16 March 2016 (1) Science Fiction Reading/Dr. Prof ... - KOCW

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16 March 2016 (1)

Science Fiction Reading/Dr. Prof. Young Suck Rhee

Today we will finish reading the Introduction to Daniel Albright’s book,

Quantum Poetics: Yeats, Pound, and the Science of Modernism (Cambridge, 1997).

Along with them, we also aim at finishing reading some stories, including a

story and four novels, which could be considered science fiction. This course is

mainly concerned with the [mis]appropriations of science or scientific concepts or

scientific sensibility used in poetry and stories.

SF fictions may already have made great contribution to the expansion of

imagination in man. The public in general find it difficult to understand physics or

astro-physics, robotics, not to mention AI, VR, AR, and so on. SF writers could

make full use of this knowledge and expand the horizons of human imagination.

These days people are near-sighted, and not able to see beyond themselves.

Therefore, the next generation SF writer must be both writer and specialist in

scientific fields, in which the hero combines human will and the scientific

knowledge of his surroundings. SF fiction, besides the literary amusement it

provides, has a function - to teach the public scientific knowledge in plain and

interesting ways.

28 March 2016 (2)


This semester we will read:

Mary Shelley (1797-1851), Frankenstein: Or The Modern Prometheus (1818) (added),

daughter of William Godwin. wife of P. B. Shelley (1792-1822), a major English

Romatic poet: “a lodestone to Robert Browning, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Oscar

Wilde, Thomas Hardy, W. B. Yeats, Henry David Thoreau.

H. G. Wells (1866-1946), a prolific writer in many genres, history, politics, social

commentary, text books, war games. The First Men in the Moon (to be added in

the weekly assignments in the syllabus): three different movie versions. to compare

the novel and one movie version. He is called father of science fiction, along with

Jules Verne and Hugo Gernback. His most notable works: Time Machine (1895),

The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), The War of the Worlds (1898). He was

nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature four times (1921, 1932, 1935, 1946).

Wells’ influence on C. S. Lewis’ novel That Hideous Strength (1945), Saul

Bellow’s Mr. Sammler’s Planet (1970); on Arthur C. Clarke and Brian Aldiss in

Britain; on Isaak Asimov, Frank Herbert, Ursula K. Le Guin in the US; on

European writers such as Karel Capek, Yevgeny Zamyatin.

His literary papers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, which

includes letters from George Benard Shaw and Joseph Conrad.

“The Man Who Could Work Miracles: A Pantoun in Prose”

The First Men in the Moon (to be added in the weekly assignments)

If you are interested in science fiction genre writers, other than Well, visit

Wikipeda H.G. Wells, in which so many others are mentioned along with him.

Aldous Huxley. Brave New World (1931) (in the syllabus). the title from

Shakespeare’s The Tempest. He was inspired by Wells’ A Modern Utopia (1905) and

Men Like Gods (1923) and influenced by D. H. Lawrence and Shakespeare, Ivan

Petrovich Pavlov, . Set in London of AD 2540), the novel “anticipates developments

in reproductive technology (bottle-grown citizens), sleep-learning, psychological

manipulation, and classical conditioning...” a distopian fiction. It is on the 100 best

English-language novels of the 20th century. This novel could be read with his

essay: “Brave New World Revisited (1958), an essay on reassessing the novel

Island (1962), his final novel, which is a counterpart of Brave New World.

George Orwell “believed that Brave New World must have been partly derived from

We by Yevneny Zamyatin (1921).” (See wikipedia for more)

Compare it with George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, if you want.

Huxley was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in seven different years.

D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930): “His collected works, ..., represent an extended

reflection upon the dehumanizing effects of modernity and industrialization.” (See

Wikipedia for more.) E.M. Forster “described him as, ‘The greatest imaginative

novelist of our generation.”

“The Lawrences finally arrived in the US in September 1922. Here they

encountered Mabel Dodge Luhan, a prominent socialite, and considered a utopian

community, ... now called D.H. Lawrence Ranch (160-acre Kiowa Ranch near Taos,

New Mexico. ... he bought [it] ... in exchange for the manuscript of Sons and

Lovers.”)., in 1924. ... While Lawrence was in New Mexico, he was visited by

Aldous Huxley.”

Lady Chatterly Lover (1927); “Pansies” and “Nettles,” satirical poems in response to

those who are offended by his work.

B. Major articles and short stories, which are related to scientific metaphors, by

important writers in the syllabus.

Most of the writers will be covered within the 16-week semester, although we may

read things in a different order, as soon as materials are available.

H. G. Wells (1866-1946), a prolific writer in many genres, history, politics, social

commentary, text books, war games: well known for his science fictions, such as

The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Doctor Moreau (1897), The Invisible Man

(1897), The War of the Words (1898), The First Men in the Moon (1901, by George

Newnes in Britain. 342 pages; four adaptations, the latest for TV in 2010, the

fourth, in 3D, by David Roster, 2009-2010)

The First Men in the Moon (to be added in the weekly assignments in the

syllabus): three different movie versions. to compare the novel and one movie

version. He is called father of science fiction, along with Jules Verne and Hugo

Gernback.

Wells’ influence on C. S. Lewis’ novel That Hideous Strength (1945), Saul

Bellow’s Mr. Sammler’s Planet (1970); on Arthur C. Clarke and Brian Aldiss in

Britain; on Isaak Asimov, Frank Herbert, Ursula K. Le Guin in the US; on

European writers such as Karel Capek, Yevgeny Zamyatin.

His literary papers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, which

includes letters from George Benard Shaw and Joseph Conrad.

“The Man Who Could Work Miracles: A Pantoun in Prose” (added)

The First Men in the Moon (to be added in the weekly assignments)

If you are interested in science fiction genre writers, other than Well, visit

Wikipeda H.G. Wells, in which so many others are mentioned along with him.

Discussion on “The Man Who Could Work Miracles: A Pantoun in Prose”

Coleridge’s suspension of disbelief; literature deals with what might happen; history

with what has happened; science with what might happen, also = the same

imagination

The Plot: a pantoun: “Looky here; Mr. Beamish,” said Mr. Fotheringay. “Let us

clearly understand what a mirachle is. It’s something contrariwise to the course of

nature done by power of Will. . . .” (Does the story end here? Or is to go on

forever, as in Yeats’s theory of the soul or of the cycles of civilization?)

The Persons in the story: George McWhirter Fotheringay (his job, ; Cox, Miss

Maybridge; Mr. Beamish (Toddy Beamish); young Gomshott; Winch, Mr. Maydig;

Mrs. Minchin,

Place of the story: the Long Dragon

expressions not usual: the Torres Vedras tactics; upsy-down; somewhen;

thaumaturgist; a Rhodian arch of shadow; mijitly; chum, chum; Welsh rarebit,

post-prandial;

Scientific facts used:

1) the gravitation

2) travel in time as in literary conventions

3) the speed of light: 299 792 458 metres per second (8 min and 17 seconds to

travel the average distance from the sun to the Earth.) So, usally it’s impossible

for men to travel to other planets: therefore, a lot of science fiction conventions

have been invented.

4) friction causes heat; re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere; launch into the outer

space (447)

how are they used. the gravitation

the black art and science

4) use of alchemy: still used as in the past

The literary feats that are brilliant in this story:

the pontoun structure

the characters and their names

repetitions in the dialogs

funny aspects: “Go to Hades! Go, now!” (440)

the main character Mr. Fotheringay’s way of life or thinking as clerk

the scene of helping “himself to a second Welsh rarebit out of vacancy” (445)

What may be the implication of this story for the 21st century scientists and people

in general of the world? The AI, artificial organism, humanoids, depletion of

energy, and killing of plants and animals, polluting water and air, earth and

ocean. Where are we heading? Like Mr. Fotheringay?

30 March 2016 (3)


Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851), a novelist of Frankenstein(1818), a novel

that has had influences on later science fiction writers. Brian Aldiss [(, 1925- 90

years]well known for his science fiction novels; he was influenced by H.G. Wells;

an artist] says this is the first science fiction story, in which the main character

performs experiments to bring dead body to life.

Works by Shelley:

History of a Six Weeks’ Tour (1817)

Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus (1818)

Valperga: “a feminist version of Scott’s masculine genre.”

Novelistic genres: She uses different novelistic genres, the Godwinian, historical,

Gothic novel. The Godwinian novel “[employs] a Rousseauvian confessional form to

explore the contradictory relations between the self and society” (wikipedia), in

Frankenstein. She critiques “those Enlightenment ideas that Godwin promotes in

his work.”

an influence on later science fiction writers, such as Stephen King, who considers

Frankenstein an archetype of horrific creations that follow in literature and film;

she helps create a new genre, a Gothic novel.

Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus (1818)

Plot: a university student Victor Frankenstein creates a grotesque, sentient

creature. Tragic deaths occur one after another.

Much of the story is set in the region of Geneva, Switzerland. Perch Shelley, Mary,

Lord Byron, and John Polidori talk about occult ideas here. Three of the writers

decide to do a horror story. Mary drafts a short story, and encouraged by Percy

Shelley, she finishes this novel.

Sources: the Promethean myth from Ovid.

Milton’s Paradise Lost

Godwin

Percy Shelley

Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Humphry Day’s Elements of Chemical Philosophy

Giovanni Aldini, who tries to reanimate body parts by bio-electric Galvanism in

London.

Johann Konrad Dippel, who develops chemical things to extend man’s life.

She critiques the development of science.

Scientific facts used:

1) alchemy

the characters and their names

nature and characters

2) lawyer vs farmer:

the most beautiful juxtapositions of characters and nature

3) intimation of truths in Vol. 1

4 April 2016 (4)


Vol. 2, Frankenstein, a first Gothic novel, a first science fiction novel, an

Rousseauistic novel (an Enlightenment novel: see chapter 7)

Review of Vol. 1:

How the story begins.

What kind of novel is this?

Why do you think it was very popular when it was first published?

What’s the plot?

The structure of this novel: with different forms in it

The most beautiful part in the first volume?

Which is the most moving description in this volume?

The narrators and the persons in this novel:

Vol. 2:

style: “Justine died; she rested; and I was alive.” (954)

Chapter 1: the speaker is Frankenstein who is in agony. William and Justine died

because of him.

Chapter 2: “On Mutability” by P.B. Shelley quoted. (959); a glimpse of the Creature,

and an encounter and an exchange of words against each other (959-60)

Chapter 3: The first moment the Creature opens his eyes. The first moon he sees;

the first day he sees plants and insects (961-62); how he knows it is a shepherd’s

hut; the first village he sees (964);

Chapter 4: The cottage of an old man with a young man and a young woman;

learning words for the first time (967-68); human forms he admires (968); he

performs good deeds (969);

Chapter 5: the nature of man (972); one of the most beautiful chapters on human

nature and Nature

Chapter 6: De Lacey and his family in the cottage; the background fo the De

Lacey

Chapter 7: He questions who and what he is, where he’s come from. (977); the

relation between Creator and Created (979); the Creature’s attempt to make friends

with the cottagers, first with the blind De Lacey;

Chapter 8: this chapter begins: “Cursed, cursed creator! Why did I live?”

Nature as healer to the Creature (982); he is in utter despair after being chased

away from the cottage, in his hovel (983)

He is in a frenzy moment of destroying the cottage, setting it on fire. (983); who is

to be responsible: me or the creator? “whither should I bend my steps?” (984)

Chapter 9. The Creature demands that Frankenstein shall create a female for him.

