Indie Rock Poetry: Arctic Monkeys’ Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not
| Thesis title in Czech: | Indie Rocková Poezie: Album Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not kapely Arctic Monkeys |
|---|---|
| Thesis title in English: | Indie Rock Poetry: Arctic Monkeys’ Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not |
| Key words: | indie rocková poezie|Severní Anglie|Britská kultura |
| English key words: | indie rock poetry|Northern England|British culture |
| Academic year of topic announcement: | 2021/2022 |
| Thesis type: | Bachelor's thesis |
| Thesis language: | angličtina |
| Department: | Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures (21-UALK) |
| Supervisor: | Stephan Delbos, M.F.A., Ph.D. |
| Author: | hidden - assigned and confirmed by the Study Dept. |
| Date of registration: | 08.03.2022 |
| Date of assignment: | 08.03.2022 |
| Administrator's approval: | not processed yet |
| Confirmed by Study dept. on: | 23.03.2022 |
| Date and time of defence: | 31.01.2023 10:00 |
| Date of electronic submission: | 08.01.2023 |
| Date of proceeded defence: | 31.01.2023 |
| Submitted/finalized: | committed by student and finalized |
| Opponents: | doc. Erik Sherman Roraback, D.Phil. |
| Guidelines |
| My BA thesis will investigate the poetics of Arctic Monkeys debut album Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, released on January 23, 2006. The album received both great critical acclaim as well as commercial success, setting the record for the fastest-selling UK debut album at the time it was released. My thesis will examine the lyrics to the majority of the songs on the album. The theoretical framework for analysing the album’s lyrics in my thesis is largely based on the Easthope’s concept that literary value “is a consequence not of the text but of the local discourses and institutions in the present within which the text is constructed in a present reading.” Throughout the history of literary theory there have been certain criteria (mimetic, expressive and formalist) that aimed to define what is and isn’t literature, in the 20th Century the discourse changed. Critics like Antony Easthope, Raymond Williams, Stanley Fish and Terry Eagleton argued, each in their own way, in favour of the arbitrary nature of the concept of literary value. I am planning to apply mainly their theories of literary value denunciation to prove and demonstrate that the song lyrics on this album can be considered not just as songs, but as independent works of literature that deserve closer inspection and research. I am going to mainly base my thesis around Terry Eagleton’s idea that there is no essence of literature whatsoever, which also makes it possible for the vanishment of the split between high and popular culture in the post-modern era. On Arctic Monkeys’ debut album Alex Turner (the frontman, singer, composer and lyricist) creates a lyrical subject that can be characterised as an observer who tries to grasp and analyse various aspects of a night life among young people of his age around the High Green area of Sheffield in the North of England in the early 2000’s. Alex Turner's lyrics portray and depict the cultural and economic conditions of existence of a middle-class English man at the turn of the twenty-first century. The first part of the thesis will discuss the theoretical literary framework used for the literary analysis of the lyrics (mentioned above). The second part will highlight the band’s social/cultural background — their working-class Northern England origin as well as their connection to indie-rock culture. Establishing the connection between their lyrics and their social/cultural background is important since, according to Easthope, the vanishment of the split between high and popular culture also became the reason for transforming the field of inquiry from literary into cultural studies. In other words, the disappearance of the border between high and popular culture also means a partial disappearance between fields of literary and cultural studies. Finally, the third part of the thesis will be dedicated to the literary analysis of the song lyrics. It is important to note that only songs that thematically correspond to the dominating issues investigated by the lyrical subject on the album will be included in my thesis. Ultimately, the thesis will prove that the song lyrics on Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not is indie rock poetry that can be considered as literature which deserves academic study. |
| References |
| Bibliography Ambrosch, Gerfried. The Poetry of Punk. New York: Routledge, 2018. Epub. Blackshaw, Tony. Working-Class Life in Northern England, 1945 -– 2010; The Pre-History and After-Life of the Inbetweener Generation. London: The Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. Pdf Berry, Craig; Giovannini, Arianna (eds.). Developing England’s North: The Political Economy of the Northern Powerhouse. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. Pdf. Crossley, Nick. Networks of Sound, Style and Subversion: The Punk and Post-punk Worlds of Manchester, London, Liverpool and Sheffield, 1975-80. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015. Pdf. Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory: An Introduction. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983. Pdf. Easthope, Antony. Literary into Cultural Studies. UK: Routledge, 1991. Pdf. Ehland, Christoph (ed.). Thinking Northern: Textures of Identity in the North of England. (Spatial Practices). Amsterdam-New York: Rodopi, 2007. Pdf. Fish, Stanley. Is There a Text in This Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities. Cambridge, Massachusetts - London: Harvard University Press, 1980. pdf. Fonarow, Wendy. Empire of Dirt: The Aesthetics and Rituals of British Indie Music. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 2006. Pdf. Marcus, Greil. Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the 20th Century. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1989. Epub. Palmer, Robert. “Poets Put Their Stamp On Rock Lyrics. ” The New York Times, June 20, 1982. https://www.nytimes.com/1982/06/20/arts/poets-put-their-stamp-on-rock-lyrics.html Reynolds, Simon. Bring the Noise: 20 Years of Writing About Hip Rock and Hip Hop. Berkeley: Soft Skull Press, 2007. Epub. Williams, Raymond. Problems in Materialism and Culture: Selected Essays. Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory. London:Verso, 1980. Pdf. Sorel-Cameron, Peter. The Arctic Monkeys Phenomenon: Behind The Music. T. Edgehill Publishing Ltd, 2007.https://vk.com/album-771_171245320. “Arctic Monkeys”. Wikipedia, Accessed December 15, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Monkeys. Billboard Staff. “Arctic Monkeys Earn Fastest-Selling U.K. Debut”. Billboard, Accessed December 17, 2021, https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/arctic-monkeys-earn-fastest-selling-uk- debut-59878/. |