Tema: Spazio Tempo

Joyce e la paralisi dell'uomo contemporaneo - Collegato a Svevo e alla paralisi di Zeno (immobilità nel
tempo e nello spazio)

Joyce describes Dubliners as afflicted people. Everyone in Dublin seems to be stuck with despair.
Even when they want to escape, Dubliners are unable to because they are spiritually weak. The young
Eveline is a perfect example. She is a 19-year-old girl, sitting by a window and thinking. She wants to
leave her family by following Frank to South America, but unable to fulfil her desires, instead of
choosing a better life, she decides to stay in Dublin. Eveline is the fourth story of Dubliners, a
collection of 15 short stories (divided in 3 groups: childhood, adulthood and social life) written in 1900,
talking about 15 people from Dublin, observed with pessimism by the author, aware of the
uselessness of their efforts to get out of their misery. Dublin is a static and provincial town and its
inhabitants are imprisoned in a city that doesn't give them the chance to grow. All the characters
experience failure, they try to overcome the obstacles to have a better life, but they surrender in the
end, incapable to change. Joyce defines this condition "paralysis", a physical and spiritual death
affecting all the modern men.

Tema: Tradizione e innovazione

Modernismo: Joyce e Woolf - Nuovo stile, l'interior monologue

Modernism developed at the beginning of the 20th century, as a literary movement it is associated
with the period after World War I. The horror of the war had shaken the society, leaving people with a
sense of disillusionment. Modernist writers tried to express the instability which characterized their
time, they rebelled against the style of writers before the war, who described life from the outside.
They felt that such a style did not describe life as the chaotic mess it was. New psychological and
philosophical theories encouraged a search for new modes of expression. The Modernists gave more
importance to subjective consciousness and understood it was impossible to reproduce the
complexity of the human mind using traditional techniques; so they looked for new means of
expression. Influenced by Freud's, Bergson's and Proust’s ideas they underlined the isolation of
individuals, often unable to communicate their feelings or ideas. Events were not important for them,
what mattered was the impression they made on the characters experiencing them. So, the plot was
not important. Novelists adopted the interior monologue to represent the inner thoughts of characters.
The point of view moved inside the characters' minds through flashbacks, association of ideas and
impressions presented as a continuous flow. William James coined the phrase ‘stream of
consciousness’ to define the continuous flow of thoughts and sensations characterising the human
mind. The interior monologue is the verbal expression of this phenomenon, it is characterised by the
lack of chronological order; the narrator may be present or not; logical order may be lost or lacking and
the action takes place within the character’s mind. The reader follows the thoughts of the characters,
learning their stories this way.
There are two kinds of interior monologue, indirect and direct. In the indirect interior monologue
(used by Virginia Woolf in her novels), the character’s thoughts are presented directly or by controlling
the flow of his thoughts through a narrator who guides the reader, while logical and grammatical
organisation are maintained. [The character stays fixed in space while his/her consciousness moves
freely in time: in the character’s mind, however, everything happens in the present. This concept of
‘inner time’, which is irregular and disrupted compared to the conventional conception of time, is
preferred to ‘external time’, since it shows the relativism of a subjective experience.] In Ulysses, Joyce
brought to perfection the interior monologue, employing the direct interior monologue where the
narrator seems not to exist and the character’s inner self is given directly. In the direct interior
monologue with the mind level of narration, the character’s thoughts flow freely, in a direct,
uncontrolled and non-filtered way, not interrupted by external events. Thoughts are expressed in the
1st person and with no punctuation, because it would represent a way to control and organise them.
The result is an incoherent and syntactically unorthodox flow. In the novel Ulysses Joyce lets us follow
the working of the mind of his protagonist through an incoherent flux of thoughts, impressions and
memories, reported without any logical or rational organisation. He avoids any kind of control over the
character's thoughts, letting them flow freely as if we were reading into his mind.

Tema: Dolore

Virginia Woolf - La vita

Virginia Stephen was born in 1882. Her father, Sir Leslie Stephen, was a historian, author and critic;
her mother had been a model for several painters. She had 7 full and half siblings. The family lived
together in London. Two of her brothers studied at Cambridge, but the girls were taught at home. They
lived in a culturally stimulating environment, but Virginia did not have the chance to attend University.
This was something she seemed never able to forget. Even if one of the best writers of the 20th
Century, she always thought of herself as ill educated.

