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Clive Stamples Lewis

born in Belfast in 1896, died in 1963
studied in Oxford, interrupted by service in WWI, wounded
then teacher of English
1954 appointed to the newly created Chair of Medieval and Renaissance English Literature at Cambridge
De Descriptione Temporum ( = concerning the Description of Periods) was his inaugural lecture in this position
successful author of sci-fi stories ( e.g. Out of the Silent Planet)
works of popular theology
children´s books
literary criticism – best known for his work on medieval literature ( e.g. The Allegory of Love: a study in medieval tradition)
Lewis represented the Oxford´ tradition of literary criticism = relaxed, enthusiastic and conservative
convinced Christian, + associates formed a kind of High Anglican school of literary intellectuals in Oxford – influential in 1940s
regarded the study of literature as primarily and historical one

De descriptione temporum – notes:
”What most attracted me in that commission was the combination of Medieval and Renaissance”. ( Lewis)
“As the Middle ages and Renaissance come to be better known, the traditional antitheses between them grows less marked.” ( Prof. Seznec)

Lewis says:
the actual temporal process, as we must in our lives, has no divisions, change is never complete, and nothing is quite new – it was always prepared for
unhappily we, as historians, cannot hold together huge masses of particulars without putting into them some kind of structure – periods
assuming that we do not put our great frontier between the Middle Age and the Renaissance, other dimension might be made:
division = between Antiquity and the Dark Ages
the fall of the Empire, the Barbarian invasions, the christening of Europe
the partial loss of ancient learning and its recovery at the Renaissance – unique events, but have lived to see 2nd death of ancient learning ( in our time something which was one the possession of all educated men has shrunk to being the technical accomplishment of a few specialists)
the christening of Europe seemed to all own ancestors a unique, irreversible event, but we have seen the opposite process, now history for us falls into 3 periods: Pre-Christianity, The Christian Period, Post Christian Period
what´s more: Christ and Pagans had much more in common than either has with a post Christian
Dark and the Middle Ages
Dark Ages: a period of retrogression ( worse houses, roads, less security)
Middle Ages: a period of widespread and brilliant improvement ( in world of thought, architecture, literature)
- If we were considering the history of thought, 3rd frontier would be at the end of 17th century
but if we are considering the history of our culture in general, it is a different matter, it would be vague and sure – later
the greatest of all divisions in the history of the West = which divides, the present from the age of another and Scott
the change in political order ( rulers – leaders)
in the arts ( modern poetry is new in a new way)
religious change ( = un-christening)
the birth of machines – new approach to life, new = better, = the greatest change in the history of Western Man
Jacques Lacan
Freudian, life full of scandals – homosexuality, quarrels with his opponents
1901-81, psychoanalysis in Freudian way
The Insistence of the Letter in the Unconsciousness
-tlak litery na podvědomí
-crucial essay, mathematical patterns – incomprehensible
studied medicine in Paris, 1936 – joined Freudian movement
radical critique of the Freudian movement, 1959 exposed
theories
1964 he established his own Freudian school in opposition to psychoanalytical association

Writings
-in Paris, collection of papers and seminars: extremely fashionable on the French and international scene for disseminating Structuralists and Poststructuralists ideas about language, literature and nature of human subject

towards the end of his life, quarrels with own members
every year: Psychoanalyses: collected articles in essays from various presses, annually, essay on E. A. Poe´s Purloin Letter
1972 in America considered a demi-God

Psychoanalysis:
wants to understand, heal
unconsciousness: chaotic, instinctual, pre-verbal
J. Lacan on the contrary structured like language, by understanding the way language works – able to understand how the unconscious works, linguistically analysable
claims that must borrow concepts of modern linguistics
questions the unproblematic bond between signifiant and signifier, linguistics are selective in their examples, choose unproblematic ones
language which we believe to be a chain of SIGNIFIERS has a life of its own, can´t be securely anchored in the word of things
there is a perpetual sliding of the signified under the signifier, no meaning is sustained by anything other than reference to another meaning, (vyprazdňování významu, viz Lodge: Nice Work, Therapy), this statement led to other statements no circle between signifiant and signifier, no meaning – no hope – no future, / punk subculture/, inspired other philosophers and movements
there is no absolute meaning
drew also on Russian formalists, Jakobson, /poetry is chiefly metaphorical, prose is metonymical
identifies together with Freud metaphorical with condensation = neurotic symptoms metonymical with displacement = desire


Summary:

