Archives for September 2009

The Voyage a close reading

September 19, 2009 by Roy Johnson

how to analyse prose fiction

Close reading is the most important skill you need for any form of literary studies. It means paying especially close attention to what is printed on the page. It is a much more subtle and complex process than the term might suggest. Close reading means not only reading and understanding the meanings of the individual printed words; it also involves being sensitive to all the subtle uses of language in the hands of skilled writers.

This can mean anything from a work’s particular vocabulary, sentence construction, and imagery, to the themes that are being explored. It also includes the way in which the story is being told, and the view of the world that it offers. It involves almost everything from the smallest linguistic items to the largest issues of literary understanding and judgement.

One of the first things you need to acquire for serious literary study is a knowledge of the vocabulary, the technical language, indeed the jargon in which literature is discussed. You need to acquaint yourself with the technical vocabulary of the discipline and then go on to study how its parts work.

What follows is a short list of features you might keep in mind whilst reading. They should give you ideas of what to look for. It is just a prompt to help you get under way.

Close reading – Checklist

Vocabulary
The author’s choice of individual words – which might vary from plain and simple to complex and ‘literary’.

Syntax
The arrangement of words in sentences. Often used for emphasis or dramatic effect.

Figures of speech
The rhetorical devices used to give decoration and imaginative expression to literature, such as simile, metaphor, puns, alliteration, and irony.

Literary devices
The devices commonly used in literature to give added depth to the work, such as imagery or symbolism.

Rhythm
The cadence or flow of words and phrases – including stress and repetition.

Narrator
Ask yourself, who is telling the story.

Narrative mode
First or third person narrator. (‘I am going to tell you …’ or ‘He left the room in a hurry’)

Point of view
The perspective from which the events of the story are related.

Characterisation
How a character is created or depicted.

Dramatisation
How any dramatic elements of a piece of work are created and arranged.

Plot
How the elements of the story are arranged.

Tone
The author’s attitude to the subject as revealed in the manner of the writing

Structure
The shape of the piece of work, or the connection between its parts.

Theme
The underlying topic or issue, as distinct from the overt story.

How to read closely

Close reading can be seen as a form of special attention which we bring to a piece of writing. It involves thinking more deeply than usual about the implications of the words on the page. Most normal people do this automatically, without being specially conscious of the fact. The academic study of literature brings the process more to the surface and makes it explicit. There are four levels or types of reading which become progressively more complex.

Language – You pay especially close attention to the surface elements of the text – that is, to aspects of vocabulary, grammar, and syntax. You might also note such things as figures of speech or any other features which contribute to the writer’s individual style.

Meaning – You take account at a deeper level of what the words mean – that is, what information they contain, plus any further meanings they might suggest.

Structural – You note the possible relationships between words within the text – and this might include items from either the language or the meanings.

Cultural – You note the relationship of any elements of the text to things outside it. These might be other pieces of writing by the same author,
or other writings of the same type by different writers. They might be items of social or cultural history, or even other academic disciplines which might seem relevant, such as philosophy or psychology.

Close reading is not a skill which can be developed to a sophisticated extent overnight. It requires a lot of practice in the various linguistic and literary disciplines involved – and it requires that you do a lot of reading.

The good news is that most people already possess the basic skills required. They have acquired them automatically through being able to read – even though they haven’t been conscious of doing so. This is rather like many other things which we learn unconsciously. After all, you don’t need to know the names of your leg muscles in order to walk down the street.

Studying Fiction is an introduction to the basic concepts and the language you will need for studying prose fiction. It explains the elements of literary analysis one at a time, then shows you how to apply them. The guidance starts off with simple issues of language, then progresses to more complex literary criticism.The volume contains stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, Katherine Mansfield, Thomas Hardy, Joseph Conrad, D.H. Lawrence, and Charles Dickens. All of them are excellent tales in their own right. The guidance on this site was written by the same author.
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Now here’s an example of close reading in action. The short passage which follows comes from Katherine Mansfield’s short story The Voyage. This concerns the journey made by a young girl at night on a ferry with her grandma. If you wish to read the complete story in conjunction with these tutorial notes, it is available free at Project Gutenberg.

The Voyage

If you would like to treat this as an interactive exercise, read the passage through a number of times. Make notes, and write down all you can say about what goes to make up its literary ‘quality’. That is, you should scrutinise the passage as closely as possible, name its parts, and say what devices the author is using. Don’t be afraid to list even the most obvious points.

Don’t worry if you are not sure what name to give to any feature you notice. You will see the technical vocabulary being used in the discussion notes which follow, and this should help you pick up this skill as we go along.

Fenella’s father pushed on with quick, nervous strides. Beside him her grandma bustled along in her crackling black ulster; they went so fast she had now and again to give an undignified little skip to keep up with them. As well as her luggage strapped into a neat sausage, Fenella carried clasped to her grandma’s umbrella, and the handle, which was a swan’s head, kept giving her shoulder a sharp little peck as if it too wanted her to hurry. … Men, their caps pulled down, their collars turned up, swung by; a few women all muffled scurried along; and one tiny boy, only his little black arms and legs showing out of a white wooly shawl, was jerked along angrily between his father and mother; he looked like a baby fly that had fallen into the cream.

Here are some comments, using the checklist as a guide. The objective is not to be totally exhaustive, mulling over every single word and punctuation mark in the paragraph. Rather, it’s to develop the skill of being sensitive to language, and to notice special effects when they are offered.

It’s also true that a really in depth close reading is much easier if you know the author’s work well – so that you can see regular patterns of language use and recurrent effects and themes.

Vocabulary
The language of the passage is fairly plain and simple. Apart from the term ulster (an overcoat) which might not be familiar to readers today, most of the terms used would be known even to a reasonably well-educated child. And this is entirely appropriate since Mansfield is relating the story to us largely from a child’s point of view. Her use of terms such as ‘>little skip’, ‘ neat sausage’, ‘tiny boy’, and baby fly reinforce this effect.

Syntax
The word order and grammar is that of normal written English. The only feature I can observe here under this heading is that in some clauses she separates the subject from its verb by interposing dependent clauses – ‘Men, their caps pulled down, their collars turned up, swung by’. But this is just giving variety to her construction of sentences.

Rhythm
She creates a briskness and liveliness in her prose to match the business of what is going on in the scene. This is done by the variation of sentence length. The first is quite short, the second is longer, but it is split into two which have a similar construction to the first.

It’s also done by her use of a form of repetition called parallelism. Notice how ‘quick, nervous strides’ is echoed by ‘crackling black ulster’: the construction is ‘adjective + adjective + noun’.

Figures of Speech
Under figures of speech you might have noticed the simile – ‘like a baby fly that had fallen into the cream’. That is, the small baby boy is directly compared to a fly. Then there is an example of onomatopoeia in the phrase ‘crackling black Ulster‘ – because the words themselves sound like the thing they are describing.

There is also an example of anthropomorphism in the swan’s-head-handled umbrella giving Fenella a ‘sharp little peck’ on the shoulder. That is, the inanimate object is spoken of as if it were alive – and once again this is entirely appropriate given that the story is being told from the child’s point of view.

Mansfield also uses alliteration more than once. In ‘crackling black Ulster’ there is repetition of the ‘a’, ‘ck’, and ‘l’ sounds; and in ‘white wooly shawl’ there is repetition of the ‘w’ and the ‘l’ sounds.

Tone
This can be quite a difficult feature to pin down accurately, but I think in this passage you could say that there was a light, brisk and somewhat playful attitude to what is going on. That’s the safest way of defining tone – describing the author’s attitude to the subject as briefly as possible. The tone here is entirely appropriate – because we are being invited to see the world from a child’s point of view.

Narrative mode
This is the traditional manner of story-telling using the third person and omniscient narrator. That is, Fenella is referred to as ‘she’ and Katherine Mansfield, as the person telling the story, does not intrude as an ‘I’ speaking directly to the reader. Moreover, as narrator, she knows what is going on in her characters’ heads and their feelings. She is ‘all-knowing’, which is what ‘omniscient’ means.

