, age, clothes, behaviour, psychological disposition and the particular nature of the utterance in order to define the character in context. The ordinary first name Willy generalises the character and the telling name Loman suggests that he is low in money and in spirit. The fine melody is associated with dreams of freedom and space, which contrast with the buildings looming up around his small house. The number and large size of his suit-cases, his exhausted behaviour, and his sigh show the old and humble salesman’s suffering and disillusionment. He can rely on his cheerful and loving wife, who would never express her dislike of his temper. Both direct and indirect charac- Exercise 1. Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman (p. 151). <?page no="260"?> terisation draw a difficult, unrealistic, unstable and divided character. 252 The wall of fog outside at night is an objective correlative of the mother’s morphine addiction, as Edmund realises, but both father and son do not see their drinking and their intention to ignore Mary coming down the stairway have the same effect. The fog horn, which warns ships not to founder on the coast, might serve as a reminder to help Mary but neither father nor son try to get through to her. Their mechanical way of playing cards highlights the lack of light-hearted playfulness between them, as opposed to the game of mutual accusation, which time and again disrupts their underlying feeling of attachment to each other. Whereas the father represses his responsibility for his wife’s present situation by putting the blame on the drug, Edmund tries to pierce Tyrone’s wall of fog by blaming him of being guilty of her addiction. In turn, the father blames Edmund for having been born, using the ultimate insult and repressing his own responsibility for the present situation. Father and son are caught in a bond of love and hate, which materialises in a vicious circle of accusation and denial. They talk instead of acting to change their situation or help Mary, and they speak about her rather than to her, a fact that betrays their helplessness and resignation. Their drinking in the dimly lit home at midnight raises the ghosts of the past, which are haunting the disintegrating family. Chapter 5: Literary Theory The limerick “Three blind mice” can be interpreted as a condensation of the Oedipus complex and castration anxiety. The blindness of the mice, if taken to represent boys, indicates that they are oblivious of their desire for the mother in the farmer’s wife. The farmer’s absence seems to allow the boys to fulfill their Oedipal desire but the wife enforces the patriarchal law by castrating the boys with the knife, which symbolises the father’s phallus. The anony- Exercise 2. Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night (pp. 151-52). Psychoanalytic criticism of the limerick “Three blind mice” (p. 23). A P P E N D I X <?page no="261"?> 253 A N A L Y S E S mous verse can be read as a complex image of subconscious male desire and anxiety. Psychoanalytically oriented feminists could read the limerick as the woman’s endorsement of patriarchal rules, or, what is more likely, as a form of empowerment that curtails male domination. The poem parallels the following binary oppositions: Africa/ America, past/ present, (justice)/ mercy, heathen/ Christian, night/ day, ignorance/ knowledge, black/ white, (damnation)/ redemption, devil/ God, Negroes/ Christians, Cain/ Abel, devil/ angel, (uneducated)/ refined. The poem shows a very symmetric and regular structure in terms of metre and rhyme. The iambic pentameter is only inverted thrice, marking “taught” in the second line (in alliteration with “T’was”), and the chiasmic equivalence of the rhymes “I”/ “eye”, “knew"/ “view” in the two central lines of the poem. The opposition between “I” and “Some”, past and present, simple ignorance and discriminating “knowledge”, and the equivalent alliteration of “sought”/ “scornful” suggest an analogy between the speakers past blindness and the white American’s present ignorance. This doubling of opposition and equivalence disturbs the prevalent binary opposition between black and white, as does that between her past and the present, and her past conversion and the possible future of Africans. This doubling suggests that “Some”, who discriminate Africans, could change their views of Africans as these could change their