Early Twentieth-Century Fiction e20fic19.blogs.rutgers.edu Prof. Andrew Goldstone (andrew.goldstone@rutgers.edu) Office hours: Murray 019, Thursdays 11:30–1:30 or by appointment September 16, 2019. Woolf (1).
review: “The Art of Fiction” ▶ the very idea ▶ the taste for the real ▶ “Be one of the people on whom nothing is lost!” ▶ “a direct impression of life” ▶ the “air of reality” ▶ the taste…of freedom ▶ “questions of morality are quite another affair”
realism relay The only reason for the existence of a novel is that it does attempt to represent life. (James, 378) Life escapes; and perhaps without life nothing else is worth while. (Woolf, 149)
“The proper stuff of fiction” does not exist; everything is the proper stuff of fiction, every feeling, every thought. (154) We must grant the artist his subject, his idea, his donnée ; our criticism is applied only to what he makes of it. (James, 394–95) The problem before the novelist at present…is to contrive means of being free to set down what he chooses. (152) “modern” fiction This, the essential thing, has moved off, or on. (149) These three writers [Wells, Bennett, and Galsworthy] are materialists. It is because they are concerned not with the spirit but with the body that they have disappointed us. (147)
The problem before the novelist at present…is to contrive means of being free to set down what he chooses. (152) “modern” fiction This, the essential thing, has moved off, or on. (149) These three writers [Wells, Bennett, and Galsworthy] are materialists. It is because they are concerned not with the spirit but with the body that they have disappointed us. (147) “The proper stuff of fiction” does not exist; everything is the proper stuff of fiction, every feeling, every thought. (154) We must grant the artist his subject, his idea, his donnée ; our criticism is applied only to what he makes of it. (James, 394–95)
“modern” fiction This, the essential thing, has moved off, or on. (149) These three writers [Wells, Bennett, and Galsworthy] are materialists. It is because they are concerned not with the spirit but with the body that they have disappointed us. (147) “The proper stuff of fiction” does not exist; everything is the proper stuff of fiction, every feeling, every thought. (154) We must grant the artist his subject, his idea, his donnée ; our criticism is applied only to what he makes of it. (James, 394–95) The problem before the novelist at present…is to contrive means of being free to set down what he chooses. (152)
How does the title story of Monday or Tuesday realize this program—or not? Focus on technique. life: discussion Examine for a moment an ordinary mind on an ordinary day. The mind receives a myriad impressions—trivial, fantastic, evanescent, or engraved with the sharpness of steel. From all sides they come, an incessant shower of innumerable atoms; and as they fall, as they shape themselves into the life of Monday or Tuesday, the accent falls differently from of old…so that, if a writer were a free man and not a slave, if he could write what he chose… there would be no plot, no comedy, no tragedy, no love interest or catastrophe in the accepted style, and perhaps not a single button sewn on as the Bond Street tailors would have it. Let us record the atoms as they fall upon the mind in the order in which they fall….Let us not take it for granted that life exists more fully in what is commonly thought big than in what is commonly thought small. (149– 150)
life: discussion Examine for a moment an ordinary mind on an ordinary day. The mind receives a myriad impressions—trivial, fantastic, evanescent, or engraved with the sharpness of steel. From all sides they come, an incessant shower of innumerable atoms; and as they fall, as they shape themselves into the life of Monday or Tuesday, the accent falls differently from of old…so that, if a writer were a free man and not a slave, if he could write what he chose… there would be no plot, no comedy, no tragedy, no love interest or catastrophe in the accepted style, and perhaps not a single button sewn on as the Bond Street tailors would have it. Let us record the atoms as they fall upon the mind in the order in which they fall….Let us not take it for granted that life exists more fully in what is commonly thought big than in what is commonly thought small. (149– 150) ▶ How does the title story of Monday or Tuesday realize this program—or not? Focus on technique.
Red is the dome; coins hang on the trees; smoke trails from the chimneys; bark, shout, cry “Iron for sale”—and truth? (“Monday or Tuesday,” 36, qtd. by NF)
Desiring truth, awaiting it, laboriously distilling a few words, for ever desiring—(a cry starts to the left, another to the right. Wheels strike divergently. Omnibuses conglomerate in conflict)—for ever desiring— (the clock asseverates with twelve distinct strokes that it is mid-day; light sheds gold scales; children swarm)—for ever desiring truth. Red is the dome; coins hang on the trees; smoke trails from the chimneys; bark, shout, cry “Iron for sale”—and truth? (“Monday or Tuesday,” 36)
1882 b. London 1905–1907 teaches night school 1907– Bloomsbury group 1915 The Voyage Out 1917 “Woolves” found Hogarth Press 1919 Night and Day 1921 Monday or Tuesday 1925 Mrs. Dalloway (Hogarth); 1927 To the Lighthouse 1928 Orlando 1929 A Room of One’s Own 1931 The Waves 1938 Three Guineas 1941 d. Virginia Woolf, c. 1927. Wikimedia Commons
The Hogarth Press Covers of Two Stories (1917) and Monday or Tuesday (1921). “Hogarth Press: Books Printed by Hand,” University of Delaware Special Collec- tions.
It was a snail. (“The Mark on the Wall,” 91) endings Waking, I cry “Oh, is this your buried treasure? The light in the heart.” (“A Haunted House,” 11; qtd. by Meggan)
endings Waking, I cry “Oh, is this your buried treasure? The light in the heart.” (“A Haunted House,” 11; qtd. by Meggan) It was a snail. (“The Mark on the Wall,” 91)
consciousness Radiating to a point men’s feet and women’s feet, black or gold- encrusted—(This foggy weather–Sugar? No, thank you—The common- wealth of the future)—the firelight darting and making the room red, save for the black figures and their bright eyes, while outside a van discharges, Miss Thingummy drinks tea at her desk, and plate-glass preserves fur coats— (“Monday or Tuesday,” 36)
consciousness She perceived: Radiating to a point men’s feet and women’s feet, black or gold- encrusted—(This foggy weather–Sugar? No, thank you—The common- wealth of the future)—the firelight darting and making the room red, save for the black figures and their bright eyes, while outside a van discharges, Miss Thingummy drinks tea at her desk, and plate-glass preserves fur coats— (“Monday or Tuesday,” 36) Stream of consciousness is best thought of not as a form but as a particular content of consciousness, characterized by free association, the illusion of spontaneity, and constant micro-shifts among perception, introspection, anticipation, speculation, and memory. Brian McHale, “Speech Representation,” in The Living Handbook of Narra- tology , 2014.
How readily our thoughts swarm upon a new object, lifting it a little way, as ants carry a blade of straw so feverishly, and then leave it. (“The Mark on the Wall,” 79; qtd. by LE)
interior monologue The wonder is that I’ve any clothes on my back, that I sit surrounded by solid furniture at this moment. If one wants to compare life to anything, one must liken it to being blown through the Tube at fifty miles an hour— landing at the other end without a single hairpin in one’s hair! (“The Mark on the Wall,” 81)
interior monologue The wonder is that I’ve any clothes on my back, that I sit surrounded by solid furniture at this moment. If one wants to compare life to anything, one must liken it to being blown through the Tube at fifty miles an hour— landing at the other end without a single hairpin in one’s hair! (“The Mark on the Wall,” 81)
Whose life? He was in process of saying that in his opinion art should have ideas behind it. (80)
Whose life? He was in process of saying that in his opinion art should have ideas behind it. (80) I, not being a very vigilant housekeeper (82)
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