RIASSUNTO MODULI LETTERATURA INGLESE II, Sintesi del corso di Letteratura Inglese

Scarica RIASSUNTO MODULI LETTERATURA INGLESE II e più Sintesi del corso in PDF di Letteratura Inglese solo su Docsity! 1 LETTERATURA INGLESE II Giovanna Scatena 2 5 In Inghilterra circolavano i PAMPHLETS, di tono dirompente, con la concessione della libertà di stampa, molti letterati cominciano a scrivere per i giornali, elevando il livello FORMALE degli interventi. Anonimato dell’autore: scrive dietro pseudonimo o in modo anonimo / molto protetto, almeno a livello istituzionale. IL SETTECENTO: STAMPA E SOCIETA’ Epoca di feroce satira ma non di mero moralismo. I giornali si occupano di SAGGISMO DI COSTUME con cui si critica la società contemporanea. Rivoluzione industriale e forte crescita economica, sviluppo coloniale. Le classi agiate visitano l’Europa e le colonie: ampia letteratura di resoconti di viaggio, materia per la creazione di ROMANZI. SVILUPPO DELLA MENTALITA’ BORGHESE: professionalizzazione del GIORNALISMO e della SCRITTURA DI ROMANZI. Declino dell’aristocrazia. Si sviluppa il COMMERCIO e l’IMPRENDITORIA. Nuovi generi letterari basati sulla critica della realtà. Gli uomini di lettere mettono il proprio intelletto a servizio del progresso. Spronano i propri simili a superare i limiti imposti. -> Si comincia a scrivere per Denaro la passione del letterato diventa professione. Defoe, Swift, Johnson e Richardson hanno in comune una grande capacità di osservare e dipingere la società contemporanea, il più delle volte attraverso l’ironia. Assistiamo ad una PROFESSIONALIZZAZIONE DELLA FIGURA DELL’UOMO DI CULTURA, sempre più vicino al moderno concetto di intellettuale. DANIEL DEFOE 1659-1731 In 1703, in the True Born English-man Defoe wrote: “Speaking of the Englishmen ab origine, we are really all foreigners ourselves”. Defoe has a good attitude of dealing with politics and social issues. He was writer, journalist and pamphleteer. Founder of the English novel, he was a prolific and versatile writer, also a pioneer of economic journalism and a spy. His parents were Presbyterian dissenters (Protestants who did not belong to the Anglican Church), because of that Defoe could not be admitted to Oxford and Cambridge university. During his life he experienced some critical occurrences like the Great Plague of London, The Great Fire of London and the attack by a Dutch fleet. He was a merchant, rarely free of debt. There is evidence that his financial dealings were not always honest. He travelled through Europe and Scotland. 1697- The True-Born Englishman, his most successful poem, defended the king against the xenophobia of his enemies, satirizing the English claim to racial purity. In Defoe’s opinion the English nation is a product of various incoming racial groups: from Ancient Britons to Anglo-Saxons, Normans etc.. Consequently it was a nonsense to abuse newer arrivals. His political engagement wins him the favour of Mr Harley, who will prove a useful contact later on. In 1703 Defoe was arrested. Robert Harley brokered his release-> (ha mediato il suo rilascio) in exchange for his co-operation as an intelligence agent for the Tory Government. 6 He started a new career, parallel to writing. He developed new skills which he was able to transfer into his writing. In his own days Defoe was regarded as an unscrupulous, diabolical journalist. His political writings were widely read and made him powerful enemies. With the death of Queen Anne the Tories fell from power, but Defoe most probably continued doing intelligence work for the Whig government. TOWARDS NOVELS 1719-1724 Defoe published the novels for which he is famous: ROBINSON CRUSOE (1719) CAPTAIN SINGLETON (1720) COLONEL JACK and MOLL FRANDERS (1722) ROXANA: THE FORTUNATE MISTRESS (1724) Defoe died in 1731, probably hiding from his creditors. He is supposed to have used more than 198 different pen names to sign his writings. Defoe spreads his writing activity experimenting various fields of the literary profession. He is able to paint a detailed picture of contemporary society, most times through an intelligent use of irony. Though his professional choice does not grant him a reliable living, he sticks to it up -> (si attiene ad essa) to the end of his life. INTELLECTUAL MISSION towards society and himself. Irony and Satire -> pretending to support a philosophical/ political position. • GENUINE EXPERIENCE / VIVID IMMAGINATION AND INDUSTRIAL RHYTHMS IN WRITING • BELIEVABLE CHARACTERS IN REALISTIC SITUATIONS USING SIMPLE PROSE DANIEL DEFOE – The shortest way with the dissenters: or Proposals for the Establishment of the Church. This work was the most explosive Defoe’s political satire. Cit. 1702: “But Justice is always violence to the party offending, for