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American Revolution George III do an heavy taxation of the American colonies. The colonists had no representation in the British Parliament. (slogan: 'No taxation without representation) Boston Massacre (1770)—> when British soldiers fired into the mob during a riot. Boston Tea Party (1773)—> the Sons of Liberty, who destroyed an entire shipment of tea sent by the East India Company. The colonists' protest was against the Tea Act of May 1773, which obliged them to buy tea from British companies and to pay heavy taxes on it. The colonists boarded the ships and threw the chests of tea into Boston Harbour. Further acts of protest were soon followed by the First Continental Congress (Philadelphia - 1774). War between loyalist (no army) and patriots (with a small army, helped by France). On 4 July 1776 America declared its independence of Great Britain. Treaty of Versailles 1783 —> Britain accepted the independence of the United States of America, but maintained its control of Canada. 1789 —> Washington became first president of the United States. French Revolution (1789-94) against the old social order (against king, absolute monarchy and the privileges of the aristocracy). Ideals of equality, fraternity and liberty. Britain joined the first anti-Revolutionary Coalition (with Austria and Prussia) and went to war with France. At the Congress of Vienna of 1815 the victorious nations (England, Russia, Austria…) re-established the old order in Europe. The Industrial Revolution:
- the Agricultural Revolution —> connected to the industrial revolution; technical innovations improved farming (crop rotation and open fields) allowed an increased production and a larger population;
- (^) the increase of the population allowed an increase in cheap labour and in larger number of consumers; less work for farmers, so they go to the city ( mushroom towns —> they go in the suburbs, with a bad hygiene, infant mortality and women exploitation)
- possessions abroad and imperial expansion provided access to cheap raw materials (there was plenty of coal and iron in Britain) —> POLLUTION
- technological innovation —> textile inventions, the steam engine, an efficient transport system;
- free trade theory according to which the government should not interfere with the market and with the economic laws of 'supply and demand'. This policy favoured the middle class, but caused great distress among the working class and the poor. The Factory Act (1833) —> tried to improve the conditions of children working in the factories; it forbade the employment of children under the age of nine and the daily hours of those under 13 were limited to eight, while 'young persons' under 18 were not to work more than 13 and a half hours. Abolition of slavery. Wilberforce was a member of Parliament and an evangelical Christian. Thanks to him, the slave trade was finally abolished in 1807. This did not free those who were already slaves. The Slavery Abolition Act (1833) gave freedom to all the slaves in the British empire. English romanticism Period between French Revolution and Queen Victoria crowned in 1837.
Word accepted at the end of 18th century because of dissatisfaction with the ideas of Enlightenment. Values :
- Irrational part of human life;
- nature is considered a substitute for traditional religion; a vehicle for self-conscious (nature helps people to discover what they truly are); helps to have a vision; expressive language;
- the tendency to use a meditative tone, which reflects the poet's desire to retire from the world and think about universal themes (death, nature and melancholy);
- the treatment of unusual themes such as 'the exotic', 'the strange', 'the sublime ' (the feeling provoked by the contemplation of something dangerous and beautiful); LYRICAL BALLAD (manifesto of English Romanticism) : Wordsworth —> (1770-1850) born in the Lake District; fought in French Revolution and shared its ideals; he had a crisi when the French Revolution changed in brutal dictatorship; In his ballads he shows the beauty of Nature; in the "Preface" he explained to write in a simple way to be understood by ordinary people; THE MAN and THE NATURE are inseparable; Nature it's a sort of pleasure and conforts man in sorrow and teaches man to love and act in moral way. It is linked with sensations which later become organised ideas; The purpose of the poet is to pay attention to the ordinary things and show men how to understand their feelings. (DAFFODILS) The Nature for him is a source of joy and inspiration. The poet is the guide and the child (because they have innocent eyes) are the only ones who can understand nature. Nature is divine and the world of sense of perceptions. Coleridge —> Supernatural visionary topics; his purpose is to write about extraordinary events. He distinguished in:
- Primary imagination—> human individual power to create imagination and the power to give chaos a certain order.
