Storia dell'Inghilterra e della Francia dal XVIII al XIX secolo, Appunti di Inglese

Scarica Storia dell'Inghilterra e della Francia dal XVIII al XIX secolo e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! The Age of Revolutions Declaration of Independence At the end of the Seven Years' War, Great Britain was the greatest power and absolute ruler on the seas, but despite this the English crown found itself having to bear enormous war expenses.In order to make the colonists contribute to the expenses of the empire also, King George III imposed a stamp duty on all legal documents, including newspapers, pamphlets, printed on American soil. After a period of war, the Declaration of Independence was issued on July 4, 1776. America was a federal republic under the command of President George Washington. The Industrial Revolution At the end of the 18th century, economic changes took place in England. Before the industrial revolution, production was done in people’s homes, using basic machines. Industrialization marked the transition to machinery, factories and mass production. The population, in this period, increased, so the merchants needed cheaper methods of production, which led to an increase in mechanization and factory system. Agriculture intensified, open fields were enclosed in smaller portions of land to make farms more efficient. In addition, the soil was made more fertile, so that cereal production was greatly increased. This succession of Technology changed the geography of the country, concentrating the new industrial activity near the coalfields and small towns, the so-called “mushroom towns”, were constructed to house the workers near the factories. In fact in Industrial cities the air and the water were polluted by smoke, the houses were overcrowded. Furthermore, long working hours, discipline, routine and monotony marked the work of industrial labourers. French Revolution In France the ideologies of the Enlightenment had led to a Revolution. In 1792 the French had abolished the monarchy and declared their country a republic, but those who were considered enemies of the Revolution were executed during a period called the "Reign of Terror" .France declared war on Great Britain and Holland in 1793. The French had a weak navy but were strong on land. Much of their success was due to the abilities of a general named Napoleon Bonaparte. However, Napoleon had to clash with Britain’s supremacy at sea. In 1815 Napoleon was defeated by Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo. Romanticism In the second half of the 18th century, after political and social changes, a new sensibility became dominant and became known in literature as "Romanticism". During this period, some ideas and attitudes arose in reaction to the Enlightenment, in fact where the Enlightenment had emphasized objectivity and reason, Romanticism valued the subjective and irrational parts of human nature: emotion, imagination, introspection, melancholy and relationship with nature.In fact, while Augustan poets used impersonal material, Romantic poets tended to use subjective and autobiographical material. After the overwhelming consequences of the French and Industrial Revolution, imagination had taken on an important role for the poet because it allowed him to go beyond human limits, so to imagine something happy, hence the tendency to imagine exotic places. In fact, the recurring theme in the poems of romanticism is melancholy, melancholy for everything that existed before the industrial revolution. For the Romantics the poet was a prophet because, having a special sensitivity, he saw what ordinary men could not see and therefore the prophet saw beyond the surface of reality and told the truth. The current of thought represented by Rousseau influenced the idea of the Romantics that the convention of civilization produced all kinds of corruption and evil, this is why for romantics a child was purer than an adult because he was untouched by civilization and was even closer to God. Romantics admired the power of living nature and sought its moral and emotional relationship with humanity, from nature, men could learn to use intuition and feelings. There was also a growing interest in humble and everyday life, and great attention was paid to the countryside. In fact, the poetic techniques of this period adhered to a simple language and introduced symbols and images to better understand the vision of the poet.Finally, the recurring theme of romantic poetry is the sublime.For Burke is sublime everything that can arouse ideas of pain and of danger but can also be defined as "delightful horror".(From here comes the horror) In addition to the poet William Blake, in English literature, there were two great generations of poets: William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge in the first and Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats in the second. Blake —> For Blake the poet must be a prophet, that is someone who tells the truth Blake was born in London in 1757, which means he lived in the 1800s when society's ideals were restrictive and often oppressive. He was also a painter, ss a painter and printmaker he broke with the conventions of perspective and proportion and created a new kind of art characterized by the power of the imagination. Blake was a free thinker and supporter of the French Revolution but he also witnessed the negative effects of the Industrial Revolution on the soul of man. The poetic collections SONGS OF INNOCENCE and SONGS OF EXPERIENCE are the most accessible of his works. SONG OF INNOCENCE it was produced before the outbreak of the French Revolution, when Blake was still enthusiastic about liberal ideologies. The poems deal with childhood as a symbol of innocence, therefore also linked to happiness, freedom and imagination.
