However, all this beauty seems to be contradictory, since both the pleasure dome and the sunless sea

coexist. This creates

a sense of wonder and unease.

2nd stanza: “mighty fountain” “sacred river” he is impressed by the beauty. He is contemplating beauty while thinking
about war.
3rd stanza: all seems to mix, the caves, the river, the dome. Fragmented nature of dreams. He closed his eyes and waited
to wake up.
Themes:
DOME VS NATURE. DOME JUST 1ST STANZA, NATURE THROUGHT THE POEM.
Importance of nature.
Really important for Romantic poets. Romantic poets include references to nature since they believe that any object in
nature is fit material for a poet. They believed that anything in nature could inspire great poetry. Nature wasn’t just trees,
rivers and mountains; it was like a living being, much like humans. They saw it as something holy and interconnected,
rejecting the idea that nature could be explained just by science and rules. We have to remember that Keats view on
nature is what sets him apart from the first generation of Romantic poets, which believe that nature has a language that
we can understand.
In the poem, the dome is not a prevailing image. The dome is mentioned only once in the first stanza, and nature is
present all throughout the poem.
When describing the sorroundings, there are references to caverns, gardens, trees, hills, greenery, the river, the sea, the
sun. The dome is man-made, and it is mentioned only once.
Nature: Caverns, sea, fertile ground, gardens, trees, hills, greenery. Images of nature prevail throughout the poem. He
describes the dome in just the first stanza (the dome is man-made) the river, the sea, the gardens are present in the rest of
the poem (natural forces are more important that human things). The surroundings suggest a paradise setting. All the
beauty and pleasure we see inside the dome comes from nature.
Revival of the gothic: This movement appears way before, but it taken by the Romantics. This movement stands against
what is considered rational. It brings ghosts, danger, monsters and so on. The Abyssinian maid can be taken as a
supernatural being.
Supernatural: The second stanza refers to the wild and savage (not beautiful) nature outside the dome. Since the poet is
describing a dream, the palace is filled with weird and mystical scenes. Like the one where a woman is crying over a
demon-lover. The words chasm (hole), enchanted, dying, demon, savage, haunted, convey a sinister turn there. The place
is holy and enchanted at the same time, so there is something magical and mysterious about this place.
This place is in a state of unrest, there is something which is struggling to come out from underground. A fountain comes
out of the chasm, the underground basis of the river is highly mystical place, and it has come to the surface, like an
explosion, with water and rocks flying everywhere. The fountain is the Alph river. In this tumult, Kubla hears his
ancestors warning about war, the outside of the dome is both savage and destructive.
Senses  we have many references to music: the abyssinian maid playing the dulcimer, singing, her symphony, her
song, that music. As he heard the song in a dream, he cannot remember it, but if he could, he would unlock the beauty
that was lost at the beginning of the poem. He wishes to recreate perfection. Senses are a way to approaching to this
transcendental world.
The supernatural: The Romantics were fascinated with the supernatural, the unknown.
- We can say that Coleridge employs the sublime for his descriptions of the supernatural. In Kubla he imagines
this fantastic palace in a dream, which he describes as a miracle of “rare” device, it is sunny but at the same time
there are caves of ice. This paradoxical image evoke a delightful horror on the reader that helps to build the
supernatural.
- In the poem, supernatural forces govern the natural world. The river is described as “sacred” and its movements
are depicted as “dancing”. This personification of the river and its attibutes gives it a mystical quality, suggesting
that it is more than just a natural feature but rather a manifestation of divine or supernatural forces.
- Another way in which Coleridge constructs the supernatural is featuring characters with supernatural powers. In
the poem, there’s a reference to an “Abyssinian maid”, with her dulcimer and her singing. The supernatural
powers attributed to this Abyssinian maid are largely implied through her association with Mount Abora, which
is a mythical place in the poem. Her dulcimer and her singing add to this enchanting atmosphere.
- The dream-like quality of the poem is also related with the supernatural. Romantics are fascinated by altered
states of consciousness and they claim that many of the greatest works are the result of visions in dreams. He
recurs to dreams to achieve in the reader this willing suspension of disbelief. Dreams can be strange and surreal,
but somehow, they still make sense when you're in them, so Coleridge tries to do the same. He creates a world
where anything can happen, but it all fits together in a kind of dream logic. This makes the supernatural elements
feel believable, like they could really exist in this dream world. Dreams also blurry the lines between the real and
the transcendental.
- All Romantic poets share a common belief in the transformative potential of imagination to reveal the
transcendental aspects of existence. Coleridge's depiction of the supernatural elements in "Kubla Khan" reflects
the Romantic belief in the interconnectedness of man, nature, and divinity through imagination. The poem blurs
the boundaries between inner vision and outer experience, inviting readers to explore the unseen or spiritual
aspects of reality. Through the power of imagination, Coleridge suggests that individuals can access deeper truths
and insights that lie beyond conventional understanding.
- Poet as a prophet: Romantic belief in the poet as a visionary who serves as a bridge between the earthly and the
divine, guiding readers to deeper spiritual understanding through the power of imagination.

