Download A History of English Literature: From Lady Montagu to T.S. Eliot and more Study notes English Literature in PDF only on Docsity!
The Transformation of Poetry and
Prose in the 18th and 19th
Centuries
The 18th Century: Neoclassicism and
Romanticism
Neoclassicism
The 18th century began with a strong Neoclassical influence, which still referred to Nature as the immutable and unique Truth, a typical idea of classical authors. Neoclassical authors emphasized reason, order, and the imitation of classical models.
Romanticism
Towards the end of the 18th century, Romanticism emerged, challenging the absolute and undisputed nature of Reason. Passion, the irrational, the subjective, and the emotional were valorized in place of Reason. Fantasy and imagination replaced Reason as a scientific method, though it was not an overthrow of the culture of Reason, but rather an overcoming.
Satirical Authors
Jonathan Swift (Satirical Author)
Swift was the creator of the heroic-comic genre (Mock-Heroic). His wisdom turned above all towards society and some of his contemporary authors (Philips, Theobald and Dennis, all cited in the work "The Dunciad"). "A Tale of a Tub" (1704): This work presents a strong attack against the excesses of religion, with digressions that parody the writings of the time on literature, medicine, and politics. "Gulliver's Travels" (1726): This work is a satire in the form of a travel story, where Gulliver, a doctor traveling on a merchant ship, is shipwrecked on the island of Lilliput, inhabited by tiny beings. The contrast between Gulliver and the Lilliputians gives rise to the comedy and parody of the work, which recalls the political life of England.
Alexander Pope (Satirical Author)
Pope was also a creator of the heroic-comic genre (Mock-Heroic).
"The Rape of the Lock" (1712): This work is a reworking of classical models, where Pope uses the models of the epic to describe an everyday incident, placing the world of heroes and gods in a totally human and everyday situation. Pope was also a translator of Homer, with the aim of making the Iliad and Odyssey known in the 18th century.
Women Poets
Lady Montagu
Lady Montagu (known as Mary Pierreport) was one of the pioneers of the importance of women in literature. She attacked more masculine stereotypes about women, firmly opposing the fact that women and men were educated differently.
Anne Finch
Anne Finch was one of the few women poets with the opportunity to publish her verse, and was admired by Pope, Swift, and Gay. She owes her fame to the works "Nocturnal", "Reverie", and "The Spleen", which evoke typical atmospheres of pre-romanticism.
Mary Barber
Mary Barber was one of the few poets with the possibility of publishing some of the writings she had brought into the 'female trumvirate' of the Bluestocking Ladies, through the subscription method.
Literary Genres
Ode Pindarica
The Ode is a combination of poetry and music, a fusion of verse and melody. The Pindaric Ode was reworked by Cowley and combined with the Horatian model, allowing the lyric and the epic to return to occupy the place of honor among the literary genres.
Epistle in Verse
This genre was particularly favored by both Pope and Swift, whose model is found in Horace. It was a genre oriented to express emotions and thoughts in tones of regret and nostalgia, often chosen by female poets as it allowed them to express their feelings.
Samuel Johnson
Johnson had a scholarly career, crowned by the works "Lives of the English Poets" and the "Dictionary of the English Language", and was essential for the birth of literary criticism. The aim of Johnson's work was to improve the approach to knowledge and culture. Johnson often uses words of Latin origin and complex structures.
The Concept of Taste
The theme of taste, during the 18th century, changed in line with the literary and artistic current of Romanticism. Beauty, which was previously conceived as an inherent quality of the object, is now seen as a subjective perception of the individual.
The Concept of Genius
This conception of genius contrasts with the classicist one, based on scientific knowledge and the intellect. "Genius" (from the latino "geno", i.e. to generate) is the ability to "produce, create", and is associated with an inventive and creative force. The specific gift of a person with 'genius' is therefore imagination, the ability to create and invent, a force capable of uniting and associating.
The Tragedy
At the beginning of the century, tragedies that responded to neoclassical canons, with a Greek/Roman theme or setting and nevertheless linked to the current themes of the time were in fashion (example: Cato, Addison). These tragedies (definite heroic plays) are ousted by domestic tragedy, where the attention shifts towards a more private and sensual sphere. The main figure goes from being a heroic warrior to being an unfortunate woman, above all thanks to the works of Nicholas Rowe, which are aimed mainly at the female audience, replacing horror with pity.