Her mother died when Virginia was 13, followed by her sister Stella two years later. This led to the first
of Virginia's several nervous breakdowns. But it was the death of her father a few years later, that
provoked her worst collapse and she was briefly institutionalised. Her mental instability was probably
also due to a sexual abuse to which she and her sister Vanessa were subjected by their step-brothers
George and Gerald. Her highs and lows between literary works and personal despair continued for the
rest of her life.

After their father's death the family moved to the Bloomsbury neighbourhood, where they enjoyed the
intellectual stimulation of intellectuals and artists, and started to organise the Bloomsbury Group
meetings, a circle of intellectuals and artists with the great London minds, where they talked about art,
philosophy or politics. She met Leonard Woolf there. Leonard and Virginia got married in 1912.
Although she had affairs with other women, Virginia always remained very much in love with him. He
was her greatest supporter all of her life. When her novels obtained good reviews, she continued
producing them, each one a braver experiment in language and structure than the previous
one. Virginia published novels; she was a literary and social critic, she spoke at colleges and
universities, wrote essays and published many short stories. By her mid-forties, she was
considered an innovative and influential writer. Even if regarded as a genius, she always
remained insecure and fearful of the public's reaction to her work. She continued to suffer
from attacks of depression. Leonard tried to monitor her activities and his efforts probably
helped Virginia to achieve as much as she did. He was always aware of any signs of
depression. After completing the manuscript of her last (posthumously published) novel,
Between the Acts, Woolf fell into depression again. Unable to cope with her misery, on 28th
March 1941, she wrote her husband two notes, telling him that if anyone could have saved
her, it would have been him. But she wouldn't be able to overcome this last episode of
"madness" so she thought it best to end it all. She put on her overcoat, headed to the River
Ouse, filled her pockets with stones, walked into the water, and drowned herself. Her body
was found three weeks later.

Tema: Movimento femminista

Virginia Woolf - A room of one's own

Virginia Woolf’s feminist essay A Room of One’s Own is based on the lectures she gave in front of a
group of female students from the first two colleges for women at Cambridge University in 1928. It is
considered as a feminist classic where she openly criticised the situation of social inferiority and lack
of economic independence of female intellectuals and writers. Rather than a political debate, this
appears as a story whose protagonist is Mary, a fictional character attending Oxbridge, a fictional
school. Using a first-person perspective, she could represent any woman from the audience. When
saying “Call me Mary Beton, Mary Seton, Mary Carmichael or by any name you please”, Woolf is
actually talking to all the women in her same position.

‘Mary’ states that the main obstacles women writers need to overcome are their economic
dependence on men, their entrapment in marriage, and the fact that academic institutions do not admit
them. Having money is extremely important if a woman wants to be independent because "a woman
must have money and a room of her own if she is to write …". The room represents a place where a
woman writer can devote herself to writing and feel free from prejudices and constraints. She adds
that upper-class women writers have obviously more chances than all the other female intellectuals.
Also literature needs to change because most of it is man-made “out of their own needs for their own
uses’. She writes, “Intellectual freedom depends upon material things. Poetry depends upon
intellectual freedom. And women have always been poor [...] from the beginning of time”. This explains
why so few women have written successful poetry. She believes that writing novels is easier for
women because in this process they can frequently start and stop, that is the reason why women tend
to write more novels than poetry. She concludes urging her audience to see their own work not only as
valuable in itself, but as part of the crucial preparation for future women writers.
Tema: Rapporto uomo e natura

Manifesto del romanticismo - La poesia come ricordo delle emozioni provate in precedenza

Wordsworth’s Preface to Lyrical Ballads, attached to the second edition in 1800, is considered the
manifesto of the Romantic Poetry because it talks about the nature of it and declares how poetry is
an experiment in which the emotions take precedence over structure and form.

Wordsworth tries to free poetry from the constrictions of classical rules. He chooses the language of
the common man and the theme of his poetry comes from the heart of common people. According to
him ""Poetry is a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes it origin from emotions
recollected in tranquillity", a poem is the result of an essential relationship between present and
past experience. Personal emotions become the origin of poetry. Through memory, the emotions
experienced in the past is re-evoked in the present and purified to generate poetry. The origin of these
emotions are nature and everyday experiences. The Romantic poets also regarded nature as a living
force and as the expression of God in the universe. Nature became a main source of inspiration, a
stimulus to thought, a source of comfort and joy, and a means to convey moral truths.

Imagination had a primary role in poetic composition. It allowed the poet to re-create and modify the
external world of experience like a divine faculty. The poet was seen as a visionary prophet able to
mediate between man and nature, to give voice to the ideals of freedom, beauty and truth. Through
imagination, the poet could see beyond the surface of reality and discover a truth beyond reason.

