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LITERATURE 1880 TO THE PRESENT

Level 6, 30 credit module

2014-2015

Dr Derek Littlewood and Professor Anthony Mellors

Assessment Strategy

The assessment for this module is in two parts each weighted equally at 50% as follows.

Assessment 1

Submission date: Wednesday 12 November 2014, 23:55

Publication of (provisional) marks and feedback: Wednesday 10 December 2014

Resit period:

release of semester 1 resit questions on Wednesday 6 May 2015

submission date for semester 1 resits on Wednesday 27 May 2015

Assessment 2

Submission date: Monday 5 January 2015, 23:55

Publication of (provisional) marks and feedback: Monday 2 February 2015

Resit period:

release of semester 1 resit questions on Wednesday 6 May 2015

submission date for semester 1 resits on Wednesday 27 May 2015

At the first assessment attempt, the full range of marks is available.

At the re-assessment attempt the mark is capped. The maximum mark that can be achieved is 40%.

During the resit period, module tutors are available for tutorials during specific open door times

each week. Additionally, the school runs a resit revision programme with sessions focused on

helping you to revise and be prepared for your resit submission. Details on the exact schedule will

be published in May.

Cheating

The below information is taken from the Academic Regulations and Policies Part II, Student

Disciplinary Policy and Operating Process. According to this document, cheating includes:

“Plagiarism - the submission of an item of assessment which, all or in part, contains work

produced by another person(s) in such a way that it could be assumed to be the student’s own work;

Collusion - the improper collaboration in the production of a piece of work when that work is

submitted as entirely the work of an individual. Except where written instructions state that work

for assessment may be produced jointly and submitted as the work of more than one student,

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students must not collaborate with other students to produce a piece of work jointly, copy or share

another student's work, lend their work to another student or allow another student to copy their

work;

Falsification of data or artefacts i.e. the invention or changing of material to support an

argument;

Duplication - the submission of a piece of work in whole or in part that has already been

submitted for assessment elsewhere, including concurrent submission.

This list is not exhaustive and cheating in assessed work may take other forms.” (see the

document Academic Regulations and Policies Part II)

Work which is discovered to be the result of any of the above will be dealt with under the

University's Disciplinary Procedures, and the penalty may involve the loss of academic credits.

If you have any doubts about the extent to which you are allowed to collaborate with your

colleagues, or the conventions for acknowledging the sources you have used, you should first of all

consult module documentation and, if still unclear, your module tutor.

An essay of 3000 words excluding long quotations from the text provided.

Choose ONE of the following texts. (NB. if you choose Hardy, you must write on BOTH poems). Make a close reading, discussing the language and any literary effects. You should

explore how form might be related to meaning and comment on any features that you consider

characteristic or indeed uncharacteristic of Twentieth Century, ‘modern’, proto-modernist or

modernist writing. Look up unfamiliar words in the OED and gloss allusions. Briefly situate your

chosen text within the work of the author and if it is a prose extract within the novel as a whole.

Your focus throughout should be to explicate your chosen text. Your essay should be word-processed and clearly printed in 12 point type with lines double spaced. Use a highly legible font, a serif like Times or Palatino, or a sans-serif such as Helvetica or Verdana. You must include a word count at the end of your work, excluding footnotes, endnotes or bibliographies, and quotations of more than two lines. You will lose credit if your assignment is substantially longer or shorter than the specified length.

Assignment Criteria:

• The fluency of your essay in using academic English.

• The depth and quality of your scholarly research.

• Your skill in grounding original interpretation in analysis of the poem.

• There should be a bibliography and references to all secondary material used.

Advice: In researching your reading, you should use scholarly secondary materials (JSTOR,

Literature on Line, books in the library); you should avoid copying material from popular web-sites

- such as Sparknotes and Wikipedia and any copying of materials without acknowledgement.

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Texts for Close Reading Follow – this paper is 18 pages long.

Text A

Hardy, Thomas, 1840-1928 : DURING WIND AND RAIN [from Collected poems (1930) ,

Macmillan : MOMENTS OF VISION AND MISCELLANEOUS VERSES ]

