British literature: Romanticism

1. Revolutions

• Europe&America- political, economic, social&philosophical rev.
• new attitudes crashed across the Old World=ne energy=new literature
• the era of liberal rev began in the New World when 13 Am colonies revolted against the UK, on July 4, 1776 the Declaration of Independence, 1778 treaty of Paris=UK ok with Am
• then came the French Rev (more violent, complex, influetial, controversial, loved, hated)
• this brought the modern era in politics to Fr
• at first great hope for common people (the rev)->then massacres, execution of Louis XVI& Marie Antoinette, Reign of Terror (by Robespierre, 1793-94)
• 1793 they declared war on UK (the Napoleonic wars lasted until 1815), there were severe domestic problems in UK (GIII declared mad, GIV enemy of liberals)
• Industrial Rev- begun 1780s when the Romantic Age had produced drastic social and economic changes        technological innovations -> large factories (steam engine- by J Watt, mining for coal to get steam increased)
  

2. Nature of Romanticism

• reaction against the universiality of Fr cultural domination, the Fr Neoclassisim and poets began to seek inspiration in native themes
• back to nature, rural scenes, primitive&common feelings&diction expressed spontaneously
• the age was hectic, emotional exuberance, tremendeous intensity in text and lives (suicides, duels to death, madnesses, strange illnesses)
• The poets lead bohemian lives (long hair, no wigs), they rejected materialism, dirven by a sence of an unlimited univere
  

3. W. Wordsworth (1770-1850)

• First to announce literary ideals of the Eng Rom Age, was peaceful, wrote about nature, serene. Lost mom when young->sent to an excellent grammar school in Hawkshead. Ardent supporter of the Fr Rev, fell in love with a Fr women called Annette, but couldn't marry, Fr rev doomed-> fell in depression

• Wrote Lyrical Ballads (1798) jointly with S.T. Coleridge, the preface was a formal announcent of a new literary age (man is depicted as a helpless creature living at the mercy of supernatural forces)
  

4. Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)

• Childhood was influenced by Robinson Crusoe and Arabian Nights, he didn't get a degree in Cambridge because he was unhappy & disillusioned with university life. He was an idealist, supporter of the Fr rev- later brought disappointment to him. He was tormented by rheumatism and was an opium addict.

• 1795 he met Wordsworth who soon moved with his sister Dorothy to Somerset, near Coleridge.

• He was influenced by Wordsworth, he wrote of characters & persons supernatural (e.g Kubla Khan)
  

5. Lord Byron (aka George Gordon) (1788-1824)

• He was uncommonly handsome, talented, had a fierce temperament, but also suffered from handicap- a club foot. Yet he became an outstanding athlete, masterful swimmer, horseman, boxer, cricket player and boxer.

• He was a decendant of two aristocratic but flamboyant & violent families. Became lord when he was 10. At Cambridge was on known fior a lavish lifestyle. He had bear as a pet there. After university he travelled on horseback from Portugal&Spain on to distant lands. On his return he effortlessly wrote Child Harod's Pilgrimage - he was instantly popular

• Then he became center of scandals, he separated from his young and lovely wife. When he was 28, he self-imposed himself to exile, never to return to England. He died shortly after his 36th birthday from exhaustion

• Best works: Don Juan (unfinished), Hebrew Melodies, Hours of Idleness. He is the creator of the byronic hero (love and hate mixmatched)
  

6. Jane Austen (1775-1817)

• wrote domestic comedies (humorous, ironical), she valued truth and never idealised her characters

• she is known for the lack of events in her own life (never married, although several suitors)

• the narrowness of experince, meagrness of her opportunites is often stressed

• she began writing in her mid-teens, some works: Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, Pride and Prejudice, Emma
  

7. Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832)

• born in the family of a barrister, became lame for life when 2 years old, sent to his grandparent's farm where he became a strong boy. When older grew fond of reading. He became a lawyer, practised for 14 years. During this time he visited places of famous battles and collected old ballads, folk-songs etc. He wished to record all the historical facts he knew before they were forgotten. He felt that the good days were gone.

• When 26, he married and bought a house in Abbotsford. It became sort of museum of Scottish history and culture- it was visited by famous people.

