GEORGE GORDON BYRON:

LIFE AND WORKS His poetry and life embodied the romantic spirit. George Gordon, 6th
Baron Byron, was an unconventional aristocrat. He studied at Cambridge University and
began to write poetry. In 1815 his Grand Tour (Spain, Portugal, Malta, Albania, Greece and
Middle East) inspired the first two cantos of Child Harold's Pilgrimage, which made him a
literary and social celebrity. In 1815 he married, but the marriage collapsed a year later
because of Byron's incestuous relationship with his half-sister. Then he left England for
ever and lived in Geneva, where he became a friend of Shelley and wrote the 3rd canto of
Child Harold. Then he moved to Venice where he produced the last canto, the tragedy
Manfred, the mock-heroic poem Beppo and began the mock-epic Don Juan (his
masterpiece). In 1819 he moved to Milan and was involved in the patriotic plots against
the Austrian rule. Then he took part to the Greek struggle of independence from Turkey.
After his death (1824), his heart was buried in Greece where he is still regarded as a
national hero. The rest of his body is buried in England.
THOUGHT AND STYLE The "Byronic hero" is a passionate, moody, restless and
mysterious man, who hides some horrible sin or secret in his past. He is characterised by
a proud individualism and rejects the conventional moral rules of society. He is an
outsider, isolated and attractive at the same time. He is of noble birth, but his manners
are wild and rough. He has a great sensibility to nature and beauty. Women cannot resist
him, but he refuses their love. Men either admire or envy him. The "Byronic hero" is a
blend of hidden suffering, rebelliousness and eroticism. Byron believed in individual liberty
and hated any sort of constraint. He wanted to live without compromises and all men to
be free. He fought against tyrants and denounced the evils of society. He was an isolated
man whose feelings are reflected in the wildest and most exotic natural landscapes. So
nature, for him, is not a source of joy, but the place where man can be really free. He
used a great variety of metres (Spenserian stanza and "ottava rima") and his language
was colloquial and potentially expressive.
NATURE FOR BYRON: Its a projection of the poets feelings. Several elements are
personified.
CHILD HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE The poem, written in Spenserian stanzas, is divided
into four independent parts (cantos). The protagonist is Harold, a young nobleman who
gives unity to the poem. He travels because of his disillusionment with life. His travelling
provides Byron with the chance to introduce picturesque and exotic settings. The first two
cantos are set in Spain, Portugal, Albania and Greece and evoke the glorious past, the
monuments and landscapes of these countries. The third canto deals with the human
possibilities to forget by the attraction to natural world. This canto follows Byron's journey
to Switzerland along the Rhine. The fourth canto is set in Italy and contains several
descriptions of nature, especially the sea which is depicted as the image of the sublime
and eternity. Nature reflects the poet's mood and feelings: for this reason Byron
also describes the wild and cruel aspects of nature which best suit the solitary
and melancholy temper of his hero. This excerpt deals with Harold's experiences
and reflections during his journey and provides an insight into the wild beauty of
nature and the Romantic themes of solitude, melancholy and the transience of
life.The poet wants to be free from society so that his emotions can flow freely and
imagination can win upon reason. Nature makes all men equal.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY: LIFE AND WORKS
LIFE AND WORKS He was the eldest son of a wealthy, conservative Member of
Parliament. In 1810 he was expelled from Oxford University because of his radical
pamphlet The Necessity of Atheism, challenging the existence of God. He married and had
two children and with his family moved to Ireland where he made revolutionary
propaganda against Catholicism and English rule. He rebelled against existing religions,
laws and customs (he was against conservatism). He became a republican, a vegetarian
and a supporter of free love. When he came back to England he separated and escaped
with Mary Godwin to Switzerland where they met Byron. Here he wrote an epic
revolutionary poem The Revolt of Islam in which he expressed his conviction that only love
could deliver men from any social claims. He used the gothic symbol of the wanderer to
explain his vision of history and teach that individual violence is the product of social
inequity.
THOUGTH AND STYLE Shelley's works show his restless spirit, his refusal of social
conventions, political oppression, any form of tyranny and his faith in a better future. He
strongly believed in the principles of freedom (from social conventions) and love (that
could overcome evils of society). He considered poetry as the expression of imagination
that could change the reality of the material world. The poet is forced to suffer and
isolates himself from the rest of the world, projecting himself in a better future, because
reality is stronger than ideal and refuses to change. The poet (as well as for Byron) is a
prophet and a titan and his task is to help mankind to reach an ideal world where love and
beauty are saved from their enemies (tyranny, destruction, alienation). Nature is like a
beautiful veil that hides the eternal truth of the divine spirit (it is not the real world as for
Wordsworth). It provides him with images and symbols for the creation of its cosmic
schemes. Nature is a refuge from the injustice of the ordinary world and the interlocutor
of his hopes for a better future. He wrote political ballads and classical elegies, but he is
best remembered for his short lyric poetry.
IMMAGINATION universal power, it has a moral essence, it is revolutionary because you
can reach freedom
NATURE: Nature is a beautiful veil that hides the eternal truth of the divine spirit. Nature
represents the favorite refuge from the injustice of the ordinary world.
SHELLEY AND LEOPARDI There are similarities between Shelley and the Italian poet
Giacomo Leopardi: they both let themselves go to the forces of Nature and reject their
own time. Leopardi looks at the past to find intellectual comfort (he is pessimist), while
Shelley looks at the future and he has hope in a better future (he is optimist). Their poetry
is influenced by the classical readings: in Leopardi's poetry reason and rationality prevail,
while in Shelley's poetry imagination and dreams prevail.

