Notes about the Modern Age (17/4/12)

In the 20ieth century novels there is a new conception of the character: he is an anti-hero and it is known anything about his life, but it is possible to know his inner life, his thoughts, his emotions...
Novelists use new narrative techniques to convey character's inner life: they use interior monologue and only J. Joyce in Ulysses uses the innovative technique of the stream of consciousness.
Also narrator's position changes in 20ieth century novels: he does not judge what happens, he does not lead the reader and he is not intrusive, but he is eclipsed and he wants the reader feels as if he were in character's consciousness.
Moreover the plot, space and time are reduced to the minimum, limitated to the episode the character is thinking to.
In this period also anthropology (discourse on human being) develops and it analysis the features of human being out of time and space. There is a strong interest into myths and elements of tradition and human primeval: the most important literary works about these themes were The Golden Bough by R. Frazer and From Ritual to Romance by J. Weston. They deal with the vegetation ryths, linked to fertility, and the search of the Holy Grail, linked to Christian religion, to Christ's sacrifice to save human being. Also T.S. Eliot uses myths and elements of tradition, taken from Mr Frazer's and Mrs Weston's works. He uses them in the poem The Waste Land because in a sterile and waste land man has not anymore points of reference and values, and he underlines that if there is not a sense in life, everything is lost.

Notes about Lord Tennyson's Ulysses (17/4/12)

Right from the beginning of Lord Tennyson's poem Ulysses, there is a reference to Victorian age and to its economy, based on utilitarism ("profit" comes from the semantic field of economy).
Ulysses has a utilitaristic idea of life: he thinks Ithaca will not give him back anything. Talking about his country, there are many references to nature. The reader understands Ulysses does not want to stay here: his wife is old and unattractive, he should live here a static life and he does not appreciate his countrymen, because he defines them a "savage race", without culture and only interested to eat, sleep and have more material goods (they are described according to their actions). So it is possible to understand there is no relation between Ulysses and people of Ithaca.
Ulysses goes on thinking about his past adventures and he desires to go away and go on living, because for him life coincides with voyages and adventures. He has enjoyed his life but also suffered: it implies Victorian conception of life, made of both good and bad.
After presenting quickly his voyages, he says also he has lived all those experiences alone but also with other people.
The idea of a classical character emerges from the observation of stars in order to know the weather.
Ulysses says also "I am become a name": here the poet uses a perception verb because he wants to underline the existencial quality of the monologue.
Ulysses is hungry in the heart because he wants to live greatly and in this character there are the body and the mind together. Moreover he says that only after knowing himself he has been able to know the world.