Mantex

Tutorials, Study Guides & More

  • HOME
  • REVIEWS
  • TUTORIALS
  • HOW-TO
  • CONTACT
>> Home / Tutorials / 19C Literature

19C Literature

cultural history, critical studies, and background study notes

cultural history, critical studies, and background study notes

A Day in the Country and Other Stories

July 6, 2009 by Roy Johnson

19th century master of the short story form

Guy de Maupassant was a prolific and very famous writer in his own lifetime. Between 1880 and 1891 for instance he wrote about 300 short stories, 200 articles, six novels, two plays, and three travel books. He wrote in the heyday of the short story, and it is this literary form for which he is now best remembered. Maupassant was one of the late nineteenth-century writers shaping what was to become the modern short story. His contribution to the genre was to pare down the means of expression and to focus on the effect of the tale.

A Day in the Country and Other StoriesHis stories are not abbreviated novels or rambling prose poems. They tell a story – and often it has a sting in the tail. Like other French writers of the late nineteenth century he was keen to explore ordinary everyday life – often exposing its less appetising and even grim features. I bought this particular collection after watching Jean Renoir’s beautiful film Partie de campagne which is a completely faithful account of the title story. But I was amazed to discover that the full length feature film and masterpiece of the cinema was based on a tale no more than a few pages long.

His style, much influenced by his friend Flaubert, is one of scrupulous clarity. Everything is pared to a minimum, and the material world is rendered in well-chosen detail. His attitude is that of a sceptical realist, with an eye for the tragic and sad elements of life which lead many critics to brand him a pessimist. They may have a point, because it’s remarkable just how many of his stories end with someone’s abrupt death.

He was shortening and concentrating the narrative, stripping it of excrescence. Yet he still drags along some of its traditional features – the whiplash ending for instance. Some of them are not much more than well-articulated anecdotes, but they are usually resolved with an ironic or dramatic twist.

Despite these weaknesses, it’s his contribution to the development of the short story for which he is still respected. It is his stories which are still widely read, not his full-length novels.

[Maupassant] fixes a hard eye on some spot of human life, usually some dreary, ugly, shabby, sordid one, takes up the particle, and squeezes it either till it grimaces or till it bleeds. Sometimes the grimace is very droll, sometimes the wound is very horrible … Monsieur de Maupassant sees human life as a terribly ugly business relieved by the comical.

It’s amazing to think that Henry James, a friend and admirer who wrote those words was writing at the same time – though when considering the compositional crudities in some of these stories, their origin in newspapers and popular magazines should be taken into account.

But this famous terseness of style is not quite so ubiquitous as is often claimed. He is quite prepared to indulge in rhetorical flourishes to make his point – as in this account of a Parisian visiting the provinces:

I wondered: ‘What on earth can I do after dinner?’ I thought how long an evening could be here in this town in the provinces: the slow, grim stroll through unfamiliar streets, the depressing gloom which the solitary traveller feels oozing out of passers by who are complete strangers in every respect, from the provincial cut of their jackets, hats, and trousers to their ways and the local accent, an all-pervading misery which drips from the houses, the shops, the outlandish shapes of the vehicles in the streets, and the generally unaccustomed hubbub, an uneasy sinking of the spirits which prompts you to walk a little quicker as though you were lost in a dangerous, cheerless country and makes you want to go back to your hotel, that loathsome hotel, where your room has been pickled in innumerable dubious smells, where you are not entirely sure about the bed, and where there’s a hair stuck fast in the dried dust at the bottom of the washbasin.

In one of the finest tales in this collection he tackles a subject which has a long and honourable history amongst writers – the story of a man who, as a result of some trivial argument or misplaced notion of pride, suddenly finds that he is about to fight a duel. It also includes his best known – ‘The Necklace’ – another tale which has spawned many variations, as well as ‘Le Horla’, a story which strangely parallels Maupassant’s own descent into premature madness and death, brought on by syphilis.

Later writers such as James Joyce, Katherine Mansfield, and especially Virginia Woolf were to take his stylistic developments further – and bring the short story into closer contact with the prose poem and the philosophic meditation. But connoisseurs of this literary form will always be well rewarded by re-visiting one of the earlier masters of the genre.

© Roy Johnson 2000

A Day in the Country Buy the book at Amazon UK

A Day in the Country Buy the book at Amazon US


Guy de Maupassant, A Day in the Country and Other Stories, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, pp.312, ISBN 0192838636


More on literature
More on the novella
More on literary studies
More on short stories


Filed Under: 19C Literature, Short Stories, The Short Story Tagged With: A Day in the Country, French Literature, Guy de Maupassant, Literary studies, The Short Story

Analysing fiction – a glossary

November 1, 2009 by Roy Johnson

a checklist of literary terms

Analysing fiction requires that you are able to name and describe the features of a story or a novel that you find interesting. This means having a clear understanding of language and grammar, plus the basic elements of narrative prose. The definitions below are just the beginning. This is where the complex process of analysing fiction starts.

Vocabulary
The author’s choice of individual words – which may be drawn from various registers such as colloquial, literary, technical, slang, journalism, and may vary from simple and direct to complex and sophisticated.

Grammar
The relationships of the words in sentences, which might include such items as the use of adjectives for description, of verbs to denote action, switching between tenses to move between present and past, or any use of unusual combinations of words or phrases to create special effects.

Syntax
The arrangement and logical coherence of words in a sentence. The possibilities for re-arrangement are often used for emphasis or dramatic effect.

Figures of speech
The rhetorical devices often used to give decorative and imaginative expression to literature. For example – simile, metaphor, puns, irony.

Literary devices
The devices commonly used in literature to give added depth to a work. For example, imagery, point of view, symbolism, allusions.

Tone
The author’s attitude to the subject as revealed in the style and the manner of the writing. This might be for instance serious, comic, or ironic.

Narrator
The person telling the story. This may be the author, assuming a full knowledge of characters and their feelings: this is an omniscient narrator. It might alternatively be a fictional character invented by the author. There may also be multiple narrators. You should always be prepared to make a clear distinction between Author, Narrator, and Character – even though in some texts these may be (or appear to be) the same.


Analysing Fiction - Dictionary of Literary TermsChris Baldick’s Dictionary of Literary Terms has entries which range from definitions of ‘the absurd’ to ‘zeugma’. It’s also a guide to grammatical terms, traditional drama, literary history, and textual criticism. It contains over 1000 of the most troublesome literary terms you are likely to encounter. Some of the longer entries and explanations become like short essays on their subject.

Analysing fiction Buy the book from Amazon UK
analysing fiction Buy the book from Amazon US


Narrative mode
This is usually either the first person singular (‘I am going to tell you a story about…’) or the third person singular (‘The duchess felt alarmed…’).

Narrative
The story which is being told: that is, the history of the events, characters, or whatever matters the narrator wishes to relate to the reader.

Characterisation
The means by which characters are depicted or created – commonly by accounts of their physical appearance, psychological characteristics, direct speech, and the opinions of the narrator or other characters about them.

