Abstract The paper discusses how Edwin Morgan assumes a false persona in his poetry. In particular, the paper discusses the issue of the authorial voice, that is the voice or speaker used by the author when s/he seemingly speaks for her/himself. The paper looks at how the notion of authorial voice is understood by twentieth-century critics and illustrated in Morgan's poetry.
From the Paper "Critics attempting to encapsulate the poetry of Edwin Morgan in a single term soon find themselves bewildered. His position as the most eminent contemporary poet in Scotland is, indeed, largely due to his enthusiastic multiplicity, in terms of language--Morgan has translated works from Russian, German, French, and even Hungarian--but also in terms of poetic devices. With some cubist restlessness, Morgan has created and abandoned techniques of his own devising: emergent poetry, performance and concrete poetry, instamatics, newspaper cut-outs and even wordless poems. Indeed, his awareness that language is a living and cleverly intelligent tool with which you can play gives rise in his poetry to a prodigious diversity of voices."
Provides a detailed analysis of how authorial instructions in Section 1 of American writer William Faulkner's "The Sound And The Fury" smooth the progress of the reader's mental actions.
Abstract As a modernist writer, William Faulkner extensively makes use of and experiments with the literary technique of stream-of-consciousness. This being, by definition, "a narrative technique ... that renders the inner life of a character through an unending flow of thoughts, emotions, images, memories, and other associations moving through the character's mind." Faulkner, therefore, by making use of various narrative devices, guides the reader's imagination throughout the first section of "The Sound and the Fury" in such a way that she or he experiences the world of the thirty-three-year-old retarded narrator, Benjy, the way the latter does. This paper looks into the several authorial instructions for the production of actual sensory content, as well as into Faulkner's depiction of 'moving images,' which is often such that the process of composing the images on the mental retina is rendered less demanding.
Paper Outline
Introduction
Sensory Mimesis
Vision
Other Senses
Making and Moving Images
Conclusion
From the Paper ""[Faulkner] always stressed the 'realness' of his characters, calling them 'flesh and blood people'... But, on the other hand, he always emphasised the artist's 'grab-bag of tools' and with that the artificiality of the character, constructed out of linguistic material." The fact is, like any writer, Faulkner has to try hard to translate the 'realness' of his characters onto paper, essentially making use of the linguistic sign. And he does that by constructing the personality and consciousness of a particular character by using specific linguistic and narrative devices. Bockting, in his article 'Mind style as an interdisciplinary approach to characterisation in Faulkner', terms this narrative approach as mind style, and defines it as 'the construction and expression in language of the conceptualisation of reality in a particular mind."
A critical analysis of Virgil's epic poem "The Aeneid", often described as the poet's response to Homer's epics ?The Iliad,? and "The Odyssey" in that it details the Trojan War and its aftermath from the Roman perspective.
Abstract The following paper discusses the problems with a literary analysis of "The Aeneid" as it presents itself with some problems not present in a similar analysis of Homer's inspiring works. Although the actual status of Homer as either a poet or a collective name of several poets is uncertain, Homer's works formed the basis of virtually all of Greek classical literature. The writer contends that "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey" became the cornerstones of Greek culture, something all Greeks could refer to as a common source of moral values, of rhetoric, and of mythological history. However, this paper claims that as the work of a single individual at a fixed and relatively later point in time and culture, "The Aeneid" does not have a similar quality of assembled stories, but of a work of more clear design than its Greek predecessors do.
From the Paper "Throughout the text, Virgil not only details the destiny, but also enters into the persona and voice of Dido, of the Latins whom Aeneas defeats, as well as the gods who both support and oppose Aeneas" destiny. By giving life to such competing voices of the truth, it is difficult to view the text simply as an idealized version of Roman history. Rather the ?Aeneid,? like its protagonist, tells a complicated history of origins. Although the Emperor Augustus may trace his own origins to the fate of Aeneas, the victory of the central character does not come without great costs to others. Virgil obliquely, by allowing other voices to speak and to die over the course of the poem, shows that the founding of any regime of power, like its destruction, is never seamless, and never without some bloodshed and heartache on both sides.?
Abstract This essay will argue, with particular reference to "Fahrenheit 451" and "The Story of Adele H", that reading, books, and movies are thematically associated in the work of Truffaut. As will be seen, Truffaut does not differentiate between film and books for both exist as mediums through which an authorial consciousness can express itself to a wide audience.
Abstract It considers problems of date, attribution/authorship, authorial perspective and transmission. The conclusion considers its role in our understanding and definition of fifth century Britain.
Abstract This analytical research paper explores in intricate detail, the following question: How should we read primary sources? This question gives rise to various other questions that are dormant behind the layers of concepts and aspects related to reading and analyzing the information coming from the primary sources. For instance, do primary sources speak for themselves? How should we read them literally so as not to obscure their original meanings? Or do we need to read them in other ways? What role does an understanding of a source's author and his or her audiences play in our reading? What about authorial motivations, perspectives, agendas and purposes?