views of God. The individual movement from Africa to America and the conversion from paganism to Christianity can be read as a general model for enslaved African-Americans. The poem uses the regular conventions of English poetry and partly endorses the binary system of Christian values. It reiterates the binary system of the (white Puritan) American dream of spiritual liberation from bondage in the Old World and of regeneration in the Promised Land of the New World. The transfer of these structures to African-Americans, however, transgresses the system of North American slavery, which is partly built upon the racist Christian denigration of African “heathens”, identifying them as “diabolic” and as descendants from the jealous murderer Cain. The potential conversion of all African-Americans claims their redemp- Structuralist analysis of Phillis Wheatley’s poem “On being brought from Africa to America” (p. 42). <?page no="262"?> 254 tion and integration into the Christian system of values in opposition to their present exclusion from it or rather their reduction to its negative other (for a more critical interpretation, see 5.3.4 Postcolonialism). Index The index records technical terms, movements, theories, periods, authors and titles. Definitions and central explanations of technical terms are given on the pages that are highlighted in bold letters in the index instead of being repeated in a glossary. The German term is only mentioned if it differs significantly from the English expression. 7.2 | A Defence of Poetry (Percy Bysshe Shelley) 22 An Essay on Criticism (Alexander Pope) 25 A Long Day’s Journey into Night (Eugene O’Neill) 117, 139, 152 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (James Joyce) 74, 75, 82 absence 167, 176, 178, 191 absurd drama and theatre 124-125, 132, 206 Abweichung(sästhetik) 172-173 Achebe, Chinua (“Dead Man’s Path”) 83-84 Ackroyd, Peter (Hawksmoor) 100 action - in drama 127-128, 132-134, 135, 145, 148- 149 - in metaphor and metonymy 33-35 - in story 66-67, 69-70, 90, 96-98, 105 addressee/ Adressat 8, 26, 29-30, 68, 120-121, 125, 173 ad spectatores 147 aesthetic experience/ ästhetische Erfahrung 5, 13, 24 aesthetic illusion 98-99, 100 aesthetic object 6-7, 169 aesthetic structure 94 affective fallacy 169 African American studies 196, 199 agent 96, 102, 132 Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll) 13 alienation 102, 119, 123-124, 206 Allegorie/ allegory 27, 37 alliteration 50, 122, 174 allwissend (Erzähler, cp. authorial) 74 alter, alter ego, alterity (see also other) 166, 197 alternate rhyme 50 Althusser, Louis 182-83 Ambiguität/ ambiguity/ ambiguous 9, 13, 23, 27, 37, 40, 69, 80, 98, 102, 145 anachronic/ Anachronie 89, 139 analepsis 89 Analyse/ analysis 3, 11-12 - in theory 160, 163-169, 171-172, 174, 175, 177, 188, 191-192, 195, 201, 203 - of drama 119, 122-123, 146-151 - of narrative 69-70, 87, 95-98, 102-107 - of poetry 36-37, 47, 58-61 analytic drama 117 Anapäst/ anapaest/ ic 46 Anapher/ anaphora 43 “Annabel Lee” (Edgar Allan Poe) 51-52 annotated edition 10 “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” (Ambrose Bierce) 96-97 antagonist 127, 132 anti-illusionist postmodernist fiction 98-100 anti-illusionist radical theatre 129 Antithese/ antithesis 53 Anzaldua, Gloria 199 approach 2-3, 57, 58-60, 87, 95, 102-103, 106, 146-147, 158-160, 161, 165, 168-169, 171, 175, 180-181, 183, 191 apron stage 137 arbiträr/ arbitrary 168, 171, 177, 179-181, 194 Aristotelian drama/ aristotelisches Drama 132- 133, 145 Aristotle 4, 7, 141 Arnold, Matthew (“Dover Beach”) 45 art for art’s sake 6-7 Ashbery, John (“Our Youth”) 57-58 Asian American 200 A P P E N D I X <?page no="263"?> 255 I N D E X aside 117, 147 assonance/ Assonanz 50 asyndeton 44 As You Like It (William Shakespeare) 114, 116- 118, 132, 143 atmosphere 79, 90, 91, 93 Atonement (Ian McEwan) 79, 100-101 Augenreim 50 auktorialer Erzähler 70 Auslassung 88 aut delectare aut prodesse 5 author 4, 6-10, 14-15, 17, 26-27, 29-30, 60, 68- 69, 73, 77, 78, 94, 97, 101-102, 115, 126, 160-168, 169, 171, 179, 190, 194, 200, 202, 204 - implied 69 - real 26, 68, 73, 77 authorial narrative/ narrator 70, 73-77, 99 autodiegetic narrator 78-80, 88 awareness, congruent/ discrepant 116 Bachtin, Michael/ Bakhtin, Michail 183, 187 ballad 51-53 - folk- / Volksballade 51 - stanza/ Balladenstrophe 51 “Banal Story” (Ernest Hemingway) 106, 194 Barnes, Julian (Talking It