ELIT 48C: Class #3

Grammar Slide

http://listverse.com/2011/06/07/top-10-misused-english-words/

AGENDA

Manifestos ContinuedPound

Cather

Williams

Hughes

Lecture: o The Great Gatsby: Historical

Context

Discussion:o The Great Gatsby

Ezra PoundPound was an American expatriate living in Europe. He was hugely influential in the circle of other expatriate writers and artists not only for his own work as a poet but also for the advice that he offered to other writers. “A Retrospect” is Pound’s manifesto on Imagism, a school of poetry that argued for the central—if not defining—place of the image in modern poetry.

An “Image” is that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time.

It is better to present one Image in a lifetime than to produce voluminous works.

Use no superfluous word, no adjective which does not reveal something.

—from “A Retrospect”

1. Is Ezra Pound offering a radical new vision of poetry, or are his comments simply good advice for writers of any kind?

1. How can we maintain the balance between being wordy and fancy?

1. Is Ezra Pound right about seeing the tradition not as dogma, but as “the result of long contemplation” that may be worth consideration?

Willa Cather Willa Cather was born in the Midwest but spent most of her career as a novelist in cosmopolitan cities such as London and New York. In “The Novel Démeublé,” Cather implicitly asks what nineteenth-century novelists can teach twentieth-century writers. In so doing, she rejects realist novels as mere “amusement” and looks to “American romances” such as Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter for inspiration.

QHQ: Cather

1. Why does Cather believe physical descriptions of people and things don’t have value?

2. If an author succeeds in producing a work of novelty, is the meaning of the novel more important or how it subjectively affects the reader emotionally?

William Carlos Williams So far, all of the manifestos

that we have read are serious invectives. Yet, here we encounter the playfulness in Williams’s Spring and All. Given the playful, ironic, and humorous tone of Williams’s manifesto, it may be difficult to tell how deadly serious he is about his vision for modern poetry.

It is spring! but miracle of miracles a miraculous miracle has gradually taken place during these seemingly wasted eons. Through the orderly sequences of unmentionable time EVOLUTION HAS REPEATED ITSELF FROM THE BEGINNING.

—from Spring and All

1. What does William Carlos Williams mean when he says, “Everything is and is new”?

1. What implications is Williams trying to convey about humans?

2. What does Williams repetition of “imagination” in the excerpt from “Spring and All” have to do with the manifesto?

Langston Hughes

Many modernist writers supported the idea that artists and writers should be fiercely committed to their personal vision regardless of what the market, critics, or other writers said. In “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” Langston Hughes argues that an artist’s racial identity complicates this commitment to personal vision in ways that white writers had not fully appreciated.

I am ashamed for the black poet who says, “I want to be a poet, not a Negro poet,” as though his own racial world were not as interesting as any other world . . . An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose.

—from “The Negro Artist and

the Racial Mountain”

There’s a tension in the statement between individual choice (“An artist must be free to choose what he does”) and a manifesto-like prescription of what African-American poets must do (“I am ashamed for the black poet who says . . .”).

1. Why doesn’t Hughes encourage his fellow blacks to be themselves, but while also still being a part of America?

2. What kinds of attitudes does Langston Hughes want young African-American artist to adopt towards art?

1. Must an artist only create art based on their race/culture to be considered genuine?

QHQ: Hughes

1. How does the “self-embracing” of a “Negro” artist differ from that of a white artist? What are the consequences, both positive and negative, of African Americans fully embracing their racial identities?

2. Who does Langston Hughes think is responsible for creating the “racial mountain”? Is the “racial mountain” still present in todays society?

3. Would Langston Hughes’ rhetoric apply to the African American artist today? Is it still necessary to racially identify African American artists?

4. Is Hughes’ point regarding embracing one’s culture regardless of social prejudice a helpful and honest tip in order to achieve literary success, or is it a romanticized ideology that does not fully take into account the challenges of the time period?

5. How can African-Americans recover from internalized racism when mainstream culture is focused on white standards?

LECTURE: HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Historical Context

Post WWI

Standard of living increased for most

Americans abandoned small towns in exchange for urban living

Economy prospered as Americans tried to forget troubles of war

Conspicuous Consumption and frivolous spending

This term was originally coined to refer to the rise & power of extremely rich businessmen, who displayed their wealth in ostentatious houses & extravagant behavior.

18th Amendment to Constitution prohibited manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages

– Thousands turned to bootlegging

– Mob activity increased to supply the demand for what was once legal

WWI made Americans question traditional ideals.

