Friday, 30 September 2016
Wednesday, 28 September 2016
Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray: Literary analysis
1) The Preface: The purpose of Art
The first edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray appeared in 1890 in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine. However, it was not well received by Victorian society, who criticized it as scandalous and immoral. Wilde, disappointed by his novel’s failure, decided to revise it and publish a second edition in 1891. One of the changes he included was the addition of a preface. Read and analyse “The Preface” in The Picture of Dorian Gray and answer the following questions justifying your answers with quotes from the text:
a) What is the purpose of the Preface?
b) What does it tell us about Wilde’s beliefs in Aestheticism?
c) What does it tell us about the nineteenth century Victorian society?
d) What does Oscar Wilde caution us against?
e) Do you think that The Picture of Dorian Gray is a form of “useless art” or does it serve a purpose?
2) Reinterpreting The Picture of Dorian Gray through Psychoanalytic Criticism
The reinterpretation of The Picture of Dorian Gray in the light of Psychoanalytic Criticism gives us a valuable insight into the novel. Freud highlights three parts of the Unconscious, the Id, the Ego, and the Superego. The Id is what influences our desires, our libido, the force that drives us to seek pleasure; the Ego deals with reality, it strives to balance the Id and the Superego and, last but not least, the Superego is the area of the Unconscious which houses judgment (of ourselves and others).
a) Are there specific characters in The Picture of Dorian Gray who represent the three areas of the Unconscious? Which ones? Justify providing quotes from the text.
b) Which area of the Unconscious dominates Dorian Gray’s life? How? Provide quotes from the text to justify your answers.
c) What does Dorian Gray’s picture represent? What does it remind Dorian of? Provide quotes from the text to justify your answers.
d) Which event marks the beginning of Dorian’s downfall? Does he manage to suppress his Superego by performing this act? Justify providing quotes from the text.
e) Is Dorian able to find a balance between finding pleasure and doing the right thing? Provide quotes from the text to justify your answers.
The first edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray appeared in 1890 in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine. However, it was not well received by Victorian society, who criticized it as scandalous and immoral. Wilde, disappointed by his novel’s failure, decided to revise it and publish a second edition in 1891. One of the changes he included was the addition of a preface. Read and analyse “The Preface” in The Picture of Dorian Gray and answer the following questions justifying your answers with quotes from the text:
a) What is the purpose of the Preface?
b) What does it tell us about Wilde’s beliefs in Aestheticism?
c) What does it tell us about the nineteenth century Victorian society?
d) What does Oscar Wilde caution us against?
e) Do you think that The Picture of Dorian Gray is a form of “useless art” or does it serve a purpose?
2) Reinterpreting The Picture of Dorian Gray through Psychoanalytic Criticism
The reinterpretation of The Picture of Dorian Gray in the light of Psychoanalytic Criticism gives us a valuable insight into the novel. Freud highlights three parts of the Unconscious, the Id, the Ego, and the Superego. The Id is what influences our desires, our libido, the force that drives us to seek pleasure; the Ego deals with reality, it strives to balance the Id and the Superego and, last but not least, the Superego is the area of the Unconscious which houses judgment (of ourselves and others).
Besides, Jaques Lacan developed the idea of the "mirror stage", stating that infants of about 6 months old recognize themselves in a mirror or other symbolic element which induces apperception (turning of oneself into an object that can be viewed by the child from outside). By the early 1950s, thi idea evolved from infancy into adulthood, as representing a permanent structure of subjectivity, or as the paradigm of "Imaginary order".
Taking the theory into account, discuss:
a) Are there specific characters in The Picture of Dorian Gray who represent the three areas of the Unconscious? Which ones? Justify providing quotes from the text.
b) Which area of the Unconscious dominates Dorian Gray’s life? How? Provide quotes from the text to justify your answers.
c) What does Dorian Gray’s picture represent? What does it remind Dorian of? Provide quotes from the text to justify your answers.
d) Which event marks the beginning of Dorian’s downfall? Does he manage to suppress his Superego by performing this act? Justify providing quotes from the text.
e) Is Dorian able to find a balance between finding pleasure and doing the right thing? Provide quotes from the text to justify your answers.
f) How can you relate the "mirror stage" with Dorian's own relationhip with the portrait?
