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THE ROMANTIC PERIOD

From the Napoleonic Wars to the Regency


The egotistical Sublime
Reality and Vision
W. Wordsworth
From the Lyrical Ballads: analysis of A slumber did my spirit seal
From Poems in two Volumes, Daffodils
S. T. Coleridge
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
From The Rime, The killing of the albatross: analysis
John Keats
Ode on a Graecian Urn: analysis
The Novel of Manners
Jane Austen
From Sense and Sensibility, Willoughby and Marianne: analysis

THE VICTORIAN AGE

The Early Victorian Age


The later years of Queen Victorias reign
The Victorian Compromise
The American Civil War and the Settlement in the West
The Victorian Novel
Types of novel
Aestheticism and decadence
Charles Dickens (from Oliver Twist, Oliver wants some more: analysis)
Robert Louis Stevenson (from The Strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Jekylls experiment)
Oscar Wilde (from The Picture of Dorian Gray, Preface)

SCIENZA ED ETICA

Forbidden knowledge: Mary Shelleys Frankenstein

THE MODERN AGE

The Edwardian Age


Britain and WWI
The Twenties and the Thirties
The WWII
The US between the Two Wars
The Age of Anxiety
Modernism
Modern Poetry
W. B. Yeats (from The Tower, Sailing to Byzantium)
The War Poets (from 1914 and other poems, The Soldier)
T. S. Eliot (from the Waste Land, The burial of the dead)
W. H. Auden (from Another Time, Funeral Blues)
Modern Novel: The interior Monologue and the Stream of consciousness
James Joyce (from Dubliners, Eveline; from Ulysses, The Funeral)
Virginia Woolf (from Mrs Dalloway, Clarissas Party)
George Orwell (from 1984, How can you control memory?)

THE PRESENT AGE

The Welfare State


The Thatcher Years
From Blair to the present day
Samuel Beckett (from Waiting for Godot, Waiting)
John Osborne (from Look back in anger, Boring Sundays; Absurd vs. Anger, Long silences vs. Jimmys anger)

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From the Napoleonic Wars to the Regency


The events of the French Revolution polarized reactions: on the one hand the ruling classes were
seized by the terror of Jacobinism, that is sympathy with the cause of French Revolution. On the
other hand, intellectuals supported the revolution because it would bring justice and equality to
the people.
The war between Britain and France dominated foreign and domestic politics. Napoleons victories
in Europe were balanced by the Britains supremacy at sea. The hero of the British navy was
Admiral Horatio Nelson.
Napoleon surrendered in 1814. His 100 Days in 1815 ended in final defeat at the hands of the
Wellington at the battle of Waterloo.
The acquisition of the few places round the world by Britain at the Treaty of Vienna (1815) did not
seem to balance the huge costs of the war. The mood of the discontented was near to revolution
at home. Some skilled artisans had destroyed the new machines which had taken their work away,
and were called Luddities after their possibly fictitious leader, Ned Ludd.
Discontent war repressed under many laws allowing arrest without trial, forbidding the
combination of working men into trade unions, and silencing the freedom of expression.
The policy of the government in this period was laissez-faire, in which government activity was
minimal. A more energetic religious movement emerged, called the Evangelicals.
This period is known as the Regency as it covers the time when George III could not rule because
of a mental illness and his son, the future George IV, was the Regent. The Prince Regent set
various fashions. Regency Bath, Regent Street in London and the Brighton Pavilion are
architectural examples, bathing in the sea and extravagant male costumes are others. The
dynamism of the economy allowed the upper and middle classes to continue to live their social life
regardless of the French wars. Women still had few opportunities, there was no role for them
outside the house either in town or country. Marriage and the organization of their own
household was their only career.

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The Egotistical Sublime


Romanticism can be seen as a creative period in which the cultural view of the world too had to be
readjusted. Romanticism in Europe developed in different ways and times. In Germany,
anticipated by the Sturm und Drang (that is Storm and Stress) movement, the romantic ideas of
Friedrich and Augustus Wilhelm Schlegel appeared on the pages of the review Das Athenaum in
1798. In the same year, in England, the Lyrical Ballads were published. De lAllemagne by M.me De
Stael spread the romantic principles in France, and the Lettera semiseria by Giovanni Berchet
marked the official beginning of the Romantic movement in Italy. The term Romanticism derives
from the French word romance, which referred to the vernacular languages derived from Latin.
There was use of imagination as a means of giving expression to emotional experience. There was
serious concern about the experience and insights of childhood. To a Romantic a child was purer
than an adult because he was unspoilt by civilization. His uncorrupted sensitiveness meant he was
even closer to God and the sources of creation, therefore childhood was a state to be admired and
cultivated.
The Romantics saw man in the solitary state, and stressed the special qualities of each individuals
mind. They exalted the atypical, the outcast, the rebel.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau encouraged the notion that the conventions of civilisation represented
intolerable restrictions on the individual personality and produced every kind of corruption and
evil. The noble savage concept is a Romantic one: the savage may appear primitive, but actually
he has an instinctive knowledge superior to the one of a civilized man.
Rousseaus theories also promoted the cult of the exotic, of what is far away both in space and
in time. The conventional European tour of the 18th century was replaced by the Romantic interest
in travel as a challenge. Not only the picturesque and the formidable in scenery were welcomed,
but also the remote and the unfamiliar in custom and social outlook. The remotest parts of Europe
and the Near East had the appeal of being strange and unpredictable.

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Reality and Vision


English Romanticism saw the prevalence of poetry. Imagination gained a primary role. The poet
was seen as a visionary prophet or as a teacher whose task was to mediate between man and
nature, to point out the evils of society, to give voice to the ideals of beauty, truth and freedom.
The Romantic poets also regarded Nature as a living force and, in a pantheistic vein, as the
expression of God in the universe. Nature became a main source of inspiration, a source of
comfort and joy.
As regards poetic technique, the Romantic poets searched for a new, individual style through the
choice of a language and subject suitable to poetry. More vivid and familiar words began to
replace the artificial circumlocutions of the 18th century diction; symbols and images assumed a
vital role.
As for verse forms, there was a return to past forms such as the ballad, the Italian terza rima
and ottava rima, the sonnet and blank verse; the lyric poems achieved a freedom,
flexibility and intensity rarely equaled.
The great English Romantic poets are usually grouped into two generations: the first generation,
often called the Lake poets, included William Wordsworth and S. T. Coleridge; the poets of the
second generation were George Gordon Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats.
The poets of the first generation were characterized by the attempt to theorise about poetry.
While planning the Lyrical Ballads, they agreed that Wordsworth would write on the beauty of
nature and ordinary things, while Coleridge, instead, should deal with visionary topics, the
supernatural, and mistery. The poets of the second generation all died very young and away from
home, in Mediterranean countries. They also experienced political disillusionment.

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William Wordsworth
LIFE

Born in Cockermouth, in Cumberland (Lake District), in 1770


His father, a lawyer, taught him poetry and allowed him access to his library
1791: B. A. Degree at St Johns College, Cambridge.
In 1791 he travelled to Revolutionary France and was fascinated by the Republican
movement.
In 1792 he had a daughter, Caroline, from a French aristocratic woman, Annette Vallon.
The Reign of Terror led him to become estranged to the Republic, and the war between
England and France caused him to return to England
In 1795 he developed a close friendship with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, with whom he
collaborated in the 1797-1799 period to write Lyrical Ballads.
In 1843 he became the Poet Laureate.
He died in 1850

MAIN WORKS

Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems (1798).


Lyrical Ballads, with Other Poems (1800). This edition contains the famous Preface, the
Manifesto of English Romanticism.
Poems, in Two Volumes (1807).
The Excursion (1814).
The Prelude (1850).

THE OBJECT OF POETRY


From the Preface to Lyrical Ballads
The principal object [] was to choose incidents and situations from common life [] to make
these incidents and situations interesting by tracing in them [] the primary laws of our nature.

THE LANGUAGE OF POETRY


From the Preface to Lyrical Ballads
The language [] of these men is adopted [] because such men hourly communicate with the
best objects from which the best part of language is originally derived.
[] and because, being less under the influence of social vanity, they convey their feelings and
notions in simple and unelaborated expressions.

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WHO IS THE POET?


From the Preface to Lyrical Ballads
What is a poet? [] He is a man speaking to men: a man [] endued with more lively sensibility
who has a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive soul, than are
supposed to be common among mankind

WHAT IS POETRY?
From the Preface to Lyrical Ballads
Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origins from emotion
recollected in tranquillity: the emotion is contemplated till by a species of reaction the
tranquillity gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which was before the subject
of contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself actually exist in the mind.

POETIC COMPOSITION
From the Preface to Lyrical Ballads
In this mood successful composition generally begins, and in a mood similar to this it is carried
on; but the emotion () from various causes is qualified by various pleasures, so that in
describing any passions whatsoever, which are voluntarily described, the mind will upon the
whole be in a state of enjoyment.

THE POETIC PROCESS


Sensory
experience
Poet

Emotion

Object
Memory
=
Recollection
In Tranquillity

Emotion

Reader

Poem

Kindred
emotion

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MAN AND NATURE

Man and nature are inseparable.


Pantheistic view of nature: it is the seat of the spirit of the universe.
Nature comforts man in sorrow, it is a source of joy and pleasure, it teaches man to love,
to act in a moral way.

THE SENSE AND MEMORY

Wordsworth exploited the sensibility of the eye and ear to perceive the beauty of nature.
He believed that the moral character develops during childhood influence of David
Hartley (1705-1757).
The sensations caused by physical experience lead to simple thoughts.
These simple thoughts later combine into complex and organised ideas.
Memory is a major force in the process of growth.

THE POETS TASK


The poet = a teacher

Shows men how to understand their feelings and improve their moral being.
Draws attention to the ordinary things of life where the deepest emotions are to be found.

WORDSWORTHS STYLE

Abandoned 18th-century poetic diction.


Almost always used blank verse.
Proved skilful at verse forms such as sonnets, odes, ballads and lyrics.

Pantheism is a doctrine according to which all the souls of human beings are temporarily
separated fragments from the totality of creation with which they will be reunited in the end.
Wordsworth thought that only children (who had an important role in his poetry because during
childhood we mature our morality) had a very strong relationship with nature and could express
genuine feelings. Nature can help men, being a good friend and making him happy. All senses are
involved in the relationship with nature
In Wordsworths opinion, poetry doesnt come from the moment, but from the recollection of
emotions. Memory is a major force in the process of growth of the poets mind. Its memory that
allows the poet to write poetry.
Imagination is a great power which helps the poet when he writes. Imagination also involves al
five senses. The poet is able to communicate new feelings thanks to imagination. He has to make
poetry of everyday feelings and situations.

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A slumber did my spirit seal by W. Wordsworth


In the first of the poem's two stanzas, the speaker declares that a "slumber" has kept him from
realizing reality. In essence, he has been in a dream-like state, devoid of any common fears
("human fears"). To the speaker, "she" (his unnamed female love) seemed like she would never
age:
A slumber did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:
She seemed a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.
In the second and final stanza, however, we learn that she has died. She lies still and can no longer
see or hear. She has become a part of the day-to-day course of the earth:
No motion has she now, no force:
She neither hears nor sees,
Rolled round in earth's diurnal course
With rocks and stones and trees.
ANALYSIS
"A slumber did my spirit seal" is one of Wordsworth's "Lucy Poems," which focus on the death of a
young woman named Lucy (though she remains unnamed in this poem).
In only two four-line stanzas we see the speaker's realization not only that this young woman has
died, but also that bad things can happen in a beautiful world. In the first stanza the speaker is
innocently unaware that age can touch the woman, but he is quickly taught a harsh lesson when
she dies. The choice to hide the death between the stanzas seems to imply that the speaker is
unable to verbalize the pain that goes along with the sudden loss.
The poet seems to have built her up in his mind into a goddess, untouched by age and mortality.
This desire to keep her perpetually young is a testament to the speaker's feelings for the woman.
In the second stanza Wordsworth offers a description of the woman's current situation. She is
incapable of taking in the world around her. This is a particularly painful idea in a Wordsworth
poem, because he is generally so focused on experiencing the senses. The speaker also mentions
that she is now without motion or force. This helps the reader to imagine the way the young
woman once was: full of life and vigor.
In the last two lines the speaker describes the young woman trapped beneath the surface of the
earth. In fact, she has become a part of the earth.
"A slumber did my spirit seal" is a ballad, though a very short one. The stanzas follow an abab
rhyme scheme, and the first and third lines are in iambic tetrameter, while the second and forth
lines are in iambic trimeter.

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Daffodils by W. Wordsworth
In the first stanza the speaker describes a time when he meandered over the valleys and hills,
"lonely as a cloud." Finally, he came across a crowd of daffodils stretching out over almost
everything he could see, "fluttering and dancing in the breeze":
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
The daffodils reminded him of the Milky Way, because they seemed to be neverending.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkl on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
In the third stanza the speaker compares the waves of the lake to the waves of daffodils and
decides that even though the lake is "sparkling," the daffodils win because they have more "glee."
He then comments that he could not help but be happy "in such a jocund company."
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
W he was lonely or feeling "pensive," he could remember the daffodils, seeing them with his
"inward eye," and be content:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

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ANALYSIS
Daffodils takes place in the Lake District of Northern England. The area is famous for its hundreds
of lakes, gorgeous expanses of springtime daffodils, and for being home to the "Lakeland Poets":
William Wordsworth, Samuel Coleridge, and Robert Southey.
This poem consists of four six-line stanzas, each of which follow an ABABCC rhyme scheme and are
written in iambic tetrameter, giving the poem a motion that recalls swaying daffodils.
By comparing himself to a cloud in the first line of the poem, the speaker signifies his identification
with the nature that surrounds him. He also demonstrates this connection by personifying the
daffodils several times.
Even though the speaker is unable to appreciate the memory he is creating as he stands in the
field, he later realizes the worth that it takes on in sad and lonely moments.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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LIFE

Born in Devonshire in 1772.


Studied at Christs Hospital School in London, and then in Cambridge, but never graduated.
Influenced by French revolutionary ideals.
After the disillusionment with the French Revolution, he planned a utopian commune-like
society, Pantisocracy (in this kind of society every economic activity was made in common
and private ownership did not exist, in order to provide labour and peace, and create the
best possible environment for everyone), in Pennsylvania. This project came to an end.
Fruitful artistic collaboration with the poet and friend William Wordsworth in the 17971799 period.
Died in 1834.

MAIN WORKS
1798 The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the first poem of the collection Lyrical Ballads.
1816 Christabel, an unfinished narrative poem.
1816 the dreamlike poem Kubla Khan, composed under the influence of opium.
1817 Biographia Literaria, a classic text of literary criticism and autobiography.
POETRY
Content: supernatural characters.
Aim: to give them a semblance of truth.
Style: archaic language rich in sound devices.
Main interest: the creative power of imagination.
IMAGINATION
PRIMARY: Creative, original, used unconsciously
Human individual power to produce images
The power to give chaos a certain order
SECONDARY: Poetic faculty, which gives shape and order to a given world and builds new
worlds.
FANCY
A kind of logical faculty: the mechanical ability the poet has to use devices, like metaphors,
alliterations in poetry in order to blend various ingredients into beautiful images.
NATURE
Unlike Wordsworth, it is not a moral guide or a source of consolation.
It represents the awareness of the presence of the ideal in the real.
Not identified with the divine.

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Coleridge saw it in a sort of neoPlatonic interpretation, as the reflection of the perfect


world of ideas. The material world is nothing but the projection of the real world of
ideas on the flux of time.

THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER


The story of a mariner who commits an act against nature by killing an albatross.
At the beginning of the poem the mariner stops a wedding guest: he cannot choose but
hear a sad, mysterious story about the burden of the mariners guilt.
The mariner expiates his sin by travelling around and telling the people he meets his story
to teach them love and respect to natures creatures.
The characters
The mariner: he is unnaturally old, with skinny hands and glittering eyes.
Sailors: ill-fated members of the ship carrying the mariner.
Wedding Guest: one of three people on their way to a wedding reception. After the
Ancient Mariners story, he becomes both sadder and... wiser.
Death: embodied in a hulking form on the ghost ship. He plays dice with Life-in-Death and
wins the lives of the sailors.
Life-in-Death: embodied in a beautiful, ghostly woman. She wins the Ancient Mariner's soul
playing dice and condemns him to a limbo-like living death.
The atmosphere is mysterious and dream-like, because of the combination of the supernatural
and the commonplace elements and astonishing visual realism.

STRUCTURE

CONTENT
LANGUAGE
STYLE
THEME
AIM

THE RIME
Mostly written in four-line
stanzas; a mixture of dialogue
and narration
A dramatic story in verse
Archaic; realistic in details
and imagery
Frequent repetitions, refrain;
alliteration and internal rhyme
Travel and wandering;
supernatural
Didactic

MEDIEVAL BALLADS
The same

The same
Archaic
Repetitions, refrain and
alliteration
Magic, love,
domestic tragedies
No aim

This poem has been interpreted in different ways:


Description of a dream.
An allegory of the life of the soul: from crime, through punishment , to redemption.
Metaphor of mans original sin in Eden.
The poetic journey of Romanticism:
The mariner = poet
His guilt = the origin of poetry
Regret for a state of lost innocence caused by the Industrial Revolution.

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The killing of the albatross, from The Rime, by S. T. Coleridge

It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stoppst thou me?
The Bridegrooms doors are opened wide,
And I am next of kin ;
The guests are met, the feast is set:
Mayst hear the merry din.
He holds him with his skinny hand,
There was a ship, quoth he.
Hold off ! unhand me, grey-beard loon !
Eftsoons his hand dropt he.

He holds him with his glittering eye


The Wedding-Guest stood still,
And listens like a three years child:
The Mariner hath his will.
The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone:
He cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner
The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared,
Merrily did we drop
Below the kirk, below the hill,
Below the light-house top.
The Sun came upon the left,
Out of the sea came he!
And the shone bright, and on the right
Went down into the sea.
Higher and higher every day,
Till over the mast at noon
The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast,
For he heard the loud bassoon.