1 They sing their dearest songs---

2 He, she, all of them---yea,

3 Treble and tenor and bass,

4 And one to play;

5 With the candles mooning each face . . . .

6 Ah, no; the years O!

7 How the sick leaves reel down in throngs!

8 They clear the creeping moss---

9 Elders and juniors---aye,

10 Making the pathways neat

11 And the garden gay;

12 And they build a shady seat . . . .

13 Ah, no; the years, the years;

14 See, the white storm-birds wing across!

15 They are blithely breakfasting all---

16 Men and maidens---yea,

17 Under the summer tree,

18 With a glimpse of the bay,

19 While pet fowl come to the knee . . . .

20 Ah, no; the years O!

21 And the rotten rose is ript from the wall.

22 They change to a high new house,

23 He, she, all of them---aye,

24 Clocks and carpets and chairs

25 On the lawn all day,

26 And brightest things that are theirs . . . .

27 Ah, no; the years, the years;

28 Down their carved names the rain-drop ploughs.

Text B

Hardy, Thomas, 1840-1928 : THE PHANTOM HORSEWOMAN [from Collected poems

(1930) , Macmillan : SATIRES OF CIRCUMSTANCE LYRICS AND REVERIES: POEMS

OF 1912-13 ]

I

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1 Queer are the ways of a man I know:

2 He comes and stands

3 In a careworn craze,

4 And looks at the sands

5 And the seaward haze

6 With moveless hands

7 And face and gaze,

8 Then turns to go . . .

9 And what does he see when he gazes so?

II

10 They say he sees as an instant thing

11 More clear than to-day,

12 A sweet soft scene

13 That was once in play

14 By that briny green;

15 Yes, notes alway

16 Warm, real, and keen,

17 What his back years bring---

18 A phantom of his own figuring.

III

19 Of this vision of his they might say more:

20 Not only there

21 Does he see this sight,

22 But everywhere

23 In his brain---day, night,

24 As if on the air

25 It were drawn rose-bright---

26 Yea, far from that shore

27 Does he carry this vision of heretofore:

IV

28 A ghost-girl-rider. And though, toil-tried,

29 He withers daily,

30 Time touches her not,

31 But she still rides gaily

32 In his rapt thought

33 On that shagged and shaly

34 Atlantic spot,

35 And as when first eyed

36 Draws rein and sings to the swing of the tide.

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1913.

Text C

Eliot, T. S. (Thomas Stearns), 1888-1965 : Rhapsody on a Windy Night (1925) [from Collected

Poems 1909-1962 (1974) , Faber and Faber : Prufrock---1917 ]

1 Twelve o'clock.

2 Along the reaches of the street

3 Held in a lunar synthesis,

4 Whispering lunar incantations

5 Dissolve the floors of memory

6 And all its clear relations,

7 Its divisions and precisions.

8 Every street-lamp that I pass

9 Beats like a fatalistic drum,

10 And through the spaces of the dark

11 Midnight shakes the memory

12 As a madman shakes a dead geranium.

13 Half-past one,

14 The street-lamp sputtered,

15 The street-lamp muttered,

16 The street-lamp said, 'Regard that woman

17 Who hesitates toward you in the light of the door

18 Which opens on her like a grin.

19 You see the border of her dress

20 Is torn and stained with sand,

21 And you see the corner of her eye

22 Twists like a crooked pin.'

23 The memory throws up high and dry

24 A crowd of twisted things;

25 A twisted branch upon the beach

26 Eaten smooth, and polished

27 As if the world gave up

28 The secret of its skeleton,

29 Stiff and white.

30 A broken spring in a factory yard,

31 Rust that clings to the form that the strength has left

32 Hard and curled and ready to snap.

33 Half-past two,

34 The street-lamp said,

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35 'Remark the cat which flattens itself in the gutter,

36 Slips out its tongue

37 And devours a morsel of rancid butter.'

38 So the hand of the child, automatic,

39 Slipped out and pocketed a toy that was running along the quay.

40 I could see nothing behind that child's eye.

41 I have seen eyes in the street

42 Trying to peer through lighted shutters,

43 And a crab one afternoon in a pool,

44 An old crab with barnacles on his back,

45 Gripped the end of a stick which I held him.

46 Half-past three,

47 The lamp sputtered,

48 The lamp muttered in the dark.

49 The lamp hummed:

50 'Regard the moon,

51 La lune ne garde aucune rancune,

52 She winks a feeble eye,

53 She smiles into corners.

54 She smooths the hair of the grass.

55 The moon has lost her memory.

56 A washed-out smallpox cracks her face,

57 Her hand twists a paper rose,

58 That smells of dust and eau de Cologne,

59 She is alone

60 With all the old nocturnal smells

61 That cross and cross across her brain.'

62 The reminiscence comes

63 Of sunless dry geraniums

64 And dust in crevices,

65 Smells of chestnuts in the streets,

66 And female smells in shuttered rooms,

67 And cigarettes in corridors

68 And cocktail smells in bars.

69 The lamp said,

70 'Four o'clock,

71 Here is the number on the door.

72 Memory!

73 You have the key,

74 The little lamp spreads a ring on the stair.

75 Mount.

76 The bed is open; the tooth-brush hangs on the wall,

77 Put your shoes at the door, sleep, prepare for life.'

78 The last twist of the knife.

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Text D

Pound, Ezra, 1885-1972 : THE CANTOS OF EZRA POUND [from The Cantos of Ezra

Pound (1972) , New Directions ]

