User:Sherrilledwards/sandbox: Difference between revisions

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The epigraphs speak of the role of fiction in our lives. For Mailer, paradoxically, good fiction nourishes “our sense of reality.” For Hemingway, fiction “may throw some light” on the facts. The strange relationship between fiction and fact seems linked with Modernism—and the problematic nature of “reality.” I call this the rhetoric of Modernism. But is that rhetoric—seen in the Modern novel—necessarily linked with secularization? Pericles Lewis suggests that it may be the following:

<blockquote>If the novel is indeed the art form of secularization, “the representative art-form of our age” in Lukács’s words, and if modernity is indeed a secular age, then we could expect the modern novel to be doubly secular. {{sfn|Lukács|1971|p=93}} Many major novels of the early twentieth century do in fact seem to represent a “world that has been abandoned by God,” inasmuch as virtually none of their characters expresses any concrete religious faith and no gods intervene in the course of the action.{{sfn|Lewis|2010|p=673}}{{efn|“Novels of the period that do address theological themes more directly seem to be excluded from the modernist canon precisely because of their express interest in religion . . .” (Lewis 690)}} </blockquote>

<blockquote>If the novel is indeed the art form of secularization, “the representative art-form of our age” in Lukács’s words, and if modernity is indeed a secular age, then we could expect the modern novel to be doubly secular. {{sfn|Lukács|1971|p=93}} Many major novels of the early twentieth century do in fact seem to represent a “world that has been abandoned by God,” inasmuch as virtually none of their characters expresses any concrete religious faith and no gods intervene in the course of the action.{{sfn|Lewis|2010|p=673}}{{efn|“Novels of the period that do address theological themes more directly seem to be excluded from the modernist canon precisely because of their express interest in religion . . .”{{sfn|Lewis|2010|p=690}}}} </blockquote>

But does the novel represents a world “abandoned by God”—or is this statement more hyperbole than argument? Either way, how do we explain these vestiges of God-language? Is this merely etymology—like using ''Wednesday'' without necessarily invoking the god ''Woden?'' I suggest that God language has more significance than that. But what is the rhetoric of Modernism? Here are two samples.

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Two decades later, a parallel to Hemingway’s rhetoric is Norman Mailer’s ''The Naked and the Dead.''{{sfn|Mailer|1948}} Toward the end of the novel, we find two sentences: “Quite naturally he assumed the point and led the platoon toward the pass. A half hour later, Lieutenant Hearn was killed by a machine gun bullet which passed through his chest.”{{sfn|Mailer|1948|p=602}} Like Hemingway, the language is sparse and fragmented, the tone objective. There is human rationality in one sentence and violent, irrational death in the next. Yet, the irrationality of Lt.Hearn’s death comes through the exercise of all too rational choices by others—those who designed and manufactured the machine gun and bullet, the Japanese soldier who fired the fatal shot, and the murderous machinations of Staff Sergeant Croft that led Hearn to that particular point.

The ~~GreatWar~~ was to be “the war to end all wars.” History demonstrated that proposition to be false. World War Two extrapolated dramatically the horrors of 1914–1918, particularly in the Holocaust and Hiroshima. Here is revealed a demonic rationality, applied with supreme efficiency to the killing of human beings—on a scale not before seen. Label it postmodern, post-Christian, or post-human, there is no doubt that the world described by Hemingway had—by the time of Mailer—become ''more'' irrational, sinister, and far darker. As goes the world, so goes literary form.

The Great War was to be “the war to end all wars.” History demonstrated that proposition to be false. World War Two extrapolated dramatically the horrors of 1914–1918, particularly in the Holocaust and Hiroshima. Here is revealed a demonic rationality, applied with supreme efficiency to the killing of human beings—on a scale not before seen. Label it postmodern, post-Christian, or post-human, there is no doubt that the world described by Hemingway had—by the time of Mailer—become ''more'' irrational, sinister, and far darker. As goes the world, so goes literary form.

These vignettes, a quarter century apart, illustrate the Modernist rhetoric of Hemingway and Mailer. For both authors, they mark a beginning, a revelation, a new Genesis. One thing is clear: unlike the biblical Genesis, there is an absence of traditional concepts of God, a sense of Providence, a rational universe. We have left the Garden. Many have written on religious themes in Hemingway and in Mailer: certainly, the themes exist and can be discussed.{{efn|Recent articles include Buske (2002), Stoneback (2003), Lewis (2004), Stolzfus (2005), Adamowski (2005), Kroupi (2008), Bernstein (2008), Cappell (2008), Sipiora (2008), and Whalen-Bridge and Oon (2009).}} But I would like to examine the overall matrix of Modernity in which those themes are embedded, focusing on the disenchantment of the world.

