History of English Literature - Anno accademico 2021/2022, Appunti di Letteratura Inglese

Scarica History of English Literature - Anno accademico 2021/2022 e più Appunti in PDF di Letteratura Inglese solo su Docsity! HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE PRIMO SEMESTRE 2021/2022 ISTRUTTORE: MANUEL ZANIBONI VICTORIAN LITERATURE (ch. 7 + 8) 2 main groups: 1. high vietorian (1830-1880) e novel: dickens, thackeray, the bronte sisters, gaskell, eliot, carroll ® poetry: tennyson, pre-raphaelites, robert browning 2. late victorian (1880-1920) ® novel: thomas hardy, conan doyle, stoker, stevenson, kipling, conrad, h.g. Wells ® theatre: wilde, shaw QUEEN VICTORIA's reign (1837-1901) © material progress ® imperial expansion ® politicaland economical development e growthinliterature (it was boosted be of her reign) e growthofpopulation 14 millions > 32 millions 1. Industrial revolution e itledto improvements in technology (telegraph, railway, electricity, photography... è railway: faster and less expensive travels o it changed the way people saw reality in a different way ® photography: new definition of what is real o Ruskin, carroll, doyle, hugo and zola were photographers 2. The great exhibition (1851) ® Trade show held inside the crystal palace in London e itsymbolises britain's industrial and economical power in the world 3. Scientific developments in biology and geology è 1859: “on the origin of species” by Charles Darwin o theory of evolution and natural selection vs theory of creation from the bible o “all living creatures have taken their forms through a slow process of change and adaptation in a struggle for survival. only the strongest can survive” e wecan notice the dichotomy between science and religion THE VICTORIAN COMPROMISE Time of contradictions: pros cons ® scientific progress brought by industrial revolution e rising wealth of upper and middle classes e expanding power of britain and its empire all over the world o india, large parts of africa poverty, disease and deprivation in the working classes brought by progress young children forced to work in textile mills and mines poverty and debt crimes were to be punished with imprisonment colonisation and slavery of other races Victorian values: e movrality, church, family, home o many ofthem were enforced ® ideaof respectability of the middle-upper classes o they had to behave accordingly to morality ® puritan society and repressed sexuality (especially for women) e familywasseenasa patriarchal unit, women were a sort of possession, they were submitted ® patriotism and ideas of racial superiority WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY © bornincalcutta e backto england when he was 6 e worked asa journalist e masterof novel of manners o he dealt with economic and social problems, describing a particular class or situation “The luck of Barry Lyndon” 1844 “Vanity fair” 1847-1848 e anovelwithout hero e socialsatire and humour o Itexposes the hypocrisy and the snobbery of the respectable society o It condemns who violates the moral principles of society o vs middle class puritan opportunism © the omniscient narrator expresses personal comments and opinions BRONTÉ SISTERS e gothic and romantic elements e violentpassions of love and death e wild natural landscapes o late victorian novel: natural but also industrialised landscapes © emily: “wuthering heights” 1847 © tragic story of catherine and heathcliff o gothic element: catherine's ghost o complex narrative structure with 2 narrators o no chronological order, use of flashbacks è charlotte: “ane eyre” 1847 © protagonist is jane > governess > falls in love with rochester © strong feelings of passion and intensity from a woman standpoint o jane is different: independent, compelling and capable o first person narrator o emotional use of language ® anne: “agnes grey” 1847 ELIZABETH GASKELL e shelivedin manchester o 2nd industrial city after london ® she denounces inequality and injustice on the workers e comparison between the old rural and new industrial societies o contrasting values and ways of life between rural life and industrial city (manchester) è ofterthereare links with pollution and the environment “mary barton” 1848 “cranford” 1853 “north and south” 1855 e social novels GEORGE ELIOT (MARY ANNE EVANS) “middlemarch” 1872 e 8bookswith8 different stories ® setinaprovincial town and the country estates around them e characters of different social stata ® portrays the position of women in victorian society as inferior and forced to marry LEWIS CARROLL e penname (his real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) e lecturer in mathematics at oxford ® creationof nonsense: questioning the principles governing society and moralityabsurdity of the world “alice’s adventures in wonderland” 1865 ® nonsensical universe