Point of view
The literary strategy by which an author presents the events of a narrative from the perspective of a particular person – which may be the narrator or may be a fictional character. The point of view may be consistent, or it may switch between narrator and character(s). It should not be confused with the mere opinion of a character or the narrator.

Structure
The planned underlying framework or shape of a piece of work. The relationship between its parts in terms of arrangement or construction.

Theme
The underlying topic or issue, often of a general or abstract nature, as distinct from the overt subject with which the work deals. It should be possible to express theme in a single word or short phrase – such as ‘death’, ‘education’, or ‘coming of age’.

Genre
The literary category or type (for instance, short story, novella, or novel) to which the work belongs and with whose conventions it might be compared. We become aware of genre through cultural experience and know for instance that in detective stories murder mysteries are solved; in fairy stories beautiful girls marry the prince; and in some modern short stories not much happens.

Cultural context
The historical and cultural context and the circumstances in which the work was produced, which might have some bearing on its possible meanings. A text produced under conditions of strict censorship might conceal its meanings beneath symbolism or allegory.

© Roy Johnson 2009


More on language
More on literary studies
More on writing skills
More on creative writing
More on grammar


Filed Under: 19C Literature, 20C Literature, How-to guides, Literary studies, Study Skills Tagged With: Analysing Fiction, Literary studies, Literary terms, Reading skills, Study skills

Benito Cereno

August 3, 2011 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

Benito Cereno (1856) was published in the collection The Piazza Tales which Melville wrote after the disappointing reception of his masterpiece Moby Dick which had appeared in 1851. Like many of his other works Benito Cereno is rich in ambiguities, symbolism, and profound meanings beneath its surface narrative. It’s based upon a documentary record of historical events written by the real Amasa Delano in 1817, but of course Melville dramatises ‘the capture of a ship’ to make it richer in suggestive allusion.

The events of the story are an exercise in sustained irony (a device also used by another mariner-novelist, Joseph Conrad). The first time reader is invited to see circumstances exactly as Captain Amasa Delano encounters them, as he goes from his own ship to offer help to a striken fellow captain. Everything he confronts is baffling, contradictory, and uncertain. He struggles to interpret what he finds, but is hampered by his own inclination to believe the best of everybody he meets. The truth of the situation is only revealed very dramatically at the very last minute.

Benito Cereno


Benito Cereno – critical commentary

Narrative

Most of Benito Cereno is told from the point of view of Amasa Delano. We encounter the puzzling conditions on board the San Dominick as he does; we have things presented to us as he sees them, and we do not have any other point of view by which to achieve a fictional triangulation to assess what is going on (except in a second or subsequent reading).

Melville’s narrative technique sometimes takes us into Delano’s thoughts, almost in a form of interior monologue, and at times Delano even addresses himself, as if thinking out loud.

The novella is set in 1799 – only a few years after the start of the slave uprising in San Domingo (now Haiti).

Present day readers cannot fail to notice that two of the Spanish crew of the San Dominick are killed by what is now called ‘friendly fire’. That is, when the Americans attack the San Dominick in order to recapture it from the rebel slaves, they mistakenly kill two Spanish sailors who are on their own side in the conflict.

The Novella

Benito Cereno was published as part of The Piazza Tales (1856); it is about 25,000 words long; and it could be regarded as a long short story – but it fulfils many of the criteria for being classed as a novella.

Unity of place

Almost the whole of the story takes place in one location – on board the San Dominick. Captain Delano goes to inspect the ship, climbs aboard alone, and stays there until his boat comes (for the second time) to take him back to the Bachelor’s Delight.

Even the depositions in court (which constitute the ‘explanation’ for what happened) are scenes which took place on board the San Dominick prior to its encounter with the Bachelor’s Delight.

Unity of action

The essential drama of the story unfolds in more or less one continuous action. Moreover, these events are compressed into the shortest possible chronological sequence – less than one whole day. Captain Delano goes on board the San Dominick in the morning, He takes a ‘frugal’ lunch with Captain Cereno. And when his boat ‘Rover’ comes back for the second time to take him back, he returns to the Bachelor’s Delight. The action of the story is concentrated in an almost Aristotelian manner to produce unity of time and action.

Unity of atmosphere

The whole of the narrative is shrouded in mists, becalmed seas, and symbols of mystery and ambiguity. The skies are gray, the San Dominick looks like a ‘white-washed monastery after a thunder-storm’. Nothing is quite what it seems. Delano is constantly baffled by the contradictions and mysteries he encounters. The ship’s figurehead is wrapped in a shroud; Captain Cereno shows no gratitude for being given help on his doomed ship; the slave Atufal is still in chains when others have been released. The tension and sense of menace increase until the moment in the ‘Rover’ that Captain Delano realises what is happening.

Even the events described in the court depositions intensify this atmospheric unity – since they enhance the macabre and grotesque nature of what has taken place aboard the doomed ship.

Unity of character

There are a number of minor named characters in the story – but essentially the whole drama is focussed on three people – Delano, Cereno, and Babo. Captain Delano is the naive, good natured protagonist, seeking to interpret the ambiguities of the world he encounters – and failing to do so at every turn until the truth is finally thrust upon him. Cereno is a good man totally in thrall to an evil power – almost a warning of what Delano’s naivety can lead to if he doesn’t wake up. And Babo is that evil power incarnate. He has been ruthless in taking control of the San Dominick; he has murdered his former ‘owner’, and had his skeleton nailed to the prow with an ironic warning inscribed ‘Follow your leader’. Babo orchestrates events on board the ship, including the menacing shave for Cereno.

The main issue

The event is one from many curious incidents recounted by mariners and others from events at sea. Melville’s work as a novelist draws on many of these recorded events. But these particular events are more than just curious: they embrace large scale political issues. The relationship between America, Europe, and colonialism for instance. America at the time of the story had just fought a war of independence, changing itself from a colony of Britain to an independent state. It had also been engaged in conflicts with England, Spain, and France regarding the slave trade.

The first successful slave uprising had started in San Domingo (now Haiti) in 1791. Slavery was not abolished formally in Great Britain until 1833 and in the USA until 1865, and it is interesting to note that the practice of slavery was first begun in the Spanish colonies around 1500.

So the story does not deal with small scale accidental matters, but forces of great geo-political importance. Benito Cereno, a Spaniard is in charge of a ship whose primary cargo is slaves, ‘owned’ by another Spaniard (Alexandro Aranda).

We do not know where the slaves are from, but it is significant that immediately after seizing control of the San Dominick the rebellion leader Babo wants to be taken back to Senegal – on the west coast of Africa. In other words, he has enough ‘race memory’ to know where he might have originally come from.


