Analysis of Shakespeare's Sonnet 144 & Macbeth: Power, Ambition, & Gender Roles - Prof. An, Appunti di Letteratura Inglese

Scarica Analysis of Shakespeare's Sonnet 144 & Macbeth: Power, Ambition, & Gender Roles - Prof. An e più Appunti in PDF di Letteratura Inglese solo su Docsity! Shakespeare (1564-1616) Epidemia di peste che portò alla chiusura dei teatri, Shakespeare si dedicò così alla poesia. La sua vita è divisa tra due regni inglesi, quello di Elisabetta I e dopo la sua morte (1603), non avendo eredi, prende il suo posto il figlio della cugina, James VI, diventando sia il re di Scozia sia di Inghilterra (Union of the crown). Il regno dei Tudor sono regni nei quali vediamo una fioritura delle arti, della cultura e del teatro. 1588——> vittoria contro l’invincibile Armata del re cattolico Philip of Spain Prime imprese coloniali nel nuovo mondo (ovvero America) In questo periodo le donne non potevano fare le attrici, i personaggi femminili erano interpretati da uomini Sonetto= componimento composto da 14 versi suddivisi in vario modo a seconda della tradizione; 3 principali: 1. Sonetto petrarchesco: 1 ottava e 1 sestina con una volta (shift) tra le due strofe (stanzas): due pensieri o sviluppo di un pensiero 2. Sonetto spenceriano= 3 quartine (abab, bcbc, cdcd) e un distico - 3 pensieri e conclusione 3. Sonetto Shakespeariano= 3 quartine e un distico finale Sonetto elisabettiano= introdotto in Inghilterra da Thomas Wyatt e Henry Howard. Modello: Petrarca (ma inventore Jacopo da Lentini) Tematiche: amore per una donna Sonnet 18: Divided in two parts: something changes from like 9 to line 14 First 8 lines: nature, destined to decay Last lines: art, it never dies “So long lives this” Is there some kind of order/narrative in the collection? -Mystery some things are written without a specific order -There is a sort of link (ex. theme of time and the immortality of art) Sonnet 130: Sonnet 130 is an unconventional love poem that refers to the Dark Lady and combines the theme of nature and the description of the speaker's beloved in a 3rd person form of address (- the person usually employed to describe the angelic woman). The first two quatrains contain a sequence of comparison between the woman's features and some natural elements, while the second element of the two comparisons in the final quatrain is linked to the artistic and religious sphere. In the final couplet, however, the speaker underlines that he loves the Dark Lady precisely because of her ordinary nature. Starting from the first verse, the speaker's Mistress is described through the rhetorical device of comparison, but in a "negative" way. In fact, according to the literary tradition, the angelic woman was described by comparing her to many beautiful elements which nevertheless vanished in comparison with her. Shakespeare decides to overturn the conventional ways of praising beauty and establishes a relationship with the tradition in order to subvert it (- intertextuality and parody). In the first stanza, the objects of comparison are the Mistress' eyes, her lips, her "dun" breasts and her black hair which undeniably oppose the angelic woman's light ones. The second quatrain focuses on the Dark Lady's cheeks and breath, whereas the final one concerns her voice and her heavy gait ("My Mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground", unlike goddesses). All the senses are involved to emphasize the woman's physicality: the sight in lines 1-6, the smell in lines 7-8, the hearing in lines 9-10 and the touch in lines 11-12. In this way, the poem can be described as a "sensory" sonnet. The final couplet states with the aim of this poem a resounding force: even if the Dark Lady doesn't represent the canon of the woman depicted by Shakespeare's contemporaries or the previous literary tradition, whose figure has always been exaggerated, this lady is even more beautiful and lovely than the idealized ones. She is defined as "rare" in line 13 to underline that she doesn't need cliched terms nor a game of false praise of her beauty to be couched. In this kind of inverted love sonnet, the poet wants to view the woman he loves realistically, even if he himself plays an even more exaggerated game of praising beauty in order to imply that love transcends even fairness and to celebrate the beauty of defaults and of normality. The playful attack at the "belied [women] by false compare" and the irony shown towards other poets in line 11 (" grant I never saw a goddess go") reveal Shakespeare's parodic intent of replicating the traditional hyperbolic descriptions in order to demolish them. According to the critic Gabriele Baldioi, sonnet 130 is the imitation of the Italian author Francesco Berni's, Chiome d'argento fino, irtee attorte, which was translated by Sir Philip Sydney in his poem Arcadia. However, Francesco Berai's work itself is a parody of another Italian poet's sonnet, Pietro Bembo's Grin d'ara crespo. -Speaks in the 3th person, using metaphors to describe her physically -The poem is a sort of ironic parody -Parodic strategy by which the usual comparisons are used in the negative form: Ex. “Red lips like roses, white skin like snow“ Highlighting the fact that his love for her is rare (regardless her physical defects) “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” -Sensorial