every man is innocent in his own eyes” With his literary works was scorning with contemporary orthodoxies, a middle-class merchant craving to be aristocrat, a man judged by many of his contemporaries a public menace. Defoe was also a faithful husband, the man who invented both MODERN JOURNALISM and the MODERN NOVEL in his furious forty-year career. Defoe lashes out -> (scagliarsi contro) against casual conformity. Defoe irritated the dissenters by pointing out that those who took occasional communion in the church of England in order to qualify for employment and government office were hypocrites. ➔ But as the government contemplated taking even more severe steps against dissenters, Defoe leapt to -> BALZARE their defence satirizing government’s plans. He used the same vehement rhetoric often used in High Church sermons. Writer’s wish to completely suppress Nonconformity by extermination -> the intent is to reduce ecclesiastical intolerance to an absurdity. ➢ Many read the pamphlet literally. 7 ➢ Others thought it satirical, however, a controversy broke out over the real meaning of the work. ➢ It was said that the pamphlet HAD GONE TOO FAR, that in its extremism it had crossed the line into Sedition. In May 1702 he was discovered. A warrant-> MANDATO issued for his arrest, as he was charged of SEDITIOUS LEBEL. “Scholars have almost treated Defoe’s The Shortest-Way with the Dissenters with condescension or contempt -> DISPREZZO. It has been seen as satire that failed and landed the author in the pillory-> GOGNA.” By the way, the catastrophic results were precipitated not by Defoe’s failure to signal irony, but by the outing of the author. Defoe contributed to create and lead the public opinion. The reader must be advised the writer is ironical, his irony is sometimes, though, difficult to understand. BREVE CRITICA LETTERARIA: È importante sottolineare la discrepanza tra la posizione dell’autore e quella dell’io narrante per analizzarne lo stile. L’opera ottiene grandissima risonanza tra il pubblico dibattendo il tema dell’OCCASIONAL CONFORMITY cui si attengono i DISSENTERS per mantenere il diritto ad occupare cariche pubbliche in uno stato governato dalla chiesa anglicana. Esce anonimo. Apparentemente a parlare sembra un alto prelato di posizioni estremiste. Con la SHORTEST WAY si riferisce alla soppressione fisica dei soggetti dissenzienti. (EXTERMINATION) ✓ Si tratta di un discorso molto persuasivo che si indirizza direttamente a coloro che contesta per poi passare ad identificarsi con la PARTE LESA. Il testo è così plausibile che solo l’eccesso di veemenza permette di decodificare l’utilizzo dell’ironia e di farne quindi un testo satirico, quindi l’ironia non è immediata ma il lettore ci deve arrivare. Alla scoperta dell’autore del PAMPHLET sia governo che dissenters si allarmano, provoca un profondo senso di derisione. 10 MODULO 3 - JONATHAN SWIFT He was an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer, poet and cleric. ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITTANICA: „Anglo-Irish author, wo was the foremost prose satirist in the English language“ Born in 1667, he was sent to Kilkenny College, also attended by the philosopher George BERKELEY, he then attended the Trinity College in Dublin. In 1668 while he was studying for his Master’s degree, political troubles due to the Glorious Revolution forced him to leave Ireland for England. His mother, an English woman, helped him to find a job as secretary and personal assistant of Sir William Temple at Moor Park. Temple was an English diplomat, at moor Park he met ESTHER JOHNSON, nicknamed STELLA, with whom he mantained an ambiguous relationship for the rest of his life. Series of letters published as THE JOURNAL TO STELLA. He had no chance of gaining a better position through Temple’s patronage, so he left Moor park to became an ordained priest in the established Church of Ireland. In 1694 he was in Kilroot, a remote community far from the centre of power, where he felt isolated and miserable. In 1696 he returned to England, at Temple’s service. He was employed in helping to prepare Temple’s memoirs and correspondece for pubblication. 1704 was published THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS -> a responding to Temple’s essay critic. Swift unsuccessfully tried to approach King William. Over the next 10 years, as chaplain to Lord Berkeley, he spent much of his time in Dublin and traveled to London frequently. HE BEGAN TO GAIN A REPUTATION AS A WITER AND BECAME INCREASINGLY ACTIVE POLITICALLY. HE FOUND THE TORY LEADERSHIP MORE SYMPATHETIC TO HIS CAUSE. IN 1710 HE WAS RECRUITED TO SUPPORT THEIR CAUSE AS EDITOR OF THE EXAMINER. 