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English Romanticism To express the difference between Augustan or Neoclassical Age and Romanticism the metaphors of the mirror and the lamp were used. In fact before the 18th century the creative process was based on the imitation of the external and universal truth, like a mirror which reflects the object by using the reason. After the 18th century, during Romanticism the art started basing on the creation of the individual and inner truth by using the imagination, like a lamp which makes a contribution to the objects that it perceives. So it’s defined the shift from the witty imitation of classical models to the subjective search for new patterns. In the Augustan Age man, society and all things were conceived immutable and obeying a mechanistic process. Reason was the supreme faculty by which they were knowledgeable. The new spirit of Romanticism championed the elements which the Augustan Age had devalued: imagination, the individual and nature. The Industrial Revolution had a big impact on society by creating a mass-organization and regimentation of the individual. In this new environment man feels a sense of estrangement. So he perceived nature as an organic structure endowed with its life and admired its wilderness and simplicity, opposed to the complications of urban life. The artist used nature to be inspired, to excite his emotions and to be brought into contact with the absolute and the divine. So a pantheistic concept of nature spread. The French Revolution had awakened the individual consciousness to new values and ideals to attain improvement and welfare and to destroy any kind of injustice. For the romantic artist the main feature of man was the imagination which expresses the awakening of the individual and by which the artist became an active creator, stopping the mere imitation. In this creative process the artist felt the necessity to overcome the limits of human nature and social conventions, showing a titanic attitude. In addition another element of this period was the revolution of the Middle Ages during which national identities and national literature started developing, religious feeling emerged and the appreciation of old stories surrounded by mystery had their origin. Moreover taste for exotic and unusual and for the supernatural as a condition beyond human limits towards the infinite and the absolute spread. The English romantic poets are divided into two generations. The poets of the first generation as Wordsworth and Coleridge greeted with enthusiasm the French Revolution and wrote poems to arouse the individual consciousness and to purify vision of life. The poets of the second generation as Lord Byron and Shelley traveled around Europe to highlight their opposition to contemporary society, its conventions and rules. They carried to an extreme their emotions and imagination, their idea of freedom and rebellion and took refuge in an exclusive cult of beauty. William Blake, isolated from the other poets, had a too extreme vision of an absolute integration of man to be fully understood.
MARY SHELLEY Mary Shelley was born in 1797.She was the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin. Both were influenced by the ideas of the French Revolution. Ten days after Mary's birth her mother died. Godwin's house was visited by some of the most famous writers of the day, like Coleridge. Mary fled to France. In 1815 Mary gave birth to a baby girl, who died a few days later. Shelley decided to rent a country house on the banks of Lake Geneva at Villa. Diodati. Mary wrote Frankenstein. The initial inspiration was a waking dream or nightmare. The Shelleys left for Italy. They moved to Florence where Mary gave birth to a son. After some time Percy and his friend set sail in a storm and were found drowned ten days later. Frankenstein The plot of the novel is very simple: Frankenstein, a Swiss scientist, creates human beings, who turn out to be ugly and revolting. The Monster becomes a murderer and in the end he destroys his creator. The story is told chronologically and is introduced to us by a series of letters written by Walton, and explores, to his sister.Frankenstein showed a passionate interest in a number of aspects of human society. Mary was interested in science and chemistry. She was aware of the latest scientific theories of Darwin, and the evolutionary principles, and Luigi Galvani. Frankenstein embodied the theme of science and responsibility to mankind. In fact, instead of respecting the evolutionary principles described by Darwin, Frankenstein interferes in the evolutionary process. The influences of Rousseau can also be felt in this novel. The monster is a man in a primitive state, not influenced by civilization. Frankenstein is an overreacher, like Prometheus, Marlowe's Faustus and Milton's Satan. The main themes of the novel are: > The double: Doctor Frankenstein and the monster ore two aspects of some being, anticipating the double identity of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde. > Usurping the female role since the creation is possible without the participation of woman. > Social injustice and education and experience.
Frankenstein Frankenstein is a novel by Mary Shelley, an English novelist married to the notable Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. She was born in London, and she was the second daughter of famed feminist, educator and writer Mary Wollstonecraft and the equally famous anarchist philosopher and journalist William Godwin. First published in London in 1818, it is a novel infused with some elements of the Gothic novel and the Romantic movement. The story has had an influence across literature and popular culture and spawned a complete genre of horror stories and films. Frankenstein opens with a series of letters written by Arctic explorer Robert Walton, engaged in a personal quest to expand the boundaries of the known world. It is Walton who first encounters Victor Frankenstein in the Arctic desperately searching for the monster he has created. The explorer becomes the only person to hear Victor Frankenstein's strange and tragic tale. Curious and intelligent from a young age, Victor learns from the works of the masters of Medieval alchemy. In a moment of inspiration, combining his new-found knowledge of natural science with the alchemic ideas of his old masters, Victor perceives the means by which inanimate matter can be imbued with life.. The main idea seems to be that Victor built a complete body from various organic parts, then stimulated the functions of the human system in it. He intends the creature to be beautiful, but when it awakens he is disgusted. It has yellow, watery eyes, translucent skin, and is of an abominable size. Overcome by the horror of what he has done, Victor Frankenstein abandons the "miserable monster" he fathered in his laboratory. Abandoned, frightened, and completely unaware of who or what he is, the monster wanders through the wilderness searching for someone who would understand and shelter him. He finds brief solace by hiding out in the woodshed of a remote cabin inhabited by a small peasant family. He develops the power of speech and very quickly becomes eloquent, educated and well-mannered. One day, the family saw the monster and they were terrified of him and drove him away. Heartbroken, he renounces all of mankind and swears revenge on his creator, Frankenstein, for bringing him into the world. The monster searches for Frankenstein relentlessly and he takes his revenge on Victor Frankenstein by killing his younger brother, William. Intent on his own