good morning and welcome back to ah todays
lecture english for competitive or english
literature rather for competitive exams and
ah i am going to do as usual plenty of exercises
with you you can start revising your literature
your novels ah i will also give you ah brief
overview of whats a novel and what is the
point of view and various aspects of it and
different kinds of novel what are different
kinds of novel we will see in the course of
todays lecture ah so as usual lets begin with
doing some exercises and test your ah knowledge
of english literature
so please look at the slide here your question
is who is the author of this passage these
are the kinds of ah questions that you can
expect no mockery in this world ever sounds
to me so hollow as that of being told to cultivate
happiness what does such advice mean happiness
is not a potato to be planted in mould and
tilled with manure happiness is a glory shining
far down upon us out of heaven she is a divine
dew which the soul on certain of its summer
mornings feel dropping upon it from the amaranth
bloom and golden fruitage of paradise your
choice is jane austen emile bronte charlotte
bronte george eliot so these are the british
women writers
next one what point of view is presented in
the passage be sure that you are going to
expect this kind of questions also limited
point of view first person third person the
omniscient and look the the passage is that
you have already seen earlier now ah um look
at the third question again your point of
view is based on this particular passage question
two is based on the passage that you just
read about happiness question three what point
of view is present here in this particulars
passage you are not the kind of guy who would
be at a place like this at this time of the
morning but here you are and you cannot say
that the terrain is entirely unfamiliar through
the though the details are fuzzy you are at
a night club talking to a girl with a shaved
head the club is either heart break or the
lizard lounge what point of view choose the
correct answer limited point of view first
person second person the omniscient
look at this question now passage four identify
the novel here the world is so taken up of
late with novels and romances that it will
be hard for a private history to be taken
for genuine where the names and other circumstances
of the person are concealed and on this account
we must be content to leave the reader to
pass his own opinion upon the ensuing sheet
and take it just as he pleases the author
is here supposed to be writing her own history
and in the very beginning of her account she
gives the reasons why she thinks fit to conceal
her true name after which there is no occasion
to say any more about that this is part of
a novel beginning of a novel and you have
to identify the novel choose the correct response
moll flanders robinson crusoe sense and sensibility
vanity fair
next question now this is taken from excerpt
from a virginia wolf novel so identify the
virginia wolf novel from where the passage
is taken she had a perpetual sense as she
watched the taxi cabs of being out out far
out to sea and alone she always had the feeling
that it was very very dangerous to live even
one day mrs dalloway to the light house orlando
the waves these are your choices which is
the novel
next question number six for which novel did
horance walpole he was a novelist as well
he say he said is this is a kind of novel
the whole narration is always going backwards
so this is set regarding or for tristram shandy
heart of darkness ulysses mrs dalloway number
seven who do associate the following quotes
with these are three quotes ok and you have
to think of the authors that can be associated
with each quote the self is temporal opening
out into the past present and future changing
yet continuous second consciousness cannot
be analyzed into fragments it is nothing jointed
it flows the stream of thought consciousness
or of subjective life number three the idea
of the intuitive self focuses on the role
of memory in human experience memory activated
by concrete sensation can help recapture past
time the allowing the self to reenter the
fluid world of endurance and rediscover a
partially lost concrete past you are choices
william james second proust or henri bergsons
so how do you what should be the correct order
next one read the following passage you are
about to begin reading italo calvinos new
novel if on a winters night a traveler relax
concentrate best to close the door the tv
is always on in the next room tell the others
right away no i dont want to watch tv or if
you prefer dont say anything just hope they
leave you alone this passage is an example
of this is your question self reflexive novel
focalisation magic realism unreliable narrator
next identify the critic directly or indirectly
and ah whether the writer himself is conscious
of it or not every novel must necessarily
present a certain view of life and of some
of the problems of life that is it must so
exhibit incidents characters passions motives
as to reveal more or less distinctly the way
in which the author looks out upon the world
and his general attitude towards it identify
the critic w h hudson walter allen henry james
e m forster
identify the author why does it disturb us
