La Regina Vittoria e l'età vittoriana, Appunti di Inglese

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ESAME: Ingles Quee Victori’ reig Queen Victoria - Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837, she was just 18 years old - She gave her name to an age of economic and scientific progress and social reforms - Her own sense of duty made her the head of a constitutional monarchy - In 1840 she married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha - In 1857 she gave him the title of Prince Consort, in recognition of his importance to the country An age of reform - The 1830s had been seen as an age of reform. - The First Reform Act (1832) → had transferred voting privileges from the small boroughs to the large industrial towns (Manchester). - The Factory Act (1833) → had prevented children from being employed more than forty-eight hours a week, and no person between 13 and 18 could work more than seventy-two hours a week. - The Poor Law Amendment Act (1834) → had reformed the old Poor Laws, dating from Elizabeth I Workhouses - Life in the workhouses was appalling on account of their system of regimentation, hard work and a monotonous diet. - This apparent hard line was due to the Puritan virtues of hard work and duty. - The idea behind the workhouses was the awareness of such a dreadful (terribile) life would inspire the poor to try to improve their own conditions. - Workhouses were mainly run by the Church. Chartism - People’s Charter→ a group of working class demanded universal manhood suffrage, a secret ballot and other reforms of the electoral system. - No one in power was ready for such democracy and the Chartist movement failed. - Only in 1872, the secret ballot was introduced with the Ballot Act. The irish potato famine - Bad weather and an unknown plant disease caused the destruction of potato crops (raccolti). - Ireland, whose agriculture depended on potatoes, experienced a terrible famine, during which a lot of people died. - The Irish crisis forced the Prime Minister to abolish the Corn Laws in 1846 (these laws imposed tariffs on imported corn, keeping the price of bread high). Technological progress - England experienced a second wave of industrialization which brought economic, cultural and architectural change. - In 1851, a Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace, organized by Prince Albert, showed the world Britain’s industrial and economic power. Foreign policy - England was involved in two Opium Wars against China, which was trying to suppress the opium trade. - England gained access to five Chinese ports and control of Hong Kong. - The most lucrative colony of the British Empire was India. - Indian Mutiny → rebellion against British rule, after which Indian administration was given fewer responsibilities. The liberal and the conservative parties - When Prince Albert tragically died, Queen Victoria withdrew from society and spent the next years in mourning (si ritirò per lutto). - The political panorama was changing with the regrouping of the parties: 1 1) The liberal party→ included the former Whigs, some Radicals and a large minority of businessmen. The party was led by William Gladstone 2) The conservative party→ reaffirmed its position under the leadership of Benjamin Disraeli. Benjamin Disraeli - Disraeli governments allowed local public authorities to clear the slums and provided housing for the poor - Public Health Act (1875) → provided sanitation as well as running water - Factory Act (1878) → limited the working hours per week William Gladstone - Gladstone was Prime Minister four times. - His reforming legislation focused on education. - Education Act (1870) → started a national system by introducing board schools. - In 1880, elementary education had become compulsory. - Trade Union Act (1871) → the legislation of trade unions and the introduction of the secret ballot. - The Third Reform Act (1884) → extended voting to all male householders, miners and farm laborers. - Home Rule→ the Irish Parliamentary Party demanded self-government for Ireland. Gladstone believed that that was the way to bring peace to Ireland, but an Irish government was granted (concesso) only after WWI. The anglo-boer wars In South Africa, the British controlled two colonies, Cape Colony and Natal, while the Boers had two republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. When Britain took over Transvaal, the Boers rebelled and war broke out. The Boer War ended with a British Victory. Empress of India - Queen Victoria was given a new title, Empress of India. Her Empire was becoming more difficult to control: there was a growing sense of the “white man’s burden”, a difficult combination of the duty to spread Christian civilisation, encouraging toleration and open communication. - India was economically important as a market for British goods and strategically necessary to British control of Asia The end of an era The Victorian age came to an end with the death of Queen Victoria in 1901. She was buried beside her beloved husband. Victoria compromis A complex age - The Victorian Age was marked by complexity: it was an age in which progress, reforms and political stability coexisted with poverty and injustice. - Religion played an important role in people’s lives: Evangelicalism encouraged public and political action and created a lot of charities. Philanthropy led to the creation of societies which addressed every kind of poverty - The Victorians believed in God but also in progress and science. Respectability - Increasing emphasis was placed on education, and hygiene was encouraged to improve health care. Self-restraint (autocontrollo), good manners and self-help came to be linked with respectability, a concept shared both by the middle and working classes. - Respectability→ it was a mixture of morality and hypocrisy, since the unpleasant aspects of society - poverty - were hidden under outward respectability. - There was growing emphasis on the duty of men to respect and protect women, seen at the same time as physically weaker but morally superior, divine guides and inspirers of men. - Women → to control family budget and bring up the children 2 Great number of the novels of that period were written by women such as: Bronte sisters and Mary Ann Evans. This is strange because women in the Victorian age were submitted but the large number of books were read by middle-class women. Hower it wasn’t easy to get published so many women had to use male pseudonyms. realisti nove The Victorian novel mirrored the society. Darwin’s evolution theory influenced that period and also the realistic novel. Writers of the realistic novel were: Hardy and Eliot. psychologica nove An example of a psychological novel is The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde of Stevenson where he tried to capture in the monster the illogical aspects and duality of the Victorian period and of every person. Colonia literatur Kipling exalted the British imperial power. EX: in The White Man’s Burden he underlined the white men had to carry civilization and progress to the savages. Aestheticis an Decadenc birt of th Aestheti Movemen -The Aesthetic Movement started in France with Gautier and reflected the artist’s reaction against the materials and respective moral code of the bourgeoisie. -French artist’s escaped in aesthetic isolation. -In this period there was the idea of “ART FOR ART?S SAKE”. -The Bohemine led an unconventional lifestyle, cultivating art and beauty. - In England the roots of this period are in: Keats, Rossetti and Walter Peters. theoris of Englan Aestheticis Water Peter's masterpeace was successful. He rejects religious faith and expresses the idea that art is the only certainty. He thought that life should be lived as a work of art, art has no reference to life. Art has no didactic or moral aim. Walter Peter’ influenc Peter’s works had a strong influence on Oscar Wilde and other authors of The Yellow Book, a periodical that reflects the decadent ideas. The word “decadent” means a process of decline of values. feature of aestheti work the most important features are: ● sensuous attitude ● excessive attention on the self ● perversity ● disenchantment of the society ● evocative use of language Charle Dicken Lif an work -He was born in Portsmouth (southern England) in 1812. -He had an unhappy childhood and his father ended up in prison. For this reason he had to work in a factory to help the family financially. -Later he studied in London and he became a successful reporter. He had also used a pen name “Boz” to publish a collection of articles which described the condition of the inhabitants of London. -In 1836 he got married to Catherine Hogarth and he became editor. -After the great success, Dickens started working full time as a novelist, increasing the complexity of his stories. -Oliver Twist (1837) was published monthly. He also wrote in 1848 A Christmas Carol, a successful Christmas novel. Hard times (1854) deals with the conditions of the poor and working class. -The protagonists like Oliver Twist and David Copperfield became a symbol of an exploited childhood. 