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NOVEL OF TRANSITION TO EARLY MODERNISM - Coggle Diagram
NOVEL OF TRANSITION TO EARLY MODERNISM
H.G.WELLS
impoverished lower-middle class family. No education but won a scholarship for Normal School Science London. Left without a degree. Financial problems and ill health aggravated by marriage with his cousin unhappy.
Scientific romances, classics in SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY
The Time Machine 1895
;
TheIsland of Doctor Moreau 1896
= doctor's terrible experiments in vivisection to transform animals into human beings;
The Invisible Man 1897
scientist becomes invisible but cannot revert to visibility and becomes mentally unstable;
The War of the Worlds 1898
first novel about alien invasion on Earth;
First Men in the Moon 1901
HUMOUROUS AND SATIRICAL novels
+
SOCIAL AND POLITICAL THEMES
Love and Mr Lewisham 1900
;
Anne Veronica 1909
sex and feminist issues;
Ripps 1905
orphan who discovers he is the grandson of a wealthy gentleman and he is thrown into the upper class lifestyle, struggling to learn about etiquette;
The History of Mr Polly 1905
about his uneventful life in his shop and unhappy marriage;
Tono-Bungay 1909
considered his masterpiece. Elements of science fiction but it is a critic to Edwardian society. Story of young George and his successful promotion of Tono-Bungay, a drug created by his uncle Edward and disguised as miraculous although it is a harmful stimulant
1903 joins Fabian society
socialist. Better society through reforms
HENRY JAMES
born in New York wealthy family Irish and Scottish origin. Between America and Europe, tour and visited Italy. Move to London, then in Sussex where he lived for the rest of his life. WWI he became a British citizen
literary career,
3 periods
FIRST PERIOD
he discuss
the clash between 2 different cultures
+ moral problems of Americans (=free and pure vcivilization) and Europeans ((= eautiful but corrupted civilization)
DECEPTION
protagonists are generally wealthy and good-natured but they are overcome by corrupt people
The Americans1877
adventures and misadventures of an American man on his first tour to Europe where he learns about the beauty and ugliness of the Old Continent;
Daisy Miller 1878
courtship of Daisy, an American girl, by Winterbourne a compatriot;
The Europeans 1878
comedy contrasting the behaviour and attitudes of 2 visitors from Europe with those of their relatives living in New England (USA)
PORTRAIT OF A LADY 1881
his masterpiece. Story of Isabel Archer, an American girl. During her visit to Europe she suddenly becomes rich thanks to an unexpected inheritance. She refuses Ralph's and Goodwood's proposals of marriage, although she is attracted by the second but she does not want to sacrifice her freedom. Later she marries Gilbert Osmond and settle in Rome but he turns to be selfish and calculating. Ralph is about to die and she meets Goodwood again, she realizes he is the right man but in the end she goes back to her husband and accepts her sad destiny
LESS OBTRUSIVE NARRATOR
+
USE OF DIFFERENT VIEWPOINTS
+
GREAT PSYCHOLOGCAL INSIGHT
SECOND PERIOD
English subjects
. he writes unsuccessful dramas that influence his novels.
CONTROLLED POINT OF VIEW
allows the reader to observe action through the eyes of the characters
SOCIAL REFORMS AND REVOLUTION
MORAL EDUCATION OF CHILDREN
The Bostonians 1886
story of a conservative man and a man who hates suffragists;
The Princess Casamassima 1886
a man who becomes involved in an anarchist conspiracy and falls in love with the princess, a revolutionary. He has received to kill another man but kills himself;
The Spoils of Poynton
struggle between Mrs Gereth and her son over Poynton, household of antique furniture eventually consumed by fire;
What Maisie knew 1896
about the sensitive daughter of 2 divorced, immoral and frivolous parents who use her to intensify their hatred of each other;
THE TURN OF THE SCREW 1898
a story about a governess who is sent to work at a country home to educate 2 children, Flora and Davis. The woman soon begins to see around the estate the figures of a man and another woman,probably 2 ghosts. She comes to know that the former governess and her lover died under strange circumstances and becomes convinced that FLora and Davis know about the ghosts
THIRD PERIOD
resumes the
clash between Europe and America
but he reveals greater
psychological insight
STRANGE SYMBOLISM
VERY COMPLEX SYNTAX
CONSCIOUSNESS, SUBTLE THINKING AND ALLUSIONS
The Wings of the Dove 1902
about American heiress suffering from a serious disease and her impact on the people around her;
The Ambassadors 1903
protagonist's journey to find his fiancés's rebellious son and fascinating contact with Europe and France;
The GOlden Bowl 1905
complex interrelationships between a father and a daughter and their spouses
also literary critic about American, English, French and Russian authors
aim of the novel is to present life in every possible form: illusion, despair, torment, inspiration, delight; he defends the freedom to wrte whatever one is interested in, including disagreeable, ugly and ordinary; the artist must "feel life"
FORERUNNER OF STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS
JOSEPH CONRAD
