Writing about Literature

1
Writing about Literature

• Introduction to Literature
• Lecture 6

2
Critical Thinking

• intellectually disciplined process
• actively and skillfully conceptualizing,
  applying,
• analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating
  information
• gathered from observation, experience,
  reflection,
• reasoning, or communication
• based on intellectual values such as clarity,
  accuracy,
• consistency, relevance, depth, fairness

3
Critical Thinking

• Involves
• the skills detailed above
• the intellectual commitment of using those
  skills to guide behavior
• fairmindedness
• to avoid skillful manipulation of ideas
• to avoid irrationality, prejudices, biases,
  distortions, uncritically accepted social rules
  and taboos, self-interest, and vested interest
• to avoid thinking simplistically about
  complicated issues
• to consider appropriately the rights and needs
  of others

4
Critical Thinking

• In writing
• To learn to articulate ideas properly
• To accumulate data
• To arrange data into an appropriate argumentative
  line
• To learn how to refute mistaken, incorrect,
  erroneous opinions
• To learn how to draw a relevant conclusion from
  premises

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Style Guides

• The formal requirements of a research paper

6
Joseph GibaldiMLA Handbook for Writers of
Research PapersNew York The Modern Language
Association of America (7th edition)
7
Style Guides
8
Good writing

• Involves
• Grammar, structure, style
• Mechanics, punctuation
• Usage
• Clarity, coherence, unity
• in sentence structures
• in developing paragraphs
• Exposition, argument, persuasion
• Conclusion
• Abstract, summary

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Planning, writing and presenting a critical paper

• The purpose is to enable the student to
  demonstrate that
• she/he knows how to use libraries and other
  sources effectively to locate relevant materials
• she/he can prepare and write up a sustained and
  logically structured academic argument in clear
  prose
• she/he can present her/his work well, using
  appropriate scholarly conventions

10
Process

• Deciding on a topic
• Wide range of possible research topics
• At BA and MA levels usually assigned to students
• When the task is assigned, questions to be asked
  are
• What are the key studies in the field?
• What kinds of approaches have been taken to the
  subject?

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Process

• Turning a topic into an argument
• To give a direction
• To develop a set of questions to be answered or
  problems to be solved in the paper
• Information and data should be gathered in order
  to answer the questions, solve the problems
• A good paper takes the form of an argument

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Process

• Some ways of turning a topic into an argument
• An argument for or against an existing critic or
  critical position
• An argument about the importance of a particular
  influence on a writer or an influence exerted by
  her/him
• An argument turning upon the nature of the genre
  of a work
• An argument about the significance of a
  little-known or undervalued author or work
• An argument about some historical or
  literary-historical aspect of literature

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Process

• Working out a structure
• Consider the question of length of the planned
  paper
• Internal division of the argument into
  introduction, elaboration, conclusion
• The elaboration section may be divided into
  smaller units
• Development of the argument

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Process

• Preparing a research proposal
• When registering for a BA thesis
• Should contain
• Title
• Argument should be concise
• Materials should be presented more in detail
  (primary sources, secondary sources)
• Conclusion provisional
• References key primary and secondary texts
• Bibliography all relevant primary and secondary
  texts

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Process

• Writing a paper
• taking notes techniques
• from the first rough draft to the final version
• format of the text
• setting out references acknowledge quotations

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Critical genres

• Review, criticism
• Research paper, scholarly essay, personal
• essay, brief notes, letter to the editor
• Book chapter
• Collection of essays, critical papers, reviews
• Thesis, dissertation
• Book, monograph

17
Donald Hall and Sven Birkerts
Beth S. Neman Writing Well
Teaching
Students to WriteLongman 9th ed.
Oxford University Press 2nd ed.
18
Critical Thinking The Act of
Writing
19
Writing with Purpose
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Some magazines of literary criticism

• The articles and books reviews are exemplary in
  their
• layout, intellectual precision, competence, and
• fairmindedness

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Times Literary Supplementfounded in 1902
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London Review of Booksfounded in 1979
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The New York Review of Booksfounded in 1963
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Periodicals with literary essays

• TLS The Times Literary Supplement
• http//entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_an
  d_entertainment/the_tls/
• London Review of Books
• http//www.lrb.co.uk/
• The New York Review of Books
• http//www.nybooks.com/

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(No Transcript)
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JACQUES LEMARCHAND INFIGARO LITTERAIRE17
January 1953, 10