5 -He suddenly died in 1870 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. He is considered one of the best English novelists. Character He talked about lower classes and used caricatures. His aim was to induce the reader’s interest by exaggerating his character’s habits- Dickens is always on the side of the poorest and children. Children are good, wise opposed to the adults that are worthless. → reverse →children are the moral teacher. A didacti ai The wealthier classes are more aware about the poor neighbors and about all the social problems. Styl an reputatio Use of effective language, descriptions, careful choice of adjectives, repetitions of words, images and hyperbolic/ironic figures. Har time Plo The story is set in an imaginary industrial city called Coketown. Thomas Gradgrind is an educator who believes in facts and statistics so decides to found a school based on this thought. He has two children Luisa and Tom that he chooses to grow up by taking away from them imagination and feelings. Mr. Gradgrind marries his daughter to a wealthy banker thirty years older than her. She did it to help her brother, but in the end they are both unhappy. Tom is lazy and selfish and he robs his employer and for this he has to leave the country.Then Mr. Gradgrind realizes the damage that he has caused and gives up on his narrow minded and materialistic ideas. Settin Coketown represents a 19th century industrial town in England. The town is like a brick jungle (=giungla di mattoni). Machinery and industries are like elephants and the smoke looks like snakes. All the buildings are covered by soot (=fuliggine) coming from the coal burnt in the factories. The owners didn’t care about the polluted air of the town. The black residue that covers the city is the symbol of productivity of the industrial system but also depression. Structur ● book one→seeds planted by Mr. Gradgrind= education ● book two →reveals the product of the seeds= Luisa unhappy marriage and Tom’s selfishness and criminal actions. ● book three→instability of Mr. Gradgrind way of thinking Character Mr. Gradgrind has an Utilitarianism idea→his education through facts treating people as emotionless objects. He thinks that human nature can be measured and quantified through reason. He tries to transform their school children as machines.→ Dickens’ aim is to not have an “object lesson” at school but help in the children's development. In this novel children were dehumanized. MR GRADGRIND Summar This scene takes place in a classroom where the teacher is in front of a group of students affirming the importance of facts as the only way to measure reality.We can understand the teaching method.In fact, the formation of children's minds must be rooted in a study of facts. So, there’s no need for emotions and imagination. Analysi The author wants to underline the teacher's rigidity, his narrowmindedness and his being extremely concrete and fact-oriented.So, he creates a caricature of the character. The main idea of Mr Gradgrind is that education must be linked to ‘Facts’ (=practical knowledge) and must not leave any space for creativity or imagination. The teacher introduces the students with the exclamation: “ now what I want is facts.” His education should sow (= seminare)the seeds of facts into children's minds.Children are compared to plants or vessels to be fulfilled 6 The physical description of the teacher is negative. He is nasty and unpleasant so these elements represent the teacher's narrow-mindedness.(EX: square foreginger, square forehead…) COKETOWN Summar It was "a red brick city", full of machinery and tall chimneys. It had a canal and a river. It contained several similar streets and were inhabited by people alike to each other, who led a monotonous life. The city of Coketown was based on "facts" and on the production. Analysi ● The colors used to describe the town are red and black (bricks), black and purple (water), black and white. He also appeals to different sensory aspects like: smell touch… ● Similes: -The red brick stained with black is like the ‘painted face of a savage’ →this image is negative. -The elephant image →a machine that works by pushing the pistons → it appears to be an enormous animal with a long trunk,(=proboscide) but it performs an unnatural, therefore melancholic and crazy movement. ● Metaphor: -The serpent is the smoke from the chimneys of the factories→the image is negative and suggests something animate and evil. All three images are negative; they are animate images describing an inanimate process - and can also be described as unnatural nature. The process of industrialisation is criticized. ● Dickens shows the hypocrisy of the ‘fine lady’ who enjoys these things but despises the place where they are made, and describes the town and its people negatively, which is the total opposite of anything elegant or comfortable.→contradiction. ● Repetitions of words such as: like, facts, same… → repetition creates exaggeration→monotonous and repetitive lifestyle= alienation. ● Everything is related to the industrial production so the materialism plays a key role→ what is spiritual is not important→Dickens critics this way of thinking ● Third-person omniscient narrator. He is obtrusive since he openly intervenes in the narration (lines 35-40, 63-64). Rudyar Kiplin Lif -He was born in Bombay in India in 1865. -He learned the Hindi language and also English. -in his childhood observed the life of the Indians. -At the age of six he was sent to England to study. He works as a journalist and starts writing some novel based on the life of India. -He also wrote some novels such as “The Jungle book''→ an old genre of beast fable. -He won a Nobel prize for literature in 1907. -In the First World War he worked as a correspondent. -He died in 1936 was buried in Westminster bees. - His latest work was an autobiography→ he was a person with great moral integrity. whit ma’ burde He exalted the imperial power that provided stability for the natives. The “burden” of men, especially for the British, is to carry civilization throughout the world by establishing governments based on honor and dignity. He mentions it among the American conquests of the Philippines. Tw epic His most important works are Kim and the Jungle Book, a series of episodes which are connected through the main characters, Kim and Mowgli, both representing Citizens of the two worlds. Kim is a novel about British India, but also a spy story based on Russia's expansion of Central Asia. Mowgli, on the other hand, is a child who grew up among wolves in an Indian jungle. 7 T 52 Summary: Tess and Angel are driving to the station to deliver some milk bound for London from Talbothays Dairy. The young girl, Angel, symbolizing the purity of rural life, is confronted with modern life represented by the train. Analysis: - Angel → she feels she doesn’t belong to this world. She’s unsophisticated and poor, she belongs to a rural environment and not to the industrial world. Londoners are strange to her, because they live in a big town, but at the same time they are the ones who will drink her milk the following breakfast. (penso sia tipo: io sono povera, però sono sempre io che ricavo il latte con il quale tu ti sfami) - There is the description of a train seen as a monster. - Old World (the one Angel belongs to) = native, secluded world, shade, dark green - New World (londoners) = modern, feeble light, steak of steam, light coming from the station (artificial light) - The feeble light may stand for modern technology which is beginning to show its effect on the countryside. Modern life stretches out its feeler as if it were some kind of monstrous creature exploring an unknown habitat in order to find out whether it is suitable for it or not. - Artificial light coming from the train station is feeble, and it’s humiliating compared to the stars’ light. - The word “whirl” (mulinello) represents the chaos brought by the progress and the new world. Rober Loui Stevenso Lif an work Robert Louis Stevenson was born in Edinburgh in 1850. Because of his poor health he spent most of his childhood in bed. He took up Engineering at university, but he was not an enthusiastic student. He lived in the South of England, Germany, France and Italy. He was in conflict with the Victorian world; he grew his hair long, his manners were eccentric and was one of the first examples of the bohemian in Britain, openly rejecting his family's Calvinism and their love for respectability. After giving up Engineering, he graduated in law and decided to devote himself to writing. He married an American woman and they moved to Australia and Tahiti. He died of a brain haemorrhage in 1894. Stevenson became popular as a novelist in the 1880s, when he published Treasure Island, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Kidnapped and The Master of Ballantrae. His short stories were collected as New Arabian Nights. THE STRANGE CASE OF DR JEKILL AND MR HIDE Plo Mr Utterson is a lawyer and friend to the scientist Dr Henry Jekyll. After telling a disturbing tale of a sinister man assaulting a small girl, Utterson begins to question the odd (strano) behavior of his friend. He started to investigate into the life of Dr Jekyll and discovers a terrifying story: his friend has created a potion able to release his evil side, Mr Hyde. These two beings are in struggle; once Hyde is released, he achieves domination over the Jekyll aspect, so that the individual has only two choices: the man may