ENGL206 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Incest, Nuremberg, Malignancy
Document Summary
History, perversity and the gothic: how does literature change things, 20th c shift of cultural context, feels different/ not as playful. Context/ history: post-wwi de ning act and catastrophe of devastating century. Modes of the heroic in popular culture, 1920-1950: fantasies of power vs the inevitability of corruption: golden age detective ction: the god detective; restoration of order, crime doesn"t pay ; agatha. Christie, dorothy sayers; hard-boiled/noir detective ction: raymond chandler, dashiell. Between the wars, the slaughter of wwi and the build-up to wwii: 1923 - hitler"s beer hall, 1935 - mein kampf", the great depression 1929 - late 1930s. Casualties of war: wwi: 8. 5 million killed, wwi: 60 million killed, 6 million jews killed; 4-6 million non-jews, ptsd, jamaica inn is written during the build-up of mass, state sponsored murder as an arm of politics. Margaret atwood, on virago"s 30th birthday": they took on the task - of women"s writing , women"s writing was an oxymoron.