appunti sintetici epoca vittoriana, Appunti di Inglese

Scarica appunti sintetici epoca vittoriana e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! THE VICTORIAN AGE: -1837-1901 (64 years). -she gave the name to an age of economic and scientific progress and social reforms. -she married prince Albert and gave him 9 children. Their family was respectable and a model to follow. He was clever and she maintained stability in the country. -1830 = age of reform (The factory act reduced the hours of working of children aged between 9 and 13). -life in workhouses was hard, the poor had to wear uniforms and they had a monotonous diet. But they continued to work hard because they were optimistic and thought they would have some progresses in their lives, some ameliorations. Workhouses were mainly run by the Church: religion was a strong force. -1838: a group of working-class radicals created a movement asking for social reforms ( = Chartist movement). The government wasn’t ready for such democracy and the movement failed. Later some reforms were made: women could vote and the ballot became secret. -1845: Irish potato famine. -1851: great exhibition in London, organized by prince Albert, that showed to the world Britain’s industrial and economic power. Money were invested in setting up several museums such us the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum (they had free entrance). -during 19th century England controlled India and Hong Kong (college con storia: Cina che ritorna a possedere Hong Kong e Gandhi che libera India da UK). THE VICTORIAN COMPROMISE: -Age of contradictions and complexities: age of progress, reforms, political stability but also age of injustice and poverty. Artists appreciated Classicism and Gothic but this is the age of modernity. People believed in God but also in science and progress. -health care, education, sense of prudery were increasing. Women became respectable in English society: they controlled the family budget, they brought up the children and they were source of inspiration for lots of artists. Lots of words with sexual connotations were removed from everyday vocabulary. THE VICTORIAN NOVEL: -the level of literacy was growing thanks to circulating libraries and periodicals. Middle classes more important: lots of Victorian writers belonged to these classes. -novels, verses and essays first appeared in periodicals and reviews. In this way the writers feel they are in constant contact with his public. The stories have to be gripping so people buy periodicals and reviews. -great interest in prose, especially in the novel = the most popular form of literature and the main source of entertainment of the time. -at the beginning of the 18th : novels about a social outcast/a hero and his adventures that are set in the past and in exotic lands. In the 1840s: novels politically and socially involved (writers want to talk about the terrible conditions of workers and children during the industrial revolution). -omniscient narrator = barrier between right and wrong behaviors. He provides a comment on the plot, the justifies the events and the actions of the characters. -setting = city = symbol of industrial revolution, lost identities and expression of anonymous lives. Realistic characters in which the public can identify itself. -types of novel: novel of manners that deals with economic and social problems; novel of formation that deals with one character’s development from early youth to some sort of maturity; literary nonsense with a nonsensical universe where social rules have no sense and time and space lost their function. -lots of Victorian writers were women but they used male pseudonyms in order to see their works in print. Lots of book-buyers were women: they had more time to spend in reading books because they didn’t have to work so hard as men (women from the middle-classes). THE LATE VICTORIAN NOVEL: Realistic novel: -the late Victorian novels mirrored the society of the time and the growing crisis in the moral and religious fields. Also Darwin’s evolution theory influenced the structure of the realistic novels. -best representatives of this type of novel: Hardy with his strong individuals = manifestations of the force of nature against civilization and history) and Eliot, focused on the psychological and moral complexity of human beings. Psychological novel: -The strange case of dr. Jekyll and mr. Hyde, written by Stevenson, tried to capture the illogical aspects of life and described the double nature of Victorian society where aristocracy is only superficial. Most of the actions take place at night in the poorer districts of London = places of evil. ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON: -1850-1894. -poor health but travelled a lot. -in conflict with the Victorian world and his Calvinist family, rejecting its religious principles and its love for respectability. -he wrote Treasure island, the strange case of dr. Jekyll and mr. Hyde, Kidnapped. The strange case of dr. Jekyll and mr. Hyde: -trama pag. 110. -some aspects of the gothic novel (most scenes take place at night) but theme typical of Victorian novels: the double. This is presented in the house of the doctor: the front of the house is handsome, the rear side is sinister and without windows. -multi-narrative structure: Utterson = detective; his distant relative Enfield: they are different but they come from the same family = duality of Victorian society. Dr. Lanyon = friend of Jekyll and advocate of reason, he’s the first who has seen the transformation of his friend; Jekyll who told the story. -Stevenson dreamed the story one night. Brani fatti: 1) Story of the door (Utterson passeggia con Enfield e arrivano alla casa di Jekyll, la più sinistra di tutta la strada. Enfield racconta a Utterson di quando una notta, lì, vide un uomo orribile correre dietro ad una bambina e picchiarla); 2) Jekyll’s experiment (Jekyll spiega a Utterson, in una lettera che scrive prima di morire, le ragioni del suo esperimento: vuole vedere se la dualità della vita può essere racchiusa in una sola persona). OSCAR WILDE: -1854-1900, Dublin. -he graduated at Oxford universit and distinguished himself for his eccentricity. -he followed the “art for art’s sake” and moved to London where he became famous for his wit and his style of dress as a dandy. -1881: published Poems, collection that amazed the American audiences. Then a series of short stories such as The Canterville ghost and The picture of Dorian Gray. -his presence = social event; his style was reported on fashionable London magazines. -he wrote some tragedies such as A woman of no importance and The importance of being Earnest but they were considered immoral and his career ended. He was also imprisoned because of his homosexuality then he was released but he was a broken man: his wife refused to see him and he went into exile in France (he became poor). -“my life is a work of art” = aesthetic ideal. -he was a dandy. His dandy is a man clever, eccentric, he shocks the other with his style and ideas. -he thinks that books are well or badly written but there aren’t immoral or moral books. -he rejects the rules of Victorian novels. -only art and beauty could prevent the murder of the soul. -artist = alien in a materialistic world. He writes only to please himself. He’s an outcast. The picture of Dorian Gray: -trama: pag. 126 -all the characters reveal themselves through what they say or what other people say of them. Dorian Gray is beautiful, innocent and immature and he’s influenced by Lord Henry. Lord Henry is a brilliant intellectual who criticizes the institutions. Basil is the typical Victorian gentleman, he falls in love with Dorian’s beauty and he portrays is but he doesn’t want to show the portrait (his best work) because he’s afraid that it shows his strange attraction (example of how a good artist can be destroyed in a sacrifice for art). -3rd person narrator but internal perspective: the reader can identify himself in a character. -this story is representative of the myth of Faust = man who sold his soul to the devil so all his desires can be satisfied. Here the soul is the picture = the dark side of Dorian. -Moral of the novel: every excess must be punished and there is no escape from reality. -at the end the picture return to normality: art is eternal. Brani letti: 1) Preface (l’artista scrive per sè, i libri sono belli o brutti e non morali o immorali, i veri intelligenti sono quelli che sanno trovare il bello in ogni libro. L’artista scrive ciò che secondo lui è bello, parla di virtù a lui care. È importante avere più opinioni contrastanti su una stessa opera: questo mostra che l’opera è complessa); 2) The painter’s studio (Basil parla con Watton del quadro di Dorian, il quadro più bello del pittore, che però non vuole esporre); 3) Dorian’s death (Dorian si è stancato della sua vita corrotta, è corroso dai rimorsi, vuole porre fine a tutto ciò. Inizia a fare opere buone ma il quadro è sempre più spaventoso. Colto dall’ira, lo pugnala ma così facendo ammazza se stesso. Muore e torna vecchio e brutto e il quadro torna bello. I domestici accorrono ma non lo riconoscono. Si capisce che è lui solo dopo le analisi del corpo).