Letteratura inglese dell'epoca vittoriana, Appunti di Inglese

Scarica Letteratura inglese dell'epoca vittoriana e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! SUMMARY 1. HISTORY AND SOCIETY- BRITAIN 2. CHARLES DARWIN 3. VICTORIAN POETRY 4. ALFRED TENNYSON – “Ulysses” 5. THA AGE OF FICTION 6. CHARLES DICKENS – “Oliver Twist” and “Hard Times” 7. BRONTE SISTERS – “Wuthering Heights” 8. AMERICAN IDENTITY, RENAISSANCE and TRASCENDENTALISM 9. MELVILLE – “Moby-Dick” 10. PRE-RAPHAELITES 11. AMERICAN HISTORY AND THE CIVIL WAR 12. THE LATE VICTORIAN NOVEL 13. ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON – “The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” 14. AESTHETICISM 15. OSCAR WILDE – “The Picture of Dorian Gray” 16. THE RISE OF AMERICAN POETRY 17. WALT WHITMAN – “O Captain! My Captain!” 1. HISTORY OF BRITAIN THE EARLY YEARS OF QUEEN VICTORIA’S REIGN The first years of Victoria’s reign were a period of social reforms and political developments, and also one of imperial expansion. During these years, there was a strong working-class movement calling for social reform. The Great Reform Act of 1832 had extended the vote to almost all male members of the middle classes. The movement of Chartism played an important role, drawing up the ‘People’s Charter’ in 1838, which called for social reforms and the extension of the right to vote to all male adults. Ten Hours Act of 1847, which limited working hours to ten a day for all labourers. The two main parties were the Liberals, and the Conservatives. The Liberals promoted a strong campaign for free trade that led to the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, these had maintained the price of corn high to protect the landowners’ interests. In foreign policy, this was a period of great expansion in trade. There were two Opium Wars against China in 1839–1842 and in 1856–1860, which gave Britain access to five Chinese ports and the control of Hong Kong. Along with France, Britain sided with the Ottoman Empire against Russia during the Crimean War (1853-1856) containing Russian influence. The most important zone of influence for Britain, was India. In 1857 take place the event called ‘Indian Mutiny’, where Indian soldiers rebelled against their British commanders. they were supported by local people The revolt was against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British empire. The East India Company was dissolved and India was administered directly by the British government. Queen Victoria in November 1858 promised them rights similar to those of other British subjects. EARLY VICTORIAN CITY LIFE By the middle of the 19 century, half of the population of Britain as living in towns, and finding solutions to problems linked to the overcrowded urban environment was at the top of Victorian political and social reforms. The majority of the poorer lived in unhealthy slum districts overrun by disease and crime. -Here the mortality rate was high and the terrible working conditions in polluted environments had a disastrous effect, especially on children’s health. Two Housing Acts were passed in 1851 to clean up the towns which had been devastated by frequent epidemics of cholera and by polluted water. The workhouses partly helped the poorer, like homeless, unemployed, orphaned children as well as the disabled, unmarried mothers, were given a place to live in these institutions in return for their labour. Modern hospitals were built and professional organizations were made to regulate and control medical education and research. The introduction of services such as running water, gas, street lighting and paved roads. Places of entertainment like public houses, music halls, parks and stadiums were built. 2. CHARLES DARWIN In the middle of Victorian Age scientific discoveries, in fields such biology or archaeology, began to affect intellectuals and artists. In 1859 the British naturalist Charles Darwin published his theory of revolution in “On the Origins of Species”. The author explained his revolutionary theory of “natural selection”: on the one hand, Darwin’s theory discarded the version of creation given by the Bible, on the other hand it seemed to show that the strongest survived and the weakest would inevitability be defeated. During his expedition to Australia, South Africa and South America he found out that all species are related due to connections among them. DARWING VS GOD? The aim of Darwin was to answer to questions like “How are species formed?” or “Where do they come from?”