english literature english literature cards

ENGLISH LITERATURE
CARDS
INDICE
Chaucer, Boccaccio and Dante
The Arthurian legend in Dante: Paolo and Francesca
Machiavelli in England
Shakespeare, Bandello and the Italian novellisti
The Petrarchian and the English sonnet
Europeans vs American Indians: the cultural debate
The myth of the natural man: Rousseau and Robinson
The epistolary novel: Richardson, Rousseau, Goethe and Foscolo
Travelers of the mind: European writers on the road
European Romanticism
Gray and Foscolo
Keats/Leopardi
P.B. Shelley Ode to the west wind
Scott and Manzoni: features of the historical novel
The cult of nature in Romantic Europe: Romantic exiles and outcasts
The New England Puritans
The realistic novel
Decadent art and aestheticism
The British Empire: India In The Victorian Age
The colonization of Africa
The myth of Ulysses
The myth of the modern city
The detective story
The new woman and the 19th-century novel
The free state of Ireland
T.S. Eliot and Montale
Ulysses as a modern hero
The British Empire: India in the first half of the 20th century
The shock of the first World War
European voices from World War II
Racism and discrimination in French and Italian literature
Women and literature in the 20th century
Youths in Italian literature after World War II
Features of the novel
Features of the drama
Features of poetry
Knowing how…
The descriptive essay
The argumentative essay
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2
CHAUCER, BOCCACCIO AND DANTE
The collection of tales tradition.
The device of the collection of tales was unknown to European literature before Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron
(1348-53), in which ten speakers tell a tale each for ten days. Boccaccio’s speakers are gathered in a castle in the
countryside near Florence, to where they have taken refuge to get away from the plague. Another Italian precedent
was Ser Giovanni Sercambi’s Il Novelliere (c. 1374), where one narrator on a journey recounts a series of tales.
The question has naturally arisen whether Chaucer knew of Boccaccio and his prose masterpiece, and how much
he is indebted to the Italian writer.
Boccaccio’s influence on Chaucer.
Chaucer went on diplomatic and commercial missions to Italy on at least three occasions, during which he came to
know well three powerful cities like Genoa, Milan and Florence. It seems very likely that on those occasions he
also became familiar with Italian literature, then famous throughout Europe for three great writers: Dante, Petrarch
and Boccaccio. Curiously though, Chaucer mentions Petrarch and Dante (“Italy’s great poet”) but never once
Boccaccio, to whom he obviously seems to be indebted for the idea of the frame into which to insert his tales.
Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales imitates one of Decameron’s novellas, the story of Griselda, but he claims to
have derived it from a Latin version by Petrarch.
Dante’s influence on Chaucer.
For some critics, Chaucer took the device of the collection of tales from Boccaccio, but the central idea of the
pilgrimage might have come from Dante’s pilgrimage through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise in La Divina
Commedia. According to this interpretation, Chaucer would have turned Dante’s other-wordly pilgrimage into a
realistic English pilgrimage. In the end, the importance of his ‘Italian’ experience was that it showed Chaucer that
a vernacular language –in his case English – could be used to create literature of a nobility, subtlety and
importance equal to that of the classical languages. Thus, he tried not so much to reproduce the great Italian
authors in English as to elevate English to equal importance as a literary language.
1.
2.
3.
4.
What literary precedents did Chaucer have in the choice of a frame for his collection of tales?
Briefly state Boccaccio’s influence on Chaucer.
Briefly state Dante’s influence on Chaucer.
Going back to the passages from The Canterbury Tales you have read, is there anything in them which
you can relate to your own readings from Decameron or other Italian novellas?
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3
THE ARTHURIAN LEGEND IN DANTE: PAOLO AND FRANCESCA
Dante’s use of the Arthurian legend.
By the late 13th century the Arthurian legend and its stories were so well-known throughout Europe that Dante
could use them for one of the famous episodes of his Divina Commedia: that of the tragic love and death of Paolo
and Francesca (Inferno, canto V). Dante placed the two lovers from Rimini in the ring (girone) of the lustful
(lussuriosi). Virgil, who is Dante’s guide through Hell and Purgatory, first point out to Dante some of the famous
figures in the crowd of the lustful: some of them come from classical history and literature – Helen of Troy, Dido,
Cleopatra; others – such as Tristan – come straight from the Arthurian legend. Tristan, one of the bravest knights
of the Round Table, is there because of his adulterous love for Isolde, wife to King Mark of Cornwall – who was
Tristan’s uncle and who finally killed him.
The interplay of history and romance: Paolo and Francesca.
But it is really when Paolo and Francesca tell their own story that Dante’s debt to the tales of medieval chivalry
clearly appears. In real history, Francesca was the daughter of Guido da Polenta, Prince of Ravenna. She was
married to Gianciotto Malatesta, Prince of Rimini, who was bad-looking and lame. Francesca fell in love with the
handsome Paolo, brother of Gianciotto, and when their love was discovered they were both killed by Gianciotto. In
the Divina Commedia, Paolo and Francesca confess to having become lovers while they were reading a book
containing the stories of the knights of king Arthur’s court:
Noi leggiavamo un giorno per diletto
di Lancialotto come amor lo strinse:
soli eravamo e sanza alcun sospetto,
per più fiate li occhi ci sospinse
quella lettura, e scolorocci il viso;
ma solo un punto fu quel che ci vinse.
Quando leggemmo il disïato riso
Esser basciato da cotanto amante,
questi, che mai da me non fu diviso,
la bocca mi basciò tutto tremante.
Galeotto fu ‘l libro e chi lo scrisse:
quel giorno più non vi leggemmo avante (Inferno, V, 127-138)
the whole episode of Paolo and Francesca is set in a medieval courtly context, where the reading of romances was
common. The references to the Arthurian legend are precise. Lancelot is the knight who loved Guinevere, wife to
king Arthur, and who died for his unhappy love. In the proverbial phrase, “Galeotto fu ‘l libro” “Galeotto” derives
not from galera – prison, or gaol – as is sometimes thought, but is the Italian version of the name Galehault,
another knight of the Round Table. It was Galehault who first incited Lancelot to kiss Guinevere. The analogy is
clear: just as Galeault acted as a go-between, so the romance that Paolo and Francesca were reading incited them to
their first kiss.
Love and death in romances.
The mention of both Lancelot and Galehault is significant. Dante knew very well that behind the brilliant side of
the Arthurian stories – the tournaments, the feast at court, the shining armour, the brave deeds of knighthood – love
is always closely linked to death. Every great love of the Arthurian legend is linked to treason, suffering and,
finally, death: Lancelot and Guinevere, Tristan and Isolde, Merlin and Morgana. Similarly, reading tales of
chivalry and falling in love was for Paolo and Francesca only the prelude to their tragic end.
1. What references to the Arthurian legend does Dante make in Inferno, V?
2. What are the historical facts in the story of Paolo and Francesca and how does Dante link them to the
courtly world of romances?
3. How are love and death linked in the Arthurian legend?
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4
MACHIAVELLI IN ENGLAND
European influence of Machiavelli.
The influence of Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) on European political and philosophical thought and literature
was immense in the 16th and 17th centuries, particularly with his famous treatise on politics and statecraft: Il
Principe (written 1513, published 1531). This fame, however, was very much contrasted both in Italy and Europe.
In Italy Il Principe was officially condemned by the Church at the Council of Trento (1545), and in 1559 the book
was finally included in the indice dei libri proibiti because of its atheism and anti-religious doctrines. In many
European countries, on the other hand, Il Principe was considered to be the instrument of Jesuit propaganda
against the Protestant Reform. Machiavelli’s doctrines caused great scandal both among Protestant and Catholics
because he was the first to separate politics from ethics or religion. In his Il Principe he portrayed not an ideal ruler
but the kind of ruler that emerged from a past and present history.
The legend of Machiavelli in England.
The fortunes of Machiavelli in England follow two phases which can be explained within the context of England’s
dualistic relationship with Italy: in the first, Machiavelli was greatly admired as a profound thinker and a writer of
genius; in the second, he became the embodiment of the European Catholic forces and doctrines against which the
emergent English Protestant state was fighting. Machiavelism became synonymous with atheism and treacherous
way of killing, especially with poison – a favourite practice of Cesare Borgia, the supposed model of Machiavelli’s
Prince. Popular fantasy come to identify Machiavelli’s name, Niccolò, with ‘Old Nick’, the devil’s popular
nickname.
Machiavelli on the Elizabethan stage.
Elizabethan playwrights offered by the Protestant deformation of Machiavelli into a diabolical, cunning and evil
figure. Parts of this legend went into the dramatic character known as ‘villain’ (malvagio, or cattivo), one of the
most popular on the Elizabethan stage. The most perfect type of Machialellian villain, however, is Shakespeare’s
Richard III. In Richard III, in fact, the main character puts into practice Machiavelli’s famous saying: the end
justifies the means. To reach his end – becoming king of England – he uses deceit, lying, treachery, violence; he
acts both like a lion and a fox (another famous Machiavellian image). Many of Shakespeare’s other villains clearly
possess Machiavellian traits: in Othello, Iago for his duplicity and ability to hide his real intentions; in Macbeth,
Lady Macbeth for the decision with which she takes the chance of killing the king of Scotland when the occasion
presents itself.
1.
2.
3.
4.
What reception did Il Principe meet with in Italy and Europe?
Briefly outline the development of the legend of Machiavelli in Renaissance England.
What use did Shakespeare make of Machiavelli?
Did you know the meaning of ‘Machiavellian’? Does it conform to what you know about the Machiavelli
legend?
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5
SHAKESPEARE, BANDELLO AND THE ITALIAN NOVELLISTI
The Italia Novella in England.
In the Renaissance, Italian collections of novellas were extraordinarily popular in Europe. The stories of
Boccaccio, Masuccio Salernitano, Bandello, Giraldi Cinzio were translated during the 16th century, first into
French and then into other European languages. A typical line of transmission was the following:
Italian>French>English. Along this route the Italian novella usually underwent a change in a moral sense: the
greatest English anthology of prose tales, for instance, Palace of Pleasure (1566-67) by William Painter (c. 152595), included many tales from Boccaccio and Bandello but left out some of the Decameron’s more spirited and
irreverent stories.
From Bandello to Shakespeare.
The story of Romeo and Juliet is an example of how an Italian novella by a good writer (Bandello) could become,
with Shakespeare, one of the masterpieces of world’s literature, and of the ways in which texts were freely
transmitted and transformed in Renaissance Europe. The story was already fixed in one of Masuccio Salernitano’s
Cinquanta Novelle (1476), but it was set in Siena and the lovers’ names were different. In a subsequent version by
Luigi Da Porto (1530), the story was set in Verona and the lovers’ names were Romeo Montecchi and Giulietta
Cappelletti. In Matteo Bandello’s Novelle (1554), finally, we find all the incidents of Shakespeare’s play.
How Shakespeare works on his source.
If, strictly speaking, little of Romeo and Juliet is original, yet it is interesting to see how Shakespeare improved on
his sources. He worked on three main points.
• Time of the action. Shakespeare reduces the time of the action from several months to four days and
nights; by so doing he heightens the dramatic tension: things happen very quickly in the play, feelings are
soon brought to extremes and the action precipitates.
• Romeo and Juliet’s death. In many of the previous versions of the story, Juliet in the tomb wakes up
from her death-like sleep when Romeo is still alive though already deadly wounded. Shakespeare instead
chooses the version in which Romeo kills himself just before Juliet wakes up; by so doing he stresses the
importance of time as an agent in the tragedy and the role played by fatality in the story of the two lovers.
• The contrast between the young and the old. Shakespeare stresses this point as none of his sources
does. He makes the generation gap clear from beginning to end: there is no communication between
parents and children, and the young people’s deaths are explicitly presented as sacrifices to their parents’
enmity. Whereas all the previous versions of the story condemn Romeo and Juliet for having disobeyed
their parents, Shakespeare portrays the two lovers and their young friends as generous and disinterested
and the older characters as tyrannical and cruel.
1. Briefly describe the diffusion of the Italian novella in Europe, pointing out the main line of transmission
of the story of Romeo and Juliet.
2. What changes did Shakespeare make in his sources for Romeo and Juliet?
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6
THE PETRARCHAN AND THE ENGLISH SONNET
Italian origin of the sonnet.
The sonnet was introduced to England by a group of Court poets during the reign of Henry VIII. They translated or
adapted from Petrarch, whose Canzoniere was the model for Renaissance poets. Among the first to write sonnets
in English was Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-47). His fidelity to Petrarch may be judged from his
adaptation from one of the most famous Petrarchan sonnets, Amor, che nel pensier mio vive e regna, where he
describes love as a cruel lord that treats the lover as a slave, but is afraid of the woman’s disdain and runs away
from it.
Amor, che nel pensier mio vive e regna
e‘l suo seggio maggior nel mio core tene
talor armato ne la fronte vene;
ivi si loca ed ivi pon sua insegna.
a
b
b
a
Love, that doth reign and live within my
thought,
And built his seat within my captive breast,
Clad in the arms wherein with me he fought,
Oft in my face he doth his banner rest.
a
b
a
b
Quella ch’amare e sofferir ne ‘nsegna,
e vol che ìl gran desio, l’accesa spene,
ragion, vergogna e reverenza affrene,
di nostro ardir fra se stessa si sdegna.
a
b
b
a
But she that taught me love and suffer pain,
My doubtful hope and eke my hot desire
With shamefast look to scado and refrain,
Her smiling grace converteth straight to ire.
c
d
c
d
Onde Amor paventoso fugge al cor
lasciando ogni sua impresa, e piange e trema;
ivi s’asconde e non appar più fore.
c
d
c
And coward Love, the,, to the heart apace
Taketh his flight, where he doth lurk and plain,
His purpose lost, and dare not show his face.
For my lord’s guilt thus faultless bide I pain,
e
f
e
f
Che poss’io far, temendo il mio signore,
se non star seco infin a l’ora estrema?
ché bel fin fa chi ben amando more.
(Francesco Petrarca, Canzoniere, CXL,1374)
c
d
c
Yet from my lord shall not my foot remove:
Sweet is the death hat taketh end by love.
(The Earl of Surrey, Tottel’s Miscellany, 1557)
g
g
The English and the Italian sonnet.
Surrey’s great innovation was to change the structure of the Petrarchan sonnet (4+4+3+3), creating the patter
which was later adopted by Shakespeare and his contemporaries and is usually known as the Elizabethan or
Shakespearean sonnet (4+4+4+2). The difference may be seen from the table below. (The rhyme scheme of
Shakespeare’s sonnet is abab, cdcd, efef, gg.).
Petrarchan sonnet
Elizabethan sonnet
structure
rhyme scheme
structure
rhyme scheme
1st quatrain
2ndquatrain
1st tercet
2nd tercet
abba
abba
cdc
cdc
1st quatrain
2nd quatrain
3rd quatrain
couplet
abab
cdcd
efef
gg
1. Who introduced the sonnet into England?
2. What was the lyrical model from which Renaissance poets drew inspiration?
3. What are the differences between the Petrarchan and the Elizabethan sonnet?
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7
EUROPEANS VS AMERICAN INDIANS: THE CULTURAL DEBATE
Two opposites views of American Indians.
The discovery of America was a cultural shock. It made Europeans consider for the first time the existence of a
humanity totally different in culture and religion, of which nothing was known. On the one hand, natives were seen
as sub-humans, less than men and little more than animals: the Spanish humanist Juan Sepúlveda (c. 1490-1573)
defined them as homunculi , an inferior race. On the other hand, humanists and philosophers like the Frenchman
Michel de Montaigne (1533-92) or the Spanish Bartolomé de Las Casas (1474-1566) recognized the Indians’
humanity and respected the ‘otherness’ or diversity of their culture. Unfortunately, the first position prevailed and
was behind the ruthless exploitation and physical elimination of the natives.
Montaigne’s essay on cannibals.
Montaigne was an important writer as well as a philosopher. He is the inventor of the essay form together with
Francis Bacon; one of his Essais, Des Cannibales (1588), is one of the central works of the literature about the
New World and its myth. In it Montaigne defends the American natives and their societies from the accusation of
being savages and man-eaters. He does so on two grounds: in the first place, Europeans are guilty of much greater
crimes than what they accuse the Indians of (Montaigne cities the common use of torture and burning at the stake
in the wars of religion); in the second place, the Indians’ customs are simply different from those of the Europeans
– in fact, they live much closer to Nature and are therefore in a more perfect state than ours. This last argument is
particularly important since it introduces the notion that we now call ‘cultural relativism’: he denies that laws and
morality have universal value and refuses the opposition between civilization (Europe) and savagery (the rest of
the world).
