ENGL 294 Unit 5 exam
"What's the word you say, boy?' Social responsibility, I said. 'What?' ' Social...' 'Louder.' ' ...responsibility.' 'More!' ' Respon--' Repeat' --stability.' The room filled with the uproar of laughter until, no doubt, distracted by having to gulp down my blood, I made a mistake and yelled a phrase I had often see denounced in newspapers editorials, heard debated in private. "social...' 'What?' they yelled. '...equality--' The laugher hung smoke like in the sudden stillness."
Ellison, The Invisible Man
mutually assured destruction
Everyone just thinks that they're going to get bombed at any moment.
Minimalism
Expects readers to put pieces together. Does this with short dialogue iceberg theory ---> much more being said beneath the surface where the reader is expected to piece together the fragments of the text. beckett
1989
Fatwa against Rushdie
Deconstruction
A method of critical analysis of philosophical and literary language that emphasizes the internal workings of language and conceptual systems, the relational quality of meaning, and the assumptions implicit in forms of expression.
Maximalism
A person who holds extreme views and is not prepared to compromise Example: joyce
Expatriates
A person who lives outside their native country. One who settles oneself abroad.
1958
Achebe, Things Fall Apart
the welfare state
A system whereby the government undertakes to protect the health and well-being of its citizens, especially those in financial or social need, by means of grants, pensions, and other benefits.
Brexit
A term for the potential or hypothetical departure of the UK from the EU
V.S. Naipaul
"One Out of Many" Global=travel American immigrant tale: subaltern: deeply sympathizes with blacks because they are the minority as well slave narrative survives middle passages gains subjectivity finds solidarity with blacks run away narrative "earning freedom" Never can break away from slavery--stuck in that system physically and mentally.
George Orwell
"Shooting an Elephant" Colonization
Arthur Miller
"The Crucible" Based off the McCarthy trials and the HUAC Proctor's sin = lechery with abigail Minister hale is an "expert" in witchcraft -comes in with pride and arrogance -begins to pause when signing death warrants - leaves and comes back to get good Christians to lie. Play begins with dancing in the woods, drinking blood, and cursing What's the real tension? -it's all about land old jealousy, etc. -It's a way of people getting revenge and taking people's land Spector Evidence Different to hand "good people" over homeless drunks
Zadie Smith
"The Waiter's Wife" mixed salad verses melting pot global english, not king's english aniecent mariner reference, EM forester reference and Dickens reference Open discussions Aslana insists upon maintain traditions instead of mixing into british society.
Chinua Achebe
"Things Fall Apart" 1958 Precolonialism. tribal culture, close bonds 2nd half colonialism. either bow to the new way or you die "Image of Africa" Africa is the foil to Europe. Europe defines itself positively whereas Africa is seen as all the things that europe isn't. Text only reiterates the "other"ness of africa. Immoral "Civil Peace" Jonathon = eternal optimist gets robbed in the end, yet he's just got to keep going. "Wars and all" nature of literature Look how screwed we are because of colonization (post colonialism)--but this isn't found in the text.
Samuel Beckett
"Waiting for Godot" Minimalist Modernism -isolation/connection nihilism/existentialism: nothing matters everything just is myths and constructions Absurdism: life lacks meaning and is absurd. Post-Modernism -irony (vs. angst) more willing to laugh at modern existence Level of coarseness: censorship is lifted, sex and curse words Themes: human condition religion: God is dead, Godot = God Class: power dynamics, pecking order
Sandra Cisneros
"Woman Hollering Creek" cleofilas controlled by men (story of patriarchy) not all men are awful--father vs. husband texas is NOT mexico difference between mexican nationals and mexican-americans multiple narratives gets her knowledge from telenovlellas, magazines, and music Code switching: mixing english and spanish Felice is not a woman to cleofilas
Absurdism
"waiting for godot" life lacks meaning and is absurd
Derek Walcott
'92 Nobel prize, playwright from Sant Lucia, caribbean
Post-war rationing
14 years of food rationing in Britain ended in 1954, when restrictions on the sale and purchase of meat and bacon were lifted.
Cold War
1947-1991
Kitchen sink drama
1950-1960s where protagonist usually could be described as "angry young men" who were disillusioned with modern society. people fishing about how awful life is.
Anti-hero
A central character in a story who lacks conventional heroic attributes. Insecure and secure.
angst
A feeling of deep anxiety or dread, typically an unfocused one about the human condition or the state of the world in general.