Literature and art denied foundations of the past and went for the new.

The philosophy of the Jazz Age was “modernism."

1920’s Context

The Jazz Age / Roaring Twenties/ The Flapper Era

Era: 1918-1929

The age takes its name from jazz, which saw a tremendous surge in popularity.

This was a period of pleasure seeking & reckless exuberance

Most of Fitzgerald’s stories provide a picture of youthful hedonism and the antics of the liberated young women known as “flappers,” affronting conventional values with short skirts, short hair and make-up.

More 1920’s

This period has been referred to as “The Lost Generation.”

Hemingway, in his novel The Sun Also Rises depicts a group of expatriate Americans, wandering aimlessly through Europe, sensing that they are powerless and that life is pointless in the aftermath of the Great War.

The Great Gatsby likewise reflects this perception of life without purpose, of restlessness, dissatisfaction and drifting.

DISCUSSION

In Groups

Discuss The Great Gatsby and Post #2

Character Sketch

Daisy leans forward and talks in a low voice.

Tom is restless and hulking.

Jordan balances something on her chin almost in an athletic stance.

What is Fitzgerald’s purpose in thus describing them?

Daisy Buchanan

The other girl, Daisy, made an attempt to rise — she leaned slightly forward with a conscientious expression — then she laughed, an absurd, charming little laugh, and I laughed too and came forward into the room.

“I’m p-paralyzed with happiness.” She laughed again, as if she said something very witty, and held my hand for a moment, looking up into my face, promising that there was no one in the world she so much wanted to see. That was a way she had. She hinted in a murmur that the surname of the balancing girl was Baker. (I’ve heard it said that Daisy’s murmur was only to make people lean toward her; an irrelevant criticism that made it no less charming.)

Daisy

1. Why does the Fitzgerald give Daisy a fragile characteristic?

2. Does Daisy change at the end of the story? If she changed, would be the change forward or backward? And who helps or makes that change?

Jordan Baker

The younger of the two was a stranger to me. She was extended full length at her end of the divan, completely motionless, and with her chin raised a little, as if she were balancing something on it which was quite likely to fall. If she saw me out of the corner of her eyes she gave no hint of it —indeed, I was almost surprised into murmuring an apology for having disturbed her by coming in.

At any rate, Miss Baker’s lips fluttered, she nodded at me almost imperceptibly, and then quickly tipped her head back again — the object she was balancing had obviously tottered a little and given her something of a fright. Again a sort of apology arose to my lips. Almost any exhibition of complete self-sufficiency draws a stunned tribute from me.

Jordan Baker

Q: How does Jordan differ from Daisy as a character?

Q: Why does Fitzgerald give Jordan masculine attributes such as being a professional golf player and having small breasts?

Tom Buchanan

He had changed since his New Haven years. Now he was a sturdy straw-haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner. Two shining arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. Not even the effeminate swank of his riding clothes could hide the enormous power of that body — he seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top lacing, and you could see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat. It was a body capable of enormous leverage — a cruel body.

Nick Carraway

1. Why does Fitzgerald narrate the story from Nick Carraway’s perspective? What is Nick’s significance and what truth does he expose about society or human nature?

2. Q: At the beginning of The Great Gatsby, Daisy tells Nick that he reminds her of a rose (16) but Nick immediately rejects the idea as untrue. Does Daisy’s metaphor of Nick being a rose play into his character development?

Mia Farrow and Robert Redford 1974

Carey Mulligan and Leonardo DiCaprio 2013

• How does the reunion of Daisy and Gatsby signal both the beginning and the end of Gatsby’s dream and of his success?

• Trace the recurring image of eyes, and ascertain the purposes of those images. Consider blindness on any level as well as sight.

The Eyes “above the gray land and the spasms of bleak

dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg. The eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic – their retinas are one yard high. They look out of no face but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose […] But his eyes, dimmed a little by many paintlessdays under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground.” (Chapter 2)

QHQ: The Great Gatsby

1. Q: Is Jay Gatsby the main character of this story?

2. Q: How does Fitzgerald use the main characters in The Great Gatsby to portray a message about society during this time period, or human nature as a whole?

3. Q: How come the three characters that demonstrate true love are the three characters that die?

HOMEWORK

Read: Critical Theory

Today: Chapter 1 Introduction

1-10

Read: Critical Theory

Today: Chapter 5 New

Criticism 135-164

Post #3: QHQ: New

Criticism