Virginia Woolf Quotes

Virginia Woolf
Quotes

From A Room of One’s Own (1929)

“[I]t is necessary to have five hundred a year and a room with a lock on the door if you are to write fiction or poetry.”

“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.”

“[W]e think back through our mothers if we are women.”

“’Cloe liked Olivia…’ Do not blush. Let us admit that in the privacy of our own society that these things sometimes happen. Sometimes women do like women./ ‘Cloe liked Olivia,’ I read. And then it stuck me how immense a change was there. Cloe liked Olivia perhaps for the first time in literature. Cleopatra did not like Octavia. And how completely Antony and Cleopatra would have been altered had she done so!...”

“Women are hard on women. Women dislike women. Women—but are you not sick to death of the word? I can assure you that I am.”

“[I]t is fatal for any one who writes to think of their sex. It is fatal to be a man or woman pure and simple; one must be a woman-manly or man-womanly.”

“I told you in the course of this paper that Shakespeare had a sister; but do not look for her in Sir Sidney Lee’s life of the poet. She died young—alas, she never wrote a word…. Now my belief is that this poet who never wrote a word and was buried at the crossroads still lives. She lives in you and in me, and in many other women who are not here tonight, for they are washing up the dishes and putting the children to bed. But she lives; for great poets do not die; they are continuing presences; they need only the opportunity to walk among us in the flesh. This opportunity, as I think, it is now coming within your power to give her….[I]f we have the habit of freedom and the courage to write exactly what we think; if we escape a little from the common sitting-room and see human beings not always in their relationship to each other but in relation to each other but in relation to reality…. Then the opportunity will come and the dead poet who was Shakespeare’s sister will put on the body which she has so often laid down…. As for her coming without that preparation, without that effort on our part, without that determination that when she is born again she shall find it possible to live and write her poetry, that we cannot expect, for that would be impossible. But I maintain that she would come if we worked for her, and that so to work, even in poverty and obscurity, is worth while.”

From “Professions for Women” (1931)

“I discovered that if I were going to review books I should need to do battle with a certain phantom. And the phantom was a woman, and when I came to know her better I called her after the heroine of a famous poem, The Angel in the House….. She was intensely sympathetic. She was immensely charming. She was utterly unselfish. She excelled in the difficult arts of family life. She sacrificed herself daily. If there was chicken, she took the leg; if there was a draught she sat in it—in short she was so constituted that she never had a mind or a wish of her own, but preferred to sympathize always with the minds and wishes of others. Above all—I need not say it—she was pure…. And when I came to write I encountered her with the very first words. The shadow of her wings fell on my page; I heard the rustling of her skirts in the room. Directly, that is to say, I took my pen in my hand to review that novel by a famous man, she slipped behind me and whispered: ‘My dear, you are a young woman. You are writing about a book that has been written by a man. Be sympathetic; be tender; flatter; deceive; use all the arts and wiles of our sex. Never let anybody guess that you have a mind of your own. Above all, be pure.’ And she made as if to guide my pen. …. I turned upon her and caught her by the throat. I did my best to kill her… Had I not killed her she would have killed me.”

From Three Guineas (1938)

“[I]n fact, as a woman, I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman my country is the whole world”

From Jacob’s Room (1922)

"It's not catastrophes, murders, deaths, diseases, that age and kill us; it's the way people look and laugh, and run up the steps of omnibuses."

Bravo!

Sorry I haven't posted for a while... In the meantime, congrats on the success! Here are a few pictures from the performance. (Sorry the pictures are grainy...)

Masculinity as Masquerade

Hemingway's chest hair

W.B. Yeats' implant of monkey glands and the "second coming"

Pound readings

On PennSound

includes:

Hugh Selwyn Mauberley [549-59]:
[listen] 4. E.P.: Ode Pour L'Election de Son Sepulchre (2:45)
[listen] 5. II, IV, & V (2:59)
[listen] 6. Yeux Glauques (1:11)
[listen] 7. Envoi (1919) (from "Hugh Selwyn Mauberley" at the end of Part I) (1:32)
[listen] 8. First two sections of Part II of the poem ["1920 (Mauberley)"] (3:07)
[listen]
9. Cantico del sole (0:58) [572] [text]
[listen] 10. Canto XVII ("So that the vine burst from my fingers')(7:00) [76-79]
[listen] 11. Canto XXX (0:58) [147]
[listen] 12. Canto XLV (3:12) [229-30]
[listen] 13. Canto LVI (19:30) [301-310]

and more...


