-- Today and Thursday we will discuss roughly the first half of Dos Passos' novel 1919. Page 188 takes us to the end of "Meester Veelson."
E-mail assignment #1: This first one will be easy. Submit a 200-300
word general response to any aspect of the first half of 1919. What issues
come to the fore in your reading? For example: what do you make of the novel's stylistic
elements -- the impressionistic, associative style of the "Camera Eye" sections;
the fragmentary, channel-surfing approach of the "Newsreel" sections; the
poetic/telegrammatic style of the biographical sections ("Playboy," "Randolphe
Bourne," "The Happy Warrior," "A Hoosier Quixote," "Meester Veelson"); the oddly
quasi-dialect narratives of Joe Williams, Dick Savage, and Eveline Hutchins? How
do you read the mixes these styles? What do you make of the kinds of lives we see
in Joe, Dick, and Eveline? How do you read the shifting foci of the novel -- that
on both the "ordinary" individuals of the narrative and the "notable" individuals
of the biographies; the continual shifting of the Newsreel sections; the broad
historical sweep throughout the novel and the hyperfocus of the subjective
"Camera Eye"?
Send to my own e-mail, nickym@melczarek.net,
with the subject line of your last name and Response #1. (Future responses will
be more directed, with specified issues.)
-- we will continue our discussion of 1919.
-- we will continue our discussion of 1919.
DUE WEDNESDAY 1/29/03 E-mail assignment #2: (no less than 300 words, and no padding,
waffling, or b.s.ing) respond to any one of the topics listed
below. Send to my own e-mail, nickym@melczarek.net,
with the subject line of your last name and Response #2. In your response,indicate to which topic
you respond, by number.
What do you make of
1) the non-human "characters" in the novel? Standard Oil, U.S. industry, the
growing Socialist and Communist movements, and others -- these institutions take
on an uncanny life of their own, sometimes in the background like other
characters, but always there. How do they motivate the action in the
novel? What kind of "characters" do they play, as Dos Passos presents them
in the novel? (Focus on one specific example and discuss it for the 300+ words.)
2) the work of "echoing" in the novel: characters who pick up each other's
lines or stock phrases, parallels between Dos Passos' life as presented in the
"Camera Eye" sections and the lives of his fictional characters or the public
figures we see in the biography sections? (Provide at least three
examples.) What examples do you see that we didn't indicate in class?
3) the brief moments of "beauty" or "meaning" scattered through the text,
amid depictions of utter arbitrariness, aimlessness, and superficiality?
(Provide at least three examples.) How does Dos Passos integrate/insert these scenes or images? What effect do they achieve? To what might they draw our attention?
-- In the first portion of class we will end our discussion of 1919.
-- In the second portion of class we will begin our discussion of Faulkner, attending his place in the Modernist canon.