Course / Student Introduction


-    Interview in groups of 3-4:

•    Name

•    (possible) major/concentration

•    favorite reading or music



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 2 main questions:


1) How did the Modernist novel (Hesse, Kafka, and Breton) influence the contemporary novel (Kundera)?


2)    How does the European novel inform notions of “modern identity” and vice versa?


What is the novel?





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: From what class do you come? What cultural practices and objects illustrate your social and economic class?

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



“Modern” means:


-    new

-    now

-    extension of / reinvention of past

-    shock value

-    globalization

-    includes its own vernacular

-    adventurous

-    liberal

Review of L. 2:


Modernism vs. Classicism: Relative beauty vs. Absolute Truth and Beauty

Questions we will address:


1) How did the Modernist novel (Hesse, Kafka, and Breton) influence the contemporary novel (Kundera)?


2)    How does the European novel inform notions of “modern identity” and vice versa?


Producers, not just consumers, of knowledge


→ Are we reading a Modernist novel right now? No:

Realism and the Novel


-    French tradition (Zola, Balzac)

-    Characters as types (see p. 34: Svidrigaylov)

-    Realistic portrait of social inequality, disease, and human condition

-    Related to Socialism (Communist Manifesto: 1848; Russian Revolution 1917)-- Subjects = From contemporary and modern Russian social life

-    Style = unobtrusive, journalistic, vs. ‘fine writing’


Purpose of reading Crime and Punishment:


- To understand how the Modernist novel (Hesse, Breton, Kafka) differs from the nineteenth-century novel


- To better comprehend the idea of "split identity" in discussions about modern identity


Recurring Motif of Women, Property, and Beating:


* Marmeladov's wife Katerina Ivanovna

* horse in Raskolnikov's dream

* the mistreated drunk woman

* Sonya, Marmeladov's daughter

* Dunya, Raskolnikov's sister

* Foreshadowing!


Ques. re. prostitution: See  Russian Women, 1698-1917: Experience and Expression, an Anthology of Sources (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2002) by Robin Bisha on Netlibrary (via Blackboard link)


Review

STUDENT QUESTIONS


1.    Why does Raskolnikov kill the pawnbroker?

2.    Why did he steal stuff if he was “just” killing her?

3.    How does Raskolnikov leave the apartment?

4.    Does the beating of the landlady actually happen?

Is there significance that the landlady and Petrovich are both

 authority figures?

5.    Why doesn’t he discard his sock and the trim from his trousers

(end of ch. III, Part II)?


6.    What’s the role of coincidences?


7.    How does Razumikhin compare to Raskolnikov?


8.    Why does Raskolnikov ask and answer his own questions?

Do we think of him as insane?



Review


Student Questions


1.    Why does Raskolnikov leave Zametov’s argument on p. 141?

What is he trying to do—confess?


2.    What is the significance of M. dying under the feet of the horses?

What is the significance of Marmeladov dying in his daughter’s

arms? Does Raskolnikov give them money out of compassion

 or a need for redemption?


3.    Why is Raskolnikov willing to take money from his family?

4.    In relation to the theories on rationalism, how do the main

 characters personify these theories and their counterarguments?


5.    Who does Raskolnikov think is in his room on p. 164?

6.    What role does suicide play throughout the novel,

and what does it say about Russia’s working class?

7.    Why is Sonya named after Sofia (wisdom)?

8.    Is Raskolnikov’s mental anguish the beginning of his punishment?


Raskolnikov’s 2 sides:


-    compassion / misanthropy

-    sensitive to others’ suffering / murderer

-    charity / thievery

-    devotion to family / rejects family

-    extraordinary / weak


Suicide and its meanings:


-    self control

-    escape

-    transcendence

-    mockery of higher power

-    nihilistic

-    misery

Review of L. 5
 

-    need copy of draft in some form: attach rough or to Blackboard: must see evolution

- the philosophical reasons Raskolnikov commits murder

-    Raskolnikov's “two separate personalities” (182)

•    public and private
•    conscious and unconscious
•    superego and id
•    reason and instinct
•    doubling / mirroring motif

Review of L. 6

1.    Why does Svid. say that Raskolnikov pretends to dream (236)?

2.    What aspects of Raskolnikov does Svid. represent?

Why does Svid choose Raskolnikov as a kindred spirit?
In 20 years, will Raskolnikov be more like Svid or Marmeladov?