1713- With the TREATY OF UTRECHT ended the war of the Spanish Succession. Queen Anne apparently did not like Swift, when the Tories fell, she did not allow him any further career. With the retur of the Whigs, Swift’s best move was to leave England and returned to Ireland in disappointment, a VIRTUAL EXILE. His friends managed to secure him the DEANERY OF ST. PATRICK’S, Dublin. He also began writing his masterpiece, GULLIVER’S TRAVEL, that reflects his political experiences of the preceding decade. Published in 1726, the book was an immediate hit. French, German and Dutch translations appeared in 1727 and pirated copies were prited in Ireland. In 1742 he suffered a stroke becoming mentally disabled. He died in 1945. 11 JONATAN SWIFT – A MODEST PROPOSAL (Part II) With the return of the Whigs, Swift returned to Ireland. He became Dean-> RETTORE, DECANO of St. Patrick’s, Dublin. Ireland was not an independent country, far poorer than England. Farmers born in Ireland were mostly Roman Catholics. Landlords were usually protestants. IN IRELAND THERE WAS NO SOCIAL SECURITY SYSTEM, STARVATION WAS DREADFULLY COMMON. Swift began to turn his pamphleteering skills in support of Irish causes: A MODEST PROPOSAL (1729) earned him the status of an Irish patriot. A MODEST PROPOSAL: FOR PREVENTING THE CHILDREN OF POOR PEOPLE IN IRELAND FROM BEING A BURDEN TO THEIR PARENTS OR COUNTRY; AND FOR MAKING THEM BENEFICIAL TO THE PUBLICK. It is a Juvenalian satirical essay / Biting and brutal. To solve the problem of starvation he suggests that the children should be sent as food to the rich protestant landlords so that there are no mouths to feed. The first portion of the essay describes the plight of starving, the reader is unprepared for the surprise of the solution proposed. Readers unacquainted with Swift’s reputation as a satirical writer often do not immediately realize that he was not seriously proposing cannibalism and infanticide. The PROPOSAL follows the rules and structure of Latin satires. • The proposer addresses possible abjections (including the depopulation of Ireland). • Readers often understood the satirical element of the pamphlet often noticing the Proposer’s allusions to the attitudes of landlords. • Swift extends the methafor and pointedly remarks England’s mistreatment of Ireland. TRADITION OF ROMAN SATIRE -> SWIFT INTRODUCES THE REFORMS HE IS ACTUALLY SUGGESTING BY DENIGRATING THEM. Swift’s main goal in A Modest Proposal was not to show how poor was Ireland condition. - He derides the CAN-DO spirit of his times and the CURE-ALL solution. - He targets the calculating way reformers perceived the poor in designing their projects. - The reader is lead to symphatize with the Irish and dislike the narrator. - Use of gripping-> PRESA details of poverty, cool approach of the narrator towards them. - Swift uses the Proposer’s serious tone to highlight the absurdity of his proposal. IRONY -> CONTRAST, The work might have been influenced and inspired by Tertullian’s APOLOGY, a satirical attack against early Roman persecution of Christianity. Swift’s A MODEST PROPOSAL addresses the Anglo-Irish situation in the 1720s. THE VOICE OF SWIFT AND THE VOICE OF THE PROPOSER: THE AUTHOR IS NOT THE „NARRATOR“. In the text there is a gap between the narator’s meaning and the writer’s intentions in the text. The economics of the time: start of the industrial age / no child was to young to go into industry. MERCANTILISTIC PHILOSOFY -> PARADOX: the wealth of a country is based on the poverty of the majority of its citizens. 12 England was denying Irish citizens their natural rights and dehumanizing them by viewing them as a mere commodity. SATIRE that makes light of a subject, diminishing its importance by placing it in an amusing or scornful light. - IT CREATES HUMOR BY DERIDING ITS TOPIC. - DIFFERENTLY FROM COMEDY THE TOPIC EVOKES LAUGHTER IN ITSELF. QUINTUS HORATIUS FLACCUS -> the leading Roman lyric poet during the time Augustus. Horatian satire is the less offensive form of satire: • It playfully criticizes some social vice in a sympathetic tone • It directs wit, exageration, and self-deprecating humour toward what it identifies as folly, rather than evil. • We founD the Greek philosophical ideals of AUTARKEIA / INNER SELF-SUFFICIENCY, SELF-RELIANCE, and METRIOTES / MODERATION. Features: ✓ Hexameter ✓ Conversational and prosaic tone ✓ Tradition of personal attack - The victims of Horace’s mockery are not members of the nobiliy, but ambitious freedmen-> LIBERTI, anonymous misers, courtesans, street philosophers, hired buffoons, and bad poets. - Horace consciously does not get involved in the complicated politics of his times, life that focuses on individual happiness and virtue. Juvenal coined many well-known maxims, including: Juvenalian Satires: ✓ Hyperbolic, comedic mode of expression, addresses social evil through scorn-> DISPREZZO, outrage, and savage ridicule. ✓ Often pessimistic: irony, sarcasm, moral indignation and personal invective, with less emphasis on humour. ✓ Abrasive style, at first glance they seem a brutal critique of Pagan Rome. Author scorns all representatives of social deviance. ✓ Rethorical persona / Mask taken up by the author to critic the attitudes. 