that don quixote to be a be a reader of quixote
and hamlet a spectator of hamlet these inversions
suggest that if the characters in a story
can be readers or a spectators then we their
readers or a spectators can be fictitious
who said that choose the right answer gabriel
garcia marquez julio cortazar mario vargas
llosa jorge luis borges who could be the author
of that
next question read the following passage and
when i look around the apartment where i where
i now I am when i see charlottes apparel lying
before me and alberts writings and all those
articles of furniture which are so familiar
to me even to the very inkstand which i am
using when i think what i am to this family
everything my friends esteem me i often contribute
to their happiness and my heart seems as if
it could not beat without them and yet if
i were to die if i were to be summoned from
the midst of this circle would they feel or
how long would they feel the void which which
my loss would make in their existence how
long yes such is the frailty of man that even
there where he has the greatest consciousness
of his own being where he makes the strongest
and most forcible impression even in the memory
in the heart of his beloved there also he
must perish vanish and that quickly this novel
is an example of bildungsroman magic realism
metafiction historical novel i am not asking
you to guess the author or ah the name of
the novel i am asking you what example is
this this is also a kind a variety of question
ah the kind of question that you can be asked
no names given no titles given just an extract
and how what is the ah um genre of this
so ah be prepared for this as well it may
be rare but definitely you can expect next
one read the following what you call a race
is nothing but a collection of riffraff like
me bleary eyed flea bitten chilled to the
bone they came from the four corners of the
of the earth driven by hunger plague tumours
and the cold and stopped here they couldnt
go any further because of the ocean thats
france thats the french people the novel is
an example of magic realism antinovel stream
of consciousness black humor
so now lets start ah looking at the answers
or discussing the answers so your first answer
which was ah based on what is happiness is
ah charlotte brontes villette so who is the
author charlotte bronte not emile not jane
austen its charlotte bronte and her novel
villette the second example is a first person
narrative is a first person narrative and
the third one in the third question is an
example of second person narrative you ok
which is always you know is a point of view
i am not saying narrative it is a point of
view so second person point of view because
of the constant use of the pronoun you is
taken from ah j mach a american novel ah um
bright lights in big city a nineteen eighty
four novel
you should know that the second person may
turn out to be a specific fictional character
or the reader of the stories so you therefore
even ah in one of the other passages that
i did with you just know you get the second
person point of view but we are going to talk
about it later so you have to know that the
reader of the story is ah ah can can also
be a fictional character or even the narrator
himself or herself or not clearly or consistently
any one the story may unfold by shifting between
telling the narrate what he or she is now
doing has done in the past or will will be
commanded or told to do in the future
so you the second person is important is very
postmodernist ah trays trait so you have to
keep that in mind ah um question four it is
from moll flanders but daniel defoe and the
extract virgina wolf extract is from mrs dalloway
who is the heroine who is that speaker there
clarissa dalloway remember who is she its
a very important text and virginia wolf of
course i dont have to stress upon the significance
of virginia wolf she is repeatedly asked in
competitive exams
so ah clarissa dalloway is middle aged middle
class wife of an mp member of parliament living
in london in the early twentieth century the
novel follows her experiences throughout a
single day in june nineteen twenty three as
she makes preparation for a party and as a
narrative ah moves in an out of a thoughts
impressions and memories we see that she has
a ah squandered away many of her opportunities
and ah let go of her happiness because of
societal pressures her ah inability to rebel
and ah giving into conform to what is expected
so one of the major feminist writers and a
very seminal work of feminist writing ah horance
walpole his ah comment is on laurence sternes
tristram shandy tristram shandy and ah question
seven where you are asked for three philosophers
thinkers crictics a henri bergson or henri
bergson he happens to be ah french writer
second a b william james henry jamess brother
and third about memory and past marcel proust
whenever there is an extract talking about
memories and past you have to think of marcel
proust before looking at other choices ah
if on a winters knight is a postmodernist
novel ah and the from among the choices the
best response is self reflexive novel its
not magical realism or historical novel or
anything like that question nine the critic
its w h hudson so answer is a and then whereas
hamlet is a spectator of his own story thats
the response is d jorge luis borges is the