Tema: Amore e morte

Sublime - L'espressione delle emozioni forti

Some Romantic poets developed the concept of nature from a consoling view, as in Wordsworth.
Others portrayed nature as an entity indifferent to man’s destiny and suffering, among them Coleridge,
Byron or the Italian Leopardi. In Romanticism nature also meant an escape from familiar experiences
and from the limitations of reality. The English poets delighted in the description of the marvellous and
abnormal.

The subordination of nature to personal feelings is emphasised in the concept of the ‘sublime’. Burke
explains that the sublime is a particular way of perceiving nature. It is a feeling associated with the
strong emotions we feel in front of intense natural phenomena (storms, hurricanes, waterfalls), which
generates fear but also attraction. Nature can also be dramatic, dangerous and mysterious. Wild
landscapes communicate the inner feelings of the poet, connecting his soul with the supernatural and
the divine, as in the poems of Coleridge, Byron and Shelley. These later Romantics had a growing
interest in melancholy, often associated with meditation on suffering and death. A new taste for the
desolate, the love of ruins, graveyards and ancient castles were part of a revival of interest in the past
felt as a contrasting period to the present reality. The higher value placed on sensibility led to the
elaboration of a new aesthetic theory built on individual consciousness rather than on the imitation of
nature. Edmund Burke’s work on the subject, "A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of
the Sublime and Beautiful" (1757), explains supremacy of the sublime over the beautiful among the
qualities believed to please the imagination. For Burke the sublime is something able to excite the
ideas of pain and danger and is a feeling similar to terror. He says that terror and pain are the
strongest emotions and that there is an inherent pleasure in such feelings. Whatever provoked these
emotions could be defined as sublime.

Temi: Guerra e pace / Totalitarismi / Alienazione / Sogno

1984 by Orwell - → Continuous war /→ The Party /→ No love /→ Utopia e distopia

Orwell was a prolific writer and all his work was based on his interest in the social and political
conditions he had observed. He insisted on tolerance and justice in human relationships, strongly
criticising totalitarianism, warning against the violation of liberty and helping his readers to recognise
tyranny in all its forms. His last novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, was published in 1949 and was a huge
success, it was a dystopian vision of a future world (an imaginary unfair society in the future where
people are suffering) ruled by an oppressive regime controlling every detail of people's lives. While a
utopia is an ideal or perfect community, a dystopia shows a possible future society that is anything but
ideal and that satirises existing conditions of society.

The story takes place in a squalid and terrifying London in the year 1984. The oppressive world of
Oceania is ruled by the Party, led by the Big Brother, and is continuously at war with other States. In
order to control people’s lives, the Party is implementing Newspeak, an invented language, and
threatening them through the Thought Police. Free thought, sex and any expression of individuality
are forbidden, but the protagonist, Winston Smith, illegally buys a diary in which he writes his
thoughts and memories. At the Ministry of Truth, where he rewrites historical records to support state
policy, Winston notices an attractive girl named Julia and they begin a secret affair. They are arrested
by O’Brien, a Party spy, and taken to the ‘Ministry of Love’, where Winston is tortured and
brainwashed for months. Once 'cured' and released, he meets Julia, but no longer loves her. He has
completely given up his identity and has learned to love Big Brother (→alienation).

Alienazione - Orwell creates a model of what the world should not become by presenting a frightening
picture of the future under the control of ‘Big Brother’. There is no privacy because of the ‘telescreens’
watching over people, love is forbidden and the country is in a perpetual state of war. The Party has
absolute control of the press, communication and propaganda. Language, history and thought are
controlled through the Newspeak, the official language, whose lexis is so limited that people find it
impossible to express their own ideas. Any form of rebellion is punished with prison, torture and
liquidation. The novel reveals the author’s sympathy for the millions of people persecuted and
murdered in the name of the totalitarian ideologies of the 20th century. The impression of Nineteen
Eighty-Four is a sense of loss, a feeling that beauty and truth, and all finer emotions and values, are
lost. This is symbolised by Winston Smith, the last man to believe in human values, he experiences
alienation (the feeling of having no connections with other people around) from society. Orwell
believed that if man has someone to trust, his individuality cannot be destroyed because his identity
arises from interaction, not autonomy or isolation.