15 PART III -> A VOYAGE TO LAPUTA, BALNIBARNI, LUGGNAGG, GLUBBDUBDRIB, and JAPAN 1706- 1710 ▪ Gulliver’s ship is attacked by pirates, he is marroned-> ABBANDONATO near a desolate rocky island, near India. ▪ He is rescued by the flying island of Laputa, a kingdom devoted to the arts of music and mathematics but unable to use them for practical ends. ▪ Laputa’s people throw rocks at rebellious surface sities, aerial bmbardment conceived as a method of warfare. ▪ While there, Gulliver tours the country as the guest of a low-ranking countier-> ospite di un conte di basso rango, he sees the ruin brought about by blind pursuit of science without practical results. SATIRE ON THE ROYAL SOCIETY AND ITS EXPERIMENTS. ▪ Short side-trip to the island of GLUBBDUBDRIB, he visits a magician’s dwelling -> la dimora del mago and discusses history with the gohsts of historical figures, restatement of the ANCIENT VERSUS MODERNS theme. ▪ He also encounters the STRULDBRUGS, unfortunates who are immortal, but not forever young, they have all the infirmities of old age. ▪ Gulliver is then taken to BALNIBARNI, a Dutch trader coming there can take him to Japan. ▪ Gulliver finally returns home, determined to stay for the rest of his days. PART IV -> A VOYAGE TO COUNTRY OF THE HOUYHNHNMS 1710-1715 ➢ In spite of his former ideas, Gulliver returns to sea -> he is bored of his employment as a surgeon. ➢ On this voyage he is forced to find new additions to his crew, they turn the rest of the crew against him, then mutiny; they leave him on the first piece of land they come across and continue on as pirates. ➢ Ashore, he comes first upon a race of apparently deformed creatures towards which he conceives a violent antiphaty. ➢ Shortly thereafter he meets a horse, the horses are the rulers and the deformed creatures are human beings in their base form. ➢ Gulliver becomes a member of the horse’s household: - He comes to both admire and emulate the Houyhnhnms and their lifestyle, rejecting humans as merely Yahoos-> they are endowed with some semblance-> dotati di una certa parvenza of reason which they only use to exacerbate-> ACCENTUARE and add to the vices Nature gave them. ➢ The Houyhnhnms Assembly states that Gulliver, being a Yahoo with some semblance of reason, is a danger to their civilization and he is consequently expelled. ➢ He is rescued, against his will, by a Portuguese ship, whose Captain, Pedro de Mendez, is a wize, courteous and generous person. ➢ Gulliver returns to his home in England. However, he is unable to reconcile himself to living among Yahoos; he becomes a recluse, remaining in his house, possibly avoiding his family and his wife, and spending several hours a day speaking with the horses in his stables-> Scuderie. GULLIVER’S TRAVEL was published seven years after Daniel Defoe’s ROBINSON CRUSOE, the book may be read as a SYSTEMATIC REBUTTAL -> confutazione OF DEFOE’S OPTIMISTIC ACCOUNT OF HUMAN CAPABILITY. Swift was concerned to refute the notion that the individual precedes society-> precede la società, as Defoe’s novel seems to suggest -> DANGEROUS ENDORSEMENT-> PERICOLOSO AVALLO OF THOMAS HOBBES‘ RADICAL POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. ❖ Gulliver repeatedly encounters established societies rather than desolate islands. 16 ❖ The captain who invites Gulliver to serve as a surgeon aboard his ship on the third voyage is named Robinson. THE BOOK HAS THREE THEMES: ❖ A satirical view of the state of European government, and of petty: piccole differences between religious. ❖ An inquiry into whether men are inherently corrupt or whether they become corrupted. ❖ A restatement of the older ”ancient versus moderns“ controversy. THE FOUR PARTS FOLLOW A PATTERN: ➢ The causes of Gulliver’s misadventures worsen as time goes: He is first shipwrecked, then abandoned, then attacked by stangers and then attacked by his own crew. ➢ Gulliver’s attitude towards human beings hardens as the book progresses: He is genuinely surprised by the viciousness and politicking of the Lilliputians but find the behaviuor of the Yahoos in the fourth part reflective of the behaviour of people. ➢ Each part is the reverse of the preceding part: - Gulliver is at turns BIG /SMALL/ SENSIBLE/ IGNORANT - The countries are complex/ simple/ scientific/ natural - Forms of Government are worse/ better/ worse/ better than