e disintegration of social rules and conventions ® cause-effect relations don't exist, time and space have lost their function ® fantasy dream / nonsense literature e illogical like the language: destruction of the victorian facade © puns, musical elements, play with typography “Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There” 1871 THE POETRY ® the pre-raphaelites brotherhood (mid1850s) e tennyson(1809-1892) e browning(1812-1879) o bridge between this earlier romantic era and the modernist poetry © use of sensory elements o religion and science + ideas about nature and romance THE PRE-RAPHAELITE BROTHERHOOD (mid 18505) e Movementof painters and poets, influenced by John Ruskin's principles e Praisingthe purity and simplicity of italian art of the 13th and 14th century e Beauty = duty owedto society e Inliterature: a group of poets (including Dante Gabriele Rossetti, William Morris, G.M. Hopkins) who criticised the contemporary values related to industrialisation o They anticipated the Aesthetic movement LORD ALFRED TENNYSON ® conflict between religious faith and scientific discoveries e worried about the corruption dominating the XIX century e glorification of the 18th century england: victorians' natural pride and love of order and optimistic belief in the progress ® inspiration in the ancient worlds of greece and rome and in arthurian england “ulysses” 1833 ® retells the stories of dante and homer, who described the character of ulysses ROBERT BROWNING ® artist’s responsibility and relationship between art and morality e useofthe grotesque: images of ugliness, violence and the bizarre ® characters are capable of great evil e useofthe dramatic monologue: a solitary speaker addressing someone “My last duchess” 1842 ® The speaker confesses his wife's murder THE THEATRE e notthe main literary activity during the victorian period (which was the novel) ®© manytechnical improvements: more realistic effects on the stage © 2main playwrights GEORGE BERNARD SHAW e dramawasthe vehicle for presenting his view on social institutions and human experience in aprovocative form © irish playwright and critic e he created anew form of drama: the drama of discussion or ideas © he criticises victorian institutions o useof paradox, inversion of ideas, the unexpected, exaggeration “mrs warren's profession” 1894 “pygmalion” 1913 e acockney(londonian dialect) girls transformation into a lady e Itsatirises the english class system OSCAR WILDE è comediesto expose the faults and hypocrisy of the age © hewrote 9 plays and became famous for 4 comedies “lady windermere's fan” 1892 “a woman of no importance” 1893 “an ideal husband” 1895 “the importance of being earnest” 1895 e debate about marriage e itsatirises victorian manners ® critique against victorian hypocrisy “salomè” 1891 e Theonly tragedy oscar wilde ever wrote “the picture of dorian grey” 1890 e wilde's one and only novel ® itspreface is the manifesto of aestheticism: “the purpose oflife is to have no purpose” e criticised as scandalous and immoral ® 19th century version of the myth of goethe's faust e conceptof dandy © aperson who only seeks art and pleasure ® the picture is seen as dorian's dark side o Returnofthe theme of the double Aestheticism © itrejects moral rules and conventions of victorian society ® it focused on beauty and the resulting pleasure in life e Walter Pater is regarded as the theorist of this movement ® motto: art for art's sake o life should be lived in the spirit of art ® no didacticaim, no morality ® manifesto: preface to “the picture of dorian gray” 1890 o excessive attention to the self o hedonistic and sensuous attitude, perversity o disenchantment with contemporary society © evocative use of language HERBERT GEORGE WELLS ® Acceptance of literary conventions vs modernism o Edwardian novel o Brings popularity then overshadowed by modernists ® Knowledge of science and scientific method “The island of Dr. Moreau” 1896 ® Fableofvivisection and genetic engineering ® Dr. Moreau = tyrannical o Tortures and metamorphixes animals EDWARDIAN LITERATURE 1901-1910 GEORGIAN LITERATURE è KingGeorge Vs reign: 1910-1936 e Worldwar 1: 1914-1918 WAR POETS e Movementof poets talking about the ist world war e NotonlyinEngland, also in Italy (Giuseppe Ungaretti), France (Apollinaire) e Robert Graves, Rupert Brooke, Siegfried Sassoon, Isaac Rosenberg e 2differentattitudes towards war in the poems o Patriotic attitude + sacrifice o Death and psychological wounds + opposition to heroic liberal attitudes ROBERT GRAVES “Collected Poems” 1975 e NOexperimental writing ® Preference for classical forms and technical mastery e Love poetry “Goodbye to All That” 1929 e Experimental writing e Autobiography (soldier’s experience during WWI) e Disrespectful of historical truth RUPERT BROOKE e War poetry = express a sense