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The bride hath paced into the hall,


Red as a rose is she;
Nodding their heads before her goes
The merry minstrelsy.
The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast,
Yet he cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on the ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner,
And now the storm-blast came, and he
Was tyrannous and strong:
He struck with his oertaking wings,
And chased us south along.
With sloping masts and dipping prow,
As who pursued with yell and blow
Still treads the shadow of his foe,
And forward bends his head,
The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,
And southward aye we fled.
And now there come both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold:
And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald.
And through the drifts the snowy clifts
Did send a dismal sheen:
Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken
The ice was all between.
The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around :
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like noises in a swound!
At lenght did cross an Albatross,
Thorough the fog it came;
As if it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed it in Gods name.

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It hate the food in neer had eat,


And round and round it flew.
The ice did split with a thunder-fit;
The heilmsman steered us through!
And a good south wind sprung up behind;
The Albatross did follow,
And every day, for food or play,
Came to the mariners hollo!
In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,
It perched for vespers nine;
Whiles all the night, through the fog-smoke white,
Glimmered the white moon-shine.
God save thee, ancient Mariner!
From the fiends, that plague thee thus!
Why lookst thou so? With my cross-bow
I shot the Albatross!
ANALYSIS
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is written in loose, short ballad stanzas usually either four or six
lines long but, occasionally, as many as nine lines long. The meter is also somewhat loose, but odd
lines are generally tetrameter, while even lines are generally trimeter. (There are exceptions: In a
five-line stanza, for instance, lines one, three, and four are likely to have four accented syllables
tetrameterwhile lines two and five have three accented syllables.) The rhymes generally
alternate in an ABAB or ABABAB scheme, though again there are many exceptions; the nine-line
stanza in Part III, for instance, rhymes AABCCBDDB. Many stanzas include couplets in this way
five-line stanzas, for example, are rhymed ABCCB, often with an internal rhyme in the first line, or
ABAAB, without the internal rhyme.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is unique among Coleridges important works unique in its
intentionally archaic language (Eftsoons his hand drops he), its length, its bizarre moral
narrative, its strange scholarly notes printed in small type in the margins, its thematic ambiguity,
and the long Latin epigraph that begins it, concerning the multitude of unclassifiable invisible
creatures that inhabit the world. Rather, the scholarly notes, the epigraph, and the archaic
language combine to produce the impression (intended by Coleridge, no doubt) that the Rime is
a ballad of ancient times (like Sir Patrick Spence, which appears in Dejection: An Ode),
reprinted with explanatory notes for a new audience.
But the explanatory notes complicate, rather than clarify, the poem as a whole; while there are
times that they explain some unarticulated action, there are also times that they interpret the
material of the poem in a way that seems at odds with, or irrelevant to, the poem itself.

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By filling his archaic ballad with elaborate symbolism that cannot be deciphered in any single,
definitive way and then framing that symbolism with side notes that pick at it and offer a highly
theoretical spiritual-scientific interpretation of its classifications, Coleridge creates tension
between the ambiguous poem and the unambiguous-but-ridiculous notes, exposing a gulf
between the old poem and the new attempt to understand it. The message would be that,
though certain moral lessons from the past are still comprehensiblehe liveth best who loveth
best is not hard to understand other aspects of its narratives are less easily grasped.
The Mariner kills the Albatross in bad faith, subjecting himself to the hostility of the forces that
govern the universe (the very un-Christian-seeming spirit beneath the sea and the horrible Life-inDeath). It is unclear how these forces are meant to relate to one anotherwhether the Life-inDeath is in league with the submerged spirit or whether their simultaneous appearance is simply a
coincidence.
After earning his curse, the Mariner is able to gain access to the favor of Godable to regain his
ability to prayonly by realizing that the monsters around him are beautiful in Gods eyes and
that he should love them as he should have loved the Albatross.

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THE ROMANTIC SPIRIT


The Romantic Age is the period in which new ideas and attitudes arose in reaction to the dominant
18th-century ideals of order, calm, harmony, balance, rationality.
ROMANTICISM vs ENLIGHTMENT
Enlightened trends
Emphasised reason and judgement.
Focused on society as a whole.
Followed authority.
Interested in science and technology.
Romantic trends
Emphasised imagination and emotion.
Valued individuals.
Looked for freedom.
Represented common people.
Interested in the supernatural
ENGLISH ROMANTICISM

English
Romanticism

a revolt of the English imagination against


the neoclassical reason.

influenced by the French Revolution and


the English Industrial Revolution.
The Romantics:
expressed a negative attitude towards the existing social or political conditions;
placed the individual at the centre of art;
argued that poetry should be free from all rules.
THE ROMANTICS KEY IDEAS
Focus on the beauties of nature, seen as a living being.
Use of creative imagination.
Exaltation of emotion over reason and senses over intellect.
A new view of the artist as an individual creator.
Fascination with the irrational, the past, the mysterious, the exotic.

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THE ROMANTIC NATURE


Opposed to reason.
A substitute for traditional religion.
A vehicle for self-consciousness.
A source of sensations.
A provocation to a state of imagination and vision.
An expressive language: natural images provide the poet with a way of thinking about
human feelings and the self.
THE SECOND GENERATION OF ROMANTIC POETS
Percy B. Shelley, George Byron and John Keats
died very young and away from home;
experienced political disillusionment reflected in their poetry;
were linked to individualism, escapism.
NATURE
Wordsworth

Coleridge

Byron

Shelley

Keats

a source of joy
inspiration and
knowledge
a mother and a
moral guide

a universal force
the
representation of
Gods will and
love

the companion
of his loneliness
the counterpart
of his stormy
feelings when it
was violently
upset

a source of
enjoyment and
inspiration
pervaded by a
guiding power
leading man to
love

the creative
mind benefits
from the beauty
of the natural
landscape
a kind of muse to
the poets
artistic quest

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John Keats
LIFE

Born in London in 1795.


Well educated at a school in Enfield.
Early passion for reading poetry.
Family plagued by death.
Doomed love story with Fanny Brawne owing to his poverty and bad health
Own illness tubercolisis.
Died in 1821 in Rome.

MAIN WORKS
1918: Endymion, a long, mythological poem
The Eve of St Agnes, characterised by romantic features.
La Belle Dame Sans Merci, a ballad which displayed a taste for medieval themes and form.
The great Odes.
1920: Hyperion, begun in 1818 and published in 1820.
HIS POETRY
His lyrical poems are not fragments of a spiritual autobiography, like the lyrics of Shelley
and Byron.
A personal experience is behind the odes of 1818 -> it is not their substance.
The pronoun I stands for a universal human being.
The common Romantic tendency to identify scenes and landscapes with subjective moods
and emotions is rarely present in his poetry
Scenery is fine but human nature is finer.
KEATS AND IMAGINATION
Keatss belief in the supreme value of imagination made him a Romantic poet. His imagination
takes two main forms:
1. the world of his poetry: imagined, artificial;
2. his poetry comes from imagination: his work is a vision of what he would like human life to
be like.
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter
KEATSS BEAUTY
Beauty strikes his imagination and is perceived by the senses; all the senses are involved in this
process. Its perceived by the senses; all the senses, in fact, are involved in this process. The
physical beauty is caught in all the forms nature acquires. Physical beauty can also produce a
much deeper experience of joy, which introduces a sort of spiritual beauty that is the one of

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love, friendship, poetry. These kinds of beauty are closely interwoven since the former, linked to
life, enjoyment, decay and death, is the expression of the latter, related to eternity.
The greater expression of beauty, in his opinion, is the Greek world and art, that he re-interpreted
with his own personality.
A thing for beauty is a joy forever
THE POETS TASK
The poet has what he called negative capability: refers to the capability the poet has to deny his
certainties and personality in order to identify himself with the object of his inspiration. When the
poet can rely on this negative capability, he is able to seek sensation, which is the basis of
knowledge since it leads to beauty and truth, and allows him to render it through poetry. A new
view of the poets task.
The only truth is in the sensation, when the poet is able to deny himself and identify himself with
the object of inspiration.

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Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats


THOU still unravish'd1 bride of quietness,
Thou2 foster-child of Silence and slow Time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady3?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes4 and timbrels? What wild ecstasy5?
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;6
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goalyet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,
For ever panting, and for ever7 young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.8

Uncorrupted; the urn is made of marble.


Hes talking to the vase!
3
Arcadia, Greece
4
Flauti
5
From a rational state to an higher one; hes having a sensation of wild ecstasy while hes watching the piece of art:
this is made by his imagination; he becomes one thing with the object he contemplates.
6
Spiritual beauty is eternal, just like these young people and their love.
7
The good, the beauty is in eternity.
8
Human passion causes pain!
2

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Who are these coming to the sacrifice?


To what green altar9, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea-shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul, to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.10
O Attic shape! fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral11!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'

Jane Austen
9

Altar not painted (?)


The town will always be empty.
11
Cold refers to death (oxymoron spiritual beauty is eternal), to the material of the urn (marble); Pastoral refers to
the scenes on the vase and the place where this urn could have been found (Arcady)
10

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LIFE

Born in Steventon in Hampshire in 1775.


Her father was the rector of the local church.
Spent her life within the circle of her affectionate family.
Her sister Cassandra was her lifelong companion.
Educated at home by her father.
Showed an interest in literature at an early age.
Her earliest writings date from 1787.
After her fathers death the family settled in Chawton, a small country village.
There she produced her most mature works.
Died in Winchester in 1817.

MAIN WORKS
Northanger Abbey, written in 1798 but published posthumously.
Sense and Sensibility (1811).
Pride and Prejudice (1813).
Mansfield Park (1814).
Emma (1816).
Persuasion (1818, after her death).
THE DEBT TO THE 18th CENTURY NOVEL
From the 18th-century novelists she learnt:
the insight into the psychology of the characters;
the subtleties of the ordinary events of life balls, walks, tea-parties and visits;
the omniscient narrator;
the technique of dialogue;
the use of verbal and situational irony.
THE NATIONAL MARRIAGE MARKET
Austens values: property, decorum, money and marriage.
Austens England: based on the possession of land, parks and country houses.
Marriage: result of the growing social mobility.
The marriage market takes place in London, Bath and some seaside resorts.
Gossip, flirtations, seductions, adulteries happen in these places.
The marriage market produces a range of villains: unscrupulous relatives, seducers and
social climbers.

THE THEME OF LOVE

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In Austens novels
No place for great passion.
Concern with analysis of character and conduct.
Romantic element of happy ending marriage between the hero and heroine.
Focus on the steps through which the hero / heroine reaches this stage.
THE NOVEL OF MANNERS
Jane Austen is the undisputed master of the novel of manners.

Premise

there is a vital relationship


between manners, social
behaviour and character

Main features
Set in upper- and middle-class society.
Influence of class distinctions on character.
Visits, balls, teas as occasions for joining up.
Main themes: marriage, the complications of love and friendship.
Third-person narrator.
Dialogue: the main narrative mode.
Passions and emotions not expressed directly.
Use of irony.
SENSE AND SENSIBILITY
Contrast between love and common sense.
Two sisters: Marianne, the irrational one, and Elinor, the rational, concrete, sensitive.
Historical context
French Revolution
War of American Indipendence
Start of Industrial Revolution
1st revolution of Romantic poets
Napoleonic wars
Social satire
Exposes and criticizes the limitations of women during 19 th century England:
- No chance for high education
- Not directly involved in politics
- No professions
- Couldnt own property
They had to rely on marriage to secure social positions and financial stability for the future.
CHARACTERISTICS OF HER WORKS

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Social assimilation and upward mobility is a major theme in many of Austens works.
Most of Austens works were published posthumously.

LIMITATIONS
No violence, no political problems
No one dies on stage
Few descriptions of internal thoughts and emotion of male characters
No physical descriptions
Not describing closely lovers embraces and endearments
The places for her novels are very restricted
Elinor
Practical, rational, sensible
Family and friends more than herself
Polite to everybody
Feels sad but keeps it to herself
Surprises, but does not express it
Sense will always have attraction for me
19 years old

Marianne
Sensitive, emotional, compassionate
Emotion of herself than what other think
Expresses her dislike
Exclaims her sadness with words
Suffers to die
17 years old

Willoughby and Marianne, from Sense and Sensibility (Chapter 28), by Jane Austen

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They had not remained in this manner long, before Elinor perceived Willoughby, standing within a
few yards of them, in earnest12 conversation with a very fashionable looking young woman. She soon
caught his eye, and he immediately bowed13, but without attempting14 to speak to her, or to
approach15 Marianne, though he could not but see her16; and then continued his discourse with the
same lady. Elinor turned involuntarily to Marianne, to see whether it could be unobserved by her. At
that moment she first perceived him, and her whole countenance glowing with sudden delight 17, she
would have moved towards him instantly, had not her sister caught hold of her18.
"Good heavens!19" she exclaimed, "he is there - he is there - Oh! why does he not look at me? why
cannot I speak to him?"
"Pray, pray be composed," cried Elinor, "and do not betray20 what you feel to every body present.
Perhaps he has not observed you yet."
This however was more than she could believe herself; and to be composed at such a moment was
not only beyond the reach21 of Marianne, it was beyond her wish. She sat in an agony of impatience,
which affected22 every feature.
At last he turned round again, and regarded them both; she started up23, and pronouncing his name
in a tone of affection, held out her hand to him. He approached, and addressing himself rather to Elinor
than Marianne, as if wishing to avoid her eye, and determined not to observe her attitude, inquired in a
hurried manner after24 Mrs. Dashwood, and asked how long they had been in town. Elinor was robbed
of all presence of mind25 by such an address, and was unable to say a word. But the feelings of her
sister were instantly expressed. Her face was crimsoned over26, and she exclaimed in a voice of the
greatest emotion, "Good God! Willoughby, what is the meaning of this? Have you not received my
letters? Will you not shake hands with me?"
He could not then avoid it, but her touch seemed painful to him, and he held her hand only for a
moment. During all this time he was evidently struggling for composure27. Elinor watched his
countenance and saw its expression becoming more tranquil. After a moment's pause, he spoke with
calmness.
"I did myself the honour of calling28 in Berkeley-street last Tuesday, and very much regretted29 that I
was not fortunate enough to find yourselves and Mrs. Jennings at home. My card was not lost, I hope."
"But have you not received my notes?" cried Marianne in the wildest anxiety. "Here is some mistake
I am sure - some dreadful30 mistake. What can be the meaning of it? Tell me, Willoughby; for heaven's
sake31 tell me, what is the matter?"
12

Sincera, ardente.
Fece un inchino
14
Senza cercare
15
Avvicinarsi a
16
Sebbene non potesse fare a meno di notarla
17
Volto animato da un improvviso piacere
18
Se sua sorella non lavesse trattenuta
19
Santo Cielo!
20
Tradire, rivelare
21
Al di sopra delle capacit
22
Influenzava
23
Trasal
24
Chiese frettolosamente notizie di
25
Fu privata di tutta la presenza di spirito
26
Si fece tutta rossa
27
Si sforzava di mantenersi calmo
28
Di far visita
29
Mi spiacque
30
Terribile
13

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He made no reply; his complexion32 changed and all his embarrassment returned; but as if, on
catching the eye of the young lady with whom he had been previously talking, he felt the necessity of
instant exertion33, he recovered himself again, and after saying, "Yes, I had the pleasure of receiving the
information of your arrival in town, which you were so good as to send me," turned hastily 34 away with
a slight bow and joined his friend.
Marianne, now looking dreadfully white, and unable to stand, sunk into her chair, and Elinor,
expecting every moment to see her faint, tried to screen35 her from the observation of others, while
reviving her with lavender water.
"Go to him, Elinor," she cried, as soon as she could speak, "and force him to come to me. Tell him I
must see him again - must speak to him instantly. - I cannot rest - I shall not have a moment's peace till
this is explained - some dreadful misapprehension36 or other. - Oh go to him this moment."
"How can that be done? No, my dearest Marianne, you must wait. This is not the place for
explanations. Wait only till to-morrow."
With difficulty however could she prevent her from37 following him herself; and to persuade her to
check38 her agitation, to wait, at least, with the appearance of composure, till she might speak to him
with more privacy and more effect, was impossible; for39 Marianne continued incessantly to give way40
in a low voice to the misery of her feelings, by exclamations of wretchedness 41. In a short time Elinor
saw Willoughby quit42 the room by the door towards the staircase, and telling Marianne that he was
gone, urged43 the impossibility of speaking to him again that evening, as a fresh argument for her to be
calm. She instantly begged44 her sister would entreat45 Lady Middleton to take them home, as she was
too miserable to stay a minute longer.

31

Per amor del Cielo


Colorito
33
Sforzo
34
Si allontan di fretta
35
Di proteggerla, di nasconderla
36
Malinteso
37
Impedirle di
38
Controllare
39
Poich
40
A dar sfogo
41
Infelicit
42
Lasciare
43
Insistette su
44
Preg
45
Implorare, pregare
32

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The early Victorian Age (1837-1861)


THE YOUNG LIFE OF VICTORIA
Victoria was born on 24th May 1819 in the middle of a succession crisis.
Her mother was convinced that Victoria would become queen. So she started the
Kensington System, a cruel regime of control.
20 June 1837 King William the IV died: the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord
Chancellor knelt to her and told her that she was Queen.
I shall ever remember this day as the proudest of my life
VICTORIA AND ALBERT
Victoria and Albert married in February 1840. They were extremely devoted and had nine
children.
When Victoria became so visibly pregnant that she could not appear in official ceremonies,
Albert took on her functions. He was her main advisor.
Albert supported reform but in December 1861 he died suddenly at the age of 42.
In memory of her beloved husband she had the Albert Memorial (1876) built in London.
THE GREAT EXHIBITION
Housed in the Crystal Palace, in Hyde Park, 1851

increasing power
of the middle
classes

expansion of
industry and
trade

scientific and
technological
developments

RAILWAYS
In 1804 Richard Trevithick opened up the possibility of making a steam engine move itself.
In 1825 Stephenson created a proper steam locomotive pulling wagons for the first time:
he is considered the father of the railways.
Railway Mania: in 1845, 240 acts were passed. This led to the construction of 4600 miles
of track.
NEW CURRENTS OF THOUGHT
Evangelicalism
strict code of behaviour
dedication to humanitarian causes and social reforms
base of Victorian emphasis upon moral conduct
Utilitarianism
neglected human and cultural values
any problem could be overcome by reason

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usefulness, happiness, avoidance of pain


Empiricism
legislation should try to help men develop their natural talents
progress came from mental energy
supported popular education, trade union organisation, extension of representation to all
citizens, and the emancipation of women

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The Victorian Age (1830-1901)


QUEEN VICTORIA
Victoria became queen at the age of 18; she was graceful and self-assured.
Her reign was the longest in British history.
In 1840 she married a German prince, Albert of Saxe-Coburg.
They had nine children and their modest family life provided a model of respectability.
During this time Britain changed dramatically.
THE GROWTH OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE
England grew to become the greatest nation on earth: The sun never sets on England.
British Empire included Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Africa,
Kenya, and India.