The London Merchant, Lillo
The object of the tragedy is the misfortunes of modest figures and unknown, no longer kings and queens. This work strongly adheres to the sensibility movement, that is, to that movement that gives value to the sentiments and passions of the characters. The bourgeois class is the one best suited to represent the strength of these passions, and therefore it is found to be protagonist of this movement.
The Comedy
Tendency to eliminate the comic element, in accordance with the principles of Steele, who maintained that the task of comedy was the didactic one of overturning bad morals and instead celebrating virtues.
She Stoops to Conquer, Goldsmith
Reintroducing comedy to comedies, based on comical situations and characters. It is based on jokes and misunderstandings, and the love plot takes place along a path of comical events which simultaneously give value to sentiments. The male protagonist, Charles Marlow, must meet Kate Hardcastle to get to know her, and her father (Mr. Hardcastle) hopes for a future marriage between the two. Charles however has a preference for lower class women, since he finds them less 'intimidating' than those of high society, and Kate must therefore 'lower herself' (to Stoop), act as a lower class, to make Charles comfortable and win him over. Introduction of a new role, that of the 'clown', a comic character, played by Kate's half-brother, Tony Lumpkin, whose initial prank against Charles and his friend George starts the plot. This role has the task of resolving the misunderstandings generated throughout the story.
Sentimental Comedy
This shift of interest towards 'sentimental' comedies is well exemplified by The West Indian (= title which refers to the comparison between the old world, West, and the new one, Indian), by Cumberland, a work where the arousing emotions is more important than the plot itself, with a succession of scenes of pain and joy. This type of work usually has a moral value, expressed by the valorisation of generosity (in male characters) and virginity and compassion (female characters).
John Gay
Maximum exponent of 'ballad opera', author of farces and parodies. He followed Swift's advice to 'dismantle' the pastoral genre and replace it with a dramatic opera about thieves and criminals - The Beggar's Opera (picaresque genre), a strongly parodic opera where all the main roles, usually adhated to heroic characters, are covered by characters such as bandits and thieves, while criminals are recognizable as belonging to the bourgeoisie.
The Novel
Novels must be of an imaginative, invented nature, to be distinct from historiography.
Defoe's Novels: Realism and Individualism
Daniel Defoe, with his great ability to describe in a realistic way, wrote 6 novels, the two most famous being Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders. In Robinson Crusoe, the protagonist becomes the perfect example of the English bourgeois man: intelligent, self-made, with a great faith in God (acquired following a vision he had one night in which he had a very high fever) which allows him to overcome any adversity. Moll Flanders, on the other hand, tells the life of a woman, starting from a miserable childhood to acquired prosperity through a series of adventures. Here, the model of the picaresque novel is used to showcase the contradictions and difficulties that an individual, especially a woman, had to face in order to be able to open up.
Richardson's Epistolary Novels
With Richardson, we arrive at the full and definitive opening of the novel, or novel, as a genre. In his works, such as Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded and Clarissa, or the History of a Young Lady, the epistolary form is used to present multiple perspectives and personalities. Pamela, in particular, is a story that pushes for both social and economic improvement through virtue and industriousness, although it can be seen as a story of a true social climber. Clarissa, on the other hand, becomes the female model of gothic novels, the persecuted virgin.
Fielding's Satirical Novels
Along with Defoe and Richardson, Henry Fielding is considered one of the creators of the English novel. His works, such as Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones, unite the "mock-heroic" and the neoclassical trends of 18th century literature, while also owing much of their comedy to the techniques of Cervantes and Don Quixote. In Tom Jones, the protagonist's honesty is unable to resist the temptations that arise, and he will cheat several times.
Parody and Satire: Shamela
Shamela, a strong burlesque parody of Richardson's Pamela, brings out the most hidden implications of the original text and distorts it, revealing that the protagonist's name is not Pamela, and that the girl is not a chaste servant and timida, but rather the daughter of a London prostitute who tries to trap her master Mr. Booby (which would be Mr. B.'s name) with marriage.