choose a life of crime or Jekyll must eliminate Hyde in the only way left, by killing him. So Jekyll’s suicide is the only choice. doubl natur of th settin The story takes place in London in the 1870s, when London reflected the hypocrisy of Victorian society: the respectable West End was in contrast with the poverty of the East End slums. This ambivalence is represented by the symbolism of Jekyll's house, whose two façades (facciate) represent the faces of the two opposed sides of the man: the front of this house, used by the doctor, is fair, part of a square of 'ancient handsome houses'; while the rear side, used by Hyde, is part of a sinister block of buildings, without windows. Most scenes of the novel take place at night: there’s only the artificial lighting of Jekyll's house. The most important events are wrapped up (si concludono) in darkness and fog (ex. the murder of a Member of Sir Danvers Carew, happens at night, as well as Jekyll/Hyde's suicide). Goo v evi 10 The novel is the portrayal of good and evil, as well as Jekyll and Hyde represent good and evil: Jekyll has lived a virtuous life, his face is handsome, his hands are white and well-shaped, his body is harmoniously proportioned. Hyde is pure hate and evil, he is pale, his hands are dark and hairy, he is deformed, and Mr Utterson reads 'Satan's signature' in his traits. On several occasions Hyde is dressed with Jekyll's clothes, which are too large for him; this fact points out how much smaller and uglier Hyde is than his alter ego. Hyde gradually influences his good twin and the original balance of good and evil in Jekyll's nature starts to tip (rovesciarsi). Styl Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde has a multi-narrative structure: there are four narrators: Utterson, his distant relative Enfield, Dr Lanyon and Dr Jekyll. Utterson has the role of a detective because he follows clues and draws hypotheses. The walks of Utterson and Enfield, who are very different, may be a metaphor for the dual nature of every human being (which man must accept to live with and which Jekyll refuses). Dr Lanyon, a friend and colleague of Dr Jekyll's and advocate, is the first person to see his friend’s transformation and he prefers to die rather than living in a world that he thinks has been turned upside down. Jekyll himself speaks in the first person and narrates the last chapter. Source This novel had its origin in a dream: Stevenson wrote down in his diary that he had dreamed of a man in a laboratory who had drank a drug and turned into a different being. It was the Gothic aspect of this story that excited him, and he produced a first draft. In the 19th century several works represented the double nature of Victorian society: the Calvinism of his family gave him a sense of division in man’s nature. Influence an interpretation Stevenson drew inspiration for the description of Hyde from Darwin's studies about man's kinship (parentela) to the animal world. Hyde's small stature indicates that his body is not exercised, he is also deformed. Hyde may be both the primitive and the forerunner of civilised man. Jekyll is a kind of "Victorian Faust” and his awareness is a sort of pact with an interior evil that controls him in the end. This novel may be considered a reflection on art itself, as a kind of psychological search. “Jekil’ perimen” Summary: Jekyll knows that there is a duality in men which is made of two different identities: just and unjust, good and evil. Jekyll wants to separate them through an experiment with a potion made of a large amount of salt and then he drinks that. At first he feels very bad, cramps and nausea, but then he feels better: sweet, happier and free to follow his primitive instincts. He wants to see himself in a mirror: he is different but at the same time it seems natural and normal to him, he sees the appearance of Edward Hyde. He comes back as Henry Jekyll, by drinkin again the potion and then he realizes that he could move between the two characters. Analysis: the point of view adopted is the one of Dr. Jekyll - Setting: a laboratory and a place outside Jekyll’s house and it is night, typical setting of gothic’s novel. - Jekyll managed to isolate the evil’s side in Mr. Hyde, the one that has always been repressed. It is a symbol of the many things that society represses like religion. - Mr. Hyde embodies the evil side: at the beginning is small, but then this part will grows up and becomes dominant “The movement was thus wholly toward the worse”. - The author uses a lot of opposite terms to underline the duality of man between good and evil like just/unjust, good things/extraneous evil, morning/night and Henry Jekyll/Edward Hyde. - “My evil kept awake my ambition” the same in Frankenstein: both wants to go beyond human knowledge→overreached, push the boundaries of human knowledge like in mythology with Ulysses Oscar Wild Lif an work 11 Oscar Wilde, the son of a surgeon and of an literary woman, was born in Dublin in 1854. He attended the Trinity College and then Oxford, where he gained a first-class degree in Classics. He was influenced by the art critic John Ruskin and became a disciple of Walter Pater, following the theory of 'Art for Art's Sake’. He moved to London, where he became a celebrity for his extraordinary wit and his characteristic style of dress as a dandy. In 1881 he published the collection “Poems” and was invited to undertake a speaking tour in the United States: his lectures amazed the American audiences. He said that Aestheticism was a search for the beautiful. On his return to Europe, he married Constance Lloyd, who gave birth to two children. He was a great speaker and his remarks appeared in the most fashionable London magazines. In the 1880s Wilde's literary talent was revealed by a series of short stories, The Canterville Ghost, Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, The Happy Prince, Other Tales and the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. He was interested in drama and in the late 1890s he produced a series of plays which were successful on the London stage: Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance (1893), An Ideal Husband, The Importance of Being Earnest. But, both the novel and Salomé, a tragedy, damaged the writer's reputation; the former was considered immoral, and the latter was prevented from being performed on the London stage due to its obscenity. Oscar Wilde’s years of triumph ended dramatically when, in 1891, his intimate association with the poet Lord Alfred Douglas (Bosie) led to his trial on charges of homosexuality, then illegal in Britain. He was sentenced to two-years' hard labour. While in prison, he wrote De Profundis, a long letter to Bosie. When he was released, he was a broken man; his wife refused to see him, and he went into exile in France, where he lived out his last years in poverty. He died of meningitis in 1900 in Paris. dand The term dandy was first used in the song Yankee Doodle Dandy, sung by the British troops during the American Revolution. The song mocked the colorful uniform of the American soldiers: the imaginary character Yankee Doodle, standing for the American rebel, was riding a pony, with a feather (piuma) on his hat. So the term 'dandy' referred to a man who boasted (si vanta) about his appearance even though he was wearing odd clothes. George Bryan Brummell became the leader of early 19th-century fashion for the exquisiteness of his dress and manners, and for 20 years had the Prince Regent as a friend and admirer. A quarrel and his debts forced him to flee to France, where he died. Brummell created dandyism as a lifestyle. From England this trend spread to France, where it was connected to artistic movements, such as Symbolism and Aestheticism. Dandyism reappeared in England towards the end of the 19th century thanks to Oscar Wilde. rebe an th dand Wilde adopted the 'aesthetic ideal’, as he affirmed: "My life is like a work of art”. He lived the double role of rebel and dandy. Wilde's dandy is an aristocrat whose elegance is a symbol of the superiority of his spirit; he uses his wit to shock and he is an individualist who demands absolute freedom. Since life was meant for pleasure, Wilde was interested in beauty. He rejected the didacticism that had characterised the Victorian novel in the first half of the century. Ar for Ar’ Sak Wilde believed that only art as the cult of beauty could prevent the murder of the soul. For him, the artist was an alien in a materialistic world: he wrote only to please himself and was not concerned about communicating his theories to others. THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY Plo an setting The novel is set in London at the end of the 19th century. The protagonist is Dorian Gray, a young man whose beauty fascinates a painter, Basil Hallward, who decides to paint his portrait. Under the influence of the brilliant but corrupt Lord Henry Wotton, Dorian starts a life of pleasure. Dorian's desire of eternal youth is satisfied, but the signs of age, experience and vice appear on the portrait. Dorian makes use of everybody, even letting people die. When the painter sees the corrupted image of the portrait, Dorian kills him. Later Dorian wants to free himself of the portrait, but he has to kill himself. The picture returns to its original