VICTORIAN AGE / ETÀ VITTORIANA, Appunti di Inglese

Scarica VICTORIAN AGE / ETÀ VITTORIANA e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! VICTORIAN AGE 1 VICTORIAN AGE 5.1 Queen Victoria’s Reign Queen Victoria When Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837 she was just 18 years old. She was to rule for almost 64 years and gave her name to an age of economic and scientific progress. In 1840 she married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. An Age of Reform The First Reform Act (1832), also called the Great Reform Act, had transferred voting privileges from the small boroughs, controlled by the nobility and gentry, to the large industrial towns. The Factory Act prevented children aged 9-13 from being employed more than forty-eight hours a week. The Poor Law Amendment Act (1834) had reformed the old Poor Laws, dating from Elizabeth I. Workhouses The idea behind the workhouses was that awareness of such a dreadful life would inspire the poor to try to improve their own VICTORIAN AGE 2 conditions. Workhouses were mainly run by the Church and provided accommodation for the poorest members of society. Chartism In 1838 a group of working-class radicals drew up a People's Charter demanding universal manhood suffrage. No one in power was ready for such democracy and the Chartist movement failed. But their influence was later felt when, in 1867, the Second Reform Act enfranchised urban working class. The Irish Potato Famine The potato famine was caused by bad weather and an unknown plant disease “from America”. The Irish crisis forced the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, to abolish the Corn Laws in 1846. These laws kept the price of bread artificially high to protect the landed interests. Technological Progress In 1851 a Great Exhibition, organised by Prince Albert, showed the world Britain’s industrial and economic power. The building of the London Underground started in 1860 and railways started to transform the landscape and people's lives. More than 15,000 exhibitors from all over the world displayed their goods to millions of visitors. Foreign policy In the 19th century, England was involved in two Opium Wars against China and fought the Crimean War. The most lucrative colony of the British Empire was India, which became known as the Indian Mutiny after rebellion against British rule. Britain also supported some liberal causes, like Italian independence from the Austrians. The Liberal and the Conservative Parties VICTORIAN AGE 5 humanitarian; and the spirit of moral unrest made it inquisitive and critical. The Novelist’s Aim Didacticism was one of the main features of Victorian novels, because novelists also conceived literature as a vehicle to correct the vices and weaknesses of the age. The novelists were aware of the evils of their society, such as the terrible conditions of manual workers and the nexploitation of children. The Narrative Technique The voice of the omniscient narrator provided comment on the plot and erected a rigid barrier between “right” and “wrong” behaviours, light and darkness. Retribution and punishment were to be found in the final chapter, where the whole texture had to be explained and justified. Setting and Characters Most Victorian novelists preferred the setting for their characters to be the city of London, as it was the main symbol of the industrialisation and expression of anonymous lives. Types of Novels The novel of manners: it kept close to the original 19th- century models. It dealt with economic and social problems and described a particular class or situation. A master of this genre was William M. Thackeray; The humanitarian novel: Charles Dickens’s novels are mostly admired for their tone, combining humour with a sentimental request for reform for the less fortunate. They constitute the bulk of what is generally called the “humanitarian novel” or the “novel of purpose”; The novel of formation: the Bildungsroman (novel of formation or education) became very popular after the publication of VICTORIAN AGE 6 Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Ere” and Dickens’s “David Copperfield”. These novels dealt with one character’s development from early youth to some sort of maturity; Literary nonsense: a particular aspect of Victorian literature is what is called “nonsense”, created by Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll, with his famous novel “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”. Women Writers A great number of novels published during the mid-Victorian period, up to 1870-80, were written by women. Middle-class women had more time to spend at home than men and could devote part of the day to reading. However, it was not easy to get published, and some women used male pseudonyms. The Realistic Novel Darwin’s theory of evolution influenced the structure and organisation of the realistic novel. Coincidences were fully exploited to solve the intricacies of the plot, and chance played a Darwinian role. Thomas