L'Età Vittoriana, Appunti di Inglese

Scarica L'Età Vittoriana e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! The Victorian Age When Queen Victoria came to the throne, in 1837, she was only 18 years old. She has ruled for almost 64 years, with a great sense of duty, in fact, even if she remained apart from politics, she gave stability to the kingdom. The 1830s was an AGE OF REFORM: in these years some important reforms were enacted (adopted). - The First Reform Act extended voting privileges to the large industrial towns. - The Factory Act improved the working conditions of children. In particular children between 9 and 13 years old couldn't work more than 48 hours a week, and no person between 13 and 18 could work more than 72 hours a week. - The Poor Law Amendment Act, which was important for the creation of the workhouses. Life in the workhouses: The workhouses were run by the church, and were created to inspire the poor to try to improve their living conditions. However, life in the workhouses was terrible because of hard work and poor diet. The poor had to wear uniforms, and their families were split. Chartism: Chartism was a movement born in 1838, with the aim of obtaining some reforms such as: universal male suffrage, secret ballot. At first this movement failed, but a few years later these demands were approved with the Second Reform Act and the Ballot Act. Technological progress: in the nineteenth-century, in England, there was a second wave of industrialisation, that brought economic and cultural changes. In particular, London was the first city to build a subway, which changed people's habits and lives. Queen Victoria died in 1901. The Victorian compromise The Victorian Age was a period of contradiction. It was a complex period, because on the one hand there was the progress brought by the industrial revolution, the rising wealth of upper and middle classes and the power of Britain; but on the other hand there was poverty, disease, injustice faced by the working class. Victorians believed in God but also in progress and science. Another important concept was respectability, shared by middle class and working classes. Keeping up appearances was really important: people had to have a good public image and good manners. There were strict rules about morality. Sexuality was repressed in every form. Finally, women were considered physically sweeter and weaker than men, so their place was in the home. Also, a woman could not be in public by herself, in fact, if she had to go out she had to be accompanied by a man (her husband, brother of father). However, they were considered morally superior to men, in fact they controlled the family budget and brought up children. While men's place was the outside world. Victorian thinkers (Benthan & Mill) One of the most important thinkers of this period is Bentham. He is associated with Utilitarianism, which is a philosophical current according to which an action is morally right if it has consequences that lead to happiness, and morally wrong if it leads to sorrow. In general, in this period there was the convinction that any problem could be solved through reason. So he believed that all institutions should be tested the light of reason to determine if they are really useful. Work and Alienation The building of the first factories in 19 century brought many changes in the interaction between the individual and his work. This is because, unlike the agricultural work, that was regulated by the weather, the factory work was much more intense, because with the machines workers no longer had the sense of time, and they worked many hours a day without stopping. This situation led to the alienation of people in factories. One of the most important philosophers who dealt with this topic is Marx. The Victorian novels The literature of this period influenced by the philosophy of August Comte, who was one of the main representatives of positivism, which was a philosophical movement, that brought faith in reason and science. In fact, the authors of this period believed that reality could be explained by science. They represented the social changes of these years: the industrial revolution, the struggle for democracy and the growth of cities. But most importantly, the writers described society just as they really saw it, with all its problems: the conditions of the workers in the factories and the exploitation of children. By doing so, they wanted to denounce these living conditions and the hypocrisy of society. The narrator was omniscient, so he could comment on the plot and say his opinions. French and Italian novelists Also french novelists described this period in a realistic way, for example Émile Zola, who is considered the father of Naturalism (which is a literary current that describes reality in a scientific way). In Italy, however, there is a current called "Verismo", which is different from Naturalism because the authors were more pessimistic and did not believe that the situation of the lower classes could improve. Also their literature, unlike Naturalism, was impersonal, which means that the author did not express his personal opinions. The most important representative of Verismo is Giovanni Verga. Charles Dickens Dickens was born in England in 1812. He had an unhappy childhood, his father was imprisoned for debt and at the age of 12 he was put to work in a factory. This experience marked his literature. When his father's financial position improved, he went to back to school. He became a parliamentary reporter and then a journalist. After his marriage he started his career as a novelist. His most important works are Oliver Twist and Hard Times • Oliver Twist is a novel of social denunciation. Dickens denounces the abuse and exploitation of children, the immorality of the workhouses, and especially the hypocrisy of society. In fact, this period people thought that unemployment came from laziness, and they saw charity as something useless that would make the situation worse. But this was just an excuse to hide the fact that they didn’t care about the poor. • Hard Times deals with the condition of the working classes and the consequences of industrialization Hard Times PLOT: Thomas Gradgring, an educator who believes in facts and statistics, has founded a school where his theories are taught, and raises his two children, Louisa and Tom, repressing their imagination and feelings. He marries his daughter to a rich banker of the city, who is 30 years older than she is. The girl consents since she wants to help her brother, who works in the bank. But the marriage proves to be unhappy. Tom, who is lazy and selfish, robs his employer but he his 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 materialistic philosophy. Setting: the novel is set in an imaginary industrial town, called "Coketown". The process of industrialization is criticized and seen as something evil, in fact the city is described as a sort of jungle: the machines of factories can be seen as mad elephants and their smoke looks like serpents. All the buildings are the same and are covered whith soot coming from the factories. In Coketown people are alienated, they all live in the same houses, walk the same streets at the same time, work and do the same things everyday. According to Dickens's description, the inhabitants' expression and way of living communicate the monotony and sadness of life in this town. People have lost their personality and look like machines. However, they seem to be proud of the polluted air of Coketown, because they see it as a symbol of productivity and progress. Themes and aim: in general, the novel denounce the condition of the lower classes, the gap between between the rich and the poor, between factory owners and workers, who were forced to work long hours for low pay and in dirty and dangerous factories. He also denounce materialism and Utilitarism: The philosophy of Utilitarism comes through the action of Mr. Gradgrind, in fact he believes that human nature can be measured, quantified and governed by reason. In his school he tries to turn children into little machines. Dickens’s aim in Hard Times is to illustrate the dangers of this teaching method called “object lesson", that was turning human beings into machines without emotions and imagination. He wanted the upper classes to be aware of the condition of the poorer classes, so he had a didactic aim.