Introduction to Twentieth-Century Literature
tcl17.blogs.rutgers.edu
Prof. Andrew Goldstone ([email protected])
(Murray 019, Mondays and Wednesdays 2:30–4:30)
March 6, 2017. Eliot, concluded; Hughes (1).
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order and anarchy
These fragments I have shored against my ruins
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe.
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order and anarchy
These fragments I have shored against my ruins
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe.
The question, then, about Mr. Joyce, is: how much living material does he
deal with, and how does he deal with it: deal with, not as a legislator or
exhorter, but as an artist?
It is here that Mr. Joyce’s parallel use of the Odyssey [in Ulysses] has a great
importance…. It is simply a way of controlling, of ordering, of giving a
shape and a significance to the immense panorama of futility and anarchy
which is contemporary history.
“Ulysses, Order, and Myth” (1923), in Selected Prose of T.S. Eliot, ed. Frank
Kermode (San Diego: Harvest, 1975), 177.
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TSE, cont.
1922 The Waste Land
1922 The Criterion (journal, ed. TSE)
1925 Editor at Faber and Gwyer (later Faber and Faber)
1927 baptized in the Church of England
1928 “classicist in literature, royalist in politics, and anglo-catholic in religion” (For Lancelot Andrewes)
1930 Ash-Wednesday
1935 Murder in the Cathedral (play)
1938 Vivien Eliot committed
1943 Four Quartets
1948 Order of Merit, Nobel Prize
1957 m. Valerie Fletcher
1965 d.
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patterns
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Survey the poem for its female figures.
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What do they have in common?
How does the changing form of the poem shape the way these
figures appear?
What does this have to do with the problem of renewal from “The
Burial of the Dead”?
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Philomel, by the barbarous king / So rudely forced
And we shall play a game of chess / Pressing lidless eyes
It’s them pills I took, to bring it off
The nymphs are departed
Mr Eugenides… / Asked me in demotic French / To luncheon
The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast
“After the event / He wept. He promised ‘a new start.’ ”
A woman drew her long black hair out tight
My friend, blood shaking my heart / The awful daring of a moment’s
surrender
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Tiresias, although a mere spectator and not indeed a ‘character,’ is yet the
most important personage in the poem, uniting all the rest. (218n.)
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Tiresias, although a mere spectator and not indeed a ‘character,’ is yet the
most important personage in the poem, uniting all the rest. (218n.)
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What is the significance of pattern in this poem?
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music (redux)
’Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?’ But
O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag—
It’s so elegant
So intelligent
‘What shall I do now? What shall I do?’ (127–31)
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music (redux)
’Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?’ But
O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag—
It’s so elegant
So intelligent
‘What shall I do now? What shall I do?’ (127–31)
Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
He played a few chords then he sang some more.—
“I got the Weary Blues
And I can’t be satisfied.
Got the Weary Blues
And can’t be satisfied—
I ain’t happy no mo’
And I wish that I had died.”
And far into the night he crooned that tune. (Hughes, 50)
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Miguel Covarrubias, illus. The Weary Blues, 1st ed. (New York: Knopf,
1926), cover. Beinecke library.
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T H E
A
R E C O R D
CRISIS
O F
T H E
D A R K E R
R A C E S
P U B L I S H E D M O N T H L Y A N D COPYRIGHTED B Y T H E NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR T H E
A D V A N C E M E N T O F C O L O R E D P E O P L E , A T 70 F I F T H A V E N U E , N E W Y O R K C I T Y
COND U C T ED B Y W . E . B U R G H A R D T D U BOIS; JESSIE R E D M O N FAUSET, L I T E R A R Y EDITOR;
AUGUSTUS G R A N V I L L E DILL, BUSINESS MANAGER.
V o l . 22—No. 2
J U N E , 1921
Whole No. 128
PICTURES
COVER.
CHARLESTON COMMITTEE
THE
PHILLIS
MEN
OF T H E MONTH
PARLIAMENT
DOLL
Page
Drawing by H . Curtis Brown.
THE
WIG
WHEATLEY
HOUSE,
59
CLUB
63
73
HAITI
77
FACTORY
33
ARTICLES
COLORED
ON
T E A C H E R S IN C H A R L E S T O N S C H O O L S
T H E B O O K SHELF.
56
Jessie Fauset
60
N E G R O E S IN T H E K E N T U C K Y M O U N T A I N S .
W . K . Bradley
THE
Langston Hughes
N E G R O SPEAK S O F RIVERS.
A Poem.
o9
71
DEPARTMENTS
OPINION
53
NATIONAL
ASSOCIATION
FOR
THE
ADVANCEMENT
OF
COLORED
PEOPLE
65
MEN
OF
THE
LOOKING GLASS
74
THE
HORIZON
THE MONTH
72
79
T H E J U L Y CRISIS
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Crisis 22, no. 2 (June 1921). Modernist Journals Project.
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THE
change
cider.
for
a brown
slab
and
NEGRO
a d r i n k of
T h o u g h t h e r e i s separation a m o n g t h e
b l a c k s a n d w h i t e s i n t h e m o u n t a i n s to a
c e r t a i n e x t e n t , t h e r e i s n o t h i n g l i k e r e a l seg r e g a t i o n ; yet v e r y l i t t l e m i s c e g e n a t i o n results f r o m the o r d i n a r y p r o m i s c u i t y of race
relations.
C e r t a i n mountain families are
r e p u t e d to h a v e a t r a c e o f N e g r o b l o o d , b u t
w h i l e I h a v e h e a r d o f a n o c c a s i o n a l case o f
illicit intercourse between blacks and whites,
s u c h seems to be e x c e e d i n g l y r a r e t o d a y .
