Appunti di Letteratura: Età Vittoriana, Imperialismo e Consumismo

letteraturaVICTORIAN AGE (1837-1901)

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

• named after the Queen Victoria, successor of William IV
• she married her cousin Albert and they had 9 childrens, all married to european nobles (that is why she is known as the "grandmother of Europe")
• Victorian age was the time when Christmas as we know it nowadays shaped -> the christmas tree was a german tradition which Albert brought in England
• the social reforms (of William IV) of romantic age kept on during victorian age
• Victoria restored the faith in the monarchy
• Education Act made elementary education compulsory
• during the victorian age the middle class grew in number -> it became more complex as it included wealthy and poor people
• a part of populace became wealthier, but the vast majority remained poor
• they tried to escape the reality and gave the idea that everything was perfect
• workhouses were opened: people worked there in order to get a roof above their heads and something to eat
• Victoria believed that the right place of women was the house
• she opened the first college for women, attended by girls in order to be more enjoyable to their future husbands (there was not any recognised certificate)
• in this period women became to be advocated -> historical moment when women's right began to be tackled - suffragettes
• there was a great faith in technology and science, however religion still played a very important role in the society
• the railway network was built and changed the life of many people, who were able to travel all around the country
• the english empire was enormous -> there is always a place where it was day - "the sun never sets on the british empire"
• propaganda told that british empire's aim was to bring civilization to uncivilized places (see "Heart of Darkness")
• China bought only silver from Europe, while Europeans bought tea - then europeans began to buy also opium -> the opium wars (1840)
• England and France did not want Russia to enter Europe -> The Crimean War (1854- 1856)
• the irish wanted to be charged of government themselves - a lot of people starved so they decided to move to America, Australia, New Zealand
• India was under the control of the east india company
• Africa provided raw materials so Britain decided to conquer it
• Africa was also a market (forced to trade with England)
• industrial revolution provided the steam engine and quiline, which made it possible to conquer the inner part of the continent -> there were diseases (yellow fever ... ) - besides, you needed horses to travel across the country, but they died of ganana
• Britain became the owner of the Suez canal -> it was built by egyptian authorities using money borrowed from France, but they were not able to repay back - English paid the shares owning it
• Things were changing -> wealth began not to be anymore based on possessions
• they were engaged in many conflicts all over the world -> money was needed
• poor people turned to radical ideas, as socialism
• Fabian society guided the country towards socialism in a gradual way and setted up the labor party

LITERARY BACKGROUND

• "Invictus" was a poem written in the victorian age and speaks of the concept of the "self made man"
• novels flourished during the Victorian age as the number of people who were able to read and write increased - besides, it was possible to borrow books from libraries and people could afford them - last but not least, the technology of the printing press improved and book became smaller and so easier to be carried around
• in this period the custom of publishing stories in magazines became widespread (diffuso) -> they were published in instalments (episodes) which always ended when something big was going on in order to make people interested in the story and buy the following magazine
• readers were allowed to interact with the authors and provide them with reviews about their stories - es. Charles Dickens modified his story on the basis of his readers's requests
• novelists are divided into the early and the late Victorian novelists, the main difference between them is that those belonging to the early group did not harshly criticize society (they only pointed out the issues) - an example of writer belonging to the early victorian novelists is Charles Dickens, while Oscar Wilde was part of the late victorian novelists
• Victorian novels were very vary, but there were some typical features:
1. there was not any space for imagination as stories were always setted in the everyday life of the readers
2. novels had a clear moral aim, as they were used as means to teach something
3. plots followed the chronological order of events, but there were many subplots
4. they used the third person omniscient narrator

Oscar Wilde (1854- 1900)

• his father was a famous doctor and his mother was interested in Ireland's Independence
• he was a clever and gifted student -> he attended the Trinity College and Oxford he used to spend money and this was when his problems with money began ~
• his family was wealthy, but not that extraordinarily rich
• in 1881 he published Poems - a collection of poetries
• in 1884 he married Constance Lloyd
• The Canterville Ghost (1887) and The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888) were tales, which he wrote for his 2 children
• in 1890 he published The Picture of Dorian Gray
• in 1892 he published his first play (Lady Windermere's Fan) and it was a great success, so he kept working as a playwright (A woman of no Importance, Salomé)
• in 1895 he published The importance of being Earnest and An ideal husband
• he was involved in a trial and sent to two years of hard labor in the Reading Goal because he was involved in a scandal with Lord Alfred Douglas -> they fell in love and homosexuality at the time was a crime
• while he was in jail he wrote De Profundis (1897), in which he addressed to Alfred and thought back to his love relationship with him
• when he came out of the jail, he went to Naples with Bosie and then he moved to Paris - he was bankrupt -> his wife Constance sent him money
• he wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol - a poem that narrates the execution of another prisoner
• his wife Constance never abandoned him but, because of the scandal in which Oscar was involved, his children had to change their surname- he died in Paris in 1900