(987, 989)

The demand of the demon “[weighs] down on [his] mind. ... All pleasures of earth

and sky passed before me like a dream, and that thought only had to me the

reality of life.” (990)

The development of the story: a critique on the present states of modern nations

the Creature’s self-education; the first moment he sees the moon rise; the

language he hears; the music; the dual aspects of fire: the implication of this for

man; Rousseauistic idea of man (the Creature is good in heart and how he turns

inhumane)

the inner and outer beauty of man; the concept of beauty: skin-deep: reaction to

the Creature of the inhabitants of the cottage except for the blind de Lacy.

religion: Christians and/vs Muslims

Europe vs South America; nature vs the civilized

the Creature’s desire to have his spouse

the first person narrator:

Frankenstein

The Creature (Mary Shelley’s alter ego, in part, 972; a critique of Colonialism, 972)

Chapter 6: The narrator: the Creature: “....”; De Lacey (a Turkish merchant),

Agatha (her mother, a Christian Arab), Felix, Safie

Chapter 7: three books in a leathern portmanteau (976): Paradise Lost, a copy of

Plutarch’s Lives, Sorrows of Werther.

6 April 2016 (6)


Reading Science Fiction

Vol. 3 consists of seven chapters, the last with Robert Walton’s letter to his sister

Mrs. Saville in England.

Chapter 1: Victor’s father asks him to marry Elizabeth. He wants to have some

time to create a female for the Monster. Goes on a journey with Henry Clerval;

The contrast between Clerval and Victor in responding to the beauty of nature.

It is a travelogue, which to me must be one of the reasons that this novel was

popular at a time when traveling took so much time.

Chapter 2: The narrator I, Victor, keeps spinning the tale; about England’s various

places’beauty. Toward the end of Chapter 2, Victor settles on one of the Orkneys

to keep his promise with the Monster: to create a female partner for him.

Chapter 3: Victor wonders, what if the female turns out to be “more malignant

than her mate” (999). “a thinking and reasoning animal.” (the same page)

Victor’s encounter with the Monster: “I trembled, and my heart ... ” (1000).

Miltonic echo: looks like Satan (1001). Sleep is the best medicine for Victor (1002).

Victor throws the remains of half-finished creature in a basket into the sea.

Drifts to arrive at a coast of Ireland.

Chapter 4: Henry Clerval was murdered by the Creature in retaliation for Victor’s

refusal to make him a wife. His raving: “I called myself the murderer of William,

of Justine, and of Clerval” (1006). His father arrives and he gradually recovers his

health.

Chapter 5: Elizabeth Lavenza’s letter to Victor Frankenstein. He determines to

marry her, despite the presentment of the danger coming closer. This chapter

describes a calm before the storm, at the end, by describing the peaceful scenery

(1016).

Chapter 6: The devises of Gothic novel: the beginning (1016). The scream he

heard; then finds her lifeless (1017). Nature is indifferent to man’s fate (1018).

Chapter 7: The two states of life contrast: “They were dead, and I lived; their

murderer also lived, and to destroy him I must drag out my weary exixtence”

(1021).

Walton, in continuation. [in the beginning the last letter is dated August 19th, 17

-. This letter dated August 26th, 17-.

The novel is framed by letters: Walton is a story teller, like the old sailor in

Coleridge’s long poem, The Ancinet Mariner.

two dialogs, with the dying Victor and with the Monster.

The second is the key to this wonderful story: the Creature is most humane, like

us all.

It seems to me that this closing helps this novel to be among the greatest

Modernist novels.

Homework for the Monday, April 11 class:

One-page answers to what follows:

1. Characterization

2. The structure of the novel

3. The scientific metaphor implied in this story

4. The contrast or parallel of nature to man

5. Which chapter do you like best and why?

11 April 2016 ( )


Reading Science Fiction

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein:

Homework for the Monday, April 11 class:

One-page answers to what follows:

1. Characterization

2. The structure of the novel

3. The scientific metaphor implied in this story

4. The contrast or parallel of nature to man

5. Which chapter do you like best and why?

D.H. Lawrence:

Biography: wikipedia

Archibald MacLeish’s letter on Lady Chatterley’s Lover

Introduction by Mark Schorer: machine and man, etc; the three versions

final definition by Yeats, MacLeish: something ancient humble and terrible;

triumphant

Chapter One:

Style

Characters:

Contance

Hilda

Clifford Chatterley

Set:

Wragby Hall

sex for man and woman: shilling and six pence

Homework:

Three chapters: summary and essay on the favorite part

summary of Lawrence’s biography for 18 April

conference on 13 April from 1: 30 pm to 4: 50 pm with your folders with all work

done so far and all handouts.

18 April 2016


Lecture on Lawrence and Lady Chatterley’s Lover (Chapters 2, 3, 4)

The plot: Constance Chatterley who marries an aristocratic mine owner, Clifford

Chatterley, who, wounded in the war, is paralyzed and impotent; she is drawn to

his game-keeper, and is pregnant by him and leaves her husband to live with the

other man.

In Chapter 9: “the novel, properly handled, can reveal the most secret places of

life.” (xxiv)

“The result in the third version is a novel in a solid and substantial social context,

with a clear and happily developed plot, in which the characters function fully and

the author allows them to speak for themselves; .... In the background of this

picture black machinery looms cruelly against a darkening sky; in the foreground,

hemmed in and yet separate, stands a green wood; in the wood, two naked human

beings dance.” (Mark Schorer xxvii-xxviii)

Yeats wrote to Mrs. Shakespear:

These two lovers the gamekeeper and his employer’s wife each separated from

their class by their love and by fate are poignant in their loneliness; the coarse

language of the one accepted by both becomes a forlorn poetry, uniting their

solitudes, something ancient humble and terrible. (xxxviii-xxxix)

Mark Scholer adds “triumphant” to Yeats’s defining the love affair: that is, it is

the “forlorn poetry” that is ancient, humble, terrible, (finally) triumphant.

Chapter 1:

Constance (Connie), 23, is “a ruddy, country-looking girl with soft brown hair and

sturdy body, and slow movements, full of unusual energy (2).

When she and Clifford Chatterley were married in 1917, Clifford, 29, was a soldier

and is paralyzed for ever, with the lower half of his body.

They came home to Clifford’s Wragby Hall. “The Chatterleys, two brothers and a

sister, had lived curiously isolated, shut in with one another at Wragby, in spite of

all their connections” (10).

A brief history of Constance’s young days with her sister Hilda (and of the

Chatterleys). They “had their tentative love-affairs by the time they were eighteen.”

attitude to sex: “Why couldn’t a girl be queenly, and give the gift of herself?” (3);

The narrator: Lawrence

“... But a woman could yield to a man without yielding her inner, free self. That

the poets and talkers about sex did not seem to have taken sufficiently into

account.” (4)

Chapter 2:

Connie and Clifford came to Wragby in 1920. It is “a long low old house in brown

stone,” built in mid-18th century. (11) The scene is set in Wragby and a village

near it, Tevershall. It’s described on pages 11-12.

The miners’ wives’ false amiability (13)

Clifford: The narrator talks about what he is in detail. pp. 14-15; the relation

between Connie and Clifford.

“It was as if the whole thing took place in a vacuum. And since the field of life is

largely an artificially-lighted stage to-day, the stories were curiously true to

modern life, to the modern psychology, that is.” (15) (italics my emphasis;

Lawrence talking to the readers)

Chapter 3 Free Love

Chapter 4 Love-making: characters’s notions of love and marriage

Characterize the style of the novel in terms of dialogs in the three chapters and

the use of the comma, semicolon, colon, and exclamation mark; the use of the

adverbs in the narrating and the conversing of the characters; trunked forms of

sentences: why is it necessary?

comparisons between Yeats and Lawrence: “Leda and the Swan” vs “Swan” or

“Leda”; introduction to Pansies

Characters:

Connie and Connie’s room

Michaelis, Mich

Clifford Chatterley

Tommy Dukes, a Brigadier-General

Charles May, an Irishman, astro-scientist

Hammond, a writer

Hildebrand Berry

Assignments for 20 April:

Summarize Chapters 5, 6, 7;

write an essay on what is the most beautiful part of the three chapters: why is it

the most beautiful to you? How does Lawrence make indirect comments on society

through his persons of the novel playing their respective roles?

20 April 2016



The plot: Constance Chatterley who marries an aristocratic mine owner, Clifford Chatterley, who,

wounded in the war, is paralyzed and impotent; she is drawn to his game-keeper, and is pregnant by

him and leaves her husband to live with the other man.

Chapters 1 and 2:

Connie and Clifford settle in Clifford’s Wragby Hall.

Chapters 3 and 4: characters’s notions of love and marriage

comparisons between Yeats and Lawrence: “Leda and the Swan” vs “Swan” or “Leda”; introduction to

Pansies

Characters:

Connie

Michaelis, Mich

Clifford Chatterley



Hammond, a writer

Hildebrand Berry

Chapter 5: It begins with the description of the wood. Clifford and

Connie’s view of the wood (46-47) Connie feels uneasy at this life with Clifford: “

Was it actually her destiny to go on weaving herself into his life all the rest of her

life? Nothing else?” (50-51)

The first encounter between Connie and the new gamekeeper, Mellors, (“... with a

red face and red moustache and distant eyes.” 51)and the end of the affairs

between Connie and Mich: “Michaelis came: ...” (58-62):

Clifford: why Connie feels the way she does: “... it frightened her. It made him

seem impersonal, almost to idiocy.” “... the habit.“ (55)

Chapter 6: Connie, on an errand for Clifford visiting Mellors, happens to see

Mellors taking a bath: a subtle change takes place in Conne: 76: “Connie had

received the shock of vision in her womb, ... (76) Home changes for Connie:

70-71

The wood: “They [the old trees] seemed a very power of silence, and yet a vital

presence.“ (74-75)

Chapter 7: a chapter that makes space for Connie, away from Clifford. Mrs Bolton

frees her from attending to Clifford, though he hates it.

The change in her body has occurred: “Her body is going meaningless. ...“ (80-81)

“A sense of rebellion smoldered in Connie.” (82)

A metaphor of the industrialized England or the world: “I could suppose it would if

we could breed babies in bottles.” (84-85)

Connie desires in spite of herself “the democracy of touch, the resurrection of the

body.” (86)

Finally, she “felt herself released, in another world; she felt she breathed

differently. ...” (97)


Summarize Chapters 8 to 13 in one paragraph and select one of the chapters,

and, focusing on the best part in it, write a one-page essay:

Why is it the most important or beautiful in terms of style or theme or points of

view or in terms of a novel seen as a comment on the age (the 19th century

industrialized England or the England before it)?

25 April 2016


Lecture on Lawrence and Lady Chatterley’s Lover




Chapter 8: The wood and flowers depicted; Lawrence’s daffodils:

“And they (the daffodils) were there, the short-stemmed flowers, rustling and fluttering and shivering,

so bright and alive, but with nowhere to hide their faces, as they turned them away from the wind./

They shook their bright, sunny little rags in bouts of distress. But perhaps they liked it really; perhaps

they really liked the tossing” (99): in a Connie-like mood

Compare it with Wordsworth’s:

I wandered lonely, as a cloud

That floats on high o’er the vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside a lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

(211 The Norton Anthology, 4th ed.): objectively depicted.