CHARLES DICKENS
LIFE AND WORKS He was born in Portsmouth in 1812. Ha had an unhappy childhood,
since his father went to prison for debt and he had to work in a factory at the age of
twelve. These days of suffering influenced much of the content of his novels. He became a
journalist at the Parliament and Law Courts and published under the pen name "Boz"
some collection of articles describing London people and scenes which demonstrated his
humor and satire. Dickens's success continued with the novels in which he exposed the
esploited lives of children in the slums and factories (Oliver Twist, David Copperfield and
Little Dorrit) and the conditions of the poor and the working class (Hard Times, Blank
House and Great Expectations). He was also the busy editor of magazines, "Household
Words" and later "All The Year Round". He died in 1870 and was buried in Poets' Corner in
Westminster Abbey.
THE THOUGHT Dickens was first and foremost a storyteller. His plots are well-planned
even if a times they sound a bit artificial and episodic (probably due to the publication in
instalments). The sitting was London, described in realistic details. At first Dickens created
middle class characters, often satirised. Then he became critical of society and aware of
the spiritual and material corruption due to the industrialism, juxtaposing terrible
descriptions of London misery and crime with amusing sketches of the town. Dickens
created caricatures of the middle, lower and lowest classes and ridiculed their peculiar
social characteristics. He was always on the side of the poor and the outcast. Children are
often the most important characters in Dickens's novels. He made them the moral
teachers instead of the taught. His work had a didactic aim: he wanted the wealthier
English classes to know and to alleviate the sufferings of poor classes and if children
above all. For these purposes he used an effective language to describe the London life
and characters. He carefully chose adjectives, repetitios of words and structures; he
justaposed images and ideas, hyperbolic and ironic remarks.
HARD TIMES This novel is set in an imaginary industrial town named Coketown where
lives Thomas Gradgrind, an educator who believes in facts and statistics and who founded
the school of town where his theories are thought. He marries his daughter to a rich
banker, Josia Bounderby. We can divided this novel into three books:
1) Sowing, show us the seeds planted by Gradgrind and Bunderby education;
2) Reaping, reveals the results of these seeds;
3) Garnering, gives the details. Hard Times focuses on the difference between the rich and
poor or factory owners and workers who were forced to work long hours for low pay in
dirty and dangerous factories. This novel also denounces criticizes the materialism and
narrow-mindedness of Utilitarianism and suggest that 19th century in England was turning
human beings into machines without emotions and imaginations. Dicken's primary aim is
to citicize the society by illustrating the dangers of allowing humans to become like
machines and suggesting that without compassion and immagination life would be
intolerable.
COKETOWN In this extract there is the description of the industrial centre of Coketown: it
is a triumph of fact. There are three similes:
1) the red brick soiled by the black smoke are like the painted face of a savage;
2) the smoke coming out of the chimneys is like snakes;
3) the movement of the steam-engine is like that of the head of an elephants. The colours
are very important. For the inhabitants every day are the same: they produce goods
assigned to the rich classes (that are hypocritical, because despise the town and the
people who made that goods for them). All the public buildings are equal and
monotonous: jail, infirmary, town-hall and churches (it means that there isnt difference
between material and spiritual aspect). The school has a strange name,
MChoakumchild, which sound like choke (suffocate) the child: the school fills the
children with facts. Everything in the town is filtered through the figures. The other
residents of the town wanted the workers to go to church and to stop getting drunk and
taking opium. Mr Grandgrinds and his friend Mr Bounderbys tabular statements proved
that these people had good lives and were ungrateful. It wasnt true: they only considered
other people dregs. There Dickens critics the utilitarianism.
THE EARLY VICTORIAN AGE Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837 and married
Prince Albert. Her reign was very long and every elements of it was called "Victorian". In
the 1830s the Whig politicians gave the vote to the middle class and they reformed social
and economic conditions: no person under 18 could work more than 69 hours a week
(children 48). They established workhouses, so that poor would try to do better helping
themselves. It was a matter of pride to be a "self made man", due to a belief in the power
of progress and the puritans virtues of hard work and duty. Religion was a strong force.
There was an explosion in knowledge and ordinary people could be informed about by
newspapers and books. However there were a political crises: the middle class
industrialists wanted more free trade, so that the the price of corn was freed. The working
classes tried to improve their lives by both political and economic means (Charist
movement). In this period peoples lives were more comfortable (building of London
Underground and railways). Britain had a huge market (the Great Exhibition was an
example) and also exported people as servant, soldier and engineers. Britain wanted free
trade and for this reason supported some liberal causes (Italian independence from the
Austrians) but she never made any intervention (splendid isolation).