Postmodernism
A late 1900s concept that represents a departure from modernism and has at its hear a general distrust of grand theories and ideologies as well as a problematical relationship with any notion of "art"
The Beats
American social and literary movement originating in the 1950s. Their alienation from conventional or "square" society by adopting an almost uniform style of seedy dress, manners, and "hip vocal. Generally apolitical and indifferent to social problems. Advocated free unstructured composition without revision. Free-flowing stream of consciousness altered consciousness--open discussion of drug use. unconventional style rejection on american dream and america depictions of petty criminality open discussions on sexuality and homosexuality
Poststructuralism
An extension and critique of structuralism, especially as used in critical textual analysis
Parody
An imitation of the style of a particular writer, artist, or genre with deliberate exaggeration from comic effect.
the "other"
Anyone who isn't white...>:(
Modernism
Artistic/ philosophical revolution Politically agnostic or hard turn to conservation Political poetry Sprouted from WWI Literary Movement representing the times of the turn of the century, with prominent themes such as doubt, disillusionment, breaks from earlier modes and a general dark, depressing resignation. Alienation, stream of consciousness, pessimistic, poetry takes a break from strict form and meter rules; ambiguity in an attempt to make it new.
1945
Atomic bombs dropped on Japan
Jack Kerouac
Attended Columbia and meets Ginsberg, cassidy, carr, and Borroughs late 1940s road trips around the country to san fran neal cassidy = dean moriarty in the "on the road" and Cody in "Bit Sur" "Big Sur"
1964
Beatlemania hits America
"'He should be here.' He didn't say for sure he'd come.' 'And if he doesn't come?' 'We'll come back tomorrow'"
Beckett, Waiting for Godot
1952
Beckett, Waiting for Godot Ellison, Invisible Man
Salman Rushdie
Born in india, but go to Britain, Religion is more of a cultural thing rather than anything else Magic Realism: normal things and people but, crazy things happen Midnight's children Prophet's hair Loves poking the bear. Mockery of zealotry "Satanic Verses"
Allen Ginsberg
Born into jewish family. Father was a poet, mom active communist attended columbia 1948 blake vision "A Supermarket in California" finding connection with Whitman --not trying to follow a rhyme scheme Mixed feelings of national identity going somewhere and experiencing it, then writing poetry
Ngugi Wa Thiong'o
Decolonising the Mind The only way to fight back is to speak in "mother" language Working in a determinist mode Language shapes reality
2016
Britain votes to leave EU Dylan wins Nobel Prize
Angry Young Men
British novelists and writers who emerged in the 1950s, expressed scorn and disaffection with the established sociopolitical order of their country. Thought the upper and middle classes were hypocritical and mediocre. Realities of post-war. angst.
"Everything about this woman, this Felice, amazed Cleofilas. The fact that she drove a pickup. A pickup, mind you, but when Cleofilas asked if it was her husband's, she said she didn't have a husband. The pickup was hers. She herself had chosen it. She herself was paying for it."
Cisneros, Woman Hollering Creek
1947-91
Cold War
"Empire Writes Back"
Commonwealth writers being better than British writers
The Beatles
Counterculture British Invasion
1962
Cuban Missile Crisis
Elia Kazan
Friend of Miller, but betrayed him during the McCarthy trials and testified that he was working with the Nazis and gave names.
Bertolt Brecht
German playwright, immigrated to the US but was blacklisted by the HUAC. He testified in congress after initially refusing to do so and then returned to Europe. Wrote plays that made the audience feel alienated from the performance.
"Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which / way does our beard point tonight"
Ginsberg, A Supermarket in California
1950-54
HUAC hearings
history as fiction
History is only told by the victors, what about the losers? What actually happened?
1998
Hughes, Birthday Letters
"But somewhere your scissors remember. Wherever they are. / Here somewhere, blades wide open, / April by April / Sinking deeper / Through the sod -- an anchor, a cross of rust."
Hughes, Daffodils
Sylvia Plath
Married to Ted Hughes Confessional poet Had so mental health issues Commits suicide 1963 "Daddy" poetry as therapy daddy= father, deserted her by dying feminist. done with the system of over powering male figures who reject her. "Lady Lazarus" General critique of patriarchy
post-disbelief
In regards to religion, people are more accepting. Instead of fighting against religion, they are more understanding and actually wish that they could believe because then at least they would believe in something.
sexual revolution
In relation to the "Beat" generation and the British invasion as well as counterculture. Pushing against the societal norms and accepting sexuality.