Italian writers on the New World.
Montaigne’s position in this debate was an isolated one. In Italian literature, for instance, images of the New World
are completely dominated by the myth of the European conquest of America as a God-inspired work. Italian
writers accepted the official Spanish point of view, particularly influent at a time when Spain ruled a large part of
Italy. Ludovico Ariosto in Orlando Furioso (1516-32) celebrates the Conquest as the instrument of divine
providence to convert the American pagans to Christianity, and the Emperor Charles V as the leader of a new
Golden Age.
After 1530, with the Counter-Reformation, the version of the American natives as savages becomes darker: they
are portrayed as demons and cannibals. Both points are present in Torquato Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata (1581),
Canto XV, where the Indian is called a barbarous pagan (“empio di fede”) and man-eater (“v’é chi d’abominevoli
vivande/le mense ingombra scelerate e felle [malvagie]”). In general, European writers lacked direct knowledge of
the New World and tented to present the Conquest as a new version of the Christian crusade against Islam.
1.
2.
3.
4.
What was in cultural terms about the discovery of America?
There were two prevalent views of the American natives: say what they were.
Who was Montaigne and what was his idea of the natives and supposed cannibals?
Generally speaking, what position did Italian writers of the Renaissance take as regards the inhabitants of
the New World and the Europeans’ conquest? Give examples of specific writers’ opinions.
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8
THE MYTH OF THE NATURAL MAN: ROUSSEAU AND ROBINSON
The myth of the natural man.
In the 18th century many philosophers and scientists put forward a view of the universe as a living organism (this
view was also favoured by the discoveries of a new science, biology, which showed how living organism were not
fixed but subject to change and evolution). The philosophers of the Enlightenment saw nature as a dynamic entity
and believed in the interaction between nature and man. In simplified form: nature is good, and the closer man is to
nature the better he/she is. From this idea comes the myth of the bon sauvage, that is, of the good natural man,
which will be central to both the enlightenment and Romanticism. Its main exponent was the French-Swiss
philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-78). In his Discours sur l’origine et les fondements de l’inégalité parmi
les homes (1775) he considers society to have spoilt the freedom and virtue of primitive peoples who lived close to
nature. Rousseau deals with his theme in his two best-known works: the novel La nouvelle Héloïse (1761) and the
political treatise Du contrat social (1762), in which he argues that the basis of society is artificial and advocates a
return to nature.
Rousseau’s reading of Defoe’s novel.
Rousseau wanted his philosophy of man and nature to be at the core of the modern educational system. In this view
he wrote Émile (1762), in which he says that only by stimulating the natural impulses and interests of the child can
a true education be achieved. To do so, according to Rousseau, no books are necessary except one, Robinson
Crusoe: “the one book that teaches all that books can teach”. Defoe’s novel is considered essential to a child’s
education especially for two reasons: it shows him/her how to satisfy only natural or primitive necessities, such as
those experienced by Robinson on the island; also, Robinson embodies one of Rousseau’s favourite ideas: a
radical, that is complete, individualism.
Modern readings of Defoe’s novel.
Rousseau’s view of Robinson Crusoe, however, seems idealized, or perfectly suited to his own philosophy.
Modern critics and readers have pointed out that, in fact, Defoe and Rousseau had very different ideas of nature.
Robinson, in the first place, doesn’t choose to live a natural life in a adeserted place, as Rousseau’s heroes do: he is
forced into solitude and leaves the island as soon as he can. Secondly, Defoe mainly conceived of nature as a
resource to be exploited economically. Robinson alone on the island doesn’t feel closer to nature, nor does he lose
much time philosophizing. The absolute freedom from social restrains which Rousseau asks for man is used by
Robinson to exploit the island, first alone and then with the help of Friday who provides him with free labour
force. As a critic has pointed out: “For the original Crusoe, ‘nature’ is appealing not for adoration but for
exploitation”
1. What is the myth of the natural man in the 18th century? Who was its greatest exponent?
2. What are Rousseau’s educational theories and how are they linked to Robinson Crusoe?
3. How do modern readings of Robinson Crusoe differ from Rousseau’s?
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9
THE EPISTOLARY NOVEL: RICHARDSON, ROUSSEAU, GOETHE AND FOSCOLO
The great vogue of the epistolary novel.
The 18th century is the golden age of the epistolary novel throughout Europe. The first great international success
in this genre is Lettres persanes (1721), a philosophical novel by the French writer and philosopher Montesquieu
(1689-1755). The epistolary novel shows an astonishing variety of moods and contents: Richardson’s Pamela
(1740) is a sentimental novel with strong social and religious overtones; La nouvelle Héloïse (1761), by Jean
Jacques Rousseau (1712-78), embodies the Enlightenment philosophy of the return to primitive nature as the
correction of society’s abuses; The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774), by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (17491832), is a psychological novel based on unhappy love; Les liaisons dangereuses (1782), by Pierre Choderlos de
Laclos (1741-1803), describes the libertine life style of the French aristocracy; Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis
(1802), by Ugo Foscolo (1778-1827), is a psychological novel which combines unhappy love with the loss of
political ideals. With Ortis the history of the Italian novel as an artistic genre begins, just as Pamela is considered
by many critics the first truly modern English novel.
Society and the individual in the epistolary novel.
Thanks to its flexibility, the epistolary novel in the 18th century perfectly served a dual purpose: it was the means
of expressing philosophical and social issues as well as individuality of feelings. On the one hand, epistolary
novels were important instruments for the diffusion of the great issues of the Enlightenment such as religious
tolerance, freedom, equality and the return to nature. On the other hand, the letter also became the means of
psychological analysis of characters. In this, Richardson was the first acclaimed master and his lesson was soon
followed by other European writers. Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther is about a young man who is so
unhappy in love as to commit suicide. The book’s success was immense: young people throughout Europe imitated
Werther’s way of dressing and his behavior, and many people in love committed suicide like their fictional hero.
The reason for this craze was partly due to the very form of the novel: Werther’s grief is not told by an impersonal
narrator but by himself, in his letters, as if he was speaking to his readers.
Something similar happened in Italy with Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis: Jacopo, like Werther, kills himself
because of his hopeless love for Teresa (but also for the end of his political illusions). Both novels are wholly
centred on the protagonists, and the letters, all by them, define a strong individuality that already anticipates the
Romantic ‘I’.
1. Give examples of the 18th-century epistolary vogue.
2. The epistolary novel was the medium for the expression of both philosophical issues and individual
feelings. Expand on each of these aspects.
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10
TRAVELLERS OF THE MIND: EUROPEAN WRITERS ON THE ROAD
The French ‘philosophers’.
Many of the 18th century’s best books use travelling either as the basis of their stories or as a means of expressing
the core of their message. The writers and philosophers of the French Enlightenment, in particular, found the
theme of travelling congenial to the propagation of their theories. Montesquieu (1689-1755), in his Lettre persanes
(1721), chooses the device of the Persian traveler to Europe writing a series of letters in which he comments on
European customs; this enabled Montesquieu to put his social and political criticism in an apparently neutral form.
Voltaire (1694-1778) did something similar: in his Lettres philosophiques sur les Anglais (1734) he uses the
experience of his visit to England as a basis for his sharp criticism of the Frenh establishment. Even Voltaire’s
best known philosophical work, Candide (1759), an ironical romance, is divided into chapters which represent as
many stages in the journey of the protagonist through a mad and cruel world. Denis Diderot (1713-84) followed a
similar pattern for his masterpiece, Jacques le fataliste et son maître (1773, published 1796), a philosophical novel
with practically no plot but held together by the travels of Jacques and his master. With Jean-Jacques Rousseau
(1712-78) and his Les rêveries du promeneur solitaire (begun after 1770), travels are not only the ideal frame for a
philosophical discourse but they also trace the development of the individual’s mind and sensibility.
Goethe and his Italian Tour.
The life and work of the greatest 18th-century German writer, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), are
firmly rooted in the experience of travelling. Goethe had always desired to visit Italy and he finally went on his
Italian tour in 1786-88. He especially spent time in Rome, Naples and Sicily: his famous travel diary, Italian Tour
(1828), a masterpiece of its kind, describes the classical sights and picturesque views he saw there. The book was
originally called Of My Life, which shows the close connection Goethe saw between his life and travels. Travelling
is also central to some of Goethe’s greatest works.
The novel Wilhelm Meister, for instance, in its final edition became The Years of Wandering of Wilhelm Meister
(1795-96): Goethe chose this title to stress the importance of “wanderings”, or travels, for the personality of his
hero.
Travels in 18th-century Italian literature.
In18th-century Italian literature, travels are closely linked to the beginning of modern fiction. Carlo Goldoni’s
Mémoires (1874, written in French), Vittorio Alfieri’s Vita (1790), Giacomo Casanova’s Storia della mia vita
(1798-98, also originally written in French), are all autobiographical works in which the stages of the author’s life
are described and analysed through his travels throughout Europe. Together, these works draw a colourful picture
of 18th-century life at court and in the literary or fashionable salons, at the theatre and at the tavern, in the town and
in the country. The brilliant, libertine, cosmopolitan and intellectual side of the age is perfectly rendered by travel
literature, in Italy as elsewhere. Later on in the century, travel literature becomes the medium of the new
sensibility, as in Ugo Foscolo’s masterly translation of Sterne’s Sentimental Journey into Italian. When he comes
to write his prose masterpiece, Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis (1802), Foscolo does something similar to what
Goethe does in Wilhelm Meister: his young sensitive hero, Jacopo, disappointed in his love and political ideals,
begin to wander aimlessly through Italy. Everywhere he goes, however, he comes across an oppressed and
hopeless humanity, and he finally kills himself in desperation. Foscolo’s travelers, like Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister,
already shows the melancholic and introspective tendency of the next age: Romanticism.
1. To the French philosophers of the Enlightenment the theme of travelling was very important. Can you
give examples of some of their main works and say what role travelling has in them?
2. In Germany the theme of travelling was very important too. Briefly describe the role of travelling in:
• Goethe’s diary
• Goethe’s novels
3. What important Italian writers and men of letters wrote works where travels occupy a central role?
4. What kind of world comes alive from the works of these 18th-century Italian writers?
5. In what ways does Foscolo show a new sensibility as a traveller?
6. Which of the writers and works mentioned in the card shows a more direct link with Britain and its
authors?
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11
EUROPEAN ROMANTICISM
German origins.
The first to boast of having used the word ‘romantic’ in the new positive sense were the Great German writers at
the turn of the century: Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832) and Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805). They did so in
opposition to ‘classic’, thus clearly stating that the new meaning indicated not just a change in taste but an open
revolt against tradition. The romantic movement was anticipated in Germany in the 1770s by the so called Sturm
und Drang, which included such poets as Goethe, Herder, Schiller. They believed in the freedom of the individual
and the artist, and asked for a return to nature.
The beginnings of European Romanticism.
Romanticism was a truly European movement, involving different arts (literature, painting, sculpture, music) and
sweeping across the continent, from Portugal to Russia. German writers and artists led the way, and Romanticism
soon became an international phenomenon.
In France, Romanticism developed later and mainly under the influence of two Swiss-born writers: the philosopher
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78) and Madame de Staël (1776-1817). Rousseau was immensely influential for the
European diffusion off Romanticism: he laid the basis of the Romantic cult of nature and the belief in man’s
natural goodness and his consequent corruption by society. Madame de Staël made known German philosophy and
literature and also started the Romantic vogue for Italy. Her lesson was followed by the great French writers of the
early 19th century, especially Victor Hugo (1802-85) with his historical novel Notre-Dame de Paris (1831).
In Italy the beginnings of the Romantic movement go back to the 1810s and are associated with Giovanni Berchet
(1783-1851), Alessandro Manzoni (1785-1873) and Ugo Foscolo (1778-1827).
1. Who gave origin to Romanticism and where?
2. What can you say about the beginnings of the Romantic movement in Italy and France?
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12
GRAY AND FOSCOLO
Thomas Gray’s Elegy written in a Country Churchyard had a great influence on European writers. In Italy, it was
translated by Melchiorre Cesarotti and was a direct source of inspiration for Ugo Foscolo’s Carme dei Sepolcri
(1807). Foscolo, who lived for a long time in England and widely read English literature, freely acknowledged his
debt to Gray and the Graveyard school. A predilection for melancholy and solitude in macabre settings had already
spread from pre-Romantic England all over Europe. Foscolo warned against the danger of surrendering oneself to
melancholy and losing all power for action, but he also sang “la voluttà del dolore”. It is from this attitude that
Foscolo’s celebrated novel, Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis (1802) derives. The English influence was also
particularly strong on Italian poems, such as Ippolito Pindemonte’s Cimiteri (1806), that drew their inspiration
from night scenes and graveyards: Edward Young’s Night Thoughts (1742-45) was widely imitated.
All’ombra de’ cipressi e dentro l’urne
confortate di pianto è forse il sonno
della morte meno duro?
(ll. 1-3)
e involve
tutte cose l’oblio nella sua notte;
e una forza operosa le affatica
di moto in moto; e l’uomo e le sue tombe
e l’estreme sembianze e le reliquie
della terra e del ciel traveste il tempo
(ll. 17-22)
né passeggier solingo oda il sospiro
che dal tumulo a noi manda Natura.
(ll. 49-50)
Can storied urn or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honour’s voice provoke the silent dust,
Or flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death?
(ll. 41-44)
the boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,
Awaits alike the inevitable hour:
The paths of glorylead but to grave.
(ll. 33-36)
Even from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
Even in our ashes live their wonted fires.
(ll. 91-92)
It is clear from the first example that Foscolo does not so much paraphrase Gray as freely expands on a common
theme: that graves in the country “All’ombra de’ cipressi” represent inspiration for the living, their lesson is not
lost. The way in which both writers handle this common theme is, however, different: Gray in his quiet melancholy
vein, sings the glory of the common people, whereas Foscolo is powerfully moved by the tombs of great men – he
believes that they “a egregie cose il forte animo accendono”. The other examples given above show how Foscolo
can be close to and yet different from Gray. The Elegy’s lines 33-36 are freely reworked in the Italian, but the
thought is similar: in both versions all human activities are seen as darkened and finally obliterated by death.
Finally, Gray’s “the voice of Nature cries” (l. 91) is softened by Foscolo in his “il sospiro che…a noi manda
Natura” (ll. 49-50). Here Foscolo introduces il “passeggier solingo”, which finds no direct correspondence in the
English. This solitary figure, however, closely resembles Gray’s solitary wanderer in the Elegy.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Did English pre-Romantic poets praise melancholy?
What English pre-Romantic poet drew inspiration from night scenes and graveyards?
What Italian poet was also fascinated by them?
Compare Foscolo’s Carme dei Sepolcri with Gray’s Elegy, pointing out similarities and differences.
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13
KEATS/LEOPARDI
[…] La poesia di Keats rivive la classicità alla luce di una nostalgica, romantica “Sehnsucht” che, secondo Mario
Praz, si colora di esotismo e della ricerca di una diversa e irraggiungibile realtà. Nel triennio 1816-19 si collocano
le poesie più belle e famose di Keats, in particolare le odi. Contemplando la natura, egli scopre una profonda legge
di bellezza e di armonia che, nonostante il presentimento della morte, si afferma con forza nella famosa
conclusione dell’Ode su un’urna greca (1819): “Bellezza è verità, verità bellezza”: questo è quanto / sulla terra
sapete, ed è quanto basta”. Nei versi di Ode To a Nightingale (1820), Ode to Autumn (1820), Ode to Melancholy
(1819) e nel poema incompiuto Hyperion (1820) “il poeta sente la bellezza, che immortale, impassibile, assiste al
travaglioso svanire delle vicende umane intorno: generazioni e generazioni d’uomini s’inebriano per un istante del
canto eterno dell’usignolo, dell’armonioso lineamento dell’Urna eterna, e salutano morituri la perenne Imperatrice.
