English 6332:501: The "Dehumanization" of the Arts: Literary Modernism in Europe
Professor Wendy Faris
Carlisle Hall 203B / 272-5484 or 2692 (Home: 214 948-1828)
wbfaris@uta.edu
*Note: An (X) after a selection means it’s in the Xeroxed coursepack
*Note: I have selected (mostly) very short excerpts for us to read along with certain texts from
Stephen Kern’s The Modernist Novel, which I assume you will want to buy, since it gives a good
overview of our subject. Two other books, Christopher Butler’s Very Short Introduction to
Modernism I didn’t order, but you might want to. I have Xeroxed various snippets from it and
included them in the coursepack. The same is true of Pericles’ Lewis’s Cambridge Introduction to
Modernism (again, not ordered but short excerpts included in the coursepack).
June 5
Introduction
Matei Calinescu, "The Two Modernities," from his Five Faces of
Modernity (X)
"We Immoralists":
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground
Selections from Mikhail Bakhtin’s Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics; chapter 2: “The
Hero and the Author’s Position in Relation to the Hero in Dostoevsky’s Work,” chapter 5: “The
Word in Dostoevsky,” and a few pages of the introduction (X). (This is pretty tough going, but
we’ll try our best.)
June 7
Nietzsche's Children / Fictions of Desire and the Unconscious:
André Gide, The Immoralist
Thomas Mann, Death in Venice
Discussion: Ben Stoltzfus, "Gide's Immoraliste: Orientalism Against the Grain" (X)
Optional: Robert Fagley, “Narrating (French) Masculinities: building male identity in
Gide’s The Immoralist” (X)
June 12
Imperialism and the Arts of Abstraction:
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
José Ortega y Gasset, "The Dehumanization of Art" (X)
Kern, The Modernist Novel, p. 197.
Pericles Lewis, The Cambridge Introduction to Modernism, pp. 59-61 (X)
Optional: Chinua Achebe, "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of
Darkness" (in Norton critical edition; I’ve made this optional since I suspect many of you have
already read it. If not, you might want to; it is what jump-started discussions of race and
colonialism in HD.)
Discussion: Michael Valdez Moses, “Disorientalism: Conrad and the Imperial Origins
of Modernist Aesthetics,” (X) from Begum and Valdez Moses, eds. Modernism and Colonialism
Discussion: Essays by Patrick Brantlinger and Anthony Fothergill in the Norton
Critical Edition. There are tons of interesting essays in there, so if you find something you want to
mention, that’s fine, but we will focus on these two.
Optional: Wendy B. Faris, “The ‘Dehumanization’ of the Arts: J.M.W. Turner,
Joseph Conrad, and the Advent of Modernism” (X). (I’ll present briefly on my article; and will try
to send you a link to the painting by JMW Turner to which I refer in it, and which is called
Keelmen Heaving in Coal by Night)
June 14
Impressionism and Salvation through Art:
Marcel Proust, "Overture," "Combray," and "Place Names the Name" from Swann's
Way [not as bad as making selections from Ulysses, but not good! What I have left out is the novel
within the novel called “Swann in Love,” which is wonderful, and which recounts the earlier love
affair of Swann and Odette, to whom he is married when we hear of him in “Combray,” but I’m
trying to have mercy on you with reading] NOTE: Proust is SLOW reading, so please plan
enough time to be able to enjoy it.
"Preface" from Leon Chai, Aestheticism (X) (You may find this a bit confusing; I’ve
included it to situate Proust within an important late 19th and early 20th century trend—aestheticism,
which I think he exemplifies especially well.)
Discussion: Kern 153-65; Lewis, 161-6 (X). Proust is my favorite writer but I’ve not
found an article that I’m satisfied with for you to read on him, so am just having us discuss these
two excerpts that orient him within modernism.
I will be bringing Monet’s waterlily paintings for us to compare with Proust.
Optional: "Introduction" from Margaret Gray, Postmodern Proust and a few pages from
Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, to which Gray refers (X)
June 19
Making the Modern World Possible for Art:
James Joyce, Ulysses [I hate to do this, but . . .], parts 1-8, 10. Joyce is also SLOW
reading, so plan lots of time. You may want to read (some of) the accompanying sections in Hart
and Hayman, James Joyce's Ulysses as you go (bookstore).
Like Proust, Joyce is VERY tough reading, so plan to spend quite a bit of time on him.