THE VICTORIAN COMPROMISE The Victorians were great moralisers and felt obliged to
support certain values to solve numerous problems: the most promoted were the need to
work hard and the sense of duty. The idea of respectability distinguished the middle from
the lower class: it was a mixture of morality and hypocrisy and implied the possession of
good manners and comfortable conditions of life. The Victorians were philanthropists
towards every kind of poverty (stray children, fallen women and drunken men). For they
charity was important to save the dissolute. In the family the position of the husband was
dominant and the woman had to obey him. The submission of women was clearly
underlined by the enormous difficulties the faced if they did not conform to this
expectation (single women with a child suffered the worst of societys punishment).
Sexuality was generally repressed (also in arts and in every day vocabulary). The British
considered themselves a superior race destined to govern the others. They believed they
had superior physical and intellectual features and superior way of life, law and politics
(Jingoism). However there were also contraddictions and dubts about the relationship
between science and belief.

THE VICTORIAN FRAME OF MIND

The religious movement of the "Evangelicalism", inspired by the Methodism, believed in
humanitarian and social causes, in a strict code of morality and in the importance of the
Bible. The movement of "Utilitarianism" suited the interests of the middle class and
contributes to the convinction that any problem could be solve with reason. This
movement was indifferent to human and cultural values and for this reason it was
attacked by many intellectuals such as Dickens and the empiricist Mill. This one believed
that happiness is a state of mind, legislation should help men develop their natural
talents, in a progress linked to education and art and supported various reform (trade
union organisations, emancipation of women). Scientific discovery arosed the view of an
incessantly changing universe (and not stable). Darwin presented his theory of natural
selection and evolution, that discarded the version of the creation given by the Bible and
showed that the strongest survived and the weakest was defeated. Then Spencer thought
that economic competition was the same as natural selection (Social Darwinism). Many
people protested against the harm caused by industrialism. Marx's "Capital" influenced
some english writes such as Morris (who believed that a movement of workers could solve
the problems of industrial society) and Arnold (who assigned the task of regeneration to
literature).

THE VICTORIAN NOVEL

During the Victorian Age there was a close relationship between writers and their readers
due to the growth of the middle classes. In fact they became avid consumers of literature
and borrowed books from the circulating libraries and read periodicals. In fact a great deal
of Victorian literature, even novels, was published in instalments in periodicals. The most
popular form of literature in this period was the novel. It had new features compared with
the novel of the previous periods: it became realistic and analytical, social and
humanitarian, inquisitive, critical and didactic. The Victorian novel reflected society and its
evils, first of all the terrible conditions of workers and the exploitation of children. The role
of the narrator was to correct the vices and weakness of the age, so that his voice always
gave comment on the plot. The settings was the city and there were two kinds of
characters' development: the former analysed the character's inner life (Dickens, first
period); the latter was nearer to the European "naturalism" and analysed society and
human behaviour from a more scientific point of view (Hardy, second period).

