ENGLISH LITERATURE & CULTURE ‘I’ IS ANOTHER: AUTOBIOGRAPHY ACROSS GENRES Camelia Elias

Charles Simic, 1938 poets.org Charles Simic and David Lehman Charles Simic and David Lehman griffin poetry prize  video on Shelley video on Shelley on the radio

aesthetics "At least since Emerson and Whitman, there's a cult of experience in American poetry. Our poets, when one comes right down to it, are always saying: This is what happened to me. This is what I saw and felt. Truth, they never get tired of reiterating, is not something that already exists in the world, but something that needs to be rediscovered almost daily.“EmersonWhitman "Poetry and Experience"

Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me; The carriage held but just ourselves And Immortality. We slowly drove, he knew no haste, And I had put away My labor, and my leisure too, For his civility. We passed the school, where children strove At recess, in the ring; We passed the fields of gazing grain, We passed the setting sun. Or rather, be passed us; The dews grew quivering and chill, For only gossamer my gown, My tippet only tulle. We paused before house that seemed A swelling of the ground; The roof was scarcely visible, The cornice but a mound. Since then 'tis centuries, and yet each Feels shorter than the day I first surmised the horses' heads Were toward eternity.

Autobiography Memoir (Bios: life in history; Autos: the self developed out of that history Deals with facts Claims to be objective Deals with an earlier period of time from the perspective of a relatively fixed later point Seeks to find coherence in the past Requires more knowledge of craft Employs the literary devices of the novel: structure, point of view, voice, character and story (Memoria (Lat.): memory; a note written in order to remember Subjective, reflective and philosophical Deals with moods and feeling Deals with any period of time and it does not necessarily follow a sequence of events More concerned with the present Requires skill if literary intended, but is does not rely on knowledge of structure Fragmented and experimental

Style academics engage in transactional writing: explain, report, inform, propose;  they view the work as a means to an end writers of other literary forms such as poetry, fiction and drama put themselves in the work: they reflect, explore, speculate, imagine, discover;  they view the work as an end in itself

Essayistic style self-discovery:  identify determined by belonging to a group self-exploration:  identity derived: belongs to a group that is different from other social classes surprise  at the existence of social hierarchies:  no paper/status, no value  no value, no recognition

tone intimate/personal conversational connective connecting styles:  digression  meandering  meditation  rumination  speculation

Filmic style Form:  cut-up technique  close ups  black and white/colour  social realist/fantasy/  noir/cowboy Content:  dramatic  distant, detached, understated  double awareness: all films are fictional but some are ‘really fictitious’ while others are fictitiously real

subjectivity through seduction Gene Tierney double awareness:  all films are fictional but some are ‘really fictitious’ while others are fictitiously real

Musical style jazz minor key melancholic nostalgic sentences are often off-beat

I was stolen by the gypsies. My parents stole me right back. Then the gypsies stole me again. This went on for some time. One minute I was in the caravan, suckling the dark teat of my new mother, the next I sat at the long dining room table eating my breakfast with a silver spoon. It was the first day of spring. One of my fathers was singing in the bathtub; the other one was painting a live sparrow the colors of a tropical bird.

Genre Memoir  Autobiography thinks about how one’s life is socially constructed a means of self-expression emphasizes personal and social growth shows development of insight occurs within social and cultural contexts and constraints demonstrates the relationship of autobiography to history and culture

The personal essay writing that relates to what happened to the author.  Narrative non-fiction relates facts and opinions, and tells a story.  It has a thesis, but it's rarely stated outright, and support for it is scattered throughout the work there are autobiographical scenes or moments to return to, which:  arrange themselves  are representative  are enduring

Autobiography as manifesto “Autobiography now has the potential to be the text of the oppressed and the culturally displaced, forging a right to speak both for and beyond the individual. People in a position of powerlessness – women, black people, working-class people – have more than begun to insert themselves into the culture via autobiography, via the assertion of a ‘personal’ voice, which speaks beyond itself” (Swindells in Anderson 1995: 7)

Discursive strategies the personal is political the personal is personal the personal is both political and personal  both ourselves and other people  both here and some place else  both poets and philosophers  identity is both socially constructed and individual

Wittgenstein “A perspicuous representation produces just that understanding which consists in seeing connexions” (Philosophical Investigations)

Characters mother: mediated descriptions father: filtered descriptions grandparents: reported descriptions (more nuance) (women) (brother) (friends)

Character relations provide certain implications:  ambiguity  superstition  atheism  contradictions  mystery  awe

Setting Yugoslavia: - the city  the streets (the country) France - the city  the streets (window shopping) America - the city  the streets (books)

Themes individuality non-conformity tolerance solitude eating poetry  poetry manifesto  identity (“here now, I am amazed to find myself living my life...”)  reality (“truth matters”)