Over) 82, 89 Barth, John (“Life Story”) 101, 114 Barthelme, Donald (“The Baby”) 81, 168, 188- 189 Barthes, Roland 175, 179 base/ Basis 155 Beauvoir, Simone de 190 Beckett, Samuel 124-125, 131, 139, 144, 206 - Endgame 124, 139, 206 - Waiting for Godot 131, 144, 206 Behn, Aphra (Oroonoko, or the Royal Slave) 71 Beiseite-Sprechen 117-118 bell hooks 195 Beloved (Toni Morrison) 85-86, 91, 199 Benhabib, Seyla 197 Beschönigung 41 Betonung 41, 130 Bhabha, Homi 197-198 Bierce, Ambrose (“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”) 96-97 Bildempfänger (of metaphor) 32 Bildspender (of metaphor) 32 binary opposition 172, 174-176, 197 Binnenerzählung 78 Binnenreim 50 biographical approach 161 Black Comedy (Peter Shaffer) 135 Blake, William (“The Tyger”) 43 blank verse 121 Bond, James 95 Brave New World (Aldous Huxley) 6 Briefroman 73 “British Museum Reading Room” (Louis MacNeice) 31 Brontë, Charlotte (Jane Eyre) 91-92, 97 bürgerliches Trauerspiel/ domestic tragedy 142 Bunyan, John (The Pilgrim’s Progress) 5, 37-38 Butler, Judith 193 caesura 47, 60 canon 2-3, 14, 17 Carroll, Lewis (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland) 13 Carter, Angela (“Little Red Riding Hood”) 97 catastrophe 133, 149 catharsis 141 Cervantes, Lorna Dee (“The Body as Braille”) 61, 194, 201 Cervantes, Miguel (Don Quixote) 5 character 4-5, 7 - in drama 115-136, 141-146, 147-149 - in fiction 68-69, 71, 73-77, 83-86, 90, 93-96, 98, 103-105 characterisation, direct and indirect 93 chiasmus 43 “Chicago” (Carl Sandburg) 44-45 Childress, Alice (“Health Card”) 67-68 chorus 145 Churchill, Caryl (Top Girls) 117 Cisneros, Sandra (The House on Mango Street) 200 Cixous, Hélène 192 climax 133,149 closed character 93, 105, 128 closed form (of drama) 132-134 close reading 26, 170 closure (of a narrative) 97 code 9-10, 160, 179 Cognitive approach 32-34, 36-37, 114, 203-204 Collins, Wilkie (The Woman in White) 82 combination (syntagmatic) 172 comedy 143-144 - farcical/ farce 134, 135 - of humours 144 - of manners 144 - romantic 143 - satiric 144 complication 68, 133 composition 11-12, 26-27, 58 conceit 31 conception of figures 128 concordia discors 12 condensation 165 configuration 129 conflict 121-123, 132-133, 141-142, 144, 149, 164-166, 182-187 congruent awareness 116 connotation 17, 170 Conrad, Joseph (Heart of Darkness) 79 <?page no="264"?> 256 consonance 50 constellation of characters 93, 129 context/ ual 3, 9-10, 12-15, 54-55, 72, 81, 87, 90, 102-104, 106, 150-151, 158-160, 181- 201 Copernican revolutions 158 Copernicus 158-159 couplet 8, 27, 50, 51, 53 covert narrator 78 critical apparatus 10 critical edition 10 criticism 3 - literary 10-13 - and theory 2-3, 157-211 cultural materialism 185-186 cultural turn 159 dactyl/ Daktylus 46, 48, 60 “Daffodils” (William Wordsworth) 39, 47, 53, 162 Darwin, Charles 159 “Dead Man’s Path” (Chinua Achebe) 83 Death of a Salesman (Arthur Miller) 146, 151 deconstruction, deconstructivism, deconstructivist 176, 180 defamiliarisation 24, 173 Defoe, Daniel (Robinson Crusoe) 70-71 denotation 170 dénouement 133 Derrida, Jacques 176-177, 179, 180 deviation 47, 172-173, 188 detachment (aesthetic) 13 dialogic/ al 183-184 dialogue 13, 29, 51, 76, 103, 114, 118-125 diaspora 197 Dickens, Charles 95 - Hard Times 5-6, 94 - Great Expectations 97 Dickinson, Emily 46 différance 176-177 difference 171, 176 direct characterisation 105 direct discourse/ direkte Rede 82-83 discourse (cultural) 188-189 - authoritative 183 - double-voiced 184-185 - narrative 66, 69-77, 82-84 - persuasive 183 discourse time 88 discrepant awareness 116 displacement 165 domestic tragedy/ bürgerliches Trauerspiel 142 Donne, John - “Song” 47 - “The Sun Rising” 43 Don Quixote (Miguel Cervantes) 5 “Dover Beach” (Matthew Arnold) 45 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Robert Louis Stevenson) 166 Dracula (Bram Stoker) 217 drama 114-115 (see also comedy, morality play, tragedy) - absurd 124, 132 - analytic 117 - Aristotelian 145-146 - closed form 132-133, 134 - epic 145-146 - open form 134 - point of attack 138 dramatic communication 115 dramatic irony 118 dramatic language 118 dramatic monologue 29 dramatis personae 129 Drayton, Michael (“Since there’s no help, come, let us kiss and part”) 27-28 Dreiheber 46 The Dumb Waiter (Harold Pinter) 116 dupe 143 duration (of a narrative) 88 duration (of a performance) 138 Eagleton, Terry 175 écriture feminine 191 editing/ edition 