Temi di Oscar Wilde

• provocation
• aestheticism
• rejected the social and moral codes of that period
• the antagonism between the artist and the bourgeois society
• social criticism

Stile di Oscar Wilde

• use of puns - es. wilde and wild; ernest and earnest -> he wanted to make people laugh and make them think what they laughed at
• use of paradoxes, especially in dialogs
• use of irony and nonsense

The picture of dorian Gray

• the aphorisms in the preface can be divided in 5 categories -> role of the artist, role of the reader, nature of art, what you need for art and how to appreciate a work of art
• unobtrusive, third person narrator
• nuances of wording (words were carefully selected)
• detailed and carefully selected phrases
• many dialogues
• gothic elements and decadent fiction
• use of symbols, as flowers, the portrait and theater
• it is considered "manifesto" of aesthetic movement
• the theme of the double was the most important of the novel -> it reflected the victorian compromise

The importance of being Earnest

• in the title there is a pun (Earnest)
• he revived the comedy of manners (Restoration) -> they deal with love and marriages, they are characterised by a contemporary setting - a satire of contemporary manners and an intricate plot (many plot twists)
• he wanted to criticise the hypocrisy of contemporary society (aristocracy) and attack the moralism
• it is a parody of the typical elements of Victorian melodrama
• the protagonist lives a double life -> in the countryside he is Jack, while in the city he is Ernest
• Ernest fell in love with Gwendolen and he spoke to Lady Bracknell in order to obtain the permission to marry her
• in the book being "earnest" means to accept the restrictions and conventions of the society

PLOT

Jack Worthing is a wealthy and idle (inattivo) young man who leads a double life. He lives in the country and has invented a villain brother in London (Ernest), as a pretext to go there. In London, Jack Ernest proposes to Gwendolen, the cousin of his friend Algernon Moncrieff. Gwendolen accepts the proposal because she has always wished to marry a man named 'Ernest'. However, Gwendolen'smother, Lady Bracknell, is against the marriage when she learns that Jack Ernest is an orphan. She won't give her consent unless Jack produces at least one parent. For Jack, having been abandoned in a black handbag at Victoria Station when he was a baby, this is practically impossible. Acts II and III take place in Jack's country house, where we meet Jack's ward, Cecily. Algernon arrives (during Jack's absence) and pretends to be Jack's wicked brother Ernest. He falls in love with Cecily, who accepts his marriage proposal because she, too, wants to marry a man called Ernest. However, Jack joins them soon after and proclaims that his wicked brother Ernest is dead. The truth about their names comes out. Matters come to a head when Lady Bracknell arrives. She recognises in Cecily's governess the same governess who had worked for her sister long ago. It transpires that the governess had rather carelessly lost a baby, Lady Bracknell's nephew, in a handbag at Victoria Station 28 years before. Jack produces the handbag, demonstrating that he is Lady Bracknell's nephew and therefore Algernon's elder brother, Ernest. The play comes to a happy ending with the two couples Algernon-Cecily and Jack-Gwendolen ready for marriage.

THE AGE OF CONFLICTS (1901- 1949)

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

• Edward II succeeded Queen Victoria -> the Edwardian age
• before ascending to the throne he was Prince of Wales
• when he became king he modernised the fleet (flotta) and the army
• this period was characterized by less seriousness than the Victorian Age
• under his reign there were several changes that paved the way for some social reforms - for example socialism
• people had to pay their taxes on land
• were founded pensions to support those who were too old to work
• his reign ended in 1910 and his successor was his son George V
• the WWI put an end to the British Belle Epoque and to the industrial growth in America, causing unrests because of the decline of industrial activities (i.e. ship building)
• in 1922 BBC went on air for the first time + The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mail were published for the first time
• in 1924 we have the First Labourist government in England
• in Italy there was the march on Rome and in Russia the revolution came to an end
• the United States was developing into the world's leading industrial power, however this caused exploitation of workers and of the environment

THE FIRST WORLD WAR (1914-1918)

• there are several factors causing the great war including the rivalry between Britain and Germany
• the immediate cause of the war was the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo by the serbian nationalist Gavrilo Prinzip
• Germany allied with Austria-Hungary and Italy, while France made an alliance with Russia
• Britain boasted (vantato) for her "Splendid Isolation", but made a pact with France, according to which each country would support the other in case of attack by a third part
• England joined the war on the 4th of August 1914
• Germany invaded Belgium and Luxembourg and its march on France forced Britain to step in (28th of july of 1914)
• Italy entered the war in May 1915, betraying Austria