In questa sua accettazione e dedizione a una bellezza che placa l’ansia dell’anima dinanzi al mistero del mondo, si
esalta il motivo dominante della vita del Keats” (M. Praz). In Ode on a Grecian Urn il poeta contempla due scene:
la prima è una festosa rappresentazione bucolica, dove si nota un giovane innamorato che sta per baciare una
fanciulla, mentre intorno esultano la natura, gli uomini, gli dei; la seconda illustra una cerimonia religiosa a cui
partecipa un intero paese. Le figure scolpite, sottratte ai limiti della vita, ai dolori, alle delusioni, alla morte, vivono
eterne nella bellezza della forma (Keats ammira l’armonia, la serenità, l’equilibrio dell’arte attica), inducendo
l’animo di chi le contempla a trascendere la precarietà della condizione terrena e a volgersi verso l’eterno.
L’ammirazione dell’Ellade è pervasa da una profonda e struggente nostalgia perché oramai, perduta per sempre,
l’armonia degli antichi può rivivere soltanto nella contemplazione artistica. Del 1819 è anche Ode To a
Nightingale, scritta di getto in maggio e ispirata all’Ode al vento occidentale di Shelley; mentre questa è un inno
alla vita, il canto dell’usignolo ascoltato nel giardino di un amico ispira a Keats un’atmosfera lunare e un
melanconico desiderio di morte. Non è un sentimento forte, di pessimismo alla Leopardi, ma un senso già
decadente, che gli fa desiderare di svanire per non dovere affrontare l’oscura fatica del vivere. Anche Ode to
Psyche è scritta nel 1819 e si apre con l’abbraccio leggendario tra Amore e Psiche. Il poeta afferma di voler
costruire per Psiche un tempio nella propria mente, di cui lui sarà sacerdote, poiché quasi non esiste culto che
riguardi la dea, assurta all’Olimpo in epoca assai tarda. “Keats è poeta da leggersi nella sua integrità. Se si
eccettuano i pochi suoi primissimi poemi, non vi è un solo verso, in lui, mediocre. Un rigore ferreo domina l’onda
della ispirazione, la trasforma, la purifica e la cambia, dalla irruente scomposta corrente che essa in tanti poeti
grandi è ancora, in un placido fiume che riflette il cielo, sì, ma sotto la superficie del quale le energie domate
ribollono. Se di miracolo può parlarsi in questo mondo, miracolo sono le poesie di Keats. E di questa sua angelica
potestà di cambiare il dolore in canto, di dar forma precisa e raccolta all’impeto delle passioni, il poeta era
perfettamente conscio, e vi allude nei sublimi versi della lirica Bards of Passion and of Mirth, quando desidera che
“the nightingale doth sing”, non più “a senseless, tranced thing”, ma “philosophic numbers smooth”. Ed egli fu
davvero l’usignolo non più ebbro di canto ma che ha trasformato la melodia in “levigati ritmi filosofici”, senza
perdere neppure un soffio della musica e dell’estro. Si è voluto paragonare Keats a Leopardi. Paragone ingiusto per
entrambi. Keats non discese quanto l’italiano nella profondità del dolore, cioè della vita; d’altra parte Leopardi non
appartiene alla categoria degli angeli, non aveva sul labbro la rugiada di paradiso dell’inglese. Solo punto di
contatto fra questi due “sommissimi” poeti, il culto per la bellezza classica e l’insistita tematica ellenica. [...]
Legame al quale del resto sfuggono tutti e due i poeti, spesso e volentieri, e in modo opposto. Leopardi
aggiungendovi di suo un sentimento di angoscia che non passa, forse a torto, per ellenico; e Keats, sospinto dal
sempre vivace fondo celtico che fermenta in ogni artista inglese, aprendo brecce nelle mura del Partenone, dalle
quali s’intravedono paesi fatati e “perigliosi mari abbandonati”, estranei tanto ai Greci quanto al marchigiano.
Lasciamoli ognuno nel proprio tabernacolo. O, per dir meglio, rispettiamo in ambedue, ancora una volta, il rigore
dell’artista che non si lascia mai prender la mano dal sentimento nudo, il gusto dell’uomo che canta e non urla, il
pudore di chi soffre senza sbandierare le piaghe come fanno gli accattoni: vediamo insomma in Leopardi e in
Keats due dei maggiori esponenti dell’anti-melodramma”. (G. Tomasi di Lampedusa, 1997).
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14
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
Ode to the West Wind vento occidentale
This poem was conceived and chiefly written in a wood that skirts the Arno, near Florence, and on a day when that
tempestuous wind, whose temperature is at once mild and animating, was collecting the vapours which pour down
the autumnal rains. They began, as I foresaw, at sunset with a violent tempest of hail and rain, attended by that
magnificent thunder and lightning peculiar to the Cisalpine regions.
I
O WILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being
Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
5
Pestilence-stricken multitudes! O thou
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill;
10
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, O hear!
II
Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion,
Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of heaven and ocean,
Angels of rain and lightning! there are spread
On the blue surface of thine airy surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head
15
20
Of some fierce Mænad, even from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith's height,
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge
Of the dying year, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,
Vaulted with all thy congregated might
25
Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail, will burst: O hear!
III
Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lull'd by the coil of his crystàlline streams,
30
Beside a pumice isle in Baiæ's bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave's intenser day,
All overgrown with azure moss, and flowers
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
35
effeì
15
For whose path the Atlantic's level powers
Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know
40
Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: O hear!
IV
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share
45
The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O uncontrollable! if even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be
The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed
Scarce seem'd a vision—I would ne'er have striven
50
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
O! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd
One too like thee—tameless, and swift, and proud.
55
V
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own?
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
60
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe,
Like wither'd leaves, to quicken a new birth;
And, by the incantation of this verse,
65
Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
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16
SCOTT AND MANZONI: FEATURES OF THE HISTORICAL NOVEL
Combining history and fiction.
The first and most famous Italian historical novel, Alessandro Manzoni’s I Promessi Sposi (in English, The
Betrothed), came out in 1827 when Walter Scott was already the acclaimed master of the historical novel in
Europe. Scott’s influence on Manzoni was great and is well documented. We know that he read Scott’s works with
the greatest interest and he constantly asked friends and fellow writers for copies of them – in French though, since
he didn’t know English. Manzoni could find in Scott, ready-made, the narrative pattern of the historical novel: in
Manzoni’s own words, “un componimento misto di storia e invenzione”, that is fiction. In Ivanhoe, for instance,
the Black knight, that is King Richard I, is a historical figure, while Friar Tuck is a fictious one; just as in I
promessi sposi Cardinal Federigo Borromeo or the “nun of Monza” come from history, whilw Renzo, Lucia and
Don Abbondio belong to fiction. The choice of combining history and fiction was the consequence of the new
romantic conception that each historical period has a character of its own, different from that of other ages.
Patriotism and language.
A feature the two writers share is worth noticing for the different narrative results it finally produced. In both Scott
and Manzoni the patriotic and regional strain is evident: their novels are placed within historical contexts that
stress the cultural and political conflict between, respectively, Scotland and England and Lombardy and Spain
(which for Manzoni and Italian Romantics could stand for other forms of foreign domination in Italy). The
linguistic means they used, though, are different: Scott, in the novels dealing with Scottish history, made ample use
of dialect and local sayings; Manzoni, on the other hand, carefully removed dialect or regional inflections from the
final 1840 edition of I promessi sposi – a work for which, as he figuratively put it, he had to “wash up his clothes
in the river Arno”. Manzoni wanted his novel to set a linguistic standard for a new Italian literature and nation. To
Scott, the Scottish language was a means of keeping alive his country’s sense of independence from England.
Two trends of the historical novel.
Scott’s stories are characterized by the prevalence of exotic and adventure elements. In Manzoni’s novel, on the
other hand, we find moral and essay-like passages that reveal a marked tendency to reflect on the events for the
reader’s benefit – the didactic and social strain of the narrative is clear. Together, Scott and Manzoni exemplify the
two main trends of the historical novel in Europe during the Romantic period. Closer to Manzoni’s conception of
the historical novel are the French Victor Hugo, with Notre-Dame de Paris (1831), and the Russian Alexander
Pǔskin, with The Captain’s Daughter (1836) – the influence of which will be felt as late as Lev Tolstoy’s War and
Peace (1836-69).
1. Point out similarities and differences between Scott’s and Manzoni’s historical novel.
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17
THE CULT OF NATURE IN ROMANTIC EUROPE
French Romantics.
The theme of Nature is dominant in Romantic literature throughout Europe. The Romantic hero, another major
theme of the age, finds in Nature his natural home. Exiled from the society of men, he prefers to discourse with the
sea, the mountains, the fields: in them only does he find his self-realization. All great French Romantics writers
gave impassioned descriptions of Nature: Alfred De Musset (1810-57), in his lyrics Les nuits (to be compared with
Coleridge’s nocturnal poems or with the German poet Novalis’ Hymns to Night, 1800); Alphonse de Lamartine
(1790-1869), who boasted of his poetry that it expressed the deepest movements of the soul and of Nature, as in his
famous poem Le lac which beautifully renders Nature’s spiritual presence.
German Romantics.
For German poets Nature was the subject through which all other Romantic themes passed. In the works of
Novalis (1772-1801), Ernst Theodor Hoffmann (1776-1822) and Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) Nature is seen both
as a real entity and a mysterious force. German Romanticism often stresses the perception of Nature as the door to
the supernatural and magic, and this explains Coleridge’s affinity with German Romanticism.
Italian Romantics.
In Italy too Romantic writers sang Nature, though they usually made it the background to personal or political,
usually patriotic, themes. Ugo Foscolo’s celebrated sonnets, Alla sera or A Zacinto, are exemplary: in them Nature
is described in general or classical rather than personal terms. In Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837) we find a
sensibility for Nature closer to that of his European fellow poets. His predilection for natural features such as the
night, the moon and the wind is typical, although he does not indulge in the Gothic or the supernatural. Many of
his famous poems – L’infinito, La sera del dì di festa, Il sabato del villaggio – begin with the description of a
landscape or of a rustic scene and then move on to pessimistic reflections on man’s destiny.
ROMANTIC EXILES AND OUTCASTS
Exile and suicide: Goethe’s Werther.
The gallery of Romantic heroes begins well before Byron and it contains famous characters from many European
literatures. The Romantic hero as rebel outcast is already developed in The Sorrows of the young Werther (1774),
by the German writer Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832), which is partly autobiographical. Werther is a
restless young man who, unable to accept society with its material values and hypocrisy, finally commits suicide.
Werther set a fashion throughout Europe. In Italy, Goethe’s example was followed by the poet Ugo Foscolo (17781827) with his Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis (1802): Ortis too commits suicide after the breakdown of his patriotic
ideals and of his love for Teresa.
A destiny of sorrow.
Another typical Romantic hero is found in René (1802), by the French writer François-René de Chateaubriand
(1768-1848). René was an immensely successful book in which two European Romantic generations saw
themselves reflected. Its hero comes from an aristocratic family ruined by the French Revolution, as a morbid
affection for his sister and finally decides to go to Louisiana, “back to nature” (also a major Romantic ideal), where
he dies. René is highly representative for his sense of being a permanent exile, an outcast of society, and for the
self-complacent pride he feels for his sufferings: he says that “a great soul must contain more sorrows than little
one”. This rejoicing in a destiny of sorrow links René with Shelley’s Prometheus, just as his restlessness is the
same as that of Byron’s Childe Harold or, on a comic level, Don Juan. Other famous romantic heroes are described
in Adolphe (1816) by the French writer Benjamin Constant (1767-1830), and Eugene Onegin (1833) by the
Russian Alexander Pǔskin (1799-1837).
____________________________________________________________________________________________
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Who was the Romantic archetypical hero? Briefly describe his history.
Did any other European writer follow Goethe’s example?
What is René? Give reasons for the books success.
Does René have any traits in common with the heroes of English Romantic poetry?
Can you quote other famous Romantic heroes in European literature?
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18
THE NEW ENGLAND PURITANS
Puritan New England.
The English colonization of North America in the early 17th century was directly shaped by the strong puritan
character of its first settlers. The name “New England” was given in 1643 to the first confederation of American
colonies. The name itself was chosen to signified that the colonists wanted to establish a anew world, after leaving
their mother country because of religious persecution. The English King, James I (1603-25), was an intransigent
supporter of the Church of England, of which he was the formal Head, and disliked both Catholics and Puritans.
As a consequence, in 1620 a group of Puritans called the ‘Pilgrim Fathers’ sailed to America on the Mayflower,
where they founded New Plymouth in Massachusetts: it was the first English settlement in North America and the
beginning of the future United States.
The New England Puritan doctrine.
The Puritans who left England were far more radical in their views than their English brothers. They held a rigid
Calvinistic conception of all men as sinners, among which only a few were predestinated to be saved by God. New
England Puritans saw themselves as the ‘elect’, God’s chosen people. This had two main consequences: an
intransigent policy that imposed the strictest conformity to religious rules in everyday and social life; and a
literature based on Puritan principles, used as a means of moral instruction and conversion. Both as citizen and as
writer, the New England Puritan was torn between a haunting sense of his own sinfulness and the urge to conform
to a strictly religious behavior – a conflict clearly represented in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Other
important tenets of Puritan doctrine were: an austere way of life which made work rather than pleasure the
Puritans’ main occupation; the accompanying belief that to have success in one’s business meant to have ‘God on
one’s side’ (a typical Puritan expression); and, finally, a belief in individual conscience as sufficient for the
individual’s salvation.
Religion and literature in Puritan Boston.
The Massachusetts Bay Colony, established in 1630, was the political and cultural centre of Puritan New England.
Harvard College –which later became the famous Harvard University- was founded in 1636, soon followed by
Yale College. Many of the first American writers came from Boston and were directly connected with the local
Church, either as pastors or sons of pastors. This is the Boston world described by Hawthorne in his The Scarlet
Letter two hundred years later, a world that he knew intimately from his own family background.
1. What are the main features of Puritan doctrine and life in New England?
2. Point out the typical Puritan elements in Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter.
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19
THE REALISTIC NOVEL
Realism in the English novel.
The movement within the Victorian novel from Dickens to Hardy shows the evolution of the realistic novel in
England. In Dickens we find an interest in English social classes –their habits, speech, problems and mutual
relations. Such an interest, however, is subordinated to a complex plot, usually involving adventures and intrigue.
Dickens, moreover, never seriously questions the foundations of the society he describes. With Hardy and George
Eliot the dimension of psychological realism is added, though they still rely on romantic plots and have their
narrators often comment on the story.
French realism: Balzac and Flaubert.
Realism was the general trend of the European novel in the 19th century, and particularly in its second half.
Already in the first half of the century in France, Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) with the one hundred novels of his
La Comédie Humaine had fixed the type of the bourgeois or middle-class novel: a faithful reproduction of reality.
His ambition was to classify men’s characters and lives in a way “similar to the classification of animal species”.
Balzac’s example was followed by Gustave Flaubert (1821-80), who in Madame Bovary (1856) gave the supreme
example of the realistic novel: the story of the tragic love and death of Emma Bovary is set against the social and
cultural background of French provincial life. Flaubert shoved the importance of psychological as well as factual
realism; he also introduced the principle of the “impassibility” of the narrator, who was not to comment but rather
let the story speak for itself.
The influence of Positivism on Zola’s novels.
The philosophy and culture of Positivism was dominant in France and Europe in the second half of the century: its
major works, by the French philosopher Auguste Comte (1798-1857) and the English scientist Charles Darwin
(1809-82), were translated and circulated throughout Europe. They postulated that the physical, social and
psychological worlds could be described and classified with scientific precision. Positivism was the shaping force
behind the new development of the realistic novel, which in France and England took the name of Naturalism. In
his cycle of novels about a fictional family, Les Rougon-Macquart, the French naturalistic novelist Émile Zola
(1840-1902) set himself two main tasks: to give voice to the lower classes with their miserable lives, and to
attempt an objective and scientific description of reality. To do so the novelist had to consider three factors:
• The individual character, shaped by hereditary psychological and moral traits;
• The environment, both social and geographical;
• The historical moment.
Italian Verismo.
