The Graveyard Poetry

Macpherson’s: Ossian

Thomas Gray: Elegy written in an English Courtyard

PRE - ROMANTICISM

New features: originality and creativity; spontaneity; emphasis onIndividual genius; interest in the unknown and in the supernatural; free imagination; sensations, interest in Middle Ages, subjectivefeeling for nature; exotic time and places.

New sources of inspiration: Nordic and Celtic cultures; The Middle Ages, ancient national folk poetry (T. Percy); The Works of Ossian (J. Macpherson)

Gothic novel

The term Gothic referred to anarchitectural style In the second half of the 18th centuryit was applied to novels which dealt with extreme emotionsand dark themes and setting

It is characterized by the fusion ofromantic and horror\terror elements.It become very popular because itentertained people and made themthink about their unknown fears.

These novels deals with lost orunreturned loves, ladies,persecution, inner conflict, death,Evil and supernatural beings.

Writers and works:

Horace Walpole, the founder of the genre, with The castle of Otranto Ann Radcliff with The Italian and The Mysteries of Udolpho.M.Shelley with Frankenstein. E.Allan Poe and his short stories R. L. Stevenson with Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Oscar Wilde and The Picture of Dorian Gray J. Conrad and Heart of Darkness

Later other narrative trends derived from gothic are: horror thriller, detective, science fiction and psychological stories.

Horace Walpole The Castle of Otranto

Lord Manfred ‘s son is killed by a giant helmet which falls on him during his wedding day. Manfred, decides to marry himself his son’s bride Isabella, but she escapes from the castle, helped by a peasant, Theodore. Manfred orders Theodore death, but the boy is helped by a friar, who recognizes him as the true Lord of Otranto. Theodore is finally captured by Manfred but Matilda, Manfred’s daughter frees him. Meanwhile a group of knights led by Isabella’s father arrives at Manfred’s castle to find the girl. Manfred, scared, reaches Theodore and kills his daughter Matilda, thinking she is Isabella. Theodore is revealed to be the true Lord of Otranto and becomes king, marrying Isabella.

JOHN CONSTABLE(1776 - 1837)

Reaction against Augustan ageOrganic growth of a poemMiddle ages: a romantic interest in Agony: suffering and deathNatureTechnical experimentsImaginationChildhoodIndividual, revolutionary idealsSupernaturalMan, language and simple life

William Turner (1775-1851)

Sir Walter Scott (1771 -1832 )

Reference to the past England and Scotland Journey of young man towards adult age History made by masses not by great protagonists.

Works (about 90 novels) : Rob Roy (1818): Scottish clans Ivanhoe (1819-20): crusades and clash between

Saxons and Normans; reference to Robin Hood. Waverly (1814): tradition and cultures of Scotland Richard I or The Talisman (1825): Crusades in the

Holy Land

Jane Austen

(1775 -1817) Jane Austen was born in a gentry family and studied at Oxford and then in Suothampton.

•Themes : Stories of love and everyday life about city iand the countryside. Women are the key focus of every novel. Other theme is the relation between the classes.

•Style : Typical of J. Austen is the irony with which she describes the characters. Jane Austen’s irony does not save his heroines, that she describes with their strenghts and weaknesses. Her dialogues are generally composed of very short periods and rapid exchanges of words . Since J.Austen lived in Countryside there are a lot of description of landscape in her story.

Pride and Prejudice; Sense and Sensibility; Northanger Abbey ( J. Austen’s criticism of the Gothic fiction ).

Catherine Morland, an inexperienced country girl, one day is invited by Mr and Mrs Allen in their house in Bath.Here she has the first approaches with modern society and a new vision of world.She reads Gotich novels and meets the Thorpes, the Tinleys, but these family are in conflict.One day Catherine is invited to go to the Tinleys’ in Gloucestershire, and when Catherine learns that that home is an abbey she is in rapture.In the abbey , she indulges her imagination and thinks that Henry , the general , has killed his bride.Henry chases Catherine away and she returns home.At the end Henry asks Catherine to marry him.

Mrs Bennet wants her 5 daughters to meet Mr Bingley a rich new neighbor. They meet at a party and soon Bingley falls in love with Jane, while Bingley’s friend, the proud Mr Darcy, seems to be interested in Elizabeth. Unfortunately Darcy gets suspicious of Jane’s feelings to his friend and forces Bingley to part In the while Mr Collins comes to take the Bennets’ house as his inheritance and marries Charlotte, a friend of Elizabeth. Elizabeth goes to Rosing to visit the Collins. There, she meets Darcy who reveals her his love . Lidya, Elizabeth’s sister, has run away with Wickham. Darcy gives Wickham the money to marry the girl and Elizabeth understands that Darcy is not the proud man she thought. At the end, Jane and Bingley, Elizabeth and Darcy will get married.