of honour and celebrate the glories of war “The soldier” 1929 ® Patriotic sonet e Deathisa sacrifice SIEGFIRED SASSOON ® War poetry = consequences of war e Anti-Romantic language + Colloquialisms “Repression of the War Experience” 1918 JAMES FRAZER “The golden bough” 1890-1915 ® study of comparative religion ® examines the spiritual beliefs, practises, and institutions of cultures worldwide © natural progression from magic to religion to science ® detailed descriptions of esoteric rites and ceremonies, analysis of recurrent motifs in myth, and interpretation of the “primitive” worldview ® synthesise and compare a wider range of information about religious and magical practises ALBERT EINSTEIN e theoryof relativity: time and space are subjective dimensions e effectonart o rejection of perspective and realistic representations HENRY BERGSON e Historical Time vs Psychological Time o Historical: linear, external, measurable o Personal: subjective, internal, immeasurable e Effectonliterature o development of new narrative techniques that could record inner time. FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE e ‘“Godis dead” o substitution of Christian morality with belief in human power + perfectibility o isolation and alienation of modern man MODERNIST NOVEL (second decade of the 2oth century) e transformation of Victorian society o periodof change: need of different forms of expression o New theory of time + New theory of unconscious o No need of chronological sequence of events e focusisonthe interior reality of the character o Joyce's “epiphany”: the sudden revelation of and interior reality caused by the most trivial events of everyday life e The novelists rejected omniscient narration and experimented new ways of portraying the individual consciousness o consequent shift of viewpoint o from external to the internal work of a character's mind e Newnarrative technique: the interior monologue o reproduce flow of thoughts, memories, emotions o fluxof words similar to mind e Thetaskofthe novelist becomes therefore the breaking of barriers between reader and character, and the search for a meaningful centre in human experience THE INTERIOR MONOLOGUE AND THE STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS e interior monologue: the verbal expression of a psychic phenomenon o Represents the unspoken activity of the mind o Use of punctuation, more structured o Ex: Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse e stream of consciousness: the verbal expression of a psychic phenomenon: o Notordered in speech o Freed from introductory expressions o freed from logical, chronological and formal structures o Itis IMMEDIATE with no interference by the narrator e e.g. Last Chapter of Ulysses: Molly's stream of consciousness MODERNISM e Novel: Henry James, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Aldous Huxley, The Auden Circle, George Orwell e Poetry: Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, William B. Yeats e Theatre: T.S. Eliot, William Butler Yeats WILLIAM JAMES e 1890 = “Stream of consciousness” (the flow of thoughts within the human mind) o NOobjective description, o Fluctuating points of view, o NO conventional dialogue; o Fluid expansion and contraction of time HENRY JAMES e BorninNew York in 1843 e Movedto London in 1876, lived there for the rest of his life o Novels developed an international theme: e Gap between innocent, unconventional, idealistic Americans VS educated, refined, corrupted Europeans è “The Portrait ofa Lady” 1881 o Novels developed an interest in English issues: e Women's suffrage, anarchism, art è “The Turn ofthe Screw” 1898 e Realistictradition of the 19th century novel in earlier works e Forerunner of modern psychological novel in later novels o Exploration of state of feeling, dilemmas of existence, the complexity of human relations and soul o Developmentof “limited point of view” DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE e Rejection of formal Christianity + Interest in its mysteries e Secularisation of the idea of the Holy Spirit and life & death e Sexualisationof Biblical language e Ideaofmale subterranean consciousness (influenced by Freud) e Psychological analysis of his characters e Conflict conventions-passion “Lady Chatterley's Lover” 1960 e England crushed by the war Main works: o “Dubliners”1914 o “Portrait ofthe Artist” 1916 o “Ulysses” 1922 o “Finnegans Wake” 1939 “Dubliners” 1914 a collection of 15 short stories about Dubliners four groups: Childhood, Adolescence, Mature Life, Public Life; realistic picture of everyday life in Dublin + moral history of the country; o Paralysis, hypocrisy and spiritual inactivity. Use of the epiphany: the sudden manifestation of an interior truth caused by a trivial gesture, an external object or an ordinary situation “Stephen Hero” Definition