For Monday: Wells, The Time Machine, Chs.1-7 (see below)

* NOTE: If you have a different edition from the Oxford World's Classics, be sure to read to the chapter that begins "It may seem odd to you" (stop when you see this chapter). It should be the first 40 or 50 pages, depending on your version.

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: Though this is a science fiction story about time travel, how does The Time Machine function like a traditional Gothic story like Frankenstein or Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? What familiar tropes and characters do you recognize, and how does Wells employ them? (hint: consider the narration)

Q2: When considering what man might be like in the distant future, The Time Traveler reflects, "What might not have happened to men? What if cruelty had grown into a common passion? What if in this interval the race has lost its manliness, and had developed into something inhuman, unsympathetic, and overwhelmingly powerful?" Why might these be important questions to ask in the late 19th century? What fears and concerns might they address in light of what we've read about in class (and why is "the future" the perfect metaphor to address them)?

Q3: Why does the book open with a chapter recording the discussion of several gentlemen, none of whom have names other than "The Time Traveler," "The Medical Man," and "The Provincial Mayor?" Why is this chapter important for Wells' readers and for setting up the rest of the book? What are they talking about that might have seemed exciting--and disturbing--in 1895?  

Q4: Even though the Time Traveler is catapulted thousands of years into the future, he often uses quite primitive metaphors and imagery to describe his emotions and surroundings: "I felt hopelessly cut off from my own kind--a strange animal in an unknown world"..."The old instinctive dread of wild beasts came upon me." What seems to be so uncanny about this future that makes it seem more like the past?

Paper #3 Presentation: Picturing a Book

“In the friction and interaction among artist and designer and book, a new thing is born. The book is remade, its delights are refreshed, it becomes inviting again” (Audrey Niffenegger)

For the first part of your Paper #3 assignment, I want you to design the cover for a new edition of ONE of the books in class using a classic painting or work of art. Remember that the cover is the first thing someone sees before reading a book, and it continues to stare at and challenge (delight?) the reader as he/she spends time with the book. So your task is to find an image that can live in the mind of the reader, and subtly (or explicitly) mirror the themes of the book and/or the characters inside it. Ideally, you want to choose a painting (or other work) from around the same time period, so we can see visually what the writer was attempting to capture in his or her work.

Paintings with Gothic/Romantic leanings such as those by Francisco Goya, Caspar David Freidrich, J.M. Turner, John Atkinson Grimshaw, John Singer Sargent, Dante Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones, and Maxwell Armfield are great places to start. However, you can use any painting that you feel has a conversation with the book itself, and helps us ‘see’ something important in the text. I’ll post a link to a few pages with paintings for you to explore, but don’t feel limited to these—look around (esp. at the Pre-Raphaelite painters) and find anything that suits your fancy.

THREE WEEKS from now (the week of April 23^rd), you will present your new cover image to the class. You could simply show us the painting, OR you could actually design a new cover suitable for one of the novels. There are many free programs such as Canva that allow you to do this, but only do it if you want to (see the link on the blog for this). I’m really just interested to see what work of art you choose and how you can discuss it. For the presentation, I want you to do THREE things:

* Introduce the artist and the work, along with the date
* Discuss why you think the work complements the novel in question
*  Find a brief passage from the novel to use as a “frame” for the artwork; the passage should illustrate the connection you discussed in #2. Be sure to show or read this to us and be able to explain why you chose it.

This will go hand-in-hand with your Paper #3 assignment, which I will give to you next week. So start thinking about this and go hunting for great art! Again, I will post some links on the blog to help you, but the choice is up to you. Just make sure it accentuates the text in an interesting way and initiates a conversation with the text, even if it’s a controversial one. Please e-mail me with questions or come to my office to discuss it.

Here are some links to help you find good paintings/works of art:

Wikipedia page for the Pre-Raphaelites (many good images and clickable content): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Raphaelite_Brotherhood

A page from the Tate Gallery of Art on 19th century British paintings and painters: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/british-school-19th-century-60

Complete paintings of Caspar David Friedrich ("the" Gothic painter, famous for the Wanderer in the Sea of Fog): https://www.caspardavidfriedrich.org/

Complete paintings of John Singer Sargent (not Gothic, but contemporary with Wilde and captures people of high society in intimate portraits--we looked at his portrait of Madame X): https://www.johnsingersargent.org/

Complete paintings of J.M.W. Turner (we looked at his "Ocean with Sea Monsters" and others in class): https://www.william-turner.org/

Wikipedia page for Goya ("The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters"): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Goya

Wikipedia page for John Atkinson Grimshaw (British painter of Gothic landscapes and townscapes): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Atkinson_Grimshaw

For Monday: Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chs. 12-20

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: Many of Lord Henry’s witticisms echo—or even reproduce—Wilde’s Preface from the beginning of the book. Consider ones such as “Scepticism is the beginning of faith,” or “we can have in life but one great experience, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible.” With this in mind, how are we supposed to read his character? Is he the voice of ‘reason’ of wisdom in the novel? Or is he another unreliable narrator, just as flawed and corrupt as Dorian?