Domestic policy: period of Peace at homeBritish Empire colonial conflicts Crimean War Anglo-Zanzibar War and the Boer Warindustrial improvements at home, Reform Act 1832.House of Commons: two parties: Whigs and Tories the Whigs Liberals and the Tories. Conservatives Irish Home Rule

Victorian Period Queen Victoria's reign (1837 -1901)

Gin Lane (1750), engraving by William Hogarth

Gustave Doré: Over London by Rail (1872)

Mary Shelley was the only child of Mary Wollstonecraft, famous feminist, and William Godwin, philosopher and novelist.

When Mary was young, her mother died and she moved to London with her father.

She went to Ginevra when she was only nineteen, and here she wrote her masterpiece.

She died in of a brain tumor.

Works

Frankenstein.

The Last Man.

MARY SHELLEY(1797 -1851)

FRANKENSTEIN The book begins on a ship in an expedition to North Pole where the captain meets the scientist Victor Frankenstein in bad condition. The scientist tells his story to the explorer. Victor shocked by the death of his mother decides to create a human being. He goes to Ingolstadt in Germany with his friend Henry Clerval and begins to study hard at the university and to make experiments: he wants to create a human being. The experiments is successful but the creature is so ugly and horrible that the doctor, disgusted, rejects him. Victor goes back to Geneva but his creature follows him and then kills William, the scientist’s brother. The crime falls on Justine Moritz, the housekeeper, who dies in prison. Afterwards the scientist meets the monster who confesses his crimes and tells him how people refuses him . Feeling alone he asks his creator to make a woman like him, in return he would go to South America, away from people. At first Victor accepts, but when he creates the new creature he is afraid and decides to destroy her. So the monster kills the scientist’s friend, Clerval and then his girlfriend Elizabeth. Victor’s father dies shortly after in his bed. The scientist swears vengeance and starts looking for the monster: Both finish at North Pole and the man, weak and fatigued from the cold, is saved by the ship. He dies and the creature, repented, decides to end its life.

Poe was born in Boston and soon became an orphan. Adopted by the Allans, he grew up and studied in Virginia. He only attended the first year of University because his foster-father refused to finance his studies as he drank and gambled. He started writing full time and moved first to Boston and then to Baltimore where he got married to his cousin some years later.He was financially successful in the last few years of his life,, but his wife died at 17 in 1847 and this sent him into a period of depression in which he drank very heavily. He never came out of his depression and died in 1849 at only 30 years of age. 

EDGAR ALLAN POE(1809 – 1849)

Edgar Allan Poe

He writes short stories, for improve the suspense, keep the reader’s attention alive and give fluidity of his book.

He used first person narrator to make the reader take part in the story like in the “Fall Of House Of Usher”.

He use grotesque and gothic elemts to study the psychology of his characters. The settings are very little place that show his fear of world outside

EDGAR ALLAN POE

Main Works MS Found in a Bottle. Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. The Murder in the Rue Morgue - first-ever detective story. The Gold-Bug - brought Poe to fame. The Raven” – poem The Philosophy of Composition - essay

E. A. Poe’s sad life obviously influenced his works which are characterized by the use of first person narratorsHe wrote short stories to catch people’s attention. His short stories happen mostly in the minds of the protagonists. His tales contain gothic themes and so are often very dark and terrible, but they are  also a deep exploration of the psychology of people.  Although his short stories often seem like they must be the works o an instable man, Poe always tried to achieve the right balance between rationality and imagination. Anyway Poe is known for being one of the best writers ever as far as short stories are concerned and one of the creators of detective stories.

THEMES

“THE OVAL PORTRAIT” The title refers to the portrait in a room of a castle

where the narrator - protagonist rests during one night.The portrait represents a beautiful young womanThe protagonist sees the portrait and wants to know more about it. In a little book he reads the story : a painter wanted to depict his young and beautiful wife, but he was so involved that she did not see she was dying. At the end, the portrait seemed to be alive but his wife was dead. The setting chamber where the narrator rests, is in a dark and abandoned castle. It is described in detail to create an atmosphere of suspense anticipating the occurrence of an extraordinary event.In the story we can't know the period when the events occurs , but it is certain that the narrator and his valet Pedro arrive at the castle in the evening and the central episode happens at midnight. The story is played on the contrast between life and art and their interweaving and influence: the painter tends unconsciously to a sort of unification of life and art, and so goes beyond the limits of the impossibleThe portrait, in which he miraculously manages to encompass the life of the woman he loves, is also a theme dear to the double, because in the picture, there is the reflection of the beauty of the young.

They lived in Yorkshire (Brontë Country)They wrote from their early childhood (first book published in 1846 at their own expenses, under pseudonyms).

Charlotte (1816-1855): Jane Eyre, a woman who builds her life

Emily (1818-1848): Wuthering Heights, contrasting passions and feelings in a gothic atmosphere.

Anne (1820-1849): Agnes Grey, her experiences as a governess.