Connie drifting in the wood dreams, forgetting all; Mellors seeing her dreaming: “a little thin tongue of

fire flickered in his loins, at the root of his back, and he groaned in spirit.” (103)

The third encounter, in the doorway of the hut. sparks fire in both, in Connie and Mellors:

“Connie watched him fixedly. And the same solitary aloneness she had seen in him naked, she now saw

in him clothed: solitary, and intent, like an animal that works alone, but also blooding, like a soul that

recoils away, away from all human contact. Silently, patiently, he was recoiling away from her even

now. It was the stillness, and the timeless sort of patience, in a man impatient and passionate, that

touched Connie’s womb. She saw it in his bent head, the quick, quiet hands, the crouching of his

slender, sensitive loins; something patient and withdrawn. She felt his experience had been deeper and

wider than her own; much deeper and wider, and perhaps more deadly. And this relieved her of

herself; she felt almost irresponsible” (102-103).

Lawrence’s view of literature:

Connie reacts to Clifford quoting Keats’s line [from “Ode on a Grecian Urn.”]: “Thou still unravished

bride of quietness.” (108); Glancing at a few flowers Connie has picked, Clifford quotes, “Thou still

unravished bride of quietness,” and adds, “It seems to fit flowers so much better than Greek vases.”

Connie says: “Ravished is such a horrid word!” ... “It’s only people who ravish things.” The narrator of

the novel (that is, Lawrence) further comments: “How she [Connie] hated words, always coming between

her and life: they did the ravishing, if anything did: ready-made words and phrases, sucking all the

life-sap out of living things” (108).

Chapter 9:

Mrs. Bolton tells Clifford everything, including the story of Miss Tattie Allsopp, 55, who married an

oldish Willcoco, 65; it seems to her that it’s a model of bad morality; Clifford feels at home when he is

with Mrs. Bolton and lets “her shave him or sponge all his body as if he were a child, really as if he

were a child” (128). “With Connie, he was a little stiff. He felt he owed her everything, everything“ (127).

Chapter 10 (45 pages: pages 128-173, the longest and one of the best):

The center that balances the first and the second part of the novel: 9+1+9. Oliver Mellors loves Constance Reid, while Ivy Bolton glimpses

it outside the house, Wragby Hall, at a breaking dawn!: “Goodness! The knowledge went through Mrs. Bolton like a shot. He was Lady

Chatterley’s lover. He! He!” (172)

“Men were awfully kind to Constance Reid or to Lady Chatterley; but not[ to her womb,] to her womb

they weren’t kind. And he [Mellors] took no notice of Constance or of Lady Chatterley; he just softly

stroked her loins or her breasts.” (143) Constance was passive, “always in a kind of sleep,” (136) while

she “was to be had for the taking.” (136-137)

Next day, she in the wood “could almost feel it in her own body” (143): it: “the huge heave of the sap

in the massive trees, upwards, up, up to the bud-tips, there to push into the little flamey [flamy]

oak-leaves, bronze as blood. It was like a tide running turgid upward, and spreading to the sky.” (143)

Connie didn’t go to the hut, but the Flints and held their baby. Something she couldn’t have. On her

way back, she met the keeper, refusing to give him the slip.

In spite of herself, she was giving way. She finally was “one perfect concentric fluid of feeling,” (158)

They came off together, first for Connie.

Chapter 11: a chapter that is an aside, on the changing Englands and on Ivy Bolton. “But can a touch

last so long?” Connie asks Mrs. Bolton having lost him physically.

Chapter 12: It begins by depicting all kinds of flowers in the wood; the last sentence of the first

paragraph ends: “Everywhere the bud-knots and the leap of life! She walks on, finding he is not in the

hut, to the cottage; Connie says to him: ”I like your body. ... I want to touch you like you touch me. ...

I’ve never really touched you.” (202) The second time they had a perfect union: “She was gone, she

was not, and she was born: a woman (208).” (202-210) (208). “And his hands stroked her softly, as if

she were a flower, without the quiver of desire.” (210): compare it with:

They set up a noise like crickets,

A chattering wise and sweet,

And her hair was a folded flower

And the quiet of love in her feet. (Yeats, VP 161)

Chapter 13:

A walk with Clifford on his chair. It’s broken and Mellors come to help them. It shows Clifford’s

attitude to a different class: the ruler and the ruled. Mellors obeys him. While pushing the chair with

Clifford, Mellors’s right hand on her white wrist, which revives his flame in his back and loins. Clifford

and Connie argue on Proust.


Summarize Chapters 14, 15, 16 in one paragraph and select one of the chapters, and, focusing on the

best part in it, write a one-page essay:

Why is it the most important or beautiful in terms of style or theme or points of view or in terms of a

novel seen as a comment on the age of machine or industrialization.

27 April 2016






Chapters 1 and 2:

Connie and Clifford settle in Clifford’s Wragby Hall.

Chapters 3 and 4: characters’s notions of love and marriage

comparisons between Yeats and Lawrence: “Leda and the Swan” vs “Swan” or “Leda”; introduction to

Pansies

Characters:

Connie, Constance Reid, Hilda

Michaelis, Mich

Clifford Chatterley



Hammond, a writer

Hildebrand Berry

Oliver Mellors, the keeper

Mrs. Ivy Bolton

Miss Tattie Allsopp

Chapter 14:

Connie leaves her room with anger and rebellion for the wood, where she meets Mellors; they go to the

cottage. She sees on the wall the enlarged photo of a couple, him and his wife. “Why don’t you burn

it?” asks Connie. “It wouldn’t be a bad idea, would it?” he said. “Why did you marry her? ...” (237) He

tells her all the women he has had. (240-244) “I could never got my pleasure and satisfaction of her

unless she got hers of me at the same time. And it never happened. It takes two.” (247).

They fall asleep and the next morning, she sees him all: “she was startled and afraid.” (251) “the

curious molten thrilling that spread and spread till she was carried away with the last, blind flush of

extremity.” (253) ... she lay perfectly still, her soul washed transparent.“ (254)

Question: What may Lawrence want to say in this chapter? The necessity of body to achieve the

transparency of soul? Is it true, for humans? Do the young and the old need the same kind of body to

reach it? Does Lawrence only praise the young in one another’s arms? Compare it with Yeats’s:

That is no country for old men. The young

In one another’s arms, birds in the trees

- Those dying generations at their song,–

The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,

Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long

Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.

Caught in that sensual music all neglect

Monuments of unaging intellect. (Yeats, VP 407)

Here’s what Connie says to Mellors:

“... a man’s a poor bit of a wastrel, blown about. ...” (239) (Compare it with Yeats’s concept of the fool

or man in general: The Wind Among the Reeds.)

In the corner of the room Connie finds his books, including “a volume about the atom and the

electron, another about the composition of the earth’s core.” (255)

Question: Is Oliver Mellors another Lawrence?

Chapter 15: a paean to the wild. “Their spunk is dead. Motor cars and cinemas and aeroplanes suck

that last bit out of them. ... All the modern lot get their real kick out of killing the old human feeling

out of man, making mincemeat of the old Adam and the old Eve.“ (260-261) They run, dance in the

rain. ”The rain streamed on them till they smoked. ... and short and sharp, he took her, short and

sharp and finished, like an animal.“ (265-266) Mrs Bolton, looking for Connie in the forest, meets

Connie and Mellors coming out on to the riding, ”looking into the man’s face, that was smooth and

new-looking with love.” (276)

Like in the first stanza of Yeats’s “Sailing to Byzantium”?

Chapter 16: Before going on a trip to Venice; Connie is “a good deal controlled by the machine of

external circumstance.” (285); it shows how she controls it, also. How do you, readers, find her coping

with Clifford? Now that you have read most of the novel, do you agree with Connie, that represents

Lawrence’s idea of love and of man, and of the machines and money, and of class [non]divisions?

Mrs Bolton going back with Connie says, “Why, you’re all right, my Lady! You’ve only sheltering in the

hut. It’s absolutely nothing.”

Clifford, seeing her, questions: “Where have you been, woman?”

Connie says: “I ran out into the rain with no clothes on.”

“How did you dry yourself?”

“On an old towel and at the fire.”

“And Mellors. Does he come?

“Yes, he came later, when I had been cleared up.”

Mrs Bolton heard this in the next room “in sheer admiration” (279).

Clifford’s lecture:

The universe shows us two aspects: on one side it is physically wasting, on the other it is spiritually7

ascending.“

She retorts: “... if it spiritually ascends, what does it leave down below, in the place where its tail used

to be?” (280) ... “What a silly hocus-pocus!” (281)

Clifford wonders, “... what has caused this extraordinary change in you? running out stark naked in

the rain, and playing Bacchante? Desire for sensation, or the anticipation of going to Venice?” (282-283)

Style:

For the last night with Mellors at the cottage, Connie goes to the forest:

“The keeper went ahead, then came Connie, then Hilda, and in silence.” (291)

Assignments for 2 May:

Summarize Chapters 17, 18, 19 in one paragraph and select one of the chapters,

and, focusing on the best part in it, write a one-page essay:

Mid-term exam on 4 May.

2 May 2016






Characters:

Connie, Constance Reid, Hilda

Michaelis, Mich

Clifford Chatterley



Hammond, a writer

Hildebrand Berry

Oliver Mellors, the keeper

Mrs. Ivy Bolton

Miss Tattie Allsopp

. . . . . . .

Sir Malcolm, a painter, who does “a Venetian lagoonscape, now and then, in contrast to his Scottish

landscapes.” (310-311)

Duncan Forbes, a painter, too.

Chapter 17

Connie says to Hilda, “you have never known either real tenderness or real sensuality: and if you know

them, with the same person, it makes a great difference.” (304)

How does Hilda react to this? She is attracted to women.

Father Sir Malcolm: p. 305.

Paris: “Oh, Paris was sad” because of the “mechanical sensuality” and the “tension of money.” (306)

The narrator is Lawrence-Connie.

In part, it’s a travelogue, p. 312.

“Italians are not passionate.” “rarely [having] any abiding passion of any sort.” 312-313.

“People were all alike, with very little differences.” (307)

Venice: “money, prostitution and deadness.” (314)

A letter of Clifford roused Connie: 315-316; a letter from Mrs. Bolton: 316-318; a letter from Clifford:

320-327. This reveals what a real Clifford is.

Connie tells Duncan Forbes about Mellors. (319-320)

Chaper 18

Father and daughter Connie, and Mellors. Connie finds him so different in a formal suit of thin dark

cloth. (330)

An encounter between Sir Malcolm and Clifford’s gamekeeper 339.

Mellors’ response to Forbes’ painting: “his tubified art is sentimental and self-important.” (347)

Chapter 19

Connie’s final letter to Clifford: 347-348.

Funny! Mrs. Boton’s pretending to weep. 350.

Connie goes back to Clifford. 354, 355.

The chapter and the novel end with Mellors’ letter, 360-365.

Mid-term exam on 4 May:

Assignments for 9 May:

Summarize Chapter 1 and PS, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley in two

paragraphs, one on Chapter 1 and the other on PS.

Write a short paragraph on Huxley’s style and language in Chapter and the

subject the novel is to deal with.