 SONG OF EXPERIENCE were written during the period of terror in france. They are characterized by a more complex and pessimistic view of life also due to the negative consequences on man's life of the industrial revolution. “London” text analysis "London" is a poem by William Blake written in 1794 and is part of the "Songs of Experience" collection.The title of this text indicates precisely the city described by Blake and it can be affirmed because of the Thames mentioned in the second line. The poem, in short, is characterized by the point of view of the city of Blake, of the diseases and suffering caused by the industrial revolution Starting to analyze the text we can understand, that the narrator is in the first person because the first word is the pronoun "I". As the poet walks through the streets of London, he sees signs of pain in every people. The poet for Blake is a sort of prophet who can see these things and who tell the truth. To understand the text it is first of all important to observe the repetition of some words such as: charter, mark, cry, Infant's, which were to better understand the vision of the miserable city of London by the indignant poet.Blake, illustrates the idea of a society mentally imprisoned by political and social institutions. In this poem Blake condemns three institutions: CHURCH, MONARCHY and MARRIAGE. Blake attacks the "Black Church'' because he has forgotten the original religious spirit. Then he condemns the monarchy because it puts the soldier's life at risk. Finally he condemns the marriage because causes prostitution.The marriage was not a joy act but oppression one.The poem was written in a difficult historical period, in fact Blake writes it in the period of terror in France. William Wordsworth Life William Wordsworth was born in Cumberland in 1770. The second edition of his collection contained Wordsworth's famous ‘Preface', which was to become the Manifesto of English Romanticism. Wordsworth’s poetry For Wordsworth poetry was a solitary act, originating not in the extraordinary but in the ordinary. He belonged to the first generation of Romantic poets.He criticized the artificial forms and the elevated language of the poetry of the 18 century.For him the subject matter should deal with everyday situations, with ordinary people and the language should be simple. The relationship between man and nature Mill and the empiricist tradition Utilitarian indifference to human and cultural values was criticized by many intellectuals of the time, including Charles Dickens and John Stuart Mill. Mill argues that the state should try to help men develop their natural talents and personalities. For this Mill gave much importance to art and education for the mental development of the person. Challenges from the scientific field The Victorian era is also remembered as the period of geology, biology, archeology and astronomy.
 It was Charles Darwin who presented his theory of evolution and natural selection in his work.
 On the one hand, Darwin's theory rejected the biblical version of creation; on the other he affirmed that the universe was not static but in evolution. This scientific progress begins to build the foundation for atheism that could never have existed until then. During the Victorian age religion was at the center of human life. The Victorian Novel
 Readers and writers
 During the Victorian age, for the first time, writers and readers had the same interests. This was due to the great development of the middle classes. While not all were educated, most of the middle class were very interested in literature. The world of publishing
 Much of Victorian literature was first published in serial form and in newspapers. Essays, verses and even novels were serialized in the pages of periodicals.
 This strategy allows the writer to always stay in touch with his audience. Indeed, the writer managed to make sure that the reader did not get bored.
 Thus, the advantage was that an author could always modify the story, depending on its success or failure. Furthemore, the novel was the genre that readers most preferred in this period. The purpose of the novelist
 In the 1840s, novelists wanted to reflect on social changes that had been taking place for some time, such as the industrial revolution, the struggle for democracy and the growth of cities. Infact, early Victorian novelists described society as they saw it, with its negative sides.
