JuniorsReview

Characteristics of Modernity/Modernism
Formal/Stylistic characteristics
* Personification
* Stream of consciousness
–writing ideas as they appear, with random connections made.

Virginia Woolf’s Orlando
James Joyce’s Ulysses
Virginia Woolf To The Lighthouse
William Faulkner’s collected works
* Wide use of classical allusions
—many sometimes heavily hidden references to past writing.
* Intertextuality
– stories that rely heavily on other stories.
* Multiple narrative points of view
* Discontinuous narrative
– multiple different story-lines wind together.
* Symbolic representation
– becomes much more prevalent.
–Shared with Romanticism (1800s)
* Juxtaposition of characters
–use of “foils” to emphasize contrasts between character traits.
* Unconventional use of metaphor
* Metanarrative
– stories about stories
* Psychoanalysis
– Continues traditions set forth in Naturalism.
Thematic characteristics
* Breakdown of social norms
* Realistic embodiment of social meanings
* Separation of meanings and senses from the context
* Despair
Despairing individual behaviors in the face of an unmanageable future (like Naturalism)
* Spiritual loneliness
– similar to Naturalism, however this goes further into emotions.
* Alienation
– similar to Naturalism
* Frustration
similar to Naturalism
* Disillusionment
– as the result of industrialized life.
* Rejection of history
* Rejection of outdated social systems
Believes Realism (and especially Naturalism) is too limited.
However, like Realism, it tends to focus on social or historical change.
* Objection to traditional thoughts and traditional moralities
– similar to Transcendentalism
* Objection to religious thoughts
– similar to Transcendentalism

Today, you received the summer reading assignments. For those of you that were not here today, there is a copy waiting for you. All students must turn in your acknowledgment of receipt no later than Friday. Honors or AP students have until a week from Friday to turn it in, but get them in ASAP!

Ambrose Bierce
“Saint Ambrose”
a.k.a. “Bitter Bierce”
Bierce’s Background
In 1887, he published a column called “Prattle” and became one of the first regular columnists and editorialists to be employed on William Randolph Hearst’s newspaper, the San Francisco Examiner.   He became the most prominent and influential among the writers and journalists of the West Coast. He remained associated with Hearst Newspapers until 1906.

People often criticized Bierce because he wrote realistically of the terrible things he had seen in the war, such as in “Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.”

Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary
It was first published in book form in 1906 as “The Cynic’s Word Book” because no publisher would take the book as it was originally titled. It consists of satirical definitions of English words.

The Concerns of Realism
Realism…
1.    Depicted contemporary life and society “as they were.”
2. Is based on common American speech at the time.
3. Is based in real world places to which readers could relate.
4. didn’t follow some of the literary and artistic conventions that more traditional writers glorified.
5. Was concerned with morals, but left the decision up to the reader.
Realism…
6. Tries to Change Specific Social Problems
Focuses on the lives of ordinary people.
Was Anti-materialism.
Believes Nature is a powerful and indifferent force.
Believes Nature is beyond human control.
10.    Believes Only the strong survive.
11.    Believes Violence is a (often times, unfortunate) part of life.

Naturalism

According to Naturalism…
Human Character is D-SHAPED
Social conditions
Heredity
(Both heavily influenced by Charles Darwin)
Attitudes towards controversial subjects
Pessimism
Environment
Determinism
(all achieved through Detachment)

Differences from Realism
While Realism believed that it should show things as they really are, naturalism also wanted to determine “scientifically” the underlying forces (nature) that shaped the reality.
Although it is Realism, American Naturalism was mostly a reaction against the mainstream Realism.  Realism discussed middle-class or “local color” topics, with taboos on sexuality and violence.  Naturalism broke those taboos and talked about everyone, including poor people.

Jack London
London was born in 1876 in a house near the future site of AT&T Park in San Francisco.  It burned down in the 1906 earthquake.
London as a Teen
He left school in 1889, at age 13, to work at a cannery for 12 to 18 hours per day.
He left that job to poach oysters in a boat that he bought with borrowed money.  The boat  eventually sank.
He left that job to hunt seals.
London’s Demise?
London spent what little money that he had saved and quit school at Berkeley to gain money in the Klondike Gold Rush.
London and his brother-in-law sailed to the Klondike.  However, London was poorly prepared for the trip.  He got sick and developed scurvy. He lost his four front teeth, he got permanent markings on his face, and he almost died.
To Build A Fire
“To Build a Fire” is the best known of all his stories. Set during the Yukon Gold Rush, it explains how a new arrival, who has willfully ignored warnings about the risks of traveling alone, gets in trouble. After an accident, the unnamed man is keenly aware that survival depends on his untested skills at quickly building a fire to dry his clothes and warm his extremities.

Realism’s Reign Is Challenged when …
Film becomes a popular medium.
Franz Ferdinand assassinated in Sarajevo (June 28, 1914)
“The Great War” begins (1914)
WARNING: Realism never died.  It formed the basis for Modernism.  However, it no longer dominated the landscape of literature.

During Realism’s Reign…
The Reconstruction Era occurred (1865-1877)
The Statue of Liberty is finished (1876)
The Telephone is created (1876)
Professional Football begins (1895)
Ford creates the mass assembly of automobiles (1908)

Detachment
Narrators are detached from the story. This means that it should be an objective tone.
Also, there is sometimes a forced detachment by having nameless characters. This puts the focus on the plot and what happens to the character, rather than the character itself.

Determinism
Determinism is basically the opposite of the notion of free will. Naturalists generally believed that characters only have a small amount of influence on their life.  Most of their life is shaped by nature or environmental factors, and characters can do nothing about it.
Literary Naturalism in the United States
In the United States, the luminaries of the genre are Theodore Dreiser, Jack London, John Steinbeck, and Edith Wharton.
All four of the principal naturalists were skeptical of organized religion and beliefs in human free will.
Naturalist Subject Matter
Naturalistic works often include what many people of that time would call scandalous subject matter: the dark harshness of life, poverty, racism, sex, prejudice, disease, prostitution, and filth.
Differences from Realism
While Realism believed that it should show things as they really are, naturalism also wanted to determine “scientifically” the underlying forces (nature) that shaped the reality.
Although it is Realism, American Naturalism was mostly a reaction against the mainstream Realism.  Realism discussed middle-class or “local color” topics, with taboos on sexuality and violence.  Naturalism broke those taboos and talked about everyone, including poor people.