Canto LXXXI

More links to Ezra Pound

Poetry Sites

Hugh Selwyn Mauberley

Resources & Criticism on "The waste Land" here and here

Exploring the Waste Land

Berkeley Webcast/Courses

Get the mp3 files of various courses at Berkeley here

BBC Radio 4 Discussions on Kierkegaard, his work & life

Listen to the broadcast here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime.shtml

Kierkegaard's "Diary of a Seducer," part of his important work, Either/Or, is a great philosophical reflection on love. It's often considered to be autobiographical, drawn from Kierkegaard's decision to break the engagement to Regine Olsen and to stay celibate. Listen to BBC Radio 4's broadcast of an interesting discussion on Kierkegaard's philosophy and this episode.

Can a "sick" society produce "healthy" literature?

Can a sick society produce healthy literature? -- That is the question. If you have responses or further questions and would like to share with us, please post them in comments. Here's one that I find really thought-provoking:


"In my perception, it depends upon the modernity, which is
various from different ages and societies. I have no exact definition
about what is 'sick' or 'healthy', but if we set up a premise here
that the function of literature is to reflect the modernity of its society
the problems of the "sick" society will be presented vividly through
literature. The premise here regards literature as a doctor to society,
and the poets or authors take up some social responsibilities for the people,
not just create their masterpieces because of "art for art's sake".

In my opinion, 'healthy' doesn't stand for 'morality' or 'doctrine' but 'something to benefit society'... "

Holy Grail variations

King Arthur and the Holy Grail



synopsis of Parsifal



Wagner, Parsifal, Prelude



Monty Python & the Holy Grail, "The Knight Who Said Ni"



"three questions"

T. S. Eliot clips

("The Hollow Man" read by Marlon Brando as Kurtz, from "Apocalypse Now")
( text & explications of "The Hollow Man")

T.S. Eliot reads "The Waste Land"



(Cats, based on Eliot's "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats")



Memory

Auden & America

A retrospective look at Auden and his time:
http://www.nysun.com/article/72350


"Even those leaden meditations on "nature and history" were impishly transformed in his verse. In "Archaeology," the last poem Auden wrote, in August 1973, a month before his death, he stated:

From Archaeology
one moral, at least, may be drawn,
to wit, that all

our school text-books lie.
What they call History
is nothing to vaunt of,

being made, as it is,
by the criminal in us:
goodness is timeless.?

Amis and Islam

Recent controversies over Amis' comments on Islam--
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/books/review/Donadio-t.html

"In the press, Amis has been accused of lazy thinking and Muslim-bashing. The left-leaning Guardian ran a prominent feature, “Martin Amis and the New Racism,” with an unflattering illustration. Things have only heated up since January, with the British publication of 'The Second Plane,' Amis’s new book of essays, subtitled 'September 11: Terror and Boredom.' (The book, which received fairly tepid reviews in England, will appear in the United States in April.)"

The Second Coming

Study Guide & Worksheets

ps-- Blackboard is not working. If you see this, please send your group response papers to me by email. Thanx. :-)

Sociological Approach to Pop Songs

If Joyce and the music of the "northern race" depress you, check this out. It is hilarious!!

http://sociologicalimages.blogspot.com/

Songs in "The Dead"

“The Lass of Aughrim”

If you be the lass of Aughrim
As I am taking you mean to be
Tell me the first token
That passed between you and me.
The rain falls on my yellow locks
And the dew it wets my skin;
My babe lies cold within my arms:
Lord Gregory let me in.
Oh Gregory, don’t you remember
One night on the hill,
When we swapped rings off each other’s hands,
Sorely against my will?
Mine was of the beaten gold,
Yours was but black tin;
Refrain
Oh if you be the lass of Aughrim,
As I suppose you not to be
Come tell me the last token
That passed between you and me.
Refrain
Oh Gregory don’t you remember
One night on the hill
When we swapped smocks off each other’s backs,
Sorely against my will?
Mine was of the Holland fine,
Yours was but scotch cloth.
Refrain



“I Dreamt that I Dwelt”

I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls,
With vassals and serfs at my side,
And of all who assembled within those walls,
That I was the hope and the pride.
I had riches too great to count
Could boast of a high ancestral name;
But I also dreamt, which pleased me most,
That you loved me still the same;
That you loved me, you loved me still the same,
That you loved me, you loved me still the same.

I dreamt that suitors sought my hand;
That knights upon bended knee,
And with vows no maiden heart could withstand
They pledged their faith to me;
I dreamt that one of the noble host
Came forth my hand to claim.
But I also dreamt, which charmed me most,
That you loved me still the same;
That you loved me, you loved me still the same,
That you loved me, you loved me still the same.

