Inglese , Summaries of English

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THE RESTORATION AND THE AUGUSTAN AGE (1660-1760)

1665 - London was struck by the bubonic plague. 1666 - a fire destroyed most of the city in four days. 1685 - James II, a Catholic, ascended the throne. 1689 - with the Glorious Revolution William of Orange and his wife Mary ascended the Throne: cooperation be- tween Parliament and crown started. the Bill of Right prevented the king from raising taxes or keeping an army without the agreement of Parliament. 1689 - the Toleration act gave freedom of worship to protestant dissenters. 1701 - The Act of Settlement forbid the throne to Catholic. 1702 - queen Anne succeeded his brother-in-law and sister. 1707 - the Act of Union: Scotland lost its independent Parliament but could sit in the house of Lords and House of Commons. 1714 - George of Hannover became King under the name of George I. 1715 - a Jacobite rebellion, organized by the supporters of the Catholic James II, broke out in Scotland. 1727 - George II succeeded his father. 1729 - John and Charles Wesley founded the religious movement of Methodism. 1737 - censorship of the theatre was introduced. 1745 - second Jacobite rising led by Charles Edward Stuart, generally known as Bonnie Prince Charlie. 1746 - in the battle of Culloden the Scottish highlanders led by Charles Edward Stuart were crushed by the English. 1756 - 63 - the Seven Years' War arising from the conflict between Austria and Prussia, and between France and Britain over colonial supremacy. 1766 - the Whig William Pitt became Prime Minister.

• New currents of thought The first half of the 17th century in Europe was characterized by the Scholasticism, based on ancient observation, logic and a representation of a geometric universe. From the middle of the century started the affirmation of a new current of thought, the natural philosophy, which studied the mysteries of the Universe. It found in England a per- fect balance between religion and science (differently from the rest of Europe), because all the great scientists were men of faith.
• Charles II (1660-1685) In 1660 the Parliament invited Charles II to return to his kingdom from exile in France, and the Republic was over. It was a popular decision because the Puritans rules oppressed the population. Charles II has a very immoral court, so when the catastrophes of the bubonic plague and the Great Fire hit the country (1665), the Puritans in- terpreted them as a God's punishment.
• The Royal society: the centre of the new philosophy was London, where, in 1662 king Charles II founded the Roy- al Society, whose motto was: nothing by words (nullius in verba), a direct challenge to the old philosophy. The simple replaced the rich, and some typical traits of the 18th century, and of the English character emerged: a prac- tical, tolerant and reasonableness mind.
• William of Orange (1689) With the Glorious Revolution, so named for the bloodlessness of the event, William of Orange and his wife Mary ascended the Throne: cooperation between Parliament and crown started. Their reign was a time of economic progress who saw London becoming the financial capital of the world. London has the larger population, his port was essential to foreign trade, and the city was important for political, social, legal and cultural reasons.
• George of Hanover (1714-1727) The dynasty of Hanover succeed the Stuarts' one with the accession to the throne of George of Hanover, under the name of George I. He was unpopular, and he preferred Germany to England, but his accession marked the begin- ning of the Augustan Age. George II (1727-1760) succeeded to the throne, and relied more of their policy on the Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole.
• Sir Robert Walpole (1721-1742) Was the first Prime Minister of England, and he belonged to the Whigs party (the opposition was composed by the Tories party). He kept England out of foreign conflicts to increase the trade. He removed the custom duties on ex- ports and on imports of raw materials.

There were already signs of the forthcoming Agrarian and Industrial Revolution; coal was mine extensively and an iron-melting process had been invented. He also set up the policy system, called bobby.

• William Pitt Entered the Parliament as an opponent to Walpole and became Prime Minister in 1766. He started mercantilist policy, to make England a strong and economically competitive country. In this period England expanded its pos- session in India, North America and the Carribeans.
• Augustan Age, a golden age The 18th was called Augustan after the period of political stability and flourishing of the arts of the Roman histo- ry. it was a materialist society, characterized by a strong individualism, where it was promoted the initiative, the en- terprise and enrichment in the economy's sector. Its political institutions, yet hierarchical and privileged, were very corrupted.
• The Thinking: this age was characterized by the Enlightened thinkers (like the philosopher John Locke), which rejected the strict and pessimistic thinking of Puritanism, promoting a liberal thought, the free-will, basing their philosophy on the optimism and on the trust in progress and human reason. A new spread of cultural debate and circulation of ideas led England to be the first country were journalism developed as a free profession (among the pioneers of journalism was Daniel Defoe with his periodical The Review). The spread of journalism began to worry politicians who were afraid that the masses, through knowledge, could gain power, so they tried to impose new limitations. After the Journalist could also to attend Parliament sessions and write about them. Also the coffee- houses were a means of spreading of news and thinking, a meeting place to exchange opinions, a circulation cen- ters.
• The Society: the century was characterized by the expansion of the middle classes. The population was divided into: the wealthy merchants, who controlled the manufacturing factories and supported Sir Robert Walpole; the artisans, who worked long hours for a very low wage; the urban masses, who had no political rights and lived in terrible conditions, and also the new urban proletariat, represented by many laborers impoverished by the en- closure system (which, however, led to the improvement of farming methods). Diseases and crime organization affected usually the poorest areas.
• The Art: there was a desire of balance and symmetry, and the artists looked for the imitation of nature, consid- ered perfected and divinely ordained. In Augustan society was searched also the virtue, and a new interest on sen- sibility and emotional side (the main trends of Romanticism).
• The Literature: the Augustan’s Age literature was characterized by the diffusion of books and the reading. Middle class is growing in importance and themes like the power of the reason and individual's trust founded expression in the novel. The novel were write in a simple language; they concerned the alteration of social status; they were characterized by a strong realism; their main character were an hero from the bourgeois who is a tradesman self - made, and personified the same author; they presented the sense of punishment (which is the message of the nov- el) characteristic of the Puritan ethic of the middle class.

Daniel Defoe (1660-1731) He was born in a family of Dissenters, and frequented the best Dissenting Academies, where he had a good educa- tion. His father wanted a religious career for him, but he devoted his life on writing. he started as a Whig journal- ist, creating the periodical The Review. He also had 2 bankruptcies before start to write political essay which granted him a good pay. He was imprisoned for his ideas, and later, when he refused these, he became a secret agent for the new government. In old age he started to write novel, which had a great success. His novels are presented like false autobiographies which pretend to be true, through the abundance of details. These are write in first-person, and the hero personifies the thought of the author. the series of episodes are linked by the hero, who's presented from his actions. His main characters appear in isolation's situations, and fighting for survival (also in the social meaning).

• Robinson Crusoe: name anglicized of the main character of Defoe's history. Born in York in 1632 of a German father and an English mother, he decides early to leave his home, his family and the father's project's about his future, to travel around the world and make his fortune by his-self. Leaving up the prospect of a comfortable life, he start to personify the typical middle-class hero of the time, and after some trips, adventures and troubles, he arrives in Brazil, where became the owner of a plantation. In an business' trip he is shipwrecked on a desert island, where he will remain for 28 years. Here Robinson has to fight to survive, completely alone, he rebuilds a new kind

of society (exaltation of 18th century England), based on the research of a proper identity and a prove of proper qualities and independence. To maintain contacts with his motherland he writes a diary and reads the Bible (reli- gion is an important theme: the research of providence and salvation, and a firm belief in God). The only human he meets there is Friday a native who he saves from cannibals, but his approach is ever like a prototype of the Eng- lish colonizer. The novel ends with Robinson's return to England and the discovery of his richness made by the propriety of his Brazil's plantation.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) He was born in Dublin of English parents and was educated there. In 1688, because of the Revolution, he left Ire- land to England. He started to work to Sir William Temple, a Whig, who encouraged him to write his first satirical works. Then he returned to Ireland and became an Anglican priest; later he will be made Dean of St Patrick's Ca- thedral in Dublin. He continues to write, also pamphlets denouncing the injustice that Ireland suffered. He was a controversial figure, who didn't share the optimism of his age and the pride in England of his contemporaries. His irony was directed against the Irish as well, who seemed passive to him in their misfortunes. He found in irony, satire and bitterness the meaning of his philosophy and a way to affirm his thought.

• Gulliver's Tavels: Swift's main satiric point of the history is to ridicule the Europeans' pretensions to rationality, Gulliver is the prototype of the proud European man, who meet new population which lives in highly organized societies and are governed by institutions, in opposition to his Europe Which is losing its civilisation and falling into a state of corruption. It consists of 4 books linked by the main character Lemuel Gulliver, who lives continuous shipwrecks and troubles:
• book1: leaving from Bristol, Gulliver get lost in the South Pacific and arrive upon the Lilliput's shore. The very little inhabitants show him their custom and institution, led by a king. After many adventures he return to Eng- land.
• book2: Gulliver leaves for India, but arrives in Brobdingnan (Alaska), country populated by giants. After many misadventures he is sold to the queen, and become's the King's pet, who love talk to him about the system of gov- ernment in Europe. He escapes, and returns back to England.
• book3: He finds the flying island of Laputa, populated by astronomers, philosophers and scientists, where he sees absurd experiments. He also meets some unhappy immortal people. He arrives on Japan and manages to go back to England.
• book4: his last voyage leads him to the island inhabited by the Houyhnhnms, horses with reason that rule over the Yahoos, a vile species of animals which look like human beings. Gulliver admires the superiority of the horses, and when he return back to England he cannot stand the smell of humanity, demonstration of the transformation caused by his voyages.

THE ROMANTIC AGE (1760-1830)

1775 - 1783: The War of American independence: Gorge Washington led the colonists against the British army. 1776: the Declaration of American Independence was written by Thomas Jefferson and signed in Philadelphia. 1784 - 1801: the reactionary government of William Pitt the younger repressed any form of radicalism. 1787: George Washington became the first president of the United States of America. 1789: the French revolution broke out. On 14th July the Bastille in Paris was seized. 1791: the radical political writer Thomas Pain wrote "The right of man" in support of the French revolution. 1793: Britain at war against revolutionary Napoleonic French. 1799: the Combination Acts declared association of workers illegal. 1800: The Irish Parliament was absorbed into the English one by the Act of Union. 1800 - 1815: Napoleonic wars, initially fought to preserve French hegemony in Europe, increasingly became a manifestation of Napoleon's personal ambitions. Britain retained naval superiority by defeating Napoleon at Tra- falgar and contributed to the epilogue of Napoleon's power at Waterloo in 1815. 1811: Luddites riots. 1 819: A mass meeting about Parliamentary reform, held at St. Peter's Fields, Manchester, was broken up with force. Known as the "Peterloo Massacre" as eleven people were killed. 1825 - 1826: Repeal of the Combination Acts. Legalization of workers' associations. 1829: Sir Robert Peel created the Civilian metropolitan police. 1830: First Reform Act.

› The ages of revolutions:

● The industrial revolution: during the last decades of 18th^ century, Britain turned from a mainly farming country into an industrial one. A great increase in population required a more efficient and quicker production. There was developed new technologies, inventions (such as machinery for cloth-making) and sources of power (such as the steam-engine which utilized the steam-power). The factories’ manufacture became cheaper and fast- er, but put many people out of work. The industrial revolution were possible also thanks the building of waterways and fast roads, which granted cheaper transport. ● The agrarian revolution: was possible using the massive enclosure of open fields and common land, and im- provement in the breeding of cattle and in farming techniques. ● The American and French revolutions: The independence of American colonies were recognized by Britain in 1783. The new Republic of the United States adopted a federal Constitution, George Washington was the first President and New York City the temporary capi- tal. The French revolution (1789-1791) brought its ideas of freedom and equality. The Revolution was followed by Na- poleon’s ascent. In 1793 French declared war and Britain defeated the French-Spanish fleet at Cape Trafalgar led by Admiral Horatio Nelson. After the disastrous invasion of Russia, Napoleon was total defeat at Waterloo (Bel- gium, 1815) where the British troops were able to overcome him.

