Samuel Butler

• Lived in Victorian England

• “Erewhorn” (anagram of “nowhere” sth like utopia)

  • Idealized vision of perfect country, beautiful, healthy people,

  • If they get sick they are punished for not taking proper care of themselves

  • Society makes people criminals

  • The novel discusses social and legal ideas in a serious way, he doesn’t criticize certain people but the system/organization.

• “The Way of All Flesh”

  • The way the world goes round, biography

  • A son influenced by family, institutions, schools, church – sadistic, punishing disobedience, crushing individuality, killing anything new and fresh

  • Bitter and poignant novel

  • The poor guy survives & is normal, he survives sadistic procedures

  • Family, work, church, authority – the most important values for Victorians – the society based on these “holy” institutions is criticized

George Bernard Shaw

• Active in London at the beginning of 20^th century

• Naturist dramas (poor housing conditions, prostitution, real social problems in natural landscape)

• His favourite strategy: ironic reversal (thing may look much different than they seem to) e.g. prostitute appears to be the most honest character in the novel

• “Pygmalion” – protagonist is a teacher of English

• “Man and Superman” – ironic illustration of ideas of Nietzsche

  • Main protagonist – just an attractive man (Jack Tenet), he’s brave energetic

  • The rest is more & more unpleasant

  • Twist: the real superman – the woman who seduces him

• His works were published and then staged

• Long speeches of the characters

• Didaskalia – offered in the text run for pages (thing you couldn’t stage or you could stage them but some things wouldn’t be obvious for the audience)

Herbert George Wells

• Teacher of science, author of textbooks

• “scientific romances” – books set in the future, technology, vehicles, machines, romances as the stories of adventure, travel, interesting things happening

• He tried to smuggle some ideas

• He comes from poor family

• Sense of inferiority (poczucie niższości)

• He didn’t take his books seriously, he was not proud of them

• 2^nd stage: social comedies (criticizing certain things)

  • “The story of Mr. Polly” - Mr. Polly – small man trying to adjust to society, it’s difficult if you are different

• Novels of ideas:

  • “New Machiavelli” – about the idea of power)

  • “Marriage – if it should exist, etc

• He got more & more serious, accomplished, however, his audience preferred scientific romances, they were more popular, those books really survived

WYKŁAD 15

Artistic Fiction

• From the beginning of 20^th century

• All artistic creativity is like religious creativity

• Not only the content, message, but also form was important

• Idea that fiction can be art- was controversial for 19^th century people (fiction is sth everybody used, no art; only poetry & drama [from Renaissance] are art)

Henry James and Joseph Conrad – founding fathers of 20^th century British novel

Henry James

• Called “The Master”

• A Victorian man

• Son of prosperous preachers, he studied mostly at home, travelled a lot, studied law for 2 years

• 1870s- he emigrated to Paris and lived there for a year

• He met a lot of literary critics

• He wrote a pamphlet/essay “The Art of Fiction” – about the theory, you have to think how to construct a novel in a conscious way

• Novel not a ready product but a joined work. The reader has to cooperate/work/think while reading.

• Novel – demanding, ambitious

• It should be more painful and time consuming

How you write a novel:

• Point of view – you always have it, as an observer, as an main character?

  • “What Maisie Knew” – little girl, her point of view, her parents wants to divorce, she doesn’t know what’s going on but she senses a lot and describes it from her viewpoint

  • Message is affected by the point of view, technical things

  • The reader has to find his own conclusion