9 May 2016(12-1)


Lecture on Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (1931, published 1932) (Introduction

(PS) and Chapter 1)

Set in London, the World State, in the year AD 2540 (632 A.F. (After Ford). This science fiction,

consisting of 18 chapters, anticipates innovations, such as reproductive technology, sleep-learning,

psychology, air conditioning. The novel’s title came from Shakepeare’s The Tempest, Act V, Scene I, l

205: “How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world.” It is a story of John in relation with Lenia in the

World State with different values: John a savage, and Lenia a normal person who lives the life of thw

Word State.

The World State is led by ten World Controllers, the Director being one of them. The stability of the

World State is achieved by the conditioning of citizens: abolition of natural production; psychological

conditionin fit to their caste; encouragement of pure sensation, discouraging critical thinking; emphasis

of the ritual: sex orgy; an abundance of material goods.

Chapter 1: Students are guided in the hatchery by the D.H.C. Mr. Foster and Lenia are introduced.

The readers are informed of how the hatchery is operated.

Characters in Chapter 1:

The D.H.C. (the Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning), (Thomas Tomakin)

students

Mr. Henry Foster

Lenia (Crowne), a nurse

Pilkington at Mombasa

Style: the influence of Lawrence; Yeats’s influence on Huxley (Huxley’s collection of poems: Leda);

repetition; truncated sentences; medical terms

perfect form to suit the introduction to a new lab of the World State.

PS:

Aldous Huxley (1894-1963), a novelist, poet, philosopher. graduated from Oxford with first class honors

in English literature. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature seven times.

Once he lived in Italy, during the 1920s, where he would visit D. H. Lawrence; he edited Lawrence’s

letters in 1932.

married Maria Nys, a Belgian.

Huxley’s papers at the Library of the UCLA.

Huxley died with two doses of LSD, at 69, on 22 November 1963. the day Kennedy was assassinated.

Huxley wrote Geore Orwell commenting on Nineteen Eighty-Four. For the comment on the ruling of the

world, see p. 17.

Assignment for 11 May: Summarize Chapters 2, 3, 4, Brave New World in one paragraph. Write another

paragraph on what calls your attention; why is it interesting?; or make a comment on the style of this

fiction.

11 May 2016(12-2)



(PS) and Chapter 1)



psychological manipulation, conditioning. The novel’s title derived from Shakepeare’s The Tempest, Act

V, Scene I, l 205: “How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world.” It is a story of John in relation with

Lenia in the World State with different values: John a savage, and Lenia a normal person who lives the

life of the Word State.

The World State is led by ten World Controllers, the D.H.C. Director being one of them. The stability of

the World State is maintained with the conditioning of citizens: abolition of natural production;

psychological conditioning due to their caste; encouragement of pure sensation, discouraging critical

thinking; emphasis on the ritualistic sex orgy; an abundance of material goods.

[Chapter 1: Decanting Room

Students are guided in the hatchery by the D.H.C.; Mr. Foster and Lenia are introduced.


Characters:

The D.H.C. (the Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning: (Thomas “Tomakin”)

students

Mr. Henry Foster

Lenia (Crowne), a nurse

(Pilkington at Mombasa) mentioned]

Chapter 2: Infant Nurseries. Neo-Pavlovian Conditioning Rooms.

Depiction of the room (19)

The nurses set out the books, and the readers are shown how children are conditioned: “... From the

ranks of crawling babies came little squeals of excitement, gurgles and twitterings of pleasure.” (20)

They are trained to react negatively to roses and Nature, Deltas, Gammas, Epsilons, to dislike flowers,

“primroses and landscapes” (22), for “a love of nature keeps no factories busy. (21)

Parents are dirty words, to the children (23-24).

“The principle of sleep-teaching, or hypnopaedia, had been discovered.... ‘Hypnopaedia, first used

officially in A.F. 214. Why not before? Two reasons. (a) ... (25)

A shuttered dormitory. Eighty cots. The lesson for them: Elementary Sex for the first forty minutes (27).

Alpha children in grey, Gammas in green, Delta in khaki.

Lessons “straight from the horse’s mouth. (28)

The Director wakes up the children by banging the nearest table in excitement. (28-29): “Oh, Ford! he

said in another tone, ‘I’ve gone and woken th children.‘” (29)

Chapter 3: This chapter is divided into nine parts: 1) 30-35; 2) 36-48; 3) 49; 4) 50; 5) 51; 6) 52; 7) 53;

8) 54; 9) 55-56 with N marks.

1) 30-35

Outside, in the garden, it was playtime. Naked in the warm June sunshine, six or seven hundred little

boys and girls were running with shrill yells over the lawns, ... (30)

There is boo-hooing from a neighbouring shrubbery: a boy and a girl in “the ordinary erotic play.” (32)

The erotic play had been regarded as abnormal before A.F. (32)

Controller, Mustapha Mond, his forship, shows up. (32)

Henry Foster and the Assistant Director of Predestinatio, Bernard Marx encounter each othe in a lift

(34).

Lena Crown also. (34).

2) ) 36-48

An argument on sex life between Lenia Crowne and Fanny Crowne, the last name being just

coincidence.

Fanny insists that Lenia is abnormal because she goes steady for “only four months” (40) with one

man, Henry, at her age, not at age 40 or 30.

Lenia goes into the bathroom, where

3) 49 Clips from the dialog bewteen Lenia and Fanny.

4) 50 The clips from Lenia and Fanny, and one from Mustapha Mond.

5) 51 The dialog clippings continue on this page.

6) 52 The clips from Lenia and Fanny continues.

7) 53 Bernard Marx thinks, the Assistant Predestinator comments on Bernard Marx.

8) 54 Henry Foster claps Marx on the shoulder.

9) 55-56 Fanny and Lenia. Lenia goes to play Electromagnetic Golf with Henry Foster.

Chapter 4 is divided into Part I and Part II.

Part I (57-63) The lift was crowded with men from the Alpha Changing Rooms. In it, George Edzel,

Benito Hoover, Bernard Marx. Lenia asks Bernard to take a trip to New Mexico publicly, which makes

him embarrassed. Henry Foster and Lenia flies above London to go to the Golf course. (61)

(57) The liftman: an Epsilon-Minus Semi-Moron. (58-59). Hoover offers Bernard soma.

Part II (63-71) Bernard, with eyes downcast. Lenia: a “healthy and virtuous English girl.” (64)

Bernard’s physicque is hardly better than the average Gamma. (64). Bernard is not like Henry Foster or

Benito Hoover, who “moved through the caste system as a fish through the water so utterly at home –

so as to be unaware of themselves or of the beneficient and comfortable element in which they had

their being.” (65) Bernard meets, in Propaganda House, Mr. Helmhotz Watson, a creative writer, who is

every centimetre an Alpha-Plus. (67) He has “had six hundred and forty different girls in under four

years.” (62). “Words can be X-rays. ... You read and you’re pierced.” (70)

Assignment for 16 May: Summarize Chapters 5, 6, 7, Brave New World in one paragraph. Write another

paragraph on what’s most interesting to you: why?; or any novelistic technique or style in these

chapters.

16 May 2016(13-1)



(PS) and Chapters 4-7)
















Chapter 3: This chapter is divided into nine parts: 1) 30-35; 2) 36-48; 3) 49; 4) 50; 5) 51; 6) 52; 7) 53; 8) 54; 9) 55-56

with N marks.]


Part I (57-63) The lift was crowded with men from the Alpha Changing Rooms. In it, George Edzel,

Benito Hoover, Bernard Marx. Lenia asks Bernard to take a trip to New Mexico publicly, which makes

him embarrassed. Henry Foster and Lenia flies above London to go to the Golf course. (61)

(57) The liftman: an Epsilon-Minus Semi-Moron. (58-59). Hoover offers Bernard soma.


Bernard’s physicque is hardly better than the average Gamma. (64). Bernard is not like Henry Foster or

Benito Hoover, who “moved through the caste system as a fish through the water so utterly at home –

so as to be unaware of themselves or of the beneficient and comfortable element in which they had

their being.” (65) Bernard meets, in Propaganda House, Mr. Helmhotz Watson, a creative writer, who is

every centimetre an Alpha-Plus. (67) He has “had six hundred and forty different girls in under four

years.” (62). “Words can be X-rays. ... You read and you’re pierced.” (70)

Chapter 5 is with Part I and Part II and begins with “By eight o’clock the light was failing. The loud

speakers in the tower of the Stoke Club House began, ... to announce the closing of the courses.

Conditioning people:

Part I: A Crematorim: more than a kilo and a half per adult corpse. an achievement. (73)

Lenia says, “I’m glad I’m not an Epsilon.”

Part II: Alternate Thursday were Bernards’ Soliarity Service days. (78)

They take soma and participate in:

“Orgy-porgy, Ford and fun,

Kiss the girls and make them One.

Boys at once with girls at peace;

Orgy-porgy gives release.“ (84)

Chapter 6 is with Part I, Part II, and Part III and “Odd, odd, odd, was Lenia’s verdict on Bernard

Marx. So odd, indeed, that ...

Mostly about Bernard Marx. An abmormal Alpha. (He’s most like a savage to Lenia.)

Chapter 7 The mesa was like a ship becalmed in a strait of lion-coloured dust.

a kind of coming-of-age ceremony (113-116) John wants it. (117)

John shows up in the inner room (116).

a son of Tomakin and Linda.

Linda’s both a savage and civilized being: she as a Beta worked in the Fertilizing Room (121). Here “it’s

like living with lunatics (121). ”Once a lot of women came and made a scene ... “ (121-121). ”... they

[the Indians] ... wouldn’t let him do alll the things that the other boys did. Which was a good thing in a

way, because it made it easier for me to condition him a little“ (122).

Assignment for 18 May: Summarize Chapters 8, 9, 10, Brave New World in one paragraph. Write

another paragraph on what’s most interesting to you: why?; or any novelistic technique or style in

these chapters.

16 May 2016(13-2)



(PS) and Chapters 4-7)

















with N marks.]


Part I (57-63) The lift was crowded with men from the Alpha Changing Rooms.


Bernard’s physicque is hardly better than the average Gamma. (64).




Part I: A Crematorim: more than a kilo and a half per adult corpse. an achievement. (73)

Lenia says, “I’m glad I’m not an Epsilon.”

Part II: Alternate Thursday were Bernards’ Soliarity Service days. (78)

Chapter 6 is with Part I, Part II, and Part III and “Odd, odd, odd, was Lenia’s verdict on Bernard

Marx. So odd, indeed, that ...

Mostly about Bernard Marx. An abmormal Alpha. (He’s most like a savage to Lenia.)



Chapter 8 consisting of four scenes. Scene 1: the first is about John, Linda, her lover Popé. John is

awakened by their talking and laughing (124); he is pushed out of the room. The role of mescal is the

same as soma (125). Linda loves her boy 1(127). Linda talks about the Other Place to John. (129-130).

Scene 2: “Lots of men came to see Linda” (129). The boy read Shakespear harder when the boys

maltreat him. John attempts to stab Pope while sleeping with his mother, justified by the lines of

Shakespeare’s. A pottey-making scene (134). A marriage ceremony, in which John’s love is married to a

boy, Kothlu (135-136). John is excluded in the confession of the boys’ secrets in the kiva: his monolog:

“To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow ... (136). Scene 3 is the best of the three scenes. Bernard

is like John. Even Bernard, who is unlike the rest, can’t understand John, who is self-educated by

reading Shakespeare (137-138).