- Secondary imagination —> the poetic faculty that gives order but build new worlds. Nature for him, is not Christian like Wordsworth, but it's a universal force; Nature and material world are a prophecy of the real world of ideas. The abstract meaning of Nature is used by him in his visionary poems. Politically conservative, addicted to opium ( Kubla Khan written under the influence, set in a distant, ancient, oriental setting); ”The rime of the ancient mariner” —> moral ballad because there is a moral teaching at the end; made up of 7 parts: 2 different levels of narration; misteriously atmosphere (supernatural + real); the mariner kills an albatross (affords spirit of Nature—> begins the punishment: sun hotter and hotter, no rain and no wind); The mariner tells his story at a wedding party; the mariner who committed a murder against Nature, will be saved because at the end of the ballad admired some sea snakes. The four main trends of the Romantic novel were:
- Gothic novel —> concept of 'the sublime' and contained gloomy elements, murders and mysterious events; Frankestain (Modern Prometheus)
- Novel of manners —> individual freedom and social conventions, the relationship between marriage and love, and friendship. The limits imposed by social conventions on feelings, and of the conditions of the life of women. Jane Austen
- Novel of purpose —> Mary Shelley
- Historical novel —> Manzoni, Promessi Sposi Burke and The Sublime
Repeated question (the answers are in the 2nd stanza). The structure of the poem consist in 2 Stanzas, each one with 5 rhyme couples. Repetition : in the first and last couplet of each stanza; turns into a reframe and give the poem its song. Alliteration : it's the repetition of similar sound. This technique puts emphasis on particular frases and gives the rhyme to the poem. ("Little Lambs") Poet offer repeats of the same word in a single line to underline a particular idea. THE TIGER —> THEMES: power of creation/ repeated rhetorical question/ he referred to the mythos of Hycarus and Prometheus; Six stanzas in rhyming couplets (rima baciata AABB); The TIGER is the opposite of the LAMB and the poet doesn't understand why is possible that GOD created both. Jane Austen —> did not put her name to her novels: Austen’s self-imposed 'anonymity' shows that Austen's times writing was still perceived as a manly activity and represents her attempt to overcome a prejudice imposed on her by society. She was the first woman in England to transform writing into a professional activity. Austen's novels are the best examples of the novel of manners. His characters dealt with universal themes such as self-realisation, prejudice and social conventions. Her focus on the conflict between emotion and romantic love and a rigid social code. Narrative style—> Austen used irony as an instrument to highlight social hypocrisy; Another typical element of Austen's novels was the happy ending, which usually corresponded to the marriage between the two protagonists of the story. Pride and Prejudice —> this story is about the turbulent relationship between Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy. Only when the two manage to overcome their own 'pride' and 'prejudice' can they discover the truth about each other and get married. Pride and Prejudice reflects the era's typical obsession with marriage. Marriage is therefore of vital importance in a society where women have no financial independence and marriage is the only way they can obtain financial and social stability. BYRONIC HERO —> This iconic figure was a character who exercised great fascination and mysterious seductive power. This figure is prominent in works like Childe Harold and Manfred. Gothic Novel —> like adjective applied to architecture 1st and after to literature. The first writers was Horage Walpole (“The castle of Otranto”-1744).
- Terror/horror—> obscurity of atrocity - Night/castles/mysterious abbeys - Complex plot - Supernatural beings - Heroines/exaggerated passions - Sensitive heroes Mary Shelley —> Frankenstein (1816, published anonymously in 1818) tells the story of the scientist Victor Frankenstein who succeeds in giving life to his own creation. However, this is not the perfect creation he imagines that it will be, but rather a horrible creature who is rejected by Victor and mankind in general. Frankenstein's monster can be seen as a symbol of this 'primitive man' uninfluenced by civilisation that overcame the nature’s secrets. Usurpation of the female role like mother. Shelley sympathies with monsters—> beings who suffers social prejudice but she is worried about the consequences of his actions.
Literary influences by Rousseau’s natural man—> monster like modern Prometheus (against God’s power) —> this poem is a clear reference to the myth of the Greek giant Prometheus. Prometheus stole the fire from the gods and gave the knowledge of fire to humanity and was then eternally punished for his act. Prometheus was chained to a rock where his liver was eaten away every day only to be regenerated nightly due to his immortality. Narrative structure (epistolary novel)—> different narrations:
- Walton wrote to his sister.
- Frankenstein wrote to Walton.
- Monster wrote to Frankenstein. Victorian Age - Historical Background Queen Victoria: longest reign in British History (1837- 1901)—> the reign where the sun never goes down. Fifth in line for the crown when she was born, she became queen in 1837 and married his cousin. They had 9 children. She never identified with aristocracy=she was very near commoners) She restored the reputation of the Monarchy and she shaped a new royal family connected with the public. Social reforms —> Britain became the “workshop of the world” Factory acts —>
- REFORM BILL (1832)—> landlord class is forced to share power with the male middle class.
- REFORM BILL (1867)—> suffrage extended to workers in town.
- (1884)—> right to vote for workers in mines and agricultural workers.
