Monday, April 30, 2007

Novels, Expectations, and other Miscellania

In the spirit of sort of wrapping things up as the semester comes to an end, I thought I'd make a post about the various threads and themes I've assimilated this semester. I think I've
learned a lot not only about the material we've been studying, but how it relates more personally to how I approach the novel. I suppose it's been established that I have a very gendered approach to assimilating material. In earlier classes, I think I viewed that as more of a detriment than an asset, in that every time I approached a piece of literature, I would invariably find myself interpreting it from a gendered position, in terms of exploring language, power, and gender relations without the literature. Now, however, I feel that that is rightfully the focus of my approach, rather than a "rut" that I'm stuck in.
Also, I feel like I understand how important it is to acknowledge audience expectations in interpreting literature. In saying that the pieces we've been examining do or do not conform to the expectations of the novel, we are not so much making a quantitatively true statement about the novel as we are making a statement about our expectations for the novel. I think understanding that is the key to exploring the genre and its development.
Soooooooo, I feel that this class has helped me not only refine (and accept) my own particular viewpoint, and understand how my expectations affect how I understand literature.
As this relates to what we're discussing in class, Emma, as I mentioned in my presentation, conforms more to my expectations of the contemporary novel than the other works we've read (this would be logical, given the class's focus on exploring the development of the genre). However, as it does, I find myself evaluating the work as I would any novel- is it exciting? Am I engaging with the characters? Am I relating to any of the characters? Which I think is a rather dangerous approach for me to take, as it negates the historicity of the novel, and doesn't allow for the placing of the novel in its appropriate historical context. So, I am attempting to focus on Emma without expectations for how I will react to it.

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Emma and the Monk

My part of the presentation tonight is going to involve genre. Specifically, Emma as a Gothic novel. I know, it's crazy! I'll share some criticisms with you, and let everyone draw their own conclusions.

Emma is a very interesting novel on a lot of different levels, which I'm not really going to get into tonight. (Time constraints! Grr!!) The idea of marriage fascinates me, especially Emma's initial desire to never marry. Is she a hypocrite? This ties in nicely with Pamela, another possible hypocrite. Also, leisure time in the book is a theme I'm interested in. Chekhov's Three Sisters highlights the leisure time of the wealthy, and Emma does the same thing. Granted, Chekhov casts a very negative light on the bourgeoisie, does Austen do the same in her novel? How overt are politics in this novel? I hope we have the chance to discuss all these topics in class!

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The Narrator's Importance

My portion of the novel presentation on Emma today will focus on Austen's narrative technique. What I love about this novel is that we seem to get a lot of opinions - there is no one person we turn to for all of our information. I see the marked difference in the narrative style from say, Richardson or Fielding. So, why is that? What made Austen different?

I discovered the answer through the course of my research for my presentation, where I came across a familiar term - free indirect style. I am familiar with the term from my many literature classes, as it is a style that frequently appears. However, one article in particular connected free indirect style to our current studies particularly well. The essay, written by Casey Finch and Peter Bowen (it is on my works cited page that you'll receive tonight, for those of you who are interested), discusses the idea of gossip as a narrative technique in Emma. What is most interesting, and helpful, I think, is their discussion of how Austen and her style fit into Watt's definitions of narrators. If you think about it, from the works that we've read thus far, there are two types: 1) Author is formall absent and there is a focus on the psychological condition of the subject (as seen in Defoe and Richardson) and 2) Realistic, external approach, where there is an intrusive, omnicient narrator (Fielding). Austen does not cleanly fit into either of these. Rather, she combines elements of both to incorporate the free indirect style. As a result, we, as her readers, get not only the psychological closeness to the subjective world, but we also have editorial comment as well. The best of both worlds? Regardless, I think this is a perfect example for what we've been trying to do all along this semester --- that is, trace the development of the novel. Here, Austen plays with the two narrative techniques that were frequently present in the eighteenth-century and creates a unique form that is used beyond her day. It can be seen throughout Emma that she used her predecessors' techniques, but made them her own. That, in and of itself, is what makes literature (and tracing its development) so fascinating!

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