Benito Cereno – study resources

Benito Cereno Benito Cereno – Oxford World Classics edition

Benito Cereno Benito Cereno – Dover Thrift edition

Benito Cereno Benito Cereno – Penguin Classics edition

Benito Cereno Benito Cereno – Cliffs Notes

Benito Cereno Benito Cereno – Norton Critical Editions

Benito Cereno Benito Cereno – free eBook formats at Project Gutenberg

Benito Cereno Benito Cereno – Kindle eBook edition

Red button Herman Melville at Wikipedia


Benito Cereno – plot summary

Amasa Delano is the good-natured captain of the Bachelor’s Delight, an American sealing ship sailing off the western coast of Chile in 1799. His ship is approached by another, the San Dominick, which is drifting aimlessly and appears like a ghost ship. Delano goes to inspect it and discovers a puzzling state of affairs on board. The captain, Don Benito Cereno appears to be in a state of collapse, there are very few crew members on board, and a cargo of ‘negro slaves’ has been let loose to act in a somewhat menacing fashion.

Benito Cereno explains to Delano that most of the crew were lost during terrible storms at sea, which also damaged the ship; but his explanation doesn’t entirely satisfy Delano, who nevertheless sends his boat back to the Bachelor’s Delight to fetch emergency supplies for the survivors.

Throughout Delano’s visit to the San Dominick, Benito Cereno is accompanied by a very attentive negro servant who never leaves his side. Indeed, he is so solicitous of his master’s wellbeing that Delano at one point offers to buy him for his own use.

Delano continues to be disturbed by the inexplicable goings-on around him – such as a group of slaves who are sharpening hatchets, and Benito Cereno’s lack of thanks for the assistance he is being offered. But Delano repeatedly interprets what he see in a positive and generous light.

When the relief supplies have been distributed, Delano sends the boat back to the Bachelor’s Delight, leaving him alone with the members of the San Dominick. He watches Babo shave Benito Cereno, then dines with them, the servant being present throughout. Delano then takes charge of the San Dominick and steers it towards the Bachelor’s Delight in a safe mooring. He invites Benito Cereno to join him on board for coffee – but Benito Cereno refuses.

When a boat arrives to collect him Delano is still puzzled by Cereno’s coldness and lack of response to a generous offer of help. But when Delano gets into the boat, Cereno suddenly leaps from the San Dominick, closely followed by Babo bearing a knife. Delano is convinced they are going to kill him, but it quickly becomes apparent that Babo intends to kill Benito Cereno.

Babo is seized, they regain the Bachelor’s Delight, and then a party of men sets off and recaptures the San Dominick, which is taken to investigative governmental courts in Lima, Peru.

The second part of the story is a sequence of depositions made to the court which record the true sequence of events regarding the San Dominick and the fate of those on board. Starting with a general revolt of the ‘cargo’ of slaves, Babo and his henchman Atufal take charge and command Benito Cereno to sail for Senegal, which is half way round the other side of the world, in West Africa. Members of the Spanish crew are murdered or thrown alive into the sea.

Alexandro Aranda (the ‘owner’ of the slaves) is murdered, and his skeleton is nailed to the front of the ship as a figurehead. After storms and damage to the ship, they arrive at Santa Maria at the same time as the Bachelor’s Delight. Babo arranges the deceptive appearance on board the San Dominick and threatens everybody on board with instant death if they reveal the truth of what has happened. He even puts Atufal in chains as a deceptive ploy, and plans to seize arms and capture the Bachelor’s Delight.

The tribunal recognises Babo as the principal culprit, and sentences him to death. Benito Cereno retreats to a monastery, where he dies three months later.


Principal characters
Amasa Delano American captain of the Bachelor’s Delight, a sealing and general trading ship
Don Benito Cereno young captain of the San Dominick, a first-calss Spanish general trading ship
Babo former slave and ‘attendant’ to Benito Cereno
Don Alexandro Aranda ‘owner’ of the slave ‘cargo’ on the San Dominick
Atufal Babo’s assistant, a slave and ‘former king’

Theatrical adaptation

Melville Benito Cereno

Poster for 1965 play by the poet Robert Lowell


Further reading

John Bryant (ed), A Companion to Melville Studies, Westport, Conn: Greenwood, 1986.

Robert E. Burkholder, Critical Essays on Melville’s ‘Benito Cereno’, Boston: G.K. Hall, 1992.

Andrew Delbanco, Melville: His World and Work, New York: Random House, 2006.

William B. Dillingham, Melville’s Short Fiction 1853-1856, Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1977.

Marvin Fisher, Going Under: Melville’s Short Fiction and American 1850s, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977.

Richard Harter Fogle, Melville’s Shorter Tales, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1960.

Kevin J. Haynes, The Cambridge Introduction to Herman Melville, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007

Carolyn L. Karcher, Shadow Over the Promised Land: Slavery, Race, and Violence in Melville’s America, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1980

Robert S. Levine, Conspiracy and Romance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.

Robert Milder, Exiled Royalties: Melville and the Life We Imagine, New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Lea Bertani Vozar Newman, A Reader’s Guide to the Short Stories of Herman Melville, Boston: G.K. Hall, 1986.

Elizabeth Schultz, Melville & Woman, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2006

© Roy Johnson 2011


Filed Under: 19C Literature, The Novella Tagged With: American literature, Benito Cereno, Herman Melville, The Novella

Bookseller jargon

February 11, 2013 by Roy Johnson

understanding the language of the book trade

Bookseller jargon
When buying second-hand books you’ll often come across bookseller jargon used to describe the goods they have on offer. These descriptions appear in both printed catalogues and on web site bookstores.

The bookseller is giving an accurate description of a book and its condition, but the description often contain lots of abbreviations and specialist terms (jargon). This can sometimes appear like a secret code, and might even include abbreviations of their own bookseller jargon terms.

There is a huge specialised vocabulary involved in the book trade – terms such as ‘foxing’ to describe discoloured pages, or ‘half-binding’ to indicate that the spine will be bound in a different material, usually leather.

It’s not necessary to learn all these terms, and you can often guess at the meaning of some of them. But knowing a few of the most common expressions can help you to get a better idea of what’s on offer – and save you from making a mistake.

Knowing something about this jargon can also help you to spot bargains when buying books for as little as a penny on Internet bookshop sites.


Bookseller jargon – example I

Let’s start with a fairly straightforward example from an advert on Amazon. It’s a second-hand copy of Charles Dickens’ novel Martin Chuzzlewit. The description is quite simple, but it does introduce a few bookseller jargon terms.

Published 1935, illustrations by Phiz. Burgandy boards with gold inscription to spine, author’s signature on front. Possibly published 1935. Corners bumped and boards a little grubby. Tanning to edges, Binding is pretty tight and very little staining to pages. A few pages turned at corners. Others in series are available. Quick dispatch from Oxford based hospice charity,

author’s signature – This is very misleading, because it’s not a signature. Dickens’ signature is printed on the cover.

Corners bumped – The corners of the book covers are bent or creased with use and age.That’s fairly normal in an old book.

Tanning – The colour of the covers is fading because of exposure to light.

Binding tight – The book will not open easily and generally does not want to remain open to any given page.

pages turned at corners – A previous reader has bookmarked pages by turning down the corner of some pages.

One interesting thing to note here is that the publisher is not mentioned. In fact the publisher is Odhams, and this series was a mass-produced very cheap edition. Copies are very easy to obtain anywhere – so the price being asked for this copy (£6.85) is far too high.