Great Britain imported raw materials such as cotton and silk and exported finished goods to
countries around the world.

By the mid-1800s, Great Britain was the largest exporter and importer of goods in the world. It was
the primary manufacturer of goods and the wealthiest country in the world.

Because of Englands success, the British felt it was their duty to bring English values, laws,
customs, and religion to the savage races around the world.

AN AGE OF SOCIAL AND POLITICAL REFORMS


1832: The First Reform Act granted the vote to almost all male members of middle-class.
1833: The Factory Act regulated child labour in factories.
1834: Poor Law Amendment established a system of workhouses for poor people.
1867: The Second Reform Act gave the vote to skilled working men.
1871: Trade Union Act legalised trades unions.
1884: The Third Reform Act granted the right to vote to all male householders.
THE WOMANS QUESTION
Womens suffrage did not happen until 1918.
POSITIVE ASPECTS OF THE AGE
Industrial revolution: factory system emerged; for the first time in Britains history there were more
people who lived in cities than in the countryside.

Technological advances: introduction of steam hammers and locomotives; building of a network of


railways

Economical progress: Britain became the greatest economical power in the world; in 1901 the USA
became the leader, but Britain remained the first in manufacturing.

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THE CRYSTAL PALACE

It was made of iron and glass, exhibited hydraulic presses, locomotives, machine tools, power
looms, power reapers and steamboat engines.

It had a political purpose: it showed British economic supremacy in the world.

NEGATIVE ASPECTS OF THE AGE


Pollution in towns due to factory activity.
Lack of hygienic conditions: houses were overcrowded, most people lived in miserable conditions;
poor houses shared water supplies.

THE GREAT STINK


Epidemics, like cholera, thyphoid, caused a high mortality in towns. They came to a peak in the
Great Stink of 1858.

This expression was used to describe the terrible smell in London, coming from the Thames.
The Miasmas, exhalations from decaying matter, poisoned the air.

VICTORIAN LONDON
Victorians often revived previous styles.
Classical forms were preferred for civic and public buildings, like government offices, town
halls.
Gothic ones for ecclesiastical and domestic works
After 1855 the Gothic revival prevailed over the classical faction.

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The later years of Queen Victorias reign

The political parties had regrouped themselves: they became the Liberals (ex-Whigs,
represented by William Gladstone) and the Conservative (ex-Tories, represented by
Benjamin Disraeli).
They tried to solve problems as various as urban health, the rights of the trades unions,
state education.
In South Africa, the British eventually won a bitter struggle against the Dutch settlers, the
Boers. In 1877 Queen Victoria obtained the title of Empress of India.
However, the Empire was becoming more difficult to control. There was a growing sense of
the white mans burden.
The Third Reform Act (1884) granted the right to vote to all male householders. The secret
ballot and payment of MPs stopped corruption and opened a career in politics to less
privileged men.
Working men turned to trades unions, which were legalized with the Trade Union Act in
1871.
After the epidemics of cholera and typhoid, the municipal authorities became organised to
provide clean water and sanitation (Public Health Act, 1875).
Victorian cities had now gas lighting and rubbish collection; there were many public
buildings, such as town halls, railway stations, libraries and museums, music halls, boarding
schools and hospitals, police stations and prisons.
Although Britain still considered itself to be the workshop of the world, new materials
were being developed, such as rubber, aluminium, petroleum and celluloid, in which they
would not be the world leaders.
Industrialisation had made literacy and economic necessity and the state education system
provided this with the Elementary Education Act of 1870.

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The Victorian compromise

The Victorians were great moralisers -> they supported: personal duty, hard work,
decorum, respectability, chastity.
Victorian, synonymous with prude, stood for extreme repression; even furniture legs had
to be concealed under heavy cloth not to be suggestive.
The middle-class was obsessed with gentility, respectability, decorum.
Respectability distinguished the middle from the lower class.
Decorum meant:
Victorian private lives dominated by an authoritarian father.
Women were subject to male authority; they were expected to marry and make home a
refuge for their husbands.
The most persistently advocated notion throughout the 19 th century was the need to work
hard: it seemed natural to believe that material progress would emerge from hard work.
Good deeds marked out a woman or man as a person of standing in a community;
charitable work was listed alongside a Victorians varied accomplishments and qualities:
many activists believed they could save the dissolute, raise up fallen women, and instil
industry and self-help where it was most needed.
Patriotism was influenced by ideas of racial superiority: the British had come to accept
that, in the racial hierarchy of the mankind, they stood supreme.

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The American Civil War and the settlement in the West

Middle of the 19th century in America -> period of economic expansion, social change,
scientific discovery and literary expression
The North was undergoing steady industrialisation; in the South economy was still based
on the plantations of tobacco and cotton, and on slavery
Huge difference in density of population: in the North the white population increased due
to the immigrants from Europe; in the South there were about 3,500,000 black slaves
There was pressure on the Southern States to abolish slavery
The abolitionists attacked the exploitation of slaves, the cruelty and the separation from
their family they suffered; the supporters held that it was an institution which gave the
black employment, protection and taught them the principles of Christian faith
The anti-slavery cause explained in Uncle Toms Cabin had a strong impact on people
Northern abolitionists also included writers, intellectuals and religious associations
From the Whig Party arose the Republican Party, which was also inspired by the
abolitionist cause
In 1860 Abraham Lincoln, the Republican candidate, won the presidential election
After that eleven Southern states formed the Confederate States of America, under the
presidency of Jefferson Davis
The Civil War broke in 1861 and lasted four years, when the blue Northern troops defeated
the grey Confederates led by Robert Lee
The abolition of slavery didnt grant blacks equality and security: some of them migrated to
the industrial cities of the North, others remained with their old masters who could not
afford to pay wages due to the war
The racist Ku Klux Klan embodied a wave of resentment and violence
During the war the Northern factories had increased; financial empires were created by
men like Cornelius Vanderbilt and John Rockefeller
The myth of the self-made man embodied a new version of the American dream
The discovery of gold in California in 1848 led to the gold rush; the migration westwards
had two main consequences: the extermination of buffaloes and the starvation of the Red
Indians, who were subjugated, mass-deported or brutally exterminated
The second half of the century was characterised by important inventions such as the
electric telegraph, the typewriter, the telephone, the phonograph, the electric lamp, the
adding machine, the movie camera, the cash register. New railroads joined the Atlantic to
the Pacific.

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The Victorian novel

The voice of the omniscient narrator provided a comment on the plot and erected a rigid
barrier between right and wrong, light and darkness.
The setting chosen by most Victorian novelists was the city, which was the main symbol of
the industrial civilisation as well as the expression of anonymous lives and lost identities.
Victorian writers concentrated on the creation of characters and achieved deeper analysis
of the characters inner life.
Retribution and punishment were to be found in the final chapter, where the whole
texture of events, adventures, incidents had to be explained and justified.
There was a communion of interests and opinions between the writers and their readers.
The Victorians were avid consumers of literature. They borrowed books from circulating libraries
and read various periodicals.
Novels made their first appearance in instalments on the pages of periodicals.
The voice of the omniscient narrator provided a comment on the plot and erected a rigid barrier
between right and wrong, light and darkness.
The setting chosen by most Victorian novelists was the town.
Victorian writers concentrated on the creation of characters and achieved a deeper analysis of their
inner life.

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Types of novels

Social problems novels (Gaskell -> effect of industrialisation on the individuals)


Nonsense novels (Lewis Carroll)
Humanitarian novels: -Realistic (T. Hardy -> psychological and moral complexity of
individuals; G. Eliot -> influence of the environment on
the individual which often alienates him)
-Fantastic
-Moral
Novel of manners (Jane Austen)
R. L. Stevenson and the double nature of the Victorian society

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Aestheticism and decadence


Developed in France with Thophile Gautier (181172)
It reflected:
the sense of frustration and uncertainty of the artist;
his reaction against the materialism andthe restrictive moral code of the bourgeoisie;
his need to re-define the role of art;
the French artists withdrew from the political and social scene;
escaped into aesthetic isolation.
The bohemians protest against the monotony and vulgarity of bourgeois life led to an
unconventional existence, the pursue of sensations and excesses, and the cult of art and beauty.
Walter Pater (183994), the theorist of the Aesthetic Movement in England,
rejected religious faith;
said that art was the only means to stop time;
thought life should be lived as a work of art feeling all kinds of sensations.
Eternal

Art

Art for arts sake

No reference to life, morality


The task of the artist to feel sensations, to be attentive to the attractive, the gracious.
A number of features can be distinguished in the works of Aesthetic artists:
evocative use of the language of the senses;
excessive attention to the self;
hedonistic attitude;
perversity in subject matter;
disenchantment with contemporary society;
absence of any didactic aim.
THE DANDY
Belonged to the upper classes opposite to the bohemian.
Elegance as a reason of life and life as a work of art.
Interested in beauty and literary works opposite to the didacticism of the Victorian
writers of the first half of the age.

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Charles Dickens
LIFE

Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth in 1812. He had an unhappy childhood since his
father was imprisoned for debts and he was put to work in a factory.
He was sent to a school in London and found then and employment as an office boy and
studied shorthand. He began to work as a reporter for a newspaper with the pen name
Boz.
He married Catherine Hogarth and became editor of Bentleys Miscellany. He started then
his full time career as a novelist.
Dickens went to Canada and the United States where he advocated international copyright
and the abolition of slavery.
He died in London in 1870.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Oliver Twist (1837-1839)
Nickolas Nickleby (1838-1839)
A Christmas Carol (1843)
David Copperfield (1849-1850)
Little Dorrit (1855-1857)
Hard Times (1853)
Great Expectations (1860-1861)

DICKENSS CHARACTERS
Dickens described the characters, habits and language of the middle and lower classes in
London.
He was always on the side of the poor.
The most important characters are mainly children, which are good and wise; Dickens
made them the moral teachers, the examples instead of the imitators.

DICKENSS DIDACTIC AIM


He wanted that the more educated and wealthier classes acquired knowledge of poors
misery; he wanted to get the common intelligence of the country to alleviate sufferings.
He succeeded in drawing popular attention to public abuses and evils by mixing terrible
descriptions of Londons misery and crime with the most amusing sketches of the town.
DICKENSS SOURCES OF INSPIRATION
He was influenced by the Bible, fairy tales, fables, nursery rhymes, the 18 th century
novelists and essayists and Gothic novels.
Sometimes his novels sound a bit artificial, sentimental and episodic because he had to
publish in weekly/monthly instalments and he had to conform to public taste.
London is the setting of most of his novels.
DICKENSS STYLE
He used a lot of hyperboles and metaphors often drawn from the animal world. Analogies
are widespread in his novels, too and the repetition of words makes them humorous. He
also introduced absurd hypotheses.

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OLIVER TWIST
This Bildungsroman (an education novel) appeared in instalments in 1837.
It fictionalises the humiliations Dickens experienced during his childhood.
The protagonist, Oliver Twist, is always innocent and pure and remains incorruptible
throughout the novel.
At the end he is saved from a life of villainy by a well-to-do family.
The setting is London.
Dickens attacked:
a) the social evils of his times such as poor houses, unjust courts and the underworld.
b) the world of the workhouses founded upon the idea that poverty was a consequence of
laziness.
c) the officials of the workhouses because they abused the rights of the poor as individuals
and caused them further misery.
HARD TIMES
It is a denunciation novel, a powerful accusation of some of the negative effects of
industrial society.
The setting is Coketown, an imaginary industrialised town.
The characters are people living and working in Coketown, like the protagonist Thomas
Gradgrind, an educator who believes in facts and statistics.
The themes are:
a) a critic of materialism and Utilitarianism.
b) a denunciation of the ugliness and squalor of the new industrial age.
c) the gap between the rich and the poor.
The aim is to to illustrate the dangers of allowing people to become like machines.
A CHRISTMAS CAROL (1843)
It celebrates Christmas Eve and Christmas.
The protagonists are:
Scrooge, an old, greedy man;
the ghost Christmas past;
the ghost Christmas present;
the ghost Christmas future;
Bob Cratchit, Scrooges long-suffering clerk;
Tiny Tim, Bobs crippled son;
Fred, Scrooges nephew.
The ghosts shows Scrooge the evils of his existence.
Its main themes:
Redemption and transformation: Scrooge turns from a selfish man to a generous one who
understands the importance in taking notice of the people living around us.
The children of the poor.
As sex was the only affordable pleasure for the poor, at that time, the results was thousands of
children living in appalling poverty, fifth and disease.
This novel developed the joy of Christmas both in Britain and America.

CHIARA VENUTO @TheyCallMeCCV

2012: THE BICENTENARY OF DICKENS BIRTHDAY


Dickenss legacy:
1. He was the man who invented the idea of a white Christmas
2. 'Dickensian' poverty -> Dickens was one of the first to describe the underclass and the
poverty stricken in Victorian London. Dickensian has become the easiest word to
describe an unacceptable level of poverty.
3. Modern character comedy: the comic potential of the way his characters talk.
4. The cinema: Dickens was a key and important influence in cinema development because
he invented the parallel montage where two stories run alongside each other and the
close-up.
5. Meaningful names: he refined the practice to suggest characters traits and their role.
Some characters have become so recognisable that they have entered the language as
nouns; for example, a Scrooge = somebody mean-spirited or lacking generosity.
6. Our view of the law: the current view of lawyers seems to be partly inspired by characters
such as the menacing lawyer Mr. Tulkinghorn in Bleak House.
Dickens was very critical of the way the law discriminated against the poor.

CHIARA VENUTO @TheyCallMeCCV

Oliver wants some more, from Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens


The room in which the boys were fed, was a large stone hall, with a copper at one end: out of which the
master, dressed in an apron for the purpose, and assisted by one or two women, ladled the gruel at
mealtimes. Of this festive composition each boy had one porringer, and no more--except on occasions of
great public rejoicing, when he had two ounces and a quarter of bread besides.
The bowls never wanted washing. The boys polished them with their spoons till they shone again; and when
they had performed this operation (which never took very long, the spoons being nearly as large as the
bowls), they would sit staring at the copper, with such eager eyes, as if they could have devoured the very
bricks of which it was composed; employing themselves, meanwhile, in sucking their fingers most
assiduously, with the view of catching up any stray splashes of gruel that might have been cast thereon.
Boys have generally excellent appetites. Oliver Twist and his companions suffered the tortures of slow
starvation for three months: at last they got so voracious and wild with hunger, that one boy, who was tall
for his age, and hadn't been used to that sort of thing (for his father had kept a small cook-shop), hinted
darkly to his companions, that unless he had another basin of gruel per diem, he was afraid he might some
night happen to eat the boy who slept next him, who happened to be a weakly youth of tender age. He had
a wild, hungry eye; and they implicitly believed him. A council was held; lots were cast who should walk up
to the master after supper that evening, and ask for more; and it fell to Oliver Twist.
The evening arrived; the boys took their places. The master, in his cook's uniform, stationed himself at the
copper; his pauper assistants ranged themselves behind him; the gruel was served out; and a long grace
was said over the short commons. The gruel disappeared; the boys whispered each other, and winked at
Oliver; while his next neighbours nudged him. Child as he was, he was desperate with hunger, and reckless
with misery. He rose from the table; and advancing to the master, basin and spoon in hand, said: somewhat
alarmed at his own temerity:
'Please, sir, I want some more.'
The master was a fat, healthy man; but he turned very pale. He gazed in stupified astonishment on the
small rebel for some seconds, and then clung for support to the copper. The assistants were paralysed with
wonder; the boys with fear.
'What!' said the master at length, in a faint voice.
'Please, sir,' replied Oliver, 'I want some more.'
The master aimed a blow at Oliver's head with the ladle; pinioned him in his arm; and shrieked aloud for the
beadle.
The board were sitting in solemn conclave, when Mr. Bumble rushed into the room in great excitement, and
addressing the gentleman in the high chair, said,
'Mr. Limbkins, I beg your pardon, sir! Oliver Twist has asked for more!'
There was a general start. Horror was depicted on every countenance.
'For MORE!' said Mr. Limbkins. 'Compose yourself, Bumble, and answer me distinctly. Do I understand that
he asked for more, after he had eaten the supper allotted by the dietary?'
'He did, sir,' replied Bumble.
'That boy will be hung,' said the gentleman in the white waistcoat. 'I know that boy will be hung.'
Nobody controverted the prophetic gentleman's opinion. An animated discussion took place. Oliver was
ordered into instant confinement; and a bill was next morning pasted on the outside of the gate, offering a
reward of five pounds to anybody who would take Oliver Twist off the hands of the parish. In other words,
five pounds and Oliver Twist were offered to any man or woman who wanted an apprentice to any trade,
business, or calling.

CHIARA VENUTO @TheyCallMeCCV

Robert Louis Stevenson


LIFE

Born in 1850, Edinburgh, Scotland.