- EDUCATION ACT (1870)—> elementary education becomes obligatory
- TRADE UNION ACT (1875)—> trade unions are given full legality, following the cancellation of the CORN LAW. Problems:
- Great urban poverty—> Agricultural Depression
- social injustice
- urban problems—> London slums become overcrowded, bad working conditions and pollution
- contrast between the wealthy and the poor
- inequality between men and women—> Victorian women fighting Industrial and technological advance:
- Railway Age: metropolitan railway, penny postal system, telegraph and new buildings (gothic revival);
- it was a time of industrial prosperity
- Medicine—> modern hospitals built
- its culmination was "The Great Exibition” of 1851—>15 miles goods from Empire and scientific news are shown, made by Paxton, use of iron+glass, with the obtained money they built the Albert and Victorian museum. The new political parties: (1892) the Independent Labour Party formed 1. Liberal Party: evolution of Whigs, major representative: GLADSTONE, was more interested in domestic affairs and politic reform, responsible for the third Reform Act (1884)
taken full control after the Congress of Vienna. Many of the Boers who refused to live under British rule moved northward to establish 2 Independent republics were found to be rich in diamonds and gold. In fear the Boer declared war but the British were given supremacy over the 2 republics. Trade depression:
- Late Victorian Age—> England was confronted with growing threats to its military and
economic supremacy from the industrialising countries—> this led to a Trade depression
- Traditional Parties—> no longer satisfied the electorate. Socialism (Karl Max) was one
of the remedies. Fabian Society (1884) differed from marxism because it believed that it put faith in gradual reform rather than in revolution. Victorian Compromise: moralities —> personal duties/hard work/respectability and chastity. PRUDE (bacchettone)—> ex. furniture legs covered -> DECORUM—> Strict ideas about authority. Victorian society had a dark side and ambiguity. Society respected its moral code and puritan attitudes. Sex was considered taboo in the upper class and bourgeoise in contrast with prostitution, gambling and drugs use (opium) were common in Victorian London but well hidden under a veil of discretion and hypocrisy. By the end of century a reaction against the traditional values of Victorian society, its superficial self- complacency and its hypocritical respectability. Literary works—> theme of DOUBLE. Social Darwinism: pessimistic view of human existence, affirmed that humans’ life in society was a struggle for existence. This theory served to justify laissez-faire capitalism and conservatism—> because it affirmed that inequality and poverty were natural. Darwinism —> “ origin of species ”(1859)—> the strongest survives (natural selection). Theory of Evolution —> all living creatures have taken their forms in a process of change and adaption in a struggle for survival. Men evolve like other animals. Some environmental factors prevented some species from unlimited reproduction, others were able to always reproduce and survive—> perpetuate the species. Darwin: (1809-1882)
- he thought that humans and animals had ancestors in common. - Wealthy family, he went to Edinburgh university to study medicine, but he preferred natural history. - He travelled to South America, the Galapagos and the Pacific Island, where he was able to study geology, botany and zoology. - Died from an heart attack in London—> buried in Westminster Abbey. The feminist question: most part of Queen Victoria reign—> women’s education aimed at making them good wives and mothers. In the second part-> women began to question Victorian values and to emerge as a political force. The aim of the first feminist was to get better education for the middle class and eventually to vote. Women—> under father/ husband. This issue is covered in the works of female writers of his time. Women question, the victorian debate about gender—> Queen Victoria had mixed opinions: 1. Believed in education for her sex, gave support and encouragement to the founding at a college in 1847; 2. Opposed to the concept of women voting + thought that the woman was supposed to be submissive and believed in the inferiority of her own gender. The American civil war: (1861-1865) question of slavery become a dominant issue and was creating issues between north and south.
Abraham Lincoln (anti-slavery republican) was elected in 1860, the delegates of the souther states secede and left the Union (creating an independent government of the “Confederate states of America”. The government of the us (the Union) declared the Confederacy. April 1861—> a confederale attack signed the beginning of a Civil War. Confederale—> based their hopes on the support of Britain and their cotton economy. The Union—> could count on a better supply of weapons. During the war—> Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation (1863)—> which freed all slaves in enemy territories. The war came to an end after the surrender of the confederates, in a conflict where they lost half a million lives. Lincoln was assassinated—> New President Andrew Johnson —> had to reconcile. Reconstruction Act (1867)—> South readmitted to the Union 14th Amendment (1868)—> American citizenship to farmer slaves 15th Amendment (1868)—> black men were given the right to vote Literary context: Victorian Novel: perfectly embodied the moral values, religious beliefs and contradictions of the time. Two main trends:
1. Victorian Compromise—> authors aimed to instruct and entertain readers without criticising the world they lived in. Characterised by man’s belief in goodness faith in science and progress of human nature and social-economic develop. Attempt to combine a realistic represent of problems with an adventurous tone and moral aim. 2. Anti-victorian reaction—> authors strongly criticized the values of their era and exposed the contradiction. Influenced by Darwins’ theories about evolution. Birth of Realism—> European literary trend: authors describing the world without opinion. Realism writers were influenced by Positivism: they see life in a pessimistic way and aimed to represent it objectively. The reason of triumph of novels: - Increasing numbers of people who can read. - Increasing numbers of people who can afford buying books in circulating libraries. - 19th century readers looked for book entertaining+realistic plot - Novels were small books—> portable and reading them anywhere. - Victorian novels were often published in newspaper. Common features:
- Novels have a clear moral aim.
- Novels represent human conditions in a realistic way. - omniscent narrator - deeper analysis of characters - Plot are complex, usually adventurous and in the final chapter everything is explained Early victorian novelist:
- Realistic portrait of society
- Most of them set their poems in London so they could represent the contradiction of industrial revolution.