revenge, Frankenstein hunts the creature, and finds him in a remote ice cave. Here the monster tells Frankenstein his story and pleads with him to create a female creature so he can flee from humanity with one of his own kind. Frankenstein agrees, but relents just before finishing the mate, aghast at the possibility of creating a race of monsters. Enraged, the creature swears he will destroy everything Frankenstein holds dear.After killing Clerval, Frankenstein's best friend, the monster murders Elizabeth, Frankenstein's bride, on their wedding night. Victor now becomes the hunter: he pursues the creature into the Arctic ice, though in vain. Near exhaustion, he is stranded when an iceberg breaks away, carrying him out into the ocean. Before he dies, Captain Walton's ship arrives and he is rescued but soon he dies. Finally, the creature boards the ship and finds Victor dead, and greatly laments what he has done to his maker. He vows to commit suicide. He leaves the ship by leaping through the cabin window onto the ice, and is never seen again. The tragedy of Frankenstein and his monster is complete. In Frankenstein, Shelley used both the new sciences of chemistry and electricity and the older Renaissance tradition of the alchemists' search for the elixir of life to conjure up the Promethean possibility of reanimating the bodies of the dead. Alchemy was a very popular topic in Shelley's world. In fact, it was becoming an acceptable idea that humanity could infuse the spark of life into a non-living thing. The scientific world just after the Industrial Revolution was delving into the unknown, and limitless possibilities also caused fear and apprehension for many as to the consequences of such horrific possibilities. There are different popular critiques of the novel for example there is the idea that it is a clear message that irresponsible use of technologies can have unconsidered consequences but there is also the natural aspect in fact Victor rebels against the laws of nature and as a result is punished by his creation. Also the personality of the monster has different interpretations in fact it is usually depicted as a loathsome fiend, a born murderer. However Victor in fact created a sensitive, emotional and gentle creature whose only aim is to share his life with another sentient being like himself, to love. It was only through the process of learning from mankind, through his negative experiences with other people, that he became "evil". He was taught to behave the way others expected of him, based on his hideous appearance. This Victor did not create a monster; Victor created a gentle, intelligent sentient being. It was mankind that turned him into a monster. The creature believes people should judge him by his personality and not be prejudiced against him because he has an obscure look.
JANE AUSTEN Jane Austen is one of the most important novelists at the beginning of the 19th century. She wasn’t influenced by romanticism and she detested gothic fictions so she was able to elaborate a personal and original style.
complex ideas. She has a strong spirit of independence: she refuses to take on the roles, which her family or people in socially superior positions want to impose on her. Both of them at the beginning of the story are incapable of understanding themselves and each other. She accuses him of pride and he accuses her of prejudice. They also work in reverse: she is proud and her pride blinds her to his virtues; he is prejudiced by his nature and he is disgusted by the vulgar manners of Elizabeth. CHAPTER ONE: MR AND MRS BENNET The beginning is ironic: “ It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of good fortune, must be in want of a wife”. There is a contrast between the solemn beginning that seems to be a philosophical truth and the statement, that is something superficial and banal and it reflects Mrs Bennet’s point of view. This extract introduces the figure of Mr and Mrs Bennet. Mrs Bennet is a typical country gentry woman because she knows that if Mr Bennet died they will become poor. Mrs Bennet is worried about her 5 daughters for one reason: at the time girls could not inherit their fathers lands because they are women. If the five girls don’t find a husband they have to go to work and in their social class it represents a shame for their family. She appears as a very stupid, moody and nervous woman. Mr Bennet instead is not a very good father because is n't worried about his daughters’ future. Mr and Mrs Bennet are a rather unhappy couple. Mr Bennet appears to have discovered too late those physical gifts of the woman he is married to and he chooses to live in isolation as far as he can. He is more patient, ironical and quieter than his wife. We can say that their marriage is a loveless one, full of incomprehension and quarrels. They have a bad opinion of each other. CHAPTER III: THE BALL Chapter three presents a scene at the ball. This ball is organized by one of the families in the area in order to welcome Mr Bingley and his friend Mr Darcy. They are richer, wealthier and a bit hider than Bennet’s family. The function of this chapter is introducing the figure of Elizabeth and Darcy. This first meeting has a strong influence on the novel. Elizabeth is very intelligent, the most honest, witty, sensible, but not very beautiful. Mr Bingley is very friendly, nice, easy going, is not conscious so he mixes with other classes without problems. On the contrary Mr Darcy is a snob, a proud aristocrat: he never dances with the girls. Pride can be possibly referred to Mr Darcy’s attitude at the ball because he doesn’t want to invite dancing Elizabeth because she is the only girl unaccepted by the other men and she is socially inferior. Prejudice can refer to Elizabeth's first impression on Darcy. CHAPTER XXXIV: DARCY’S PROPOSAL This chapter represents a turning point in the novel. In this chapter Mr Darcy proposes marriage to Elizabeth. Darcy is able to control his feelings. He realizes he is in love with Elizabeth, but he knows the social difference exists between them, but also knows that he can’t live without her. So he wants to marry her. When he proposes marriage to her he speaks more about the social difference than about the feelings for her. Obviously it isn’t the right way to court a woman. As a result of his deprivable behavior Elizabeth feels different feelings. Firstly she is surprised because she can’t believe that a proud man as Darcy would ask her to marry, then she hates him because she realizes that he considers the social difference more than his feelings. When she refuses his proposal she is satisfied and she feels compassion for Darcy. Darcy is proud because he considers Elizabeth socially inferior and Elizabeth is proud too because she refuses him and she also has a prejudiced dislike for the hero because of his behavior. She doesn’t accept it, because she is proud and doesn’t admit that Darcy considers her inferior in front of him. Elisabeth was not very rich so the refusal represents a very courageous act Mr Darcy: It is dangerous to refuse such a rich man; because it is improbable that another man would like to marry her. She demonstrates to be a very independent and proud girl. CHAPTER XXXV: ELIZABETH’S SELF-REALIZATION This is a crucial point in the novel and in the development of Elizabeth’s character. She has to learn to reconsider her attitude towards Darcy and herself. Jane Austen wants to convince the reader that the change in Elizabeth is something permanent. She is able to recognise her mistakes and she wants to reap them. She isn’t the same girl the reader has met in the first chapters of the novel, she is a new woman, whose choices and actions have changed the life of the people around her, a heroine who has evolved and become aware of her real feelings PRIDE AND PREJUDICE ( 1813 ) The novel's plot is based on the Bennet family who belong to the country gentry. It is set at Longbourn, a small country village in Hertfordshire, where Mr and Mrs Bennet live with their five daughters, Jane, Elizabeth,
