brit lit 208
Terms
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- Burying Victoria
- saw Victorian literature as “bloated;†pompous and pretentious; getting rid of the overly-ornate; beginning of “machine fetishâ€
- Make it New
- Ezra Pound’s slogan for Modernism; introduced a period of skepticism
- Separation between artist and public
- A cross-over of the fin de siecle idea of “art for art’s sake;†This widened the gap between artists and readers (“Philistinesâ€) and the artists becomes largely an alienated figure and not really a member of mass culture any more.
- The men on the Nellie
- the ship from Heart of Darkness; Director of Companies, lawyer, accountant, Marlow, narrator; white industrialists
- The tales of seamen
- Spectral illumination vs. kernel of the nut: - Spectral illumination refers the concept that the story is a glow while the meaning surrounds the story in a haze. From this interpretation we derive that the meaning is vague, intangible, and the understanding is not shared. Like moonshine, sometimes the reader can see the meaning and sometimes not. - Kernel of the nut refers to the simple concept that the story is like a nut, with the story as the shell and the meaning as the inside fruit. This interpretation depicts the unfolding of the secret, is distinct, tangible, and knowledge is assured.
- Is Heart of Darkness racist?
- Native Africans portrayed mainly as backdrop. - Chinua Achebe argued that the book was very racist.
- Kurtz had kicked free of the earth
- - This is about Kurtz “going native†and Marlow not being able to reason with him on any grounds because nothing considered important or valuable in the West no longer applied to Kurtz. - Kurtz lost his “civilized humanityâ€. - A reversal of the “white burden†- The more Marlow tried to explain what Kurtz is the farther he gets away and speaks to the audience asking: “do you understand?â€
- 1914
- - The beginning of World War I in July. - Blast was first released in June - This was the time of High Modernism
- chemical warfare
- - The use of chemical warfare, such as mustard gas, became popular during WWI and destroyed a lot of life. - It was developed by the Germans in 1914 - Gas caused war to become pointless. It became a war about supplies and how many each side could recruit. - Totally unexpected by everyone. - Brits didn’t want to have to deal with it and didn’t understand its horrific effects.
- queer sardonic rat
- - sardonic ïƒ mocking in a cynical way. - Written by Isaac Rosenberg in “Break of Day in the Trenches†- The rat is the only thing alive (because the soldiers, if not dead, will die soon) - The author is jealous of the rat’s liberty, mobility, and cosmopolitan state
- poppies
- - an opiate, flowers must be broken for their drug to be extracted/opiate is associated with a haze, sleepiness and death that permeated trench life. - the symbol for WWI. Redblood - as earth was upturned to create trenches, the poppies began to bloom prematurely as they were exposed to sunlight. - the heads of poppies always drop, they are very delicate - connection drawn to soldiers and human life by poets
- de-aesthetize
- war poets dropped conventional aestheticism to draw attention to the horrors of war.
- aethetification/ glorification of war
- Wilfred Owen’s “dolce et decorum estâ€. - notes. Siegfried Sassoon’s “Glory of Womenâ€. - women have some idealistic/ glorious view of war which doesn\'t match the reality that followed. - Accounts of British and German mother.
- \'the old lie\'
- War is not so glorious as poets and mothers at home made it seem.
- Vorticism
- Modernist movement that used the Blast as its manifesto. It was an elitist movement that rejected Victorian and romantic concepts of art and style The Great English Vortex⬝ ⬢ English movement/ version of abstract art ⬢ implicit nationalism A vortex is a whirlpool ⬢ suggests energy circulating around a still center; a concentration of energy
- blast
- - Two numbers – 1914 (war started a few weeks later) - It blasts away previous artistic norms. - It was announced in April 1914. Its intentions were simple: to revive English art and literature, casting an electrifying light into murky corners of Georgian passivity. The first issue came out in June 1914 and caused an immediate sensation. (War begins late July 1914) and then 1915 (The War Number) to combat the criticism that it was socially irresponsible. - Blast intended to shock – considered very experimental (color, name, etc., size) - Blast is a manifesto and manifestos are always documents that throw down the gauntlet, issue a challenge. Militaristic; call to action. - Windom Lewis was the main patron of the Blast. - Lewis describes in the dedication of the first issue: • Activity v. passivity • Significance v. dullness • Movement v. imitation/ hysterics Blast is important for several reasons: 1. sensation and shock -immediate press (bad press) 2. Brought together artists in a coalition who will go on to be major figures in the 20thc. 3. Defined English as avant garde a. rebellion against 19thc b. fascination w/machines, violence, city, energy c. commitment to anti-Romanticism and pro-classicism d. brought together movement of experiments w/pure form; abstraction in modern art e. tendency and desire to discover common ground for all art.