Love Stories: The Discourses of Desire in Literature and Culture, 1800 – the Present Session Four

Agenda Joseph Allen Boone, Love and the Form of Fiction: 19th and 20th century love stories. Romanticism, Victorianism, realism, modernism Joyce’s letters to Nora D.H. Lawrence, The Virgin and the Gypsy

Joseph Allen Boone, Tradition-Counter-Tradition: Love and the Form of Fiction Boone’s theoretical background Feminism, gender studies: gender Dialogic criticism,Mikhail Bakthin : dialogism, polyphony, heteroglossia Marxism, Louis Althusser: Ideology

Joseph Allen Boone, Tradition-Counter-Tradition: Love and the Form of Fiction Boone’s theoretical background Feminism, gender studies: gender –Gender, in contrast to sex, is a cultural construct generated by patriarchy

Joseph Allen Boone, Tradition-Counter-Tradition: Love and the Form of Fiction Boone’s theoretical background: Dialogic criticism,Mikhail Bakthin : dialogism, polyphony, heteroglossia –Since novels have narrators (unlike plays, for instance) who report what the characters say and think, narrative discourse is always double-voiced; a dynamic web of contesting, contradictory, and mutually influencing voices.

Joseph Allen Boone, Tradition-Counter-Tradition: Love and the Form of Fiction Boone’s theoretical background: Marxism, Louis Althusser: Ideology –Subject position: pre-established positions as a person (subject) with certain norms, values, ideas, views, and ends

Joseph Allen Boone, Tradition-Counter-Tradition: Love and the Form of Fiction (The Marriage) Tradition: –Courtship: comic –P&P –Seduction: tragic –Clarissa –Wedlock: comic / tragic Counter Tradition –Attacking the tradition from within –Inventing trajectories for the single protagonist

Joseph Allen Boone, Tradition-Counter-Tradition: Love and the Form of Fiction (The Marriage) Tradition: Half-selves: –Polar opposites: union or war –”likeness” –contrast Counter Tradition –Likeness –Complex difference

What about? Thomas Hardy, “On the Western Circuit” Sara Orne Jewett, “The White Heron” Susan Glaspell, Trifles James Joyce, “The Dead” Virginia Woolf, "The Mark on the Wall“ LeRoi Jones, The Dutchman David Lodge, "Hotel Des Boobs"

The Virgin and the Gipsy Lawrence’s novella and ”The Lady of Shalott” (40-41) Tradition and counter-tradition Love as scandal Virginity (53-54) The ending

Love as scandal [Early ME. scandle, scha(u)ndle, a. ONF. escandle, Central OF. eschandle, semi-popular ad. eccl. L. scandalum cause of offence or stumbling, ad. Gr., recorded only in Hellenistic literature, in the fig. sense ‘snare for an enemy, cause of moral stumbling’, but certainly an old word meaning ‘trap’ (cf. the derivative spring of a trap), believed to be f. the Indogermanic *skand- to spring, leap: cf. L. scandre to climb, to SCAN. Before the 16th c. the word occurs only in the Ancren Riwle, exc. in the forms treated s.v. SLANDER n. (from the OF. variants escandre, esclandre). In the 16th c. it was re-adopted from the Latin in the form scandal, possibly after the Fr. learned form scandale, which had been introduced to represent the strict sense of eccl. L. scandalum, as distinguished from the senses that had been developed by F. esclandre. Cf. Sp. escándalo, Pg. escandalo, It. scandalo, G. skandal (which has developed the sense ‘uproar’), Du. schandaal.]

1. Point of view and desire The role and function of the narrator 2. Plot and character and desire The vicar and Cynthia (5-8) Yvette and young men Yvette and the gypsy The Eastwoods 3. Imagery and desire The virgin The rectory The gypsy (23-24 (28), 51-54) The gypsy camp The flood Consider also the relationship between The Virgin and the Gypsy and “The Lady of Shalott”, especially the theme of female imprisonment. Who or what imprisons Yvette?

James Joyce’s Letters to Nora Value: In 2004, a letter from James to Nora sold at Sotheby's for £240, /Erotic-Joyce-letter-to-Nora-sells- for-.25m.htmlhttp:// /Erotic-Joyce-letter-to-Nora-sells- for-.25m.html

James Joyce’s Letters to Nora Desire and signs “Nora, dear, I am dying all day to ask you one or two questions” (Dublin 3 December 1909) Tell me now, Nora, truth for truth, honesty for honesty” (Dublin 3 December 1909) O, I am anxious to get your reply, darling! (Dublin 6 December 1909) Write me more about that and yourself, sweetly, dirtier, dirtier. (Dublin 8 December 1909) Do more if you wish and send the letter then to me, my darling […]. (Dublin 9 December 1909) No letter! Now I am sure my girlie is offended at my filthy words. ((Dublin 15 December 1909)

James Joyce’s Letters to Nora Signs: signifier / signified Absence / presence Desire is always mediated through signs: desire is a present absence or an absent presence Some signs are more priviledged and highly valued than others