poetry, language of senses -He challenges the typical representation of femininity, the “angelic woman” -The sonnet might be a parody of the sonnet “chiome d’argento” by Francesco Berni Sonnet 144: -Dark Lady described us extremely powerful -It could be about a love triangle or about two kinds of love/opposites kind of experience -it could also be about inner tension of the poet between feelings Plot ~ Setting: 11th-century Kingdom of Scotland (medieval Scotland) ruled by King Duncan ~ The Thanes Banquo and Macbeth (friends st the beginning) win the war against Irish and Norwegian invaders allied to Scottish traitors of Duncan. ~ The witches’ first prophecy also called “weird”, a Scottish word for “destiny”. The witches tell Macbeth he’ll proclaimed Thane of Cawdor and then king while Banquo will be the father of a future king: the witches don’t talk with men, they talk with each other and in a more short stanzas ~ Macbeth tells his wife the prophecy and she convinces him to kill Duncan together and usurp the throne.The wife will put the bodies near the two guards outside the king’s room so they have the blame and then kill them too. ~ Macbeth hires an assassin to kill Banquo and his family, because of his suspiciousness, but his son (Fleance) can escape. ~ Banquo and Macduff’s son and wife are killed ~ Duncan’s sons Donalbain and Malcolm leave Scotland ~ The witches’ second prophecy: they tell Mac to be wary of Macduff, so he sends an assassin to kill him and his family (he failed) «Macbeth shall never vanquished be, until Great Birnan Wood to high Dunsinane Hill Shall come against him» (IV. 1) – Macduff allied to Seyward, English General ~ Lady Macbeth’s insanity: she goes insane because of the sense of guilt (from a strong and cruel woman to a weak one because of her mental illness) and announced death (we don’t know if it’s true or not, maybe suicide or maybe she is still alive) ~ The witches’ third prophecy: «None of woman born shall harm Macbeth» (IV. 1) ~ Macduff was born through a cesarean born, an unnatural way at that time ~ A messenger tells Macbeth that Birnan Wood seemed to be moving. It turns out every member of the English army was carrying a branch of camouflage. ~ Macduff and Duncan’s son killed Macbeth and Malcolm returns from England and restores order and peace claiming the throne. Why Scotland? ~ James I: James VI of Scotland, from 1603; according to a legend, Banquo, or his son Fleance, was ancestor of the Stuart dynasty so there was a connection between James and Banquo ~ James I is the king of the King's Men, and author of Daemonologie (1597) which talks about the non-existence of witches. He even was king of the King’s men, a group of authors and actors, including Shakespeare. ~ Macbeth was real and according to some sources he was also a wise king and so MAYBE him being a tyrant was just an excuse for England and part of Scotland to invade and kill him. Also it was usual to illegitimately get the throne when there was a bad king, like Duncan. In fact it was proved that, while most of the kings had stayed for at most six months, Macbeth had been king for 17 years straight. ~ Legend: Banquo or his son Fleance was an ancestor of the Stuart dynasty. ~ Scottish history: Macbeth killed Duncan and reigned from 1040 to 1057, till the English commander Siward (Duncan’s brother in law) intervenes, the legitimate heir Malcolm III kills Macbeth and restores the natural succession. David Greig, Dunsinane (2010) He wrote the story again and he even thought that Lady Macbeth never died. This proves how the story can change and be understood through time and a different history moment. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth: modern (anti)hero/heroine Psychological play ~ Both Macbeth and his wife around characters, because they change throughout the story: they both experience excessive ambition and yearning for power, which made them disrespectful of human values (mainly Lady Macbeth). In fact the two become ambitious after the first prophecy, but it works more on Lady Macbeth, since at first Macbeth can’t even think about betraying his beloved king, but when Lady Macbeth tries to convince him to commit the regicide his ambition grows strong and he lets his vicious side kill the king and everyone else in his way (interior conflict good-evil). The king was superior to all humans since he was considered as god's representative and Macbeth shouldn’t even have had the ambition to that position. In his mind, anyway, it’s actually an achievable goal, since he already became Thane of Cawdor, as prophesied by the witches. It’s at that point that he thinks about transgression and so to murder as the means by which become king. But Macbeth is also torned by his own decision, since he’s aware of what he wants to do, but is afraid of the possible consequences. It is ML that will convince and so lead him to commit the crime; she knows what has to be done, so she also calls evil spirits to give her the necessary cruelty for that crime, because she recognizes it as a crime against God. She mocks at Macbeth, also with smiles, to urge him to be both physically and mentally brave to follow through on his actions. After the murder, the nature is disordered and the destruction is