I

1 And then went down to the ship,

2 Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly sea, and

3 We set up mast and sail on that swart ship,

4 Bore sheep aboard her, and our bodies also

5 Heavy with weeping, and winds from sternward

6 Bore us out onward with bellying canvas,

7 Circe's this craft, the trim-coifed goddess.

8 Then sat we amidships, wind jamming the tiller,

9 Thus with stretched sail, we went over sea till day's end.

10 Sun to his slumber, shadows o'er all the ocean,

11 Came we then to the bounds of deepest water,

12 To the Kimmerian lands, and peopled cities

13 Covered with close-webbed mist, unpierced ever

14 With glitter of sun-rays

15 Nor with stars stretched, nor looking back from heaven

16 Swartest night stretched over wretched men there.

17 The ocean flowing backward, came we then to the place

18 Aforesaid by Circe.

19 Here did they rites, Perimedes and Eurylochus,

20 And drawing sword from my hip

21 I dug the ell-square pitkin;

22 Poured we libations unto each the dead,

23 First mead and then sweet wine, water mixed with white flour.

24 Then prayed I many a prayer to the sickly death's-heads;

25 As set in Ithaca, sterile bulls of the best

26 For sacrifice, heaping the pyre with goods,

27 A sheep to Tiresias only, black and a bell-sheep.

28 Dark blood flowed in the fosse,

29 Souls out of Erebus, cadaverous dead, of brides

30 Of youths and of the old who had borne much;

31 Souls stained with recent tears, girls tender,

32 Men many, mauled with bronze lance heads,

33 Battle spoil, bearing yet dreory arms,

34 These many crowded about me; with shouting,

35 Pallor upon me, cried to my men for more beasts;

36 Slaughtered the herds, sheep slain of bronze;

37 Poured ointment, cried to the gods,

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38 To Pluto the strong, and praised Proserpine;

39 Unsheathed the narrow sword,

40 I sat to keep off the impetuous impotent dead,

41 Till I should hear Tiresias.

42 But first Elpenor came, our friend Elpenor,

43 Unburied, cast on the wide earth,

44 Limbs that we left in the house of Circe,

45 Unwept, unwrapped in sepulchre, since toils urged other.

46 Pitiful spirit. And I cried in hurried speech:

47 "Elpenor, how art thou come to this dark coast?

48 "Cam'st thou afoot, outstripping seamen?"

49 And he in heavy speech:

50 "Ill fate and abundant wine. I slept in Circe's ingle.

51 "Going down the long ladder unguarded,

52 "I fell against the buttress,

53 "Shattered the nape-nerve, the soul sought Avernus.

54 "But thou, O King, I bid remember me, unwept, unburied,

55 "Heap up mine arms, be tomb by sea-bord, and inscribed:

56 " A man of no fortune, and with a name to come.

57 "And set my oar up, that I swung mid fellows."

58 And Anticlea came, whom I beat off, and then Tiresias Theban,

59 Holding his golden wand, knew me, and spoke first:

60 "A second time? why? man of ill star,

61 "Facing the sunless dead and this joyless region?

62 "Stand from the fosse, leave me my bloody bever

63 "For soothsay."

64 And I stepped back,

65 And he strong with the blood, said then: "Odysseus

66 "Shalt return through spiteful Neptune, over dark seas,

67 "Lose all companions." And then Anticlea came.

68 Lie quiet Divus. I mean, that is Andreas Divus,

69 In officina Wecheli, 1538, out of Homer.

70 And he sailed, by Sirens and thence outward and away

71 And unto Circe.

72 Venerandam,

73 In the Cretan's phrase, with the golden crown, Aphrodite,

74 Cypri munimenta sortita est, mirthful, orichalchi, with golden

75 Girdles and breast bands, thou with dark eyelids

76 Bearing the golden bough of Argicida. So that:

Text E

Extract from Joseph Conrad, The Heart of Darkness (1902)