Composed by M.W. Balfe
Nelson, Lesley. (n.d.). Folk Music.





“Silent, O Moyle” (at the end of the clip)

Silent, O Moyle be the roar of thy water,
Break not, ye breezes, your chain of repose;
While murmuring mournfully, Lir’s lonely daughter
Tells to the night star her tale of woes.
When shall the swan, her death-note singing,
Sleep with wings in darkness furl’d?
When shall heav’n its sweet bell ringing,
Call my spirit from this stormy world?

Sadly, Oh Moyle, to thy winter-wave weeping,
Fate bids me languish long ages away;
Yet still in her darkness doth Erin lie sleeping,
Still doth the pure light its dawning delay!
When will that day-star, mildly springing,
Warm our Isle with peace and love?
When shall heav’n, its sweet bell ringing,
Call my spirit to the fields above?

Lyrics by Thomas Moore
Nelson, Lesley. (n.d.). Folk Music.


“Let Me Like a Soldier Fall”

Yes! Let me like a soldier fall
Upon some open plain,
This breast expanding for the ball,
To blot out every stain.
Brave manly hearts confer my doom
That gentler ones may tell
Howe’er forgot, my unknown tomb
I like a soldier fell.
I only ask of that proud race,
Which ends its blaze in me,
To die the last, and not disgrace
Its ancient chivalry.
Tho’ o’er my clay no banner wave
Nor trumpet requiem swell,
Enough they murmur o’er my grave
He like a soldier fell

Composed by William Vincent Wallace; lyrics by Edward Fitzball


“Killarney” (No clip)

By Killarney’s lakes and fells,
Em’rald isles and winding bays;
Mountain paths and woodland dells,
Mem’ry ever fondly strays.
Bounteous nature loves all lands
Beauty wonders ev’rywhere;
Footprints leaves on many strand,
But her home is surely there!
Angels fold their wings and rest,
In that Eden of the West
Beauty’s home Killarney,
Ever fair Killarney.

No place else can charm the eye,
With such bright and varied tints,
Ev’ry rock that you pass by,
Verdure broiders or besprints.
Virgin there the green grass grows,
Ev’ry morn Spring’s natal day;
Brighthued berries daff the snows,
Smiling winter’s frown away.
Angels often pausing there,
Doubt if Eden were more fair,
Beauty’s home Killarney,
Ever fair Killarney.

Music there for Echo dwells,
Makes each sound a Harmony,
Many-voiced the chorus swells
Till it faints in ecstasy.
With the charmful tints below
Seems the Heaven above to vie,
All rich colours that we know,
Tinge the cloud-wreaths in that sky.
Wings of Angels so might shine,
Glancing back soft light divine,
Beauty’s home Killarney,
Ever fair Killarney.

Composed by M.W. Balfe


“Arrayed for the Bridal” (from Vincezo Bellini's "I Puritani") (No clip)

Arrayed for the bridal, in beauty behold her
A white wreath entwineth a forehead more fair;
I envy the zephyrs that softly enfold her,
And play with the locks of her beautiful hair.
May life to her prove full of sunshine and love.
Who would not love her?
Sweet star of the morning, shining so bright
Earth’s circle adorning, fair creature of light!

Composed by Bellini; lyrics by George Linley

On Hating Picasso

"“Imagination without skill gives us contemporary art,” says Tom Wolfe, a journalist and founder of "New Journalism," who hates Picasso.

Read the article on The New Criterion:
"Radical un chic"

Alain Robbe-Grillet, novelist and screenwriter, has died.

"An originator of the Nouveau Roman, or New Novel, and the screenwriter for Alain Resnais’s 1961 cult film “Last Year at Marienbad,” Mr. Robbe-Grillet was the very model of a postwar avant-gardist. His attempts to wrest fiction free from 19th-century constraints like plot and character, and to wrest objects free from imposed meaning, were never entirely popular with readers but had a decisive influence on critical theory and on the art of the novel, as well as on film, art and even psychology."

...

"The novel, Mr. Robbe-Grillet contended, was a 19th-century form, epitomized by the rich, naturalistic worlds of Balzac and Flaubert. The 20th century, though, was characterized by fragmentation and existential doubt, and the novel reached “a degree of stagnation,” he argued in his essay “A Fresh Start for Fiction.” He called for a radical departure: anti-realist, anti-naturalist, anti-descriptive, apolitical. “In this future universe of the novel, gestures and objects will be ‘there’ before being ‘something,’ ” he wrote. “They will still be there afterwards, hard, unalterable, eternally present, mocking their own meaning.”

