Riassunto esame letteratura inglese, prof. Logaldo, libro consigliato England, England, Barnes

18 of April 2018

th

Letteratura Inglese - Prof. Logaldo

Julian Barnes - England, England

Julian Barnes is a post modernist writer.

The novel was published in 1998, it was very successful novel, it was even

shortlisted for the Booker prize. England?

Why has the teacher chosen England, All the novels that we have to read

for Zuccato and Casella have something in common, they are all about utopia and

dystopia. For this reason she choose a book that is also a utopia, but a very

particular one, a post-modern utopia.

Utopia literally means a non place, non topos. Thomas More’s Utopia is the only

example of utopia we have read., because utopia has also another meaning, good,

so the good place. Utopia is a no place but also a good, ideal place. But this is

true only for this book. Swift’s utopia, and Orwell’s and Huxley’s utopia, becomes

something opposite it becomes a dystopia. So it’s no longer an ideal place but

becomes a horrible place with negative connotations.

England

The title: England,

It’s a strange title, a kind of slogan, it contains rhythm. In the book there are a lot of

parodies and nursery rhymes which are based on rhythm, repetition, word place:

but as we’ll see they are parodies of nursery rhymes and of prayers. It sounds also

like a kind of slogan, a patriotic version of nationalism but we are going to see a

parody of nationalism.

The repetition of the same word: it underlines that the fact the two England’s are

not the same. The first England denotes the Country, but the second one is a

connotation word, so it refers to all the mental associations that arise with this

word. Why England and not the UK or Britain? Because it’s a form of cultural

power, when we think about Britain we think about English culture like London,

Tower Bridge, double-deckers, etc. But not all the english are happy about this,

like the Scottish or the Welsh. Finally we notice that they are not written the same,

England, England. The second one is written in Italics; we usually use Italics when

we are writing a bibliography and we write the title in italics. Italics is associated

with the idea of text clarity, and in this case in particular, to the idea of fiction.

The first England is the real England, the second one is the fictional version of

England.

Here we can see a map of the

Island of Wight, it’s in the south of

England. In the book they decided

to make a copy of England on the

Isle of Wight, a perfect replica of

England. The strange thing of this

utopia it’s that it is a post

modernist one. Do you think that

the real dan the fictional are

separated in post-modernism? No.

Post-modernism has been

describes as a short circuit between the real and the fictional.

Pagina 1 di 12

The idea at the core of this novel is that everything is a representation. There is no

England

real reality. Reality is in any case a cultural construct. England, it’s not a

utopia as a place totally invented, because it is exactly like the real England. So it;s

not either a better or a worse place, it’s simply a place. We can describe it as a

theme park made for tourists but this copy will question the real England.

At the end of the book the two dimensions will become interchangeable, so you

can pass from the real one to the fictional one.

These are some of the themes and questions we are going to see:

What does it mean to be english? What is history? “We are goin to sell our past” -

famous phrase you can see in the book. And sometimes we do that too, we sell

our past to tourists. What is the idea of time we have in post-modernism? There is

no idea of progress, just like for the real and the fictional, also for past and future

they become interchangeable categories. What is tradition? Tradition is a cultural

construct. There is a very interesting association in the book between the

construction of tradition and the construction of personality.

The main character is a girl called Martha Cochrane and she is asked “What is

your first memory?”. The history of this character is like the history of a nation

remembering its own past. The making of tradition in a country is the same as for a

person to remember her or his own past. So nationhood is identified with

personhood. What is real? In a post modern age there is no reality only

representations of reality. When you travel around do you really look at reality or do

you spend most of your time taking pictures with your cellphones? So it’s hard to

identify what is real in our post-modern age. This is why in the book the copy

become the real one, there is no authenticity.

What does it mean to be English, Englishness?

This is the first question they have to find an answer to when they decide to create

a copy of England. Orwell defines England as a democratic country but also

everything we associate to English life. Englishness is a very controversial matter,

especially today after decolonization, immigration, the British identity has become

even more problematic.

Culture is a list of things which are arbitrary, what aristocratic people think of

England is different from the middle class of the lower class. We could make

endless lists of English things. I’m talking about list, because if you want to make a

copy of England you need to know what people want and what people think about

Englishness. The copy has to meet the needs of the people.

Jack Pitman, who want to create this copy, makes a survey all around the world

and asks people what they associate to Englishness and so he creates the 50

Quintessences of Englishness:

1. 6.

Royal Family A Robin in the snow

2. 7.

Big Ben / Houses of Parliament Robin Hood and his Merry men

3. 8.

Manchester United Football Club Cricket

4. 9.

Class system White cliffs of Dover

5. 10.

Pubs Imperialism

Pagina 2 di 12 2 of May 2018

nd

What did we say last time?

The title is quite strange, we have England England

a repetition of the same word

which suggest that there are two

types of England, one is real and England as a replica,

The ‘real’ England representation, as text, fiction,

the other is a copy. The book talks metadiscourse

about the second one, a faithful

reproduction of England in the Isle Connotation of the word «England»

Denotation of the word «England» (all the mental associations

of Wight. The two Englands will suggested by the word)

become interchangeable, we find England, England: the slogan, the England, England: the slogan, the

out that there is no difference rhythm of the sentence (patriotism, rhythm of the sentence (patriotism,

nationalism, poetry) nationalism, poetry)

between the original and the copy.

The two word are not exactly the

same because the second England

is written in Italics which suggests the idea of textuality, as a text, a discursive

practice. It also brings with itself the idea of connotations, which means whatever

is associated with the word England, all the mental associations.

The title also contains rhythm, like a slogan, because the book is a parody of the

idea patriotism, nationalism.

UTOPIAS AND DYSTOPIAS

In what sense does England, England differ the utopias and dystopias we have

seen so far?

In the two novels of More and Swift, there is an idea behind the choice of islands.

In Thomas More’s Utopia, this particular island was chosen because of the shape

of the island, because it is moon shaped, symmetrical. More drew inspiration from

Republic,

Plato’s so the shape was carefully chosen. It was also an ideal place, a

utopia, because it was a safe place, it was difficult to attack it and it was protected

from the winds.

“The island of Utopia is in the middle 200 miles broad, and holds almost at the same

breadth over a great part of it; but it grows narrower toward both ends. Its figure is not

unlike a crescent: between its horns, the sea comes in eleven miles broad, and spreads itself

into a great bay, which is environed with land to the compass of about 500 miles, and is well

secured from winds. In this bay there is no great current; the whole coast is, as it were, one

continued harbor, which gives all that live in the island great convenience for mutual

commerce” (Thomas More, Utopia, 1516)

In Gulliver’s Travels, the idea behind the islands he visits are related to society

because they are supposed to be a satire of 18 century England. So in both

th

cases there is an ideology behind it.

“The empire of Blefuscu is an island situated to the north-east of Lilliput, from which it is

parted only by a channel of eight hundred yards wide. I had not yet seen it, and upon this

notice of an intended invasion, I avoided appearing on that side of the coast, for fear of

being discovered, by some of the