• I do not quite know how to begin describing this
  play
• by Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot (directed
  by
• Roger Blin, now playing at the Théâtre de
  Babylone). I
• have seen this play and seen it again, I have
  read and
• reread it it still has the power to move me. I
  should
• like to communicate this feeling, to make it
  contagious.
• At the same time I am faced with the difficulty
  of
• fulfilling the primary duty of the critic, which,
  as
• everyone knows, is to explain and narrate a play
  to
• people who have neither seen it nor read it. I
  have
• experienced this difficulty several times before
  the
• sensation is infinitely agreeable. One feels it
  each time

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JACQUES LEMARCHAND INFIGARO LITTERAIRE17
January 1953, 10

• one is called upon to describe a work that is
  beautiful,
• but of an unusual beauty new, but genuinely new
• traditional, but of eminent tradition clever,
  but with a
• cleverness the most clever professors are unable
  to
• teach and finally, intelligent, but with that
  clear
• Intelligence that is non-negotiable in the
  schools. In
• addition, Waiting for Godot is a resolutely
  comic play,
• its comedy borrowed from the most direct of all
  forms
• of humor, the circus.

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The Broadway production of Waiting for Godot,
which opened April 30 at Studio 54, 2009.The
Roundabout Theatre Company's production of Samuel
Beckett's allegorical play stars Nathan Lane,
Bill Irwin, and John Goodman.
29
Harold Hobson In Sunday Times 7 August 1955, 11

• Strange as the play is, and curious as are its
  processes
• of thought, it has a meaning and this meaning is
  
• untrue. To attempt to put this meaning into a
  paragraph
• is like trying to catch Leviathan in a butterfly
  net, but
• nevertheless the effort must be made. The upshot
  of
• Waiting for Godot is that the two tramps are
  always
• waiting for the future, their ruinous consolation
  being
• that there is always tomorrow they never realise
  that
• today is today. In this, says Mr. Beckett, they
  are like
• humanity, which dawdles and drivels away its
  life,
• postponing action, eschewing enjoyment, waiting
  only
• for some far-off, divine event, the millenium,
  the Day of
• Judgment.

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Harold Hobson In Sunday Times 7 August 1955, 11

• Mr. Beckett has, of course, got it all wrong.
  Humanity
• worries very little over the Day of Judgment. It
  is far
• too busy hire-purchasing television sets, popping
  into
• three-star restaurants, planting itself
  vineyards,
• building helicopters. But he has got it wrong in
  a
• Tremendous way. And this is what matters. There
  is no
• need at all for a dramatist to philosophise
  rightly he
• can leave that to the philosophers. But it is
  essential
• that if he philosophises wrongly, he should do so
  with
• swagger. Mr. Beckett has any amount of swagger. A
  
• dusty, coarse, irreverent, pessimistic, violent
  swagger?
• Possibly. But the genuine thing, the real McCoy.

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Nathan Lane, left, as Estragon and John Goodman
as Pozzoin Samuel Becketts Waiting for Godot,
at Studio 54, 2009
32
Postlewait, Thomas Self-Performing Voices
Mind, Memory, and Time in Beckett's Drama.
Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 24, No. 4
(Winter, 1978), pp. 473-491

• Time is the burden in Beckett's drama-both as
  chronic
• endurance and as recurrent theme. His characters
• suffer time without being able to form it and
• consciousness into a satisfying design. It does
  not
• become for them, as it has throughout Western
  history,
• a causal principle of existence, the soul and
  measure
• of being the Greek's Alpha and Omega-Chronos
• (confused with Kronos), Heraclitus' river, Zeno's
  arrow,
• Plato's moving image of eternity, Pindar's father
  of all
• things, Aristotle's "number of motion in respect
  of
• before and after," the Hebraic "Chronicles," the
  neo
• Platonist's Nous or Cosmic Mind, St. Augustine's
  three
• times (present of things past, memory present of

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Postlewait, Thomas Self-Performing Voices
Mind, Memory, and Time in Beckett's Drama.
Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 24, No. 4
(Winter, 1978), pp. 473-491

• things present, sight present of things future,
• expectation) the medieval wheel of fortune,
  Petrarch's
• devouring time with the hourglass, the
  Renaissance's
• Father Time (half devouring demon, half eternal
• principle), Spenser's mutability, Shakespeare's
  Time
• of many faces (transience, death, decay, tyranny,
  sweet
• remembrance, gloomy prospect of "tomorrow and
• tomorrow and tomorrow," and historical record of
• royal and national needs of purpose), Locke's
• measurable idea of succession and idea of
  duration,
• Newton's "absolute, true, and mathematical
  time,"
• Hegel's dialectical march of the Absolute Idea,
  Marx's

