TEXTOS DE LA LITERATURA INGLESA: SIGLOS XIX Y XX

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION
Revolution and Reaction (pdf BB introduction to romanticism)

ROMANTICISM
It was a new paradigm in which what mattered was expressing a feeling, more than a
coherent movement it is a feeling. Reaction to enlightenment and neoclassicism. Expression
of freedom, in relation to politics. Against the ideas of classicism, the romantics look for other
sources of inspiration like darkness, and other historical periods like the middle ages. The
figure of the outcast is very adequate for this period’s individual who hates their
contemporaries and is despised by them. There is an element of escapism in romantic
poetry. They looked for another approach to religion

The mentality that dominated for most of the eighteenth/nineteenth century was

Benjamin West. Agripina landing at Brundisium: neoclassicism, very thing is in its place,
harmony
In a romantic painting there is no order, everything is out of place. In an individual picture,
the protagonist is not at front, although at the center, set apart, they are not looking for our
respect and attention (neoclassicism wants you look at the protagonist), nature is also
important

Ppt
The romantic period (1789-1832)
1789: French revolution
1832: First Reform Bill → a piece of legislation by which middle-class men could vote; this
marks the beginning of the Victorian era

Turbulent period in society: inequality, general discontent with parliament, industrial

revolution
Adam smith was the father of laissez-faire → do not put restrictions on the market, anything
could be bought and sold

In the 1770s, James Watt developed the Steam Engine for industrial purposes. Power was
available for pumping water out of mines, for manufacturing textiles fabrics, etc.the north of
England was the market of the world

The demand of labour led to the migration of workers from the country to the cities. People
were treated like slaves, which was allowed until the beginning of the century, women had
very few rights, children were very much appreciated in mines without security.

Formation of an Empire
A spirit of freedom ran through the world
Independence of the colonies of America

In France there was revolution in 1789 and they issued the Declaration of the Rights of
Man, influenced by the declaration of independence of American colonies. The revolution

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was followed by a dictatorship with Napoleon. Although the revolution failed, the feeling of
freedom and independence was still found in society

Romantic poetry
● Heart, feeling, imagination
● Revolt against conservative morality
● Extreme assertion of the shelf (above all, the individual is what matters, not society),
value of the individual experience, emphasis on the trascendental

The writing that is produced at this time is deeply connected to the feelings of society?
towards politics

Usix major English romantic poets

william Blake
● William Wordsworth
● Samuel t. Coleridge
● Next generation: George??????

Recurrent features in romantic poetry

● Feelings
● Spontaneity
● Nature
● Commonplace
● Supernatural
● Individualism
Without this features it is not romantic poetry

Feelings: William Wordsworth's The Prelude (1799, 1805, 1850)

For Wordsworth “poetry was the espontáneos overflow of the inner powerful things” →
poetry was the expression of emotion, his growth as a person

An autobiographical poem in black vers, it deals with infancy, school days, Cambridge, his
political awekinning in France. The poet is presented as a chosen being with an overriding
duty to his poetic vocation

SAMUEL COLERIDGE (A MANO)

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY (1792-1822)

● A rebel and an incomformist, he fought against injustice and oppression
● He was expelled from university for his pamphlet The necessity of Atheism (1811)
● He married Mary Godwin (Mary Shelley) and left England in 1818, never to return
● “Ode to the West WInd” (1819), Prometheus Unbound (1820), Adonais (1821), A
Defence of Poetry (1821)
● He died drown in his own boat

“Ode to the West wind”

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Summary: the poem is about the seasons in relation with the wind. It is divided in five parts.
In the first part, the author compares Autumn with Spring, then, in the third part the author
starts talking about summer and the Mediterranean and finishes talking about the winter. He
also mentions NO

Leaves are like the people demanding change

Part I: key word is ‘leaves’
Prepare the ground for the spring moving the seeds, circle of life
The wind is destroyer and preserver

Part II: key word is ‘clouds’, the wind is so strong it moves them, the clouds are like leaves
Storm that will liberate our thoughts

