Tutta la storia del XVIII secolo in Inghilterra, Prove d'esame di Letteratura Inglese

Scarica Tutta la storia del XVIII secolo in Inghilterra e più Prove d'esame in PDF di Letteratura Inglese solo su Docsity! 18TH CENTURY: INTRODUCTION 18th century is considered one of the most revolutionary century, in which we can collocate the very beginning of freedom of humanity; it’s an important century in which Enlightenment is fundamental because, during a period of religious fundamentalism, it completely changed the panorama of England; but the Enlightenment was just one of the result of the new way in which people look at their world. Even the idea of the Medieval world collapsed because of the new scientific progress: with the 1688 Glorious Revolution England, whose people had understood the danger of having a Catholic King as heir, opted for a new kind of government, a constitutional monarchy; they decided of getting rid of the kings and the queens not in a violent way as previously, but in democratic way voting and ousting them giving a prestige; in that period the king was William of Orange, but was almost just a symbol of the power of the crown and he didn't have right to impose himself. These changes happened because of a previous revolution that gave people the responsibility of one's life to people themselves, and even if very poor people still couldn’t have a proper education and rights, this was the first step in democracy. This will bring about the revolution of workers inspired by new Marx’s theories through which they will express the will of the right to vote and to feel considered. The origin of this attention was due to the philosophical change happened during 17th century with Bacon and during the 18th century with Locke and Hume. Frances Bacon introduced the pragmatic and scientific method in England (inductive method), rejecting the idea of a deductive mind because in his opinion mind can only make hypothesis, but to become trusty it’s necessary to act according to the scientific method, not only by making hypothesis but even looking at the phenomena and then prove that in a similar situation, given the same condition, the same things happen. People of England thought that God gave us knowledge (Innatism), but Locke and Hume looked at the reality in a new way, saying that the mind is a tabula rasa and that experiences are ones that make our person, so people are different because they come from different places and they have received different ideas and education. According to their idea, these philosophes affirmed also that imagination is present in everyone, typical feature of Romanticism, in which imagination will considered as a way to react to a reality which we dislike. The medieval idea of society was the one of a “Scala-Naturae”, in which people were fixed in levels and they couldn’t move or the society could start to collapse. At the beginning of the 18th century Addison, considered the founder of essay, wrote a a very famous one in which he focuses on English politics by making a comparison between English, Italian and France govern, because French is characterised by an authoritarian politic and equilibrium and people cannot step by a position to another and they cannot move around, on the contrary in England people can move around without fixed roles and this represents them and the liberty of landscapes. William Kent wrote about English garden describing its imperfection as beautiful and symbolic of England, until the new concept of “picturesque” by Gilpin. This new aesthetic concept will oppose to the vogue of the Grand Tour of Europe and will start to look around England giving it more value. In 1757 Edmund Burke will write a book around aesthetics, creating the base of the idea of “sublime”, by giving to the sublime the equal status of the beautiful, by contrasting typical idea of neoclassic: to him sublime is the darkness, the moon, clouds. It's a natural sublime, which can be found only in the nature of England, where obscurity is more present rather than light (northern element). The introduction of picturesque, the change of English government, the new concept of sublime, all these elements were put together. The Warton Brothers wrote the first anthology, ”The history of English poetry”, in which they took back the Welsh tradition (an original population of England) made of fairies, elves, and other elements of nature. Stories as the Spenser’s “Fairie Queene” and the figure of king Arthur are retaken in order to tell new stories. “Wuthering Highs” has all the characteristic of northern novels, as the presence of aristocracy of England, the fantastic element of ghosts, a doctor, ecc. And Brontë foresees what it’s going to happen just like Shakespeare with Othello; other negative elements are racism and discrimination. 