Mary, Lydia and Kitty. One day a rich bachelor, Charles Bingley, and his two sisters rent a large estate in the neighborhood, called Netherfield Park.. After a series of balls and parties that bring the members of this little society together, Mr Bingley falls in love with Jane, and his best friend, the aristocratic Fitzwilliam DARCY, begins to feel attracted by ELIZABETH. But she dislikes him because of his snobbish behavior and because she considers him responsible for the separation of Bingley and Jane. When Mr Darcy declares his love, he cannot help showing contempt for her inferior social position; so Elizabeth rejects him and accuses him of separating his sister and Bingley, and of ill-treating George Wickham, a young officer who was the son of Darcy's former steward. Darcy writes her a letter where he reveals that Wickham is an unscrupulous adventurer. Meanwhile Wickham elopes with Lydia;Darcy traces them and provides for their marriage. Elizabeth realizes that she was mistaken about Darcy and accepts his renewed proposal, in spite of the opposition of Lady Catherine De Bourgh, Darcy's arrogant aunt. Bingley comes back and becomes engaged to Jane, so the novel ends with the happy marriages of the two couples. CHARACTERIZATION Pride and Prejudice comes alive for the reader in the vividness of character and the brightness of dialogue. The narration of events is balanced by passages of reflection and by letters. The epistolary technique, derived from Richardson, is used more frequently in the later chapters when the characters have been fully outlined and the scope of the novel has expanded beyond the small world of Longbourn. But the charm of the novel lies in CHARACTERIZATION All the characters have their place in the plot and contribute to the main story. J.Austen makes her characters reveal a lot about themselves through what they say, through dialogues which are very significant in the novel. Dialogue is used to reveal the character of its speakers 2. It can add drama to the story (note the dialogues between Darcy and Elizabeth especially; for ex. Darcy's proposal of marriage) 3. It often adds humor (for ex. in the speeches of Mr Collins) 4. Jane Austen's dialogue is usually 'realistic'; it is what the people in her world would have spoken, only it has been 'polished' ( made more pure ) by the author. THE CHARACTERS ELIZABETH BENNET – She is the heroine. She is her father's favorite daughter , having inherited his WIT and INTELLIGENCE. She has a good sense of humor and a lively mind One of the qualities that wins Darcy to her; she is capable of complex impressions and ideas. She has a strong spirit of independence: she refuses to take on the roles which her family or people in socially superior positions attempt to impose on her. She is impulsive but has an affectionate nature ( she walks three miles through dirty fields to come to her sister ). Not only Mr Bennet and Darcy, but also Sir William Lucas, Colonel Fitzwilliam and Wickham admire her. She has great qualities but also great weaknesses: she makes bad MISTAKES OF JUDGMENT (against Darcy and Wickham). She allows her own PRIDE to prejudice herself against Darcy. Elizabeth has originality, especially in her liveliness, which makes her an interesting character. In doing the unexpected she is unconventional but at the same time she remains SENSIBLE. She has high ideals on marriage. FITZWILLIAM DARCY – He is temperamentally unsociable, he is ALOOF and SUPERIOR in his behavior toward new acquaintances. His manners are proud and his speech measured and formal. He is a cultured man. The vulgarity of the Bennet family soon offends him but Elizabeth attracts him against his will. Behind his RESERVE and FASTIDIOUSNESS there are GENUINE QUALITIES: he is generous to his servants, his tenants he is affectionate to his sister he knows the meaning of discretion He is a good man who has been made stiff and proud by his upbringing. Darcy, as a lover, is deeply in love, but SHY and EMBARRASSED. He finds it difficult to speak about his deepest feelings and his manners make him unpopular. Both Elizabeth and Darcy set out with an imperfect understanding of themselves and each other. She accuses him of PRIDE and he accuses her of PREJUDICE. They are HUMBLED one by the other: she learns from Darcy's letter that she has based her opinion of him on a misfounded prejudice ( all that Wickham told her had been wrong ) so she realizes her error and she is humbled by Darcy. Also when she learns of what Darcy has done for Lydia she is humbled, she recognises his generosity. he realizes that his pride had made him certain of her accepting his marriage proposal. The novel involves both characters in a journey towards SELF-AWARENESS and SELF – KNOWLEDGE. They change throughout the novel, they evolve and become aware of their real feelings. JANE BENNET – Jane is the eldest and most beautiful of the Bennet sisters. She never thinks ill of anybody, and has, in addition to her warm sympathetic feelings, an outward composure and easy manner.She suffers patiently and she is a nice person but her judgment is faulty: she takes a long time to see Miss Bingley's hypocrisy, she is no more able to see what Wickham is really like, she refuses to believe that he could live with Lydia without marrying her, and still imagine their marriage may be a happy one. Jane remains the same throughout the novel. CHARLES BINGLEY – He is no SNOB, like his sisters, but gentleman-like and prepared to fit in with most people. In the eyes of his female neighbors “he was quite
are badly brought up. Kitty is 'weak-spirited, irritable and under Lydia's guidance. Mary studies hard because she is the only plain daughter but she has no Genius or taste, she plays the piano with vanity and affectation. THE GARDINERS – Mr Gardiner is Mrs Bennet's brother; he is a sensible, gentlemanlike man, greatly superior to his sister as well by nature as education. Mrs Gardiner is intelligent and elegant. They are the most sensible relatives of Bennet's girls. Mr Gardiner is in trade, has money and practical sense. COLONEL FITZWILLIAM – the youngest son of a Lord, he is well-bred and likable. But he must Marry for money to keep up his social position, otherwise he would have been even more attracted to Elizabeth. GEORGIANA DARCY
