The Victorian Age - Autori e contesto sociale, Appunti di Inglese

Scarica The Victorian Age - Autori e contesto sociale e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! The Victorian Age Queen Victoria • Victoria became queen at the age of 18; she was graceful and self- assured. • Her reign was the longest on British History, until Queen Elisabeth the II. • In 1840 she married a German Prince: Albert of Saxe – Coburg. They had 9 children and their modest family life provided a model of respectability. • During this time Britain changed dramatically. The growth of the British Empire • England grew to become the greatest nation on earth “The Sun never sets on England”. • British Empire included: Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Africa and Kenya. • Great Britain imported raw material such as cotton and silk, and exported finished goods to countries around the world. • By the mind during 1800s Great Britain was the largest exporter and importer of goods in the world. It was the primary manufactures of goods and he wealthiest country in the world. • Because of England’s success, the British felt it was their duty to bring English values, laws, customs, and religion to the “savages” races around the world. An Age of social and political reforms 1832: The first reform act granted the vote to almost all male members of middle class 1833: The factory act regulated child labour in factories 1834: The poor law Amendment established a system of workhouses for poor people 1867: The second reform act gave the vote to skilled working men 1871: The trade Union Act legalised trades Unions 1884: The third Reform Act granted the right to all man householders. The women’s question Women’s suffrage did not happen until 1918. Women were ostracised by the society if they were fallen women. Positive Aspects of the age Industrial revolution: Factory system emerged for the first time in Britain’s history there were more people who lived in my cities than the country side Technological advantages: Introduction of steam hammers and locomotives, building of a network of railways Economical progress: Britain became the greatest economical power in the world ; in 1901 the USA become the leader, but my Britain remained the first in manufacturing. Crystal Palace Crystal palace was built for the Great Exhibition of 1851; it was destroyed by the fire in 1936. It was made by iron and glass, exhibited hydraulic presses, locomotives, machines tools, powers looms, power reapers and steam boot engimes. It had a political purpose: it showed British Economic Supremacy. Negative Aspects of the Age Pollution in towns due to factory activity Lack of hygienic conditions: houses were over crowded, most people lived in miserable conditions; poorhouses shared water supplies The Great Stink Epidemics like cholera, typhoid cause a high mortality in towns. They came to a peak in te Great Stink of 1858. This expression was used to describe the terrible smell in London, coming from the Thames. The “miasmas”, exhalation from decaying matter, poisoned the air. The Victoria Compromise The Victorians were great moralizers: the supported personal duty, hard work, decorum, respectability and chastity. ‘Victorian’ was synonym for prudery, stood for extreme repression; even furniture legs had to be concealed under heavy cloth not to be “suggestive” New Ideas were discussed and debated by a large part of the society. The middle- class was obsessed with gently, respectability (distinguished the middle class from the lower class) and decorum. The rise of the Novel There was a communion of interest and options between the writers and the readers. The Victorians, were avid consumers of literature. They borrowed books from circulating libraries and read various periodicals. Novels made their first appearance in instalments on the pages of periodicals. The voice of the omniscient narrator provided a comment on the plot and erected a rigid barrier between “right” and “wrong”, light and darkness. The setting chosen by most Victorian novelist was the town (London). Victorian writers concentrated on the creation of characters and achieved a deeper analysis of their inner life. He worked in a blanking factory His father was in prison for debts Hardship at school Charles Dickens 1812 -1870 He was deeply influenced by his own childhood experience: Published his novel in monthly instalments Main Novels • Exploited lives of children in the slums and the factories Oliver Twist (1838) • David Copperfield (1849 - 1850) • Social background conditions of the poor and the working Hard Time (1854) • Great Expectations (1860 - 1861) Plots • Influenced by the Bible, fairy tales, gothic novels • Well planned • Affected by the publication in monthly instalments (not very unified) • Mainly set in London, with realistic details • Dickens was aware of the spiritual and material corruption of industrialism • He became increasingly critical of the society • He drew popular attention to public abuses, evils + wrongs, alternating London crime with sketches of the town Characters • Always on the side of the poor and the outcast • Dickens replaced the 18th century realistic middle class world with the one of the lower orders. • Dickens exaggerated the social characteristics of people, using their own voices and dialogues: CARICATURES Didactic Aim • Dickens makes children the moral teachers and examples to be followed (reversing natural order of things) • Dickens made readers love his children and made wealthy people aware of the existence of poorer people Style and reputation • Effective language • Powerful descriptions of life and characters • Careful choice of adjectives, structures, ironic remarks Oliver Twist 1838 • Appeared in instalments in 1837 and later published as a book. • It fictionalizes Dicken’s economic in security and humiliation as a boy (biographical elements) • “Twist” represent a reversal of fortunes experienced by Oliver Plot 1.A poor boy of unknown parents 2. Brought up in a workhouse in an inhuman way 3. Sold to an undertaker (becchino) as an apprentice 4. Oliver runs away to London where a gang of pick pockets kidnaps him and forces him to become a thief 5. Adopted by a kind middle class family 6. He discovers he has noble origins 7. His half-brother had wanted to ruin Oliver and get theirs father property. 