Riassunto di Letteratura inglese, Appunti di Inglese

Scarica Riassunto di Letteratura inglese e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! Charles Dickens  Is considered the greatest England’s novelist  He was born in 1812 in England and had an un happy childhood (father imprisoned for debt, at 12 was put t work in a factory, he studied shorthand at night)  He started his novelist’s career with Oliver Twist and then continued writing plays(victorian age) which dealt with the copnditions of the poor and working class  He was always on the side of the poor, the outcats and the working class. He wanted to make the ruling class aware of the social problems of the poorest one. CHARACTERS  The 18th century realistic, upper-middle class wordl was replaced by one of the lower orders. His aim was to arouse the reader’s interest by exaggerating his characters’ habits  CHILDREN ARE OFTEN THE MOST IMPORTANT CHARACTERS: they become teachers and examples to follow Humanitarian novel (novel of purpose): is a type of novel used during the Victorian age, it was focused on social problems and denounced the moral badness of industrial society, as for example Dickens's "Hard times" or "Oliver Twist". Their tone is combines humor with a sentimental request for reform for the less fortunate Poverty and inequalities:  Dickens was considered “the spokesman of the poor”, because he was always on the side of the poorest and working-class people, and was also afraid of the potential for crime and violence in poverty. This concept is clearly tretaed in Hard Times, where the poet denounce the gap between the rich and the poor to criticise the materialism of Utilitarianism. He wanted to make the ruling class, and the reader himself, aware of the social problems of the poorest one. HARD TIMES (Coketown) This novel is set in Coketown, an imaginary industrial town in the Victorian-England of the 19th century, which seems a jungle: there are factories, buldings covered by the coal. With this novel Dickens wants to illustrate the dangers of the teaching method called ‘object lesson’, a distorted method of education arising from children’s own expreriencs and suited to their particolar stage of development; it was introduced in england’s schools. The main characters are Thomas Grandgrind, an educator who believes that human nature can be measured and controlled by reason, and his two children,Louisa and Tom. Thomas brings up the two and represses their imagination and feelings; he combines his daughter’s marriage with a rich banker 30 years older than she is, but it ends up to be unhappy. Louisa accepted this marriage because sha wanted to help her brother to find a work, but later Tom robs his employer and was forced to leave the country. At the end Mr Grandgrind understands the damage he caused to his children and gives up his materialistic philosophy. OSCAR WILDE Oscar Wilde was an Irish poet and playwrighter who acts during the Victorian Age. He took part in Aestheticism (was born in England during the last decades of the 19th cenuty. Main doctrine: art for art’s sake) and accepted the theory of “Art for Art’s Sake”, who saw art nota s a vehicle to share a message or to show the artist’s skill, but only to satisfy the autor himself. Art is divorced from any didactic moral or utilitarian function: art is only fruit of pleasure. He soon became a Dandy; this term was first used in “Yankee Doodle Dandy”, sung by the British troops during the American devolution to mock the colorful uniform of the American soldiers. Than George Brummel started use this term to spread in France a lifestyle connected with elegance and fashion; it reappeared in England with Wilde. His great fame was interrupted because he was homosexual; at that time it was illegal and for this reason he was imprisoned. When he was realesed he was a broke man He adopted the Aesthetic ideal, summarized in “Life like a work of art”. He threw himself into a life of pleasure including drugs, alchol and search always for the beauty; he rejected the didactisism of Victorian novel THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY (inspired by Faust’s legend, who seels his soul to the devil) The novel is set in London at the end of the 19th century and the main character is Dorian Gray, a young man, symbol of youth, beauty and innocence, whose beauty fascinates a painter called Basil Hallward, who decides to paint his portait. Meantime Dorian meets Lord Henry Wotton, an intellectual who lives over the limits, who convince Dorian to live in the same way. Dorian throws himself into a life of pleasure and makes a pact with Wotton: he will always remain young and his painting will age for him. When Dorian receives the paint, he puts it into a room, but when he sees the signs of the aging he first kills Basil(becoming an example of how an artist can be destroyed in a sacrifice of art) and then stabs the paint itself. But in doing so, he kills himself. In the very moment of Dorian’s death, the picture returns to its original purity and Dorian’s face becomes old, loathsome and wrinkled. The picture could be seen as the immorality of the Victorian middle class, while Dorian as symbol of bourgeois hypocrisy. The picture restored to its original beauty illustrates Wilde’s theory of art: ART SURVIVES PEOPLE, ART IS ETERNAL. THOMAS ELIOT (Montale) He was an English modern poet and literary critic, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Poetry became his refuge where he expressed all his unhappy home life and represented the general crisis of Western cultural. Eliot’s works can be divided into two groups: before and after the conversion to Anglicanism: The first are characterised by a pessimistic vision of the world, without any hope; the second by purification and joy. GEORGE ORWELL He was an English essayist and critic. His work is characterised by social criticism, opposition to totalitarianism, and support of democratic socialism. His desire to inform led him to believe that writing served a useful social function. He communicated a vision of human fraternity and insisted on justice against the violation of liberty and tyranny. 