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Lecture notes Literature in Crisis
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Literature in CrisisLecture and Seminar One
BLOCK ONE: Literature at the End of the World
BLOCK TWO: Civil War
BLOCK THREE: Enlightenment and Imperialism (Knowing and ruling)
BLOCK FOUR: World war, conflict, pollution and climate change
-Criticism as crisis
-Literature as apocalypse
Assessment:
-Critical commentary/close reading (2000 words) – summative 30%
Spring Term week 17
-Blog Post Summative 10% 500 words Spring Term
-2-hour summer exam – 60%
Plus; Formative blog posts x 4, critical commentary week 8,
Criticism as Crisis
Walter Benjamin
-task of the literary critic (Marxist) to bring about the real state of
emergency and transformative way of thinking
-the normal have their own essential violence’s, and continuity is the
essential scandal
-we haven’t had enough crisis
Raymond Williams (The country and the city)
-reflecting upon visiting English country houses as a tourist
-look at the land forms and think it through as work; visualise how the
land adapted to hold the houses and families
-socialist changes in taxation – National Trust
-real identity vs false identity – cosplay
Virginia Woolf
-Emotion mixed with resentment towards sex
Literature as Apocalypse
The Book of Revelation
,-final book in the bible
-written by John (unlikely)
-John Patmos
-institutionalising; making Christianity respectable political and religious
entity
-link to Jewish tribes; ideas of repression etc
-Old bible takes fire out the testament
-Text of revenge
D H Lawrence
-book about ‘The Book of Revelation’ and how much he hated it; most
disgusting but yet the most influential
-we hear about the oppression of the lamb but only ever see it acting like
a lion
-spotting the various supernatural signs
Latin – Revelare
Greek – Apokalypsis
-Revealing something/uncovering something; unveiling
Andre Chouraqui – Raising the tone of philosophy (1993)
-someone’s ear has to be lifted to see the hair, in order to whisper a
secret
-pursuing the idea of unveiling through the bible (when Noah gets drunk)
(Liviticus) – the sensual and sexual meaning of uncovering; uncovering a
secret, revealing a truth
-relationship to literature
-a thought from outside, to your ear, so essential the idea of the unknown
being spread
-can be thematised under the premise of being uncovered
-the idea of writing; visualising – justice from tradition (artists) the act of
writing; not just a vision, but also a text
-‘John the revelator’
Jacques Derrida on nuclear war
-1984
-the end of the world; no one has ever seen it, and when it does happen
no one will ever be able to see it and report on it
-essentially the Apocalypse is a work of literature and literature only, as
if it has happened you won’t be able to tell it
Macbeth
,-upon killing Duncan; that is the easy part – but there are the
consequences; there is judgement
-there is one thing doing the terribly act, but it is another to live with it
-obliterating the guilt will only occur when the apocalypse happens; the
idea of wanting to jump to it, a reset
-satisfaction
Paul de man – Blindness and insight
-apocalyptic fantasy of clearing the slate and beginning again
Seminar
-theological, contextual and cultural background knowledge
-images, repetitions and patterns
-the idea of women; 21st century context (third, potentially fourth wave
feminism; lesbianism and radical; liberal) and parallels; condemning
them – links to seven sins
-Strong imagery: relation to lambs, promiscuity, women, fertility, devil
-Rising from the dead – links to anxiety, the image of reborn; new
beginnings
- (Feminist readings in the library)
-Historicist point of view differs ideologically
-The use of similes ‘like bronze’ ‘like wool’ ‘like blazing fire’ – images of
importance, but also material but not concrete – rich imagery
-language of disagreement and compulsion
- ‘Judgement day’ – the will – something to come in the future
-romantic notion of the sublime
-Apocalypse acting as the ultimate form of fear for the religious
-the word of God; form of control over society – revelation – something
acting as power
-old testament and new testament difference – adultery comparison –
adaptation
and progression
-acts as a form of reassurance; for some that’s a concept of imagine life
after death, or another world, some idea of post-life; allows the escape
from comprehending emotionally, mentally and physically what death
actually beholds for the individual
-Strong sense of what life is meant for; contextual link to existential
crisis’
-Optional to follow; desire to leave something behind
-Idea that death can be used as an image of new life and inspiration; form
of art and beauty; how this is betrayed in literature
, -the different forms of crisis, ‘in’ and ‘of’ – shows the time, ideological,
contextual and personal differences; holding perspectives in various
forms
-offers a outlook of a more pessimistic point of view; the negative
connotations of religion
Lecture Two and Seminar Two
Sons of God;
-A race of giant, divine beings
-The fallen angels
-Descendants of Seth
-The story presents this intermarrying of humans and other – Nephilim
-Half human, half divine characters
-Extreme wickedness of the human race
-Identify the mixing of races as a wickedness
-Why was it necessary to destroy every living creature on earth?
-Mixed race relationships context – marriage
-US repealed the laws in 1967
Pollution;
- ‘the presence in or introduction into the environment (esp. as a result of
human activity) of harmful poisonous substances’
-the effect is moral as well as physical
-the introduction of contaminants into the human race
-God regrets creating
-pollution spreads, and thus needs to be eliminated; but still leaves out
the horror and the destruction
The Old English Genesis A;
-Old English poem; paraphrase of the first book of the bible
-oldest substantial poem we have
-Flood different to the bible version
- ‘Then the lord himself signified when he had closed up that ship’ –
closing the door, but also making a gesture of blessing as he closes the
door
-anonymous
-does not subscribe to the theory of fallen angels as the sons of god;
adopts the Seth theory
-transferred it into their own time – Anglo Saxon ship, Old English poem
idiom, not just poetic form, heroic relationships and ethics
-God as a hero but also god as a war lord; ruler of victories, stiff-minded
king, flood-army, native land, he ravaged the home
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