purity, and Dorian's face becomes horrible. Character 12 In 1903 Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst founded the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU). The Suffragettes ,wanted women to have the vote. They held large protest marches in London. Women over 30 would gain the vote, whereas suffrage would be granted to women over 21 in 1928. THE EASTER RISING IN IRELAND Irish Question → a rebellion in Dublin, the so-called Easter Rising, due to the fact that Home Rule, voted by the Commons In 1914,had been suspended until the end of the war. THE OUTBREAK OF THE WAR In 1914 a Serbian nationalist assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife Sophie In Sarajevo. This event triggered a series of reactions: - Austria began bombing Belgrade - the German Kaiser declared war on Russia and then on France; - Germany invaded Belgium in order to attack France. - When Germany violated Belgian neutrality, Britain declared war BRITAIN AT WAR In 1914 the German army had reached the River Marne in France, where a great battle stopped the German advance at the cost of many lives. A WAR OF ATTRITION A German submarine sank the British passenger liner Lusitania and more than a thousand people died. The US President Thomas Woodrow Wilson sent diplomatic protests to Germany. In the same month Italy joined France and Britain. The Somme was a perfect example of the war of attrition, where huge battles were fought not to win strategic objectives or seize resources, but to kill soldiers and wear down the enemy. The Austrians had mass surrenders and desertions, Germany was starving. The United States joined the war in April 1917 on Britain’s side. THE END OF THE WAR On 4th October 1918 Germany asked President Woodrow Wilson for an armistice which would bring about German withdrawal from occupied territory and allow national self- determination, but included no punishment for the country. However, it proved very difficult to create, and Wilson left office without managing to convince the USA to join. The League of Nations was the forerunner of the United Nations. ag of anxiet - Some soldiers celebrated their return home with a frantic search for pleasure; - Others were haunted by a sense of guilt for the horrors of trench. - An increasing feeling of rootlessness and frustration, due to the slow dissolution of the Empire into the Commonwealth, led to a transformation of the notions of imperial hegemony and white superiority. FREUD'S INFLUENCE Their first set of new ideas had been introduced by Sigmund Freu in his essay he Interpretation of Dreams. Freud’s view of the developing psyche emphasised the power of the unconscious to affect behaviour; the discovery that man’s action could be motivated by irrational forces of which he might know nothing was very disturbing. Freud also provided a new method of investigation of the human mind through the analysis of dreams and the concept of free association. THE THEORY OF RELATIVITY The growing crisis of confidence was also due to the introduction of relativity in science. Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity discarded the concepts of time and space, which he saw as subjective dimensions. A NEW CONCEPT OF TIME Bergson made a distinction between historical time and psychological time. Historical time is external, linear and measured in terms of the spatial distance travelled by a pendulum or the hands of a clock, whereas psychological time is internal, subjective and measured by the relative emotional intensity of a moment. Bergson also suggested that a thought or feeling could be measured in terms of the number of perceptions, memories and associations attached to it. 15 A NEW PICTURE OF MAN To Freud man was a part of nature,a biological and psychological phenomenon; to Marx he was the outcome of social and economic forces. USA i th firs half of th twentiet centur By the end of the 19th century the United States had become the richest country in the world, with its economic power based on agricultural prosperity,massive industrial output, and the rich mineral resources available. The economic boom,however ,had not prevented the spread of poverty.In the industrial areas of the North-like the metropolises of Chicago,Pittsburgh,NewYorkand Boston -workers lived in dirty,overcrowded slums, and toiled long hours for low wages. IMPERIAL EXPANSION The United States had pursued a policy of imperial expansion. AMERICA AND WW1 When the First World War broke out,America initially held to its policy of isolationism. The US joined the war in 1917: the main reason was the attacks German submarines were making on American ships. During the 1920s, confidence in the USA was high and the economy grew quickly. The economic prosperity in large parts of the USA gave rise to a feeling of euphoria and experimentation in music,with styles like jazz, as well as dance and fashion, from which the name “RoaringTwenties”. RED SCARE AND PROHIBITION The Twenties were also characterised by reactionary attitudes such as the fear of Socialism, the so-called “RedScare”, which led to the imprisonment and persecution of political activists with radical or labour backgrounds. Also typical of the 1920s was the restriction of immigration and the segregation of minorities into city slums. A revival of puritanical attitudes brought about the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution,which banned the manufacture and sale of alcohol. This drastic step, known as “Prohibition”, was taken to fight the problem of alcohol addiction among the poor. THE WALL STREET CRASH AND THE GREAT DEPRESSION In 1929 the American stock market collapsed. This led to a massive panic and on Thursday 24th October Wall Street - the home of the New York Stock Exchange - crashed. This day became known as Black Thursday ,asit sealed America's fall into depression. The Wall Street Crash marked the end of the prosperous Twenties and beginning of a worldwide economic crisis known as the Great Depression. In 1932 Franklin D.Roosevelt became President and promised the American the “New Deal”: reforms based on relief, recovery, reform. WW2 AND THE ATOMIC BOMB At first the US maintained neutrality but it joined the conflict in 1941. All resources were organised towards winning the war including two thousand million dollars spent on the ManhattanProject, a research project to produce and test their atomic bomb. Modernis THE ADVENT OF MODERNISM The term “Modernism” refers to an international movement which involved Western literature, music, the visual arts and the cinema. It’s typically associated with the period after WW1. New ideas encouraged a search for new modes of expression. The modernists expressed the desire to break with the past. MAIN FEATURES OF MODERNISM - The intentional distortion of shapes - The breaking down of limitations in space and time - The emphasis on subjectivity - The use of allusive language and the development of the multiple association of words - The intensity of the isolated moment or image - The importance of unconscious as well as conscious life - The need to reflect the complexity of modern urban life TOWARDS A COSMOPOLITAN LITERATURE 16 Novelists and poets drew inspiration from classical as well as new cultures to create a new subjective mythology. English modern literature was becoming cosmopolitan, thus moving away from the upper-middle-class milieu of Victorian society. Moder poetr Georgia poet During the years before the FWW (First World war) there were two different groups: ● the avant-garde ● influenced by the Victorian Romantic tradition Their name derived from the book of anthology “Georgian poetry”, published during the reign of George V. The group is formed by RUPERT BROOKE, WALTER DE LA MARE, EDWARD THOMAS. They were hostile to the Revolution in sensibility and technique introduced by the Symbolists = W. B. Yeats. War Poet A whole generation of young poets wrote remarkable poetry: 1. unconventional 2. anti-rhetorical 3. horrors of modern warfare 4. violent language Imaginis A movement between 1912 and 1917, the name came from the American author EZRA POUND. The main principles are written in the Speculation: Essay on Humanism and the philosophy of art (1924) that follow the philosopher Hulme; they are: ● free choice of any subject matter ● the poems, shorts, no moral comment ● use clears, hard and precise images ● no metrical regularity ● The aim was to achieve discipline “ dry hardness”, the exact curve of the thing. Symbolis Started in france with Baudelaire’s “Les fleurs du mal”, the style was: 1. indirect rather and direct statements 2. images and languages that evoke rather to state 3. importance given to the sound 4. use of quotations from other literatures 5. free verse 6. the possibility for the readers to attribute their own meaning to the poem. T.S Eliot wrote the new theory in the essay “Tradition and the individual talent” (1917) and said that poetry is not a turning loose of emotions but an escape from emotions. ( different from Wordsworth). The poet became the explorer of experience and used the language to create new meaning that required a close analysis. poet of th 1930 A group of poets who met at Oxford, they linked social and political, they were called Oxford poets, they were: Auden, Day- Lewis, Macneice,Spender. They