› The literature and the culture:

● Romanticism: (Developed at the end of 18th^ century) in opposition with the faith in reason which

characterized the previous ages, the Romanticism exalted the feelings, the emotions, the sensibility, the introspec- tion, the nostalgia. Great importance was given to the individualism and the solitary state, the atypical and the re- bel (Byronic hero). There was also the belief that the natural behavior and the individual personality are better than behavior governed by the reason, and by the rules and custom society (Rousseau’s theory). the childhood and the imagination assumed a key role, because in the Romantic mind child are purer then adults, provided by an uncorrupted sensitivity, and closer to God and the sources of creation. The eye of imagination al- lowed the poet to see beyond the reason, understanding truth, beauty and freedom re-creating and modifying the external world of experience. Nature start to be felt as a real and living being, something which man couldn’t control thanks their reason. The English Romantic poet are grouped into two generations: 1 th^ generation “the Lake poets” (W.Wordsworth, S.T.Coleridge), 2 nd^ generation (G.Byron, P.B.Shelley, J.Keats)

• There was a rediscovery of the popular traditions of the Middle Ages manifested in a new taste for desolate and ruins, such as ancient castles and abbeys which increased the interest in what was wild, irrational, supernatural, horrific ( Gothic vogue ).
• There was a growing interest on humble, everyday life and social behavior of the country middle’s class. Country

was felt as a place where there could still be a relation with nature, in opposition to the industrial town ( Novel of Manners ).

› 1th^ Generation:

• William Blake: (1757-1827) when he was just ten years old his father sent him to a drawing school were

he studied Michelangelo and Raphael. Then he became the apprentice of a famous copper engraver, who gave him his sinuous flowing lines, basis of his pictorial style. He began to draw the churches of London, and developped his love for the living spirituality of Gothic style in contrast with the mechanical and materialistic classical world. He studied to the Royal Academy of Art too. Then he created his own method for print on copper combining pictures and poetic text (illuminated printing) (he created a complex personal prophetic mythology, denouncing authority inventing symbolic characters). Blake presents a very simple structure, linear and rhythmical; he stressed the power of imagination, not sense perceptions, but felt as the means through which man could know the world (this power of “divine vision” is prop- er of God, children and poets). Blake’s Christianity was not liturgical or moralistic, in fact he regarded the Church as responsible of the dualism characterizing man’s life. The dualistic view is composed by “complementary opposites” and not “contraries” without which there is no progression because are necessary to human existence (the two states coexists also in the figure of the Creator, who is God of love and also God of energy and violence).

- Song of Innocence: (1789) (written before the outbreak of the French Revolution, when enthusiasm for liberal ideas was high) collection of short lyrical verses written in the pastoral mode, the narrator is a shepherd and the poems celebrates the divine in all creation stressing the power of childhood and imagination symbols of innocence, the state of the soul connected with freedom and happiness. The language is simple and musical. (an example is “the Lamb”). - Song of Experience: (1794) (written during the Period of Terror) collection of short lyrical verses created as the opposite of the Song of innocence (not rejected by Blake) stressing a pessimistic view of life. Experience is identified with adulthood which provides another point of reality and completes childhood (“ London”,”the Tiger”)

-The Lamb

Little Lamb who made thee Dost thou know who made thee Gave thee life & bid thee feed. By the stream & o'er the mead; Gave thee clothing of delight, Softest clothing wooly bright; Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice! Little Lamb who made thee Dost thou know who made thee

Little Lamb I'll tell thee, Little Lamb I'll tell thee! He is called by thy name, For he calls himself a Lamb: He is meek & he is mild, He became a little child: I a child & thou a lamb, We are called by his name. Little Lamb God bless thee. Little Lamb God bless thee.

COMMENT

-London

I wander thro' each charter'd street, Near where the charter'd Thames does flow. And mark in every face I meet Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man, In every Infants cry of fear, In every voice: in every ban, The mind-forg'd manacles I hear

How the Chimney-sweepers cry Every blackning Church appalls, And the hapless Soldiers sigh Runs in blood down Palace walls

But most thro' midnight streets I hear How the youthful Harlots curse Blasts the new-born Infants tear And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse

COMMENT

- William Wordsworth: (1770-1850) was born in Cumberland (Lake District) where he spent most of his life and which became a great source for his natural inspiration. He had contacts with French Revolution which led him to share democratic ideals. The brutal development of the Revolution, the war between England and France and the despair of disillusionment brought him to a nervous breakdown healed by the contact with nature, rediscovered living in Dorset with her sister Dorothy, who has ever been her closest friend and supporter. Then he moved to Somerset to be near to Coleridge, friendship which led crucially to the development of English poetry. His high reputation of poet granted him the title of Poet Laureate. The last years of his life were marked by the growing conservatism of his political views and the decline of his creative power. - Lyrical Ballads; collection of poems written with Coleridge which in 1800, in his second edition, with the addition of the Worsworth preface, becomes The Manifesto of English Romanticism, affirming that poetry should deal with ordinary people and everyday life, language should be simple and more direct, nearer to purer passions. As Coleridge write about visionary topics, supernatural and mystery, Wordsworth stressed the nature beauty and importance. Thinking like a common man, about ordinary things, he shows a great sensibility, being able to found in the “ordinary” the deepest emotions and truths, showing how to understand feelings. He firmly believed that character develops during childhood as a result of the pleasure and pain causes by our physical experiences, which produced simple thoughts, which later combine into complex and organized ideas. Memory, therefore, is the major force which allowed to re-create the first emotion felt by senses and purified it in a poetic form which is a second emotion, kindred to the first one. So that we read in the poem results from the ac- tive, vital relationship of present to past experience, recollected in tranquility. The poet use blank verses and writes sonnets, odes, ballads and lyrics with short lines and simple rhymes. - Composed upon Westminster Bridge,

September 3, 1802

Earth has not anything to show more fair: Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty: This City now doth, like a garment, wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill; Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river glideth at his own sweet will: Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still!

- Comparison between Blake and Wordsworth's London The Blake and Wordsworth’s London is represented in a deeply antithetical manners. The first walk during the night through the streets of a metropolis which includes many of the modern man disease : it is a city dirty, chaotic, which seems to cry out in pain together with its inhabitants. In Blake's London power seems to have closed its eyes to the degradation that affects not only the city but also the morality of its inhabitants. For many this poem has been considered as a Blake social protest , deeply disillusioned and suffering for the moral evils of his time socie- ty. In the poetry of Wordsworth, on the other hand , the poet is located at dawn on Westminster Bridge, when the city , still asleep , seems to be part of the campaign , so it appears calm, clean and quiet. The poet's language is simple , the image of London is of a silent city , relaxed , with positive connotations. Its majestic beauty is such as to touch anyone is contemplating it. - Samuel Taylor Coleridge: ( 1772 - 1843) was born in Devonshire and he studied at Cambridge, where he never graduated. He was heavily influenced by French Revolution ideals, which made him an enthusias- tic republican. He suffered from chronic rheumatism healed with opium, which caused him a real addiction, but gave him an imagination power. In 1797 met Wordsworth and this friendship produced Coleridge’s creative ou t- puts, in fact most of his best poetry belonged to these years (The Rime of ancient mariner, his masterpiece, first poem of the collection Lyrical Ballads; Christabel; Kubla Khan). The lectures he gave on Shakespeare led to the foundation of Shakespearian criticism. Finally he settled in London, where he produced Biographia Litteraria, a classic text of literary criticism and autobiography. where he explained the dualism in the Lyrical Ballads and his task was to write about the extraordinary events in a credible way.Coleridge stressed the importance of imagina- tion over fancy (which through mere perception associate material already provided and subject of the rational law of judgment) ,distinguishing “primary imagination” (a fusion between perception and the human individual power to produce images , giving order to the chaos) and “secondary imagination”(the poetic faculty, which doesn’t gave only order to a given world, but is able to built new worlds).Unlike Wordsworth, Coleridge’s view of nature is not as a moral guide or a source of consolation and happiness. His Christian faith doesn’t allowed him to feel nature in a pantheistic way, identifying it with the divine, rather, he saw nature and the material world as the projection of the “real” world of Ideas, abstract meanings often used in his poems. - The Tyger Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies. Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain, In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp, Dare its deadly terrors clasp!

When the stars threw down their spears And water'd heaven with their tears: Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright, In the forests of the night: What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

COMMENT

- The rime of the ancient mariner

Argument

How a Ship having passed the Line was driven by storms to the cold Country towards the South Pole; and how from thence she made her course to the tropical Latitude of the Great Pacific Ocean; and of the strange things that befell; and in what manner the Ancient Marinere came back to his own Country.

PART I It is an ancient Mariner, And he stoppeth one of three. 'By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?

The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide, And I am next of kin; The guests are met, the feast is set: May'st hear the merry din.'

He holds him with his skinny hand, 'There was a ship,' quoth he. 'Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!' Eftsoons his hand dropt he.

He holds him with his glittering eye— The Wedding-Guest stood still, And listens like a three years' child: The Mariner hath his will.

The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone: He cannot choose but hear; And thus spake on that ancient man, The bright-eyed Mariner.

'The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared, Merrily did we drop Below the kirk, below the hill, Below the lighthouse top.

The Sun came up upon the left, Out of the sea came he! And he shone bright, and on the right Went down into the sea.

Higher and higher every day, Till over the mast at noon—' The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast, For he heard the loud bassoon.

The bride hath paced into the hall, Red as a rose is she; Nodding their heads before her goes The merry minstrelsy.

The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast, Yet he cannot choose but hear; And thus spake on that ancient man, The bright-eyed Mariner.

And now the STORM-BLAST came, and he Was tyrannous and strong: He struck with his o'ertaking wings,

- La ballata del vecchio marinaio

ARGOMENTO: come una nave avendo oltrepassato la linea dell’Equatore sia stata guidata da una tempesta verso il freddo Pese verso il Polo Sud; e come da là fece la sua rotta per la latitudine tropicale del Grande Oceano Pacifico; e delle strane/curiose/inspiegabili cose che accaddero; e in che modo il vecchio marinaio ritornò alla propria patria (terra natia). Un vecchio marinaio incontra tre Gentiluomi- ni invitati ad un matrimonio, e ne trattiene uno.

E' un vecchio marinaio, ed egli ferma uno dei tre. "con la tua lunga barba grigia e l'occhio brillante, perchè adesso mi fermi?"

"Le porte dello sposo sono spalancate, Ed io sono un parente prossimo; gli ospiti sono riuniti, la festa è iniziata: puoi sentire il chiasso festoso".

Lui lo afferra con la sua mano scarna; "c'era una nave", disse lui. "stammi lontano! Lasciami andare, vecchio lazzarone!" immediatamente lasciò cadere la sua mano.

Lui lo trattiene con il suo occhio scintillante - l'invitato rimase ancora in piedi, e ascolta come un bambino di tre anni: il marinaio ottiene ciò che vuole.

L'invitato si sedette su un masso; egli non può fare a meno di ascoltare; e così parlò quel vecchio uomo, il marinaio dall'occhio scintillante.

"La nave fu salutata, il porto lasciato, noi discendevamo allegramente sotto la chiesa (la poppa), sotto la collina sotto il tetto del faro.

"il sole sorse da sinistra, uscì dal mare lui! e risplendette luminoso, e sulla destra calò sotto il mare.

"Sempre più alto ogni giorno, finché a picco sull’albero maestro a mezzogiorno" L'invitato qui/ora si batte il petto, poiché sentì il forte suono dell’oboe.

La sposa è arrivata all'ingresso è vermiglia come una rosa; davanti a lei scuotono la testa(annuendo) gli allegri musicanti

L'invitato si batte il petto, tuttavia egli non può fare a meno di ascoltare: e così parlò quel vecchio uomo, il marinaio dall'occhio scintillante

"E adesso arriva la tempesta, ed essa fu tirannica e forte: essa colpì con le sue travolgenti ali, e ci sospinse verso sud.

And chased us south along.

With sloping masts and dipping prow, As who pursued with yell and blow Still treads the shadow of his foe, And forward bends his head, The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast, And southward aye we fled.

And now there came both mist and snow, And it grew wondrous cold: And ice, mast-high, came floating by, As green as emerald.

And through the drifts the snowy clifts Did send a dismal sheen: Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken— The ice was all between.

The ice was here, the ice was there, The ice was all around: It cracked and growled, and roared and howled, Like noises in a swound!

At length did cross an Albatross, Thorough the fog it came; As if it had been a Christian soul, We hailed it in God's name.

It ate the food it ne'er had eat, And round and round it flew. The ice did split with a thunder-fit; The helmsman steered us through!

And a good south wind sprung up behind; The Albatross did follow, And every day, for food or play, Came to the mariner's hollo!

In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, It perched for vespers nine; Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white, Glimmered the white Moon-shine.'

'God save thee, ancient Mariner! From the fiends, that plague thee thus!— Why look'st thou so?'—With my cross-bow I shot the ALBATROSS.

"Con gli alberi piegati e la prua immersa in acqua, come chi viene inseguito da grida e colpi ancora teme l'ombra del suo nemico, e china la testa in avanti, la nave filava veloce, la tempesta rumoreggiava fortemente e noi volavamo verso sud.