Guerra / Totalitarismo - The novel is set in a state of perpetual war reminiscent of World War II. The
idea for the three countries described in the book came to Orwell in 1943, the same year of the Tehrān
Conference where US President Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Churchill and Soviet Premier Stalin
met to coordinate their military strategy against Germany and Japan and to make decisions about the
post-war period. The society reflects the political atmosphere of the tyrannies in Spain, Germany and
the Soviet Union. That is why the novel is pervaded by descriptions of hunger, forced labour, mass
torture and imprisonment, and perpetual monitoring by the authorities. The Big Brother is both Stalin
and Hitler, both terrifying leaders, though on opposite sides. So Orwell made clear that he was against
any form of totalitarianism.

Temi: Progresso / Infanzia / Povertà

Dickens e Oliver Twist - → Dickens e Oliver,infanzia difficile / → Lavoro minorile /→ The Workhouses

Second of 8 children, Charles Dickens went to school at 9, but at 12 his father went to prison for debts
and he had to go to work in a blacking factory producing shoe-polish for 3 years. Thanks to this
unfortunate experience, he learnt the conditions of the poor, which gave him plenty of material for his
literary work. In his novels he denounced the exploitation of children in factories and the bitter life in
slums and also dealt with the conditions of the poor and the working class in general. His didactic aim
was very effective, since the result was that the wealthier classes got to know about the poorer. He
never wanted the oppressed to rebel or protest, but to make the ruling classes aware of the social
problems. He wanted to denounce the social evils of the time.
His experiences had led him from the depths of the poorhouse to popularity. By describing
social causes in his works, creating vivid and unforgettable characters, he became the most
appreciated author of Victorian Britain. His characters were often caricatures of vices
and virtues. His humour was based on the creation of characters with distinctive peculiarities
and of comic situations. His sympathy with the oppressed and indignation against social
injustice made him an important voice of his Age. He treated the consequences of the
Industrial Revolution on the poor, child labour, the legal system and crime. Children
are often the most important characters in his novels. Examples of good children as opposed
to worthless grown-ups illustrate how they become the moral teachers instead of the taught.
The novelist’s ability lay both in making his readers love his children and putting them forward
as models of the way people should behave.

Exploitation - Children were a convenient workforce for employers, as they were given
lowest wages than adults. Those who were not in the workhouses worked to help their
families, since with the industrial revolution the amount of jobs for children had increased.
They worked in factories, farms, in homes as servants, in mines, in cotton mills, on the streets
selling things such as flowers, matches and ribbons, some boys also went to sea, as boy-
sailors, and girls went 'into service' as housemaids. The social matter of child labour was one
of the most debated among Victorian intellectuals. There are still 152 million children in the world
who are victims of child labour. Half of them are forced into dangerous work activities that threaten
their health, safety and moral development. Africa has the largest number of child labourers, but this
phenomenon, although hidden, is also frequent even in the most advanced countries.

The workhouses - Dickens attacked the social evils of his times, such as poor houses, unjust
courts and the criminal world. With the rise in the level of poverty, workhouses run by parishes
were built all over England to give relief to the poor. But the conditions in the workhouses
were appalling and they didn't provide any means for social or economic advances. Plus,
instead of alleviating the sufferings of the poor, the officials who ran workhouses abused their
rights as individuals and caused them further misery.
The Poor Law Amendment of 1834 had standardized the system of poor assistance in Britain,
and groups of parishes were combined into unions responsible for workhouses. Under the
new law, poor couldn't be helped in their own homes, but had to go and live in workhouses.
Conditions in the workhouses were deliberately harsh and degrading in order to
discourage the poor from relying on parish relief. Families were split up, They were allowed to
see each other only at meal times or in the chapel, but they couldn’t speak to one another. Children
were not taught to read and write, which was needed to get a good job. The food was
tasteless and was the same day after day. Both grown-ups and kids had to work hard for their
food and accommodation, often doing unpleasant jobs. Children could also be 'hired out'
(sold) to work in factories or mines.

Oliver Twist (1837-39) - Oliver is an orphan who was born, lives and works in a workhouse.
The living conditions are terrible and the boys are starving. Oliver is chosen to ask for more
food one evening, provoking a terrible reaction from the officials, who offer 5 pounds to who
will take him as an apprentice, and he's finally sold to an undertaker. He runs away and gets
to London where he enters a gang of thieves. He is arrested and saved by his victim, Mr.
Brownlow. The gang take him back and he's forced to participate in a burglary, where he is
shot. The gang want to capture Oliver again, one of them, Monks, is Oliver's half brother.
Their wealthy noble father has left almost everything to Oliver and he wants to kill him to get
everything for himself. In the end the gang leader, Fagin, is hanged and Monks dies in prison.
Oliver learns about his identity and gets his inheritance. He is adopted by Mr Brownlow and
can finally enjoy a quiet life in the countryside.
Temi: Doppio / Follia / Il male / Velocità e cambiamento