Narrator
This must be Katherine Mansfield, because she does not invent another person who stands between herself and the reader, telling the story. This might seem rather obvious, but some authors invent a fictional narrator who tells the story, and might even be a character in it.

Characterisation
It’s not easy to say a lot, based on such a short extract. But you might observe that ‘grandma bustled along’, which gives the impression of a lively older woman. (This is confirmed by events later in the story). And the observations about the umbrella and the little boy, as well as the ‘little skip’ Fenella is forced to make, help to establish her as a young girl.

Notice that Mansfield as narrator does not tell us that Fenella is a young girl: we work this out from the few details we have been given. Notice too that this information about the characters is being given piecemeal as the story progresses. We are being left to put together these pieces ourselves.

Point of view
Many of these small details – the peck from the swan’s head umbrella, the little boy looking like a fly – help to establish that the story is being told from Fenella’s point of view. That is, the events of the story are being shown as she would experience and see them. This is quite an important feature of prose fiction.

Drama
It’s not easy to say much about this based on such a short extract – or if we were reading the story for the first time. But most of the tension in the story is created by the fact that we are not quite sure what is going on. But returning with more knowledge of the story, we might note that the father is ‘nervous’ because he is due to be separated from his mother and his daughter. The grandmother ‘bustles’ along because she has the task of conveying Fenella to her new life.

Meanwhile Fenella is busy observing the world around her. Notice a small (and dramatic) detail of the world she sees. The little boy is being ‘jerked along angrily between his father and mother’ [my emphasis]: that is, the way some adults treat their children is not so pleasant.

We’ll stop at this point. It’s not really possible to say anything about plot, structure, or theme unless you’ve read the whole story. But almost everything listed was accessible even if you were reading the passage for the first time.

Literary studies are not conducted in such detail all the time, but it is very important that you try to develop the skill of reading as closely as possible. It really is the foundation on which everything else is based.

The next point to make about such close reading is that it becomes easier if you get used to the idea of reading and re-reading a piece of work. The Russian novelist Vladimir Nabokov (famous for Lolita) once observed that “Curiously enough, one cannot read a book: one can only re-read it”.

What he meant by this apparently contradictory remark is that the first time we read a book we are busy absorbing information, and we cannot appreciate all the subtle connections there may be between its parts – because we don’t yet have the complete picture before us. Only when we read it for a second time (or even better, a third or fourth) are we in a position to assemble and compare the nuances of meaning and the significance of its details in relation to each other.

That’s why the activity is called ‘close reading’. You should try to get used to the notion of reading and re-reading very carefully, scrupulously, and in great detail.

Finally, let’s try to dispel a common misconception. Many people ask, when they first come into contact with close reading: “Doesn’t analysing a piece of work in such detail spoil your enjoyment of it?” The answer to this question is “No – on the contrary – it should enhance it.” The simple fact is that we get more out of a piece of writing if we can appreciate all the subtleties and the intricacies which exist within it. Nabokov also suggested that “In reading, one should notice and fondle the details”.

More on Katherine Mansfield
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Thomas Hardy biography

September 30, 2009 by Roy Johnson

his life and major writings

1840. Thomas Hardy born in Dorchester – father a bricklayer, later a builder, musical easy-going; mother hardworking, ambitious, and very literate. Both parents, despite later prosperity, shared class anxiety and fear of being pulled back down into poverty. Dorset at this period still had remnants of pre-industrial revolution. Hardy therefore witnessed first-hand the death of old pastoral traditions and the rise of industrialisation.

1848-. Educated in Dorset schools – including Latin and French, plus applied mathematics and commercial studies. Strong auto-didactic impulse. Influenced by schoolmaster Horace Moule – a classicist and dipsomaniac.

1856. Articled to Dorchester architect – then employed as an assistant. Hardy witnesses the hanging of a young woman – a scene he was to use thirty years later in Tess of the d’Urbervilles.

1862. Travelled to London to seek work – employed as a architectural draughtsman. Prizewinner in competitions and elected to the Architectural Association. He explores the cultural life of London, visiting museums, attending plays and operas, and begins writing poetry in earnest.

1863. Literary ambitions begin – begins to write poetry and continues studies. Poems rejected.

1866. Gradual loss of religious faith.

1867. Returns to Dorset and writes first novel – The Poor Man and the Lady, which is rejected by publishers.

1869. Disappointed by literary rejections – returns to work as an architect in Weymouth. Re-writes first novel as Desperate Remedies.

1870. Hardy travels to St. Juliot to work on the restoration of the church. He meets Emma Gifford in Boscastle, Cornwall – marries her four years later.

1871. Desperate Remedies published at Hardy’s own expense – then remaindered.

1872. Under the Greenwood Tree – copyright sold for £30. Hardy’s first success as a writer. Leslie Stephen (Virginia Woolf’s father) commissions writing for the Cornhill Magazine.

1873. A Pair of Blue Eyes is published in three volumes. Hardy now relinquishes architecture as a career to write full-time. Horace Moule, his close adviser and friend, commits suicide in Cambridge.

1874. Far from the Madding Crowd begins as serial in the Cornhill Magazine. Hardy marries Emma Gifford – honeymoon in Paris – then returns to live in Tooting, London. Lives the life of a literary lion.

1875. The Hand of Ethelberta serialised in the Cornhill Magazine. The Hardys return to live in Dorset.

1878. The Return of the Native serialised in Belgravia and then published in three volumes – to which Hardy attached a map of ‘Wessex’ to show the novel’s locations. With the success of this novel, he begins to experience life as a celebrity. He joins the Saville Club.

1879. Began to write short (and long) stories with ‘The Distracted Young Preacher’.

1880. The Trumpet Major. Hardy begins to design and supervises the building of his own home at Max Gate in Dorset.

1881. A Laodicean is written mostly in bed, where Hardy is recovering from a serious illness.

1882. Two on a Tower is serialised in the Atlantic Monthly then issued in three volumes.

1884. Hardy is made a Justice of the Peace and begins to receive visits from aristocracy.

1886. The Mayor of Casterbridge is serialised in the Graphic then brought out in two volumes the same year.

1887. The Woodlanders is issued in three volumes. The Hardys visit France and Italy – but the marriage is not very successful. When they return, he begins habit of visiting London for ‘the season’. Hardy actually discourages Emma’s own literary ambitions.

1888. Hardy’s first collection of stories published as Wessex Tales – and Hardy publishes the first of three essays on the theory of fiction – The Profitable Reading of Fiction.

1889. Tillotson’s Fiction Bureau commissions a novel (Tess) but then rejects it on grounds of blasphemy and obscenity. It is also rejected by other publishers.

1891. Tess of the d’Urbervilles serialised in the Graphic. Copyright Bill passed in the United States – which turns out to be financially beneficial to Hardy.

1892. Hardy’s father dies. The Pursuit of the Well-Beloved is serialised in the Illustrated London News

1893. Meets Florence Henniker in Dublin – the subject of his most intense romantic attachment to artistic ladies. He writes The Spectre of the Real in collaboration with her.

1894. The third volume of short stories – Life’s Little Ironies – published in one volume.

1895. Osgood-Mcilvaine begins bringing out the first collected edition of Hardy’s works. The set includes the first edition of Jude the Obscure. The novel receives harsh criticism, prompting Hardy to give up novel writing.

1898. Hardy’s first collection of verse published as Wessex Poems – comprising work from the 1860s and 1890s, and illustrated by Hardy himself.

1899. Boer war begins. Growing physical separation between Hardy and Emma.

1901. Another collection of verse – Poems of the Past and Present – is published.

1903. Part One of The Dynasts appears. This is Hardy’s extended verse-play about the Napoleonic wars which he intends as his masterpiece.

1905. Meets Florence Dugdale, who is forty years younger than Hardy and becomes his secretary.

1908. The Dynasts is completed. Death of George Meredith and Swinburne leave Hardy most celebrated English writer.

1910. Awarded the Order of Merit – having previously refused a knighthood. Receives the freedom of Dorchester. Relationship with Florence Dugdale deepens.