- The aim of their poetry was to educate their readers. DICKENS: (1812-70) - The greatest Victorian novelist of cities—> " Hard Times ” - Unhappy childhood—> he worked because his father was in prison. - 1832—> Reporter of Parliament.
VICTORIAN MORALITY AND A HAPPY ENDING: Oliver's happy ending comes as a result of the discovery of his true identity, Dickens' description of the hypocrisy of Victorian England does not change: Oliver simply returns to his rightful status. Theme of education:
1. Dickens: a pioneer to introduce the theme of education, he wanted for each one, but he didn’t offer strategies. He didn’t study regularly. He spoke with the minister about his idea of education, but criticized teachers and methods. In “Hard Times”—> the “object lesson” begins from children’s experience: Grandgrin, the teacher, repress the imaginations. 2. Brontë: self educated—> reading books in father’s library. To publish she used a pen- name (Jane Eyre). She moved in different institutions each one according the Victorian standards. Late victorian novelist: - Criticism became stronger and realism more evident. - Writers didn’t accept the victorian compromise, they used prose to denunce the evils of society. - The dark side of this age was made visible through novels that centered around the idea of divided-self and the quality of human nature. - They rejected early victorian trend because too optimistic, they have a pessimistic and aestheticism way to see life. OSCAR WILDE: (Dublin, 1854-1900) - Leading figure in the aesthetic movement—> first and most important dandy: refined and elegant man with a particular attention to his appearance, clothes and style. The dandy often used his spirit to shock other people and to unmask the absurdities of Victorian moralism. - Went to USA to explain aesthetic movement —> art is neither moral nor immoral. Beauty in itself is a supreme value. - Had an affair with Lord Douglas whose father accused him of homosexuality, for this he was imprisoned. After he was released he was sad and broken man and went to live in exile in France. He wrote: (his dramas and novels considered obscenity—> prevented by appearing on stage) - “The Canterville Ghost”—> short stories - “The importance of being Ernest”—> drama play - “The portrait of Dorian Gray”—> set in the end of 19th century, in London. Narrative technique—> 3rd person, characters are revealed by their actions. Plot: Dorian Gray is a rich and beautiful man who sacrifices his soul to stay young forever, while the image of him in the portrait becomes old. So he continues living his life until he’s eaten by guilt and stabs the portrait, killing himself. - Class beauty—> allegorical, 19th century version of Doc. Faustus by Marlowe (a man sends his soul to evil for knowledge) - Style and narrative technique: the novel combines the supernatural elements of the Gothic novel with French decadent fiction. 3rd person narrator, Wilde uses dialogue to reveal his characters' personalities. The main symbolic element is the portrait, which represents Dorian's conscience and his real self. AESTHETICISM: Features: - language of the senses;
- excessive attention to the self; - Hedonistic attitude; - Disenchantment with contemporary society; - No didactic aim; - Perversity in subject; The theorist was Walter Pater (1839-1894), he influenced a lot Oscar Wilde: - He rejected religious faith - Art is the only way to stop time—> “life as a work of art”—> the task of the artist is feeling each kind of experience deeply. Art is not didactic and moral. STEVENSON (1850-1894): His life: Scottish, childhood in bed because of his health, educated in terrifying Calvinist ideas, he was one of English bohemian rejected Victorian world, was eccentric had got long hair. He married an American women and settled in Australia. His masterpiece: The strange case of Dc. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: Dc. Jekyll , a respectable man that transform himself into his alter-ego: Mr. Hyde an anti-victorian creature (evil genius made by science) and the bad part Dc. Jekyll tried to repress. Dichotomy between good and evil. When the Dc. realises that Hyde is stronger, instead of choosing Hyde’s way of living in crimes, decides to kill himself. (the story is told from different perspectives) The symbolic setting : the setting is London, its dark corners in the fog, most of the action take plays at night because that is the time when Hyde operates—> night and fog are symbols of obscurity, symbolising Dr Jekyll's dark side as embodied by Mr Hyde. Even Dr Jekyll's house represent the duality of his owner: the front door which Dr Jekyll uses, while the back door used by Hyde. The passage for Jekyll's laboratory is a passage between two worlds: the world of respectability and the world of evil. **DOUBLE concept:
- STEVENSON** —> Double concept = the idea that every human being has a double nature. Dc. Jekyll , a respectable man that transform himself into his alter-ego: Mr. Hyde an anti-victorian creature and the bad part Dc. Jekyll tried to repress, but "built" by science. Mr Hyde is the result of strict moral life in Victorian Age. Dangerous + good (like Shelley= Stevenson’s works continued the traditions of Gothic novel). Linked to Victorian Compromise. - WILDE —>“ The portrait of Dorian Gray ”—> manifesto of English Aestheticism. The bad side of the character, based on aesthetic ideas. Was considered scandalous and immoral. His appearance remains beautiful and innocent, but he is not innocent and beautiful inside, as the portrait (his double, the dark side of his personality). Instead, Dorian's double life is only a sign of his hypocrisy; he uses his innocent appearance to be accepted in society. Thomas Hardy —> Tess of the D’Urbervilles: PLOT: The story counts the tragic life of Tess, who becomes the victim of the men she meets. Working for the D'Urberville family, she is raped by Alec D’Urberville. She becomes pregnant but her baby dies soon after birth. Tess then finds a new job and meets Angel Clare, she falls in love with him and marry him. Tess thinks that Angel should know about her past and writes him a note which she slips under his door but the letter finishes under the carpet and Angel never receives it. On their wedding night both of them confess their pasts, while Tess forgives Angel, he cannot forgive her. Angel left Tess and went to Brazil. Years later, Angel returns and is ready to forgive Tess but it’s too late. In
His style—> capture the diversity of people and cultures in British-dominated India, adopting the point of view of officials, soldiers and Indians. He explored the moral problems of the Anglo-Indians in their relationship with the colonised. He wrote about his beliefs: white people need to rule and teach other submitted people. He was criticised for being a defender of British imperialism. (Superiority like Robinson Crusoe—> his relation with Friday) Hawthorne: his life—> born in 1804 in Massachusetts. Old Puritan family with a protective mother: isolated childhood. He married and moved to Concord where he became involved in the Transcendental Club, a group of American intellectuals in New England. He was appointed American consul in Liverpool, but by 1852 he had returned to his home in America. The Scarlet Letter (1850)—> story of Hester Prynne, a young woman in 17th-century Puritan New England who has an illegitimate child by a pastor. Shamed by her sin, Hester is forced to wear a red letter A, identifying her as an adulteress and is rejected by the people of her town. Hester refuses to reveal the identity of the father. Her husband, Roger Chillingworth, wanted to discover the identity of her lover, while the pastor, Arthur Dimmesdale, is tormented by his sense of guilt. Dimmesdale finally confesses publicly before dying. At the end of the novel Hester decides to seek a new life for her and her daughter. His style—> coherent with the Puritan culture (themes of sin, guilt and revenge). He didn’t use symbolism to confirm the Puritan values, but to overturn them. In the course of the narrative, the Scarlet A meaning 'Adulteress' gradually changed its meaning to represent the word 'Able', which is in fact what Hester really stood for: strength and humanity as opposed to the moralism of the community. Dimmesdale, the pastor, was supposed to represent spiritual guidance, was a sinner unable to confess his sin, while Chillingworth, the supposed victim, was in fact a persecutor blinded by hate. His stories are set in America's past but they offer a universal and timeless analysis of the individual conscience and the pressure applied by a strict moral code. Historical context - The third great era of reform: The death of Queen Victoria (1901) marked the end of a long era of stability: Edward VII became Britain's monarch, the Liberal Party won the General Election (1906) and the Party remained in power until 1915. They elected 29 members of the new Labour Party—> the government improved the lives of the working class with the establishment of old-age pensions to keep the elderly poor out of the workhouses and the introduction of a National Insurance system under the working classes were insured against illness and unemployment. Suffragettes : At the beginning of the 20th century a woman's destiny was still to marry young, stay at home and have children (patriarchal and misogynistic society). The Women's Social and Political Union was formed in Manchester (1903) by Emmeline Pankhurst, they demanded the same political rights as men for women. Emily Wilding Davison was the martyr of the movement: she threw herself in front of the King's horse at the Epsom Derby (1913). Women finally started to work in agriculture, transport and industry to support the war effort while men were fighting in Europe. After the war The Representation of the People Act of 1918 finally granted voting rights to all women over 30 who were property owners. In 1928 the right was extended to women over 21, on the same terms as men. The Irish Question : The British government had promised Home Rule to Ireland, but with the outbreak of the Great War this question was postponed. A group of rebels, led by Eamon de Valera and the Sinn Féin (nationalist party), staged the Easter Rising in Dublin (1916). After a week of fighting, the British forces quelled the rebellion. Years of bloody conflict between the Irish and the British in Ireland led to the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922 (followed in 1937 by the creation of Ireland).