shared the idea of the impossibility to escape from reality, which was brutal due to Nazism, unemployment… They admired Eliot, because he encouraged them to a certain morality and to develop a social conscience. They also used slang, Jazz rhythm and images from a world of technology. new Romantic In the 1940s a group of poets raised against the poets of the 1930s, they wanted individual themes like : love, birth, death, sex … for this reason they were called New Romantics, the main poet was Dylan Thomas. IN THE STATION OF THE METRO, EZRA POUND 17 fumbling” “yelling out” convey the idea of fear and concern. The poet uses similes and metaphors that describe the nightmare of the war, it's hell “like a devil’s sick of sin” / “Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud”. Willia Butler Yeat Lif Born in 1865 in a middle-class artistic family. His parents belonged to the Anglo-Irish protestant minority. They moved to London→ he felt both Irish and British. He was passionate about the Celts and this led him to explore the occult. He was in love with Maud Gonne (actress) but it was unrequited love. With an Irish nationalist and dramatist, Lady Gregory, he founded the Hobby Theater in Dublin. Then Yeats bought Thoor Ballylee, a mediaeval tower house which took on a powerful symbolism in his work. He married Georgie Hyde-Lees (25 years younger) with whom he shared the same interest in the occult. In 1922 he became senator of the Irish Free State and he was concerned about the Protestant minority. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923. He died in 1939 in France. Phase of Yeat’ ar His works can be divided in 3 periods: 1. Early period→ he reproduced the languid and sensual atmosphere of the Romantics and he was influenced by the French symbolism. Work: The Rose, The Wind among the Reeds 2. Middle period→ modern and flexible style, symbols are used to evoke universal myths. Work: In the Seven Woods, The Green Helmet and Other poems, Responsibilities: Poems and a Play, The Wild Swans at Coole 3. Later period→ new and passionate intensity, years of maturity rol of th artis Yeats believed that the role of the artist was the creation of a new culture based on Ireland’s past. In his poems, he tries to represent the tension between artistic imagination and national loyalty. He creates his vision of history: tragic vision of 2000-year cycles of civilisation from a bestial floor to great heights of intellectual, before turning to apocalyptic anarchy. With this, he was able to deal with violence but also helped him to become confident of the superiority of art to history. Yeat an occultis He joined the Theosophical Society, a mystical society, where he studied Tibetan Mysteries and Buddhism. He learnt magic and esoteric symbols. His most original idea was that of the gyres. His passion for the doctrines was linked to the possibility of obtaining clues on the sources of creative imagination. gyr A gyre is a geometric figure which begins at a fixed point. From this point the spiral grows wider and wider until it reaches its maximum expansion, then it begins to retrace its path in the opposite direction. The common figure is the one of a double vortex that intersect. Yeats describes the mind’s evolution as a process of circling toward the wide end of a gyre, until it arrives at a centre, where there is a revelation and the mind shifts to a new centre. eme - The beauty and eternity of art - The Irish people and tradition - Age and the clash between the failing body and the willing heart - Death: man dies many times before his death with his defeat like unhappy love ≠ animals that simply die - The heroic individual: loneliness is a feature of his heroes because they have to distinguish themselves from other men us of symbol Two kinds of symbols: emotional ones that evoke emotions, and intellectual ones that evoke ideas. It’s important the power of the image not only to make analogies but also to penetrate the Great Memory. His idea of Great Memory was based on Jung’s idea of collective unconscious: symbols have a role in shaping 20 the individual and the collective consciousness. To Yeats the symbol has a visionary dimension, it offers revelation and truth. Styl He presents the conflict and resolution of opposites through antithesis, oxymoron and paradox. Often a single sentence is as long as a whole stanzas, made possible thanks to frequent enjambement. His vocabulary is full of words of sensual and sensory experience, verbs of action and his syntax is dynamic. EASTER 1916 It was written after the Easter Rising in Dublin on 24th April 1916: 700 republicans had begun the rebellion by seizing strategic points in Dublin like the Post Office. They have held on for several days, but they have been defeated: some died on the spot, others were executed later. Some Irish leaders are celebrated in the poem. Summary: the writer says he greeted and was kind to the patriots but sometimes he joked about their spirit of revolt on which he had mixed opinions. He believes that what they were fighting for was important in fact he makes a list of those he knew and that took part to highlight their value. Then the admiration for the patriots becomes deeper because they dedicated themselves to their goal without giving up. In the last stanza, Yeats is still undecided on his position regarding the uprising and wonders if it was really worth it, but he thinks they should all be remembered for their sacrifice anyway. Analysis: The number of stanzas and lines are symbolic because they represent the date of the Easter rising, 24th April 1916: there are 4 stanzas (month), the 1st and the 3rd have 16 lines (year) while the 2nd and the 4th have 24 (day). At the end of each stanzas, except for the third one, there is a refrain “A terrible beauty is born”: it is an oxymoron and means that the rebellion has been terrible for its violence and for the many death, but at the same time there was beauty in the dream of independence. In the second stanza, he lists the names of the rebels according to their social class: a woman who was an officer in the Volunteers, a school teacher, a poet, the husband of Maud Gonne (la donna di cui era innamorato) who died fighting and the leader of the Irish labour Movement. “Hearts with one purpose alone…enchanted to a stone” = metaphor, their heart like a stone to indicate the commitment of the rebels, they are earning the respect of the poet. In the end he appoints the rebels because it is his job to make sure that they are remembered. THE SECOND COMING The title and the idea of the poem were inspired by Christ’s words predicting a second coming in the Bible. Published in the magazine “The Dial”. It deals with Yeats’s concept of history (gyre) and describes the coming of a new world order characterised by war. It contains reference to the Spiritus Mundi: the soul of the universe to which men are connected through the Great Memory. Summary: The speaker describes a nightmarish scene: the falcon, turning in a widening “gyre” (spiral), cannot hear the falconer. The world is in a condition of “mere anarchy”, so it’s in decline: the violence is taking over and even the best people lack all conviction to do the right thing and the worst people have the opportunity to accomplish their evil purpose. The world is near a revelation, a Second Coming is about to take place. Yeats sees an image of the Spiritus Mundi, a beast: half lion and half man, somewhere in the desert it’s moving, surrounded by the birds. Then sees again darkness, but the poet knows that after twenty centuries of peace, this beast is about to be born in Bethlehem. Analysis: the falcon at the beginning is a metaphor that may stand for the free spirit of the intellect from the restriction imposed by the reformed generation. It could also be an image of control because of the falconer. There are some repetitions like “Surely…is at hand/Surely…is at hand” and these reproduce the movement of the gyre. The poet has the role of a prophet in fact he is the only one to know about the second coming and he has to reveal it. Themes: criticism against the christian values and an apocalyptic view of the society. oma Stearn Elio Backgroun an educatio Born in 1888 in Missouri and he was educated at Harvard. He has an English background first but then he moved to Europe. He learnt Italian by Dante, who considers the poet who best expresses a universal situation. At Paris he studied at the Sorbonne and he read Bergson’s lectures. 