Read the entire article on Times:
Remembering Alain Robee-Grillet

Two Events

轉寄: 台社論壇連二場「大學開門三件事？」與「陳冠希艷照門」
2008台社論壇「大學開門三件事？」座談會
大學開門三件事：應付評鑑、擔心退場、賣力招生？

2004年9月底，台灣的批判學術社群首度針對當時新上路的評鑑體制展開集體討論，並提出各種解決方案與社群自主的願景。之後，該研討會內容並集結成書《全球化與知識生產—反思台灣學術評鑑》（2005，台社論壇叢書4）。
然而，當年學術社群的歷史性行動似乎曇花一現，而做為規訓體制的評鑑則也愈來愈被人們以各種不同的方式予以認可與順從。
有鑑於此，此次座談會與先前不同之處在於，問題脈絡的重新詮釋與發言位置的特殊性。




問題脈絡的重新詮釋，旨在以較長的發展時間，討論高等教育十餘年來的擴張與普及化，希望藉其過程與結果來面對現今高等教育的諸多問題（例如綜合大學與技職科大、傳統老大學與新設大學、高等教育內部對年輕世代就業機會的收放與流動、以及學校系所招生與評鑑等問題）。
至於發言位置的不同，則見於本次座談會的受邀者。相對於傳統被承認的「學術社群」，與會者具有明顯的「邊緣性」或「外部性」，同時他們裡頭也有部分是經歷過不同學院位置的流動經驗。故我們希望透過各種多元的具體經驗來激發更多對話。

學術社群對於自己與所處環境的關係討論，應該持續。因為這種面對自我的反思與批判，就是民主化的一個過程。同時，也有助於我們理解台灣高等教育普及化背後的不均衡發展困境。
主持人：
馮建三（政治大學新聞學系教授）
座談與會發表人（按姓氏筆畫）：
王之相（南開技術學院副教授）
何東洪（前佛光大學社會系，現輔大心理系助理教授）
吳挺鋒（開南大學通識中心助理教授）
周芬姿（美和技術學院老人服務事業管理系副教授）
曾建元（中華大學行政管理學系助理教授）
翁裕峰（前義守大學公共政策與管理學系助理教授，現成功大學「醫學科技與社會研究中心」專案助理教授）
劉兆隆（彰化師範大學政治學研究所助理教授）

時間：3月1日（六）下午一點半開始
地點：世新大學管理學院大樓四樓 M406教室
地址：木柵路一段 111號。管理學院大樓不在世新校園內，在木柵路上考試院旁邊。
開車的朋友可以把車停在考試院對面國家考場收費停車場，每小時 20元。
搭捷運請搭新店線至景美站，二號出口出來後過馬路至景美國中對面 (景行公園 )的站牌，任何往深坑石碇方向的公車都可以，三站後在復興派出所下車。
主辦單位：台灣社會研究季刊社、世新大學台灣社會研究國際中心
聯絡：世新大學台灣社會研究國際中心 02-22360556





2008台社論壇
「性、警察、互聯網－－陳冠希艷照門的社會攻防」座談會

在台灣稱為「網路╱網際網路」的媒介，在中國大陸被稱為「互聯網」。中國大陸以嚴厲管制網路出名，而台灣網路在管制這方面也早就互聯網化、中國化了，只是還沒正名為「互聯網」而已。1989年好萊塢拍攝「性、謊言、錄影帶」，宣告新的個人化低成本攝錄影像媒介如何改變了人們性與親密的感覺、以及人際聯結的關係。在今日，個人化的影像生產工具與互聯網這一低成本流通媒介，也正同樣地改變性與身體的地景，並成為次文化或小圈圈自由集結（互聯）的媒介，然而新科技所帶來的政治潛力也正被網路警察嚴密監控。本次座談題為「性、警察、互聯網」的意義正在於此。
過去的觀察已經顯示，網路隨時可能意外地掀起波瀾，挑戰公共權威，動搖既存的性秩序。陳冠希的「艷照門」就是這樣的一個事件（典故出自美國前總統尼克森的水門醜聞）。而在秩序貌似失控的緊急時刻，為了保衛社會，各地的警察勢力斷然中止法治，恫嚇網民，緊縮資訊流通，已經引發香港網民的抗爭，餘波蕩漾。中港台網民不但對性管制、性偽善、隱私、公共「性」、娛樂工業等議題熱烈討論，還流動旁及到許多雜異的主題，儼然成為大中華區域的共同歷史事件。《台灣社會研究》將藉著這次座談，探討這個事件的多方面向，並提出批判視野。
主持人：中央大學性╱別研究室 何春蕤
引言人： 導演 侯孝賢
交通大學傳播與科技學系 魏玓
中國文化大學大眾傳播系 林純德
中研院人社中心 陳宜中
台灣性別人權協會 王蘋
作家、花魁藝色館站長 董籬（Double 12）
中央大學哲學研究所 卡維波
網路自拍實踐者 Cum Cruise（虛擬現身）