. He thought that these questions have natural explanation beyond the power of science. We often hear that when On the Origins of Species was published there was a historical clash of science and religions, however in that time the most enlightened writers in the field of science and religion accepted that the Bible must be ridden in a metaphorical way. Now Victorians writers thought that new species were not somehow created in each new geological age to fit the new conditions, but they were the lineal descendants of earlier species. These had changed as the environment changed among them. Darwin’s theory generated different reactions among the scientific community, from contemptuous rejections to enthusiastic support. His arguments and evidence persuaded many that he had found the hidden link that naturalist had been seeking, meanwhile others felt that Darwin’s view was an attack on the role of a Creator in nature. As the years passed, the common descent of species became increasingly accepted, but yet the other idea of natural selection was much less welcome. Many suggested that the view of natural selection produced themselves divinely guided or caused. When new fossils forms were discovered which filled the gaps between already known groups, just as Darwin had predicted. 3. VICTORIAN POETRY During Victoria’s reign poetry became more interested in social reality. The poet was seen as a ‘prophet’ and a ‘philosopher’ able to express the intellectual and moral debate of the age. He used sentimental and sensory elements to describe abstract ideas. Long, narrative poems started to be preferred to the short (lyric ones). An innovation was the dramatic monologue, in which a single character reveals him/herself to the readers through a monologue addressed to a silent listener whose presence has to be inferred in the speaker’s monologue. The speaker, who is different from the poet himself, uses the first singular pronoun “I” and is caught in a moment of crisis. The speaker uses an argumentative tone to reveal the main character’s thoughts. The major poets were Alfred Tennyson, Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 4. TENNYSON Alfred Tennyson was born in Somersby, Lincolnshire, in 1809. The father was a clergy man, from which Alfred inherited epilepsy. Tennyson was first educated at his father's rectory and then in Trinity college in Cambridge, where he was living for the first time among young man of his own age. He was beautiful, intelligent e humorous, and soon he met young man interested in poetry and conversation. He met Arthur Hallam who became his close friend and inspired his poetry. He left Cambridge without taking a degree, but before he published his first important collection of verse, Poems, Chiefly lyrical in 1830. He travelled to Spain with Hallam, who suddenly died in Vienna in 1833. Tennyson fell into a long depression. Fame came in 1850 when he published In Memoriam A.H.H, a cycle of poems for Hallam’s death. In the same year he became a Poet Laureate. To his contemporaries, he was the greatest poet of the age. In 1884 he was given the title of Baron for his literary merits. Member of Parliament. He died in 1892. He became the prophet of the age. He expressed the Victorian values and, at the same time, his worry and doubts about God, nature, man, the meaning of life and science. What worried Tennyson was a nature indifferent to human suffering and the absence of an immortal destiny for man. He found an element of hope in Darwin’s concept of natural selection: according to him, man was evolving into something perfect. He was praised for the musical patterns of his poetry, his rich imagery and descriptions. Tennyson first works where dramatic monologues included in Poems (1842). There were published in two volumes and they were a revision of old volumes, such as Ulysses and Morte d’Arthur. In 1847 he punished the princess, appreciated for its support of women’s right to education. In Memoriam A.H.H was one of the finest elegies in English literature and it consists of 131 sections of a varying number of stanzas. The unifying element of these poems is the grief of the poet for his friend’s death. “ULYSSES” Ulysses is a blank verse dramatic monologue written in 1833 and published in Poems in 1842. Ulysses is the latinized version of the Greek mythological hero Odysseus, king of Ithaca, first recorded in Homer's classic poems the Iliad and its sequel the Odyssey. Tennyson also knew of Dante's Inferno canto 26 where Ulysses is found in hell, for his many sins. The poem begins with Ulysses admitting that his life is a monotony despite him being king. All he does is waste his time with people who don't know him. He is an overreacher who wants to go beyond the limits of the world, beyond the pillars of Hercules into dangerous waters. He exhorts his old group of friends and the reader to live life to the full and to look for new worlds and new knowledge. He refused to yield to enemies and also to time and age itself. He uses the characters of Ulysses and Telemachus to represent two kinds of life: while Ulysses represents an active and adventurous life, rich in imagination; Telemachus is the typical Victorian man, he represents an uneventful life, devoted to responsibilities and social duties. The tone of Ulysses is reflective, contemplative and hopeful. The speaker has come to the conclusion that, to live a meaningful life, he has to move on from his domestic situation. 