Letteratura dell'età vittoriana, Appunti di Inglese

Scarica Letteratura dell'età vittoriana e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! VICTORIAN AGE LITTERATURE During Victorian Age the optimism and confidence of this period led the victorians to be convinced that they were superior and so they have to export their language, culture and traditions to the “uncivilized lands”:in 1882 we have the Africa colonization when the British Empire occupied Uganda,Kenya, Rhodesia and the Niger territories and they also obtained the majority on the Suez Canal. But also between 1899-1902 we have the Boer War: the Boers established two republics to be rich in diamonds and gold :the South African Republic and the Orange Free State and they declared war to Britain that won and gave supremacy over the republics. Other wars: - the Opium war:In 1840 the Chinese government wanted to end the East India Company’s illegal exportation of opium from India to China so the war against Britain broke out. Britain won the war and China was obliged to cede Hong Kong and Shangai. -the Irish question: Ireland was a very difficult country and this for 2 reasons: 1)they wanted to be free by Victoria’s reign 2)They suffered a great famine that destroyed the potato crop, primary resource of the population so they emigrated to Americas. – the Crimean War: Between 1854-56 Britain in alliance with France fought to stop the Russian Empire.Britain was afraid that Russia might threaten Turkish and his control of the Dardanelles; at the end Britain won the war but this caused the death of a lot of men and soldiers at the Battle of Balaklava. At the end of the terrible war Florence Nightingale went to the Crimea to organize hospitals. Her work had a great influence on the foundation of the Red Cross in Geneva in 1864. – Indian mutinity: In 1857 India was one of the most important colony of Britain but when the East India Company destroyed the Indian cotton industry to favour British’s cotton in 1857 we have the Indian mutiny in which the native soldiers rebelled against Britain. VICTORIAN AGE LITTERATURE At the same time the miserable condition of the British working class contributed to the theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who wrote The Communist Manifesto (1848).We rememberer the Fabian Society, founded in 1884 and inspired by Marx which helped to organise the Labour Party. VICTORIAN NOVELISTS LATE VICTORIAN NOVELISTS: Theme: childhood Authors: • LEWIS CARROLL: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland– a children’s novel or a nonsense for adults. • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON: The strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886). It continues the tradition of Gothic novels. The main theme of the novel is the double nature of human being: Dr Jekyll transforms himself into his other self (Mr Hyde) which represents the evil that Victorian moralism tried to repress. • OSCAR WILDE: «The Picture of Dorian Gray» (1890) .This novel best represents the Aestheticism, an artistic movement based on the cult of beauty. • THOMAS HARDY: Tess of the D’Urbervilles .His novels are pervaded by a sense of pessimism and fatalism against the optimism of the Victorian Age • RUDYARD KIPLING: Kim (1901) – Jungle Book (1893-94). Colonialism became the main theme in literature at the end of the Victorian Age. In Kim the author showed a clear belief in the idea that British has to civilise the Indians. • Charles Darwin’ s On the Origin of Species (1859). VICTORIAN POETRY Alfred Tennynson and Robert Browning – both authors make use of drammatic monologues in their poems. Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood: The members of this group,