In Italy, Zola’s theories were followed by Giovanni Verga (1840-1922), Luigi Capuana (1839-1915) and Federico
De Roberto (1861-1927), who in the 1870s gave birth to Verismo. They represented contemporary Sicilian society
in all its classes: workers and peasants in Verga’s I Malavoglia; the middle class and the aristocracy in Verga’s
Mastro Don Gesualdo, Capuana’s Giacinta or De Roberto’s I Viceré. The Veristi described the tension between
the old, almost feudal rural world of Sicily and the new democratic and urban instances coming from the rest of
Italy after the political union, and from Europe. Unlike the French naturalistic novelists, though, they didn’t
believe in progress and science, and wrote about rural societies untouched by modern ways of life. On the other
hand, they closely followed Flaubert’s lesson of the’ impersonal narrator’. Verga praised “the novel that seems to
have generated itself”, which keeps no trace of its author’s creation –what Verga called “the original sin”.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Is there a development in the English realistic novel?
Balzac’s idea of the novel takes into account social and scientific factors. What are they?
What other French novelist followed him in his attempt to achieve scientific precision?
What three factors did the novelist have to consider according to Zola?
What did the Italian Veristi have in common with the French naturalistic writers and in what ways were
they different?
6. Describe in no more that three sentences the function of the narrator in realistic writing.
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20
DECADENT ART AND AESTHETICISM
Decadent art as a reaction against the bourgeois model.
In the second half of the 19th century the dominant features of bourgeois or middle-class society and culture were:
capitalism in economy; Positivism in philosophy; Naturalism in art. Reaction to this came from very different
quarters: the philosophical and social theories of Marx and Engels, and several artistic trends that stressed
disengagement and unconventional or openly scandalous behavior. Such attitudes were loosely defined as
‘decadent’ and the artistic movement that expressed them was called, in England, Aestheticism (while in Italy it
took the name of Decadentismo, after the French expression).
The decadent artist’s withdrawal from society.
The decadent artist detests the values and the hypocrisy of the middle classes – what in England came to be known
as the ‘Victorian compromise’. He finds the central importance of money and business in modern society
particularly revolting, and cannot stand the cheapness and vulgarity of mass production. This, however, does not
make him politically or socially concerned for the common man; on the contrary, he aristocratically keeps away
from the mass of people and tries to live a life of refined sensations instead. Throughout Europe, the decadent artist
professes the cult of beauty as a supreme value in art and life: this was called Aestheticism – ‘Art for Art’s sake’
was the battle-cry.
The archetypal decadent: Huysmans’ Des Esseintes.
In the last quarter of the century, for a whole generation of European artists and young people the model of
decadent life was Des Esseintes, the hero of À rebours (1884), a novel by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans
(1848-1907). Des Esseintes, disgusted by the vulgarity of modern life and disillusioned with love, decides to live
alone and devote himself to the cult of beauty and pleasure. To do so he retires in a house where he tries to build a
world of absolute perfection; the novel describes his obsession with all the things that for him make life beautiful:
precious stones, perfumes, flowers, furniture, pictures.
The confluence of art and life: Wilde and D’Annunzio.
Huysmans’ book was immensely popular: Oscar Wilde considered it his Bible, and Gabriele D’Annunzio (18631938) loved it and tried to conform to it in his life and art. The only way to contrast the vulgarity of the modern
world was to build a life of beauty, transforming each experience into an aesthetic experience. Wilde states this
well in Dorian Gray: “And, certainly, to him Life itself was the first, the greatest, of the arts, and for it all the other
arts seemed to be but a preparation”.
D’Annunzio expresses the same idea in Il piacere (1889), one of the most representative novels of European
Aestheticism: “Bisogna fare la propria vita, come si fa un’opera d’arte. Bisogna che la vita d’un uomo d’intelletto
sia opera di lui. La superiorità vera è tutta qui.”.
1. In what way was the aesthetic cult of beauty a reaction against the bourgeois model of society?
2. Compare Huysman’s and Wilde’s characters (Des Esseintes and Dorian Gray).
3. Compare the two quotations from Wilde and D’Annunzio given above. Comment on them pointing out
similarities and, possibly, differences.
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21
THE BRITISH EMPIRE: INDIA IN THE VICTORIAN AGE
From commercial to political rule.
During the Victorian Age Britain’s role in India changed from a mainly commercial presence to full political rule.
Up to the early 19th century actual control of the country had been given to the East India Company, which since
1600 had held the monopoly of trade with India. In 1813, however, the Company lost its monopoly and India was
officially declared to be British territory. The East India Company still wanted the Indian sub-continent – an area
which included modern India, Pakistan and Bangladesh – to remain open to British commercial exploitation, but
there was widespread protest against this: the Evangelicals asked that Britain should take care of the Indians’
spiritual and moral welfare as well; the Utilitarians, followers of Bentham’s and Stuart Mill’s social and economic
doctrines, wanted India to be a laboratory for their theories. All parties, however, agreed that Britain should lead
India politically and culturally – a position typical of the 19th-century colonialism.
Victoria Empress of India.
The pax Britannica (‘British peace’, as it was called) in India lasted till the revolt of 1857-58, when a munity broke
out among Indian troops in the Bengal garrisons.
The thirty years following the Indian revolt saw the peak of British imperial power in India. Its culmination came
in 1876, when Queen Victoria was solemnly proclaimed Empress of India. The man who above all had wanted this
was Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, who believed in the show of imperial force. India was considered the
2jewel of the crown”, the richest and most exotic part of the empire. On the other hand, the same years marked the
beginning of Indian nationalism and reaction against British presence in India.
The beginning of Indian nationalism.
The foundation of the first Indian political party, the Indian National Congress, in 1885 was the first form of
organized protest for self-determination. When the Congress first met in Bombay it was mostly made up of Hindus
but it also included Muslims and many other races and religions of India – the same variety we find described in
Kipling’s Indian novels. British reaction to this was either of open hostility or patronizing interest. The typical
attitude of many British was that they were in India to “take up the white man’s burden”, in Kipling’s own words –
that is, to bring civilization to a far less developed country.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
What role did the East India Company play in India?
Why at a certain time was the Company’s commercial policy attacked in England?
What was the revolt of 1857-58?
What was the Indian National Congress?
Discuss 19th-century British colonial attitudes in India?
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22
THE COLONIZATION OF AFRICA
The character of the colonization of Africa.
The years between Conrad’s trip to the Congo (1890) and the publication of Heart of Darkness (1902) represent
the culmination of the European colonization of Africa. Up to about 1875 Europe’s great colonial powers had been
comparatively little interested in the commercial exploitation of the “Dark Continent” – as Africa was then called:
a definition echoed in the title as well as the contents of Conrad’s novel.
After the discovery of gold and diamonds in 1870 in the Transvaal, however, and the commercial exploitation of
ivory, rubber, wood and various minerals, Africa became the playfield of European colonial ambitions. Even
though the European powers diverged in their interests and in the official denominations of their African
possession – colony, protectorate, mandate – they shared a common policy of commercial plunder of natural
resources.
Conrad’s Congo.
The Congo that Conrad dreamed of as a boy was still, as he recalls, a blank space on the maps of Africa: the last
unexplored region of the continent. As such, it feel to the lot of the last-come European nation in the colonial race
to Africa: Belgium. In 1887 the famous English explorer Henry Stanley completed a three-year exploration of the
great basin of the river Congo, which finally opened up the area to European penetration.
In 1876 King Leopold II of Belgium had organized in Brussels a conference of explores, geographers and
scientists; he claimed that the Congo offered Europe her last chance of starting a different kind of colony, one
founded with the intention of bringing benefit to the local populations. In Leopold’s own words: “to open up to
civilization the only spot on earth which it has not yet reached” – here again the terminology used reminds us of
the company’s colonial project in Heart of Darkness: to bring light and civilization to the darkest place on earth.
Such high-minded idealism, in the actual process of colonization of the Congo as in Conrad’s novel, was only the
pretext for the most brutal exploitation of the country. In 1885 the Independent State of Congo was founded, and
the following year saw the constitution of the Société Anonyme Belge, a commercial company granted the
monopoly of trade in the High Congo region. It was the same company that in 1890 gave Conrad command of a
Belgian ship that was to sail up the River Congo. The trade of ivory and rubber, in particular, proved immensely
rich, and in 1908 the last pretence of independence was dropped, with the creation of the colony of Belgian Congo.
1. Briefly describe the main events and the general character of the European colonization of Africa.
2. What was the situation in the Congo region? Point out the main aspects of its colonial history.
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23
THE MYTH OF ULYSSES
Ulysses’ search for knowledge.
The figure of Ulysses was particularly dear to European poets in the 19th century. In the Iliad and Odyssey already
Ulysses is a hero whose intelligence and cunning are equal to his strength and courage. Nineteenth-century
versions of the Ulysses’ story, however, rather than follow the Homeric myth describe the hero as an old
indomitable warrior who, after coming back to Ithaca, still thirsts for new adventures and knowledge, and is ready
to sail away once more.
Dante’s Ulysses.
The model of this reading of the Ulysses’ myth was found in Dante’s Inferno XXVI, where the Greek hero is
portrayed as an evil counselor – Dante blamed him for having caused the fall of Troy with the wooden horse.
Dante’s Ulysses is a restless soul: not content with past adventures and his new-found home he goes forth again on
a last voyage. He wants to “divenir del mondo esperto / e de li vizi umani e del valore”. With his ship he comes to
the Pillars of Hercules, the mythical boundaries of the ancient world, beyond which no one had ever dared to go.
Ulysses exhorts his men not to be afraid but to pass on to the forbidden and the unknown, in some of Dante’s most
famous lines: “fatti non foste a viver come bruti / ma per seguir virtute e canoscenza”. Ulysses’ ship, however, is
sunk into a stormy sea when they are in sight of the Mount of Purgatory.
D’Annunzio e Pascoli.
Late Romantic poems oscillate between a heroic and a melancholy rendering of the figure of Ulysses. To the first
group belongs the portrait drawn by Gabriele D’Annunzio in his Laus Vitæ (1903), who stressed the elements of
will-power and activism. Giovanni Pascoli’s long narrative poem L’ultimo viaggio (published in the collection
Poemi conviviali, 1904), stressed instead the melancholy aspect of Ulysses, as a man who is always trying to
overcome the mystery of life and is always kept back by it. Like Tennyson’s Ulysses, he is restless in Ithaca and he
too feels compelles to wander. Pascoli’s Ulysses finally drowns in sight of the Sirens, just when he hoped to hear
the ultimate truths from their song.
1. What kind of Ulysses figure emerges from Dante’s Inferno? Do you think it is still a modern reading?
2. Can you refer the quotations from Dante given above to any point in Tennyson’s poem?
3. What aspects did early 20th-century poets like D’Annunzio and Pascoli stress in Ulysses?
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24
THE MYTH OF THE MODERN CITY
French novelists.
In the course of the 19th century French novelists created the myth of Paris, the great metropolis. Three images,
which will become typical of representations of the modern city, characterize it:
• The image of the labyrinth, to indicate the intricate connections of individual lives in it and the danger of
the new relationships;
• The image of the jungle, to indicate the violent struggle for existence that goes on in it;
• The image of the ant-hill, to indicate both the high numbers of people and the standardization of the
individual.
In the face of the modern city the writer feels a mixture of fascination, for its vitality, and repulsion, for its
degraded conditions. Paris is at the centre of the novels of La Comédie humaine by Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850),
of Les misérables (1862) by Victor Hugo (1802-1885), which contrasts the city of narrow dirty alleys with the city
of splendid places, and of the naturalistic novels of Émile Zola (1840-1902), peopled by workers, prostitutes and
outcasts, Touching poetic descriptions of city life and its human variety are also in the ‘Parisian pictures’ by the
great symbolist poet Charles Baudelaire (1821-67), especially in his masterpiece Les Fleurs du Mal (1857).
Russian and Italian novelists.
Though less obviously conscious of man and the environment as a social problem, other European writers vividly
described the turmoil of the modern city. For the great Russian novelists – Lev Tolstoy (1828-1910), Fyodor
Dostoyevsky (1821-81) – the metropolitan image was split into Moscow and St Petersburg. In Dostoyevsky’s
Crime and Punishment (1867), in particular, St Petersburg emerges as an immense city where a poor humanity
easily gets lost, physically and morally. In Italian literature the lesson of the French Naturalists was followed by
the writers of the Milanese Scapigliatura; some of them wrote together Il ventre di Milano. Fisiologia della
capitale morale (1888), a book about Milan’s urban slums clearly modeled on Zola’s Le ventre de Paris (1873).
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
When was the Myth of Paris created and through what images was it conveyed?
In what famous French novels was Paris celebrated?
What major French poet also sang Paris?
How did the image of the great metropolis take shape for Russian writers? Give examples.
What Italian city was described in terms similar to those of the French novelists? Give details.
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25
THE DETECTIVE STORY
Literary precedents: England.
The under world is already present in Dickens’ Oliver Twist, and some parts of his works read like detective
stories. The real creator of the genre in Britain, however, was his friend Wilkie Collins (1824-89), who first
published in Dickens’ magazines Household Words and All the Year Round. Collins conceived of the novel as
melodrama, and he relied heavily on suspense and the surprise element in his plots, which featured mysterious and
horrific incidents. The Woman in White (1860) made him famous. He wrote his first detective story, The
Moonstone, in 1868, about a stolen precious stone; it features Sergeant Cuff, the first detective in English fiction.
Collins’ novels are the forerunners of such works as Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, which contains many
features of the detective story, and the famous Sherlock Holmes series, by Arthur Conan Doyle.
Literary precedents: America and France.
Doyle had two major sources of inspiration for the method of Sherlock Holmes: the stories of Edgar Allan Poe and
those of the French writer Émile Gaboriau (1832-1873). Gaboriau was considered in the 1880’s the true father of
the detective novel: his detective, Monsieur Lecoq, shows the same analytical genius and deductive logic of
Sherlock Holmes. Poe provided Doyle with the first complete example of the intelligent, refined ‘armchair
detective’: Auguste Dupin, who is seen through the eyes of a narrator friend – a device essential to the Sherlock
Holmes stories.
Compared to Poe, however, Conan Doyle shows his limitation as a writer. The Sherlock Holmes world is perfect in
itself and thoroughly captivating but it lacks the depth, the sense of mystery, the religious fear of death and evil
present in Poe. Sherlock Holmes is, in the end, a typically late Victorian figure: he embodies the Victorian belief
that from his room in London a British gentleman may control with style and efficiency everything in the world
outside.
1. Four types of detectives are mentioned here. Who are they? Are there similarities or differences in their
methods?
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26
THE NEW WOMAN AND THE 19 T H -CENTURY NOVEL
European women writers.
In the course of the 19th century women writers became, for the first time in history, an acknowledged force. In this
England led the way, but French women writers were very active too. Two of the most influential Romantic
figures were the Swiss-born, aristocratic Madame de Staël (1766-1817), a novelist and a literary critic, and George
Sand (1804-76), a novelist and a poet whose life-style was very unconventional.
In Italy, on the other hand, women writers were fewer and came later. One of the first to be pubiclt known, both as
a novelist and a journalist, was Matilde Serao (1856-1927), while it was only in the first part of the 20th century
that Grazia Deledda (1871-1936) was internationally acclaimed as a major novelist.
Modern portraits of women.
The first European novel to give a convincingly modern portrait of a woman was Madame Bovary (1852), by the
French novelist Gustave Flaubert (1821-80). It is a story of a married woman’s life –her aspiration to love and
happiness, her unfaithfulness to her husband and final tragic death. Flaubert doesn’t make of Madame Bovary a
‘fallen woman’: like a true realistic writer he renders the woman’s tragedy with dramatic objectivity rather than
pass judgment on her. Two great writers also denounced the hypocrisy of 19th century society, which sacrificed
women’s feelings and intellectual aspirations to moral and social conventions: the Russian Tolstoy and the
Norwegian Ibsen. In Anna Karenina (1873-78) Lev Tolstoy (1828-1910) tells the story of a young noblewoman
who leaves her husband and son to go and live with the man she loves; oppressed by guilt and the hostility of
society, she finally commits suicide. While critical of Anna’s choice, the narrator is even more critical of the
cynical Russian high society which casts her out.
Even more explicit, almost didactic in his denunciation of the tacit subjection of women in the name of family and
social values was Doll’s House (1879), the most famous play by Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906). Nora, the heroine,
suddenly discovers that her husband has always treated her like a doll, not as a full human being. When she
realizes his total lack of love and consideration she decides to leave home. The play made a great scandal
throughout Europe (it was soon translated into many languages) since it was a pitiless attack on middle-class
values, founded on the subordination of women.
1. Two of the most influential figures of French speaking Romanticism were women. Who were they? What
did they do?
