The Victorian Age, Dickens, Wilde, Kipling and Stevenson, Sintesi del corso di Inglese

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The Victorian Age The first half of Victoria's reign - policy of gradual reform → to avoid revolution and to calm down the population - Victoria was beloved and the country identify with her → she shared the middle class values - main values: ➢ going to church ➢ respectability ➢ beauty ➢ hard work ➢ family → large ➢ charity - Ten Hours Act( 1847) → limited working hours to 10 → this achievement were possible because the queen reigned constitutionally, in fact she never overruled the Parliament - Corn Laws → law that maintained the price of corn artificially high to protect landed interest - Working Class movements → 1838-1848 ➢ Chartism → called for the expansion of the right to vote to all men adults → then slowly died - 1851 → Great Exhibition → all the development of England and other States of the Empire were exhibited in a prefabricated palace of iron and glass (Cristal palace) → the profit were used ti built Museum The Victorian Compromise - social compromise that accepted the negative aspects in the name of the positive ones - complex era with positives and negatives aspects ➢ positive → political stability, expansion of colonial empire, technological and scientific revolution, social reforms ➢ negative → bad living conditions of the urban working class, injustice - During this period there was a facade → the middle class promoted a code of values that reflected the world as they wanted to be and not as it really was - respectability → mixture of morality (sistem of values) and hypocrisy(creation of the facade). It implied the possession of good manners, to have a big house, attendance to church - patriarchal family → large family where the fathers’ authority was fondamental. The Woman had to take care of children and to manage the house - female chastity → single woman with children were known as “fallen woman” → sexuality was represented in public and private forms - utilitarianism → social doctrine of Jeremy Benthon, based on profit, without considering the distribution of burdens → objective : purse of happiness → economic point of view ( profit : middle class, burdens: poor classes) ➢ slogan : “ the greatest happiness of the greatest numbers” → positive but it was used to justify the Victorian compromise → “the greatest happiness of the greatest possible numbers” Life in the Victorian town - poor people lived in slum districts → famous for its overcrowding, squalor and crime - the mortality rate was high → this situation brings negative consequences in children because they worked in polluted atmosphere - 1851 there were 2 Acts to prevent the situation and to clean up the streets which had been devastated by cholera epidemic and tuberculosis - development in science, technology and medicine - Metropolitan Police → established by the Prime Minister Robert Peel The Victorian novel - The main features: ➢ omniscient narrator in 3 person → erected a rigid wall between right and wrong, he comments (he’s a speaking voice) ➢ setting → city because it was the symbol of industrial civilisation and the expression of anonymous lives and lost identities ➢ plot → long and complicated with a lot of characters ➢ retribution and punishment are in the last chapter - installments → help to have a contact with the readers, they were read in families - the novelist had a social and moral responsibility → he describes the society as it was but he doesn’t want to find a solution → the criticism wasn’t radical - a lot of novelist were women → used male pseudonyms Cultural situation 1. Charles Dickens → talks about the bad situation of poor classes, of children 2. Oscar Wilde → belongs to aestheticism → focused on beauty, the cult of beauty Charles Dickens Charles Dickens’s life - Portsmouth ( 1812-1870) - an unhappy childhood → his father was imprisoned for debts and his wife and children joined him in the Marshalsea Prison → Charles was the oldest and he had to work in a factory. His father was released but his mother insisted on continuing to work. → at 15 he worked as an office boy at lawyer’s and studied shorthand - by 1832 → he was a famous reporter of Parliamentary debates in the House of Common and a newspaper → this situation was useful for his characters - his pen name → Boz - some novels 1. Oliver Twist (1837) 2. Christmas Carol 3. Hard Times 4. Great Expectations (1861) - 1870 → he died and buried in Westminster Abbey - types of novels 1. social novel → because of the content 2. sensacional novel → because of the form ( he published in episode and an action doesn’t finish at the end of the episode but continues in the next one) - his characters are flat → not change their attitude Coketown - Hard Times by Charles Dickens - Coketown ( coke=metaphorical term for “carbone”) represents all the industrial town and it is an invented city - omniscient narrator - a lot of repetition ( one like another, same) - Mr Gradgrind is the headmaster of the local school - there is only a description of the town 1. town of black and red bricks → they would be red (blood) but because of the smoke they are black (pollution) → the city is unnatural black and red like the painted face of a savage (metaphor) 2. town of machinery and tall chimneys that produced a lot of smoke ( infinite) → an interminable serpent of smoke (metaphor) 3. from factories there is a black canal and a purple rivel with ill-smelling dye (puzzolente) 4. a pile (exaggeration) of buildings with a lot of windows (as a consequence a lot of little rooms) were there was a trembling ( activities that never stops) all day 5. the piston of the steam-engine worked monotonously up and down → like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness (metaphor) 2. rigid attitude with children 3. know everything 4. his principle → 2+2=4 5. a man of facts and calculations 6. he has a rule, a pair of scales and a multiplication table in his pocket 7. you can’t find nonsensical belief in his head - this is a mental introduction of himself that he gives in private and in public context - he enters in his class and present himself to the little pitchers (not human being) before him, who were to be filled so full of facts → definitions - he picks on a new girl, Sissy and he calls her with a number → he object her name and also the job of her father (belongs to the horse-riding) → he asks her the definition of a horse but she doesn’t know it → Thomas asks to Bitter that answer the question in a perfect way - Bitter is remarkable for his physical appearance (very pale but the best student) - the personality of this children are passive and they are depersonalized → Silly is an healthy girl with personality and Bitter no The British Empire During the Victorian Age the British empire is powerful and is in contact with a lot of cultures - last decades of 19 century → it occupies an area of 4 million square miles and 400 million inhabitant - Britain’s imperial activity begins in the second half of 16 century with Elizabeth I with India Company ( a trading concern) - after 1857 Indian Mutiny → India is ruled by Britain and Queen Victoria is crowned Empress of India by the British Prime Minister in 1877 - scramble for Africa → in the 1880s and 1890s and it was a race among European countries to have control of Africa - Britain come in contact with differents cultures → it is able to shape imperial and colonial policy and to create an empire united in name but varied in facts - in the late 19 century there is racial superiority → superior races are European - “the white man’s burden” was an obligation imposed by God to British to help the other inferior race → not true,this is only a facade 1877, Queen Victoria becomes Empress of India - she becomes an Empress in 1877, when India is incorporated into the British Empire - the desire of this title is jealousy for her cousin in Germany and Russia - this title continues until the independence of India in 1947 The white man’s burdens - ballad - Rudyard Kipling → support the British Empire and with this poem he wants to explain the difference between superior and inferior race → it isn’t real, it’s only a facade for economic reasons ad for the raw materials - this poem is a celebration of the British Empire and there are described the tasks of white as a duty - Physically (only a part) : ➢ poem → not narrator but speaking voice (1 person) ➢ 4 stanzas of 8 lines → short line ➢ each line begins with “ take up the white man’s burdens” ➢ imperatives - 1 stanza : ➢ first line → invitation ➢ send there the best english man to save their needs (colonized people) ➢ people there are like in natural world, lazy and half devil and half child → they are bad and need protection → in reality they control them and not to protect them Charles Darwin and evolution 1871, Darwin’s The descendent of man and selection in relation to sex - a seminal work → he developed the theory of evolution and natural selection according to which: ➢ all living creatures have taken their forms through a slow process of change and adaptation in a struggle for survival ➢ favorable physical conditions determine the survival of a species unfavorable ones its extinction ➢ man evolved from less organized forms, from a monkey - second half of the 19 century → Britain reached the peak of his power abroad → ideological conflicts created problems to the self- confidence of Britain - there were changes in scientific achievements - pessimism → grown in artist that had doubts about the stability of Victorian society - 1859 → Darwin published his theory of evolution in “on the origin of