OPPOSITES: SUNNY DOME – CAVES OF ICE  such different things could be opposites yet coexist. This place
created represents the reconciliation of opposites.
- OUTSIDE VS INSIDE
SUBLIME: DELIGHTFUL HORROR
GOTIC: DEMON-LOVER, NOT A GHOST.
INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS WITHIN THE DREAM.
Break of rational thought: nothing in this poem is logic or coherent. (This is achieved through the dream)
Celebration of opposites: palace: safe, sunny and warm vs river: gloomy and frightening.
Romantic poets believe in a world that trascends what is perceived by the senses. This world reflects a union between
man, nature and the presence of God. They are not Christian but they are religious because they believe in the holiness of
reality. God is Man’s origin. The bond with this transcendental world can be strengthened through imagination. The
concern for this union between man, nature and god stems from the fact that humanity has become separated from nature.
Humanity has become separated from nature, which leads to a false characterization of external nature as ‘fixed’ and
‘dead’. The romantic poet seeks a way to reactivate the world by discovering the creative perceptiveness, which will
allow the writer to draw aside the veils which modern living has laid across the senses. They will seek a perception where
the false separation of Nature (fixed, external objects) and nature (the living being of the perceiver) can be reconciled: a
new synthetizing vision. The romantic thinker often feels that such a faculty is not an invention, but a rediscovery of the
truth about the way we perceive and create which has been lost in the development of more complicated forms and the
growth of rational and self-conscious theories of human thought.
Imagination: The way to get to the ultimate truth of the transcendental world. Imagination envisions a sense of continuity
between man, nature and the presence of God. According to Bowra, what sets apart Romantic poets is the importance
they give to imagination. For example, Blake sees imagination as a divine force within humans, while Coleridge thinks it
takes part in God’s creative power. The highest level of imagination involves seeing the world in a special world. Despite
their differences, the poets agreed that imagination helps to reconcile the inner vision (our inner thoughts) and the outer
experience (what we experience outside the world). In simpler terms, they believed that imagination allows us to
understand the world beyond what we can see, and poets use it to find deeper meanings in everyday things. The most
important way to access the transcendental world. Apart from imagination, dreams are also connected with that world.
When the Mariner dreams or falls unconscious, he can hear voices which do not belong to his “earthly” world (the one
perceived by the senses). As regards the dream, apart from the dream as part of the narrative line, Bowra states that “The
Rime” has elements of the dream in itself: the poem: the visual impressions, the emotional impacts, and the fact that it
clings to the memory with a peculiar tenacity.
Emotions
In Romantic poetry, emotions play a crucial role. This idea is shown in the preface to Lyrical Ballads by William
Wordsworth, he describes poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”
This emphasis on strong emotion in Romantic poetry marks a significant departure from the poetry of the 18th century.
Romantic poets used fantasy to express emotions that were considered unconventional or not approved by the society of
their time. They turned to supernatural elements like ghosts, spirits, and eerie atmospheres to convey these emotions. By
embracing the supernatural, they went beyond ordinary experiences and tapped into a realm that was beyond the
understanding of the senses, allowing them to express intense and complex emotions that couldn't be easily explained or
reasoned. This use of fantasy helped them convey their deep feelings and imaginative thoughts in a way that traditional
forms of expression couldn't capture.
Romantic poets were deeply intrigued by various aspects of human experience, and these interests played a significant
role in shaping their emotional expression
They are fascinated by altered states of consciousness and they claim that many of the greatest works are the result of
visions in dreams.
Language: formal language, abstract, vivid expressions.
TONE
HAPPY but then SAD and FRIGHTENING.
Happy at the beginning with the gardens and trees and pleasure, but then the thoughts of the lyrical I become darker
“woman crying” “beware beware”
LITERARY DEVICES:
Simile: huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail
Personification: the river “ran” through caverns.
Hyperbole: “caverns measureless to man”