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"I laid the ghost of his gifts at last with a lie," he began, suddenly. "Girl! What? Did I mention a girl? Oh, she

is out of it -- completely. They -- the women, I mean -- are out of it -- should be out of it. We must help

them to stay in that beautiful world of their own, lest ours gets worse. Oh, she had to be out of it. You

should have heard the disinterred body of Mr. Kurtz saying, 'My Intended.' You would have perceived

directly then how completely she was out of it. And the lofty frontal bone of Mr. Kurtz! They say the hair

goes on growing sometimes, but this -- ah -- specimen, was impressively bald. The wilderness had patted

him on the head, and, behold, it was like a ball -- an ivory ball; it had caressed him, and -- lo! -- he had

withered; it had taken him, loved him, embraced him, got into his veins, consumed his flesh, and sealed his

soul to its own by the inconceivable ceremonies of some devilish initiation. He was its spoiled and

pampered favourite. Ivory? I should think so. Heaps of it, stacks of it. The old mud shanty was bursting with

it. You would think there was not a single tusk left either above or below the ground in the whole country.

'Mostly fossil,' the manager had remarked, disparagingly. It was no more fossil than I am; but they call it

fossil when it is dug up. It appears these niggers do bury the tusks sometimes -- but evidently they couldn't

bury this parcel deep enough to save the gifted Mr. Kurtz from his fate. We filled the steamboat with it, and

had to pile a lot on the deck. Thus he could see and enjoy as long as he could see, because the appreciation

of this favour had remained with him to the last. You should have heard him say, 'My ivory.' Oh, yes, I

heard him. 'My Intended, my ivory, my station, my river, my -- ' everything belonged to him. It made me

hold my breath in expectation of hearing the wilderness burst into a prodigious peal of laughter that would

shake the fixed stars in their places. Everything belonged to him -- but that was a trifle. The thing was to

know what he belonged to, how many powers of darkness claimed him for their own. That was the

reflection that made you creepy all over. It was impossible -- it was not good for one either -- trying to

imagine. He had taken a high seat amongst the devils of the land -- I mean literally. You can't understand.

How could you? -- with solid pavement under your feet, surrounded by kind neighbours ready to cheer you

or to fall on you, stepping delicately between the butcher and the policeman, in the holy terror of scandal

and gallows and lunatic asylums -- how can you imagine what particular region of the first ages a man's

untrammelled feet may take him into by the way of solitude -- utter solitude without a policeman -- by the

way of silence -- utter silence, where no warning voice of a kind neighbour can be heard whispering of

public opinion? These little things make all the great difference. When they are gone you must fall back

upon your own innate strength, upon your own capacity for faithfulness. Of course you may be too much of

a fool to go wrong -- too dull even to know you are being assaulted by the powers of darkness. I take it, no

fool ever made a bargain for his soul with the devil; the fool is too much of a fool, or the devil too much of a

devil -- I don't know which. Or you may be such a thunderingly exalted creature as to be altogether deaf

and blind to anything but heavenly sights and sounds. Then the earth for you is only a standing place -- and

whether to be like this is your loss or your gain I won't pretend to say. But most of us are neither one nor

the other. The earth for us is a place to live in, where we must put up with sights, with sounds, with smells,

too, by Jove! -- breathe dead hippo, so to speak, and not be contaminated. And there, don't you see? Your

strength comes in, the faith in your ability for the digging of unostentatious holes to bury the stuff in -- your

power of devotion, not to yourself, but to an obscure, back-breaking business. And that's difficult enough.

Mind, I am not trying to excuse or even explain -- I am trying to account to myself for -- for -- Mr. Kurtz --

for the shade of Mr. Kurtz. This initiated wraith from the back of Nowhere honoured me with its amazing

confidence before it vanished altogether. This was because it could speak English to me. The original Kurtz

had been educated partly in England, and -- as he was good enough to say himself -- his sympathies were in

the right place. His mother was half-English, his father was half-French. All Europe contributed to the

making of Kurtz; and by and by I learned that, most appropriately, the International Society for the

Suppression of Savage Customs had intrusted him with the making of a report, for its future guidance. And

he had written it, too. I've seen it. I've read it. It was eloquent, vibrating with eloquence, but too high-

strung, I think. Seventeen pages of close writing he had found time for! But this must have been before his -

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- let us say -- nerves, went wrong, and caused him to preside at certain midnight dances ending with

unspeakable rites, which -- as far as I reluctantly gathered from what I heard at various times -- were

offered up to him -- do you understand? -- to Mr. Kurtz himself. But it was a beautiful piece of writing. The

opening paragraph, however, in the light of later information, strikes me now as ominous. He began with

the argument that we whites, from the point of development we had arrived at, 'must necessarily appear

to them [savages] in the nature of supernatural beings -- we approach them with the might of a deity,' and

so on, and so on. 'By the simple exercise of our will we can exert a power for good practically unbounded,'

etc., etc. From that point he soared and took me with him. The peroration was magnificent, though difficult

to remember, you know. It gave me the notion of an exotic Immensity ruled by an august Benevolence. It

made me tingle with enthusiasm. This was the unbounded power of eloquence -- of words -- of burning

noble words. There were no practical hints to interrupt the magic current of phrases, unless a kind of note

at the foot of the last page, scrawled evidently much later, in an unsteady hand, may be regarded as the

exposition of a method. It was very simple, and at the end of that moving appeal to every altruistic

sentiment it blazed at you, luminous and terrifying, like a flash of lightning in a serene sky: 'Exterminate all

the brutes!'