WWI (1914-1918) involved :
- the rivalry between Austria and Russia for influence in the Balkans;
- the rivalry between Britain and Germany for commercial and naval supremacy;
- the rivalry between France and Germany after the Franco-German War (1870). France and Germany are looking for strength among their allies, Germany formed the Triple Alliance (Austria-Hungary and Italy), and France with Russia. Britain prided herself for her Splendid Isolation but, when Germany began to build up his own navy, the Prime Minister, Balfour, negotiated an Entente Cordiale with France: a deal where each country would support the other in the event of an attack. When Russia joined in, the agreement became the Triple Entente (1907). King Edward VIl died in 1910 and was succeeded by George V. The immediate cause of the WWI was the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo by Jugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Prinzip (06/ 1914 ). Germany's invasion of neutral Belgium and Luxembourg and its march on France obliged Britain to step in to defend Belgium and King George V declared war on Germany on 28/07/1914. Italy entered the war on 24/05/1915, siding with the Triple Entente. Conscription in Britain was imposed (1916): including poets who founded inspiration for poetry in their experience, moving from initial sentiments of patriotic pride to feelings of disgust and rejection of war. USA joined the war in 04/1917 and Germany was finally defeated on 11/11/1918. This was followed by the Treaty of Versailles signed in Paris on 28/06/1919, leaving empires destroyed, national boundaries moved and economic hardships that would contribute to the rise of new dictators like Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. Remembrance Day (aka Armistice Day) marked the end of the WWI. At 11 am on 11th/11 every year, two minutes of silence is observed to remember all the people who have died in WWI. Between the Wars : after the WWI Britain fell into economic and industrial decline (the most affected sectors was the mining industry: coal). 1926: the mine’s owners tried to solve the problem by reducing the workers pay and increasing their working hours. The miners decided to go on strike: supported by workers in many other sectors (transport, printing and heavy industry). On 1/05/1926, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) announced a general strike that paralysed Britain. The Prime Minister, Baldwin, declared the strike an attack on Britain's democracy, and the Roman Catholic Church declared the strike a sin. The armed forces moved to escort and protect food lorries, while volunteers got some buses back on the roads and trains on the rails. One week later, the TUC abandoned the strike and its members went back to work, the miners continued alone until November, when they too returned to work, defeated. The TUC was ruined and the Trade Disputes Act made general strikes illegal. The Great Depression and crisis in the 1930s : Britain and the rest of Europe were also hit by the Great Depression which followed the Wall Street Crash in 10/1929, because USA reacted to the Depression by putting up custom barriers to stop imports of foreign goods. By 1931 about three million men were unemployed, mainly in the heavy industry (coal, iron, steel, shipbuilding) that had not modernised after the war, and had been affected by competition from other countries. The south east of England enjoyed some prosperity, leading to an increase in house building and the purchase of domestic appliances and cars. The British Broadcasting Company (BBC) was founded in 1922, supplementing the growing numbers of newspapers (the only means of communication). 1935 saw the creation of Penguin Books, which brought literature to the population at economical prices. The rise of totalitarianism : the Russian Tsar was executed, and a revolutionary government took over (1917). The trauma of the WWI and the Great Depression led to the emergence of fascist or totalitarian political movements in Italy, Germany and Spain. Leaders such as Benito Mussolini and Hitler were seen as strong dictators who could put
- new concept of time: subjective/inner; absence of a week-structured plot; It’s no the passing of time that explain the real character.
- multi-layered and complex narration, rejection of traditional grammar and punctuation; use of free verse, complex vocabulary and concepts. - theme of unconscious: no omniscient narrator; very important subjective consciousness; Complexity of human mind: the writer tries to render its complexity and to express subjective, rather than objective truths. Britain and Modernism: Eliot , Woolf and Joyce : their main works dealt with the representation of the unconscious. Used of the Stream of Consciousness technique as a means of expressing the complex workings of the human mind. The writers in the 1930s were deeply influenced by the historical events (Spanish Civil War (36-39), economic depression and the expansion of Nazi power) (Auden and Thomas). Eliot : was born on 1888 in St. Louis, Missouri and he studied at Harvard University and at the Sorbonne. Considered one of the leading figures of the Modernist movement, his great poetic masterpiece is The Waste Land. Eliot was impressed by the French Symbolists (combine intellectualism and sensuous language). His works presented a wide range of cultural references and he used a variety of techniques (pastiche/juxtaposition). His early work created images of disillusioned modern man and his psychological fragility in the years after the First World War: a lonely, intellectual figure who was incapable of expressing himself in the ruins of modern culture. His later poems became less pessimistic as Eliot explored art and spirituality. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. The Waste Land : five parts, each with a different title and theme:
- The Burial of the Dead: presents a series of juxtapositions, between life and death, fertility and sterility, hope and despair.
- A Game of Chess: theme of the sterility of modern life in contrast with the splendour of the past.
- The Fire Sermon: theme of love, which is presented as fruitless sexual desire.
- Death by Water: decomposition of a drowned sailor in the sea and further develops the theme of modern sterility.