9-10 ego (Ich, psychoanalysis) 163 eigentliche Sprache 30 Eliot, Thomas Stearns (“The Love Song of J. R. Prufrock”) 29-31, 48 ellipsis 88 embedded narrative 78-79 Empfindsamkeit/ Empfindung 73-74 emphasis 41, 43, 130 Endgame (Samuel Beckett) 124, 139-140, 206 end rhyme 50-51 end-stopped line 47 English sonnet 8, 27, 53 enjambement 47 epic drama 145-146 epic narrator (in drama) 145-146 epic poetry 24 Epipher/ epiphora 43 epistolary novel 73 equivalence 174-175 erlebendes Ich 71 erlebte Rede 82-85 Erzähldauer 88 erzählendes Ich 71 Erzählerbericht 83 Erzählsituation 71, 74 erzählte Zeit 88 Erzählung 66 Erzählweise 66 Erzählzeit 88 essentialism/ essentialist 179, 199, 200 Etherege, George (The Man of Mode) 123, 144 ethnic/ ity 195-196 A P P E N D I X <?page no="265"?> 257 I N D E X euphemism 41 experiencing 71 experimental theatre 129 expliziter Erzähler 78 exposition, initial, isolated, integrated 96-97, 116-117, 133 external communication 26, 115-116 external focalisation 82 extradiegetic narrator 78 extrinsic approach 60, 106 eye-rhyme 50 fall (action in drama) 132-133 farce 135 feminine rhyme 50 feminism 190-195 fiction 98-101 fictional character 93-94, 128 fictional discourse 68 fictional story 68, 101 fictional time (of a drama) 135, 138 Field (Vincent van Gogh) 11 figural narrative situation 71, 74 figurative language/ figurative Sprache 30-31, 45 (see also: ambiguity, antithesis, conceit, epic simile, hyperbole, irony, metaphor, metonymy, oxymoron, paradox, pun, symbol, understatement) first-person narrative/ narrator 68-76 Fish, Stanley 204 fixed focalisation/ fixierte Fokalisation 82 flashback 89 flashforward 89 flat character/ type 93, 106, 108 focalisation/ Fokalisierung 77-78, 82-87 folk ballad 51 foot/ feet (in metre) 60 foreground/ ing (aesthetic) 30, 33, 67, 74, 85, 172-175 Formalism 171-174 Foucault, Michel 181, 188 fourth wall 137 frame narrative 78-79 free indirect discourse/ freie indirekte Rede 82-84, 85 free verse 48-49 frequency 89 Freud, Sigmund 159, 163-166 Frost, Robert (“The Road not Taken”) 36-37 Fünfheber 47 Füssli, Johann Heinrich (King Lear) 136, 141 Gadamer, Hans-Georg (see also hermeneutics) 11, 163 gap/ Lücke, Leerstelle - in deconstructivism 176, 191, 193 - in reader response theory 201-206 Gedankenwiedergabe, indirekte 83 Gemeintes (metaphor) 32 Geminatio 43 gender, ~ studies 190, 193-194 genre 7-8, 14-15 Geschichte 66, 132 geschlossenes Ende 97 geschlossene Form (Drama) 132-133 Gesichtspunkt 77 Gilman, Charlotte Perkins (“The Yellow Wallpaper”) 79-80 Gilroy, Paul 199 Gogh, Vincent van (Field) 11-12 Gothic novel 14 Great Expectations (Charles Dickens) 95, 97 Greenblatt, Stephen 189 Guckkastenbühne 137 gynocriticism 191 haiku 50 Halbreim/ half-rhyme 50 Haltung 26 Handlungsstrang 69 Handlungsstruktur 66, 96 Hard Times (Charles Dickens) 5-6 Harry Potter (J. K. Rowling) 5, 99 Hauptfigur 132 Haupthandlung 134 Haupttext 114 Hawksmoor (Peter Ackroyd) 100 Hawthorne, Nathaniel (The Scarlet Letter) 78, 184 “Health Card” (Alice Childress) 67-68 Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad) 79 Hemingway, Ernest (“Banal Story”) 24, 106, 194 hermeneutics 12-13, 162-163 hermeneutic circle 13, 203 hero/ heroine 97, 141 heroic couplet 51 heterodiegetic narrator 78-79, 84 heteroglossia/ heterglot 183 Hirsch, Jr., E. D. 162 Höhepunkt 132-133 Holmes, Sherlock 205 homodiegetic narrator 78-79 Horace/ Horaz 5, 88 horizon of expectations 205 Howard, Henry, Earl of Surrey 53 “Humpty Dumpty” 22, 48 Huxley, Aldous (Brave New World) 6 hybrid/ ity 197-198 Hyperbel/ hyperbole 41 iamb/ ic 46, 47-48, 60, 121 I-as-protagonist 71 I-as-witness 71 Ich (ego, psychoanalysis) 163 Ich-Erzähler/ Erzählsituation 70-73 Id (psychoanalysis) 163 identical rhyme 50 <?page no="266"?> 258 identity 159, 163-164, 167, 176, 179, 183, 190- 194, 197 ideological, ~ apparatus, ideology 182 illusion 73, 75-76, 98-101, 128-129, 134, 137- 138, 146 illusionist theatre 128 imagist/ isch 24 imitation 4, 7, 74 implied author 68-69 implied fictional communication 68 implied reader 68, 203 “In a Station of the Metro” (Ezra Pound) 23-24, 30, 32 indeterminacy, indeterminate 57, 180-181 indirect characterisation/ Charakterisierung 105 indirect discourse/ indirekte Rede 82-84 indoor theatre 137 in medias res 88, 96, 138-139 innerer Monolog/ interior monologue 82, 85-86 intentional fallacy/ intentionaler Trugschluss 163, 169 intentional irony 117-118 intercultural 198 