時間：2008年3月2日（日）下午1:30-5:30
地點：光點台北主題館，二樓多功能藝文廳，台北市中山北路二段18號（捷運淡水線中山站，4號出口步行約3分鐘）
主辦：台灣社會研究季刊社、世新大學台灣社會研究國際中心
協辦：光點台北、中央大學性╱別研究室、媒體改造學社、台灣性別人權協會、文化研究學會
聯絡：世新大學台灣社會研究國際中心 02-22360556

The Hapless Dilettante News

This website is hilarious. Don't miss out "Yeats, Joyce, Hemingway, Elephant" and its sequel, "Interview with James Joyce" (click on "Samuel Beckett Interviews").

Hapless Dilettante

The Modern World and its Representations

"The modernist crisis of representation was two-fold: a crisis in what could be represented and a crisis in how it should be represented... One especially influential strand of modernism, often taken as emblematic of the movement as a whole, rejected representation altogether." -- Pericles Lewis, The Cambridge Introduction to Modernism



John Cage, 4'33"


Ingrid Bergman, Persona

Concrete Poetry
Jessica Newman

Haroldo de Campos



Philip Glass, Glasswork



Action painting


Leger, Ballet Mecanique

The English Project

"The English language might be abused and misused, as well as celebrated, but it is the means by which two billion people communicate as a first or second language. Now its story is to be told in the world’s first museum dedicated to a language.

The English Project — which is due to open in 2012, as part of the Olympics cultural programme, with support from the British Library and the BBC among others — will aim to deepen our knowledge and understanding of the richness of the English language."

Read the article via The Times

A Classic by Other Name

"Why is Joseph Heller's famous 'Catch' called '22'? Why is Bertie's manservant called Jeeves? And why does the postman always ring twice (in a book that has no postman)? In these fascinating extracts from his new book, Gary Dexter reveals the story behind the stories."


Read http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml;jsessionid=1KE4FMLVHGXWNQFIQMFCFFOAVCBQYIV0?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/arts/2007/11/18/sv_catch.xml

FYT: Catch-22 is a dilemma in which the cause and effect and entangled. For example, in the States you need to get a driver's license to drive, but in order to get a driver's license you need to get car insurance. To get car insurance for your car, you need to buy a car, which requires a driver's license.

Nabokov's last novel

Should Dmitri, Nabokov's son, destroy the novelist last work?

"Here is your chance to weigh in on one of the most troubling dilemmas in contemporary literary culture. I know I'm hopelessly conflicted about it. It's the question of whether the last unpublished work of Vladimir Nabokov, which is now reposing unread in a Swiss bank vault, should be destroyed—as Nabokov explicitly requested before he died.

It's a decision that has fallen to his sole surviving heir (and translator), Dmitri Nabokov, now 73. Dmitri has been torn for years between his father's unequivocal request and the demands of the literary world to view the final fragment of his father's genius, a manuscript known as The Original of Laura. Should Dmitri defy his father's wishes for the sake of "posterity"?"

Read the complete article and discussions:
http://www.slate.com/id/2181859/pagenum/all/

The Sex Diaries of John Maynard Keynes

"Evan Zimroth has been researching the life of J.M. Keynes and deciphering the great man's sex diaries. One is easy (a lot of Duncan Grant). The other uses a code which, if nothing else, helps break the ice at parties ..."

Continue reading the article:
http://moreintelligentlife.com/node/824

FYI-- John Keynes is a British economist. He's a member of the Bloomsbury group (Virginia Woolf, the artist Duncan Grant, art critic Roger Fry, Virginia Woolf's sister and painter Vanessa Bell, E. M. Foster, writer Lytton Strachey, who's the brother of James Strachey, Freud's translator, etc.).

Memo 2: Adding to the Blog

I would like to add everyone as "authors" to this blog. If you'd like to be added now, please either add a comment with your email account, or send me an email to let me know. After I add you, you will get an email of invitation to contribute. Please click on the link and in the future as long as you are logged on to that email account you will be able to access and post on this blog.