The Women's Novel
The Rise of Sensibility
The quantity of novels written by women began to increase strongly from 1740 onwards, thus strengthening the movement of sensibility (of strong internal feeling, characters capable of feeling strongly), strongly present in works written by female authors. In these novels, defined as the novel of sensibility, the protagonist was usually a female character, with some
recurring characteristics such as intuition and deep compassion, as well as a high moral value.
Sentimental Novels with Male Protagonists
However, there are also sentimental novels with a male figure as protagonist, such as "The Adventures of David Simple", "The Vicar of Wakefield", and "The Feeling Man". They all revolve around the central theme of friendship and a man's ability to feel sentiments, despite the hostility of the world.
Evolving Female Characters
After the first half of the 18th century, the sweetness and delicacy of the passive and objective female character began to disappear: the central female figures of the novels lose their 'simplicity' and stereotypicality, and take on an increasingly elaborate character. Works like "Memoirs of Mrs. Sidney Bidulph" by Sheridan exemplify this growing complexity of characters.
Gothic Novel
The Castle of Otranto and the Origins of Gothic Literature
Considered the initiator of gothic literature, Horace Walpole's novel "The Castle of Otranto" introduced the key elements of the gothic genre: violent passions combined with paranormal phenomena, a gloomy setting, and a sense of perpetual anguish. The story comes to life completely from the author's imagination, and the setting, an Italian exotic castle, becomes a real protagonist.
The Relationship between Architecture and Gothic
Literature
There is a very close relationship between architecture and gothic literature, where the setting and scenography become real protagonists. The passion for the picturesque and the terror is therefore also translated into the settings, which are no longer a simple backdrop to the events but they play an important role in giving the idea of the sensation of fear.
Anne Radcliffe and the Gothic Novel
Anne Radcliffe was a true pioneer of the gothic novel, and began to write more for her own pleasure. Already from her first works she takes up the constants of the gothic novel set by Walpole: violent passions combined with paranormal phenomena. Her works, such as "The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne", feature characters driven by their passions (vengeance, love, heroism, carnal passion), and the castles play an important role in the plot.
Frankenstein
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (Shelley's wife) presupposes a scientific horizon typical of the seventeenth century, making it difficult to understand its contents from a different basis. The novel, written in epistolary form, tells the story of how the scientist Frankenstein decided to create a human being with pieces of a corpse. The idea for the story came during a challenge proposed by Byron (Shelley's friend and traveling companion), who asked everyone to write a horror story to scare the others.
Pre-Romanticism
These works showcase the inner maturation of female characters in comparison with an ambiguous society that severely limits women. Austen uses the internal dramas of the heroines to refer to complex fundamental questions, making the private and internal dramas indices of broader and more complex questions.
Austen's first works are parodies of the sentimental novel in epistolary form, a genre that became more and more frequent in the last years of the 18th century. The complexity of the novel makes an interpretation possible on different levels. Austen reworked the mental novel through the introduction of new elements, such as the psychological introspection of the characters (inspired by Richardson and Burney) and by telling the stories through the filter of irony and parody (a process similar to that carried out by Sterne).
Romance
The poet's ego is directly involved in the writing of the verses, no longer a detached narrator. The incipit of Thomas Gray's poem "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" - "Can storied urn or animated bust / Soothe the dull cold ear of Death?" - becomes proverbial and will be the inspiration for Foscolo's Carme Dei Sepolcri. Gray's criticism is leveled against the wealthy class, and the morality of simple life is contrasted with the corruption of the aristocratic and bourgeois classes. From 1786, Gray also reworked and published popular songs and ballads (such as "To a Mouse" or "The Jolly Beggars").
Sturm und Drang
Over the years, Sturm und Drang began to develop in Germany, which also influenced English production, bringing Gothic works with a taste for the shadowy and the mysterious. Medieval atmospheres are back in vogue, as is the passion for syntactic forms and archaic lexical forms (the author Chatterton was a great example).
To a Mouse
The peculiarity of the composition is that it is dedicated to a mouse. This dedication makes sense from the perspective of a farmer, who sees himself
as an 'element of Nature': he comes from Nature, and will return to it after his death, like all the other creatures in the world. The animal is no longer 'a mouse', a tiny creature, but is a beating heart, a nervous system, equally to being.