Bookseller jargon – example II

Here’s a relatively simple example from AbeBooks. It’s an advert for a first edition copy of Christopher Isherwood’s novel Goodbye to Berlin. You will notice that although the advert is descriptive, a few more bookseller jargon terms creep in.

Book Description: London, The Hogarth Press, 1939, 1939. Octavo. Original rough grey cloth, titles to spine in red, top edge stained red. With the dust jacket designed by Humphrey Spender printed in black and red with a photograph of a park scene by Hans Wild. Light partial toning to endpapers, an excellent copy in the lightly rubbed dust jacket with just a couple of minor nicks and creases. First edition, first impression. Published March 1939; 3,550 copies printed.

Octavo – This is the size of the book – five inches wide and eight to nine inches tall.

toning – One of many euphemisms booksellers use to describe the discoloration of paper with age.

endpapers – The sheets of paper pasted onto the inner covers of the book

lightly rubbed – This is wear caused to the edges of the book or its dust jacket as a result of being moved on and off a shelf. Another term might be ‘scuffed’.

nicks and creases – Nicks are small cuts or abrasions, and creases are permanent folds in paper which often occur on book jackets and inner pages.

first impression – The book comes from the first batch to be printed for this title – this is a guarantee of the book’s rarity.

As you can tell from this, book collectors are very concerned about the physical condition of the books they buy — with good reason. This one was for sale for £3,750.00


Bookseller jargon – example III

Here is a much more detailed and complex example. This an advert for a set of volumes which are a genuine rarity and an antiquity from the eighteenth century essayists Addison and Steele.

Addison, Johseph; Steele, Sir Richard. THE SPECTATOR. London: Printed for J. and R. Tonson and S. Draper 1749.
8 vols. T.p. devices., engraved frontiss., dec. head and tail pieces. Some sporadic very light browning, ex-libris Sir Thomas Miller Bt. and with sm. ownership signature, top edge of a couple of leaves in vol. 4 sl. chipped, slightly rubbed gilt filleted edges with some sl. wear to corners, full speckled calf with some minor light staining to a couple of boards, raised bands dec. gilt compartments and leather title labels to rubbed and slightly chipped spines..
£125.00

Eight volumes – This is a genuine eighteenth-centry collection for only £120.00 – which seems good value to me.

T.p. devices – Title page with devices. This page lists the title and any subtitle; the author; the publisher; and the printer.

engraved frontiss – This is an engraved illustration at the beginning of the book, usually facing the title page.

dec. head and tail pieces – A decorative ornament found at the start of a chapter or a division in a book (very common in the eighteenth century).

very light browning – This is signs of discolouration in the paper – an indication of its age.

ex-libris – A Latin term which means ‘from the library of’. This is often indicated by a small label pasted into the book’s inside cover.

sm. ownership signature – A small signature of a (or the) previous owner.

sl. chipped – Slightly chipped. This usually means that small parts of the page are missing or frayed.

gilt filleted edges – Fillets are decorative lines impressed on a book cover. These have been rubbed, and perhaps lost some of the gilding.

sl. wear to corners – Worn perhaps as the books have been taken on and off shelves.

full speckled calf – The volumes have been bound in leather – and ‘speckled’ means the calf’s hide has been treated to create small dark spots or specks.

boards – This is the heavy-duty cardboard used in the construction of the book covers.

slightly chipped spines – Futher signs of use and age. This is to be expected on something three centuries old.


Red button A full glossary of bookseller jargon

Red button Common abbreviations used by booksellers

Red button Book formats and sizes

© Roy Johnson 2013


More on literature
More on the novella
More on literary studies
More on short stories


Filed Under: 19C Literature, 20C Literature, How-to guides, Literary Studies, Literary studies Tagged With: antiquarian books, Bibliography, buying books, Literary studies, Media, second-hand books

Concise Chronology of English Literature

November 1, 2009 by Roy Johnson

what was written and published between 1474 and 2000

What were people writing about as Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, or whilst engineers built the first railways in the nineteenth century? This reference book Concise Chronology of English Literature lists the major and some minor works published in every year between 1474 and 2001. Each year in the chronology begins with a list of interesting events, births, and deaths. The later entries also include other cultural items such as films, television productions, and plays.

Chronology of English Literature There’s a big index which lists the authors and all their works listed by date – so you can either see an entry in its chronological context or look up its dating directly. It represents highbrow, middlebrow, and even lowbrow tastes, so the editors have tried to be egalitarian. So for instance, we learn that 1900 saw the birth of the Labour Party; the death of Ruskin, Nietzsche, and Oscar Wilde; and the publication of Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius, Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim, Bernard Shaw’s Fabianism and the Empire, and H.G.Wells’ Love and Mr Lewisham.

It was also the year which saw the first production of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, the Boxer Uprising in China, and the publication of S.R. Crockett’s The Stickit Minister’s Wooing, and Other Galloway Stories – which I have to confess I have never heard of before, and I bet you haven’t either.

Although the entries are short, there is an amazing amount of fine detail. For instance, here are two listings from 1756:

David Hume (1711-76)

The History of Great Britain [vol ii] NF Published 1756, dated 1757. Volume i published 1754 (q.v.) See also History of England 1759

Charlotte Lennox (1729? – 1804) (tr.) The Memoirs of the Countess of Berci F Anonymous. Adapted from L’Histoire tragi-comique de notre temps by Vital d’Audiguier (1569-1624)

The more recent entries – say from 2000 onwards read like a list of best-sellers in the weekend supplements. But then of course, who knows how many of these titles will stand the test of time. Will people still think Zadie Smith’s White Teeth and Anita Brookner’s The Bay of Angels summarised the turn of the century? I somehow doubt it.

On some items there is additional publishing history details which appeals to literary anoraks like me. For instance:

Joseph Conrad (1857-1924)

Youth F

Published on 13 November 1902. Contains ‘Youth’ (first published in Blackwood’s Magazine, September 1898), ‘The Heart of Darkness’ (first published in Blackwood’s Magazine, February 1898), and ‘The End of the Tether’ (first published in Blackwood’s Magazine, July-December 1902).

This is useful information for researchers, historians, and detail specialists. All of which might all sound dry as dust – but the strange thing is that I imagine that this will stay at the front of my desktop bookshelf as a useful resource.

Concise Chronology of English Literature   Buy the book at Amazon UK

Concise Chronology of English Literature   Buy the book at Amazon US

© Roy Johnson 2005


Michael Cox (ed), The Concise Oxford Chronology of English Literature, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2nd revised edition 2005, pp.844, ISBN: 0198610548


More on literature
More on the novella
More on literary studies
More on short stories


Filed Under: 19C Literature, 20C Literature, Literary Studies Tagged With: Concise Chronology of English Literature, Cultural history, English literature, literary chronology, Literary history, Literary studies

Concise Companion to English Literature

July 27, 2009 by Roy Johnson

authors, books, literary topics, and cultural issues

This Concise Companion to English Literature is a cut-down paperback version of Margaret Drabble’s Oxford Companion to English Literature. It’s based on the sixth edition, but it adds 500+ new entries on contemporary writers, ‘women writers’ and literary theorists. The main entries are thumbnail sketches of novelists, poets, and dramatists; but there are also entries representing philosophers, historians, scholars, critics, biographers, travel writers, and journalists.