34
Postlewait, Thomas Self-Performing Voices
Mind, Memory, and Time in Beckett's Drama.
Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 24, No. 4
(Winter, 1978), pp. 473-491

• progression of economic history, Bergson's
  duration,
• Proust's memory, Einstein's relativity, and
  throughout
• history the pragmatist's Locks of Opportunity.
  None of
• these holds consciousness together for Beckett's
• characters. Shakespeare writes that time "nursest
  all
• and murder'st all that are" however, it does not
  even
• do this in Beckett's drama. It simply runs on and
  on
• without cause.

35
Postlewait, Thomas Self-Performing Voices
Mind, Memory, and Time in Beckett's Drama.
Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 24, No. 4
(Winter, 1978), pp. 473-491

• To illustrate this, Beckett divides Waiting for
  Godot,
• Happy Days, and Play into two days or parts that
  are
• confusingly the same. And Endgame, while limited
  to
• one day and act, is nevertheless the
  representation of
• repetitive actions in a daily sequence.
• Life is spent in anticipation of direction and
• meaning, and when this does not arrive, then life
  is
• spent in aimless routine and habit to pass the
  time of
• day. The two main "actions" in Beckett's drama
  are
• anticipation without much memory (Waiting for
  Godot)
• and memory with much anticipation (Endgame). Most
• of Beckett's short plays dramatize a mind or
  voice
• recording in distant isolation the fragmented
  pieces of

36
Postlewait, Thomas Self-Performing Voices
Mind, Memory, and Time in Beckett's Drama.
Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 24, No. 4
(Winter, 1978), pp. 473-491

• memory that tumble out of consciousness as words,
• words, and more disjointed words Krapp's Last
  Tape,
• Embers, Play, Eh Joe, Cascando, Not I, Footfalls,
  and
• That Time.
• Although the action in Waiting for Godot appears
  to
• be random, especially from the characters' point
  of
• view, the play is organized into a carefully
  controlled
• plot. It unifies around two questions that recur
• throughout the play "Do you not remember?" and
• "What are we waiting for?" That is, memory and
• anticipation. The words "remember" and "waiting"
  are
• constantly repeated in the play, closely matched
  by the
• words "yesterday and "tomorrow."

37
Gordon, Lois Reading Godot.New Haven and
London Yale University Press, 2002, p 62

• Beckett mirrors the paradoxes of existentialism
  the
• persistent need to act on precariously grounded
• stages with the repeated absence of denouement
  in
• the enacted scenarios. Since much of act I, with
  its
• series of miniplays, is repeated in the second
  act,
• which concludes with an implicit return to act I,
  Beckett
• creates a never-ending series of incomplete plays
• within the larger drama, each of which lacks a
• resolving deus ex machina. The paradox of
  purposive
• action and ultimate meaninglessness pervades. A
• deceptively simple boot routine is rationalized
  as
• purposeful activity.

38
Waiting for Godot in New Orleans, 2008Paul
Chans production
39
Graver, Lawrence Samuel Beckett Waiting for
Godot.Cambridge Cambridge University Press,
2004, 20-21

• The title, the sense of universal present time,
  the shape
• of the plot and of the characters, the often
  pointed and
• tantalizing allusions these obviously invite
  allegorical
• interpretation, and for many play goers and
  readers the
• invitation has proved irresistible. It is also
  important to
• remember that when Waiting for Godot was ?rst
• performed in the1950s, arguments about systems of
• meaning were often in?uenced by a large body of
• philosophical and ?ctional writing generally
  known as
• existentialist, which seemed at ?rst glance to
  have
• marked similarities to Becketts work. Although
  not a
• cohesive school, the existentialist writers were

40
Graver, Lawrence Samuel Beckett Waiting for
Godot.Cambridge Cambridge University Press,
2004, 20-21

• preoccupied with many of the same vital issues,
  most
• notably the problem of discovering belief in the
  face of
• radical twentieth-century perceptions of the
• meaningless or absurdity of human life.
• A characteristic existentialist response was to
• accept nothingness, absence, and absurdity as
  given
• sand then to explore the way human beings might
  self
• consciously form their essence in the course of
  the
• lives they choose to lead. The origin of the
  inclination
• for transcendence was little agreed upon by such
• writers as Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre,
  Albert
• Camus, and Karl aspers but as Richard Shepard
  has
• described it, a radically negative experience is
  seen to

