Narrating eros and agape

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-30
Author(s):  
Zsolt Bojti
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Narrative Structure ◽  
Hungarian Academy ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Happy Ending ◽  
Secondary Reading ◽  
Innovation And Technology ◽  
General Readership ◽  
Gay Literature

AbstractFin-de-SiècleA Hungarian version of the present paper was published as “Erósz és Agapé: Erotextus Edward Prime-Stevenson Imre: Egy emlékirat című regényének expozíciójában” (2019) in Literatura affiliated with the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Supported by the ÚNKP-19-3 New National Excellence Program of the Ministry for Innovation and Technology.” gay literature in English operated with a double narrative: one narrative offers a historical (and “innocent”) reading available to general readership; the other offers a personal (often illicit) reading available to the susceptible and initiated readers only. The double narrative, thus, allowed authors to give subtle visibility to same-sex desire in their works that would evade censorship. This paper argues that there is a similar double narrative in the exposition of Imre: A Memorandum by the American music critic and émigré writer Edward Prime-Stevenson. The double narrative of the novel, however, differs from that of prior gay literature. I argue that Prime-Stevenson thought it was a literary sin that prior gay literature offered a sensual, erotic, or even pornographic, subversive secondary reading to susceptible readers. In my reading, Prime-Stevenson consciously planted cues in the exposition of the novel, thus, created an erotext to trigger a similar subversive and illicit reading of his text. However, Prime-Stevenson used this technique to demonstrate that purely erotic literary representations denigrate same-sex desire; therefore, in what followed, he presented a different, agapeic view on same-sex desire. The paper substantiates that Prime-Stevenson’s intention was to break away from earlier narrative “traditions” of gay literature to offer a naturalised and legitimised representation and “script” of “homosexuality” per se. Prime-Stevenson did so in a crucial period of time, as the term “homosexual” just barely entered the English language and its pejorative connotations may not have been set in stone. The paper, as a result, casts a new complexion on sexuality as a literary phenomenon and the relevance of a complex narrative structure composed of “snares” and “false snares” in the exposition of Imre, which plays a crucial role in Prime-Stevenson authoring one of the very first openly homosexual novels in English, which has a happy ending.

scholarly journals Patricia Highsmith's Queer Disruption: Subverting Gay Tragedy in the 1950s

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Charlotte Findlay
Keyword(s):  
The Novel ◽  
Women's Agency ◽  
Happy Ending ◽  
Surface Level ◽  
Crime Novel ◽  
Lesbian Couple ◽  
Gay Literature ◽  
Gays And Lesbians ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
American Society

<p>Published in a time when tragedy was pervasive in gay literature, Patricia Highsmith’s 1952 novel The Price of Salt, published later as Carol, was the first lesbian novel with a happy ending. It was unusual for depicting lesbians as sympathetic, ordinary women, whose sexuality did not consign them to a life of misery. The novel criticises how 1950s American society worked to suppress lesbianism and women’s agency. It also refuses to let that suppression succeed by giving its lesbian couple a future together. My thesis assesses the extent to which the novel broke the conventions of gay literature, and how Highsmith was able to publish such a radical text in the conservative 1950s.  The Talented Mr Ripley, a crime novel published in 1955, is more representative of both Highsmith’s work and 1950s homophobia. Tom Ripley is coded as gay through a number of often pejorative stereotypes, though the novel never confirms his sexuality. This makes it appear far more conventional than The Price of Salt. And yet, it treats Tom sympathetically and gives him a happy ending. Underneath the surface level homophobia is a story of gay survival and success, and once again Highsmith subverts the tradition of gay tragedy. However, because homophobic tropes are central to its narrative, it remains difficult to call Ripley a radical text.  In placing the two novels side by side, my thesis draws out the complexity of Highsmith’s relationship with the gay canon. I find commonalities in the novels based on Highsmith’s interest in disrupting conventional morality. She achieves this disruption by humanising outsiders such as gays and lesbians, and constructing narratives in which they are able to find the freedom and happiness that the literature of the period usually denied them.</p>

scholarly journals Patricia Highsmith's Queer Disruption: Subverting Gay Tragedy in the 1950s

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Charlotte Findlay
Keyword(s):  
The Novel ◽  
Women's Agency ◽  
Happy Ending ◽  
Surface Level ◽  
Crime Novel ◽  
Lesbian Couple ◽  
Gay Literature ◽  
Gays And Lesbians ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
American Society