reflected both in M and LM’s disordered minds. She, more than him, is haunted by what they have done and she becomes mad and eventually commit suicide (we are not sure). At the end ambition is presented as something meaningless that brings violence and death. ~ Absurdity of violence (central message): it can only lead to further violence «things bad begun make strong themselves by ill», III.2; «blood will have blood», III.4 ~ Night, sleeplessness, nightmare: most scenes happen at night, in the darkness and the inability to keep it under control ante-litteram «Dr Jekyll-Mr Hyde syndrome» Macbeth [Aside]: [...] Stars, hide your fires; Let nót light sée my bláck and déep desíres: The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be, Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see. (Act I, Scene 4, before the murder) Macbeth asks for darkness when he has to commit his crime and is surrounded by it. He is aware of what he’s about to do, but he’s afraid of it, showing a sort of hesitation, an interior conflict, an inner darkness darkness and so his dark desires. ~ Conjugal love BUT utter loneliness at the end: Macbeth and Lady McBeth are accomplishes; they’re together at the crime, after which the split and end up being both alone in their suffering because of the loneliness provoked by their crime, and so they both die alone (unhealthy love). ~ Guilt: after the murder everyone knocks; maybe it’s Macbeth heart, showing a sense of guilt «Knock» «Knock» «Knock within» (symbolic stage direction in scenes 2-3 in Act II , after the murder, it’s a sound that reminds us the heart beat) “Whence is that knocking? How is’t with me, when every noise appals me? What hands are here? Ha - they pluck out my eyes! Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather The multitudinous seas incarnadine (riempire), Making the green one red.” clear to see that the witches do not take men’s free will away. They predict the future, but are M and LM who decide to commit the crimes, so they have a passive role and don’t lead M and LM to their evil actions. They are a projection of M’s unheimlich (Freudian), something both familiar and unfamiliar, because they reflect an unconscious part of him. Lady Macbeth is a woman who wants to be a man and after reading M’s letter about the first prophecy of the witches, she asks spirits to take her womanly side away from her: “Glam is thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be What thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature: It is too full o’the milk of human-kindness To catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great, Art not without ambition, but without The illness should attend it. […] Hie thee hither That I may pour my spirits in thine ear, And chastise with the valour of my tongue All that impedes thee from the golden round Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem To have thee crowned withal. The raven himself is hoarse That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan Under my battlements. Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full Of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood; Stop up the access and passage to remorse, […]! Come to my woman’s breasts, And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers, Wherever in your sightless substances You wait on nature’s mischief! Come, thick night, And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, Not heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, To cry “Hold,hold!” (I, 5) LM’s thoughts don’t seem to be connected, but there's a logic, because she’s a round character and changes throughout the story. Here (after reading the letter) she thinks she should eliminate the king. She’s afraid M won’t be able to do what is to be done [milk:love and motherhood, useless things]. “Pour my spirits in thine ear”: she knows she’s much brave than M, so this strength and courage are poisonous for M (as for ML), and will lead him to something unnatural. [Reference to Hamlet: the king gets killed by his brother who pours venom in his ear] “Unsex me here” / “Come to my woman’s breasts, and take my milk for goal” (venom): female sex was associated with emotions and feelings, so unable to commit a crime, which she needs to do with cruelty Some key scenes Act 2, scene 1: M imagines to commit the crime before committing it (it trouble him) Act 5, scene 1: LM’s sleeplessness, insanity and return of humanity and woman hood 1.(II, 1) M has the vision of a dagger that tries to seize, but can’t. He is not ready or strong enough to do what he has to do, and it’s a source of pain and so hesitation. 2. The passage is written in prose, not in blank verse as most of the work. For some critics, S. in some parts uses the prose when his characters are from lower classes or when representing a situation which is out of control, as here. The two main characters speaking in the passage are a gentlewoman (G) and a doctor (D). LM is seen while reading a letter (M’s one about the witches) by G; the passage is a first example of what happens in LM’s mind. She has memories of what happened before, that combine with her present state and we can see her switching from one to another, and struggling with her own mind. She seems to be sleeping but she has her eyes opened, talks to herself (conflict natural-unnatural) and walks around with a taper in her hands. TAPER (candle): human life and awareness of the existence of a human consciousness, despite her crimes (there is still humanity in her). We see her darkness, but still feel sympathy for her (and M). She keeps pretending to wash her hands, as to clean them to all the blood that has been poured because of her. “Hell is murky!”: l’inferno è buio; she’s now afraid of it, even though she remembers when she told M to be a man and not be afraid of doing what he had to do. “[…]now?