born Jozef Konrad Korzeniowski in 1857 in Ukraine of Polish parents. They died when he was a child, sent in Cracow and Switzerland. Joined British Merchant Navy. Travelled all over the world. British citizen and retired form the sea 1894. Not instant success his novels, difficult economic conditions
An Outcast of the Islands 1896
;
The Nigger of the "Narcissus" 1897
;
Lord Jim 1900
;
Heart of Darkness 1902
;
Typhoon 1902
;
Nostromo 1904
;
The Secret Agent 1907
;
Under Western eyes 1911
NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE
narration not chronological
+
shifting time sequences and multiple perspectives
;
raconteur
= a characterwho tells his stories in the first person for him and comments upon them, forcing the reader to see them through his eyes;
he represents **characters' psychology through their interaction with others;
FEATURES
adventures in exotic countries
confront with
extreme situations
;
characters' relationship with hostile outer forces
(nature) and
inner forces of good and evil
;
explore the
inner workings of the human mind and moral ambiguities
;
anti-imperialism
fataism and pessimism
HEART OF DARKNESS
Marlow, a sailor, tells his shipmates his experience in Congo River Africa, visit and fetch mysterious Kurtz, successful agent of a white ivory company apparently got lost. Marlow struck by the ill-treatment of the natives by the company agents and the threatening presence of the jungle. When he finds Kurtz he realises that he is very different and not a man of high moral standards. He had become a sort of devilish God to the natives he wanted to civilise, performing strange rites to obtain more ivory. On the return voyage down the river Kurtz dies uttering: "The horror!THe horror! Back in Brussels Marlow contacts Kurtz's girlfriend but he lies to her about the last words.
narrative technique
2 first-person narrators
one who begins and ends the novella, he is outside the story and tells us what he has heard from Marlow. THe other is Marlow. Conrad represents human consciousness at the same time distancing the reader from it
Themes and interpretation
novel about the hypocrisy of colonialism. He condemns the rhethoric used to justify imperialism. Behind the positive colonialist ideal of civilising primitive people there's th white man's desire to exploit or even exterminate them. Psycholoanalitically = journey into the unconscious back to the primeval state of man
E.M. FORSTER
member of
Bloomsbury Group
, circle of intellectuals. Trip to Austria and Italy. Italian landscape deeply influenced him and his novel. Travelled to India (Passage to India)
traditional writer and at the same time early modern
Traditional
construction of balanced, complex and melodramatic plots
;
omniscient narrators
;
use of
clear language and style
which do not reproduce the flow of thoughts;
interest in the
inner feelings and emotions of his characters
;
emphasis on the relationships between characters
Modernist
disbelief in accepted values
;
reality is multi-faceted
;
unconventional themes
(anti-imperialism in A passage to India) or homosexuality (Maurice);
multiple viewpoints
novels of the 1st group
describes with irony the upper-middle class, contrast between feelings and social conventions
MAURICE 1913
character's inner struggle to accept his homosexuality. Remarkable for the description of the same-sex love in non-condemnatory terms. Forster who was homosexual showed it to selectedfriends. Published only in 1971
A ROOM WITH A VIEW 1908
story of Lucy and her confusion over her feelings for George Emerson, she met during a journey to Italy and Cecil Vyse she had decided to marry. In the end she elopes with George and returns to Italy without her mother's permission. COntrast between characters who have a
view
= more open-minded and those who
lack a view
= narrow-minded. Or between English people who can absorbe Italian spontaneity or not
Howards End 1910
3 English families at the beginning of the 20th century, belogning to 3 different social classes: capitalist upper middle class, the intellectual middle class and the lower middle class.Analysis of the advantages / disadvantages that the relationshipsamong the members of tha families can produce
novels of the 2nd group
A PASSAGE TO INDA 1924
clash between religious, cultural and racial differences
Adela has come to India to visit her future husband Ronald Heaslop, a city magistrate, with her mother-in-law. Thanks to Fielding who is interested in the Indians, the women are introduced to doctorAziz, a Muslim Indian doctor who invites them to visit a sacred Hindu cave. Once there,Adela has a shock and accuses the doctor of rape. A trial follows whichbrings out the racial tensions and prejudices between Indian and British. Eventually Adela retracts her accusation and Aziz is acuitted. But things will never be the same: Adela considered traitor by British and her engagement is broken off while Heanslop's career is ruined by the injust accusation. Even Aziz and FIelding have changed: they cannot be friends anymore until India is free of British rule
themes
the difficulty of friendship between English and Indian,
racism and oppressionof British in India
;
India = "MUDDLE" (confusione)
dangerous and disorienting. Not necessarily racist but logical Western cannot accept extreme diversity of Indian religion, society, wildlife or even architecture;
Hinduist religion
ideal of all living things
flat characters
do not undergo substantial change in history
round characters
encounter conflicts and are changed by them