Oxford English Students and Applicants

I totally foolishly claimed to be keen on 'modernism' without having read any Joyce beyond 'Portrait'... I hope they ask me about Eliot if they go for that line of attack. Ideally it'll be about Shakespeare and his contemporaries though since I spend a paragraph on Tamburlaine!

I totally foolishly claimed to be keen on 'modernism' without having read any Joyce beyond 'Portrait'...

Pretty much exactly what I did too! I wrote that I was immensely taken with nationalist sentiment in Joyce, when really I've only ever noticed about 3 lines from the first section of Ulysses that could pass as nationalism. Although I suppose the take on Modernism doesn't just mean Joyce - what about Woolf et al?

My personal statement seems really unbalanced now I look at it again - I've got a huge section on Hamlet and Crime and Punishment, swathes of praise for Virginia Woolf, yet I only mention Chaucer, Socrates, Marlowe, Brooke and Bronte in passing. I guess it's difficult to weight everything equally on such a tight character limit when you want to cram as much in as possible!

I also have a serious lack of poetry in there. Should have put in a reference to the Metaphysical poets.

Speaking of, I see you like Eliot; what do you think to '...J. Alfred Prufrock'?

I think The Great Gatsby isn't everyone's cup of tea, and therefore I can't really believe how much of a classic it really is. I love the novel personally because of the fact that it tells the story with such genuineness and honesty which I really appreciate in a piece of work. I also love Virginia Woolf's work for this same purpose. But also because I can spend hours and hours talking about it, it is not a simple novel - it doesn't have a straight view that can be placed to the table. There's so much room for debate and I feel that the novel can be categorised in so many genres and movements. I see modernism in the novel, yet i also see Romanticism. How could a text possibly do that? You said in your previous response about the fact that you appreciate characters , I think Fitzgerald portrays the characters brillaintly perhaps better than anything else I've read. - I can understand each and every character and their beliefs, I can debate their feelings. Another thing I really like about the novel is the fact that its NOT A TYPICAL AMERICAN PIECE OF LITERATURE - whilst some would dispute this, I think Fitzgerald portrays a cruel depiction of the dream and the corruption that is triggered from this, I can also see this really genuine idea of the dream being triggered by romance, love, and inspiration. So, I think because its a complex piece of work, I love it for that.
But, in retrospect the novel captivated me when I read it and really marked a turning-point in my understanding of literature. So it was the experience that I had with the novel that made me favour it too. But really interesting to hear your views!!

Isn't that quite a strange thing to focus on? I would say that Nick's anything but honest.

indeed he is, but what about Fitzgerald and his writing?

You will feel better when you learn that my personal statement mentions Marlowe, Eliot, Beckett, and Sidney, (and also very briefly 'The History Boys'...) and that's it as far as English writers go, though I mention Latin writers too (where I compare 'Pervigilium Veneris' with 'Ye Goat-herd Gods', oh yes). I don't really mention any prose, because I haven't read as much prose as I have poetry and drama, which is a bit of an Issue. I have read 'To the Light House' just because it was something to read, and I rather enjoyed it. Besides Eliot I have read a bit of Yeats, if he counts as a modernist (love his Byzantium poems), but besides that I think the period I'm keenest on is probably the sort of 1550-1650 range. I really really hope I get a chance to talk about Shakespeare because I have potentially insightful things to say about his use of classics.

I like Prufrock and I mention it in my PS but I prefer 'Portrait of a Lady' (which is an argument I also make in my PS) because I feel it is a more subtle, nuanced poem. Prufrock's great fun but some of it is, I can't help but think, slightly clunky or tiresomely overdone.

I can certainly understand the vague link in mood and tone between Fitzgerald and Woolf. Or at least, between the two works I've read: The Great Gatsby and The Waves.

I think there's a certain self-revelation of the author within the two novels, as the main character themselves never seem entirely solid and the world/society around them are much more intricate. I am not saying this on the basis of detailed reading but on the memory of reading I've done a few months back, so I'm ready to hear any opinions otherwise .

But there is a fascination about how we, as readers, ascertain 'genuineness' and 'honesty' to authors and works. When does a piece of work come across as genuine? Does complete author-intrusion, or an almost autobiography, literally describes 'genuineness'? Or does the transposition of thoughts from the author to entirely fictional worlds and characters, evolving the stage but not the thought, that marks honesty? Or in this case, the smokey inhabitation of the protagonist by the author's person?