I have spoken of the Negroes i n the
m o u n t a i n s as b e i n g , to a l l i n t e n t s a n d p u r poses, b l a c k m o u n t a i n e e r s .
In all their
ways of l i v i n g , d r e s s i n g and conductin g
themselves, they are i n d i s t i n g u i s h a b le f r o m
their white neighbors and friends.
Their
speech i s t h e m o u n t a i n s p e e c h , a l s o , r a t h e r
than the N e g r o dialect f a m i l i a r i n other
p a r t s o f the S o u t h . A b o v e a l l , t h e i r b e a r i n g
is e q u a l l y f r e e f r o m o b s e q u i o u s s e r v i l i t y o r
effrontery.
I n e v e r s a w a p l e a s a n t e r spectacle t h a n the d a n c i n g at the m o u t h of
H o r s e C r e e k , n e a r M a n c h e s t e r , on
the
F o u r t h o f J u l y . A p l a t f o r m h a d been e r e c t ed t h e r e , a n d a l l d a y " s e t s " w e r e r u n , f i r s t
white, then black, while a mixed crowd
of w h i t e s a n d N e g r o e s stood a r o u n d a n d
watched and d r a n k lemonade supplied by a
colored f a m i l y .
I t a l k e d w i t h m a n y o f the
N e g r o e s , j u s t as I d i d w i t h t h e w h i t e p e o p l e,
a n d i t w a s d i f f i c u l t to r e a l i z e t h a t t h e y w e r e
o f a r a c e g e n e r a l l y r e g a r d e d as " i n f e r i o r . "
T h a t t h e y w e r e s u c h h a d n e v e r seemed to
o c c u r to t h e m .
A t the s a m e t i m e , t h e r e
w a s n o n e o f t h a t s e l f - c o n s c i o u s effort to
e s t a b l i s h r e c o g n i t i o n o f t h e i r e q u a l i t y one
SPEAKS
71
sometimes notices i n Negroes.
N o , these
mountain Negroes were j u s t "people," like
a n y o t h e r s , c a l l i n g f o r no e s p e c i a l c o m m e n t
e x c e p t o n the score of t h e i r c o l o r .
O f c o u r s e some c h a n g e is to be n o t e d i n
the a t t i t u d e o f the w h i t e p o p u l a t i o n to t h e
Negroes today.
T h e mountains themselves
are c h a n g i n g , and this aspect of p r i m i t i v e
l i f e m u c h p a s s a w a y i n the c o u r s e o f t i m e ,
w i t h a l l t h e r e s t . T h e m o u n t a i n e e r s a r e "beg i n n i n g to l e a r n , f r o m the o u t s i d e w o r l d ,
w h i c h i s c o m i n g so m u c h c l o s e r , t h a t i t is
n o t " g o o d f o r m " to a s s o c i a t e w i t h N e g r o e s
on t e r m s o f s u c h n e i g h b o r l i n e s s a n d e v e n
intimacy.
A l r e a d y the B a p t i s t C h u r c h is
being criticised locally f or its laxness i n
t h i s r e s p e c t , a n d doubtles s c e r t a i n r e f o r m s
w i l l take place i n the n e a r future.
Some
d a y p e r h a p s i t w i l l be i m p o s s i b l e to spen d
the n i g h t a t a f a r m house on C a r r ' s F o r k
a n d see a s m a l l b l a c k boy, w o r k i n g on the
f a r m , r o l l i n t o bed w i t h the w h i t e b o y s o f
the f a m i l y .
Berea College was forced, by
l e g i s l a t i v e e n a c t m e n t , s u s t a i n e d b y a dec i s i o n o f the S u p r e m e C o u r t of the U n i t e d
S t a t e s , to t e r m i n a t e i t s e x p e r i m e n t of r a c i a l
coeducation, and this was the
entering
w e d g e to b r i n g K e n t u c k y , as a w h o l e , b a c k
i n t o t h e " s o l i d S o u t h " on the N e g r o question.
T h e r e a r e those w h o w i l l f e e l t h a t
the s t a t e l o s t a g r e a t a n d s i n g u l a r o p p o r t u n i t y to become the c e n t r e f o r t h e s p r e a d ing of a more enlightened sentiment and
p o l i c y t h r o u g h the c o u n t r y a t l a r g e , a n d
w h o w i l l r e g r e t the p a s s i n g , i n t h e m o u n tains themselves, of an attitude almost
idyllic i n its naturalness and simplicity .
T H E N E G R O SPEAKS OF RIVERS
LANGSTON
I'VE k n o w n r i v e r s :
I've k n o w n r i v e r s a n c i e n t as the w o r k !
a n d o l d e r t h a n the flow o f h u m a n b l o o d
in h u m a n veins.
M y s o u l h a s g r o w n deep l i k e the r i v e r s .
I bathed i n the E u p h r a t e s when dawns were
young.
I b u i l t m y h u t n e a r the C o n g o a n d i t l u l l e d
me to
sleep.
HUGHES
I l o o k e d u p o n the N i l e a n d r a i s e d the p y r a mids above it.
I h e a r d t h e s i n g i n g o f the M i s s i s s i p p i w h e n
A b e L i n c o l n w e n t d o w n to N e w O r l e a n s ,
a n d I ' v e seen i t s m u d d y bosom t u r n a l l
g o l d e n i n the s u n s e t .
I've k n o w n r i v e r s ;
Ancient, dusky rivers.
My
s o u l h a s g r o w n deep l i k e t h e
rivers.
Ibid., 71.
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next
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Hughes, continued (keep reading in CP)
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