2. Name two important Italian women writers and their work.
3. In Flaubert’s time, Madame Bovary caused great scandal as the portrait of…
4. What two great European (male) novelists denounced the hypocrisy of family and social conventions
regarding women?
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27
THE FREE STATE OF IRELAND
The Easter rising.
The road leading to Irish independence was a long and a difficult one. Already in 1886 a bill granting Home Rule –
that is, full political independence- to Ireland was defeated in the British Parliament: the bill had been promoted by
the joint efforts of Charles Parnell, the father of Irish independence, and the Liberal British Prime Minister,
William Gladstone. Two more Home Rule Bills were rejected until, in 1914, a third one was finally going to be
passed. The House of Commons, however, defended Home Rule for Ireland until the end of the war. Outraged at
such a decision, in 1916 the Irish Republicans organized a revolt known as the Dublin Easter Rising. The rebels
occupied Dublin’s key buildings and for some days had control of the city. The revolt, however, was put down by
the British army and 14 of the rebels, including their leader Patrick Pearse, were executed. Despite its failure, the
Easter Rising was the real beginning of Irish independence.
The Irish war of Independence.
One of the Irish armed groups was the Irish nationalist party Sinn Féin, which in Gaelic means ‘ourselves alone’.
In the 1918 election Sinn Féin won throughout Ireland, except in the predominantly Protestant Ulster. With this
overwhelming majority behind them, the newly-elected Irish MPs did not join the British Parliament, as they had
done, but met in the Dail (Irish Parliament) in Dublin, announcing that Ireland was now a republic. The war of
Independence began in 1919, led by the IRA (Irish Republican Army) and Sinn Féin; it ended in 1921 with the
establishment of the Irish Free State (an independent Ireland within the British Commonwealth). Only Ulster, or
Northern Ireland, remained united with Britain.
The Irish Republic.
The Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, however, was not satisfactory to everyone, since it still recognized the sovereignty
of the British Crown and excluded Ulster from the Republic. This led to a Civil War (1922-23), in which the IRA
split into two factions: the ‘Irish Free State Army’, who accepted the treaty, and the ‘Irregulars’, who were in
favour of a united and republican Ireland, and were eventually defeated. They did not surrender their arms, though,
and went on fighting intermittently until they were declared illegal in 1931. After the 1932 election, however, the
new Prime Minister, Eamon de Valera (a survivor of the Easter Rising), began work towards the foundation of the
Republic of Ireland (Eire), which was officially created in 1937.
1. What is the Dublin Easter Rising?
2. Briefly trace the stages of Ireland’s struggle for independence.
3. Can any of the information given here be referred to Yeats’ Easter 1916?
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28
T.S. ELIOT AND MONTALE
Eliot and Montale: a common sensibility.
Many of the best poems written by T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) and Eugenio Montale (1896-1981) between the two
world war present striking similarities in tone and images, and testify to a common sensibility among modern
poets. Let us consider, as significant examples, some lines from The Waste Land (1922) side by side with one of
Montale’s best-known poems from Ossi di Seppia (1920-27): Meriggiare pallido e assorto.
Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road […]
Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
Sweat is dry and feet are in thee sand
If there were only water amongst the rock
Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that
cannot spit […]
There is no even solitude in the mountains
But red sullen faces sneer and snarl
From doors of mudcracked houses
If there were water
And no rock
If there were rock
And also water
And water
A spring
A pool among the rock
If there were the sound of water only
Not the cicada
And dry grass singing
(What the Thunder Said)
Meriggiare pallido e assorto
presso un rovente muro d’orto,
ascoltare tra I pruni e gli sterpi
schiocchi di merli, frusci di serpi.
Nelle crepe del suolo o su la veccia
spiar le file di rosse formiche
ch’ora si rompono ed ora s’intrecciano
a sommo di minuscole biche.
Osservare tra frondi il palpitare
lontano di scaglie di mare
mentre si levano tremuli scricchi
di cicale dai calvi picchi.
E andando nel sole che abbaglia
sentire con triste meraviglia
com’é tutta la vita e il suo travaglio
in questo seguitare una muraglia
che ha in cima cocci aguzzi di bottiglia
(Meriggiare pallido e assorto)
In both poems we find the same desolate landscape – the cracked earth, the scorching sun and no water, the rocks –
which each poet defines according to his own background: a wide American desert in Eliot, the rugged sea coast of
Liguria for Montale. It is a waste land of the spirit as well, which in Eliot is explicitly cosmopolitan – its falling
cities are the great capitals of the world, its literary echoes include Dante, Shakespeare and the Indian religious
epic, the Upanishads. Montale, on the other hand, gives his barren land a more domestic intimate feeling, though
the splendid close of his poem is just as tragic as anything in Eliot: “in questo seguitare una muraglia / che ha in
cima cocci aguzzi di bottiglia” – a striking image which finds its equivalent of urban squalor in The Waste Land.
1. Look at the two sets of lines given above. Can you point out similar words and images?
2. From what you know of both poets, can you briefly describe their poetical achievements as modern poets?
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29
ULYSSES AS MODERN HERO
The epic structure.
Ulysses is closely modelled on the Odyssey. The twenty-four hours of Bloom’s day correspond to the twenty-four
books of the classical epic. The novel’s eighteen episodes correspond to as many incidents in Homer, and the way
the ancient epic is ironically played against the modern, in a variety of ways, is one of the imaginative and
linguistic triumphs of the book.
•
•
•
•
In the first episode, called “Telemachus”, Stephen is evicted from his home, a tower on the coast, by his
housemates, who mock him and deprive him of his rights, just as Ulysses’s son is forced to leave his
home, where his mother’s suitors bully him.
The second episode is called “Nestor”. Stephen teaches a history class at the boys’ schools and gets some
good advice from the schoolmaster, Mr Deasy, who is the counterpart of Nestor, the wise Greek king who
gives Telemachus advice.
In the episode called “Hades”, Bloom goes to a funeral at Dublin’s cemetery and thinks about the dead
people he has known: this is a reference to Ulysses’ descent to the underworld where he speaks with his
souls of great dead heroes.
In the “Circe” episode, Bloom and Stephen meet at a brothel. Just as Ulysses’ companions are turned into
swine by the witch Circe, so the two modern heroes almost lose themselves in the house of pleasure. Bella
Cohen, the owner of the place, is a grotesque version of the mythical Circe.
Modernism and tradition.
In a way, Joyce was being traditional, since even in the classical times Ulysses’ story had been taken to represent
allegorically man’s journey through life. The change operated by Joyce is from the universality of the ancient epic
to the limitation and lack of heroism of the modern novel: if Ulysses is exalted by Homer as a man who has “seen
many cities of men”, Leopold Bloom only knows Dublin.
Even within his hometown Bloom’s life and expectations are turned upside down in contrast with his Homeric
counterpart. In Ulysses, Stephen Dedalus is homeless and fatherless, and thus corresponds to Homer’s Telemachus,
Ulysses son. However, he has only a brief unsatisfactory meeting with Bloom – and, significantly, in a brothel –
after which they go their separate ways. The same is true of Molly Bloom. She correspond to Penelope, Ulysses’
wife, but unlike her she is not faithful to her husband: she has not slept with him since the death of their little son
Rudy, and she has been unfaithful to him with her concert manager (Molly is a singer). Their relationship is typical
of the lack of passion and strong family ties of modern life.
1. Put together what you know so far about the Homeric Ulysses and Penelope; then go back to one of the
passage from Ulysses you have read and point out what strikes you as typical of the banality and lack of
heroism of modern life.
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30
THE BRITISH EMPIRE: INDIA IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE 20 TH CENTURY
The British and the Indians: a difficult relationship.
By the time of E.M. Forster’s first visit to India (1912) – and, even more, of the appearance of his novel A Passage
to India (1924) – local hostility towards British rule in India had been growing for several decades. The official
British residents avoided as much as possible contact with the Indians – “native contamination”, as it was often
called. They mostly lived in their private clubs and military camps, which were built beyond the walls of the old
Indian town. A further inducement not to get acquainted with Indian culture and society came after 1869, with the
opening of the Suez anal and the introduction of steamships: this meant that the sea passage to India was
drastically reduced from about four months to three weeks and, as a consequence, British residents found it easier
and more appealing to go back to their home country rather than stay in on tour India during their holidays.
India’s support of Britain in World War I.
Hostility between the British and the Indians, however, suddenly stopped with the outbreak of World War I. India
enthusiastically supported the British war effort, contributing her men, money and natural resources. Indian troops
were sent to the Western Front – where they suffered very heavy losses in the winter of 1914-15 –as well as to East
Africa and Egypt. Whole-hearted support had been given on the assumption that after the war Britain would repair
India’s loyal assistance with independence or, at least, Dominion status. Far from making any such concession, in
1919 the British government in India voted for the extension of wartime emergency measures. Millions of outraged
Indians rallied around the country’s new leader: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948), a lawyer who had
returned from South Africa after the war.
India’s new leader: Mahatma Gandhi.
Gandhi was the father of India’s independence. For the spiritual leadership he exerted over them, the Indians
looked upon him as a “Mahatma” (in Sanskrit, ‘great soul’). Millions of peasants and intellectuals alike followed
him during his famous march against the salt tax in 1930, when he reached the sea and ‘illegally’ picket up salt
from the sands on the shore. It was the first example of Gandhi’s non violent rebellion against the British
government. Gandhi was against violence, and favoured ‘passive resistance’ and ‘non-cooperation’: Indians
refused to cooperate in running the country, or to buy British made products. Years of ‘civil disobedience’ finally
forced the British government to pass the Government of India Act (1935), which created a federation of
provinces. India was offered Dominion status during World War II but she refused. In 1947 the British eventually
left India, which was then divided into Hindu India and Moslem Pakistan, each an independent State.
1.
2.
3.
4.
What was the typical attitude of British resident in India in the first part of the 20th century?
Can you relate any aspect of this attitude to the excerpt from A Passage to India you have read?
Who was India’s great spiritual and political leader in the country’s struggle for independence?
What was his strategy for ending British rule in India? When did India finally gain independence?
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31
THE SHOCK OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR
Early enthusiasm for the war.
British writers went to war with the expectation that the conflict would radically change an unfair society and bring
about a moral and cultural revolution. Such enthusiastic expectation of a great war as the ‘apocalypse’ that would
restore a moral order was diffused throughout Europe. In Italy, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876-1944) in his
Manifesto del Futurismo (1909), proclaimed: “Noi vogliamo glorificare la Guerra – sola igiene del mondo”.
Enthusiastic support of the war was widespread among European writers right before and soon after the out break
of the conflict: the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918), Gabriele D’Annunzio (1863-1938), Scipio
Slataper (1888-1918) –who was killed on the Carso, which he had celebrated in his autobiographical novel Il mio
Carso (1912) – and even the German Thomas Mann (1875-1955) and Giuseppe Ungaretti (1888-1970) – though
the last two would later totally change their minds about the nature of the conflict.
Italian poets on World War I.
The kind of poetry written by British poets who had experienced the war in some way or other was by no means
isolated literary phenomenon, All the countries involved in the conflict produced great and tragic war poetry, from
Italy and France to Germany and Russia.
Giuseppe Ungaretti (1888-1970) in Italia (1916) expresses a sense of belonging to his own country, of havin been
shaped by the same earth of which his countrymen are made, similar to that expressed by Rupert Brooke in The
Soldier; only, it is easy to feel behind Brooke’s sonnet the sense of an Empire and a strong nationalism, whereas
the Italian poet’s attachment to Italy is solitary one, as of a son clinging to his mother or father in a tragic hour.
Ungaretti volunteered as an infantry soldier, full of hopes and patriotic ideals, but was soon faced with the harsh
reality of war: the soldiers were turned into instruments of death, and deprived of their common humanity. In hs
collection of war poems Il porto sepolto (1916), and later in L’allegria (1931), war becomes the living symbol of
man’s precarious condition. In Ungaretti war is exposed in its meaningless cruelty not through an explicit
ideological denunciation but rather by contrasting death, violence and destruction, on the one hand, with life,
nature, and human feelings, on the other.
French and German writers on World War I.
In The Sighs of a Gunner from Dakar (Dakar is one of France’s African colonial possession) the French poet
Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918) sings of a gunner who is homesick and thinks of his native African village. In
Leaving for the Front (1914) by the German poet Alfred Lichtenstein (1889-1914) we witness the youthful
enthusiasm of the first weeks of war, though the boating tone is already darkened by the awareness of oncoming
death: “In thirteen days I’ll probably be dead” – Lichtenstein died seven weeks after writing this poem.
A realistic portrait of life at the front, which shocked public opinion when it came out, was given by the German
novelist Erich Maria Remarque (1898-1970) in his All Quiet on the Western Front (1928), one of the best and most
honest books ever written on the subject of war, which describes the life in the trenches of a 19-year-old German
soldier, with its fears, sufferings, lack of hopes and perspectives.
1. What was the writers’ attitude throughout Europe just before and soon after World War I broke out?
2. What European poets and novelists denounced the inhumanity of war?
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EUROPEAN VOICES FROM WORLD WAR II
German writers.
For German writers the experience of the war was inevitably linked to a reflection on Nazi ideology which had
brought the country to ruin. One of the most influential voices in this respect was that of Heinrich Böll (1917-85),
who in the early 1950s wrote a number of novels dealing not only with the war years but also with the years, most
difficult for Germany, of post-war misery, especially the frustration and sufferings of the poor and the oppressed.
On a higher level of philosophical and political reflection on the dangers of war and totalitarianism, the bestknown voice was that of the playwright Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956), who in 1933 went into exile from Nazi
Germany. In Mother Courage’s Children (1939) he describes the eternal desperate struggle of the individual to
survive in war’s inhuman conditions – the events of the play actually take place during the Thirty Years’ War
(1618-48), which becomes a symbol of all wars. The indirect or allegorical method of dealing with a contemporary
political event is also used by Brecht in The Resistable Ascent of Arturo Ui (1941), which presents the Nazis’ rise
to power in Germany in terms of an American gangsters’ story.
French writers.
French writers privileged in their works episodes of the resistance movement against the Germans after their
country had been occupied. The poet Louis Aragon (1897-1982), one of the founders of Surrealism together with
André Breton, wrote some moving poems full of patriotic anti-Nazi feelings in his collection Crève-cœur (1941).
Another surrealist poet, Paul Éluard (1895-1952), from the 1930s onwards intensified his political commitment
and anti-war feelings, especially in his collection Au rendez-vous allemand (1944). André Malraux (1901-76)
described the French clandestine war against the Germans in one of his great novels, Les noyer de l’Altenburg
(1943); he also wrote novels on the Nazis’ rise to power and the war in Spain.
Italian writers.
Italian writers too were quick to respond in their works to episodes and situations of the Resistenza (8 September
1943 - 25 April 1945). One of the most important novel of the neorealistic school was Uomini e no (1945), by Elio
Vittorini (1908-66), about a partisan who fights the Nazi-Fascist in Milan. The novel’s title schematically opposes
‘men’ (the Partisans, those who fight for ideals of freedom and humanity) and ‘no man’ (the Nazi-Fascist, with
their creed of violence and racism). The partisan war in northern Italy is also at the centre of Il partigiano Jonny
(published in 1968, probably written in 1946-49) by Beppe Fenoglio (1922-63), in which the Resistenza is
realistically described but is also seen symbolically as the war that every man must fight to become an adult and
defeat evil, affirming the values he believes in. A less direct and more universal treatment of the war is found in
the last novels by Cesare Pavese (1908-50): La casa in collina (1948) and La luna e i falò (1950). In the first, war
is seen as a personal trial, a test of man’s moral integrity which the protagonist, a weak intellectual, fails to take; in
the second, the violence and destruction of war become the symbol of the passing of an age of desolation and
existential crisis.
Italian poet too registered the war in their poems. In the collection Giorno dopo giorno (1947) Salvatore
Quasimodo (1901-68) leaves behind his previous hermetic language and obscure style to adopt a direct tone, more
appropriate to poetry meant to sing Italy’s oppression and sufferings in the last phase of the war. The poems in Il
dolore (1947) by Giuseppe Ungaretti (1888-1970) are also characterized by simple language and clear images: the
poet often directly addresses the reader inviting him/her to refer on the deep relation between the living and the
dead. In the poetry of Eugenio Montale (1896-1981) war is an important presence, though it is not realistically
described but rather presented as an allegory of the human condition: it is the background to the poems in
Occasioni (1939), and it suggests the title of his verse collection La bufera (1959), where the apocalyptic character
of war is expressed through the use of images of turbulent weather (the ‘tempest’ of the title). An altogether
different attitude is shown by a poet of a younger generation, Vittorio Sereni (1913-83). In his Diario d’Algeria
(1947) he describes the war in lyrical subjective terms, making no concession to rhetoric: he seems indifferent to
the outcome of the war and even to his condition as a prisoner. His position anticipates post-war disillusion, with
its concentration on the individual and the incapacity to believe in common ideals.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
What subject matter did German writers choose to deal with during and after World War II?