Ode on a Grecian Urn –

John Keats (1819)
He was an English poet, one of the main figures of Romantic poets, died at the age of 25. Miserable life.
Ode: a writing focusing on thought an emotion, usually addressing a specific subject matter.
Stanza 1: the speaker addresses an ancient urn, he describes the urn as calm “a foster child of silence”. The urn is like a
historian who can tell a story.
Stanza 2: he is amused by a picture of a young man playing a pipe, lying with his lover. The youth can never kiss his
lover because time is frozen, but his beuty will remain forever so not everything is so bad.
Stanza 3: the writer feels happy because the trees will never lose their leaves, the man will play the pipe forever and the
love of the couple will last forever, unlinke the real world, we are destined to die.
The urn represents INNOCENCE
There is an innocent world inside the urn in which everything is perfect. This world is unchanging and the people there
would never have to face changes. Their world is frozen in a single moment. The poem constrast the timeless world of
the urn with human life, which will end as generations pass.
Theme:
The distinction between the ideal nature of art and the flaw nature of life. Art is flawless, life is not.
OPPOSITES:

Role of the artist: beauty is to be found if one is open to imagination.

Beauty is to be found is one is able to open imagination and see beyond the world that can be perceived by the senses.

MORTALITY VS INMORTALITY.
A Portrait of an Artist as a
Young Man – James Joyce
(1914) – MODERNIST –
TWO WORLDS -
VALUES (MORAL VS
INMORAL)
Chapter 1: main events
The novel begins with Stephen as a young boy attending Clongowes Wood College, a strict Catholic boarding school in
Ireland. He experiences the oppressive influence of the Catholic Church and the strict discipline imposed by the Jesuits.
Despite the challenges, he shows early signs of intellectual and artistic talent.
• When he is pushed to the ground by the older kid, he starts to realize that no matter what happens in life you're going to
get ridiculed and bullied, and that sometimes life is unfair; there are some grey areas, and it is not always right or wrong,
no matter what you do. When the big kid pushes the little kid that's bigger institutions picking on little institutions; when
the kids make fun of him like “kiss your mother with that mouth”, it doesn’t matter whether he says yes or no, they make
fun of him either way.
• Christmas dinner: Mr. Dedalus speaks approvingly of a mutual friend who, by confronting a priest directly, has
criticized the involvement of the Catholic Church in Irish politics. Dante strongly disapproves, saying that it is not right
for any Catholic to criticize the church. Stephen sees his parents and his parents’ friends talking about things that little
kids don't talk about, like politics, nationalism and the Catholic Church. He also sees characters like Dante is an Irish
nationalist, but also supports Catholicism. Here, again, he also sees that there is not just right and wrong, there's a lot
more thematic elements to take into account. People are being torn apart by these questions and categorizations.
• Father Dolan: Stephen breaks his glasses and he is being told by his master that he is excused of his homework, but he
ends up being punished eventually. At that moment, he starts to realize that religion sometimes fail, they are sometimes
wrong, like this punishment being unfairly applied. This situation makes the boy believe even more that the way in which
the universe treats him is unfair. - The chapter begins with his father telling him a story about a moocow. We see that art
is not mere empty entertainment, but has the power to form people's identities and shape their thoughts, because Stephen
is deeply influenced by the story: he becomes conscious of his own existence at this young age because he feels identifies
with a character in a fictional story. In this chapter, Stephen wonders about the universe. When Stephen gets sick, he
writes home to his mom asking her to come and pick him up from school. Then, he wonders about what his funeral
would be like. Stephen is now old enough to wonder about money, and he realizes that his father is quite poor compared
to the other children's father. He also realizes that his father would give him more money than he asked for, meaning that
his father was generous and loving. Stephen goes home for the holidays to hear his family argue about politics and
religion. As a child, he’s conflicted about who to believe. The religious school is oppressive, and in one case, he’s beaten
because his glasses broke.
Chapter 2
This is the beginning of Stephen disenchantment. In this chapter, he realizes what actually is bad in his life. He uses
words like ‘salubrious’, so his language evolves along with him. At home, Stephen reads Alexandre Dumas's novel The
Count of Monte Cristo, and is deeply interested in its adventure and romance. Stephen imagines himself as the lover of
Mercédès, the novel's heroine. He is ashamed of his father's financial problems, so Stephen uses the imaginary adventures
