Návrat na detail prednášky / Stiahnuť prednášku / Univerzita Komenského / Pedagogická fakulta / AN - Anglická literatúra I.

ENGLISH LITERATURE I. - poznámky (english_literature_i.doc)

18th CENTURY SOCIAL AND LITERARY CONTEXT

The Enlightment is the name of the period succeeding the Renaissance and followed by Romanticism. The Enlightment believed in the universal authority of Reason.

It favoured toleration and moderation in religion, believed in the rational perfectibility of man. For 18th century England Sense is a better watchword than Reason. Sense embraces practical reason, common sense (common opinion). At first it was related to Sensibility – a capacity for moral feeling. Gradually Sensibility became more aesthetic and sentimental and contrasted with sense.

The importance of knowledge, development, voyages, technics, discovering, researches, science (I.Newton)

It was the period of searching for natural resources like gold and the period of slavery.

The Englishmen were polite, except the social hierarchy and the King – as the power from God.

Literature and art – totally different position to today. In 17th century – privilege of the noble class – patrons, pensions to the artist – pleasing

Growth of the middle class – social changes – industrial revolution – growth of foreign trace

Leisure time of the middle class – London and other towns – assembly halls, concerts, art exhibitions (Waxhall Gardens) – the reading grew

Professionalisation and Commercialisation of art – capitalisation of the book market – in 1695 the Licensing Act was ceased – master printers, booksellers (similar to todays stationers)

Literacy – growing percentage – regional and gender differences – around 1750cca.60% men and 40% women

Circulating libraries – Subscription libraries

Coffee houses (over 500 in London) – centre of exchange of ideas – Journals (main modern topics, to learn something)

Cultural and historical background

Literature addressing the middle class – everyday topics, realistic, new genres – the domestic tragedy, comedy of manners

Enlightment and religion – no contradiction to natural sciences

John Locke – An Essay concerning Human Understanding (1690) – tabula rasa – empirical knowledge – his influential philosophy – reliable knowledge of the real comes form sense and impressions

David Hume – principle of association

Literature is becoming more of an art which is consumed by much more people – by the middle class not the workers

It was the time of great changes in social hierarchy

1. introduction of mass production – manufactures – workers work for 1 owner
2. trading – new branch in industry – foreign trade
3. money became a trade good
4. London – 1.stock exchange – not only exchanging good but also selling for money
5. manufactories changed into factories – production  with machines
6. new class – bourgeoisie = middle class

JONATHAN SWIFT (1667 – 1745)

7. he wrote satirical and ironical works
8. he dared to criticise and mock authorities
9. he was a master of prose . his sentences are logical, clear and well constructed
10. he hated the whole mankind
11. his purpose was to show and awaken readers about some ridiculous things in society that need to be criticise
12. he used an inverse view – when he talked about England for example in Gulliver´s Travels – he used irony – there were the small Liliputians and the big problems
13. his works are:

        A Tale of a Tub – a religious allegorical satire

        Journal to Stella – a document of his private life

        A modes proposal – Irish Tracts – Pamphlets for the Independence of Ireland

        Drapier´s Letters

        A Short View on the State of Ireland

- his most known work is Gulliver´s Travels from 1726 – it has a semi-fictional form – it is a utopian-satirical travel novel – Swift uses here mocking satire, social-political satire and allegory

- GT contains 4 books: Liliput, Brobdingnag, The Flying Island of Laputa and Houyhnhnms – it is a severe attack on the political parties of the time and the religious controversies between different denominations within Christianity

- in GT we can see a higher writing style – and we must know (as an all Swift´s works) the social and political background – we must know how to read between the lines

- Gulliver does not develop through the story, he is a flat character

DANIEL DEFOE (1660 – 1731)

14. Defoe is interested in portraying true-to-life characters, character development, true-to-life situations
15. Defoe is talking to God and thinking what is this all – the whole life – good for = it is VERY REALISTIC
16. first modern English novel being the prototype of an English Gentleman from the middle class
17. also the prototype of British colonisers – they were very gently, they had a sophisticated way
18. Defoe wrote some travel novels – like A tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain (1724-1726) – it was a very popular travel, journey reports – close observation, detailed descriptions, although not visited everything – a lot of information about the actual situation of agriculture, manufactures and trade
19. for an other work – Account of Voyages for Making Discoveries in the Southern Hemispheres – 3 volumes – Captain James Cook was Defoe’s model figure
20. Defoe wrote also prose satire  for example The Shortest Way with Dissenters form 1702 – from the perspective of an Anglican priest – disposed protestant non-conformists (dissenters) – to forced labour and hang them – it was an irony on the High Church – Defoe was persecuted
21. from 1704 to 1713 Defoe wrote a journal called The Review
22. to his best known works belong

