Category: Literature
Narrative Coaching
When it comes to coaching models, it is certainly not the case that one size fits all. So far, the one that I like most is called Narrative Coaching. It’s described as a ‘mindful, experiential and holistic approach’ to shift my client’s stories thereby generating new options for desired change. The idea is that stories are not only central to life but they are … Read More Narrative Coaching
Magazine launch – for Ms T
Electional astrology is ‘the art of the possible’ – i.e. choosing the perfect moment to launch a particular project or event so as to give it the best chance of success. The idea is that the chart of the launch moment should symbolically reflect the nature and goals of the project as well as those of the person(s) responsible for it. The following chart has been elected by … Read More Magazine launch – for Ms T
Power and Promise – Utopian Propaganda & Orwell’s Animal Farm
In the preface to his Ukrainian Edition of Animal Farm, George Orwell says that his reason for writing the novel was to reveal what he believed to be the Soviet myth underlying Socialism – the political and economic model that he wholeheartedly embraced. According to Orwell, nothing had caused greater harm to the Socialist movement in England than that the majority of English people … Read More Power and Promise – Utopian Propaganda & Orwell’s Animal Farm
Re-Evaluation
With the Sun in Aries and the Moon in Scorpio, the energy of today and tomorrow is one of bored dissatisfaction. Little wonder you’re feeling disillusioned, uncertain.
But what are you going to do about it – that’s what you really need to know.
Prepare to receive riches
Although Venus (ruler of Taurus) bestows love and riches, Neptune (ruler of Pisces) might just ensure that it all slips quietly away again.
Psychoanalysis and Critical Literary Theory
There are several important ways in which both Freudian and Jungian psychoanalysis can serve as a model for literary analysis as for example looking for the subversive in women’s literature – i.e. that which is not explicitly stated (for any number of good reasons) but nonetheless is still present. Most certainly if Austen felt so constrained to so as not to publish her novels … Read More Psychoanalysis and Critical Literary Theory
Beginnings and Endings in Renaissance Drama
The ‘Argument’ and ‘Prologue’ in Jonson’s Renaissance comedy, Volpone, likewise works similarly to the Greek chorus – the ‘Argument’ preparing the audience for key moments to come by summarising the plot and, as did the ghostly chorus in Kyd, implying that justice will be done when at the end ‘all are sold’. The Prologue adds to this by suggesting that ‘our play’ will be a ‘hit’ as the result of the dramatists’ salty ink – with which he intends to ‘rub your cheeks’ till ‘red with laughter’. This is a clear signal that the play is not tragedy but comedy and satire.
The Institution of Marriage in English Renaissance Drama
Understanding the institution of marriage in this way, it becomes readily apparent that the romantic love that we in the 21st century so favour in relationships was not a key factor in the Renaissance equation.
The Plusses and Minuses of New Criticism
Further, if we accept that a text is an ‘aesthetic object’ (however TS Eliot and others might have us define that) then if we are to take anything valuable away from our ‘aesthetic experience’ , we need to focus on what it tells us about ourselves.
The Birth of Tragedy and other Cultural Lies
For Nietzsche, transformation was not simply a matter suspending audience disbelief, but instead allowing the audience to actually enter the world of the Greek god Dionysus, in whose realm lies all primordial truths and with it, the tragic suffering inherent in comprehending these truths.
Structuralism and the ‘New Perspective’ on Literature
As a feminist looking at texts through structuralist eyes, I am also able to hone in on sex-inflected signifiers pointing to specific patriarchal cultural values I am keen to eliminate.
New Historicism – the Relationship Between Literature and History
Rather like Michel Foucault, the New Historicist believes that words are power and that it is through words that we are ‘communicated’ into being. Those who would ‘normalise’ and ‘socialise’ us to their purposes can do this well with facts and reported events that support their goals.