1912. A ‘definitive’ edition of Hardy’s works, the Wessex Edition, is published by Macmillan. It is a chance for Hardy to thoroughly revise his body of work. Emma suddenly dies in November.

1913. Hardy visits Cornwall in search of his and Emma’s youth, and begins to write poems about her. Awarded a D.Litt at Cambridge University and became an Honorary Fellow of Magdalene College – fulfilling partially one of his early aspirations.

1914. Marries Florence Dugdale [who is forty years younger]. Burns all his notebooks and private papers. Hardy’s pessimism strengthened by the outbreak of First World War.

1917. Moments of Vision Hardy’s fifth collection of verse published. Begins work on dictating to Florence what was to become The Life of Thomas Hardy.

1923. Visited by the Prince of Wales, friendship with T.E.Lawrence. Second marriage as disappointing as the first.

1924. Hardy adapts Tess for the stage, and become romantically attached to Gertrude Bugler, who plays the title role.

1928. Hardy dies – and is buried with full honours in Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey. However, his heart, which had been cut out of his body first, was put in a biscuit tin and buried alongside his first wife in Stinsford churchyard, Dorset.

The Complete Critical Guide to Thomas Hardy is a good introduction to Hardy criticism. It includes a potted biography of Hardy, an outline of the stories, novels, and poetry, and pointers towards the main critical writings – from the early influential full length study by D.H. Lawrence to critics of the present day. Also includes a thorough bibliography which covers biography, criticism in books and articles, plus pointers towards specialist Hardy journals.

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Thomas Hardy criticism

September 30, 2009 by Roy Johnson

annotated bibliography of Hardy criticism and comment

Thomas Hardy criticism is a collection of publications on Thomas Hardy and his works, with bibliographic details and a brief description of their contents. The details include active web links to Amazon where you can buy the books, often in a variety of formats – new, used, and as Kindle eBooks. The listings are arranged in alphabetical order of author.

The list includes new books and older publications which may now be considered rare. It also includes print-on-demand or Kindle versions of older texts which are much cheaper than the original. Others (including some new books) are often sold off at rock bottom prices. Whilst compiling these listings I bought a copy of Ian Gregor’s critical study, The Form of Hardy’s Major Fiction for one penny.

The Poetry of Thomas Hardy: A Handbook and Commentary –
J.O. Bailey, The University of North Carolina Press, 1971. The complete poems, plus critical commentary.

An Essay on Hardy – John Bayley, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. A critical assessment of the novels and the poetry, with an emphasis on eroticism and humour.

Thomas Hardy and Women: Sexual Ideology and Narrative Form – Penny Boumelha, Barnes and Noble, 1982. A critical study of Hardy’s novels showing the relationship between gender and the telling of the tale.

The Short Stories of Thomas Hardy – Kristin Brady, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1982. A critical introduction to the complete short stories.

Thomas Hardy: The World of his Novels – J.B. Bullen, Frances Lincoln, 2013. A study of Hardy’s Wessex, exploring the buildings, places, and scenes that inspired his fiction.

The Language of Thomas Hardy – Raymond Chapman, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1990. A study of Hardy’s distinctive phraseology and sentence-structure in both the poetry and the fiction.

Thomas Hardy: The Critical Heritage – R.G.Cox, London: Routledge and Keegan Paul, 1970. A collection of critical essays, showing the historical development of Hardy criticism.

Ambivalence in Hardy: A Study of his Attitude to Women – Shanta Dutta, Anthem Press, 2010. Hardy’s attitudes to women in his fiction and in his interactions with his wives, literary protégées and contemporary female authors. Combines a feminist approach with close textual analysis.

Sexing Hardy: Thomas Hardy and Feminism – Margaret Elvy, Crescent Moon Publishing, 2007. A study of gender, desire, class, economy, socialization, identity and patriarchy in Hardy’s fiction and poetry.

Hardy the Creator: A Textual Biography – Simon Gattrel, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989. The evolution of Hardy’s novels and stories from first draft to final revised texts as he took them through the process of dealings with magazine editors, publishers, and printers.

The Complete Poems of Thomas Hardy – James Gibson (ed), London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001. A compendium of Hardy’s eight published books of poetry, plus critical notes.

The Great Web: The Form of Hardy’s Major Fiction – I. Gregor, London: Faber & Faber, 1982. A critical study of the great later novels.

The Life of Thomas Hardy – Florence Emily Hardy, Wordsworth Editions, 2007. This is more or less Hardy’ s autobiography, since he told his wife what to write.

The Complete Critical Guide to Thomas Hardy – Geoffrey Harvey, London: Routledge, 2003. A student’s guide to Hardy – the man and his work in fiction and poetry.

The Sense of Sex: Feminist Perspectives on Hardy – Margaret Higgonet (ed), Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993. A collection of essays which offer an overview of feminist critiques of Hardy and his treatment of gender.

Authors in Context: Thomas Hardy – Patricia Ingham, Oxford University Press, 2009. Social and political background to Hardy and his times, showing how modern interpretations on film and television create new contexts in which to read the works afresh.

Thomas Hardy (Feminist Readings) – Patricia Ingham, Humanities Press International, 1989. Critical studies of sexuality and gender issues in the major novels.

Reading Hardy’s Landscapes – Michael Irwin, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000. A study of the importance of geography and physical topography in the stories, poems, and novels.

The Feminist Sensibility in the Novels of Thomas Hardy – Margaret Kaur, Sarup & Son, 2005. Hardy’s presentation of women characters. Often dubbed anti-feminist, this study attempts to exonerate Hardy of this view.

Thomas Hardy: The Forms of Tragedy – Dale Kramer, London: Macmillan, 1975. A chronological study of the major novels.

The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Hardy – Dale Kramer, Cambridge University Press, 1999. A collection of critical essays commissioned from specialists on all aspects of Hardy’s work.

Thomas Hardy: Distance and Desire – J. Hillis Miller, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970. A critical study of the interrelation of the literary themes of distance and desire woven throughout the novels and poems.

Thomas Hardy: His Career as a Novelist – Michael Millgate, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1994. Critical readings of the novels in the context of Hardy’s intellectual background, his friendships and family relationships, and his evolution as a professional writer.

Thomas Hardy: A Biography Revisited – Michael Millgate, Oxford University Press, 2006. This is the fully updated version of the definitive biography.

Women and Sexuality in the Novels of Thomas Hardy – Rosemarie Morgan, London: Routledge, 1988. Kindle version of an early feminist study of the major fiction.

Student Companion to Thomas Hardy – Rosemarie. Morgan, Greenwood Press, 2006. This study explores Hardy’s life, his career, and most important and unconventional works, and why he abandoned novel-writing in favour of his first love – poetry.

Seeing Hardy: Film and Television Adaptations of the Fiction of Thomas Hardy – Paul J. Nemeyer, McFarland & Co, 2002. A study of adaptations of the major novels for the cinema, plus television films and mini-series based on Hardy’s work.

Thomas Hardy’s Personal Writings – Harold Orel (ed), London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1967. A collection of Hardy’s novel prefaces, his literary opinions, and reminiscences.

The Oxford Reader’s Companion to Hardy – Norman Page, Oxford University Press, 2000. Forty essays by experts on all aspects of Hardy’s work – ranging from alcohol, humour, and pets, to the historical context in which he wrote.

A Thomas Hardy Companion: A Guide to the Works of Thomas Hardy – F.B. Pinion, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1968. A general critical commentary on the major works and their social background.

A Thomas Hardy Dictionary – F.B. Pinion, New York: New York University Press, 1993. Features architectural terms, the sources of quotations, identification of fictional characters, and the explanation of rare or rustic words.

Thomas Hardy: A Bibliographical Study – Richard L. Purdy and Charles P.C. Pettit, The British Library Publishing Division, 2002. An important bibliography first published in 1954, and now supplemented by modern criticism and recent Hardy studies.