-What…-…”: dashes; change from one thought to another. She is now recalling the image of a woman, suggesting a try to recover her femininity . Then she keeps switching between last and present. “Com, come, come, come, give me your hand” (V, 1): She needs her husband to be with and near her; they showed love for each other, but after the crime their love is disintegrated by the violence they’ve committed. Now she seems to recollect her femininity and her love for M, showing not only insanity, but also her consciousness for what she and M have done. Gender and 19th century poetry Gender ideology Gender history of 19tm century can be read in two ways: as a patriarchal model that reserved power and privilege to men, or as a process of gradual female challenge to their (men) exclusion. During this period there had been important legal, educational, professional and personal changes, but gender equity was still far away from society’s mind, even if women started to gain autonomy and opportunities. Gender and power In terms of gender ideology, Victoria being queen was a paradox. Traditionally, women were considered as physically and mentally weaker and interior; they were subject to a male figure in their family and had no political, legal and economic power in society. Still, Victoria became the monarch in 1837 when she was only 18 and was superior to every citizen in Britain by the end of the century. Misogyny was still very present both in popular and intellectual writings, but women everywhere were demonstrating their values and their declared inferiority was starting to be silenced. British romanticism Shakespeare’s a pre-pre-romantic. He stressed individuality (sonnet 330), and for Keats he’s one of the main representatives of “negative capability”, the ability of an individual to accept that in our life we can’t always find answers to our questions, so not everything can be explained rationale (acceptance of the irrational). (So a movement of new ideas concerning man, literature, society etc.) The English word “romantic” derived from the French “Romance”, but the modern world was given by the Schlegel brothers, who use the German word “romantisch” in their “Das Athenaeum” (1798-1800) to refer to a “progressive poetry”, striving for new models and forms in contrast with the traditional classic literature. Romanticism represented modernity. Something had changed, and this movement was the expression of that change. Start: -1783: England lost its American colonies -1789: Being of French Revolution There’s a continuity with what came earlier and what came after (not fixed) End: -1832: first reform act (middle class right to vote) -1837: Begin of the Queen Victoria’s reign There were aspects of the earlier period that remained in Romanticism, and some of them will remain in the next one. Romantics didn’t reject completely everything before them, but took something and re- elaborated their characteristics and thoughts (ex Neoclassicism, early 18th century) Milestone (1616-1783) 1642-1658: First and second Civil Wars; Elizabeth I has no heir, so James I succeeded and started the Stuart dynasty, then Charles I. During Charles I’s reign the Parliament rebelled against monarchy, led by Oliver Cromwell, bringing to two Civil Wars, during which OC established the only republic government in An important step forward! 1870-1904: this applies to married women, they could have property and money. 1848: the first women’s college opened in London. The year before a poet, Tanison, wrote a poem titled “The princess” which is about a woman that found a college; this makes us think that he was profeting this big step. On the other hand since the economic problems, the poverty an the fact that women were part of the lower classes they ended up in a very misery condition or prostitution. “The falling woman”: a frase referring to a prostitute or a single mother, “falling” because is like falling in the sin. At that time a very respectable job a woman could do was the teacher, a governess or an engineer. Christina worked in a penitentiary which rehabilitated fallen women dedicating all herself into that. She wrote in a poem called “My secret” that he was hiding a secret, this secret is what we just said, that even if she dedicated all herself to the others and lived a really pure life (una vita casta) she didn’t become a noun like her sister and put a lot of sensuality in her poem. “The theory of the separate spheres”: words associated with women (hearth/heart vs public) Hearth=focolare; a word that comes from a poem by Coverty Patmore called “The Angel in the House” where the woman is represented as the goddess of the hearth. At the end of the century we have a very important