EGL120 lecture notes PDF

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Dr Ginna Brock
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LECTURE 1 – Ginna Clare - sonnets, metaphysics, Gatsby Nycole Reading journal can be note on the poem itself, or Clare’s columns/table. Everything you read, ask yourself, what’s the common denominator? How do I synthesise this info? Lit exposes the tenuousness of social constructs Quizzes - weeks 4, 5, 8, 10, 12? ‘Art is a lie that makes us realise truth’ - Picasso Literature (benefits of study) Aesthetically pleasing Communication Form of knowledge Questions morality Philosophical considerations Identify social constructs Enhances our social consciousness Two premises for studying Lit: 1 - The literary text is literary because it makes special use of language 2 - The literary text reveals our humanity (socially, culturally, politically, historically, aesthetically, and even biologically) We don’t ‘review’ the book Author’s intention is irrelevant, as long as we can provide evidence Many different ways to read same text Theory does not get in the way, it often helps, ‘theoria’ - ‘behold’ — a way of seeing. Textual analysis and evidence. How do we synthesise textual evidence Literature is not static Think of theory like a pair of glasses - a lens How to analyse poetry? Read 7 times Who’s speaking? Tone, attitude, word choice, diction, syntax Figurative devices - simile, metonymy, metaphor, what do these signify Imagery - what and how does it change? Rhythm - does it change (eg 2 lines that suddenly don’t rhyme etc) Genre (sonnet etc) William Whitla’s 5 Ways of Reading

Literal - content Formal - form Expository - argument and theme Comparative - association/implications Analytical - context Do next week’s readings. LECTURE 2 – SONNETS: Clare Genre conventions - rules and codes. Sonnet has the most rules. Structurally strict processes. What genre looks like in its most closed form. Early form of modern poetry. 1400s England. Predecessors in 1200s in Italy. Sonnets help us understand that poetry is a craft, an operating machine. Not always about deepest outpouring of deep, personal feeling. Sonnets use poetry for different reasons. Sonneteers could curry favour and argue in court - connected to intellect more so than emotion. How did sonnet as a form develop over time? East to rhyme in Italian - ending in vowels. Strict rhyming schemes. Migrated to England. Used to court and express profundity of love, express prowess as a man, the language of courtly love. Hiatus in 1800s, popular again in 20th century. We’ll look at sonnets over six centuries. Spoken Petrarch - Italian sonnets. Octet (8 lines) 2 rhymes, sestet 2 (six lines) rhymes Petrarchism. SLIDES Everything about Petrarch love poetry is a paradox. Tormenting and consuming but not sexual. Purity. Attempt to mix passionate, intensive love poetry with xtian poetry. Courtly and romantic love. Idealised woman. Angelic, perfect, goddess. Spiritual and divine love. Blazon: hyperbole + simile = catalogue of beauty and virtue (Laura) Lover attempts to convince: flattery, warning, immortality of the poem. Love always unconsummated. Love disastrous and paradoxical ‘sweet pain’. SHAKESPEARE’S POETRY AND LANGUAGE Wrote sonnets in downtime between poems, when theatres closed, during plague outbreaks. Sonnet sequence: 154 poems, shift at 126. Critical debate. Who commissioned his sonnets, who are the addressees? Matters of scholarly concern. Arab cdcd efef gg. Octet/sestet. Quatrain quatrain quatrain quatrain. Usually three quatrains and concluding couplet, can make other arguments

Search for the Volta! - a shift, a point in which the argument’s changing. 154 poems of 14 lines (except 126 = 126 12) Iambic pentametre (except 145 = tetrametre) Iam means going from unstressed stressed. Troiche the opposite Doesn’t have to match up the words. Rhyming scheme: ababcdcd efefgg My horse my horse, my kingdom for a horse - iambic pentametre - unstressed stressed unstressed stressed unstressed stressed unstressed stressed unstressed stressed Octet and sestet = general structure Three quatrains and concluding couplet = argument structure Spoondee - two stressed syllables in a row The Dark Lady of sonnet 130 is one subject The fair youth is another. First 126 poems all directed to fair young man Homophone - one word, making it dance in many directions A possible argument: difference to Petrarchan sonnets Almost no pastoralism Almost no gods and goddesses (except Adonis in 53 and Cupid in 154 and 154) Love not seen as spiritual No military metaphors Not wooing sonnets with exaggerated catalogues of physical beauty 2 subjects, one male Special uses of language: sound device to think on: Alliteration. And ‘careful patterning of long and short vowels’ Auden.  Examples in slides The conceit - appears in quizzes - extended metaphor, hammered out over a number of lines. Matched later by John Donne, flea in bed of lovers to talk about why they should have sex. Hammering metaphor out line by line over course of poem. Rhetorical device - homophones. ‘A man in hues etc’ SLIDES Sonnet subject and biography - SLIDES Sonneteering SLIDE Marlowe A possible argument: The question of homoeroticism