Text F Extract from Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway (1925)

Suddenly Mrs. Coates looked up into the sky. The sound of an aeroplane bored ominously into the ears of the crowd. There it was coming over the trees, letting out white smoke from behind, which curled and twisted, actually writing something! making letters in the sky! Every one looked up. Dropping dead down the aeroplane soared straight up, curved in a loop, raced, sank, rose, and whatever it did, wherever it went, out fluttered behind it a thick ruffled bar of white smoke which curled and wreathed upon the sky in letters. But what letters? A C was it? an E, then an L? Only for a moment did they lie still; then they moved and melted and were rubbed out up in the sky, and the aeroplane shot further away and again, in a fresh space of sky, began writing a K, an E, a Y perhaps? "Glaxo," said Mrs. Coates in a strained, awe-stricken voice, gazing straight up, and her baby, lying stiff and white in her arms, gazed straight up. "Kreemo," murmured Mrs. Bletchley, like a sleep-walker. With his hat held out perfectly still in his hand, Mr. Bowley gazed straight up. All down the Mall people were standing and looking up into the sky. As they looked the whole world became perfectly silent, and a flight of gulls crossed the sky, first one gull leading, then another, and in this extraordinary silence and peace, in this pallor, in this purity, bells struck eleven times, the sound fading up there among the gulls. The aeroplane turned and raced and swooped exactly where it liked, swiftly, freely, like a skater--

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"That's an E," said Mrs. Bletchley--or a dancer-- "It's toffee," murmured Mr. Bowley--(and the car went in at the gates and nobody looked at it), and shutting off the smoke, away and away it rushed, and the smoke faded and assembled itself round the broad white shapes of the clouds. It had gone; it was behind the clouds. There was no sound. The clouds to which the letters E, G, or L had attached themselves moved freely, as if destined to cross from West to East on a mission of the greatest importance which would never be revealed, and yet certainly so it was--a mission of the greatest importance. Then suddenly, as a train comes out of a tunnel, the aeroplane rushed out of the clouds again, the sound boring into the ears of all people in the Mall, in the Green Park, in Piccadilly, in Regent Street, in Regent's Park, and the bar of smoke curved behind and it dropped down, and it soared up and wrote one letter after another-- but what word was it writing? Lucrezia Warren Smith, sitting by her husband's side on a seat in Regent's Park in the Broad Walk, looked up. "Look, look, Septimus!" she cried. For Dr. Holmes had told her to make her husband (who had nothing whatever seriously the matter with him but was a little out of sorts) take an interest in things outside himself. So, thought Septimus, looking up, they are signalling to me. Not indeed in actual words; that is, he could not read the language yet; but it was plain enough, this beauty, this exquisite beauty, and tears filled his eyes as he looked at the smoke words languishing and melting in the sky and bestowing upon him in their inexhaustible charity and laughing goodness one shape after another of unimaginable beauty and signalling their intention to provide him, for nothing, for ever, for looking merely, with beauty, more beauty! Tears ran down his cheeks. It was toffee; they were advertising toffee, a nursemaid told Rezia. Together they began to spell t . . . o . . . f . . . "K . . . R . . ." said the nursemaid, and Septimus heard her say "Kay Arr" close to his ear, deeply, softly, like a mellow organ, but with a roughness in her voice like a grasshopper's, which rasped his spine deliciously and sent running up into his brain waves of sound which, concussing, broke. A marvellous discovery indeed--that the human voice in certain atmospheric conditions (for one must be scientific, above all scientific) can quicken trees into life! Happily Rezia put her hand with a tremendous weight on his knee so that he was weighted down, transfixed, or the excitement of the elm trees rising and falling, rising and falling with all their leaves alight and the colour thinning and thickening from blue to the green of a hollow wave, like plumes on horses' heads, feathers on ladies', so proudly they rose and fell, so

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superbly, would have sent him mad. But he would not go mad. He would shut his eyes; he would see no more.