of Dumas's novel as an escape. He becomes friends of a young boy named Aubrey Mills, and they both recreate the
adventures of The Count of Monte Cristo. He compares the reality of Montecristo and the fantasy books to real life, and
he realizes that he's trying to live his life as a fantasy, and how depressing and how disjointed that is, compared to reality.
Stephen is asked to play the part in the play, so we get to see the creative side of him. During this play, Stephen looks at
the audience and sees a girl. He thinks that if he wants the girl to be interested in him, he has to act and to put on a fake
persona in the play, but that is not who he is. Art and life are, in a sense, switching places: while the artistic performance
seems lifelike, life itself seems artificial. Stephen and Joyce both realize that what society wants us to be sometimes is
very different from what we want to be, and we see this point with the play and with his relationship with the girl. There
is a scene where Stephen’s father talks about having sexual relationships with woman. Stephen realizes he has had similar
sexual thoughts about woman in the past, and that he is not the only one having these thoughts. He realizes he is not
alone, and that there is something he is hiding from the world. in this chapter, Stephen has sexual relationships with a
prostitute, which is actually his first sexual experience.
Chapter 3
These sections explore the relationship between worldly pleasures and sin. Stephen's relationship with women becomes
more complex in this chapter. He simultaneously displays a fervent devotion to the Virgin Mary and an obsession with
visiting prostitutes. In this chapter, Joyce shows us how religion impacts on one's personal morality and how we question
our morality. Father Arnall delivers a sermon about hell with terrifying details. The sermon leaves Stephen paralyzed
with fear, recognizing that hell is his destination. The father’s vision of hell comes from Dante Alighieri's poem Inferno,
which tells the story of Dante's descent into hell. Just as Dante's despair is eased by the appearance of the Virgin Mary
beckoning him upward to heavenly union with his beloved Beatrice, Stephen receives a vision of Mary placing his hand
in his beloved Emma's. Stephen feels the need to confess his sins, so he goes to the chapel and does it. The priest asks
how long it has been since his last confession, and Stephen replies that it has been eight months. He confesses that he has
had sexual relations with a woman and that he is only sixteen. The priest offers forgiveness and Stephen heads home
feeling filled with grace. Moreover, this chapter is structured mainly with passages from the Bible. Stephen is thinking
through the Bible and realizing the word through the Bible’s standards of what's right and wrong.
Chapter 4
At the beginning of chapter 4, Stephen implements a new system of religious discipline upon himself that transforms his
life. He prays every morning, but he isn’t entirely sure if his prayers are enough for his sins. He divides his daily schedule
into parts that correspond to particular spiritual functions. Gradually, Stephen convinces himself that God loves him. In
chapter 4, Stephen is given the opportunity to study to become a priest. At first, Stephen is intrigued by the thought of the
priesthood, and pictures himself in the admired, respected role of the silent and serious priest carrying out his duties.
Reflecting on the myth of Daedalus that his name suggests, Stephen considers his similarity to that "fabulous artificer"
who constructed wings with which he flew out of his ‘prison’. Stephen contemplates Daedalus's use of art to achieve
freedom: a suggestion that Stephen will do the same. He feels that he will soon begin building a new soul that will allow
him to rise above current miseries. At that moment, has his epiphany when he sees a beautiful girl wading in the water,
her skirts hiked up high. He and the girl make eye contact for a moment, and Stephen perceives her as an angel of youth
and beauty. The bathing girl is a secular version of the Virgin Mary, an emblem of a means to rise to heaven, but without
the church. His individual expression is the becoming one of an artist: instead of going the religious way, he splits from
the church and realizes his epiphany is taking him to get rid of all these structure. He's not going to be influenced by the
nationalistic war, religion, or money issues. Stephen realizes that the art that he will create is not merely a beautiful
object, but an entire existence. Through his art, Stephen creates an "imperishable being" very much like a soul: he will
not just create literature, but will create himself.
Chapter 5 Mrs. Dedalus says that he has changed by university life. From upstairs, Mr. Dedalus replies that his son is a
"lazy bitch." Annoyed and frustrated, Stephen leaves the house and wanders through Dublin, quoting poems to himself
and musing on the aesthetic theories of Aristotle and Aquinas. On the whole, he is disappointed by his university