Hardy’s Use of Allusion – Marlene Springer, London: Macmillan, 1983. A study of Hardy’s widespread use of allusions from classical, biblical, historical, and literary sources.

The Neglected Hardy: Thomas Hardy’s Lesser Novels – Richard H. Taylor, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1982. A critical examination of the lesser-known novels.

The Personal Notebooks of Thomas Hardy – Richard H. Taylor, Columbia University Press, 1979. Includes the unpublished passages from the original typescripts of the ‘Life of Thomas Hardy’.

Thomas Hardy: The Time-torn Man – Clair Tomalin, London: Penguin, 2012. A biography of Hardy with emphasis on the death of his first wife and the curious marriage to his second.

A Preface to Hardy – Merryn Williams, London: Longman, 1976. A readable and unexpectedly positive study of Hardy’s prose and verse.

A Companion to Thomas Hardy – Keith Wilson, Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. A collection of essays offering a one–volume resource which encompasses all aspects of Hardy’s major novels, short stories, and poetry.

Thomas Hardy: Towards a Materialist Criticism – George Wooton, Barnes & Noble Books, 1985. Explores the historical, social, aesthetic and ideological determinants of Hardy’s novels.

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Thomas Hardy greatest works

September 30, 2009 by Roy Johnson

major novels and film adaptations

Thomas Hardy is one of the few writers (D.H.Lawrence was another) who made a significant contribution to English literature in the form of the novel, poetry, and the short story. His writing is full of delightful effects, beautiful images and striking language. He creates unforgettable characters and orchestrates stories which pull at your heart strings. It has to be said that he also relies on coincidences and improbabilities of plot which (though common in the nineteenth century) some people see as weaknesses. However, his sense of drama, his powerful language, and his wonderful depiction of the English countryside make him an enduring favourite.

Under the Greenwood Tree (1872) was Hardy’s first success as a novelist. It’s a light and gentle evocation of pastoral life. It depicts the world of an agricultural Britain which Hardy saw being transformed by the industrial revolution. Modern readers might find the love interest a bit soppy, but the picture of the Melchester church musicians and their resistance to change is touchingly humorous. It enabled Hardy to express his affection and love for the Wessex countryside. Structurally divided into Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn, it follows the natural rhythms of the earth and of rural society. There’s none of the acute conflict, the psychological drama, or the tragedy of the later novels. This is one for either the complete beginner to Hardy, or for devotees who wish to flesh out their knowledge of the early stages of his career.
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Far from the Madding Crowd (1874) was the first of Hardy’s novels to apply the name of Wessex to the landscape of south west England, and the first to gain him widespread popularity as a novelist. Heroine and estate-owner Bathsheba Everdene is romantically involved with three very different men. The dashing Sergeant Troy, who is handsome but unreliable; Farmer Boldwood, who is honourable but middle-aged; and man-of-the-soil Gabriel Oak, who is worthy and prepared to bide his time. The conflicts between them and the ensuing drama has lots of plot twists plus a rich picture of rural life.
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Far from the Madding Crowd – DVD John Schlesinger’s film adaptation (1967) has an outstanding sound track by Richard Rodney Bennett, and stalwart performances from an all star cast of Julie Christie as Bathsheba, Alan Bates as Gabriel Oak, Terence Stamp as Sergeant Troy, and Peter Finch as Boldwood – plus delicious a country bumpkin role for Freddy Jones. The film was shot by Nicolas Roeg (director of his own films Don’t Look Now and Bad Timing) and the screenplay was written by novelist Frederic Raphael. This film is a visual treat which has stood the test of time.
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The Return of the Native (1878) It’s often said that this is one of the most Hardyesque of all the novels. There are some stand-out characters: Eustacia Vye, a heroine who patrols the moors looking out for her man through a telescope; Clym Yeobright, a hero who can’t escape his mother’s influence; and Diggory Ven, an itinerant trader who wanders in and out of the story covered in red dye. Improbable coincidences and dramatic ironies abound – and over it all presides the brooding presence of Egdon Heath. But underneath the melodrama, there are profound psychological forces at work. You need to be patient. This is one for Hardy enthusiasts – not beginners. This edition, unlike any other currently available, retains the text of the novel’s first edition, without the later changes that substantially altered Hardy’s original intentions.
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The Oxford World Classics are the best editions of Hardy’s work. They are largely based on the most accurate versions of the texts; and they feature introductory essays, a biography, explanatory notes, textual variants, a bibliography of further reading, and in some cases missing or deleted chapters. They are also terrifically good value.

The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886) is probably Hardy’s greatest work – a novel whose aspirations are matched by artistic shaping and control. It is the tragic history of Michael Henchard – a man who rises to civic prominence, but whose past comes back to haunt him. This is not surprising, because he sells his wife in the opening chapter. When she comes back unexpectedly, he is trapped between present and past. He is also locked into a psychological contest with an alter-ego figure with whom he battles both metaphorically and realistically. Henchard falls in the course of the novel from civic honour and commercial greatness into a tragic figure, a man defeated by his own strengths as much as his weaknesses. There are strong echoes of King Lear here, and some of the most dramatic and psychologically revealing scenes in all of Hardy’s work.
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The Well Beloved (1892) is set in the stone quarries of Portland Bill – one of the strangest parts of Hardy’s Wessex. But the logical link is with the sculptor hero of this tale who rather improbably falls in love with a woman, her daughter, and her grand-daughter at twenty year intervals on the implausible pretext that they look similar. This seems like blatant authorial wish-fulfilment on Hardy’s part (and he did eventually marry a woman forty years his junior). It’s one for specialists – or the psychiatrist’s couch. This Penguin Classics edition of the work includes an earlier version of the same novel.
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The Woodlanders (1887) Giles Winterbourne, an honest woodsman, suffers with the many tribulations of his selfless love for Grace Melbury, a woman above his station in this classic tale of the West Country. She marries the new doctor, Edred Fitzpiers, but leaves him when she learns he has been unfaithful. She turns instead to Giles, who nobly allows her to sleep in his house during stormy weather, whilst he sleeps outside and brings on his own death. It’s often said that the hero of this novel is the woods themselves – so deeply moving is Hardy’s account of the timbered countryside which provides the backdrop for another human tragedy and a study of rural life in transition.
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Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891) is probably the most popular of Hardy’s late, great novels. The sub-title is ‘A Pure Woman’, and it is a story which explores the tragic consequences of a young milkmaid who becomes the victim of the men she encounters. First she falls for the spiritual but flawed Angel Clare, and then the physical but limited Alec Durberville takes advantage of her. This novel has some of the most beautiful and the most harrowing depictions of rural working conditions which reveal Hardy as a passionate advocate for those who work the land. It also has a wonderfully symbolic climax at Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain. There is poetry in almost every page.
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Tess: DVD Roman Polanski’s film version of Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1979) was shot in Brittany rather than England – to get round the extradition laws between the UK and the US from which he has been in exile since 1977, after jumping bail when charged with raping a 13 year old girl. It is beautifully faithful to the original novel and particularly unsparing in its depiction of country life as hard manual work – which would have pleased Hardy. The centrepiece is an outstanding performance by seventeen year old Natassia Kinski (Klaus Kinski’s daughter) who was Polanski’s lover at the time. She is astoundingly beautiful without seeming to ever realise it, which is exactly one of the causes of Tess’s downfall in the novel.
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Jude the Obscure is Hardy’s last major statement before he gave up writing novels for good. Hero Jude is intellectually ambitious but held back by his work as stonemason and his dalliance with earthy Arabella. When he meets his spiritual soulmate Sue Brideshead, everything seems set fair for success – except that she is capricious and sexually repressed. Jude struggles to do the right thing – but the Fates are against him. The outcome is heart-rendingly bleak and tragic. This novel reveals the deep-seated social and sexual tensions in Hardy – himself a self-made man from a humble background.
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Wessex Tales Don’t miss the skills of Hardy as a writer of shorter fictions. None of his short stories are really short, but they are beautifully crafted. This is the first volume of his tales in which he was seeking to record the customs, superstitions, and beliefs of old Wessex before they were lost to living memory. Yet whilst dealing with traditional beliefs, they also explore very modern concerns of difficult and often thwarted human passions which he developed more extensively in his longer works.
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The Complete Critical Guide to Thomas Hardy is a good introduction to Thomas Hardy criticism. It includes a potted biography of Hardy, an outline of the stories, novels, and poetry, and pointers towards the main critical writings – from the early influential full length study by D.H. Lawrence to critics of the present day. It also includes a thorough bibliography which covers biography, criticism in books and articles, plus pointers towards specialist Hardy journals. Recommended for anyone making a serious study of Hardy.
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The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Hardy offers commissioned essays from an international team of contributors, comprising a general overview of all Hardy’ s work and specific demonstrations of Hardy’s ideas and literary skills. Individual essays explore Hardy’s biography, aesthetics, his famous attachment to Wessex, and the impact on his work of developments in science, religion and philosophy in the late nineteenth century. Hardy’s writing is also analysed against developments in contemporary critical theory and issues such as sexuality and gender. The volume also contains a detailed chronology of Hardy’s life and publications, and a guide to further reading.
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Thomas Hardy – web links

