Englishness and Ideology

Ideology and Englishness.

Ideology is THE central issue of the course and from now on the course is based round that.

Brainstorm from class

Typical English - cricket, clubs, patriotism, tea, stiff upper lip, class, public school, bowler hat, sexual repression, village green.

Then Roy asked us if anyone played cricket - no hands went up, who drank tea, not everyone, who went to public school, not one.

Point made, the above do not apply to people in general.

These images have come from male, middle-class - dominant ideology.

These issues are deeply ideological and symbolic of the ruling classes.

They do not take into account that 5l% of the population is female.

Marxism: These ideas are generated by a small group of people usually people with wealth and power - very small group of people.

Ideology - a group of ideas, offered by a small group of people who persuade the other people to accept these ideas to keep them in power.

Course assignment

Graham Greene's England Made Me - the title is ironic - book challenges notions of patriotism - Anthony is shiftless, protagonist. Krogh, the foreigner is the most ruthless, still a good few things left in the English character.

Read A Room of One's Own and Three Guineas

Waugh was Right wing, G Greene Left wing.  Wodehouse right wing, prosecuted during war for propaganda - Jeeves and Wooster stories comic inversion, servant more sense than master.

'How to Get on in Society' - John Betjeman  critique of a particular class, making fun of subject matter middle class aspiring to be at a higher station.

Language, class code, class anxiety, false consciousness.

People get the code wrong, new money.

Poem written from a knowing position, Betjeman is saying I know the code, middle-middle class say 'toilet', upper middle class say 'lavatory', couch - sofa  etc.

If you are going to use poetry in your next assignment, chose three or four poems if they are short, this constitutes one 'text'.

A short story can be a text as it is a genre in its own right but you cannot use a short story and have a novel as the other genre.

Feedback to students on course assignment

1. There is no need to imagine what reactions to a text would have been at its first publication. Your answer should be based on your reading of the text.

2. Deal with the topics in the question. Don't just repeat the material in the course materials.

3. Put your own argument first. Then explain it in relation to the question. Then discuss examples in the text.

4. Start every paragraph with a statement directly related to the topic in question.

5. Attribute your quotations. That is, if you are going to use a quotation from a secondary source such as the course materials or criticism from the course Reader - you should say who you are quoting.

6. When you are asked to discuss two texts (or more) it is always safer to discuss them separately. You do not need to compare them unless the question specifically asks you to do so.

Feedback on last assignment

Too many people focused too much attention on re-explaining Modernism in their introductions - not necessary.

There is no need to imagine that you are the first ever reader of the work - the tutor knows the books.

Stick to the question topic(s).

A paragraph should introduce the topic in the opening sentence and deal with one topic only.

Avoid repeating the question.

Quotations - not enough to say quote is from course materials -  say who wrote that part of the course.

Please put the correct postage on the envelopes.

Some students had tried to discuss the two texts at the same time - advised not to do that.