1947
India granted independence
Louise Bennett
Jamaican writer talks about the jamaican-english language as a legitimate language, writes in her own language "Jamaica Language" "Dry-Foot Bwoy" "Colonization in Reverse" How do we value language?
1939
Joyce, Finnegan's Wake
"But on the way to Cody's my madness already began to manifest itself in a stranger way, another one of those signposts of something wrong I mention a ways back: I thought I saw a flying saucer in the sky over los Gatos--"
Keroauc, Big Sur
1957
Kerouac, On the Road
travel narrative
Kerouac, stories about wandering around the country trying to find meaning; big sur
linguistic determinism
Language and its structures limit and determine human knowledge or thought, as well as thought processes such as categorization, memory, and perception. People of different languages have different thought processes. Language determines class or identity; what language you speak determines how you see yourself
1955
Larkin, "Church Going"
"But superstition, like belief, must die,/ And what remains when disbelief has gone?"
Larkin, Church Going
"It becomes still more difficult to find / Words at once true and kind, / Or not untrue and not unkind."
Larkin, Talking in Bed
Commonwealth literature
Literature that comes from Britains former colonies.
Marilyn Monroe
Married to Arthur Miller, protected him during his trial during the HUAC.
Ted Hughes
Married to Sylvia Plath "Daffodils" Natrualist poem: humans bowing down to the ill of nature. Confessional poet Think of Wordsworth--daffodils Daffodils = source of inspiration 2 witnesses nobody really knows except you and me.
James Joyce
Maximalism: similar to Beckett: Irish, Expatriate, Assistant/secretary, disciple-like relationship Finnegan's Wake 1939 "The Dead" Isn't worried about chronicling a story, thinking about a certain state of consciousness Gabriel = anti-hero, proud vs. self-conscious isolation/alienation
"Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!"
Miller, The Crucible
"I speak my own sins; I cannot judge another ... I have no tongue for it."
Miller, The Crucible
"I think that be the Devil's argument"
Miller, The Crucible
"It is mistaken law that leads you to sacrifice. Life, woman, life is God's most previous gift; no principle, however glorious, may justify the taking of it. I get you, woman, prevail upon your husband to confess. Let him give his life. Quail not before God's judgment in this, for it may well be God dams a liar less than he that throws his life away for pride."
Miller, The Crucible
1953
Miller, The Crucible
scientism
Movement associated with Charles Darwin. Turn to science as a source for truth rather than religion.
1971
Naipaul, In a Free State
"All my freedom has brought me is the knowledge that I had a face and a body, that I must feed this body and clothe this body for a certain number of years. Then it will be over."
Naipaul, One Out of Many
magic realism
Narrative fiction that encompasses a range of subtly different concepts, expresses a primarily realistic view of the real world while also adding or revealing magical elements. EX: the Prophet's Hair
"For colonialism this involved two aspects of the same process: the destruction or the deliberate undervaluing of a people's culture, their art, dances, religions, history, geography, education, orator, and literature; and the conscious elevation of the language of the colonizer."
Ngugi, Decolonizing the Mind
"'And I'll tell you another thing, Hulga,' he said, using the name as if he didn't think much of it, ' you ain't so smart. I been believing in nothing ever since I was born.'"
O'Connor, Good Country People
"'Well, it takes all kinds of people to make the world go 'round,' Mrs. Hopewell said. 'It's very good we aren't all alike.' ' Some people are more alike than others,' Mrs. Freeman said."
O'Connor, Good Country People
The British Invasion
Occurred in the mid-60s, when rock and pop music acts from the UK became popular in the US and significant to the rising of "counterculture" on both sides of the Atlantic.
slave narrative
One out of Many
non-linear plot
Opposed to realism; linear narration dialogue Fragmentary thought processes
Counterculture
Rejects established cultural norms and traditions creates ne subculture that embraces alternative ideals and philoshopies proposes a reinvention of the "american Dream"
Philip Larkin
Part of "The Movement": which was a group that was completely against modernism, and instead called for a return to romanticism. His poetry is known for it's Wordworthian style and is more civil and rational. Librarian. University Librarian-hull "Church Going" Romantic poet, his experience His own experience of not being righteous but trying to feel something. No longer raging against Christianity, calm, but resigned. Post-disbelief poem "Talking in Bed" settling for not complete honesty, but not complete deceit
"Little Englandism"
People who are regarded as xenophobic or overly nationalistic and are often accused of being ignorant and boorish
stream of consciousness
Perfected by Woolf in Mrs. Dalloway. A form of writing that follows the thoughts and perceptions of the character in a random form.
