Riassunto esame Letteratura inglese, prof. Bendelli, libro consigliato La Veglia di Joyce, Bendelli

Cap. 1 – The ghost of Joyce

This book’s aim is to study some authors of the Irish narrative literature of the XX century, who are considered the main representatives of the so-called avant-garde fiction: James Joyce is considered the avant-garde writer par excellence, and then we’ll examine works of Elizabeth Bowen, John Banville, and Patrick McCabe, whose literary production allows us to understand the post-Joyce fiction.

These three authors are important because in their production it’s possible to identify stylistic models which are referable to Joyce’s works, in particular to “Ulysses” and “Finnegan’s Wake”.

Distinctive features

They have two distinctive features in common:

• Historical representation: It balances between two antipodes, the real historical representation and the visionary historical representation (it is more detached). Every author has his own historical representation: they express it in individual and complex ways and in many cases reality and visionary dimension overlap.
• Gothic novel: Their favorite literary genre is the gothic novel in all its variations and derivations, such as the spy-story and the thriller. Although the novels we’ll analyze aren’t all gothic stories, they deal with many gothic themes, which are reconsidered and readapted to the modern age. The main theme of these novels is the tendency to interiorize interior conflicts and the classical gothic’s dreads: the characters express confusion about the absolute moral values and a growing awareness of the profoundness and complexity of the human psyche. Moreover, the gothic novel, adapted to the modern age, is a literary genre especially used in order to express the complex dark side of the Irish culture.

Chapter 2 – In the wake of Joyce

Some authors of the 20^th century can be considered successors of Joyce:

• Flann O’Brien: His works belong to the avant-garde fantasy genre and his language is ironic and hanging in the balance between realism and fantasy. His most important novel is “At Swim-Two-Birds”: it is based on four different narrative levels, it contains three different points of start and it is composed of many different styles and genres. This choice depends not only on the refusal to choose a single form of narration, but also on a world’s view which vacillates and which doesn’t set a clear boundary between fiction and reality.
• James Stephens: He is a poet, but also the author of different novels inspired by Irish myths and fairy tales. During the 1920s he met Joyce, who didn’t want to complete his “work in progress” (Finnegan’s Wake): Joyce saw him as the successor of this work (James Joyce & Stephens = John James & Sons).
• Elizabeth Bowen: Chronologically, she is the first direct Joyce’s heir and she develops a new form of novel (chapter 3).
• Samuel Beckett: He is the most famous, but at the same time the most anguished Joyce’s successor. His works are based on the aesthetic of the failure, which is called nihilistic existentialism.
• Francis Stuart: He is a “sui generis” author because of his extreme position in literature and ideology. He is the author of a trilogy which deals with the topic “dishonor”: “The pillar of cloud,” “Redemption,” and “The flowering cross.”
• John Banville: He is a parodist of Joyce’s works and he plays with his works. He is considered an avant-garde author and his works are based on the idea that the narration isn’t able to represent faithfully the reality. He is the author of the so-called “science tetralogy”, composed of “Doctor Copernicus”, “Kepler”, “The Newton Letter”, and “Mephisto”: it is based on the stories of these scientists, who aren’t able to find an equivalence between language and reality.
• McCabe: His most famous work is “The Butcher’s Boy”, whose prose based on the spoken language can be connected to the “stream of consciousness”. The main character is in a criminal lunatic asylum: he commits a murder and tells his story. The story is set in a wild-eyed atmosphere and the main character, Francie, invents a fairy and surreal dimension. This novel is a sort of noir which defines the Ireland of the 1960s.

Cap. 3 – Elizabeth Bowen

Biography

Elizabeth Bowen was born in 1899 in Dublin. Later her parents brought her to Bowen's Court to County Cork where she spent her summers. When her father became mentally ill, she and her mother moved to England, but after her mother’s death in 1912 she was brought up by her aunts. After some time at art school in London, she decided that her talent lay in writing.

Bloomsbury Group

She mixed with the (an influential group of associated English writers, intellectuals, philosophers, and artists, who lived, worked and studied together).