21 Hom lif an career He stayed in London during the 1st World war. He married Vivienne Haigh-Wood. He published Prufrock and other Observations, he founded The Criterion an international literary magazine and he became director for the publishers Faber & faber. Because of Vivienne's poor mental health, they spent some time in a swiss sanatorium and poetry became his refuge to express his horror and the general crisis of Western culture. He published The Waste Land, a long poem to which Ezra Pound contributed, and The Hollow Men, sequel to The Waste Land’s philosophical despair. Fro th conversio t th las year He became a British citizen and joined Anglicanism → religious poetry: Ash Wednesday, Four Quartets, Murder in the Cathedral and The family Reunion. He separated from Vivienne who died in 1947, he felt a sense of guilt and unhappiness. His writings concerned ethical and philosophical problems that led him to the theatre. In 1948, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. He died in London in 1965. Work First period, before the conversion to Anglicanism: - Pessimistic view of the world - Spiritual aridity and lack of love - The Waste Land and The Hollow Men Second period, after the conversion: - Purification, hope and joy - Plays written in verse, manner of Greek tragedy - Ash Wednesday, Four Quartets, Murder in the Cathedral and The family Reunion impersonalit of th artis He was an influential literary critic: his critical essays on ancient and modern authors were important. Most of them are collected in The Sacred Wood and in Selected Essay. Like Joyce, he believed that the poet has to be impersonal and has to divide the man who suffers from the mind who creates, “The emotion of art in impersonal”. His characters are the men of the 20th century: the subjective experience becomes universal and everyone can identify with it. wast lan Structur The poem consists of 5 sections: - The burial of the dead: deals with springin a desolate land. It centres on the opposition between sterility and fertility, life and death - A game of chess: juxtaposes the present squalor to the past splendour - The fire sermon: the character of Tiresias is introduced. There’s the theme of alienation represented by a loveless and mechanical sexual encounter - Death by water: focuses on a drowned Phoenician sailor (Phlebas)=idea of spiritual shipwreck - What the thunder said: evokes religions from East and West and a solution is found in the sympathy with other human beings. speakin voic The Waste Land is considered a central work in Modernism. It rejects any order or unity. It rejects order and unity. It is a collection of impressions, hallucinations and personalities. All the passages seem to belong to one voice relating to a multiple personality. He is Tiresias (Theban prophet from the Greek dramatist Sophocles's plays) who experienced blindness and the life of both sexes and suffers with the women he observes. Mai them The main theme is the contrast between the fertility of a mythical past and the spiritual sterility of the present world. The fragmentation of this poem reflects the breakdown of a historical, social and cultural order, destroyed by the war and modernity. Allusio an new concep of histor The mythical past appears in the quotations from literary and religious works belonging to different traditions and cultures. Eliot saw tradition and history as the repetition of the same events, and 'classicism' 22 PLOT The novel is set in In the fictional Indian town of Chandrapore, which is divided into the old Indian Quarter and a British Civil Station. The city Magistrate, Ronnie Heaslop, is engaged to Miss Adela Quested, who decides to visit India accompanied by Mrs Moore, Ronny’s mother. One night Mrs Moore meets a Muslim doctor, Aziz. They soon become friends and he invites Mrs Moore and Adela to visit the Marabar Caves. But Mrs Moore suffers a nervous breakdown and loses the will to go on living. So the other two continued the visit alone. When Adela emerges, she accuses Aziz of physical assault, who is arrested. Cyril Fielding, the headmaster of the local college, thinks that he’s innocent. Adela finally declares that she has made a mistake and Aziz is released, while Adela is rejected by her own people. Two years later, Aziz moves to Hindu State and hates all English people. When Aziz meets Fielding again, he says that once the English are out of India, they will be able to be friends again. Fielding asks why they cannot be friends now, since they both want to be, but the problem is that the time is not yet ripe for such a friendship. SETTING The Indian landscape dominates the novel. The reader is reminded of the many inhabitants of India: the crowds of people, the animals, the plants, the birds, the stones. One of the qualities of India is that everyone can see you and know even your secrets; also, it awakens desire, for example Adele’s experience of certain events in the Indian landscape linked to her realization that she doesn't love Ronny. The Marabar Caves have a central role in the development of the novel, since in Hindu mythology the caves represent the “womb of the universe”, from which all the forms of created life are derived. DR AZIZ AND MRS MOORE - Dr Aziz → is a Muslim doctor. He’s emotional and generous with his English friends, but after Adela accuses him of assault, he becomes bitter, anti British and claims that India should be a united independent nation. - Mrs Moore → is an elderly woman. She feels an immediate connection to Aziz when they meet. Almost a mystical figure, she represents Christian spirituality and kindness. Her confidence in the order of the universe is shaken by the echo she hears in one of the caves and she becomes irritable and depressed. THEMES Forster’s aim was concerned with the issue of connection and the desire to overcome social and racial differences. Personal relationships were a fundamental value which led him to a general need for tolerance, good temper and sympathy among people. What remains strong in the novel is the belief in “Goodwill”. However, politics is presented as a measure context for the failure of the friendship between Fielding and Aziz and for the impossibility to establish an understanding relationship between the western and eastern cultures. The novel also deals with the dissolution of British dominion over India. The typical attitude of the British in India was that they were undertaking the so-called “white man's burden”. Forster shared these views and criticized the imperialistic policies of discrimination under which personal relations were spoilt. STRUCTURE AND STYLE “A Passage To India” is divided into three parts which, according to Indian philosophy, represents men's spiritual exploration in the world through knowledge, work and love. The story is told by an omniscient narrator, while the point of view shifts from character to character. “Aziz and Mrs Moore” This passage deals with the meeting between Mrs Moore and Aziz. Aziz has been treated rudely by Major Callendar (his superior at the hospital where he works) and his wife. Aziz decides to stop at one of his favorite mosques to rest. Aziz then notices that there is an English woman in the mosque. He is angry at her presence and yells at her for intruding in a holy place for Muslims. Next, she introduces herself as Mrs Moore, and says she has just arrived from the English-only club, where they are putting on a performance of Cousin Kate. He says he's in India to visit his son, Ronny Heaslop. They discover that they have many things in common and feel an instant connection. Aziz then accompanies her back to the club, which is for British only. Jame Joyc 25 His works are explored from different pov at the same time and are presented as clues and not through the voice of an omniscient narrator. His novels open in medias res with the analysis of a particular moment. The portrait of the character is based on introspection rather than on description. Time is not perceived as objective but as subjective. DUBLINERS STRUCTURE AND SETTING “Dubliners” consists of 15 short stories. The opening stories deal with childhood and youth in Dublin; the others concern middle years of characters and their social, political or religious affairs. Joyce's Dublin is a place where true feeling and compassion for others don't exist, where cruelty and selfishness lie just below the surface. The stories are arranged into four groups that represent the four aspects of Dublin: childhood, adolescence, maturity and public life. CHARACTERS Everyone in Dublin seems to be caught up in an endless web of despair. Even when they want to escape, dubliners are enable to because they are spiritually weak. The young woman in Eveline is a perfect example: instead of choosing a new life in Buenos Aires, she decides to stay in Dublin. SYMBOLISM The description in each story is realistic and extremely concise, with a lot of external details. The use of realism is mixed with symbolism, since external details generally have a deeper meaning. The name of certain objects is carefully chosen and stands out from the naturalistic context in which they are placed. For example, the choice of the term “street organ” in Eveline, in contrast to the everyday words for the rest of the furniture in the sitting room takes on a symbolic meaning. It points out the disharmony of Eveline's family, where the mother was a victim of the aggressive father and Evelyn now shares the same destiny. THE USE OF EPIPHANY Joyce thought that the function of symbolism was to take the reader beyond the usual aspects of life through the analysis of the particular. To do this Joyce employed a technique called epiphany, that is the sudden spiritual manifestation caused by a trivial gesture, an external object or a banal situation. So after these revelatory moments the reader's attention focuses on the real meaning of the narrative. STYLE Joyce uses interior monologue and patterned repetition of images that is chiasmus. In the first three short stories Joyce employs a first person narrator While for the other 12 stories a third person narrator is employed. The narrator