• He first published translations of German poetry, then came The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, these poems brought fame. He published several poetic works but when Byron appeared he left the field of poetry to his rival (actually they were friends). This marked a new period in Scott's creative work. In 1814, published a novel, Waverly, but anonymosly, the book was a great success. He published several novels under the name of The Author of Waverly but his secret leaked. He wrote more than 25 novels(+ tales, stories), including Guy Mannering, Rob Roy, Ivanhoe

• In 1818 he accepted the offer of baronetcy, it seemed everything was going right but then his publisher John Ballantyne went bankrupt. Scott was in debts, he worked fiercly to pay the debt but his health broke down, he was sent to Italy but had to turn back. On his arrival at Abbotshire he died.
  

British literature: Realism 1865-1914

1. The changes in America after the Civil War

- huge transcontinental expansion

- cities war transforming (sanitation, gas, electric lights, major rebuilding in some, urban transportation, modern architecture)

- education, literacy increased; books & journalism reached a wider range of readers

- the war left bitter memories & the innocent optimism gave way to a period of exhaustion

+ country morally exhausted + U.S. was now one nation + end of slavery

- Americans increasingly idealized progress & the self-made man (era of the millionaire manufacturer & speculator; survival of the fittest)

- business boomed (experience in the management of men and machines)

+ trans-American railway, transcontinental telegraph + enormous natural resources

- constant influx of immigrants (seemingly endless supply of cheap labor)

- massive industrial growth but also farming was doing well: vast amount of timber used, buffalo/ wild game gave way to cattle, sheep, farms, villages & cities (half of the population in towns)

- problems of urbanization and industrialization: poor & overcrowded housing, unsanitary conditions, low pay, difficult working conditions; strikes, labor unions, reform movements

2. The tendencies in literature.. - .. were realistic. The novels depicted the damage of economic forces & alienation of the weak individual; survivors endure through inner strength (individuality!)

- realism - man & society - naturalism - man as a biological being, there is no spiritual creation, value or control.

3. Mark Twain (1835-1910) aka Samuel Langhorne Clemens

- Pseudonym comes from the leadsman's cry to the pilot when water is safe, but barely safe, lies ahead (twain = two fathoms deep = kaks sülda vett kiilu all)

- wrote "Life on the Mississippi" based on his romantic memories; national fame came with "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County and Other Sketches"; "The Innocents Abroad" was a tale of a tour in Europe and East; "The Gilded Age" showed the new morality of the Americans; "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" followed. (Also: "Tom Sawyer Abroad", "Tom Sawyer Detective", "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court", "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg", "A Tramp Abroad", "The Prince and the Pauper")

- The Adventures of TS - two "bad boys", life on the Mississippi & in USA in the 19th century. The boys witness a murder & as the innocent Muff Potter is accused Tom gives evidence in court. H&T stalk Injun Joe (the murderer), Tom & Becky get lost in the caves where Joe is hiding, find the treasure, get out of cave, cave closed, Injun Joe dies in the caves. Elements of Realism (stagnant life of the small town) & Romanticism (the world of Tom and his friends)

- The Adventures of HF - considered as a sequel to TS. H is a boy who'll not accept the kinds of freedom the world is able to offer and flees -> symbol of man's inevitable, restless fight. H was adopted, his father abducted him, H flees, joins up with a runaway slave Jim. Along the way down Mississippi H learns about the evil of the world. He has a big moral problem - he has to return the slave but decides the slave is also a man & brakes the law. After that, he is already a grown man.

4. Jack London (1876-1916)

- the men who influenced him: Charles Darwin (scientist of evolution) - Earth was very old, all species evolved from sea; Herbert Spencer (philosopher of evolution) - the fit would survive; Friedrich Nietzche - struggle to be the "superman"; Karl Marx - The Communist Manifesto (philosophy of socialism)

- got his material from his work as a sailor, tramper, canner, oyster pirate, jute-mill worker, coal shoveler and from his adventure in Alaska during the gold rush.

- The Northern Stories are the fruit of London's material collected during the gold rush. The stories are: The Son of the Wolf, Children of the Frost, Love of Life, The Call of the Wild (dog Buck feels betrayed and goes back to the wild), White Fang (3/4 of wolf, bred like one, becomes domesticated), To Build a Fire (a man freezes to death in Alaska stupidly thinking he can build a fire whenever just because he has matches)

- Martin Eden - autobiographical novel, London's own struggles to overcome his lack of book-learning, to turn from a rough sailor to an educated man & author in 3 years. Ends with suicide.