E adesso vennero la nebbia e la neve, e divenne incredibilmente freddo: e il ghiaccio, alto come l'albero maestro, si avvicinò galleg- giando, verde come lo smeraldo.

Attraverso i turbini le rocce innevate mandavano un bagliore assai sinistro: non vedemmo ne forme umane, ne bestie il ghiaccio era tutt'intorno

Il ghiaccio era qui, il ghiaccio era lì il ghiaccio era tutt'intorno: si spaccava e ringhiava, e ruggiva e ululava, come rumori di uno svenimento!

Infine arrivò un Albatros, arrivò attraverso la nebbia; come se fosse stato un anima Cristiana, lo salutammo in nome di Dio.

Mangiò il cibo che non aveva mai mangiato, volava tutt'intorno, Il ghiaccio si spaccò con un rumore come di tuono; il timoniere ci guidò attraverso!

E un buon vento di sud ci soffiò alle spalle, e l’Albatro ci teneva dietro; e ogni giorno veniva a mangiare o scherzare sul bastimento, chiamato e salutato allegramente dai marinari.

Tra la nebbia o tra ’l nuvolo, su l’albero o su le vele, si appollaiò per nove sere di seguito; mentre tutta la notte attraverso un bianco vapore splendeva il bianco lume di luna.»

«Che Dio ti salvi, o Marinaro, dal demonio che ti tormenta! — Perchè mi guardi cosí, Che cos’hai?» — «Con la mia balestra, io ammazzai l’ Albatro!

COMMENT

› 2nd^ Generation:

•George Gordon Byron: (1788 – 1824) born in an aristocratic family, he studied at Cambridge Uni-

versity, developing his artistic and satirical vein quite soon. A tour in Europe after graduating became his major source for his most successful work: Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812); thanks to that he gained literary success, and an European reputation. His scandalous and unconventional lifestyle led to criticism and his isolation and in 1816 he left England never to return. He embodied the Romantic figure unconventional and rebel against tyranny and the conventional moral rules of society: he’s self-centered, selfish, wild, an attractive outsider (Byronic hero). After a period in Switzerland (where he befriend Shelley) he went to Italy (where he wrote the Don Juan, develop- ing an interest in drama too; he also became deeply involved with the cause of Italian patriots. Byron finally went to Greece to fight the war of independence against the Turkish empire: he died of fever in the same year, before to see any action.

• His concept of nature is different from that of Wordsworth: to the calm and simplicity of the Lake District land- scape, B. preferred the majestic Alps and the Mediterranean seas. In any case he considered nature as a back- ground to the adventures of his heroes, and differently to W. pantheistic vision he believes that the prime source of man’s action is himself, his own nature.

•Percy Bysshe Shelley: (1792 – 1822) such as B. he’s born into an aristocratic family and is synony- mous of “rebellious Romantic artist”, rebel by nature, eccentric, quite anarchical, intolerant of any restriction that hindered man’s nature he rebelled against institutions (state, Church, Society) advocating love, justice, beauty, friendship and peace. He was expelled from Oxford University for writing a pamphlet about the necessity of Athe- ism. He went to Ireland working for catholic emancipation, and when he returned to England he felt in love with Mary Godwin: after he left for Europe never to return. He spent 4 years in Italy, during which 2 of his children died: however during this period he produced Ode to the West Wind (1819) where the wind is portrayed as the symbol both of creation and destruction, capable to sweeping away the old order to create a new one. He sees, like Blake the double forces of the terrible and the beautiful as complementary features of nature and of the world. Most of his poems deals with beauty and nature, expressing a sensitivity for nature similar to the Wordsworth pantheistic vein: he focuses on the sonorous qualities of nature to create the sense of beauty and melancholy. In 1822 he drowned in a sea storm in the gulf of La Spezia.

• Ode al vento Occidentale

I Oh tu Vento selvaggio occidentale, àlito Dell’essenza d'Autunno, dalla cui presenza invisibile le foglie morte sono trascinate, come spettri in fuga da un mago ,

gialle e nere, pallide e del rossore della febbre, moltitudini che il contagio ha colpito: oh tu che trasporti su di un carro i semi alati ai loro letti oscuri dell'inverno

in cui giacciono freddi e profondi come un corpo nella sua tomba, finché la tua azzurra sorella della Primavera non suonerà

i suoi squilli di tromba sulla terra in sogno e colmerà di profumi e di colori vividi il colle e la pianura, (conducendo i lievi boccioli simili a greggi a pascolare nell’aere );

oh Spirito selvaggio, la cui arte si espande dovunque, distruttore e protettore: ascolta, oh ascolta!

II Tu la cui tempesta, nel mezzo del sommovimento dell’erto cielo, disperde le nuvole come sono sparse le foglie appassite della terra scosse dai rami intricati del Paradiso e dell'Oceano,

• Ode to the West wind

I

O, WILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O, thou, Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave, until Thine azure sister of the spring shall blow

Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) With living hues and odours plain and hill:

Wild Spirit, which art moving every where; Destroyer and preserver; hear, O, hear!

II. Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion, Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed, Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,

Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread

angeli della pioggia e del fulmine, si spargono là sull'azzurra superficie delle tue onde d'aria come la fulgida chioma che s'innalza

dalla testa d'una fiera Menade, perfino dal limite fioco dell'orizzonte fino alle altezze dello zenit, blocco della tempesta imminente. Canto funebre

dell'anno che muore, al quale questa notte che si chiude sarà la cupola di un sepolcro immenso, volta sostenuta da tutta la potenza riunita dei vapori

dalla cui densa atmosfera esploderà pioggia nera, e fuoco, e grandine: oh, ascolta!

III Tu che svegliasti dai suoi sogni estivi L’ azzurro Mediterraneo, dove giaceva cullato dal gorgoglio dei flutti cristallini

accanto a un'isola di pomice del golfo di Baia e vide in sogno antichi palazzi e torri tremolanti tra la luce più intensa dell'onda,

sommersi da muschi azzurri e da fiori dolcissimi al punto che nel descriverli il senso viene meno! Tu per il cui sentiero le possenti superfici d'Atlantico

si squarciano in abissi mentre nelle profondità la flora marina e i boschi fradici di fango, che indossano il fogliame senza linfa dell'oceano, conoscono

la tua voce e si fanno (e crescono) all'improvviso grigi per la paura e tremano e si spogliano: oh, ascolta!

IV Se Fossi una foglia morta che tu potessi portare; fossi una nuvola veloce per volare con te; un'onda palpitante alla tua forza, e potessi

condividere tutto l'impulso della tua potenza, soltanto meno libero di te, oh incontrollabile! Se solo fossi com'ero nell'infanzia, e potessi essere

compagno delle tue scorribande alte nei Cieli, come quando superare la tua velocità celeste non sembrava affatto un sogno; non avrei mai lottato

così pregandoti nel mio doloroso bisogno. Oh, sollevarmi come un'onda, come una foglia o una nuvola! Cado sopra le spine della vita e sanguino!

Un grave peso opprimente nelle ore incatenato, incurvato uno a te troppo simile: indomito, e veloce ed orgoglioso.

V Fa' di me la tua lira, così come lo è la foresta; che cosa importa se le mie foglie stanno cadendo come le sue! Il tumulto delle tue possenti armonie

leverà a entrambi un canto profondo e autunnale, e dolcemente triste (dolce sebbene triste). Sii tu, fiero spirito, il mio spirito! che tu sia me, Spirito impe- tuoso!

On the blue surface of thine airy surge, Like the bright hair uplifted from the head

Of some fierce Mænad, even from the dim verge Of the horizon to the zenith's height The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge

Of the dying year, to which this closing night Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, Vaulted with all thy congregated might

Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: O, hear!

III. Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,

Beside a pumice isle in Baiæ's bay, And saw in sleep old palaces and towers Quivering within the wave's intenser day,

All overgrown with azure moss and flowers So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou For whose path the Atlantic's level powers

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear The sapless foliage of the ocean, know

Thy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear, And tremble and despoil themselves: O, hear!

IV. If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear; If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee; A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share

The impulse of thy strength, only less free Than thou, O, uncontroulable! If even I were as in my boyhood, and could be

The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven, As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne'er have striven

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. Oh! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.

V. Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: What if my leaves are falling like its own! The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, spirit fierce, My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Guida i miei pensieri morti per l'universo come foglie secche per riaccendere una nascita nuova! E con l'incanto di questi miei versi

Disperdi, come da un focolare non ancora spento, ceneri e scintille , le mie parole fra l’umanità! Sii attraverso le mie labbra terra non addormentata ma de- sta,

La tromba d'una profezia! Oh, Vento, se viene l'Inverno, potrà la Primavera esser tanto lontana?

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth! And, by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! Be through my lips to unawakened earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O, wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

COMMENT

The poem Ode to the west wind can be interpreted as a metaphor of the role of the poet as the voice of change and revolution using wind as a vehicle for spreading a liberal philosophy, enlightening humanity and liberating it from intellectual and moral imprisonment. In the first stanza the wind is described as an essence of seasonal change, as a destroyer and a preserver, and there are described its effects on earth. In the second stanza are described its effects on the air, and in the third stanza the effects on and under the sea. In the fourth stanza the poet implores the wind to lift him and rescue him from pros- tration. In the last stanza the poet identifies with the wind, becoming the prophet of an humanity's moment of change and asks the wind to sweep him out of his torpor “as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!” He transform too the wind into a metaphor for his own art, the expressive capacity that drives “dead thoughts” like “withered leaves” over the uni- verse, to “quicken a new birth", that is, to quicken the coming of the spring. Here the spring season is a metaphor for a “spring” of human consciousness, imagination, liberty, or morality. This concept of a new birth implies a nega- tive view of society and underlines the prophetic role of the poet. Shelley asks the wind to be his spirit, and in the same movement he makes it his metaphorical spirit, his poetic faculty, which will play him like a musical instru- ment, the way the wind strums the leaves of the trees.

- John Keats: (1795 – 1821) born into a family of modest origins at 14 old remained orphan. He studied

medicine but he decided to abandon his career and take up poetry. He is introduced into the literary circles of London where he met Shelley thanks to he developed his own poetic style. His beginning was not successful and highly criticized. Only after the death of his brother Keats founded his poetic genius and produced his greatest works (The Eva of St. Agnes, La Belle Dame Sans Merci, Lamia, To Autumn and other sonnets and odes). He died in Rome of tuberculosis in 1821 at the early age of 26.

• The world of ancient Greece highly influenced Keats and his poetry (since he visited the British Museum) and was fundamental for his creative activity as source of poetic inspiration. He often use figures and subjects from classical mythology to express his imagination. Unlike the others Romantic poets he completely lack of social commitment. His role as Romantic figure is confined to that of a poet intent of exploring the senses, the sensuous aspect of sensibility. He chooses themes as Love and Beauty (which he considers the source of all inspiration, the source of life and he believed that the purest beauty was to be found in ancient Greece (Beauty is truth, truth is Beauty). The main function of poetry was to transmit to his readers the sense of beauty that he was capable of feel- ing through all his senses.

● The gothic Novel: (Developed at the end of 18th^ century) the adjective “Gothic” was referred to

architecture; Horace Walpole was the first to establish a link between the two (he wrote the Castle of Otranto and the book subtitle was “ a gothic story”). This kind of novel grown on interest and popularity at the end of 18th^ cen- tury. They were characterized by :

• the importance of terror and horror, the obscurity and uncertainty (in the former), and evil (in the latter);
• the night and the darkness which are synonymous of mystery;
• the setting in isolated castles, abbeys and convents, with hidden passages and secrets rooms;
• use of supernatural beings;
• complex plots, characterized by honorable heroes who saved heroines against male characters. The exaltation of the fear present in this novels reflect the historical moment characterized by disillusionment with Enlightenment rationality and by the bloody revolutions in America and France. - Mary Shelley: (1797-1851) daughter of William Godwin, a radical philosopher inspired by French revo-

lution. After the premature death of her mother, her father contracted a new marriage with a woman who was the cause of Mary sufferings and troubles. Her house was visited by some of the most famous writers of the time like Percy Bysshe Shelley, who fell in love with the young intellectual girl. They travelled among Europe, meeting poets such as Byron (who inspired Frankenstein). In 1822 Percy died in a storm during a sail trip, in Italy. Mary re-

turned to England and continued to publish and write.