3) Reinterpreting The Picture of Dorian Gray through Gender Studies
Gender Studies explore issues of sexuality, power and marginalized populations (women, as well as others, such as homosexuals, bisexuals, etc.). Let us examine the manner in which gender and sexuality are represented in The Picture of Dorian Gray:
a) How is the institution of marriage portrayed in The Picture of Dorian Gray? Provide quotes.
b) Do women play a significant role in the novel? What is Lord Henry’s view on women? Provide quotes.
c) Are there any homoerotic bonds between men in the novel? Which one(s)?
d) Does Dorian Gray have a happy sexual life all along the novel? Provide quotes to justify your answer.
e) Can we associate Dorian Gray to the mythological character of Narcissus, always longing to possess the person he sees reflected in the water? How? Provide examples from the text.
f) In chapter two, pages 25, 26 (Penguin Popular Classics) Lord Henry claims:
"I believe that if one man were to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream -- I believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we would forget all the maladies of medievalism, and return to the Hellenic ideal -- to something finer, richer than the Hellenic ideal, it may be. But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself. The mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self-denial that mars our lives. We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind and poisons us. The body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure, or the luxury of a regret. The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful."
Explain this quote considering Oscar Wilde’s aesthetic values, his own sexual preferences and the context of Victorian England.
4) Reinterpreting The Picture of Dorian Gray through the Gothic tradition.
The Picture of Dorian Gray can be analysed as a nineteenth century Gothic novel, as we can find many of the elements that characterize this genre. For example, we can find the presence of:
3) Reinterpreting The Picture of Dorian Gray through Gender Studies
Gender Studies explore issues of sexuality, power and marginalized populations (women, as well as others, such as homosexuals, bisexuals, etc.). Let us examine the manner in which gender and sexuality are represented in The Picture of Dorian Gray:
a) How is the institution of marriage portrayed in The Picture of Dorian Gray? Provide quotes.
b) Do women play a significant role in the novel? What is Lord Henry’s view on women? Provide quotes.
c) Are there any homoerotic bonds between men in the novel? Which one(s)?
d) Does Dorian Gray have a happy sexual life all along the novel? Provide quotes to justify your answer.
e) Can we associate Dorian Gray to the mythological character of Narcissus, always longing to possess the person he sees reflected in the water? How? Provide examples from the text.
f) In chapter two, pages 25, 26 (Penguin Popular Classics) Lord Henry claims:
"I believe that if one man were to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream -- I believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we would forget all the maladies of medievalism, and return to the Hellenic ideal -- to something finer, richer than the Hellenic ideal, it may be. But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself. The mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self-denial that mars our lives. We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind and poisons us. The body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure, or the luxury of a regret. The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful."
Explain this quote considering Oscar Wilde’s aesthetic values, his own sexual preferences and the context of Victorian England.
4) Reinterpreting The Picture of Dorian Gray through the Gothic tradition.
The Picture of Dorian Gray can be analysed as a nineteenth century Gothic novel, as we can find many of the elements that characterize this genre. For example, we can find the presence of:
- The scary atmosphere (setting and characters that contribute to XIX century gothic)
- The Crossing of the Threshold
- The bargain with the devil
- The Supernatural
- The Uncanny
- The feeling of entrapment
- Haunting
- The Doppelgänger motif
- The sudden break-out of violence
- “Sinister” science
- Magical objects
- Abjection
Provide examples of these elements along the novel, quoting from the text whenever it is appropriate.
5) Reinterpreting The Picture of Dorian Gray through Postcolonial Studies
Postcolonial studies examines the global impact of the European colonialism, from its begginings in the fifteenth century up to the present. The book “The Picture of Dorian Gray” was published originally in 1891, a time when Queen Victoria was still the leading monarch in Britain and a time when people were still extremely patriotic. Besides, Britain was the leading empire in the world, owning 25% of the landmass of the world.
Even though Wilde was a colonial author, colonial hints may be collected in his novel. The Picture of Dorian Gray expands on the idea of negative and destructive consequences that are brought about after the influence from/on people, which can be defined in terms of the colonizer and the colonized.
a) To what an extend do Lord Henry's colonialist actions and behaviour represent the powerful force of the western civilization?
b) Is Dorian Gray the symbol and representation of the colonized, with its final annihilation?
c) Can Dorian represent the colonizer later on in the novel, leading to the colonization and destruction of other characters?
d) To what an extend do Dorian's actions and behaviour correspond to his devotion to hedonism, beauty and search for pleasure? How can colonial discourse account for this answer?
e) Pay special attention to Lord Henry's (colonial)discourse. Can you find instances of eurocentrism in the text?
Provide examples, quoting from the text whenever it is appropriate.