England’s CONTINUAL REVERSAL IN PERSPECTIVE • Gulliver sees the tiny Lilliputians as being vicious and unscrupulous, and then the king of Brobdingnag sees Europe in exactly the same light. • Gulliver sees the Laputians as unreasonable, and Gulliver’s Houyhnhnm master sees humanity as equally so. NO FORM OF GOVERNMENT IS IDEAL • Brobdingnagians enjoy public executions and have streets infested with beggars. • Houyhnhnm (honest und upright, who cannot conceive lying) are happy to suppress the true Yahoo nature of Gulliver and are equally uncorcerned about his reaction to being expelled. SPECIFIC INDIVIDUALS MAY BE GOOD EVEN WHERE THE RACE IS BAD • Gulliver finds a friend in each of his travels and, despite his rejection and horror toward all Yahoo, is treated very well by the Portuguese captain, Don Pedro, who returns him to England at the novel’s end. ✓ Swift’s major writing tools are IRONY and SATIRE. ✓ SITUATIONAL IRONY rather than verbal or dramatic irony, a development, a result or an ending is the opposite of what one expects. We would expect scientists and philosophers to be wise; but on the flying island of Laputa, they are woefully lacking -> tristemente carente in practical knowledge and even attempt to build a house from the roof down.-> una casa dal tetto in giù. ✓ SATIRE ATTACKS VICES AND IMPERFECTIONS. Throughout the novel, Swift satirizes kings, queens, politicians, elitary leaders, scientists, and ideas of the real world by implying or directly stating that they are like their counterparts in his fictional word. 17 Swift bases his writing on the analysis of the real situation of Ireland. Gulliver’s character progresses from a cheery-> ALLEGRO optimist at the start of the first part to the self- concerned misanthrope of the book’s conclusion. IT IS HARD TO BELIEVE THE FINAL MISANTHROPE WROTE THE WHOLE WORK. Despite the depth and subtlely-> SOTTILMENTE of the book, it is often classified as a children’s story because of the popularity of the Lilliput section. GULLIVER’S TRAVELS - NOVEL FEATURES (Part 5) 1725 -> anti-Whig satire The author changes the PERSPECTIVE of the reader towards the people presented in the book and their perspective. REALISM -> details and accuracy in describing all the elements in the scene. IMPRESSION OF REAL LIFE -> FIRST PERSON SPEAKING, DIARY FORM. EPISODES -> NO REAL PLOT. ABSTRACT -> Part I: A Voyage to Lilliput 1699-1702 / STYLE AND FEATURES Description is really accurate, Details are given to add an impression of real life to the book: DISTANCE, TIME, NUMBER OF OBJECTS, to guide the reader to fully understand his mockery. Swift mocks Defoe’s style and travel literature in general. The more carefully detailed is the description, the easier it becomes to understand the satire it implies. WRITING TOOLS: DISTORTION, ANAGRAMS, INVENTION, author plays with words to say what you CANNOT say but also to STIMULATE the reader. Change of proportion and change of dimensions imply CHANGE OF PERSPECTIVE. Simple language / reported speech and direct speech mingled-> MESCOLATI, miming a tale told by a person involved in the events described. The writer IS NOT the main character -> Swift talks using more than one voice during the book, Gulliver develops during the book following the writer’s conception of man and humanity. ABSTRACT -> Part II: A Voyage to Brobdingnag 1702-1706 / STYLE AND FEATURES (Part 6) ALLEGORICAL STORY and a SATIRICAL ESSAY PANEGYRIC -> Gulliver describes his country’s society stressing the positive ideas that should lead to the forming of the Parliament and to the life and costumes of English people. 20 MODULO 5 - JOURNALISM It is important to understand the context which allowed the starting of newspapers publishing, to focus on the role of newspapers and their main characteristics and to analyse the writers’ attitude of dealing with political and social issues. 1965 -> The expiry of the Licensing Act state censorship of the press. There was an enormous growth in the publication of political literature -> politicians saw the potencial of journalism in leading the public opinion to gain the support of the electorate. R. Harley (The Tory leader VS Whigs) supported the writing of satirical authors like Defoe (REVIEW) and Swift (THE EXAMINER). THE TATLER 1709 AND THE SPECTATOR 1711 The Tatler from Richard Steele and The Spectator from Joseph Addison. DESCRIPTIVE and REFORMATIVE INTENT / FAMILIAR AND URBAN STYLE / GREAT RANGE OF TOPICTS: politics, fashion, aesthetics, development of commerce. They used to speak admiringly of the positive and honourable virtues pursued by a healthy, expansionist and mercantile community. JOSEPH ADDISON: in 1964 he published a translation of Virgil’s Georgics. He obtained a diplomatic employment that enabled him to