The Rise of Romanticism and Industrialization in Britain: George III, Poetry, Economy, Appunti di Inglese

Scarica The Rise of Romanticism and Industrialization in Britain: George III, Poetry, Economy e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! Britain and America George III George II grandson: George III, came to the throne in 1760. His reign lasted 60 years and is one of the longest in English history.- To reduce the public debt due to the Seven Years War the king introduced new taxes on corn, paper and tea, which caused a protest in the American colonies. some of them were delated by English parliament, but the tax on imported tea remained. The declarati on of Independence in 1770 many colonists began to oppose to British’s rules and at the Boston Tea Party of 1773, some rebels, dressed as Native Americans, threw British tea from India into the harbour. they thought that the taxes were unjust, as the colonies had no political power and could not participate in decisions about them. they said: "No taxation without representation." they were supported by several writers and philosophers such as Thomas Paine and the English Edmund Burke. The Americans were divided into Patriots, who wanted independence, and Loyalists, who wanted to remain part of Britain, and the War of Independence began in 1755. The Americans set up an army led by George Washington to face the strong British army. On July 4, 1776 in Philadelphia, the Congress, made up of representatives of 13 colonies, signed the Declaration of Independence. with it the colonies were officially recognised as a new nation and every man was given a natural right to "life, liberty and to find happiness”. after the battle of York town, where it was defeated, Great Britain in 1783 recognized the independence of its colonies with the Treaty of Versailles. The republic of the United States of America declared a federal constitution and George Washington became the first president in 1789. colonists who remained loyal to Great Britain moved to Canada. William Pitt the Younger After he lost the territory of America George III asked William Pitt the Younger to become Prime Minister. he managed to won the majority in the following year's elections and became minister for 18 years, during which he tried to reduce national debt, promote trade and support Adam Smith's laissez-faire theory, illustrated in The Wealth of Nations where he supported the liberal economy and the division of labour. The new United Kingdom In Ireland, in the late 1700s, a group of Catholics and Protestants wanted to form their own republic. after several revolt Pitt allowed Irish representatives to sit in Westminster. and in 1801 was signed the Act of Union with witch Ireland and Great Britain joined to form the new United Kingdom. the industrial revolution economic change At the end of the 18th century, thanks to many economic changes, England was transformed from an agricultural nation to an industrialized nation. At the bases of the economic transformation there were the Black Death and the improvement in social conditions that followed. Moreover in this years the population increased and agriculture and breeding improved thanks to the transformation of open fields into small closed lands easier to farm and to new production techniques. The mass consumption of machine-made products began and this marked the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Technological innovati ons many technological innovations were also introduced during the eighteenth century: one of the most important was that of James Watt who created improving existing ones a very efficient steam engine. Edmund Cartwright created a loom which allowed products to be produced faster and sold at a lower price. investments in technological development have increased. This has changed the face of the country. new industries were built near the Midlands and North coalfields. Populations moved from the rural South to the North and Midlands, and small towns, called "mushroom towns", were built near factories to house workers. The life of the workers conditions in the industrial cities were very bad, there were no basic public services and the air and water were polluted with smoke from nearby factories. The workers and their families lived in small, overcrowded houses. the phenomenon of exploitation of women and children by the employer began, in fact they were paid less and easier to control. furthermore, the children were small and could move more easily in mines and other small spaces. the industry began to apply Adam Smith's theory of division of labour which optimized the production. working hours were getting longer and more stressful, around 65-70 a week. Food prices rise up while mortality rates rise.. The French Revolution, riots and reforms The French Revoluti on and the Napoleonic Wars At the end of 1780 King George III began to suffer from 'royal madness' so in 1811 his son George, the future George IV, became Prince Regent. this period is known as the "Regency". Meanwhile in France, in 1789, the principles of the Enlightenment had led to a revolution. France declared war on Great Britain and Holland in 1793. The French were weak at sea but very strong on land, mainly thanks to the skills of the general Napoleon Bonaparte. in 4 years he had defeated much of Europe and came to the French throne as a dictator. However, Britain still kept her supremacy at sea. unfortunately the leader of the english navy, Horatio Nelson, was killed in the battle against France and Spain in 1805 where britain won and was succeeded by the duke of wellington. Napoleon, after his failed invasion of Russia, left the throne in 1814. He kept the control again for a short period known as the 100 days which in 1815 ended with Wellington's final defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. Revolts and reforms the war cost a lot and the money was often asked to common people with an increase in the cost of products (like the bread). this led to several riots in the cities, while in the factories developed the 'Luddites' movement, created by Ned Ludd, in which workers protested by destroying new machines that had stolen their work asking for better working conditions. This frightened the authorities who began banning workers from creating trade unions and arresting revolutionaries without trial. The most serious incident took place at St Peter's Fields in Manchester, where the milita fired on a peaceful crowd. this 'massacre' was later ironically called 'Peterloo'. Ossianic poetry  main representative: James Macpherson he published some of Ossian's works (ossian was a Gaelic warrior who lived in the 3rd century in Scotland) in Fragments of Ancient Poetry. The authenticity in not sure but the poems were very successful not only in England but also throughout Europe.  