I.
There is no getting outside language. Our world is the world of language. Language is innately figurative, not transparently referential to reality. Human subject is constituted by language. Everything you say is a metaphor. One´s life is a text within other contexts. Viz. Hilský – Modernisté

II.
The human subject is constituted precisely by the entry into language and the Christian-humanist idea of an antonomous individual self of soul that transcends the limits of language is a flattery and illusion: fundamental to the Deconstructional school and be traced back to Nietze and Derrida


Michael Bakhtin

major figure in recent 20 years
opposes the Russian formalism at its time, not post formalism
gets back to novel
a Russian scholar, has been considered by the western academics as the most important figure in humanities

1928 The Formal Method in Literary scholarship
-criticism of formalism based on the idea of language of social nature, opposes Saussure
-with Medvedev, but later wrote himself
-by Vološinov, considered to be written by by Bakhtin

1929 Problems of Dostoyevski´s art
-Dostoyevski introduced a polyphonic type of fiction
-a variety of discourses expressing different ideological perspectives without unifying them or judging them, it is up to the reader, not manipulating
-later: not unique in Dostoyevski, but prose general brings this polyphony

emphasis in Western Europe culture on Pop culture (satires, parodies, travesties, Menippean satire, carnivals
helped to rehabilitate the novel

1963 revised edition : Problems in Dostoyevski´s poetics, Rabelais and His World
-finds the aspects of pop-culture
-revealed that for the western culture

Stalin´s rule:
exiled, persecuted
forbidden to publish under his name
1960´s – détente, again under his own name, translated especially in France, more and more admired

Pop-culture becomes a phenomenon ( together with hippies, rock culture)

his perception of language = as a dialogue = dialogical character of language : not only about the people, also between the thing and sign
every speech act springing from previous utterance and expecting a response, far reaching consequences beyond the linguistics
tragedy, poetry – at the centre of poetics, novel on the margins, as well as comedy, he places them at the centre of attention of the literary scholarship
literature not only mimesis ( prose, fiction)
forms of Middle Ages: carnivals, parodies, satires…, resists to the tyranny of monology of ideology, novels also 18th century : form of satire ( Swift, Defoe), they maintain the dialogue within society


Tzvetan Todorov
The Typology of Detective Fiction

1939 Sofia, Bulgaria, Slavic literature, literary theorist
Paris-leading part in emergence of structuralism in literary studies in 1960´s
Translating Russian formalists, his own contributions = narratology
fragment academic visitor to the USA

The Fantastic: a Structural Approach to a Literary Genre
The Poetic of Prose: includes The Typology of Detective
Fiction: cool, economical style

The Typology of Detective Fiction
widespread attitude = detective fiction cannot be divided into kinds, only to historically different forms
for two centuries – literary studies against the motion of genre, results from classical period – didn´t only describe genres but prescribed them, a work judged poor if the rules of its genre not followed, radical reaction in romanticism, rejected the rules of the genres
typology implied by the description of individual works, we cannot undertake an investigation of genres without elaborating structural description
major work: a new genre by transgressing the previously valid rules, every book establishes the existence of two genres: the one it transgress ( this does not work within) and the one creates
Popular literature: does not transgress its genre but conforms to it, the best novel in popular literature = the one about which nothing to say
2 esthetic norms in our society: high art, popular art

THE WHODUNIT ( Who done it?)
= classic detective fiction, its peak between the wars
George Burton: ”all detective fiction based on 2 murders, the first committed by the murderer= only the occasion for the second murder in which he is the victim of the unpunishable murderer, the detective

- duality: two stories: the story of the crime, the story of the investigation
* characters of this one do not act, they learn, nothing can happen to them, have the detective´s immunity
* often a detective´s friend is writing a book, this 2nd story = explaining how this book came to be written

The Story of the CrimeThe Story of the Investigation
* what really happened* explains how the reader/narrator has come to
know about it
generally : 2 aspects in every literary work
Russian formalists:
The Fable/StoryThe subject/plot
= what has happened in life= the way the author presents it
no inversion in time- author can present results before their causes
actions in natural order
characterize 2 aspects of the same work
2 points of view of the same thing
The Fable/Story
the story of an absence
it cannot be immediately present in the book
the narrator cannot transmit directly conversation of the characters and describe their actions
involves many literary devices: temporal inversions, individual points of view
The subject/plot
the author employs another character, will report the words heard and actions observed
no importance in itself, just a mediator between the reader and the story of crime
here the devices naturalized, the author must explain he is writing a book, the style must be neutral and plain

