Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
Rise of Napoleon
Evolution of english fiction - Prose fiction during the age of Shakespeare - heroic
romance - Aphra Behn and other women writers - Bunyans use of fictional
allegory - popularity of biography
result of the democratic movement in 18th century England - other forms have
been consistently aristocratic - growth of commerce and industry, waning
feudal nobility, rise of the middle class
wider scope that novel allows - exploration of inner life - typical art form of the
introspective and analytical modern world - realism, democratic spirit,
psychological explorations
class consciousness
began writing at 50 - mere accident - on being asked to compile a volume of letters for
country readers, not sufficiently educated readers
Pamela or Virtue Rewarded - 1740 - instant sensational success - England in raptures about a young girl resisting the advances of her master, eventually becoming his virtuous
wife
Clarissa Harlowe - 1747-8 - masterpiece - European reputation - one of the greatest 18th
century novels - character of Lovelace
Extremely long, endless repetitions, masses of unimportant detail, stories drag, clumsy
structure. Form - artificial
patient, microscopic analysis of motive and passion; ethical traditions of Addison and
Steele; purification of society and manners
(Defoe - minimal interest in character Defoes sense of social and material reality PLUS
Richardsons awareness of the complexities of human personality and of the tensions
between moral and public social forces, between morality and gentility = NOVEL
Ten years of play writing - lessons in the art of construction - good preparation in technique unlike Richardson
Fielding - not enthusiastic about Pamela - found absurdities - disgusted with the overwrought
sentimentalism - rejection of morality and value systems of high society (whatever Richardson
revered)
Decides to take advantage of the novels popularity - an honest launch against Pamela - a
burlesque - The Adventures of Joseph Andrews (1742) - began by reversing the situation in Pamela
- a parody (Pamelas brother Joseph - rejects the advances of the aristocrat lady)
After the 10th chapter - an epic of the highway - full of adventures, horseplay and not too decent
fun
picaresque - picaro=rogue - who survives on wit and presence of mind amidst unfavourable
circumstances - eventually matures and becomes a good man
The Adventures of Tom Jones - 1749 - hero, a foundling (biographical mode) - unlike Richardsons
portraits of completely virtuous or completely evil men and women)
concerned about the structural principles of prose fiction - unlike Defoe or Richardson - engages
with questions related to his craft - ideas of unity and balance (BUT, also some wildly extravagant
praises from Coleridge and Thackeray)
English novel of sea and of sailors - brisk, action filled - more entertaining
explored the national peculiarities of Irish, Scottish and Welsh - first attempt in
English literary history
a satirist and reformer - ship scenes in Roderick Random (1748) led to the
improvement of conditions in naval service
Other novelists
Revival of Romance
Sensationalism
Ann Radcliffe - Romance of the Forest, Mysteries of Udolpho, The Italian very long, complicated plot, horrors
Matthew Gregory Lewis - Ambrosio or The Monk - just 20 years old - wild
sensationalism (personal relations with Scott)
In poetry
Age of transition
Love of nature
English Augustan poetry - poetry of city life- frequenting coffee houses and drawing
rooms - despised solitude - preferred trim gardens to unspoilt hillside
ballad revival - (despite Johnsons ridicule of the old ballads) - simpler form is better
than more poetical - change of taste - replacing Augustan theories of elegance and
effect
(The Popular Marketing of Old Ballads: The Ballad Revival and Eighteenth century
Antiquarianism Reconsidered. 1987 essay. By Dianne Dugaw)
William Blake - also among early romantic poets - leader in naturalistic poetry - poetry
of ordinary things - Poetical Sketches, Songs of Innocence, Songs of Experience perfected by Wordsworth
George Crabbe - extreme and uncompromising realism - fidelity to facts - The Village,
The Newspaper, The Parish Register - knew poverty - BUT entirely uninfluenced by the
romantic movement
Revolt against hard temper, dry intellectuality and all the chief characteristics of
Augustan school = the romantic movement
Middle ages - romantic in temper, tastes - Hence, medieval or Gothic revival (eg:
Castle of Otranto)
Gothic manners - better material for poetry than classical mythology (Richard Hurd)
Ballad revival - Bishop Percys Reliques of Ancient English Poetry - spreading romantic
tastes
fascination in the history of the medieval revival - interest in the romantic past - heroic
and legendary world of Celtic antiquity
Ossianic poems - remains of ancient Scottish poetry - led immense curiosity and
speculation - public interest, controversy on authorship, authenticity - supernatural,
melancholic, sentimental - naturalism and romanticism together (p.170, hudson)
Age of transition
Thomas Gray - Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard historically imp - use of nature - churchyard scene,
melancholy - contrast between the country and the town (unprolific)
liberation of poetry
Ending in 1830
Revolution
Romantic Triumph
Emancipation
General background
Social movements - abolition of slave trade, poor relief, prison conditions, peoples demand for
greater representation in the Parliament
Increased mechanisation
Peterloo massacre - August 1819 (Henry Hunts speech) - public anger against oppressive govt and
monarchy
IMAGINATION