Chapter 9. John is exposed to the civilized world, by entering a room and opening Lenia’s green

suit-case. Voila! the Other World is open to John, in ways visual, tactile, delicious. Lenia is so

beautifully asleep (143). “A fly buzzed round her” (Emily Dickenson) which reminds him of the lines of

Shakespeare (144), a tempting moment to kill“ (144): “a dog shaking its ears as it emerges from the

water” (144-145). the helicoptor and the fly buzzing compared: the Other World and this pueblo life.

Chapter 10 is probably the best of this novel! A dramatic encounter of the three: the Director vs

Bernard, the Director and Linda, the Director and his son. “some one upset two test-tubes full of

spermatozoa (150) ... Six more test-tubes of spermatozoa were upset. My father!”

The last paragraph is a masterpiece!:

“My father! The laughter, which had shown signs of dying away, broke out agin more loudly than

ever. He [the Director] put his hands over his ears and rushed out of the room” (152).

Assignment for 23 May: Summarize Chapters 11, 13, 13, Brave New World in one paragraph. Write

another paragraph on what’s most interesting to you: why?; or any novelistic technique or

style in these chapters.

18 May 2016(14-1)


Lecture on Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (1931, published 1932) (Chapters 11,

12, 13, 14)







The World State is led by ten World Controllers, the D.H.C. Director being one of them. The stability

of the World State is maintained with the conditioning of citizens: abolition of natural production;









with N marks.]










Chapter 8 consisting of four scenes. Scene 1: the first is about John, Linda, her lover Popé.


maltreat him. Scene 3 is the best of the three scenes. Bernard is like John.

Chapter 9. John is exposed to the civilized world,




Chapter 11: In this chapter divided into two parts: in the first part, all London uppercaste

was deeply interested in meeting John; Bernard becomes a hero. Linda was hatched out of a

bottle, while John was born the son of Linda. “Mother” is “past a joke”: it is “an obscenity”

to them (153).

The conversation between Dr. Shaw and John: “Every soma-holiday is a bit of what our

ancestors used to call eternity.” (a response to John’s fear that Linda’s overdose will

shorten her life. (154). Dr. Shaw will not rejuvenate Linda but wants to observe a human

being’s senility.

Bernard’s sense of importance is heightened by his criticism. (157).

The Savage is led to watch a factory of lighting-sets for helicopters: the lower-caste

workers, Deltas, Gammas, Epsilons working there. (159-160).

In the second part, Lenia and John goes to a feely. She finally imagines that she will

make love with John. The descriptions of the theatre. The discrepancy is so wide apart

between the New Place girl and the Savage educated by reading Shakespeare and by living

the Indian culture. Lenia’s expectation is broken and took “three-half gramme tablets of

soma to feel better. (171).

Chapter 12 with two parts: In the first part “Bernard had to shout through the locked door;

the Savage would not open.” John refuses to entertain important guests, including the

Arch-Community of Canterbury. It became a joke for all. In the second Helmholtz and

Bernard find something in common. Helmholtz is to be expelled as he has introduced to his

students his own rhyme on being alone:

Something, which is not,

Nevertheless should populate

Empty night more solidly

Than that with which we copulate,

Why should it seem so squalidly? (181)

To which John opens and reads Shakepeare’s poem, “Phoenix and the Turtle”:

“Property was thus appall’ed,

That the self was not the same;

Single nature’s double name

Neither two nor one was call’ed

.......

To which Bernard says: “Orgy-porgy.”

Helemholtz shown his limit: an bottle-raised and conditioned entity: the idea of the mother

and nd father makes him helplessly laugh until “the tears stremed down his face.”

(184-185).

Chapter 13: Lenia took half a gramme to forget her fears and to meet John. Lenia can’t

understand not a single word John says: the vacuum cleaners, knots, the lions, etc. The

love-making fails hilariously.

She is a whore, an impudent strumpet to me: “Down from the wait they are Centaurs, ...”

(195).

Chapter 14. Linda, dying at the Park Lane Hospital. John visits her, she in a soma-holiday sees Popé

instead of her son John until the last moment. The young kids a monster who is just 44, whereas

60-year olds have “the appearance of childish girls.” (202) The nurse is enraged by seeing John

“undoing all their wholesome death-conditioning” with his disgusting outcry (206).

Assignment for 25 May: Of Chapters 15, 16, 17, 18, Brave New World discuss what interests you most

in one paragraph (200 words). What is the theme of this novel? Why do you like or dislike it? Write in

another paragraph (200 words).

23 May 2016(14-1)



12, 13, 14)

















with N marks.]

















Chapter 11: In this chapter divided into two parts: in the first part, all London uppercaste

was deeply interested in meeting John; Bernard becomes a hero. Linda was hatched out of a

bottle, while John was born the son of Linda. “Mother” is “past a joke”: it is “an obscenity”

to them (153).

The conversation between Dr. Shaw and John: “Every soma-holiday is a bit of what our

ancestors used to call eternity.” (a response to John’s fear that Linda’s overdose will

shorten her life. (154). Dr. Shaw will not rejuvenate Linda but wants to observe a human

being’s senility.

Bernard’s sense of importance is heightened by his criticism. (157).

The Savage is led to watch a factory of lighting-sets for helicopters: the lower-caste

workers, Deltas, Gammas, Epsilons working there. (159-160).

In the second part, Lenia and John goes to a feely. She finally imagines that she will

make love with John. The descriptions of the theatre. The discrepancy is so wide apart

between the New Place girl and the Savage educated by reading Shakespeare and by living

the Indian culture. Lenia’s expectation is broken and took “three-half gramme tablets of

soma to feel better. (171).

Chapter 12 with two parts: In the first part “Bernard had to shout through the locked door;

the Savage would not open.” John refuses to entertain important guests, including the

Arch-Community of Canterbury. It became a joke for all. In the second Helmholtz and

Bernard find something in common. Helmholtz is to be expelled as he has introduced to his

students his own rhyme on being alone:

Something, which is not,

Nevertheless should populate

Empty night more solidly

Than that with which we copulate,

Why should it seem so squalidly? (181)

To which John opens and reads Shakepeare’s poem, “Phoenix and the Turtle”:

“Property was thus appall’ed,

That the self was not the same;

Single nature’s double name

Neither two nor one was call’ed

.......

To which Bernard says: “Orgy-porgy.”

Helemholtz shown his limit: an bottle-raised and conditioned entity: the idea of the mother

and nd father makes him helplessly laugh until “the tears stremed down his face.”

(184-185).

Chapter 13: Lenia took half a gramme to forget her fears and to meet John. Lenia can’t

understand not a single word John says: the vacuum cleaners, knots, the lions, etc. The

love-making fails hilariously.

She is a whore, an impudent strumpet to me: “Down from the wait they are Centaurs, ...”

(195).

Chapter 14. Linda, dying at the Park Lane Hospital. John visits her, she in a soma-holiday sees Popé

instead of her son John until the last moment. The young kids a monster who is just 44, whereas

60-year olds have “the appearance of childish girls.” (202) The nurse is enraged by seeing John

“undoing all their wholesome death-conditioning” with his disgusting outcry (206).

Assignment for 25 May: Of Chapters 15, 16, 17, 18, Brave New World discuss what interests you most

in one paragraph (200 words). What is the theme of this novel? Why do you like or dislike it? Write in

another paragraph (200 words).

25 May 2016(14-2)



16, 17, 18)

















with N marks.

















Chapter 11: In this chapter divided into two parts: in the first part, all London uppercaste was deeply

interested in meeting John; In the second part, Lenia and John goes to a feely.

Chapter 12 with two parts: In the first part John refuses to entertain important guests. In the second

Helmholtz and Bernard find something in common.

Chapter 13: Lenia took half a gramme to forget her fears and to meet John.

Chapter 14. Linda, dying at the Park Lane Hospital.]

Chapter 15. John is disgusted by the Deltas standing in line to get soma after day’s work:

“the nightmare of swarming indistinguishable sameness. Twins, twins. . . . Like maggots

they swarmed defilingly over the mystery of Linda’s death. Maggots again, but larger, full

grown, they now crawled across his grief and repentance.” (209) The Savage is determined

to stop the distribution of the poison among them. There’s a crash between the Savage and

the Deltas: a suppression scene: use of soma vapour (214-215)

Chapter 16. The three, John, Helmholtz, and Bernard are ushered into Mustapha Mond, a

former physics scientist, the Controller’s study: hear the philosophy of the New World: the

old and new world Othello’s makes tragedy, but his is stable (220); an experiment tried in –

Cyprus: all 22,000 Alphas in failed to govern themselves, and a civil war broke out. (223).

The optimum population: eight-ninths below the water line: one-ninth above. (223) Another

experiment failed: the 4-hour labour a day in Ireland, instead of 7 and 30 hours of mild

labour, and “the soma ration and games and unrestricted copulation and the feelies.” (224)

Truth in the New World: “Truth’s a menace, science is a public danger.” (227)

“One can’t have something for nothing” (228): happiness, truth, beauty.

Chapter 17. Religion has to pay a high price too. “There used to be something called God –

before the Nine Years’ War.” (230) The New World: “You can carry at least half your

mortality about in a bottle. Christianity without tears that’s what – soma is.” (238)

The Savage declares, “I’m claiming right to be unhappy.” (240)

Chapter 18. John takes his own soma, mustard and warm water. to purify himself. (241-242)

“John counts his money” ( 246): how he has spent.

Reporters with latest technology arrives to report the Savage’s life at the old lighthouse.

John is human, with desire: he dreams of Lenia (251-252). He repents: “Forgive me, God.”

(252).

Darwin Bonaparte, a photographer, breaks the new of the Savage’s life, a self-flogging,

means of purifying himself by flogging to the whole world.

He was digging in his garden, digging is also a way of cultivating his thought: “And all our

yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death.” (254)

Upon Bonaparte’s news, hundreds arrive and shout: “We want the whip.” (from 256). – –

The people gathered there imitate John’s flogging and striking one another, and somebody

starts singing “Orgy-porgy.” It turns into a soma holiday. John awakens to the reality that

he was part of it, and hangs himself:

“Slowly, very slowly, like tow unhurried compass needles, . . . ”

The novel begun with a scientific tone ends with the same metaphor. (259)

Assignment for 30 May: Summarize the Wikipedia entry on Edgar Allan Poe in one

paragraph (200 words). What is the theme of his short story “The Pit and the Pendulum”?

Do you like its style and the way it is narrated?: write another paragraph (200 words). To

prepare for the Monday class on May 30, read H. G. Wells’ novel, the first seven chapters

of The First Men in the Moon, which consists of 26 chapters. Each chapter is relatively

short.

30 May 2016 (15-1)


Lecture on Edgar Allan Poe, “The Pit and the Pendulum” (a short story published

in 1841 in the literary annual, The Gift: A Christmas and New Year’s Present for

1843)

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849, aged 40) is a poet and novelist, known for

detective fiction and science fiction as well. The first who tried to make a living by

writing. He dealt with various genres and subjects: horror stories, satires, humor

tales. His recurring theme is death in every aspect: physical conditions,

psychology, “premature burial, the reanimation of the dead, and mourning.”

He was interested in cryptography.

(Wikipedia 30.5.2016)

Physics and cosmology: Eureka: A Prose Poem, an essay in 1848, is a cosmological

theory, which was about “80 years” ahead of the Big Bang. (Wiki)

“The Pit and the Pendulum”

It is a 21-page story; we can finish it in one sitting, which is Poe’s theory of a

short story. The story differs from conventional fiction: neither the narrator’s

name is nor why and how he’s become a prisoner: that is, it is not about a

character, but a fiction about human condition: thus, THE PIT AND THE

PENDULUM. Poe just uses history to tell a story of man facing tortures and death;

it is not about one person but about all encountering death: we become one with

the narrator. The style in it perfects its story: man and his death and his fear of

death.

