Henry James

May 28, 2022 Gallery

How Do You Receive the “News” from Poems?

(This is a repeat of a previous post from my poetry blog. I resuscitated it because it evokes or conjures up the true spirit of poetry.)

“Getting the news” from poems means reading between the lines and noting every nuance, inflection, and sound. When reading a poem and when trying to determine what a poem conveys, it is imperative to examine where and how words are situated. Every vowel has weight; every consonant carries a message as semi-vowels and mutes. Every semi-vowel (l, m, n, and r) performs its own role as if on stage and contributes to the fluency of sounds. Even the mutes (b, d, k, p, q, t, c, and g) are very important as they can “stop the breath” if they are at the end of the syllable (Oliver 22).

As a writer and as a reader of poetry, I hone in on connotations and “feel” what the words are working very hard to convey. Every lilt of the tongue and every sound that forces the tongue to touch the roof of the mouth (or not) conveys a special message, even if the message is packaged in an alliterative container, hidden in similar beginning consonant sounds or assonance—repeated vowel sounds. There is immense beauty in both.

Not necessarily in any order, and not necessarily conscious of the process, but after or before the tongue separates the vowels and the consonants, my voice pays tribute to all the efforts I put in by enlivening the performance: the reading of poetry. The eyes, the ears, and the lips work collaboratively for effortless flow so that I and/or readers of my poems will/can enunciate words correctly. This is the process of poetry reading for me. My heart quickens in anticipation of the joy in beauty or The Beauty in My Joy (the title of one of my books of poetry). Each word, syllable, or letter (vowel and/or consonant) is not a quick study but a deliberate devotion to determine what a poem conveys about the human condition.

Sadness, happiness, elation, melancholy, achievement, deprivation, celebration, poverty, infidelity, and other emotions and conditions line up and vie for places in my poems marching in time and in tune with how I chose to arrange them. The gravity of the depth or the height of the ascension of my mood depends on how I choose to arrange poetic elements with craftiness, creativity, and surprises strewn all over the lines and in-between, unseen but felt.

Mary Oliver says that the reason contemporary people write poems (whether they know it or not) is out of a desire to be liked (Oliver 11). I am split on this opinion. Most of the time, I write poetry for me and play with words and aim to surprise myself even with discordant words and/or incongruous words. I do this on purpose like throwing in this line, “To womb much is given, much is required,” not to bait any reader, but that is the type of surprise I insert as a stroke of ingenuity and craftiness.

Even when I am reading poetry for sheer pleasure, my mind cannot seem to take a break; it works for 24 hours. Therefore, I continually analyze poetry for style and select words for the perfect sound and the perfect shade of meaning. This is a lesson I learned from Les Edgerton: “Fetch synonyms for sound” (20).  

I am continuously studying other poets and writers. I study style and emulate the greats. In my collection are poems that resonate with the distinct style and voices of Maya Angelou in “And Still I Rise,” Robert Frost in “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” and Langston Hughes in “Mother to Son,” and others.

I read extensively. When I took a poetry course, and I saw the list of books, I was concerned, but I heaved a sigh of relief when I saw Mary Oliver’s name. I own at least one of the craft books in the pile and guidebooks from these renowned authors: Oliver, Edgerton, Laraine Herring, Henry James, Don Murray, Gregory Fraser, Jane Yolen, Heather Sellers, and others. After reading each seasoned author, I resolve to take away something that will alter my writing life as I know it.  

Every poet writes hope into the lines: hope that the reader will take away a valuable lesson, hope that the reader will experience some sort of a paradigm shift, and hope that the reader will cry or laugh while or after reading the poem. Although most of my poems are thematic poems, I am on a new path toward “tone” poetry that will cause some sort of mood change, a change like the traffic light, switching from emotion to emotion on cue as if programmed like the traffic light.

As boring as this topic sounds, I have been hooked on tea (the hot version and the culture) all my life and saw it as a passionate art with its tradition and class and etiquette and virtue (patience and practice). It took a while before I forced myself to move on to other subjects. The ocean seems to be a recurring theme because it holds my muse on its undulating surface.

I grew up about 30 miles from the Atlantic Ocean in Nigeria. If I can be near an ocean, I tend to write my heart out. My childhood does not have a whole lot to do with this muse-by-the-ocean phenomenon. I blame the fixation on the movie, “Something’s Gotta Give,” the laissez-faire writing lifestyle of the main character, and the impressive oceanfront haven located in the Hamptons.