Abstract This paper discusses the traces of Sidney's self-consciousness in "Astrophil and Stella" and the tension between his insistence on sincerity and his use of rhetorical and poetic figures. It then looks at Sidney's growing awareness and anxiety about poetry's capacity to persuade and manipulate and links this to the relationship between poetry and violence in Shakespeare's "The Rape of Lucrece".
From the Paper "Given his status as prominent courtier and self-styled defender of poetry, it is hardly surprising that artistic self-consciousness is so prominent in the work of Philip Sidney, particularly in the sonnet series Astrophil and Stella. Throughout the series, Sidney seems determined to prove the worth of English as a poetic language capable of revitalising tired poetic conventions, and his self-conscious attention to style can be seen simply as the manifestation of this aim. However, in exploring poetry's nature both as a means of expression and a force particularly suited to teach and delight, Sidney also acknowledges its darker side, its potential as a vehicle for self-deception and manipulation. This too is illustrated in Astrophil and Stella, through Astrophil's decline into self-deluding attempts to make reality cohere with poetic vision and to shape himself into a courtly lover. The failure of such attempts amounts to an acknowledgement of the slippery relationship between poetry, self-fashioning and delusion, and Astrophil becomes an image of the poet simultaneously inspired and paralysed by an awareness of this relationship."
Abstract Analysis of how Thomas Hardy's poem, "I Look into My Glass," illustrates Jacques Derrida's belief that it is a function of language that words and concepts do not have a perfect 1-to-1 relationship.
From the Paper "Jacques Derrida's "The Exorbitant. Question of Method" from "Of Grammatology" articulates the concept of the supplement out of the writing of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Derrida views the usage of the word "supplement" as having both negative and positive meanings in Rousseau's work. The multiple meanings present in Rousseau's text are used to explain the ambiguity of written words. Ambiguity is not seen as writing's problem but rather its function. Derrida then goes on to enunciate how this function is both problematic and necessary. His characterization goes quite strongly against the idea of logos, that ideal of unity between thought and expression that is thought to be available in the presence of speech. Thomas Hardy's poem "I Look Into My Glass" can be used to display the necessary ambiguity of the absent language of writing, and how the interpretative dance is problematized because through textual interaction with the world meaning is endlessly deferred."
An exploration of Thomas De Quincey's preoccupation with the romantic notion of the dual self and the significance of this view in the conflicting narrative voices in "Confessions of an English Opium Eater".
Abstract Through an examination of the interplay between the controlled and impassioned personas, it is ascertained whether De Quincey's portrayal of a divided self in his novel "Confessions of an English Opium Eater", is as clear-cut as the romantic view, or, whether his ego is a rendezvous of indeterminable personas. The meta-narrative repercussions of this interplay on structure, language and authorial perspective is also examined.
From the Paper ""Nietzsche's claim that 'the ego is a rendezvous of persons' (Letwin: 1987: 84) is aptly reiterated by Thomas De Quincey: 'A self-conquest may reasonably be set off in counterbalance to any kind or degree of self-indulgence' (De Quincey: 1998: 2). De Quincey exemplifies a distinctly Romantic approach to the complexities of divided selfhood, a view that originates in Plato's concept of the dual self, 'a rational self battling against the irrational self' (Letwin: 1987: 85). In De Quincey's autobiographical work, Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, a tension exists between an impassioned, exaggerated 'self', and an analytical, cohered, 'self', demonstrating an apparent interplay between subjective emotional self and objective creator."
A comparison and analysis of the works of Honore de Balzac, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Gustav Flaubert and how they reflected the literary movements of Realism, Romanticism, and Naturalism.
Abstract This paper summarizes, compares and analyzes works by Honore de Balzac, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Gustav Flaubert. The paper explains that all three authors wished to encourage their readers to live their lives more fully and in a more heightened fashion, by becoming more conscious of the details of the world around them, but that each author had his own unique approach to doing this. The paper illustrates their different approaches through analysis of a work from each of the authors.
From the Paper "To teach the reader to be a more critical reader of society, throughout Balzac's story, to underline the realistic nature of the tale, Balzac functions as an authoritative commentator on the society and behavior of the world he creates for the reader: "I forgave her stifled laugh." (Balzac 4) Even a reader unfamiliar with the society of Balzac's Paris can appreciate the spectacle of pampered daughters kept by an ugly and social-climbing man, daughters whose manners are taught and forced, rather than natural, although at times Balzac's presence as a narrator can feel oppressive, rather than merely instructive."
