Orwell and Pound: Two Literary Giants and Their Influential Works, Dispense di Inglese

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GEORGE ORWELL (1903-1950) Was the pseudonym of Eric Arthur Blade He was a journalist, essay ist and novelist He was born in 1903 in India > the father worked in the amministration of the British Empire Spent is childhood in England Excellent scholar > family circumstances didn't allow him to go to university joined the Indian Imperial Police in Burma and participated in the Spanish Civil War > experience the poverty and the oppressive role of the imperial administration He professed atheism and socialism, he was anti-totalitarianism and criticized the violation of liberty and tyranny Died in 1950 in London 1933 “Down and out in Paris and London” > he describes his experiences among the poor 1934 “Burmese Days” => he describes his experience in the colonial service 1937 “The road to Wigan Pier” > investigated conditions among the miners factory workers and unemployed in the industrial north where he stayed for two months 1938 “Homage to Catalonia” > describes his war experience in the Spanish Civil War 1940 “Inside the Whave” = defined the role of the writer comparing 1920’s and 1030°s writers 1945 “Animal Farm” = anti-Soviet satire = shows his political positions > expresses Orwell’ s disillusionment with totalitarianism = represent the danger of all kinds of revolutions and denounces the threat of selfishness that characterises human actions = human characters are replaced by farm animals > A group of oppressed animals, led by Napoleon, overcome their cruel master and set a revolutionary government. Plot Napoleon’s leadership becomes a dictatorial regime. AIl the Seven Commandments are abandoned and only one remains: “all animals are the equal but some animals are more equal than others” Meaning parallel with the history of USSR, each animal symbolises a precise figure of representative type. Not only a satire on the Soviet Union, but a satire on dictatorship in general. Each animal possesses the traits of its species 1946 “Why I write” > he aimed to transform political writing into art 1949 “1984” = dystopian novel set in a orrible future 1984 is the reverse of 1948 = denounced the danger of totalitarianism = the world was divided into 3 blocks: Oceania, Eurasia, Eastasia Orwell was inspired by the 1943, the year of the Tehran Conference, where US President Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Wiston Churchill and Soviet Premier Stalin met to coordinate their military strategy against Germany and Japan and to make important decisions about the post-war period = the novel is set in London, the capital of the state of Oceania Orwell divided Oceania’s political structure into 3 segments: The Inner Party, the Outer Party and the Proles = is ruled by the party led by The Big Brother (represent Hitler and Stalin) that constantly oversee the population with the telescreen = everywhere there were posters with the face of big brother and the slogan “Big Brother is watching you” and there where a voice that read out about the production of pig-iron = the population was psychological conditioned with the torture and the doublethink that force the population to accept anything it decrees, even if it is entirely illogical (war is peace, slavery is freedom, 2+2=5) = there where the Newspeak, a new language with few words that limited the free thoughts = Winston Smith (his name suggests the idea that is a common man: Winston reference to Churchill, Smith is the most common English surmname) Is 39 years old and is physically weak he was the only one who had maintained his moral integrity is an anti-hero because at the end he gives up to The party he believed that he will be caught no matter what he does, so he rebelled he wrote a diary, it was forbidden because The Party falsified history to manipulate the minds of men When they are > discovered by the police they are arrested and subjected to torture and brainwashing until they are “cured”. They are ready to return in the society. = Plot Winston fell in Love (it was forbidden) with Julia, and they rebelled against the Party One day, O’Brien (a member of the inner Party) tells them he was a member of the brotherhood, a group that is trying to overthrow The Party, and gave him the manifesto of the group Soldiers arrested and tortured (with rats on head) them till they betrayed each other in the room 101 At the end Wiston no longer love Julia and is a Broken man, but a perfect citizen => Symbols The glass paperweight > Winston's desire to connect with the past) the red-armed prole woman > the hope that the proles will ultimately rise up against the Party the picture of St. Clement's Church > the past the telescreens and the posters of Big Brother > the Party's constant surveillance of its subjccts the phrase "the place where there is no darkness" => Winston's tendency to mask his fatalism with false hope, as the place where there is no darkness tums out to be not a paradise but a prison cell EZRA POUND (1885-1972) Born in 1885 in Idaho, in the USA, family of English descent > was really attracted by Europe. 1907, moved to Europe > to study poetry and art 1908-1920 he lived in London = openly criticized contemporary Georgian poetry = for its late Romantic dreamy quality > aroused strong reactions He influenced contemporary poets = younger generations > T.S. Eliot older writers > Yeats 1920 he moved to Paris > attracted artists from many parts of the world (Joyce, Hemingway, and Picasso were already living there) 1924 he moved to Italy = attracted by its art and the fascism (he believed it would put into practice his own unconventional economic theories) > lived in Rapallo for twenty years 1917 “The Cantos” = a long modem epic in free verse = by some considered his masterpiece “Pisan Cantos” = recorded his imprisonment into a concentration camp by the American forces at Pisa At the end of WW2 = for his anti-war speeches on Radio Roma 1946 He returned to the US to plead at his trial in but was found "insane and mentally unfit for trial" and confined to St Elizabeth's Hospital, Washington, DC, for twelve years > helped and supported by many artists (T.S. Eliot and Hemingway) When he was finally released he went to spend the rest of his life in Italy, died in Venice in 1972. Puond’s ideas about poetry were codified in an essentially Anglo-American literary movement called Imagism. 