1963
Plath's suicide Assassination of JFK
"You do not do, you do not do / Any more / black shoe"
Plath, Daddy
"Dying / Is an art, like everything else. / I dot it exceptionally well."
Plath, Lady Lazarus
Realism
Portraying scenes and people who were real focus on people, and see who they really are Real settings with real ambiance with people who are experiencing REAL situations Writing about people in everyday life.
Edward Said
Post colonialism Founding father of post colonialism "Orientalism" --referring to the East "The other": processes by which anyone who isn't from western culture is lesser The subaltern: below, other xenophobia: fear of the other Double-colonization: women in post-colonial spaces 1. colonies by british 2. fighting against system of patriarchy
1960
Pynchon, "Entropy"
"'That' he said, angry, ' is a good candidate for sick joke of the year. No, ace, it is not a barrier. If it is anything it's a kind of leakage. Tell a girl "I love you." No trouble with two-thirds of that, it's a closed circuit. Just you and she. But that nasty four-letter word in the middle, that's the one you have to look out for. Ambiguity. Redundance. Irrelevance, even. Leakage. All this is noise. Noise screws up your signal, makes for disorganization in the circuit."
Pynchon, Entropy
Flannery O'Connor
Raised in georgia suffered from Lupus, died before 40 devout catholic who lives in protestant territory critical of catholicism and protestantism grace is key for O'Connor--violent epiphanies Focus on religion = skeleton (must be learned) region = gives us the meat (breath n culture from beginning) region trumps religion considers herself a realist grotesque juxtaposition between repulsion and attraction. "Good Country People"
Nihilism
Rejection of established laws. Anarchy, revolution, idea that there is no truth. There is no purpose, plan, or point. Nothing matters.
Anglophilia
Someone who admires England, its people, its culture.
Alice Walker
Rise of Ethnic Literature Born 1944. African American. Part of civil rights movement. activist "Everyday Use" Heritage dee wants to display her heritage narrator and maggie live their heritage Quilts dee - an impersonal connection. Heritage wants a museum. art narrator and maggie: a connection to the past, that should be used
"The formulation 'Indian-born British writer' has been invented to explain me. But, as I said last night, my new book deals with Pakistan. So what now? 'British-resident Into-Pakistani writer'? You see the folly of trying to contain writers inside passports."
Rushdie, English is a Indian Literary Language
1981
Rushdie, Midnight's Children
Ralph Ellison
Scholarship in the arts at Washington's school Juxtapose to Wright, didn't write about race, trying to write "great novel" Modernist or early post-modern novel sense of alienation. everywhere "Invisible Man" There is alienation everywhere it doesn't matter what you believe in quotes Brooker T. washington Physical abuse for pleasure of the white audience Watching the black feel uncomfortable watching the naked lady dancing Quotes Du Bois on accident, "social equality" Racial trappings of the society he lives in. Equality and Du bois vs. Washington
1997
Scottish devolution starts
Tom Stoppard
Similar to conrad. czech, got to singapore and india and eventually ends up in the the UK Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, classical moment of returning back to modernism "Arcadia" Intertextuality: nods to to byron and wilde. Septimus = rake, always seducing women Chater = cuckold old fool Genius, breaks away from victorian constructs and swings to question the same things as beckett - where do we got for truth? -lamenting the lack of meaning -celebrating uncertainty (finds it brilliant and liberating) - Will to truth ----must be in the mode that you're trying to find the truth, but also that all truth is rewritten ----Attack on humanities AND science valentine = truth ----scholars are human and make errors
"These bumps, they will always have Daddy-long-legs for fathers. One leg in the present, one in the past."
Smith, The Waiter's Wife
alienation/isolation
Society is pushing you away Mrs. Dalloway A characteristic of modernism where the character is isolated.
"It's the best possible time to be alive, when almost everything you thought you knew is wrong."