New topic of discussion?

(Also, perhaps what makes Twilight best-selling is how the self of the author is probably equated to the protagonist, creating a character that's not distant from the writer, thus emptying the character and allowing readers to step in easily. But I'm going too far.)

What do you think to Horace? I did some work on him for my Open University course and found I really liked his poetry, but only when I spent ages translating from Latin to English myself. I can't abide the majority of translations as they seem to detract so much from the original sentiments.

I think what I said about Gatsby being genuine and honest is slightly controversial having read it back, because of course the novel focuses on deceit and lies, and the idea of being amoral - so far from honesty and genuineness. But I think what makes the novel 'honest' and genuine' is the author himself - Fitzgerald attempts to provide a rather personal voice in his novel, and when I say this I think about the fact Fitzgerald's life mirrors that of Gatsby etc. So loss in translation, what I mean is the sense of intrinsic and personal worth in a piece of work.

Well, it's meant to be narrated by Nick, isn't it? One of the things that was really drilled into us when studying it last year (so glad to be done with it... I hate how narrow the A-Level syllabus is - it's simply bizarre that we spend so many months looking at a single text like that) was what an 'unreliable narrator' Nick is. Though I've read essays where they talk about how at some points it's clearly more Fitzgerald than Nick writing. Anyway, I just thought that, for a novel so concerned with lying and illusion and subjectivity, honesty is an interesting thing to pick to praise in it.

You could argue that the lies and deceit shown throughout the novel actually offer a very honest portrayal of the "American dream" at that time. As the reader becomes more aware of the 'pretend' lives the characters are leading, they can appreciate that "all that glitters is not gold", so to speak. The deceitful nature of both the characters and the narration could be said to making a wider comment on society as a whole - don't believe everything you read or hear, because things are never quite what they may seem. Contextually it's interesting that the novel is set in the 1920's, when American cinema was just getting started - those films were a form of escapism and symbolic of glamour and riches for many; Gatsby proves that this Millionaire's dream is not something to strive for, as although he is rich, he is inherently unhappy. Personally I think the novel is a really intelligent social commentary on American society at that time, but I've only read it once, so I could be wrong !

I really like your link between Gatsby and The Waves, the idea of an unstable world in relation to the mental world of central figures. I think Woolf obviously works on this in a more experimental way - the search for a personal identity, and the search of a united one. But Fitzgerald is more conventional...

I think what I said about Gatsby being genuine and honest is slightly controversial having read it back, because of course the novel focuses on deceit and lies, and the idea of being amoral - so far from honesty and genuineness. But I think what makes the novel 'honest' and genuine' is the author himself - Fitzgerald attempts to provide a rather personal voice in his novel, and when I say this I think about the fact Fitzgerald's life mirrors that of Gatsby etc. So loss in translation, what I mean is the sense of intrinsic and personal worth in a piece of work.

Meh, I mentioned Ishiguro in general on my statement, as well as The Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby, also Sylvia Plath's Ariel collection and The Bell Jar, then The Color Purple and The Awakening. I've also got Mrs Dalloway. I did have Hamlet and Moll Flanders in there in earlier drafts but I had to take them out as I felt I might not be able to finish them before they interviewed me if they did =/ Sorry for that intrusion but I feel a bit rubbish because everyone's mentioned a lot of texts and I haven't =/ I have been reading more than I put on my statement though

Same situation as with you

Mentioned A clockwork Orange, Brave New world, Fahrenheit 451, A tale of two cities, Lolita. Also Wordsworth and Lawrence Ferlinghetti for poetry. I also feel a bit rubbish compared to everyone else; but i have read enough that I would happily talk about lots of other books too!

We'll be okay I hope Ah right I see. At least you mentioned some interesting poetry, I only mentioned Plath =/ I remember when I went to Queen's at the Oxford open day, one of the prospective applicants was talking about Ferlinghetti and the english tutor seemed pretty impressed with that, so I think that's cool I think I need to read some more poetry, I've been reading some e.e cummings and T.S. Eliot, but I don't feel like I could talk about it. Needless to say, I've got a lot of work to do ._. But like you, there are other books that I've not mentioned that I could talk about too I badly need to reread some of the books on my PS though. Good luck to you though