features: cult of a simple and primitive life, growing interest in popular traditions; other features were the melancholy and suffering produced by war or contrasted love, and the description of a wild and gloomy nature. Graveyard poetry  main representative: Tomas Gray Elegy written in a country cemetery, Edward Young and his nights thoughts on life, death and immortality. Another group of poets is known as the "Cemetery School".  characteristic of this are their melancholy tone and landscapes like cemeteries, ruins and stormy. William Blake The poet William Blake can be considered a forerunner of Romantic poetry because of his interest in social problems and his unique use of symbols. Romantic poetry At the end of the 18th beginning of the 19th Romanticism saw the prevalence of poetry, which was the best way to express individual emotions and feelings. Imaginati on (vedi scheda) Imagination was very important, thanks to it poets can go over reality and discover a truth beyond the powers of reason. The poet was seen as a prophet or a teacher who had the task of mediating between man and nature, of pointing out the evils of society, to give voice to the ideals of freedom, beauty and truth. The fi gure of the child There was a serious interest in the period of childhood. in the Augustan age childhood was considered a temporary condition, not very important itself but fundamental to becoming an adult and civilized being. now children were considered purer than adults because they were less civilized, less influenced by the negative aspects of the society, uncorrupted and closer to God. Childhood was a state to be admired and cultivated. The importance of the individual individual became more and more important. in the age of August man was seen as a social animal while in the romantics he is seen in a solitary state, and there is a focus on the mental qualities of each individual. They exalted in particular the figures of the rebel and the atypical because according to Jean Jacques Rousseau theories, society and its conventions trap and corrupt the individual personality bringing it closer to evil. Therefore a 'natural' and impulsive behaviour is good, in contrast to a behaviour governed by reason and by the rules and customs of society. They exalted the figure of the "noble savage" a romantic figure who, despite appearing primitive, has an instinctive knowledge of himself and of the world often superior to the knowledge of civilized man. The cult of the exoti c Rousseau's theories also influenced the 'cult of the exotic', it is the veneration of what it is far in space and in time; like the picturesque in the scenery and the remote and the unknown. The view of nature Nature was considered as a living force an the expression of God in the universe. It became a main source of inspiration a source of comfort and joy, and a means to express moral truths. 18th-century poetry Romantic poetry Models and rules strictly followed broke free from them Language artificial circumlocutions, more vivid and familiar words Imagery symbols decorative function they are very important and used as a vehicles to express the inner perceptions Two generati ons of poets The great English Romantic poets are generally divided into two generations. The poets of the first generation, Blake, Wordsworth and Coleridge tried to theorize about poetry. When designing the Lyrical Ballads, they decided that Wordsworth would write about the beauty of nature and ordinary things with the aim of making them interesting for the reader; Coleridge, on the other hand, should dealt with themes such as the supernatural and mystery. The poets of the second generation: Byron, Shelley and Keats, experienced the political disillusionment that is reflected, in their poetry, in the contrast between the ideal and the real. they dealt with the alienation of the artist from society and had the nonconformist, rebellious and cynical attitude of the “Byronic hero”; the revolutionary spirit and hope of Shelley's Prometheus and, finally, Keats's escape into the world of classical beauty. The poets of the second generation all died very young and away from home, in the Mediterranean countries. My hear leads up by William wordsworth Here wordsworth is both the protagonist of the scene and the narrator, as we can see in line 3-5 the poet see that A rainbow in the sky that evoke the emotion of exitement, here we can find the nature considered as a source of inspiration and joy. From line 3 to line 5 he described the three stages of man’s life: Childhood, maturity and old age. Pointing out the first one, the childhood, considered the most important for him. in line 7 there is a famous paradox: ‘The Child is father of the Man’ (line 7). The two terms of the paradox are written in capital letters because they do not only refer to two stages of man’s life but they also symbolise their corresponding states of mind: innocence and experience. Romantic fiction The novel was the most popular form of fiction. The growing interest in individual consciousness and the conflict between his desires and ambitions of the individual and what society wanted broke out in the romantic fiction. We can divide it into 4 types: gothic novel He was characterized by a taste for the strange and the mysterious, and the research of freedom, reflected in the desire to escape from the ugly world. there was the fear of the triumph of evil and chaos over good and order. this kind of novel, called "gothic novel", was addressed to all social classes. The adjective "gothic" was first applied to architecture and only later to literature. The writer Horace Walpole was the first to establish a link between the two in his work The Castle of Otranto, whose subtitle is "A Gothic Story", Purpose-aim: The gothic novels wanted to create fear in the reader with the threat of realizing the potentialities of the mind beyond reason. this reflects the specific historical moment, characterized by the Enlightenment disillusionment and the bloody Revolutions in America and France. setting: influenced by the concept of the sublime. place: ancient settings, such as isolated castles, mysterious abbeys and convents with hidden passages. time: The most important events take place during the night. darkness creates an atmosphere of darkness and mystery; characters: perceive the world around them as hostile. hero is isolated voluntarily or involuntarily, heroin both afflicted with unreal terrors and persecuted by a villain Plots are often complicated by embedded narratives and supernatural beings, such as monsters, vampires, ghosts and witches that add suspense and mystery. The first novel of its kind, The Castle of Otranto, was followed by the mysteries of udolpho by ann Radcliffe and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818). The historical novel.