Modernism: Close Reading and Comparative Explication

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Modernism Close Reading and Comparative
Explication
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Faulkner

• My ambition, is to put everything into one
  sentence not only the present but the whole
  past on which it depends and which keeps
  overtaking the present, second by second.
  (Kenner 198)

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Hemingway

• All you have to do is write one true sentence.
  Write the truest sentence that you know.
  (Kenner 144)

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Faulkner Hemingway

• Both writers are working at the syntactical level
  when they refer to the sentence.
• We will begin a close and comparative explication
  of both writers

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Faulkner Hemingway

• Comparative Explication An explication is a
  detailed analysis.   To Explicate means to
  unfold to give a detailed explanation of to
  develop the implications of to analyze logically
  and apply your analysis toward theme.
• Technique toward theme at the level of the
  artists diction and syntax is our goal.
• Our comparative explication will focus on
  commonalities among modernist writers. These
  commonalities can be based on themes or
  macrostructures or of microstructural elements
  such as diction and syntax. Find an aspect of
  modernism that can help you find intertextuality.
  

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Faulkner

• Theme The disjointedness of modern society.
• What you seeing. Fronny whispered.
• I saw them. Then I saw Caddy, with flowers in
  her hair, and a long veil like shining wind.
  Caddy Caddy
• Hush. T. P. said. They going to hear you.
  Get down quick. He pulled me. Caddy. I clawed
  my hands against the wall Caddy. (The Sound and
  the Fury 39)
• Diction repetition of name Caddy
• Syntax figurative language a long veil like
  shining wind consonance and assonance repeated
  consonant and vowel sounds

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Hemingway

• Theme The disjointedness of modern society.
• While the bombardment was knocking the trench to
  pieces at Fossalta, he lay very flat and sweated
  and prayed oh jesus christ get me out of here.
  Dear jesus please get me out. Christ please
  please please christ. If youll only keep me
  from getting killed Ill do anything you say. I
  believe in you and Ill tell every one in the
  world that you are the only one that matters.
  Please please dear jesus. The shelling moved
  further up the line. We went to work on the
  trench and in the morning the sun came up and the
  day was hot and muggy and cheerful and quiet.
  The next night back at Mestre he did not tell the
  girl he went upstairs with at theVilla Rossa
  about Jesus. And he never told anybody. (In Our
  Time 67)
• Diction repetition of name jesus also notice
  the alteration of conventional capitalization
• Syntax conjunction junction what is your
  function five times the word and is used, We
  went to work

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Modernism Academic Writing Prompt

• Your academic essay for this term should deal
  with comparative explications within the scope of
  modernist technique.
• The Sound and the Fury is our primary text. You
  should seek out another modernist work that will
  help you show intertextuality. (In Our Time, The
  Waste Land, The Great Gatsby, Paterson)
• Be sure that you remember our technique towards
  theme strategy.
• The paper will be 6-8 pages long, double spaced
  in a standard 12 point font.
• MLA format should be followed.
• You should have at least three other secondary
  sources cited in addition to the primary text.
• The paper will be due at the beginning of class
  on Friday, January 5.

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Hemingway

• But sometimes when I was starting a new story and
  I could not get it going, I would sit in front of
  the fire an squeeze the peel of the little
  oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the
  sputter of blue that they made. I would stand
  and look out over the roofs of Paris and think,
  Do not worry. You have always written and you
  will write now. All you have to do is write one
  true sentence. Write the truest sentence that
  you know. So finally I would write one true
  sentence, and then go on from there. It was easy
  then because there was always one true sentence
  that I knew or had seen or had heard someone say.
  (Hemingway from A Movable Feast)

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Faulkner

• An artist seeks to reduce all that he has
  experienced to one single tone or color or word,
  which is impossible. And the obscurity, the
  prolixity which you find in writing is simply
  that desire to put all that experience into one
  word. Then he has got to add another word,
  another word becomes a sentence, but he is still
  trying to get it into one unstopping whole a
  paragraph or a page -- before he finds a place
  to put a full stop. (an interview with Faulkner)