 Finally, even the Victorian novels wanted to teach their readers something, in fact the novelists thought that literature had to correct the vices and weaknesses of the time. The narrative technique
 These new novels featured the omniscient narrator commenting within the text. This technique was used because the author wants the reader to understand what is right and wrong behavior.
 But the point of view is internal. This is also evident in Oliver Twist, where the point of view is that of children in particular of the protagonist Oliver. Atmosphere and characters
 The setting chosen by most Victorian novelists was the city, as a symbol of industrialisation.
 In regards to characters, Victorian writers focused on creating realistic characters. Moreover, in this period different types of novels are born:
 •The novel of manners. These deal with economic and social problems and describe a particular class or situation. (like Jane Austen)
 • The humanitarian novel. The latter is represented by the novels of Charles Dickens (also called novels of purpose), which aims to highlight the life of the less fortunate.
 Furthermore, these novels can be divided into novels of a realistic nature, "fantastic" or "moral" depending on the subject matter.
 • Bildungsroman. These novels dealt with a character's development from early youth to maturity.
 • Literary nonsense. A particular aspect of Victorian literature is what is called "nonsense''. For example, in his famous novel, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Carroll created an absurd universe in which all social rules and conventions disintegrate. Women writers Finally, it is important to point out that a large number of novels published during the Victorian period were written by women such as Charlotte and Emily Bronte. Middle-class women had more time at home than men and therefore read a lot.
 However, it was not easy to get them published, in fact some women used a male pseudonym. Charles Dickens
 Life and works
 Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth in 1812.
 He had an unhappy childhood. His father was imprisoned for debt and worked in a factory from an early age. When his father was released, he was sent to school in London. At 15, he got a job as a clerk with a lawyer and studied shorthand at night. Once he became a successful shorthand reporter, he began working as a reporter. His first short story, 'Sketches of Boz'. Dickens married Catherine Hogarth, and in the same year published the second series of Sketches by Boz. After various successes, Dickens began a full-time career as a novelist. His greatest masterpiece was Oliver Twist, written around 1837. The protagonists of his autobiographical novels were the symbol of an exploited childhood in the face of the bitter reality of the slums and factories. Dickens died in 1870. characters
 Dickens was always on the side of the poor, the marginalized and even the working class.
 Children are often the most important characters in Dickens' novels. Many examples of children becoming real moral teachers. The writer's aim was to make readers love their children and present them as role models of how people should behave towards each other.
 But besides the children most of Dickens’s characters were strong caricatures. This was done by the author to be able to denounce the institutions. An educational purpose
 The fact that the novel had a didactic function was very effective, as it allowed the richest classes to know the situation of the other poor part of society. Dickens managed to do this without discontent among his middle-class readers.
 From this we have confirmation that Dickens was not a revolutionary who wanted to overturn the whole of society, but he was only a reformist who wanted progress in society. Style and reputation
 Dickens used the most effective language and produced the most realistic descriptions of life in that society. Indeed, he is considered the greatest English novelist. Oliver Twist of Dickens PLOT
 Oliver is an abandoned child who, at the age of nine, is returned to the workhouse where he was born. There, he endures a wretched existence without any formal education. One day, he runs away and meets a young pickpocket on the road. Intrigued, he follows the pickpocket to London and is introduced to a group of young criminals led by Fagin, an elderly Jew. Oliver is coerced into participating in their illicit activities. However, he is rescued by a kind gentleman named Mr. Brownlow. Unfortunately, members of the gang abduct Oliver, but after several events, the gang is apprehended by the authorities. Through these events, it is revealed that Oliver is related to Mr. Brownlow and finally finds a sense of belonging. Charles Dickens with this novel criticizes the system of education of the poorest children in orphanages, where children are forced to perform hard tasks without compensation. The work is Dickens' first clear denunciation of the Victorian era education system, as well as the manifesto of the real condition of the lower classes in big cities, of which London is a great example. Furthermore, the author uses a very ironic language precisely to criticize that era of hypocrisy and also to keep the reader's interest. Hard Times