Q2: When Dorian Gray ventures into the opium dens of the East End of London, he meets with various racial stereotypes: Malays with “white teeth,” “squat misshapen figures” (also Malay, or Chinese), and low-class women with “crooked smile[s] like a Malay crease.” Are these a sign of Wilde’s upper class racial prejudices (like the narrator in “Olalla”)? Or is he seeing the world through Dorian’s eyes, who sees things in terms of “race” and degeneracy?

Q3: At the very end of the novel, Dorian lays the blame of his crime at Basil’s feet: “It was the living death of his own soul that troubled him. Basil had painted the portrait that has marred his life. He could not forgive him that. It was the portrait that had done everything” (185). This sounds curiously like the Creature and Victor: the Creature blaming his creator (Basil) and the Creator blaming his creation (the painting). How should we read Dorian—as Victor or the Creature? Is he made “evil” or does he turn things “evil” himself?

Q4: Lord Henry, in defense of the book that Dorian claims has “corrupted” him, says that “Art has no influence upon action. It annihilates the desire to act. It is superbly sterile. The books that the world calls immortal are books that show the world its own shame” (183). Do you think Wilde believes this? Is art merely a mute mirror of our own imagination and sensibilities? Or can art itself shape and guide our sensibilities? Why might this question be important to the reading/interpreting the novel?

 

 

 

For Friday: Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chs.6-11

John Singer Sargent, Repose (1911)

REMEMBER: No class on Wednesday (I'll be out of town)

Read the next few chapters, through Chapter 11, and consider some of the following questions--and this time, we will have an in-class response!

* Note how "eyes" are discussed or mentioned in the book; why are eyes so significant in a book about art and appearances?

* How is Basil contrasted with Lord Henry? What makes Basil more "good" and why does Dorian respect him more--even as he admits, he has learned much more from Lord Henry?

* What does Lord Henry meant when he says "don't waste your tears over Sybil Vane. She was less real than they are?" (meaning Juliet, Rosalind, etc.)

* Why did Sybil disappoint Dorian and destroy his love? What ideal did she fail to live up to? And how, in her death, did she restore that ideal?

* Why does Sybil perform so badly in the play? What is her ideal?

* How does Wilde indulge in many of the ideas of race and class that we saw in Stevenson's Olalla? Do you feel he is mocking these conventions--or playing into them?

* Why are secrets important in this novel just as they were in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? Who and what is being protected?

For Monday: Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chs.1-5

John Singer Sargent, Young Man in Reverie (1876)

NO QUESTIONS this week--so work on your Paper #2 assignment! Also, read Chapters 1-5 of The Picture of Dorian Gray for Monday's class. You'll have an in-class response waiting for you, and you might want to consider some of the following ideas:

* Wilde's paradoxical witticisms in the Preface and scattered throughout the text; are we supposed to take them seriously? Are they his voice, or the voice of society?

* The idea of art vs. life, or the ideal vs. the transitory pleasure: how does Wilde develop this idea (which we've seen throughout our readings) in the opening chapters?

* The Pre-Raphaelites liked to update or put a modern spin on age-old myths and legends: how might Dorian Gray be doing the same thing, though in a less obvious way?

* Why does Hallward think his portrait represents his best work? On the same hand, why does he refuse to show it?

* How was the nature of his meeting Dorian Gray similar to other "meetings" we've seen in other works?

* Why does Dorian Gray act so thunderstruck after his first conversation with Lord Henry? Does Lord Henry mean to shock him--or is he unaware of the power of his words?

* Why does Lord Henry claim he can play Dorian Gray like a violin? How does this play into the idea of art vs. life?

For Friday: Rossetti, Goblin Market (handout)

Note: if you missed Wednesday’s class, you can either grab the handout from my box, or find the poem on-line.

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: The poem is full of repetition and echoing devices, such as the stanzas that string simile after simile together: “Like a rush-imbedded swan,/Like a lily from the beck,/Like a moonlit poplar branch,/Like a vessel at the launch/When its last restraint is gone” (1620). Why are these repetitions significant—and where do they specifically occur in the poem?

Q2: The Goblin Market itself is full of sensual imagery, from the taste of the fruit to its shapes and textures. Since this is not only a poem but a kind of fairy tale, what might the Market represent? And why is it significant that Laura paid for the fruit with a lock of her hair?

Q3: In one of the most famous passages of the poem, Lizzie returns from the Market with the juice of the fruits on her body, and bids her sister “Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices/Squeezed from goblin fruits for  you...Eat me, drink me, love me,/Laura, make much of me” (1628). A modern reader hears many things in this passage—but what would a Victorian hear, do you think? How should we read this passage in the context of the poem itself?

Q4: The poem ends with a kind of Epilogue, set many years in the future, when the sisters both have daughters of their own. What do you feel is the point of this Epilogue and its moral? What message might this poem—which is presumably told by Lizzie and Laura to their children—have for the listeners? Is it as simple as “don’t trust men,” or “sisters stick together?” What else might they—or we—hear in this cautionary conclusion?