Stoppard, Arcadia
1993
Stoppard, Arcadia
HUAC
The House of Un-American Activites Committee. Investigate alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and those organizations suspected of having Communist ties.
objective correlative
The artists that is able to pinpoint the universality of an experience
Home rule
The government of a colony, dependent country, or region by its own citizens Ex: India
Romanticism
The opposite of neoclassicism. Emotional, sensibility Common experience Originality Interiority Sincerity Spontaneity Organic form Radical
code switching
The practice of alternating between two or more languages or varieties of language in conversation
McCarthysim
The practice of making accusations of subversion or treason without proper regard for evidence Miller, The Crucible
confessional poetry
The use of the personal or "I" in poetry. Associated with Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton
Truth as construct
There is no truth, because every person's "truth" is different based on their own perspective
uncertainty
in Arcadia: stoppard celebrates the uncertainty
1954-68
US Civil Rights Movement
Thomas Pynchon
Very secretive guy, hardly know anything about him canon - who survives the tests of time "Entropy" things naturally go into disorder. we're going to reach a leveled evens in a closed system = disorder reigns There is almost so much disorder that it creates a sense of order. He obsesses over thermodynamics--can't reverse system Cerebral apartment (meatball's apartment) binge party, disorder until everything blows up Meatball brings order back Saul and Meatball Post-structuralist doubt of language--inability to communicate. anxiety about language. Deconstrution The importance of absence
1967-68
Vietnam protests
"'Maggie can't appreciate these quilts! she said. She'd probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use.'"
Walker, Everyday Use
Thom Gunn
Was a part of "The Movement" along with Philip Larkin "My Sad Captains" "Black jackets"
2000
Zadie Smith, White Teeth
Booker Prize
a guide to find the new canon literature, only recently were americans/ys added to the running
High Culture/ low culture
a mix of tastes, juxtaposition in the two together, Waiter's wife"
fatwa
a ruling on a point of Islamic law given by a recognized authority Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses Issued to kill Salman Rushdie in the 1990s after he wrote the Satanic verses. He was in sighing for over 10 years.
Cultural imperialism
america during the 20th century who exported culture but didn't import culture. Rock and roll, Disney, McDonalds.
pop art
andy warhol
Nobel Prize
bob dylan won in 2016
diaspora
british indians coming to GB and bringing their cultural attributes with them
Existentialism
can make our own meaning
Anne Sexton
confessional poet friend of Plath
Bob Dylan
countercultuaral poet, singer/poet writer Nobel Prize winner ---2016
"ethnic" literatures
different voices are now valued
Joseph McCarthy
face of the cold war for fueled fears of communism. Noted for alleging large number of communists and soviet spies and sympathizers inside the US gov.
xenophobia
fear and hatred of strangers or foreigners or anything that is strange or foreign.
Metafiction
fiction in which the author self-consciously alludes to the artificiality or literariness of a work by parodying or departing from novelistic conventions and traditional narrative techniques. breakdown between fiction and nonfiction: beckett, pnychon, stoppard
The Movement
philip larkin, thom funn. revival of the anti-romanic genre, focusing on simple, sensuous content and traditional form
double colonization
postcolonial women writers who contest against patriarchy and colonialism EX: Cisero: Hollering Women Creek
entropy
state of totally discourse or randomness in a system.
Orientalism
style or traits considered characteristic of the peoples and cultures of Asia.
pastiche
taking old things to create something new
irony
the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humors or emphatic effect.
cosmopolitanism
the ideology that all human beings belong to a single community, based on a shared morality.
postcolonialism
the political and cultural condition of a former colony, African countries or India. cultural/political norms of a world that is re-adjusting to a non-powerful Britain
subaltern
the populations which are socially, politically, and geographically outside of the hegemonic power structure of the colony and of the colonial homeland.
multiculturalism
the presence of, or support for the presence of, several distinct cultural groups within a society, Britain after they lost all of their colonies.
secularism
the principle of separation of the state from religious institutions
abstraction
the quality of dealing with ideas, often very deep metaphors and implications, rather than events. Associate with Joyce, and to a lesser extent, Woolf
intertextuality
the relationship between literary texts
Devolution
the transfer or delegation of power to a lower level, especially by central government to local or regional administration OR descent or degeneration to a lower or worse state.
the grotesque
the very ugly or comically distorted figure, creature or image.
immigrant narrative
waiter's wife
Holocaust
was a genocide in which some six million European Jews were killed by Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany, and the WWII collaborators with the Nazis