Maybe I will find my muse and a better tone in the oceanfront house. My tone used to be strident and preachy (two horrible mixtures). I aimed to let the world know that it and its teeming eight billion people needed me to “fix and repair” their wayward ways. Again, like my fixation on poetry on tea, I had to let it go and realize that preaching is the nail that will seal my poetry career permanently. My tone is softening, a work in progress.

Ultimately, I would like the readers of my poems to find themselves in the lines, to discover something relatable, something they need, a link to themselves. While they are on that self-discovery, I hope they will have fun and get lost in the creative surprises in the lines in my poems and remember some of those lines and quote them willy-nilly.

===================

Work Cited

Edgerton, Les. Finding Your Voice: How to Put Personality in Your Writing. Cincinnati, Ohio: Writer’s Digest Books, 2003. Print.

Oliver, Mary. A Poetry Handbook: A Prose Guide to Understanding and Writing Poetry. New York: Harcourt, Inc., 1994. Print.

June 19, 2020

From Theory to Literature: Henry James

Henry James wrote the quintessential novel and buried it in the most dizzying quagmire. Many turn-of-the-century authors admired his method including Joseph Conrad. James drizzled intricate structures, sustained irony, and the sophisticated manipulation of point of view in The Turn of the Screw. Unlike Conrad’s novels whose settings journeyed all over the world, James remained locked on the British social and economic scenes and layered the social-economic structure from the wealthiest (the owner of the mansion) to the poorest (servants). This short paper intends to apply the Marxist Literary Criticism to Henry James’ Turn of the Screw as it explores important concepts in that theory: “from theory to literature.”

One of the notable Marxists, Friedrich Engels, would probably applaud James for attempting to hide his own opinions for the betterment of art. As cultured and as highly educated as James was, he attempted to bring about other realities: culturally, economically, socially, and gender wise, far removed from his own circumstances. On the contrary, Marxism would decry such an attempt. “Marxist literary criticism maintains that a writer’s social class, and its prevailing ‘ideology’ (outlook, values, tacit assumptions, half-realised allegiances, etc.) have a major bearing on what is written by a member of that class.”

According to Peter Barry’s interpretation, instead of Marxists seeing authors as primarily autonomous “inspired“ individuals whose “genius“ and creative imagination enables them to bring forth original and timeless works of art, the Marxist sees authors as constantly formed by their social contexts in ways which they themselves would usually not admit.

Applying The Turn of the Screw to Marxist criticism (or vice versa), it is imperative to acknowledge the significance of social and economic factors. As indicated earlier, the story is populated by the lower class: Mrs. Grose and an assortment of hired help, living or dead. Despite her attempt to see herself differently as above all the others in the house, and by virtue of her not being a relation, a guest, a mistress, nor a servant, the governess is still in the lower class because she received financial benefits.

Marxist theory sees progress coming about through the struggle for power between different social classes. There was a stream of conflicts in the novel: between the governess and Miles, between the governess and Flora, between the governess and Mrs. Grose, and between the governess and the ghosts. Additionally (and according to Marxism), one social class always exploits the other. Miles’ uncle has economic, social, and political advantage over the governess and all the people working for him, even if the power is from afar. The machination he put in place and set in motion churns in his absence to ensure that all parties contribute to the success of his home management and his peace of mind.

The result of this exploitation, according to Marxism, is the “alienation” of the worker (the governess) who performs “tasks whose nature and purpose ‘she’ has no overall grasp.” The governess finally confesses to not wanting to prolong “the fiction that I had anything more to teach him.” She had no overall grasp anymore as Miles’ teacher, caregiver, and protector. She knew she no longer possessed the skill necessary to teach Miles. She has been, according to Marxism, “deskilled.”

To Mrs. Grose (who is below her class by education, station, and by birth), the governess enjoys the conflict tremendously by becoming sarcastic, insulting, and by using tacit invectives. Class dynamics and conflicts are very prevalent and critical in Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw. Sometimes the references are implicit. Other times they are immersed in dialogue. Even though the governess is of Victorian gentility, she is heavily exploited and is thrust into extremely demanding expectations and roles which cause her alienation and her ultimate breakdown.