Text G, Extract from Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage

He went from the fields into a thick woods, as if resolved to bury himself. He wished to get out of hearing of the crackling shots which were to him like voices.

The ground was cluttered with vines and bushes, and the trees grew close and spread out like bouquets. He was obliged to force his way with much noise. The creepers, catching against his legs, cried out harshly as their sprays were torn from the barks of trees. The swishing saplings tried to make known his presence to the world. He could not conciliate the forest. As he made his way, it was always calling out protestations. When he separated embraces of trees and vines the disturbed foliages waved their arms and turned their face leaves toward him. He dreaded lest these noisy motions and cries should bring men to look at him. So he went far, seeking dark and intricate places.

After a time the sound of musketry grew faint and the cannon boomed in the distance. The sun, suddenly apparent, blazed among the trees. The insects were making rhythmical noises. They seemed to be grinding their teeth in unison. A woodpecker stuck his impudent head around the side of a tree. A bird flew on lighthearted wing.

Off was the rumble of death. It seemed now that Nature had no ears.

This landscape gave him assurance. A fair field holding life. It was the religion of peace. It would die if its timid eyes were compelled to see blood. He conceived Nature to be a woman with a deep aversion to tragedy.

He threw a pine cone at a jovial squirrel, and he ran with chattering fear. High in a treetop he stopped, and, poking his head cautiously from behind a branch, looked down with an air of trepidation.

The youth felt triumphant at this exhibition. There was the law, he said. Nature had given him a sign. The squirrel, immediately upon recognizing danger, had taken to his legs without ado. He did not stand stolidly baring his furry belly to the missile, and die with an upward glance at the sympathetic heavens. On the contrary, he had fled as fast as his legs could carry him; and he was but an ordinary squirrel, too--doubtless no philosopher of his race. The youth wended, feeling that Nature was of his mind. She re-enforced his argument with proofs that lived where the sun shone.

Once he found himself almost into a swamp. He was obliged to walk upon bog tufts and watch his feet to keep from the oily mire. Pausing at one time to look about him he saw, out at some black water, a small animal pounce in and emerge directly with a gleaming fish.

The youth went again into the deep thickets. The brushed branches made a noise that drowned the sounds of cannon. He walked on, going from obscurity into promises of a greater obscurity.

At length he reached a place where the high, arching boughs made a chapel. He softly pushed the green doors aside and entered. Pine needles were a gentle brown carpet. There was a religious half light.

Near the threshold he stopped, horror-stricken at the sight of a thing.

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He was being looked at by a dead man who was seated with his back against a columnlike tree. The corpse was dressed in a uniform that had once been blue, but was now faded to a melancholy shade of green. The eyes, staring at the youth, had changed to the dull hue to be seen on the side of a dead fish. The mouth was open. Its red had changed to an appalling yellow. Over the gray skin of the face ran little ants. One was trundling some sort of bundle along the upper lip.

The youth gave a shriek as he confronted the thing. He was for moments turned to stone before it. He remained staring into the liquid-looking eyes. The dead man and the living man exchanged a long look. Then the youth cautiously put one hand behind him and brought it against a tree. Leaning upon this he retreated, step by step, with his face still toward the thing. He feared that if he turned his back the body might spring up and stealthily pursue him.

The branches, pushing against him, threatened to throw him over upon it. His unguided feet, too, caught aggravatingly in brambles; and with it all he received a subtle suggestion to touch the corpse. As he thought of his hand upon it he shuddered profoundly.

At last he burst the bonds which had fastened him to the spot and fled, unheeding the underbrush. He was pursued by the sight of black ants swarming greedily upon the gray face and venturing horribly near to the eyes.

After a time he paused, and, breathless and panting, listened. He imagined some strange voice would come from the dead throat and squawk after him in horrible menaces.

The trees about the portal of the chapel moved soughingly in a soft wind. A sad silence was upon the little guarding edifice.

Text H, Extract from D. H. Lawrence, Women in Love (1920)

Gerald watched them go, looking all the while at the soft, full, still body of Gudrun, in its silky cashmere. How silky and rich and soft her body must be. An excess of appreciation came over his mind, she was the all-desirable, the all-beautiful. He wanted only to come to her, nothing more. He was only this, this being that should come to her, and be given to her. At the same time he was finely and acutely aware of Mademoiselle's neat, brittle finality of form. She was like some elegant beetle with thin ankles, perched on her high heels, her glossy black dress perfectly correct, her dark hair done high and admirably. How repulsive her completeness and her finality was! He loathed her. Yet he did admire her. She was perfectly correct. And it did rather annoy him, that Gudrun came dressed in startling colours, like a macaw, when the family was in mourning. Like a macaw she was! He watched the lingering way she took her feet from the ground. And her ankles were pale yellow, and her dress a deep blue. Yet it pleased him. It pleased him very much. He felt the challenge in her very attire-she challenged the whole world. And he smiled as to the note of a trumpet. Gudrun and Winifred went through the house to the back, where were the