species” → the new information about evolution was the “natural selection” - this theory was opposite to the Church one → it says that the strongest survived and the weaker deserved to be defeat - Herbert Spencer (a philosopher) applied this theory to the social life and he thought that the economic competition was like the natural selection → poor people don’t deserve compassion Oscar Wilde - 1854 - 1900 - born in Dublin → Trinity College and then Oxford, where he gained a degree in classics - he was a disciple of Walter Peter → he accepts the theory of “Art for Art’s Sake” - he did a tour in the United States and he said to the reporters that “Aestheticism was the search of the beautiful” → Aestheticism is a science through which men looked for the relationship existing between painting, sculpture and poetry → this tour was a personal success for Wilde - some of his work: 1. The happy Prince and other Tales → written for his children 2. The picture of Dorian Gray → novel - Then he’s interested in drama → “ the importance of being earnest” and the tragedy “ salome” in French - novel and tragedy ruined his reputation → novel considered immoral and tragedy were not allowed to be published on the London stage for his obscenity - 1891 → had a homosexual relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas (underage) → his father force a public trial and Wilde was convicted of homosexual practice → year of hard labour - after prison he lived under a pseudonym in France → outcast in poverty - 1900 → died in Paris Aestheticism - cultural movement based on the cult of beauty - cult of beauty - slogan → “Art for Art’s Sake(love)” - art is an end in itself → the end of a work of art is the work of art → self sufficient - developed in France in 19 century - postulated by Théophile Gautier - period focused on middle class and materialism - bohemian→ is a certain type of life devoted to the cult of beauty. Artificial paradise and they arrived there with drugs. Again vulgarity and monotony of bourgeois life British Aestheticism - Walter Pater was a teacher at Oxford - a philosopher - the theorist of British Aestheticism, - says that “a work of art can’t be moral or immoral” → there is a connection between beautiful and art - “art is the only way to stop time” → from Shakespeare - he thinks that life must be lived in the spirit of art → intense experience Literary language of Aestheticism - references to the senses ( see,smell,touch,ear) - excessive attention to the self - a hedonistic attitude → living with the belief that the most important thing is to enjoy yourself - perversity in subject matter - disenchantment with contemporary society - absence of any didactic aim → didn’t want to teach The picture of Dorian Gray - 1891 - is the preface → the Manifesto of British Aestheticism → focuses on the lack of relationship between morality and art - in this novel ➢ Aestheticism is represent by Dorian ➢ Symbolism by the portrait ➢ Decadentism by setting The narrative technique - 3 person narrator → internal perspective → Dorian Perspective - setting describes with senses - characters describe with what they say Some important statements in the Preface - “the artist is the creator of beautiful things” - “there is no such thing as a moral or immoral book” → the most important one, the work of art is just a work of art - “all art is quite useless” → art doesn't have purpose Timeless beauty - main theme → beauty from aestheticism - story is allegorical → version of the myth of Faustus that sold his soul to have more time so study → Dorian sold it to remain beauty and young - Renaissance idea → beautiful people are moral, ugly people are immoral - there is a portrait of the real Dorian that represent the dark side of his soul that shows the signs of time, corruption and becomes more ugly with his bad actions - morality is different from art → every excess must be punished and reality cannot be escaped - Dorian destroys the portrait and the punishment is death - portrait → symbol of immortality and bad conscience of the Victorian middle class → Dorian and his innocent appearance represent the bourgeois hypocrisy Final of “picture of Dorian Gray” - the knife is the agent → he gives all responsibility to the knife - Dorian kills Basil but he doesn’t want to feel guilty and he wants to turn back the painting → the only way is to do good actions and the alternative is to destroy the painting - separation → portrait is the morality and Dorian is the art - Dorian uses the knife against the portrait and then there are 2 scenes: ➢ street ➢ house → the servants are scared. The coachman and footman tried to enter in the room through the balcony →the portrait is back to the original one and on the floor there is a man → when Dorian destroyed the portrait he kills himself - it → used to talk about Dorian