THE THRILLER = série noire
fuses the two stories, suppresses the first and vitalizes the second
no retrospection, memoires, but replaced by prospection
no story to be guessed, no mystery
2 forms of interest:
a) curiosity: from effect to cause, we must find
b) suspense: from cause to effect, expectation of what will happen
- here chief characters not immunized, everything possible, they risk their health + life
- specific characters, behaviours, themes, violence, immorality, love
- mystery: secondary function if any, not central
- close to: adventure story, danger, combat, travel narrative, exotic, marvellous


S. S. Van Dine

1928: 20 rules, any author of detective fiction must conform
Summary:
the novel must have at most 1 detective and 1 criminal, at least 1 victim
the culprit mustn´t be a professional criminal, detective, must kill for personal reasons
love has no place in detective fiction
the culprit mustn´t have a certain importance
in life: not a butler or a chambermaids
in the book: one of the main characterictics
everything must be explained rationally
no place for description, psychological analyses
this homology must be observed, author: reader = criminal : detective
avoid banal solutions and situations

Todorov´s comments:
1 – 4a: concern themes, the first story and are limited to the whodunit
4b – 7: refer to the discourse, the book, the Second story and equally valid for the thriller
8: broader gerenality


The Thriller:
often more than 1 detective, 1 criminal
criminal almost obliged to be a professional and does not kill for personal reasons and is often a policeman, but still must be one of the main characters
love, fantastic explanations, descriptions, psychological analyses remain banished
the thriller: does not reserve its surprises for the last times of the chapter
X the Whodunit: making it explicit in its second story
Stylistic features in the thriller – descriptions without rhetoric, coldly, dreadful, things described cynically

The Suspense Novel:
developed between there two forms, combines their properties
keeps the mystery of the whodunit, also the 2 stories, but doesn´t reduce the second story to a simple detection of the truth, it occupies the central place
2 types of interest = united here, curiosity to learn the explanation of the past events + also the suspense = what will happen to the main character
2 types:
the story of the vulnerable detective:
/ Chandler/
the detective loses his immunity, gets beaten up, badly hurt, risks his life
he is integrated into the universe of the other characters, not an independent observer
the story of the suspect-as-detective
the crime committed in the first pages
all the evidence points to the main character, must prove his innocence, find the real culprit by himself
this character = at the same time the detective, the culprit (in the eyes of the police), and the victim

these 3 forms coexist today, even by the same author but also correspond with the stages of evolution of this genre


Wystan Hugh Auden 1907- 1973

born in New York, grew up in Birmingham
father = doctor
studied in Oxford – natural sciences, gave up and started English
1929 travelling round Germany, German literature
teacher of English at secondary schools
1939 shaken by Nacism, fled to the USA in protest to the way Europe behaved, got American citizenship ( x Eliot died as a British although born in the USA)
after 2WW: travelling round Europe, Italy, Austria

1930 Poems

- gained fame as poet, also dramatist, literary critique, travel book author, librettist
- prolific and productive
- often uses technical and scientific terms, original ideas, linking a number of philosophical streams, literary styles,

1939 Left wing
- against fascist
- also in his travel books this leftwing attitude

1940´s
Christian influence
New York Letter : poem
Homosexual, with his partner wrote dramas
The Ascent of F6
Louis McNiece: also his boyfriend, together Letters from Iceland ( a letter to Lord Byron, paraphrases Don Juan)
Chester Kallmann, together librettes for Stavinski, Benjamin Britain

1945 For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio
- a poem, meditates on Christian message and horrors on 2WW

Literary criticism in two collections:
The Dyer´s Hand
1968 Secondary Worlds

died in Vienna
his family: well-to-do doctors, studied natural scientists
Nevil Coghill: translated Chaucer into modern English, his tutor
He decided to become a great poet, at 25 became one

Cecil Day Lewis
Louis McNiece
John Bedgemon
relationships with them



W.B. Yeats
T.S. Eliot
- acquainted with them

at the beginning . scientific vocabulary to describe emotional situations, unusual
express a mind unable to get rid of the particular way of thinking
like in Eliot – beautiful sounds that don´t make any sense: musicality of his verses at the loss of meaning sometimes

Who stand the crooks
distance and time
being the late modernist begins with modernist poetry, later abandons free verse to material regularity
tends to create his own form