William Blake
Blake was the last great pre-Romance poet, strongly opposed to the Anglican church and classist society. Unlike Burns, who never used symbolism as a means of communication, Blake's works are rooted in it: he was a poet with a great sense of mysticism and esotericism, so much so that he considers himself invested by God himself with the role of prophet. His works, both poetic and pictorial, he defined as 'guided by an interior light', referring to the visions he had of God, angels and the greatest poets such as Homer and Dante. Blake fully embodies the Roman image of the visionary and prophetic artist, in accordance with the idea that only with intuition and imagination can one come into contact with true reality.
Edward Young
Young is known for his work Night Thoughts on Life, Death and Immortality, a religious poem (structured in 9 books) that rejects every form of earthly pleasure to aspire to eternal consolation. He is considered the most characteristic poet of the 'sepulchral school' (a genre whose central theme is the reflection on death, with melancholy tones due to the awareness of the inevitable passage of time). His most famous work is Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, which describes the life of a rural community and celebrates, with sentimental tones typical of Romanticism, the dead buried in the cemetery.
First Romantic Generation
The first generation of Romantics is headed by Wordsworth and Coleridge, who published the Lyrical Ballads in 1798, which included pre-romanticism within romanticism. The two had quite different characters, so much so that they reached a final break-up.
Lyrical Ballads
Lyrical Ballads is the fruit of the collaboration and friendship between Coleridge and Wordsworth. Wordsworth's contribution (numerically most significant) is based on poems of common events and language, while Coleridge (who only has 4 poems in his work) inserts writings more tending towards fantasy and myth. The work was republished in 1800, with a Preface by Wordsworth, which is considered the manifesto of English Romanticism.
Wordsworth
The Prelude
The Prelude was Wordsworth's greatest work, intended to serve as an introduction to his philosophical poem The Excursion. The initial draft focused on the psychological development of the protagonist from childhood to early youth, but Wordsworth no longer recognized himself ideologically in it, and it was never published.
Relationship with Nature
Wordsworth's poetry explores man's different relationship with Nature in the three stages of his development: childhood, youth, and maturity. According to Wordsworth, childhood is the most important phase, as perceptions are stronger and more vivid, allowing the child to come into contact with the "inner force" of nature. These childhood experiences remain imprinted in the memory, representing the key element of an individual's growth. Wordsworth believed that the purest form of poetry is an "emotion recollected in tranquility", where the poet reflects on past experiences and emotions.
The Daffodils
The Daffodils is a perfect example of Wordsworth's concept of "emotions remembered in calm". The poet recalls a walk with his sister Dorothy, during which he encountered a field of daffodils. Wordsworth admitted that he wrote the poem after taking two grains of opium, suggesting the influence of altered states on his creative process.
Coleridge
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner was one of Coleridge's four works within the Lyrical Ballads. It was partially the cause of the rift between Coleridge and Wordsworth, with the latter accusing the former of being responsible for the initial failure of the Ballads due to its dark and archaic character. The sailor's story, retouched and corrected several times by Coleridge, would have been richer and freer if left unfinished. The albatross, a symbol of innocence, is hung around the sailor's neck, becoming a symbol of his sins. Through this, the sailor will arrive at an Epiphany, leading him to better understand his connection with nature and with God.
Coleridge's Relationship with Nature
Coleridge's interest lay not so much in the natural world itself, but rather in the relationship between the natural world and man. According to Wordsworth's idea, nature acts as a moral and spiritual guide to human beings, allowing man to grow spiritually and morally during the three phases of his life.
Byron
The Byronic Hero
Byron was the first celebrity in the modern sense, and the public regarded him as the personification of the Byronic hero figure that appeared in his works. The Byronic hero is a character usually on the margins of society, in conflict between the tendency towards kindness and that towards ruthlessness, high class and well off but what they disdain aristocracy and wealth, in constant internal anguish and always looking for new emotions.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, which brought Byron enormous and immediate fame, tells the story of the young Aroldo, disillusioned by a life of idleness and pleasure, who seeks a new life in a foreign land. The portrayals of this character were increasingly recognized as those of Byron himself, who thus became the personification of the Byronic hero.