internal communication 26, 115-116, 118 internal focalisation 82 internal rhyme 50 interpretation 3, 10-13, 58-59, 158, 160, 162- 166, 169-170, 180-181, 202-206 interpretive community 204 intertextual/ ity 179-180 intradiegetic narrator 78 intrinsic 4, 6, 58 intrinsic approach 169 intrusive narrator 73 inversion 43 Irigaray, Luce 192 ironic/ irony 29, 41-42, 54, 55, 58, 80-81, 84, 90, 101, 117, 123, 125, 135, 140, 146, 180, 184- 185, 198 Iser, Wolfgang 202-203 Italian sonnet/ italienisches Sonett 53 Jakobson, Roman 173-174 Jambus 46 Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë) 91-92, 97 Jauß, Hans Robert 205-206 Jonson, Ben (Volpone) 133, 184 Joyce, James 74 - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 74, 75, 82 - Ulysses 86 Kanon 2-3, 14 Kant, Immanuel 159 Katastrophe 149 Katharsis 141 Keats, John (“To Autumn”) 56 Kinderreim 22 King Lear (William Shakespeare) 125, 127, 134, 141-142 Kingston, Maxine Hong (The Woman Warrior) 200 Klimax 132-133 kommentierte Ausgabe 10 Konfiguration 129 Kreuzreim 50 Kristeva, Julia 191-192 kritische Ausgabe 10 Kunstballade 51 Lacan, Jacques 167 language, communicative functions of 173-174 langue 171-172 laughter 144 Lauretis, Teresa de 193 Leser - impliziter/ implied 203 - realer/ real 203 Lessing, Doris (“To Room Nineteen”) 76-77 libido 164 “Life Story” (John Barth) 101, 114 limerick 174 line (of verse) 47 line-by-line exchange 123-124 linguistics 32-33, 158-159, 171 linguistic turn 159 literal language 30-31 literal meaning 12, 55 literarische Ballade/ literary ballad 51 literary - ballad 51 - communication 9 - criticism 3, 10-13 - genres 5, 7, 9, 14-15, 187 - history 3, 14-18 - studies 2-3 - theory 2-3, 14, 157-212 Literatur - geschichte 14-18 - kritik 3 - theorie 2, 157-212 - wissenschaft 2 literature - oral 8, 66-69 - written 8, 66-69 litotes 41 “Little Red Riding Hood” (Angela Carter) 97 locale 135-138, 150 Lösung (of conflict in comedy) 132-133 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth (“Nature”) 61 Lowe, Lisa 200 Lyotard, Jean-Francois 180 lyric 24 Macbeth (William Shakespeare) 178 MacNeice, Louis (“British Museum Reading Room”) 31 A P P E N D I X <?page no="267"?> 259 I N D E X männlicher Reim 50 Magritte, René (La clef des songes) 171-172 Maitland, Sara - “The Company of Wolves” 97 - “The Wicked Stepmother’s Tale” 97 Marx, Karl/ Marxism 159, 181-185 masculine rhyme 50 mask 26, 130 McEwan, Ian (Atonement) 79, 100-101 McKay, Claude (“The White House”) 54 meaning 170-171 - connotative 170 - denotative 170 - hermeneutic 11-13, 162-163 - latent 165 - manifest 165 medium 8-10 mehrsträngige Handlungsführung 96 metafiction 100 Metapher/ metaphor 31-34, 36-37 Methode/ approach 2, 160-207 Metonymie/ metonymy 34-35, 38-39 metre/ Metrum 30, 45-49, 58 - Anapäst/ anapaest 46 - dactyl/ Daktylus 46 - iamb/ Jambus 46 - Spondäus/ spondee 46 - Trochäus/ trochee 46 Mexican American 199 Midsummer Night’s Dream (William Shakespeare) 134 Miller, Arthur (Death of a Salesman) 151 Milne, A. A. (Winnie the Pooh) 13 mimesis, mimetic 4, 6-7, 10, 82-83, 100 mimicry 197 Mimik/ facial expression 130 mirror stage/ Spiegelstadium 167 mise en abyme 100 Mitleid und Furcht/ pity and fear 141 modernism/ modernist 18, 23, 25, 29, 41, 98 Mohanty, Chandra Talpade 195 Moi, Toril 191 Monolog/ monologue 29 (poetry); 82, 85 (narrative); 118, 125-126 (drama) monologic/ al 183 Montrose, Louis 187-188 mood 7, 22, 26 morality play 128 Morrison, Toni (Beloved) 85, 91, 199 motivation (character) 132-133 multicultural/ ism 160, 195-201 multimedia 9, 115 multiple focalisation 82 multiple strands of action 96 Mündlichkeit 8 “My Wife is a White Russian” (Rose Tremain) 107 narcissism 167 narratee 68-69 narrating I 71 narrative 7, 65-111 - grand ~/ master ~/ metanarrative 180 narrative communication 68-69 narrative report 82-83 narrator 66-90 - autodiegetic 78 - covert 78 - extradiegetic 78 - heterodiegetic 78 - homodiegetic 78 - intradiegetic 78 - overt 78 - reliable 80-81 - unreliable 81-82 “Nature” (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) 61 Nebenhandlung 134 Nebentext 114 neoclassical/ neoclassicism 15, 134 neutral scenic narrative 103 New Criticism 169-171 New Historicism 187-190 non-realistic narrative 98 Northcote, James (Romeo and Juliet) 118 novel 5, 69 - epistolary 73 - gothic 14 nursery rhyme 22-23 oblique rhyme 50 octett 53, 60 Oedipus complex 164, 166 offene Form (Drama) 134 omnipresent narrator 74 omniscient narrator 74 “On being brought from Africa to America” (Phillis Wheatley) 42, 175, 178-179, 186, 201, 206 O’Neill, Eugene (Long Day’s Journey into Night) 117, 139, 142-143, 152 opaque/ open character/ figure 93 (in narrative), 128 (in drama) open-air theatre 136 open ending 97 open form (drama) 134 opposition 172 orality 8 oral storytelling 67-68 orature 8 Oriental/ ism 196-197 Oroonoko, or the Royal Slave (Aphra Behn) 71 Ort (Drama) 135 other (sign, self) 167, 177-178, 179, 190-191, 196-197 ottava rima 53 Our Country’s Good (Timberlake Wertenbaker) 145 <?page no="268"?