- Miss Darcy is shy and only sixteen. She escaped Wickham's evil designs on her by confessing to her brother. In the end, we are told, Elizabeth and she grow to be great friends. STRUCTURE AND STYLE THE PLOT Jane Austen has great skill in constructing her plots at its simplest level. It is the place of a novel in Pride and Prejudice. First of all we see that she is telling the LOVE STORY of two young people. This story falls into an easily observed symmetry: 1. The FIRST PART deals with the meeting of DARCY and ELIZABETH and shows how they form impressions of each other and how Darcy becomes so much in love. Then he asks Elizabeth to marry him. The CLIMAX of DARCY'S PROPOSAL and ELIZABETH'S REJECTION of it. 2. The SECOND PART shows how both of the lovers come to a BETTER UNDERSTANDING of each other. They are about to become united when an obstacle appears (Lydia's elopement, the shame of the Bennet family) which threatens to ruin their affections. However this is overcome and they are united at last. There are also SUB-PLOTS which influence the main plot. For example: 1. Bingley's courtship of JANE. This runs parallel with Darcy's courtship of Elizabeth. (They interact when Darcy separates Bing and Jane. This reinforces Elizabeth's prejudice against him). 2. Charlotte Lucas's marriage with Collins. This is necessary because it causes Elizabeth to go to KENT where she again meets Darcy. One event is well connected and linked to the other. 3. Darcy's relations with Wickham. (At Meryton Wickham prejudices Elizabeth against Darcy). The other characters contribute to the MAIN STORY. Every character cannot be considered a part or unnatural, but it links well with the main event. None of the characters can be isolated. HUMOR, IRONY and SATIRE Elizabeth is probably the mouthpiece of J. Austen ( vol.Ichap.2 ); like Elizabeth, Austen was fascinated by human character. Her intelligent SENSE OF HUMOR, especially enabled her to see the follies and nonsense of the people she portrayed. Her treatment of Mrs Bennet, Mr Collins, Lydia are fine examples: she laughs at the follies and NONSENSE of these characters without being cruel or unfair. However, her use of IRONY and SATIRE is more serious (Vol.III chap:10). Satire in J. Austen's novels usually has a social meaning ( when she satirizes the snobbishness of attitudes like Miss Bingley's towards Elizabet; she forgets that her brother's fortune has been acquired by trade ). J. Austen uses satire to show the VANITY and CONCEIT of her characters, it expresses their SOCIAL SNOBBERY and WEALTH and RANK are the objects of her satire. We can see that the author satirizes people's HYPOCRISY, VANITY and STUPIDITY. She shows the difference between what they think they are and what they really like. THEMES 1. LOVE AND MARRIAGE The main theme in Austen's novels is LOVE and MARRIAGE, the choice people make for marriage partners, especially the difficulties two people have to overcome before they marry. e.g. Elizabeth and Darcy have to understand and overcome their own PRIDE and PREJUDICE before becoming suitable marriage partners. Elizabeth is ATTRACTIVE, INDIVIDUAL and INTELLIGENT ---- but both have to gain Darcy is RICH and HANDSOME ---- SELF-KNOWLEDGE. For Darcy is proud and will not demean himself and Elizabeth is too HASTY in her judgment and liable to be taken in by appearances. Even though his pride is greatly offended by her social standing, Darcy proposes marriage to Elizabeth ( but he has yet to humble himself ) but he is sure that Elizabeth will accept him because he is superior. Darcy is only seen through Elizabeth's eyes and those of society, only at the end we learn what his feelings were in the story. Then, the events which occur in the novel eventually help them to realize their mistakes and to esteem each other's character. Thus, their marriage is founded on AFFECTION and UNDERSTANDING and is not a result of an immediate blind impulse. We can compare this main love-story against the standards of the other marriages in 'Pride and Prejudice': -Charlotte + Mr Collins = Being 27 and plain-looking Charlotte doesn't have a high view of marriage. She marries a man who is inferior in intelligence only for the position he can offer Collins only wants a wife because it is time, in the eyes of society, for him to settle and be married. He quickly changes his affections from Jane to Elizabeth and from Elizabeth to Charlotte: He has no deep feelings. -Mr + Mrs Bennet = Mr Bennet captivated by youth and beauty had married a woman of weak understanding, Her behavior put an end to all real affection for her in their marriage + no money. From every point of view their marriage is a failure. -Jane + Bingley = Their marriage is based on good FOUNDATIONS. They are attracted at once, and have the fortune to have similar, easy dispositions, Bingley has also money. NECESSARY QUALITIES for good marriage according to the novel: UNDERSTANDING each other's character GOOD DISPOSITION of the partners SIMILARITY in
feeling and TASTE AFFECTION, ATTRACTION MONEY Bad points in unsuccessful marriages: Lydia + Wickham's RESPONSIBILITY Mrs Bennet's IGNORANCE unequal intelligence Charlotte and Collins 2. GOOD BREEDING and SOCIAL RANK The question whether NOBILITY and GENTILITY are confined only to people of high rank figures in all of J:Austen's novels. She did not reject the HIERARCHICAL STANDARDS of SOCIAL RANK of her time but she was an intelligent OBSERVER of HUMAN SOCIETY. She didn't wish to change society and accepted the world of Lords and Ladies, aristocracy and Gentry, clergymen and landowners; she rarely introduces servants or working people; however: she did not believe that WEALTHY PEOPLE were necessarily always the most cultured while she would have defended the church, she was not BLIND to the WORLDLINESS of a clergyman like Collins. The qualities J. Austen valued are : affection, common sense, good taste, culture. 3 MORAL STANDARDS There are some STRICT moral standards in Jane Austen's society that everyone is expected to respect. e.g Lydia has to be married to Wickham because otherwise she would never be accepted again in society. But Lady Cath and Collins interpret society's MORAL code in a PRUDISH, VINDICTIVE MANNER in the way that they condemn Lydia and wish her behavior to hurt her sister's reputation. JANE AUSTEN: Accepts SOCIETY'S MORAL CODE which came originally from the teachings of CHRISTIANITY. But she comments that Collin's remarks that Lydia should be forgiven is unchristian. She also shared the MORAL VIEWPOINT described as 'CLASSICAL'. She believed the PASSIONS should be controlled by REASON. The consequences are: Those characters who follow their PASSIONS or have no power of REASON are criticized (Wickham and Lydia). The standards of SOCIETY are not to be broken, but some characters (Miss Bingley, Collins and Lady Cath) follow them blindly to flatter their own society standing. The INTELLIGENT ones (Elizabeth, the Gardeners) use them as the MEASURE OF GOOD SENSE and PROPRIETY. The MORAL VISION of Pride and Prejudice--- Jane Austen believes in GOOD SENSE and COMFORTABLE LIVING--- Is she too materialistic? SUMMARY OF THE THEMES: LOVE and MARRIAGE GOOD BREEDING and SOCIAL RANK MORAL BELIEF and BEHAVIOR
The Victorian age Victoria was barely eighteen when she became queen in 1837. During her reign, which lasted 64 years,it was a time of great industry development and scientific and technological progress. The application of steam to railways and ships made travel reliable and fast, and the invention of the telegraph and the telephone transformed communication. Moreover, a long period of peace and the enormous expansion of the empire contributed to make Britain the most powerful nation on earth. Factory owners and new businessmen mostly interested in profits and all too often they did not care about their workers. Despite progress and reform the living conditions of the poor remained miserable. There was a marked division of society into three classes; the aristocracy, the middle class(upper and lower)and the working class(the poor). The Victorian age marked the triumph of the industrial middle classes, with their confidence in progress and optimistic view of life, their. A new set of values was established, which emphasized hard work, family life, religious observances, honesty in public life, self-control and respectability. A widespread movement in defense of women's rights and emancipation was formed. Three reform acts extended the right to vote to sections of the working classes, making parliament