Major Themes of 20th century narrative prose

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Major Themes of 20th century narrative prose

• Formal aspects narrative perspective, innovation
• Thematic aspects difficult relationship of
  marginalized individual to society,
  socio-political engagement of literature,
  engagement with history.

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Discuss the significance of narrative perspective
in at least TWO of the works you have read for
this course.

• Traditional omniscient third-person narration
• Focalisation stream of consciousness
• Unreliable narrators
• Different levels of narration
• What is the effect?

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In their attempts to write about an increasingly
complex reality, writers in the twentieth century
have consistently gone beyond realism.
(S. Craven). Discuss with reference to at
least TWO of the works you have read for this
course.

• Modernist fiction is experimental or
  innovatory in form, displaying marked deviations
  from preexisting modes of discourse, literary and
  non-literary. Modernist fiction is concerned with
  consciousness, and also with the subconscious and
  unconscious workings of the mind To
  compensate for the diminution of narrative
  structure and unity, alternative methods of
  aesthetic ordering become more prominent, such as
  allusion to or imitation of literary models or
  mythical archetypes, and the repetition-with-varia
  tion of motifs, images, symbols . Modernist
  fiction eschews the straight chronological
  ordering of its material and the use of a
  reliable, omniscient and intrusive narrator. It
  employs, instead, either a single, limited point
  of view or a method of multiple points of view
  .
• David Lodge, The Modes of Modern Writing

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. In twentieth-century German literature, art
is not about art for art's sake, but is
increasingly concerned with the social, indeed
the political (G. Schirr).
Discuss with reference to at least TWO of the
works you have read for this course

• Thomas Mann social critique?
• The politicization of literature in GDR
• The politicization of literature in West Germany
• The representation of history?

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Discuss the presentation of EITHER the
outsider OR the artist in at least TWO of the
works of narrative prose you have read for this
course.

• Why is literature so interested in marginal
  figures?
• They allow it to show the functioning of
  conformity, and non-conformity.
• Marginal figures are generally more sympathetic?

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Revision strategies

• Make notes on each book. Note what you still
  dont understand about each book bring these
  questions to the revision seminar in January
  (Thursday 13th, 1.30-2.30, A26) which will focus
  on essay strategies.
• Read secondary literature about the books.
• Condense your notes down to key ideas / themes /
  characters you associate with each book.