critic or he is the writer of that code charlotte
and her apparel and whether what happens to
us and how quickly we vanish from memories
and hearts that is taken from the sorrows
of young werther by j w goethe or goethe the
german writer and its an example of bildungsroman
coming of age novel and the last question
the answer is b antinovel is taken from ah
again its a french novel celines french novel
journey into the ja end of the knight
so ah now let me give you a quick introduction
to what is a novel originally ah it is an
italian word novella or its a tale t a l e
and is spanish novella again so ah now we
use novella for something else italian word
thats the origin and in spanish novella now
we use it we use the word novella to denote
ah something that is ah not very long bigger
than a short story but less than a proper
novel but thats the origin of the word novel
from novella one of the most flexible of all
literary genres of course people can say the
same about poetry also but then poetry as
well all know has its constraints has its
ah its own ah the frame work but novel is
undoubtedly the most or the most flexible
of all literary genres the way we understand
novels today it started from the sixteen century
and from sixteen to the eighteen century denoted
a prose narrative about characters and their
actions
so plot traditionally or tradition features
are plot and character as henry james in his
art of fiction says what is character what
the determination of incident and what is
incident but the illustration of character
ok so thats the way a novel has a point of
view we have been talking about points of
view in ah several questions earlier what
is it what is a point of view its the angle
of vision or perspective from which events
are represented in a narrative how events
unfold so who is the whose point of view sometimes
any special in modern novels you find multiple
points of view it makes a very interesting
read thoust so we get you know that rashomon
effect several points of view are implicit
in the same work french critic gerard genette
he prefers the term focalization so the same
word in a new bottle so ah someone something
like ah or a focalization is who sees that
is perspective who speaks is the voice so
thats what genette tells us to do narratives
ah can be omniscient third person and first
person and sometimes even second person as
we have seen
some of the popular sub categories of novels
are and this is a the kind of question that
you can expect so you can start looking up
the sub categories for example epistolary
what happens in an epistolary novel lots of
letters are written throughout ah the dangerous
liaison ok its a french novel which is completely
written in an epistolary style many of ah
jane austens novels can be red in an epistolary
style we also had sentimental novel the early
seventeenth eighteenth century writers like
richardson and fielding they would use that
romance ok thing gone with the wind ok so
ah romance you know men women society and
lifestyles so that is a a kind of a romance
very popular genre ah gothic novel several
examples wuthering heights is an ace example
of a gothic novel but there are several others
also
historical sir walters scotts historical novels
we have regional novels thomas hardys for
example or faulkners novels of local colour
then we have detective thriller crime psychological
novel novels of sensations like ah willkie
collins the women in white so all these were
ah the categories till the early ten twentieth
century or the mid twentieth century ah when
we think of people like thackeray and dickens
predominantly the novel was used as a public
instrument focusing on socially relevant and
significant issues from twentieth century
onwards political movements second ah ah the
first and the second world war ah theories
of marxism and freudian principles all compounded
the breakdown of coherence and faith in shared
beliefs and it is impacted literature also
of course novels
so all these things all these factors led
writers to question hierarchies in alls fears
and there thus the growth of experimental
novels experimented novels that break break
away from the traditional story telling mode
i keep talking about sternes tristram shandy
i gave you the quote also horance walpoles
that is the kind of novel that ah the where
the whole narration is going backwards ok
so thats was that was an experiment more experientialist
ah more experimental novels were ah came ah
and were reflected in the works of marcel
proust remembrance of things pass then kaffka
camu[s]- all these existentialist writers
ya faulkner nabokov vladimir nabokov the author
of pale fire and more famously lolita james
joyce very popular from the exams point of
view and then celine louis ferdinand celine
journey into the end of the knight so nineteen
thirty two novel one of the first episodis
novels
so antinovel is ah term that you should know
it is a term used or it was a term that was
first used by someone called charles sorel
s o r e l its features were lack of an obvious
plot defused episodes minimal development
of characters reader by the you know more
or less was expected to in further own meanings
or supply their own endings these authors
writers would experiment with vocabulary punctuation
they would give detail analysis of objects