Studied literature at Edinburgh University.
Had to move to a warmer climate because of his deteriorating health.
In 1875 he married Fanny Osbourne and moved to Australia and Tahiti, settling in Samoa.
The travel almost killed him and doctors told him he would die in a few months.
He died of a brain haemorrhage.
His first great writing success was Treasure Island, the thrilling story of a swashbuckling
pirate jammed John Silver.
Other works include: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; A Childs Garden of
Verses and Kidnapped.

THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE


It became an instant success in 1886.
Britain was experiencing a period of intense social, economic and spiritual change, after
many decades of confident growth and national self-fulfillment.
It perfectly captured readers fears that their careful built society was hypocritical.
It was a symbolic expression of threats to traditional British society: struggle between the
social classes for power with an increase in political power of the working class.
It was published in 1886.
Stevenson was interested in what made up a persons character: why he could be bad as
well as good.
After a nightmare, Stevenson wrote the story of Dr. Jekyll in just three days.
He had dreamed of a man in a laboratory who had swallowed a drug and turned into a
different being.
He was excited by the Gothic aspect of the story and produced a first draft.
The Gothic novel
Its popularity revived in 1880s and 1890s.
Many works of this period described the double nature of Victorian society, with its
mixture of respectability and hypocrisy.
The Plot
The story is quite simple. The protagonist is a man divided against himself: Jekyll is a respectable
being and Hyde is an evil genius. These two being are in constant struggle and once Hyde is release
from hiding, he gets domination over the Jekyll aspect so that the individual can choose between:
a. A life of crime and depravity
b. Killing Hyde
So the final and only choice is suicide (Jekylls self-murder)

CHIARA VENUTO @TheyCallMeCCV

The double of the seeing


The novel is set in London but reflects Stevensons experience of Edinburgh.
Both capitals, indeed, have a double nature and reflected the hypocrisy of Victorians
society.
LONDON
Respectable West End
The East End Slums

EDINBURGH
The New Town
The Old Town = crime

Symbolism
The two facades of Jekylls house are symbolically the faces of two opposite sides of the
same man: the attractive front contrasts with the sinister rear used by Hyde.
Most of the scenes take place at night. Theres no natural daylight but only the artificial
lighting of Jekylls house and the street lamps.
There are no women, no wives and the only relationships between people are professional
ones. All men belong to the same respectable world (one is a lawyer and to are doctors).
The narrative technique
The novel has a complex structure. There are four narrators:
1. Mr. Utterson, a lawyer whose clients include Mr. Jekyll. He is a neutral or repressed
character who seems to exist in symbiosis with the disreputable individuals who visit his
practice. He has the role of a detective and recalls Arthur Conan Doyles Sherlock Holmes
since he follows clues and develops hypotheses.
2. Enfield, a distant relative of Utterson.
3. Lanyon, a friend and colleague of Jekyll, whose curiosity allows him to be tempted by
forbidden knowledge and in the end he dies, as Jekyll.
4. Jekyll himself, whose narrative and final confession takes up the best chapter.
Good and evil
The novel is a portrayal of good and evil and its characters, Jekyll and Hyde, are the stereotypes of
people who are good and evil. Jekyll has spent a virtuous life, he is handsome, well-shaped
and his body is more harmoniously proportioned than Hydes. Hyde s pale and dwarfish, his hands
are dark and he gives the impression of deformity, but throughout the novel he begins to grow in
stature and the original balance of good and evil in Jekylls nature disappears.
Influences and interpretation
Darwins studies about mans kinship to the animal world can be observed in Hydes description.
Hyde can be both the primitive, the evolutionary forerunner of civilised man and the symbol of
repressed psychology. Jekyll, by projecting his hidden pleasures onto Hyde, is as guilty as Mr.Hyde.
Thus, Jekyll is a kind of Victorian Faust and his awareness is a sort of pact with an interior evil
that controls him in the end.

CHIARA VENUTO @TheyCallMeCCV

Jekylls experiment, from The Strange Case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde by R.L. Stevenson
I, for my part, from the nature of my life, advanced infallibly in one direction and in one direction only. It was on the
moral side, and in my own person, that I learned to recognize the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of
the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only
because I was radically both; and from an early date, even before the course of my scientific discoveries had begun to
suggest the most naked possibility of such a miracle, I had learned to dwell with pleasure, as a beloved daydream, on
the thought of the separation of these elements. If each, I told myself, could but be housed in separate identities, life
would be relieved of all that was unbearable; the unjust might go his way, delivered from the aspirations and remorse
of his more upright twin; and the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path, doing the good things in
which he found his pleasure, and no longer exposed to disgrace and penitence by the hands of this extraneous evil. It
was the curse of mankind that these incongruous faggots were thus bound together - that in the agonized womb of
consciousness these polar twins should be continuously struggling. How, then, were they dissociated? []
I purchased at once, from a firm of wholesale chemists, a large quantity of a particular salt, which I knew, from my
experiments, to be the last ingredient required; and, late one accursed night, I compounded the elements, watched
them boil and smoke together in the glass, and when the ebullition had subsided, with a strong glow of courage, drank
off the potion.
The most racking pangs succeeded: a grinding in the bones, deadly nausea, and a horror of the spirit that cannot be
exceeded at the hour of birth or death. Then these agonies began swiftly to subside, and I came to myself as if out of a
great sickness. There was something strange in my sensations, something indescribably new and, from its very novelty,
incredibly sweet. I felt younger, lighter, happier in body; within I was conscious of a heady recklessness, a current of
disordered sensual images running like a mill race in my fancy, a solution of the bonds of obligation, an unknown but
not an innocent freedom of the soul. I knew myself, at the first breath of this new life, to be more wicked, tenfold more
wicked, sold a slave to my original evil; and the thought, in that moment, braced and delighted me like wine. I
stretched out my hands, exulting in the freshness of `these sensations; and in the act, I was suddenly aware that I had
lost in stature.
There was no mirror, at that date, in my room; that which stands beside me as I write was brought there later on, and
for the very purpose of those transformations. The night, however, was far gone into the morning - the morning, black
as it was, was nearly ripe for the conception of the day - the inmates of my house were locked in the most rigorous
hours of slumber; and I determined, flushed as I was with hope and triumph, to venture in my new shape as far as to
my bedroom. I crossed the yard, wherein the constellations looked down upon me, I could have thought, with wonder,
the first creature of that sort that their unsleeping vigilance had yet disclosed to them; I stole through the corridors, a
stranger in my own house; and coming to my room, I saw for the first time the appearance of Edward Hyde. []
And yet when I looked upon that ugly idol in the glass, I was conscious of no repugnance, rather of a leap of welcome.
This, too, was myself. It seemed natural and human. In my eyes it bore a livelier image of the spirit, it seemed more
express and single, than the imperfect and divided countenance I had been hitherto accustomed to call mine. And in so
far I was doubtless right. I have observed that when I wore the semblance of Edward Hyde, none could come near to
me at first without a visible misgiving of the flesh. This, as I take it, was because all human beings, as we meet them,
are commingled out of good and evil: and Edward Hyde, alone, in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil.
I lingered but a moment at the mirror: the second and conclusive experiment had yet to be attempted; it yet remained
to be seen if I had lost my identity beyond redemption and must flee before daylight from a house that was no longer
mine; and hurrying back to my cabinet, I once more prepared and drank the cup, once more suffered the pangs of
dissolution, and came to myself once more with the character, the stature, and the face of Henry Jekyll. []
At that time my virtue slumbered; my evil, kept awake by ambition, was alert and swift to seize the occasion; and the
thing that was projected was Edward Hyde. Hence, although I had now two characters as well as two appearances,
one was wholly evil, and the other was still the old Henry Jekyll, that incongruous compound of whose reformation and
improvement I had already learned to despair. The movement was thus wholly toward the worse.

CHIARA VENUTO @TheyCallMeCCV

Oscar Wilde
LIFE

Born in Dublin in 1854.


He became a disciple of Walter Pater, the theorist of aestheticism.
He became a fashionable dandy.
He was one of the most successful playwrights of late Victorian London and one of the
greatest celebrities of his days.
He suffered a dramatic downfall and was imprisoned after been convicted of gross
indecency for homosexual acts.
He died in Paris in 1900.

WORKS
Poetry:

Fairy tales:

Novel:
Plays:

Poems, 1891
The Ballad of Reading Gaol, 1898
The Happy Prince and other Tales, 1888
The House of Pomegranates, 1891
The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
Lady Windermeres Fan, 1892
A Woman of no Importance, 1893
The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895
Salom, 1893 (tragedy written in French)

WILDES AESTHETICISM
Oscar Wilde adopted the aesthetical ideal: he affirmed my life is like a work of art.
His aestheticism clashed with the didacticism of Victorian novels.
The artist = the creator of beautiful things.
Art used only to celebrate beauty and the sensorial pleasures.
Virtue and vice employed by the artist as raw material in his art: No artist has
ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of
style. (from The Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray)
THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY
1890 first appeared in a magazine.
1891 revised and extended.
It reflects Oscar Wildes personality.
It was considered immoral by the Victorian public
Plot

Set in London at the end of the 19th century.


The painter Basil Hallward makes a portrait of a handsome young man, Dorian Gray.
Dorians desires of eternal youth are satisfied.
Experience and vices appear on the portrait.
Dorian lives only for pleasures.
The painter discovers Dorians secret and he is killed by the young man
Later Dorian wants to get free from the portrait; he stabs it but in so doing he kills himself.
At the very moment of death the portrait returns to its original purity and Dorian turns into
a withered, wrinkled and loathsome man.

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A modern version of Dr. Faust


A temptation is placed before Dorian: a potential ageless beauty.
Lord Henrys cynical attitude is in keeping with the devils role in Dr Faust.
Lord Henry acts as the Devil advocate.
The picture stands for the dark side of Dorians personality.
The moral of the novel
Every excess must be punished and reality cannot be escaped.
When Dorian destroys the picture, he cannot avoid the punishment for all his sins
death.
The horrible, corrupting picture could be seen as a symbol of the immorality and bad
conscience of the Victorian middle class.
The picture, restored to its original beauty, illustrates Wildes theories of art: art survives
people, art is eternal.

CHIARA VENUTO @TheyCallMeCCV

Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde


The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim. The
critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful
things.
The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography. Those who find ugly
meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.
Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.
They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty.
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.
That is all.
The nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
The nineteenth century dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a
glass. The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art
consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium.
No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved. No artist has ethical
sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. No artist is
ever morbid. The artist can express everything.
Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art. Vice and virtue are to the artist
materials for an art. From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the
musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor's craft is the type. All art is at once surface
and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.
Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really
mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.
When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself. We can forgive a man for making a
useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one
admires it intensely.
All art is quite useless.

CHIARA VENUTO @TheyCallMeCCV

The Drums of War (1901-25)


THE EDWARDIAN AGE
When Queen Victoria died, the royal house took the Germanic surname of Prince Albert of
Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
Victorias son Edward reigned until 1910 as Edward VII.
His greatest achievement was in foreign policy.
The Entente Cordiale signed with France in 1904.
The Liberals won the general elections in 1906 and introduced reforms to help 3 groups of people:
1. Children from poor families: 1906 free school meals; 1907 free school medical
inspections; 1908 the Childrens Charter gave children some
legal protection because it restricted the sale of alcohol and
cigarettes.
2. Old people: 1908 the Old-Age Pensions Act introduced pensions for people over 70.
3. Workers: 1911 the National Insurance Act gave people the right to free medical
treatment and unemployment pay (the dole).
191014: A series of strikes was called because of high prices and low wages.
They were remarkable for the number of men involved and for the violence which often
accompanied them.
THE SUFFRAGETTES
At the beginning of the 20th century only men were allowed to vote.
A few educated ladies had been arguing in favour of voting rights for women since the
1860s.
In 1903 Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel founded the WSPU
(Womens Social and Political Union).
The Suffragettes, as they were called, protested that women should be able to vote.
The WSPU began to break the law to gain publicity and support.
They began a campaign of vandalism:
they chained themselves to railings outside Downing Street and Buckingham Palace;
they made arson attacks on post boxes, churches and railway stations.
The Government dealt with the protests harshly and sent many Suffragettes to prison.
In prison some women went on hunger strike to draw attention to their campaign. Prison
authorities began force-feeding them.
Most important newspapers of the time: The Times and The Daily Telegraph. The Daily Mail was
founded in 1896: it was characterised by its cheapness, the short articles, simple language and
social themes.
When Edward VII died, his younger son was crowned king with the name of George V in
Westminster Abbey (1911). His reign saw the years of World War I, which broke out in 1914.

CHIARA VENUTO @TheyCallMeCCV

Britain and World War I


OUTBREAK OF THE WAR
The rivalry between Russia and Austria over the Slav state of Serbia led to the outbreak of WWI
when the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo in 1914.
GENERAL FACTS
Britain declared war on Germany on 4th August 1914.
The war ended on 11th November 1918.
Almost 8,000,000 people died.
Almost 22,000 were wounded.
The war was known as the war to end all wars.
The domino effect: first Austria declared war on Serbia; then Russia declared war on
Austria; next Germany joined with Austria; finally France and Britain declared war on
Austria and Germany.
CONDUCTING THE WAR
The Germans attacked France through Belgium.
The French counter-attacked but were pushed back.
The Russians rapid mobilisation surprised the Germans, who were forced to move some
troops to the Eastern front.
Stagnation and trench warfare in the West.
TRENCH WARFARE
Machine guns vs. human charge

Technology superior to tactics


New technology: poison gas,
airplanes, barbed wire, shells

Very high death rates

Battle of Verdun: 700,000 killed on


both sides with no gain in territory

Battle of the Somme: 600,000 Allies and


500,000 Germans died for 125 miles of land

WIDER INVOLVEMENT
Soldiers from the British Empire from Canada, Australia and New Zealand volunteered.
War at the sea initiated US involvement:
Americans initially supplied both the Allies and the Central Powers
Germans used their submarines the u-boats and killed 1,000 Americans
Americans entered the war on the side of the Allies in April 1917
Allies blockaded Germany causing a shortage of food that led the country to ask for an
armistice. On November 1918 the war ended.

CHIARA VENUTO @TheyCallMeCCV

THE END OF WAR


Versailles Peace Treaty signed by British Prime Minister Lloyd George, Georges Clemenceau
of France, American President Woodrow Wilson and Vittorio Emanuele Orlando of Italy.
Woodrow Wilson -> League of Nations, an organisation in which the representatives of the
worlds nations would try to discuss and settle their differences without resorting to war.
IN ENGLISH PAINTING
The most individual and expressive of the artists who recorded the battlefields of World War I is
Paul Nash: his first-hand experience gave his work immediacy and brutal honesty. It took a
message from the trenches to the firesides back at home.

Shell shock was the term used by doctors to refer to the shell explosions they blamed for
the frequent cases of psychological disorders among surviving soldiers. They suffered from
various forms of obsession in which the terror, anguish and the immobility of combat led
to a variety of physical and emotional symptoms.

CHIARA VENUTO @TheyCallMeCCV

The Twenties and the Thirties

During the war Irish volunteers had organised a rebellion on Easter Monday 1916 and
proclaimed an Irish republic.
In the 1918 election the Sinn Fein party (Ourselves alone) won nearly all the seats except
in Ulster, but instead of going to Westminster, they set up a Parliament in Dublin, the Dail.
In 1919 the Irish volunteers became the IRA (Irish Republican Army) and prepared for the
civil war (1920).
In 1921 the Irish Free State was established under the leadership of Eamon de Valera.
The Protestant counties of Ulster remained part of the UK with their own parliament in
Belfast.
The official proclamation of the Republic of Ireland took place in 1949.
After WWI the Labour Party rose rapidly and the trade unions became more active in trying
to get better pay and condition by holding strikes.
The disputes between the coal miners and the owners led to the General Strike of 1926.

All over Europe and America a serious crisis, known as the Great Depression, was taking
place. During the 2nd half of the decade the economy recovered, mostly because of the
boom owing to rearmament for the impending war against Germany.

The year 1936 was one of crisis, with the abdication of King Edward VIII (due to the
opposition of all the parties against his decision of marrying a divorced American woman)
and the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War.
The Spanish War was won by the rebel General Francisco Franco with the assistance of
Mussolini and Hitler; many committed intellectuals like Auden, Orwell and Hemingway
joined the anti-fascist International Brigade.

Fewer people lived in the centres of towns: professionals moved out to suburbs.

CHIARA VENUTO @TheyCallMeCCV

The Second World War

In 1938 Germany took over some parts of Czechoslovakia.


Neville Chamberlain held meetings with Hitler and was convinced that Germany would go
no further. He was wrong.
Six months later Germany invaded the rest of the country and Britain gave a guarantee of
support to Poland if Germany invaded.
Germany did invade Poland. WWII broke out.
Most British people thought that it had to be fought to defend democracy.
Poland fell in September 1939; Belgium, Holland and Norway in 1940; France in June 1940.
Winston Churchill established a War Cabinet.
In 1940 nobody expected Hitler to be defeated. But Germany did not manage to get
control of the air over the English Channel, and Hitler made a huge mistake with his
decision to invade the USSR in June 1941.
The German army, in fact, was destroyed by the long Russian winter and by the resistance
in Leningrad, Moscow and Stalingrad.
The Russian Red Army marched through Eastern Europe to liberate the countries invaded
by the Germans.
American intervention in 1941 followed a Japanese air-attack on Pearl Harbour, Hawaii.
Montgomerys army in North Africa destroyed the German and Italian troops.
6 June 1944: American, British and Canadian troops landed in Normandy, an event known
as D-Day (Delivery Day). France and Belgium were liberated.
Germany surrendered with Hitlers suicide.
In August 1945 President Truman ordered the dropping of the atomic bomb on the
Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Britain withdrew from India, Burma, Ceylon, Malaya and Singapore since all the peoples
from the colonies wanted independence as a reward.
The cost of the war was immense.