Although Karl Marx and Engels themselves did not put forward any comprehensive theory of literature, other Marxists did. Marx and Engels’ views, Barry notes, seem relaxed and undogmatic: “Good art always has a degree of freedom from prevailing economic circumstances…” Henry certainly created a piece of good art in The Turn of the Screw.

March 12, 2015

From Theory to Literature: Marxism and The Turn of the Screw

Henry James wrote the quintessential novel and buried it in the most dizzying quagmire. His method, however, was admired by many turn-of-the-century authors including Joseph Conrad. James drizzled intricate structure, sustained irony, and the sophisticated manipulation of point of view all over The Turn of the Screw. Unlike Conrad’s novels whose settings journeyed all over the world, James remained locked on the British social and economic scene and layered the social-economic structure from the wealthiest (the owner of the mansion) to the poorest (servants). This short paper intends to apply Marxist Literary Criticism to Henry James’ Turn of the Screw as it explores important concepts in that theory: “from theory to literature.”

One of the notable Marxists, Friedrich Engels, would probably applaud James for attempting to hide his own opinions for the betterment of art. As cultured and as highly educated as James was, he attempted to bring about other realities: culturally, economically, socially, and gender wise, far removed from his own circumstances. On the contrary, Marxism would decry such an attempt. “Marxist literary criticism maintains that a writer’s social class, and its prevailing ‘ideology’ (outlook, values, tacit assumptions, half-realised allegiances, etc.) have a major bearing on what is written by a member of that class.”

According to Peter Barry’s interpretation, instead of Marxists seeing authors as primarily autonomous “inspired“ individuals whose “genius“ and creative imagination enable them to bring forth original and timeless works of art, the Marxist sees authors as constantly formed by their social contexts in ways which they themselves would usually not admit.

Applying The Turn of the Screw to Marxist criticism (or vice versa), it is imperative to acknowledge the significance of social and economic factors. As indicated earlier, the story is populated by the lower class: Mrs. Grose and an assortment of hired help, living or dead. Despite her attempt to see herself differently as above all the others in the house, and by virtue of her not being a relation, a guest, a mistress, nor a servant, the governess is still in the lower class because she received financial benefits.

Marxist theory sees progress coming about through the struggle for power between different social classes. There was a stream of conflicts in the novel: between the governess and Miles, between the governess and Flora, between the governess and Mrs. Grose, and between the governess and the ghosts. Additionally (and according to Marxism), one social class always exploits the other. Miles’ uncle has economic, social, and political advantage over the governess and all the people working for him, even if the power is from afar. The machination he put in place and set in motion churns in his absence to ensure that all parties contribute to the success of his home management and his peace of mind.

The result of this exploitation, according to Marxism, is the “alienation” of the worker (the governess) who performs “tasks whose nature and purpose ‘she’ has no overall grasp.” The governess finally confesses to not wanting to prolong “the fiction that I had anything more to teach him.” She had no overall grasp anymore as Miles’ teacher, caregiver, and protector. She knew she no longer possessed the skill necessary to teach Miles. She has been, according to Marxism, “deskilled.”

To Mrs. Grose (who is below her class by education, station, and by birth), the governess wallows in conflict by becoming sarcastic, insulting, and uses tacit invectives. Class dynamics and conflicts are very prevalent and critical in Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw. Sometimes the references are implicit. Other times they are immersed in dialogue. Even though the governess is of Victorian gentility, being heavily exploited and thrust into extremely demanding expectations and roles cause her alienation and ultimate breakdown.

Although Karl Marx and Engels themselves did not put forward any comprehensive theory of literature, other Marxists did. Marx and Engels’ views, Barry notes, seem relaxed and undogmatic: “Good art always has a degree of freedom from prevailing economic circumstances…” Henry certainly created a piece of good art in The Turn of the Screw.

Works Cited

Barry, Peter. “A Critical History of The Turn of the Screw.” (Ed.) Boston: Bedford, 1995. Print.

Nestvold, Ruth. “Literature at the Turn of the Century (1890 – 1918).”       http://www.ruthnestvold.com/about.htm. Web.

Wahrman, Dror. Imagining the Middle Class: The Political Representation of Class in Britain,       1780-1840. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995. Print.

Whelan, Lara Baker. Class, Culture, and Suburban Anxieties in the Victorian Era. New York:       Routledge, 2010. Print.