- What the Thunder Said: theme of the spiritual journey of humanity through the desert of modernity. The title suggests the idea of a possible revelation, which never comes. The poem is written in free verse, with experimentation in the choice of the verse form, in the length of lines and in the use of punctuation. The language is varied and contains tones from the solemn to the colloquial. Eliot's poem rejects any kind of narrative structure and contains different themes (best examples of Modernist poetry). Eliot's poem is full of references from ancient and classical sources (Dante, Shakespeare, Bible), all of these are represent the relics of a world that has been destroyed by modernity. The result is a poem in which boundaries are blurred, meanings are not clearly defined, characters are not clearly represented and events cannot be easily located in a specific time or place. The title refers to the situation in Europe after the Great War, seen as a cultural and spiritual desert. The only hope that can be found lies in personal responsibility and a faith in cultural continuity based on European values. We can found the juxtaposition between the contemporary world and the world of classical myths: he makes references to the myth of the Holy Grail (cup which was used to collect Christ's blood and which became a symbol of man's spiritual quest for salvation) to the myth of the Fisher King (legendary figure of a king whose sexual impotence casts a spell on his land). Similarly to what Joyce does in Ulysses, Eliot uses these ancient myths to add a layer of spirituality to the squalid reality of the modern world. Eliot uses the objective correlative : he doesn’t describe the sterility of Western civilisation in clear terms, but juxtaposes a series of incoherent images and symbols whose aim is to produce the idea of sterility in the reader's mind. The
purpose of the objective correlative is to express a character's emotions by showing rather than by describing them and to create emotion through external factors and evidence. Woolf: in her works she shows the influence of the theories of Proust and Freud. Woolf used the stream of consciousness technique in her novels: linked to the theme of suicide and subjective and objective time. Subjective time is the time when the character fights with their feelings. Woolf's novels are like mental voyages which centre around the contrast between inner life and external reality. When her mother died Woolf had a serious nervous breakdown. She founded the Bloomsbury Group. Mrs Dalloway (1925): The story of Mrs Dalloway takes place on one single day in London. Clarissa Dalloway, is busy buying things for the party she has organised. The narration follows her thoughts and her actions. Septimus Smith, a veteran of the war is Clarissa's counterpart. The novel ends with Septimus' suicide. She is deeply shocked and realises that Septimus' death was essential for her to stay alive. The novel ends with Clarissa's realising that she felt glad that he had done it. Both have the same problems but in different ways. Joyce is to be considered one of the greatest representatives of Modernism. Was born in Dublin. Dubliners (1914) is a collection of short stories written in a naturalistic style, and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), semi-autobiographical: the protagonist of the book is Stephen Dedalus, a young artist who rebels against his country, his family and religion and leaves Ireland in a sort of self-imposed exile to find freedom. Ulysses (1922) reproduces the structure of Homer's Odyssey (contemporary epic narration). The narration follows the actions of Leopold Bloom (modern Ulysses), who wanders through the city of Dublin in one single day. Through the use of the stream of consciousness technique Joyce enters Bloom's mind and allows the reader to follow his fragmented thoughts, sensations and perceptions. Joyce's literary works reveal his complex relationship with Ireland: even though he left Dublin in 1904, Joyce's works are all obsessively set in Ireland, Joyce’s self- imposed exile gave him the chance to represent Ireland with an objective distance. Ireland was also his main source of inspiration. Dubliners is divided in 3 parts: childhood, adult, irish and the problem they have with politics (irish question), he always speak about Dublin, he sees it like a dead town without movement in the mind and in the soul, and he has to escape from Dublin, but when the character understand that are in this mood they are in epiphany: they understand the bad situation and they trying to overcome it, but they’re not able to grow up. Interior monologue : Joyce/Virginia Woolf; they use it to represent the unspoken activity of the mind—> Stream of consciousness =psychic phenomenon itself, is the continuous flow of thoughts and sensations that characterize human mind. Its main aim was to render the free flux of thoughts of the characters without any intervention of the author. It was achieved through the fragmentation of the character's perspective, the breaking of syntactic and grammar rules, and the overlapping of past and present events. The idea of the 'stream of consciousness' in literature was the result of the interactions of a series of:
- the influence of the theories of Sigmund Freud and the revaluation of the role of the unconscious;
- the theorisation of the difference between objective and subjective time made by the French philosopher Henri Bergson;
- a new conception of human consciousness as described by the American philosopher William James;
- the sense of anxiety, fragmentation and loss caused by the experience of the WWI; The works of Modernist writers attempted to express the instability that characterised the turn of the 20' century (describe the world were put in doubt by psychoanalysis and the
stylistic experimentalism and by the attempt to use literature to explore the hidden recesses of the human mind.
- James —> point of view of one single character, adopting the narrative consciousness technique. James and Conrad started to undermine the idea that the self is a stable and fixed entity.
- Conrad —> human experience and the nature of human consciousness, used multiple points of view. Conrad was born in Poland, he became an officer of the British merchant navy and his nomadic life on the sea was his main source of inspiration for his books. In Heart of Darkness he uses a fictional sailor and narrator. His stories of maritime, colonialist adventure present philosophical depth, and often represent a single human being confronted with the need to make important decisions. His use of multiple narrators and points of view constantly experience and the difficulty of judging men's actions. He does a penetrating analysis of colonialism. Conrad and Forester speak about africa and the dark part of the way of living, he believes that colonialism was a bad type of government.