phenomenon defined as the “New woman”; a woman that goes against the beliefs, that starts to protest against the lack of their rights. Paintings by Rossetti: ~Presence of the angelic woman: pale skin and a lot of hair, red in this case, symbol of their sexuality (ricordiamo la monaca di Monza descritta con un ciuffo di capelli che fuoriesce dal velo per testimoniare il suo carattere ribelle e la sua sensualità) and the representation of heaven in the background. Goblin market (by Christina Rossetti) This poem talks about two women, two sisters, Lizzi and Lora. They live in a town near a valley where there are some goblins that live there and sell delicious fruits, all kinds of fruit (even the exotic one), very attractive. Lora gets close to the valley and can hear the goblins saying “come buy, come buy” but Lizzi says to not buy and eat them because their friend Gini got sick and died because of them, she fell into temptation. Lora cannot resist this temptation so when Lora goes away she goes to the goblins saying she wants their fruits but that she doesn’t have money to pay for them. The goblins say not to worry because she can pay with something else, her hair. Lora then cuts a curl and gives it to them (actually in the story she pays with a tear too) and starts eating the fruits and goes back home. At home she starts having withdrawal symptoms (crisi di astinenza) because she wanted more, Lizzi then decided to go back to buy them so that the fruits might act as an antidote. The goblins welcome her; this time she has money but goblins don’t seem interested in them. The goblins wanted her to eat the fruits but Lizzi rejects them saying she has someone waiting for her at home that needs them. After the rejection the goblins start attacking her throwing the fruits to her (this part can be seen as a rape because they use violence at her ripping her clothes too). Lizzi becomes completely covered by the juice and the pieces of fruit. After that she goes home and tells her sister to drink and eat the juice and the fruits from her body so she can heal. At the end we see the two sisters together in the domestic space with Lora’s children telling them about this experience and story. Open ending… Meaning of the story and some explanations (moral) ~The goblins are the image of a masculine figure so in this poem men are represented as the evil character, half animals that treat women as objects (the figure of the woman is described in a feminist way). Women are seen like a Christ figure and they adventure beyond the domestic sphere (sexual pleasure, art and literature/aesthetic pleasure) but eventually returning there. The sexual desire can suggest attraction, fear and sublimation. The fear is expressed with a gothic and macabre image such as the goblins. ~A religious meaning (“eat me, drink me, love me”) ~The fruits can be seen as knowledge, and this is something that women want to get but couldn’t have, or as a sin. ~Psychological reading: the female mind in a patriarchal society, struggling to come to terms with its own deepest needs and desires (the two sisters reminds us of the Apollonian and a Dionysian figure, the rational and the sensual) Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) -Dendy: an individual who wants to challenge the social norms of the time -Aestheticism: Oscar Wild in the UK is one of the most important names as an exponent of the aesthetic movement, whose central principle is “art for art’s sake” (l’arte fine a se stessa). Here we talk about beauty as life, as truth and without an important meaning, purpose. The word Aestheticism it’s Greek and it means sensations/sensitive and feelings/emotions, this reminds us of Romanticism. “Life must be lived as a work of art”, this is a message which means that we have to pursue beauty giving more importance to the sensual, spiritual and emotional rather than the material, what the capitalist society wants. -Narcissism: he was a narcissist, he loved himself and his image. Narcissism in this novel is represented in a way which shows us the risks of it. There is nothing wrong with loving yourself but if that becomes predominant in everything and doesn’t allow us to love others then it becomes toxic. -Decay: Dorian desires to stay young forever, which seems to happen, but it does not end up being forever. Oscar Wild was a very eclectic writer, he was accused of homosexuality and sentenced to two years in prison in 1895 (after publishing “The picture of Dorian Gray”). His parents were both involved in movements which eventually, later, led to part of Ireland to be independent (1840). After the Anglo-Irish treaty, in 1922, 26 colonies of Ireland became independent. Before 1922 there were other movements (for example the Young Ireland movement) and his father was one of the members. Oscar Wild got married to Constance Lloyd and had two children with her. He liked her and that’s one of the reasons why he was hiding his homosexuality, so he gotmarried but he also had homo-erotic relationships and the most famous is the one with Lord Alfred Douglas, this was the relationship which led them being discovered by Douglas’s father and then being led towards Oscar Wild imprisonment. When he came out of jail he could never really recover from that trauma, physically and morally