Concise Companion to English Literature Topics covered include authors (from Abelard to Zola); literary genres (from the Absurd to yellow-backs); characters in fiction, drama, and poetry; famous works (Lawrence’s Aaron’s Rod to Max Beerbohm’s Zuleika Dobson); famous literary places, and concepts in literary theory. There are bonuses, such as the occasional special mini-essays on topics such as biography, or detective, gothic, and historical fiction. It also explains literary genres such as free verse, the epic, metaphors, and naturalism.

It more or less reflects contemporary concerns: Sorley McLean and Marshall McLuhan get far less space than Bernard McLaverty.

The extras are entries on significant magazines such as Edinburgh Review and Atlantic Monthly; entries on deconstruction, folios and quartos; the Hogarth Press and Penguin Books; performance poetry and post-colonial literature.

There are also appendix lists of poets laureate, plus Nobel, Pulitzer, and Booker Man prizewinners for literature.

One useful feature is the potted plots of novels and dramas. I’m fairly sure I will be going back to that, having refreshed my memory of the sprawling plot of Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano.

For those of us who were denied a classical education, there’s a generous outline of its main authors, texts, and characters – from Aristophanes and Aristotle to Virgil and Xenophon.

This is the sort of reference book which you will grab off the shelf the moment you see a name you don’t recognise, when you want to check the date, the author, or the correct title of a work you see mentioned, or if you want to know about ‘The Battle of Alcazar’ (1594) or ‘The Wreck of the Deutschland’ (1875).

© Roy Johnson 2005

Concise Companion to English Literature   Buy the book at Amazon UK

Concise Companion to English Literature   Buy the book at Amazon US


Margaret Drabble and Jenny Stringer, The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 3rd edition, 2003, pp.752, ISBN: 0199214921


More on dictionaries
More on language
More on literary studies
More on grammar


Filed Under: 19C Literature, 20C Literature, Literary Studies Tagged With: Cultural history, English literature, Literary studies, Reference

Dictionary of Literary Terms

July 29, 2009 by Roy Johnson

explanations of the language of literary criticism

Do you want to know the difference between an epic poem and a tragedy? Between ‘classical’ and ‘romantic’? Between ‘naturalism’ and ‘realism’? Chris Baldick’s Dictionary of Literary Terms answers all these questions – and more besides. With entries which range from definitions of abjection to zeugma, it is in fact a guide to a mixture of old-fashioned grammatical terms, traditional drama, literary history, and textual criticism. It contains over 1,200 of the most troublesome literary terms you are likely to encounter. Some of the longer entries and explanations become like short essays on their subject.

Dictionary of Literary TermsHe also includes literary terms which have slipped into everyday use – such as ‘text’ and ‘interpretation’. He gives clear and often witty explanations of terms such as ‘hypertext’, ‘multi-accentuality’, and ‘postmodernism’. He also explains more common figures of speech such as the metaphor (straightforward) and those you can never remember such synecdoche and metonymy (can you really tell the difference between them?)

He also explains literary genres, from ‘the madrigal’ to ‘dirty realism’ and ‘the boddice ripper’, as well as offering potted accounts of theories such as structuralism and hermeneutics.

The latest (third) edition has been expanded and I was glad to see that he has added entry-level web links from OUP’s companion website to the book.

This will appeal to the general reader with an interest in literary studies, but it’s principally a useful reference for the advanced schoolroom or for undergraduates. And in fact – make that teachers too. I’ve had a copy of the first edition on my shelves for years, and I use it all the time.

© Roy Johnson 2008

Dictionary of Literary Terms Buy the book at Amazon UK

Dictionary of Literary Terms Buy the book at Amazon US


Chris Baldick, Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms, Oxford: Oxford University Press, (third edition) 2008, pp.361, ISBN: 0199208271


More on dictionaries
More on language
More on literary studies
More on grammar


Filed Under: 19C Literature, 20C Literature, Dictionaries, Literary Studies Tagged With: Dictionaries, Dictionary of Literary Terms, Literary criticism, Literary studies, Literary terms, Reference, Study skills

Doing English

June 16, 2009 by Roy Johnson

preparing for literary studies at undergraduate level

This book is designed to make students of literature think more deeply about the subject. It explains the development of English Literature as an academic discipline and poses fundamental questions about the activity – such as ‘What is English [Literature] and what is studying it supposed to mean?’ Robert Eaglestone’s book aims to help students prepare for studying literature at undergraduate level. He offers a gentle introduction to literary theory – but without lots of jargon.

Doing English If students read what he has to say, they will certainly be more confident in confronting some of the challenges and contradictions which exist in literary studies in universities. For instance, tutors commonly deduct marks from students for poor written expression – and quite right too. Yet why do so many literary critics get published when their work is almost unintelligible? These are questions worth asking. He explains the rise in ‘Eng Lit’ and uncovers some of the hidden assumptions which lie beneath the surface of traditional attitudes to it. This is in fact an explanation of the ideology of ‘Eng. Lit.’ – but he cleverly avoids even using the term.

He unpacks the concept of the literary canon and looks in detail at Shakespeare studies as a prime example. This is followed by issues of interpretation which are summed up in the expressions ‘the intentional fallacy’ and ‘the death of the author’.

The latter parts of the book are devoted to considering the relationships between English Literature and cultural identity, politics, and educational policy. His consideration of these larger strategic issues make me think that this book will be as valuable to teachers as to students. It will help them clarify their ideas about their objectives and teaching strategies in the classroom.

There is an excellent and deeply annotated bibliography. Any student [or teacher] reading even a few of the titles he recommends will be well prepared to put their own approach to literary studies into a well-informed ideological context. [But they don’t have to mention the term.]

© Roy Johnson 2009

Doing English   Buy the book at Amazon UK

Doing English   Buy the book at Amazon US


Robert Eaglestone, Doing English: A guide for literature students, London: Routledge, 3rd edition 2009, pp.192, ISBN: 0415284236


More on literature
More on the novella
More on literary studies
More on short stories


Filed Under: 19C Literature, 20C Literature, Literary Studies Tagged With: Doing English, English literature, Literary studies, Study skills

Electronic Texts – a bibliographic essay

September 30, 2009 by Roy Johnson

text, editing, and bibliography in the electronic age

Electronic textuality is a relatively recent concept, yet one that has already had a significant impact upon the practice of scholarly editing. Scholars have debated the subject of textual bibliography and the issue of copy-text throughout the twentieth-century without, it seems, reaching any firm conclusions. The term ‘copy-text’ was first coined by Ronald McKerrow almost one hundred years ago (McKerrow and Nash 1904) but there still remains disagreement about how a text can or should be established. The arrival of electronic texts make this problem even more complex.