education. Stephen has a conversation with his mother about the Virgin Mary, in which his mother accuses him of
reading too much and losing his faith. Then, Stephen sadly tells his friend that he feels he may soon have to leave the
university and abandon his friends in order to pursue his artistic ambitions. One morning, Stephen wakes up remembering
an erotic dream he had with his beloved, Emma, so he writes down a romantic poem based on that dream. Later on,
Emma asks Stephen whether he is writing poems and why he no longer goes to the university, and Stephen tells her about
his artistic plans. The following day, he has a vision of disembodied arms and voices that seem to call to him, urging him
to join them. Stephen ends his journal with a prayer to his old father, Daedalus, whom he calls "old artificer," to stand
him in good stead. This chapter is written differently. Stephen is no longer being talked about by an external narrator, but
is now speaking in his own voice. He romanticizes his own ideals. This chapter can be read as Joyce’s love letter to
literature; we see him as an artist writing poetry. This is the chapter when he is finally free. He's no longer a paralyzed
Dubliner, and he makes his escape through art. Finally, Stephen decides to leave his family and friends behind and go
into exile in order to become an artist, which suggests that Joyce sees the artist as a necessarily isolated figure. By the end
of the novel, Joyce provides a portrait of a mind that has achieved emotional, intellectual, and artistic adulthood.
Modernism: rejection of Victorian values, detachment from rules and conventions, consciousness, mind, feeling,
emotions, flow of thoughts
This novel belong to the modernist literary movement. Modernism emerged in the late 19 th century and early 20th as a
response to the rapidly changing social, political and technological landscape of the time. It is characterized by a break
from traditional literary forms and a focus on exploring new narrative techniques and themes.
British Modernism
It includes different movements and it took place in the first half of the 20th century. It was a period of great changes and
unrest, eg: changes of social life, political life, science, etc. it was a time of wars and revolutions, like the First World
War, the post war, the Russian revolution, etc. There was also a great advance in technology, like electricity, the radio,
buildings, transportations like cars, ships and airplanes, that brought changes into people’s life. Lots of people moved
from the villages to the cities, so there was a big rise of cities and better life conditions. There was a feeling of anonymity
and dehumanization in the city; people felt they’ve become one more number in the multitude. This also brought changes
in the social structure: the appearance of suburbs in London, new neighbourhoods that became ideal to live for the new
generation of families (men went to work to London and women stayed at home). In the 1WW, many men had to fight
and their working places in the cities were occupied by women, who adopted an active role outside the house. When men
came back from the war and took back their work positions, women went back to their old work in the house. All this led
to a demand of women’s rights, like the vote, which was finally given in 1918. The situation of the wat, the vote and the
experience of working outside the house changed the position of women in society. There were also advances in
psychology, on one hand, with Freud when the concept of ‘subject’ appeared: the interior subject; and the psychology of
Nietzsche with the concept of “God is dead”, on the other hand. Also, advances in science with Einstein. All this had an
impact in how people understood life and their thoughts and beliefs. There appeared an awareness of the irrational and
the unconscious mind.
AVANT-GARDE
It was one of the movements of the British Modernism and the term is used to refer to the art of the period. It involves
conventional society, conventional commercial values, mass culture produced by industrialization. It pushes
experimentation and trying new things. There is a freedom of realism and traditional genre/form, and there is also a
reformulation of the aesthetic object (the object of art changes). As regards context, there is a fragmentary nature of
experience because of the post war new life, as if experience could not be held in one uniform way, but the need of
experiencing different things at different times. There is also technical innovation that accompanies experimentation.
Finally, there is a condition of crisis expressed in language, cultural cohesion lost (the uniform view of society and life
was seen as a unity and it broke into fragment and pieces. The perception is paralyzed and there is no longer one view of
things, but multiple ways of understanding things. The interest in avant-garde doesn’t interpret subjects/objects as if they
were real, but beauty is the objective. It will break with the one-view perspective and will introduce multiple