Thomas Hardy at Mantex
Biographical notes, study guides to the major novels, book reviews. bibliographies, critiques of the shorter fiction, and web links.

The Thomas Hardy Collection
The complete novels, stories, and poetry – Kindle eBook single file download for £1.29 at Amazon.

Thomas Hardy at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of free eTexts in a variety of digital formats.

Thomas Hardy at Wikipedia
Biographical notes, social background, the novels and literary themes, poetry, religious beliefs and influence, biographies and criticism.

The Thomas Hardy Society
Dorset-based site featuring educational activities, a biennial conference, a journal (three times a year) with links to the texts of all the major works.

The Thomas Hardy Association
American-based site with photos and academic resources. Be prepared to search and drill down to reach the more useful materials.

Thomas Hardy on the Internet Movie Database
Adaptations for the cinema and television – in various languages. Full details of directors, actors, production features, box office, film reviews, and even quizzes.

Thomas Hardy – online literary criticism
Small collection of academic papers and articles ‘favoring signed articles by recognized scholars and articles published in peer-reviewed sources’.

Thomas Hardy’s Wessex
Evolution of Wessex, contemporary reviews, maps, bibliography, links to other web sites, and history.

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Thomas Mann greatest works

September 19, 2009 by Roy Johnson

stories, novellas, novels

Thomas Mann’s work spans the first half of the twentieth century. He started out writing in the tradition style of the nineteenth centry, but very quickly sought out themes and motifs which place him amongst modernists. His political views went through a similar transformation, from arch conservative before and during the first world war, to a very sceptical liberal democracy after the second. Many of his works are long and dense, and his style includes such typically Germanic features of writing in huge paragraphs, with lots of philosophic meditation embedded in his narratives. Beginners are best advised to sart with his earlier work – particularly novellas such as Death in Venice and Tonio Kroger

Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family
This lengthy saga of a prosperous Hanseatic commercial family and their gradual disintegration is also a portrayal of the transition from the stable bourgeois life of the nineteenth century to a modern uncertainty. It was Thomas Mann’s first novel – published when he was only twenty-five – and it announces themes he was to pursue for the rest of his life. The technique of leitmotif which Mann borrowed from Wagner is most apparent, as is his love of Schopenhauer, and the novel overall reads as a deeply philosophical epic. It brought Mann instant fame on its first publication.
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Death in Venice
The title story of this collection is a classic novella – half way between a long story and a short novel. It’s a wonderfully condensed tale of the relationship between art and life, love and death. Venice provides the background for the story of a famous writer Gustav Von Aschenbach who departs from his usual strict routines, falls in love with a beautiful young boy, and gets caught up in a subtle downward spiral of self-indulgence – all set against a backdrop of the beautiful city of Venice, but which is in the grip of a plague. The unity of themes, form, and motifs are superbly realised – even though Mann wrote this when he was quite young.
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Death in Venice – video film adaptation
Luchiano Visconti produced a visually glamorous version of Mann’s novella which captures the original very faithfully. Shimmering scenes of the Venice lido are interspersed with menacing glimpses of the impending plague. The film is famous for two features – the spectacular use of the slowed-down version of the adagietto from Mahler’s fifth symphony as a sound track, and the outstanding performance of Dirk Bogard as the ageing Gustav von Aschenbach – one of his last and greatest screen performances. This is a visually spectacular piece of filming.
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The Magic Mountain
This is a curious but impressive novel, written on either side of the First World War. The setting is a sanatorium in the Alps – a community organized with exclusive reference to ill-health. There the characters discuss love, politics, and philosophy. Much of the novels ‘activity’ is intellectual debate between characters such as Settembrini and Naphta (who are said to represent Mann’s brother Heinrich and the Hungarian Marxist critic Georg Lukacs respectively). It’s an intellectual drama of the forces which play upon modern man. Don’t expect tension or plot in the conventional sense. The novel also marks a transition in Mann’s political philosophy – from a conservative to a more liberal ideology.
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Doktor Faustus
Full title – Doctor Faustus: The Life of the German Composer Adrian Leverkuhn as Told by a Friend. This is widely regarded as Thomas Mann’s masterpiece – a dense, intellectual, and metaphysical novel which is the biography of a famous composer Adrian Leverkuhn – a thinly disguised portrait of Arnold Schoenberg. His extraordinary career is loosely based on the Faust legend, and charted from his precocious childhood to his tragic death. His revelation of the horrifying price he had to pay for his achievement highlights Mann’s vast theme: the discord between genius and sanity. The story combines Mann’s serious concern for music with his political view of German society, which is shown sliding towards its own self-generated collapse in 1945.
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Mario and the Magician
Using settings as varied as Germany, Italy, the Holy Land and the Far East, these stories explore a theme which always preoccupied Thomas Mann – “the two faces of things”. Written between 1918 and 1953, they offer an insight the development of his thought. The title story concerns a German family on holiday in Italy who fall under the hypnotic spell of a brutal magician. It is often seen as a warning against the seductive power of fascism.

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Thomas Mann life and works

September 19, 2009 by Roy Johnson

1875. Thomas Mann born in Lübeck, northern Germany. His father was from a prosperous merchant family – head of the company and twice Mayor of Lübeck. His mother was artistic, with foreign blood. Five brothers and sisters. Rivalry with elder bother Heinrich, who was also a novelist. Two sisters commit suicide. Mann dislikes school, study, and discipline.

1891. Death of father. Family moves to Munich, south Germany. [North/South = Business/Pleasure]. Brief spell working in insurance office. Mann dislikes work. One year of classes at university studying journalism.

1896. Moves to Rome and Palestrina for one year with brother Heinrich – ‘biding time’ on financial allowance.

1898. Moves back to Munich. Spends one year as editor of satirical magazine Simplicissimus. German philosophers Nietzsche and Schopenhauer early influences. Records in his diary that he is ‘close to suicide’. First stories published – Little Herr Friedmann.

1900. Starts military service, but invalided out with psycho-somatic illness after three months.

1901. Publishes Buddenbrooks, his first novel, at twenty-five. This long saga of ‘the decline of a family’ brings him instant fame.

1903. Publishes ‘Tonio Kröger’.

1905. Marries Katia, daughter of well-to-do middle-class family. They have six children. Mann has very conservative political views. Begins a novel Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man (based on memories of Manolescu) which he abandons. (He picked it up forty years later, and continued writing, exactly where he left off.)

1913. Publishes Death in Venice, a novella. Records in his diary ‘nothing is invented in Death in Venice‘.

1912. Spends three weeks in a sanatorium in Davos with his wife. Begins The Magic Mountain as a short story.

1914. Outbreak of First World War. Mann takes very conservative political line, supporting Germany. Writes essays, Reflections of an Unpolitical Man, and almost in spite of himself, his political views change. Unable to write Magic Mountain during the war.