• Frankenstein : (1818) written by Mary Shelley , talks about the Dr. Frankenstein’s researches in human physiology to infuse a spark of being into a lifeless corpse. The creation of the new human being, assembled with pieces of human bodies, turns in a creation of an horrible monster, who terrifies also his creator, who runs away from him. This epistolary novel introduces the Rousseau’s theory about the natural man (the monster) who lives in a primitive state, before being influenced by civilization. M. Shelley shares with Coleridge the theme of the crime against nature, which is the Frankenstein’s creation of the monster (and the killing of albatross, Coleridge). The death of Frankenstein: in the text is presented the Walton’s last letter to his sister Margaret about the death of doctor Frankenstein, his friend, and the first meeting with the ugly creature. The last words of Frankenstein express his depression about the failure of his hopes and his creation. The monster came to visit the corpse of his creator and he reflect about his guilt. He ‘s destroyed by the guilt of his murders, including the killing of the man who gives him the life, about his deviant nature, his horrible and terrifying aspect which scary and spurns people from him. He realize the impossibility of his desire of love and fellowship. He reaches the conclusion that his life is closely connected with the one of his creator, in fact he’s his double, so the only way to stop suffering and found the peace is the death.

● The Novel of Manners: developed at the beginning of 19th^ century. The tone of society had changed, and this kind of novella are based on the premise that there is a vital relationship between manners, so- cial behavior and character. They are:

• usually set in upper and middle classes, usually in the country with few insight into town;
• they present visits, balls and teas as occasion for meeting up, the codes, the decorum and convention of daily be- haviour and the influence of money on the way people treat each other;
• they explore personal relationship but passion and emotions are not expressed directly but obliquely;
• their main themes are marriage, the complications of love and friendship within the classes distinction;
• third-person and omniscient narrator is employed; dialogue plays a central role and irony is often employed. - Jane Austen : (1775-1817) she had an uneventful life, within the close circle of her family and especially her sister Cassandra. She was educated at home by her father (rector of the church of Stevenson) and she showed an interest in literature and writing very early. All her novels had been published anonymously, her identity was revealed by her brother Henry who added at the publication of her last book a “Biographical notice of the author”. Her novels are: Sense and sensibility, Pride and prejudice, Northanger abbey, Mansfield park, Emma, Persuasion. She restricted her view of the world of the country gentry which she knew best. Her novel shows an analysis of the characters; she remained committed to the common sense and moral principles, but she shown also the spontane- ous feelings, the romantic love and the sexual attraction in conflict with the social code that encourages marriages for money. All this intensely emotional states have to be controlled and expressed in the private sphere to fulfill a social obligation. - Pride an Prejudice: (1813) is the typical Austen’s novel, concerning themes as marriage, decorum and neigh- borhood. The text reported shown a conversation between the parents of Elizabeth (Liz, the favorite daughter of Mr. Bennet) the main character: Mr. Bennet (quick and sarcastic man, disinterested in the neighborhood affairs) and Mrs.Bennet, his wife (not really smart woman, nervous and lacking in temper, interested in gossip, visits and her daughters marriage), about the arrive in the neighborhood of Mr. Bingley (a rich man) and the possibility to marry him to one of his daughters, so the necessity to visit him. - Sense and Sensibility: (1811) 3 books built around the comparison trough the story of two sisters, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood. All the facts are narrated trough Elinor’s consciousness, is an introspective novel, dialogue are less important and irony is not much used. The title present an opposition between sense and sensibility, as between reason and passion and the research of a balance. Elinor and Marianne’s character are opposite: the for- mer is cautious and control her behavior, according her appearance to social conventions; the latter refuse to con- form and express her sensitivity. The sister share the disappointment in love: in a cottage where they go to live after the father’s death, in Devon- shire, Marianne fall in love with Willoughby, an attractive and young man, and Elinor with Edward Ferras, who’s family disagree because of her poverty. The both young men leave for London, and when the sisters go there find out that Willoughby is going to marry an heiress, causing Marianne distress and a serious illness, and that Edward has been secretly engaged to a girl for 5 years. The happy ending: Edward declare to Elinor that his girl has broken their engagement so them get married, Marianne become the wife of colonel Brandon, a family friend.

THE VICTORIAN AGE (1830-1901)

1832: the First Reform Act granted the vote to almost all male members of middle classes. 1833: the Factory Act prevented children from being employed more than 48 hours a week. 1839 - 1842: the Opium War against China gained Britain access to five Chinese ports and control of Hong Kong. 1846: the Corn Laws, which maintained the price of corn artificially high to protect the landed interest, were re- pealed. 1846 - 1865: government of Lord Palmerston whose liberal politics dismantled all trade barriers. 1853 - 1856: the Crimea War between Russia vs Britain, France, Turkey and Sardinia was fought to prevent further expansion by the Russians towards Mediterrean countries. The war was notable for the nursing exploits of Flor- ence Nightingale and the pioneer war reports in newspapers. 1857: the Indian mutiny was crushed and India became a British colony. 1862: the Mines Act prohibited the working of women and children in mines. 1870: the Elementary Education Act recognized the need for general primary schooling. 1875: the Public Health Act creates the city slums and improve public health. 1877: Queen Victoria became Empress of India. 1882: Britain invaded Egypt to protect its imperial interests. It led to the annexation of Sudan. 1884: the Third Reform Act granted the right to vote to all male members of the working classess. 1899 - 1902: the Boer war was fought in South Africa between the British and the Dutch settlers following the dis- covery of gold and diamonds in Transvaal.

› Queen Victoria's reign:

has been a complex and contradictory era: it was the age of progress and inventions, stability and social reforms, but it was also characterized by poverty, injustice and social unrest. Queen Victoria had the First reform Act; the nation was identified with the queen as an example for behavior code, moral and religious views (especially for the middle class). ● The Victorians were great moralisers and they promoted a code of values referred manly to the upper and middle classes, based on personal duty , hard work, prudery (repression of sexuality), chastity (single women with a child were emarginated), respectability (distinguished the middle from the lower classes: a mixture of both mo- rality and hypocrisy, and conformity to social standards like: good manners, a comfortable house and servants, regular attendance at church), charity and philanthropy, husband authority in the patriarchal family (women re- garded the education of children and the managing of the house). ● It was instituted the Education Act (1870) which obliged the children between the ages of 5 and 10 to attend school, thanks to the Sunday schools the education is enlarged to the lower classes to teach to all strata of society personal and collective virtues. In the last two decades of Victoria's reign the key role in new state schools was dic- tated by men who emerged by public schools: they developed the new idea of manliness, physical power and sport- ing skills becomes as important as the classrooms; teams games acquired greater importance for the encourage- ment of discipline and obedience. The Victorian society produced people educated to fit their social rank and their sex role. ● Evangelicalism : known as the Victorian compromise: inspired by the teaching of John Wesley (founder of Methodism) imposed Sunday observance, a strict code of behavior and dedication to humanitarian causes. ● Utilitarianism : they neglected human and cultural values think that any problem could be overcome through reason. ● Empiricism: (Charles Dickens and John Stuart Mill) they think that legislation and mental energy are neces- sary to progress and to help people developing their talents. They stressed the importance of: popular education, arts, social reforms including trade unions organization, the extension of representation to all citizens, the eman- cipation of women. ● Darwinism: scientific discovery, in fields of geology and biology deeply shacked the moral and religious cer- tainties such as the version of the Creation given by the Bible. In fact Charles Darwin theorized the origin of the evolution where only the strongest species survived. ● The Queen always reigned constitutionally, respecting Parliament and avoiding the storm of revolutions in 1848, she had been also a mediator between the parties (liberals and conservatives). During this period the work- ers were beginning to organize themselves in Trade Unions, legalized after a strong opposition of the Government; in 1906 the Labour Party was born.

● In this period there were important imperial expansion : the British Empire extended all over the world, and the imperialistic foreign policy faced several wars to gain new territories and protect British interests. The British people began to be proud of their empire (Jingoism) and strongly Patriotist , influenced by the idea of ra- cial superiority (based on physical and intellectual differences between races). They regarded their colonial expan- sion as a mission imposed by God, to export their behavior, law and politics all over the other races. ● There were also considerable scientific and technological developments, expansion of industry and trade thanks to the increased middle class power. The Britain's leading position in the world was symbolized by the Great Exhibition of 1851 in the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, where goods from all parts of the empire were ex- hibited; the profits were used to build lots of London museums. In this period were built places of entertainment (music halls, parks, stadiums), shops, but also institutions like prisons, boarding schools, police stations. ● The Victorian political and socials reforms solved the problem linked to towns overpopulation due to ex- traordinary industrialization. The poor lived in slums, quarters characterized by squalor and crime. The death rate was high: terrible working conditions, atmosphere pollution, cholera epidemics and TB. It has been promoted a campaign to clean up the towns, were founded professional medical and research organizations, were built new hospitals. Law and order too were an important problem in towns, so were needed modern police forces to keep cities under control and the Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel established the Metropolitan Police (known as Bo b- bies).

› The American situation

● The Civil War : the political situation in America was tense because the growing split between the South, with an economy based on tobacco and cotton plantation and slavery, and the North, more industrialized. The Repub- lican Party , led by Abraham Lincoln (who won the presidential in 1860) gathered abolitionists including writers, intellectuals, religious associations. The civil war broke out in 1861 and lasted 4 years, ending in 1865 with the abolition of slavery sanctioned by the 13th^ amendment of the Constitution. However, black remained penniless and homeless; some of them migrated to the industrial cities, others remained with their old masters in the South. In this period raised new racists movements such as the Ku Klux Klan , who frightened blacks which were also seg- regated in schools, means of transport, hospitals thanks to the “black codes”. ● The American growth took place in the second half of the century increased by the Northern countries , which increased the industrialization, the technological development, creating great financial empires, and, at the same time, thanks to the discovery of gold in California and the growing settlement in the West, with the creation of the Pacific Railroad.

› The Victorian Novel: during the Victorian Age novels became the most popular form of litera-

ture also thanks to the growth of the middle class which borrowed books from circulating libraries and to the peri- odical where those where published too. The novelists depicted the society of their times with all the problems and evils (industrialization, growth of towns) making realize to the readers the injustices, but never becoming radicals. During the period between 70-80 most of novels were published anonymously ,using male pseudonyms, by wom- en (surprising in the Victorian society). Victorian novels are usually settled in the city (symbol of industrialization and anonymously); the plot is long and difficult; the retribution and punishment , it exists a barrier between right and wrong, are located in the final chapter and the entire plot is explain and justified. The periods of Victorian novels:

• Early-Victorian novel: deal with social and humanitarian themes and expressed the ideas of the age (Dickens)
• Mid-Victorian novel: persistence of Romantic and Gothic traditions with psychological veins (Brontë, Stevenson)
• Late-Victorian novel: is near to the European Naturalism; an almost scientific look on human behavior and the narrator is totally objective (Oscar Wilde, Thomas Hardy).

- Charles Dickens: (1812-1870) born in Portsmouth he had an unhappy childhood; his father went to prison and he had to work in a factory at the age of 12 (these facts mainly influenced his novels). he ralised he was a talented writer and became a newspaper reporter adopting the pen-name “Boz”; he wrote on several periodicals revealing his humoristic and satirical vein. His success continued publishing autobiographical novels: Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Little Dorrit (all dealing with themes such as exploited childhood con- fronted with slums and factories realities) , Bleack House, Hard Times, Great Expectations (dealing with social issues; the conditions of poor and working class). Most of his novels are settled in London; he describes the misery, the crime, the abuses and evils of the corrupted materialistic industrialized society. He developed a more radical view of society, but he never become a revolu- tionary thinker. The 18th^ century middle-class word is replaced by the lower classes, described by D. by the crea- tion of caricatures which describe realistically the habits and language of the modern London poor. The most important characters in D. ‘s novels are often children, indicated as teachers, models and examples in- stead of imitators. The Dickensian didactic stance educates upper classes about the poorer real situation. - Hard Times: this novel is set in an imaginary industrial town named Coketown. Thomas Gradgrind, an educa- tor who only believes in facts and statistics, has founded a school where his theories are taught, and he brings up his 2 children, Louisa and Tom, in the same way, repressing their imagination and feelings. He marries his daugh- ter to Josiah Bounderby, a rich banker of the city, 30 years her senior; the girl consents since she wishes to help her brother, who is given a job in Bounderby’s bank, but the marriage proves to be unhappy. Tom, who is lazy and selfish, robs his employer; at first he succeeds in throwing the suspicion on an honest workman, but he is finally discovered and obliged to leave the country. It’s divided in 3 books, each one divided in 3 chapters.

• The plot focused on the gap between rich and poor and the materialism of Victorian society Utilitarianism. Workers were forced to work in dangerous conditions and for a low pay, without possibilities to improve their ed- ucation and jobs skills. England is turning human being in machines trough the education system (emotionless) and the working condition, aim to exploit workers, such as machines, for the owner self-interest.

