Oscar Wilde on Great Lives

Writing about web page http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01ddxcq/Great_Lives_Series_27_Oscar_Wilde/

This week's edition of Radio 4's Great Lives series featured Oscar Wilde, with discussion by Will Self, Matthew Parris, and Franny Moyle, the biographer of Wilde's wife Constance. The programme was fairly predictably but nonetheless interesting in its focus on Wilde's later years, and the 1895 trial in particular, although it was interesting to hear the perspective of Wilde's wife being raised. There was also some focus on The Picture of Dorian Gray, so if you're writing about or revising the novel then this might provide a nice revision break!

Charlotte Mathieson : 13 Apr 2012 09:34 |  Tags: Picture Of Dorian Gray Radio Wilde |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

The Victorian Texts that TV Forgot

Writing about web page http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/knowledge/culture/anovelidea

If you're looking for some light relief (with a 19th-century theme) from revision over the Easter vacation, then you might be interested to listen to my latest podcast with the Knowledge Centre.

Titled "A Novel Idea: the Victorian Books that TV Forgot", I discuss the limited range of nineteenth-century novels which are taken up by film and tv producers. However, I use the recent Wuthering Heights film as a good example of how new adaptations of familiar texts can add value to wider understanding and interpretations of novels; Andrea Arnold's casting of a black Heathcliff opened up postcolonial critical perspectives that are now well established in literary criticism but, judging by the media response to the film, are not so familiar to wider audiences. As literary criticism continues to develop new perspectives, new possibilities continue to arise even for those texts that have already been frequently adapted. That said, I do have a few suggestions for other texts that would make for good tv - some of which were helpfully suggested by one of my classes!

Charlotte Mathieson : 04 Apr 2012 11:44 |  Tags: Film Resources Wuthering Heights |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Week 10 preparation

In week 10 we'll be taking an overview of the course, looking back over all the texts and drawing together some of the issues covered. In preparation, think about the following questions:

• Does it make sense to speak of "the" English 19th Century novel?
• What is English about the 19th century novel? What is the relationship between text and nation?
• Unit 4 has focused on the relationship between culture and society in the later decades of the century, but how do these questions arise (if at all) in the earlier texts?
• Aside from the more obvious themes (such as gender, class, country houses etc) are there any other issues you've noticed that resonate throughout the texts we've done? The word-cloud image above might help to stimulate some suggestions.
• I also asked you to think of one text that would add something different or new to the course.

Charlotte Mathieson : 11 Mar 2012 14:01 |  Tags: Seminar Prep |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

James "The Art of Fiction

The Henry James essay quoted on your handout is available here: "The Art of Fiction"

Charlotte Mathieson : 09 Mar 2012 09:45 |  Tags: Bibliography Resources Spoils Of Poynton |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Extra Jude resources

Some extracts used in Gill Frith's classes this week:

"We come then to the conclusion that the present form of marriage - exactly in proportion to its conformity with orthodox ideas - is a vexatious failure. If certain people have made it a success by ignoring those orthodox ideas, such instances afford no argument in favour of the institution as it stands. We are also led to conclude that 'modern Respectability' draws its life-blood from the degradation of womanhood in marriage and in prostitution. But what is to be done to remedy these manifold evils? How is marriage to be rescued from a mercenary society, torn from the arms of 'Respectability' and established on a footing which will make it no longer an insult to human dignity?... The ideal marriage, then, despite all dangers and difficulties, should be free. So long as love and trust and friendship remain, no bonds are necessary to bind two people together; life apart will be empty and colourless; but whenever these cease the tie becomes false and iniquitous, and no one ought to have power to enforce it."

(Mona Caird, "Marriage" 1888; in The Fin de Siecle: A Reader in Cultural History, ed. Ledger and Luckhurst)

"Jude is such a truly radical novel precisely because it takes reality apart; that is, it doesn't merely reproduce reality, even as a 'series of seemings,' but exposes its flaws and mystifications. You cannot come to terms with the novel either as a moral fable or as an exhibition of social reality because it is the very terms of those structures, their ideological base, that it interrogates."