3.    Does Razumikhin realize that Raskolnikov killed the 2 women?
4.    How does Dunya’s status change when she breaks with Luzhin?
What does it represent? How is it similar to Raskolnikov’s self-sacrifice?

5.    How does Sonya and Raskolnikov’s relationship mirror Martha
and Lazarus’? Is Raskolnikov a Lazarus or a Christ figure?
Why does Raskolnikov choose Sonya as a kindred spirit?

6.    What does it mean that Svid was listening to Sonya and Rask?

Bourgeois

- synonym for middle class
- clean and orderly
Harry Haller
Steppenwolf
 Harry Haller / Raskolnikov

 3 paths for Steppenwolf
- humor will lead to transcending wolf/man dichotomy (55)
- road of the Buddha
- suicide (47-9)

Student Ques. L. 12:

1.    Is there someone spying on Haller? (Treatise, Chris)
2.    Why does he get divorced?
3.    Is Haller really trying to die (David S.)?
4.    Why does Harry have trouble communicating with the
girl in the bar on p. 81 (Stephanie)?

4. What is the meaning behind the Goethe painting (Julie, Steph. S.)

5.    Why is there a woman’s leg in the dream? Why does it
turn into a scorpion? (Kevin)? Who’s Molly (Kim G)?

6.    What’s the difference between Hesse’s “man in the highest
sense” and Dostoevksy’s extraordinary man (64)? [David P]

7.    What is Hesse trying to say about the
 trials of representation (Ayda)?

8. What is meant by the “Immortals” (David S)
In-class Questions:

1.    Close read the first paragraph. From this, list three
characteristics of surrealism.
2.    How does Breton define surrealism?
3.    What theory of writing does Breton propose?
4.    What stimulates the imagination according to Breton?
5.    What does Breton dislike in novels? What
qualities does he like in novels?

Surrealism:

-    not dogmatic
-    no boundaries
-    stream of consciousness; French: automatic writing
-    importance of dreams
-    childhood
-    unconscious
-    inner life of inanimate objects
-    occult
-    “absolute reality”
Review

Student Questions:

1.    Is Nadja a bum or an elegant lady?
2.    What is the significance of the colors red and black (74, 83)?
3.    Why does Nadja get a lot of attention? Is she beautiful?
4.    Why does Nadja tremble in the presence of Andre (102)?
Why is she the “soul in limbo” (71)?
What does she mean by the “thought on the bath . . .(101)?

5.    On page 90, Nadja talks of love.
How does love relate to surrealism?
Why does he talk about Nadja to his wife?

In what ways does Nadja symbolize “hope” to the narrator (66)?
Modernist Protagonist:

- does not work
- male
- watches people
- writer
- has a female companion with a strong personality

Traditional / Realist Novel (Crime and Punishment)

- self-discovery
- linearity
- resolution
- characters exist
- several / host of characters
- conflict
- descriptive details

Aesthetics of Modern Novel
- unfinished
- primacy of the reader
- circular narrative
- critique of mass society
- protagonist has disproportionate sense of importance (see above)



Potential Similarities to Kundera’s Unbearable Lightness of Being

REVIEW:

I. Emerging Qualities of the Modern European Novel

-    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
K.'s "Crimes"

- sex with Elsa (20)

- sexually assaults Fr. B. (32-4)

- aggressive (52)

K.'s Moral Failures

- takes things lightly (6)

- enjoys being authoritative

- arrogant

- doesn't respect authority

- helps only when it's in his interest

Student Questions

1.    Why is he on trial? Does it have
something to do with the washerwoman? (Sheila)

2. Do you think Josef K. is an honorable man? Should he have
reacted differently?

3. What do you make of the mention of suicide? (11)
How does it relate to surrealism?

4. What stops K. from exercising the freedom he has?
2. What role does Fräulein Bürstner play in the novel? How does she relate to Nadja and Sonya?
2.    Why is he mistaken as a house painter? (Stephanie D)
3.    (Stephanie S) How does K’s reaction to his arrest
mirror Raskolnikov’s reaction to his crime?

4.    Why does he get sick outside the court? (Yvonne)
5.    How do crowds and cramped space relate
 to modernism as mass culture? (38, 41, 44)
Notes on "My Modernism:"



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 2 main questions:


1) How did the Modernist novel (Hesse, Kafka, and Breton) influence the contemporary novel (Kundera)?


2)    How does the European novel inform notions of “modern identity” and vice versa?