1922. Mann’s political views become more radical in the face of rising fascism.

1924. Finishes writing The Magic Mountain.

1925. Begins a series of foreign lecture tours.

1929. Awarded Nobel prize for literature. records in his diary – ‘It lay, I suppose, upon my path in life’. Starts work on Joseph and His Brothers

1930. Mario and the Magician – short novel symbolising the rise of fascism. begins lecture tours in America.

1933. Hitler seizes power in Germany. Mann moves to Zurich. Begins political debates with fellow emigrées on how best to combat fascism and maintain the humane basis of traditional German culture.

1936. Mann’s son Klaus, a writer and theatre critic, publishes Mephisto, a novel dealing with the relationship between art and politics, the dangers of compromising with evil, and which uses the Faust theme – all of which prefigure Thomas Mann’s Doktor Faustus.

1938. Moves to Princeton (USA) – then to California, joining fellow emigrés Bertolt Brecht, Arnold Schoenberg, Walter Adorno, Bruno Walter, and Igor Stravinski.

1943. Begins writing Doktor Faustus.

1944. Becomes a US citizen.

1947. Doktor Faustus

1949. Suicide of Mann’s son Klaus from drug overdose.

1952. Mann returns to Europe, but refuses to choose between the divided Germanies. Settles in Zurich

1955. Dies, leaving Felix Krull unfinished.

Thomas Mann: a life This exploration of Thomas Mann’s life by Donald Prater describes his relationship of intense rivalry with his brother Heinrich, who was also a novelist, his (much-concealed) homosexuality, his career as a prolific essayist, and the vast achievement of his novels. Particular attention is paid to Mann’s opposition to Nazism, and his role in the rise and fall of Hitlerism. It traces Mann’s political development from the nationalistic conservatism of his younger days, to the humanistic anti-Nazim of his maturity. Buy the book here

Tone – how to understand it

September 14, 2009 by Roy Johnson

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Tone – definition

To the linguist [or speech therapist] ‘tone’ means the quality of sound produced by the voice in uttering words.

In a general sense, ‘tone’ is the attitude of the speaker or writer as revealed in the choice of vocabulary or the
intonation of speech.

This attitude might be immediately apparent — in tone of voice, for instance.

It might on the other hand be a complex and subtle manner which takes time to establish — in an extended piece of writing, for instance.

Examples

Written or spoken communication might be described as having a tone which is, for instance:

ironic serious flippant

threatening light-hearted pessimistic

Use

Tone is used to convey an attitude. This may be done consciously or unconsciously.

It could be said that there is no such thing as a text or verbal utterance without a tone.

In most cases, tone is either taken for granted, or perceived unconsciously.

NB! Tone is sometimes difficult to describe and analyse. It’s a subtle and complex matter.

Tone, taken at its most literal, is a feature of non-verbal communication. It is the physical level at which the sound of the human voice is transmitted.

Linguists and speech therapists chart intonation patterns by a system of marks on the page to suggest the rising and falling of the voice tone.

Intonation is the term by which we refer to the patterns of sound which are evident in every utterance. We sometimes use the term ‘monotone’ to imply an absence of intonation. This usually suggests some negative state of mind on the part of the speaker.

Every language has its standard set of intonation patterns. These have to be learnt by the non-native speaker as an essential constituent of the transmission of meaning.

The intonation patterns of a language are the first things a child learns in its progress as a speaker. They are the first elements a child selects from the body of ‘comprehensible imput’ which is necessary to trigger the acquisition process.

Interestingly, intonation is a difficult hurdle for the second-language learner. It seems that the intonation of one’s own native language becomes deeply internalised, and the ability to hear the intonation of a second language is not as sharp as it is in a young child.

We can, perhaps, appreciate these difficulties if we take the single word ‘hello’ and consider the variations possible in expressing it to imply an attitude. [This isn’t easy to reproduce on screen, but bear with us.]

‘Hello, hello, hello.’ stereotype policeman

‘Hello?’ ‘Is anyone there?’

‘Hello!’ ‘At last I’ve found it!’

‘Hello!’ ‘Here we go again!’

‘Hello!’ ‘Fancy meeting you.’

and of course…

‘Hello!’ Greeting a friend

Even a non-verbal utterance such as a cough or a clearing of the throat can be eloquent by means of its tone. An example of this is the cough which says ‘Be careful! People are listening in to what you’re saying’. A slightly different cough acts as a warning not to go any further with an action or an utterance.

Intonation as part of literary writing is conveyed often by narrative description as in:

‘Oh Jeremy!’ she exclaimed in a shocked tone.

‘Jeremy!’ she screamed, as she saw him leap from the parapet.

As practised readers, we infer the tone of literary dialogue without the explicit narrative description used in the first example given above. We hear the delivery in our mind’s ‘ear’ as clearly as we hear it in reality when taking part in a dialogue ourselves.

Tone is perhaps applied more widely in an almost metaphoric sense to convey a whole attitude. For instance we might receive a letter from someone expressing the sentiment that they had trusted us, but felt let down by something we had done. The letter might have an ironic tone, or an angry tone, or an indignant tone.

Tone in this sense is conveyed by an amalgam of choice of vocabulary and syntax on the part of the writer. For the reader, this selection creates an imaginary audible impression, as the tone is heard in the mind’s ear.

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Twentieth Century – literary timeline – part 2

September 28, 2009 by Roy Johnson

a chronicle of events, literature, and politics

1920. League of Nations established; Oxford University admits women;
D.H. Lawrence, Women in Love; Nobel prize – K. Hamsun (N).

1921. Irish Free State proclaimed; extreme inflation in Germany; Fatty Arbuckle scandal in US; Nobel prize – Anatole France (F).

1922. Fascists march on Rome under Mussolini; Kemel Ataturk founds modern Turkey; T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land; James Joyce, Ulysses; Katherine Mansfield, The Garden Party; Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus; John Galsworthy, The Forsyth Saga; Nobel prize – J. Benavente (Sp).

1923. Charleston craze; BBC begins radio broadcasting in the UK; William Walton Facade; Nobel prize – W.B. Yeats (Ir).

1924. First UK Labour government formed under Ramsey MacDonald (lasts nine months); Deaths of Lenin, Franz Kafka, and Joseph Conrad; Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain; E.M. Forster, A Passage to India; Nobel prize – W. Raymont (P).

1925. John Logie Baird televises an image of a human face; Webern Wozzeck; Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf; Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway; Nobel prize – George Bernard Shaw (UK).

1926. UK General Strike; first demonstration of television in UK; Fritz Lang, Metropolis; Nobel prize – G. Deledda (I).

1927. Lindbergh flies solo across Atlantic; first talkie film – Al Jolson in ‘The Jazz Singer’; Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse; Nobel prize – Henri Bergson (Fr).

Oxford Companion to Twentieth Century Literature in English is a new reference guide to English-language writers and writing throughout the present century, in all major genres and from all around the world – from Joseph Conrad to Will Self, Virginia Woolf to David Mamet, Ezra Pound to Peter Carey, James Joyce to Amy Tan. Includes entries on literary movements, periodicals, and over 400 individual works, as well as articles on some 2,400 authors, plus a good introduction by John Sutherland.

1928. Women in UK get same voting rights as men; Death of Thomas Hardy; first Oxford English Dictionary published; penicillin discovered;
D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover; Evelyn Waugh, Decline and Fall; Nobel prize – S. Undset (N).

1929. Slump in US, followed by collapse of New York Stock Exchange; Start of world economic depression; Second UK Labour government under MacDonald;
Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own; first experimental television broadcast; Kurt Weil The Threepenny Opera; Nobel prize – Thomas Mann (G).

1930. Mass unemployment in UK; Death of D.H. Lawrence.
William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying; Nobel prize – Sinclair Lewis (US).

1931. Resignation of UK Labour government, followed by formation of national coalition government; Empire State building completed in New York; Virginia Woolf, The Waves; Nobel prize – R.A. Karfeldt (S).

