L'età Vittoriana: contesto sociale, culturale e letterario, Appunti di Inglese

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The Victorian Age Social and cultural background rich and poor > Benjamin Disraeli highlighted a clear distinction between the rich and the poor → two nations without intercourse or sympathy as if they were on different planets age of optimism, prosperity and technological and industrial progress > the growing middle class reaped the benefits of this growth with quality housing, education and culture and in moral aspects with religious observance and strict morality the poorer working classes paid the price of this development > unskilled labourers including women and children worked in unsanitary conditions with no pay, no freedom and no dignity overpopulation and disease > rapid industrialisation and migration from country to city led to expansion but also to problems of overpopulation and pollution → disease like cholera killed the poor districts of the city also because of the bad treatment of water religion, philanthropy and social reform > Evangelical movement > a religious group that tried to improve living conditions for workers creating factories which offered them work. cheap but sanitary housing and education but obliged them to sacrifice their independence and to accept strict regulation social reform → desire to adapt institutions rather than destroy them + utilitarianism Bentham social Darwinism → theory of natural selection applied to society > there were the fit who became powerful and the unfit who were innately lazy and stupid > Herbert Spencer use the theory to justify capitalism and lack of state intervention on reform for inequality education and charitable schools → poor families can’t afford schooling and need children’s work to survive “Ragged Schools” → established by the London City Mission, they gave basic and free education to children too ragged to enter any other place the role of women > they didn’t enjoy any degree of freedom > women of the wealthier middle class could afford to devote themselves to home and family, working class women were obliged to take on poorly paid home work (laundering, ironing) so they had the struggle of looking after home and family and finding time to work + benevolent associations run by women for women by the end of the VA women began to realize that they had little power to change society > first wave of feminism Literary background one of the most productive, rich and controversial periods of the English literature, dominated by the novel, a genre adaptable and useful to depict the effects of economics growth on human lives two main phases > - The Victorian compromise > authors who aimed to instruct and entertain readers without criticising the world they belonged to → they believed in scientific progress - The Anti-Victorian reaction > authors who exposed all of the contradictions of their age → influenced by Darwinism and Realism and Positivism the triumph of the novel > why? more people could afford and read books, there were “circulating libraries”, novels were easily portable and could be read everywhere, novels were often published in instalments in newspapers common features of victorian novels > novels tend to entertain and instruct, have a clear moral aim, represent the conditions of life of Victorian people in a realistic way, plot are complex, adventurous, rich in characters, unexpected events, surprises and plot twists Emily Bronte she lived a secluded life with her siblings in Yorkshire, after publishing her only book using a male pseudonym to hide her female identity, she died Wuthering Heights explores the impossible love between Heathcliff, a Byronic hero, and Catherine, a woman torn between passion and social conventions the novel adopts elements taken from the Gothic tradition and explores universal themes such as love, death and immortality + the condition of women and their lack of independence in a world dominated by men as well as the contrast between individual aspirations and the limitations imposed by life landscape as a symbol > landscape and the main characters mirror each other: the landscape surrounding Wuthering Heights is characterised by moorland, which can’t be cultivated and is infertile > Heathcliff’s name itself ties him to the land (heath > an area of uncultivated land, cliff > a steep rock) > symbol of the protagonists’ untameable nature and passion, which can’t be restrained by rationality and as such becomes destructive and infertile individual aspirations vs material conditions > contrast between the pleasant world of individual feelings and the unpleasant reality represented by the limiting conditions of the age in which the novel takes place > relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff → impossible because of the material conditions Charlotte Bronte she used a male pseudonym to hide her female identity too Jane Eyre explores the theme of womanhood and opens a window on the dark sides of human personality (Bertha Mason) gothic and romantic elements > gothic setting (Thornfield Hall), supernatural situations + romantic heroes > Rochester is a Byronic hero explored Victorian