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stables and the out-buildings. Everywhere was still and deserted. Mr Crich had gone out for a short drive, the stableman had just led round Gerald's horse. The two girls went to the hutch that stood in a corner, and looked at the great black-and-white rabbit. 'Isn't he beautiful! Oh, do look at him listening! Doesn't he look silly!' she laughed quickly, then added 'Oh, do let's do him listening, do let us, he listens with so much of himself;-don't you darling Bismarck?' 'Can we take him out?' said Gudrun. 'He's very strong. He really is extremely strong.' She looked at Gudrun, her head on one side, in odd calculating mistrust. 'But we'll try, shall we?' 'Yes, if you like. But he's a fearful kicker!' They took the key to unlock the door. The rabbit exploded in a wild rush round the hutch. 'He scratches most awfully sometimes,' cried Winifred in excitement. 'Oh do look at him, isn't he wonderful!' The rabbit tore round the hutch in a hurry. 'Bismarck!' cried the child, in rousing excitement. 'How DREADFUL you are! You are beastly.' Winifred looked up at Gudrun with some misgiving in her wild excitement. Gudrun smiled sardonically with her mouth. Winifred made a strange crooning noise of unaccountable excitement. 'Now he's still!' she cried, seeing the rabbit settled down in a far corner of the hutch. 'Shall we take him now?' she whispered excitedly, mysteriously, looking up at Gudrun and edging very close. 'Shall we get him now?-' she chuckled wickedly to herself. They unlocked the door of the hutch. Gudrun thrust in her arm and seized the great, lusty rabbit as it crouched still, she grasped its long ears. It set its four feet flat, and thrust back. There was a long scraping sound as it was hauled forward, and in another instant it was in mid-air, lunging wildly, its body flying like a spring coiled and released, as it lashed out, suspended from the ears. Gudrun held the black-and-white tempest at arms' length, averting her face. But the rabbit was magically strong, it was all she could do to keep her grasp. She almost lost her presence of mind. 'Bismarck, Bismarck, you are behaving terribly,' said Winifred in a rather frightened voice, 'Oh, do put him down, he's beastly.' Gudrun stood for a moment astounded by the thunder-storm that had sprung into being in her grip. Then her colour came up, a heavy rage came over her like a cloud. She stood shaken as a house in a storm, and utterly overcome. Her heart was arrested with fury at the mindlessness and the bestial stupidity of this struggle, her wrists were badly scored by the claws of the beast, a heavy cruelty welled up in her. Gerald came round as she was trying to capture the flying rabbit under

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her arm. He saw, with subtle recognition, her sullen passion of cruelty. 'You should let one of the men do that for you,' he said hurrying up. 'Oh, he's SO horrid!' cried Winifred, almost frantic. He held out his nervous, sinewy hand and took the rabbit by the ears, from Gudrun. 'It's most FEARFULLY strong,' she cried, in a high voice, like the crying a seagull, strange and vindictive. The rabbit made itself into a ball in the air, and lashed out, flinging itself into a bow. It really seemed demoniacal. Gudrun saw Gerald's body tighten, saw a sharp blindness come into his eyes. 'I know these beggars of old,' he said. The long, demon-like beast lashed out again, spread on the air as if it were flying, looking something like a dragon, then closing up again, inconceivably powerful and explosive. The man's body, strung to its efforts, vibrated strongly. Then a sudden sharp, white-edged wrath came up in him. Swift as lightning he drew back and brought his free hand down like a hawk on the neck of the rabbit. Simultaneously, there came the unearthly abhorrent scream of a rabbit in the fear of death. It made one immense writhe, tore his wrists and his sleeves in a final convulsion, all its belly flashed white in a whirlwind of paws, and then he had slung it round and had it under his arm, fast. It cowered and skulked. His face was gleaming with a smile. 'You wouldn't think there was all that force in a rabbit,' he said, looking at Gudrun. And he saw her eyes black as night in her pallid face, she looked almost unearthly. The scream of the rabbit, after the violent tussle, seemed to have torn the veil of her consciousness. He looked at her, and the whitish, electric gleam in his face intensified. 'I don't really like him,' Winifred was crooning. 'I don't care for him as I do for Loozie. He's hateful really.' A smile twisted Gudrun's face, as she recovered. She knew she was revealed. 'Don't they make the most fearful noise when they scream?' she cried, the high note in her voice, like a sea-gull's cry. 'Abominable,' he said. 'He shouldn't be so silly when he has to be taken out,' Winifred was saying, putting out her hand and touching the rabbit tentatively, as it skulked under his arm, motionless as if it were dead. 'He's not dead, is he Gerald?' she asked. 'No, he ought to be,' he said.

