Weekly 10 | Introduction to the Study of English Literature

2202234 Introduction to the Study of English Literature

Semester I, 2010

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Weekly 10

Introductions

1. The first of the three epigraphs introducing A Month in the Country is Samuel Johnson’s 1755 definition of this genre of fiction: “A novel—a small tale, generally of love.” E. M. Forster, in his 1927 Aspects of the Novel ventures the following, quoting a French critic: “‘a fiction in prose of a certain extent’ (une fiction en prose d’une certaine étendue)…and we may perhaps go so far as to add that the extent should not be less than 50,000 words” (6). Read the beginning excerpt of Terry Eagleton’s chapter “What Is a Novel?” at the back of this weekly for his explanation why people have been so comically vague in describing the genre. Have you come across a definition or quote about the novel form that you like? Please share the quote that you have found below.

2. Translate the old man’s northern dialect into standard English: “Thoo’s ga-ing ti git rare an’ soaked reet doon ti thi skin, maister” (1).

3. Consider Birkin’s arrival at Oxgodby and his arrival at the church. If the former makes him feel like entering “enemy country” (1), how does coming face to face with this “off-the-peg job” make him feel (2)? How does the language of the old man and the stationmaster on one hand, and the language of masonry on the other affect the narrator? the reader?

4. Though the stationmaster’s “I hope it’s there” gives the impression of uncertainty, Birkin’s discovery of the church and its interior is “by and large…what [he]’d guessed it might be” (3). How does the narrator’s detection compare to Moon’s “Why, I saw at once what was here” (17)? If “he knew exactly where he’d find the grave” (18) and Birkin “knew it [the hidden mural] was a Judgment” (10), what are the two experts doing in Oxgodby?

5. And then, God help me, on my first morning, in the first few minutes of my first morning, I felt that this alien northern countryside was friendly, that I’d turned a corner and that this summer of 1920, which was to smoulder on until the first leaves fell, was to be a propitious season of living, a blessed time. (12)

Why is this such a momentous turning point for the narrator? What things are different before and after this moment?

6. Birkin says, “I never exchanged a word with the Colonel” (20), and if “he has no significance at all in what happened during my stay in Oxgodby,” why is he mentioned in the novel at all?

7. How are characters introduced? What difference, if any, is there between first impressions and later acquaintance? What parallels or contrasts are there in Birkin’s perceptions regarding people and his readings of paintings?