•Robert Louis Stevenson: (1850-1894) born in Edinburgh spent most of his childhood in bed be-

cause of his poor health. In his adolescence he travelled along Europe (Germany, England, Italy, France) searching for a more friendly climate. He followed his father will and frequented engineering at the University, but soon he entered in conflict with his family Victorian values and he became one of the first examples of bohemian in Brit- ain. He graduated in law and devoted himself to writing. He married an American woman and they travelled a lot. He died for a brain hemorrhage. He becomes famous during 1880s publishing: Treasure island, The strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Kidnapped, The master of Ballantrae.

- The strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: the story is told from the point of view on Mr. Utterson, a re- spectable London Lawyer and friend to the brilliant scientist Dr Henry Jekyll. He begins to questioning the odd behavior of his friend. As he investigated further into the life of Dr Jekyll, he discovers a story really horrific and terrifying: his friend has created a potion capable to releasing his evil side, Mr.Hyde. this 2 beings are in perpetual conflict and then the Hyde aspect began to dominate over the Jekyll one, giving him only 2 choices: chose a life of crime and depravity or eliminated the Hyde part by killing the whole individual; the final and only choice is the Jekyll suicide.

• The novel present a multi-narrative structure with four different point of view and narrators: Enfield, Utterson, Dr Lanyon and finally Dr Jekyll himself. The story seems to be setting halfway between London and Edinburgh, both reflecting the double nature and the hypocrisy of Victorian society (with its antithetical values and sexual re- pression): the first with the respectable West End and the slums of the East End, the latter with the new and the Old Town. This vision is reinforced by the symbolism of Jekyll house: the front, used by the Doctor, is fair; while the back side, used by Hyde, is part of a sinister block of buildings. Most scenes of the novel take place wrapper by the night, the darkness or the fog, or illuminated just by artificial lighting. The theme of the double is familiar to Stevenson: in fact the Calvinism of his mother gave him a sense of man’s divided self (and a pessimism about religion) in a good and evil sides, perfectly stereotyped in Jekyll and Hyde characters. As J. has lived a virtuous life, is handsome and harmoniously proportioned, Edward Hyde is pure hate and evil, pale and dwarfish and deform: he is uglier and smaller than J., until the evil side begins to erode his twin and grow overthrowing permanently the original balance between good and evil. - Brontë Sisters: (1818-1848) daughters of an Anglican Irish clergyman, they spent most of their life in isolation in Yorkshire. They didn’t receive a formal education, they were mainly self-educated by reading books and periodicals. To express their creativity and emotions they published a volume of poetry using a pseudonym. Each of them published also a novel the following year: Emily (Elllis) Wuthering Heights , Anne(Acton Bell) Ag- nes Grey. Charlotte (Currer) Jane Eyre. The latter has been immediately successful and C. published 2 other nov- els. The other 2 sister, instead, soon died of consumption. C. get married and died the following year for an illness due to pregnancy. - Wuthering Heights: the novel revolves around the 2 houses, Wuthering Heights and Trushcross Grange, respectively inhabited by the Earnshaw and the Lintons. At the beginning of the story Mr Lockwood, the lodger of T.G., calls on his landlord, Mr Heathcliff, at W.H.. Forced to stay the night because of a snowstorm, he has a weird dream about a girl Catherine, who is tapping on the window, asking to be let in after 20 years ofwandering on the moors. The next day Mr L. re- turn to T.G. and the housekeeper, Nelly, tells him the whole story. Mr Earnshaw, the father of Hindley and Cathe- rine, adopted a foundling, whom he called Heathcliff. Hin. ill-treated Heat. otherwise C. got on very well with him. They roamed the moors together and promised eter- nal love. One day C. was bitten by one of the Lintons’ dogs and was forced to spend 5 weeks at T.G., where she knows Edgar and Isabella, as well as their refined way of life. So when a few years later E. proposed her, she ac- cepted. She told N. she would not marry Heat. because he was social inferior. He overheard the conversation and disappeard to return only 3 years later, handsome, rich, and determinate to take his revenge. He won the posses- sion of W.H. gambling with Hin., now a drunkard; then he married E.’s sister treating her like a servant. C. died giving birth to a daughter, Cathy. Years later Heat. kidnapped Cathy and obliged her to marry his spoilt son, Lin- ton. His revenge was thus complete since he became the owner of T.G. too. Lockwood leaves Yorkshire and comes back after a year to find out that both Linton and Heat. are dead and Cathy and Hareton (Hin.’s son) are going to get married, to live in peace and happiness. Nelly tells Lockwood that there are rumors in the neighborhood about 2 figures of a young man and woman seen wandering together in the moors (Catherine and Heatcliff).
  • In the novel the death is felt not as an end, but rather as a liberation of the spirit (is representative the last scene of Catherine and Heathcliff. The novel is built around the contrasts between the 2 houses and their respective fam- ilies: W.H. reflect the Heathcliff personality (severe, gloomy, led by primitive passions, rooted in local traditions, brutal), and, in the other hand, T.G. (which reflect the Linton’s conception of life, based on stability, kindness, responsibility, bourgeois’ principles. With the final marriage between Hareton and Ca thy, it’s composed a final harmony. the novel presents a complex narrative structure; the narration doesn’t proceed according to chronological time and the flashback is often used. In the narration are employed 2 narrators: Mr Lockwood who’s outsider in the story, and write ad a journal what Nelly tells him; Nelly is the second narrator closed involved in the story. the novel marked a departure from the observation of society towards the description of the individual personality, and anticipated the novelists of the early 2oth century in narrative technique.

› The Victorian Comedy: there is a gap on the English theater between 18th^ century and late 19th,

because of the popularity of novels during this period, or the rich middle class bad consideration about drama (not considered a form of art) and actors. However during Victorian Age were built new playhouses, smaller than the previous but more luxury, comfortable and provided of more realistic effects. The typical period performances: music hall, pantomime (dramatization trough gestures and movements), the farce (funny stories), the melodrama (romantic plot). The most common features of Victorian comedy are: brilliant dialogues, humorous critic of upper class behavior and hypocrisy, caricatures of social types. The 2 most important playwrights of the end of 19th^ cen- tury are George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde.

- Oscar Wilde : (1845-1900) corn in Dublin. He frequented Oxford in Classics distinguished himself for

his eccentricity. After graduating he settled in London where he soon became a fashionable figure of dandy for his extraordinary wit and his foppish way of dressing. He edited Poems and he was engaged for a tour in U.S. as orator about Pre-Raphaelites and Aesthetes, gaining a remarkable success. Coming back in Europe he get married and had 2 children, but he was mainly interested of his notoriety as talker and fashion model in the London society. In the late 188Os he published a series of short stories and his only novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. Then he developed an interest in drama producing successful plays such as The importance of being Earnest and the tragedy in French Salomè (both the novel and tragedy was considered immoral or obscene). In 1891 he met the young and handsome Lord Alfred Douglas with whom he had an homosexual affair. The boy’s father denounced W. of homosexual practices and he was sentenced to 2 years of hard labour (while he wrote De Profundis , a letter where he explain his life whom was published posthumously). when he was released he lived in poverty in France dying of meningitis.

• W. was disciple of Walter Pater, the theorist of Aestheticism in England, accepting the theory of “Art for art sake” (only the cult of beauty could prevent from the murder of soul, artists are alien in a materialistic world). this movement, born in France, embodied the sense of frustration and uncertainty reacting to the materialistic and horribly industrialized contemporary world. Also the Pre-Raphaelite criticized the classical academic tastes re- turning to the simplicity of the Medieval Italian art (purer and simpler) looking for the relationship existing be- tween painting, sculpture and poetry. The artists escaped in a aesthetic isolation and the bohémien embodied the protest against the bourgeois life pursuing sensations and excess, cultivating art and beauty. However W. lived in the double role of rebel and dandy (which must be distinguished from bohemian): the bo- hemian transform and integrate himself with the urban proletariat; the dandy , otherwise is an aristocrat artist whose elegance is a symbol of his spirit superiority - The picture of Dorian Gray: the novel is set in London at the end of 19th^ century. The protagonist is Dorian Gray, a young man whose beauty fascinates a painter, Basil Hallward, who decides to portray him. While the young man’s desires are satisfied, including that of eternal youth, the signs of age, experience and vive appear on the portrait. D. lives only for pleasure, making use of everybody and letting people die because of his insensitivity. When the painter sees the corrupted image of the portrait, D. kills him. Later D. wants to free himself of the por- trait, witness to his spiritual corruption, and stabs it, but he mysteriously kills himself. In the very moment of death picture returns to its original purity, and D.’s face grows old and became withered. The story is allegorical; it’s a 19th^ century version of the Faustian pact with the devil. W. plays on the opposite vari- ation of the Renaissance idea of correspondence between physic and spirit; Dorian symbolize the duality and its abnegation, but at the end he’s punished for his excesses. Finally the picture restored survives people, art is eternal - The importance of being Earnest: The story is about two young aristocratic men, Ernest and Algernon, who fall in love with two young women. Ernest is now called Jack, the name assigned him when he was adopted. He is the guardian to his grand-daughter, Miss Cecily, who lives in the country under the charge of her governess, Miss Prism. Jack has invented an alter ego, a younger brother called Ernest who lives in the City. Even Algernon pre- tends to have a friend, called Bunbury, whose invalidity requires frequent attention, so ensuring his departure to the country. The story develops around the two young men’s attempts to marry Gwendolen and Cecil. They have to overcome a lot of obstacles but in the end both men, who discover to be brothers, succeed in marrying their girls.
• The play make fun of the Victorian aristocratic society and of the institution of marriage, considered a practice surrounded by hypocrisy and absurdity. It’s whole built on paradoxes, misunderstandings and witty dialogues; the title is a pun in itself: the name Earnest (honest) is a misspelling of Ernest, while none of the characters is truthful. - Symphony in yellow

An omnibus across the bridge Crawls like a yellow butterfly, And, here and there, a passer-by Shows like a little restless midge.

Big barges full of yellow hay Are moored against the shadowy wharf, And, like a yellow silken scarf, The thick fog hangs along the quay.

The yellow leaves begin to fade And flutter from the Temple elms, And at my feet the pale green Thames Lies like a rod of rippled jade.

- Sinfonia in giallo

Un autobus, attraverso il ponte Procede lentamente come una farfalla gialla, e, qui e lì, un passante appare come un piccolo e irrequieto moscerino

Grandi chiatte cariche di fieno giallo Sono ormeggiate al pontile ombroso, E, come una sciarpa di seta gialla, la nebbia fitta è sospesa lungo il molo

Le foglie gialle cominciano ad appassire E cadono ondeggiando dagli olmi del Temple Ed ai miei piedi il Tamigi verde pallido Giace come verga d’increspata giada. COMMENT The poem is a symphony but there isn’t any adjective of sound, however the musicality is expressed through the visual sensations that describe the Thames and the surrounding London in a calm and yellow autumn day (typical color of decadence). It’s Described a peaceful atmosphere, as the fog that hangs over the city wrapping it in a torpor feebly illuminated and ocre-coloured. The pace is sometimes changed in instances like when the occasional person walks and “Shows like a little restless midge.” The poet creates also a con- trasts between golden images and the dark “shadowy wharf” or “The thick fog [that] hangs along the quay,” and ultimately the yellow scenery evolves into a pale green color when he looks at the Thames that “Lies like a rod of rippled jade,” constantly moving, yet always staying in place.

- Impression du matin

The Thames nocturne of blue and gold Changed to a Harmony in grey: A barge with ochre-coloured hay Dropt from the wharf: and chill and cold

The yellow fog came creeping down The bridges, till the houses' walls Seemed changed to shadows and St. Paul's Loomed like a bubble o'er the town.

Then suddenly arose the clang Of waking life; the streets were stirred With country waggons: and a bird Flew to the glistening roofs and sang.

But one pale woman all alone, The daylight kissing her wan hair, Loitered beneath the gas lamps' flare, With lips of flame and heart of stone.