of epiphany: “Sudden spiritual manifestation, whether in the vulgarity of speech or of gesture or a memorable phase of the mind itself” “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” 1916 Semi-autobiographical Stephen Dedalus Trish identity Writer committed to artistic values ONLY “Ulysses” 1922 Set in Dublin, on a single day (June 16th 1904) Main characters: Leopold Bloom, his wife Molly and his friend Stephen Dedalus It is modelled on the Odyssey o Leopold Bloom = Odysseus/Ulysses o Stephen Dedalus = his lost son Telemachus o Molly Bloom = Penelope Main theme: man's journey through life allegorically represented by Ulysses’ story 24 hours of Bloom's day = 24 books of the classic epic Narrative techniques: stream of consciousness, cinematic technique, dramatic monologue, Juxtaposition of events Mythical method: references to myths and legends of the past to be associated with the present age; hero is an everyday man, the journey is not physical but interior, ironic effect “Finnegans Wake” 1939 No ordinary plot Random thoughts, feelings, dreams Linguistic invention o wordplays, verbal cocktails, literary echoes, borrowings from other languages Stream of consciousness ALDOUS HUXLEY Different phases: o Purely aesthetic interest o Politico-ethical = commitment regarding scientific progress and negative aspects of modern civilisation o Predominantly religious point of view “Brave New World” 1932 Title = Shakespeare's The Tempest Brave New World © Orwell's 1984 dystopian science fiction set in a future place, Utopia o everyone is controlled and most people are brainwashed futuristic view to an extreme to show how dangerous control and lack of individuality can be Scientifically perfect society based on a caste system in which human beings are ‘conditioned’ to occupy a place on a social scale Manual workers (Epsilons) VS Intellectuals (Alphas) Test-tube babies, genetic engineering, and social control GEORGE ORWELL Urge to inform, to reveal facts Writing assumes a useful social function = social realism “Animal Farm” 1945 allegorizes the rise to power of the dictator Joseph Stalin e Original revolution becomes dictatorship o allegorical representation via the animals e Plot: onthe Manor Farm the animals rebel; they drive out the owner and install a regime of perfect equality, which is then taken over by the pigs, who are the most adept at organisation, leading to the dictatorship of the chief pig o “all animals are equal” o “all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others” “Nineteen Eighty-Four” 1949 e apolitical novel which portrays the perfect totalitarian society e Totalitarianism = Big Brother e Aspecialofficial language: ‘Newspeak' o people are limited in their thoughts and ideas o “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strenght” e Maincharacters: Winston Smith + Julia MODERNIST DRAMA e Modernist poetry officially began with Imagism (1912-1917) e Ezra Pound(1885-1972) e constantuse of hard, clear and precise images e useof free rhythm (freed from the artificial demands of metrical regularity) e choice of any subject matter © poems, usually short, had no moral comment o They were the poet's response to a scene /object WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM e Maintheme: middle-class attitudes towards love and money “The Circle” 1921 “The Constant Wife” 1926 è Marriage and Infidelity e psychological and cultural crisis that came with the loss of moral and cultural identity after the 1st World War e Useofthe Mythical method e Quotation from many literary works belonging to different traditions and cultures and religious texts e fragmentary style: mixture of different poetic styles o blank verse, the ode, the quatrain and the free verse e Crisis of Western civilization e Indirect reference to the war e NOrealwasteland = a cultural and spiritual wasteland THE AUDEN CIRCLE/THIRTIES POETS e W.H. Auden (poet), Christopher Isherwood (novelist) o Sense ofshame for not taking part in the ist World War e Crusading militancy, socialism o Vehicle for social, sexual, literary emancipation e Evangelising mission to change society and foster democracy e Soviet Communism: paradigm of future society e Writers take part in the anti-fascist struggle o Spanish War to defend the Republic VS Franco e fascisttotalitarianism, just like what what happening in Italy e Write butalso fight (ex: Auden) WYSTAN HUGH AUDEN ® Facility for versification = variety of metrical forms and poetic sources ® 1939: he moved to America “Poems” 1930 ® Influence of. Eliot + ancient English poetry e Wishto reconnect with pre-Modernist poetry “The orators” 1932 ® British society (Depression, unemployment, totalitarianism) e Mixture of poetry and prose ® Need for ‘commitment /active intervention “Spain” 1937 è Spanish Civil War (1936-39) e Warasabattle between good and evil forces o Good: Republican army o Evil: Francisco Franco's Regime © The importance of the struggle (today) as it affects the future (tomorrow) e ‘Tomorrow the rediscovery ofromantic love, The photographing of ravens; all the fun under Liberty's masterful shadow [...]