What themes did French poets and novelists privilege?
What Italian novelists described the Resistenza?
How is war seen in the novels of Cesare Pavese?
How different was Sereni’s attitude from that of the lder-generation poets, Quasimodo, Ungaretti
and Montale?
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RACISM AND DISCRIMINATION IN FRENCH AND ITALIAN LITERATURE
French writers.
In France, strong anti-Jewish feelings characterize the works of a great novelist like Louis-Ferdinand Céline (18941961), especially his Bagatelles pour un massacre (1937). Céline identified the Jewish race with the very faults of
western civilization against which he railed in all of his works. In his most famous novel, for instance, Voyage au
bout de la nuit (1932), modern civilization is attacked as a whole: the protagonist is injured in World War I, goes
to Paris to recover and meets an American girl with whom he intends to go to America; he finds himself in Africa,
instead, where he witnesses the horrors of colonialism; when he finally reaches the United States, they appear to
him no less frightening than Africa.
In the same inter-war years in France there grew up a new generation of black writers born in the overseas colonies
and educated in Paris. It was inevitable for these writers to deal in their works with problems of race and cross
culture. The most famous of them was the Martinica-born surrealist poet Aimé Césaire (b. 19139, who after
graduating from the Sorbonne, in Paris, went back to his home country for some time and wrote Cahier d’un
retour au pays natal (1939). Césaire’s reaction to discrimination against black people and the cultural impositions
of colonialism takes the form of an open cry of revolt: he is the first to define the concept of “negritude” – a
universal condition of being oppressed, and so not just a racial but more general social and human problem.
Italian writers.
In Italy, the persecution of the Jews by the Nazi-Fascists was the subject of touching novels written soon after the
end of World War II. Primo Levi (1919-87) in Se questo é un uomo (1947) described the fate of a group of Italian
Jews captured by the Fascists, handed over to the Nazis and transported by train to a concentration camp in Poland
where most of them would be exterminated. Levi’s prose is both lucid and moving; realistic descriptions combine
with general reflections addressed to the reader, who is meant non just to read but also to take part in the immense
historical and personal tragedy.
A different view of discrimination against the Jews is given in Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini (1962), by Giorgio
Bassani (1916-2000). The novel tells the story of a wealthy Jewish family of Ferrara which, following the political
changes of the 1930s and early 1940s, sinks from a position of social respectability to one of gradual
discrimination – neighbours and friends stop seeing them – till they too are transported.
________________________________________________________________________________
1. What is at the basis of Céline’s anti-Jewish feelings?
2. What are the themes of Césaire’s poetry? Explain his concept of “négritude”.
3. What Italian writers described the persecution of the Jews? What are their novels about?
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WOMEN AND LITERATURE IN THE 20 T H CENTURY
The French feminist manifesto.
A central work in the story of feminism is Le deuxième sexe (1949), by the French writer Simone de Beauvoir
(1908-86). Coming after the traumatic experience of World War II, it shows a totally modern awareness of the
mechanism by which women have been and are being discriminated against. For this quality, Beauvoir’s essay
became a fundamental text for feminists of the 1960s and 1970s. Beauvoir’s approach to the problem is wholly
philosophical: she interprets woman’s condition in the light of her own existentialist philosophy combined with
psychoanalytical theories and Marxism. Her main point is that, historically, man has always presented himself as
‘the essential subject’, making of woman ‘the other’, ‘the unessential’, ‘the object’. What makes women’s situation
unique, in comparison with other groups which are discriminated against is that men want women ‘spontaneously’
to offer themselves as ‘object’; but, since no human being can really give up being a ‘subject’, this creates an
endless chain of delusions and grudges, and is the cause of the ‘war of the sexes’.
Italian writers.
It is only from the 1930s and, especially, the 1940s that there has developed in Italy a distinct and important
literature which describes woman as a well-defined social and psychological subject –that is, with an existence of
her own apart from the social roles she is expected to play. Tempo inamorato (1928), by Gianna Manzini (18961974), has historical importance as the first Italian novel to show such awareness: the female protagonist,
Clementina, is the victim of the double discrimination, social and sexual, against women. Another such victim is
the heroine of Artemisia (1947), a novel by Anna Banti (1895-1985) which tells the story of a 17th-century painter
who is raped and then becomes, in Banti’s words: “vittima svillaneggiata di un pubblico processo di stupro”.
Artemisia is presented as “una delle prime donne che sostennero colle parole e colle opera il diritto al lavoro
congeniale e a una parità di spirito fra i due sessi”. In 1947 Menzogna e sortilegio, by Elsa Morante (1912-85), also
came out. The novel, begun in 1943, is fundamental as a bridge between the pre-war phases of modern writing on
women. It tells the story of a Sicilian family from the late 19th century up to the time of the novel, and is centred
around three generations of women. It is narrated by the youngest of them, Elisa. The prevailing point of view is
thus a female one: the narrator overcomes the segregation in which she lives by telling a story which is both that of
her family and country – a privilege, in the past, only reserved to men.
1.
2.
3.
4.
What is Le deuxième sexe? Why is it central to the tradition of modern feminism?
Explain Beauvoir’s philosophical position.
When there began a tradition of writing specifically about women in modern Italian literature?
Describe the role Manzini, Banti and Morante have in this tradition (choose at least two of them).
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YOUTHS IN ITALIAN LITERATURE AFTER WORLD WAR II
A tragic view of adolescence.
Italian writers of the late 1940s and 1950s often describe the problems of adolescence and the difficulty of growing
up. The first novel by Italo Calvino (1923-85), Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno (1947), is about a young orphan boy
who tries to become a partisan in the last months of World War II, because he thinks that this will be his initiation
into manhood, He never becomes a partisan, though, and the books ends with the cruelest delusion for the boy: he
goes to live with the man whom he considers a sort of new father, but who has in fact killed his sister. Also the
protagonist of L’isola di Arturo (1957), by Elsa Morante (1912-85), is a boy who is gradually faced with life’s
harsh realities. Rejected by his step-mother and ignored by his father, the boy finally leaves the happy islands he
has lived on so far, and reaches the Continent, where a war is going on. Leaving the island (a sort of lost Eden) is a
necessary step in the process of growing up, but it also reveals to the boy the existence of a tragic and cruel world.
Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922-75), instead, describes the condition of young people not just as an existential problem
but also as a refusal to be integrated into organized society. In Ragazzi di vita (1955) and Una vita violenta (1959)
he describes the proletarian existences of young boys in suburban Rome (he calls them sottoproletari, in fact) as an
example of cultural difference: however poor and degraded their existence, these boys express a culture not yet
deprived of individuality and humanity.
Political and ideological revolt.
The students’ and workers’ revolt at the end of the 1960s meant that the rebellion against the family also became a
rebellion against traditional political parties and all forms of authoritarianism. The young protagonist of Vogliamo
tutto (1971), by Nanni Balestrini (b. 1935), is exemplary in the way he brings politics to bear on his everyday life:
his daily habits, his love relationships, his expectations for the future. In his books Balestrini also shows the
helplessness of Italian young people faced with the failure of their attempt to change society, and the degeneration
of political activism in the 1970s. his novel Gli invisibili (1984) is about a young political activist, an autonomo,
who is sentenced to prison because he has become a terrorist.
Youths among violence and disillusion.
The books written by and about young people in the 1980s and 1990s describe a totally different social and cultural
atmosphere. Young people no longer seek alternative values, or try to build a new or different society. The rage
and frustration they steel feel find vent in plain violence, without any political or ideological meaning. This is clear
in the works of the so-called selvaggi, writers like Domenico Cuppari, Tommaso di Ciarla, Vincenzo Guerrasio,
and in the anthology Gioventù cannibale (1996), by several young writers. The short stories it contains are
characterized by the presence of blood and violence behind the appearance of everyday life: they show gratuitous
violence surrounded by total indifference, as happens with the daily consumption of ultra-violent films on
television on an ordinary day. A best-seller like Jack Frusciante é uscito dal gruppo (1994), by Enrico Brizzi (b.
1974), stresses instead the different kinds of language used by young people, compared to that of adults and the
literary tradition. The young people of the story, however, are totally integrated in the linguistic and imaginative
world of mass media: they don’t seem to be able to develop a language, a mythology or an ideology if their own.
1. The tragedy of war is at the centre of two novels by Italo Calvino and Elsa Morante that deal with the pain
of growing up: what are they and how can they be described?
2. Why is the approach to the juvenile problem chosen by Pasolini a different one?
3. What writer has included the political and ideological revolt of Italian young people of the 1960s and
1970s in his novels?
4. The 1980s and 199s were decades of disillusion and lack of ideals for young people in Italy. How is this
reflected in the work of contemporary Italian novelists?
5. What aspect/s of contemporary Italian young people does Enrico Brizzi highlight in his novels?
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FEATURES OF THE NOVEL
First of all we have to remember that we are considering prose writing. What is prose? It is basically the ordinary
way through we communicate orally or in written form: conversations, phone calls, but also faxes, personal or
business letters. Prose is commonly used for other types of written work such as: essays, pamphlets, biographies,
autobiographies, diaries, journals and guide-books.
What we are focusing on here, however, is specifically fiction.
What is fiction? It is the technical word for two literary genres of wide popularity in the last two and a half
centuries: the novel and the short story or tale – the difference of the latter is roughly based on its different length.
The word ‘fiction’ derives from the Latin word fingere, that is ‘to imagine’. The word preserves the idea of
figuring out images in the mind.
In the Middle Ages the romance was about improbable, fantastic stories of adventures of heroic kings and knights
who fought in battles but also against dragons or other monsters, often to save a beautiful princess.
By the 18th century, however, the romance was eventually replaced by the novel. The novel told a story which,
although invented, was quite realistic; the characters were recognizable as people who lived in a world shared with
the reader. And the things that happened were things that could happen to real people. Daniel Defoe, for example,
introduces his novels as autobiographies of real people –and many readers believed that characters like Robinson
Crusoe really existed.
There can be different sizes (=length) and different types of novels, usually grouped in subgenres.
Subgenres: Novels can be realistic (Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe), utopian (Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels), epistolary
(Richardson’s Pamela), picaresque (Fielding’s Tom Jones), sentimental (Sterne’s Sentimental Journey), of
growing up = Bildungsroman (Richardson’s Pamela and Fielding’s Tom Jones), and so on.
The construction of a novel is based on the following features.
Story and plot: A story is the description of a connected series of events, either true or imagined, which usually
involve one or more characters and settings. The way in which the events that make up a story are organized into a
narrative is the plot. Story and plot do not always coincide. A story, in fact, may be told through different plots.
The same event may be told in chronological order, or be given in mixed order –as when, for instance, a story is
interrupted to relate events that happened in the past but are relevant to what is happening, and then the story goes
on (this is known as flashback).
Setting: Generally speaking, time setting refers to the time of the day, the season, or even historical events.
However, we speak of chronological time when the sequence of events is presented as they really happen: it is the
time of the story. We speak, instead, of fictional time when the sequence of events is combined in a different
order by the author: it is the time of the plot.
Place setting is where the story takes place: this may influence the people in the story and create a peculiar
atmosphere. Wild, barren places, for example, may reduce people to a primal or elemental state – as in Daniel
Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, in which the protagonist adapts to the nature of a deserted islands. A setting may
include outdoor scenery, as in Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, or detailed descriptions of interiors, as in Samuel
Richardson’s Pamela; it may include details of the behavior, clothes and so on of the characters, which provide the
social setting of the story.
Character: The word here has the meaning of ‘fictional personage’, though we can also speak of a person having
‘character’, i.e. character as a positive moral quality. Indeed many novels of the 18th and the 19th centuries took as
their main theme the growth of the central character (novel of growing up) from youth to maturity, wisdom and
experience. The rise of the urban middle classes and the decline of feudal society brought about greater
opportunities of social advancement for enterprising young men and women, who could seek their fortunes and
hope-fully improve their position in the world – as in Defoe’s Moll Flanders.
The presentation of the characters may be direct – when the writer gives the character’s personality and
appearance through description – or indirect – when the reader has to infer the features of a character from her/his
actions and behavior, or other characters’ reactions.
According to the way they are described, characters may be stereotyped (that is, follow a fixed model) or
realistic, more like real people. It is also possible to distinguish between round characters, who show
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psychological awareness and development and the dynamic (like Richardson’s Pamela), and flat characters, who
show little psychological development and are static (like Defoe’s Robinson).
Narrator: The narrator is not to be identified with the novelist. S/he can have a name, or be the anonymous voice
who tells the story and provides the perspective or point of view from which the story is told.
A story can be told in the first or third person.
• The first-person narrator speaks as “I” and may be the main character of the story, an internal narrator
(as in Laurence Sterne’s Tristam Shandy), or an external narrator, commenting on the story and
sometimes directly addressing the reader. First-person narration is typical of diaries (Defoe’s Robinson
Crusoe), tales of travel and adventure (Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travel), epistolary novels
(Richardson’s Pamela) and real or fictitious autobiographies (Defoe’s Moll Flanders). It usually gives an
air of authenticity to the story, and causes greater emotional involvement in the reader.
• The third-person narrator is not usually part of the story; s/he is an external observer of the events,
introduces the characters, describes what happens, and may or may not make comments.
• the commenting narrator who steps into the novel to comment on the action or the characters (as in Henry
Fielding’s Tom Jones) or to digress (=to interrupt the action to talk about something else: a master of this
is Sterne) is called obtrusive, while the narrator who never intervenes is unobtrusive. Again we can
distinguish between:
• an omniscient narrator who knows and sees everything about the story, can comment on or explain the
actions, words, thoughts of the characters, privilege certain characters over others – to influence the reader
in a certain way. While the all-knowing narrator knows everything, or at least much more than the
characters do, the reader knows only what the narrator chooses to tell;
• a non-omniscient narrator, who tells the story from the outside – we don’t feel the presence of her/his
voice make judgements – and from a neutral point of view: this kind of narrator is more common in late
19th-and 20th-century fiction. The reader is given more freedom but less knowledge, and is increasingly
asked to interpret the significance of the characters’ words and acts. The position of the non-omniscient
narrator is comparable to that of the camera in the cinema.
Point of view: We may have fixed point of view, when the story is told from a single perspective (as in Defoe’s
Robinson Crusoe), or a shifting point of view, when perspective moves from one character to another (as in many
20th-century novels, but also in 18th-century epistolary novels where the point of view of several correspondents is
given).
We can say that the point of view is wide – as is often the case with an omniscient narrator, who knows more than
the single characters – or narrow, usually with a non-omniscient narrator, who cannot always know what the other
characters are doing or thinking, and offers the reader a limited point of view.
This does not mean that one method is better than the other: the are simply two different fictitious techniques a
writer can choose from.
Language and style: Style is the way in which an author chooses to tell the story. It is the writer’s craft which is
responsible for the effect that words have on the reader, and which communicates the writer’s attitude towards the
world s/he presents or the message s/he intends to convey.
The story is told through dialogues, descriptions – more or less detailed – of people, landscapes, interiors, etc.,
narration of past or contemporary events, interior monologue (inner thoughts of the character, a 20th-century
technique), and association of ideas –as in Sterne’s novels. These different modes of narration are often
interwoven.
The language of novels varies extremely: syntax may be simple or complex, sentences short or long; the
vocabulary used may be concrete and realistic or abstract and symbolical.
Theme: It is the main topic of the story, developed and analysed through the characters and the events told. For
example, we talk about the theme/topic of marriage and the relation between different social classes, as in
Richardson’s Pamela, or of being a woman alone in a modern metropolitan context, as in Defoe’s Moll Flanders,
or of traveling, as in Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels.
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FEATURES OF DRAMA
Reading a dramatic text is only half an aspect of this genre. The essence of a play is its performance on the stage
where the story is acted through the words and gestures of actors in front of an audience. A play is therefore a
social creation, which implies real communication from the author (or playwright) to the audience, through the
actors and back.