society and the forbidden desires behind public faces > dualism of the period (rich and poor, progress and degradation…) style and narrative technique > supernatural elements of the Gothic novel (Dorian’s mysterious portrait) + french decadent fiction, third person narrator, main symbolic element is the portrait which represents Dorian’s conscience and his real self aestheticism and the cult of beauty > art movement developed in Europe in the late 19th century which claimed that art exists for the sake of beauty and does not have any moral purpose (“Decadence” as Aestheticism used for Baudelaire) → reaction to the utilitarian philosophy and to Victorian morals the dangers of a superficial society > portrait of a society that gives more importance to surfaces and materialism than to moral virtues or human values > Dorian’s main interest is not the cultivation of virtues but the preservation of his eternal beauty element of social criticism > Dorian’s success in society is not the outcome of his virtues but is the product of a society based on the cult of external beauty and appearance Colonialism and Imperialism: The Culture Clash Rudyard Kipling he was born in India, but was educated in England The Jungle Book two volume collection of short stories for children, stories set in India Mowgli, an abandoned child who is raised by wolves in the jungle “Law of the jungle” is not chaos and violence prevalence but the animals abide by a strict law, it is an unwritten animal code, animals like Shere Khan, a tiger who thinks he is above the law and so refuse to behave according to the code, are not accepted in the community Main theme > belonging, Mowgli is an outsider because he is so wild and different and seems to have a special relationship with the animals, everyone fears his skills > he is too much of a man for the wolves, too much of a wolf for the men Edward Morgan Foster A Passage to India conflict between the dominant British society in India and the country’s native population highlighting British prejudices and failure to understand Indian society explores the atrocities perpetrated by the British in India, the difficulties Indians had to face to let their own culture and language emerge and survive under the British domination + the British attempt to impose their own culture and power over a state which did not belong to them one overarching theme > complexity of the encounter between cultures, especially in an environment dominated by colonialism very critical towards the British and their belief in what Kipling defined as “white man’s burden” very pessimistic idea about intercultural encounters because it depicts the actual impossibility for different cultures of finding a real dialogue Joseph Conrad his novels represent human beings confronted with the need to make important decisions in life Heart of Darkness is an experimental work focused on the representation of the atrocity of European colonialism in Africa and of its ambiguous nature, it has been criticised for reflecting the dominant image of Africa in the western imagination Conrad’s nomadic life on the sea was his main source of inspiration for his books Conrad used a fictional sailor and narrator, Marlow, as a framing device, his stories of maritime and colonialist adventure present philosophical depth in their reflections on truth and falsehood and often represent a single human being confronted with the need to make important decisions after traditional values have collapsed > his use of multiple narrators and points of view constantly reflected the complexity of human experience and the difficulty of judging men’s actions brutal representation of the utter brutality of European colonisation in Africa set in the Belgian Congo, the novel depicts the monstrosity and cruelty of the colonisers who justify colonial violence with the idea of bringing civilisation to the savages colonisation has a double effect > it affects both the natives who are enslaved and dehumanised, and the colonisers whose souls are corrupted by vice and desire to use their power to subjugate the others (= Forster novel analyses both how the British imposed their power on colonies and how the colonies were subjugated by an external authority which deprived them of their identity and dignity) European civilisation seems innerly corrupt and hopelessly damned European cities are described as sepulchral cities and their inhabitants as hollow men the light of European civilisation hides the darkness of corruption and the death of any moral value ≠ Kipling > justifies colonialism by underlining the duty developed countries have to bring civilisation to undeveloped countries Conrad > questions the very idea of colonisation and its positive value novel based on contrast between darkness and whiteness darkness can refer to Africa and to its unexplored regions, to the blackness of its inhabitants, to the obscurity of the heart of Western colonisers and to the mystery of the human soul whiteness refers to Europe and to its apparent civility, but also to the colour of ivory, which represents the main object of desire of white men in Africa novel can be read as a moral story, as an anticolonial novel, as