18TH CENTURY NOVEL William Hogarth in his “Characters, caricaturas” (1743) he uses caricatures in order to show society in England. Two men are laughing at each other, while the others are just smiling; those two are Hogarth and Fielding; they look at each other because they have the project of changing art and literature and they have decided to not portray people as caricatures; they join their forces to come to evade the classic beauty and reaching the sublime. In this etching it's clear that Hogarth and Fielding will not as, in the previous time, pay attention only to aristocracy, queens and kings, but they will look around in the city of London to depict people as they really are, even if they are not exactly beautiful; it is the graphical result of a manifesto published as the preface to “Joseph Andrews” by Fielding, that will exemplify their aesthetic common project. Ian Watt in 1956-1957 wrote a book called “the rise of the novel” about reliastic novel, saying that authors are not guided in the choice of the subjects by the beauty, because they report them just as they are. Fielding detects the element of a new genre, the novel and, as he specifies that the new novel will depict characters in a certain way, which is not choosing basing on beauty but depicting it as they are, just like Hogarth was doing in painting. So, novel present new characteristic: • Characters had real names and surnames • Protagonists are common people, because this revolution permits the entry of lower class in literature, for the first time not making fun of them and giving them a comical behaviour, doing a caricature, but showing them as they were. • Time and space have a specific representation, and typical locations are not courts, yards and castles, but simple houses; castles will appear only in gothic novels. • People are described by their humour and passions , which were before considered negative elements and manifestation of something that wasn't to be shown because people had to be people ethically clean. • Poor people has many real problems • Previously a negative behaviour was shown totally as negative things while now the fact that lower class people has to find their own way to not starve is something right; so the fact that a woman as lady Roxana (by Defoe) sells her body, or that poors steal, are almost justified. Self-made men and women were appreciate and they had to do so because everyone has the right to meliorate themselves. ”The rise of the Ethelbert authorized it, maybe because monotheism and the respect for the authority of the king, representing God on hearth, were linked to each other. The church lives a period of extremely richness and they start to build beautiful monasteries that will become important even for literature because there monks will write manuscripts. At the end of ‘700 the Vikings, coming from Denmark and Norway, invaded and attacked England and Scotland; for this reason, when King Herbert of Wessex united England he governed people of different origins, because they were the result of a mix of cultures. When the new Danish invasion of Vikings came they occupied the eastern England, but England was able, under the reign of King Alfred, to reoccupy it. KING ALFRED THE GREAT King Alfred was so important in literature that Shakespeare took him as topic for many of his works; he brought culture in his reign and a new understanding if the world. He did a legal reform bringing together a new legal code, called “the book of dooms” in which law and destiny are linked because law can decide on life of people. He has the quality of a great synthesizer and in the book he bring together the laws taking in account that people of his reign are the result of from different cultures. He unites brings together the Mosaic Law (or Torah), the Christian laws of good behaviour, and the old custom of Pagan Law (military power). He exemplifies that tradition of England is important. While in other countries as Italy there’s a written system of laws that all judges have to respect, English system of government is very pragmatic; creating the Common Law, which is the law of the “precedent”. “Common” means natural, in the sense that it was judged like that, and that people could try to apply to their cases and to make the judge take into consideration the previous similar cases before deciding the result. This means that in England there is not a unique way of interpreting laws and every judge has the power to decide what he think is correct, and so “changing” laws without having parliamentary issues. Before his law there was the roman law “corpus iuris civilis” of emperor Giustiniano. In 1000 4 