5) Reinterpreting The Picture of Dorian Gray through Postcolonial Studies
Postcolonial studies examines the global impact of the European colonialism, from its begginings in the fifteenth century up to the present. The book “The Picture of Dorian Gray” was published originally in 1891, a time when Queen Victoria was still the leading monarch in Britain and a time when people were still extremely patriotic. Besides, Britain was the leading empire in the world, owning 25% of the landmass of the world.
Even though Wilde was a colonial author, colonial hints may be collected in his novel. The Picture of Dorian Gray expands on the idea of negative and destructive consequences that are brought about after the influence from/on people, which can be defined in terms of the colonizer and the colonized.
a) To what an extend do Lord Henry's colonialist actions and behaviour represent the powerful force of the western civilization?
b) Is Dorian Gray the symbol and representation of the colonized, with its final annihilation?
c) Can Dorian represent the colonizer later on in the novel, leading to the colonization and destruction of other characters?
d) To what an extend do Dorian's actions and behaviour correspond to his devotion to hedonism, beauty and search for pleasure? How can colonial discourse account for this answer?
e) Pay special attention to Lord Henry's (colonial)discourse. Can you find instances of eurocentrism in the text?
Provide examples, quoting from the text whenever it is appropriate.
Monday, 26 September 2016
Assignment: Historical Periods
Read about the following historical period you have been assigned and prepare a 10-minute-presentation for Wednesday, 5th
- Coalition Wars (1792-1815)
- The Restoration in Europe (1815-1820) [The Congress of Viena (1814-15)]
- The Age of Revolution (1820-1848)
- The Unification of Italy (1815-1871)
- The Unification of Germany (1815-1871)
Use the following presentation as a guide.
Remember to have your sources at hand! (webpages or books from which you obtained information)
Remember to have your sources at hand! (webpages or books from which you obtained information)
Friday, 23 September 2016
Friday, 9 September 2016
Post-Colonial Poem
Colonization
in Reverse
By Louise Bennett
Wat a joyful news, Miss Mattie,
I feel like me heart gwine burs'
Jamaica people colonizin
Englan in reverse.
By de hundred, by de t'ousan
From country and from town,
By de ship load, by de plane-load
Jamaica is Englan boun.
Dem a-pour out o'Jamaica,
Everybody future plan
Is fe get a big-time job
An settle in de mother lan.
What a islan! What a people!
Man an woman, old and young
Jusa pack dem bag an baggage
An tun history upside dung!
Some people don't like travel,
But fe show dem loyalty
Dem all a-open up cheap-fare-
To-England agency.
An week by week dem shipping off
Dem countryman like fire,
Fe immigrate an populate
De seat o' de Empire.
Oonoo see how life is funny
Oonoo see de tunabout,
Jamaica live fi box bread
Outa English people mout'.
For wen dem catch a Englan,
An start play dem different role,
Some will settle down to work
An some will settle fe de dole.
Jane say de dole is not too bad
Bacause dey payin she
Two pounds a week fe seek a job
Dat suit her dignity.
Me say Jane will never find work
At the rate how she dah look,
For all day she stay pon Aunt Fan couch
And read love-story book.
Wat a devilment a Englan!
Dem face war an brave de worse,
But I'm wonderin how dem gwine stan
Colonizin in reverse
By Louise Bennett
Wat a joyful news, Miss Mattie,
I feel like me heart gwine burs'
Jamaica people colonizin
Englan in reverse.
By de hundred, by de t'ousan
From country and from town,
By de ship load, by de plane-load
Jamaica is Englan boun.
Dem a-pour out o'Jamaica,
Everybody future plan
Is fe get a big-time job
An settle in de mother lan.
What a islan! What a people!
Man an woman, old and young
Jusa pack dem bag an baggage
An tun history upside dung!
Some people don't like travel,
But fe show dem loyalty
Dem all a-open up cheap-fare-
To-England agency.
An week by week dem shipping off
Dem countryman like fire,
Fe immigrate an populate
De seat o' de Empire.
Oonoo see how life is funny
Oonoo see de tunabout,
Jamaica live fi box bread
Outa English people mout'.
For wen dem catch a Englan,
An start play dem different role,
Some will settle down to work
An some will settle fe de dole.
Jane say de dole is not too bad
Bacause dey payin she
Two pounds a week fe seek a job
Dat suit her dignity.
Me say Jane will never find work
At the rate how she dah look,
For all day she stay pon Aunt Fan couch
And read love-story book.
Wat a devilment a Englan!
Dem face war an brave de worse,
But I'm wonderin how dem gwine stan
Colonizin in reverse
Post Colonial Studies
The world has been affected by 19th Century European
imperialism.