Plot: The story is about a prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition. It makes full use of senses in –

particular, sound - to inspire fear in man in a pitch-dark cell. Its style mimics the psychology and pain

of a man in the adverse conditions condemned to death. It deals with the brief time of a prisoner’s

awakening in a compartment to General Lasalle’s catching of the arm of the prisoner falling into the

pit.

HIstorical Background: The Spanish Inquisition, the Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition,

was set up in 1480 and abolished in 1834. Catholic Monarchs Ferdinad II of Aragon and Isabella 1 of

Castille established it to maintain the Catholic orthodoxy of the newly converted, from Judaism and

Islam. About 150,000 persons were charged with crimes and about 3,000 were executed by the

Inquisition.

Style: the first person narrator; repetition; typographic arrangements of key words; frequent use of

dash; use of semicolon; consciousness and psychology; conditions of being human; imagination; human

interests and needs; fear of death; scientific observation.

Time Flow and what is to happen at each moment:

I awaken in the darkness (5-6); recall the immediate past before he swooned (6-8); motion and sound

come back to him (8):

one of the best paragraphs in this story: “Very suddenly there came back to my soul motion and

sound - . . . . (8); I feel things near me (8-9);

“A fearful idea . . . ” (10);

I decide to measure the room I am in. I feel the walls and walk in paces, counting them. I stumbled

and fell and fall asleep (9-10);

“Upon awaking, I recollect what had happened: a hundred paces or 50 yards in circuit (12);

I resolved to cross the enclosure, to find a pit in the center (12-14);

“A burning thirst consumed me, and I emptied the vessel at a draught” (14);

With a little light, I see that the size of the room has been miscalculated: how it has happened (15); I

surveyed the ceiling and a picture of a large pendulum, or the real thing, descending toward him!

(16-17)

It might have been half-an-hour, ... (17) How horrific it is! (17, 18);

A monolog on hope: “joy of hope.. . . ”(19)—

The depiction of the downward movement of the pendulum (20);

The pendulum is to pass, by all the bandage or surcingle, through his very bare breast! (21);

The best part of the story about the human mind: “The whole thought was now present feeble, –

scarcely sane, scarcely definite, but still entire. I proceeded at once, with the nervous energy of

despair, to attempt its execution.

“their cold lips” sought mine“ (23)!

The dramatic catching of life and freedom at the last moment (26)

Assignment for 1 June: Make a summary of H. G. Wells’s biography in 50 words. Tell me

about the development of the plot from chapter 1 to chapter 7 of The First Men in the

Moon, and choose one that you like. Discuss what interests you in it in 200 words.

1 June 2016 (Prof. Lauri)


Special Lecture by Dr. Laurie Lamey, Professor of English, California State University, Los

Angeles on W.B. Yeats and Anthony Joseph.

Professor Lamey makes an attempt to compare the science fiction metaphors of Yeats and a

black poet of the UK Anthony Joseph: she discusses Yeats’s poems “The Stolen Child” and

“No Second Troy” and Joseph’s poetic novel The African Origina of UFSs.

What follows is her lecture:

From Eire to Iërè: W.B. Yeats and Anthony Joseph as Speculative Writers

Hello, and thank you for the kind invitation from Professor Rhee and Professor Yoon

to speak to you today. My lecture is in the context of the illustrious Yeats Project to which I

am honored to contribute. It is humbling to be in the presence of internationally renowned Yeats

and science fiction scholars like your esteemed professors. But I will aim to add a fresh

dimension to your course and studies by relating the Irish poet/playwright/politician W.B. Yeats

to Black British/Trinidadian science fiction poet/novelist/singer/critic/performer Anthony Joseph.

This connection may seem unexpected, but I hope to show you that the supposedly post-romantic

anti-scientific leanings of Yeats as a canonical figure are closer than we might think to a

postmodern mixed media experimentalist from the African diaspora like Joseph. I am grateful to

your professors for challenging me to consider possible connections between these figures and

fields, and broadening my own critical perspective.

If we look at an early poem like Yeats’s “The Stolen Child” (written in 1899 when he

was only 24 years old), we might mistakenly regard it as a bit of post-romantic or

quasi-pre-Raphaelite juvenilia an anti-scientific escapist lullabye-fantasy. Its italicized refrain is —

half-sung/half-intoned by a misty and mysteriously unidentified speaker directly and

metonymically addressing all children, though the last line would be a bit scary and off-putting

indeed: “Come away, O human child!/To the waters and the wild/With a faery, hand in

hand,/For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.” We recall that repetition

in poetry always is inherently a carrier of emphasized meaning that underscores the poem’s

central themes, so we pay special attention to the refrain that rhythmically and hypnotically

closes each of the four stanzas, with an intriguing variant in the last stanza.

The first line of the refrain in stanzas 1-3 is a poignant and powerful address we —

might almost take it for a form of dramatic monologue that highlights the innocence of the —

most fragile members of the human species, the child. Lines two and three depict a mystical

being a faery leading the child by the hand and to where? Presumably to a place of pure — — —

“nature,” spirit, and imagination that is in opposition to the negative framing of “the world.”

However, this is still a place of unknown that entails “the wild” and not necessarily civilized.

The final line of the refrain shifts from the lyrical and childlike invitation to “come away” to a

more prosaic message of sad reality and reason spoken editorially as if it to a different —

audience. This pedantic and didactic voice shares its view of the world as a sorrowful and

incomprehensible place, “more full of weeping” than children can or presumably should be — —

able to understand. For that reason, the refrain calls for children to be rescued from “the world”

by the otherworldly forces of magic, art, myth, mysticism, and imagination by a longing for a —

place that is different, unconquered, other, and elsewhere. Immediately, we bear in mind that a

desire to explore and romantize alternative realities, including utopias that have avoided the

realistic problems of the world, is a commonplace of the science fiction genre. So, too, is the

presence of non-human characters who provide mediatory agency, and are capable of transporting

us to those imagined, remembered, and/or unknown alternate universes.

In many other poems by Yeats, we experience this direct opposition between the

pragmatic details of “the world” a place sullied by commerce, pain, unnaturalness, dislocation, —

violence, and cruelty and literature or the imagination as a vehicle that offers the chance to —

rewrite history, rectify the evils of conflict and the past, and forge a reconciliation with a more

pure “nature” that feels truly natural and logical, as the world is meant to be. In fact, the child

embarks on this fantastic voyage in the final use of the refrain in stanza 4, where we are told

“For he comes”. . .“away with us.” The speaker is now aligned with those who are not of this

world, and through the use of the second person plural, we too become part of this band who

are escaping the incomprehensible weeping of this world as the faery leads the child away from

both the pains and the pleasures (“the lowing of the calves,” “the kettle on the hob,” etc.) of

the world. Surely, although it may be in the form of poetry, this literary work reminds us of the

methods and purposes of the fantasy genre of science fiction.

Frequently in Yeats, we also find a technique that surreally intermingles and

compares frames of time and space. “No Second Troy” was written in 1912, 23 years after “The

Stolen Child,” when Yeats had doubled in years to the mature age of 47. At this point in time

and space, Ireland Yeats’s nation was still owned and controlled, unwillingly, by England. In — —

contrast, in 1889 when “The Stolen Child” was written, the British Commonwealth was still

firmly entrenched in the social and political milieu of the Victorian era, but there were faint

glimmerings of the revolutionary mindset and postcolonial discontent soon to follow. By 1912,

the whole island of Ireland was still a British colony but the desire for independence was

strong the island was gripped with a passion for the Irish to seize control of Ireland, but with —

an unclear vision of the proper strategy to achieve that goal. The spirit of Irish nationalism was

strong, with new ideas afoot about freedom, independence, and a heightened sense of cultural

identity, with renewed appreciation for the native language, myths, legends, and folk products.

In “No Second Troy,” Yeats operates on two opposed planes that he aims to

reconcile the imaginary and the realistic. In the realistic sphere, he is writing on the —

autobiographical plane by addressing Maud Gonne, the object of his adoration who has

continuously rejected him, with the setting in Modern day Dublin. Yeats’s idealized love object,

this female Irish patriot, is superimposed as an archetype over a mythic figure, Helen of Troy.

Both of these figures Maud Gonne and Helen are clearly implied yet not explicitly named. — —

Helen is presented as using her beauty cruelly and similarly to Maud Gonne to manipulate men

for political purposes. We recall that composite characters with multiple identities, unnatural

strength, exceptional powers, and unusual capabilities to impact the course of society like Maud —

Gonne and Helen of Troy are also among the stock characters often appearing in science —

fiction.

In addition to superimposing these extraordinary archetypal characters over one another,

there is a further chronological and spatial superimposition that takes us into the realm of the

imaginative features often associated with science fiction. The urban space of

20thcenturyDublinismappedoverancientTroy,whicharebothentailedinthedescriptionof“littlestreets.”Yeatsi

mpliesthatDublinhasthepotentialtobecomegreatbymeansofarevolutionthatwouldachievepoliticalindepende

ncefromEngland inotherwords,YeatspresentsDublinasapotentialTroy.—

At the core of this poem is four questions, invoking the Four Questions asked by the

innocent young children at the Passover Seder in the Old Testament of the Bible another world —

that we interpret on simultaneous historical and mythical levels. In yet another alignment with a

common principle of science fiction, we experience a questioning of this world for the purpose

of asking whether and how it could be changed for the better. All four questions in “No Second

Troy” rhetorically suggest the inevitability of the past and present, asking if actions, events, and

people could have been any different than they were and are, considering the factual realities of

existing circumstances. The questions all regretfully reinforce an acceptance of fate the —

perspective that politics and humanity cannot be other than they are in spite of our inevitably —

futile wishes and efforts. The title itself reinforces the view that the personal, political, and —

mythical realms are doomed to failure since the victory of the original Troy, we are told, will

not be repeated. The poem is a cautionary tale about the direction in which the contemporary

world and situation are traveling another important theme that we find commonly in much —

science fiction.

In spite of this reluctant and sorrowful acceptance of “what is,” the four questions in

this poem do still present alternative and more desirable scenarios, if they are likely to be — —

unfulfilled. They suggest other possible ways that history could have unfolded in the past, and

that comparable situations could be redressed in the future in other words, “the alternative —

scenario” is a dominant theme in this poem, which further aligns it with some of the classic

narrative threads of science fiction. Line 8 describes the beauty of Maud Gonne and Helen as

“not natural in an age like this,” although two different times and places are being evoked in —

essence, these women form a creative cognitive blend. The “unnatural,” a frequent gothic feature

suggesting the uncanny or psychologically disruptive, again connects the poem to science fiction.

Yeats asks continuously how nature determines outcomes. This age in the poem actually, two —

different ages is described negatively as “high and solitary and most stern” in other words, not — —

congenial to the masses, not communitarian, and certainly not joyous.