(John Goode, "Sue Bridehead and the New Woman" in Women Writing and Writing about Women, ed. Mary Jacobus, p. 100)

Charlotte Mathieson : 08 Mar 2012 17:02 |  Tags: Bibliography Jude The Obscure Resources |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Questions on The Spoils of Poyton

Questions for the week 9 seminar:

• James was born in America, spending much of his life in England and Europe. In what ways might The Spoils of Poynton be considered an "English" novel? What themes, ideas and symbols resonate with other texts we've read?
• "Only a short time ago it might have been supposed that the English novel was not what the French call discutable. It had no air of having a theory, a conviction, a consciousness of itself behind it-of being the expression of an artistic faith, the result of choice and comparison." (James, "The Art of Fiction"). What do you make of James's statement about the novel, both in terms of the 19th century novel more widely, and with regards to the narrative technique of Spoils?
• The Spoils of Poynton was originally published in serial form as The Old Things, and the first title James thought of was The House Beautiful. What do these various titles suggest about the value of art and objects in the novel?

Charlotte Mathieson : 04 Mar 2012 14:26 |  Tags: Seminar Prep Spoils Of Poynton |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Jude and the University

There's an interesting Radio 4 discussion from 2003 about Jude the Obscure and the university system; the programme explores the historical context around university admissions and the cost of education, and uses this to explore the more recent debates about university tuition fees.

The first part focuses on university admissions, and looks at a "real-life" Jude who was successful in obtaining a place at Oxford - one Ernest Barker, son of a farmer, who went on to become a very successful figure. The second part looks at the financial cost of education, whilst part 3 focuses on contemporary issues around university tuition fees (back in 2003 discussions about the change to university tuition fees were just getting started with moves towards the £3000/year rate being planned).

In addition to the preparation questions I suggested, you might also want to think about the relevance of Jude today and the various questions it raises around university education as part of its wider debates around "culture".

Charlotte Mathieson : 27 Feb 2012 18:16 |  Tags: Jude The Obscure Resources Seminar Prep |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Questions for week 8 seminar

Questions to prepare for the seminar on Jude the Obscure:

• "You must either make a tool of the creature of a man of him" (Ruskin); "Culture has one great passion, the passion for sweetness and light. It has one even yet greater! - the passion for making them prevail. It is not satisfied till we all come to a perfect man; it knows that the sweetness and light of the few must be imperfect until the raw and unkindled masses of humanity are touched with sweetness and light" (Arnold); How does Jude respond to the ideas about culture set out by Ruskin and Arnold?
• "I am not aware that there is anything in the handling to which exception can be taken"; why do you think Jude was shocking to contemporary readers? What remains shocking about it today?
• Hardy addresses similar questions around marriage and the sexual double standard that we encountered in Tess of the D'urbervilles; what similarities and differences can you discern here?

Charlotte Mathieson : 26 Feb 2012 11:55 |  Tags: Jude The Obscure Seminar Prep |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

The Picture of Dorian Gray Presentations

2 final presentations this week from Group 1:

Paul Young presented on "Ethics and Aesthetics in The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Dominic Manganiello, which argues that aesthetics and ethics are not maintained as distinct spheres in the novel (as some critics have argued) but rather are thoroughly interrelated. His discussion looks at the different forms of sin and its relationship to art (distinguishing between Sin and sin) and considers the Faustian aspects of the text.

Ben Rowntree spoke about Houston A Baker's "A Tragedy of the Artist: The Picture of Dorian Gray" which argues that a Faustian reading of the text is too simplistic; instead, the novel should be understood as a tragedy of the artist. He looks at categories of art, artist, critic, and the aesthetic, and thinks about the relationship bewteen the aesthetic and everyday life. Basil Hallward is given particular consideration, with the ultimate reading of the novel as his tragedy.

Charlotte Mathieson : 24 Feb 2012 12:54 |  Tags: Bibliography Picture Of Dorian Gray Presentations Resources |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Essay writing resources

If you've misplaced the essay-writing handout from last term, you can download it here: essay_writing_guide.pdf

If you need a copy of MLA referencing guidelines, a short guide is downloadable here (created for my Modes of Reading classes but the information is the same): referencing_guide.pdf

Charlotte Mathieson : 23 Feb 2012 16:16 |  Tags: Essay Resources |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem