chapter 2

The second chapter is meant to be a study of the language of both novels on the lexical and syntactic levels. I've already done a bit on Anne, and it's OK. I've been going over what I wrote last summer on Djuna and it's not OK. I wrote an entire chapter on the psychoanalytical make-up of all the main characters in _Nightwood_, which means that the whole thing is extremely theme based. I have nothing to base a language-formalist-close-reading type analysis on! So I went through all my notes, those of the theory articles I read pertaining to Djuna and my reading notes of the book, and nothing!
GGgrrrrrrrrr......

I would really like to try to get this chapter done by Friday, when I'm to meet with Lianne and Andrew. Which reminds me that I must send my intro & first chapter to Andrew. I hope he'll have time to read it.

I'm debating whether I should read _Nightwood_ again, for the umpteenth time. Or just look for examples in the book? There are some critics who compare the style of the novel to previous centuries, or past styles, etc etc. I wish I had that (very cannonical) literary background so that I could say "Well yes, the first chapter does recall a certain rococo style found in lyrical poetry of the 16th century with strong Saxon influences, but the remainder of the novel is much more Edwardian with a hint of Puritain melody. As for the last chapter, it is obviously influenced by late-19th century German Naturalism." Unfortunately, I know these terms for having heard them somewhere and have always been very bad at understanding how they apply to an author's style or literary concerns. I have been horrible at remembering which movements came when, even if I've been going over it all since cégep, and could never possibly analyze a novel that way. I prefer close-readings. There's just something that feels so much more tangible about them. But I do wish I could master the snooty jargon... 'cause then you just sound so much cooler...

So yeah, _Nightwood_. I'll start with simply finding passages that exemplify the rococo, and that can stand for the style in the overall (group of) paragraph(s). Plus read the Late Modernism text that Andrew suggested last summer and that I hadn't come around to reading yet. Maybe that'll help.