CHIARA VENUTO @TheyCallMeCCV

From Boom to Bust


THE USA IN THE 1920s AND 1930s
By the end of the 19th century the USA was considered a world leader because:
It was the richest country in the world with its economy based on
1) Agricultural property
2) Massive industrial output
3) Rich mineral resources
The gross national product, or total value of goods and services, rose by 40%
The economy performed well, especially for car manufacturers
The economic boom had not prevented the rise of national problems:
Corruption in government
Spread of poverty amongst farmers and workers; they lived in dirty and overcrowded
slums and they toiled long hours for low wages
Investigations of corruption and social problems were introduces into the newspapers by
muckrakers, reform-minded journalists.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
The republican Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) became the 26th president of the USA.
- He made the navy stronger
- He carried out a moderate programme of social legislation
- He introduced the regulation and control of big businesses and destroyed trusts and
monopolies
THE USA:
- asserted an economic control all over almost all of Latin America, especially after the
Spanish-American War (1898);
- annexed Hawaii, the Philippines, Puerto Rico and many Pacific islands;
- leased Panama and built the Panama Canal (1914) to connect the Atlantic Ocean with the
Pacific Ocean.
THE RED SCARE
The Twenties were also characterised by reactionary attitudes such as the fear of socialism,
called The Red Scare
After the success of the Russian Revolution, communists, socialists and anarchists were
persecuted and imprisoned
The most famous case, on a charge of murder, was the one of the Italian anarchists Sacco
and Vanzetti, whose execution divided American public opinion.
United States gradually began to grant independence to their dominions, except for Cuba, where
they maintained the control of Guantanamo Bay to build a large naval base.

CHIARA VENUTO @TheyCallMeCCV

The age of anxiety


A CULTURAL CRISIS
The First World War left the country in a disillusioned and cynical mood.
Stability and prosperity belonged only to the privileged class.
Consciences were haunted by the atrocities of the war.
The gap between the younger and older generation grew wider and wider.
Increasing transformation of the
notions of imperial hegemony

Beginning of the slow dissolution of the British


Empire into a Commonwealth of Nations

Nothing seemed to be right


or certain

New views of man and the universe


emerged
SIGMUND FREUD AND PSYCHOANALYSIS
Born in 1856 to a Jewish family in what is now the Czech Republic.
He moved to Vienna at the age of four, grew up, was educated, and spent most of his life
there.
After an impressive career in school, he matriculated in 1873 and then attended the
University of Vienna to study medicine.
During his medical research, he came to be interested in the complex operations of the
mind.
Freud created a structural model of the psyche where he identified three parts:

ID

The set of instinctual


impulses lacking
organisation

EGO

The coordinated realistic


part

SUPEREGO

Has a critical and moralising role


since it includes the constraints
imposed on the individual by
society, education and moral laws

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The Interpretation of Dreams (1900)


The argument of this essay can be summarised as follows:
Dreams are the fulfilment of a wish.
Dreams are the disguised fulfilment of a wish.
Dreams are the disguised fulfilment of a repressed wish.
Dreams are the disguised fulfilment of a repressed, infantile wish.
The development of the human psyche is affected by the subconscious
mans action could be motivated by irrational forces
the superego can profoundly distort mans behaviour
The effects of Freuds 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
ALBERT EINSTEIN (1879-1955)
Born in Ulm, Germany, in 1879, the first child of a middle-class Jewish couple.
He was strongly influenced by his mother, who encouraged his passion for the violin.
As he grew up, he began to show a talent for mathematics and developed a total
indifference to convention and authority.
1905 was Einsteins annus mirabilis because he wrote four papers on:
1. the photoelectric effect;
2. Brownian motion;
3. special relativity;
4. the equivalence of mass and energy (E = mc2) where E is energy, m is mass, and c is the
speed of light.
Between 1907 and 1915 Einstein developed a new theory called general relativity (GR) to
distinguish it from the original theory of special relativity:
A theory of gravitation according to which the observed gravitational attraction
between masses results from the warping of space and time
by those masses.

In 1921, Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.


In 1933 he accepted an appointment at the new Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton
In 1939 a group of scientists persuaded him to write a letter to President Roosevelt urging
the U.S. to start a programme of nuclear research.
This led to the Manhattan Project and the atom bomb that exploded over Hiroshima.
He became an American citizen in 1940.
He died in 1955.

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A NEW CONCEPT OF TIME


The idea of time was questioned also by the American associationist philosopher William James
(1842-1910) and the French philosopher Henri Bergson (1859-1941).
William James: our mind records every single experience as a continuous flow of the
already into the not yet
Henri Bergson: distinction between historical time and psychological time
HISTORICAL TIME
External
Linear
Measured in terms of the spatial distance
travelled by a pendulum or the hands of a clock

PSYCHOLOGICAL TIME
Internal
Subjective
Measured by the relative emotional intensity of
a moment

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Modernism
A powerful international movement reaching through Western cultures gave shape to the
modern consciousness and expressed the desire to break with established forms and subjects.
Common features:
The intentional distortion of shapes.
The breaking down of limitations in space and time.
Emphasis on subjectivity, on how perception takes place, rather than on what is perceived.
New literary techniques such as the stream-of-consciousness.
The use of allusive language and the development of the multiple association of words.
The importance given to the sound of words as conveying the music of ideas.
The intensity of the isolated moment or image to provide a true insight into the nature
of things.
The substitution of the mythical for a realistic method and the parallelism between the
contemporary and antiquity.
The importance of unconscious as well as conscious life.
The need to reflect the complexity of modern urban life in an artistic form.
A rejection of the distinction between high and low or popular culture, both in the
choice of materials used to produce art and in the methods of displaying, distributing and
consuming art.

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Modern Poetry
TRADITION AND EXPERIMENTATION
The first decades of the 20th century a period of extraordinary originality and vitality in poetry.
A variety of trends and currents expressed the nature of modern experience:
The Georgian Poets
The War Poets
Imagist Poets
Symbolist Poets
Oxford Poets
New Romantics
THE GEORGIAN POETS
influenced by the Victorian Romantic tradition. They were Rupert Brooke (18871915), Walter
de la Mare (18731956), and Edward Thomas (18781917). They:
employed the conventions of diction;
felt sympathy for English elements, such as the countryside as an idyllic place;
remained indifferent or hostile to the revolution in sensibility and technique started by
the Symbolists
THE WAR POETS

experienced the fighting

in most cases lost their lives in the conflict


Content of their poetry the horrors of modern warfare represented in an unconventional,
anti-rhetorical way
Aim of their poetry to awaken the conscience of the readers to the horrors of the war
Language employed violent, everyday
Their poetry a definite move away from the 19th-century poetic conventions.
IMAGIST POETS
Modern poetry officially began with Imagism, a movement which flourished between 1912 and
1917. The name Imagiste was invented by the American poet Ezra Pound (18851972).
The main aesthetic principles were:
constant use of hard, clear and precise images
use of a rhythm freed from the artificial demands of metrical regularity
choice of any subject matter
poems, short, were the poets response to a scene or object, and had no moral comment;
the aim of poetry: to achieve precision, discipline, dry hardness.
SYMBOLIST POETS
Symbolism a movement started in France with Charles Baudelaires Les Fleurs du Mal (1857). It
influenced the new poetry.
The style of the Symbolist poets was characterised by:
indirect rather than direct statements
the use of allusive language and of the multiple association of words
the importance given to the sound of words
the use of quotations from other literatures, revealing cosmopolitan interests
the use of free verse; the possibility for the reader to bring meaning to the poem.

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It was T.S. Eliot who developed the new poetic theory and practice. In his essay Tradition and the
Individual Talent (1917), he stated that poetry is not a turning loose of emotion but an escape
from emotion; it is not the expression of personality but an escape from personality.
According to T.S. Eliot the poet:
was the explorer of experience.
used language to create rich patterns of meaning that were not easy for the superficial
reader.
recorded the collapse of Western civilisation and the culture and spiritual waste of the
beginning of the century.
OXFORD POETS
The 1930s were characterised by a group of poets that joined together as undergraduates at
Oxford. The four most famous names were W.H. Auden, Stephen Spender, Louis Macneice and
Cecil Day-Lewis. They:
concerned themselves with social and political aspects of human life, such as
unemployment, Nazism and Fascism
belonged to a generation which had been encouraged by its teachers to develop a social
conscience
turned away from Eliots complexity and allusiveness
used slang and jazz rhythms
drew their images from the world of technology
NEW ROMANTICS
In the 1940s a group of young poets reacted against the intellectualism and commitment of
Audens poetry and his contemporaries, appealing to emotions and rediscovering individual
themes such as love, birth, death and even sex. For this reason they were labelled as the new
Romantics. Their greatest representative was Dylan Thomas.

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William Butler Yeats


LIFE

1865: born in Dublin, Ireland, into a middle-class family belonging to a Protestant minority
His father was a free thinker with an anti-clerical attitude
As a student, Yeats was attracted to mystical doctrines and magic
1889: met Maud Gonne, an actress and a patriot who led him into politics of the Irish
Republican Brotherhood
1890s: met Lady Gregory, who supported his project of the Abbey Theatre, a literary
theatre to fight the commercial one
1893: published a series of essays, The Celtic Twilight, to promote an Irish renaissance
1922: he was a member of the Irish Senate from 1922 to 1928
1923: in December he was the first Irish author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for
Literature
1939: he died in France

THE CELTIC REVIVAL


Britain introduced a ban on the Gaelic language in Ireland: native Irish literature was in
danger of being lost.
For Yeats the artists role was the creation of a new culture, based on Irelands past.
Yeats collected Irish folklore and hoped in an Irish cultural renaissance.
At first he shared the Nationalists concern.
Grew disenchanted with the Nationalist movement when he saw it was dominated by the
values of the Catholic middle class.
Changed his political attitude after the cruel treatment by the British of the 1916 Easter
Rebellion and gradually placed his sympathies with the moderate members of the
government.
THE PHASES OF YEATSS ART
In the early period Yeats reproduces the languid and sensual atmospheres of the Romantics
as well as the mood of the decadent artists. He combined the use of Irish folklore with an
original symbolism, influenced by his reading of the French symbolists and his edition of
the works of William Blake.
The middle period dates from the beginning of the 20th century: Yeatss style became more
modern and flexible, he started to conceive his symbols as means to evoke universal myths. He also
experimented with technical innovations in the theatre. In this period he wrote The Wild Swans at
the Coole.

The later period covers the years of maturity, when a new and passionate intensity flew
into his major works, in particular A Vision, in which he described his philosophy.

YEATSS THEMES
Faith in the beauty and eternity of art.
The relationship between the poet and the Irish people and tradition.
Death: unlike an animal which simply dies man dies many times before his death. In his
opinion, every defeats, such as the unhappy experiences of love, but also every victory, are
a series of deaths and rebirths prefiguring the end of life.

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The heroic individual: loneliness characterises his heroes because their superior qualities
distinguish them from the common man. Such heroes, by their deeds and deaths, enter a
mythical world.

YEATS AND OCCULTISM


The reading of Nietzsche and the growing loneliness of middle age increased Yeatss quest for
completeness. He continued to elaborate the theme of mysticism. This interest had started in
his youth when his fathers arguments against Christian belief had led him to investigate theories
of the occult.
In London he joined a famous mystical society, the Theosophical society; he studied Swedenborg,
the Tibetan Mysteries and Buddhism. He learnt magic and esoteric symbols and began to create a
vision of his own. The most original of his ideas is that of the gyres, which are linked to his
concept of history.
YEATSS STYLE
Employed antithesis, oxymoron and paradox: his imagination worked through the conflict
and resolution of opposites.
Complete coincidence between period and stanza: made possible by the frequent
enjambement.
Sensual and sensory language: dynamic and energetic syntax, rich in verbs of motion and
action.
YEATSS VISION OF HISTORY
Yeats saw the function of the writer as one of mediating the continuity of the national spirit, to
uncover common ground beneath political conflicts, so that Irish literature would become a
central idea of his works. However, in 1916 the reality of violence suddenly became too great and
too personal. The horror of the Easter Rising and the subsequent executions, haunted Yeatss
imagination. He began to create his vision of history, a tragic vision of 2000-year cycles of
civilizations rising from a bestial floor to great heights of intellectual, aesthetic, and spiritual
achievement before turning like a tragic wheel down to apocalyptic anarchy. This vision enabled
him to become confident of the superiority of art to history.
So we can say that life and all of its phases are seen as cycles spiralling upwards or downwards
towards a fixed climax until the cycle reverses.
YEATSS CYCLICAL THEORY OF HISTORY
1. While one civilisations people are born, live and die, they move towards their own
annihilation.
2. From this civilisations death, another civilisation arises.
3. The point at which one eras struggle for death coincides with the next eras struggle for
birth provokes a violent turn of the gyre.
Gyres: the gyre is one of Yeatss favourite motifs, based on the idea that history occurs in cycles.
A single gyre resembles a funnel, which begins at a fixed point. From this point the spiral grows
wider and wider until it reaches its maximum growth. At this climax, the single gyre begins to
retrace its path in the opposite direction.
Yeats described the minds evolution as a process of circling toward the wide end of a gyre until
the centre cannot hold. At that point a revelation takes place, and the mind shifts to a new
centre. Gyres are not in conflict, but each of them simply marks the approach of a new world
order.

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YEATSS SYMBOLISM
1. To Yeats the symbol has a visionary dimension, it offers revelation
2. It has an effective role in shaping both the individual and the collective consciousness
3. It is not only a device he uses to present his themes. It is a theme itself, in which truths are
embodied in all their complexity.
Byzantium symbolises the Unity of Being, in which religious, aesthetic and practical life are one.
The swan symbolises a violent divine force (Leda and the Swan) or the unchanging, flawless ideal
The Wild Swan at Coole).
The falcon stands for violent and cruel rapacity which has broken free from control.
THE OBJECTIVE CORRELATIVE: T.S. ELIOT AND MONTALE
For Eliot, the objective correlative is a pattern of objects, events, actions, or a situation that can
serve effectively to awaken in the reader an emotional response without being a direct statement
of that subjective emotion.

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James Joyce
LIFE

Born in Dublin in 1882, one of a large family. He was educated at Jesuit schools, then
University College, Dublin. Here he studied French, Italian and German languages.
A rebel among rebels.
Contrast with Yeats and the other literary contemporaries who tried to rediscover the Irish
Celtic identity. He believed that the only way to increase Irelands awareness was by
offering a realistic portrait of its life from a European, cosmopolitan viewpoint.
In June 1904 he met and fell in love with Nora Barnacle, a twenty-year-old girl who was
working as a chambermaid in a hotel. They had their first date on 16 June, which was to
become the Bloomsday of Ulysses. They had two children, Giorgio and Lucia.
He left Dublin at the age of twenty-two and he settled for some time in Paris, then in
Rome, Trieste (in which he had financial problems), where he made friends with Italo
Svevo, and Zurich, where he died in January 1941.

THE MOST IMPORTANT FEATURES OF JOYCES WORKS


The setting of most of his works: Ireland, especially Dublin.
He rebelled against the Catholic Church.
All the facts: explored from different points of view simultaneously.
Greater importance given to the inner world of the characters.
Time: perceived as subjective.
His task: to render life objectively.
Isolation and detachment of the artist from society.
EVOLUTION OF HIS STYLE
Dubliners (1914):
Realism
Disciplined prose
Different points of view
Free-direct speech
A portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916):
Semi-autobiographical novel
Third-person narration
Minimal dialogue
Language and prose used to portray the protagonists state of mind
Free-direct speech
Ulysses (1922):
Published in Paris in 1922
Interior monologue with two levels of narration
Extreme interior dialogue
The outcry following its publication, and the subsequent court action in the US to
determine whether or not it was pornographic, brought Joyce an unwelcome notoriety

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DUBLIN
He set all his works in Ireland and mostly in the city of Dublin.
His achievement was to give a realistic portrait of the life of ordinary people doing ordinary
things and living ordinary lives.
By portraying these ordinary Dubliners, he represented the whole of mans mental,
emotional and biological reality and fused it with the cultural heritage of modern
civilisation and with the reality of the natural world around him.
The Dublin represented by Joyce is not fixed and static, it is the revolutionary montage of
Dublins through a range of historical juxtapositions and varied styles.
The 15 stories of the Dubliners, though set in the same city, are not united by their
geography: each story has a singular location.
DUBLINERS
Published in 1914 on a newspaper with the pseudonym Stephen Dedalus.
Its a collection of short stories all about Dublin and Dublins life.
Dubliners are described as afflicted people.
All the stories are set in Dublin: The city seemed to me the centre of paralysis, Joyce
stated.
Structure and Style
- Childhood: The Sisters, An Encounter, Araby
- Adolescence: After the Race, The Boarding House, Eveline, The Gallants
- Mature Life: A Little Cloud, Clay, Counterparts, A Painful Case
- Public Life: Ivy Day in the Committee Room, A Mother, Grace, The Dead
Narrative technique and themes
- Naturalistic, concise, detailed descriptions
- Naturalism combined with symbolism: double meaning of details
- Each story opens in medias res and is mostly told from the perspective of a character
- Use of free direct speech and free direct thought: direct presentation of the characters
thought
- Different linguistic registers: the language suits the age, the social class and the role of the
characters
- Use of epiphany: the sudden spiritual manifestation of an interior reality
- Themes: paralisys and escape
- Absence of a didactic and moral aim because of the impersonality of the artist
Epiphany
- Understanding the epiphany in each story is the key to the story itself
- It is the special moment in which a trivial gesture, an external object or a banal situation or
an episode lead the character to a sudden self-realisation about himself/herself or about
the reality surrounding him/her
Paralysics
The main of Dubliners: paralysis. The physical paralysis is caused by external forces. The moral
paralysis is linked to religion, politics and culture.
- The climax of the stories: the coming to awareness by the characters of their own paralysis
- Alternative paralysis: escape which leads to failure

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Eveline
- Eveline = passive, influenced by her familys mentality
- Her father = a violent and strict man
- Frank = a very kind, open-hearted and brave boy
- Antithesis between Evelines house and her new one in Buenos Aires: Paralysis/Escape
- The story opens in medias res: She sat at the window watching the evening invade the
avenue
- Third-person narrator but Evelines point of view.
- Subjective perception of time.
- Epiphany: a street organ which reminds Eveline of the promise she made to her dying
mother.
- Symbolic words = dust = decay, paralysis; sea = action, escape
- Themes: paralysis and the failure to find a way out of it, struggle between ones happines
and ones responsibility, action and inactivity, dream vs. reality
ULYSSES
The whole novel takes place on Thursday, June 16, 1904, the day in which Nora Barnacle,
Joyces future wife, made her fondness clear to him.
During the course of this day, three main characters wake up, have various encounters in
Dublin, and go to sleep eighteen hours later.
Characters
- The central character, Leopold Bloom, a middle-aged advertising canvasser and nonpracticing Jew, is Joyces common man. He leaves his home at 8 oclock to buy his
breakfast and returns finally at 2 the following morning; in the hours in-between, he turns
up in many streets, attends a funeral, endures misadventures and delight.
- During his wanderings, Bloom meets Stephen Dedalus (A Portrait of an Artist as a Young
Man), who becomes, momentarily, his adopted son: the alienated common man rescues
the alienated artist from a brothel, and takes him home where the paralysis of their
fatigue prevents them from achieving a personal communion.
- Finally theres Blooms wife, Molly, a voluptuous singer who is planning an afternoon of
adultery with her music director.
The relation to Odyssey
- As its title suggests, Ulysses is related to Homers great epic Odyssey, the taleof Odysses
and his travels after the Trojan War.
- Joyce used Odyssey as a framework for his book, arranging its characters and events
around Homers heroic model, with Bloom as Ulysses, Stephen as Telemachus and Molly as
the faithful Penelope.
- Ulysses is divided into three parts and eighteen episodes, as its chapters are usually called:
Telemachiad, Odyssey, Nostos.
- Each chapter is additionally organized around a different hour, a colour, an organ of the
body, a sense, a symbol, a narrative technique suitable for the subject-matter.
The setting
- Ulysses is the climax of Joyces creativity and sums up the themes and techniques he had
developed in his previous works.