more fully representative of the nation. Slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire. Factory laws were passed which regulated factory working conditions and limited the use of children in factories. In 1870 education became compulsory and free for all children until the age of 13. Communications became more rapid and efficient. In 1833 Britain's first railway reached London, and 30 years later the London Underground Railway was opened. News swiftly spread because of the postal service and newspapers. The British Empire was born in the 16th century when Britain started to compete with other European countries for control of the seas and of the riches of unexplored continents. Other colonies were originally penal colonies, like Australia. During the 18th century Britain colonized much of North America, Africa and Asia, and colonial expansion continued steadily through the 19th century. The Victorian age usually covers in literary histories a period of time longer than the actual reign of Queen Victoria, stretching from 1832 to 1902. This is a period of expansion and prosperity, of industrial development and unceasing scientific and technological progress. England enjoyed several decades of unequaled wealth and power, and a new wave of optimism began to sweep over the country. The process of industrialisation, started in the eighteenth century, reached its height. The Chartist Movement started in 1837 and ended in 1848. It aim was to obtain full democratic participation of the working classes in politics. This group was composed by radicals and workers, who in 1839 presented to Parliament a document called "People's Charter". But the Charter failed and his objectives were taken again by the Reform Bill and by the Trade Union Act, which finally
sales. But high production costs decreased the manufacturers' profit margin. The only solution was to cut production costs, which was most easily done by the direct cutting of wages. The cost of living, however, was kept artificially high by the Corn Laws which maintained the price of corn in Britain at an unrealistically high level. As a result there was widespread starvation. It was the combination of these factors that sent masses of people to the cities to look for work in factories. Poverty and the Poor Laws The price of corn was kept artificially high by the Corn Laws, paupers risked starvation and could not feed their children. In order to solve this problem, the children were declared destitute and, forced to separate from their families, were sent to work in parish-run workhouses, in return for which they received barely enough food to survive. It was only towards the end of the 19th century that poverty was to be widely recognised as a social problem. Managing the empire The Victorian period saw the massive expansion of the British Empire all over the world, from Asia to Africa to Central America to Oceania. This expansion was due to the need to protect trade routes to and from Britain’s main imperial “property”, India, the so-called “Jewel in the Crown '' of the Empire. It had been administered since the 17th century by the East India Company, which had employed bribery and violence to take control of the country’s resources. The Indian Mutiny of 1857 led to the closure of the Company and the administration of Indian territories was taken over by the British government. In 1876 Queen Victoria was declared Empress of India to consolidate popular support for the Empire. Trade with India included tea, spices, silk and cotton and it was vital to the British economy that routes across land and sea be secured. It was partly for this reason that Britain annexed” a number of territories including South Africa, Egypt, Burma, Malaysia and Afghanistan. But control of these routes was made more difficult by political instability. On the Asian front, Russian aggression threatened the already weak and collapsing Ottoman Empire, leading to joint British and French military intervention and the disastrous campaigns of the Crimean War during the 1850s. In South Africa the claims of the Dutch settlers eventually provoked another conflict: the Boer Wars. These wars were enormously expensive and failed to defeat the Boers. During the second half of the 19th century, both Germany and France rose to become economic powers in their own right and began to rival Britain’s position of imperial dominance in Africa. Another more independent part of the British Empire was Oceania, which had originally served as a prison colony to which undesirable elements of British society such as criminals and political agitators had been transported. Later, Australia began to develop as a white colony in its own right, establishing a modern agricultural and industrial society based on the British model. The Victorian compromise The urban workers continued to live in conditions of abject poverty while being systematically exploited by their rich employers. To confront the appalling conditions of the urban environment, the government promoted a campaign to clean up towns devastated by epidemics, and built modern-hospitals. The police helped to safeguard the law but at the same time had the function of controlling the masses of the urban poor, since the law was invariably on the side of property owners. In the minds of many wealthy Victorians, the poor were not victims of circumstance but a dirty, dangerous and immoral species. However, the Victorian ideal represented by such values as church, family, the home and the sanctity of childhood applied only to those happy few who could afford them. Middle-class women were expected to conform to a submissive and pious domestic role - the so-called angel in the home. By stepping outside of this role, a respectable woman could ruin her reputation. Similarly, the idea of childhood as a paradisal golden age, propagated by the children's literature of the time, masked the fact that the children of the poor were forced into labor at an extremely early age and often separated from their families. Darwin In the first part of Darwin's theory was not new: this was the idea that all forms of life on the planet had gradually derived over hundreds of millions of years from a common ancestry, and were not, as religion had always taught, preconceived, fixed species designed by some divine being. The second part of Darwin's theory concerned the struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest. Before Darwin, biology and natural history had been the last refuge for the belief in a creation ordered by divine providence. It was Darwin who showed that all existing species had undergone considerable mutation, and that their adaptive characteristics had evolved through an extremely long process of natural selection. In a given environment, members of the same species compete for survival, and it is those best adapted to the environment who will survive. The characteristics which help them to survive are biologically selected and copied so that they are inherited by their descendants, who by this measure become even better adapted. Uses and abuses of Darwin In Darwin's mind, his theory applied strictly to the domain of biology and natural history, but unfortunately like many other scientific ideas, it was soon being abused for social and political ends. Social Darwinism was likewise used to support the theory that the underclasses were less evolved, genetically degenerate and thus had a natural vocation to vice and crime. Simplified, popularized versions of Darwin, along with anti-Semitism and nationalism, undoubtedly played a part in shaping the mind of the young Adolf Hitler.