 Charles Dickens
 PLOT
 This novel is set in an imaginary industrial town named Coketown. Thomas Gradgrind, an
 educator who believes in facts and statistics, has founded a school where his theories are
 taught, and he brings up his two children, Louisa and Tom, in the same way, repressing their
 imagination and feelings. He marries his daughter to a rich banker of the city, 30 years older than she is. The girl consents since she wishes to help her brother, who is given a job in Bounderby's bank, but the marriage proves to be unhappy.Tom, who is lazy and selfish, robs his employer.At first he succeeds in throwing the suspicion on an honest workman, but he is finally discovered and obliged to leave the country.In the end Mr Gradgrind understands the damage he has caused to his children and gives up his narrow-minded, materialistic philosophy. SETTING The fictional town of Coketown represents a real industrial mill town in the mid-nineteenth century
 Victorian England of the century. All the buildings are covered in smoke from the factories. For some, this black smoke surrounding the city may symbolize productivity and industry. For others, it can just be depressing. Key idea A critique of materialism Hard Times focuses on the difference between rich and poor in Dickens' day, between factory owners and workers. Because they were not educated, workers could not improve their living and working conditions.
 This novel uses its characters and stories to expose the difference between rich and poor.
 Hard Times suggests that 19th century England. century was transforming human beings into machines avoiding the development of their emotions and their imagination. The American Civil War
 The difference between North and South 
 The conflict between the abolitionist North and the slave South resulted in the civil war, after the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, in favor of a gradual abolition of slavery. In December 1860, 11 Southern states broke away from the Union, forming in the Confederate States of America under Jefferson Davis.The North responded with the mobilization of an army, opposed by Confederate forces led by General Robert Lee. In April, there was the first armed clash of the Civil War that would be fought for four years with great deployment of men and weapons. There was the mobilization of a large number of soldiers and the use of new military technology - for the first time the repeating rifle, mines, machine gun, battleships, torpedoes, that made this war the first of the industrial era.The war ended in 1865 with the abolition of slavery and the assassination of Lincoln.Despite freedom blacks had no money or home, also was high unemployment. In a disastrous situation the extremist sectors organized themselves into clandestine groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, which began to practice forms of terrorism and acts of violence against the black population. The capitalist forces took great advantage of the post-war reconstruction, which favoured the full development of the industrial economy. The capitalist dynasties were Rockefeller, Carnegie, Morgan, Harriman. The new phase of economic development was fuelled by a further increase in population growth, also aided by the economic crisis in Europe.  Over ten million people moved to the United States. USA became a nation rich in different races and ethnicities. Aestheticism and Decadence
 The birth of the Aesthetic Movement
 The Aesthetic Movement developed in the last decades of the 19th century. It began in France with Gautier and reflected the artist’s sense of frustration and uncertainty and his need to redefine the role of art. Consequently, French artists decided to start a new lifestyle, that of the bohemian. This figure represented their protest against the monotony and vulgarity of bourgeois life and cultivated art and beauty. The British Aesthetic Movement This doctrine was imported to England by James Mcneill Whistler, an American painter. However, Walter Pater was considered the leading theorist of the Aesthetic Movement in England. The theorist of English aestheticism Walter Pater’s masterpieces were immediately successful, especially with young people, because of their subversive and potentially demoralizing message. He rejected religious belief and said that art was the only way to stop the only certainty. He thought that life should be lived as a work of art. The artist’s task was to feel the sensations and morals must not exist. These new conceptions influence many artists such as Oscar Wilde. The decadent movement (The term decadent was used because the society was fallen)