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'Yes, he ought!' cried the child, with a sudden flush of amusement. And she touched the rabbit with more confidence. 'His heart is beating SO fast. Isn't he funny? He really is.' 'Where do you want him?' asked Gerald. 'In the little green court,' she said. Gudrun looked at Gerald with strange, darkened eyes, strained with underworld knowledge, almost supplicating, like those of a creature which is at his mercy, yet which is his ultimate victor. He did not know what to say to her. He felt the mutual hellish recognition. And he felt he ought to say something, to cover it. He had the power of lightning in his nerves, she seemed like a soft recipient of his magical, hideous white fire. He was unconfident, he had qualms of fear. 'Did he hurt you?' he asked. 'No,' she said. 'He's an insensible beast,' he said, turning his face away. They came to the little court, which was shut in by old red walls in whose crevices wall-flowers were growing. The grass was soft and fine and old, a level floor carpeting the court, the sky was blue overhead. Gerald tossed the rabbit down. It crouched still and would not move. Gudrun watched it with faint horror. 'Why doesn't it move?' she cried. 'It's skulking,' he said. She looked up at him, and a slight sinister smile contracted her white face. 'Isn't it a FOOL!' she cried. 'Isn't it a sickening FOOL?' The vindictive mockery in her voice made his brain quiver. Glancing up at him, into his eyes, she revealed again the mocking, white-cruel recognition. There was a league between them, abhorrent to them both. They were implicated with each other in abhorrent mysteries. 'How many scratches have you?' he asked, showing his hard forearm, white and hard and torn in red gashes. 'How really vile!' she cried, flushing with a sinister vision. 'Mine is nothing.' She lifted her arm and showed a deep red score down the silken white flesh. 'What a devil!' he exclaimed. But it was as if he had had knowledge of her in the long red rent of her forearm, so silken and soft. He did not want to touch her. He would have to make himself touch her, deliberately. The long, shallow red rip seemed torn across his own

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brain, tearing the surface of his ultimate consciousness, letting through the forever unconscious, unthinkable red ether of the beyond, the obscene beyond. 'It doesn't hurt you very much, does it?' he asked, solicitous. 'Not at all,' she cried. And suddenly the rabbit, which had been crouching as if it were a flower, so still and soft, suddenly burst into life. Round and round the court it went, as if shot from a gun, round and round like a furry meteorite, in a tense hard circle that seemed to bind their brains. They all stood in amazement, smiling uncannily, as if the rabbit were obeying some unknown incantation. Round and round it flew, on the grass under the old red walls like a storm. And then quite suddenly it settled down, hobbled among the grass, and sat considering, its nose twitching like a bit of fluff in the wind. After having considered for a few minutes, a soft bunch with a black, open eye, which perhaps was looking at them, perhaps was not, it hobbled calmly forward and began to nibble the grass with that mean motion of a rabbit's quick eating. 'It's mad,' said Gudrun. 'It is most decidedly mad.' He laughed. 'The question is,' he said, 'what is madness? I don't suppose it is rabbit-mad.' 'Don't you think it is?' she asked. 'No. That's what it is to be a rabbit.' There was a queer, faint, obscene smile over his face. She looked at him and saw him, and knew that he was initiate as she was initiate. This thwarted her, and contravened her, for the moment. 'God be praised we aren't rabbits,' she said, in a high, shrill voice. The smile intensified a little, on his face. 'Not rabbits?' he said, looking at her fixedly. Slowly her face relaxed into a smile of obscene recognition. 'Ah Gerald,' she said, in a strong, slow, almost man-like way. '-All that, and more.' Her eyes looked up at him with shocking nonchalance. He felt again as if she had torn him across the breast, dully, finally. He turned aside. 'Eat, eat my darling!' Winifred was softly conjuring the rabbit, and creeping forward to touch it. It hobbled away from her. 'Let its mother

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stroke its fur then, darling, because it is so mysterious-' Text I Wallace Stevens, ‘The Snow Man’

The Snow Man

One must have a mind of winter

To regard the frost and the boughs

Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time

To behold the junipers shagged with ice,

The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think

Of any misery in the sound of the wind,

In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land

Full of the same wind

That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,

And, nothing himself, beholds

Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

Source: Poetry magazine (1921)