repeats or rapitations variations of time
sequences alternative endings beginnings ok
anything was possible sometimes even blank
pages with geometrical patterns and that was
that is what you were given for example in
journey to the end of the knight ah it has
it is it has ah multiple reputations and characters
were no explanation is given for their actions
so again breaking away from the notion of
that what is a novel but character and character
is plot so it didnt work anymore after the
first world war so again i am coming back
to louis ferdinand celines work the hero is
ferdinand bardamu he is a doctor in french
colonial africa he is hate driven morally
corrupt still he is attractive he is remarkable
because he combines the nihilism the existentialism
the the disenchantment with the existing society
and with ah ah and belief in fatalism
so characters their motives became increasingly
hard to understand i am just giving you an
example of because it is a seminal work of
ah the twentieth century one of the novels
that ah questioned the traditional structuring
or hierarchies of a novel journey to the end
of the knight there was ah also the growth
of nueva roma that is new novel french word
nueva roma nueva is new roma is novel ah robbe
grillet alain robbe grillet ah he gave the
theory of ah on nature and future of the novel
in his book ah um for a new novel pour un
nouveau roman nineteen sixty three and this
movement was supposedly biblioclastic it rejected
much that had gone before robbe griller regarded
the earlier novelist as old people old fashioned
ok vieu zha old fashioned no longer in vogue
so the idea was novel should be about things
and individual version about things not just
to follow but an individuals response to his
perceptions and his sensations nathalie sarraute
was another important writer who wrote tropismes
t r o p i s m e s in nineteen thirty nine
a prototype nu aroma a new novel aiming to
radically transform traditionally traditional
narrative models of character and plot so
nathalie sarraute this should be an e of course
ah the most recognizable novel ah which most
people enjoy reading it goes by the tenets
of realism where ah the plot is ah you know
give gives you a straight forward portrayal
of life with as much fidelity to realism it
corresponds ah with coherence and coherence
theories of coherence ah they involved knowing
the world by perception intuition sensation
honore de balzoc the french writer he gave
us the famous term la comedie sio humaine
da human condition ok
so all these ah european writers belzock emile
zola guy de maupassant paz stendhal ah even
the russians the great russian masters tolstoy
gorky tortionnaire so these were the realize
and from here we also get the concept of psychological
realism depicting the inner workings of the
mind so when i give you the passage from mrs
dallaway that is psychological realism also
there is the concept of stream of consciousness
we will be doing as we move ah further into
the course
so ah stream of consciousness is the analysis
of thoughts and feelings the presentation
of nature of personality and character and
all about digging deeper into the conscious
and subconscious territories this was not
done before but its an offshoot of realism
psychological realism paved way for anti realistic
novels and rejected ah that ah sort of you
know ah for example in mrs dallaway coming
back again ah which is quite a psychologically
real and stream of conscious novel were the
entire plot story takes place within the mind
of ah clarisa da le ve within a span of one
day but in a one in one day she goes through
her entire life time in relationships and
loves and regrets
we also have a concept of magical realism
its a concept given to us by alejo carpentier
ok spanish writer alejo carpentier its a mode
of narrative that mixes the real and the fantastic
to make real scene magical and the improbable
real its a major subversive antirealistic
device authors do that to convey hard social
realities it subverts the existing conventions
of reality but beneath the surface there is
a star commentary on a social conditions here
is a video link to the video salman rushdie
on magic realism please do take a look at
it the salman rushdie explains the notion
of realism and then magical realism
there is also a concept of or a term called
metafiction see ah a realist novel traditionally
is unconscious about the process of its telling
we dont get to see the writer coming out and
telling us that you write reader you are reading
a novel here that that is that consciousness
is not given a realistic novel emphases it
identity as a work of art it hides it invisible
ok it attempts to present quote unquote a
slice of life metafiction however suspend
the illusion of mimeses mimeses is mimicking
reality
it reveals the artificial nature of narrative
and art its basically metafiction is basically
an anti anti illusionist mode of narrative
self consciousness the term used by william
h gass in an nineteen seventy essay philosophy
in the form of fiction ah talks about ah what
is the function of metafiction and what it
does it signals the kind of text that emphasizes
its status as a text metafiction is aware
of the fact that its fiction metafiction is
ah prime example of the self aware vibe we