Advances in information technology have meant that scholars now have access to new and ever more sophisticated tools to assist them in the preparation of traditional codex editions and to aid textual analysis. Increasingly however, some editors are choosing to exploit the potential of digitised material and the advantages of hypertext to produce texts in an electronic format in either editions or archives. This raises various issues including the role of the editor and the relationship of the reader to the text.

One of the most influential and oft quoted theses on the subject of textual scholarship and one which has provoked a significant amount of debate, is W. W. Greg’s paper entitled ‘The Rationale of Copy-Text’ (1950). In this article, Greg highlights the difficulties of the prevailing editorial practice of attempting to select whichever extant text is the closest to the words that an author originally wrote and using this as the copy-text. In the case of printed books, this is generally considered the first edition, but Greg argues that an over-reliance on this one text, to the exclusion of all others, is problematic.

He advocates that a distinction be made between ‘substantive’ and ‘accidental’ readings of a text and suggests that the two should be treated differently. (He uses these terms to distinguish between readings that affect the meaning and readings that only affect the formal presentation of a text.) Greg asserts that it is only when dealing with accidentals that editors should adhere rigidly to their chosen copy-text and that in the case of possible variants in substantive readings there is a case to be made for exercising editorial choice and judgement. He argues that it is only through being allowed to exercise judgement that editors can be freed from what he terms ‘the tyranny of the copy-text’ (p. 26).

This argument is taken up and developed by Fredson Bowers (1964; 1970). Bowers takes issue with some of the finer points of Greg’s argument, but agrees that whilst rules and theories are necessary, the very nature of editing means that a certain amount of editorial judgement will always be needed. G. Thomas Tanselle (1975) examines the arguments of both scholars, expands them and looks at how their work and theories have affected the practice of scholarly editing. Greg, Bowers, Tanselle and others have slight differences of emphasis. They are however, all in broad agreement with the principle of synthesizing two or more variant editions into one text that represents as closely as possible an author’s intention.

The debate about copy-text and its role in scholarly editing rests largely on the status of authorial intention and the extent to which this is possible to discern and represent in a text. Michael Foucault, in his paper entitled ‘What is an author?’ (1984), argues that even when there is little question about the identity of author of a text, there remains the problem of determining whether everything that was written or left behind by him should be considered part of a work. Do notes in a margin represent an authorial addition or amendment, or did the author simply scribble in the margins a sudden thought that he wanted to remember and refer to later? Such issues remain a subject of debate and are some of the many problems with which editors are faced.

Textual ScholarshipThe practice of editing will always generate problems that scholars need to address and this is the basis for David Greetham (1994) and Peter Robinson’s (1997) assertions that to a certain extent, all editing must be seen as conjectural. However, in his examination of the history of textual criticism, Greetham finds that there has been a fluctuation between two equally extreme schools of thought.

The first, he suggests, maintains that a correct reading of a text is discoverable ‘given enough information about the texts and enough intelligence and inspiration on the part of the editor’ (p. 352). The opposing position is one that claims that any speculation on the part of an editor is likely to result in a move away from authorial intention. Because of this, scholars that hold this belief argue that documental evidence should be given priority over editorial judgement and wherever possible this documental evidence should be in the form of only one document – that chosen as the copy-text.

Yet scholars have found that it is sometimes impossible to establish one ‘correct’ text. Jerome McGann (1983; 1996; 1997) believes the very notion to be a falsity and Peter Donaldson (1997) argues that traditional scholarly editions can be misleading as their very nature suggests that a text is fixed and authoritative when the reality is often very different.

Taking the plays of Shakespeare as an example, he suggests that the collaborative nature of life surrounding the London theatres in the Renaissance combined with the fact that the author did not intend his work to be published, means that variants cannot and should not be ignored. Moreover, he contends, in some cases a single original text may never have existed. Donaldson argues that technology can be used to create new forms of text that incorporate variants in a way that is not practical in a codex edition. Donaldson is himself involved in a project that seeks to do this and he refers to his own experiences in assembling an electronic archive of the works of Shakespeare.

Electronic texts provide some solutions to the problems of editing, but they also raise new issues and opinions are divided about the way in which they can best be used. Some scholars welcome digital texts as a tool to aid the preparation and production of traditional scholarly editions whilst others prefer to look to electronic textuality as a medium for the publication of a different type of edition – an electronic edition.

Several authors (Donaldson 1997; Greetham 1997; Hockey 2000; Robinson 1997) examine the way in which new developments in information technology affect the traditional process of scholarly editing. Robinson for example, examines the analytic functions of electronic text and provides examples of instances in which computer aided collation has assisted in the preparation of scholarly editions. He cites his own experiences in the production of Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath’s Prologue on CD-ROM and explains how he used the particular techniques of computerised cladistic analysis as a method of textual criticism. Further information about computerized collation can be found in Hockey (1980) and Robinson (1994).

(Cladistic analysis has been developed from systematic biology. Susan Hockey (2000) describes it as ‘software that takes a collection of data and attempts to produce the trees of descent or history for which the fewest changes are required, basing this on comparisons between the descendents’. Cladistics is particularly useful in cases where manuscripts are lost or damaged.)

In addition however, Greetham (1994) and Robinson (1993; 1997) discuss the way in which, in an electronic edition, hypertext can be used to solve the problem of textual variants. The term ‘hypertext’ was coined in the 1960s by Ted Nelson (Landow 1992) and it refers to a means of linking documents or sections of documents and allowing a reader to navigate his or her own way through a series of paths in a non-linear way. Bolter (1991), Landow (1992) and McGann (1997) all write in detail about the technology behind hypertext, its functions and the theories that surround it.

Greetham suggests that decisions that were once the responsibility of the editor can be largely transferred to the reader as hypertext allows all possible variants to be included and linked in an electronic edition. This means that editors do not have to wrestle with the problem of authorial intention or give priority to one text but can incorporate several variants, allowing readers to select the most appropriate text for their particular needs.

Electronic TextsThis type of editing is, as Greetham argues, distinct from the methods of either establishing a text or accurately reproducing a particular version of a work in a critical edition. The desired result with electronic editing is not, according to McGann (1983) and others, a single conflated text as advocated by the Greg / Bowers school of editing but one containing such multiple variants.

McGann believes that this type of edition frees the reader from the controlling influence of editors, and George Landow (1992) suggests that it facilitates a greater degree of interaction between the reader and the text.

Kathryn Sutherland (1997) however, warns that this type of text places greater demands on a reader than a traditional codex edition. A hypertext edition that contains multiple variants necessarily requires a reader to select material, choose from amongst the possible variants and, therefore, exercise discrimination. She also points out, in an allusion to Barthesian distinctions, that a hypertext edition offering choice amongst variants is, in effect, offering the reader the ‘disassembled texts’ rather than the ‘reassembled work’ (p. 9).

McGann (1996; 1997) suggests that scholarly editions in codex form have limitations because their structure is too close to that of the material that they analyse. He asserts that hypermedia projects such as the Rossetti Hypermedia Archive with which he is involved, offer a different type of focus that does not rely on one central document. He argues that hyperediting allows for greater freedom and has the added advantage of giving readers access to more than just the semantic content of a primary text.