Repercussions 1790s Malone SLIDES The Dark Lady poems Realism, look at sonnet 130 in tutes Sonnet 129 - graphic depiction ‘Lust in action’ - sex Conceit is being baited, hunted. Sex is a trap. As in whoso list to hunt, turning it into something directly related to sex. Gerard Manley Hopkins - can do an ecocriticism reading. Rhyme scheme, patterning of the metre is complex, radically different. Smeared, bleared. Reliance of monosyllabic repetitions. Referencing the automaton experience humanity has been reduced to, removed from the wisdom of nature and ‘god’ Wittgenstein - poetry has the power to infuse experience with value - a common threat to all three sonneteers we discuss today. THEMES SUBURBAN SONNETS. Shakespeare - courtly love, Hopkins - challenge to the form itself. Harwood returns the female to centre stage. Fugue - CALL AND RESPONSE. subject and counter-subject Tight rhyming scheme. No Volta. Sonnet. Enjambment - run-on line Weak rhyming scheme - doubling up - matter, scatter, overpowering, scouring Tasty dishes from stale bread - article, but a feminist statement regarding women having to back the best of things

LECTURE 3 – Metaphysical Poetry To His Coy Mistress - Andrew Marvell Sunny Rising - John Donne Morning Song - Sylvia Plath No content in week 4 How to synthesis observations into concepts Week 4 lecture - will look at how to write the short answers. 200 words. Argument. Textual evidence that comes to a conclusion that supports/proves your argument. For essay - choose btwn as you like it and the great gatsby (because will have done Othello for oral) Figurative language - strategy

Poetry is distinguished from prose as a more regularly rhythmic form of statement. You could propose that a poem frees itself from the restraint of the normal usage of language. Semantics - the meanings of words (connotation - figurative and denotation - literal) Syntax - the way words are put together - grammar rules Sound - doesn’t connote or denote anything specific. Eg- repetition of ‘l’ sounds doesn’t always mean the same thing. It’s subjective. Poets asking us to pay special attention to parts with alliteration etc

Rhythm of the poem (free verse does not tend to have strong rhyme or rhythm) My horse my horse - perfect iambic pentametre Rhythm Scanning a poem - looking for stresses in a poem (metre and feet) Iambic foot - consists of unstressed followed by a stressed syllable - SLIDE Anapestic foots, dactylic feet, trochaic foot (trochee) spoondee - HEART BREAK, HEAD LINE etc Monosyllables - slow the reader down. Milton example Polysyllables - speed the reader up Different meters - how many feet to the line or verse Punctuation Perfect metre is boring. Caesuras, emjambments. Some contextualisation of Marvell and Donne CONCEIT AND WIT OED conceit: ‘fanciful, ingenious… notion’ OED with: ‘the apt association of through and expression, calculated to surprise and delight by its unexpectedness’ Eg a compass being compared to love Rid of Petrarchan conceits, and used paradox Petrarchan v Metaphysical Waters’ Questions to ask yourself: - SLIDES!!!! What areas are the images drawn from We can then add theory Blazon - simile and hyperbole To His Coy Mistress Tenses - subjunctive and conditional verbs ‘I could’ ‘I would’ - implies you can’t Syllogisms Iambic tetrametre? Allusions? False rhyme? In each couplet the allusions expand and contract, use of hyperbole Literal Empire and trade, material wealth Biblical Science? 2 properties: growth and reproduction. Mindlessness? Duality is clue to proceeding argument Hyperbole, Petrarchan Blazon or anatomy? Again duality is clue to proceeding argument Serves argument two fold: allows for indirect first part of syllogism and carpe diem and also gives time

Second section begins with a strong conjunctive: BUT Eternity and virginity are both linked to false rhymes. To reinforce meaning of the poem. ‘Quaint honour’ (vagina) turn to dust - becomes almost menacing - if you don’t…. Explicit threat, then horror - the alternative - worms shall try that long preserv’d virginity Shift from conditional to future tense Section three: Now - another conjunction Last couplet - enjambment serves to reinforce the run on, required speed. Final part in syllogistic argument Shift to present tense. Now. Underlines immediacy of action SLIDES CRITIQUE A philosophical argument? Could sex be more than sex? Challenging Christian dominant norms - live life to the full through the body is a redemptive experience What is your debatable position on the poem? How do sound and image work together and what do they achieve? Mood of the poem Clever, trickery You can also add theory - eg feminist critique - she doesn’t get to speak. How is she imagined? Commodified thru trade - rubies - objectified - complimented while dissected - anatomy Think about what it means to present a debatable argument, rather than just a surface translation Sylvia morning song - intense use of connotative, figurative language

