Literary History 2018

• strongly influenced by the confessionalist poetry of Robert Lowell
• combine very personal outlooks with social topics such as the role of women in the frontier myth or as mothers

• after WWII, modernist art comes back to Europe
• once imported from Europe to the US, starting with the famous Armory Show in 1917, where the US public was confronted for the first time with the works of Picasso, the cubists, modern returns as “Abstract Expressionsm”

• from 1910 to about 1950, modernism had been the most influential artistic style in literature and the arts
• With abstract expressionism and pop art, a new, “surface art” was developing
• If modernism had criticized and radically subjectivized Enlightenment’s claim to a universal truth, postmodernism denies any final truth value whatsoever
• The concept of postmodernism is first mentioned in relation to architecture by Charles Jenkins. 

• Gertrude Stein and William Carlos Williams try still to unearth objects from the semantic sedimentation under which they were buried
• American literary postmodernists such as Donald Barthelme, John Barthelme, Don DeLillo do not search for some truth, but rather show the constructedness of any reality
•  Postmodernism enjoys the “jouissance” that the freedom from “master narratives” allows 

• quoting of other texts / intertextuality / pastiche
• innovation through recombination of known styles
• self-reflexiveness on the fictionality of the text and on the artistic or creative process (“books about books”)
• “anything goes”: critics object that the loss of any binding norms and rules (“meta-narratives”) leads to anarchy and moral erosion
• playfulness and irony

• constitutes a perfect example of postmodernist writing
• not only the constructedness of literature reflected upon through the numbering of the lines; the story is basically a meta-commentary on writing a story
• accurate or made-up quotes are inserted
• it also freely plays with old forms of storytelling, like stories of knights and princesses, and desublimates them through irony

• The Harlem Renaissance: before and after WWII, New York’s Harlem becomes the site of an enormous influx of African-Americans, as Whites more and more abandon the neighborhood. 
• Many artists, painters, literati, musicians, and intellectuals move here to create what has become known as the Harlem Renaissance
• their common goal is to unearth and create a genuinely African-American voice -  a hard task after being geographically and culturally cut off from their heritage through centuries of slavery
• two of the main cultural traditions that have survived are storytelling and music; unearthing these traditions requires both anthropological as well as artistic work

• branch of modernism that has inherited the romantic distrust for science and civilization from the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• is highly critical of Western concepts of civilization as progress
• nostalgically yearns for a Golden Age of humans closeness to each other and to nature

• The Dilemma: African-American artists thus find themselves in a dilemma: on the one hand, fashionable “primitivism” offers an outlet and a market for the African roots of African-American culture

• on the other hand, these roots seem to confirm the very primitivist stereotypes that Black artists encounter and want to work against

• break up and play with the prejudiced preconceptions of the White public

• prolific, playwright, novelist and poet – becomes one of the most important voices of the Harlem Renaissance – and beyond
• along the lines of Du Bois’ “double consciousness”
• Hughes’ poems oscillate between the wish to become integrated into American society and a defiant self-assertion of African-American identity

• combines in a highly original way modernist aesthetic style with the African-American experience both in the North and the South of the US, with a pedigree covering 12 different ethnicities, among them Welsh, Scottish, German, Native American, Spanish, and others 
• however, Toomer never considers himself part of the Harlem Renaissance as he doesn’t consider himself African-American

• is both anthropologist and author/novelist
• collects old African stories, but also writes short stories and novels
• Their Eyes Were Watching Godfirst feminist voice in the 20s 
• writes in a highly patriarchic, male-dominated African-American culture

• How it feels to be colored me: right from the start of what could be considered one of the first manifestos of African-American identity, she sets the defiant, but ironic tone

• she comments on the attempts to avoid being ethnically designated a 100% African-American

• Self-Assertion: with a vengeance, Hurston claims a non-apologetic identity, Hurston considers her position an advantage

• Henry David Thoreau, Rosa Parks, Mahatma Gandhi
• the Harlem Renaissance had made African-American Culture an integral part of US popular culture
• Artists had used African-American cultural traditions (Blues, folklore, spirituals) to establish a genuinely “Black Voice” and culture
• Harlem Renaissance still considered unsuccessful, as social, economic & political situation of African-Americans hadn’t improved
• Martin Luther King uses white American cultural traditions (puritan jeremiad) and mixes them with the teachings of Gandhi in order to forge a Black protest movement designed to integrate African-Americans into American society
• Malcolm X pursued black nationalism, proposes an own, self-sufficient black nation and employ both leftist and Islamist ideologies to emphasize the gap between black society and capitalist white society
• first Black Studies courses on college campuses