travel Europe writing and studying politics all the time. In 1705 he was made Under-Secretary of State and then he was member of parliament. He met Jonathan Swift and renewed his association with Richard Steele. He was an ADVENTUROUS LITERARY CRITIC (Long and thoughtful examen of Milton’s Paradise Lost). Meanwhile he had a quarrel with Alexander Pope. HOW IT ALL BEGAN with RICHARD STEELE Richard Steele (1672-1729), Irish writer and politician born in Dublin, he met Addison in London (That inspired him). He was member of the Whig Kit-Cat Club. During Queen Anne’s reign he was the writer of The London Gazette, the official government journal. In 1709 he launched the periodical The Tatler, it brought him fame and a measure of prosperity. STEELE REMARKED THAT HE COULD NOT HAVE SUBSISTED WITHOUT ADDISON’S HELP: Steele was an impulsive, improvident man, inferior to Addison’s in grace and finish. By the way, Steele’s writing is marked by great spontaneity and invention. THE TATLER Responds to the Middle Class‘ need of more entertaining information. Gradually, essays became more commited denouncing social problems. THE SERIOUS APPROACH IS TEMPERED BY THE COLLOQUIAL EASE -> facilità AND LIGHTNESS OF STYLE. In 1711 THE TATLER was discountinued due to Robert Harley pressure, Steele lost his GAZETTEERSHIP. 21 THE SPECTATOR It was published from 1711 till 1712/14, was issued daily and achieved great popularity, exercising great influence over the reading public of the time. Addison wrote 274 essays and Steele 251. Steele had an attractive, casual style contrasting with Addison’s more measured, polished, and erudite writing. FEATURES: Neutral between Whigs and Tories / Reading it became a habit -> it provided a model of social and moral behaviour to the rising Middle Class. The Spectator himself was Addison’s creation, dominated by his simple and conversational style. Steele originated Sir Roger de Coverley, conservative in politics. OTHER CONTRIBUTIONS: Pope contributed to The Spectator / then other periodical forms developed. CONCLUSIONS Addison and Steele established the periodic essay as a prestigious form! They left their mark, their success can be judged by the fact that they had more than 300 imitators before the end of the century. Writers contribute to lead the public opinion using all media at their disposal. ✓ Awereness of their society and curiosity about the way it was developing ✓ Eager and diverse readership -> Un pubblico di lettori desideroso e diversificato ✓ They skilfully moves among different themes and types of prose ✓ INTELLECTUAL MISSION towards society, detailed picture of contemporary society, through an intelligent use of irony and satire. ✓ Believable characters in realist situations using simple prose / INDUSTRIAL RHYTHMS in writing. MODULO 6 – TWO MASTERS MORE: FIELDING AND STERNE Henry Fielding -> NOVEL / Laurence Sterne -> Anti-novel We focus on the new idea of novel established by the end of the XVIII century. Henry Fielding: his writing is rich in humour and satirical style, he studied law in Germany and died in Lisbon. He moved to London beginning his literary career starting writing SATIRES for the theatre. Late 1730s he wrote for Tory periodicals under different names: The Champion, The True Patriot. 1741 -> Fielding wrote his first success SHAMELA, a parody of Richardson’s melodramatic novel. 1742 -> JOSEPH ANDREWS, it marks Fielding’s debut as a serious novelist. He developed the literary genre of PROSE EPIC NOVEL, based on a SCIENTIFIC APPROACH, there is a new constituent element: The SATIRE OS SOCIETY. …. 1949 -> TOM JONES, his greatest work, published under Fielding’s real name, it is a meticulously constructed picaresque novel, an happy ending hilarious tale. He is London’s Chief Magistrate and founded London’s first police force, the Bow Street Runners, he enhanced the cause of judicial reform and improved prison conditions, he struggled/fight for the abolition of public hangings. In january 1752 he started THE CONVENT-GARDEN JOURNAL 22 Features of his writings: ➢ Wider range of characters taken from all social classes ➢ Lack of psychological realism (Feelings and emotions of the characters are rarely explored) ➢ Concern to reveal the universal order of things in a neoclassical outlook. The reader must fill the gaps voluntarily left by the author to be supplied with the reader’s imagination -> PROACTIVE POTITION OF THE READER, contibuting actively to the full development of the story. ✓ NEW CONCEPT OF FICTION (NOT ALREADY NOVEL BUT HISTORY): faithful presentation of the life of the time, distant from VULGAR ROMANCES. ✓ An innovation in TOM JONES are the PREFACES to the various books containing the author’s viewpoint. Laurence Sterne: 1713-1768, Irish born