THE TWENTIETH CENTURY (1902-1980)

1906: The Labour representation Committee changed its name to the Labour Party. 1908: The Coals Mines Regulation Act introduced the eight-hours working day for the first time. 1914: Break out of World War I. 1916: The German attack at Verdun was countered by the Allies on the river Somme. Thanks were used for the first time. 1917: King George V abandoned the German title of Hanover. The name of the Royal House became Windsor. 1917: the USA entered the war. 1918: at Vittorio Veneto the British and the Italians defeated Austrians. The armistice was signed on 11 November. 1920: The League of Nations, a precursor to the United Nations, was established in Geneva. 1936: outbreak of the Spanish civil war. 1939: outbreak oh World War II. 1940; battle of Britain between British and German air forces. 1941: Germany invaded USSR. Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and the USA entered the war. 1944: on D-Day (deliverance day) the Allies landed in Normandy. 1945: Germany surrendered to the Allies. Atom bombs were dropped by the USA on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Ja- pan surrendered. World War II ended. 1945: the United Nations Organization was created. 1945: the Labour Party won the British elections under the leadership of Clement Attlee. 1946: a National Health Service gave everyone the right to free medical treatment. 1946-1973: The Vietnam War began after the breakdown of negotiations between France and Communist domi- nated Viet Minh under Ho Chi-minh. From 1961 US involvement increased considerably until 1973. 1947: India was granted independence. 1948: the national Assistance Act provided an increase of the benefits for the old, the ill, the unemployed and the poor. 1952: George VI died unexpectedly. 1953: Queen Elizabeth II was crowned. 1956: Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal. 1961: the Berlin Wall was built to separate the two halves of the city. 1962: the Cuban Missile Crisis followed the USA’s discovery of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. President Kennedy demanded the dismantling of the base and threw a naval blockade around the island. 1964: the US Congress passed the Civil Rights Act which improved the position of American Blacks. 1973: Britain joined the European Community. 1979: the Conservative Margaret Thatcher won the elections for the first time. 1980: the Republican Ronald Regan became president of the USA.

› The 20th^ century and the World Wars

● The reign of Edward VII (1901-1910) he ascended the throne after the death of Queen Victoria. The Victorian optimist let British people live in the illusion of an endless prosperity and stability, but after the atrocities of the World War I and the holocaust, the country was deeply divided in rich and poor people. The Edwardian period was characterizes by a growing wave of violence, industrial unrest and strikes (due to high prices and low wages). ● The Suffragettes: the struggle for the Woman rights existed since 1860s but only in 1903, thanks to the foun- dation of the Women’s Social and Political Union, acquired the public attention. The Suffragettes fight for the woman vote, also becoming violent or adopting hunger strike tactics. The granting of women’s suffrage came only in 1918. ● World War I involved the Central European powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy) on one side and the Triple Entente (British Empire, France, Russia and allies including USA) on the other. It broke out when the Austrian archduke Francis Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo in 1914. Germany, in or- der to attack France, marched through Belgium (a neutral territory): to defend the weaker, fighting for democracy and freedom, in August Britain declared war on Germany. Germany defeated the Allies in the first few weeks of war, because it was better equipped, with better trained soldiers and a clear plan of attack. Britain was totally un- prepared for the terrible destructive artillery (machine guns, tanks, gas, shells). The USA joined the war on 2nd^ April 1917, considering it as a crusade to make the world safe for democracy; the German defeat was accelerated and on 11th^ November 1918, Allied and German leaders signed the armistice and the Peace treaty was signed at Versailles in 1919 by the British Lloyde George, the French Georges Clemenceau, the Italian Vittorio Emanuele Orlando and the American Wilson: he proposed 14 points to prevent future wars and projected the League on Nations (which wasn’t approved by the American Senate). The war caused about 9 millions death and the ruin of 4 great empires, made possible a Communist revolution in

Russia (which overthrew the old rule of the Emperor); it also prepared the way for the rise of dictators like Musso- lini and Hitler. ● Between the wars : the 1920s and 1930s were characterized by great social transformations: thanks to birth control practices the growth of population slowed down, women acquired impendence, the light industries met a new expansion in Midlands and South. Lot of managers, professional people, working-class family, moved to the suburbs or to dormitory and council housing on the edges of the towns. In this period there was a high unem- ployment. There was a boom in the sales of daily press (such as Daily News, Daily Express), in 1920s the develop- ment of radio broadcasting and in 1926 the creation of BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation). ● The New Deal: in 1932 Franklin Delano Roosevelt became president of USA. He proposed a New Deal of re- forms (based on relief, recovery, reform) spending thousands of millions dollars on unemployed reliefs and public works. They aimed to set people to work on jobs that were useful to the community (building schools or roads). However, the New Deal hasn’t been sufficient to end unemployment (a new impulse to American factories was given by the new world conflict). ● World War II: in September 1939 Germany invaded Poland and the World War II started. In 1940 the Ger- mans invaded Denmark and Norway, making the British position critical: King George VI appointed the conserva- tive Winston Churchill Prime Minister, and thanks to his strong leadership British resistance becomes extremely determined. American intervention in 1941 (which followed the Japanese air-attack on Pearl Harbour), the advance of Mont- gomery’s army in North Africa (1942) and the Russian Campaign (which proved disastrous for the German and Italian troops) marked the turning point which granted the final victory. In 1945 Germany finally surrendered, after Hitler’s suicide in his Berlin Bunker. Britain and USA then used the atomic bomb to defeat Japan. ● The Welfare State: in 1945 the Labour Party won election and started a process of nationalization acquiring (exchanging with government bonds) the control of power (electricity, gas, coal, iron, steel), transport (airlines and railways) and credit (the Bank of England), in order to ensure the welfare of all citizens concerning health, unemployment and pensions; it decree the born of a new kind of state. ● Elizabeth II succeeded to the throne his father George VI in 1953. Especially among the young grew a sense of anguish due to the effects of the World War II and the Cold War. The loss of the colonies decreased the end of the Empire and a gradually affirmation of disillusionment. In these years arrived in England lots of Indians immi- grates, attracted by the promise of employment: that cause a wave of racism and official hostility. In the late 1970s unemployment began to spread accompanied by new social problems: race riots, drugs, violence, the new danger of pollution: thanks to the Margaret Thatcher’s govern (based on individual enterprise and re- sponsibility) English society had the illusion of a new start in 1980s.

› Culture and Society

A deep cultural crisis grew since the two last decades of 19th^ century until the first half of the 20th: it led to the end of the system of Victorian Values. A mood of frustration, cynically and uncertainty afflicted British people: stabil- ity and prosperity proved to belong only to a privileged class, consciences were haunted by the atrocities of wars and atomic bomb, the notions of imperial hegemony and white superiority were destroyed by the dissolution of the Empire into a free association of states (Commonwealth), neither religion nor science nor philosophy seemed to offer a little comfort and a right vision of the world. ● Freud began to publish his theories in 1900 in his essay “The interpretation of dreams”. He studied a new method of investigation of the human mind through the analysis of dreams and the free associations. Freud mainly studied the human psyche and the influences of subconscious on it. The subconscious is an uncon- trollable and irrational area of our mind, able to force and to influence man’s actions and behaviors: in fact exists in our mind a super-ego shaped by society, education and moral laws which can deeply distort our behaviors. He also analyzed and upset the sexuality sphere, affirming that child are not pure creatures, but they have a sexu- ality influenced also by their early development and their relationship with parents. ● The theory of relativity elaborated by Albert Einstein conceived time and space as subjective dimension. The old world view and the science certainties lost their solidity, and the scientific revolution caused experimentation in literature (about memory exploration), art and music (revolution of tone, rhythm and harmony). ● External time VS internal time: in this age of uncertainty and perplexity some creative writers reaffirmed the centrality of literature as a guide to escape from isolation, alienation and anxiety. They were inspired by the theories of the American philosopher William James, affirming that our mind records every single experience as a continuous flow, and the French one Henri Bergson, who made a distinction between historical time (external,

linear, measured and objective)and psychological time (internal, subjective, measured by the emotional intensity). ● The Jazz Age is the American 1920s, during which the national income was high, the industries prospered making vast quantities of consumer goods, the welfare of private business was encouraged; but large areas of America (south-western, Midwest, urban industrial towns) remained untouched by wealth. This period were also characterized by reactionary attitudes such as Socialism, which were sternly persecuted (also with some violence act). Another reaction were the segregation of minorities (segregated in city slums) and the restriction of immi- gration. The prohibition of alcohol (thanks to puritanical attitudes) contributed to crime and gangsterism, which produced or smuggled illegally liquors. Then in 1929 came the Wall Street Crash, a bank collapse which caused the ruin of millions businessmen, common people, factories, banks, decreeing the beginning of the Great Depression. ● The 1940s was a decade characterized by war and destruction (in the first half) and by post-war reconstruction (in the second half). The accession in 1952 of Queen Elizabeth II and the creation of the Welfare State created an atmosphere of great expectations of social justice, discarded in disillusionment when people realized that the old class system still survived. Young people looked for and found a new cultural independence actuating drastic changes about: family underwent, public decency, sexual ethics (sexual revolution, legal affirmation of homosexu- ality), the birth of rock’n’ roll music, pacific movements against nuclear research. ● The 1960s it’s a decade marked by a mood of rebellion, a quest for self-expression and liberation, movement (like the feminist) and way of thinking which granted nowadays emancipation of women, homosexual couples, possibility of cohabitation or to have children outside marriage, legal abort, contraceptive pills, premarital sex… It has been characterized by the music of Beatles, Rollins Stones, The Who; by the bazaars, by the thin models like Twiggy (the antithesis of the stereotype of female sexuality typical of the 1950s); drugs and discotheques; permis- sive films, magazines and plays.

› Symbolism and free verse: in the years preceding the World Wars there was a group of poets,

the Georgian poets, still influenced by the Victorian and the Romantic tradition; they employed the convention of diction and they sympathize for English element such as the countryside as an idyllic place. The War Poets, differently, rejected the past, preferring the unconventional, choosing an anti-rhetorical way to portrait the horrors of modern warfare. They used a violent everyday language, inventing their own vocabulary and mythology, using also foreign literature in a cosmopolitan vision. They were also influenced by the French Symbolism headed by Charles Baudelaire and his Les Fleurs du Mal: they stressed the importance of the uncon- scious and the use of evocating images. Ideas were represented in a oblique way and free verse was used to exploit the sound and musicality of words (music of ideas). The symbolism use of an allusive language and develop multi- ple association of words. Eliot stated that poetry should not be the expression of a subjective emotion but an es- cape from it (contrary to the Wordsworth’s definition “emotion recollected in tranquility”).

- Thomas Stearns Eliot: (1888-1965) born St. Louis, Missouri, was educated at Harvard, but his cul-

tural background was first English and then European. In 1910 he went to Paris studying at the Sorbonne and at- tending Bergson’s lectures, and reading French Symbolists. At the outbreak of the first World War he settled in London; then he edited an innovative intellectual magazine and became director for the publishers Faber and Fa- ber. He spent some time in a Swiss sanatorium undergoing psychological treatment (here finished the Waste Land). Then he joined the Church of England, finally finding the answer to his questioning about modern world lacking faith and religion; so expressed his new faith in a poem and two important plays (Murder in the Cathedral, Family Reunion) written in Greek tragedy verse alternated to Biblical rhythms. Finally he decided to separate from his wife (committed in a mental asylum); in 1948 received the Nobel Prize for literature. He died in London.

- The Waste Land: it’s an anthology of indeterminate states of mind, of impressions, hallucinations, situation and personalities. All the fragmentary passages seem to belong to one voice relating to a multiple personality be- yond the limits of space and time: he is Tiresias (the Theban prophet from Sophocle’s plays), the supreme repre- sentation of metamorphosis, because he experienced blindness and the life of both sexes, so being qualified to rep- resent the human knowledge. Tiresias also represents past, present and future because he came from the past, he is a deponent of the present and he is able to foretell the future. This work represents also the emptiness of feel- ings. The main themes of this work are also : alienation, present vs past, the lack of faith, the pain of be alive and the inferiority of the present compared to the superiority of the past. He is the knight from the Grail legend: he moves to a decadent London and a post-war Middle-Europe, which has been deprived of its spiritual roots.

I. The Burial of the Dead: opposition between sterility and fertility, life and death. II. A Game of Chess: contraposition between the present squalor and the past splendor. III. The Fire Sermon: is presented the theme of alienation described by a loveless, mechanical sexual encounter. IV. Death by Water: which reinforces the idea of spiritual shipwreck. V. What the Thunder said: evokes religion from all the world to found a solution to human contrasts even if it will be impossible to modify the general atmosphere of desolation.

• All these fragments represents the contrast between the fertility of a mythical past and the desolation, the sterili- ty and the alienation of modernity. Appears in the anthology references from many literary works belonging from different traditions and cultures (classical mythology, Bible, Hindu texts, medieval stories) because he condidered them the representation of the same events in different times and cultures.