an allegory of colonisation, as a parable of the Western history of dominion double narrator > anonymous passenger on the ship where Marlow starts telling his story (“frame narrator”) + Marlow himself who tells the story from his own subjective and inevitably partial point of view → strong distance between the Truth and the reader The Rise of the American Literature Herman Melville he sailed on a ship to Liverpool as a deckhand, he joined the US Navy, he wrote books based on his seafaring experiences Moby Dick philosophical allegory of life and death, discussion of fate, economic expansion the white whale is the centre of the story > for Ahab it represents evil, for the superstitious sailors it is immortal and invincible, for Ishmael is the symbol of the mystery of nature → Ahab’s quest is the symbol of the epic conflict between man and the inscrutable forces of the universe Walt Whitman he is the most famous poet of the 19 century in America, he rejects traditional poetic forms and writes in free verse, has to face with slavery during the months that he spends in New Orleans - back to NY starts a newspaper called the “Brooklyn Freeman” through which he took part in the impassioned debate about slavery his work was controversial in his own time, due to his shockingly honest treatment of delicate questions like love and sex and to his strong political positions Leaves of Grass deals with the “self”, the concept of individuality with society, with his concept of democracy and his boundless admiration for his own land the USA it is the single individual who built the society and democracy that must include all implies that everyday life, everyday people and everyday language > free verse and free use of slang expressions, regional dialects in order to create something new Though most people might fear death—particularly of the violent kind that war can bring—the speaker of “The Soldier” is prepared to die because he believes he would be doing it for his beloved homeland. The speaker doesn’t want people to grieve his death. He sees that potential death—in some “foreign field” (notably “foreign” because it won’t be in England)—as a way of making a small piece of the world “for ever England.” That’s because he sees himself as an embodiment of his nation. Accordingly, dying somewhere “foreign” leaves a small part of the home nation in that foreign land. Nationhood, then, is portrayed as something that is inseparable from a person’s identity—even when they die. Indeed, the speaker feels he owes his identity itself primarily to his country. It was the personified England that “bore” and “shaped” him, nourished him with sun (ironic, given the often gloomy weather!) and air, and cleansed him with “water.” Much of the sonnet’s octave—the eight-line stanza—is devoted to creating a sense of England as a pastoral, idyllic, and even Eden-like place. The poem’s imagery of rivers, flowers, earth, air, and sun, is part of an attempt to transform nationhood from a human concept to something more fundamental and natural (all the while tied to England specifically), as though the land is infused with the character of its people and vice versa. In fact, this nationhood is so deeply embedded in who people are—or so the poem argues—that it extends beyond the earthly realm. Even the heaven that the speaker hopes to go to is specifically an “English heaven.” In part, that’s because the speaker’s idea of heaven is a projection of how he sees England—apart from being a kind of natural and nurturing mother, England is already a kind of heaven. Indeed, the poem presents England and heaven as almost interchangeable—as described above, everything about England is supposedly pure and nourishing. The speaker’s consciousness, after he dies, will return to an “eternal mind” which will still be forever linked to the place that created it. Siegfried Sassoon he wants to denounce the truths of war thanks to poetry, in his poems the war is described in an explicit, unapologetic and brutal way “Glory of Women” Sassoon lists the many actions taken by women in the name of patriotism and victory and finds them both toxic and hollow. He sees no point in the “laurelled memories” that women will cherish when soldiers are dying horrifically, without any of the honor, “glory” or “chivalry” women dream about while “knitting socks” and making “shells.” Wilfred Owen “Dulce et decorum est” he wrote this following his experiences fighting in the trenches in northern France during World War I. "Here is a gas poem ... done yesterday," he wrote to his mother from the recovery hospital in Craiglockhart, Scotland, in 1917. He was 24 years old. A year later he was killed in action, just one week before the Armistice of 11 November 1918 was signed to signal the end of hostilities. The poem was published posthumously in a 1920 book simply called Poems. Wilfred Owen's preface reads: "This book is not about heroes ... My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity." Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, which is a line taken from the latin odes of the Roman poet Horace, means it is sweet and proper to die for one's country. Wilfred Owen takes the opposite stance.