Herbert George Wells

• Literature has a use (to transmit ideas) vehicle/container for the ideas

• Conservative in literature – the simpler a novel, the better, you shouldn’t complicate things

• Message given straight on

• Not complicated form, not visible, not drawing attention, to itself

Literary quarrels – discussions in letters between Wells and James about art/fiction/role of art, they were published, he compares him to a journalist, form is not important but the subject

Recently two books about Henry James:

• Comb Toibin “The Master”, H. James protagonist, written in the style of Henry James

• David Lodge “Author, Author” –

20^th century split between high-brow and popular literature

• High-brow – more demanding

• Popular – repetitive, hardly innovative and experimental

Henry James books

• “A Passionate Pilgrim” – story of his life, culture in Europe, the difference between America (energy, openness, money, profit) and Europe (tradition, art, culture) erupts into open conflict

• “The portrait of a Lady” – a study of woman (Elizabeth) her development, her thoughts, changes

• “The Bostonians”

• “The Wings of the Dove”

• “The Ambassadors”

• “The Golden Bowl”

Joseph Conrad

“The Heart of Darkness” – gaps, colours, symbolic objects, not based on plot and action, narration – filtred by Marlow

WYKŁAD 16

I World War

• 1^st world and mass war

• a lot of people (soldiers) died

• meantime – colonial wars, The Boers War (South Africa)

• rage

• unprecedented brutality

• improvement in weapon (gases, tanks, artillery)

• turning point: 1916 –

• Great battles: Somme, Verdun – extremely bloody, a lot of casualties, the attitude (initial optimism and enthusiasm) changed, harsh reality remained

• War – national trauma

• War literature, war poetry (most poets were soldiers, experienced the war)

  • Relatively simple, nothing original, little experimentation

  • Use of colloquial language, soldiers slang

  • Subject matter: experience is communicated

• To 1916 – abstractly optimistic vision of war

  • Rupert Brooke (soldier) – what war is like? (smell, touch), intellectual writing, theory

• After 1916:

  • W. Owen

  • S. Sassoon

  • I. Rosenberg

  • E. Thomas

  • David Jones

  • Soldiers, they experienced war, it doesn’t bring any benefits, death, suffering, damage, philosophical poems, questions: what for do we fight?, sensual images (distorted bodies, reactions) the pictures of reality (battlefield) we see how in practice war looked like

David Jones

• He survived the 1^st war

• Poem “In Paranthesis” – synthesis of experience of IWW

• Part of his life was taken out, destructed

Not many novels about 1^st War,

• The war is very terrible, it’s hard to make a novel of it

• It takes time and paper to write a novel (poems were written on the leave in hospitals, in trenches)

Late 20ties Novels:

• R. Aldington – “Death of A Hero” – apocalypse, description/image of war

• Robert Graves – “Good-bye to All That” – his experience was an end to his previous life

Gay 1920s

• Merry, joyful, peaceful, relaxation

• People are happy to have survived, the war is over,

• Prosperity, before war world crisis

• The highest moment of new type of writing – anachronistic (form, theme) inappropriate, no much audience