Moreover, McGann believes that hypertext is functioning at its optimum level when it is used to create hypermedia editions that incorporate visual and audio documents. Robinson (1997) however, warns that editors working on major electronic editions are producing material that will not be used to its full potential until there are further developments in the field of textual encoding and software that is more widely available.

P. Aaron Potter (c1997) takes issue with McGann and Landow’s ideas. He argues that a Web page editor controls the material that appears on the screen to an even greater extent than does an editor working on a traditional codex edition. A hypertext document is not a non-sequential document because an editor has inserted links and chosen what he considers the most suitable places for those links to be. A reader can, therefore, only navigate to a part of a document to which an editor has chosen to offer a path.

Hypertext links, asserts Potter, are ‘no more transparent that any reasonable index’ and whilst offering a choice amongst variants, and allowing readers to share some of the editorial functions, electronic editions are far from being either authorless or editorless texts. Moreover, her refers to Foucault’s theories and suggests that, as is often the case, hypertext is an example of a concept that is purporting to offer greater freedom, when in reality it is just more successful at hiding the mechanisms by which it exerts control – in this instance, control of a reader.

Susan Hockey (2000) warns that whilst editors working on electronic editions are freed from many of the limitations of printed books, and the need to rely on one particular text or reading, there is a danger of such projects becoming overly ambitious. She asserts that the inclusion of too much source material can result in editions that have little scholarly value. She maintains that source material should not replace the critical material that makes scholarly editions valuable. Similarly, Sutherland (1997) suggests that a balance needs to be struck between the quantity and the quality of the material that electronic editors choose to include. Claire Lamont (1997) examines the specific problems of annotation and compares how they differ in a codex and electronic edition. Hypertext provides the promise of annotations which are easier to access and which conceivably, can contain greater quantities of material.

Electronic TextsLamont draws attention to the fact that hypertext editions also have the advantage over traditional editions because they can be updated whenever necessary without the need to prepare an entire new edition and without the cost and time that this inevitably involves. However, rather than solving the problems of annotation such as where, what, and how much to annotate, Lamont concludes that hypertext has simply resulted in ‘another arena in which the debate may continue’ (p. 63). Sutherland (1997) sums up the feelings of many less fervent supporters of electronic textuality by suggesting that the electronic environment is perhaps best thought of as ‘a set of supplementary possibilities’ (p. 7). These possibilities will be debated by editors, theorists and scholars in a comparable way to which they have debated and continue to consider the medium of the book.

Contrary to the optimistic note struck by writers such as McGann (1997), Landow (1992), Lanham (1993) and others concerning an electronic text’s facility to empower the reader, Sven Birkerts (1995) expresses concern at the effect of electronic texts in a book that is pessimistically entitled The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age. Birkerts suggests that methods of electronic storage and retrieval have a detrimental effect upon a reader’s acquisition of knowledge. Information in an electronic medium, he believes, remains external – something to be stored and manipulated rather than absorbed.

Without claiming to support Birkerts’ theories, Sutherland (1997) suggests that if they do prove to be correct then the implications will be wide-ranging. The scholar who works for years seeking to become and expert in his chosen field for example, could conceivably be transformed by the computer into little more than a technician – able to locate and manipulate information, but without having any real understanding of it.

Rapid advances in information technology are increasingly becoming the source of debate amongst scholars who seek to determine both the best way of taking advantage of technology and the implications of so doing. Greetham (1997) rightly points out that digitisation is only one small stage in the evolution of texts and Sutherland (1997) remarks that computers, like books, are simply ‘containers of knowledge, information [and] ideas’ (p. 8).

However, as electronic textuality continues to emerge as a force to which the academic community will have to adapt there will, no doubt, be a continued explosion in the literature that addresses the issues that it raises. Jerome McGann is seen by more conservative scholars as too messianic in his endorsement of the electronic medium and it is possible that some of his predictions may well prove to have been extreme. However, in his claim that hyperediting is ‘what scholars will be doing for a long time’ (1997), it is likely that he will, ultimately, be proved right.

© Kathryn Abram 2002


Bibliography

Birkerts, Sven. 1995. The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age. New York: Fawcett Columbine.

Bolter, Jay David. 2001. Writing Space: The Computer, Hypertext, and the History of Writing. Hillsdale, N.J. : L. Erlbaum Associates.

Bowers, Fredson. 1964. Bibliography and Textual Criticism: The Lyell Lectures, Oxford, Trinity Term 1959. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

______. 1970. ‘Greg’s “Rationale of Copy-Text” Revisited’. Studies in Bibliography Volume 31 , pp. 90-161.

Chaucer, Geoffrey. 1996. The Wife of Bath’s Prologue on CD-ROM. ed. Peter M. W. Robinson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Donaldson, Peter. 1997. ‘Digital Archive as Expanded Text: Shakespeare and Electronic Textuality’, in Electronic Text: Investigations in Method and Theory. ed. Kathryn Sutherland, pp. 173-97. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Foucault, Michel. 1984. ‘What is an author?’, in The Foucault Reader. ed. Paul Rabinow, translated by Josue V. Harari, pp. 101-20. New York: Pantheon Books.

Greetham, D. C. 1994. Textual Scholarship: An Introduction. New York and London: Garland.

______. 1997. ‘Coda: Is It Morphin Time?’, in Electronic Text: Investigations in Method and Theory. ed. Kathryn Sutherland, pp. 199-226. Oxford: Clarendon Press .

Greg, W. W. 1950. ‘The Rationale of Copy-Text’. Studies in Bibliography Vol. 3 (1950-1951), pp. 19-36.

Hockey, Susan M. 1980. A Guide to Computer Applications in the Humanities. London: Duckworth.

______. 2000. Electronic Texts in the Humanities: Principles and Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Lamont, Claire. 1997. ‘Annotating a Text: Literary Theory and Electronic Hypertext’, in Electronic Text: Investigations in Method and Theory. ed. Kathryn Sutherland, pp. 47-66. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Landow, George P. 1992. Hypertext: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.

Lanham, Richard A. 1993. The Electronic Word: Democracy, Technology, and the Arts. Chicago; London: University of Chicago Press.

McGann, Jerome J. 1983. A Critique of Modern Textual Criticism. Charlottesville: University of Chicago Press.

______. 1996. ‘Radiant Textuality’. Accessed on 19 February 2002.

______. 1997. ‘The Rationale of Hypertext’, in Electronic Text: Investigations in Method and Theory. ed. Kathryn Sutherland, pp. 19-47. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

______. 1997. ‘The Rossetti Hypermedia Archive’ [Web page]. Accessed on 19 March 2002.

McKerrow, Ronald B., and Thomas Nash. 1904. The Works of Thomas Nashe. Vol. 1. London: A.H. Bullen.

Potter, P. Aaron. c1997. ‘Centripetal Textuality’. Accessed on 19 February 2002.

