Back to the Future

FL 200

We are always going to be working on a back-and-forth fashion with the texts we discuss. Quite often we need to go back before we can go forward. Such is the case tomorrow.
I want to go over some of the points raised in the 6 chapters that we read for Tuesday.
Make sure that you think about these.

Be prepared to dazzle your peers and me with your insights on the following points as well as on the assigned reading for tomorrow.


CHAPTER I
[5] "Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know,"
What can this mean in aesthetic, social, sexual, and political terms, etc.

CHAPTER II
[25] A late XIXth C. carpe diem cult? “A new Hedonism-- that is what our century wants.”
What can this mean in aesthetic, social, sexual, and political terms, etc.

CHAPTER III
[40] Harry’s project: - “To project one's soul into some gracious form, and let it tarry there for a moment…”

CHAPTER IV
[57] What are the implications of this intrusion of theatre in the realm of the novel?

CHAPTER V
[81] Sibyl’s mother and her son: “The exaggerated folly of the threat, the passionate gesture that accompanied it, the mad melodramatic words, made life seem more vivid to her. She was familiar with the atmosphere. She breathed more freely, and for the first time for many months she really admired her son. She would have liked to have continued the scene on the same emotional scale, but he cut her short.”
Comment on Sibyl’s mom take on theatrical effects as opposed to her daughter’s.

CHAPTER VI
[85]Sibyl as Rosalind: “Sibyl was playing Rosalind. Of course, the scenery was dreadful and the Orlando absurd. “But Sibyl! You should have seen her! When she came on in her boy's clothes, she was perfectly wonderful. She wore a moss-coloured velvet jerkin with cinnamon sleeves, slim, brown, cross-gartered hose, a dainty little green cap with a hawk's feather caught in a jewel, and a hooded cloak lined with dull red. She had never seemed to me more exquisite. She had all the delicate grace of that Tanagra figurine that you have in your studio, Basil. Her hair clustered round her face like dark leaves round a pale rose.”
Why does Sibyl as Rosalind move Dorian so powerfully?