The English or Shakespearean sonnet conventionally a sincere or ironic love —

poem consists of 14 lines that usually end with an envoi in the form of a couplet. Generally, —

this envoi provides the poem’s closure, either taking what has preceded in a new direction, or

providing the answer to the riddle presented by the previous 12 lines. But this poem is an

incomplete sonnet the form known as a douzaine only 12 lines instead of the normal 14 as in — —

the English sonnet form. Not only are we deprived of two expected final lines of closure, but

the last two lines presented here lines 11 and 12 are a pair of double rhetorical questions — —

applying equally to Yeats’s personal life, and the political and social situation of the two worlds

that are superimposed over each other in this poem Ireland in 1912 and ancient Troy during —

the Trojan War. Without an envoi, the uncertainty, incompleteness, and unresolved quality of this

poem is reinforced. This impression is underscored by the fact that its ending is formally

represents irresolution and anti-closure by virtue of their grammatical state as two unanswered

questions.

These poems by Yeats, at very different points in Irish and world history and in his

own life, share several key features with each other and operate in fashions that show surprising

contiguity with science fiction. Both poems bring together and evaluatively compare two worlds

while pointing out and seeking solutions to systemic problems. Both poems imply or enact

grammatically conditional or pluperfect states that raise questions about what would or could

have been or happened if only human nature or geopolitical conditions had been different than

what they were. Both poems focus on supernatural or superhuman beings the faery in “The —

Stolen Child” and the two female superhero figures in “No Second Troy” who are called upon —

to impact the course of action and history. Both poems illuminate social and political problems,

and propose imaginative means to revolve them creatively.

As promised, my point of comparison with Yeats is a younger Trinidadian/Black British

writer named Anthony Joseph, whose work I have written about extensively. Specifically, I will

compare Yeats as previously discussed to Joseph and his 2006 novel, The African Origins of

UFOs. Like Yeats, Joseph is mainly a poet; accordingly, his post-apocalyptic work of speculative

fiction is held together by only the most tenuous of narrative threads; the characters are lightly

sketched archetypes rather than fully fleshed individuals; and the structure is a series of

interwoven and repeated lyrical fragments, often more like songs than sentences of prose fiction.

Similar to Yeats, Joseph uses literary devices that are associated with the science fiction or

fantasy genre to explore his identity and culture, and speculate on the role of history and politics

in the identity formation of individuals and nations in the present and future.

In Joseph’s case, his perspective is as a black diasporic writer whose homeland of

Trinidad experienced a protracted struggle to free itself from British rule. Like Ireland, the

liberation of Trinidad and Tobago from the British Empire was a lengthy and arduous battle. A

colony of Britain since 1802, Trinidad sought its independence for much of the 19th and 20th

centuries, and did not achieve it until 1962. As with Ireland, Trinidad’s political history of

British rule, oppression, exploitation, and colonization were an essential part of the national

narrative and character. The indigenous culture of Trinidad also is an essential component of this

country’s power and pride, including and especially its folk products and polyglot uses of

language. Similar to the role of Ireland for Yeats, Trinidad is central to Joseph’s identity as an

artist. These two poets share visions of their home nations that also entail a romanticized and

mythical view of the past that is ineradicably superimposed over the realities of the present.

Although from very different backgrounds in some ways, the postmodernist Joseph bears

some intriguing similarities to the Modernist Yeats. Both poets were born on islands that were or

recently had been part of the British Empire. Joseph was born in 1966, only four years past

independence, when a self-governing Trinidad was still in its infancy. In Yeats’s mystical vision

of Ancient Eire the Old Irish name for the nation--contemporary Ireland is directly extended —

from and embedded in its ancestral roots. This perspective is akin to Joseph’s project of

reanimating Ancient Iëre, and presenting it as being in a state of eternal return in contemporary

Trinidad. Iërè, which means “Hummingbird,” is the name given to Trinidad by the Meso-Indians.

Even the names of these two locations, Eire and Iërè, are anagrams. Yeats’s innovative and

multi-genre use of forms and styles, including elements associated with science fiction, is

comparable to Joseph’s experimental hybridization of genres, which includes aspects of

technology, biology, lyricism, spoken word performance, musicality, avant-garde practice, African

and Caribbean survivals, and illustrations.

The African Origins of UFOs is a futuristic apocryphal tale set in a world where

Darwinian processes have enabled only the darkest-skinned people to survive. Synthetic melanin

now is the major contraband drug. Although set far in the future and on a planet in space, this

imagined world is a dystopian vision of present-day Trinidad. The style reflects the linguistic

traditions that surrounded Joseph in boyhood: although English was his first language, his

grandmother and most relatives spoke French patois. His grandfather was a minister who deeply

impressed Joseph with the oratory of sacred diction, imagery of spirit possessions, the magic of

speaking in tongues, and the fire and brimstone of African and Christian syncretic Baptist

worship. Drawing on the rhythms, dictions, and elaborate images of these composite lexicons and

registers, Joseph describes his style in the novel as “liquid textology,” which consists of a sliding

amalgamation of languages, neologisms, and fanciful semantics to develop a polyglot array of

simultaneous interwoven narratives. As with Yeats’s use of dual settings, characters, and

chronological eras, we also see how diverse times and places coexist in Joseph’s novel, and

serve as allusive metaphors for each other. As is common in science fiction, realms that are

logically impossible to coexist are shown to intersect and collide in ways that, paradoxically, are

realistic, naturalistic, and surrealistic.

Joseph explains the genesis and main premise of The African Origins of UFOs: “The

origin was a tourist guide book to Trinidad. There was a section on history and it mentioned

something that happened in 1837: a slave called Daaga. . ..was always saying he’d make it back

to Africa, and take his people. So one day he. . .gathered his men and ‘they set off to walk

back to Africa.’ That line haunted me. I imagined them getting into a spacecraft. I then saw

their journey as a metaphor for black people trying to find their roots, to find a mythical Africa.

The book became a metafictive science-fiction journey, set in a mythical past/future Trinidad. . .”

Even its title, The African Origins of UFOs, conjoins symbols across barriers of time and space

in multiple eras and locations. As with Yeats, we’re never entirely sure where we are because

we seem to be in several places at once. Joseph links Africa as a place, and as a symbol of the

ancestral homeland of the dispersed black race, with a modern symbol of science fiction:

Unidentified Flying Objects or UFOs, a term officially used for the first time in 1950 to refer to

a mode of transportation from a place of unknown origin in outer space.

In his novel, Joseph employs a syncretic, diasporic, and innovative blend of genres and

styles. These include dialogues in patois, embedded free verse poems, performance poems, song

lyrics intended to be recited to music, meditative fragments, lyrical narrative rhapsodies, and

parodies of pulp science fiction and wild west films. The purpose is to superimpose composite

and hybrid resources in order to explain the African diaspora by foregrounding the fundamental

longing and search for home by people who survived by preserving their culture in exile.

As in “The Stolen Child” and “No Second Troy,” Joseph’s novel contains salient

symbols and metaphors, mythical plots, and fantastical characters with superhuman qualities. The

narrator has a fictitious body part called a “secret underlung” whose purpose is to store the

“genetic memory” of Trinidadian culture. Certainly, this organ serves as a redolent symbol for

the way our bodies retain our histories, which are etched into our very DNA. Set in the year

3053, the novel centers on a replica of a humble colonial Caribbean seaside town, evoking the

past of Trinidad, which has been recreated on a planet called Kunu Supia. As in many of

Yeats’s poems, Joseph’s novel questions how we arrived in the present, and proposes alternate

scenarios of existence and experience where the present and future are inevitably determined by

the past. It requires a leap of the imagination to preserve temporal and spatial bi-location.

Conventions of science fiction, liberally applied, are ideal mechanisms for writers like Yeats and

Joseph whose themes are the simultaneous existence of multiple times and places. As an example

of this literary borrowing in operation, the section of Joseph’s novel called “Hummingbird”

(34-35) shows how these techniques of verbal, chronological, and spatial distortion are employed

to disrupt our orientation of figure and ground [play].

Joseph’s early education consisted of Caribbean poets as well as canonical English

figures such as Yeats. He especially enjoyed the use of rhyme and multiple word meanings in

both traditions. In reflecting on his views of Yeats, which I asked him to do, Joseph

writes, “There is an affinity, in the sense that, as far as I can tell, he was also a

writer interested in poetry as a force for transcendence, he sought a certain truth, a

certain poetic spirituality. And this is also at the heart of my work. To write verse

which hovers in that space above the head, lines that take your breath or mind away. .

.”

The term “speculative fiction” is often used to describe a diverse array of

modern and postmodern writing that proposes other worlds often in the future but do — —

not necessarily foreground science, industry, or technology. Rather, this body of

writing tends to be philosophical, propositional, parodic, ruminating, fabulistic, ironic,

experimental, and imaginative. A related term to speculative fiction is Afrofuturism,

which encompasses an increasing numbers of black writers since the millennium. This

term has differing definitions, but is generally thought to refer to writing by black

authors that is not necessarily in prose, is a hybrid of formally innovative styles and

genres, and speculates on the historical past, potential futures, and alternative

interpretations of the black experience. Often highly experimental, speculative fiction

and Afrofuristic writing frequently use sophisticated developments in media and are

digitally transmitted, and/or incorporate the Internet as a literary theme. In Afrofuturist

writing, we see “space” as concept and entity being used thematically to imaginatively explore

some of the central and historical human dilemmas and challenges, such as the life is a journey

motif, the psychological bildungsroman, the relationship between self and other, temporality and

mortality, separation and reconciliation, stasis and change, and pain and healing.

Black writing often is mistakenly believed to be restricted to functionalism rather than

aestheticism, and to be associated mainly with social realism. But this is an excessively

restrictive stereotype. Black authors have a rich tradition of mysticism and fantasy where

characters leave their bodies, fly through walls, travel in time, and talk to people who aren’t

there. These manifestations of ghost physics, transubstantiation, and astral projection are ideally

suited to a population that has suffered centuries of discrimination and limitations to freedom and

self-determination, including, most horrifically, racial enslavement. In African philosophy, the

mind is not viewed as restricted to the body; contact can be made with ancestors and with

“spirit guides” who are not physically present; and “experience” can occur in more than one

time and place. The African Origins of UFOs contains many such traits that are culturally

associated with the African diaspora, which also includes the emphasis on family and cultural

inheritance accompanied by a sense of its dispossession; effort to create one’s own functional

and familiar worlds when faced with migration; strong belief in integrating the individual with a

sustaining community; cultural, psychological, and linguistic alienation from roots; and belief in

the insufficiency of the material world, which includes the ability to connect with spirits and the

dead. Joseph explains his own ideas on Afrofuturism and black speculative writing: “I guess

what I took from Afrofuturism was not the focus on sci fi. To me it’s about a generation of

writers which were explicitly experimental with form, process and the delivery of the work. We

were probing, asserting ourselves . . .So I still retain that sense of experimentalism, an interest

in the extremes of textology . . I’m interested in simultaneous narrative, and for me that is

‘Afrofuturism.’”