THE VICTORIAN COMPROMISE.
It was a complex and contradictory era: it was the age of progress, stability, great social reforms but it was also characterized by povertà, injustice and social unrest. The Victorians promoted a code of values that reflect the world as they wanted it to be, not as it really was, based on personal duty, hard work, respectability and charity. In thi periods was very important to work hard for improve the society. The idea of respectability distinguished the middle from lower class. Respectability was a mixture of both morality and hypocrisy, severity and conformity to social standards. It implied the possession of good manners, the ownership of a comfortable house with servants and a carriage, regular attendance at church, and charity activity. Philanthropy was a wide phenomenon: the rich middle class exploited the poor ruthlessly and at the same time managed to help “stay children, fallen women and drunk men”. The husband represented the authority and the key role of women regarding the education of children and the housework. Sexuality was generally repressed in its public and private forms, and prudery in its most extreme manifestations led to denunciation of nudity in art, and the rejection of words with sexual connotation from everyday vocabulary. FAITH AND PROGRESS This is the period of the novel because it represents the complexity of the period and the profound changes that characterized it. For the first time there was a communion of interests and opinions between writers and their readers. Same code of values: optimism, conformism and philanthropy. The writers depicted society as they saw it; they were aware of the evils of their society and denounced them, however they did not criticize the world they lived in, they just aimed at making readers realize social injustice and voiced their fears and doubts. The setting was the city because it was the main symbol of the industrial civilisation, the expression of anonymous lives and lost identities. DANDY: is a bourgeois artist who in spite of his uneasiness, remains a member of his class. ART FOR ART’S SAKE: the function of art is to give eternal beauty; only art and beauty can save us from evil and destruction. WHITMAN Whitman was born in New York into a working-class family. He had little formal education and he started to work as an office boy and then he became a journalist. When he was thirty years old he traveled in New York, New Orleans and Chicago and he discovered the vastness of his country and the variety of its inhabitants. During the civil war he devoted himself to visiting wounded soldiers in the army hospital, he continued to believe in the value of democracy and technological progress. The Whitman poetry was incorporated in the nine editions of leaves of grass. The first edition showed a picture of a working man. Leaves of grass is not a collection of poems but as a life-long poem. W. rejected the traditional forms and structures because they impose rigidity and completeness upon the reality which is in fact constantly unfolding. W. poetry is pervaded by optimism and a romantic faith in the dynamic future of the nation. Another theme is his task to respond to the spirit of his country, to give voice to the common men, to reveal the truth, like a prophet. He see himself contained in other man and woman.