But we can also say that it is a collective creation because it is the result of a group of persons who work according
to their qualifications. The same play can be performed in as many different ways as the sensitivity of actors,
director (who direct the performance on stage of the script) and public allows. Its final result can thus be extremely
different, even though the same ‘ingredients’ are used.
Other stage contributions are: scenery, lights, costumes, props (various pieces of furniture or ornaments on stage)
and music. The suggestions for the performance of a dramatic text could be either implicit in the dialogues, or
made explicit in the stage directions by the playwright.
The only available aspect of drama we can thus analyse is the script or dramatic text. Let’s consider its main
features.
Structure
A play is usually divided into a certain number of acts or scenes; each act can have one or more scenes.
Shakespeare’s plays are, for example, made up of five acts which mainly follow this dramatic pattern:
Act I: introduction;
Act II: development;
Act III: turning point or crisis;
Act IV: complications;
Act V: denouement or resolution of all the difficulties.
Each act usually has as many as five scenes, and sometimes even more.
Setting
It refers to where (place) and when/how long (time) the play takes place. This information can usually be found in
the stage directions. The classical Greek theatre used the so-called Aristotelian unities of time, place and action.
According to them the action of the play had to follow ne main line of development without digressions (unity of
action). It had to occur in one single place (unity of place) and the time of the action could not exceed a natural day
-24 hours (unity of time). English Renaissance drama did not obey the three Aristotelian unities.
Subgenres. Tragedy
The oldest and once most popular form of drama is tragedy. A tragedy is a dramatic work in which events move to
a fatal or disastrous conclusion. Classic tragedies (whose features were established by Aeschylus, Sophocles and
Euripides in ancient Greece) could be introduced by a prologue from a chorus, who provided information about the
subject of the play or the main character/s, but also supplied the audience’s imagination with what was missing on
the stage. Tragedies cold end with an epilogue (conclusion) acted by a mask or an anonymous player. Shakespeare
in The Tempest uses a similar device at the end of the play, where the epilogue is spoken by the main character.
Tragedies are usually about the conflict between the individual and society. In the Elizabethan period, dramatists
evolved new conventions from Seneca, giving birth to the revenge tragedies, where the hero’s quest for vengeance
leads to scenes of carnage and mutilation, as in some scenes of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In these plays the characters
are never common people, but kings, princes and queens. Their language is poetic.
Comedy
While a tragedy is a story with an unhappy ending implying the death of one or more characters, a comedy instead
is traditionally a humorous play always characterized by a happy ending.
Comedies show some typically fixed features: the characters are usually ordinary people set in everyday situations
and using everyday prosaic language.
Comedies are essentially about the successful integration of the individual into society. Their plots often revolve
around love, the formation of couples or the resolution of confusion: most typically, misunderstandings and
mistaken identities. These are often caused by characters disguising themselves (nobles as common people, or
women as men) or twins confused, and so on. In comedies there are usually other parallel storylines or subplots
which have a particularly important function: to keep the various plots in suspense or increase the general
confusion by mixing them together. At the end all confusion is resolved and the characters return to their true roles.
Comedies could be of various types: romantic – like, for instance, Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream -,
satiric (whose intent is moralizing) and of manners (like the Restoration comedy).
We have to add, however, that Elizabethan dramatists, namely Shakespeare, mixed the highly formal with the
popular, the highly rhetoric and polite expressions with the crude and vulgar. English Renaissance disregarded the
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classical notion that a tragic subject had to be treated tragically. There are some comic scenes and characters in
Shakespeare’s tragedies, like the Fool in King Lear, or the doorman in Macbeth; we find a mixture of the tragic
and comic in the Merchand of Venice, but also in the scene of the comedians in Hamlet or in the character of
Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet.
Characters
The main character is the hero or heroine, an imaginary person created by the dramatist. Characters can be
described physically and/or psychologically through the dialogues or monologues, stage direction, costumes,
gestures, type of speech and language.
Shakespeare drew his characters from stories of crucial periods or events from English history: Henry IV, Henry
V, Henry VI and Richard III; or Roman history of Seneca: Titus Andronicus, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra,
and so on. Contrasting with the main character or hero is the minor character, sometimes called the villain. Tragic
characters are usually round, that is with a psychological development in the course of the action, while comic
characters are usually flat, that is with no psychological change.
Action
In Greek ‘drama’ means action or play, in the sense of movement: what happens on the stage. Action is what
matters. The sequence of actions, as in fiction, builds up the story. In classical drama the traditional way of
informing about past event is in general through a messenger (as in Macbeth, Act I, where the captain report to
king Duncan on the results of the battle), or could be related or described by a minor character. The difference,
though, between modern (20th century) and Elizabethan drama is the predominance of situation over action. In
Shakespeare’s plays the plot follows the action of the characters, in modern drama the characters are often trapped
in a situation which their action cannot change.
Dialogue/s
They constitute the backbone of drama, bring the play to life, create the action and are the main source of
information about the past, present and future background events and about the characters’ relationships and
emotions. On the stage they are highlighted by gestures, facial expressions, location or movement factors, and tone
of voice.
Soliloquy or monologue
It is a fairly long speech pronounced by a character alone on the stage or with other characters who are silent and
listen. S/he speaks to her/himself revealing thoughts, feelings intentions, in a situation of emotional stress. It
belongs to the classical and Elizabethan convention. An example is the famous balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet,
where Juliet thinks she is alone and unveils her secret feelings for Romeo.
In modern drama dialogue is often reduced to short, broken sentences; soliloquy tends to underline the inability of
a character to express her/himself (as in the Theatre of the Absurd): the power of the language as a means of
communication is questioned.
Aside
It is a speech in which a character directly speaks to the audience, while she/he is alone on the stage or the other
characters present do not hear her/him (in this last case it is obviously a convention not based on realism). A good
example of aside is the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet when on line 5 Romeo, while talking to himself,
implicitly addresses the audience.
Stage directions
They are indications (in Italian: didascalie teatrali, istruzioni di scena) – included between speeches – of what the
stage should look like, the kind of interior or exterior it reproduces, how actors should dress, move and talk.
They form the complex relation between the text written by the dramatist and the performance. Though they are
part of the written text –as the words of the characters’ speeches are – they will not be heard on the stage during
the performance.
Again, though silent, stage directions have a direct influence on the way a character speaks and acts on the stage.
Through the stage directions a dramatist tells the director and actors how s/he thinks the play should beset and
performed. They can be short, or long and detailed.
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FEATURES OF POETRY
Poetry is one of the first literary genres. It comes down to us from the oldest times of oral literary production (like
the Iliad or Beowulf, for example). Its features made it easier to remember and memorize its contents from
generation to generation, when writing was not in use. Let’s revise its features.
Rhyme: The final words of two or more lines of a poem have the same ending.
“away / say” in lines 1 and 3 of John Donne’s A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
As virtuous men pass mildly away
Whilst some of their sad friends to say
Internal rhyme: Words with the same or similar sound within a single line.
“saw / go” in line 11 of Shakespeare’s sonnet My Mistress’ Eyes
I grant I never saw a goddess go
Rhyme scheme: The same ending sounds (conventionally identified by letters of the alphabet) create a pattern, a
rhyme scheme.
The rhyme scheme of Shakespeare’s sonnet My Mistress’ Eyes is
abab – cdcd – efef – gg
Rhythm: The pattern created by the alternation of stressed/unstressed or, viceversa, unstressed/stressed syllables
creates the rhythm of a poem.
Feet and metre: The regular arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables in words within the line form a varied
pattern which is called metre. The metre is measured in feet (segment of the line composed of two or more
syllables of which one is stressed). The most common foot in English poetry is the iamb sequence
(unstressed/stressed syllables), particularly the iambic pentameter (five unstressed/stressed feet).
The first line of Shakespeare’s sonnet When I Do Count the Clock
When I-do count-the clock-that tells-the time
Enjambement: The meaning of a thought often ends at the end of the line, but if it does not – that is, if it continues
in the following line – we call it enjambement or run-on-line.
Lines 2 and 3 of John Donne’s song The Sun Rising
[the subject is the sun] Why dost thou thus
Through windows and through curtains call on us?
Assonance: The repetition of the same vowel sound in the same line.
“though / rosy” in line 9 of Shakespeare’s sonnet Let Me Not to the Marriage
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Alliteration: The repetition of the same consonant sound in the same line.
The sound ‘m’ in the first line of the above-mentioned sonnet
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Simile: A comparison between two things/people/groups made explicit trough the use of the words of comparison
like or as.
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun
Metaphor: A comparison between two things/people/group without any explicit use of words of comparison (like,
as…) to connect them. The meaning of the first term of comparison is transferred to the second so that their images
merge into one.
In line 7 of Shakespeare’s sonnet Let Me Not to the Marriage
It is the star to every wandering bark
it = love
Symbol: A concrete object which stands for an abstract idea that adds to its literal meaning. It works by analogy or
association. The great majority of symbols is shared by poets and readers, and can thus be easily understood. A
rose is, for instance, the recurrent symbol of love and beauty.
Let’s consider again the first line of Shakespeare’s sonnet When I Do Count the Clock
When I do count the clock that tells the time
(The clock “tells the time”, but in this case becomes the symbol of the passing of time, of growing old,
tempus fugit).
Allegory: It combines different symbols into a whole, often complex story.
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer is about a pilgrimage told by pilgrims on the way to the
shrine of Canterbury Cathedral and back. It can be read as an allegory of life as a travel, as the pilgrims represent
the members of the different social classes of the time.
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KNOWING HOW…
…TO TAKE NOTES
When you want to note down what you are listening to (lessons, lecture, conference, etc.) or what you are
studying, you need to be able to take notes. Taking notes means spotting out key-words or, better, topic phrases
of a thought or a paragraph.
Topic phrases can then be underlined, highlighted, written in the margin of the page, or even copied out on a
separate sheet to be inserted on the corresponding page of your book or to be collected in a ring blinder. In any
case, omit the unimportant articles, adjectives, prepositions and nouns in the text.
…TO STUDY
Studying is different from reading. To study means:
•
•
•
•
•
Memorizing pertinent information;
Being able to express it in your own words;
Using an accurate language (grammar or structure);
Using proper vocabulary;
Pronouncing correctly and fluently.
There is no one single valid method to fix what you read. You may have already acquired a valid method of study.
In case you have not, what we advice to you is to scan the text and either underline or copy down the keywords
or phrases.
Once you have the main concepts, you must be able to express them using your own words instead of repeating
what is written in the textbook. It is more complex, but it is a way to elaborate them and make the concepts a more
steady part of your knowledge. The next step is to try to communicate them in a certain logical order, to
explain the context, the provenance, the causes, the reasons, the effects: make connections with other facts.
‘History’, for example, is not a story. You must be able to support the contexts reported with facts, names, dates,
places and ideas.
You must also be able to communicate this content in grammatically accurate language. For example:
•
•
Always express the subject;
Remember to check the tenses in the past simple or past perfect (watch out for irregular verbs, you may
need to revise them).
Your language must be structurally correct. Look out for word order.
For example:
•
•
•
•
Subject + verb + objects;
Adjectives before nouns;
Adverbs usually before verbs;
First direct object then indirect objects, object of place and, lastly, object of time (usually).
Also remember that there is specific vocabulary for specific subjects. Literature, or history or sociology or visual
arts have special words you have to learn little by little. These subjects use elaborate, learned expression since they
are basically a written production. It is thus important not to use colloquial, informal English.
Literary language is close to Latinate words; these are not normally used every day by native English speakers.
Literature makes use of some specific words. You can find most of them in the Glossary at the back of any English
Literature Book. (for example: EPIC: you may need to use it to define a poem – Beowulf, for example - and you
must obviously know/learn its meaning first.)
Finally, if you want to communicate orally what you have learnt, you must be able to pronounce words clearly
and correctly. So, look up pronunciation in your dictionary if you need it.
Another oral skill you should practice is fluency. Fluency is the ability to pronounce a sentence with a correct
rhythm, intonation and speed. You will acquire it through exercise, repetition, listening to native speakers, etc.
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…TO PARAPHRASE
When you read a poem, you may find it difficult to get its meaning in current English. A possible way to
overcome this obstacle is to paraphrase the poetic text.
To paraphrase means to choose different words or synonyms, whose meaning is more common or simpler or
closer to modern English.
But it also means to give a different word order to each sentence. The new order should be the same as the one
used in prose: subject, verb, object.
…TO MAKE A SUMMARY
First of all a summary is to be short, shorter than what is reported. Remember that you can sum up anything (from
a dialogue to an event, a TV programme, a film, a story, a novel, an essay) in, say, two hundred words or as briefly
as a newspaper headline.
Scanning is a possible preliminary step. Computers do it too. When you scan a text, you read it quickly to find
meaningful or specific information. To select essential information, use the WH questions:
Who? When? Where/from? What? How? Why?
The sentences which contain the main ideas are the topic or key phrases. If you put them together you have the
rough copy of your summary.
According to the length you are allowed, you can add details or stick to the essential facts – as in a headline.
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…TO SPEAK ABOUT AUTHORS AND WORKS
You might find it almost impossible to separate authors from their work. Their importance and fame rest on their
literary product, whose themes and contents can often find connections and explanation in their lives.
A worksheet where to store all the information on the authors may be helpful:
Worksheet for an author
Author’s name – dates – places
EDUCATION
MAIN WORKS
THEMES
LANGUAGE/STYLE
INFLUENCES (on/from)
LITERARY MOVEMENT
REPUTATION
It is thus inevitable to speak about the author and her/his works.
There are many ways of presenting an author. The following is one of the possible ways:
1.
2.
3.
4.
From the general/historical context,
To the main literary movement of the period with its features,
To the author and the themes in or out of tune with the literary movement s/he is part of/refers to,
To move to her/his work with its general features and to the passage as an exemplification.
But if you prefer, you can start from the exact contrary:
1.
2.
3.
4.
From the passage you read,
To the presentation of the work the passage is from,
To the meaningful events – in connection with the literary production – of the writer’s life,
To conclude with the literary and, eventually, the historical context in which s/he wrote.
…TO COMMENT ON A PASSAGE
When you speak about an author, you will have to introduce and make comments on her/his work. After reading a
literary work, the next step is to collect the features of the genre the work belongs to. Each genre (poetry, drama,
fiction) has its structural characteristics, its key-words. It is thanks to them that a literary work can be analysed
from a technical point of view and better appreciated for its meanings and contents.
After reading the text, what you can do is fill in a worksheet with the main points of the passage. It is no easy task
to collect all the information because of the wide range of materials at your disposal, which could be from
different section of your English Literature Book.
Consider:
1. The passage and your answer to the exercises → draw understanding of an author and her/his work from
your direct reading of her/his passage;
2. Draw information about the characters, the situation, the critical hints on the language and technical
devices used;
3. The work the passage is taken from → draw information from the author’s life and works and from the
introduction to the work, if any.
After taking notes in the worksheet, remember to write the personal reasons for your statements, supporting
them with quotations from and comment on the passage.
Don’t forget to underline the key-words in the passage while you are reading it and answering the questions in
the exercises, so that when you fill in the worksheet, you will find them more easily.
Here below different kinds of worksheets have been prepared for you.
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Worksheet for a poetic text
Title of poem – Collection – Date – Author
SUBGENRE
STRUCTURE
METRE
RHYME
SETTING (time/place)
CONTENTS (each stanza)
VOICE
THEMES (from title or metaphor/s)
LANGUAGE
PERSONAL COMMENT / REASONS
EVIDENCE IN THE TEXT (lines)
Sonnet
SUBGENRE
STRUCTURE
METRE
RHYME
SETTING
CONTENTS
VOICE
THEMES
LANGUAGE
PERSONAL COMMENT / REASONS
EVIDENCE IN THE TEXT
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Worksheet for a dramatic text
Passage – Work – Date – Author
SUBGENRE
CHARACTERS
SETTING (time/place)
THEMES
STAGE DIRECTIONS
TYPE/S OF SPEECH
LANGUAGE
PERSONAL COMMENT / REASONS
EVIDENCE IN THE TEXT (lines)
Worksheet for a narrative text
Passage – Work – Date – Author
SUBGENRE
SETTING (time/place)
SITUATION
CHARACTERS
NARRATOR/S
POINT/S OF VIEW
THEMES
STYLE
PERSONAL COMMENT / REASONS
EVIDENCE IN THE TEXT (lines)
Useful tips for an oral report
When questioned:
• Go to the heart of the matter
• Follow your outline step by step, but be prepared to be flexible
• Support your statements
• Quote (very effective!)