41
Graver, Lawrence Samuel Beckett Waiting for
Godot.Cambridge Cambridge University Press,
2004, 20-21

• contain the embryo of a positive development
  though
• the psychological and philosophical content of
  that
• development is extremely diverse (Fowler, p.
  82).
• The pervasiveness of existentialist thinking in
  the
• 1940s and 1950s was so great that any work about
  an
• individuals quest for purpose and order in life,
• especially in relation to an absent or a present
  divinity,
• was likely to be discussed in the context of
  current
• controversies about existence, essence, personal
• freedom, responsibility, and commitment. Many
• philosophers who were not existentialists were
  also
• absorbed by these same questions.

42
Graver, Lawrence Samuel Beckett Waiting for
Godot.Cambridge Cambridge University Press,
2004, 20-21

• For instance, Simone Weil, who coincidentally
• had been a student at lEcole normale superieure
  when
• Beckett lectured there, published a widely-read
  book,
• Attente de Dieu (Waiting for God), just at the
  time that
• Beckett and Roger Blin were trying to stage En
• attendant Godot. Yet there seems to have been no
• direct connection with or in?uence of either
  writer on
• the other. The issues were in the air.

43
Worton, Michael Waiting for Godot and Endgame
Theatre as Text. In Pilling, John, ed. The
Cambridge Companion to Beckett. Cambridge
Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp 67-87

• Beckett's first two published plays constitute a
  crux, a
• pivotal moment in the development of modern
  Western
• theatre. In refusing both the psychological
  realism of
• Chekhov, Ibsen and Strindberg and the pure
• theatricality of the body advocated by Artaud,
  they
• stand as significant transitional works as well
  as major
• works in themselves. The central problem they
  pose is
• what language can and cannot do. Language is no
• longer presented as a vehicle for direct
  communication
• or as a screen through which one can see darkly
• the psychic movements of a character.

44
Worton, Michael Waiting for Godot and Endgame
Theatre as Text. In Pilling, John, ed. The
Cambridge Companion to Beckett. Cambridge
Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp 67-87

• Rather it is used in all its grammatical,
  syntactic and
• especially - intertextual force to make the
  reader/
• spectator aware of how much we depend on language
• and of how much we need to be wary of the
• codifications that language imposes upon us.
• Explaining why he turned to theatre, Beckett
  once
• wrote 'When I was working on Watt, I felt the
  need to
• create for a smaller space, one in which I had
  some
• control of where people stood or moved, above all
  of a
• certain light. I wrote Waiting for Godot. This
  desire for
• control is crucial and determines the shape of
• Beckett's last theatrical works the notion that

45
Worton, Michael Waiting for Godot and Endgame
Theatre as Text. In Pilling, John, ed. The
Cambridge Companion to Beckett. Cambridge
Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp 67-87

• the space created in - and by - the playscript is
  smaller
• than that of the novel, however, needs urgent and
• Interrogative attention. It is undeniable that,
  having
• chosen to write in French in order to avoid the
• temptation of lyricism, Beckett was working with
  and
• against the Anglo-Irish theatrical tradition of
  ironic and
• comic realism (notably Synge, Wilde, Shaw,
  Behan).
• However, his academic studies had led him to a
• familiarity with the French Symbolist theories of
• theatre all of which contest both French
  Classical
• notions of determinism and the possibilities of
  the
• theatre as a bourgeois art-form. (68-69)

46
Banville, John The Painful Comedy of Samuel
Beckett. New York Review of Books, November 14,
1996

• Reviewing among others
• Damned to Fame The Life of Samuel Beckett by
• James Knowlson. Simon and Schuster
•                                                
• Samuel Beckett The Last Modernist by Anthony
• Cronin. HarperCollins                           
         
• The World of Samuel Beckett, 1906-1946 by Lois
• Gordon. Yale University Press

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Banville, John The Painful Comedy of Samuel
Beckett. New York Review of Books, November 14,
1996

