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.
In-class Writing: What do you like and dislike about modern
life?
Review
of L. 1
What is the modern European novel?
1. Modernism
* not contemporary
* 1910-1930
* related to other artistic movements (Surrealism,
Cubism, Dada, jazz, etc.)
2. European
• Linguistically: German, French, Russian, Czech
• Nationally: before the Great War: France, England,
(greater) Germany, Austro-Hungarian Empire
• the period between the wars: exodus to Switzerland
(Hesse), separation of Central Europe into (new) nation states
• Bookmarks: Dostoevsky and Kundera
3. Novel
* "new" form of literature
* "trashy," "low" reputation -- ideal for Modernist
expression
• exposition, turning point(s), climax, and denouement
Questions we will address:
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?
Day 2: What does Raskolnikov dislike
about (modern) life? What does he want out of life?
- misanthrope
- disilusioned about debauchery and passivity of lower classes;
uncomfortable with people prostituting/sacrificing themselves
- resents landlady and pawnbroker
- doesn't like to feel weak
Why does Raskolnikov
kill the pawnbroker and her sister?
re. p. 55-56 students talking: to kill her, take her
money, and give it to the poor
re. dream of beaten horse (48-49)--inequality in society
Dostoevsky's attack on utilitarianism
fatalism
not money
re. p. 61: to prove his superiority
What's the difference
between Utilitarianism and Utopian Socialism?
Both are progressive, leftist movements that have their
roots in the social movements of nineteenth-century Europe,
particularly the revolutions of 1848 that occured owing to the
inequalities of serfdom and class inequalities.
Utilitarianism seeks the greatest happiness of the
greatest amount of people, whereas utopian socialism, as expounded by
Fourier, suggests establishing commune-like phalanx (pl. of phalange)
that allow ideal societies to exist within the flawed, greater society.
According to some scholars, Raskolnikov embodies the
schismatic debate between utopian socialism and Nihilism (see Frank, p.
572?).
What do the intertextual references
mean in Crime
and
Punishment
(for example,
when Dostoevsky cites Balzac)?
See the Russian formalist critic Mikhail Bahktin, who
writes about intertextuality in terms of a polyphonic authorial voice,
which Prof. James Zappen explains on his page, Rhetoric, Culture, and
Technology, March 2009 <http://www.rpi.edu/~zappenj/Rhetoric/RCT/rctic1.html>
Accessed
Sept.
2009.
What kind of narrator does Crime and Punishment have?
Our society has similar problems
as Raskolnikov's: excessive debt, poverty, and crime; people living
with addiction, despair, and feelings of isolation; and a malaise about
what to do about it all. What
is
to
be done about such problems in your opinion? Should we,
like Raskolnikov, get rid of people who make life worse for others? Can
faith and belief solve people's feelings of despair? Should the
government organize systems to protect people from hardships? Or will
things work out eventually, just by allowing people to find work and
their own way?
Interpretive question for today:
How does
Raskolnikov feel about his murder of the pawnbroker and her pregnant
sister? More importantly, how do you feel about this crime?
Character
Sketches
Rodión Romanovich Raskolnikov: former student, resentful of
family, misanthrope, "two separate personalities," loner, agitated
Pulkhéria Alexándrovna Raskolnikov: devoted to her son
and family, sacrifices everything for them, wants success for
Raskolnikov, won't admit he's a murderer
Avdótya Románovna (Dúnya, Dúnechka)
Raskolnikov
Dmítri Prokófich Razumíkhin: intelligent,
helpful, involved with Raskolnikov
Peter Petrovich Luzhin: annoys Raskolnikov, engaged to Dunya,
businessman, full of himself, dandy
Semën Zakhárovich Marmeladov: self-destructive, loving,
drunk, dead
Katerina Ivanovna Marmeladov: mother of 4, husband a drunk, allows
oldest child to prostitute herself, comes off angry and mean
Sófya (Sonya) Semënovna: prostitute, devoted to her poor
family, step-mother = Katerina I. M., eldest, comes off naive and
innocent, sacrifices herself
Amalia Ivanovna/Ludwigovna Lippewechsel: landlady of Marmeladovs, from
Germany, influenced Sonya's turn to prostitution, has matriarchal
attitude towards Marmeladovs
Alëna Ivánovna: pawnbroker who died
Lizavéta Ivanovna: sister of pawnbroker, reasonable, shy, killed
by R.
Porfiry (Ilya) Petrovich: police officer, passionate, prone to anger,
suspicious of R., not highly educated, manipulative
Zametov: opposite of Porfiry, not involved in case much, lazy
Zosimov: young doctor, interested in mental illness
Marfa Petrovna Svidrigaylov: prideful woman, dead, was married to AIS
Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigaylov: widower of Marfa, accused of beating
her to death, gambler in debt, womanizer
Nastasya: servant of Raskolnikov's landlady, serves him food,
Raskolnikov doesn't hate her, caring
Who do you think is the most
extraordinary character--Luzhin, Sonya, or Raskolnikov?
What causes suffering in your opinion (in life in
general)? Who suffers the most in Crime
in
Punishment?
What causes
suffering in your opinion?
guilt
family and friends
meeting expectations
ennui, boredom
money
loneliness
knowing too much
lack of faith, purpose, greater meaning
hubris, pride
love
lack of love
What do you like and dislike about the
lifestyle and values of the middle classes?
"manners," but are they fake?
comfortable because they work, yet lack the time to
enjoy family
live to work but choose to
search for balance although that might not be attainable
represents comfort, but breeds apathy
How do you
personally feel about suicide? Do you consider it murder, or should
individuals be allowed to choose their time and method of death?
Why does Haller want to be Steppenwolf?
It's a plan;
an excuse antisocial behavior;
a rejection of his
bourgeois identity and Oedipal feelings;
not what everyone else is;
and a kind of suicide.
It would create a clear path: animal or human; and
would be an alternative to his empty life: divorced,
hated by his countrymen, and disconnected.
Are you in touch
with your inner Steppenwolf? According to Hesse, do you even need to
be?
Josef K.'s Guilt
threatens violence to Fr. G (25(0, kids (40); court
(32, 64)
uses position at bank to wield power over others--"a
good capitalist" (SY)
sexual assault of Fr. B (33); sees a prostitute
animalistic
arrogant (64) and generally self-centered
rebels / doesn't respect authority
careless
lies (“Lanz”)
Who do you feel judges the things
you might have to feel guilty for? 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
Nadja is
undoubtedly
an experimental novel. List the ways in which Nadja
experiments with conventions of the novel, and brainstorm its general
characteristics as a book. Can Nadja
still be categorized, as its author claims, a
novel?