Don Juan
The composition of Don Juan began in 1818, with the first 5 cantos appearing in 1820 and the other 11 in 1824. The work contains the image of the yellow leaf, a metaphor of life that is dying out, which appears in the second quatrain of the fourth book.
Southey
Poetic Works
Southey dedicated himself to poetry with mythological arguments, but his works lack the personal imprint that makes a poem memorable. His poems, such as The Curse of Kehama, are illegible, and he is remembered more for his polemics with Byron than anything else.
John Keats
Early Life and Education
John Keats was of modest extraction and was unable to follow a regular academic education. He studied at the private school of the Reverend John Clarke, where he became a close friend of his son Charles Cowden Clarke, who was passionate about poetry and literature. Upon the death of his father (1804, due to a head injury) and that of his mother (1810, due to tuberculosis), the 5 children were handed over to their maternal grandmother, who took on 2 guardians. Keats thus interrupted his studies and was sent to serve an apprenticeship with a surgeon. The apprenticeship ended earlier than expected due to disagreements between Keats and the surgeon, so the boy enrolled at Guy's Hospital as a medical student (1815): in 1816 he was recognized as a doctor.
Literary Influences and Early Works
From Charles Clarke, Keats inherited his love for Spenser, but he also developed a passion for Tasso, Chapman, Wordsworth and above all Shakespeare. From these authors, Keats inherited the careful use of sounds and sound figures (assonances and vowel sounds which increased the musicality of the text) and the frequent use of concrete images.
At Leigh Hunt's house, Keats composed his first poem "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer": not having studied Greek, Keats had not yet become acquainted with Homer's verses except through Pope. Keats, however, carried out this work without passion, and decided to dedicate himself to poetic studies as a self-taught.
Keats plans to write a play about the overthrow of the gods by the gods (possibly inspired by Prometheus Unbound?), worthy of rivaling the works of his contemporaries, but must stop halfway through the 3rd book because 'he needs to study Greek mythology again, before be able to complete it'.
In 1817, Keats published his first poem in verse "Poems", which also includes "Sleep and Poetry", an example of Keats's "bower-centric" poetry (focused on the "arbor", on the natural and everyday elements of gardens).
Negative Capability and Major Works
In a letter written to his brothers, Keats illustrates the concept of negative capability, which constitutes the cornerstone of his existential 'philosophy'. This "negative capacity" was typical of all the great poets (especially Shakespeare), and it was the ability to pursue beauty and passions even when rationality and intellect were no longer able to understand, in opposition to the (neoclassical) tendency to let philosophical certainty prevail and rational on beauty artistica.
Keats's major works include:
1818, Endymion: The work receives an enormous amount of negative criticism, which Keats however uses as a starting point for improvement, well aware of his own limitations as an author. The harshness of the criticisms was such that many thought that it was precisely the pain they caused that led Keats to his death, a hypothesis which was supported by Shelley's elegy Adonais, written in honor of Keats. It was precisely this elegy that led Keats to be appreciated, posthumously, in all the circles of Europe that until then had looked at him with distrust.
1819, Ode to a Nightingale (Ode to a Nightingale): Composed inspired by a nightingale who had nested in a tree near the house where Keats and Brown lived. Inspiration was given to Keats by the song of the nightingale, and he composed the work in 1 day. The central theme is the contrast between the immortality of the nightingale's song and the mortality and earthly experiences of man. The theme of mortality was very dear and personal for Keats, whose health was not particularly good (and in fact he died the following year).
Consistent with Romantic Thought
Consistent with Romantic thought, Keats places beauty and emotions first, ousting the role of Reason. This is evident in his major works, which explore themes of mortality, the contrast between the immortal and the earthly, and the pursuit of beauty and passions even in the face of intellectual limitations.
Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats
The Urn as a Symbol of Eternity
In the first room, the speaker finds himself in front of a Greek urn and addresses it with various appeals. The urn is described as both the 'foster child of silence and slow time' and a 'historian that can tell a story'. Keats wonders what the figures on the side of the urn represent and what story those decorations tell. The urn, like Eternity itself, 'leaves us speechless' and will remain long after the speaker has gone, telling the new generations about the 'enigmatic lesson' that "Beauty is truth, truth is beauty", which is all that we know and all that we need to know.