LECTURE 4 – Short Answer Responses Argumentative responses to set questions 1st on Othello 200 words Directed topic Fluid format Academic Expression - no dot points Logical progression of ideas (moving towards more sophistication) Use of textual evidence Correct use of literary devices Observations >> Concepts >> Argument Like a condensed body paragraph, not an intro. Conceptual idea stepped out through textual analysis. Up to 250 words - quotes don’t count, as it’s evidence, not word count. Example - Discuss a possible critical reading of Shelley’s Ozymandias.

Go to the text How many lines? 14 lines - sonnet - normally follow a certain rhyme scheme. False rhyme - stone frown. False rhyme - appear, despair. I wonder if Shelley has co-opted the rhyme scheme himself? Playing with rhyme scheme, same way as Shakespeare played with original rhyme scheme. Why the false rhymes? Significant? Maybe the word ‘appear’ has something to do with why it was chosen as a false rhyme. ‘Antique land’ - significant - why antique? Gives speaker some authority - understands what’s happening here. King of kings - biblical allusion - also used for Jesus - Messianic - christ-like figure Colossal wreck - framed by cacophony Boundless and bare - alliteration - ‘bare’ Lone and level sands - assonance and alliteration - elongated consonants, stretches it out, slows it down. Showing vastness thru sound devices. Elongated consonants (end with Rs, Ws Ls) Capitalisation of ‘mighty’ Human superiority - despair, you will never reach my successes Syntax - ‘well those passions read’ - out of order, emphasis on read Nothing beside remains. Caesura. How many characters - the ‘i’, the traveler, the sculptor, Ozymandias - 4 different perspectives from which an analysis/argument could be focused. Figure out who your subjects are in the poem, as well as what the poem is about. Always look at verbs - stand, shattered, sneer, stamped - begin with ‘s’, active, aggressive verbs. Sibilance - snake - garden of eden - you’ll be like god, eat this apple. Conceptual ideas - life, love, beauty, nature - all examples Ozymandias - time, transience, decay, destruction (decay), power (royal and religious power), arrogant, abusive power, vanity, story of creation (biblical), mirroring god’s creation, man-made works that are swallowed up by natural world (eco-critical), hubris (how futile it is, to create these things), hubris (classic tragic flaw), futility of this positioning of self, melancholic tone of last line. Then go do a little research, will find out this is a satire, usually a political slant, trying to evoke change to some rampant, out-of-hand element of satire >> political reading - power, rule Political reading - Ramses II - not just power, not just rule, but tyranny. Romantic poets - we can learn lessons from nature, about our own human existence - nothing is permanent, everything is transient. ‘Look upon my works’ - ironic because by the end, there’s nothing there. Makes you think about his psychology - psychological reading - narcissism. The only thing that remains of Ozymandias is frown, wrinkled lip, cold command evokes tyranny captured by the sculptor who read this desire. Face that remains is not the face that Ozymandias would necessarily show, but is the face the sculptor read. Philosophical reading about how we understand the world - tyranny could fall in line with political reading. The think that remains after everything is said and done. Only thing that remains of Ozymandias is face (that shows a cold monster), nothing of his works left. Head and legs remain, heart is gone. Relationships end and all is left with negativity, not the good works. It’s harder to overcome bad behaviour, no amount of good can always make up for bad behaviour. Philosophical reading - negative behaviour Aesthetic reading - folly of civilisation - idea that man will be able to conserve, nature will always revive itself, no matter man’s intention. DEVICES MEAN INTENTIONAL EMPHASIS Ginna - took a walk around campus, thought about each readings and her own passions. Compile the data - and propose an argument. SLIDES Ginna - role of the artist What is the relationship? Positions creative artists as the harbingers of truth - valid but arguable

LECTURE 5 – Renaissance - return to classical writing - Rome, Greece Characters are representative of ideas Intertextuality Tragedy Can’t evoke pity and fear if you can’t place the reader in the place of the ‘victim’ Blank verse - poetry that doesn’t rhyme Anagnorisis – moment in a play where a character makes a critical discovery Shakespeare’s language Ironic - cannot be a ‘moor of Venice Paradox - they need his military prowess, but still racist Shakespeare was the the ‘kings men’ - patrons Ways of reading Othello Racial discrimination Domestic vs the martial - sex and death Identity (socially constructed)?  Noble/valiant moor  Honest iago o I am not what I am Gender roles  Desdemona  Emilia  Bianca Linguistic reading  Semantic slippage  Breakdown of language How is iago so good at manipulating? His lies have partial truths in them. Plays on truths. ‘Didn’t Desdemona deceive her father to be with you’ etc. Reading on linguistic variations - words and their meanings operate differently Words as witchcraft in first act Race in othello xtian/Turkish binary Draws on but also undermines racial prejudice  Villain (iago) is a Venetian  Hero (othello) is the ‘outsider’ - othello is continually reminded that ‘you are not us’. o Wheeling stranger/of here and everywhere - Roderigo  Use racial epithets