1. Work houses: lover middle class; insensible to the feelings of the poor. 2. Criminal world: of pick pockets + murderers. Violent and poor. They live in dirty slums. Miserable death. 3. Victorian middle class: respectable people with moral values and human dignity • Represent social evil The artist was the creator of beautiful things: art is used only to celebrate beauty and the sensorial pleasure. The dandy Is a bourgeois artist who remains a member of his class while the bohemian is a bourgeois. artist that allies himself from the society. The Wildean dandy: 1. Wealthy elegant man 2. Live excessively his life 3. Live the best way it possible 4. Symbol of supremacy 5. Uses his wit to shock Virtue and vice are employed by the artist as a raw material in his art: “No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style” Works Poetry: • Poems 1891 • The ballad of reading Gaol 1898 Fairy Tales: • The happy prince and the other tales 1898 • The house of pomegranates 1891 Novels: • The picture of Dorian Gray 1891 Plays: • Lady Windermere’s fan 1892 • A Woman of no importance 1893 • The importance of being Earnest1895 • Salomé 1893 He was very successful thanks to his comedies of manners: • Reflect the life ideals and the manners of the upper society • Caricatures of social types in a provocative form: Satiric tone, witty language to expose the superficial values and hypocrisies of the upper class people, witty remarks to expose the fault of the society • Long, detailed stage directions • Brilliant dialogues even to describe superficial topics • “The importance of Being Earnest” express the questions of identity, love, marriage and money The Importance of Being Earnest 1895 Plot: The title plays on a double meaning: the word earnest (an adjective which means serious), but also the word is a name, Earnest. The protagonists of the play are Jack and his friend Algy. They have a double life. Jack lives in the country, but when he goes to London he has known as Earnest, to protect his reputation. He has a girl under his responsibility, Cecily, who thinks that Earnest is Jack’s brother. In London, Jack as Earnest, falls in love with Gwendolen, but her mother doesn’t want the marriage because Jack’s origins are unknown. Algy as invented an imaginary friend, Bunbury. In London he falls in love with Cecily, Jack’s ward. But the thinks that Algy is Jack’s brother Ernest. At the end we discover that Jack and Algy are brothers, and Jack’s name is Ernest. Finally Gwendolen can marry Ernest. Analysis: • Marriage is the main concern of the play • The aristocratic society is snob, arrogant, formal and concerned with money. Lady Bracknell is the stereotype of the Victorian English Aristocrat • Oscar Wilde makes fun of the institution of marriage: hypocritical and absurd. • Happy ending but for the aristocracy marriage is not absurd because it’s based on love but is used to achieve social stature. • Witty dialogues, puns, paradoxes, misunderstanding • Satire: ironic use of the solemn language in ridiculous and frivolous situations The picture of Dorian Gray 1891 1890: first appeared in a magazine 1891: republished and extended It was considered immoral by the Victorian public. Plot: Set in London at the end of 19th century. The painter Basil Halloward makes a portrait of a handsome young man: Dorian Gray. Dorian’s desire of eternal youth it’s satisfied but experience and vices appear on the portrait because Dorian lives only for pleasures. The painter discovers Dorian’s secret and he’s killed by the young man. Later Dorian wants to get free from the portrait so he stabs it but in doing this he kills himself. At the very moment of death, the portrait returns to its original purity and Dorian turns into a withered, wrinkled and loathsome man. Analysis: • The purpose of art is to HAVE NO purpose. Despite Wilde’s philosophy this novel has a moral message: Every excess must be punished and reality cannot be escaped because there is a price to be paid for a life of pleasure and immorality. This express the impossibility of Wilde’s projects. • Supremacy of youth and beauty + superficial picture of the society (similarities with Andrea Sperelli – “Il piacere” and Huysmans’s: A Rebours) • It reflects Oscar Wilde’s personality Allegorical meaning: The ageless beauty is an element of the allegorical meaning linked with the Victorian hypocrisy and the concept of the respectability based on appearance. Dorian Gray is connected to the Myth of Faust (the story where a man sells his should to devil). The society’s mentality believed that beautiful people are moral people while ugly people are immoral people. Wilde use the picture, to represent a symbol of Victorian’s immorality. Another meaning is that art survives people, art is eternal (Keats).