often find in pose modernism its a pose modern
strait rather than trying to pass itself of
as a window on the world or slice of life
and disguise therefore its structure and techniques
metafiction lays its technique completely
thread bear as they say quote unquote laying
once carts on the table there are lots of
ways in which authors can create this effect
story with in a story making obvious references
to storytelling conventions talking to the
author ok calling attention to the process
of writing and reading all these are techniques
are very commonly used in this ah genre called
metafiction but not exactly a genre but this
device of metafiction
so this technique rather started to attract
a attention in the nineteen sixties when it
was used in classic texts such as john barths
lost in the fun house thomas pynchons the
crying of lot fourty nine and kurt vonneguts
slaughterhouse five a meta and all these novels
these are very important novels you should
know them the device the technique then read
the height of its popularity in the seventies
metafiction today has a spread out much wider
becoming a major part of pop culture but linda
hutcheon the postmodernism critic she came
up with her own term historiographic metafiction
historiographic metafiction you should know
if you come across this term think linda hutcheon
she uses it nineteen eighty eight the term
describes frictional text that bring history
into the mix a combo that makes us away from
the idea of history as fact and highlights
that writer can put their own spin on things
ok
so thats your metafiction our next concept
that i wanted to discuss was i already told
you about ah bill dungs roman that is coming
of age and quite related to this is picaresque
again picaresque is something that one usually
find in a english literature ah in competitive
exams focusing on english literature picaresque
novels the realistic fiction they originated
in spain one of the earliest was a fifteen
fifty four novel lazarilla de tormes and guzman
de alfarache which was in fifteen fifty nine
here the protagonist is a picaro a scoundrel
of low birth and evil life at war at struggle
with society
picaro is an independent character his or
her own man and gives us an autobiographical
account of adventures misfortunes and punishments
one common thread that runs through all these
narratives is that all picaros these are the
protagonist ah had a series of tyrannical
owners or masters it could be ah your boss
your superior your husband any one in a the
position of authoritiess are rebellion again
that kind of part structure in the picaro
how does a picaro get ah his or her way round
the world by cheating deceit sexual betrayal
all parts of his attempts to come up in life
or to break free from the authoritative repression
a picaresque novel is generally written in
episodic plot told by a narrator a narrator
who keeps on and on about that journey is
a constant feature a late motive a picaro
has to travel from one place to another and
get variety of sensations and experiences
they may be in prisons they may be executed
or may sale of to distant land they may be
in exile whatever so things happen to them
some of the great examples are danial defoes
moll flanders that we just did eighteen century
novel tobias somlletts rodrick random and
adventures of ferdinand count fathom more
recently patrik suskind perfume a novel that
is so beloved and so popular among current
generation think of indian novels also vikas
swarups q and a the slumdog millionaire was
based on it and arvind adigas white tigers
so these are adventures of a picaro
before i wind up i want you to have a look
at this slide how novel over the period of
several centurys evolved and found its way
novel in its recognizable form tale of genji
decameron fourteen century italy don quixote
gargantuan barabela philip sydneys arcadia
the elizabethan great poet and critic and
writer robinson crusoe walters scott jane
austens works in nineteenth century dickens
and thackeray george eliot bronte sisters
thomas hardy r l stevenson gai the maupassant
goethe these are the people responsible for
giving us novels in its recognizable form
these are the writers and the works you can
expect
look at the this slide also some of the major
novelist across the world melville hawthorne
james cooper mark twain tolstoy dostoevsky
are taken and clubbed all of all the masters
together i am not constrain or constrained
by or restricted by national geographic boundaries
dostoevsky gorky henry james flaubert h g
wells jules verne joseph conrad and also d
h lawrence virginia wolf aldous huxley e m
forster edith wharton hemingway erich maria
remarque all quite on the western front mikhail
sholokov thomas mann henry miller micheal
ondaatje that is very recent but then and
then the american greats a sinclair lewis
upton sinclair john steinbeck theodore dreiser
john updike f scott fitzgerald and saul bellow
so please look at all these writers to ace
an exam especially at an international level
is not going to be easy you one has to be
extremely well read so before we wind up i
am ah i would ah like you to look at this
particular video look at the slide here and
look at the link history of the novel it gives
you a nice overview its a lecture it gives
you an overview of how the novel evolved
thank you very much