One of the notable Marxists, Friedrich Engels, would probably applaud James for attempting to hide his own opinions for the betterment of art. As cultured and as highly educated as James was, he attempted to bring about other realities: culturally, economically, socially, and gender wise, far removed from his own circumstances. On the contrary, Marxism would decry such an attempt. “Marxist literary criticism maintains that a writer’s social class, and its prevailing ‘ideology’ (outlook, values, tacit assumptions, half-realised allegiances, etc.) have a major bearing on what is written by a member of that class.”

According to Peter Barry’s interpretation, instead of Marxists seeing authors as primarily autonomous “inspired“ individuals whose “genius“ and creative imagination enables them to bring forth original and timeless works of art, the Marxist sees authors as constantly formed by their social contexts in ways which they themselves would usually not admit.

Applying The Turn of the Screw to Marxist criticism (or vice versa), it is imperative to acknowledge the significance of social and economic factors. As indicated earlier, the story is populated by the lower class: Mrs. Grose and an assortment of hired help, living or dead. Despite her attempt to see herself differently as above all the others in the house, and by virtue of her not being a relation, a guest, a mistress, nor a servant, the governess is still in the lower class because she received financial benefits.

Marxist theory sees progress coming about through the struggle for power between different social classes. There was a stream of conflicts in the novel: between the governess and Miles, between the governess and Flora, between the governess and Mrs. Grose, and between the governess and the ghosts. Additionally (and according to Marxism), one social class always exploits the other. Miles’ uncle has economic, social, and political advantage over the governess and all the people working for him, even if the power is from afar. The machination he put in place and set in motion churns in his absence to ensure that all parties contribute to the success of his home management and his peace of mind.

The result of this exploitation, according to Marxism, is the “alienation” of the worker (the governess) who performs “tasks whose nature and purpose ‘she’ has no overall grasp.” The governess finally confesses to not wanting to prolong “the fiction that I had anything more to teach him.” She had no overall grasp anymore as Miles’ teacher, caregiver, and protector. She knew she no longer possessed the skill necessary to teach Miles. She has been, according to Marxism, “deskilled.”

To Mrs. Grose (who is below her class by education, station, and by birth), the governess enjoys the conflict tremendously by becoming sarcastic, insulting, and by using tacit invectives. Class dynamics and conflicts are very prevalent and critical in Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw. Sometimes the references are implicit. Other times they are immersed in dialogue. Even though the governess is of Victorian gentility, she is heavily exploited and is thrust into extremely demanding expectations and roles which cause her alienation and her ultimate breakdown.

Although Karl Marx and Engels themselves did not put forward any comprehensive theory of literature, other Marxists did. Marx and Engels’ views, Barry notes, seem relaxed and undogmatic: “Good art always has a degree of freedom from prevailing economic circumstances…” Henry certainly created a piece of good art in The Turn of the Screw.

Works Cited

Barry, Peter. “A Critical History of The Turn of the Screw.” (Ed.) Boston: Bedford, 1995. Print.

Nestvold, Ruth. “Literature at the Turn of the Century (1890 – 1918).” http://www.ruthnestvold.com/about.htm. Web.

Wahrman, Dror. Imagining the Middle Class: The Political Representation of Class in Britain, 1780-1840. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995. Print.

Whelan, Lara Baker. Class, Culture, and Suburban Anxieties in the Victorian Era. New York: Routledge, 2010. Print.

March 12, 2015

From Theory to Literature: Applying Narratology to The Turn of The Screw

Narratology holds an enticement for me because I am not only a creator of literature, but I also am a curator of literature. I suppose my selection of the literary theory of Narratology to analyze Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw would be foreshadowed. My recent journey into Narrative Discourse wetted my appetite. In this discussion, I will explore how the theory illuminates relationships among “the narrated story text, the significance of narrated text, and the narrating act” and also demonstrate if and how Narratology exemplifies itself in the narrators in James’ novel into borderline, mixed, and ambiguous.

The theory that most suitably applies to Henry James’ The turn of the Screw is Gérard Genette’s Narrative Discourse. After reading the theory of, and after discovering the gaps in my own approach to literature (being ensconced in the formal modes of the story level), I became aware of what Genette meant, more aware of my superficial/traditional handling of literature.

