ShmoopTube

Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.

Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos

Contemporary Literature 16 David Foster Wallace 92 Views


Share It!


Description:

David Foster Wallace, author of Infinite Jest , had a fondness for footnotes. 1

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:00

Thank you We sneak in contemporary literature david foster wallace

00:09

ala shmoop who is david foster wallace David foster wallace

00:15

is a member of generation acts which is the generation

00:18

that came of age in the nineteen nineties and is

00:21

very famously cynical They don't like consumerism they don't like

00:26

it when you try to sell them things or tell

00:27

them to do things David foster wallace is definitely skeptical

00:32

of popular culture he has a famous essay on television

00:37

that talks about basically how it makes us feel less

00:42

generous and sympathetic and it makes us all very like

00:44

detached and they're cool He is well known for his

00:49

novels most famously infinite jest which was published in the

00:54

mid nineteen nineties and is the only word i have

00:57

Bird is it's like an encyclopedia its huge novel full

01:02

of footnotes Actually they're almost almost as much space is

01:06

devoted to the footnotes is the text in some parts

01:09

and more in other parts Andi it's an expansive story

01:13

about a child tennis star and a lot of other

01:17

viewable it's about depression It's about money it's about american

01:22

life it's just a really intense novel he wrote a

01:27

couple of other novels The broom of the system and

01:29

the pale king which was published after his death He

01:32

is also really well known for his essays with tend

01:36

to take pretty ordinary things about the united states and

01:41

he makes really thoughtful and deep meditations on what it

01:47

means to be human Basically so this is a genius

01:52

who was very sad but he's also incredibly warm hearted

01:58

and you especially see in his later essays on a

02:02

very famous graduation speech who once gave that he really

02:06

believes in the goodness of people and he believes that

02:11

we can have good lives He predicted in the mid

02:15

nineties that there would be a turn in american fiction

02:19

and that people would start writing fiction that was less

02:22

self consciously cool and mohr invested in everyday life and

02:28

things that were normal and ordinary and nice Uh and

02:33

he inspired a lot of writers to go down that

02:35

path So recent novelists like jonathan safran foer or even

02:42

jonathan franzen have all been really influenced By david foster

02:46

wallace What is generation x and how does david foster

02:52

wallace relate to it What is unusual about infinite jest

02:57

What are some characteristics of david foster Wallace is writing

Up Next

The Importance of Being Earnest Summary
123039 Views

They say that honesty is the best policy, but Jack lies about his identity and still gets the girl. Does that mean we should all lie to get what we...

Related Videos

The Giver Summary
105893 Views

Ever wish you could remember everything that you ever studied? How about everything that everyone has ever studied? Yeah, pretty sure our brains ju...

Invisible Man (Ellison)
1818 Views

Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man is an American classic. Hope you're not expecting any exciting shower scenes though. It's not that kind of book.

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
1256 Views

Do not go gentle into that good night. In fact, if it's past your curfew, don't go at all into that good night. You just stay in your good bed and...

Quotes: A fool's paradise
294 Views

Find out the meaning behind "a fool's paradise."