Riassunto di James Joyce in inglese, Sintesi del corso di Inglese

Scarica Riassunto di James Joyce in inglese e più Sintesi del corso in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! AESTHETICISM In the second half of the 19th century, the traditional Victorian values of strict morality, respectability and material utility were challenged by a new artistic and literary movement, Aestheticism. It stated that art had nothing to do with morality and did not have to be didactic. Instead, it had to deal with the elevation of taste and the pursuit of beauty, which was the most important element in life. The famous motto, Art for Art's Sake, meant praising the sensual qualities of art and the sensation of pleasure art could create. This went against the Victorian belief according to which literature and art should provide important ethical rules, such as the correct behaviour to follow. In literature, Walter Pater (1839-1894) is regarded as the main theorist of the Aesthetic Movement in England. He rejected religious faith and said that art was the only means to stop time, the only certainty. He thought life should be lived in the spirit of art, namely as a work of art, filling each passing moment with intense experience, feeling all kinds of sensation The task of the artist was to feel sensations, to be attentive to the attractive and the gracious, and to express detachment from contemporary society. So the artist, who employed the language of the senses, was seen as the transcriber 'not of the world, not of mere fact, but of his sense of it'. Pater's works had a deep influence on the poets and writers of the 1890s, especially Oscar Wilde. Wilde claimed that life imitates art and 'performed' this concept presenting himself as the impeccably dressed and mannered dandy figure whose life was ‘as a work of art’. DID YOU KNOW? The dandy The dandy did not have noble blood or any of the innate characteristics of aristocracy but had the time and the money to devote to living extravagantly. Many were beneficiaries of large inheritances but never sought to earn or gain more wealth, and lived in constant risk of losing their riches, gambling, and squandering money carelessly. Dandies were friends of bohemians and attended the same cafés. Although bohemians and dandies affected different attitudes and adopted slightly different lifestyles, they were closely related, and they both rejected the bourgeois way of life. Aestheticism Absence of a didactic aim in any work of art Art for Art’s Sake = admiration of the sensual qualities of art Artist’s task: • to feel sensations. • to express detachment from contemporary society The content of any work of art = the pursuit of beauty Use of the language of the sense OSCAR WILDE Life Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin in 1854. His father was an important surgeon of the city. He was educated at Trinity College, and then he won a scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford. There he was immediately attracted by the Aesthetic Movement, and the major influence on him was that of John Ruskin (a famous painter), one of his teachers at university. Wilde quickly won a reputation as a brilliant talker, a dandy and he transformed his life into a work of art. He went to London and there he became famous. He had extravagant habits such as carrying flowers when walking, wearing a green carnation in his buttonhole and dressing in bright colours, in contrast with the severe black suits of the middle class of his time. He became the spokesman of the Aesthetic Movement and then in 1881 he went to the U.S.A. In 1883 he returned to England to marry Costance Lloyd, they then had two children. He had a successful career between 1890 to 1895. In spite of the violent reaction aroused by his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), his literary prestige increased thanks to the success of his so-called “society plays “, which , from 1892 to 1895, brought him wealth and fame. But the wheel of fortune was about to turn. In March 1895, at the peak of his career, he sued the Marquis of Queensberry, who had accused him of a homosexual relationship with his son, Lord Alfred Douglas. Unfortunately, the accusations were proved true, and Wilde was arrested, tried and sentenced to two years of hard labour. Actually, he was condemned long before being sentenced, since, while he was still on trial, public opinion turned against him, his plays and books were withdrawn, and he became the target of fierce ostracism. His financial ruin was complete. While in prison he suffered every sort of humiliation (only towards the end of his imprisonment he was allowed to read and write). For a while he also became attracted to the Bible, but it was only a Temporary interest. When he was released, he was a broken man; he adopted the name of Sebastian Melmoth (the surname being inspired by Maturin’s Gothic novel The Wanderer, while the forename recalled not only the Christian martyr transfixed with arrows but also the arrows printed on his prison uniform). He spent some time in Naples and Switzerland, writing against the brutality of prison life. Then he settled in Paris Where, almost forgotten by everyone, he died on November 30, 1900, from an attack of meningitis, after embracing Roman Catholicism just before dying. The rebel and the dandy Wilde adopted "the Aesthetic ideal", as he affirmed in one of his famous conversations: "My life is like a work of art". He lived in the double role of rebel and dandy. The Wildean dandy is an aristocratic whose elegance is a symbol of the superiority of his spirit; he uses his wit to shock and is an individualist who demands absolute freedom. Since life was meant for pleasure, and pleasure was an indulgence in the beautiful, Wilde's interest in beauty -clothes, words, or boys- had no moral stance. He affirmed in the preface of his novel, "There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book. Books are well written or badly written. That is all." In this way he rejected the didacticism that had characterised the Victorian novel in the first half of the century.