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It was designed as a detailed account of ordinary life on an ordinary Dublin day and Joyce
planned each movement of each character on each street.
He placed them in houses he knew, drinking in pubs he had frequented.
He made the very air of Dublin, the atmosphere, the feeling, the place, almost
indistinguishable, inseparable, from his human characters.
Dublin becomes itself a character of the novel.

The representation of human nature


- Stephen Dedalus, Mr Bloom and Mrs Bloom are more than individuals: they represent two
aspects of human nature.
- Stephen is pure intellect; Mrs Bloom stands from flesh, since she identifies herself totally
with her sensual nature and fecundity; Mr Bloom is everybody, the whole mankind.

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Eveline from Dubliners by James Joyce


She sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue. Her head was leaned46 against the window curtains
and in her nostrils was the odour of dusty cretonne 47. She was tired.
Few people passed. The man out of the last house passed on his way home; she heard his footsteps clacking
along the concrete pavement48 and afterwards crunching on the cinder path49 before the new red houses. One time
there used to be a field there in which they used to play every evening with other peoples children. Then a man from
Belfast bought the field and built houses in it not like their little brown houses but bright brick houses with shining
roofs. The children of the avenue used to play together in that field the Devines, the Waters, the Dunns, little Keogh
the cripple50, she and her brothers and sisters. Ernest, however, never played: he was too grown up. Her father used
often to hunt them in out of the field 51 with his blackthorn stick52; but usually little Keogh used to keep nix53 and call
out when he saw her father coming. Still they seemed to have been rather happy then. Her father was not so bad then;
and besides, her mother was alive. That was a long time ago; she and her brothers and sisters were all grown up her
mother was dead. Tizzie Dunn was dead, too, and the Waters had gone back to England. Everything changes. Now she
was going to go away like the others, to leave her home.
Home! She looked round the room, reviewing all its familiar objects which she had dusted once a week for so
many years, wondering where on earth all the dust came from. Perhaps she would never see again those familiar
objects from which she had never dreamed of being divided. And yet during all those years she had never found out the
name of the priest whose yellowing photograph hung on the wall above the broken harmonium 54 beside the coloured
print of the promises made to Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque55. He had been a school friend of her father. Whenever
he showed the photograph to a visitor her father used to pass it with a casual word:
He is in Melbourne now.
She had consented to go away, to leave her home. Was that wise? She tried to weigh 56 each side of the question.
In her home anyway she had shelter and food; she had those whom she had known all her life about her. O course she
had to work hard, both in the house and at business. What would they say of her in the Stores57 when they found out
that she had run away with a fellow? Say 58 she was a fool, perhaps; and her place would be filled up 59 by
advertisement. Miss Gavan would be glad. She had always had an edge on her 60, especially whenever there were
people listening.

46

Leaned: appoggiata
Dusty cretonne: cretonne polveroso
48
Clacking pavement: risuonare sul marciapiede di cemento
49
Crunching path: cigolare sul sentiero di detriti
50
The cripple: lo storpio
51
Hunt field: cacciarli fuori dal campo
52
Blackthorn stick: bastone di pruno
53
Used nix: faceva da palo
54
Broken harmonium: armonium rotto
55
Blessed Alacoque: Beata Margherita Maria Alacoque
56
Tried to weigh: cercava di valutare
57
The Stores: il negozio in cui Eveline lavorava
58
Say: avrebbero detto
59
Would up: sarebbe stato rimpiazzato
60
She her: laveva sempre presa di punta
47

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Miss Hill, dont you see these ladies are waiting?


Look lively61, Miss Hill, please.
She would not cry many tears at leaving the Stores.
But in her new home, in a distant unknown country, it would not be like that. Then she would be married she,
Eveline. People would treat her with respect then. She would not be treated as her mother had been. Even now, though
she was over nineteen, she sometimes felt herself in danger of her fathers violence. She knew it was that that had
given her the palpitations. When they were growing up he had never gone for her like he used to go for Harry and
Ernest, because she was a girl but latterly he had begun to threaten her and say what he would do to her only for her
dead mothers sake. And no she had nobody to protect her. Ernest was dead and Harry, who was in the church
decorating business, was nearly always down somewhere in the country. Besides, the invariable squabble for money on
Saturday nights had begun to weary her unspeakably. She always gave her entire wages seven shillings and
Harry always sent up what he could but the trouble was to get any money from her father. He said she used to
squander the money, that she had no head, that he wasnt going to give her his hard-earned money to throw about
the streets, and much more, for he was usually fairly bad on Saturday night. In the end he would give her the money
and ask her had she any intention of buying Sundays dinner. Then she had to rush out as quickly as she could and do
her marketing, holding her black leather purse tightly in her hand as she elbowed her way through the crowds and
returning home late under her load of provisions. She had hard work to keep the house together and to see that the
two young children who had been left to hr charge went to school regularly and got their meals regularly. It was hard
work a hard life but now that she was about to leave it she did not find it a wholly undesirable life.
She was about to explore another life with Frank. Frank was very kind, manly, open-hearted. She was to go away
with him by the night-boat to be his wife and to live with him in Buenos Ayres where he had a home waiting for her.
How well she remembered the first time she had seen him; he was lodging in a house on the main road where she used
to visit. It seemed a few weeks ago. He was standing at the gate, his peaked cap pushed back on his head and his hair
tumbled forward over a face of bronze. Then they had come to know each other. He used to meet her outside the
Stores every evening and see her home. He took her to see The Bohemian Girl and she felt elated as she sat in an
unaccustomed part of the theatre with him. He was awfully fond of music and sang a little. People knew that they
were courting and, when he sang about the lass that loves a sailor, she always felt pleasantly confused. He used to call
her Poppens out of fun. First of all it had been an excitement for her to have a fellow and then she had begun to like
him. He had tales of distant countries. He had started as a deck boy at a pound a month on a ship of the Allan Line
going out to Canada. He told her the names of the ships he had been on and the names of the different services. He
had sailed through the Straits of Magellan and he told her stories of the terrible Patagonians. He had fallen on his feet
in Buenos Ayres, he said, and had come over to the old country just for a holiday. Of course, her father had found out
the affair and had forbidden her to have anything to say to him.
I know these sailor chaps, he said.
One day he had quarrelled with Frank and after that she had to meet her lover secretly.
The evening deepened in the avenue. The white of two letters in her lap grew indistinct. One was to Harry; the
other was to her father. Ernest had been her favourite but she liked Harry too. Her father was becoming old lately, she

61

Look lively: si muova

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noticed; he would miss her. Sometimes he could be very nice. Not long before, when she had been laid up for a day, he
had read her out a ghost story and made toast for her at the fire. Another day, when their mother was alive, they had
all gone for a picnic to the Hill of Howth. She remembered her father putting on her mothers bonnet to make the
children laugh.
Her time was running out but she continued to sit by the window, leaning her head against the window curtain,
inhaling the odour of dusty cretonne. Down far in the avenue she could hear a street organ playing. She knew the air
Strange that it should come that very night to remind her of the promise to her mother, her promise to keep the home
together as long as she could. She remembered the last night of her mothers illness; she was again in the close dark
room at the other side of the hall and outside she heard a melancholy air of Italy. The organ-player had been ordered
to go away and given sixpence. She remembered her father strutting back into the sickroom saying:
Damned Italians! coming over here!
As she mused the pitiful vision of her mothers life laid its spell on the very quick of her being that life of
commonplace sacrifices closing in final craziness. She trembled as she heard again her mothers voice saying constantly
with foolish insistence:
Derevaun Seraun! Derevaun Seraun!
She stood up in a sudden impulse of terror. Escape! She must escape! Frank would save her. He would give her
life, perhaps love, too. But she wanted to live. Why should she be unhappy? She had a right to happiness. Frank would
take her in his arms, fold her in his arms. He would save her.
She stood among the swaying crowd in the station at the North Wall. He held her hand and she knew that he
was speaking to her, saying something about the passage over and over again. The station was full of soldiers with
brown baggages. Through the wide doors of the sheds she caught a glimpse of the black mass of the boat, lying in
beside the quay wall, with illumined portholes. She answered nothing. She felt her cheek pale and cold and, out of a
maze of distress, she prayed to God to direct her, to show her what was her duty. The boat blew a long mournful
whistle into the mist. If she went, tomorrow she would be on the sea with Frank, steaming towards Buenos Ayres. Their
passage had been booked. Could she still draw back after all he had done for her? Her distress awoke a nausea in her
body and she kept moving her lips in silent fervent prayer.
A bell clanged upon her heart. She felt him seize her hand:
Come!
All the seas of the world tumbled about her heart. He was drawing her into them: he would drown her. She
gripped with both hands at the iron railing.
Come!
No! No! No! It was impossible. Her hands clutched the iron in frenzy. Amid the seas she sent a cry of anguish.
Eveline! Evvy!
He rushed beyond the barrier and called to her to follow. He was shouted at to go on but he still called to her.
She set her white face to him, passive, like a helpless animal. Her eyes gave him no sign of love or farewell or
recognition.

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The funeral from Ulysses by James Joyce


Mr Bloom stood far back, his hat in his hand, counting the bared heads. Twelve. I'm thirteen. No. The chap in the
macintosh is thirteen. Death's number. Where the deuce did he pop out of? He wasn't in the chapel, that I'll swear. Silly
superstition that about thirteen.
Nice soft tweed Ned Lambert has in that suit. Tinge of purple. I had one like that when we lived in Lombard street west.
Dressy fellow he was once. Used to change three suits in the day. Must get that grey suit of mine turned by Mesias.
Hello. It's dyed. His wife I forgot he's not married or his landlady ought to have picked out those threads for him.
The coffin dived out of sight, eased down by the men straddled on the gravetrestles. They struggled up and out: and all
uncovered. Twenty.
Pause.
If we were all suddenly somebody else.
Far away a donkey brayed. Rain. No such ass. Never see a dead one, they say. Shame of death. They hide. Also poor
papa went away.
Gentle sweet air blew round the bared heads in a whisper. Whisper. The boy by the gravehead held his wreath with
both hands staring quietly in the black open space. Mr Bloom moved behind the portly kindly caretaker. Well cut
frockcoat. Weighing them up perhaps to see which will go next. Well it is a long rest. Feel no more. It's the moment you
feel. Must be damned unpleasant. Can't believe it at first. Mistake must be: someone else. Try the house opposite.
Wait, I wanted to. I haven't yet. Then darkened deathchamber. Light they want. Whispering around you. Would you
like to see a priest? Then rambling and wandering. Delirium all you hid all your life. The death struggle. His sleep is not
natural. Press his lower eyelid. Watching is his nose pointed is his jaw sinking are the soles of his feet yellow. Pull the
pillow away and finish it off on the floor since he's doomed. Devil in that picture of sinner's death showing him a
woman. Dying to embrace her in his shirt.

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Virginia Woolf
LIFE

Her father Leslie Stephen was an eminent Victorian man of letters.


She grew up in a literary and intellectual atmosphere with free access to her fathers
library.
Childhood experiences of death (of her mother when she was 13) and sexual abuse (her
stepbrothers) led her to depression.
The Second World War increased her anxiety and fears. After rewriting drafts of her
suicide note, she put rocks into her pockets and drowned herself in the River Ouse.

LITERARY CAREER
The Bloomsbury Group In 1904 she moved to Bloomsbury and became a member of the
Bloomsbury Group. This meant the rejection of traditional morality and artistic
convention.
Experimentation best known as one of the great experimental novelists during the
modernist period.
WORKS
Evolution of her style in her main novels
The Voyage Out (1915) (Traditional narratives)
Night and Day (1917) (Traditional narratives)
Jacobs room (1922) (Narrative experimentation with the novel)
Mrs Dalloway (1925) (A more completely developed stream-of-consciousness technique)
To the Lighthouse (1927) (A more completely developed stream-of-consciousness
technique)
A feminist writer the themes of androgyny, women and writing
Mrs Dalloway (1925): Describes Clarissa Dalloway and Sally Setons relationship as young
women
Orlando (1928): Deals with androgyny
A Room of Ones Own (1929): Shows Woolfs concern with the questions of womens
subjugation and the relationship between women and writing
A MODERNIST NOVELIST
Main aim to give voice to the complex inner world of feeling and memory.
The human personality a continuous shift of impressions and emotions.
Narrator disappearance of the omniscient narrator.
Point of view shifted inside the characters minds through flashbacks, associations of
ideas, momentary impressions presented as a continuous flux.
Stream-of-consciousness technique
The action or plot is revealed through the
mental process of the character
Character development is achieved through
revelation of extremely personal thoughts

Traditional technique
through the commentary of the omniscient
narrator
through dialogue or the narrators
description

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The action of the plot moves back and forth


through present time to memories of past
events and dreams of the future
Dramatic monologue and free association

corresponds to real, chronological time

Narration, description, dialogue and


commentary by the narrator

WOOLFS STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS: never lets her characters thoughts flow withouth control;
mantains logical and grammatical organisation.
JOYCES STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS: characters show their thoughts directly through interior
monologue, sometimes in an incoherent and syntactically unorthodox way.
MOMENTS OF BEING: rare moments of insight during the characters daily life when they can see
reality behind apparances.
EPIPHANIES: The sudden spiritual manifestation cause by a trivial gesture, an external objects; the
character is led to a self-realisation about himself/herself.
MRS DALLOWAY (1925)
The main character, Clarissa Dalloway, is a wealthy London hostess. She spends her day
preparing for her evening party. She recalls her life before WWI, before her marriage to
Richard Dalloway, and her relationship with Peter Walsh.
Septimus Smith is a shell-shocked veteran, one of the first Englishman to enlist in the war.
He is married to Lucrezia, an italian woman.
The climax is Clarissas party: it gathers all the people Clarissa thinks of during the day. It is
at the party that Dr. Bradshaw, the nerve specialist, speaks about Septimuss suicide.
Setting
Takes place on a single ordinary day in June 1923.
Follows the protagonist through a very small area of London.
The characters enjoy the sights and sounds of London, its parks, its changing life.
Through what Woolf defined as tunnelling technique, she allows the reader to experience
the characters recollection of their past sense of their background and personal history.

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Clarissas party from Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf


What business had the Bradshaws to talk of death at her party? A young man had killed himself. And they talked of it
at her party the Bradshaws, talked of death. He had killed himself but how? Always her body went through it
first, when she was told, suddenly, of an accident; her dress flamed, her body burnt. He had thrown himself from a
window. Up had flashed the ground; through him, blundering, bruising, went the rusty spikes. There he lay with a thud,
thud, thud in his brain, and then a suffocation of blackness. So she saw it. But why had he done it? And the Bradshaws
talked of it at her party!
She had once thrown a shilling into the Serpentine, never anything more. But he had flung it away. They went on living
(she would have to go back; the rooms were still crowded; people kept on coming). They (all day she had been thinking
of Bourton, of Peter, of Sally), they would grow old. A thing there was that mattered; a thing, wreathed about with
chatter, defaced, obscured in her own life, let drop every day in corruption, lies, chatter. This he had preserved. Death
was defiance. Death was an attempt to communicate; people feeling the impossibility of reaching the centre which,
mystically, evaded them; closeness drew apart; rapture faded, one was alone. There was an embrace in death.
But this young man who had killed himself had he plunged holding his treasure? If it were now to die, twere now
to be most happy, she had said to herself once, coming down in white.
Or there were the poets and thinkers. Suppose he had had that passion, and had gone to Sir William Bradshaw, a great
doctor yet to her obscurely evil, without sex or lust, extremely polite to women, but capable of some indescribable
outrage forcing your soul, that was it if this young man had gone to him, and Sir William had impressed him, like
that, with his power, might he not then have said (indeed she felt it now), Life is made intolerable; they make life
intolerable, men like that?
Then (she had felt it only this morning) there was the terror; the overwhelming incapacity, ones parents giving it into
ones hands, this life, to be lived to the end, to be walked with serenely; there was in the depths of her heart an awful
fear. Even now, quite often if Richard had not been there reading the Times, so that she could crouch like a bird and
gradually revive, send roaring up that immeasurable delight, rubbing stick to stick, one thing with another, she must
have perished. But that young man had killed himself.
Somehow it was her disaster her disgrace. It was her punishment to see sink and disappear here a man, there a
woman, in this profound darkness, and she forced to stand here in her evening dress. She had schemed; she had
pilfered. She was never wholly admirable. She had wanted success. Lady Bexborough and the rest of it. And once she
had walked on the terrace at Bourton.
It was due to Richard; she had never been so happy. Nothing could be slow enough; nothing last too long. No pleasure
could equal, she thought, straightening the chairs, pushing in one book on the shelf, this having done with the triumphs
of youth, lost herself in the process of living, to find it, with a shock of delight, as the sun rose, as the day sank. Many a
time had she gone, at Bourton when they were all talking, to look at the sky; or seen it between peoples shoulders at
dinner; seen it in London when she could not sleep. She walked to the window.
It held, foolish as the idea was, something of her own in it, this country sky, this sky above Westminster. She parted the
curtains; she looked. Oh, but how surprising! in the room opposite the old lady stared straight at her! She was going
to bed. And the sky. It will be a solemn sky, she had thought, it will be a dusky sky, turning away its cheek in beauty.
But there it was ashen pale, raced over quickly by tapering vast clouds. It was new to her. The wind must have risen.
She was going to bed, in the room opposite. It was fascinating to watch her, moving about, that old lady, crossing the
room, coming to the window. Could she see her? It was fascinating, with people still laughing and shouting in the
drawing-room, to watch that old woman, quite quietly, going to bed. She pulled the blind now. The clock began
striking. The young man had killed himself; but she did not pity him; with the clock striking the hour, one, two, three,
she did not pity him, with all this going on. There! the old lady had put out her light! the whole house was dark now
with this going on, she repeated, and the words came to her, Fear no more the heat of the sun. She must go back to
them. But what an extraordinary night! She felt somehow very like him the young man who had killed himself. She
felt glad that he had done it; thrown it away. The clock was striking. The leaden circles dissolved in the air. He made
her feel the beauty; made her feel the fun. But she must go back. She must assemble. She must find Sally and Peter.
And she came in from the little room.