When you have completed your answer, do not wait for another question, unless stopped. Instead, show your
ability to link similar topics, to make connections, to go ‘from text to context’.
Useful words and phrases
• If you don’t understand a question, simply ask: I am sorry. I didn’t quite understand / catch your question.
Could you repeat please?
• If you need to take a little time to gather your thoughts, you could say: Well, let me think… / Let’s see…
• If the question is not clear to you or you think it is too wide, you could ask: Shall I speak about…? / Are
you asking me to explain…? / Are you referring to…?
• If you want to refer to a passage or a poem in your anthology to support your statements: Do you mind if I
get the text? / We can find evidence for this in…
• If you want to make links: This is also related to / ties up with…
• If you can not fin the exact answer immediately, or you do not remember a detail: I am afraid I can’t
remember, exactly, but I think…
• If you are not prepared to answer a question, you could try to circumscribe it or to shift it to a similar topic
you know well: I am afraid I haven’t studied that topic / point / subject in depth, but I have…
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... TO WRITE AN ESSAY
An essay is a short piece of writing on one particular subject. You are supposed to:
• Give references;
• Point out negative and positive points;
• Express your personal ideas.
We can thus say that your personal o
Ideas are only the last step, after collecting and commenting the information you have on the subject.
We can consider four important moments in writing down an essay:
1.
Understanding and interpreting the given questions;
2.
Referring to sources and organizing your basic ideas;
3.
Developing your argument coherently;
4.
Checking your final draft.
Key-words in essay questions
UNDERSTANDING AND INTERPRETING THE GIVEN QUESTIONS
It is essential to fully understand the exact request of questions. They are emphasized by the use of certain
words commonly used in essay questions, which show the way you are expected to respond.
IF THE WORDS IN THE QUESTIONS
ARE:
YOU ARE EXPECTED TO:
Focus, outline, point out
Find examples, illustrate
Analyse, consider, explain
Compare, contrast
Comment, discuss
In your opinion, justify
Describe
Exemplify
Analyse
Compare
Debate
evaluate
Try also to explicate your interpretation of the questions, above all if it is general or indefinite.
The questions you have to respond to may even not mention examples, but it is always preferable to
provide some. They can make your statements clearer, more definite and personal.
REFERRING TO SOURCES AND ORGANIZING YOUR BASIC IDEAS
• The first step is to collect information about the subject matter.
• The following step is to gather your ideas previously jotted down as they come to your mind. You could
organize your ideas in note from:
o By making a simple spidergram;
o By splitting them into meaningful paragraphs;
o By comparing positive and negative points of the subject matter.
Example:
Let’s consider ROMANTICISM as the subject matter.
a. Spidergram
You can organize your basic ideas in a spidergram:
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47
etymology
Blake,
Wordsworth,
Coleridge
Two
generations of
poets
feelings vs
rationality
imagination
Poet as a
prophet
features
infinite
Byron, P.B.
Shelley, Keats
origins
non-conformism
French
Revolution
Napoleonic
wars
ROMANTICISM
Historical
and social
background
individualism
liberalism
poetry of the
child
commonplace
themes
Gothicism
supernatural/magic
dark hero
nature
b. Paragraph organization
If you prefer to organize your basic ideas into paragraphs, remember that each paragraph should developed
only one main idea:
SUBJECT MATTER: ROMANTICISM
1 meaning and origin
2 two generations of poets
3 features of movement: a) feelings b) individualism c) non-conformism d) infinite
4 position of poet and imagination
5 recurrent themes: a) nature b) evaluation of commonplace c) poetry of the child
d) supernatural / magic e) dark hero f) Gothic
6 historical background: French Revolution, Napoleonic wars
7 economic theory: liberalism
8 revolution and literature
9 opposition to reason
10 comment and personal ideas
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48
c.Comparing
To develop your comment you could also compare positive and negative points of the subject matter:
ROMANTICISM
POSITIVE
NEGATIVE
POET
prophet to common people
isolated
POINT OF VIEW
first person I / the poet’s
narrow / non objective
FEATURES
feelings / imagination
individualism / non conformism
vs reason
vs society
DEVELOPING YOUR ARGUMENT COHERENTLY
Once you have fixed the information and your basic ideas, you have then to develop your essay in
paragraphs, without worring too much, at this stage, about style, vocabulary, grammar and syntax.
Remember that each paragraph should develop only one main idea. In this way the essay develops
consistently instead of jumping disorderly from one idea to another: you may also find suitable it to give a
subtitle to each paragraph so as to check if you have written correspondingly.
Another interesting aspect to consider is the logical relationship between cause and effect, from the general
to the specific (example, event) or vice-versa.
Structure of a paragraph
You may structure your paragraph like this:
a.
b.
c.
The first sentence contains the topic or main sentence;
The following sentences illustrate and exemplify the main sentence;
The final sentence draws the partial conclusion.
CHECKING YOUR FINAL DRAFT
The last important step when you write in a foreign language consists in examining and correcting your
final draft. This phase can be called editing:
Make sure you use a register typical of the written language: avoid colloquial expressions or contracted
forms;
Check the accuracy of syntax, grammar, vocabulary, spelling and pronunciation.
Further pieces of advice:
Use a blend of simple and complex sentences but, in any case, do not be afraid of being too simple and
clear – it is a difficult achievement!
Remember not to use too many long secondary clauses depending on a single main sentence;
Do not use generalizations unless you are able to support them convincing reasons and examples;
Do not use irrelevant information;
Do not forget to connect sentences with linkers and reference words, to give your essay cohesion and a
clear logical order.
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49
Linkers
Adverbs and phrases
Conjunctions (+clause)
Preposotions (+ noun)
Time / sequence
First(ly),
second(ly),
then, next, afterwards,
after that, eventually, al
last, lastly, finally, at the
beginning, at the end,
meanwile.
When, while, until / till,
once, before, after, as soon
as, no sooner…than, as.
Before, after, until / till,
during.
Addition
Besides,
furthermore,
moreover, also, too,
what’s more, in addition.
And, as well as, both…and,
not only…but also.
And, as well
both…and,
only…but also.
Contrast
Instead, but, yet, still,
however,on the contrary,
on the other hand.
Concession
Even so, nevertheess,
despite this.
Even if, although, even
though.
In spite of, despite.
Cause
This / that is why, for this
reason, foro ne thing
Since, as, because.
Owing to,
because of.
Result / Consequence
So,
therefore,
thus,
hence, as a consequence,
consequently, as a result.
So…that, (not) enough…to
/ for, too…to / for.
Example
For
example,
for
instance, that is / that i
sto say, namely, in other
words.
Conclusion
So,
therefore,
in
conclusion, in short, all
in all.
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But, while, whereas.
as,
not
In contrast with, unlike.
due
to,
(such) as, like.
50
THE DESCRIPTIVE ESSAY
There are two possible patterns of essay according to the way in which they are organized and presented: the
descriptive essay and the argumentative essay. Thy aim of a descriptive essay is to give information on a set
topic.
•
•
•
Descriptive essays run the risk of being uninteresting and unoriginal. Try to avoid presenting
material in the same way as on your textbook.
Try instead a personal contribution by reshaping the material around an organizing principle such
as: a key-word, a quotation, a central theme.
After choosing your organizing principle, develop it through a sequence of main points supported
by evidence. This will enable you to get straight into analysis and will give your descriptive essay
some of the features of the argumentative essay, making it more interesting.
Let’s imagine your topic is: THE THEME OF SPIRITUAL LIBERTY IN SHELLEY’S WORKS.
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
h.
Start with a quotation choosing from Shelley’s works (i.e. Prometheus Unbound);
Point out where these lines are taken from;
Expand and explain your personal knowledge about this kind of plot (i.e. Prometheus in Greek/his
rebellion against Jupiter in Shelley an in history);
Refer to the Romantic Movement, its most recurrent themes, etc.);
Stress the theme of political rebellion was spread at that time, as witnessed by the admiration for
Milton’s Satan, for instance, and by the support of man’s resistance to and rebellion against political
despotism (Byron, Shelley);
Underline how Prometheus is the champion of mankind, the Romantic hero, and symbolizes man’s
infinite aspiration to intellectual perfection and political and spiritual liberty, while Jupiter
symbolizes the despotism of the organized state and church;
Refer to the author’s life, which (like Byron’s) was representative of the second generation of
Romantic poets’ restlessness and incapacity to come to terms with society;
Underline how Shelley’s personality was full of contrasts. Although a dreamer and a utopian thinker,
he also wrote sensible and practical works such as A philosophical View of Reform (1821), which put
him among the forerunners of socialism. He recognized the limits of man and hated didactic poetry,
but in the Preface to Prometheus Unbound he explained his beliefs in liberal ethics and wished to
influence his readers with his ideals of freedom and justice. In fact, the romantically believed that
the poet was a prophet who should show mankind the truth.
Let’s now imagine your topic is: OSCAR WILDE: LIFE AND WORKS.
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
h.
Start with a quotation from The Picture of Dorian Gray;
Point out where these words are in the work;
Refer to the contemporary Aesthetic Movement, its values, its founders in France and in England;
Stress how these theories –life and art aiming at sensational beauty in contrast with the vulgarity of
the modern world – were more openly expressed in the Preface to the 1891 edition, and come to a
tragic outcome in the novel, but also in Wilde’s life.
Eventually refer to the ideals, beliefs and aims of the late Victorian society, the importance given to
respectability, the widespread prudery;
Make a summary of the novel underlining how the pursuit of pleasure and beauty was the purpose
of life for Dorian Gray. Compare the similarities with the early years of Wilde at university (his
teacher, his cultural references, his behavior);
Point out as, although the novel seems to have no moral basis, the ending of the story is intensely
moral, and seems to suggest that there is a price to be paid for a life of pleasure, more openly stated
in Wilde’s last great work De Profundis, where he refers to his past life of pleasure and success as
something he had to pay for with his present misery;
Refer how this moral attitude can also be found in his last comedy, The Importance of Being Earnest
where he does not spare criticisms to the fatuity of the upper classes, or in his poem written after
his prison experience, The Ballad of Reading Gaol.
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THE ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY
The aim of an argumentative essay is to support a thesis and persuade of the validity of your opinion.
• First of all you could start by giving general information on the topic, as in the descriptive essay;
• But to develop your thesis, you had better divide the issue into contrasting positions, or points of view, or
sides of an argument (pros and cons);
• You could also build an argument around the definition of a word, for example “Imagination in
Romantic Poetry”, where either ‘Imagination’ or ‘Romantic’ could be taken as a key-word;
• Or you could analise what else was happening at the time a text was being written;
• Do not give your opinions while you are developing your thesis –just try to present ‘objectively’ two
opposite points of view;
• You can eventually state your opinion or suggest possible solutions as the ‘logical’ result of the
development of your thought.
Let’s imagine your topic is: THE AESTETHIC MOVEMENT IN ENGLAND
a.
Refer to its French origin and exponents, its chronological collocation, its anti-bourgeois aim, the values
of the contemporary Victorian society it contrasted;
b. Quote its battle-cry (“Art for Art’s sake”) and the scandalous behavior of some of its supporters,
politically and socially unconcerned;
c. Mention Oscar Wilde as the perfect example of an artist who deeply believed and lived Aestheticism, his
idea of art, moral, of life; refer to The Picture of Dorian Gray and the !()! Preface – his aesthetic
Manifesto;
d. Refer to the contemporary thinkers important to his formation (Pater, Ruskin) and the past poets his work
could be compared to (Keats);
e. You could contrast Wilde’s hidden morality: how, unlike what previously stated on the love of scandals
and anti-bourgeois behavior and social unconcern, in The Picture of Dorian Gray the ending seems to
suggest some intense moral; how there is moral criticism of the upper social classes in his The Importance
of Being Earnest, but how this is more explicitly shown in The Ballad of Reading Gaol, or in his last
prose work De Profundis.
…TO UNDERSTAND A WRITTEN TEXT
In your textbook, as in some exam tests, you will be asked to show your understanding of a literary
text.
You may be asked to write a summary of it or a short composition on a theme related to the text. It is
thus essential to exactly understand the text you are analyzing thoroughly, so as to be able to produce
other written work on it.
REFERENCE
Questions which you can answer by simply referring to what is said in a precise part of the passage,
even if in different words:
• Read the text and state the main character’s name and job.
• The writer’s stay in Stalingrad is not very short. Find out what show it.
• Why was the main character sent to hospital when he was a child?
• What did the traders do to oppose environmentalists?
INFERENCE
Questions which you can only answer by inference, that is working out an answer which must be a logical
conclusion of what you can deduce using the information given in the passage. It is important always to
support your answer with reasons (quote lines of the passage, for example, if you do not want to copy the
lines):
• Try to date the text from its literary characteristics and from its content.
• How would you explain the apparent contradiction in the man’s state of mind?
• What age group does the narrator belong to? Give reasons for your inference.
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52
PERSONAL CONTRIBUTION
Sometimes, when the answer to a question cannot be inferred from the text, your personal contribution is
required. In this case you have to use your imagination. It goes without saying that your answer should
be consistent with the general meaning of the passage:
• Make hypotheses on the possible reason for the man’s fear.
• This character says he never bets on horses. What possible reason may he have to go to Epson?
• Who do you think James is?
DENOTATION
You may also have to explain the meaning of a word or phrase. In this case a monolingual dictionary
may prove more useful than a bilingual dictionary, in that it is richer in synonyms, antonyms, idioms, etc.
but of course it is not sufficient because the answer often entails your understanding of the context:
• Find a synonym of the verb “dished out”.
• Read the first paragraph carefully and try to guess what “being carded” means.
• Define the meaning of “job sharing” in your own words.
• How would you interpret the expression “the time of my life”?
CONNOTATION
The tone, the atmosphere and the attitude of the writer are often interrelated. They are revealed by keywords which convey or suggest a meaning along with, or apart from, what is explicitly described or
stated:
• What do you think the attitude of the writer to the problem is? Give reason/s.
• What do you think “shoulder of gentility” means in this context? Has it got a positive or negative
meaning for the boy?
• The author clearly takes sides showing his sympathy for one of them. What elements in the
passage convey his feelings? List the most pregnant words, both positive and negative.
• What is the general tone of the passage? Humorous, serious, nostalgic, friendly, dramatic? Give
reasons and list some of the words that determine the tone.
NARRATIVE TECHNIQUES
These are unavoidable interest when the passage is a literary one. In this case special attention is usually
given to the main features such as genre / subgenre, narrator/s, setting, characters/s, point of view:
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What literary genre does the text belong to?
Is the narrator outside the story or is he one of the characters?
Read the passage and state when and where the action takes place.
STYLE
The meaning of a passage is also conveyed by the stylistic choices the author has made. Some examples
could be: overstatements or understatements, which can imply an ironical attitude; figures of speech such
as metaphors, similes, repetition which can add meaningful connotations to the text; etc.
• “Puritanism is hardly unknown in New England” is clearly an understatement. Rephrase it.
• Which is the most important quality, emphasized by the metaphors at the end of the paragraph?
• Find the simile which is repeated in the description of this person. What meaning does it convey?
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SYNTHESIS
You may have to combine the different elements you have analysed in the passage in order to synthesize
its overall meaning. This kind of request can be asked either referring to the theme or the title of the text:
• What is the main theme, the central idea of the passage?
• Provide an alternative title for the passage.
PARAGRAPHS
Some of the questions may also refer to how the text is organized, implying thus a general understanding
of its content:
• How many parts does the passage consist of? Provide a title for each of them.
• Divide the text into sub-paragraphs and justify your choice.
USEFUL HINTS
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Read the questions or the type of work on the text required first. Only later read the text trying
to find the answer to each question;
Don’t panic if you do not understand every single word. Sometimes this is not needed;
Always organize the time you have. Start from the questions which are easier first, then answer
the others. There is no priority as far as you answer all the questions;
Look out for key-words in the question and in the text. They can help you find the information
you need in order to be able to answer;
Always keep some time at the end to check what you have written, if there are any mistakes, if
you need to look up the use of a word or the spelling;
Try to divide your summary in paragraphs, it is easier like that to control thought and language.
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