Butler, pp. 1-7 (X)
Kern, pp. 189-95
Lewis pp. 166-75 (X)
Discussion: Michael Tratner, "Social(ist) Institutions in Ulysses," from his Modernism
and Mass Politics (X)
Optional: Rebecca Walkowitz, “Joyce’s Triviality,” from her Cosmopolitan Style:
Modernism Beyond the Nation (X)
Ulysses, parts 11, 13-14, and 17-18. In addition, browse in part 15, “Circe,” which looks
like a play.
Discussion: Joseph Heininger, "Molly Bloom’s Ad Language and Goods Behavior," from
Molly Blooms (X)
SHORT PAPERS DUE IN CLASS. Short (approx 2 minute) reports on papers. I regret that
since we are covering so much reading, this will really be extremely short. If you are interested in
someone else’s topic, you always have the option of requesting a copy of their paper from them.
June 21 "We were the last romantics . . . Traditional sanctity and loveliness":
Yeats, Selected Poems: "The Pity of Love," "When you are
old," "Fergus and the Druid," "The Man Who Dreamed of Faeryland," "He Wishes for
the Cloths of Heaven," “A Memory of Youth,” "The Song of Wandering Aengus," "Adam's Curse,"
"No Second Troy," "All Things Can Tempt Me," "September 1913," "When Helen Lived,"
"The Three Hermits," The Magi," "The Dolls," "A Coat," "The Wild Swans at
Coole," “Easter, 1916,” "The Scholars," "The Cat and the Moon," "The Second Coming," "Sailing
to Byzantium," "Leda and the Swan," "Among School Children," "A Dialogue of Self
and Soul," "Coole Park and Ballylee 1931," "Lapis Lazuli," "The Circus Animals'
Desertion"
Discussion: Tratner, "The Birth of a New Species of Man . . . from Terror: Yeats's
Poetics of Violence," from his Modernism and Mass Politics (X)
Discussion: Marjorie Howes, “That secret insinuating feminine voice,” from her
Yeats’s Nations: Gender, Class, and Irishness (X)
Poets of the Modern City:
Rainer Maria Rilke, from Selected Poems: "Initiation," "The Knight," "Madness,"
"From a Childhood," "The Solitary," "Lament," "Solitude," "Autumn Day," "Memory,"
"End of Autumn," "Autumn," "Evening," "The Panther," "The Swan," "Blue
Hydrangeas," "The Courtesan," "The Merry-Go-Round," "Spanish Dancer," "The
Insane," "Lady on a Balcony," "Piano Practice," "The Flamingos," "The Solitary," "The
Child," The Buddha in the glory.”
Judith Ryan,“Symbolist Blues,”from her Rilke,Modernism, and the Poetic Tradition (X)
T. S. Eliot, The Wasteland
Discussion: Michael Kauffman, "T.S. Eliot's New Critical Footnotes to Modernism,"
from Rereading the New (X)
Optional: Edward Timms, "Unreal city--theme and variations”; Michael Long, "Eliot,
Pound, Joyce: unreal city?" from Timms and Kelley, eds., Unreal City (X)
Optional: Jahan Ramazani, “Modernist Bricolage, Postcolonial Hybridity,” from Begam
and Valdez Moses, eds., Modernism and Colonialism (X)
*Note: We may “bleed over” from this session on The Wasteland into the next one,
so please bring that text and its accompanying criticism to that next class.
June 26
Girders of Steel, Butterflies' Wings, and Ordinary Minds on
Ordinary Days:
Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
Woolf, "Modern Fiction" and "Street Haunting: A London Adventure" (X)
Butler, pp. 50-61.