1984: The book is set in 1984 in Oceania, one of three totalitarian states (the other two are Eurasia and Eastasia). Oceania is governed by the all-controlling Party, which has brainwashed the population into obedience to its leader, Big Brother. The Party has created a propagandistic language known as Newspeak, which is designed to limit free thought and promote the Party’s principles. FREE THOUGHT, SEX AND EXPRESSION ARE FORBIDDEN.  The protagonist, Winston Smith, belongs to the Outer Party, and his job is to rewrite history in the Ministry of Truth but he secretly rebels against the government. He embarks on a forbidden affair with Julia, a like-minded woman, and become part of the Brotherhood, a group of dissenters; but they don’t know they are being watched closely. When Winston is approached by O’Brien,an official spy of the Inner Party who appears to be a secret member of the Brotherhood , on the lookout Winston and Julia are eventually caught and sent to the Ministry of Love for a violent reeducation. O’Brien tortures Winston for months and at the end sends him to Room 101, were he’s forced to confront his worst fear: rat on his head. He overcome the test and is finally released, but his will his broken and has completely given up his identity: he has learned to love the Big Brother. This dystopian novel reveals the author’s sense of history and his sympathy with the millions people murdered in the name of the totalitarian ideologies od the 20th century. It is a satire on hierarchical societies which destroy fraternity. The dictator is called “Big Brother”, but he does not watch over his people as a brother should do: HE CONTROLLES through telescreens and the Newspeak. Memory and mutual trust become positive themes to mainitain the individuality and morality THE PRESENT AGE After the 2nd WW, in England the Labour Party won the elections. (Atlee new Prime Minister) Thanks to the Marshall Plan, England quickly solved the economical crisis provoked by the war. But there was still a huge gap among social classes (a lot of them were subject to rationing) and so the government adopted the Welfare State, which was a service through which the government felpe people. The first step was the social security, so they helped jobless and homeless people; a second step was the health, granted, through the National Health Service act, free medical treatment. The third step regarded education: some bonuses were introduced for the best students in order to go to the University. In the 1960s there was a Cultural Revolution; London became “Swinging London” and was the leader in fashion and music: these are the years of miniskirts, Beatles and Rolling Stones. Margaret Tauchter, or “Iron Lady”, became the first female Prime Minister, and was characterized by his determination and tenacity: she ruled Britain during 11 years and lifted the country from the economic crisis. Brexit in 2016 SAMUEL BECKETT He was an Irish poet, considered one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. He was part of a group of dramatists called “Theatre of the Absurd”, which believes that man’s life appears to be meaningless and purposeless and that human being cannot understand each other. Language had become a vehicle of stereotyped and meaningless exchanges. Words are not able to penetrate beyond the human essence’s surface. The Theatre of the Absurd shows the insufficient method of communication of the language. WAITING FOR GODOT It’s considered the most influential play of that time and was written after the 2 world war; it became the mirror of our society that has dematerialized. Divided in 2 acts, in the first two characters, Vladimir and Estragon are waiting for “a mysterious Godot”, but at one point comes a boy who informs them that Godot will come the following day. The tramps continue waiting for the rest of their life, between problems and the suicide’s idea.  The play has no development in time, but is just a repetitive meaningless present; it has no setting but the country road. With this choice, Beckett wanted to underline the meaninglessness of the time, which is at basis of human existence.  Linked to the time theme, there are the two characters’ problem: Vladimir distrust what he remembers and Estragon cannot remember anything about his past: each man has to remind to the other one of his existence  The two characters, Vladimir the more practical and Estragon the dreamer, are two human beings concerned with questions about the nature of the self, the world and God. In fact the main question is “Is there a God?”. The evidence seems to be that there is no God but Beckett leaves the question open since it’s impossible to know  Beckett’s pessimism is identified by his perception of the meaninglessness of human life, which is characterised by suffering but the poet does not want to offer any solution DON DELILLO He is an American writer, whose most important work talks about one of the worst episode of this century: the fall of the Twin Towers, the 11th September of 2001. In this work are treated themes like religion, terrorism and death FALLING MAN It was written in 2007; the narrator chosen to tell the tragedy of September 11 from two completely different points of view: the return to home of a survivor and preparation for the attack of one of the terrorists..  Keith Neudecker and Hammad are the two main protagonists. One worked in the Twin Towers and was saved by a miracle, leaving the building shortly before the collapse, the other is one of the carried out the massacre of the century.  The title is referred to one particular image: a man who, decides - unfortunately like many others - to launch himself from the Tower, seeing no other escape route.  The author want to write pages of true American history, to speak of man in post- modernity, of the collapse - as well as physical, that of the Twin Towers - also metaphorical, of the values and beliefs that pervaded the entire world population. Don DeLillo tries to tell a devastated world, an America that has found itself catapulted into fear.