<p>Published in a time when tragedy was pervasive in gay literature, Patricia Highsmith’s 1952 novel The Price of Salt, published later as Carol, was the first lesbian novel with a happy ending. It was unusual for depicting lesbians as sympathetic, ordinary women, whose sexuality did not consign them to a life of misery. The novel criticises how 1950s American society worked to suppress lesbianism and women’s agency. It also refuses to let that suppression succeed by giving its lesbian couple a future together. My thesis assesses the extent to which the novel broke the conventions of gay literature, and how Highsmith was able to publish such a radical text in the conservative 1950s.  The Talented Mr Ripley, a crime novel published in 1955, is more representative of both Highsmith’s work and 1950s homophobia. Tom Ripley is coded as gay through a number of often pejorative stereotypes, though the novel never confirms his sexuality. This makes it appear far more conventional than The Price of Salt. And yet, it treats Tom sympathetically and gives him a happy ending. Underneath the surface level homophobia is a story of gay survival and success, and once again Highsmith subverts the tradition of gay tragedy. However, because homophobic tropes are central to its narrative, it remains difficult to call Ripley a radical text.  In placing the two novels side by side, my thesis draws out the complexity of Highsmith’s relationship with the gay canon. I find commonalities in the novels based on Highsmith’s interest in disrupting conventional morality. She achieves this disruption by humanising outsiders such as gays and lesbians, and constructing narratives in which they are able to find the freedom and happiness that the literature of the period usually denied them.</p>

Homosexuality in K. Sello Duiker’s The Quiet Violence of Dreams: Demythologising the Imaginings and Universalising the Reality

Imbizo ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Adetunji Kazeem Adebiyi-Adelabu
Keyword(s):  
Coming Out ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Black African ◽  
Sex Preference ◽  
National Allegory ◽  
Critical Attention ◽  
Sex Orientation ◽  
The Right

Sello Duiker’s The Quiet Violence of Dreams offers an extensive treatment of homosexuality, a preoccupation which, until recently, is rare in black African fiction. On this account, as well as its depth and openness, the work has attracted some critical attention. It has been read from a masculinity perspective, as a coming-out novel, as a national allegory, as a work that challenges the notion of fixed sexuality, as a work that normalises same-sex sexuality, and so forth. Unlike these studies, this article examines the representation and disquisition around same-sex preference in the novel, with a view to demonstrating how some myths about homosexuality are exploded in the groundbreaking work, and showing that the narrative could also be apprehended as intellectual advocacy for the right to same-sex orientation.

STRUKTUR NARASI NOVEL CA BAU KAN, KARYA REMY SYLADO ANALISIS SEMIOTIK

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 70
Author(s):  
Sri Sabakti
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Structure ◽  
Literary Analysis ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Basic Scheme ◽  
Library Research ◽  
The Mean

This research is aimed to expose the narrative structure of the novel Ca Bau Kan by using semiotical theory. The source of the data is the novel Ca Bau kan written by Remy Silado and published by KPG, eight edition, 2004. The data is collected by doing the library research. The teory applied in this research is the emiotical theory, especially the literary analysis of Subur Laksono Wardoyo that the analysis of the text of prose can be applied by using three fases; the analysis of the basic scheme narrative, the analysis of mean signifier, and the analysis of syntagmatics and pragmatics. The result of this research showed that the narrative structure in the novel CBK that (1) the life of Tinung before being a ca bau kan, (2) the life of Tinung as a ca bau kan, and (3) the life of Tinung after not being a ca bau kan anymore. Based on the narrative structure, it was found that “ Love is only one. No measurement is needed” is the mean signifier and able to be clarified by the analysis of syntagmatics-paradigmatics based on the biner oposition of weak x strong.AbstrakPenelitian ini bertujuan mengungkapkan stuktur narasi dalam novel Ca Bau Kan (CBK) dengan menggunakan teori semiotika. Penelitian ini menggunakan sumber data novel CBK karya Remy Silado yang diterbitkan oleh KPG, cetakan kedelapan tahun 2004. Pengumpulan data dilaksanakan dengan teknik kepustakaan. Teori yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah teori semiotika, khususnya analisis sastra menurut Subur Laksono Wardoyo bahwa analisis teks prosa dapat dilakukan melalui tiga tahap, yaitu: analisis skema naratif dasar, analisis signifier utama, dan analisis sintagmatik-paradigmatik. Hasil penelitian menggambarkan bahwa struktur narasi pada novel CBK adalah sebagai berikut: 1) kehidupan Tinung sebelum menjadi ca bau kan, 2) kehidupan Tinung sebagai ca bau kan, dan 3) kehidupan Tinung setelah tidak menjadi ca bau kan. Berdasarkan struktur narasi, maka didapatkan bahwa “Cinta cuma satu, kagak perlu takaran” merupakan penanda utama dan dapat diperjelas melalui analisis sintagmatik-paradigmatik yang didasarkan atas sebuah oposisi biner lemah x kuat.

The Ethics of Revenge and the Meanings of the Odyssey

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander C. Loney
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Structure ◽  
Careful Analysis ◽  
Happy Ending ◽  
Epic Poem ◽  
Multiple Meanings

This book is the first in-depth examination of revenge in the Odyssey. The principal revenge plot of the Odyssey—Odysseus’ surprise return to Ithaca after twenty years away and his vengeance on Penelope’s suitors—is the act for which he is most celebrated. This story forms the backbone of the Odyssey. But is Odysseus’ triumph over the suitors as univocally celebratory as is often assumed? Does the poem contain and even suggest other, darker interpretations of Odysseus’ greatest achievement? This book offers a careful analysis of several other revenge plots in the Odyssey—those of Orestes, Poseidon, Zeus, and the suitors’ relatives. It shows how these revenge stories color one another with allusions (explicit and implicit) that connect them and invite audiences to interpret them in light of one another. These stories—especially Odysseus’ revenge upon the suitors—inevitably turn out to have multiple meanings. One plot of revenge slips into another as the offender in one story becomes a victim to be avenged in the next. As a result, Odysseus turns out to be a much more ambivalent hero than has been commonly accepted. And in the Odyssey’s portrayal, revenge is an unstable foundation for a community. Revenge also ends up being a tenuous narrative structure for an epic poem, as a natural end to cycles of vengeance proves elusive. This book offers a radical new reading of the seemingly happy ending of the poem.