Letter to Lord Byron
uses traditional form of Byron´s times – Ottawa Rima

The Old Masters
deals with a painting of Ikarus from renaissance
suffering connected with art
demythologizes the aura of old art

1930´s : became a powerful love poet

G1
1937, his most beautiful poem
His best love poetry written during the war
Toward mysticism and spirituality
Also humorous poetry: Miss G ( humour and also poetry), Victor

Late 1930´s
leaves analysis of past events
moves towards events of this own time
his works: more occasional poetry
In Memory of W. B. Yeats
September 1939: trying to find explanations for the events, felt that the war was a cultural necessity, not only the result of Munich Treaty

1940
detachment
moving to New York
increasingly interested in commenting events rather than participating in them
more lecturing work and critical work: Forwards and Afterwards collection
hardly any poetry, taught at Harvard writing

later
The Year Letter: The Day of Destiny, analyses American society
The Sea and the Mirror: meaning of existence, role of art in society, vanity and ambition
dialogues between characters from The Tempest and audience commenting on them, before the play starts about relationship between the artist and his role, art and society, play and its audience, several times tipped for Nobel Prize, never got it

50´s
decline of the poetry

1963
offered professorship in Oxford
6 months in Austria

1973 before death, Haiku

appreciated for the diversity as well as quality of his poetry

Writing – essay
What´s the poet like
his success depends on inspiration, Lucky hazard of ideas
social gatherings, his nightmare has no shop to talk, has no impersonal professional interests
forgets his work as soon as he has completed it and starts to think about the next one
it does not care about popularity as such, just needs approval of his work, to know his vision is true
their medium/language: not reversed for their private use, it is common property, usual one does not understand music but very few, one does not understand English
writing a poem: poet as two people involved: his conscious self and a Muse, has an internal censor to keep his errors to minimum
father of a poem, mother = a language, to beginners Philology more important, should be more interested in playing with words than saying something original









What does the orientalism of Edward Said represent?
How does it affect contemporary literary criticism?
Orientalism is an idea of Western scientists´ Orient. It is an biased image created by them.
Historians emplot their narratives “as a story of a particular kind” – also true of Orientalist who plotted Oriental history, character and destiny for hundreds of years.
During 19th – 20th century Orientalism had accomplished its self- metamorphosis from a scholarly discourse to an imperial institution. Orientalism during 19th century produced scholars, increased number of languages taught in the West, quantity of manuscripts…… - Orientalism overrode the Orient. Orientalism assumed an unchanging Orient, different from the West great likelihood that ideas about the Orient drawn from Orientalism can be put to political use (this is an important sensitive truth). Provokes unrest in one’s conscience about cultural, racial or historical generalizations, their uses, value, degree of objectivity....
Orientalism carried 2 traits:
1. newly found scientific self-consciousness based on the linguistic importance of the Orient
to Europe
2. a proclivity to divide, subdivide and redivide its subject matter without ever changing its
mind about the Orient as being always the same, unchanging, uniform
By the end of 19th century European occupation of the entire Near Orient.
Principal colonial powers – Britain, France.
to colonize= identification, the creation of interests (commercial, religious, military, cultural)
a complex apparatus for tending these interests developed → Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge…add to these trading, learned, geographical society…..
typical experiences and emotions – disappointment that the Modern Orient is not at all like the texts
to write about the modern orient – to reveal an upsetting demystification of images culled from texts or confine oneself to the Orient – as “image” or “pensée”
the European is a watcher never involved, always detached, ready for new examples of “bizarre jouissance” (Orient – living tableau of queerness) this tableau becomes special topic for texts.
Its foreignness can be translated, its meanings decoded, its hostility tamed, yet the generality in redistributed in what is said or written about it.
The Orient of modern Orientalist = Orient is the Orient as it has been Orientalized

What does Said understand by crisis in orientalism?
the scope of Orientlaism exactly matched the scope of empire – this absolute unanimity provoked the only crisis in the history of Western thought. Response to empire and imperialism has been dialectical.
one index of the crisis – “national liberation movements in the ex-colonial” Orient worked
havoc with Orientalist conception of passive, fatalistic “subject races”
+ the fact that specialists and the public aware of the time-lag between orientalist science and the material under study
+ between the conceptions, methods….in the human and social sciences and those of Orientalism
the Orientals saw Islam as a “cultural synthesis” could be studied apart from the economics, sociology and politics
in order best to be understood Islam had to be reduced to “tent and tribe” . Orientalism has not allowed ideas to violate in