- Ulysses and the voyage - Reading Tennyson's text, we can think that here he is the prototype of the modern man, the metaphor of the man thirsty for knowledge. He trusts in God and for this reason he doesn’t try to know the truth only with his tools. In the “Divina Commedia'' we can find this aspect of Ulysses that is considered a fraudulent adviser. He is damned ‘cause he crossed Ercole’s columns. The Homeric Ulysses is a teacher of the trick and of astuteness, is a fearless hero and a clever speaker, a sweet father and an excellent husband. He doesn’t trust in God. He is pragmatic and his ideals are the “kleòs' ' (glory) and the “nòstos' ' (return trip to one's own country). The Ulysses of Tennyson, like that of Dante, is full of a religious feeling and he is condemned only because he dares what man can’t dare. The human being has to control his potentialities and his limitations to obtain his goals; he mustn’t challenge God. Dante, so, made the figure of Ulysses smaller while Omero wrote thinking that man can be compared with god. The Ulysses of Tennyson doesn't have the same family’s feeling of the Homeric Ulysses. For the last, the return to his home, family, and telemaco are essential components of his personality while in the other they aren’t so important, too. Ulysses is a person that trusts in himself and in his potential. Homeric and Tennyson Ulysses have the same idea of the meaning of the heroic death but one looks for the “klèos' ' and the other has a human wish of knowledge. And, for this reason, he appears to be a person of the renaissance. When we talk about Ulysses, we have to talk about the travel in fact as we have understood the character of Ulysses has always been quoted in the literature of the travel. Travel is a discovery of the world and of ourselves. Besides in the Odissea, we find the theme of the voyage in the Bible where the man looks for safety and for god. An important example of the travel is, obvious, the Divina Commedia where Dante travel to understand the way to arrive in the heaven. In heroic poems of the middle age, the voyage makes the hero knows himself and his ideals. He travels to show his love, his faithfulness and his bravery. From the renaissance, men travel to discover new lands, new populations and new values. We
succeeded in drawing popular attention to public abuses, evils and wrongs by mingling terrible descriptions of London misery and crime with the most amusing sketches of the town. CHARLES DICKENS REALISM Dickens is defined as a realistic novelist, in fact he has a typical repugnance for a representation of sexuality and deprivation typical of Victorian Age. He’s meticulous about his detail, especially when he describes London slums. The Only crime in Dickens is a murder, his realism is given by his sensational description like the death of Sykes in Oliver Twist. HIS CHARACTERS Dickens’ characters born by an observation of real people. They may be divided into good and evil, but everyone is considered individual. Dickens describes them like exaggerate and grotesque but in a best way. He’s also an observer of eternal qualities of people. Thanks to his representation of simple characters and his sense of humor, he is unsurpassed. HUMOR. Each Dickens’s characters have his sense of humor. We can find this in his characters, dialogue and in whole episodes. He’s able to see the comic aspects of lower – middle class and can be subtle and gentle but also paradoxical and sarcastic. DICKENS’ LIMITATIONS AND MERITS We can find some negative and positive aspects in Dickens’ writing like: 1) His plots aren’t real organic and are to full of unhappy events; 2) His characters are superficially portrayed; 3) His sentimentalism and pathos are often excessive; 4) His comic scenes are often too melodramatic; 5) His imagination has created a great number of incidents and situations; 6) His characters cover a wide range of people; 7) His plots can catch the reader’s attentions; 8) His style is fluent and effective; 9) His occasional use of symbolism catches the attention of audience. DICKENS Dickens is probably the most representative literary figure of the whole Victorian age. He is the first truly urban novelist. Most of his novels are set in the city of London, and in them he captures the incredible variety and vitality of life in the city, as well as the squalor and deprivation. Dickens’s characters give voice to the whole panorama of social classes. Dickens is also fiercely critical of certain aspects of the Victorian way on life such as the voraciousness and hypocrisy of the rich, and their indifference to the problems of the poor. HARD TIME: A NOVEL OF DENUNCIATION One of his most popular works is Hard Time written in 1854. This novel is a powerful accusation of some of the effects of industrial society. Unlike romantic poets, that were used to describe nature and to ignore towns because they despised industrialization’s effects, Dickens writes novels of denunciations. In other words, Dickens is not satisfied by industrialization, which he considers a retrograde step because of the destruction of environment it brings. He shows the negative effects of industrialization. In this novel Dickens describes Coketown, an imaginary industrial town in the north of England. The description of Coketown, and the lives of the people who work there, reveal Dickens's indignation at what he regarded as the ugliness, squalor and materialism of the new industrial age. He accuses 1. Social and economical system
- Factory owners 3. The mentality in fact the Victorians were proud of industrialization’s effects and of their achievements; they were satisfied by their progress (which is in contrast with primitive forms of live). Dickens denounced social injustices but he had not supported the radical movements of his time. He was a moderate reformer and believed in human goodness, benevolence, in the possibility of better human condition of life. There’s an overall atmosphere of generosity, reconcilement of charity and philanthropism in his novels. Dickens disapproved violence and revolution and looked upon the subversive power of the working classes with suspicion and worry. Dickens is not a true realist, but a caricaturist and a deformer. TYPICAL STYLISTIC DEFACES From a stylistically point of view we can say that Dickens has a very rich and original style. The main stylistic features are: 1. He makes a long list of objects and people 2. He uses adjectives in pairs or in groups of three and four 3. He piles up details, not all of them strictly necessary. Sometimes they are useless.
- He repeats the same word/s and/or sentence structure. 5. He expresses the same concept more than once, but using different words. 6. He juxtaposes contrasting images in order to underline his character's features.
- He magnifies his characters' faults using hyperboles HOW TO KEEP THE READER INTERESTED Serialized novels forced the authors to keep the readers interested in several ways: for example through the use of suspense at the end of the episode or the introduction of a sensational event. In this period (Victorian age) novelists made enormous profits and ceased to be regarded as inferior to the other writers. The novel became a vehicle for ideas. When Dickens started publishing a novel in installments (puntate), he had not written the whole novel, he had conceived the content of four or five episodes and when he was publishing the central chapters, he did not have the next one ready. While writing he used to keep short summaries of the previous chapters on one side of the sheet, and the program for future developments on the other side, written with different inks. He didn’t want to lose his popularity so he describes characters with exaggerations in order to impress and to entertain the reader. FLAT
CHARACTERS We can’t expect deep psychological analysis from Dickens because his characters are flat, they are caricatures. Flat characters, which can also be called "types'' or caricatures", are built around a single psychological trait or quality. Flat characters are easy to recognise and do not develop throughout the story, even if they experience different relationships and situations. However this does not mean they are always artistically inferior to round characters. As a matter of fact, the author can use them to create a particular atmosphere inside a complex narrative frame. Nearly all of his novels deal with the degraded urban settings of the industrial towns of the 1st half of the 19th century. Most of his characters belong to the lower–middle class which Dickens knew best and which he was the 1st to make the protagonist of his novels. He gave voice to their economic worries, their fear of social instability, their anguish about poverty, their small ambitions, with a sympathy that portrays characters belonging to other social classes (aristocracy or workers) his knowledge is more stereotyped. The way his novels were published (in installments) had a precise influence on them: in order to keep the interest of his readers alive, he used sudden changes, unexpected revelation, complicated supports, then he had to consider the tastes on his public which was mainly made up of 2 classes: The lower-middle class who identified with the characters and saw their lives and problems mirrored in his novels, and the upper classes, who began to develop an humanitarian feeling towards the less lucky majority and were moved (commosse) by the sad stories he told. Both demanded a happy ending: the former because they enjoyed experiencing what seldom happened in real life; a solution to their problems. The latter felt assured by the happy endings allowed to leave society as it was. UTILITARIANISM Economical and social doctrine associated with the name of Jeremy Bentham according to which utility is the parameter of all human values: only what creates the material happiness of the greatest number is to be pursued. Dickens had a romantic vision of life as a theater of war between good and evil. The most recurring themes are childhood and social criticism. Children occupy a remarkable place in his works because he usually describes his characters from childhood to maturity, then also because during the Industrial Revolution they were exploited in a cruel way: they had to work from the age of 5 or 6. 3 rd reason: his working experience as a child. The 2nd theme is present in all his works, sometimes addressed to specific forms of injustice and exploitation, but especially in the later novels there is a total reflection of the principles on which industrial society is based: money and individualism. The root of all-evil is the very essence of capitalism with its unrestrained chase of money and material satisfaction. THE SENSE OF HUMOUR One of his main merits is his natural sense of humor, which is to be found in characters, dialogue and whole episodes (based on misunderstandings). Sometimes his humor is mingled with pathos and when he does not control it sufficiently it becomes artificial and grotesque. DAICHES’S INTERPRETATION Dickens crowded his scenes with many more figures than the pattern of his stories demanded out of sheer relish for the vagaries (capricci) of human life. His solution to social problems went no further than suggesting that people simply stopped behaving cruelly. Anyway he had the merits of awakening the Victorian conscience on a great variety of subjects, from debtors’ prisons to private schools.