1932. Hunger marches start in UK; scientists split the atom; air conditioning invented; Aldous Huxley, Brave New World; Nobel prize – John Galsworthy (UK).

1933. Adolf Hitler appointed Chancellor of Germany; first Nazi concentration camps; prohibition ends in US; Radio Luxembourg begins commercial broadcasts to UK; George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London;Jean Vigo, L’Atalante; Nobel prize – Ivan Bunin (USSR).

1934. Hitler becomes Dictator; Evelyn Waugh, A Handful of Dust; Samuel Beckett, More Pricks than Kicks; Nobel prize – Luigi Pirandello (I).

1935. Germany re-arms; Italians invade Abyssinia (Ethiopia); Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet; Nobel prize – not awarded.

1936. Death of George V in UK, followed by Edward VIII, who is forced to abdicate; Stalinist show trials in USSR; Civil War in Spain begins; Germany re-occupies the Rheinland; BBC begins television transmissions; Aaron Copland El Salon Mexico; Nobel prize – Eugene O’Neil (USA).

1937. Neville Chamberlain UK prime minister; Destruction of Guernica;
George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier; Nobel prize – Roger Martin du Gard (Fr).

Twentieth-century Britain is an account of political, industrial, commercial, and cultural development in England, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland. It’s particularly strong on the changing face of government, and it also relates issues of the day to the great writers and artists of the period. This ‘very short introduction’ series offers a potted account of the subject in handy pocket-book format, with plenty of suggestions for further reading.

1938. Germans occupy Austria; Chamberlain meets Hitler to make infamous Munich ‘agreement’ to prevent war; Samuel Beckett, Murphy; John Dos Passos, USA; Nobel prize – Pearl S. Buck (USA).

1939. Fascists win Civil War in Spain; Stalin makes pact with Hitler; Germany invades Poland; Britain and France declare war on Germany; helicopter invented;
James Joyce, Finnegans Wake; Nobel prize – F.E. Silanpaa (Fi).

1940. Germany invades north-west Europe; Fall of France; British troops evacuated from Dunkirk; Battle of Britain; Start of ‘Blitz’ bombing raids over London; Churchill heads national coalition government; assassination of Trotsky; Nobel prize – not awarded.

1941. Germany invades USSR; Japanese destroy US fleet at Pearl Harbour; USA enters the war; siege of Leningrad; Deaths of James Joyce and Virginia Woolf; Orson Wells, Citizen Kane; Nobel prize – not awarded.

1942. Battle of Stalingrad; Battle of Midway; Beveridge report establishes basis of modern Welfare State; T-shirt invented; Nobel prize – not awarded.

1943. Anglo-American armies invade Italy; Warsaw uprising; Nobel prize – not awarded.

1944. D-Day invasion of France; ball-point pens go on sale; German V1 and V2 rockets fired; R.A. Butler’s Education Act; Aaron Copland Appalachian Spring; Nobel prize – J.V. Jensen (Da).

1945. End of war in Europe; Atomic bombs dropped on Japan; first computer built; microwave oven invented; United Nations founded; huge Labour victory in UK general election; Atlee becomes prime minister, George Orwell, Animal Farm; Nobel prize – G. Mistral (Ch).

1946. Churchill’s ‘Iron Curtain’ speech; Nuremberg war trials; bikinis introduced; United Nations opens in New York; Nobel prize – Herman Hesse (Sw)

1947. Marshall Plan of aid to Europe; Jewish refugees turned away by UK; Polaroid camera invented; coal and other industries nationalised in UK; transfer of power to independent India, Pakistan, and Burma. Thomas Mann, Doktor Faustus; Nobel prize – A. Gide (Fr)

1948. Berlin airlift; state of Israel founded; Railways and electricity nationalised in UK; Bevan launches National Health Service in UK. Nobel prize – T.S. Eliot (UK)

1949. East Germany created; Mao Tse Tung declares Republic of China; NATO founded; Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex; George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty Four; Nobel prize – W. Faulkner (USA)

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Twentieth Century – literary timeline – part 3

September 28, 2009 by Roy Johnson

a chronicle of events, literature, and politics

1950. India declares itself a republic; UK and USA attack Korea; first credit cards; first organ transplant; Billy Wilder, Sunset Boulevard; Nobel prize – Bertrand Russell (UK)

1951. Festival of Britain; first colour TV; Conservatives defeat Labour in UK general election; Churchill becomes prime minister; UK troops seize Suez Canal zone; Benjamin Britten Billy Budd; Samuel Beckett, Malloy; Nobel prize – P. Lagerkvist (S)

1952. Death of George V. Accession of Queen Elizabeth II at 25;
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man; Nobel prize – F. Mauriac (Fr)

1953. DNA discovered; conquest of Everest; Death of Stalin – and Prokofiev on same day; Nobel prize – Winston Churchill (UK)

1954. British troops withdrawn from Egypt; Four-minute mile broken; Nobel prize – E. Hemingway (USA)

1955. European Union created; Warsaw Pact founded; V. Nabokov, Lolita; Patrick White, The Tree of Man; Nobel prize – H. Laxness (Ic)

1956. Khruschchev denounces Stalin at Communist Party Conference; Anglo-French invasion of Suez, followed by withdrawal; Hungarian uprising crushed by Soviets; Samuel Beckett, Malone Dies; Nobel prize – J. Ramon Jiminez (Sp)

1957. European Economic Community established; Homosexuality decriminalised in UK; Patrick White, Voss; Nobel prize – A. Camus (Fr)

1958. Orson Wells, Touch of Evil; Nobel prize – B. Pasternak (USSR) [forced to refuse it]

1959. Castro overthrows Batista regime in Cuba; first motorway opened in UK; Nobel prize – S. Quasimodo (I)

1960. Sharpville massacres in S Africa; new republics declared in Africa; Lady Chatterley’s Lover cleared of charges of obscenity in UK; J.F. Kennedy elected US president; Alfred Hitchcock, Psycho; Nobel prize – A. St. Leger (Fr)

1961. Adolf Eichman on trial for role in Holocaust; USSR makes first manned space flight; USA-backed Bay of Pigs attack in Cuba fails; Berlin Wall erected; Patrick White, Riders in the Chariot; Samuel Beckett, Happy Days; Nobel prize – L. Andric (Y)

1962. US sends troops to Vietnam; Cuban missile crisis; Nelson Mandela jailed; Please Please Me first Beatles hit; Nobel prize – J. Steinbeck (USA)

1963. French veto Britain’s application to join European Common Market; Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech; Profumo scandal in UK; Kennedy assassination in USA; Nobel prize – G. Seferis (Gr)

1964. Khruschchev deposed by Breshnev in USSR; Vietnam attacks US destroyer in Gulf of Tonkin; Labour party gains power in UK under Harold Wilson; Saul Bellow, Herzog. Nobel prize – J-P. Sartre (Fr) [prize not accepted]

1965. Malcolm X assassinated; India invades Pakistan; US air raids in Vietnam; anti-war protests in US and Europe; Harold Pinter, The Homecoming; Nobel prize – M. Sholokov (USSR) [authorship subsequently disputed]

1966. Black Panthers established in US; Cultural revolution under Mao in China; Britain wins Wold Cup in football; Nobel prize – Samuel Agnon, Nelly Sachs (Il)

1967. Israel seizes land in 6 day war; first heart transplant; first colour TV transmissions in UK; Stalin’s daughter defects to west; ‘Summer of Love’ hippy demonstrations in San Francisco; decriminalisation of homosexuality in UK; Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude; Nobel prize – Miguel Angel Asturias (Gu)

1968. Martin Luther King assassinated; student protests in Paris; USSR invades Czechoslovakia; theatre censorship abolished in UK after 23 years; Tet offensive in Vietnam; Nobel prize – Yasunari Kawabata (Jp)

1969. UK troops sent into N Ireland; US puts first men on the moon; death penalty abolished in UK; precursor of the Internet, ARPANET created; Woodstock music festival; Monty Python’s Flying Circus first broadcast; Nobel prize – Samuel Beckett (Ire)