perspectives, eg: Picasso “Les Demoiselles DiAvignon” (1990); and lack of detail. These techniques are used both in
painting and literature. The artists experiment and search for new forms to convey their feelings and what they want to
represent and express in this new context. In England, there was an Avant-garde movement called vorticism (1913-1915),
partly inspired by the Futurists and the leading figures were Wyndham Lewis (“The Crowd”), Ezra Pound (“Blast”),
among others.
Modernism in literature
Literature of discontinuity  historical break: sharp rejection of the procedures and values of the immediate past;
aesthetic break: rejection of the Victorian poetics, breaking away from established rules, traditions and conventions. The
British Modernism breaks with traditional forms of the 19th century. Leading figures: T. S. Elliot (1888-1965), Ezra
Pound (1885-1972), James Joyce (1882-1941), Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), and W. H. Auden (1907-1973). These
authors built literature from a culture that was broken because of war. They were determined to write in new and
surprising ways, by pushing language beyond conventions, and ignoring conventional forms and structures.
Poetics:
• Rejection of the traditional frame work of narrative, description and rational exposition taken from Victorians, like
following a chronological order and cause-effect sequence.
• Reformulation of the represented object.
• Fragmentary nature of experience.
• Unpredictable display of events and impressions.
• Persistent experimentalism.
• Erasure of any trace of omniscient narrator (≠ Victorian omniscient narrators).
• In favour of a stream-of-consciousness presentation of personality (instead of having an external 3rd person narrative
voice, now the point of view will get within the mind of the character and will reflect the flow of impressions, feelings
and perception that the characters have.
• Multiple perspectives
Also, the novel explores complex themes related to identity, religion, individuality and the artist’s role in society, which
are common preoccupations of the human psyche.
Stream of Consciousness: One of the hallmark features of modernist literature is the use of stream of consciousness
narrative technique, which allows readers to delve into the inner thoughts and feelings of characters. In Joyce's novel, we
witness the protagonist, Stephen Dedalus, experiencing the world through his consciousness, revealing his struggles with
identity, religion, and art.
For example, “I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it call itself my home, my fatherland,
or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as whol
ly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use—silence, exile and cunning.”
Rejection of Traditional Values and Morality: Modernist literature frequently challenges conventional values and
morality. Joyce's novel critiques the oppressive influence of Irish Catholicism on Stephen's development, as he struggles
to break free from the dogma and constraints of his upbringing. Stephen's journey involves a rejection of societal
expectations and moral norms as he seeks to define his own identity and artistic vision.
The novel focuses on Stephen Dedalus and how hedonism, religion and politics influenced him and changed his opinion
on different subjects. It has a lot of epiphanies and stream of consciousness. The main character is fictional but portrays
many characteristics of James Joyce himself.
James was born in Dublin, his father was an Irish patriot and his mother a devout catholic. The book refers to many
things that took place in James life.
Part 1: sets up the inner conflict of finding true identity (religious or artistic)
Part 2: Stephen’s religious identity and he is reconsidering his decisions
Part 3: his artistic pursue, he leaves Ireland and the Catholic church (artistic identity wins). His epiphany, he realizes he is
not “man of god”, he visits a beach and saw a girl which make him had an epiphany, he wanted to become an artist.
Characters:
Stephen: protagonist
Simon Dedalus: Father of Stephen. Irish patriot (TRANSFORMATION)
Mary Dedalus: Mother of Stephen, devout catholic
Emma Clery: Stephen’s beloved
Charles Stewart: Irish political leader
Uncle Charles: Irish patriot
Dante: Catholic governess
Cranly: Stephen’s best friend.
Symbols: green and maroon (Irish people)
Themes
Individual consciousness. Stephen questions if he is really meant to become a priest, this occurs when he realizes that a
priest must have a lot of discipline and devotion. Stephen’s obsession to remain pure.
Pitfalls of religious extremity
Role of the artist. An artist cannot feel trapped, he must be free
Need for Irish autonomy
Narrator: 3rd person omniscient for the most part. Stream of consciousness, he takes the reader into the conscious and the
subconscious mind.
Allusion to the Greek Mith of Dedalus and Icarus. They wanted to escape and construct wings, the wings couldn’t touch
the sun or the sea because they would ruin, but Icarus didn’t heard this advice and the wings melted and they fell into the
sea.