Part III: it moves the sea, the waves bring us back to the Mediterranean

Part IV: the author is saying that if he were free and volatil he would have never asked for
help; ‘the thorns of life’ a metaphor for the pains and problems in life that he suffers; we are
not the same because I'm human but we are in spirit
Anti masculine this poem is: ‘i bleed’ women bleed, not men but he does, like women

Part V: he wants to incorporate into himself some of the elements, he wants to be the wind
and the wind to be him, if you go through me my poems will reach mankind

FEATURES
● WEALTH OF SYMBOLISM
● GREAT POWERS OF METRICAL Orchestration
● Wonderful adaptation of terza rima
● Swift rhythm fast speed, Shelley's creative sensibility was based on his restlessness
● “his verse always seems to lean forward, so that it must run in order not to fall” F.R.
Leavis

ABOUT SPONTANEITY
● “When my brain gets heated with thought, it soon boils and throws off images and
words faster that I can skim them off. In the morning, when cooled down, out of the
rude sketch, as you justly call it, I shall attempt a drawing” P.B. Shelley

JOHN KEATS (1795-1821)

● From humble origins, he started writing when he was 18 and stopped at the age of
24. In these 6 years he produced the most important body of work of the Romantic
movement. His parents died young and was put under his grandmother’s care and
the with a guardian
● Endymion (1818), Hyperion (1819), The Odes (1819)
● In his poems we find a gracious movement, a detailed description, a delight at the
sheer existence of things (commonplace), and a set of characteristic oppositions

Poet of beauty; he was in the world of thought, philosophical poet

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He wanted to deal with a topic and trying to understand what he was talking about at the
same time as trying to expand the readers’ knowledge
His body of poetry has no parallel in English literature
He trained as an apothecary (pharmacist)
He moved in literary circles in London. He was heavily criticized by the establishment for
being of low rank and dubious morals. He made friends with Shelley and met Wordsworth…
He soon developed tuberculosis, a disease that had already killed his siblings and mother
The Odes were written in the summer of 1819, already ill. The only “cure” for it was to go to
a warm climate. Shelley invited him to Rome but he died a couple of days after his arrival.
He is buried there

“Ode o a Grecian Urn”

-The first stanza is all questions about what the vase is
-The second stanza is about another scene about a young man playing a pipe and a boy
and a girl trying to kiss
-The third stanza is about the leaves/boughs that will always be green; the musician will
always be playing music/piping in contrast to human love, which can be a little complicated
-The fourth stanza is about a cow that will be sacrificed and the people are following a ritual
to sacrifice it, that’s why the city is empty. This corresponds with the urn being a historian
-The last stanza is expressing that the vase will remain when his generation dies. Tease us
out (sonsacar), to make us think, provoke thoughts in us. The poem ends with an enigma

The contemplations of this vase makes him wonder about eternity

VICTORIAN PERIOD (1832-1900)

Edward Edgar “Pomp and Giramstance” (1904) Victorian composer
Modern Britain is the result of this period
Victoria was the only child of Edward, duke of Kent. She became queen at the age of 18
(1837) when her uncle died. In 1840 she married a German prince whose name was Albert,
who became prince consort. They were married for 21 years because Albert died in 1861.
They had nine children, they married their children with the different royal families of Europe.
She reigned for 63 years. She died in 1901. She turned the monarchy into a ? Institution,
that is bringing it to appear as a middle-class household/institution. She distanced it from
aristocracy and brought it closer to the people in appearance. She was a very serious
person, aware of the significance of the class system and wanted to maintain it and give
everyone their respect. She was also a woman of affairs, did not run the government but
followed closely the actions of it. She gave people an empire and 1876 She became an
empress of India . She was the most powerful person in the word in the 19th century

Some facts about her life

● Born in 1819, died 1901
● became queen at the age of 18 in 1837
● in 1840 she married a German prince, Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
● Prince albert died in 1861
● All in all, she reigned for 63 years

Understanding the age through Queen Victoria

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 ● She was an emblem of the times
● She turned the monarchy into a middle class institutions
● she was aware of the significance of the class system in maintaining order
● ?