I would also like to have your opinion about the privacy level of this blog. Right now it's an open blog so everyone can view and comment. I can change it to "Invitations only," then it will only be open to our class. Let me know which one you prefer.

Please DO feel free to post articles you find interesting or relevant to our class, or your writing. I look forward to everyone's participation.

best wishes,
Lili

Class memo

Dear all-- Please note that:

1. The reader will be available on Wednesday. Please pick it up at Guaoguan.

2. Our library doesn't have the book that has Virginia Woolf's "Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown." I changed the assigned reading to "Modern Fiction," which will be in the Reader. I will try to get the article from other libraries and bring it to class next week. But please read "Modern Fiction" in the Reader.

3. In the future, you will get emails sent from Blackboard to your Central account. If you prefer to get emails in another account, please use the email to register first and tell me your registered id. I will add the id to the class.

4. Some of you who are auditing or are not enrolled in the class won't be able to access Blackboard until I add you. Please tell me either your Central email id, or register one in the Blackboard system and email me your ID.

Thank you for your attention. I hope you all have a wonderful week! --Lili

Robert Frost's Handwriting

The Impossible Art of Deciphering ManuscriptsRobert Frost is hardly the first to give editors trouble.
By Megan Marshall
Posted Friday, Feb. 8, 2008, at 7:43 AM ET
Click here for a slide show on deciphering manuscripts.

Robert Frost has been having a hard winter. First the remote Vermont farmhouse where he summered from 1939 to 1963 was vandalized by partying teenagers.* Windows were smashed, dishes broken, a chair split up for firewood, precious artwork and antiques splattered with beer and bodily fluids. Then last month, charges were raised against a scholarly edition of Frost's private notebooks. The work, first published in early 2007, had been heralded as offering a rare glimpse into the reclusive poet's creative process. But now the notebook transcriptions appear to be riddled with errors that made Frost look like "a dyslexic and deranged speller," who often "made no sense," according to poet William Logan, a professor at the University of Florida who compared sections of the published version with manuscript originals from the archives at Dartmouth College.....

http://www.slate.com/id/2183903/pagenum/all

The Atonal Century

National Post

Monday, January 14, 2008
The atonal century

1n 1908, after being lambasted in the press and cuckolded by his wife, Arnold Schoenberg reinvented classical music. We're still trying to figure out what comes next

John Keillor, National Post Published: Monday, January 14, 2008

Handout

This year marks the centenary of monosodium glutamate, drip coffee makers, the FBI and -- most importantly -- atonality as we know it.

In 1908, Viennese composer Arnold Schoenberg led the classical tradition away from its audience, changing the world with music not in any key and of no commercial value. He put music before audiences, both literally and figuratively, and in doing so created some of Western culture's best music while gutting classical's contemporary significance...

http://www.nationalpost.com/arts/story.html?id=235947

T. S. Eliot Reading "The Waste Land"

Draft Syllabus

1) This is a draft syllabus. I am still adjusting readings and assignments. Once I finish revising I will post the new syllabus and delete this post.

2) The blog will be closed when the class starts. If you are in the class, you will get an invitation to view and write on this blog. Course documents and grade sheets will be made available on Blackboard.

-----

EL 3087
Contemporary British & American Literature (II)
"The War"
Spring 2008
[Draft: Subject to Change]

Course Information:
Time & Place: A108, Monday 9-12
Instructor: Lili Hsieh (lili.hsieh@gmail.com)
Tel: (03)422-7151 ext. 33219
Office Hours: Monday, 1-4 pm
Course Websites:
• http://bb.ncu.edu.tw
(weekly response papers, grade sheet, course info, Reader, communication, etc.)
• http://el3087.blogspot.com
(extra credits)

Course Descriptions:

The coinage of the term "modernism" is, strictly speaking, a deferred action; the waves to "Make It New" rush to what Gertrude Stein calls the "Lost Generation" too soon and too late. In the 1940s and 1950s, when the term becomes part of ordinary language, the rebellious forces, so entrenched in the trenches, have passed their peak. Returning modernism to its historical stage, this class will introduce modern British and American writers and their infinitely complex relationships to the two World Wars. We will focus on close readings of major British and American writers, but discussions will extend to related aspects such as modern art, music, film, technology, and popular culture. This is a multi-media class; besides weekly readings, you will be expected to participate in film screenings outside of the regular class meeting times. The weekly reading load is 50-100 pages of primary literary works. See below for further descriptions of readings and other requirements.

