Introductions: Prepare to introduce your neighbor
after talking in a group of 3-4:
- Name
- Favorite Novel
- Foreign language knowledge
Course goals for the Modern European Novel:
Authoring the Experimental Self
- Genre: Focus on the
development of the novel during the period of European
Modernism
- Period: European Modernism
(ca. 1910-1930) and its roots in the late nineteenth century
(Dostoevsky)
- Philosophical themes: Existentialism, Nihilism, and Surrealism
(“Authoring the Experimental Self”)
- Student Writing: Be able to demonstrate a
sophisticated level of discourse about the emergence of the novel
by articulating its relation to late nineteenth-century and late
twentieth-century issues
Course thus addresses 3 main questions:
1) How did the Modernist novel (Hesse, Kafka, and Breton)
influence the contemporary novel (Kundera)?
2)
How can one challenge past traditions and
conventions and still retain a sense of self?
3) Yet what is so wrong with
modern life that the tyrannies of the past--bourgeois family,
gender inequality, and oppressive laws--still seem to haunt
the present?
What is the novel?
-
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French, new, from
Latin novellus, from
diminutive of novus
new (adjective); Italian novella
(noun)
-
Definition: an invented prose narrative that is usually long
and complex and deals especially with human experience through
a usually connected sequence of events
-
Started as epistolary (Richardson, Clarissa)
-
18th century: the loss (and reclamation of) virtue (Defoe, Moll Flanders);
-
19th century: orphan rediscovers noble heritage /
inheritance (Bronte sisters); the Bildungsroman (literally,
novel of education; journey of protagonist from imprisonment of childhood
toward mature freedom
-
Additional vocabulary: exposition, turning point(s), climax,
and denouement
What is modernity?
- Etymology: Late Latin modernus, from
Latin modo (just now), from modus (measure)
- Self-conscious break with the past and a search
for new forms of expression
not quite the same as Modernism . . .
- Modernism (1910-1930s/before WWII): Literary,
artistic, and intellectual movement associated with many other
ones (Dada, Surrealism, Futurism, etc.)
QUOTES:
1. "Modernity exists in the form of a desire to wipe out
whatever came earlier, in the hope of reaching at least a point
that could be called a true present, a point of origin that marks
a new departure." -- Paul De Man (1919–1983), Belgian-born U.S.
literary critic.
2. “'Modernity' signifies the transitory, the fugitive, the
contingent, the half of art of which the other half is the eternal
and the immutable." Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867), French poet,
critic.
3. "By Modernism I mean the positive rejection of the past and the
blind belief in the process of change, in novelty for its own
sake, in the idea that progress through time equates with cultural
progress; in the cult of individuality, originality and
self-expression." -- Dan Cruickshank (b. 1949), British
architectural critic.
The Benefits and Trials of Online Learning
Positives:
- You will learn to communicate quickly and effectively in
writing, a skill that is key for the modern workplace;
- You can complete work at your own pace;
- Offers a different way to participate in class;
- Learn new technologies and build confidence in learning new
tools;
- Less commuting to campus (and frustrations with traffic,
parking)
Negatives:
- Difficult for struggling students: It is very important that
you keep up with the work! Students who complete their work on
time seem to have very little problem adjusting to online
learning. Students who procrastinate and have a difficult time
keeping to a schedule, however, often fail to complete
coursework. So if you tend towards the latter, please consider
ways to become more diligent about deadlines this semester. I am
more than willing to talk to you about how to become a more
efficient learner.
* Another way we will combat the issue of keeping up is that
there will be no make ups of
missed online classes. The only way not to fall behind
is to keep moving forward!
- Difficulties in absorbing the material: Some students report
learning more during our live class days. It's very important to
participate in all activities I give you for our online class
meetings. Not only does incomplete participation count as an
absence, I feel you might not be learning all the knowledge I
aim to share with you.
- Technology: I am very understanding about any problems with
technology you might encounter. Just email me about what's going
on, and we will try to find a solution.
Class in Crime and Punishment:
- Luisa + Heather: no middle class
- Brianna: many in poverty, few in upper class (signaled by
their cleanliness)
- Jose: close proximity of lower and upper classes
Criminality in Crime and Punishment:
- Maureen: Marmeladov steals wife's money; Livaveta works w/o
her sister's knowledge
- Brianna + Marlana: drinking + prostitution
- Becca + others: role of alcohol
- Sam: debt
Think about yourself for a few minutes, and
then compare opinions with your neighbor(s): What does
Raskolnikov seem to like/dislike about modern life, and do you
agree or disagree with him?