Queen Victoria and prince Albert

● Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg exerted a great influence on her
● They set the standards for many ideas of the time (woman serves man, man is the
intellectual and allowed to read, domestic life, monogamous and faithful marriage)

● Prince Albert was a man of duty, very responsible, he planned the great exhibition of
1861;
● When he died, she built monuments and building in his honour
● They both symbolized a sense of security as the country was well governed
● William Morris was a designer of patterns and queen victoria loved him so people
started buying his designs

British empire: the debates of the age were placed within a global context for the first time.
the Victorian men were supposed to be adventurous and risky in order to conquer

Invention of the telegraph, toilet, camera, gas power/system

however convinced of their superiority, they were able to absorb other cultures

victorian era related to being clean

royal warrant: a mark of recognition of those who supply goods to the household of HM the
Queen. This was good for the economy

Victorian values
● family

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 ● Women: patriarchal society; during this period, gradually, women began to fight this;
until the 1860s women could not go to university
● sexuality: very normal to have children to serve the country; purical society in which
the question of sex was immoral, prudish society, no or little information and
everything related with sex was unpleasant; men were encouraged to not masturbate
because it was considered as problematic; women were not supposed to be excited
about sex, any mental problem was ascribed to sex, it was something they had to
endured; prostitution at this time was tolerated because men had the urged, until they
got married; lesbianism officially did not exist, two women living together were giving
each other company
● Respectability
● The wife cares for the husband, the children would be in a boarding school
● the home is an Englishman’s castle
● Wife was the angel, domestic management given to her
● The dominant discourse was based on the separation of spheres, work belongs to
the husband (public sphere) and home belongs to the wife (private sphere); there
were some thing men were supposed to do as well as women had things they were
supposed to do; also in values (women: patient, self sacrificed, obedient)
● Men should have a proper house, with servants, children properly educated, devoted
wife, clean. This was promoted by Queen Victoria herself because she believed in
this
● Patriarchal society but adored the Queen because she supported the idea that the
man was the authority; it was different in the working class, where women had to
work

Victorian society
1. aristocracy: life of luxury with dozen of servants, exclusive lifes because men
belonged to private societies
2. Middle class: kept the country running, people who had factories,... Respectability
was very important, they needed to show they had money, they were the foundation
of the society
3. Working class: worked long hours, lived in slums, very poor conditions, little
sanitation, until the second half of the century the unions began to organised
themselves
4. the ‘residuum: those who could not be part of the rest; vagabundos, orphans, criminal
underworld
British bee hive

Three periods of the Victorian Age

● Early Victorian. 1832-First Reform Bill
● Severe depression and unemployment. Unacceptable working-class conditions of
living. The People's Charter (1838). Protests against Corn Laws
● Mid-Victorian. Time of prosperity, better conditions of living. The Great Exhibition
(1851). UTILITARIANISM: "It is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is
the measure of right and wrong" Jeremy Bentham
● Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species (1859). He demonstrated that we are related
to the apes

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 ● Late Victorian. International competitors in industry (USA, Germany). 1867-Second
Reform Bill (this opened a chance for the representation of the working-class in
parliament). Trades Unions developed in 1868

Literary culture in the Victorian period

Victorian Culture (by)
It speaks about art, especially literature. Art was a vehicle to convey social values. a painting
gave a message, your place in society, what was proper and what was not. The artist
contributed to this moral ideas
● Literacy was a very important force in the formation of ideology
● All forms of writing were interconnected
● Most of the population was a highly literate society. The Victorians were people who
wanted to reflect, think and for that they read a lot. This writing had a moral function:
cultural, moral standards were transmitted in the writings. This is a very much
stratified society. Reading and writing was considered adequate for a woman
● The newspaper was the most important way of transmitting these ideals, and it was
very probably that the writers of the age wrote there

Literary Genres
Victorian literature exhibits a great variety in style and in subject matter. In prose the author
appears as an advisor.
● Prose: the author as an adviser. Flourishing of lyric prose
● Poetry: retrospective diction, modulation of genres, extension of colloquial diction.
Authors: John Ruskin and Walter Pater. The only genre in which things could be said
because of its language. They continued the trend of archaic language that had
begun with the romantics. The most common form of poetry was the ellegy, a lament
that suited the sentiments of the Victorians.
● The novel: new methods of publication, widening of the fields of interest, the novelist
as a public figure. It was the time of great novels. Charles Dickens, Brontë sisters.
Everybody read novels because authors were advisers and exposed their view of
society. It offered a panoramic view of society and readers wanted to understand it.
Authors as guides could expand their ideas about society and that was what readers
wanted. They were also popular because of the new methods of publication,
publishing novels by installments, in fascicles with chapters of a novels (this was the
most common way of reading); then the book would be published. The chapters were
also published in magazines. The book was written at the same time it was published