The Burial of the Dead (The Waste Land)

April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow, feeding A little life with dried tubers. Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade, And went on in sunlight, into the hogarten, And drank coffee, and talked for an hour. Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch. And when we were children, staying at the arch-duke's, My cousin's, he took me out on a sled, And I was frightened. He said, Marie, Marie, hold on tight. And down we went. In the mountain, there you feel free. I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow Out of this stony rubbish? Son of Man, You cannot say, or guess, for you know only A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, And the dry stone no sound of water. Only There is shadow under this red rock, (Come in under the shadow of this red rock), And I will show you something different from either Your shadow at morning striding behind you Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; I will show you fear in a handful of dust. Frisch weht der Wind Der Heimat zu Mein Irisch Kind, Wo weilest du? 'You gave me hyacinths first a year ago; They called me the hyacinth girl.'

• Yet when we came back, late, from the hyacinth garden, Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither Living nor dead, and I knew nothing, Looking into the heart of light, the silence. Oed' und leer dos Meer.

Unreal City, Under the brown fog of a winter dawn, A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many, I had not thought death had undone so many. Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled, And each man fixed his eyes before his feet. Flowed up the hill and down King William Street, To where Saint Mary Woolnorth kept the hours With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.

La Sepoltura dei Morti (La Terra desolata)

Aprile è il più crudele dei mesi, genera Lillà da terra morta, confondendo Memoria e desiderio, risvegliando Le radici sopite con la pioggia della primavera. L'inverno ci mantenne al caldo, ottuse Con immemore neve la terra, nutrì Con secchi tuberi una vita misera. L'estate ci sorprese, giungendo sullo Starnbergersee Con uno scroscio di pioggia: noi ci fermammo sotto il colonnato, E proseguimmo alla luce del sole, nel Hofgarten, E bevemmo caffè, e parlammo un'ora intera. Non sono affatto Russa, sono Lituana, una vera Tedesca E quando eravamo bambini stavamo presso l'arciduca, Mio cugino, che mi condusse in slitta, E ne fui spaventata. Mi disse, Marie, Marie, tieniti forte. E ci lanciammo giù. Fra le montagne, là ci si sente liberi. Per la gran parte della notte leggo, d'inverno vado nel sud.

Quali sono le radici che s'afferrano, quali i rami che crescono Da queste macerie di pietra? Figlio dell'uomo, Tu non puoi dire, né immaginare, perché conosci soltanto Un cumulo d'immagini infrante, dove batte il sole, E l'albero morto non dà riparo,nessun conforto lo stridere del grillo, L'arida pietra nessun suono d'acque. C'è solo ombra sotto questa roccia rossa, (Venite all'ombra di questa roccia rossa), E io vi mostrerò qualcosa di diverso Dall'ombra vostra che al mattino vi segue a lunghi passi, o dall'ombra Vostra che a sera incontro a voi si leva; In una manciata di polvere vi mostrerò la paura. Un fresco vento Soffia verso la patria O mia fanciulla Irlandese dove ti stai attardando? Tu per la prima volta mi diedi un giacinto un anno fa; Mi chiamarono la ragazza dei giacinti.’

• Eppure quando tornammo, a ora tarda, dal giardino dei giacinti, Tu con le braccia cariche, con i capelli madidi, io non potevo Parlare, mi si annebbiavano gli occhi, non ero Né vivo né morto, e non sapevo nulla, guardando nel cuore di luce, il silenzio. Desolato e vuoto il mare.

Città irreale, Sotto la nebbia bruna di un'alba d'inverno, Una gran folla fluiva sopra il London Bridge, così tanta, Ch'io non avrei mai creduto che morte tanta n'avesse disfatta. Sospiri, brevi e infrequenti, se ne esalavano, E ognuno procedeva con gli occhi fissi ai piedi. Affluivano Su per il colle e giù per la King William Street, Fino a dove Saint Mary Woolnoth segnava le ore Con morto suono sull'ultimo tocco delle nove.

› The stream of consciousness and the interior monologue: The stream of consciousness ( the psychic phenomenon itself ) is the continuous flow of thoughts and sensations that characterize the human mind; the literary critics applied it to the 20th^ century fiction which mainly focused on this inner process. The writers of this times gave more importance to subjective consciousness, and to represent in a novel the unspoken activity of the mind adopted the interior monologue. The interior monologue ( the verbal expression of a psychic phenomenon ) is characterized by: the immediacy (dif- ferently to a soliloquy or a monologue the conventional syntax isn’t respect), is not preceded by introductory forms and lacks of rules of punctuation , exists 2 levels of narration (internal and external to the character), it’s presen t- ed the subjective time and not the chronological one and lack of logical order. It exists 3 kind of it:

• The indirect interior monologue where the thought of the character maintains logical and grammatical organiza- tion; he’s fixed in space while his consciousness moves freely in time;
• The interior monologue with 2 levels of narration (internal and external);
• The interior monologue where the character thoughts flow freely, not interrupted by external events. - James Joyce: (1882-1941) born in Dublin he received a Jesuit education. At the university he studied

French, Italian, German and English languages and literatures, graduating in modern languages (1902), he con- sidered himself as a European rather than an Irishman. In fact he thought that only a European cosmopolitan viewpoint would have been able to increase Ireland’s awareness, differently to other Irish writers which tried to create a national conscience. He established himself in Paris, then he met and fell in love with Nora Barnacle, who will gave him 2 children; they moved to Italy settling in Trieste, where Joyce began teaching English and made friends with Italo Svevo. These years were difficult because of financial problems and because of supposition about obscene elements in his prose. He moved to Zurich when Austrian occupied Trieste. Although Dubliners and A Portrait promoted him as a writer alleviating his financial difficulties. Thanks to several anonymous donations he was able to continue writing Ulysses: it was published in USA and Britain. He died in the neutral Switzerland in 1941.

• Joyce has been influenced by the style, techniques and language of French realists such as Flaubert and Baude- laire, believing, as Eliot, in the impersonality of the author who doesn’t express his point of view, but the one of his character, in order to give the truest image of life. This necessary led to the isolation and detachment of the artist from society. - The Dubliners: the collection was completed in 1905 but published only at the World War eve. Even if went into voluntary exile he set all his works in Ireland and mostly in Dublin. Joyce, explained by Ezra Pound too (a poet and literary critic who reviewed his work enthusiastically), describes Dublin in a realistic way, without falling into Dickensian caricature-style, but describing the life of the city and his ordinary inhabitants in the most veritable way. He describes these retrograde characters of Ireland, from which he escaped travelling around Europe to know better the world. Joyce is reflected by the character of Gabriel in "the dead", who feels himself estranged and oppressed by the provincialism which surrounds him, and want to leave to Paris. He es- caped from the political, cultural, economical and religious forces which oppressed the Dublin lower-middle-class: he heavily criticized the official doctrine of the provincial Church, which had taken possession of Irish minds, op- posing his aesthete-heretic vision. The stories are arranged into four groups, as Joyce explained:
• Childhood (The Sister, an Encounter, Araby)
• Adolescence (Eveline, After the race, Two gallants, The Boarding House)
• Mature Life (A Little Cloud, Counterparts, Clay, A Painful case)
• Public Life (Ivy Day in the Committee Room, A Mother, Grace)
• The Dead is a longer story and can be considered Joyce's first masterpiece. In "The Dubliners" of James Joyce there's a common structure to all the 15 short stories less the Dead. They all lack obvious actions, but they disclose human situations, moments of intensity and lead to a moral, social or spir- itual revelation. There is: ◦THE INTODUCTION: is introduced the main character, usually victim of the provincialism suffered by Ireland which isn't independent yet. Joyce presents Irish, and his characters, as slaves of an uneventful and suffocating life, imprisoned in a oppressive routine and forced slaves of Catholic religion. ◦EPIPHANY: (synonymous of Revelation) is linked to an event and comes out through the use of the Epiphany, a sudden spiritual manifestation caused by a song, a photo or by particular situation, by which the character comes to a self-realization about himself or about the reality surrounding him. So he understands to be imprisoned into a

life which doesn't allowed him to express himself. Thanks to the epiphany the character processes the desire of escape, to save himself he has to escape in a physical and psychological meaning, but this desire gets never a per- fect conclusion because of the paralysis. One of the best examples of Epiphany can be found in "The Dead", the last of the stories in "Dubliners". Gretta Conroy, in fact, cries listening to a song sung by Michael Furey, who died for her love when he was just seventeen. This leads Gabriel, Gretta's husband, to realize the futility of the lives sur- rounding him and the fact that Gretta has always compared him to Michael Furey. ◦PARALYSIS: All the Dubliners are spiritually weak and fearful people. They are slaves of their familiar, moral, cultural, religious, and political life. They accept their condition because there are not aware of it or because they lack the courage to break the mold. The moral centre is not paralysis alone but his revelation to its victims: coming to awareness or self- realization marks the story climax: the impulse to escape from the paralysis, caused by a sense of enclosure, is never brought to a conclusion, and the Dubliners never overcomes their slavery.

• Physical: an example is Eveline, who is paralyzed and unable to leave Dublin running away with Frank.
• Psychological: an example is the story "little cloud" in which Little Chandler get consciousness about his inability to breaks the mold.
• Joyce is a modern writer. The narrative style changes and the narrator is not omniscient anymore (with a single point of view), but is presented a chorus of many voices: each story is told from the perspective of each character , therefore the linguistic register is varied depending from the age, the social class and the role of each character. He transcends photographical realism since he collects and analyses the impression and thoughts of the inner world of the character: the facts becomes confused because explored by different points of view simultaneously. the stories open in medias res analyzing a particular moment, portraying the characters thanks to the introspec- tion instead than description. Time becomes subjective and not objective, because linked to the psychological changes; the accurate description of Dublin is not derived by external reality, but from the character’s mind floating. Thanks to the free direct speech and thought and the interior monologue (with 2 narration levels) the narrative appears as the extension of the thinking of the character, not mediated by the narrator, becoming a stream of con- sciousness. In this way language brake down into a succession of words without punctuation or grammar connec- tions, into infinite puns and the reality becomes the place of psychological projections, of symbolical archetypes and cultural knowledge. - " The Sisters" A boy grapples with the death of a priest, Father Flynn. With his aunt, the boy views the corpse and visits with the priest’s mourning sisters. As the boy listens, the sisters explain Father Flynn’s death to the aunt and share thoughts about Father Flynn’s increasingly strange behavior. - “An Encounter” Fed up with the restraints of school and inspired by adventure stories, two boys skip their classes to explore Dub- lin. After walking around the city for a while, the unnamed narrator and his friend, Mahony, eventually rest in a field. A strange old man approaches and talks to them, and his sexual innuendos make the narrator uncomforta- ble. Ultimately, the narrator and Mahony manage to escape. - “Araby” A young boy falls in love with his neighbor Mangan’s sister. He spends his time watching her from his house or thinking about her. He and the girl finally talk, and she suggests that he visit a bazaar called Araby, which she can- not attend. The boy plans to go and purchase something for the girl, but he arrives late and buys nothing. - “Eveline” Eveline Hill, a 19-year-old woman who works in a Dublin shop, sits inside her family's house recalling childhood, including some happy memories as well as her father's drunken brutality to her and her siblings. Eveline thinks about people she has known who have either left Ireland (a priest who has traveled to Melbourne, for example) or died (her mother and her brother Ernest), and of her own plans to leave the country with a man named Frank. She recalls meeting Frank, an Irish sailor now living in Argentina, and dating him while he visited Dublin on vacation. Eveline also thinks about her father's disapproval of Frank, and of her promise "to keep the home together as long as she could" before her mother grew deranged and died. Later, gripped by fear of the unknown and probably guilt as well, Eveline finds herself unable to board the ferry to England, where she and Frank are scheduled to meet a ship bound for South America. He leaves without her.