The Moon and Sixpence –

William Somerset
Maugham (1919) –
MODERNIST – TWO
 WORLDS - VALUES
(MORAL VS INMORAL)
One of the most paid writers of the 1930
Physician but gave up medicine to dedicate to writing.
Plot: Charles decides to leave London and abandon his wife to find his “art”
Dirk helps Charles financially
Blanche falls in love with Charles and leaves Dirk
Blanche suicides because Charles doesn’t love her, he takes her only as her muse.
Charles moves to Tahiti, get married, get ill and died. He asks his wife to burn his last paiting
Theme:
It describes how people choose between the moon or the sixpence, the moon can be art for Charles or love for Blanche,
and the sixpence can be reality or money. Some are struggling between the moon and the sixpence but get nothing at the
end. Choosing the moon is choosing happiness and poverty, choosing the sixpence is choosing conformity and
wealthiness.
TITLE: contrast VICTORIAN VALUES and MODERNISM.

Musee des Beaux Arts – W

H Auden (1938) I THINK
MODERNIST . ST OF CS
The speaker is in the museum and takes an attitude of admiration for the old masters who understood about suffering .
Nobody cared about the miraculous birth, nobody cared about the killing of babies. Reference to Broigol’s Icarus.
Icarus was a Greek character who escaped with his father Dedalus with handmade wings but they end up melting with the
sun and they fell into the sea.
In the painting by Broigols, they are just a tiny spot within the painting, this gives the feeling that nobody heard them
falling into the water and that life just continued its course.
Context of the poem: Britain and German were in war.
Devices:
Anaphora in 2 lines:
“how well they understood”
“how it takes place”

Atonement – Ian McEwan

(2002) POSTMODERN
POSTMODERNISM (It is not a movement. Mid to late 90s. They tend to make readers aware that they are reading
fiction (shift of narrator). Mix actual events with fiction, we don’t know what is fact and what is fiction.
Postmodern features:
Intertextuality: a richer meaning and enable the reader to read. References to hamlet, macbeth, grays’s anatomy.
Multiplicity of perspectives
Every text has ideologies.
Metafiction: a text that makes you aware that you are reading fiction (last part shift of narrator)
Fragmentation
Question of authority
Challenging the authority of the autor: we have a 13 yeard old girl writing.

Parody
No more binarity (high vs low culture)
Themes: how fiction may affect someone’s life
clinging to unreality may have negative effects in people’s live
Metafiction: a text that reminds the reader that he is reading fiction, not reality. The shift
of narrator in the last part shows this metafiction, the problem with wiling suspension of
disbelief is that people involve emotional and feel that the characters and events are real .
Briony was too influenced by her imagination. Mistake and regret
Cecilia and Robbie standing by the fountain: marriage proposal / threat
Robbie’s letter: danger / disgust / obscenity
Cecilia and Robbie in the library: attack
Lola’s assault: Robbie’s second attack
Briony prefers to live in a fantasy world, comforting in imagined stories, that is her way to cope
with her family situation. (Parents quarrelling, father’s threat to leave the house)
She learns to accept life as it is and not to interpret it
Narrator: most of the book is written in third person, the final part is written in first person, but
the whole book is written by her. Everything is being said by Brionny although it’s in 3 rd person.

The cutting room-

postmodernist.
The task of determining whether the pornographic images are true or false. Some say they are
true, some say they are false, some think they are art. Welsh: hesitation between the real and the
unreal. Intertextuality: stories of detectives.