Hybridity - ‘otherness vs desire for assimilation’ - othello’s power comes from mobilizing both his ‘strangeness’ and also his capacity in the service to the state. Stories of adventures (outsider experience) Cannibalism (anthropophagi), mummies, Egyptian charmer ‘Antares vast’, deserts ‘Devoured my discourse Edward Said’s ‘Orientalism’ - exotic/erotic delight in the ‘Other’. Exotic arouses the erotic People from other countries brought to England and put on display 1.3.168-169 Desdemona is in the domestic trying to get to the epic, and vice versa, iago just sped up the process Othello’s racial identity is clearly a factor ‘far more fair than black’ () - antithesis Exploration of racial and ethnic tensions ‘Man commands/like a full soldier’ Othello is held in high esteem - but it is tenuous / dependent Othello’s liminal position in the Venetian society Cyprus - liminal space  Neither European or Turk - yet both Othello’s final speech (5.2.336-354) Janus - liminal space, doorway, two faces War never happens - storm - same thing that’s happening with the marriage. No consummation, that we see Othello’s final speech Ac Bradley - purely noble, merely victim’ - NO Leavis Economic and psych impact of social system ‘Tis the curse of service’ Shakespeare - servant to the king - The King’s Men - comment being made on hierarchical systems Different gradations of status The duke The aristocratic senate Othello Cassio Iago ‘Put money in they purse’ Challenging feudal obligations of service - can go outside of structures and create own pathway Resentment of shifting social conditions Female agency - patriarchal marriage Gender roles Desdemona - ‘a maiden never bold’ 1.3.95 Yet defies the conventions of marriage; reject father’s authority; uses her voice to exonerate Othello from her father’s claims It is her voice (speaking on behalf of Cassio) that convinces othello of her infidelity Cuckolding (MUCH MORE ON SLIDES) DOMESTIC/MARTIAL - SLIDES Interestingly love and war never happen in this play

Love is never consummated - continually interrupted by reports

LECTURE 6 – AS YOU LIKE IT What happens in the court vs what happens in the forest Dichotomy vs duality Court - class structures Proletariat vs bourgeoisie Patriarchal ideas of gender, marriage They go back to the court in the end Othello - king James As you like it - queen Elizabeth Social contexts - SLIDES  Shift in access to communal spaces 

Puritanism

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Boundaries between the human and nonhuman animal

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Primogeniture

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Problematic

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Festival of Misrule Melancholia

Brothers 6 stages of man - nihilism Comedy as a genre Puns Happy endings Disguises - putting on a role - world’s a stage, always performing. Mocking notion of final pairing being ultimate goal Ironic, satirical humour - am I supposed to laugh at this? How to approach:

Plays about stasis - Henry v (almost a war), Julius Caesar (circularity of speech), hamlet (frustrated movement forward), as you like it Time - objective, subjective, linear, circular, no time (time as a construct) Eternetism and presentism Court - it’s about what’s next, hearkening back to Greek philosophers as far as there is no now. Parmenides - there is no moment What does this stasis suggest about humankind? What is being exposed about the construction of society? Slide Pastoral landscape Conventions of the pastoral PASTORAL PARADOX Intersection btwn civilisation and nature Place is timeless (pastoral) yet they talk constantly about time. GREEK ORIGINS Preoccupation with the natal family Meta-theatricality Identity construction Gender studies

LECTURE 7 – Short answer feedback 200 words Focused on key argument — what message is evoked through the representations within the text Criteria Argument Textual evidence Textual analysis Logical progression of ideas Precision of language Concise argument

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

QUOTE - ONE LINE DEVICES (CAN BE TECHNIQUE, GENRE, FORM AS WELL AS LIT DEVICES) MEANING THAT QUOTE AND DEVICE EVOKES FOR YOU HOW DOES THIS SUPPORT THE ARGUMENT (RESEARCH FOR ESSAY, NOT RESPONSE)

Statement about what the text evokes outside of itself Eg rude am I in speech - Othello What is that saying about language, or understanding of self within oppressive society All symbolic of something else Motiveless malignity - self-aggrandising, pathological narcissism, unchecked desire Argument should go beyond the text itself Characters within the piece go beyond the text L...