=== Notes ===

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 The epigraphs speak of the role of fiction in our lives. For Mailer, paradoxically, good fiction nourishes “our sense of reality.” For Hemingway, fiction “may throw some light” on the facts. The strange relationship between fiction and fact seems linked with Modernism—and the problematic nature of “reality.” I call this the rhetoric of Modernism. But is that rhetoric—seen in the Modern novel—necessarily linked with secularization? Pericles Lewis suggests that it may be the following:
-<blockquote>If the novel is indeed the art form of secularization, “the representative art-form of our age” in Lukács’s words, and if modernity is indeed a secular age, then we could expect the modern novel to be doubly secular. {{sfn|Lukács|1971|p=93}} Many major novels of the early twentieth century do in fact seem to represent a “world that has been abandoned by God,” inasmuch as virtually none of their characters expresses any concrete religious faith and no gods intervene in the course of the action.{{sfn|Lewis|2010|p=673}}{{efn|“Novels of the period that do address theological themes more directly seem to be excluded from the modernist canon precisely because of their express interest in religion . . .” (Lewis 690)}} </blockquote>
+<blockquote>If the novel is indeed the art form of secularization, “the representative art-form of our age” in Lukács’s words, and if modernity is indeed a secular age, then we could expect the modern novel to be doubly secular. {{sfn|Lukács|1971|p=93}} Many major novels of the early twentieth century do in fact seem to represent a “world that has been abandoned by God,” inasmuch as virtually none of their characters expresses any concrete religious faith and no gods intervene in the course of the action.{{sfn|Lewis|2010|p=673}}{{efn|“Novels of the period that do address theological themes more directly seem to be excluded from the modernist canon precisely because of their express interest in religion . . .”{{sfn|Lewis|2010|p=690}}}} </blockquote>
 But does the novel represents a world “abandoned by God”—or is this statement more hyperbole than argument? Either way, how do we explain these vestiges of God-language? Is this merely etymology—like using ''Wednesday'' without necessarily invoking the god ''Woden?'' I suggest that God language has more significance than that. But what is the rhetoric of Modernism? Here are two samples.
@@ Line 29: / Line 29: @@
 Two decades later, a parallel to Hemingway’s rhetoric is Norman Mailer’s ''The Naked and the Dead.''{{sfn|Mailer|1948}} Toward the end of the novel, we find two sentences: “Quite naturally he assumed the point and led the platoon toward the pass. A half hour later, Lieutenant Hearn was killed by a machine gun bullet which passed through his chest.”{{sfn|Mailer|1948|p=602}} Like Hemingway, the language is sparse and fragmented, the tone objective. There is human rationality in one sentence and violent, irrational death in the next. Yet, the irrationality of Lt.Hearn’s death comes through the exercise of all too rational choices by others—those who designed and manufactured the machine gun and bullet, the Japanese soldier who fired the fatal shot, and the murderous machinations of Staff Sergeant Croft that led Hearn to that particular point.
-The GreatWar was to be “the war to end all wars.” History demonstrated that proposition to be false. World War Two extrapolated dramatically the horrors of 1914–1918, particularly in the Holocaust and Hiroshima. Here is revealed a demonic rationality, applied with supreme efficiency to the killing of human beings—on a scale not before seen. Label it postmodern, post-Christian, or post-human, there is no doubt that the world described by Hemingway had—by the time of Mailer—become ''more'' irrational, sinister, and far darker. As goes the world, so goes literary form.
+The Great War was to be “the war to end all wars.” History demonstrated that proposition to be false. World War Two extrapolated dramatically the horrors of 1914–1918, particularly in the Holocaust and Hiroshima. Here is revealed a demonic rationality, applied with supreme efficiency to the killing of human beings—on a scale not before seen. Label it postmodern, post-Christian, or post-human, there is no doubt that the world described by Hemingway had—by the time of Mailer—become ''more'' irrational, sinister, and far darker. As goes the world, so goes literary form.
+These vignettes, a quarter century apart, illustrate the Modernist rhetoric of Hemingway and Mailer. For both authors, they mark a beginning, a revelation, a new Genesis. One thing is clear: unlike the biblical Genesis, there is an absence of traditional concepts of God, a sense of Providence, a rational universe. We have left the Garden. Many have written on religious themes in Hemingway and in Mailer: certainly, the themes exist and can be discussed.{{efn|Recent articles include Buske (2002), Stoneback (2003), Lewis (2004), Stolzfus (2005), Adamowski (2005), Kroupi (2008), Bernstein (2008), Cappell (2008), Sipiora (2008), and Whalen-Bridge and Oon (2009).}} But I would like to examine the overall matrix of Modernity in which those themes are embedded, focusing on the disenchantment of the world.
 === Notes ===