Re: The Frustration of the Romantic Quest--Q

Poster： Kate Liu at 15:44:32 11/29/97 from ts2-ppp-09.fju.edu.tw
RE Tina Nai-hui Pan at 21:56:25 11/27/97 posted 「The Frustration of the Romantic Quest--Q」Subject

Hi, Tina,

Your questions are interesting ones that help me clarify myself.

First of all, I waited till the last class on PRB to talk about the women in terms of their "closeness" and the frustration of Romantic quest,
because I am always wary of grand narratives, esp. when given without your/our detailed knowledge of the fields and historical periods involved.
Sweeping geneneralizations such as "women are all oppressed, men are all chauvinist pigs" really do not mean too much.
As for the idea of Romantic quest and its frustration seen in the depiction of PR women, I like it and can find at least twenty examples to support myself.
Still, we need to look at it as a metaphoric statement, which means that we cannot literally trace a linear development
from the remoteness of the Romantic goddesses to our PR women. What we can see is the intersections of various discourses--
e.g. the dominant trend of idealization of women, DGR's attempt to challenge the straight-jacket Victorian morality, together with his contradictory concerns with Romantic love,
the prostitute problem, and the Victorian fear of powerful women,
etc.

What we end up having is his preoccupation with women's figures that say different things at the same time, and among them there is this obsession with his "goddess" which he really cannot control. Thus we have an example of the frustration of Romantic quest.

As for your question of symbolist movement and the decadent movement, I really don't have enough knowledge to give a specific answer. From what I have read, indeed, DGR and PRB have important influence on them. PR movement, interestingly, was sometimes put together with Impressionism on the French side, to show two very different constructions of "reality."

Kate

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>> Hi, Tina,

>> Your questions are interesting ones that help me clarify myself.

>> First of all, I waited till the last class on PRB to talk about the women in terms of their "closeness" and the frustration of Romantic quest,

>> because I am always wary of grand narratives, esp. when given without your/our detailed knowledge of the fields and historical periods involved.

>> Sweeping geneneralizations such as "women are all oppressed, men are all chauvinist pigs" really do not mean too much.

>> As for the idea of Romantic quest and its frustration seen in the depiction of PR women, I like it and can find at least twenty examples to support myself.

>> Still, we need to look at it as a metaphoric statement, which means that we cannot literally trace a linear development

>> from the remoteness of the Romantic goddesses to our PR women.  What we can see is the intersections of various discourses--

>> e.g. the dominant trend of idealization of women,  DGR's attempt to challenge the straight-jacket Victorian morality, together with his contradictory concerns with Romantic love,

>> the prostitute problem, and the Victorian fear of powerful women,

>> etc.

>> What we end up having is his preoccupation with women's figures that say different things at the same time, and among them there is this obsession with his "goddess" which he really cannot control.  Thus we have an example of the frustration of Romantic quest.

>> As for your question of symbolist movement and the decadent movement, I really don't have enough knowledge to give a specific answer.  From what I have read, indeed, DGR and PRB have important influence on them.  PR movement, interestingly, was sometimes put together with Impressionism on the French side, to show two very different constructions of "reality."

>> Kate

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