        Robinson Crusoe (1719) – it was a fable, a symbol – it has become a myth of survival – the novel         ends positively to prove the rightness of Crusoe’s and middle-class mercantile values – ther is also a         diary with dates in it

        Crusoe is a coloniser, who establishes on the island a model of his own society – he is much more human-like than Gulliver – we can see his inner thoughts – he has hi inner life which he comments by his moods and the talking to God – he uses real words – the reality is so at it is – no other intentions as to describe the reality and the adventures as real as possible – there is no criticism – it is a celebration of the middle class – he is an active Christian – he is a prototype of the new energy class – the middle class – he is a deep-believer – he has a very practical attitude to life – he makes u his own living – he is capable to survive – he does something for it

        This was based on the philosophy of empirism by Bacon and Lock, who was a founder of liberalism – tabula rasa – everybody has a chance - you have to use it or not

        Moll Flanders (1722) – Moll is a victim of her times – first-person narration of a life as a thief, prostitute, incestuous wife – contains much social comment

        A Journal of the Plague Year 722) – historical narrative told by a humble tradesman

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE EPISTOLARY NOVEL

23. formally a sequence of letters
24. used usually as a novel written in letters form the main character itself
25. editorial fiction – often a preface and an epilogue to the letters
26. writing to the moment – short emotional and time distance between the experience of the figure and the writing down
27. in contrast to the retrospective I-narrator the letter writer does not have an overview of the following actions
28. the I-form is more personal
29. subjective presentation of characters, places and reality
30. shift of focus on external events to psychological processes and differentiated presentation of character – personal interpretation of external facts
31. communication is characterised by personal relationship between the writers of the letters
32. strong orientation on the receiver
33. variety of the number of writers and perspectives (mono and multiperspectives epistolary letter
34. preference of scenic and dramatised narration – describing of scenes
35. small distance between the figures and  the recipients – a big identification potential
36. absence of hierarchically dominant narrator and of a dominant moral authority – each of the writers are equal
37. moral ambiguity in spite of the intention to achieve didactic effect – there might be the intention to give moral lessons but it is on the reader to decide what it is about
38. appreciation of individuality and subjectivity – subjective view and expressions
39. high aesthetic illusion of the figures – how they describe and express themselves in letters
40. maybe one person is writing the letter – just fictional letter writer or there is a different type – correspondence between two persons
41. used for presenting multidimensional view points on the same thing  - one fact described by more letter writers

SAMUEL RICHARDSON (1689 – 1762)

42. at this moment the novel was not promoting aristocratic ideals of honour any more but the middle class concept of virtue
43. he wrote letters for his customers – middle class ladies – he knew the inner life of women, what ladies like
44. he initiates a discourse on sexual roles – as relevant today as it was in the 18th century
45. Richardson provides models for the psychological novelists – in-depth psychology – influenced Rousseau, Goethe, James, Joyce – it’s about what is going on in the mind of the main character
46. he tries to present the inner processes and thoughts of a woman as a servant
47. in Pamela hi presented a servant maid with her own character – she could say “NO”
48. the maid changed her social class – she married her land lord – this was an unusual view
49. this was the start of sentimental reason
50. his Pamela was criticised to be very sentimental
51. Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1740) – called the first modern novel – written in letter form – it is an epistolary novel – realistic representation of day-to-day behaviour – huge success – contrast between male domination and female restraint and submission and virtue – immediately criticised by Fielding as hypocritical (he wrote a burlesque on it called Shanela) – Pamela is a story of a young woman from a lower class, but she is not obeying – great access within the women public
52. in Pamela – the events are not chronological – she has remarks, inner thoughts, inner life – it is a dramatised narrator – other writers followed his style
53. Clarissa – major step forward – four letter writers – multiplicity of viewpoints diversity leading to consensus
54. Sir Charles Grandison (1754) – short of action – dramatic- the continuous present