5. THE AGE OF FICTION The enormous growth of the middle classes led to a communion of interests and opinions between writers and their readers. The novels became the most popular form of literature and the main source of entertainment, because novels were read aloud in the family. The novelist’s aim was to make the readers aware of social injustices. They described society as they saw and denounced the evils of the time. The omniscient narrator erected a rigid barrier between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. The plot was long and often complicated by subplots. The setting used by most Victorian novelists was the city, symbol of Industrial civilization. Victorian writers concentrated on the creation of realistic characters the public could easily identify with. The first part of the Victorian Age was linked to social and humanitarian novels, which can be associated with the focus on intense subjective experiences. Many novels of the middle Victorian period were written by women. Despite their state of subjection, women were the majority of readers, since they spent more time than men at home. It was not easy for women to publish because writing and owners seem to be proud of the polluted environment and workplaces of Coketown. In this novel, Dickens uses a particular technique to hint at the main features of his characters’ personality. For example, the names chosen by the author: starting from Gradgrind, made up of two words (grade and grind); Bounderby, comes from “bounder” a man who behaves unfairly; Choakumchild, a teacher at Mr. Gradgrind’s school: his teaching “chokes” the children’s minds and imagination. “Hard Times” is Dickens’ most polemical novel; he denounced industrialization, which had caused the gap between the rich and the poor, or between the factory owners and the workers. The novel criticizes materialism and Bentham’s Utilitarianism, which claimed that human nature was motivated by self-interest and that it was the education to support and encourage each individual to pursue their own interests. “Hard Times” suggests that 19th century England was turning human beings into machines by repressing the development of their emotions and creativity. PLOT The story opens in a schoolroom in an imaginary industrial mill town, Coketown. Pupils are indoctrinated by Thomas Gradgrind, an educator who believes that facts are the key to a good education, and not imagination or emotion. Louisa married Mr. Brounderby not because she loves him, but because she thinks it will help her brother a Tom, who became a criminal man. Mr. Gradgrind understands he has caused damage to his children. Tom dies on his way back from America after apologizing to Louisa; she instead never marries again and decides to live a life of charity and kindness with her friend Sissy and her children. 7. BRONTE SISTERS Charlotte, Emily and Anne were children of an Anglican clergyman, who was appointed as the rector of the village of Haworth, in the Yorkshire moors, where the three sisters spent most of their lives. After the death of their father, they went to live with their aunt Elizabeth. They attended different schools but they were mostly home schooled. The first stories they wrote were fantasy stories and chronicles about imaginary countries, to express their intellectual creativity and emotions. In 1846 they published their first work, a volume of poetry called Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. Male pseudonyms were used so they would be taken seriously, since women in that period weren’t given as much importance as they deserved. In 1847 each one of the sisters published their own novels: Wuthering Heights (Emily), Jane Eyre (Charlotte) and Agnes Grey (Anne). Emily and Anne both died of tuberculosis respectively in 1848 and 1849, while Charlotte died in 1855 of an illness due to pregnancy. “WUTHERING HEIGHTS” Author: Emily Bronte Release date: 1847 Genre: Novel Main characters: Catherine Earnshaw, Heathcliff, Hindley Earnshaw, Edgar Linton Setting: Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange (Yorkshire moors) Time: Beginning of the 19th century Themes: Gothic Literature, Love and Passion, Death, Social Class and Death. Narrative technique: dual, two main narrators (Mr. Lockwood and Nelly Dean) PLOT A man named Lockwood rents an estate on the Yorkshire moors called Wuthering Heights, which is owned by Heathcliff, a rich and unfriendly man. During a stormy night Mr. Lockwood has a strange dream about a girl named Catherine. The next day he decided to ask the Housekeeper, Nelly Dean to tell him all about the story of Wuthering Heights. Wuthering Heights was once home to Mr. Earnshaw who had two children, Hindley and Catherine. One day he brought home from Liverpool a foundling, Heathcliff, who will become very close with Catherine. After Mr. Earnshaw’s death, Hindley became the master of the house and treated Heathcliff poorly. During one of Heathcliff and Catherine’s adventures on the moors, she was bitten by one of the Linton’s dogs and was forced to stay at Thrushcross Grange for five weeks. There she met Edgar, whom she will marry later after telling Nelly that she wouldn’t marry Heathcliff because of his inferior social status. Three