Michael North, “Modernism, Publicity, and the Public Encounter,” from his Reading
1922: A Return to the Scene of the Modern (X)
Discussion: Elizabeth Abel, "Preface" and "Between the Acts
of Mrs. Dalloway" from Virginia Woolf and the Fictions of Psychoanalysis
(X)
Discussion: Walkowitz, “Introduction” (for reference, to understand her critical
stance) and “Woolf’s Evasion” from her Cosmopolitan Style (X)
Optional, for fun: Alain de Botton, "Marcel and Virginia," from How Proust Can Change
Your Life (X)
July 3
Convulsive Beauty: Dada and Surrealism:
André Breton, Manifesto of Surrealism (1924), "Soluble Fish," and selected poems (X)
Tristan Tzara, selections from Seven Dada Manifestos (X)
Discussion: Peter Nicholls, "Death and Desire: The Surrealist Adventure," from his
Modernisms: A Literary Guide (X)
Optional: Martin Jay, "The Disenchantment of the Eye: Bataille and the Surrealists"
from his Downcast Eyes (X)
The Existentialist Absurd and Summing Up:
Albert Camus, The Stranger;
Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot
Optional: Leonard Diepeveen, “Waiting for Godot in San Quentin,” from his The
Difficulties of Modernism (X)
Discussion: Calinescu, "Modernism and Ideology" from Chefdor, ed.,
Modernism (X)
Discussion: Kern, pp. 56-65 (X)
July 5
Reports on Papers
Papers Due either now or August 20.
Course Description:
This course provides an advanced introduction to the canonical texts of European Modernism, with
an emphasis on the early years of the twentieth century. This is a period generally thought to
contain a particularly dense concentration of innovation in literary form--the isms of the avant
gardes. These innovations have continued to influence literary and critical production into the
contemporary period. One might say that these are many of the texts you need to have read in
order to understand much of modern and contemporary literature and criticism. We will deal with
some poetry and theatre, but our main focus will be on fiction. In addition, frequent comparisons
between literature and painting will increase our understanding of modernism in the arts. Topics
for discussion will include stream of consciousness narration, colonialism and its (post-colonial)
critics, Nietzsche's Apollo and Dionysos, Freudian fictions and the "discovery" of the unconscious,
Impressionism and Post-Impressionism in painting and literature, Surrealism, Primitivism,
Expressionism, Existentialism, the absurd, and feminist critiques of modernism.
Required Texts: Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground; Gide, The Immoralist; Mann, Death
in Venice; Conrad, Heart of Darkness; Proust, Swann's Way; Joyce, Ulysses;
Yeats, Selected Poems; Rilke, Selected Poems; Eliot, The Wasteland; Woolf, Mrs.
Dalloway; Pirandello, Six Characters in Search of an Author; Camus, The Stranger; Beckett,
Waiting for Godot; Kern, The Modernist Novel; coursepack; recommended: Hart and Hayman,
James Joyce’s Ulysses.
Course Objectives: 1) To study the modernist canon by becoming familiar with some of its key
texts, their cultural contexts, and the theoretical issues involved in its definition and growth. 2) To
provide a context in which students will continue to improve critical skills in discussing and writing
about literature.
Course Requirements and Grading: Students are expected to come to all classes, do the assigned
readings, and participate in class discussions. The written requirements for the course are a small
(approximately 5 pages) paper and a final seminar paper of approximately 20 pages, both on a topic
of the student’s choice, both related to the subject matter of the course, and the seminar paper
including library research. Grades will be determined primarily by the final seminar paper, which
counts 65% of the final grade. The first small paper will count 15%, and class participation,
including leading one class discussion over a critical reading (for approximately 20 minutes), will
count 20%.
Note on Coursepack: The has all of the required readings. It also has a few optional ones, which I
have put in there so you can have them if you wish. In same cases, they may be useful as you are
working on your papers. Note also: Poltergeists often get into my coursepacks, and mess around
with them, so there can be errors. Please do not hesitate to contact me ASAP if you suspect
something is not right, since it can be useful to everyone. Thanks. During the summer I may be at
home more than usual, so if there is something urgent and you can’t raise me via email or by
calling my office, I’ve provided my home number above.
Note on discussion leading: Each member of the seminar will be responsible for leading the rest
of us in a discussion of one critical reading. Note that this is the leading of a discussion, NOT a
report on or a summary of the article. Obviously, you will not be able to cover everything treated in
the piece you are dealing with, so you are free to choose what parts of it to focus on. I suggest that
if there is material in the piece that deals with what we are reading for that class, then most of us
will find it most useful if you focus on that rather than other points or texts in it. You will also note
that these readings are not listed as “optional” in the syllabus, which means that the article or book
chapter in question will be read by everyone before coming to class, so that the leader can feel
free to ask questions and expect everyone to be conversant with the material.
Attendance Policy: Regular attendance is expected, though not graded. I am not assuming this
will happen, but more than three unexcused absences will result in a 10% lowering of the course
grade. I will not drop you from this course (the university does not allow it).
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