- desperation, starvation > create a culture of immorality
- no middle class
- people seem to choose poverty
- lack of empathy
- poor somewhat criminalized
- people forced into choices that don't suit them
Online Feedback 9/18:
- Common concern for students: When students post last minute,
there is no one to respond to online.
Proposed solutions:
- Please post earlier so that students can respond to you.
- I will decrease choices for discussion forums if possible
- I will try to increase choices of where you can respond to
other students (allowed in most forums)
--> Will start requiring responses by 1pm, and replies by
2:30pm
- Other suggestions welcome!
Questions 9/20:
1. Philosophical Reasons for Murder
> Beverly, Luisa
2. Sonya's wisdom
> Megan, Samantha
3. Svidrigaylov
> Beverly, Luisa
4. Lazarus
> Valerie, Kimberly, Matt
5. Man in the long robe
> Maureen, Luisa, Valerie, Brianna
1. The Woman Question:
- Are women human like men? (J. S. Mill, The Subjection of
Women, 1869); see Dostoevsky 94-5, 309
- Debated at the same time as Socialists were considering
life in communes, and the consequences of free love (Dostoevsky
318).
- Significance: Are the women in Crime and Punishment
human like men?
2. Raskolnikov and Sonya
- Does she represent wisdom as her name implies?
- Why is he attracted to her?
- religious allusion: Mary Magdalene
3. Lazarus motif
- rebirth
- Raskolnikov's (ambivalent) faith
- To what extent might Raskolnikov resemble a Christ figure?
What does being "middle class" (bourgeois)
mean to you? What might be wrong w/it?
- living comfortably
- having enough money for what you need
- being financially stable (not struggling but not
excessively wealthy)
- being able to live in a decent area
- life sentence
- provokes materialism
- too much emphasis on things
Why does he keep talking about the araucaria? (28,
37, 40)
Review
- Middle Class Identity: In what ways does he hate it? In
what ways does that mean hating himself?
2. Narrative Structure of the novel: landlady's nephew; Haller's
first-person narration; (part of the novel's pretense
of realism
in parts); Treatise on the Steppenwolf
- reliable or unreliable narrators?
3. Significance of araucaria
4. Suicide
Several:
Mozart, Goethe // Napoleon in C&P
Why is HH interested in the Romantics?
>> Why Goethe and Mozart? Marlana
Meaning of Scorpion? Beverly and Matt
Review
1. Please always cite when you consult an outside
source, including any sites on the internet.
2. Who is Hermine? What does she want?
- his feminine side
- his complement / foil
- like Sonya: wise, sacrifices for family
- instructor
- courtesan
- clairvoyant (154)
3. Why do you think the book was banned in Germany
by the Nazis?
- pacifism (116)
- emigrates out of Germany
- vs. brainwashing of masses (117)
- critical of Germany
Review
1. Masculine Identities > Matt, Valerie
2. Magic Theater > Beverly, Jason, Karin
3. Why does Haller kill Hermine, and what does it signify?
Beverly, Valerie
In what ways is the law unjust? In what ways
is religion unjust?
The Law
- discrimination
- makes exceptions for famous people or
relatives
- money might determine whether one gets quality
defense
- bias / conflicts of interest
- people enforce the law according to their personal
ideas
Religious Law
- biased and possibly prejudiced
- some laws cause death (Christian Science)
- absolute
- depends on the individual
- not uniform (different religions
What crimes does K. commit?
- "behaved quite recklessly" (7)
- 33: sexually assaults Fr. B. (Felice
Bauer)
- ruthless boss
- 20: mistress
- 40: thinks about committing violence
- arrogant, thinks he's above the law
How is K.’s work related to his
trial? (131, 137, 140-41, 150-51, and 164)
- Whipping occurs in a room in the bank
- Another crime: lets people wait in the
anteroom for hours
- 131: Boundaries between work/reality world
and court/surreal world start to blur
- 137: “almost a lawyer” (re: Kafka had
degree in law)
- 140-41: Cannot concentrate on work;
paranoid about Assistant Manager; loss of authority in trial =
loss of authority in work
- Could his workplace belong to the court?