Stevenson's Dr. Jackill and Mr Hyde - → Jackill & Hide /→ Mr. Hyde d/→ Trasformazione

In the Victorian England, home of scientific and technological progress, of rapid change and
development, a sense of pessimism and anxiety aroused in a society full of contrasts. The creation of
wealth was accompanied by poverty and double moral standards. Even London showed a double
nature reflecting the hypocrisy of Victorian society: the respectable West End was in contrast with the
appalling poverty of the East End slums. Good and evil, savagery and civilisation are presented in the
story of The strange case of Dr. Jeckill and Mr. Hyde. Its protagonist has two identities, the rational
and moral Dr. Jackill, who changes in the depraved and evil Mr. Hyde by drinking a potion he created
himself, giving way to all his worst instincts.

In the 1870s London, Mr Utterson is a respectable lawyer and friend to Dr Henry Jekyll. After
investigating the odd behaviour of his friend, he discovers that, fascinated with the duality of man, he
has created a potion able to release his evil side, Mr Hyde, who commits a series of crimes. Once
back in his shoes, Dr. Jackill feels remorse for Hyde's actions, but there's little he can do to get free
from the domination of his wicked part. The two beings are in a perpetual struggle. The only way Jekyll
has to eliminate Hyde is by killing him. Finally, Hyde commits suicide to avoid to pay for his crimes.

As Jekyll has lived a virtuous life, his face is handsome, his hands are white and well shaped, his body
harmoniously proportioned. Since Hyde is pure hate and evil, he is pale and dwarfish, his hands are
dark and hairy, he gives an impression of deformity. Though the evil side of Jekyll’s nature is initially
less developed, Hyde gradually spoils his good twin. The smaller Hyde begins to grow in stature and
the original balance of good and evil in Jekyll’s nature is permanently defeated.

The novel is the portrayal of the duality of human nature. Jekyll says that “man is not truly one, but
truly two", and he imagines the human soul as the battlefield for an angel and a demon, each
struggling for control. But his potion, which he hoped would separate and purify each element,
succeeds only in bringing out the dark side. Once released, Hyde slowly takes over, until Jekyll
ceases to exist. If man is half angel and half demon, one wonders if the angel has given way
permanently to Jekyll’s devil, or if Jekyll was simply mistaken: man is not “truly two” but is just the
primitive creature embodied in Hyde, kept under control by civilization, law, and conscience. According
to this theory, the potion has just uncovered the civilized mask, exposing man’s real nature.

Temi: Infinito

Oscar Wilde - Dorian Grey e la ricerca di bellezza e giovinezza all'infinito

The portrait of Dorian Grey (1891) is the story of a young man, corrupted by his vanity and dedication
to pleasure. His beauty fascinates a painter, Basil Hallward, who paints his full size picture, and
looking at it Dorian becomes aware of his own beauty. At Basil's house Dorian meets Lord Henry
Wotton, a dandy, a pleasure-loving aristocrat who talks about beauty, youth and the search for
pleasure. He says that he should enjoy his youth and satisfy his desires not counting their costs. So
Dorian makes a pledge (pact with the devil) and wishes his portrait will bear the signs of time so that
he'll stay young forever. He lives a life of selfish pleasures, becoming cruel and immoral, and the
portrait shows the ageing and ugliness of his corrupted soul, while he always looks as young and
beautiful as ever. In order not to let anyone see it, he hides the picture in the attic, but Basil sees it and
Dorian kills him. Following all Dorian's bad deeds, the portrait becomes even more disgusting, a
witness of his sins. So Dorian, one night, decides to destroy it and stabs at it. A terrible cry is heard in
the house, the servants find a stabbed, dead wrinkled man on the floor by the beautiful portrait and
realise it is Dorian only from his rings.

The picture represents Dorian's double, his dark side he tries to hide from the world. It is a sign of his
hypocrisy, typical of Victorian society, a facade he uses to be accepted while fulfilling his lowest
desires. But Dorian is punished in the end, and the novel teaches a moral lesson, even if that was not
Wilde's aim.

Dandy = Wilde adopted the aesthetic ideals that life should be lived as a "life as a work of art", filling
each moment with intense experiences and sensations. Art's only purpose was beauty. He lived as a
dandy, an aristocrat whose elegance is a symbol of the superiority of his spirit. The dandy would be
nearer to perfection if he could absorb more sensations. Life was meant for pleasure and pleasure
was a search for the beautiful: beautiful clothes and talks and delicious food