Abstract This paper discusses the analysis of literature and text from the perception of a critic. The paper discusses the requisite use of an emotional dimension on the part of the critic in order to gain greater insight into the analyzed text. Additionally, the paper makes the observation that the text must stand alone and not be obfuscated by authorial biography. Finally, the paper maintains that while objectivity is admired, pure intellectual objectivity is not critically effective.
From the Paper "Descriptive and analytical writing requires a substantial intellectual commitment on the part of the writer to remain impartial in an expository sense. Many textual critics might argue that descriptive and analytical writing requires, rather than an expository objectivity, an emotional objectivity from the perspective of the critic. Yet, this approach might be wrong-headed in the sense that literature and the insightful analysis thereof often requires an emotional engagement on the part of the critic in order fathom not only its textual context, but also its various sub-textual implications. This is a fine point and one that requires clarification, because raw emotionality on the part of the critic is counter-productive and undermines his or her thesis vis-a-vis the given text."
Abstract In this article, the writer discusses whether there is any significance in human life. This essay shows, through reference to five passages - from Shakespeare, Ibsen, Kafka, Dostoevsky, and Nietzsche - that this issue has preoccupied writers and philosophers for centuries. The writer points out that through the voices of dramatic and fictional characters, as well as through the direct authorial voice, these men expressed a range of perspectives on this topic.
From the Paper One of the central questions of life in the modern age is whether there is any significance in our lives given the complexity of human society and how it seems to limit and restrict our freedom.
Abstract In this article, the writer discusses that the construction and use of a persona in works of literature is both an ancient and controversial literary strategy. This essay explores the employment of this strategy in two works that use the device of a persona in detailing struggles with drug addiction: Thomas de Quincey's 'Confessions of an English Opium Eater' and James Frey's 'A Million Little Pieces'. Beginning with a historical background of the theory and practice of the persona in literature, the essay moves to a detailed analysis of its use in both texts. The thesis is argued that the persona is used by both authors to undermine authorial presence in supposedly autobiographical texts in order to heighten both romantic and photo realistic literary effects.
From the Paper "In Thomas de Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium Eater the use of a persona allows the author to set what are presumably autobiographical experiences in a romantic framework. This is apparent early in the text - before the reader reaches the discussion of opium and its effects - when we see the de Quincey depicting his persona's relationship with the impoverished Ann. This sad and touching story clearly creates sympathy for the reader with the persona. It may be argued that de Quincey is employing it for precisely this effect in the story in order to offset any initial distaste the reader may have for a persona that gradually slips into opium addiction. Thus, we can see how even in a supposedly autobiographical work, the persona may be understood in literary terms as a device set within a literary framework to achieve specific purposes in the minds of the audience."
Abstract This paper describes the work of Cleanth Brooks who was a figure in the founding of the formalist school of "New Criticism". The author of this paper provides several examples of texts that Brooks claimed should be freed from authorial, historical, and socio-political associations, to create a space in which the text is able to speak for itself.
From the Paper "Cleanth Brooks' methodological approach to literary criticism seeks to locate the essential experiential voice of a text through an authentic interaction with the text as experience itself. Brooks was an instrumental figure in the founding of the formalist school of "New Criticism", which called for a freeing of the text from its historical and authorial intentions in order to focus upon the critical indications of the text itself. These indicated vectors of interpretation would be revealed by a close reading of the structural interplay of the textural elements, which could then be used to generate a normative evaluation of the work. Such strategies axiomatically located a meaning that transcended the formal indications of language to express 'concrete universal' truths of the human existential experience. The fact that these 'universals' are assumed on faith problemitizes such a methodology by essentially placing limits upon human comprehension even as it seeks to express that which is beyond it. Brooks, however, held that it was in this space of wonder that literature did its work by interacting with the 'real' world.
Brooks asserts that the study of literary texts must begin with a freeing of the text from its authorial, historical, and socio-political associations, to create a space in which the text is able to speak for itself. It is in this space that the critic performs a close reading of the text, from which the multitudes of associations emerge. The first of his interestingly termed "articles of faith" is "[t]hat literary criticism is a description and evaluation of its object". This assertion was intended to direct the focus of literary study away from the bibliographic and historical approach that dominated the discourse prior to the emergence of Formalism. The meaning and significance of the text was derived from its position in history and the assumed intentions of the author. Brooks was instrumental in the development of a new perspective that posited the text itself as the primary object of critical investigation. While a strict formalist approach would render the textural object wholly disassociated from anything but itself, Brooks' holds the belief that there is a value and meaning in literary objects that can be accessed through a thorough consideration of the structural unity created by the content of a text. From these assumptions, Brooks does not disregard extrinsic evidence, as amply demonstrated in his Historical Evidence and the Reading of Seventeenth-Century Poetry; rather, the text itself must dictate the necessity of such support."