Postcolonial analysis makes clear the nature and impact
of inherited power relations and their continuing effects.
The structures of power established by the colonizing
process remain pervasive, though often hidden in cultural relations throughout
the world.
· Abrogation: rejection by post-colonial writers of a normative concept of what is correct or standard.
· Appropriation: the process of English adaptation. The way in which post-colonial societies take over aspects of imperial culture.
· Ambivalence: adapted into post-colonial discourse by Homi Bhabha. Describes a complex mix of attraction and repulsion that characterises the relationship between colonizers and colonized. The relationship is ambivalent because the colonized subject is never simply and completely opposed to the colonizer. There is an empty imitation of English manners.
· Binarism: De Saussure claimed that signs have meanings not by a simple reference to real objects but by their opposition to other signs. Colonizer-colonized, white-black, civilized-primitive or savage, advanced-retarded, good-evil, beautiful-ugly, human-bestial, teacher-student, doctor-patient.
· Cannibal: eater of human flesh.
· Centre vs margin or periphery: imperial Europe became defined as the centre, everything outside is margin or periphery of culture.
· Colonial desire: sexualized discourse of rape, penetration and impregnation. Transgressive sexuality: obsession with the idea of the hybrid, interracial sex.
· Colonial discourse: instrument of power. Coined by Edward Said who analysed Foucault’s discourse. System by which a dominant group in society constitutes the field of truth by imposing specific knowledge disciplines and values upon dominated groups.
· Colonialism: exploitation that developed with the expansion of Europe over the last 400 years
· Ethnicety: human variation in terms of culture, tradition, language social patterns and ancestry.
· Eurocentrism: conscious or unconscious process by which Europe and European cultural assumptios are constructed or assumed to be the normal natural or universal
· Exotic/exoticism: alien, introduced from abroad.
· Going native: colonizers’ fear of contamination by absorption into native life and customs. Construction of native culture as primitive or degenerate.
· Hegemony: coined by Antonio Gramsci (1930’s) when investigating why the ruling class was so successful in promoting their interests in society. It stands for the dominance of one state within a confederation. The power of the ruling class to convince other classes that their interests are the interests of all. This domination does not occur by force, or persuasion but a more subtle and inclusive power over economy, or status apparatus like education and media. Consent is achieved by the interpellation of the colonized subject by imperial discourse so that the Eurocentric values, assumptions and beliefs and attitudes are accepted.
· Hybridity: creation of new transcultural forms within the contanct zone produced by colonization
· Imperialism: practice, theory and the attitudes of a dominating metropolitan centre ruling a distant territory. Said differenciates it from colonisation which is the implanting of settlements on a distant territory. The term imperialism for the purpose of acquiring colonies for economic, strategic and political advantage did not emerge until 1880. Used to describe the government of Napoleon III.
· Metonymic gap: cultural formed when appropriations of a colonial language insert unglossed words, phrases or passages from a first language or concepts, allusions or references that may be unknown to the reader.
· Mimicry: when colonial discourse encourages colonized subject to ‘mimic’ the colonizer, by adopting the colonizer’s cultural habits, assumptions, institutions and values. Reproduction of those traits.
· Native: the indigenous inhabitants of colonies. Pejorative sense: inferior to the colonial settlers.
· Neo-colonialism: coined by president of Independent Ghana Kwame Nkrumah (1965) to refer to countries such as USA who continue to play decisive role through international monetary bodies, through fixing prices on world markets, multinational corporations, etc.
· Orientalism: (Said) the process by which orient is constructed by European thinking. Relationship between Orient and Occident: relation of power, domination, various degrees of complex hegemony.
· The other: anyone who is separated from one’s self. The existence of others is crucial in defining what is “normal” and in locating one’s place in the world. (Sartre: Being and nothingness, Freudian analysis of formation of subjectivity, Lacan: other –the other who resembles the self, Other: symbolic other in whose gaze the subject gains identity)
· Othering: Spivak coined this concept as the process by which imperial discourse creates its “others”, the excluded or mastered subject created by the discourse of power.
· Race: Classification of human beings into physically, biologically and genetically distinct groups, transmitted through the blood. Pure and mixed race distinctions.
· Subaltern: of inferior rank (term adopted by Gramsci to refer to groups in society who are subject to the hegemony of ruling classes). Peasant, workers, among others.
· Ideology is perpetuated according to Althusser, by ideological apparatuses such as church, education, police which interpellate subjects.
McRae, J. & Carter, R. (1997). Post-Colonial Studies, Key
Concepts. London: Routledge.
Post Colonial Studies
The world has been affected by 19th Century European
imperialism.
