A Comparative Analysis of Early and Late Victorian Novels and Their Key Representatives, Appunti di Spagnolo

Scarica A Comparative Analysis of Early and Late Victorian Novels and Their Key Representatives e più Appunti in PDF di Spagnolo solo su Docsity! In maximum 300 words say how the early and late victorian novel differ and who are the main representatives of the two phases. The most important widespread literary genre during the Victorian Age was the novel, divided in the early and the late victorian novels. The first phase made a realistic portrait of the society of the time. The most representative novelist was Charles Dickens, belonging to the so called “writers of the compromise”; he questioned and denounced the contradictions of the society exposing the poverty, the suffering of people and the corruptions in masterpieces such as Oliver Twist and David Copperfield. His tragicomic novels were defined by a comic tone and a realistic narration. Far from the traditional literary Victorian works, the Bronte Sisters wrote romantic novels, usually set in a desolated countryside that focused mostly on passions and feelings, the greatest work was Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. The second phase of the victorian novel is characterised by a stronger criticism and reflects all the dark aspects of the period, specifically there are novels based on Realism and Darwin’s theories about the influence of social environment on men. They were detailed, centred around the weakest individuals and were supposed to react to the triumphant Great Empire. The theme of double and pessimism are very prominent among the writers. Both Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Grey reflect the duplicity of the moral standars of the Victorian age with gloomy elements. Wilde’s work is also considered the manifesto of English Aestheticism because in the preface he declares that art is based on the cult of beautiful things: art for the art’s sake. Thomas Hardy adopts a pessimistic point of view in his Tess of the D’Ubervilles, set in the rural world of Wessex. At last, colonial novels ironized and criticized the idea of the white man’s burden as Kipling does in The Jungle Book.