> 260 Our Town (Thornton Wilder) 145 “Our Youth” (John Ashberry) 57-58 overt narrator 78 oxymoron 45 Paarreim 50 pageant 137 Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (Samuel Richardson) 73 paradigm 172, 205 paradox 45 parallelism 43 Paronomasie/ pun 37 pars pro toto (Synecdoche) 35 pause 47 (poetry); 88 (narrative) pentameter 47, 51, 121 performance - gender 193-194 - theatre 114-118, 129-151 persona 26-30 personale Erzählsituation 71, 74 personification 27, 37-38 perspective/ Perspektive 69-71, 74-77, 94-95, 99 (in narrative); 126-127 (in drama) phallic, phallo(go)centrism 164, 169, 191 Pinter, Harold (The Dumb Waiter) 116 pity and fear/ Furcht und Mitleid 141-142 Plato 4 play-within-a-play 149 pleasure and/ or profit 5 plot 17, 66-67, 87, 96-98 (narrative); 132-134 (drama) Poe, Edgar Allan 6-7 - “Annabel Lee” 51 - “The Poetic Principle” 7 - “The Raven” 40-41 poetic communication 26 poetic justice 97, 144 point of attack in drama 138 point of view 71, 77, 203 polylogue 121 polysyndeton 44-45 Pope, Alexander (An Essay on Criticism) 25 positivist biographical approach 161 postcolonial/ ism 195-197 postmodern 180-181 Poulet, Georges 202 Pound, Ezra (“In a Station of the Metro”) 23-24, 30, 32 Preface to Lyrical Ballads (William Wordsworth) 25 primary text 114, 135 (in drama) prolepsis 89 prologue 117 properties (drama, theatre) 116, 135 proscenium stage 137 protagonist 132, 141 psychoanalysis 163-169 pun 37 Quartett/ quatrain 51 race 196 Raffung 88 Rahmenerzählung 78 reader 2-6, 8-10, 13-15, 26, 68-69 - real 203 - implied 203 reader-response theory 201-207 realistic narrative 98, 102 reception theory 205-207 Reim 50 - Augenreim 50 - Binnenreim 50 - Endreim 50 - Halbreim 50 - männlicher 50 - rührender 50 - unreiner 50 - weiblicher 50 Reimschema 50 - Kreuzreim 50 - Paarreim 50 - Schweifreim 50 - umarmender Reim 50 Reinigung/ catharsis (effect of tragedy) 141 reliable narrator 80-81 repetition 22, 23, 25, 27, 43, 48, 89, 100 (narrative) repressed, return of the 164-165 Requisiten/ props 116, 135 reversal (of action in drama) 133, 141-142 rhetorical forms (see also figurative language) 30-31, 45 rhyme, ~ scheme 50 - alternate 50 - end 50 - envelope pattern 50 - eye- 50 - feminine 50 - half- 50 - identical 50 - imperfect/ impure 50 - internal 50 - masculine 50 - oblique 50 - perfect/ pure 50 - rhyming couplet 50 - slant 50 - tail 50 - triple 50 return of the repressed 165-166 Rhys, Jean (Wide Sargasso Sea) 97 rhythm/ Rhythmus 21-26, 30-31, 45-49, 130 - sprung 48 Richardson, Samuel (Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded) 73 Robinson Crusoe (Daniel Defoe) 91, 204 A P P E N D I X <?page no="269"?> 261 I N D E X Roman 69 romance 5, 98-102 romantic/ ism 6, 15-17, 25, 31, 53, 73, 143, 161, 163, 180 Romeo and Juliet (William Shakespeare) 117- 118, 129-130 round character 105 Rückgriff 89 rührender Reim/ identical rhyme 50 run-on line/ Zeilensprung 47 Said, Edward 196-197 Sandburg, Carl (“Chicago”) 44 Satzfigur/ scheme 31, 43 Saussure, Ferdinand de 159 scan/ skandieren 47 scene - in drama 129, 132, 134, 137 - in narrative 74, 88, 93, 96 Schauplatz 90-91, 135 Scheme/ Satzfigur (figures of speech) 31, 43 Schweifreim/ tail rhyme 50 secondary text/ Nebentext (in drama) 114 selection (of paradigms) 172 self and other 167, 190-191, 196-197 Seligmann, Kurt (Das Ultra-Möbelstück) 31 semiotics 160, 171-175 sentimental 5, 15, 31 sestet/ Sextett 53 setting 5, 69, 76, 90-93, 104-106 Shaffer, Peter (Black Comedy) 133, 135 Shakespeare, William 114 - As You Like It 114, 116-118, 132, 143 - Hamlet 166 - King Lear 125-127, 130, 134, 136, 141-142 - Macbeth 178 - Midsummer Night’s Dream 134 - Romeo and Juliet 117-118, 129-130 - “Sonnet 12” 47 - “Sonnet 20” 43 Shelley, Percy Bysshe 17, 22, 53 - A Defence of Poetry 22 - “Ozymandias” 53-54 Sheridan, Richard Brinsley (The School for