AESTHETICISM AND DECADENCE

The Aesthetic Movement was born in France with Thophile Gautier at the end of the 19th
century. It reflected the sense of frustration of the artist, his reaction against the
materialism and his need to re-define the role of art (its motto was "Art for Arts Sake").
The aesthete lived an unconventional existence, cultivating art and beauty. Bohmien and
dandy both rejects society, but the first allies himself to the rural or urban proletariat, the
latter remains a member of the bourgeoise. The roots of the English Aesthetic Movement
can be traced back to Keats (he thought that art makes eternal; beauty is his central
theme) and its theorist was Walter Pater. His message was that the only way to stop time
is art and life should be live as a work of art. The task of the artist is to fell sensation and
to transmit this. As a result, art does not have to be didactic or moral. In the work of
decadent artists there is an excessive attention to the self, a hedonistic attitude and an
evocative use of language. Decadence must be seen as a European movement: in Italy
the main representatives were dAnnunzio (with "Il Piacere") and Pascoli, in Germany was
Rilke.
OSCAR WILDE:
LIFEOscar Wilde was born in Dublin in 1854. His father was a surgeon and his mother
literary woman. He studied classics in Oxford, and distinguished himself for his
eccentricity. He became a disciple of Walter Pater, accepting the theory of Art for Arts
Sake. After graduating, he established in London and became famous for his "dandy" way
of life. In 1881 he edited poems and started a very successful tour through America. On
coming back to Europe in 1883, he married Constance Lloydand had two children. In the
late 1880s Wilde revealed his literary talent with a series of short stories and the novel
The Picture of Dorian Gray. His masterpiece is the play The Importance of Being Earnest.
In 1891 he met a young beautiful man Lord Alfred Douglas (Bosie) and they had
homosexual affair. After the denounce of the father of Bosie, Wilde was sentenced to two-
years of hard labour, during which he wrote De Profundis, a long letter for Bosie. When he
was released he was a broken man: his wife refused to see him and he went in exile in
France where he lived in poverty until his death for meningitis in 1900.

THE THOUGHTWilde adopted "the aesthetic ideal" and lived the double role of rebel amd
dandy. The dandy must be distinguished from the bohemian: while the bohemian allies
himself to the rural or urban proletariat, the dandy is a bourgeois artist and remains a
member of his class. The Wildean dandy is an aristocrat whose elegance is a symbol of the
superiority of his spirit. He is qn individualist who demands absolute freedom. He rejected
the didacticism of the early Victorian novel and his interest in beauty had no moral
attitude. For him doesn't exist a moral or an immoral book, but only well or badly written
books. The concept of "Art for Arts Sake" was to him a moral imperative (not only an
aesthetic one). He believed that only "Art as the cult of Beauty" could prevent the murder
of the soul (art is eternal: Keats). Wilde perceived the artist as an alien in a materialistic
world. He wrote only to please himself and was not interested in communicating to his
theories to mankid. His pursuit of beauty is the tragic act of a superior being inevitably
turned into an outcast.

THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAYThe painter Basil Hallward paints a portrait of the
beautiful Dorian Gary. This one desires the eternal beauty, so the signs of age, experience
and vice appear on the portrait. When the painter sees the corrupted image of the
portrait, Dorian kills him. Then he stabs the portrait but he mysteriously kills himself. At
the end the picture returns to its original purity. The narrator is unobtrusive third-person.
There is an identification between the reader and the character. The setting are vividly
described. The characters reveal themselves through what they say or what other people
say of them (technique of drama). The story is a version of the myth of Faust, a man who
sells his soul to the devil so that all his desires might be satisifed. This soul becomes the
picture. For Wilde beautiful people are moral people and the ugly people are immoral
people (Renaissance idea). The moral of this novel is that every excess must be punished
and reality cannot be escaped. The corrupting picture is a symbol of the immorality of the
Victorian middle class, while Dorian's innocent appearence is symbol of bourgeois
hypocrisy. The picture restored to its original beauty symbolizes Wilde's theory of art: art
survives people, art is eternal (Keats).

Basil Hallward[The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 1]

The text is narrated in the third person and the narrator is unobtrusive. In the first part
there is the description of the painter's studio: the atmosphere is decadent and sensuous.
There is a connection between the inside and the outside through the open door. There are
elements of the senses of smelling and hearing: the delicate smell of the flowers and the
dim roar of London. We meet Lord Henry Watton, the painter's friend, that is smoking
opium. In the second part we meet the painter, Basil Hallward, who admires the portrait of
a man he has painted (Dorian Gray): he is very pleased. There are references to Walter
Pater's theory about art. In the third part there is a dialogue between the two characters.
We learn that Basil is more serious than Watton: the last one is languid and cynical. Basil
doesn't want to send the portrait, so that Watton says that painters are odd people. He
says that there is only one thing worse than being talked about, and that is not being
talked about (Wilde's theory). We learn that Dorian Gray is a beautiful young man, but not
very intelligent: beauty isn't everything and it ends where an intellectual expression
begins.