Grading Policy:
Attendance & Participation 30%
Oral Presentation (Group) 20%
Midterm Exam 30%
Final Exam 20%

Requirements:
1. Attendance & Participation (30%):
I expect you to write me in advance for your absences. You are allowed three absences for the whole semester (excused or unexcused). You will need to meet with me to discuss make-ups if you miss more than three classes to avoid penalty. Being 20 minutes late to class or flagrant inattention in class will be marked as an absence.

2. Reading:
Completion of assigned readings is essential. This class is a seminar; you are strongly encouraged to take an active role in class discussions.

3. Weekly Group Response Paper:
In class, each group will hand in ONE response paper (1-2 pages in length), which you will also post on Blackboard. The response paper can be a list of your questions, passages your group finds interesting, or different interpretations by the group members.

4. Oral Presentation (Group Presentation) (20%):
Choose one of the five topics. I would like to meet with each group the week before your presentation. You can extend your oral presentation topic and write about it in relation to modern English literature for your final paper. The dates of the presentations are listed under “Class Calendar”.
1. Art/Painting
What happens to modern painting and how it affects modern literature, etc.
2. Travel:
Technology of travel; how does the foreign figure in modern literature, etc.
3. Music:
What is modernist music? What are other kinds of music during and between the wars (such as jazz)? What does modern/ist music have in common with modern/ist literature? Etc.
4. Women:
Gender and the Wars, Women Writers (on the Leftbank), Sexuality, Feminism
5. Culture:
Bauhaus, Hollywood, Education, high & low cultures


5. Mid-term Exam (30%)
Part I: Short Answer Questions 30%
You will be asked up to 30 questions with straightforward answers. Expect questions of identification.

Part II: Essays
1) Write a one-page short essay explaining an important passage drawn from the reading (the passage will be assigned to you during the exam). Explain in the essay what the author says and implies, and the significance of the passage in relation to the whole poem/novel/essay (30%)

2) Pick a text from our syllabus and ask a question or make an argument about it. In your essay, you answer your own question or construct your argument (for example, “Does Mrs. Dalloway commit suicide at the end of the novel?”). (40%)

6. Final Paper/exam (20%)
4-hour take-home exam. The exam is ONE essay question. You will be given multiple questions from which you choose to write on one. You have four hours to complete the paper.

Bonus Credits
 Write a reading journal.
 Comment or post on our blog (http://el3087.blogspot.com).
 Volunteer oral presentations on authors or key terms on syllabus.
 Organize or participate in “Marathon Reading Group.”
(Bring a text and read it together on Saturday afternoons; this works wonderfully especially for poetry and drama.)


Class Calendar:

Week 1 2/18 Introduction

Week 2 2/25 “To Write After Auschwitz Is Barbaric…”
Virginia Woolf, “Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown,” from The Common Reader
Marshall Berman, “Introduction: Modernity—Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow,”
in All That Is Solid Melts into Air, pp. 15-36.
• Film Clip: Chaplin, Modern Times
• Assign Presentation Topics

Week 3 3/3 “Make It New”
W.B. Yeats, “The Second Coming,” from Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats
--, “The Symbolism of Poetry,” in Modernism: An Anthology of Sources and
Documents, pp. 136-140
James Joyce, “The Dead,” from Dubliners
• symbolism & modernism
• The Irish Scene: Bloody Sunday and Joyce’s Ulysses
• “indirect discourse” and Stream of consciousness (1)
• Myth, Mythology, Allegory

Week 4 3/10 All That Is Solid Melts into Air
T. S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J.L. Afred Prufrock,” from The Waste Land and
Other Poems, pp. 3-8
--, “The Waste Land” (especially “The Burial of the Dead” and “A Game
of Chess”), pp. 53-75
Audio Clips: T. S. Eliot reading
• Utopia & dystopia
• The “objective correlative”
• The Egoist
• Romanticism

Week 5 3/17 Llanguage & His-history
Gertrude Stein, “Composition as Explanation” from Gertrude Stein: A Reader
Ezra Pound, “Hugh Selwyn Mauberley,” from Selected Poems of Ezra Pound, pp. 61-64
--, Cantos (I, XX, LIII), pp. 96-98; 121-122; 145-149
H.D., “Helen”

Slides: Picasso & Cubism
Presentation #1: Art (Painting)
• The Pound era—“Make It New”
• Imagism
• Cubism: War and Fragmentation
• Objectivity vs. Subjectivity
• William James & Stream of consciousness (2)

Week 6 3/24 From the Trenches
Ernst Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises (Part I)
• “The Lost Generation”
• Masculinity & Castration
• Journalism & modernism
Presentation #2: Travel