tends to disappear in the interior monologue, which is in the form of free direct speech: the protagonist's pure thoughts are introduced with any reporting verbs. The language appears simple, objective and neutral. “Eveline” The protagonist of this story is Eveline, a nineteen-year-old girl, who, at the beginning of the story, looks out of the window. While she is looking outside, she listens to a pipe organ playing, which recalls to her mind a song she heard before her mother’s death. She remembers her childhood. She is terrified by his father who abuses her and she feels frustrated because of her unpretentious job as a shop assistant. Yet, she has planned to go with a sailor called Frank to Buenos Aires. Before leaving, she holds two letters: one is for Harry, her brother, and the other is for her father. She is in doubt: is it better to stay or to leave her family nest for the unknown? The memory of her mother’s dull and sad life pushes her to leave. However, when she arrives at the port with Frank and they are embarking, Eveline thinks again about her past, especially to the vow she made to her mother, promising she would have kept the family together. Consequently, she stands still and doesn’t follow her boyfriend. Frank, who has already embarked on the ship, shouts at her inviting her to join him. At the end of the story, though, he is forced to leave without her. Analysis → The story is told by a third-person narrator and it is adopted Eveline’s pov. Joyce employed free indirect speech to give voice to Eveline’s thoughts. The character of the girl is not introduced in a traditional way since we are not given information about her. The reader is obliged to infer the pieces of information from the development of her thoughts. It is a “media res” opening. Eveline’s present is linked to stillness and dust. Her past is connected with the death of her mother. Her future has connections with love, action, the sea and escape. 26 The sound of the street organ can be considered as the epiphany of this story → Eveline remembers her promise to her mother and understands the emptiness and the meaninglessness of her dreams and of her love. Virgini Woolf She saw the human personality as a continuous shift of impressions and emotions. In her novel the omniscient narrator disappeared and the pov shifted inside the different character’s minds though flashbacks or association of ideas. MRS DALLOWAY PLOT Clarissa Dalloway goes to buy some flowers for the party she is giving that evening at her house. While she is at the shop, a car attracts the attention of Septimus (estate agent and veteran) and Lucrezia (Italian girl)Warren Smith. Septimus’s mental disorder has necessitated the calling in of doctors (Holmes and Bradshaw). Clarissa walks back home, where she receives the unexpected visit from Peter Walsh (her young love). He leaves Cla’s house and goes to Regent’s Park where he meets the Warren Smiths, who were going to Sir Bradwhaw for an interview which lasted 45 minutes. At 6 pm Septimus jumps out of the window of his room and the ambulance passes by Peter Walsh who was going back to the hotel. Everyone is present at Clarissa’s party and she hears about Septimus’s death with which she feels a strong connection. SETTING Like the Ulysses of Joyce, it takes place on a single ordinary day in June, in a small area of London. CHARACTERS They all belong to the upper-middle class. Clarissa is a society lady, wife of Richard Dalloway. The influence of her possessive father and the need to refuse Peter Walsh, weakens Clarissa’s emotional self and splits her in two. She is in fact characterised by opposing feelings: need for freedom and her class consciousness. Her life appears to be an effort towards order and peace and she need to be an ideal human being→ restriction on spontaneous feelings Septimus Warren Smith is a young poet, in love with Shakespeare. He is a sensitive man who can suddenly panic. The cause lies in the death of his best friend Evans during the war→ shell-shock. After the war he is haunted by the spectre of Evans. There are no connections with Clarissa, but they are very similar in fact their response to experience is always given in physical terms. There is also a difference in fact he does not distinguish between his personal response and external reality (which led him to suicide) instead Clarissa never loses her awareness of the external world. THEMES AND MOTIFS The novel deals with the way people react to new situations and provides the changes in the social life of the time (newspaper, increasing use of cars…). Woolf uses cinematic devices such as close-ups and flashbacks. She also insists on the motives of the striking of Big Ben and of clocks which remind the reader the passing of time in life that we can see in every object like streets, cars or flowers. STYLE Subjective reality identified with the stream of consciousness technique. Virginia never lets her characters’ thoughts flow without control and she maintains logical and grammatical organisation → fusion between the stream of thought into a 3-person, past tense narrator. “Clarissa’s Party” At Clarissa’s party Sir William Bradshaw, Septimus’s doctor, and Lady Bradshaw explain why they are late, and Clarissa feels like withdrawing for a while. Lady Bradshaw tells Clarissa about Septimus's suicide. Clarissa goes into the little room where the prime minister sat so she can be alone. She feels angry that the Bradshaws brought death to her party. She ruminates about Septimus's death and thinks he has preserved something that is obscured in her own life. She sees his death as an attempt at communication. She remembers the moment she felt she could die at Bourton in total happiness. She considers the young man's death her own disgrace. Clarissa looks out the window and sees the old woman in the house across the way going to bed. She identifies with Septimus and feels glad he has thrown his life away. She returns to the party, where Peter and Sally are gossiping 27 West. He comes from the West, and returns to it at the end of the novel. Fitzgerald shows his preference for the West, more moral than the East. Tom Buchanan is Gatsby's rival for Daisy's love. He is unfaithful, arrogant and aggressive. Daisy represents the enchanted object of desire, the great American dream, she is the light attracting Gatsby to her. She is very moody and impulsive. Styl Nick is a retrospective narrator who, after going through an experience, looks back on it with a better understanding. Fitzgerald rejects chronological order and uses the fragmentation of time and frequent flashbacks. Gatsby's personality is developed through implication. Fitzgerald uses frequent appeals to the senses, to colours and poetic devices such as repetition, simile and metaphor. The language blends realism and symbolism. Symboli image The society of the jazz age is described with symbolic images, like the car, which stands for the destructive power of modern society and money. The valley of ashes (a stretch of land full of rubbish, waste and ashes) stands for the contraposition to the bright lights of the modern metropolis. Gatsby's house celebrates the protagonist's luck and success during the parties, but embodies his melancholy and loneliness when it is empty. The green light is the symbol of Gatsby's hopes and dreams. It represents the gap between the past and the present, the physical and emotional distance between Gatsby and Daisy, but it is also generally associated with the American dream. Blindness: most of the characters in the novel do not wish to see. They seek out blindness in the form of drunkenness. Jordan, Daisy, Tom drive carelessly: they are blind to danger. NICK MEETS GATSBY Summary: Gatsby has become famous around New York bc he organises parties and spectacles every weekend at his mansion. Nick gets invited and he feels out of place among the strangers. Guests exchange rumours about Gatsby, but no one seems to know the truth about his wealth or personal history. Gatsby’s party is luxurious: guests marvel over his Rolls-Royce, his swimming pool, his beach, buffet tents in the gardens and a live orchestra playing under the stars. The crowd becomes louder as more and more guests get drunk. Nick and Jordan sit at a table with a handsome young man that introduces himself as Jay Gatsby. Gatsby’s speech is elaborate and formal, and he has a habit of calling everyone “old sport.” Nick is fascinated by Gatsby. He notices that Gatsby does not drink and that he keeps himself separate from the party, watching his guests in silence. Analysis: Gatsby’s party shows 1920s the upper class’ wealth and glamour. As his representation of the differences between East Egg and West Egg shows, Fitzgerald is fascinated with the social hierarchy of America in the 1920s, when a large group of industrialists, speculators, and businessmen with brand-new fortunes joined the old, aristocratic families at the top of the economic ladder (scala). The “new rich” lack the refinement, manners, and taste of the “old rich” but long to break into the polite society of the East Eggers. In this scenario, Gatsby is again an enigma: though he lives in a West Egg mansion, East Eggers freely attend his parties. While the Americans at the party possess vitality, the Englishmen there are set off dramatically, seeming desperate, hoping to make connections that will make them rich. The collapse of the American dream: Gatsby's story symbolises the disintegration of the American dream in a period of material prosperity and economic boom.The decline of social and moral values, substituted with cynicism and greed, is symbolised by Gatsby’s parties. According to Fitzgerald, the American dream has died due to the disillusionment consequent on the First World War and to the materialism encouraged by the economic boom. The American dream originally was the pursuit of happiness thanks to personal effort, but easy money and relaxed moral values have wasted it (Gatsby's dream of being loved by Daisy is ruined by social differences and by her materialism). The impossible hope of recapturing the past: Each character wants to recapture the past: Daisy her true love, Nick the simpler life in Minnesota, Tom wishes to go back to when he was more honest and Gatsby wants to cancel the past five years as if they had never existed, which means he is unable to see the present. 