• However different their approaches, Knowlson,
  Cronin,
• and Gordon have a common intention, which is to
• present in a more appealing light the personality
  and
• work of an artist who is too often seen as
• unapproachably difficult, pessimistic, and
• misanthropic. At a certain level, all biographies
  are
• also autobiographies. Thus Knowlsons Beckett is
  not
• only a great writer but also a kind of super
  academic, a
• man steeped in world literature, a paragon of
• scholarship and learning. Cronins Beckett, on
  the
• other hand, is a dedicated working artist, not at
  all as
• disengaged from the world as he liked to pretend,
  or as

48
Banville, John The Painful Comedy of Samuel
Beckett. New York Review of Books, November 14,
1996

• his admirers preferred to believe, an Irishman
  fond of a
• drop, a ladies man who would sooner essay a song
• than talk balls (a favorite Beckett word) to
  the likes of
• Professor Knowlson. In Gordons version, Beckett
  is
• caught up in and to a large extent shaped by the
• history of his time, the great events of which
  are
• reflected, however obliquely, in his work. All
  three
• versions, complementary rather than
  contradictory, are
• more or less persuasive, and although few non
• specialist readers may be prepared to plough
  their way
• through all three of these books, taken together
  they
• do provide a remarkably rounded picture of a
  deeply
• mysterious artist.

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Summary Forms

• News media scandals, celebrations, promotions
• Authority issues censorship, publication rights
• Format journals, magazines, collections,
  monographs
• online, printed
• Education papers, exams, theses, dissertations
• presentations
• Audiences specialised or lay readership
• Styles formal, informal from academic writing to
  blogs

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The literary essay

• Flexible form formal or informal
• when informal ideas are presented
• and argued
• supported by quotations
• History of the essay as a literary kind

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The academic essay

• Tends to be formal, with a set of rules
• depending on the area of expertise
• Essays within various disciplines covered by
  SEAS http//seas3.elte.hu/seas/research/publicati
  ons.html

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Examples from DES

• angolPark
• http//seas3.elte.hu/angolpark/
• The AnaChronisT
• http//anachronist.atw.hu/
• Style guide for literature
• e.g., MLA Handbook for Writers of Research
  Papers (Joseph Gibaldi)

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For a seminar paper

• Check requirements of instructor, concerning
• theme, content, method, form
• Select a work or a problem that is of interest to
  you.
• Choose a title that describes a question or
  problem.
• Collect the points that you want to make, and
  build an argument from them.
• Support your points and arguments by quotations
  from the work(s) in question, using critical
  sources as well. Always provide the source of
  your quotation.

54

• In the introduction explain what you want to do,
  such as analyse a book from a certain point of
  view compare the treatment of a problem in two
  or more works describe a feature of an author's
  style or other strategy in two or more works by
  the same author discuss a more theoretical
  question of literature using works as examples.
  Problems to discuss and features to analyse
  include narration, characterisation, structure,
  style, motifs, use of symbols, treatment of
  social or moral issues.
• Then go ahead and write an interesting,
  argumentative paper
• In your conclusion summarise your results. What
  have you learnt from all your work? How could you
  sum up your most important discoveries for
  someone new to your topic?

55
Papers at exams

• Concentrate on the text
• Focus on the question/theme/title specified
• Remember helpful ideas from criticism or other
  works
• Try to establish connections between literary
  texts, between texts and ideas, between texts and
  criticism
• Present an argumentation

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If you want to test yourself

• Give a one-line definition of the following
  terms
• iambic pentameter
• narrator
• conflict in drama
• Give a one-paragraph definition of one of the
  following terms
• narrative voice
• elegy

57
Now for a 15-minute task

• Choose one of the following two extracts and
• list possible ways you could analyse the piece
• choose one approach and actually carry out the
  analysis
• Please find extracts on the next slide.

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extract No 1

• All the world's a stage,
• And all the men and women merely players.
• They have their exits and their entrances,
• And one man in his time plays many parts,
• His acts being seven ages. At first, the
  infant, ...
• Shakespeare "As You Like It" II.vll.

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extract No 2

• I am the poet of the body and I am the poet of
  the Soul,
• The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains
  of hell are with me,
• The first I graft and increase upon myself, the
  latter I translate into a new tongue.
• Walt Whitman, Song of Myself
• Section 21
• http//www.princeton.edu/batke/logr/log_026.html

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Now see what you have done

• Did you write all 3 one-line definitions?
• Did you notice that you only had to write a
  one-paragraph definition on 1 topic?
• Did you notice that you had to list possible
  analytical approaches to one of the two texts
  only?
• Did you remember to do the list, as well as
  choose one approach to elaborate?