Scandal) 124 Shklovsky, Viktor 172-173 short story 89 Showalter, Elaine 190 showing 74-75, 86 Sidney, Sir Philip 4 sign/ nification - in drama 115-116 - in language: signifier/ Signifikant, Signifikat/ signified 171-172, 176-177 simile 31-32 “Since there’s no help, come, let us kiss and part” (Michael Drayton) 27-28 skandieren/ scan 47 slant rhyme 50 Smith, Zadie (White Teeth) 198 social structure (of characters in drama) 93-94 soliloquy 125 sonnet/ Sonett - English 8, 27, 53 - Italian 53 “Sonnet 12” (William Shakespeare) 47 “Sonnet 20” (William Shakespeare) 43 “Song” (John Donne) 47 “Song of Myself” (Walt Whitman) 49 sound (in poetry) 21, 26, 50 space - in conceptual metaphor and poetry 37, 59 - in drama and theatre 116, 135-140 - in stories 90-93, 104 speaker (in poetry) 23-30 Speech, dramatic 118-126 - action 127, 131-132 - coherence 119 - functions 120-123 - perspective 126-127 - silence 119-120 Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty 195, 198 Spondäus/ spondee 46 spondaic, spondee 46 sprung rhythm 48 Spur (trace) 177 stage 114-118, 136-138 - apron 137 - pageant 137 - picture frame 137 - proscenium 137 - thrust 138 Standpunkt 77 Stanton, Domna C. 193 stanza 25-26, 47, 50-53 - ballad stanza 51 - couplet 8, 51, 53 - octett 53 - ottava rima 53 - quatrain 27, 51, 53 - sestett 53 - tercet 8, 51, 53 - terza rima 51 - triplet 51 Stanzel, Franz K. 70, 75, 77-78, 82 Steigerung 132 Sterne, Laurence (Tristram Shandy) 88-89, 102 Stimme 26 (see also dialogic, double-voiced discourse) Stimmung 26 story 90-98, 132 storytelling 67, 78 story time 88 strand of action 69, 96, 98 Straßenballade 51 stream-of-consciousness 85 <?page no="270"?> 262 street ballad 51 stress (in metre) 46-47 stretch 88 Strophe/ stanza 50 Strophenformen - Balladenstrophe 46 - Quartett 51 - Terzett 51 - Terzine 51 - Zweizeiler 51 structuralism 171-176 structure of action 96 structure of perspectives 104-105 Struktur des Personals 129 subaltern 198 subconscious 74, 93, 105, 142, 159, 163 subjectivity 24-25, 30, 57 sub-plot 134 Suspense 99-100, 117 symbol 40-42 symbolic order 167 synecdoche 35 syntax 12, 43, 46, 49 (schemes/ Wortfiguren) szenische Darstellung 88 tail rhyme/ Schweifreim 50 Talking It Over (Julian Barnes) 82, 89 telling 74, 82 tenor (of a metaphor) 32 tercet/ Terzett 51 terza rima/ Terzine 51 tetrameter 47, 51 textimmanente Lektüre 170 “The Baby” (Donald Barthelme) 81, 168, 188- 189 “The Body as Braille” (Lorna Dee Cervantes) 61, 194, 201 The Castle of Otranto (Horace Walpole) 14 “The Company of Wolves” (Sara Maitland) 97 The Heidi Chronicles (Wendy Wasserstein) 139 The Importance of Being Earnest (Oscar Wilde) 131 “The Locust Tree in Flowers” (William Carlos Williams) 49 “The Love Song of J. R. Prufrock” (Thomas Stearns Eliot) 29-31, 48 The Man of Mode (George Etherege) 123, 144 “The New Dress” (Virginia Woolf) 85 The Pilgrim’s Progress (John Bunyan) 5, 37-38 “The Poetic Principle” (Edgar Allan Poe) 7 “The Raven” (Edgar Allan Poe) 40-41 “The Road not Taken” (Robert Frost) 36-37 The School for Scandal (Richard Brinsley Sheridan) 124 “The Second Coming” (William Butler Yeats) 41 “The Sun Rising” (John Donne) 43 “The Tyger” (William Blake) 43 “The White House” (Claude McKay) 54 “The Wicked Stepmother’s Tale” (Sara Maitland) 97 The Woman in White (Wilkie Collins) 82 “The Yellow Wallpaper” (Charlotte Perkins Gilman) 79-80 theatre - anti-illusionist 129 - experimental 129 - illusionist 128 - non-illusionist 128 theatrical communication 115 third-person narrator/ narrative 101 “Three Blind Mice” 23, 48, 166, 174 time in drama 138 time in narrative 87-89 - discourse time/ narrative time/ Erzählzeit 88 - ellipsis 88 - pause 88 - story time/ narrated time/ erzählte Zeit 88 - stretch 88 “To Autumn” (John Keats) 56 “To Room Nineteen” (Doris Lessing) 76-77 Tölpel 143 tone - in drama (voice) 116, 130 - in poetry 26, 59 Top Girls (Caryl Churchill) 117 totum pro parte (Synecdoche) 35 trace/ Spur 177 tragedy 117, 141-142 tragic hero 141 tragicomedy 144 transcultural 198-199 Tremain, Rose (“My Wife is a White Russian”) 107, 194 trimeter 46, 51 triple rhyme 50 triplet 51 Tristram Shandy (Laurence Sterne) 88-89, 102 Trochäus, trochaic, trochee 46 trope/ Tropus 31, 39, 41 type (in characterisation) 83, 128 Überbau/ super-structure 181 Über-Ich/ super-ego 163 Ulysses (James Joyce) 74, 86 uncanny/ unheimlich 165, 192 Uncle Sam (as an example of personification) 38 unconscious/ subconscious 163-165 understatement 41 uneigentliche Sprache 30 unheimlich 165 unities, three 135 unreliable narrator/ unzuverlässiger Erzähler 81 variable focalisation 82 vehicle (of a metaphor) 32 verborgener Erzähler/ covert narrator 78 A P P E N D I X <?page no="271"?