Week 7 3/31 Class Cancelled; makeup class TBA

Week 8 4/7 Class Cancelled; make up class TBA

Make-up class (1): Film Screening—The Hours

Make-up class (2): Mid-term Review

Week 9 4/14
Finish The Sun Also Rises

Week 10 4/21 Trauma & Modern Literature (1)
Virginia Woolf, Ms. Dalloway (1)
• Shell shock & PTSD (Post-traumatic Stress Disorder)
• Sigmund Freud & Stream of Consciousness (3)
Presentation #3: Women

Week 11 4/28 Trauma & Modern Literature (2)
Finish Mrs. Dalloway
• Gender and Modernity
• Feminism

Week 12 5/5 Midterm Exam

Week 13 5/12 The Fault-Lines of Color

Yisaye Yamamoto, “Seventeen Syllables” & “Yoneko's Earthquake" (in
Seventeen Syllables and Other Stories)
Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea (Part I & Part III; synopsis of Part II will be given
in class)

• Race & Gender
• Cultural Translation
• Double Consciousness


Week 14 5/19 Allegory of the Wars
Mathew Arnold, from Culture and Anarchy (“Introduction,” “Sweetness &
Light”), pp. 28-48
C. S. Lewis, from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (Chapter 1)
Tolkien, “The Unexpected Party,” from Hobbit
** Highly recommended: See The Lord of the Ring and Narnia & bring your
ideas and questions to class for discussions
* Culture and the “English Question”
* Cultural Studies and Literary Criticism
* the Inkings
* High & Low
Presentation #4: Culture

Week 15 5/26 The Apocalyptic and the Messianic
Samuel Beckett, Endgame
• Minimalism
• The Holocaust
• Anti-Hero; The Man without Content
Presentation #5 Music

Week 16 6/2 The Tragic-comic Mode of the Wars
Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five (One, pp. 1-22; Five, pp. 87-135)
• Postmodernism
• parody
• Kitsch
• Meta-fiction

Week 17 6/9 “Security of Any Sort Is a Dirty Word”
Jack Kerouac, “I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up…,” from
Portable Jack Kerouac, pp. 139-173
“Belief & Technique for Modern Prose,” pp. 483-484

Audio clips: Bob Dylan & Allen Ginsberg
Screening: I am not There (if available)
Activity: Spontaneous writing
• Beat Generation
• the Cold War
• Rebel, refusal, resistance

Week 18 6/16 Final Exam

Required Readings

Reader (Available at Guaoguan)

Books Ordered:
Hemingway, Ernst. The Sun Also Rises (Required)

Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse-Five (Optional)

References (Arnold)

Ayers, David. Modernism: A Short Introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell
Publishing Ltd, 2004.
Benstock, Shari. Women of the Leftbank. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press,
1986.
Berman, Marshall. All That Is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity.
1982. New York: Penguin Books, 1988.
Bradbury, Malcolm, and James McFarlane, eds. Modernism: A Guide to
European Literature, 1890-1930. New York: Penguin Books, 1991.
Carlston., Erin G. Thinking Fascism: Sapphic Modernism and Fascist Modernity.
Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998.
Clark, T. J. Farewell to an Idea: Episodes from a History of Modernism. 1999.
New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2001.
Dettmar, Kevin J. H., ed. Rereading the New. Ann Arbor: The University of
Michigan Press, 1992.
Dettmar, Kevin J.H., ed. Rereading the New: A Backward Glance at Modernism.
Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1992.
Eysteinsson, Astradur. The Concept of Modernism. Ithaca & London: Cornell
University Press, 1990.
Felski, Rita. The Gender of Modernity. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1995.
Fussell, Paul. The Great War and Modern Memory. New York: The University of
Oxford Press, 1975. 2000.
Huyssen, Andreas. After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture,
Postmodernism. Theories of Representation and Difference. Ed. Teresa de
Lauretis. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1986.
Jameson, Fredric. A Singular Modernity: Essay on the Ontology of the Present.
New York: Verso, 2002.
Joannou, Maroula, ed. Women Writers of the 1930s: Gender, Politics, and History.
Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999.
North, Michael. The Dialect of Modernism: Race, Language, and Twentieth-
Century Literature. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Richards, I. A. Principles of Literary Criticism. New York: Harcourt, Brace &
World, Inc., 1925.
Sherry, Vincent. The Great War and the Language of Modernism. New York:
Oxford University Press, 2003.
Williams, Raymond. The Politics of Modernism: Against the New Conformists.
London & New York: Verso, 1989.
Wilson, Edmund. Axel's Castle: A Study in the Imaginative Literature of 1870-
1930. 1931. New York & London: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1948.


Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway (Required)