Desirèe Mosca VA

Nature in Modern Literature

Aims of the path

Examine in depth Modern literature Find connections between texts Train in view of the final examination

Reasons for the path

Nature as a recurring theme in literture

↓

Why? Interest in symbolism of flowers

Natural references in J.Joyce’s Ulysses

Natural references in V.Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway

Natural references in G.D’Annunzio’s La pioggia nel pineto

Natural references in O.Wildes’s The Picture of Dorian Gray

My path…

Extracts from Molly’s interior monologue

… of course a nice plant for the middle of the table Id get that cheaper in wait wheres this I saw them not long ago I love flowers Id love to have the whole place swimming in roses God of heaven theres nothing like nature the wild mountains then the sea and the waves rushing then the beautiful country with the fields of oats and wheat and all kinds of things and all the fine cattle going about that would do your heart good to see rivers and lakes and flowers all sorts of shapes and smells and colours springing up even out of the ditches primroses and violets nature it is…

What? purpose to adorn the house appreciation of Nature

How? flux of thoughts: inside outside small big abolition of spatial distance

expression of opinion and feelings language of sense impression (sight, hearing)

repetition (I love, flowers)

adjectives (nice, fine, wild, beautiful)

Why? involvement

partecipation

influence

evocation

imagination

…they might as well try to stop the sun from rising tomorrow the sun shines for you he said the day we were lying among the rhododendrons on Howth head…

…he said I was a flower of the mountain yes so we are flowers all a womans body yes that was one true thing he said in his life and the sun shines for you today yes that was why I liked him because I saw he understood or felt what a woman is …

What? memories: quotation situation

reflections and judgements

pair Love/Nature Woman/Flower

How? repetition of key words (sun, flowers, woman)

repetition of formulas (yes, that was)

Why? multiple roles of Nature: source for collective imagination

setting of sweet memories

…and O that awful deepdown torrent O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and the pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall …

What? memories: landscape and atmosphere

pair: Nature/Human being (Gibraltar, girl; Molly, flower)

How? focus on colors (red passion)

adjectives (awful, glorious)

geographical, botanical and anthropological references

passion for detail

personification (Gibraltar as a girl)

Why? realism

floral symbolism: rose, jessamine love

geranium aristocracy

multiple interpretations

Extracts from Mrs.Dalloway

There were flowers: delphiniums, sweet peas, bunches of lilac; and carnations, masses of carnations. There were roses; there were irises. Ah yes — so she breathed in the earthy garden sweet smell as she stood talking to Miss Pym who owed her help, and thought her kind, for kind she had been years ago; very kind, but she looked older, this year, turning her head from side to side among the irises and roses and nodding tufts of lilac with her eyes half closed, snuffing in, after the street uproar, the delicious scent, the exquisite coolness.

What? Mrs. Dalloway’s behavior at the florist

How? botanical refereces

appeal to senses (sight, smell)

adjectives (awful, glorious)

Why? realism

characterisation information about the protagonist

And then, opening her eyes, how fresh like frilled linen clean from a laundry laid in wicker trays the roses looked; and dark and prim the red carnations, holding their heads up; and all the sweet peas spreading in their bowls, tinged violet, snow white, pale — as if it were the evening and girls in muslin frocks came out to pick sweet peas and roses after the superb summer’s day, with its almost blue-black sky, its delphiniums, its carnations, its arum lilies was over; and it was the moment between six and seven when every flower — roses, carnations, irises, lilac — glows; white, violet, red, deep orange; every flower seems to burn by itself, softly, purely in the misty beds; and how she loved the grey-white moths spinning in and out, over the cherry pie, over the evening primroses!

How? simile

focus on colors

personification of flowers

Why? evocative power of nature

Extracts from La pioggia nel pineto

What? evocation of a superhuman experience

How? botanical refereces

appeal to senses (sight, hearing)

adjectives

Why? metamorphosis

variety of nature

greatness of the experience

Ascolta. Piovedalle nuvole sparse.Piove su le tamericisalmastre ed arse,piove su i piniscagliosi ed irti,piove su i mirtidivini,su le ginestre fulgentidi fiori accolti,su i ginepri foltidi coccole aulenti,piove su i nostri voltisilvani,piove su le nostre maniignude,su i nostri vestimentileggieri,su i freschi pensieriche l'anima schiudenovella

E il pinoha un suono, e il mirtoaltro suono, e il gineproaltro ancóra, stromentidiversisotto innumerevoli dita.E immersinoi siam nello spirtosilvestre,d'arborea vita viventi;e il tuo volto ebroè molle di pioggiacome una foglia,e le tue chiomeauliscono comele chiare ginestre,o creatura terrestreche hai nomeErmione.

How? botanical refereces

appeal to senses (sight, hearing)

metaphor

simile

Why? metamorphosis

power of nature

properties of plants

bound Nature/Human being

The studio was filled with the rich odor of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn. From the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on which he was lying, smoking, as usual, innumerable cigarettes, Lord Henry Wotton could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-colored blossoms of the laburnum, whose tremulous branches seemed hardly able to bear the burden of a beauty so flame-like as theirs; and now and then the fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across the long tussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of the huge window, producing a kind of momentary Japanese effect, and making him think of those pallid jade-faced painters who, in an art that is necessarily immobile, seek to convey the sense of swiftness and motion.

Extract from The Picture of Dorian Gray

What? description of a scene

How? botanical refereces

appeal to senses (sight,smell)

passion for detail

Why? power of sensation pleasure

Summing up…

Nature

Setting Evocative Vehicle of emotions

Incitement to feelings

Life Beauty

Part of collective imagination