30 Joh Steinbec THE GRAPES OF WRATH PLOT Tom Joad has just been released from prison and is travelling to his parents’ house in Sallisaw, Oklahoma. On the way he meets Casy, the ex-preacher of the community. Tom finds that his old family home has been abandoned. Muley tells Tom that his family have moved to his Uncle John’s place having been evicted by the banks like the rest of the local farmers. They find the Joads at uncle John's house. The Joad family includes Grandma and Grandpa Joad, Pa and Ma Joad, their sons Noah and Al, Tom's sister Rose of Sharon and her husband Connie, Ruthie and Wilfield. Arriving next at his Uncle’s, Tom discovers that the family bought a truck and are planning to migrate to California for work. The journey is unpleasant: Grandpa Joad and Grandma die, Nick runs away.The remaining family members move from one squalid camp to the next, Hooverville but they can't find a job so they move to a government camp for migrant workers.When the work runs out they reach a large farm where workers are protesting against unfair wages and exploitation. Casy is the leader of the protesters, but she is killed during the fight and Tom kills a deputy.Tom goes into hiding, while the family moves into a boxcar on a cotton farm, Ma Joad finds Tom and sends him away. Because of the beginning of the rainy season, they are forced to move.Rose of Sharon gives birth to a dead baby boy. They walk and find a barn, where they find a boy and his starving father. Rose of Sharon feeds the man with the milk from his breasts. TITLE The title is a quote from the American patriotic song The battle Hymn of the republic. The song summons God to bring justice. The grapes of the title symbolise the promised land of California, which turns out to be a disillusionment. So the grapes of hope turn into the grapes of wrath, or anger. SETTING The setting of the novel is vast: it includes a large part of Oklahoma, portions of other States, and a large area of California. The journey westward of the Joad family covers seven States: Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. The novel is also a historical document because it portrays the harsh realities of the Great Depression and the nature of equality and justice in America. The consequences of the Great Depression are the Dust Bowl (left farmers with few crops)and the drastic fall in agricultural prices, the workers are unemployed and suffer from hunger. The Joads join thousands of other dispossessed farmers and each night the migrant people recreate a community. CHARACTERS Tom Joad is the protagonist, he dedicates himself to his family. He cannot stand the injustice of the world and adopts Jim Casy's philosophical ideas. He risks his life to save the Dust Bowl migrants. Jim Casy is a former preacher, he believes that sin does not exist . He thinks that every man's soul is part of the greater soul of all living things. He realises the importance of organising men to reach a goal, in fact he organises a strike. Ma joad is a strong woman, the moral centre of the family. THEMES The endless accumulation of suffering brings discontent, after hopelessness and finally rage. He uses the traditional American device of the journey as a quest for a better land. However,California is already corrupted and tyrannical. Its inhabitants have a hypocritical attitude towards the immigrants. On the one hand, they abuse people like the Joads; on the other hand, they want to exploit their labour as much as possible. His economic views are traditional. His code of beliefs is humanitarian. The Main themes are:the idea that people are more important than things; the conflict between the tendency to respond to hardship and disaster by focusing on one’s own needs, and the impulse to risk one’s safety by working for a common good; the family and the idea of brotherhood having a saving power; the importance of preserving self-respect in order to survive spiritually. NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE It is told by an anonymous narrator who sympathises with the workers, the poor and the dispossessed in general. There are shifts between different points of view. In some chapters the narrator describes and analyses historical events summarising the experiences of a large number of people. In other chapters he assumes the voice of a typical individual who expresses his own personal concerns. The chapters dealing 31 with the Joad family are narrated mainly from an objective pov. As a whole Steinbeck describes his characters from the outside, so that he creates types rather than individuals. WRATH Wrath is directed at those who abuse power. It arises when one person chooses greed over equality, and it grows anytime self-interest wins over compassion. Wrath is in equal parts revenge and justice. Stainbeck exposes the myths of the American West and the American dream. presen ag New trend i poetr THE MOVEMENT 1950s, signs of reactions in poetry. The more representative poets were Larkin and Gunn, known as the movement. These poets had some characteristics of the lower-middle class newly empowered by the post-war Labour government. Most of them were teachers of English, they were nicknamed “University Wits” and they were left-oriented. They reacted against some trends in British poetry like the cosmopolitan intellectualism of Eliot and the excessive romanticism of Thomas. They aimed to create comprehensible poetry about every-day life with simple language. THE GROUP Less famous was the Group. They didn’t have a programme or a manifest but they published in 1963 A Group Anthology, where they expressed a radical protest against the Movement, who was accused of ignoring the contemporary problems (2WW, genocide, nuclear war) to refuge in a world of politeness. The most important poet was Ted Hughes. POETRY OF THE UNDERGROUND The poetry as performance had begun to develop in the poetry-and-jazz meeting in 1950s-60s. Underground or urban poetry developed rapidly and was associated with rock music and festivals but also with happenings like the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and anti-Vietnam War protest. Poetry became popular among the ordinary people and the poets came to be considered the spokesman of common people. THE LIVERPOOL POETS London was no longer the only capital of culture in Britain. One of the other cities was Liverpool, which was becoming the world capital of the revolution in pop music with The Beatles. The Liverpool poets ot pop poets (were influenced by pop music) were Henri, McGough and Patten. They wrote for the young with simple language and their themes were a mixture of personal feelings and protest against the establishment. THE MARTIANS The Martians poets were Raine and Reid. Their name comes from the title of a collection by Reine. These poets looked at reality through the distorting filter of a lens, expressing familiar concepts in unfamiliar ways. THE NORTHERN IRELAND POETRY In the 1970s, some Irish poets turned back to the past like Heaney. They viewed nature as the locus of Ireland’s historical memory. contemporar nove INDIVIDUALISM AND PLURALISM In the post-war, individualism and pluralism are the dominant trends. THE 1950S FICTION They were characterised by the appearance of neo-realism, which worked against Modernism. It led to social protest and it was associated with a group of young writers who were dissatisfied with their reality. They were known as the Angry young men because of the violent protest against the British class system. They portrayed everyday reality through the figure of a young hero who was usually provincial and lower-middle class who tried to climb the social ladder. Best-known works: Lucky Jim by Amis and Saturday night and Sunday morning by Sillitoe. A FANTASY WORLD 32 ideas: rebellion and bohemian living; refusal to conform to traditional values; rejection of materialism; search for alternative ways to find spiritual understanding (Eastern religion). Beatniks lived in dirty apartments, acted on impulse, pushed their sense to the limits of understanding. In America they wore their hair long, grew beards and considerate worn-out jeans, old T-shirts and sandals their standard of uniform. They created escapism and created underground culture. 35 36