- Forester —> contrast between different cultures, was particularly interested in colonial issues. He thinks that Indian people know that was better compare Indian e European culture and live together. Unlike Kipling, who was a supporter of British colonialism and gave voice to the idea of the superiority of British culture, Forster was more critical towards colonialism, underline the cultural clash between colonisers and the colonised.
- Orwell 's Animal Farm and 1984 or Huxley's Brave New World, best examples of dystopian novelist, anticipated science fiction, representation of degraded futuristic societies in which humanity is oppressed. The term dystopian is used to refer to novels that are set in a nightmarish fictional world (opposite of utopian works, which represent an idealised world).
- Orwell’s Animal Farm is a grotesque representation of Russian society, but not only. Pigs who make the revolution against the peasant (dictator), start to propagate the fact that they are all equal but end up being like men. In 1984 he reverses the dates in the year in which he wrote it, there is no freedom, if you tend to think of encounters of consequences. Big Brother decides to decrease words and reduce vocabulary, because the more words you have, the more you can think and can give your opinions. Orwell inspire by Marx idea they need something like opium and they use Russian government, explain in Animal Farm that the best way of government is not let people to think. He spoke in a vocabulary that was reduce because less you know, less you think.
- Huxley : he fused his novels with the essay, thus creating the “novel of idea”, in his works, conversation is prevalent; he wrote about his time, criticising the English bourgeoise and governments. 3 main periods: 1920: provocative novels considered obscene by critics (social satire), appreciated by the younger generation. Early 1930: political and ethical subjects, he participated in debate on the role of science in a world dominated by violence and totalitarianism. Middle 1930-1950: in 1937 Huxley moved to the United States and became interested in Indian religions, in the 50s he had a psychedelic experiences with drugs. Brave New World : set in London in 2540, human life is mainly industrialised and controlled by leaders of a World State. They aren’t allowed to have ideas of their own, but the State guarantee them happiness thanks to a drug. Bernard Max, the protagonist, goes with Lenina, a beautiful woman, to the Savage Reserve, an old village where people still live as they used to in the past. They take John, one of the savages, to London, but he is shocked by the artificial and far from spiritual values of the new society and commits suicide, while Bernard is exiled for his conduct. In this novel Huxley foresees a tragic future of self-destruction for
Western civilisation. The themes of the novel are the use of technology to control society and individuals, the threat of totalitarianism and authoritarianism, the dangers of materialism and consumerism and the concepts of happiness and truth. In all societies, it’s not thinking that makes a difference, for those who no longer think and are governable. He wrote about soma, a kind of drug, that people take and they seem happy and they don’t think. If you have a dictartoship is important that people don’t think.
- Lawrence —> his Sons and Lovers or Lady Chatterley's Lover was influenced by Freud's theory. His novels combine a realistic description of the conditions of life of people in England and a provoking analysis of the psychological implications of family bonds and sexual impulses.
- Freud —> (1856) jewish, lived in Vienna, university of medicine, interested in complex operations of the mind—> he created a structural model of the psyche:
- ID—> Set of impulses, lacking organisation = CAOS
- EGO —> the coordinated and realistic part
- SUPER EGO—> (D’Annunzio misrepresent) critical+moralizing; role including constructions imposed by society/moral laws. It distorts man’s behavior. Human psyche linked to subconscious, men’s actions motivated by irrational forces. The effects of Freud’s theories were deep:
- the relationship between parents and children was altered;
- the Freudian concept of infantile sexuality focused attention on the importance of early developments and childhood;
- the conventional models of relationship between the sexes were readjusted;
- his method of investigation of the human mind through the analysis of dreams and the concept of "free association’’ influenced the modern writers.
- The idea of the instability of the self had been introduced by Freud , whose The Interpretation of Dreams formalised the concept that consciousness is multi-layered and that reality exists only as it is perceived by the self. Emily Dickinson (1830, Massachusetts) she dressed only in white, refused to see most people and became known as a reclusive eccentric. Interested in the Civil War and Abolitionism. Her poems are characterised by extreme economy of expression and linguistic compression, her language is concrete, and refers to the natural world to convey abstract meanings. Use of paradox and unusual metaphors to surprise the reader. Punctuation is also highly personal (dashes). Themes: Puritanism and the Bible were at the root of her preoccupation with death, the afterlife and eternity. Influenced by Transcendentalism which looked for meaning in nature, the pursuit of personal and universal significance in the natural world. Modernism : cosmopolitan literary and artistic movements that violently reacted against late-19th-century values. Attempt to rebel against the past and create new forms and styles in art, literature and music. The main movements were:
- Futurism: rebelled against the past and decomposed the subject to create a sense of dynamism in painting;
- Cubism: fragmented the subject into geometrical and abstract shapes;
- Expressionism: distorted forms and by radical experimentation in the use of colours to convey an idea of anxiety;
- Surrealism: importance to the world of the unconscious and use of art. The American novel :
- Faulkner —> the major representatives of American Modernism, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, his masterpiece The Sound and the Fury represents the clash