Postcolonial analysis makes clear the nature and impact
of inherited power relations and their continuing effects.
The structures of power established by the colonizing
process remain pervasive, though often hidden in cultural relations throughout
the world.
· Abrogation: rejection by post-colonial writers of a normative concept of what is correct or standard.
· Appropriation: the process of English adaptation. The way in which post-colonial societies take over aspects of imperial culture.
· Ambivalence: adapted into post-colonial discourse by Homi Bhabha. Describes a complex mix of attraction and repulsion that characterises the relationship between colonizers and colonized. The relationship is ambivalent because the colonized subject is never simply and completely opposed to the colonizer. There is an empty imitation of English manners.
· Binarism: De Saussure claimed that signs have meanings not by a simple reference to real objects but by their opposition to other signs. Colonizer-colonized, white-black, civilized-primitive or savage, advanced-retarded, good-evil, beautiful-ugly, human-bestial, teacher-student, doctor-patient.
· Cannibal: eater of human flesh.
· Centre vs margin or periphery: imperial Europe became defined as the centre, everithing outside is margin or periphery of culture.
· Colonial desire: sexualized discourse of rape, penetration and impregnation. Transgressive sexuality: obsession with the idea of the hybrid, interracial sex.
· Colonial discourse: instrument of power. Coined by Edward Said who analysed Foucault’s discourse. System by which a dominant group in society constitutes the field of truth by imposing specific knowledge disciplines and values upon dominated groups.
· Colonialism: exploitation that developed with the expansion of Europe over the last 400 years
· Ethnicety: human variation in terms of culture, tradition, language social patterns and ancestry.
· Eurocentrism: conscious or unconscious process by which Europe and European cultural assumptios are constructed or assumed to be the normal natural or universal
· Exotic/exoticism: alien, introduced from abroad.
· Going native: colonizers’ fear of contamination by absorption into native life and customs. Construction of native culture as primitive or degenerate.
· Hegemony: coined by Antonio Gramsci (1930’s) when investigating why the ruling class was so successful in promoting their interests in society. It stands for the dominance of one state within a confederation. The power of the ruling class to convince other classes that their interests are the interests of all. This domination does not occur by force, or persuasion but a more subtle and inclusive power over economy, or status apparatus like education and media. Consent is achieved by the interpellation of the colonized subject by imperial discourse so that the Eurocentric values, assumptions and beliefs and attitudes are accepted.
· Hybridity: creation of new transcultural forms within the contanct zone produced by colonization
· Imperialism: practice, theory and the attitudes of a dominating metropolitan centre ruling a distant territory. Said differenciates it from colonisation which is the implanting of settlements on a distant territory. The term imperialism for the purpose of acquiring colonies for economic, strategic and political advantage did not emerge until 1880. Used to describe the government of Napoleon III.
· Metonymic gap: cultural formed when appropriations of a colonial language insert unglossed words, phrases or passages from a first language or concepts, allusions or references that may be unknown to the reader.
· Mimicry: when colonial discourse encourages colonized subject to ‘mimic’ the colonizer, by adopting the colonizer’s cultural habits, assumptions, institutions and values. Reproduction of those traits.
· Native: the indigenous inhabitants of colonies. Pejorative sense: inferior to the colonial settlers.
· Neo-colonialism: coined by president of Independent Ghana Kwame Nkrumah (1965) to refer to countries such as USA who continue to play decisive role through international monetary bodies, through fixing prices on world markets, multinational corporations, etc.
· Orientalism: (Said) the process by which orient is constructed by European thinking. Relationship between Orient and Occident: relation of power, domination, various degrees of complex hegemony.
· The other: anyone who is separated from one’s self. The existence of others is crucial in defining what is “normal” and in locating one’s place in the world. (Sartre: Being and nothingness, Freudian analysis of formation of subjectivity, Lacan: other –the other who resembles the self, Other: symbolic other in whose gaze the subject gains identity)
· Othering: Spivak coined this concept as the process by which imperial discourse creates its “others”, the excluded or mastered subject created by the discourse of power.
· Race: Classification of human beings into physically, biologically and genetically distinct groups, transmitted through the blood. Pure and mixed race distinctions.
· Subaltern: of inferior rank (term adopted by Gramsci to refer to groups in society who are subject to the hegemony of ruling classes). Peasant, workers, among others.
· Ideology is perpetuated according to Althusser, by ideological apparatuses such as church, education, police which interpellate subjects.
Thursday, 8 September 2016
Friday, 2 September 2016
Thursday, 1 September 2016
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