Robinson, Peter M. W. 1993. The Digitization of Primary Textual Sources. Oxford: Office for Humanities Communication Publications.

______. 1994. ‘Collate: A Program for Interactive Collation of Large Textual Traditions’, in Research in Humanities Computing 3. eds. Susan Hockey, and N. Ide, pp. 32-45. Oxford: Oxford Universtiy Press.

______. 1997. ‘New Directions in Critical Editing’, in Electronic Text: Investigations in Method and Theory. ed. Kathryn Sutherland, pp. 145-71. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Sutherland, Kathryn, ed. 1997. Electronic Text: Investigations in Method and Theory. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Tanselle, G. Thomas. 1975. ‘Greg’s Theory of Copy-Text and the Editing of American Literature’. Studies in Bibliography Volume 28, pp. 167-231.

 


Filed Under: 19C Literature, 20C Literature Tagged With: Bibliography, David Greetham, Electronic Texts, Kathryn Sutherland, Literary studies, Susan Hockey, Technology, textual scholarship

Father and Son

April 30, 2012 by Roy Johnson

A child pulled between religion, science, and poetry

Father and Son (1907) is a profoundly sad book which details the struggle between religious belief and scientific rationalism in the middle of the nineteenth century. It has the appearance of an autobiography, but author Edmund Gosse stresses more than once that it’s a ‘study of two temperaments’, by which he means the relationship between him and his father, Philip Gosse. It’s sad because his story details the terrible struggle between two people who obviously love each other dearly, but in ways which are completely different and even antagonistic.

Father and SonThe father is a strict, authoritarian, and evangelical Christian who wishes to control and mould a son entirely in his own image. The son feels oppressed, lonely, burdened with anxiety and self-doubt, and he is denied the pleasures and innocence of a normal childhood. On almost every page the reader is invited to sympathise with the fragile and tender feelings of a young boy who is denied any form of natural enjoyment, but is exhorted to prepare himself for Judgement Day. Before even the age of ten he is being commanded to prove the fervour of his commitment to the True Way to God.

His father Philip Gosse was a successful writer, a naturalist, and a member of the fundamentalist Christian sect of Plymouth Brethren. They believed that every word of the Bible was literally true because in their terms it was the actual word of God. All other religious beliefs were deemed heretical and their adherents doomed to hell and damnation – particularly Catholics. The Lord would only save those who truly believed, and who were prepared to be baptised (often for a second time) as adults.

To accept this ideology was only the beginning. After that it was the duty of every true believer to proselytise and convert non-believers to the True Way. The young Gosse had this drummed into him relentlessly in a domestic routine which was puritanical, cheerless, and devoid of any normal social pleasures.

The narrative documents his lonely childhood in Islington with no friends, the early death of his mother, and an amazing absence of any formal education. This was followed by a move to live in Devon when he was about ten years old – which provided a slight amelioration in the grimness of life. But it’s significant that this slim pleasure was found in gathering and documenting specimens of sea creatures in rock pools on the shore – which was precisely his father’s scientific specialism.

The central point of the drama comes in 1857 when his father published a work of theory (with the unfortunate title of Omphalos) which sought to reconcile Biblical accounts of creation (Genesis) with scientific evidence of the world’s evolution over millions and millions of years. His explanation was a version of what we now call creationism. He suggested that God made the world completely in six days – and that it already contained all the aeons of materials that we now see as historical evidence. Moreover, all its animal life was in a fully developed state of being.

Expecting great things from this work, he was mortified when it was badly received, and of course two years later in 1859 Darwin delivered the hammer blow of The Origin of Species which provided the explanation that is still accepted today and that constituted a challenge to religious belief that left it reeling.

Boarding school provided a slight relief from the physical presence of parental pressure. However, the interrogations his father had subjected him to personally were immediately replaced by an almost daily demanded for written evidence detailing proof of his son’s efforts to remain uncontaminated and free from the temptations of ‘infidelity’. At that time this meant adherence to the True Way and was code for a virulent strain of anti-Catholicism.

The young Gosse discovered Shakespeare and romantic poetry as a sort of alternative and antidote to the extreme puritanism his father continued to impose on him, but in the end he never shook off the shackles of religious belief. It’s interesting to note that this semi-confessional memoir and heart-rending account of a spiritually anguished childhood originally ended with Gosse in a religious fervour, imploring the Lord to take him away:

Come now, Lord Jesus, come now and take me to for ever with Thee in Thy Paradise. I am ready to come. My heart is purged from sin, there is nothing that keeps me rooted to this wicked world … take me before I have known the temptations of life, before I have to go to London and all the dreadful things that happen there.

It was the publisher Heinemann who insisted on his writing an Epilogue which brought the account to its natural conclusion – which was the eventual (partial) triumph of the son’s sense of personal identity over the tyranny of such an oppressive father figure.

The struggle between them continued even when Gosse was a young adult, living independently. Eventually he mustered sufficient courage to express mild reservations about evangelical Christianity and its exclusive claim to the Truth. But it is his father’s devastating and uncompromising riposte, holding to the logic of his fundamentalist belief which is the artistic conclusion of the narrative.

Some readers have said that it is the oppressive, scholarly, and Ahab-like figure of Gosse senior who emerges as the more admirable of the two characters (or ‘temperaments’) and that Gosse junior reveals himself as a feeble, complaining, and self-centred figure.

That’s why the book is so sad – because it’s almost impossible not to wish that this young child then young man could break away from his emotionally tyrannical father – having the confidence to throw off the system of belief that is being welded onto him like a suit of armour. But he never really succeeds.

Gosse went on to become a successful man of letters and was instrumental in introducing figures such as Ibsen and Gide into English literary culture, but this is the book for which he will be remembered. It’s rather like one of the Cotman or Crome watercolours that are evoked in the text – offering a pastoral and sentimental vision of English childhood that nevertheless captures the powerful ideological conflicts that affected the latter part of the Victorian era. It’s perhaps significant that the memoir was published only a few years before Lytton Strachey’s Eminent Victorians, a book that helped to draw a line under the same phenomenon for once and all.

Father and Son Buy the book at Amazon UK

Father and Son Buy the book at Amazon US

© Roy Johnson 2012


Edmund Gosse, Father and Son, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009, pp.241, ISBN: 0199539111


Filed Under: 19C Literature, 20C Literature Tagged With: 19C Literature, Biography, Cultural history, Edmund Gosse, Father and Son, Literary studies

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • …
  • 6
  • Next Page »

Related posts

  • 19C Authors
  • 19C Literature
  • 20C Authors
  • 20C Literature
  • Bloomsbury Group
  • Conrad – Tales
  • James – Tales
  • Nabokov – Stories
  • Short Stories
  • The Novella
  • Wharton – Stories
  • Woolf – Stories

Get in touch

info@mantex.co.uk

Content © Mantex 2016
  • About Us
  • Advertising
  • Clients
  • Contact
  • FAQ
  • Links
  • Services
  • Reviews
  • Sitemap
  • T & C’s
  • Testimonials
  • Privacy

Copyright © 2025 · Mantex

Copyright © 2025 · News Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in