of the most important codices of English poetry ( the Cotton Vitellius, the Exeter book, the Vercelli book, the Junius XI) were conserved in monasteries and in some Italian churches from which their name derived (ex. Vercelli). The language of England is the mirror of the mix of population, showing respect for all the influences of people that have inhabited the territory during the centuries. The LANGUAGE EVOLUTION is a sort of testimony of all people that had come to England during times; the more important influences where from Latin, Anglo-Saxon and French languages . Geoffrey Chaucer , also known as “the Dante of England”, lived in a time (about 1400) in which Frenach and Latin were the dominant literary languages; he came up with the idea that literaly language should be the same spoken by the people of the state, the Anglo Saxon. This modern English was confirmed by the publication of King James’ authorised version of the Bible. The SERIES OF DYNASTIES exemplify questions of monarchies and religious problems. - HENRY I organises the first court of justice and he separates the executive power from legislative one. Plantagenets dynasty covers even the period of Lancaster and York family, setting the premises for the Tudor family. - HENRY II is the first king who tries to limit the power of the church; he wants to stop the fact that the clergy had its own law, because it meant then they were be an independent state, and he didn’t accept that they didn’t respect the law of the country; for this reason he acted against the ecclesiastical privilege, the “privilegium clericale”. Since its action, they have just the spiritual power left, while the system of law is the same of the state. Thomas à Becket, the archbishop of Canterbury, went against the interference of the king in clergy and as result he was exiled and killed. From that moment he's considered one of the first martyr of the catholic church. - RICHARD I LEONHEARTED was important because he took part in the crusades and he acted outside England. John Lackland tried to take the control of the reign while the king was in Normandy, but as result he lost the land and he got excommunicated. The Magna Carta (1215), first manifesto of democracy, is one extremely important chapter for the conquest of liberty of people. It limits for the first time the power of the king, because with the Magna Carta he has to submit to the control of the chancellors, in order to not become a dictator. Other values to which the Carta refers to are principle as “liberté, égalité, fraternité”. Moreover, people accused to be criminals have the right to undergo to a fair trial, and no trial can be made if the person is absent. People also necessity defendants because they could have less speaking abilities than other people and they need someone else to help them. Another change was to say that, if the king was too young to reign, then he needed some regents in order to help him. -HENRY III tried to regain the countries in France but he didn't succeed.. He had to deal with a Civil War “the Second Barons' War”, led by Simon de Montfort during which barons rebelled against the king; henry III won the war and everybody had to pay an high taxation without words. His reign is the first form of Parliament. With the “Magna Carta” it's the duty of the king to have people representative of all classes of England participating in the” res pubblica”; the three estates were the clergy, the aristocracy, the commoners and all of them have to elect one representative in order to form a modern parliament. - RICHARD II is important not only for the historical plays of Shakespeare, but even because he was the first king to be deposed by parliaments. This is considered an important conquest of democracy that even Shakespeare wanted to underline in his works. THE HUNDR ED YEARS’ WAR (1338-1453) was caused by the fact that the king wanted back the territories of France. Another problem of the period was the Bubonic Plague, the Black Death, which destroyed half of the population of England in 1348-1449. The Lancaster family came to the throne after the deposition of Richard the II. After the deposition there was a battle between two houses, the York and the Lancaster (War of the Roses). - HENRY VI was the king who went against the catholic Joanne of Arc, who fought for her territories and with her victory became a symbol of patriotism and religion. - EDWARD IV came to the throne when there were internal wars in the land . - EDWARD V was only 13 years old when he became the king, but his short reigned ended soon because his uncle killed him and became king with the name of Richard III. - RICHARD III committed the crime of killing the heirs but he was defeated in the