La Rivoluzione Industriale, Appunti di Inglese

Scarica La Rivoluzione Industriale e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION WHAT IS THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION The Industrial Revolution is the process of change from an agrarian and handicraft economy to one dominated by industry and machine manufacturing. These technological changes introduced novel ways of working and living and fundamentally transformed society. This process began in Britain in the 18th century and from there spread to other parts of the world. The origins of the economic transformation can be traced back to the Black Death and the rise in living standards that followed it. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION ➢ in the 1500s and 1600s the population increased ➢ agriculture was intensified→ open fields were enclosed into smaller portions of land to make more efficient arable farms and the soil was drained and made more fertile, so that cereal production was greatly increased ➢ animals were bred selectively, therefore producing more meat ➢ economic activity was gradually diversified, especially through the manufacture of woollen cloth (people began acquiring more goods for the house, such as wardrobes, clocks and china) ➢ the clothing of ordinary people changed with the introduction of white linen underwear, stockings, ribbons and hats (the textile industry destroyed the cottage industry) → Clothing marked the beginning of the Industrial Revolution because mass consumption of machine-made goods started. Cotton was the leading sector of industrialisation ➢ more and more people also began to consume things for pleasure, like tobacco, tea, coffee, sugar or alcohol (rural, household-based production supplied these new kinds of demand) ➢ there was a succession of technological innovations (in fact machines were powered by water first and for this reason machinery was built close to rivers): - since mines were flooded, Newcomen invented an effective steam engine to pump water out of mines - James Hargreaves increased the spinning and weaving machines (they replaced workers) - James Watt improved the steam engine to be more powerful and waste less fuel and he also made it possible to apply to every sector of production - Edmund Cartwright’s loom linked cloth manufacture to water and steam power - innovation became linked to energy from coal mines, so machinery was built close to coal mines which were mostly in North England and Midlands ➢ there was a new organisation of work known as the factory system, which entailed increased division of labour and specialisation of function ↳ WORKING CONDITIONS industrial cities and towns grew dramatically due to the migration of farmers and their families who were looking for work in the newly developed factories and mines. These factories and mines were dangerous and unforgiving places to work in. The working conditions included: long hours of work (12-16 hour shifts), low wages that barely covered the cost of living, dangerous and dirty conditions and workplaces with little or no worker rights. There were little to no rules in place for workers in the Industrial Revolution, and the wealthy owners could act in any manner that they wanted. Women and children were prized by employers because they could be paid less and were easiest to control (children worked in mines or small places). WHY DID THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION START IN BRITAIN? The reasons that enabled the Industrial Revolution to start in Britain are many and varied: ➔ capital landowners and merchants were making lots of money and Britain was the biggest market in the world (Britain didn’t pay too much for the global trade because it controlled almost the entire market) ➔ resources colonies provided cotton, coffee and tobacco; there was an easy availability of coal and iron deposits ➔ labour more and more people were moving from the agricultural countryside to the industrialised towns, so that urbanisation stimulated the booming new industries by concentrating workers and factories together→ but there was a negative aspect of this because there were too many people, some were employed and other not, the ones left unemployed lived in slums (areas where people lived in appalling conditions, they died, there wasn’t health care or hygiene and the houses were overcrowded). Manual workers were called “the hands”, they weren’t respected, but only exploited. ➔ there were important developments in transportation and communication like steam locomotive, steamship, automobile, aeroplane, telegraph, radio and also availability of rivers and canals ➔ the government was involved in economics (Classical liberalism): it encouraged new trade, factories, technological advances and the Parliament passed laws to encourage the industrialisation ➔ there was stability in Britain because, even if they fought two wars, theY did it abroad ➔ there was an increasing application of science in industry: new - can be associated with frightful and strong emotion - arises strong feelings of fear and terror ↳AWE (fear and admiration at the same time) EARLY ROMANTIC POETRY PASTORAL POETRY Pastoral poetry expressed the idyllic pleasure and happiness of rural life in the works of William Cowper, who, in his main work The Task (1785), celebrated and praised country life for its simplicity and domesticity. He also described landscape details and reflected upon them; nature was to him a source of innocence and delight. NATURE POETRY The most important representative of nature poetry was James Thomson, who saw nature in its physical, rather than abstract, details. His observation of nature included wild scenery and led to reflections on the character of the primitive man, who was contrasted with civilised man. OSSIANIC POETRY The cult of a simple and primitive life and a growing interest folk traditions were responsible for the success of Ossianic poetry, a cycle of poems by a legendary Gaelic warrior, called Ossian, who lived in the 3rd century in Fragments of Ancient Poetry. The authenticity of the work was controversial; however, the poems were very successful not only in England but also all over Europe. Their appeal lay in the melancholy and suffering produced by war or by contrasted love, and especially in the description of a wild, gloomy nature. GRAVEYARD POETRY Another influential group of poets is known as the ‘Graveyard School’ because of their melancholy