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George Orwell
LIFE
Born Eric Blair in India in 1903, he was the son of a minor colonial official.
Orwell was educated at Eton, in England where he began to develop an independentminded personality, indifference to accepted values, and professed atheism and socialism.
On leaving college, he started to work for the Indian Imperial Police in Burma (1922-1927).
He hated working in Burma and returned to England on sick-leave.
Back in London, he started a social experiment: wearing second-hand clothes, he spent
short periods living in common lodging-houses in the East End, seeking the company of
down-and-outs. In this way he directly experienced poverty and learned how institutions
for the poor, such as hostels, prisons, lodging-houses and hospitals, worked.
After a period in Paris where he worked as a dishwasher in a hotel, he decided to begin
publishing his works with the pseudonym of George (typical English name) Orwell (river he
loved).
WORKS
Down and Out in Paris and London (1933) a non-fiction narrative in which he described
his experience among the poor.
Burmese Days (1934) based on his experiences in the colonial service.
The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) a report on the conditions of miners in the industrial
North.
Homage to Catalonia (1938) based on his experience during the Spanish Civil War.
Animal Farm (1945) made him internationally known and financially secure.
Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) his most original novel.
THE ARTISTS DEVELOPMENT
Rejection of his English background he accepted new ideas and impressions.
Conflict between middle-class education and emotional identification with the working
class.
The role of the artist to inform, to reveal facts and draw conclusions from them (social
function).
SOCIAL THEMES
Influence of Dickens in the choice of:
social themes
realistic language
misery caused by poverty
depravation of society
Criticism of totalitarianism, the violation of liberty and tyranny in all its forms.
NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR

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Subject
Life in a big totalitarian system, Oceania (North America, South Africa, Australia).
Airstrip One, a future England, is an outpost of Oceania.

Structure
Introduction of the protagonist, Winston Smith, in this oppressive world.
Winston & Julias love happiness.
Winstons imprisonment and torture
Setting
London, in the mythical country of Oceania, 1984 (in the future).
London: a desolated city governed by terror and the constant control of BIG BROTHER.
Ranking order in Oceania
Oceania is a huge country ruled by The Party.
The Inner Party (1% of population) controls the country.
The Outer Party (18% of population) is controlled by the Inner Party.
The Proles (81% of population) are the labour power who lives in poverty.
The Brotherhood is an underground rebel organization led by Emmanuel Goldstein.
A dystopian novel
A frightening picture of the future. The Party controls everything:
Ministry of Truth, Ministry of Love
Slogan freedom is slavery (Chapter 1)
No privacy: TELESCREEN [] an oblong metal plaque like a dulled mirror. The telescreen received
and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound [] would be picked by it (Chapter 1)

A perpetual state of war: Two Minutes Hate


The Party provides for everything.
Newspeak
Newspeak is the official language of Oceania.
The goal of the Party is to have Newspeak replace Oldspeak (standard English).
Newspeak eliminates undesirable words and invents new words all to force Party
conformity.
Aim: to eliminate literature, thoughts and consciousness.
Doublethink
Doublethink is the manipulation of the mind by making people accept contradictions.
Doublethink makes people believe that the Party is the only institution that knows right
from wrong.

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The Ministry of Truth (where Winston works) changes history, facts, and memories to
promote Doublethink historical reference to Stalins will to change history.

The protagonist: Winston Smith


Smith is the commonest English surname so the hero is a sort of Everyman.
Winston evokes Churchills patriotic appeals during the Second World War: blood,
sweat and tears.
His experience:
alienation from society
rebellion against the Party
search for spiritual and moral integrity
In the first two parts of the novel Winston expresses Orwells point of view.
Themes
Importance of memory and trust.
Abolishment of individuality and reality.
Satire against hierarchical societies.
Style and tone
Documentary realism: his body was being wrenched out of shape, the joints were being
slowly torn apart (Chapter 2)
Parody and satire
Pessimistic tone; no consolation, but cruel reality. The author sympathizes with persecuted
people.
Authors aim
To inform.
To reveal facts and draw conclusions from them.
To give an interpretation of reality.

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Newspeak from Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell


Just the man I was looking for, said a voice at Winstons back.
He turned round. It was his friend Syme, who worked in the Research Department. Perhaps friend was not
exactly the right word. You did not have friends nowadays, you had comrades: but there were some comrades whose
society was pleasanter than that of others. Syme was a philologist, a specialist in Newspeak. Indeed, he was one of the
enormous team of experts now engaged in compiling the Eleventh Edition of the Newspeak Dictionary. He was a tiny
creature, smaller than Winston, with dark hair and large, protuberant eyes, at once mournful and derisive, which
seemed to search your face closely while he was speaking to you.
I wanted to ask you whether youd got any razor blades, he said.
Not one! said Winston with a sort of guilty haste. Ive tried all over the place. They dont exist any longer.
Everyone kept asking you for razor blades. Actually he had two unused ones which he was hoarding up. There
had been a famine of them for months past. At any given moment there was some necessary article which the Party
shops were unable to supply. Sometimes it was buttons, sometimes it was darning wool, sometimes it was shoelaces;
at present it was razor blades. You could only get hold of them, if at all, by scrounging more or less furtively on the
free market.
Ive been using the same blade for six weeks, he added untruthfully.
The queue gave another jerk forward. As they halted he turned and faced Syme again. Each of them took a
greasy metal tray from a pile at the end of the counter.
Did you go and see the prisoners hanged yesterday? said Syme.
I was working, said Winston indifferently. I shall see it on the flicks, I suppose.
A very inadequate substitute, said Syme.
His mocking eyes roved over Winstons face. I know you, the eyes seemed to say, I see through you. I know very
well why you didnt go to see those prisoners hanged. In an intellectual way, Syme was venomously orthodox. He
would talk with a disagreeable gloating satisfaction of helicopter raids on enemy villages, and trials and confessions of
thought-criminals, the executions in the cellars of the Ministry of Love. Talking to him was largely a matter of getting
him away from such subjects and entangling him, if possible, in the technicalities of Newspeak, on which he was
authoritative and interesting. Winston turned his head a little aside to avoid the scrutiny of the large dark eyes.
It was a good hanging, said Syme reminiscently. I think it spoils it when they tie their feet together. I like to see
them kicking. And above all, at the end, the tongue sticking right out, and blue a quite bright blue. Thats the detail
that appeals to me.
Nex, please! yelled the white-aproned prole with the ladle.
Winston and Syme pushed their trays beneath the grille. On to each was dumped swiftly the regulation lunch
a metal pannikin of pinkish-grey stew, a hunk of bread, a cube of cheese, a mug of milkless Victory Coffee, and one
saccharine tablet.
Theres a table over there, under that telescreen, said Syme. Lets pick up a gin on the way.
The gin was served out to them in handleless china mugs. They threaded their way across the crowded room and
unpacked their trays on to the metal-topped table, on one corner of which someone had left a pool of stew, a filthy
liquid mess that had the appearance of vomit. Winston took up his mug of gin, paused for an instant to collect his
nerve, and gulped the oily-tasting stuff down. When he had winked the tears out of his eyes he suddenly discovered

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that he was hungry. He began swallowing spoonfuls of the stew, which, in among its general sloppiness, had cubes of
spongy pinkish stuff which was probably a preparation of meat. Neither of them spoke again till they had emptied their
pannikins. From the table at Winstons left, a little behind his back, someone was talking rapidly and continuously, a
harsh gabble almost like the quacking of a duck, which pierced the general uproar of the room.
How is the Dictionary getting on? said Winston, raising his voice to overcome the noise.
Slowly, said Syme. Im on the adjectives. Its fascinating.
He had brightened up immediately at the mention of Newspeak. He pushed his pannikin aside, took up his hunk
of bread in one delicate hand and his cheese in the other, and leaned across the table so as to be able to speak without
shouting.
The Eleventh Edition is the definitive edition, he said. Were getting the language into its final shape the
shape its going to have when nobody speaks anything else. When weve finished with it, people like you will have to
learn it all over again. You think, I dare say, that our chief job is inventing new words. But not a bit of it! Were
destroying words scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. Were cutting the language down to the bone. The
Eleventh Edition wont contain a single word that will become obsolete before the year 2050.
He bit hungrily into his bread and swallowed a couple of mouthfuls, then continued speaking, with a sort of
pedants passion. His thin dark face had become animated, his eyes had lost their mocking expression and grown
almost dreamy.
Its a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but
there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well. It isnt only the synonyms; there are also the antonyms.
After all, what justification is there for a word which is simply the opposite of some other word? A word contains its
opposite in itself. Take good, for instance. If you have a word like good, what need is there for a word like bad?
Ungood will do just as well better, because its an exact opposite, which the other is not. Or again, if you want a
stronger version of good, what sense is there in having a whole string of vague useless words like excellent and
splendid and all the rest of them? Plusgood covers the meaning, or doubleplusgood if you want something
stronger still. Of course we use those forms already. but in the final version of Newspeak therell be nothing else. In the
end the whole notion of goodness and badness will be covered by only six words in reality, only one word. Dont you
see the beauty of that, Winston? It was B.B.s idea originally, of course, he added as an afterthought.
A sort of vapid eagerness flitted across Winstons face at the mention of Big Brother. Nevertheless Syme
immediately detected a certain lack of enthusiasm.
You havent a real appreciation of Newspeak, Winston, he said almost sadly. Even when you write it youre still
thinking in Oldspeak. Ive read some of those pieces that you write in The Times occasionally. Theyre good enough,
but theyre translations. In your heart youd prefer to stick to Oldspeak, with all its vagueness and its useless shades of
meaning. You dont grasp the beauty of the destruction of words. Do you know that Newspeak is the only language in
the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year?
Winston did know that, of course. He smiled, sympathetically he hoped, not trusting himself to speak. Syme bit
off another fragment of the dark-coloured bread, chewed it briefly, and went on:
Dont you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make
thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be
needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed

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out and forgotten. Already, in the Eleventh Edition, were not far from that point. But the process will still be continuing
long after you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little
smaller. Even now, of course, theres no reason or excuse for committing thoughtcrime. Its merely a question of selfdiscipline, reality-control. But in the end there wont be any need even for that. The Revolution will be complete when
the language is perfect. Newspeak is Ingsoc and Ingsoc is Newspeak, he added with a sort of mystical satisfaction.
Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive
who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?
Except began Winston doubtfully, and he stopped.
It had been on the tip of his tongue to say Except the proles, but he checked himself, not feeling fully certain
that this remark was not in some way unorthodox. Syme, however, had divined what he was about to say.
The proles are not human beings, he said carelessly. By 2050 earlier, probably all real knowledge of
Oldspeak will have disappeared. The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed. Chaucer, Shakespeare,
Milton, Byron theyll exist only in Newspeak versions, not merely changed into something different, but actually
changed into something contradictory of what they used to be. Even the literature of the Party will change. Even the
slogans will change. How could you have a slogan like freedom is slavery when the concept of freedom has been
abolished? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now.
Orthodoxy means not thinking not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.
One of these days, thought Winston with sudden deep conviction, Syme will be vaporized. He is too intelligent.
He sees too clearly and speaks too plainly. The Party does not like such people. One day he will disappear. It is written
in his face.

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The Welfare State

The general election of July 1945 was won by the Labour Party under the leadership of
Clement Attlee.
Thanks to the US Marshall Aid Programm (1947) Britain had received large US loans and
was able to recover quickly from the war.
The Labour Party offered new policies which focused on the new role of the government in
looking after the interests and welfare of everyone. This new kind of state became known
as the Welfare State.
The phrase welfare state came into use during the war in contrast with Hitlers warfare
state.
The most urgent of the problems to cope with was that of income or social security; the
second problem was that of the provision of medical services; bad housing was the third
problem; the fourth problem regarded a decent education.
The National Health Service Act passed into law in 1946: medical treatment was entirely
open to everyone and free.
The National Assistance Act of 1948 provided an increase of the benefits for the old, the ill,
the unemplyed and the poor.
Then, the Labour government took over the control of power, some industry, transport
and credit.
Nationalization was a major issue between the Labour and the Conservative parties in the
general election campaigns of 1950 and 1951. Conservatives won in 1951, but the
consensus appeared to be shattered by the Suez Crisis.
Another crucial issue stole the scene in 1955 after the testing of the hydrogen bomb. One
third of the British public was against nuclear weapons.
When George VI died, there was a widespread sense of loss and shock. At least 2 million
people turned out on the streets to watch the coronation of his daughter Elizabeth II in
1953; it was watched on TV by 56% of the adult population.
The early television programmes were, in accordance with the BBCs general aims, a
mixture of information, education and entertainment.

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The Thatcher Years

The 1979 General Election was won by the Conservative Party led by Margaret Thatcher.
Industries were denationalized; the Conservatives believed that industry would be more
efficient and competitive in private hands.
Margaret Thatcher wet out her plan to build a society where people would have a private
health service, private schools and private pensions.
Young people were encouraged to buy rather than rent but many fell behind their
mortgage repayments, had their house repossessed and were evicted.
The vulnerable, those unemplyed, elderly or disabled, were the victims of an individualistic
society because they could not repspond to an enterprise culture.
Professional choices changed: teaching and any career in the social services were not
considered sufficiently well-paid.
The ambitious urban professionals, whose main interests were high-earning professions
and the acquisition of impressive status symbols, became a social phenomenon known as
yuppies (Young Urban Professionals).
Margaret Thatchers strong will and determination, which won her the nickname of the
Iron Lady, were clearly revealed by two events: the Falklands War and the miners strike.
In 1982 Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands; the British response was immediate: a Task
Force was sent to reclaim the islands, and after a two-month campaign Argentina
surrendered.
In 1984 the miners protested against the proposed closure of many pits. After a year the
miners admitted defeat and Thatcher won.
In 1987 Thatcher introduced the unpopular poll tax (a tax on persons rather than
properties): poorer people considered this tax extremely unfair.
In April 1990 her reputation for invincibility was shaken by a London poll-tax
demonstration that degenerated into a riot.
However, Thatcher won the elections again: she is the only conservative Prime Minister in
British history to have been elected three times. She resigned in November 1990.

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From Blair to the Present Day

Tony Blair was known for his youth and energy.


He held liberal views on matters of education, welfare and technological change, but
conservative views on law and order issues, and family values.
His government produced a consistutional reform that led to the formation of separate
parliaments in Wales and Scotland by 1999.
Blair was the first Labour Party leader to win a third successive term.
Following the devastating terrorist attacts on the Twin Towers in the US, the British
government became the most visibile international supporter of Bushs administration in
its war on terrorism.
On July 7th 2005, London suffered a terrorist bombing: four bombs exploded in three
underground trains and one on a double-decker bus. Four Muslim men, three of them
British-born, were identified as the suicide bombers.