. Tomorrow [...] the eager election of chairmen By a sudden forest of hands. But today the struggle” “In Memory of W.B Yeats” 1939 © More personal and spiritual poetry è Poetry cannot by itself create a better world POSTMODERNISM (ch. 10) e It developed inEurope after WW2 with a series of new techniques o metafiction, intertextuality, magic realism, pastiche e Wide variety of discourses: focus on human conditions and identity e Areaction against Enlightenment ideas implicit in Modernist literature e Senseof paranoia left by the disasters occurred in the 2oth century (Holocaust, WW2) e Impossibility to find meaning and reason, everything has already been written NEW TECHNIQUES: Metafiction ® the basic postmodern literary technique ® thetextisreferringto itself, or more generally to its own textuality or nature as a text e whenatextrefers to other texts it becomes apparent that it is one itself è self-reflexive texts Intertextuality (term coined by Julia Kristeva) e areference or parallel to another literary work e anextended discussion of a work © the adoptionofa style ® e.g. Maragaret Atwood with references to the fairy tales Pastiche ® itisanintertextual strategy e atype of writing that combines writing from different genres to form a new narrative e related to the parody, but it does not have the aim to poke fun at the earlier text e connectedto the postmodern feeling that everything has already been done and written e connectedto the general backward-orientation of postmodernism, which is caused by the notion that history has stopped Magie realism e Akindof modern fiction in which fabulous and fantastical events are included in a narrative that otherwise maintains the 'reliable' tone of objective realistic report Gabriel Garcia Mrquez's “Cien afios de soledad” 1967 ® oftencitedasa leading example, celebrated for the moment at which one character unexpectedly ascends to heaven while hanging her washing on a line Salman Rushdie's “Midnight's Children” 1981 Angela Carter's “Nights at the Circus” 1984 J.R.R. TOLKIEN e Philologist+ Professor of mediaeval language and literature ® Fictionalworld that encompasses mythology, fable, fantasy “The Hobbit” 1937 “The Lord of the Rings” 1954-1955 “The Silmarillion” 1977 J.K. ROWLING è “Harry Potter”. a schoolboy wizard, 1997-2007 ® Influences: Roald Dahl, J.R.R Tolkien, the fairy tale genre “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” 1961 ® Exercise of psychological power in an Edinburgh girls’ school e Miss Brodie defined moral sway “The driver's seat” 1970 e Present-tense account of a woman with a death-wish who plots the circumstances of her own violent murder JEAN RHYS e Pseudonym of: Gwendolyn Rees Williams e Bornin Dominica (Caribbean) “Wide Sargasso Sea” 1966 ® Recreation of Mr. Rochester's account of his courtship and marriage with Bertha Mason ® Setting: West Indies in the 18908 ® Alterationof perspective: narrative divided between Rochester and Bertha e Newintensity and savagery e Exploration of loneliness, exploitation, and victimisation e Corruptand uneasy society of the Caribbean o Decayingplantations o Exotic gardens o Tropical storms Ends in Thornfield Hall ANGELA CARTER e Genre-bender: essays, stories, novels e Intertextuality, magic realism, feminism, gothic “The Bloody Chamber” 1979 e acollectionof 10 short stories è Carter seeks out the psychological aspects to fairy tales ® fairy tales contain topics that many people choose to ignore © incest, rape, and cannibalism ® Fairytales: legend of Bluebeard, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, vampire legends, Red Riding Hood, Alice's Through the Looking Glass JOHN FOWLES “The French Lieutenant's Woman” 1969 ® historical novel set in the mid-19th Century ® Thestoryofthe fraught relationship between a Gentleman and his Governess e Perfectexample of metafiction: the novel constantly refers to itself ® Despite being written by a man, it is considered also as a feminist work o while the male character is stereotypical, the female one fights for her independence and is ahead of her times ANTHONY BURGESS “The malayan trilogy” 1956-1959 e 3novels written ina realist mode ® Tronic and acute commentary on the end of the colonial period “A Clockwork Orange” 1962 e dystopian novel set in a future where criminals are scientifically forced to behave e High-tech authoritarianism e Writtenin visionary jargon mixing English and Russian, linguistic experiment e Fromthis novel Kubrick took one of his most famous films “Earthly Powers” 1980 ® the story of a 