The Piper and the Timeless Melody
In the second stanza, the attention shifts to the figure of a young man playing a piper, a 'soundless', 'unheard' melody, which speaks directly to the spirit and is untouched by time, and therefore superior to every mortal melody.
Dickens uses irony and caricature to capture the essence of 19th century England.
Oliver Twist (1837)
Dickens uses a grotesque parody to expose the hypocrisies of the institutions of the time. It is aimed at a middle-lower middle class audience and represents life as a complicated comedy made up of deceptions and illusions. The twists and turns and the omniscient narrator are used to make the novel suitable for serial publication. It is one of the first English novels to have a boy as its protagonist and one of the first examples of a social novel. The representation of the life of a criminal and the poor is completely anti-romantic, laying bare the evils of 19th century English society through ruthless black humor.
Great Expectations (1860/61)
Dickens' penultimate completed work, initially published in episodes in his serial "All Year Round". It is a work full of violent and extreme images: rampant poverty, prison ships, chains, clashes and duels to the death. Many of the characters have become part of the collective imagination, such as the eccentric Miss Havisham, the beautiful but too cold Estella, and Joe, the rough and gentle blacksmith.
Hard Times (1854)
Gradgrind's philosophy of "facts" is closely linked to the Industrial Revolution, and he appears as a 'mechanized man', interested in mere physical reality devoid of any imagination or fantasy. Dickens suggests the hypothesis that, by repeating the same actions over and over again, men gradually transform themselves into something similar to the machines with which they work. The character of Stephen Blackpool introduces the reader to the world of the 'Hands', the mass of impoverished workers who work in the factories. Dickens focused a lot on the miserable life of the poorer social classes, and Hard Times is one of the many works in which he talks about it extensively.
Dickens' Narrative Techniques
Dickens published many of his works in monthly or weekly 'episodes', a method that became standard for the Victorian era. This method allowed Dickens to gauge audience reactions and often change the course of the story if necessary. Dickens' works are characterized by an omniscient narrator who speaks directly to the reader and judges the characters.
Dickens' prose style, depth of character, and social criticism expressed through satire and irony were widely appreciated by his contemporaries.
Hard Times, 1854
The Novel's Structure and Themes
"Hard Times" is a novel by Charles Dickens, published in 1854. The work is divided into three parts, titled "Sowing", "Reaping", and "Garnering", which ironically refer to the world of agriculture despite the novel's industrial subject matter.
The main theme of the work is the contrast between imagination and mere fact. Dickens believes that a fair balance between the two elements is necessary, unlike the character of Thomas Gradgrind, who represents the excessive emphasis on facts and rationality. The Coketown library, where workers read novels about "men and women like them, with children like theirs", serves as an element that keeps the 'fancy' alive within the work.
Dickens often uses names to provide clues to the personalities of the characters, such as the surname Gradgrind, which recalls the perennial and monotonous work to which his children are subjected. The titles of the various chapters can also provide clues to the plot, as in the case of Chapter 5, titled "The Key Note".
Portrayal of the Working Class
The novel does not describe in detail how the poor classes live, but rather shows the lack of interest from the bourgeois class towards their conditions. Dickens invites readers to take a greater interest in the plight of the poor.
The description of the Hands' meeting allows Dickens to portray their daily worries and turmoil through the character of Slackbridge. Slackbridge intends to unleash a revolt to improve the economic and social condition of the Hands, but Stephen Blackpool, a tireless worker whose ideas the author shares, believes that this tension would not bring any improvement.
Through the characters of Slackbridge and Blackpool, Dickens shows that among the Hands there are both good and bad subjects. The novel also establishes the idea that marriages should be based on mutual love and respect, and not on interests or rationality, as exemplified by the unhappy marriage between Bounderby and Louisa.
Minor Characters and Subplots
The novel features several "minor" characters, such as Mrs Pegler, Bitzer, and Mr Sleary, who serve to bring together the different subplots of the work. These characters demonstrate that in reality every character plays an important role in Dickens's works, and Mrs Pegler is perhaps the best