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Samuel Beckett
LIFE
He was born in 1906 in Dublin, into a Protestant middle-class family.
He was educated at a boardning school, where he was a brilliant sudent, and then at Trinity
College, in Dublin, where he took his B. A. degree in French and Italian.
He then moved to Paris, where he became associated with the Irish novelist James Joyce
and his circle, and he settled permanently in the city in 1937.
He wrote most of his works first in French.
He began his literary career as a short-story writer and a novelist, but his reputation was
established by his plays: in fact, he was one of a group of dramatists who developed the socalled Theatre of the Absurd.
Their common basic belief was that mans life appears to be meaningless and purposeless
and that human beings cannot communicate and understand each other.
His first play in this style is Waiting for Godot.
Becketts further plays develop the character of the naked, helpless, static being, by
introducing a kind of desperate clowning and mimic language.
WAITING FOR GODOT
Plot
The play is divided into two acts and starts in medias res.
In Act I two tramps, Vladimir (Didi) and Estragon (Gogo) are waiting on a country road for a
certain Godot, who eventually sends a boy to inform them he will surely come on the
following day.
They are contrinually aware of col, hunger and pain, and they think about separation and
even suicide, yet remain dependent on each other and never do anything.
Pozzo and Lucky make continuous purposeless journeys to fill their existence.
The play ends with the two tramps still waiting for Godot.
Absence of a traditional structure
No development in time (no past or future, just a repetitive present)
No setting but a country road and a bare tree (the inner world of the characters)
No plot (does not tell a story)
No characters in the traditional sense (no personality)
No action (only situation described: waiting)
No dialogue in the conventional sense (no communication)
The symmetric structure
The stage is divided into two halves by the tree
Two human races: Didi and Gogo
Then four: Didi-Gogo and Pozzo-Lucky
After the boys arrival, two again: mankind and Godot

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Characters actions: Estragon tries to take off one of his boots, Vladimir takes off his hat;
the tramps need to take off the hat to think, Lucky and Pozzo need to to the opposite

Characters
Vladimir and Estragon are never described as tramps: they are two human beings
concerned about the nature of the self, world and God.
They are complementary, since they are different aspects of a single whole.
Vladimir usually speaks as mind, and Estragon speaks as body.
Estragon eats and sleeps, whereas Vladimir ponders spiritual salvation.
Vladimir is the more eloquent, Estragon relies on pantomime.
Estragon cannot remember anything about his past, Vladimir distrusts what he remembers.
Pozzo and Lucky are physically linked to each other by a rope as well as by a tyrannical
relationship of master and servant: Lucky is slavish and stands for the power of the mind.
Godot is the result of adding the French suffix ot, meaning little, to the English God: this
my justify a religious interpretation of the play.
The meaninglessness of time
Time is meaningless
Vladimir and Estragon return to the same place each day to wait for Godot and experience
the same general events with variations each time
It is not known for how long they have been doing this, or for how long they will countinue
to do it
Human life is characterised by suffering, but Beckett doesnt offer solutions
The fundamental question is: is there a God?
The comic and the tragic
A grotesque humour pervades the daily routine of the two tramps
Becketts pessimism is intensified by his perception of the meaningless of human life
The language
Informal
Does not serve the purpose of communication
Dialogue sketched
Para-verbal languaged (pauses, silences, gags, clichs)
Senseless repetition

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Waiting from Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett


BOY: Mister (Vladimir turns.) Mister Albert
VLADIMIR: Off we go again. (Pause.) Do you not recognize me?
BOY: No Sir.
VLADIMIR: It wasn't you came yesterday.
BOY: No Sir.
VLADIMIR: This is your first time.
BOY: Yes Sir.
Silence.
VLADIMIR: You have a message from Mr. Godot.
BOY: Yes Sir.
VLADIMIR: He won't come this evening.
BOY: No Sir.
VLADIMIR: But he'll come tomorrow.
BOY: Yes Sir.
VLADIMIR: Without fail.
BOY: Yes Sir.
Silence.
VLADIMIR: Did you meet anyone?
BOY: No Sir.
VLADIMIR: Two other (he hesitates) men?
BOY: I didn't see anyone, Sir.
Silence.
VLADIMIR: What does he do, Mr. Godot? (Silence.) Do you hear me?
BOY: Yes Sir.
VLADIMIR: Well?
BOY: He does nothing, Sir.
Silence.
VLADIMIR: How is your brother?
BOY: He's sick, Sir.
VLADIMIR: Perhaps it was he came yesterday.
BOY: I don't know, Sir.
Silence.
VLADIMIR: (softly) Has he a beard, Mr. Godot?
BOY: Yes Sir.
VLADIMIR: Fair or (he hesitates) or black?
BOY: I think it's white, Sir.
Silence.
VLADIMIR: Christ have mercy on us!
Silence.
BOY: What am I to tell Mr. Godot, Sir?

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VLADIMIR: Tell him (he hesitates) tell him you saw me and that (he hesitates) that you saw me.
(Pause. Vladimir advances, the Boy recoils. Vladimir halts, the Boy halts. With sudden violence.)
You're sure you saw me, you won't come and tell me tomorrow that you never saw me!
Silence. Vladimir makes a sudden spring forward, the Boy avoids him and exits running. Silence.
The sun sets, the moon rises. As in Act 1. Vladimir stands motionless and bowed. Estragon wakes,
takes off his boots, gets up with one in each hand and goes and puts them down center front, then
goes towards Vladimir.
ESTRAGON: What's wrong with you?
VLADIMIR: Nothing.
ESTRAGON: I'm going.
VLADIMIR: So am I.
ESTRAGON: Was I long asleep?
VLADIMIR: I don't know.
Silence.
ESTRAGON: Where shall we go?
VLADIMIR: Not far.
ESTRAGON: Oh yes, let's go far away from here.
VLADIMIR: We can't.
ESTRAGON: Why not?
VLADIMIR: We have to come back tomorrow.
ESTRAGON: What for?
VLADIMIR: To wait for Godot.
ESTRAGON: Ah! (Silence.) He didn't come?
VLADIMIR: No.
ESTRAGON: And now it's too late.
VLADIMIR: Yes, now it's night.
ESTRAGON: And if we dropped him? (Pause.) If we dropped him?
VLADIMIR: He'd punish us. (Silence. He looks at the tree.) Everything's dead but the tree.
ESTRAGON: (looking at the tree). What is it?
VLADIMIR: It's the tree.
ESTRAGON: Yes, but what kind?
VLADIMIR: I don't know. A willow.
Estragon draws Vladimir towards the tree. They stand motionless before it. Silence.
ESTRAGON: Why don't we hang ourselves?
VLADIMIR: With what?
ESTRAGON: You haven't got a bit of rope?
VLADIMIR: No.
ESTRAGON: Then we can't.
Silence.
VLADIMIR: Let's go.
ESTRAGON: Wait, there's my belt.
VLADIMIR: It's too short.

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ESTRAGON: You could hang onto my legs.


VLADIMIR: And who'd hang onto mine?
ESTRAGON: True.
VLADIMIR: Show me all the same. (Estragon loosens the cord that holds up his trousers which,
much too big for him, fall about his ankles. They look at the cord.) It might do in a pinch. But is it
strong enough?
ESTRAGON: We'll soon see. Here.
They each take an end of the cord and pull.
It breaks. They almost fall.
VLADIMIR: Not worth a curse.
Silence.
ESTRAGON: You say we have to come back tomorrow?
VLADIMIR: Yes.
ESTRAGON: Then we can bring a good bit of rope.
VLADIMIR: Yes.
Silence.
ESTRAGON: Didi?
VLADIMIR: Yes.
ESTRAGON: I can't go on like this.
VLADIMIR: That's what you think.
ESTRAGON: If we parted? That might be better for us.
VLADIMIR: We'll hang ourselves tomorrow. (Pause.) Unless Godot comes.
ESTRAGON: And if he comes?
VLADIMIR: We'll be saved.
Vladimir takes off his hat (Lucky's), peers inside it, feels about inside it, shakes it, knocks on the
crown, puts it on again.
ESTRAGON: Well? Shall we go?
VLADIMIR: Pull on your trousers.
ESTRAGON: What?
VLADIMIR: Pull on your trousers.
ESTRAGON: You want me to pull off my trousers?
VLADIMIR: Pull ON your trousers.
ESTRAGON: (realizing his trousers are down). True.
He pulls up his trousers.
VLADIMIR: Well? Shall we go?
ESTRAGON: Yes, let's go.
They do not move.

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John Osborne
THE THEATRE OF ANGER AND JOHN OSBORNE
The 1950s: the
upheaval of traditional
values

Post-war drama

The Theatre of
Anger

John Osbornes Look


Back in Anger

THE 1950s
This decade was characterised by:
the destruction of the certainties and basic assumptions of the Victorian Age, swept away
by two world wars;
the decline of religious belief;
the mistrust in rationalism as a means to explain reality.
the disillusionment with socialist ideals, brought about by totalitarianism;
the materialism and consumerism of contemporary society;
the cultural and moral independence of the young from their elders.
POST-WAR DRAMA
Modern drama inadequate to express the social revolution and changing values of
Britain in the 1950s.
The attempt to overcome apathy caused a real revolution in British drama.
There were two main trends in the 1950s drama:
1. The Theatre of the Absurd expressed metaphysical anguish, rootlessness, the lack of
purpose and inaction.
2. The Theatre of Anger criticised establishment values.
THE THEATRE OF ANGER
use of a realistic setting
logical, easy-to-follow plot
outspoken language
presence of a thoughtful working-class hero, like the rebel Jimmy Porter
open criticism of establishment values

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JOHN OSBORNES LIFE


Born in London in 1929 into a lower middle-classe family
Educated in London and at a boarding school in Devonshire, where he developed his
passion for acting and for writing plays
He entered the theatre as an actor and assistant stage manager
Look Back in Anger, about rebellion against traditional mores, was accepted at the Royal
Court Theatre in London
This theatrical performance turned Osborne into one of the spokesmen of the so-called
Angry Young Men
The angry and rebellious nature of the post-war generation was captured by the
protagonist Jimmy Porter, raging against all middle-class values and social injustices
JOHN OSBORNES MAIN WORKS
Look Back in Anger (1956)
The Entertainer (1957)
Luther (1961)
Inadmissible Evidence (1964)
West of Suez (1971)
Dj Vu (1992, with the same characters as Look Back in Anger)
LOOK BACK IN ANGER
Structure: three-act conventional play, with a circular plot
Setting: a squalid attic flat in the Midlands
Time: the play opens on a tedious Sunday afternoon
Characters
Jimmy Porter, an angry young man with a college education and a dead-end job;
his wife Alison, an upper-middle-class woman;
Cliff, Jimmys business partner, a working-class uneducated man.
Jimmy Porter
Jimmy expresses anger and contempt towards:
the past
his wifes not being angry and her lack of interest
the whole establishment
everyone and everything
He is an anti-hero he only speaks but never acts.
He has established a love-hate relationship with his wife he wants to possess her but at
the same time he tries to destroy their relationship.
Themes and language
The leitmotivs of the play:

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the discontent and social alienation of certain sections of British society in the 1950s
the pain of being alive
the study of existential failure
The language is:
revolutionary, crude and violent
spontaneous and vital
full of colloquialisms and slang expressions

BECKETT VS OSBORNE
BECKETT

OSBORNE

PLOT

Obscure,
inconsequential

True-to-life, consequential

SETTING

Symbolic, bare

Realistic, related
to the working class

THEME

Meaninglessness
of human experience

Social critique of middle-class


values

STAGE
DIRECTION

Repetitive, frequent

Detailed, informative, clear

LANGUAGE

Everyday,
meaningless

Everyday, simple, clear

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Boring Sundays! From Look Back in Anger by John Osborne


JIMMY: Why do I do this every Sunday? Even the book reviews seem to be the same as last week's. Different books
same reviews. Have you finished that one yet?
CLIFF: Not yet.
JIMMY: I've just read three whole columns on the English Novel. Half of it's in French. Do the Sunday papers make you
feel ignorant?
CLIFF: Not 'arf.
JIMMY: Well, you are ignorant. You're just a peasant. (To Alison.) What about you? You're not a peasant are you?
ALISON: (absently). What's that?
JIMMY: I said do the papers make you feel you're not so brilliant after all?
ALISON: OhI haven't read them yet.
JIMMY: I didn't ask you that. I said
CLIFF: Leave the poor girlie alone. She's busy.
JIMMY: Well, she can talk, can't she? You can talk, can't you? You can express an opinion. Or does the White
Woman's Burden make it impossible to think?
ALISON: I'm sorry. I wasn't listening properly.
JIMMY: You bet you weren't listening. Old Porter talks, and everyone turns over and goes to sleep. And Mrs. Porter
gets 'em all going with the first yawn.
CLIFF: Leave her alone, I said.
JIMMY: (shouting). All right, dear. Go back to sleep. It was only me talking. You know? Talking? Remember? I'm sorry.
CLIFF: Stop yelling. I'm trying to read.
JIMMY: Why do you bother? You can't understand a word of it.
CLIFF: Uh huh.
JIMMY: You're too ignorant.
CLIFF: Yes, and uneducated. Now shut up, will you?
JIMMY: Why don't you get my wife to explain it to you? She's educated. (To her.) That's right, isn't it?
CLIFF: (kicking out at him from behind his paper). Leave her alone, I said.
JIMMY: DO that again, you Welsh ruffian, and I'll pull your ears off.
He bangs Cliff's paper out of his hands.
CLIFF: (leaning forward). ListenI'm trying to better myself. Let me get on with it, you big, horrible man. Give it me.
(Puts his hand out for paper.)
ALISON: Oh, give it to him, Jimmy, for heaven's sake! I can't think!
CLIFF: Yes, come on, give me the paper. She can't think.
JIMMY: Can't think! (Throws the paper back at him.) She hasn't had a thought for years! Have you?
ALISON: No.
JIMMY: (Picks up a weekly.) I'm getting hungry.
ALISON: Oh no, not already!
CLIFF: He's a bloody pig.
JIMMY: I'm not a pig. I just like foodthat's all.
CLIFF: Like it! You're like a sexual maniaconly with you it's food. You'll end up in the News of the World, boyo, you
wait. James Porter, aged twenty-five, was bound over last week after pleading guilty to interfering with a small
cabbage and two tins of beans on his way home from the Builder's Arms. The accused said he hadn't been feeling well
for some time, and had been having black-outs. He asked for his good record as an air-raid warden, second class, to be
taken into account.
JIMMY: (Grins.) Oh, yes, yes, yes. I like to eat I'd like to live too. Do you mind?
CLIFF: Don't see any use in your eating at all. You never get any fatter.
JIMMY: People like me don't get fat. I've tried to tell you before. We just burn everything up. Now shut up while I
read. You can make me some more tea.
CLIFF: Good God, you've just had a great potful! I only had one cup.

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JIMMY: Like hell! Make some more.
CLIFF: (to Alison). Isn't that right? Didn't I only have one cup?
ALISON: (without looking up). That's right.
CLIFF: There you are. And she only had one cup too. I saw her. You guzzled the lot.
JIMMY: (reading his weekly). Put the kettle on.
CLIFF: Put it on yourself. You've creased up my paper.
JIMMY: I'm the only one who knows how to treat a paper, or anything else, in this house. (Picks up another paper.)
Girl here wants to know whether her boy friend will lose all respect for her if she gives him what he asks for. Stupid
bitch.
CLIFF: Just let me get at her, that's all. JIMMY: Who buys this damned thing? (Throws it down.) Haven't you read the
other posh paper yet?
CLIFF: Which? JIMMY: Well, there are only two posh papers on a Sundaythe one you're reading, and this one. Come
on, let me have that one, and you take this.
CLIFF: Oh, all right. They exchange. I was only reading the Bishop of Bromley. {Puts out his hand to Alison.) How are
you, dullin'?
ALISON: All right thank you, dear.
CLIFF: (grasping her hand). Why don't you leave all that, and sit down for a bit? You look tired.
ALISON: (smiling). I haven't much more to do.
CLIFF: (kisses her hand, and puts her fingers in his mouth). She's a beautiful girl, isn't she?
JIMMY: That's what they all tell me. His eyes met hers.
CLIFF: It's a lovely, delicious paw you've got Ummmmm. I'm going to bite it off.
ALISON: Don't! I'll burn his shirt.
JIMMY: Give her her finger back, and don't be so sickening. What's the Bishop of Bromley say?
CLIFF: (letting go of Alison). Oh, it says here that he makes a very moving appeal to all Christians to do all they can to
assist in the manufacture of the H-Bomb.
JIMMY: Yes, well, that's quite moving, I suppose. (To Alison.) Are you moved, my darling?
ALISON: Well, naturally.
JIMMY: There you are: even my wife is moved. I ought to send the Bishop a subscription. Let's see. What else does he
say. Dumdidumdidum-didum. Ah yes. He's upset because someone has suggested that he supports the rich against
the poor. He says he denies the difference of class distinctions. "This idea has been persistently and wickedly fostered
bythe working classes!" Well!
He looks up at both of them for reaction, but Cliff is reading, and Alison is intent on her ironing.

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ABSURD vs
Long silences from Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
VLADIMIR: What do they say?
ESTRAGON: They talk about their lives.
VLADIMIR: To have lived is not enough for them.
ESTRAGON: They have to talk about it.
VLADIMIR: To be dead is not enough for them.
ESTRAGON: It is not sufficient.
Silence.
VLADIMIR: They make a noise like feathers.
ESTRAGON: Like leaves.
VLADIMIR: Likes ashes.
ESTRAGON: Like leaves.
Long silence.
VLADIMIR: Say something!
ESTRAGON: I'm trying.
Long silence.
VLADIMIR: (in anguish). Say anything at all!
ESTRAGON: What do we do now?
VLADIMIR: Wait for Godot.
ESTRAGON: Ah!
Silence.
VLADIMIR: This is awful!
ESTRAGON: Sing something.
VLADIMIR: No no! (He reflects.) We could start all over again perhaps.

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ANGER
Jimmys anger from Look Back in Anger by John Osborne
She [Alison] crosses to the table, and sits down C. He leans forward, and addresses her again.
JIMMY: I didnt ask you what was the matter with you. I asked you where you were going.
HELENA (steadily): Shes going to church [].
JIMMY: Youre doing what?
Silence
JIMMY: Have you gone out of your mind or something? (To Helena) Youre determined to win her,
arent you? So its come to this now! How feeble can you get (His rage mounting within) When I
thin of what I did, what I endured, to get you out
ALISON (recognising an onslaught on the way, starts to panic): Oh yes, we all know what you did
for me! You rescued me from the wicked clutches of my family, and all my friends! Id still be
rotting away at home, if you hadnt ridden up on your charger, and carried me off!
The wild note in her voice has re-assured him. His anger cools and hardens. His voice is quite calm
when he speaks.
JIMMY: The funny thing is, you know, I really did have to ride up on a white charger off white,
really. Mummy locked her up in their eight bedroomed castle, didnt she? There is no limit to what
the middle-aged mummy will do in the holy crusade against ruffians like me. Mummy and I took
one quick look at each other, and, from then on, the age of chivalry was dead. I knew that, to
protect her innocent young, she wouldnt hesitate to cheat, lie, bully and blackmail. Threatened
with me, a young man without money, background or even looks, shed bellow like a rhinoceros in
labour enough to make every male rhino for miles turn white, and pledge himself to celibacy.

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