DECADENTISM AND AESTHETICISM The decadent movement developed in the last 30 years of the 19th century. It was born in France with Teophile Gautier and Huysmans. They reflected their disgustation against materialism and the restrictive moral code of the bourgeois. So the French artists withdrew from the political and social scene, isolating themselves from society, in what Gautier called “ART FOR ART’S SAKE”. This decadent expression was claimed in the collection of “Emaeux et camees”, where he stated that the art or beauty in art will survive over life and time, so life is eternal. He was a member of the Parnassians movement, a group of French poets who challenged the old romantics and wished for the pursuit of stylistic perfection in all fields of art. In the novel of Huysmans, the hero, disgusted by the vulgarity of modern life and disillusioned with love, decides to retire in a house where he built a world of absolute perfection and devote himself to the cult of beauty and pleasure. In England, Victorian compromise had created a greed middle-class, whose aims were capitalism in economy, positivism and materialism in philosophy, and naturalism in art. The decadent artist was disgusted against this social situation and took refuge outside the society, by isolating himself and writing a kind of work based on sensation, beauty and a refined style. The main theorist of decadentism was Walter Pater, who claimed the importance of life as “A WORK OF ART”. According to him, the decadent artist has to fill his life with sensation and intuition that a simple man cannot perceive, and write them in the form of art. So the artist is considered an aesthete and his works are based on the sensation, refined style and the search for beauty. The maximum exponent in English literary aestheticism was Oscar Wilde, while in Italy the main representative was Gabriele D’Annunzio, both followers of Huysmans’ book.
anymore. This kind of structure gives the sense of ‘duration’ of the narration. The development of the Modernist novel was deeply influenced by the new theories of Freud who proposed the theory of human consciousness multi-layered, involving different levels of experience and memory. Therefore, perception of reality is fundamentally subjective. The technique of free association and wordplay forms an important part of James Joyce’s Ulysses. In addition to this, a French philosopher, Bergson, also influenced the Modernist movement. He elaborated a philosophical position in contrast with the scientific materialism and positivism. He also argued that time could not be measured because it is a flow, a ‘duration’ and not a series of points. Important during this period is the use of the ‘stream of consciousness’ introduced by William James and which deeply influenced the narrative method. Consciousness is something that flows and it comprehends the entire range of an individual’s mental activity. Therefore, they could introduce new techniques of writing: - Direct interior monologue which refers to the direct presentation of character’s stream of consciousness without the guiding of a narrator or author; - Indirect interior monologue that refers to the indirect presentation of a character’s thoughts filtered through the voice of an anonymous third-person narrator. Woolf and Joyce differ in their approaches to the question of how to represent the stream of consciousness. Joyce is fundamentally concerned with the possibilities, and limitations, of language in all its modes and forms.
Virginia WOOLF Virginia Woolf was born in London in 1882. She came from an aristocratic family, therefore from a highly educated and intellectual family environment which greatly influenced her in her approach to writing and art in general. Her mother’s and two years later her step-sister’s deaths caused her mental instability. She used to hear voices in her head and have migraine attacks. After her father died, she moved to Bloomsbury where she founded a circle of intellectuals and where she met her husband Leonard Woolf. Later he founded the Hogarth Press to publish her works. After she published many important writings she died drowning herself in a river in
- It always feels like the reader is entering into the characters’ inner world. Time is often dilated and a single moment can last for a very long time. She uses the indirect interior monologue to represent the gap between chronological and interior time. Woolf wants to impress the characters who experience these events in their subjectivity and this made her a heroine for many feminist. She does not use the traditional narration voice, but she takes different points of view from her characters and she “speaks' ' with their minds, showing their thoughts and feelings as they occur. A narrator sometimes gives to this thought a logical order and grammatical sequence. MOMENTS OF BEING are the moments of intensity, perception or vision which illuminate our lives. Mrs. Dalloway – one day in central London. Clarissa Dalloway organizes a party for her husband, a politician, and during the day she experiences many changes of moods and memories. We see her also through the other character’s eyes and thoughts like the man she once loved who suddenly comes back from India, her friend, and her daughter. At the same time, like a parallel life, there is Septimus Smith who had a nervous disorder because of the bad experiences in war, and he goes to two famous doctors who don’t understand his disease though so they can’t help him. At the end of the day he kills himself, and Clarissa gets the news at her party where one of the doctors was invited. She understands Septimus and she feels like him and somehow she is glad that he committed suicide because thanks to him she could truly understand life.