Battle of Bosworth Fiel and HENRY VII became the new king, starting the Tudor dynasty even if he represent both the York and the Lancaster because of his family. - HENRY VII was loved by the middle class and he was treated as an highlighted king that could bring the country out of the civil war; he even started trades with foreign lands. - HENRY III was very important because of the protestant reform; his wife Catherine of Aragon gave him a daughter, Mary I, the catholic queen of England; Henry, who wanted to have a male son, used this pretext to ask for the divorce and he went against the pope in order to obtain it. After that, he married Anne Boleyn, who gave him another girl, Elizabeth.. RELIGION Martin Luther published his thesis against the power of the church and went against to the selling of indulgences. John Calvin set important points and created a sort of new philosophy of understanding the love of God through predestination; this meant that is already decided and people have to accept and not to revolve against that comes to life because it’s God’s will. The anointed of God are successful, and so everyone works hard to be recognised as one of them. HENRY VIII, going against the pope, created a new religion, different from Protestantism, and called it Anglicanism. QUEEN ELIZABETH will make a new act of supremacy, saying she's only a governor and not supreme head of the church. She introduces the theory of grace accepted both by Calvinism and Catholicism. Richard Hooker was an important Anglican. Beside people who accepted the new religion, there was a group of dissenters led by Cromwell, called the Puritans, and he put the country under the military control with the excuse of religion he also set some rules strictly linked to a good and decent behaviour, like a sort of religious dictatorship. The fact of the existence of many religions cause the increase of hermeneutic readers: each person can find different opinions and ideas in different religious tendencies. People are given the responsibility of choosing what version of the Bible to follow. Erasmus of Rotterdam wrote a book about the puritanism and free-will and it was like a bomb, because it said that a good person doesn't complain with the will of god . The book teaches to use free will and understanding. • CALVINISM: predestination • CATHOLICISM: destiny bet even grace and will In England the first hint of extremism was with John Knox, who insists on predestination and also accepted that there are people called justified sinners; they were like heroes allowed to kill in the name of God The third law is the act of succession;, which said that the throne that Sophie of Hanover would have become queen only if she had married a Protestant man. Prime minister governs through the cabinet of Robert Walpole and he acted as an absolute monarch and people went against him because he had a great power and he administered the finances of the country that were before in the hands of the king. In 1707 the reign became united through the Act of Union, and from that moment the champion of the absolute monarchy by Hobbes becomes the “two treaties of civil government” by Locke. Under the reign of queen Anne there was the war of the Spanish succession, in order to determine who was the legal heir of Spain; England allied itself with Holland, Austria and Germany against Spain France and Bavaria. They had splendid victories because the military school was very forward and England and they acquired a lot of territories; “Asiento ” was the permission given by the Spanish government to other countries to sell people as slaves to the Spanish colonies, between the years 1543 and 1834. Walpole will engage other people to go to war for him. The war against Spain brought to England colonies of Colombia . In the “7 years war”, a whole word war, a global conflict, England took part against France, Russia and Austria, changing alliances respect to the previous conflict. The initial battle that brought colonies to the big continent, for example India, because England gained power in Bangla and from that moment its ascendancies started, not under Walpole but under his successor William Pitt the elder. This war marked even the beginning of English power in Canada. ENGLISH POETRY FROM ITS ORIGINS TO THE RENAISSANCE: AN OVERVIEW 410-450 Angles and Saxons invade from Baltic shores of Germany. The Jutes invade from Denmark. ANGLO SAXON LITERATURE: POETRY Anglo – Saxon Migration: 5th century Anglo-Saxon literature began not with books, but with spoken verse and incantations. The main categories: • Epic poetry (recounting the achievements of warriors); eg. Beowulf • Elegiac poetry (lamenting the dead and the loss of the past); eg. “The Seafarer” and “The Wanderer” The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, in Old English, was assembled during King Alfred the Great’s time (849-899). One copy was still being expanded in the mid – 12th c. The island Britain is 800 miles long, and 200 miles broad. And there are in the island five nations; English, Welsh (o British), Scottish, Pictish and Latin. ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE: PROSE The greatest of England’s Latin scholars was Venerable Bede (673-735) His Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (History of the English Church and People) gives an account of England from the Roman invasion to his own time. THE VIKING INVADERS: 8TH – 11TH CENTURIES • These Vikings were sea-faring (explorers, traders, and warriors) Scandinavians. • They sacked and plundered monasteries, destroyed manuscripts, and stole sacred religious objects. They burned entire communities and put villagers to the sword. ANGLO-SAXON SOCIETY Highly organized in tribal units (kingdom): • Each ruled by a king chosen by a council of elders (witan) • Thanes: the upper class, earls, or free warriors • Thralls: slaves who did the farming and domestic work • Freeman: small group who earned possessions and special favours • A single manuscript survives: the Nowell Codex. • Composed by anonymous Anglo-Saxon poet • Dated between the 8th and the early 11th century Beowulf is the greatest epic poem, full of contrasts: • Composed in England (8th-11th c.) BUT set in Scandinavia (5th – 7th c.) • Norse pagans characters BUT Christian Anglo-Saxon speaker • Comitatus is clearly represented BUT it is coming to an end Authorship unknown Credited to Cynewulf (c.770-840), author of the epic poem Elene, and by others to Caedmon (fl. 658-680). The earliest evidence of the text is found on the Ruthwell Cross (5th-12th c., probably 8th) inscribed with passages from the “Dream of the Rood”. The most complete text-> Vercelli Book, a manuscript of Old English prose and poetry (10th century). Dream poetry, with elements of the epic • Epic poetry: told orally by the scoop or Anglo-Saxon poet • Negotiation between Christianity and Anglo-Saxon values, e.g. comitatus – Germanic code of loyalty, a relationship based on reciprocity between a warlord and his thanes, who swore loyalty to their king who, in turn, must be generous (give treasure/land): Kings -> praised for generosity and hospitality. Warriors -> praised for courage and loyalty 597 A.D. St Augustine lands in Kent and converts king Aethelbert (King of Kent, the oldest Saxon settlement) to Christianity: he becomes first Archbishop of Canterbury PERIODS OF BRITISH LITERATURE • 450-1066: OLD ENGLISH (OR ANGLO-SAXON) PERIOD • 1066-1500: MIDDLE ENGLISH (OR MEDIEVAL) PERIOD • 1500-1660: THE RANAISSANCE • 1558-1603: ELIZABETHAN AGE • 1603-1625: JACOBEAN AGE • 1624-1649: CAROLINE AGE • 1649-1660: COMMONWEALTH PERIOD (OR PURITAN INTERREGNUM) • 1660-1785: THE NEOCLASSICAL PERIOD • 1660-1700: THE RESTORATION WHAT IS FEUDALISM? “A social system that existed in Europe during the Middle Ages in which people worked and fought for nobles who gave them protection and the use of land in return”. MAJOR EVENTS 1. THE NORMAN CONQUEST (1066) 2. THE CRUSADES (1095-1270) 3. THE MARTYRDOM OF THOMAS à BECKET (1170) 4. THE MAGNA CARTA (1215) 5. THE HUNDER YEARS’ WAR (1337-1453) 6. CLIMATE CHANGE AND FAMINE 7. THE BLACK DEATH (1348-1349) 8. PEASANTS REVOLT (1381) 9. WARS OF THE ROSE (1455-1485) THE CRUSADES Holy wars between Christian Europe and Muslims over control of holy sites like Jerusalem MARTYRDOM OF THOMAS À BECKET (1170) Norman chancellor (prime minister) to King Henry II (reigned 1154-1189). Henry appointed Becket to Archbishop of Canterbury. Becket took his job seriously, sided with the pope. Four knights of Henry’s murdered Becket in the cathedral at Canterbury. Becket was canonized a saint. THE MAGNA CARTA (1215, KING JOHN) • No royal official shall take goods from any man without immediate payment. • No free man shall be imprisoned except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land. • In future no official shall place a man on trial without producing credible witnesses. • The barons shall elect a House of Lords for the creation of laws. • The English church shall be free. POETRY The sonnet was first introduced into English by Thomas Wyatt in the early 16th century. The term “renaissance” is derived from the French word meaning “rebirth”. It describes this phase of European history because many of the changes experienced between the and the 17th centuries were inspired by a revival of the classical art and intellect of ancient Greek and Rome-14th GEOFFREY CHAUCER, THE CANTERBURY TALES (C. 1386 - 1400) General Prologue = Estates Satire