An Outline of Analysis of an Aldington Text

1. Intriguing introduction with a promise of the things which you are to dwell upon.

2. The literary trend the text represents (the author as an exponent of the Imagist School with an ardent love of classical Greece; a poet of fragile delicacy developing into a disillusioned soldier, deeply embittered by the war; the book’s variegation as to its tone, themes, and techniques allowed Aldington call it a jazz novel, which implies its improvisational impressionism).

3. A summary of the book.

4. A summary of the fragment chosen for analysis (a strikingly beautiful canvas of spring, a moving representation of the exquisite beauty of things menaced by war).

5. General slant of the text (extremely emotional, moods are continually changing: that of subtle lyricism, that of tragic vision, that of sarcastic indictment, that of irony in all its varieties; a marked change from the mood of tender delight to that of sadness and tension; a nostalgic meditation on a peaceful beauty of English nature, its flowers and poets; a sensually poetic rhapsody, an ecstasy of delight, a pathetically enraptured contemplation, a presentiment of impending catastrophe; the atmosphere of infernal terror, a mood of irritated pity for the vast, irretrievable sacrifice; a tragic description of the general pandemonium of war, aphantasmagoria of dreadful scenes, the atmosphere of coarse sarcasm and derision; the subtle lyricism, the rich imagery, the musical rhythm of the description turn the landscape into a passionate rhapsody; there are passages with a solemn ring).

6. Conceptual analysis of the text (Aldington’s love for earlier civilizations, nostalgia for the Hellenistic past; for a romantic image of rural England, for the glittering fragile world of pre-war London; Aldington’s Anti-Victorianism; his contemptuous attitude to hypocrisy in modem industrialized civilization; abhorrence and condemnation of war, pointless and fraudulent, a growing holocaust, a mass slaughter; the dehumanizing effect of the war; a vehement protest against war’s inhumanity and horrors; war's myriad faces; discontentment with a disordered world; a savage debunking of the whole concept of heroism, the collapse of the heroic ideal, belief in fundamental integrity and comradeship; sensitivity to the harmonious beauty of nature).

7. Artistic analysis of the text.

1) Disregarding the traditional conventions of form and method in the novel, dislike of standardised art as much as standar­dised life. “Death of a Hero” as a jazz novel (structurally, narratively and stylistically). The book is variegated as to its tone, themes, and techniques. It is a formless book whichAldington uses as a vehicle for his own lengthy first-person reflections on life and ideas.

2) Characterization of the pervading style of the text depending upon the changing perceptions of the protagonist (as a soldier, an artist, a mortal being, and an altruist): romantically poetic, imagistically impressionistic, crudely naturalistic, passionately rhapsodized, maturely realistic "air of authenticity".

3) Artistic methods of presentation [naturalistic, imagistic (presenting things in a series of concrete visual images, almost physically palpable, fantastically hyperbolized images, demoniacal images, allusive images); impressionistic (focusing on the now, the transient, the immediate sensuous impressions, glittering hues); expressionistic (rich in emphasis and hyperbolization); dichotomic (polarities, and dichotomies, the contrast between the peaceful beauty of nature and the bitterness, avarice and despair in the world of men); mythological, symbolic (George's death as "a symbol of the whole sickening bloody waste, the damnable stupid waste and torture...")].

4) The choice of the vocabulary (word-painting, words of sonorous quality, alliterating adjectives, the author wandering throughout the semantic fields of military terms, perceptions of light, color and sound, emotions, art, music, theatre, terror, intensification, impressionistic and expressionistic vocabulary with unrestrained emotionalism and intensification, dynamic verbs).

5) Imagistically impressionistic figures (rich and vivid epithets and similes, complicated with metaphor and metonymy; the refinement of learned classical allusions; classical quotations, diverse hyperbolization; the refined metaphoric imagery comparing things in nature to man-made objects of luxury; a pathetic rhetorical question).

6) Rhythmicality and musicality of the passage [artistic morphology and syntax (the arrangement of attributes in pairs and trios, in preposition and postposition, joined to each other syndetically and asyndetically; reiterations of identically inverted structures)].

8. Characterization of the book as a passionate outburst of anger, a fearful indictment of war and the rotten order of things in Britain, a disillusionment in a world seized by suicidal and homicidal madness, a threnody, a lamentation and a memorial to the violently dead; a kind of atonement.

9. Reviewers’ critique of the book (the book lacking coherence and focus, exactness and detachment, the author being too personal, too explicit in his abhorrence of war, too hysterical, too belle-lettristic, and too emphatic).

10. The analyst’s attitude to the text.

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