To summarize our comparison while not overlooking their obvious and significant —

differences we see similarities between Yeats and Joseph in their mapping of different times —

and places over each other, belief in cycles of return, pride in their cultural myths, nationalism,

questioning of the relationship between politics and the individual, proposal of alternative and

occult worlds as both real and metaphorical models, and exploration of cycles, systems, magic,

mysticism, and cosmic patterns. Is it fair or reasonable to categorize either Yeats or Joseph as

writers of speculative or science fiction? That would place an unreasonable limitation on our

views of both writers, who ultimately, will probably be best known as poets who also work

excitingly and importantly in diverse forms. But looking at them through the lens of speculative

fiction enables us to see illuminating commonalities among two seemingly disparate writers in

time, space and culture Yeats at the end of the Empire’s hold on Ireland and the advent of —

postcolonialism, and Joseph as a black Caribbean who has voluntarily immigrated to today’s

vibrantly multicultural, multiethnic, and racially mixed England. Examining Yeats and Joseph

through the lens of speculative fiction enables us to more fully appreciate how writers of widely

varying styles and approaches can productively use aspects of this genre to further their own

creative practices. This comparison also helps illuminate the immense potential of speculative

fiction as a serious force for political and social change if we broaden our definitions of this

body of literature and the diversity of the writers who employ it.

1 June 2016 (15-1)


Lecture on H.G. Wells (1866-1946), The First Men in the Moon (Peoria and Chambers

Publications, nd.). He was a novelist (called the father of science fiction), teacher, historian,

journalist. His works includes The First Men in the Moon and The Time Machine.

The First Men in the Moon consists of 18 chapters. Each chapter’s title, as in a

newspaper article, helps the reader guess what follows in it.

Chapter 1 Mr. Bedford Meets Mr. Cavor at Lympne: The narrator is I, Bedford. It

is a rather long chapter, and the readers have to finish reading it with patience

to understand what’s going on in the novel. He begins a story of his adventure

with Mr. Cavor (2, the first paragraph). Bedford is a playwright and seeks solitude

(3), but meets with “the oddest little figure” (4). The character is described as odd.

Bedford makes friends with him eventually. He is a scientist inventing a new thing.

The closing demonstrates that they are on the same page: “It may be one of those

things that are a theoretical possibility, but a practical absurdity. Or when we

make it, there may be some little hitch!” said Cavor, and I said, “We’ll tackle the

hitch when it comes.” (15)

Chapter 2 The First Making of Cavorite: while making a Cavorite flying machine,

there is an explosion (16).

Chapter 3 The Building of the sphere: a prototypical spaceship. How they work

(26). They discuss what to bring with them in the sphere to go to the moon (27).

Chapter 4 Inside the sphere: The scientist is ignorant of The Works of William

Shakespeare (30). Wells describes the inside of the sphere as weightless: it is

amazingly the same as inside a today’s spaceship (31).

Chapter 5 The Journey to the Moon. Beautiful: 33, 34, 35, 36, 37.

Chapter 6 The Landing on the Moon: It’s like a crash landing.

Chapter 7 Sunrise on the moon. It is as if Wells must have seen the moon

landscape himself.

Assignments for

6 June:

Notice: The class begins from 10: 00 am and ends at 10: 40 am. Come by 9: 50 am, when I

will check the attendance. The special lecture is from 10: 00 to 10: 40 am. Read the email

attachment on The African Origins of UFOs by Anthony Joseph and write a short summary

in 100 words; read and summarize Prof. Lamey’s paper on Joseph’s novel (50 words) and

write on what you think about two of Yeats’s poems in 25 words each.

8 June: Make a summary of H. G. Wells’s The First Men in the Moon: Chapter 8 to Chapter

15, in 100 words, and talk about one of the chapters that interest most in 200 words.

8 June 2016 (15-2)







Chapter 8 A Lunar Morning. Life on the moon. The planets grow in one lunar day

and die when it’s night. It “must flower and fruit and seed again and die” in a

brief day (47). My guess is, Hells must have imagined it would be like in a desert

of Earth; and it was right except that there is no air in the moon.

cf. William Carlos Willams’ “Spring and All”:

By the road to the contagious hospital

under the surge of the blue

mottled clouds driven from the

northeast a cold wind. Beyond, the –

waste of broad, muddy fields

brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen

patches of standing water

the scattering of tall trees

All along the road the reddish

purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy

stuff of bushes and small trees

with dead, brown leaves under them

leafless vines -

Lifeless in appearance, sluggish

dazed spring approaches -

They enter the new world naked,

cold, uncertain of all

save that they enter. All about them

the cold, familiar wind -

Now the grass, tomorrow

the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf

One by one objects are defined -

It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf

But now the stark dignity of

entrance Still, the profound change–

has come upon them: rooted, they

grip down and begin to awaken

(The Norton Anthology of American Literature, 3rd ed., vol. 2, 1169)

Chapter 9 Prospecting Begins. There’s air though it is thinner than in Earth

(beautiful: 49); thus, Wells theorizes on the phenomena of lighter and stronger

movements of men on the surface of the moon.

Chapter 10 Lost Man in the Moon. They jumped far from the sphere; they look for

their sphere.

Chapter 11 The Mooncalf Pastures, The huge monsters, mooncalves, and a

Selenite, who is only a five feet high, in leather, appear (61-62). The Selenite

described on page 62. The mooncalves described on page 63. The Selenite’s

covering on page 63. Human needs in a dire condition: Bedford and Cavor are

thirsty. “I craved for beer” and all other kinds of food (66). They found something

to eat (66): “such good food in the moon” (67) Food and men! Intoxicated they are

by eating the plant! (68). They became prisoners (69).

Chapter 12 The Selenite’s Face. How he looks like (71). “He walked like a bird”

(72). The description of the Selenite’s face (72), with eyes at the sides.

Chapter 13 Mr. Cavor Takes Some Suggestions. The world inside the moon (74):

the caverns and the sea in it (74). They in the prison cell eat the mooncalf flesh

(78-79). Human needs: the hunger makes them forget everything else (79).

Chapter 14 Experiments in intercourse. The Selenites have eyes at the sides like a

hen or a fish (81). They fail to communicate with the Selenites.

Chapter 15 The Giddy Bridge. Bedford kills one Selenite (90). And another. The ran

away in strides (91). They had shaken off the captors (92).

Important Notice:

1) Final assignment for 13 June: Make a summary of H. G. Wells’s The First Men in the

Moon: Chapters 16 to Chapter 26 in 100 words, and talk about one of the most interesting

chapters in 200 words. (One of the exam questions, which is compulsory.)

2) The second and final conference: On Monday, 13 June, from 8 to 11: 30 am, come to my

office Room 6-513, with your folder with your all assignments in it.

3) Final exam and the two quizzes for one and a half hours: You will take the final exam

on Wednesday, 15 June, from 1:30 to 2: 50 pm. Bring your The Elements of Style by Strunk

Jr.: while taking the quiz, you could look at the text; but you have to create your own

sentences, not the examples in the book, each sentence supporting each rule: 22 rules in

all. But you are not allowed to use a dictionary while taking the vocabulary quiz.)

13 June 2016 (16-1)







Chapter 16 Points of View

Their fight with moon people: “My mailed hand seemed to go clean through him. He smashed like –

like some softish sort of sweet with liquid in it. He broke irht in. He squelched and splashed. ... ”(90)

Sound: “as I stared up, drip, came a drop of water upon my face. I started and stood aside drip, fell –

another drop quite audibly on the rocky floor” (93). I feel homesick: “The sky that changes, and the

sea that changes, and the hills and the green trees and the towns and cities shining in the sun. Think

of a wet roof at sunset. Cavor! Think of the windows of a westward house!” (94-95)

Chapter 17 The Fight in the Cave of the Moon Butchers

Sound:“Indisputably there were several Selenites, perhaps a considerable number, in this space, for we

could hear the noises of their intercourse, and faint sounds that I identified as their footfalls. There

was also a succession of regularly repeated sounds chid, chid, chid which began and ceased, – –

suggestive of a knife or spade hacking at some soft substance” (101).

Selenites: the butcher moon people are different from the mooncalf herders: “they [butchers] were

short, thick, little beggars.” (104)

A scene of massacre: “I remember I seemed to be wading among those leathery, thin things as a man

wades through tall grass, mowing and hitting, firt right, then left; smash. Little drops of moisture flew

about. I trod on things that crushed and piped and went slippery. The crowd seemed to open and close

and flow like water.” (108)

Chapter 18 In the Sunlight

“That last fight had filled us with an emornous confidence in ourselves so far as the Selenites were

concerned.” (110) Mr. Cavor worries about the secret of the moon being full of gold: the earth

governments will struggle to come here and the warfare will spread in the moon (114). Bedford and

Cavor decide to look for the sphere: He leapt toward north: “He seemed to drift through the air as a

dead leaf would do, fell lightly, and leapt again (115).

Chapter 19 Mr. Bedford Alone

“I saw with a sort of colourless interest that the rocks of the basin, ... , were all veined and splattered

with gold... (116). He wondered why they came to the moon: ”man is not made simply to go about

being safe and comfortable and well fed and amused“ (116-117). He saw the sphere, when he had

intented to go into the moon (118). He found Cavor’s cap, instead of him, and a little piece of paper

crumpled. He smoothed it out and read it (122).

Being alone described: “Over me, around me, closing on me, embracing me ever nearer, was the

Eternal; that which was before the beginning, and that which triumphs over the end; the enormous void

in which all light and life and being is but the thin and vanishing splendour of a falling star, the cold,

the stillness, the silence the infinite and final Night of space” – (123)

Chapter 20 Mr. Bedford in Infinite Space

Bedford is subject to hallucinations: I saw Bedford rushing down Chancery Lane, hat on the back of his

head, ... (129)

Chapter 21 Mr. Bedford at Littlestone

The sphere landing: “The sphere hit the water with a huge splash: it must have sent it fathoms high.

At the splash I flung the Cavorite shuttes open. ...” (131).

The boy went up in the sphere. (139). Bedford will keep his mouth shut, as before (139).

... .........

[It is interesting that chapters 22 to 26, the closing chapters, consist of messages, which is similar in

form to Shelley’s Frankenstein and Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Why do you think the novelists,

when closing their novel, take this form in their novel?]

Chapter 22 The Astonishing Communication of Mr. Julius Wendigee

Bedford heads for the Mount Rosa to get the messages from Cavor in the moon (142-143).

Chapter 23 An Abstract of the Six Messages First Received from Mr. Cavor

Bedford dislikes Cavor’s description of him, it is unfair to him He “desire[s] to steal a march upon

me.” (145-146).

Chapter 24 The Natural History of the Selenites

“there are, ... , a number of other sorts of Selenite, ... and yet not different species of creatures, but

only different forms of one species,” (152) (154-155). Phi-oo and Tsi-puff: Cavor’s translator is

Phi-oo: he learns English and translates for Cavor: 158.

The Grand Lunar, the ruler of the moon: “There are no books, no records of any sort, no libraries or

inscriptions. All knowledge is stored in distended brains much as the honey-ants of Texas store honey

in their distended abdomens (160).

Chapter 25 The Grand Lunar

He is described: “He was seated ... ” (168). Cavor and the Grand Lunar’s dialog

(172-177)

Chapter 26 The Last Message Cavor Sent to the Earth

It seems that Cavor is put to death, as his world’s ugly secrets have been revealed: war, irrational

violence, insatiable aggressions, conflicts. The last scene: 179.

Final exam and the two quizzes for one and a half hours: You will take the final exam on

Wednesday, 15 June, from 1:30 to 2: 50 pm. Bring your The Elements of Style by Strunk Jr.:

while taking the quiz, you could look at the text; but you have to create your own

sentences, not the examples in the book, each sentence supporting each rule: 22 rules in

all. But you are not allowed to use a dictionary while taking the vocabulary quiz.)

16 March 2016 (1) Science Fiction Reading/Dr. Prof ... - KOCW

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