English novelist and Anglican clergyman. He is best known for his novels: ✓ THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF TRISTAM SHANDY, GENTLEMAN ✓ A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY THROUGHT FRANCE AND ITALY (Translated into Italian by U.Foscolo) He also published sermons, memoirs and he was involved in local politics. He and his wife Elizabeth Lumley were ill with consumption -> tisi. 1742- Sterne wrote political articles supporting the administration of Sir Robert Walpole for a newspaper bur he soon withdrew from politics in disgust. -Deep intimacy with Stevenson Since the age of 46, he dedicated himself entirely to humor writing for the rest of his life -> COMIC NOVEL. He became famous and translations of his work began to appear in all the major European languages. Sterne influenced European writers such as Diderot and the German Romanticists. TRISTRAM SHANDY was labelled in England as too corrupt, on the contrary, European critics consider the work innovative and superior. (For example Voltaire and Goethe) 1762- Sterne struggled with his illness and left England for France to find a climate that would alleviate his suffering. The reception was gratifying, Tristram Shandy had made him a celebrity. England and France were still adversaries in the Seven Years’War. 1768- SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY was pubblished, less than a month later Sterne died. Features of his writings: ➢ Influences of Cervantes ➢ First-person narrator remembering episodes of his own life with anecdotes, disgressions, reflections, parodies and dialogues. ➢ New technique applied to OLD ELEMENTS. ➢ Witty picture of contemporary society through the use of irony. ➢ Fiction is explicity declared: the reader is an active part in the book, self and social consciousness. 25 MODULO 8 - SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS: A CHANGE IN PERSPECTIVE What does “British Citizens” mean? The change in perspective and the men of intellect in an evolving society. Culture / Irony Many European Countries aquire a sovereignty on other European and non-European Countries. The British citizen needs to assert his own identity maintaining a difference with many social and cultural “others”. In the Colonies, colonizers feel a deeper bound with their own motherland: - At an emotional level, to reduce the distance from what they feel is their legitimate Homeland. - At a socio-political level, to assert their prestige over the conquered populations. • Dual cultural identity of the new-born generations in the colonies, are linked to the culture of the native people and the colonisers from whom they descended. ➔ Refusal to belong to the local reality or development of a double conscience of one's own social role: GREAT HOMELAND system, which all little HOMELANDS refer to and have to depend on. The research for a definition of British identity suffers the same contradictions of the social and literary development. A CHANGE IN PERSPECTIVE XVIII century: age of harsh satire, not mere moralism. XIX century: Victorian age 1837-1901 Age of prosperity, political stability, scientific discoveries and promotion of arts and progress. INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION and COLONIAL EMPIRE Establishment of bourgeois mentality and ideals, the Victorians were proud of their welfare, of their good manners and of their moral values. They tended to ignore the wide distance between rich and poor, ignoring social problems (Victorian compromise) The literary genres are based on the critical anlysis of real life: Journalism / NOVELS social, romantic and denouncing / Essays / Historical and Scientific writings. Some writers tend to put irony on the most problematic subjects, showing their negative values to gain the sympathy of the reader. At the same time, attention shifts to the individual and the role of emotions and imagination, this leads to the development of romanticism at the turn of the century LITERARY PRODUCTION ROMANTICISM: (Late Romaticism), expression of feelings and emotion, idealization of life and values, Middle Ages as a source of inspiration. REALISM: art should reproduce reality faithfully, without idealizing it. NATURALISM: realistic conception of art, plus total objectivity and scientific approach to literature. AESTHETICISM: ART FOR ART’S SAKE: the artist is no longer a moral spokesman and has nothing to do with the issues of the time. 26 DECADENTISM: art is superior to nature, supreme beauty lies on decay. MODULO 9 / OSCAR WILDE (1854-1900) It is important to understand writer’s POSE. His Mother was an Irish nationalist. He was Ireland’s most popular and skilled OTOOPHTHALMOLOGIC surgeon and a renowned philantropist. He has 3 children that were kept away from his legitimate family, even if he provided for their education. 