years later Heathcliff returned handsome, rich and determined to take his revenge. He became the master of Wuthering Heights after gambling with Hindley; he then married Edgar’s sister. Catherine in the meanwhile fell ill while pregnant and died giving birth to daughter, Cathy. Years later Heathcliff forced Cathy to marry his son Linton and this is where Nelly’s narrative ends. Mr. Lockwood leaves Yorkshire and comes back after a year to find that both Linton and Heathcliff are dead and learns of further developments in the story. Nelly tells him that there are rumors in the neighborhood that the figures of a young man and woman have been seen wandering together on the moors. “BACK TO WUTHERING HEIGHTS” After being bitten by one of the Linton’s dogs, Cathy was forced to stay at Thrushcross Grange for five weeks. There she learned her manners and how to dress as a lady. This passage tells Cathy’s homecoming and points out the difference between life at Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights. As Cathy arrived, everyone was shocked and amazed by her transformation, except Heathcliff who hadn’t accepted Cathy’s absence for those five weeks. The young lady was so glad and excited to meet the boy, while he was mad because he didn’t meet the Cathy he used to know, in front of him was a damsel finally dressed and disgusted by his poor appearance. Is Catherine a typical Victorian woman? Before staying at Thrushcross Grange, Catherine was not quite the lady defined by her society. She was wild and didn’t wear the right clothes. Her transformation after five weeks at the Linton’s is only superficial, the moment she saw Heathcliff was the moment she showed her true self. She’s a woman of passion and she shows it without being afraid of others' judgment. 8. THE BEGINNING OF AN AMERICAN IDENTITY The USA started as a group of 13 motley colonies suffering for survival as a cog withinside the substantial British empire, however subsequently they started to flourish. After much less than hundred years of settlement, this vicinity executed something hitherto in no way executed via way of means of a colony. The influential ladies and men of the Founder`s Generation set approximately setting up the American colonies` independence from the Mother Country and forming a brand-new state in the course of the overdue 1700s. hatred at the white whale, which he noticed as embodying all of the evil withinside the world. Ahab is a totally charismatic person who manages to speak his hatred of the whale to his crew and convince them to follow him in his challenge to kill Moby Dick. Ahab has uncertainties about man`s strength to govern the tyranny of nature thru his actions. MOBY DICK: Ishmael defines the whiteness of the whale as absence of shade and so he reveals that the whale has a lack of meaning. Moby Dick embodies an active, impersonal pressure guy has to compete with. It can also constitute guy`s quest for a purpose for his existence, Besides, the white whale symbolizes the hidden and mysterious forces of an exquisite and effective nature that's captivating and unfavorable at the equal time. The hunt represents war among guy and nature. ISHMAEL: First-man or woman narrator, Ishmael. As quickly as he climbs aboard the Pequod, his personal each day search will become connected to Ahab`s darker quest. Ahab isn't most effective chasing his enemy however is likewise preventing the God that hides at the back of the 'mask' of the whale. So, the whaling excursion from Nantucket will become the tale of an obsession and a research into the which means of life. STYLE Melville makes use of numerous registers, from everyday speech to noticeably figurative language. Some scenes incorporate dramatic strategies such as asides and soliloquies. 10. PRE-RAPHAELITES The term “Pre-Raphaelite” was first introduced by painters Hunt and Millais, who criticized Raphael’s style and rejected academic taste. They praised the purity and the simplicity of the Italian art of the 14th and 15th centuries. The second phase, also known as the “Aesthetic Pre-Raphaelitism” was developed under the direction of Rossetti, who’s also the main representative of the movement. A further development was the works of the Aesthetes and Decadents. Pre- Raphaelites inspired a generation of illustrators, like Aubrey Beardsley, whose works combine themes like death and eroticism with delicate forms and sinuous arabesque lines. 11.THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR Political anxiety in America grew from the financial variations among the northern and southern states. While the North turned into industrialized, the economy of the South turned into nevertheless primarily based totally at the good-sized plantations of tobacco and cotton depending on slavery. The white populace withinside the North expanded rapidly. South there have been fewer towns and approximately 4 million black slaves. While the North turned into turning into urbanized and open to new commercial opportunities, the South turned into primarily based totally on a rigidly divided magnificence system. After the 1830s numerous northern states had followed emancipation. Northern abolitionists, commenced to organize themselves right into a political movement. Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) received the presidential election in 1860, 11 southern states seceded from the Union and shaped the Confederate States of America. The proper to secede turned into denied via way of means of Lincoln, supported via way of means of a majority of northerners, and the Civil War broke out in 1861. It lasted 4 years and led to 186S with a northern victory. Five days after its end, President Lincoln turned into assassinated via way of means of a southern fanatic. The northern victory withinside the Civil War meant the us could continue to be indivisible with a sovereign countrywide government. It additionally officially ended the organization of slavery withinside the thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1865. THE GETTISBRUG ADDRESS Lincoln`s Gettysburg Address turned into given for the duration of the determination and consecration of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in 1863. The Civil War turned into nevertheless going on, and Lincoln facilities his speech round this, relating to the founding of America "4 rating and 7 years ago" earlier than explaining that the struggle fare is a combat to hold America's life as a republic. AMERICA AFTER CIVIL WAR After the stop of the Civil War, the variations among the North and South persisted to be very marked. The conflict had devastated the South, which additionally confronted the bitterness of defeat and the crumble of its economy. in the course of the conflict the northern factories had extended them output to deliver navy needs. The country`s herbal resources - consisting of coal, copper, iron and oil - have been completely exploited. Big fortunes have been made, with the aid of using guys who rose from nothing. However, the bulk of employees have been exploited and did now no longer have a proportion withinside the wealth and leisure. They began setting up themselves and, in 1866, based the American Federation of Labor (AFL), which have become the most powerful organization of exchange unions. Some migrated to the commercial towns withinside the North, others remained with their old masters withinside the South. They have been dealt with as second-elegance residents beneathneath a gadget of deeply pervasive segregation that could stand for the subsequent 80-90 years. 12.THE LATE VICTORIAN NOVEL The late Victorian novelists criticised the “Victorian compromise” and refuse the optimistic view of man and progress. This new realism was influenced by Social Darwinism, which made them mirror a society linked to a growing crisis both in religion and moral fields. Childhood had been the new favourite theme of Victorian novelists as the 1860s were considered as the golden age of children’s literature. Many classic books were published such as Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, where the author presented a nonsensical, illogical, irrational and chaotic world. In the second half of the 19th century policemen and detective novels became more respectable in society, as the crime fiction became more popular as genre. The detective turned out to be a middle-class hero of order and resolution. An instance is The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hide, where the author Stevenson not only seem to be concerned with the duality present in every individual but also within Victorian society as a whole, where the aristocracy was superficially kins and refined, but hid secrets and contradictions. More over in 1887 Doyle created the famous pipe-smoking Aestheticism had as a consequence the figure of dandy: a person without noble blood who conduces an eccentric life thanks to an inherited wealth. They lived in constant risk of losing their money gambling and squandering carelessly. 15. OSCAR WILDE He was born in Dublin in 1854. He graduated at Oxford and became a disciple of Walter pater. Then he moved to London and became a dandy. He traveled frequently in the USA. In 1884 he married Constance Lloyd, who gave him two sons. In 1891 Oscar Wilde published the Picture of Dorian Gray. After that he produced four social comedies and a tragedy: Salomé. His works damaged his reputation, since they were considered immoral. Later he was also imprisoned for two years for homosexual practices. He died in poverty in Paris in 1900. “THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY” Author: Oscar Wild Date: 1891 Poetic form: novel Setting: London, end of the 19th century Main character: Dorian Gray. “Gray” suggests that his morality is neither black or white. Which means that Dorian Gray doesn’t care about it at all Opening: the opening dialogue, between Lord Henry Wotton and Basil Hallward, focuses on the importance of beauty and appearance as the most important values in life PLOT Basil Hallward is fascinated by the beauty of a young man: Dorian Gray, and decides to paint his portrait. Under