• as the diverging strategies of MLK and Malcolm X make clear, differences also exist within the black population
• While Malcolm X’ approach is diametrically opposed to both the religious and the economic system of the US, MLK seeks integration into both
• And while black middle class is eager to share the American dream, disadvantaged African Americans threaten to turn to the bullet instead of the ballot

• one of the most outstanding and influential African-American literary forces
• influenced both by the modernism of William Faulkner and postmodern tendencies, her oeuvre encompasses 11 novels (the bluest eye(1970))
• her works constitute an almost panoramic overview of African-American history and culture

• N. Scott Momaday, Leslie Marmon Silko
• strong emphasis on cultural roots in first generation
• second generation, Sherman Alexie, undermine backward-oriented tribalism and stereotypes that exist within Western culture
• in order to survive, minority cultures have to adapt to the ever-evolving changes and challenges that the present brings

• Literature has expanded to include various forms of expression (scientific writing, diaries, autobiography, journalism, film )

• The history of literature is now generally understood to be several stories, not one,
  e.g.: English did not suddenly stop being used with the arrival of the Normans; American Indian writers did not fall silent when Europeans arrived

• the books of the Bible officially recognized by the Church (canonical texts)

• texts that have a seal of approval from cultural and academic establishments.

• an authoritative list of the works of an author (the Shakespeare canon)

Gatekeepers:

• Influential literary critics, editors (anthologies, literary histories)

• Teachers (school, university)

• Booker Prize Committee etc.

Canon: subject to change

“Between” two eras of greatness:
ancient Greece and Rome – medieval – revival of ancient Greece and Rome (Renaissance: rebirth; or: Early Modern period)

• A period of darkness (tenebrae) (Francesco Petrarca, 1304- 74)

• “a misty time” (Sir Philip Sidney, 1554-86)

• Celtic tribes (Britonnic language) / Roman colony (43-410 AD)

• — Anglo-Saxon arrival (5th century)

• — Scandinavian invasions (late 8th-11th century)

• — Norman conquest (1066)

• Jutes: from the north of the Danish peninsula

• Angles: from the south of the Danish peninsula (modern-day Schleswig- Holstein)

• Saxons (south and west of the Angles, roughly between Elbe and Ems)

Old English period (449 AD to 1066)

— In Old English:

• –  Caedmon and Cynewulf; Beowulf; “The Seafarer”, “The Wanderer”

• –  Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, saints’ lives, homilies, translations of Latin

  texts

— In Latin:

• – Bede, Historia ecclesiastica gentis anglorum

• Anglo-Norman period (1066-mid13th c.): triglossia

  — In French: romances, courtly literature, verse histories, legal texts, saints’ lives, chronicles

  —  In Latin: theological, philosophical and scientific works

            —  In English: religious prose

• Late medieval period (ca. 1250-1500)
  — English is established as a literary language (Chaucer)

• Printing press: William Caxton, 1476, Westminster

• Beforehand: texts were written, and copied, by hand (Latin

  manus) manuscripts

• Different production of texts, circulation of texts (numbers, audiences), mutability of texts

Two missionary movements in the sixth century:

• Irish mission (via North)

  • —  Irish Christianised ca.500

  • —  Irish mission (“solitary ideal”) throughout Europe as of 550

  • —  St. Columba, Iona -> Scotland (6thc.) -> Northumbria (7thc.)

• Roman mission (via South)

  • —  Pope Gregory I (the Great) sends Augustine to evangelize Kent 597 AD

  • —  King Ethelbert of Kent converted first

  • —  Synod of Whitby (664) declares pre-eminence of Roman church over Irish church

• Introduction of the Latin alphabet as a side-effect of Christianisation (from runic Futhorc to Latin alphabet)

• Monastery of Jarrow in Northumbria (powerful Anglo-Saxon kingdom)

• Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (Ecclesiastical history of the English people) in five books, finished AD 731. Records the growth of the English church, in Latin.
  End of the ninth century translated into OE under King Alfred.

• Bede on the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons: Anglo-Saxons were invited by the king at the time, to help against northerners but then stayed

• recounted Cædmon’s Miracle: First poem in English (Bede recorded this poem in Latin, but some early MS of Bede’s works include an English version), praises God’s creation

• Exeter Book: Exeter Cathedral Library MS 3501

• Vercelli Book: Vercelli, Biblioteca Capitolare CXVII

• Junius Manuscript: Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Junius 11

• Beowulf Manuscript: BL Cotton MS Vitellius A. XV