The concept of time in Modern Literature

Virginia Woolf and James Joyce

Reason for choosing the present path Time : very important theme in

literature;

Importance of the time in Virginia Woolf and James Joyce’s productions.

These ways of handling time are very similar possible connection between James Joyce and Virginia Woolf way of writing.

Problem posed and objective

PROBLEM Why time is so important during the Modern

Age?

OBJECTIVES To analyze the concept of time during the

Modern Age To comprehend the importance of time in the

Modern Age

Context End of XIX century reaction

against the self-satisfying morality and rigid orthodox respectability of the age The Anti-Victorian Reaction

New literary movements “Aesthetic Movement” its founder and theorist was Walter Pater .

Movement objective: to move art away from its traditional role as a teacher and moral guide art for art’s sake.

Walter Pater In Pater’s Studies In The History Of The

Renaissance(1873) time is like a river flowing towards death no way of seizing its reality to stop time through art and through the intensity of the ecstatic moment.

the full comprehension of life and destiny, time and art the only kind of success worth pursuing in life.

“To burn always with this hard, gem-like flame,

to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life” (W.Pater) the real purpose of life.

Artists express themselves freely not slaves of fixed moral and ethical conventions.

Walter Pater (1839-1894)

Henri Bergson Bergson’s main critique of the mechanistic view:

“It was the analysis of the notion of time, as that enters into mechanics and physics, which overturned all my ideas. I saw, to my great astonishment, that scientific time does not endure. This led me to change my point of view completely” (Encyc. Brit. article on Bergson)

Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness (1889) differences between lived time ‘real duration’ (durée réelle) – and the mechanistic time of science.

Time is perceived as a succession of separate constructs (just like seeing a film) succession of moments.

Henri Bergson (1859-1941)

James Joyce’s concept of time No plot, No story, No punctuation, no syntax

Past, present and future are blended in a single time psyche time

Facts are condensed in very few hours interior time is more important than the real time stream of consciousness narrative device to depict the different thoughts and feelings passing through the mind.

James Joyce’s intention: to report characters’ thoughts

An extract from James Joyce’s Ulysses Past:  […] the sun shines for you he

said the day we were lying among the rhododendrons on Howth head in the grey tweed suit and his straw hat the day I got him to propose to me yes […]

Present: what an unearthly hour I suppose theyre just getting up in China now combing out their pigtails for the day well soon have the nuns ringing the angelus […]

Future:  to put about the place in case he brings him home tomorrow today I mean no no Fridays an unlucky day  […] whatll I wear shall I wear a white rose or those fairy cakes in Liptons […]Ulysses, James Joyce

The disorder of the mind is represented by different features:

no organization into paragraphs, no punctuation, coordination is predominant.

Fusion between different times like past, present and future and between different locations Associations in Molly’s mind. the real voyage the one of the mind.

Virginia Woolf’s concept of time In Virginia Woolf’s literature, the mind has a very

important role it has different processes.

“Her endless search for the novel-form which would substitute the single time unit of the fleeting instant for the restful time sequence of days, months and years” (Mrs. Dalloway)

Two techiques:

Fixed subject in space and its consciousness moves in time (time-montage)

Fixed time and its spatial element changes (space-montage)

Use of the “stream of consciousness” perfect balance between her characters’ inner speculations and the realism of the situations.

An extract from Virginia Woolf’s Monday or Tuesday   Lazy and indifferent, shaking

space easily from his wings, knowing his way, the heron passes over the church beneath the sky. White and distant, absorbed in itself, endlessly the sky covers and uncovers, moves and remains. A lake? Blot the shores of it out! A mountain? Oh, perfect—the sun gold on its slopes. Down that falls. Ferns then, or white feathers, for ever and ever

Monday or Tuesday, Virginia Woolf

High density of contrasting verbs different actions take place at the same time time of psyche

Pressing rhythm “time flows like a river”.

“for ever and ever” a religious

concept of time belief in something after death.

Gustav Klimt’s concept of time Simbolism and Art Noveau The Kiss, Gustav Klimt The moment before the kiss

Klimt stops time and focalizes on a particular moment.

Walter Pater’s time art is the only way of stopping time through the intensity of the aesthatic moment.

Work by

Amedeo Noacco