Learning Paths » 5B Interacting
notes March,9th James Joyce and Virginia Woolf
by - (2012-03-24)
Up to 5B - Modernist Fiction. V. Woolf and J. Joyce
The two more representative fiction writers who belonged to Modernism are James Joyce and Virginia Woolf.
One of the main characteristics of Modernism is the quest: Modernists are always searching something to give a meaning to their life. In literature the quest takes form in some particulars narrative techniques that the two writers experimented. This need came from the awareness that the traditional novel wasn't able to return life as it is: it was unsatisfying.
The attention was focused on the individual and on his subjectivity, with the aim of rendering the inner side of the human being that is often an anti-hero. To render the individual consciousness Virginia Woolf and James Joyce appealed to different techniques.
Mrs Woolf used the interior monologue to express her characters stream of consciousness; she reached this aim using narrative techniques such as the free indirect style , the shift of the point of view and an eclipsed third person narrator in order to make her readers able to feel closed to the characters minds. She did not abolish language connectors and she used a simultaneous concept of time, which allows distinguishing the subjectivity time from the external one.
James Joyce rendered the flow of consciousness adopting the stream of consciousness technique; what's more he chose to use the total stream of consciousness, eliminating any connector or punctuation to better rendering the mental chaos of the individual. The language used is that of sense impression, which contributes to render a prosodic rhythm. In this way the role of the reader became much more demanding, because he had to cooperate with the text.
According to Jung's researches in which he declared that human being are always influenced by their own culture and Country, J. Joyce starts his career writing a collection of Short stories, the Dubliners. His aim is to render the Paralysis of Dublin and of his citizens.
Analysing Joyce production, experts talked about a symbolical realism, with which the writer wanted to disclose the deep reality which stays beyond the appearances. He looked at the outside world with new eyes and he asked his readers to do so.
J. Joyce drew inspiration from French symbolism and above all from Ulysses' myth. The structuring principle of his main novel, Ulysses, is Odyssey myth. This choice made him able to create a structure on which his work based. T. S. Eliot called it " mythical system" , whit which Joyce gave order in the huge triviality situation that characterized contemporary live.
The function of the myth is to show of human being never changes; situations change, time changes but human beings do not: they always desire to understand, discover, and make love.
One of the main characteristics of Modernism is the quest: Modernists are always searching something to give a meaning to their life. In literature the quest takes form in some particulars narrative techniques that the two writers experimented. This need came from the awareness that the traditional novel wasn't able to return life as it is: it was unsatisfying.
The attention was focused on the individual and on his subjectivity, with the aim of rendering the inner side of the human being that is often an anti-hero. To render the individual consciousness Virginia Woolf and James Joyce appealed to different techniques.
Mrs Woolf used the interior monologue to express her characters stream of consciousness; she reached this aim using narrative techniques such as the free indirect style , the shift of the point of view and an eclipsed third person narrator in order to make her readers able to feel closed to the characters minds. She did not abolish language connectors and she used a simultaneous concept of time, which allows distinguishing the subjectivity time from the external one.
James Joyce rendered the flow of consciousness adopting the stream of consciousness technique; what's more he chose to use the total stream of consciousness, eliminating any connector or punctuation to better rendering the mental chaos of the individual. The language used is that of sense impression, which contributes to render a prosodic rhythm. In this way the role of the reader became much more demanding, because he had to cooperate with the text.
According to Jung's researches in which he declared that human being are always influenced by their own culture and Country, J. Joyce starts his career writing a collection of Short stories, the Dubliners. His aim is to render the Paralysis of Dublin and of his citizens.
Analysing Joyce production, experts talked about a symbolical realism, with which the writer wanted to disclose the deep reality which stays beyond the appearances. He looked at the outside world with new eyes and he asked his readers to do so.
J. Joyce drew inspiration from French symbolism and above all from Ulysses' myth. The structuring principle of his main novel, Ulysses, is Odyssey myth. This choice made him able to create a structure on which his work based. T. S. Eliot called it " mythical system" , whit which Joyce gave order in the huge triviality situation that characterized contemporary live.
The function of the myth is to show of human being never changes; situations change, time changes but human beings do not: they always desire to understand, discover, and make love.