The Brontë Sisters

Social novelSense of humourEpisodes (pathos)World seen though children’s eyesEducationCaricatures/figures Painter of English lifeDenounce of social evils Criticism to utilitarianismFluent style and use of symbolismPowerful imagines (metaphors)Exploitation of childrenEnd: re-establishment of social order

CHARLES DICKENS(1812-1870)

Popular in English literature's for his most characters.

His novels appeared in magazines in serialized form, he often created the episodes as they were being serialized

David Copperfield (1850)Bleak House (1853)Hard Times: For These Times (1854)Little Dorrit (1857)A Tale of Two Cities (1859)Great Expectations (1861)

WORKSThe Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1885)The Adventures of Oliver Twist (1839)The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1839)The Old Curiosity Shop (1841)A Christmas Carol (1843)

The Great Exhibition: 1851

First of World's Fair exhibitions of culture and industry organized by Henry Cole and Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s husband.

Numerous notable figures of the time visited it including Charles Darwin, and the writers Charlotte Brontë, Lewis Carroll, and George Eliot.

End of the Century

Dissatisfaction and rebellionAnti Victorian reaction due to

new scientific and philosophical theories

Realism: Clash between man and

environment Illusion and reality (E. Zola);

naturalism (C. Darwin) Man no longer responsible

for his action that are determined by forces beyond

his control Writer’s task to record events, impersonal like a

scientist, without commentsThe writers feel uneasy with the society and address their interests more to human anxiety, obsession, diseases and fears.The journey to unknown countries becomes the journey into the self

about the colonial wars in Africa

CHARLES DARWIN (1809 – 1882)

Darwin was born in England. In his childhood he felt a passion for natural history and

collected insect, rocks and minerals. He attended the school of Edinburgh and Cambridge, where he met J.S.Henslon and Whilliam

Whewhell (important scientists).Darwin sailed on board of the Beagle, headed to the coast of South America, where he developed

his theories.

The Origin of Species (1859). The book is about Darwin's theory of evolution:

all forms of life on the planet derive from a common ancestry. All species undergo mutation,

and their adaptive characteristics evolve through a long process of natural selection.

In a given environment, members of the same species compete for the

survival, and the best adapted to the environment survives. Darwin introduced

the struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest, applied to biology and natural history.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1818-1886)Robert Louis Stevenson (1818-1886)

Stevenson is considered one of the greatest exponent of literary movement that reacted to naturalism and positivismHhe was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. His genres were various.Born in Scotland, he was a rebellious boy for the continuous disputes with his father and the Puritanism of his place. He studied law but he never practised his profession of lawyer. He travelled in France for his health and, then, he met his wife Fanny Osbourne. His health and his desire to explore led him to travel to the Polynesian islands with his family where he died in 1894.Works The Treasure Island - his style changed the tradition of the adventure novel. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde - good and evil in the human nature. Kidnapped

The story is set in London during the Victorian age The main protagonists are doctor Jekyll - a high man of the society respected by everyone and Mr. Hide - the instinctive part of doctor Jekyll. When doctor Jekyll drinks a potion he has made his instinct prevails on the rational part and he also kills a man. The potion represents the risks of the science than can produce negative effects.

Oscar Wilde(1854 – 1900)

He was born and grew up in Dublin, the son of an influential Anglo-Irish family. His father was a famous doctor and his mother was a translator and a nationalist poet. After graduating in classical studies at Trinity College, Dublin, Wilde won a scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he became familiar with Walter Pater and John Ruskin. He settled in London and became a popular and eccentric dandy. He established himself as a spokesman for the school of ‘art for art’s sake’.In 1882 he gave a lecture tour in America. He wrote many poems, but his famous novel was ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’. After that, Marquis of Queensberry accused him of having a homosexual relationship with his son ( at that time was a serious criminal offence), and Wilde spent two years in prison, during which time he wrote the poem ‘The Ballad of Reading Gaol’. Oscar Wilde was buried in Paris.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

theme of youth, seen as a blessing that must be preserved. The picture is the mirror of Dorian Gray’s soul and gets old and suffers while his real body remains forever young and beautiful as in the portrait made by Basil. The picture as well as aging changes expression according to the crimes of Dorian while he enjoys his life. The weight of eternal live and the painting takes Dorian to the extreme act of destroying the portrait and consequently his life.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Beata Beatrix, Aestheticism: - Break of conventions- Free imagination

The Picture of Dorian GrayThe novel takes place in 19th century London. The protagonist, Dorian Gray, is a very good-looking young man. His friend Basil makes his portrait and Lord Henry convinces the boy that beauty

and youth are the most important things in life. The young man expresses a desires: he wants to remain forever young and beautiful while the portrait

becomes old At first Dorian has a relationship with a young actress, Sybil Vane.. But when

she starts acting badly he abandons her and she commits suicide.

He goes on with a life of pleasure and vices. At the end he kills Basil, who caused his ruin making him see his

beauty, and then destroys the portrait but in so doing he kills himself.