 In this context the figure of the dandy was born. The figure of a dandy represents a person who lives totally in luxury and beauty. Usually these people are distant from the real reality and from the rest of the society that he despises so much. Oscar Wilde Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin in 1853. Wilde was a member, he had a very strong political faith. In fact, when he will be in America, Wilde will have a confrontation with the workers. In America, Wilde was influenced by Peter, who argued that aestheticism was a search for beauty. Wilde was also brought to the test on the charges of homosexuality, which was then illegal in Britain. He died of meningitis in 1900 in Paris. The rebel and the dandy
 Wilde adopted the aesthetic ideal, "Life is like a work of art”. Wilde was both a dandy, because he lived in elegance and beauty, and a rebel, because life was made for pleasure and freedom. The Picture of Dorian Gray
 Plot
 The novel is set in London in the late 19th century. The protagonist is Dorian Gray, a young man whose beauty fascinates a painter, Basil Hallward, who decides to paint his portrait. Under the corrupt influence of Lord Henry Wotton, Dorian throws himself into a life of pleasure. While the young man lives his life of pleasures, the signs of age, experience and vice do not appear on Dorian but on the portrait. When Basil sees the corrupt image of the portrait, Dorian kills him. Later Dorian wants to eliminate the portrait, testifies to his spiritual corruption, and stabs him but, in doing so, kills himself. At the very moment of Dorian’s death, the image returns to its original purity, and Dorian’s face becomes monstrous. After Dorian’s death the narrative passes to the point of view of the servants, who see "a picture" of their handsome and young lord. Although she is an aesthete, Wilde understands beauty, the inherent and moral beauty, not the external one. And it is precisely for this reason that Wilde chooses to kill his protagonist because in addition to underlining the lack of will on the part of Dorian to change her being, he wanted to allude to the double face of Victorian society. A society that apparently respects morality, but that internally craves pleasure. CHARACTERS
 All characters reveal themselves through what they say or what others say about them. Dorian Gray represents the ideal of youth, beauty and innocence. But Dorian is greatly influenced by Lord Henry, who teaches him hedonism and makes him start looking for a life of pleasure and freedom. Indeed, in the end the portrait represents the degradation of his soul. Lord Henry Wotton is a cynical intellectual, he said that those who were beautiful could not also be intelligent. Basil Hallward is an intellectual who, on the other hand, falls in love with Dorian's beauty and innocence, and this proves it with his painting. NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE This story is told by a decent third-person narrator. The perspective adopted is internal, this allows a process of identification between the reader and the character. "The Picture of Dorian Gray" The preface "The picture of Dorian Gray" is a novel published a few months after the publication of the book and responds to some criticisms received on the published work.
 The purpose of the preface is to define the values that Oscar wants to express and also those of decadentism. First of all it wants to distance the artist from morality since art is nothing but the artist's freedom to be and to manifest himself, thus distancing himself from the poets of the Victorian age. In the preface Wilde knows how to respond very well to the criticisms received, and being a creator of beauty he is not a moralist but an artist, and therefore there is no condemnation in his work of him. In fact, however, art is also a source of introspection, art in understanding it reveals the observer, who is not always ready to see his own horrors. The example par excellence is the character of Dorian Gray. Structurally, the text is a set of aphorisms, which means that each sentence can be read on its own and that each one has its own meaning. The Modern Age When Queen Victoria died in 1901, her son Edward became king as Edward VII (1901-10) The first half of the twentieth century was an age of transformations and a deep cultural crisis. It was marked by: • two World Wars; • the atomic bomb; • the discover of new and faster means of transport and communication; • a new science: the psychology. The cultural crisis led to the end of the Victorian value system. The First World War left a disillusioned, cynical and cruel mood.Some soldiers celebrated their return home with a frantic quest for pleasure; others were obsessed with a sense of guilt over the horrors of war. The generational gap between young and old, held responsible for the lives wasted during the war, grew. The dissolution of the Empire caused a remarkable transformation of the notions of imperial hegemony and white superiority. In this period was important the role of women that changed considerably: the movement of suffragettes The Suffragettes Throughout the Westernized world the struggle for suffrage was long and