the influence of the aesthetic and corrupted Lord Henry Wottom, Dorian Gray conducted a life of pleasure and selfishness. His soul was inevitably corrupted, but the effects of the degradation appeared on the portrait, while Dorian Gray continued to look the same young pretty man. When Basil Hallward found out the altered portrait, he tried to conduct Dorian Gray on the way of morality. However, Dorian killed the artist. The portrait became an obsession to him to such a point that he stabbed the painting, in the belief that such an act could free himself from the corruption of his soul. Instead, doing so he killed himself. In the very moment of his death the portrait restored to his original beauty. External influence and symbolism: Oscar Wilde is deeply influenced by the Aestheticism of Walter Pater. In his works he expresses the pursuit of beauty and doesn’t give space to morality. Dorian Gray’s life reflects the motto “Art for Art’s Sake”. Instead, the portrait is the double of Dorian Gray: it represents the dark side of the man, hidden by his appearance. It can be seen as a symbol of the immorality of the Victorian middle-class. And the real Dorian Gray could represent the bourgeois hypocrisy STYLE AND LANGUAGE: unobtrusive third-person narrator. Use of paradoxes, witty dialogue and harmonious diction. The characters reveal themself through their speech. 16. THE RISE OF AMERICAN POETRY During the 17 century, American literature consisted mainly of prose Anne Bradstreet was one of the first poets to write a collection of English verse in the American colonies in 1650. During the second half of 18 century, poetry started to deal with the issue of independence, and many didacts or satirical poems were published in newspapers. The poets before the civil war showed traces of European romanticism and taste for feelings and imagination, and importance to individualism and patriotism. William Cullen Bryant celebrated the vastness and beauty of the American landscape. Edgar Allan påve was the greatest poet of the pre-civil war period, his work influenced the French symbolist and the Victorian poets. Walt Whitman broke European poetic conversation to create truly American poetry. He produced an original form of free verse to give a voice to the true nature of his country and to its physical and spiritual characters, leaves of grass. Was is best work and he celebrate in this book what it was American, he influenced the development of American poetry With Whitman, Emily Dickerson was a great voice of 19 century American poetry She adopted short lines separated by dashes. This made her poetry extremely modern and emotional intense, exploration of erotic and religious passion, of death and despair. 17. WALT WHITMAN He was born in New York in 1819 into a working-class family, started to work at the age of eleven, first as an office boy, he began his writing career as a journalist and supported radical democratic, in1855 he published his first collection of poems leaves of grass, contain poems on civil war and on the death of president Lincoln, he was especially appreciated by the aesthetic movement, he was considered the father of American poetry. ● His works are influenced deeply by transcendental philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson ● His poetry was confederated poetry of the body, where theme of sex is developed directly. The poet is mostly concerned with the dignity of the individual, in his view body and soul are not related hierarchically but coexist democratically ● He was considered the creator of free verse, abandoning traditional forms and structure of 19 century poetry. His lines are very long and contain a list that are used to indicate the variety of people, objects and situations the poet meets. His poems are characterized by anaphora, a repetition of the same word at the beginning of successive lines. Participle replaces the finite verb and the imperative is common. ● Whitman's poetry is pervaded by optimism. His main theme was America, which he celebrated in all is variety (land, people, nature life, democracy, American dream, slavery, civil war, poverty, education, etc.…) “O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN”  What is the author's purpose of "O Captain! My Captain?" Walt Whitman wrote "O Captain! My Captain!" in response to the death of President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Lincoln's assassination was a shock to the nation and especially painful because the president died just as the terrible American Civil War ended. Whitman wrote a poem about the death of a ship's captain as a way to process the pain of the tragedy.  Is "O Captain! My Captain!" an allegory? "Oh Captain! My Captain!" uses an extended metaphor that uses the death of a ship's captain as a way of responding to the death of President Abraham Lincoln. An extended metaphor is one that is utilized in multiple parts of a poem or other work. An allegory likewise uses elaborate structures of symbolic meaning. However, allegories do not always make clear that they are drawing