Hardy and George Eliot were two of the best representatives of the Victorian realistic novel. The Psychological Novel Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” was written in the Victorian Era. It tried to capture the monstrous, illogical aspects of Victorian life. Stevenson seems to be concerned not only with every individual but also Victorian society as a whole. Colonial Literature Here it is legitimised the belief that literature was the task of the white man, and especially the British, to carry civilisation and progress to the peoples of the world. VICTORIAN AGE 7 5.10 Charles Dickens Life and Works Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth in 1812. He had an unhappy childhood and, when he was twelve years old, his father was imprisoned and he was forced to work in a factory. He was moved to a London school once his family situation improved. He got a job as an office boy in a lawyer’s office when he was 15 and went to night school to learn shorthand. In 1833 he published his first story, and in 1836 he published “Sketches by Boz”, a compilation of essays and tales about London’s people and places, under the pen name “Boz”. It was quickly followed by “The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club”, that highlighted Dickens’s humoristic and satirical qualities. In April 1836, Dickens married Catherine Hogarth, and the following year, he became editor of Bentley's Miscellany and released the second series of Sketches by “Boz”. Dickens began a full-time novelist with the success of “The Pickwick Papers”, generating work of growing complexity at an extraordinary rate, while still continuing his journalistic and editing responsibilities. “Oliver Twist” was first published in 1837 and continued in monthly installments until April 1839, the same year he released “A Vicholas Nickleby”. When Dickens visited the United States in 1842, although being a republican, he was quite critical of the country. His “American Notes”, published in October of that year, argued for worldwide copyright and the eradication of slavery. “Martin Chuzzlewit” was published in 1844, one year after Dickens’ first popular Christmas book, “A Christmas Carol”. Oliver Twist (1838), David Copperfield (1850), and Little Dorrit (1857), the characters of his autobiographical books, became icons of an exploited youth confronted with the harsh reality of slums and industries. Other works that deal with the poor and working class in general include Bleak House (1853), Hard Times (1854), and Great Expectations (1861). Dickens had gathered adoring audiences to his public appearances VICTORIAN AGE 10 Setting The fictional city of Coketown stands for a real industrial mill town in mid-19th-century England. It is a sort of brick jungle: the machines of factories are like mad elephants, and their smoke looks like serpents, all the buildings are the same, as they are trees. To some, the black residue that wraps up the town may symbolize industry; to others, it may just be depressing. Structure Hard Times is divided into three books, and each book is divided into separate chapters: Book One, “Sowing”, shows us the seeds planted by the Gradgrind/Bounderby education: Louisa, Tom and Stephen Blackpool; Book Two, “Reaping”, reveals the harvesting of these seeds: Louisa's unhappy marriage, Tom's selfishness and criminal ways, Stephen's rejection from Coketown; Book Three, “Garnering”, is linked to the dominant symbol of instability, which is no longer the solid “ground” upon which Mr Gradgrind's system once stood. Characters The philosophy of Utilitarianism comes forth largely through the actions of Mr Gradgrind and his follower Bounderby: as the first one educates the children, the second one treats the workers in his factory, both considered emotionless objects easily exploited for their own self-interest. Mr Gradgrind believes that human nature can be measured, quantified and governed entirely by reason, and he tries to turn children into little machines that behave according to such rules. Dickens's primary aim in Hard Times is to illustrate the dangers of this teaching method called “object lesson”. There, VICTORIAN AGE 11 form acquired more importance than, leading to lessons where humans were actually dehumanised. A Critique of Materialism Hard Times focuses on the difference between the rich and the poor at Dickens's time, between factory owners and workers, who were forced to work long hours for low pay in dirty, loud and dangerous factories. As they lacked education and job skills, these workers had few options for improving their terrible living and working conditions. This novel uses its characters and stories to denounce the gap between the rich and the poor and to criticize the materialism and narrow-mindedness of Utilitarianism, which was the basic Victorian attitude to economics. Hard Times suggests that 19th-century England was turning human beings into machines by avoiding the development of their emotions and imagination.