81-year-old man narrating his biography e 82chapters: each chapter corresponds to one year in the life of the protagonist e Retracingthe story of a man born in 1900 and living in the 20th Century, the novel tries to recuperate all literary styles typical of the period in which it is set ANTONIA SUSAN BYATT e Shewasa scholar e Inher novels we can find historical, literary and mythical allusions “Possession” 1990 ® the story oftwo contemporary scholars investigating the love-story of two 19th Century (fictional) poets e Abpastiche presenting different types of texts (letters, articles, diary entries, poems) e Constantshifts in the time-axis “The Children's Book” 2009 set on the turn of 20th Century It s the story of several families in relation to each other Metafiction: the novel always refers to (and quotes) books written by the characters IAN MCEWAN “The Cement Garden” 1978 violent story of children burying their own parents and then living on their own Incest and homicide are also important themes Symbolising the isolation of children in contemporary society “Atonement” 2001 Historical novel set inthe 1930's and 19408 Despite the horrors of WWII, the 3rd section of the novel has a happy end An upper-class girls half-innocent mistake that ruins lives, her adulthood in the shadow of that mistake, and a reflection on the nature of writing Nonetheless, in the postscript, set in London in 1999, the narrator shows how she lied and that actually the story was much more tragic and sad The title refers to the atonement she tried to do during her lifetime JEANETTE WINTERSON “Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit” 1985 bildungsroman about a lesbian girl who grows up in a very religious community and slowly disocvers her lesbian identity Semi-autobiographical: some of the facts narrated in the story, actually happened to Winterson in real life “Sexing the Cherry” 1989 Phantasy and historical novel at the same time Set in 17th Century but with time travels References to magic realism and grotesque o the protagonist is a gigantic woman, her skirt could even be used as a ship's sail Several examples of intertextuality Strongly feminist “MCMXIV” 1914 ® Deceptionofphotography è Speaksofthe first world war DRAMA: © two main trends in drama: Absurd and Anger SAMUEL BECKETT e Bornindublin e LondonandthenParis e Hewonthe nobel prize for literature in 1969 e AbsurdDrama: illogical, incongruous, unreasonable ® The value of language is reduced o what happens on the stage transcends, often contradicts, the words spoken “Waiting for Godot” 1953 it can be considered the starting point ® Dialogue between 2 characters: Vladimir and Estragon e The waiting of someone who will never appear is the essence of the drama JOHN OSBORNE © The group of the “angry young men” ® frustrated generation, anxious to speak the raw language of the real people “Look Back in Anger” 1956 © The protagonist, Jimmy Porter, was a young man from a working-class background who had been to university but preferred to live with his wife in a small top-floor flat and get along by running a sweet stall at the local market. This was the character who, with his generic anger against every English institution and habit, was to become the spokesman for the confused but profound dissatisfaction of an entire generation ARNOLD WESKER ® mainly author of kitchen sink dramas (part of the angry young men) © tryingto depict the decadence of British society through people's private life o Self-discovery, love, death, political disillusion “Chicken soup with Barley” 1958 e Communist Jewish family from the East End of London over three crucial moments in English political life: o the Fascist demonstrations (1936) o post-war Labour victory (1946) o ideological crisis following the Soviet invasion of Hungary (1956) “Roots” 1959 e Maincharacter: a young woman from a provincial working class background e Exploration of the possible modes of commitment, not necessarily political, to reform society HAROLD PINTER ® Difficulty of communicating through speech e Fascination and beauty of words when properly used e so-called comedy of menace o He presents apparently mild situations which results in dramatic catastrophes “The caretaker” 1960 e 3characters e Simple plot, different meanings: o struggle between youth and age, the defence of territory, the search for identity, protest against marginalisation and intolerance TOM STOPPARD ® strongly intellectual plays, concerning philosophy, history and linguistics o also fighting for human rights “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead” 1966 e Meta-theatrical comedy ® Referencesto William Shakespeare's Hamlet “Jumpers” 1972 e Satire on philosophy, set in an alternative reality “The Invention of Love” 1997 è Characters: Wilde, Housman, Ruskin e 19th century, Oxford