In this unit we explored writers and artists beginning with English Gerard Manley Hopkins right through to Trinidadian M. Nourbese Philip. The focus has been on the way writers and artists in the 20th Century have been trying to use their medium to break through the mirroring surface of things to the depths below, where…
Category: 20thEXP
Samuel Beckett: Waiting for Godot
This play was performed today by our wonderful second year students who were exploring the ways in which Beckett was pushing the boundaries of English language along a continuum that had begun with Joseph Conrad, The poets of the First World War, Virginia Woolf, Katherine Mansfield, T.S. Eliot, Charlie Chaplin and George Orwell. Beckett comes…
“Wherever I hang my knickers – that’s my home.”
Today we explored a range of immigrant writers who either embraced the English Language totally (such as Derek Walcott and Wole Soyinka), or those who enjoyed flaunting the creative powers of their own appropriation of English (such as Louise Bennett and Grace Nichols). This is a fascinating topic that shows the ways in which users…
Nation, Race and Language- The Fate of the English Language at the End of Empire!
We began today’s lecture trying to respond to the question about language (in the screen shot below) and about the ways in which Samuel Beckett may be trying to address these questions. There were some great responses to the question from the class and you can hear these as the first items in the recorded…
George Orwell & Politics & Language
Audio Lecture on George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” and “Politics and the English Language”: George Orwell who experienced the horrors of imperial exploitation when working as a police officer in Burma began then to think of ways in which he could challenge corruption in politics, indeed in all human affairs, using his gift of language.…
Some Extraordinary 20th Century Literature Blogs
Please enjoy reading some of these amazing blog entries by students studying 20th Century Literature at ACU. Thank you all for the hard work that has gone into these entries: Thank you Helena for this wonderful re-imagining of Paul Baumer’s letter to the Frenchman’s wife: Click here. Thank you Dhwani for this amazing Hopkins imitation:…
Samuel Beckett- Abstract Artist in Words…
Today we explored the ways in which Samuel Beckett continues the work of Modernists such as Virginia Woolf (“I want to sink deeper and deeper away from the surface” The Mark on the Wall) and T.S. Eliot (“Words after speech reach into the silence” Four Quartets) in his, Beckett’s quest to bring the art of text into alignment…
Art Consciousness and Spirit in Times of War
Today we explored Virginia Woolf (“The Mark on the Wall”), T.S. Eliot’s “Little Gidding” and Katherine Mansfield’s “The Daughters of the Late Colonel”. These are three amazing modernist authors who, in the shadow of war (both the First and Second World Wars) were trying to find a way through to some personal or spiritual certainty.…
Modernism: T.S.Eliot & Virginia Woolf.
The visit to the art gallery of NSW last week was a perfect introduction to what we entered into today. It makes so much more sense talking about Virginia Woolf’s “Stream of Consciousness” and T.S. Eliot’s fragmented narratives (“These fragments I have shored against my ruins”- The Waste Land) afterhaving seen and discussed Picasso and Kirchner…
Twentieth Century Literature – NSW Art Gallery Visit
At the NSW Art Gallery we explored the ways in which the early modernists began to shift their vision from trying to represent the “real world” towards capturing either the evanescent, fleeting surfaces (as in the work of Camille Pissaro) or the underlying structures, or bones, as in the work of Paul Cezanne. Then in…
Im Westen Nichts Neues: All Quiet on the Western Front – Remarque
Link for the Film Version of All Quiet on the Western Front. Today we had the fabulous experience of opening our hearts and minds to this wonderful, astonishing book by Erich Maria Remarque All Quiet on the Western Front or, in German Im Westen Nichts Neues (literarily: In the West Nothing New). This title is alluded to on the…
creativity in time of war
Today we broached the world of Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen and Rupert Brooke. The focus was on the way the English language became transformed during this period with the direct impact of the horrors of the First World War. The jingoistic idealism of Rupert Brooke was kicked out by the hard hitting, grating, consonantal…
Gerard Manley Hopkins as 20th Century Poet.
Today we have the extraordinary good fortune for an excuse to be immersed in the creative, imaginative world of Gerard Manley Hopkins. His presence at the beginning of the 20th Century (his work was first published in 1918) gives us a context against which to experience some of the tragic directions in which the 20th…
Event and Experiment: The 20th Century!
Thank you all for your keen participation today. It was a good start to an amazingly interesting subject. Today we began exploring the tumultuous 20th Century, the century of violence beyond all human comprehension and the century of discovery of both technology and of the heights and depths of the human spirit. From Einstein to…
Love & Intellect: Recipe for Peace
Come and be stimulated by presentations and discussions on the mysticism of Rumi, St John of the Cross, Meister Eckhart, Hadewijch of Antwerp and others in this exciting interfaith presentation by the Al Ghazzali Centre, ACU and ACU’s SLA (The Sacred in Literature and the Arts Group). These mystical writers have a vitally important message for…
Highlights from first cull of Twentieth Century Literature Blogs!
What a totally amazing collection of Blogs from students studying 20th Century Literature at ACU. There is such depth and variety in this swag of great entries. Congratulations to all of you – and to those who didn’t quite make this list. This is just to give you an idea of the riches I have…
