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What constitutes ‘experiment’

This lecture delves into what constitutes 'experiment' in literary studies, focusing on Modernism and its edicts, like Ezra Pound's "Make it new." We will explore the subversive nature of experimental writing, highlighting the works of authors like e.e. cummings and Paul Auster, who challenge traditional narrative forms and linguistic norms. The session also discusses significant thematic shifts and the political implications of breaking away from established literary conventions, reflecting on how these innovations contribute to ongoing literary traditions.

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What constitutes ‘experiment’

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  1. What constitutes ‘experiment’ Literary Studies 2Week 1 lecture 2

  2. The apparition of these faces in the crowd:Petals on a wet, black bough.

  3. “Make it new” • This is Ezra Pound’s famous Modernist edict - make something new, or make something old new?

  4. e e cummings mr youse needn't be so spryconcernin questions arty each has his tastes but as for Ii likes a certain party gimme the he-man's solid blissfor youse ideas i'll match youse| a pretty girl who naked isis worth a million statues

  5. Hazel Smith, The Writing Experiment …experimental texts usually work against and beyond familiar codes of literary conventions. To write experimentally is to adopt a subversive and transgressive stance to the literary, and to break up generic and linguistic norms.

  6. Break up generic norms • Paul Auster’s detective novel, City of Glass, nothing is ever solved. • Traditionally in the detective genre, the whole point is that someone (a detective, a little old lady, a psychic) solves the crime. • Traditional det. fiction gives us a sense of mastery over our world. Auster does what???

  7. Break up linguistic norms • ee cummings doesn’t capitalise the beginnings of lines, doesn’t adhere to grammar and syntax, is somewhat childish in voice.

  8. The ultimate breaker? • http://www.ubu.com/sound/joyce.html

  9. New context • This is what Pound did with: The apparition of these faces in the crowd:Petals on a wet, black bough. • He based it on the haiku.

  10. New form • http://www.ubu.com/historical/app/app3.html • But http://www.ubu.com/historical/early/early07.html

  11. Rejecting old rules • Dogville - Lars Von Trier - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtRzvS4QE1E • Manifesto - http://www.dogme95.dk/menu/menuset.htm

  12. James Joyce • Breaks stylistic, syntactical and lexical rules • http://www.trentu.ca/faculty/jjoyce/fw-3.htm • http://ubu.artmob.ca/sound/dial_a_poem_poets/nova/Nova-Convention_12_cage.mp3

  13. What are some of the rules? • Narrative - beginning, middle, end; time flows forward; • Language - no mixed metaphors; meaning is carried by words; grammar and syntax essential • Realism - remember it’s only a style!

  14. Hazel Smith, again ‘This formal transgression is significant because it can be a means to rethink social mores…’ But this is to say that form and style are inherently politically significant

  15. Orthodoxy At the same time, experimental work can also develop its own codes and conventions over time, and become part of a tradition of the new… Hazel Smith, The Writing Experiment

  16. The merely odd does not last Samuel Johnson

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