so he decided to go live in Paris and travel to Italy too and then died in Paris. Memorial sculptures that represent him with his colorful clothes to challenge the conventional idea of elegance in Victorian society (elegance at that time was associated with black and dark clothes). The picture of Dorian Gray The first one was published in a journal (1891) and then as an independent book. In the novel there are various references to Hellenic culture and ancient traditions, to Greek art. Dorian Gray is an exceptionally beautiful young man and during a party in London a painter,Basil, sees Dorian and immediately falls in love so he decides to paint a portrait of Dorian (that’s why it’s called “The picture of Dorian Gray”). One day Dorian is at Basil place and there he meets Lord Henry Wotton, a very fascinating man and this time is Dorian who is attracted to him. Lord Henry sees the portrait of Dorian and tells Basil to exhibit it in London and Lord Henry replies saying he doesn't want to show it because there is too much of himself in it. Lord Henry meets Dorian at Basil place and looking at the picture he says to Dorian: “Oh, what a shame that your beauty represented in that picture won’t remain” (immortality of beauty in art and mortality of beauty irl). One day Dorian expresses a fatal wish, that it should be the picture to decay/change/age instead of him so he can stay young forever. The wish becomes true (that’s the supernatural part of the story) but at some point, possibly realizing what he has done, looking at the picture…(qua mi sono persa) In Burt Norton (a poem of T.S Eliot) Eliot talks about the still point of the turning world. The coexistence Picasso’s castle painting: the most well known artist of cubism, he tries to represent the coexistence of different points of view, multiple perspectives and the different ways to see reality. There is a sense of fragmentation referring to the world that lost a center, a balance. Orlando Orlando is a man that will become a woman, but even before becoming that he still has a feminine side like his interests and behaviors. He loves literature, reading books and meditating (usually related to girls at that time) but he even has an adventurous and open side. Orlando is not a gender-fluid character because he turns from man into a woman but it’s because he has an androgynous mind from beginning to end. He will be sent to Costantinopoli as an ambassador for Charles II. Is not a case that Orlando is there… The supernatural part of the plot is when he wakes up and finds out that he turned into a woman. During the Victorian period Orlando meets the person who will become her husband, a very eccentric person. In 1901 she finishes “the hook tree” and in 1928, at the end of the novel, she starts thinking about her life and all that happened (stream of consciousness). The fluidity in Orlando concerns both gender and genre (genere letterario), this novel is many things at the same time. Is it a historical novel? Yes, because in this novel we go through from the Elizabethan age to the contemporaneity of Virginia Woolf, so since modernism. Every chapter is about a specific historical period, there are references to real events and even fantasy elements. Great frost (1608): In London, but also England envelope a glacial time and weather, everything got stuck (immobility) but during that year we also have a carnival party that is organized during the great frost. During this carnival Orlando meets Sasha, a Russian princess who likes wearing masculine clothes, he falls in love with her because he sees her really similar to him (a gender fluid character like him). Sasha will leave at some point so we will see Orlando passing from being happy to being devastated and completely attached to Sasha. During the restoration period (from 1660) he starts writing what will become his masterpiece and make him famous and rich, “The hook tree”. Orlando is a fictional biography (fictional because he never really existed) but behind the character of Orlando there is a real person that plays an extremely important part in Virginia’s life, her eccentric lover Vita Sackville-West. They were part of the “Bloomsbury group”, a group of people that meet to talk about certain ideas, they had different ideas about sex, sexual relationships and they love talking about literature. Vita wrote a poem titled “The land” that had some critics. The poem that Orlando wrote is an image of “The land”. For Virginia Woolf a biography must put together reality and imagination, she says “Biography must have both granite and rainbow”. The narrator sometimes stops to reflect on his own writing and sometimes it can be read like the figure of Virginia Woolf like a projection (remember: the author is not always the narrator). Feminine manifesto: an essay that we should consider together with this other important pioniric contributions to what is considered feminist criticism. Aspects that Virginia Woolf underlines that are present in Orlando: -The androgynous mind: this talks about a mind that is both feminine and masculine. These two aspects have to be together to have complete satisfaction. Every person had these two. -The plan of the soul: the body and the mind have this two aspects but one is more predominant than the other