> 263 I N D E X Verdichtung 165 verfremden/ defamiliarise 173 Vergleich 31 verisimilitude/ Wahrscheinlichkeit 135 Verschiebung/ displacement 165 verse 22, 24-25, 46-47 verse paragraphs 48-49, 50 Versfuß/ foot 46 Versmaß/ metre 46 Victorian period 15-17 Vieldeutig/ ambiguous 9 Vierheber 47 voice in narrative 77-82 - in poetry 24-26 - in theatre 117 Volksballade 51 Volpone (Ben Jonson) 133, 144 Vorausdeutung 89 Vorderbühne 137 Vorwissen 12 Wahrscheinlichkeit/ verisimilitude 135 Waiting for Godot (Samuel Beckett) 131, 144, 206, 240 Walpole, Horace (The Castle of Otranto) 14 War of the Worlds (H. G. Wells) 4 Wasserstein, Wendy (The Heidi Chronicles) 139 weiblicher Reim 50 Wells, H. G. (War of the Worlds) 4 werkimmanent/ intrinsic 169 Wertenbaker, Timberlake (Our Country’s Good) 145 Wheatley, Phillis (“On being brought from Africa to America”) 42, 175, 178-179, 186, 201, 206 Whitman, Walt (“Song of Myself”) 49 Widersacher/ antagonist 132 Wide Sargasso Sea (Jean Rhys) 97 Wilde, Oscar 7, 45, 131, 132, 144 - The Importance of Being Earnest 131, 144 Wilder, Thornton (Our Town) 145 Williams, Raymond 185 Williams, William Carlos (“The Locust Tree in Flowers”) 49 Winnie the Pooh (A. A. Milne) 13 wit 143 Woolf, Virginia 85-86, 190 - “The New Dress” 85 word scenery 137 Wordsworth, William 6, 25, 28 - “I wandered lonely as a cloud”/ “Daffodils” 39 - “Preface to Lyrical Ballads” 25 - “She dwelt among the untrodden ways” 28 Wortspiel 37 writerly 180 Wyatt, Sir Thomas 53 Yeats, William Butler (“The Second Coming”) 41 Zäsur/ caesura 47 Zeilensprung/ run-on line 47 Zeilenstil/ stichomythia 47 Zeit - dehnung 88 - raffung 88 zero focalisation 82 Zuverlässiger Erzähler/ reliable narrator 80-81 Zweizeiler/ rhyming couplet 51 <?page no="272"?> A P P E N D I X 264 7.3 | Acknowledgements Fig. 2.1, Ezra Pound. © Tullio Pericoli. Fig. 2.3, William Wordsworth by Benjamin Robert Haydon. © National Portrait Gallery, London. Fig. 2.4, T.S. Eliot. © Tullio Pericoli. Fig. 2.5, Seligmann, Kurt: Das Ultra-Möbelstück, 1938. © Orange County Citizens Foundation/ ARS, New York. VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2010. Fig. 2.9, Armes Amerika. Illustration von Wieslaw Smetek in Die Zeit 34 vom 14. August 2003. Fig. 2.11, Edgar Allan Poe. © Tullio Pericoli. Fig. 2.12, William Butler Yeats. © Hulton Archive. Fig. 2.14, William Blake, “The Tyger”. This item is reproduced by permission of L, RB 54039. © The Huntington Library, San Marino, California. Fig 2.15, Walt Whitman. © Hulton Archive. Fig. 3.4, James Joyce. © Tullio Pericoli. Fig. 3.9, Chinua Achebe. © Ekko von Schwichow. Fig. 3.10, Virginia Woolf. © Tullio Pericoli. Fig. 3.12, Charlotte Brontë. © The Brontë Society. Fig. 3.15, Ernest Hemingway. © Tullio Pericoli. Fig. 4.1, William Shakespeare. © Tullio Pericoli. Fig. 4.6, Samuel Beckett. © Tullio Pericoli. Fig. 4.8, Oscar Wilde. © Tullio Pericoli. Fig. 4.10, Benjamin Jonson by Abraham van Blyenberch. © National Portrait Gallery, London. Fig. 4.11, Reconstruction of the Swan teatre, built in 1592 for about 3.000 spectators, in: Richard Leacroft: The Development of the English Playhouse. Methuen Publishing Limited. Fig. 4.12, Reconstruction of the Cockpit in Court, built in 1629-30, in: Richard Leacroft: The Development of the English Playhouse. Methuen Publishing Limited. Fig. 4.13, The Empire Music Hall, New-castle, built in 1891, in: Simon Trussler The Cambridge Illustrated History of British Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1994, p. 249. Fig. 4.15, King Lear 1985 Berlin. Foto: Ruth Walz. Fig. 4.16, Eugene O’Neill, 1929. © Carlotta Monterey O’Neill, 1955. Fig. 5.2, Sigmund Freud. © Tullio Pericoli. Fig. 5.3, Magritte, René: La clef des songes, 1930. © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2010. Fig. 5.4, Karl Marx. © Tullio Pericoli. Fig. 6.1, Calvin and Hobbes © 2011 Watterson. Dist. By UNIVERSAL UCLICK. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved. Fig. 6.2, © Sepp Buchegger. Fig. 6.3, Riassunto (1982). © Tullio Pericoli. Fig. 6.5, aus: Kurt Nagel: Erfolg durch effizientes Arbeiten, Entscheiden, Vermitteln und Lernen. München: Oldenbourg 3 1988, p. 81.