(Analysis: Eveline’s story illustrates the pitfalls of holding onto the past when facing the future. Hers is the first portrait of a female in Dubliners, and it reflects the conflicting pull many women in early twentieth-century Dublin felt between a domestic life rooted in the past and the possibility of a new married life abroad. One moment, Eveline feels happy to leave her hard life, yet at the next moment she worries about fulfilling promises to her dead mother. She grasps the letters she’s written to her father and brother, revealing her inability to let go of those family relationships, despite her father’s cruelty and her brother’s absence. She clings to the older and more pleasant memories and imagines what other people want her to do or will do for her. She sees Frank as a rescu- er, saving her from her domestic situation. Eveline suspends herself between the call of home and the past and the call of new ex- periences and the future, unable to make a decision. The threat of repeating her mother’s life spurs Eveline’s epiphany that she must leave with Frank and embark on a new phase in her life, but this realization is short-lived. She hears a street organ, and when she remembers the street organ that played on the night before her mother’s death, Eveline resolves not to repeat her mother’s life of “commonplace sacrifices closing in final crazi- ness,” but she does exactly that. Like the young boys of “An Encounter” and “Araby,” she desires escape, but her reliance on rou- tine and repetition overrides such impulses. On the docks with Frank, away from the familiarity of home, Eveline seeks guidance in the routine habit of prayer. Her action is the first sign that she in fact hasn’t made a decision, but instead remains fixed in a circle of indecision. She will keep her lips moving in the safe practice of repetitive prayer rather than join her love on a new and different path. Though Eveline fears that Frank will drown her in their new life, her reliance on everyday rituals is what causes Eveline to freeze and not follow Frank onto the ship. Eveline’s paralysis within an orbit of repetition leaves her a “helpless animal,” stripped of human will and emotion. The story does not suggest that Eveline placidly returns home and continues her life, but shows her transformation into an automaton that lacks expression. Eveline, the story suggests, will hover in mindless repetition, on her own, in Dublin. On the docks with Frank, the pos- sibility of living a fully realized life left her.)

- “After the Race” Jimmy Doyle spends an evening and night with his well-connected foreign friends after watching a car race out- side of Dublin. Upon returning to the city, they meet for a fancy meal and then spend hours drinking, dancing, and playing card games. Intoxicated and infatuated with the wealth and prestige of his companions, Jimmy ends the celebrations broke. - “Two Gallants” Lenehan and Corley walk through Dublin and discuss their plot to swindle a housemaid who works at a wealthy residence. Corley meets with the girl while Lenehan drifts through the city and eats a cheap meal. Later in the night Lenehan goes to the residence as planned and sees the girl retrieve something from the house for Corley. Finally Corley reveals to Lenehan that she procured a gold coin for him. - “The Boarding House” In the boarding house that she runs, Mrs. Mooney observes the courtship between her daughter, Polly, and a ten- ant, Mr. Doran. Mrs. Mooney intercedes only when she knows Mr. Doran must propose to Polly, and she sched- ules a meeting with Mr. Doran to discuss his intentions. Mr. Doran anxiously anticipates the conversation and the potential lifestyle change that awaits him. He resolves that he must marry Polly. - “A Little Cloud” One evening after work Little Chandler reunites with his old friend, Gallaher. Little Chandler aspires to be a poet, and hearing about Gallaher’s career in London makes Little Chandler envious and determined to change his life. Little Chandler imagines freedom from his wife and child, but he feels ashamed about his thoughts and accepts his situation.

(Analysis: “A Little Cloud” maps the frustrated aspirations Little Chandler has to change his life and pursue his dream of writing poetry. The story contrasts Little Chandler’s dissatisfaction and temerity with Gallaher’s bold writing career abroad. Little Chan- dler believes that to succeed in life, one must leave Dublin like Gallaher did. However, Gallaher’s success is not altogether con- firmed in this story, unless one measures his success by his straightforward, unrestrained take on life. Little Chandler compares himself to Gallaher, and in doing so blames his shortcomings on the restraints around him, such as Dublin, his wife, and his child. He hides from the truth that his aspirations to write are fanciful and shallow. Not once in the story does Little Chandler write, but he spends plenty of time imagining fame and indulging in poetic sentiments. He has a collection of poetry books but cannot muster the courage to read them aloud to his wife, instead remaining introverted and repeating lines to himself. He constantly thinks about his possible career as a poet of the Celtic school and envisions himself lauded by English critics, often to the extent that he mythologizes himself. Little Chandler uses his country to dream of success, but at the same time blames it for limiting that success. While dreaming of a poetic career may provide escape for Little Chandler, the demands of work and home that serve as obstacles to his dreams ultimately overwhelm him. Like other characters in Dubliners, Little Chandler experiences an epiphany that makes him realize he will never change his life. Looking at a picture of his wife after returning home from the pub, Little Chandler sees the mundane life he leads and briefly questions it. The screams of his child that pierce his concentration as he tries to read poetry bring him to a tragic revelation. He knows he is “prisoner” in the house. Little Chandler’s fleeting resistance is like a little cloud that passes in the sky. By the end of the story he feels ashamed of his disloyal behavior, completing the circle of emotions, from doubt to assurance to doubt, that he probably will repeat for the rest of his life. The story finishes where it began: with Little Chan-

dler sighing about his unrealized aspirations, but submitting to the melancholy thought that “it was useless to struggle against for- tune.” Circular routine plagues Chandler as it does for most of the characters in Dubliners. Little Chandler’s inability to act on his desires and his dependence on Gallaher to provide experiences he can participate in vicariously make him similar to Lenehan in “Two Gallants.” Just as Lenehan stands in Corley’s shadow, Little Chandler admires and envies Gallaher. Even when he realizes that Gallaher refuses his invitation to see his home and family out of disinterest, he keeps such sentiments to himself. In Gallaher, an old friend who has done well for himself, Little Chandler sees the hope of escape and success. This friendship sustains Little Chandler’s fantasies, allowing him to dream that Gallaher might submit one of his poems to a London paper, and allowing him to feel superior because he has foreign connections. At the same time, as the meeting at the pub progresses, Little Chandler feels cheated by the world since Gallaher can succeed and he cannot, and so once again the friend provides a barometer to measure and judge himself against. Left on his own with his books, Little Chandler must face his own shortcomings. “Counterparts” After an infuriating day at work, Farrington embarks on an evening of drinking with his friends. Even though Farrington pawns his watch to replenish his empty wallet, he finds himself spending all of his money on drinks for himself and his companions. Growing more and more frustrated, Farrington almost explodes when he loses an arm-wrestling match. At home later that night, Farrington vents his anger by beating his son.)

- “Clay” On Halloween night, Maria oversees festivities at the charity where she works. Afterward, she travels to the home of Joe Donnelly, whom she nursed when he was a boy. Along the way Maria purchases sweets and cakes for Joe’s family. When she arrives at the house, she realizes she has somehow lost the special plum cake she’d bought. After talking, eating, and playing Halloween games, Maria sings a song for the Donnellys. - “A Painful Case” Mr. Duffy develops a relationship with Mrs. Sinico at a concert in Dublin. The two meet often for long chats and become close, but Mr. Duffy cuts off the relationship when Mrs. Sinico makes the intimate but chaste gesture of taking Mr. Duffy’s hand and putting it against her cheek. Four years later, Mr. Duffy reads in a newspaper that Mrs. Sinico has died in a train accident. He feels angry, sad, and uneasy as he remembers her, and he finally real- izes he lost perhaps his only chance for love. - “Ivy Day in the Committee Room” A group of men working as street promoters for a mayoral candidate meet to discuss their jobs and escape from the rainy weather on Ivy Day, which commemorates the death of Charles Stuart Parnell, the influential Irish poli- tician. The men complain about their late paychecks and debate politics. Conversation eventually turns to Parnell and his political endeavors, and one of the men, Hynes, recites a poem he wrote in memory of him. - “A Mother” An Irish cultural society organizes a concert series with the help of Mrs. Kearney, the mother of one of the per- formers. Mrs. Kearney secures a contract with the society’s secretary, Mr. Holohan, so that her daughter is en- sured payment for her piano accompaniment. A series of logistical changes and failed expectations infuriate Mrs. Kearney, and she hounds the officers of the society for the money, making a spectacle of herself and her daughter. - “Grace” After an embarrassing public accident, Tom Kernan is convinced by his friends to attend a Catholic retreat. The men hope that this event will help Mr. Kernan reform his problematic, alcoholic lifestyle. At the service, the pre- siding priest preaches about the need for the admission of sins and the ability of all people to attain forgiveness through God’s grace. - “ The Dead” A professor and part-time book reviewer named Gabriel Conroy attends a Christmastime party thrown by his aunts (Kate and Julia Morkin, grand dames in the world of Dublin music) at which he dances with a fellow teacher and delivers a brief speech. As the party is breaking up, Gabriel witnesses his wife, Gretta, listening to a song sung by the renowned tenor Bartell D'Arcy, and the intensity of her focus on the music causes him to feel both senti- mental and lustful. In a hotel room later, Gabriel is devastated to discover that he has misunderstood Gretta's fee l- ings; she has been moved by the memory of a young lover named Michael Furey who preceded Gabriel, and who died for the love of Gretta. Gabriel realizes that she has never felt similarly passionate about their marriage. He feels alone and profoundly mortal, but spiritually connected for the first time with others. The symbolisme is very important: during the dinner is presented a distinction between the wild goose and the captivity one, because the lattest has the wings clipped, and is compared to Gabriel who feels as unable to be free. The snow symbolizes pa- ralysis, and is comparized to the dead: Gabriel is attracted and at the same time scared by the cold immobility of the snow

- George Orwell: (1903-1950) (Eric Blair) born in India, son of a colonial official. Taken to England by his mother, he was educated in public schools, but he couldn’t accept the lack of privacy, the humiliating punish- ments, the standardized conformation to the values and the discipline, the forced spirit of competition which characterized the English education; he began to develop an independent individuality and a personal way of thinking, and professed atheism and socialism. In 1927 he leaves as an officer in Burma ( Burmese Days , 1934, re- ports the colonial service experience). Back in London he started a social experiment to directly experience pov- erty and learning how institutions for poor works (hostels, prisons, hospitals): he wore second-hand clothes and lived in common lodging houses in East-End. When he was in Paris (where he worked as dishwasher) he began publishing his work under the pseudonym of George Orwell: his experience among the poor has been described in Down and Out in Paris and London (1933). Then he married Eileen O’Shaughnessy, who shared his socialist and literature interests. In the same year (1936) they went to Catalonia to report the Spanish Civil War, joining the mi- litia of the POUM (Worker’s Party of Marxist Unification) and fought in Aragon front (in Homage to Catalonia , 1938, are stressed the themes of socialism, brotherhood and equality). when the World War II broke out, Orwell moved to London and in 1941 he joined the BBC, broadcasting cultural and political programs to India. He also became literary editor of Tribune and published in 1945 (when the Iron curtain began to fall on Eastern Europe) Animal Farm , which made him internationally known. His last book, Nineteen Eighty-four (1949), was his most original novel. He died of tuberculosis the following year.

• O. style and work’s are marked by the conflict between his middle class background and education and his emo- tional identification with the working class; he chose to reject his education to establish a separate identity. He was a book-reviewer, critic, political journalist and pamphleteer. He tried to define the role of the writer in his essay Inside the Whale (1940), analyzing that the writers of Twenties concerned themselves with language to express a tragic, post war pessimism; those of the Thirties deals with social purpose and left-wing sympathies. He believed that writers should be totally independent because they interpreted reality and therefore served a useful social function. He analyzed and criticized the modern society ,thanks to his various experiences abroad and his unusual outsider view, in a Dickensian mode: using a realistic and factual language. He insisted on tolerance, justice, de- cency, fraternity, the struggle against misery, human deprivation, the artificiality of human civilization; strongly criticizing totalitarism and its complete violation of liberty. - Nineteen Eighty-Four: the novel describes a future England, Airstrip One, no longer the head of an Empire, but an outpost of Oceania, a vast totalitarian system including North America, South Africa, and Australia. The country is ruled by the Party, which is led by a figure called the Big Brother. The work is divided into 3 parts; Part One introduces the main character, Winston Smith, in the contest of a regimented, oppressive world; Part Two describes his love for Julia, and the temporary happiness their relationship brings to both; art Three deals with Winston’s imprisonment and torture by the Thought Police, and the final loss of his intellectual integrity.
• Orwell combined different genres and style to produce a documentary realism enriched by parody and satire. The tone of the novel is pessimistic and violent, portraying a country in perpetual war, describing a grotesque, fright- ening and squalid London whose inhabitants are beings private of their privacy, constantly controlled by the eye of the Big Brother (thanks to monitors called telescreens) and therefore the control of the Party. It has an absolute control: press, communications, propaganda, history (is changed to fit Party interests and policy), thoughts, lan- guage (is introduced a new and official language, the Newspeak, which doesn’t allow people to express their own ideas): any form of rebellion is persecuted and punished with prison or torture. It is an anti-utopian novel because describes a society and a possible future that are anything but ideal. It seems that beauty, truth and all the finer emotions and values belongs to the past. Winston Smith is the last man to believe in human values in a totalitarian age. He represents the typical English man, and he experiences alienation from society and feel a desire for spiritual and moral integrity. He works at the Ministry of Truth and to maintain his intellectual integrity and his sanity in this fake and disorienting world, he writes in private in an old diary.