The Novel in English in Malaya and Singapore to 1950

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamara Wagner
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
East Asia ◽  
English Language ◽  
Joseph Conrad ◽  
Civil Servant ◽  
Civil Servants ◽  
East India Company ◽  
South East Asia ◽  
The Novel ◽  
English East India Company

This chapter looks at the representations of the former British Straits Settlements in English fiction from 1819 to 1950, discussing both British literary works that are located in South East Asia and English-language novels from Singapore and Malaysia. Although over the centuries, Europeans of various nationalities had located, intermarried, and established unique cultures throughout the region, writing in the English language at first remained confined to travel accounts, histories, and some largely anecdotal fiction, mostly by civil servants. English East India Company employees wrote about the region, often weaving anecdotal sketches into their historical, geographical, and cultural descriptions. Civil servant Hugh Clifford and Joseph Conrad are the two most prominent writers of fiction set in the British Straits Settlements during the nineteenth century; they also epitomize two opposing camps in representing the region.

The Oxford History of the Novel in English

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
English Language ◽  
Book History ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Novel ◽  
History Of The Novel ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

Volume Nine of this series traces the development of the ‘world novel’, that is, English-language novels written throughout the world, beyond Britain, Ireland, and the United States. Focusing on the period up to 1950, the volume contains survey chapters and chapters on major writers, as well as chapters on book history, publishing, and the critical contexts of the work discussed. The text covers periods from renaissance literary imaginings of exotic parts of the world like Oceania, through fiction embodying the ideology and conventions of empire, to the emergence of settler nationalist and Indigenous movements and, finally, the assimilations of modernism at the beginnings of the post-imperial world order. The book, then, contains chapters on the development of the non-metropolitan novel throughout the British world from the eighteenth to the mid twentieth centuries. This is the period of empire and resistance to empire, of settler confidence giving way to doubt, and of the rise of indigenous and post-colonial nationalisms that would shape the world after World War II.

Germaine de Staël’s and the Early Usage of Improvisation in English

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Simpson
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
English Language ◽  
Napoleonic Wars ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Artistic Practice ◽  
New Information

This chapter describes the emergence of the terminology of improvisation in the English language. Terms relating to improvisation began to appear in the eighteenth century and came to be used frequently in the nineteenth. Germaine de Staël’s 1807 novel Corinne ou L’Italie (published in French and translated into English the same year) was an important part of this emergence of improvisation. By attending to the content and language of Corinne, including the novel’s earliest translations, the chapter argues that the novel helped create a sense of improvisation as an Italianate artistic practice with political overtones specific to the context of the Napoleonic Wars. For the Staëlian improviser, art and history alike progress not toward pre-ordained goals but by taking new information into account and improvising new ends.

“Frank and unconscious humor and narrative structure in Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall”

2011 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorene M. Birden
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Structure ◽  
The Novel

AbstractThis study presents two aspects of the novel in question, its humor and its structure. It shows that both have been misunderstood and misinterpreted, and begins by reminding us that the author herself was long misunderstood because of early critical misreadings and presuppositions. It then continues to demonstrate that the two aspects studied are in fact interrelated; the so-called flawed structure, actually a framing structure, is in fact a firm form that is carefully underpinned by the instances of humor. It proceeds by presenting and dispelling the basic myths about the author and the novel, then presents the structure and the reasons for misconceptions of it before proceeding to map the humor using Attardo's system of humor rhythm mapping. Chlopicki's character frames also contribute to a demonstration of parallel characterization which contradicts another, minor myth, that of the unsuitability of the hero for the heroine. The study as a whole attacks the ideas of humorlessness in Brontë fiction, the inferiority of Anne's work and the feebleness of the structure of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

Storytelling and the Figure of the Father in Little Dorrit

PMLA ◽  
1980 ◽  
Vol 95 (2) ◽  
pp. 234-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dianne F. Sadoff
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Structure ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Paternal Origin ◽  
Patriarchal Family

Little Dorrit is both a narrative about authority and an examination of the authority of narrative. The novel links vocation with sonhood and storytelling with fatherhood and self-generation. Little Dorrit, however, tells a double story, of a daughter as well as of a son. If the son’s story relates the search to replace the father and to discover paternal authority, the daughter’s story details the horrors and consolations of incestuous desire and generational collapse. Storytelling that seeks the father as origin reveals paternal deception and inauthenticity; incestuous structures of desire attempt to collapse genealogy on the hero and heroine, making paternal origin unknowable and creating an overdetermined narrative ending. Dickens’ double story, then, identifies yet questions genealogy and the patriarchal family as metaphors for narrative structure.

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