Four excerpts for our current time
The Department of English has been sharing literary thoughts and quotations that may provide consolation and fortitude in this extraordinary period.
Marcel Duchamp’s Letter to his lover (a sculptor), 1946
Dr Vicky Greenaway (19th-century literature & visual arts) Head of Department
"I actually like being alone here in the studio. This solitude is, in fact, just a way of re-entering my own individuality and it gives me an illusion of freedom inside 4 walls. But there is room enough for two if you want to be as one with my freedom, and a greater freedom still will come of it, as yours will protect and foster mine, and mine yours, I hope."
Duchamp embraces the solitude of his studio space as an opportunity to connect with his creative identity. Not all of us are lucky enough to have a designated study-space set apart at this time (my dining-room table/a desk in my bedroom is mine!) but we may try to make lemonade out of lemons here. I'm thinking of the lockdown as an opportunity to dial-down the everyday noise and distractions that often keep me from personal goals and as a chance to 're-enter my own individuality' and claim that focus back.
An excerpt from the Old English poem, Deor.
Dr Jenny Neville (Old English)
"We geascodan Eormanrices
wylfenne geþoht; ahte wide folc
Gotena rices. Þæt wæs grim cyning.
Sæt secg monig sorgum gebunden,
wean on wenan, wyscte geneahhe
þæt þæs cynerices ofercumen wære.
Þæs ofereode, þisses swa mæg!
We heard about the wolfish intention of Eormanric, who had far-reaching control over the people of the Goths. That was a grim king! Many sat bound with sorrows, in expectation of woe. They wished frequently that his rule was overcome. That passed. This can, too!
Substitute 'Corona Virus' for 'Eormanic', and it works pretty well, I think.
William Faulkner’s theme of endurance
Dr Ahmed Honeini (20th-century literature, Visiting Tutor)
American modernist William Faulkner was fascinated by the idea of "endurance". In many of his key works, from The Sound and the Fury (1929) to Absalom, Absalom! (1936) and beyond, Faulkner emphasised the need for humanity to endure the hardship, stress, and uncertainty experienced throughout the world during the nineteenth- and twentieth-centuries, including World Wars, widespread poverty, and global economic breakdown.
Faulkner himself was no stranger to life's trials and tribulations. He lived for many years in precarious work, supporting his family through odd jobs while he wrote. By the late 1940s, all of his novels were out of print. However, following the publication of The Portable Faulkner, his reputation both in the United States and abroad skyrocketed, culminating in his being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950.
To conclude this entry, here are some extracts from Faulkner's acceptance speech, which you can find in full here. I hope his words give you some measure of support and reassurance for the difficult days ahead of us (excused the dated, gender-biased language!):
"Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained that by now we can even bear it. [...] I decline to accept the end of man. [...] I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's duty is to write about those things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail."
Shakespeare's The Tempest
Dr Deana Rankin (Early Modern literature & theatre)
It’s not just about Netflix, Prime and Box sets… you could be watching theatre and dance archives, visiting virtual museums around the world, designing your own Shakespeare manga…
Drama Online (available via the Royal Holloway library for staff and students) is a terrific resource. It also now incorporates the National Theatre Collection, the archive of NT Live performances.
Last week BBC Front Row asked actor Sam West to perform a speech – any speech – for these strange times. He hesitated between two Shakespeare plays, King Lear and The Tempest: the two plays at the heart of our MA English Shakespeare course. The reports of clear skies, clean air and birdsong in Wuhan city as it emerges from quarantine, prompted West finally to choose Caliban’s speech from The Tempest (listen from 24:06)…
"Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked,
I cried to dream again. (3.2.)"