1914-1917 four anthologies of imagist verse Contributed much to the development of modernism in England Pound set down an imagist creed which forms the first modernist manifesto in English poetry. Its main principles were: = direct treatment of the subject = To use no words that not contribute directly in the poem’s sense = Touse clear, concrete language, not abstractions = To create new rhythms, such as free verse, to express new moods 1912 “Ripostes”; 1916 “Lustra” verse collections that illustrated Pound's Imagist phase contain mostly short poems written in a clear hard style 1913 “In A Station Of The Metro” = The most famous poem = Pound wrote this imagist poem in order to voice a feeling that seized him on getting out of a metro train at La Concorde in Paris. In a Station of the Metro Ezra Pound > it is fourteen words long = doesn’t contain any verbs is formed by combining 2 sentence fragments, each with a subject, but without an action for that subject to perform = style is uncommon On their own, each of the two sentence fragments that make up this work have almost no real meaning. The relationship between the two moments is what creates meaning in this work. The real engine of this work is the metaphor likening faces in a crows to petals on a wet, black bough "apparition" = suggests the nature of travelling in a crowd it "petals on a wet, black bough" = they are looking at the leaves of a tree, likely following rainfall = in the published version he removed parts considered pornographic and use pseudony ms = Plot two friends: Sal Paradise (based on Kerouac himself) and Dean Moriarty (based on Neal Cassady) had an adventure trips across the state that include partying all the time and live the life by the day they met in New York in 1947 and talk about going west when Dean leaves, Sal joined him in Denver At first Sal travel on his own On his way to Los Angeles Fell in love with a Mexican girl Two friends travel together from East to West and back again They met the poet Carlo Marx (Allen Ginsberg) and Bull Lee’ (William Burroughs) They listened jazz, drank and took drugs When they run out money they did some casual works and stole In Mexico City Sal falls ill and Dean abandons him, Sal understood Dean tend to abandon who loved him, because he was a self-centred and good for nothing At the end this friendship fall apart. = Themes search for IT, something true and important self-discovery freedom of the road and male friendship loss and sorrow, broken dreams and failed plans = 1960 “Book of Dreams” = 1962 “Big Sur” RAYMOND CARVER (1938-1988) - Bom in Oregon in 1938, in a poor family - He married after finishing high school = graduated in 1963 = 1958, he started to publish short stories for magazines = Died for cancer at the age of 50 = Much of his work contains clearly autobiographical elements as we see in the excessive use of alcohol, and reflections on love, hate and failed marriage - He had a minimalist approach - His short stories are centred on middle-class characters trying to cope with unpleasant truths and disappointments - he described the harsh realities - he is described as a member of the ‘dirty realism' school = 1967 “Will you be quiet Please?” = His first success = 1976A collection of stories with the same title > highly-successful - 1981“What we talk about when we talk about love” the last story in his 1981 collection of the same name = is one of his most famous stories = has an abrupt endings, in which nothing is solved, conclusions known as 'zero endings' plot = a group of four friends: Mel (a cardiologist), his second wife Teresa and their friends Laura and Nick (married), are conversing about love around a bottle of gin at Mel's house. = Terri’s former boyfriend Ed tried to kill her; Terri believed it was his way of showing love Then he killed himself with a shotgun and Terri was with Ed as he died. = Mel was called to the hospital one night to treat an old couple who had been injured in a car accident. the husband's greatest preoccupation was the fact that he could not see his wife. = Mel talks about his first wife Marjorie, whom he once loved but now hates. He would like to phone his children but knows that if Marjorie answered, this would depress him further. He says that he wishes she would either remarry or die. = Evening is falling as the four friends become progressively drunker, finishing a second bottle of gin. Mel suggests that they go out to eat, but Larry says they should stay and keep drinking. Terri says that she could prepare a snack but makes no move. The four friends are left sitting in their seats as darkness falls. - 1981 Popular Mechanics Is a very short story by Raymond Carver. It was included in Carver's 1981 collection called "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love”. = themes Separation Conflict Struggle communication. the story is narrated in the third person by an unnamed narrator the tone of the story is one of anger and aggression. describes an argument between a man and a woman that escalates into a physical struggle over their baby. she is standing by the door while he is standing by the side of the bed the reader can sense the distance between the two characters = it sets the scene for later in the story when it becomes obvious that both characters no longer wish to be with each other the narrator never tells the reader the reason for the couple’s separation The parents broke the child arm fighting. They want resolving the issue it is the pulling on the child that is deciding what will happen. Either the baby”s arm has been broken or more sinister, the child is being ripped apart in the struggle between both parents. There is a sense of irony at the end of the story neither parent may actually have succeeded in getting the child. 1984 “Cathedral” 1988 “where I’m calling from” Is known for his short stories but also for is poetry collection: 1976 At Night the Salmon Move 1985 Where Water Comes Together with Other Water 1986 Ultramarine