1970. My Lai massacre; Rubber bullets used in N Ireland; Allende elected socialist president in Chile; anti-government demonstrations in Poland; age of majority lowered to 18 in UK; invention of computer floppy disks; Germaine Greer, The Female Eunuch; Patrick White, The Vivesector; Nobel prize – Alexander Solzhenitsyn (USSR)

1971. Open University begins in UK; internment without trial in N Ireland; China joins UN; Nixon resumes bombing of Vietnam; video recorders introduced; Britain negotiates entry into EU; Nobel prize – Pablo Neruda (Ch)

1972. Miners strike in UK; Bloody Sunday in N Ireland; Watergate scandal begins in US; Nobel prize – Heinrich Böll (Gr)

1973. Allende government overthrown by Pinochet in Chile; industrial strikes in UK; Arab-Israeli war; abortion legalised in US; US pulls out of Vietnam; Britain enters the European Common Market; Nobel prize – Patrick White (Aus)

1974. Miners strike in UK; Impeachment and resignation of president Nixon in US; Nadine Gordimer, The Conservationist; Nobel prize – Eyvind Johnson, Harry Martinson (Sw)

1975. Margaret Thatcher elected leader of Tories in UK; Vietnam war ends with hasty retreat of US troops; first elections in Portugal for 50 years; Microsoft founded; Nobel prize – Eugenio Montale (It)

1976. Jeremy Thorpe resigns as UK liberal leader following sex scandal; Britain found guilty of torture in N Ireland; Jimmy Carter elected president in US; Patrick White, A Fringe of Leaves; Nobel prize – Saul Bellow (USA)

1977. First democratic elections in Spain since 1936; student activist Steve Biko tortured to death in S Africa; Punk rock fashionable; Nobel prize – Vicente Aleixandre (Sp)

1978. World’s first test tube baby; Nobel prize – Isaac Bashevis Singer (USA)

1979. Shah leaves Iran; Ayatollah Khomeni returns from exile in Paris; Islamic republic declared; Margaret Thatcher elected first woman PM in UK; first heart transplant; Pol Pot convicted of murdering 3 million in Cambodia; Francis Ford Coppola, Apocalypse Now; Nobel prize – Odysseus Elytis (Gk)

1980. USSR Nobel peace prizewinner Sakharov sent into internal exile; Mugabe’s establishes one-party ZANU(PF) state in Zimbabwe; outbreak of Iran-Iraq war; Solidarity trade union recognised by Polish government; Ronald Regan elected US president; John Lennon shot in New York; Nobel prize – Czeslaw Milosz (Po)

1981. Greece joins EEC; Social Democrats launched in UK – merges with Liberals; Peter Sutcliffe convicted of Yorkshire Ripper murders; Prince Charles marries Lady Diana Spencer; first reports of AIDS; Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children; Nobel prize – Elias Canetti (UK!)

1982. Argentina invades Malvinas (Falklands); UK re-takes islands; General Galtieri resigns; Polish government abolishes Solidarity; death of Breshnev; Nobel prize – Gabriel García Márquez (Co)

1983. Demonstrations in 20 Polish cities; IRA prisoners escape from Maze prison; US-backed invasion of Grenada; Cruise missiles installed in UK; Nobel prize – William Golding (UK)

1984. UK miners strike against pit closures; USSR boycotts Olympics in LA; Mrs Gandhi assassinated; Nobel prize – Jaroslav Seifert (Cz)

1985. USSR reforms of Glasnost and Perestroika called for by Gorbachev; Greenpeace ship sunk by French agents in NZ; Nobel prize – Claude Simon (Fr)

1986. Westland scandal in UK government; press disputes lead to move from Fleet Street to Wapping in UK; legal independence for Australia; US bomb Benghazi and Tripoli; Chernobyl nuclear disaster; 180-day detention without trial in S Africa; US and Commonwealth impose sanctions on South Africa; Nobel prize – Wole Soyinka (Ni)

1987. Gorbachev begins critique of Breshnev in USSR; white-only elections in S Africa; Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie guilty of crimes against humanity; Iran attacks US tanker in Persian Gulf; DNA first used to convict criminals; Nobel prize – Joseph Brodsky (USA)

1988. IRA members shot by UK in Gibraltar; first Gulf war begins; Gorbachev proposes democratic reforms in USSR; George Bush Snr president in US; Nobel prize – Naguib Mahfouz (Eg)

1989. Khomeini issues fatwa on Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses; Tiananamen Square massacre; elections, protests, and shakeups in Communist block; E Germany closes borders after demonstrations for reform; Iron Curtain begins to be removed; Romanian leader Ceausescu executed; playwright Vaclav Havel becomes Czech president; Tim Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web; Nobel prize – Camilo José Cela (Sp)

1990. Lech Walesa becomes first president of Poland; Nelson Mandela freed after 27 years in jail; John Major replaces Margaret Thatcher as UK prime minister; Derek Walcott, Omeros; Nobel prize – Octavio Paz (Mx)

1991. Collapse of the Soviet Union; Apartheid laws repealed in S Africa; Iraq invades Kuwait; first Gulf war begins with Operation desert Storm; Satellite-based communications become established for TV and Internet; Nobel prize – Nadine Gordimer (SA)

1992. Official end of Cold War; Nobel prize – Derek Walcott (SL)

1993. Bosnian civil war; Use of the Internet grows exponentially; Nobel prize – Toni Morrison (USA)

1994. Channel tunnel opens in UK; Mandela elected president of S Africa; Rawandan genocide; Nobel prize – Kenzaburo Oe (Jp)

1995. Nobel prize – Seamus Heaney (Ire)

1996. Prince Charles divorces Princess Diana in UK; Mad cow disease hits UK; Nobel prize – Wislawa Szymborska (Po)

1997. Hong Kong returns to China; Princess Diana dies in car crash in Paris; Tony Blair wins landslide victory in UK with New Labour Party; Nobel prize – Dario Fo (It)

1998. India and Pakistan test nuclear weapons; US President Clinton in sex scandal; use of mobile phones and Internet becomes commonplace; digital technology widely introduced into broadcast media; Nobel prize – José Saramago (Pt)

1999. New Euro currency introduced; NATO forces in Serbia; hereditary peers abolished in UK House of Lords; Nobel prize – Gunter Grass (Gr)

2000. First elected Mayor of London in UK; Legal age for consensual gay sex reduced to 16;Nobel prize – Gao Xingjian (Fr)

2001. Labour Party re-elected with huge majority; Twin Towers attacked and destroyed in New York; Britain joins US in Afghanistan war; Nobel prize – V.S. Naipaul (UK)

2002. Nobel prize – Imre Kertész (Hu)

2003. Nobel prize – J.M.Coetzee (SA)

2004. Nobel prize – Elfriede Jelinek (Au)

2005. Nobel prize – Harold Pinter (UK)

2006. Nobel prize – Orhan Pamuk (Tk)

2007. Nobel prize – Doris Lessing (UK)

2008. Nobel prize – J.M.G Le Clezio (Fr)

2009. Nobel prize – Herta Mueller (Gr)

2010. Nobel Prize – Mario Vargas Llosa (Pe)

2011. Nobel Prize – Thomas Transtroemer (Sw)

2012. Nobel Prize – Mo Yan (Cn)

2013. Nobel Prize – Alice Munro (Ca)

2014. Nobel Prize – Patrick Modiano (Fr)

2015. Nobel Prize – Svetlana Alexievich (By)

2016. Nobel Prize – Bob Dylan (USA)

2017. Nobel Prize – Kasuo Ishiguro (UK)

2018. Nobel Prize – not awarded

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Using a spell checker

September 16, 2009 by Roy Johnson

a poetic caution – please take note

Ode to a spell checker

Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.

Norman Vandal

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Archives for September 2009

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Tone – definition

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a chronicle of events, literature, and politics

a chronicle of events, literature, and politics

a poetic caution – please take note

Ode to a spell checker

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