C. CLAUSS
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Hamlet, 1601, III, 1 "To be or not to be: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them? To die, to sleep: No more; and by a sleep to say we end the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause: there's the respect that makes calamity of so long life For who would bear the whips and scorns of time (…) But the dread of something after death (…)" The full so"liloquy by David Tennant (2009): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v= 1u8OlUS7BhU and by Mel Gibson (1990) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v= Vf2TpWsPvgI VIRGINIA WOOLF "Modern fiction", 1919 "Life is a luminous halo, a semitransparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end. Is it not the task of the novelist to convey this varying, this unknown and uncircumscribed spirit whatever aberration or complexity it may display? Let us record the atoms as they fall upon the mind in the order in which they fall, let us trace the pattern, however disconnected and incoherent in appearance, which each sight or incident scores upon the consciousness." A documentary on Virginia Woolf https://www.youtube.com/watch?v =2Hnlsh8WyPE
QUOTE / UNQUOTE 7 William Shakespeare (1564-1616) – an English poet and playwright. Hamlet is a revenge tragedy. Young Hamlet has been visited by a ghost requesting him to avenge the death of his own father, allegedly (prétendument) killed by his uncle Claudius. In III, 1 Hamlet reflects to himself on the nature of life and death, wondering if he should end his life or go on living and take revenge. you use "whether" when you have a choice between two or more al"ternatives 'tis: it is "slings and arrows" are both weapons out"rageous [eI]: unacceptable "fortune ["fO:tS@n] is a person's destiny "to take arms against sth" is to fight against sth "by opposing end them" means to end those troubles by fighting against them "to die, to sleep, no more" means that dying is nothing more than going to sleep the heart-ache [ha:t eik] is the suffering of the heart the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to: the diseases or shocks that we can get during our lifetime de"voutly [aU]: deeply 'tis a consummation devoutly to be wished: death is an a"chievement [tS] we should really wish for perchance: perhaps ay: yes "the rub" is the problem for: because to shuffle off is to get rid of in that sleep of death what dreams may come… must give us pause": when we are dead, we may dream and this is the reason why we hesitate before killing ourselves a coil is sth wound in a connected series of loops the "mortal coil" is the "bustle ["bVsl] (busy and noisy activity) of life "there's the respect that makes calamity of so long life" means that is the consideration that makes us en"dure such a life for so long for: because to bear, bore, borne a whip is a long of piece of material used to hit people or animals scorn [ skO:n] is contempt the whips and scorns of time: what time makes us endure but: except for Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) – a British novelist, shortstory writer and essayist. A member of the Bloomsbury Group, she also was a feminist. She was writing mainly for highbrow [aU] (intellectuel) readers. She is famous for developing Henry James's "stream of "consciousness [S@s]" to the extreme, concentrating on the stream of thoughts, feelings and sensations going through her characters' minds. "luminous [u:] trans"parent to convey is to communicate uncircumscribed: not restricted within limits whatever: of any kind or number of, any to re"cord "atom ["at@m] u'pon [@"pOn ]: on a "pattern ["p&t@n] is the regular and repeated way in which something happens or is done you use "how'ever" before an adjective or an adverb to "emphasize [aI] that the extent of sth cannot change the situation (no matter how) a'ppearance [I@] if you score sth on sth else, you make an impression on it.
David Lodge, The Art of Fiction, 1992 "The Stream of consciousness" was a phrase coined by William James, psychologist brother of the novelist, Henry, to characterize the continuous flow of thought and sensation in the human mind. Later it was borrowed by literary critics to describe a particular kind of modern fiction which tried to imitate this process, exemplified by, among others, James Joyce, Dorothy Richardson and Virginia Woolf. The novel always was, of course, notable for its interiorized rendering of experience. Cogito, ergo sum ("I think; therefore I am") could be its motto, though the novelist's cogito includes not only reasoning but also emotions, sensations, memories and fantasies. Defoe's autobiographers, and Richardson's letter-writers, as the beginning of the novel's development as a literary form were obsessively introspective. The classic nineteenth-century novel, from Jane Austen to George Eliot, combined the presentation of its characters as social beings with a subtle and sensitive analysis of their moral and emotional inner lives. Towards the turn of the century, however (you can see it happening in Henry James), reality was incredibly located in the private, subjective consciousness of individual selves, unable to communicate the fullness of their experience to others. It has been said that the stream-of-consciousness novel is the literary expression of solipsism, the philosophical doctrine that nothing is certainly real except one's own existence; but we could equally well argue that it offers us some relief from that daunting hypothesis by offering us imaginative access to the inner lives of other human beings, even if they are fictions. Undoubtedly this kind of novel tends to generate sympathy for the characters whose inner selves are exposed to view, however vain, selfish or ignoble their thoughts may occasionally be."