1871-1874- He attended Trinity College in Dublin. He developed a great interest in Greek literature. He was deeply considering converting to Catholicism. • While at Magdalen College in Oxford, Wilde became particularly well known for his role in the aesthetic and decadent movements, his attitudes and showy -> vistosi costumes became a recognised pose. He created his myth. Wilde and aestheticism were both mercilessly caricatured in the press. Nevertheless, he was invited in the most fashionable salons in every city he visited. „Wilde skilfully moves among prose and theatre, he is able to paint a detailed picture of contemporary society through an intelligent use of irony. HIS VERY SAME ATTITUDE, WHICH MADE HIM SO POPULAR AMONG THE HIGHER CLASSES, WOULD PLAY A SUBSTANTIAL PART OF HIS RUIN.“ In 1886 she met Robert Ross, with whom he began a relationship that gave Wilde an open, double life. 1890- first version of THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY He wrote fot the Theatre: SALOME‘ written in French and A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE: Victorian comedy revolving around the spectre of illegitimate births. AN IDEAL HUSBAND THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST: Theme of switched identities, maintenance of alternate personas in the town and country, which allows the two protagonists to escape Victorian social mores. -> usi/costumi It is a tragi-comedy of denied identity. Jack and Ernest.. Wilde has a TEMPESTUOUS AFFAIR WITH BOSIE. Oscar Wilde was accused of sodomy, which was considered a crime at the time. Unluckily for Wilde, Queensberry’s accusation proved tob e true. The trial opened in 1895, the press was hysterical. The factes were judged to be true in substance and left Wilde bankrupt. Anyway, the jury was unable to reach a verdict. He finally was sentenced to two years’ hard labour. He then left England in exile, Wild and Douglas lived together near Naples for a few months. Wilde died of cereblal meningitis. OSCAR WILDE – part II One of the greatest problems a man had in Victorian times was to be acknowledged as a member of SOCIETY. RESPECTABILITY / APPEARANCE / SOBRIETY British identity was a sentiment: THIS REFLECTED ENORMOUSLY ON IDENTITY RESEARCH, PARTICULARLY IN THE CASE OF MEN OF INTELLECT COMING FROM THE COLONIES. Ireland was the first and the nearest colony of the British Empire. -> A sort of looking-glass mirror where England see her worst attitudes reflected. 27 ▪ To be considered a proper men of culture, almost all Irish intellectuals moved to England to study in Oxford of Cambridge, to acquire a PASSPORT to be accepted in a deeply ENGLISH-ORIENTED society. Wilde played the part of the more-than-perfect English gentleman. England and Her Majesty's Empire as a whole were the absolute benchmark / parameter. The writer used PARADOXES to show English society what it really was, and to make it laugh at itself without realizing it -> LIKE HIS MOST POWERFUL WEAPON, PARADOX, HE WOULD NOT EXIST WITHOUT THAT LAND AND THOSE RULES -> Wilde played the Irish man incognito, becaming MORE ENGLISH THAN THE ENGLISH THEMSELVES. PARADOX -> a statement which has the reassuring rhythm of a proverb, but gets to a subservice conclusion. Wilde uses this device at two levels: AT A VERBAL LEVEL: IN THE WORDS OF THE CHARACTERS, TO AMUSE THE AUDIENCE AT A DRAMATIC LEVEL: HE BRINGS PARADOX INTO THE STORY AND ALL SITUATIONS TURN UP TO BE SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT FROM WHAT THE AUDIENCE WOULD EXPECT. Under the apparent lightness of the play, there is a strong and well built social critic attitude, no judgement, but a clear awareness of the stage of things and maybe some advice. OSCAR WILDE – AN IDEAL HUSBAND (1985) Wilde’s third and most successful society drama. Exquisite English. He skilfully uses theatre to declare his own identity through PARADOX. He pays a lot of attention to building the scene and designing costumes. The audience feels being invited to an exclusive party and is easily led to identify itself with the characters. Wilde introduces a new type, the DANDY, Lord Goring: he is frivolous and vacuous, setting himself up as a model becoming the depositary of wisdom. SIR ROBERT AND HIS WIFE She is moraly inflexible, she overstimated her husband. He obeys to his wife postponing his career and happiness to her desire. HE POINTS OUT THAT IT’S UP TO WOMEN TO BUILD UP A MAN’S LIFE! MEN ARE IMPERFECT, NOT IDEAL! He has been able to paint a detailed picture of contemporary society through an intelligent use of IRONY, so intelligent and working that the objects of his observation did not realize he was MOCKING them, at first.