bitter. Especially in Britain and Ireland where 'votes for women' were fought with acts of heroism, courage, violence and brutality, the struggle lasted almost a hundred years. The term suffragette was coined by the Daily Mail in 1906. Millicent Fawcett founded the National Union of Women’s Suffrage and believed in peaceful protest. However, Fawcett’s progress was very slow. This left many women disappointed and in 1903 the Social Union and women’s policy was founded by Emmeline Pankhurst. They wanted women to have the right to vote and were unwilling to wait. The Union became better known as the suffragettes.Suffragettes were ready to use violence to get what they wanted. The suffragettes burned the churches, broke up the buildings on Oxford Street, chained themselves to Buckingham Palace. The suffragettes were quite happy to go to prison. Here they refused to eat and joined the hunger strike. However, in 1914 Britain entered wars, World War I and Emmeline Pankhurst charged the suffragettes to stop their campaign of violence and support the government and its war effort. The work done by Women in World War I was to be vital to Britain’s war effort. The new views of man and the universe emerged: Freud’s influence
 Sigmund Freud introduced new ideas about the human psyche, deeply influenced by the subconscious. Freud established a new method of investigation of the human mind through the analysis of dreams and the concept of free association that influenced the writers of the modern age. The theory of relativity
 In the field of science the old certainties were discarded by the introduction of the concept of relativity by Albert Einstein.This theory reassessed the concepts of time and space, which he regarded as subjective dimensions. 
 External time vs internal time
 The idea of time has been questioned from a philosophical point of view by William James, an American philosopher, and Henry Bergson, a French philosopher. They analyzed the idea of time not only as historical time but also as psychological and inner time.Historical time is external, linear and measured in terms of the spatial distance travelled by a pendulum or clock hands, while psychological time is internal, subjective and measured by the relative emotional intensity of a moment. The term "Modernism" defines a set of trends and cultural movements that developed in the early 20th century and expressed the absence of values of that period. It involved all forms of art, from literature and music to visual art and cinema. Modernist artists were deeply affected by the First World War which caused a break between the old and the new world, destroying the traditional beliefs and values of the Victorian era. In fact, the Victorian idea of what society should be has collapsed and been replaced by a sense of emptiness in the face of the despair of war and the alienation of an industrial society. Modernist novels were characterized by revolutionary styles and themes, particularly influenced by Freud’s theories and Bergson’s philosophy. The narrative explores the psychology of the characters: the use of a subjective and limited point of view expressed that all truths are relative. The plots are often fragmentary and do not follow a chronological series of events because the inner time is considered as a set of simultaneous instants. In addition, the omniscient narrator as moral guide was replaced by the inner life of the characters which is represented through the flow of consciousness and inner monologue. Thoughts are expressed by free, uncensored associations, logical or rational controls. Modern Poetry Before the war, there were groups of poets who were still influenced by the Victorian tradition like the Georgian poets. The war poets wanted to show the evils of war, they used a violent and daily language and wanted to awaken people’s conscience. Modern poetry officially began with 'Imagism', whose supporter of this movement was T.E. Hulme. In this period the movement of French symbolism that was born in France thanks to Charles Baudelaire developed. These authors used an evocative and allusive language, free verses and emphasized the importance of the sound of words. Modern Novel The modern novel consists of a novelist who has become a mediator between past values and the confused present. The theory of the unconscious and the new concept of time led to the birth of the modern novel. The novelist emphasizes the importance of subjective consciousness, experiments with new forms, and rejects the omniscient narrator. The 'stream of consciousness' was introduced to reproduce the continuous flow of thoughts and sensations of the human mind. Time was perceived as subjective and interior, so there was no need to follow a chronological order in the plots, and the distinction between past and present was meaningless. Psychological novelists were interested in the development of the character’s mind and human relationships.
 The modern novel consists mainly of the use of the interior monologue to represent the unspoken