tone and the choice of cemeteries, ruins and stormy landscapes as the setting of their poems. Though the most important work of this school was Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” (1751) the vogue began with Edward Young and his “Night Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality” (1742-45), where the tomb became a symbol eliciting contemplation of death and immortality. THE GOTHIC NOVEL In the second half of the 18 th century, an increasing interest in individual consciousness revealed itself in fiction. It was marked by a taste of the strange and the mysterious, by an impulse for freedom and escape from the ugly world, and by the fear of the triumph of evil and chaos over good and order. Gothic novels intended to arouse fear in the reader with the threat of realising all the potentialities of the mind beyond reason. The nature of this fear seemed to reflect the specific historical moment, characterised by increasing disillusionment with Enlightenment rationality and by the bloody Revolutions in America and France. The setting of Gothic novels was influenced by the concept of the sublime; it includes ancient settings, like isolated castles, mysterious abbeys and convents with hidden passages and dungeons. The most important events take place during the night because darkness is a powerful element used to create an atmosphere of gloom, oppression and mystery; all the characters moving in such settings perceive the world around them as hostile. The Gothic hero is usually isolated either voluntarily or involuntarily, and the heroine is both afflicted with unreal terrors and persecuted by a villain, who is the embodiment of evil. The wanderer or outcast of several Gothic tales is the symbol of isolation as he wanders the earth in perpetual exile, usually as a form of divine punishment. The plots are often complicated by embedded narratives and supernatural beings, like monsters, vampires, ghosts and witches which increase the suspense and mystery. The first novel of this kind, The Castle of Otranto, was followed by The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe, The Monk byMatthew Gregory Lewis, and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. ROMANTIC POETRY IMAGINATION At the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19h century, English Romanticism saw the prevalence of poetry, which best suited the need to give expression to emotional experience and individual feelings. Imagination gained a primary role in the process of poetic composition. Romantic poets could see beyond surface reality and discover a truth beyond the powers of reason. An almost divine faculty, imagination allowed the poet to re-create and modify the external world of experience. The poet was seen as a visionary prophet whose task was to mediate between man and nature, to point out the evils of society, to give voice to the ideals of freedom, beauty and truth. FIGURE OF THE CHILD There was serious interest in the experience and insights of childhood. To the Augustan Age, a child was important only in so far as he would become adult and civilised being. Childhood was considered a temporary state, a necessary stage in the process leading to adulthood. To a Romantic, a child was purer than an adult because he was unspoilt by civilisation. His uncorrupted sensitiveness meant he was even closer to God and the sources of creation, therefore childhood was a state to be admired and cultivated. IMPORTANCE OF THE INDIVIDUAL There was new emphasis on the significance of the individual. The Augustans had seen man as a social animal, in his relationship with his fellows. The Romantics, instead, saw him essentially in a solitary state, and stressed the special qualities of each individual’s mind. They exalted the atypical, the outcast, the rebel. The current of thought represented by Jean-Jacques Rousseau stated that the conventions of civilisation represented intolerable restrictions on the individual personality and produced every kind of corruption and evil. Therefore ‘natural’ behaviour, that is to say, unrestrained and impulsive, is good, in contrast to behaviour which is governed by reason and by the rules and customs of society. The ‘noble savage’ concept is specifically a Romantic one. The savage may appear primitive, but actually he has an instinctive knowledge of himself and of the world often superior to the knowledge which has been acquired by civilised man. CULT OF THE EXOTIC Rousseau’s theories also influenced the ‘cult of the exotic’, that is, the veneration of what is far away both in space and in time. Not only did the Romantic poets welcome the picturesque in scenery, but also the remote and the unfamiliar in custom and social outlook. VIEW OF NATURE The Romantic poets also regarded nature as a living force and, in a pantheistic vein, as the expression of God in the universe. Nature became a main source of inspiration, a stimulus to thought, a source of comfort and joy, and a means to convey moral truths. POETIC TECHNIQUE As regards poetic technique, breaking free from models and rules, the Romantic poets searched for a new, individual style through the choice of a language and subject suitable to poetry. More vivid and familiar words began to replace the artificial circumlocutions of 18th-century diction; symbols and images lost their decorative function to assume a vital role as the vehicles of the inner visionary perceptions. TWO GENERATIONS OF POETS The great English Romantic poets are usually grouped into two generations. The poets of the first generation, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge were characterised by the attempt to theorise about poetry. While planning the Lyrical Ballads, they agreed that Wordsworth would write on the beauty of nature and ordinary things with the aim of making them interesting for the reader; Coleridge, instead, should deal with visionary topics, the supernatural and mystery. The poets of the second generation, George Gordon Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats, experienced political disillusionment which is reflected, in their poetry, in the clash between the ideal and the real. Individualism and escapism, as well as the alienation of the artist from society, were stronger in this generation and found expression in the different attitudes of the three poets: the anti-conformist, rebellious and cynical attitude of the ‘Byronic hero’; the revolutionary spirit and stubborn