Everything belongs to the court (150)
- 151: talent for organization now being
applied to his case
- 164: Could be (completely ignorant about
the law and courts; cf. also 153)
- Blurring of boundaries between so-called
‘real’ world of work and surreal world of trial
- Were there ever distinct
boundaries? (colleagues present at initial interrogation,
whipping scene on work premise, uncle’s arrival, client’s
knowledge of Chief Clerk’s predicament)
How is Leni different than or similar to K.’s other
women (Elsa, Fräulein Bürstner, the usher’s wife)?
Why does he pursue her when the relationship endangers his
trial?
Similarities:
- Connected in some way to his trial
(but more closely connected than the others)
- Like the usher’s wife (49), she directs
him over the threshold into part of Court life (99 opens door,
gives him key 111)
- Like other women of the courts: promises
him aid but just entangles him more in the trial / Courts
- Interesting: no women we know of
are ever accused, just men (Block); usher’s wife: only fears
danger when she wants to (52)
- Has big beautiful eyes (like usher’s wife
53)
- Like usher’s wife (and Elsa) belongs to
other men
- So having her represents an affront to the
court (usher’s wife: “belongs to K and K alone” 56)
- Comes on to him before he does (100, 106)
- Like usher woman, has connections to court
(possibly more than we know, Titorelli? Knows how judge really
looked when he was painted (108)
- Elsa doesn’t know anything about his trial
(110)
- Reenacts mode of trial with his women
* F.B.: indignity of arrest
• Leni: draws up a brief to defend his
actions (107)
Differences:
- Elsa: we never see her (object of fantasy
and jealousy, much like woman w/fur in Metamorphosis)
- More suggestions that he actually has sex
with her (111, falls to floor w/him)
- Not respectable (no ‘Fräulein’ in
front of her name)
- Uncle disapproves of her (100-02, 111)
- Quieter about her other affairs
(seemingly just interested in him)—contrast Elsa, usher’s wife
(54-5)
- Animalistic (110) → Like Gregor accepts
retreat into animalistic because it allows him to avoid real
problems: family, work, and the law
- She’s always telling him he doesn’t like
her but he does (180)
- Makes a habit of sleeping with accused men
(183) → Is being attractive to women K.’s crime? ; not accused
because he sleeps with Leni; he sleeps with Leni because he is
accused
Emerging Qualities of the Modern European Novel
I. General
- Open-ended
- Multiple narrative perspectives,
unreliable narrators
- Experimental use of space and time
- Skeptical about and apt to write
ironically about “sincerity” and “authenticity” in art
- Use of dream, trance, and fantasy to
express the ineffable (limits of language)
- Demands a critical eye/I from the reader
(and a good sense of humor)
- Subject matter: the construction of the
self, suicide, love and infidelity
II. Narrative style: shift between third- and
first-person; shifts in perspective; floating above epic story;
consciousness of purpose, genre (novel), and fictionality;
narrative as musical composition (several voices and modes);
self-consciously experimental; the role of novelist as
experimenter
III. Contempt for authoritarian (here: religious and social)
attempts to control individual mores and behaviors; Critique of
fascist and totalitarian dictatorships, philosophies, and
attitudes (Kafka)
Critique of Bourgeois (Middle Class, Romantic) Sentimentality
(in Kundera = kitsch)
IV. Plurality of Gender Roles and Definitions
Ending of The Trial > Luisa, Michelle G.
Ques. about Breton
1. Breton's use of the term "ghost" > Beverly, Matt, Aleks
2. Duality of ego > Marlana, Jose
3. Automatic writing > Valerie
4. Glass house > Luisa, Becca
What similarities does Nadja share
with Steppenwolf and The Trial?
- Theater (Hesse)
- separation of id, ego, and superego into different characters
- Court / Legality
- Lack of clarity on the surface
- No clear chapter breaks (Hesse, Breton)
- Female muse(s)
- Male protagonist from the upper classes
- Liminality (71)
- Metaphysical ques.
Other Characteristics of the Modern European Novel:
Protagonists who are dissatisfied with the
system
Protagonists realize that there is a system
Faceless people operate/control system
Focus on the indvidual
Women playing a key role in characters'
self-realization
Women act as guides
Dichotomy of the self
Fatalism
Mental/physical suicide and isolation
Time / Waiting / Impatience
How to live in a godless world
Rebellion is futile in the end
Dream sequences/motifs