This new theory opened up a window into these old three: the narrated story/event (intradiegetic), the signifying narrative text, and the narrating act (extradiegetic). Actually, as a result of the exposure to Narrative Discourse, I became annoyed with Henry James in The Turn of The Screw for giving his narrators the penchant for forcing suspense. I also was irritated at Douglas for holding his listeners/audience captive and using upper handedness in being extremely present in the narrated world (homodiegetic).

As a reader straddling the two worlds of reading the novel and applying it to theory, I recognize and appreciate James’ ingenious narrating tactic which took me aback. He kept the reader confused yet interested enough to try to muddle through the circuitous narrated story text and its 19th century brand of English. Additionally, as it pertains to the narrating act itself, Douglas’ proclivity for inserting himself dominantly in the narrated story (a story inside another story—Woody Allen’s forte) forced me to acknowledge Genette’s immeasurable gift to literature/Narratology. Genette drew a fine distinction between “who sees?” (focalization) and “who speaks?” He “re-conceptualized the relationships between speaker and the focalizer” and introduced “the necessity of accounting for focalization at the micro- and macro- level(s)”.

Genette acknowledged that the narrator should have a degree of narrator presence in the story, but even he could not have envisioned that authors like Henry James would give characters like Douglas the most liberal latitude in the narration. Apparently, James intentionally made Douglas to be seen and to be heard with theatricals of kicking the fire log, pausing mid-air in speech, fixing his listeners with a look of discontent, verbally putting down his listeners, and dominating the narration that was not about him, but he made it so as a right someone owed him.

Douglas features prominently in “the narrated story text, the signifying narrated text, and the narrating act.” That James kills off Douglas caused an indecipherable feeling in me. I was impatient to read the story without Douglas’ further theatricals and wished the unnamed narrator would take it up, but Douglas’ death shocked me, and even at that, it seemed unjust for James to give it a one-sentence allusion.

For the second topic of this essay, I examined Genette’s three distinctive classifications of characters into degrees of presence: borderline, mixed, and ambiguous narrators. I am not shirking my duty as a student of literature by refusing to classify Douglas into one of the three established categories. Douglas does not fall willingly into any of the three narrator categories. He fakes ambiguity but is not particularly borderline or a mixture of two or all narrator types.

Never in all the novels I read do I recall an author casting most or all of the characters into questionable and disparaging personalities. Douglas would be classified as homodiegetic since his narration is more limited. He does not appear to read minds. The opposite of that is the governess whom I would classify as heterodiegetic because she claims that she knows instead of allowing the reader to come to that conclusion. When the governess narrates her own story, as questionable as her personality is, she easily pigeonholes herself and can be classified as an ambiguous narrator since she is everywhere. Her lunacy causes her to seem to have dual personality and makes her appear schizophrenic as she badgers Mrs. Grose or anyone else in her hyperactive state in trying to solve situations that are clearly over her ability. She really is limited in her perception of anything and does not know the children are manipulative or when they choose to ignore her, which, in her state of delusion, she considers them “leaving her alone”.

In summation, Genette inaugurated many terms in his focused discourse about narration. His pervasive and influential treatise “set a new standard by providing” me with “comprehensive and well-articulated approach” to understanding his unique theoretical models. Genette forced me to reexamine literary relationships in deeper levels, a paradigm that every teacher of English should allow to shift him or her from traditional questioning of text to adopting innovative techniques when analyzing and when teaching text and other narrative devices.

When I applied Narrative Discourse to James’ The Turn of the Screw, Genette equipped me with the terminologies I needed and the invigorating confidence to examine the narrated story text, the signifying narrated text, the narrating act, and allowed me the self-assurance to plot narrators (Douglas and the governess) into these categories: borderline, mixed, and ambiguous. This journey of analyzing Genette has fulfilled my appetite of needing more knowledge of Narratology, especially Genette’s Narrative Discourse.

Works Cited

Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. Manchester, United Kingdom: Manchester University Press, 2009. Print.

James, Henry. The Turn of the Screw. New York: The Project Guttenburg. 2008. eBook.

Knudsen, Stephen. “Beyond Postmodernism. Putting a Face on Metamodernism without the Easy Clichés.” Web. 27 September 2014. http://artpulsemagazine.com/.

Pier, John. “Gerard Genette’s Evolving Narrative Poetics,” Narrative, Volume 18, Number 1. January 2010, 8-18.