The condition of England novel

● The “Condition of England” question was the situation of poverty of many people in
England in the mid-19th century
● The “Condition of England” novels are the fictional response to that problem
● Novels as “eye-openers”: exposing the evils of society to a public who did not know
about this poverty
● Different classes interact with each other because middle-classes did not care about
them
● Novels: Benjamin Disraeli. Sybil or the Two Nations (1845)
● Elizabeth Gaskell. North and South

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George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) 1819-1880
● An extremely learned and cultivated woman. a woman of her own, independent. She
was a translator of German, and could read Latin and Greek. She had a private life
and lived with a married man. In order to protect her privacy, she would write under a
masculine name. She had a religious upbringing but then became agnostic. From her
childhood she preserved some morals, what is right and what is wrong. In her novels
there is always a moral dilemma.
● Although an agnostic, strongly influenced by religious concepts of duty, morals an
behaviour
● Adam Bede (1859)
● The Mill on the Floss (1860)
● Middlemarch (1871-2)

Middlemarch: a novel with a multiple plot with several interlocking set of characters
● The scene is laid in the provincial town of middlemarch (Coventry) in the years before
the first reform bill
● All of the characters related to one another without strain and together they make a
network that encloses the whole life in the provincial city

SHERLOCK HOLMES: A STUDY IN SCARLET

ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
● Born in edinburgh, he was brought up by wealthy relatives
● studied medicine at the university
● A study in Scarlet (1887)
● The Sing of the Four (1890)
● The Hound of the Baskerville (1901)
● The Valley of Fear (1914)

Sherlock Holmes is British. The most icons may be The Beatles. Some character relevance
is Doctor Who

DETECTIVE FICTION
Edgar Allan Poe created the figure of the modern detective in fiction: Auguste Dupin in The
Murders of the Rue Morgue (1841). In France, Emile Gabourian created the figure of Lecoq,
Monsieur Lecoq (1868), another detective who solves crimes by paying attention to clues.

Chapter 2: page 20

Critized to Sherlock. he uses forenses skills for

sherlock holmes vs Lecoq? every main character needs to someone like watson

THE VICTORIAN UNDERWORLD

In Victorian times, the emphasis on respectability and an extend puritan code of behaviour
led to social hypocrisy

writers took a keen interest in describing the double standard of the middle class.

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Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), by Robert Louis Stevenson exemplifies like
no other work of fiction how many men indulged in unstated vice while presenting an
impeccable conduct to their fellow citizens.

The middle classes were both anxious and fascinated by the London underworld. With cases
like Jack the Ripper (1888) panic was whipped up by the press sensationalism.

THE RISE OF DETECTIVE FICTION OF VICTORIAN AGE

● Ascendance of the middle class
● new divorce laws; The Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Act (1857)

SHERLOCK HOLMES: A BRITISH CULTURAL ICON

● A fictional private detective created by Arthur Conan Doyle
● First appearance in A Study in Scarlet (1887)
● Life, personal character, women
● he has a Victorian mentality

THE METHOD OF SHERLOCK HOLMES TO SOLVE CRIMES

● Logical inference
● Florist in science

CONAN DOYLE AND DARWINISM

ACD was a man trained in science, a doctor. it was a time where discoveries were being
made. He was a ‘fan’ of Darwinism, he truly endorsed this. Holmes is a product of the
Darwinian revolution, because he believes in the power of science to describe and
understand the world. Everything can be explained with science. SH’s mind is scientific. He
writes an article about the science of deduction, which is what he does, this is a proof of the
highly literate society of the time

EMPIRE
Victorian fiction is grounded on cultural assumptions of superiority of the English over the
colonized people of empire
Empire inhabits Victorian texts silently and circumspectly. It’s something not to be
questioned; it is taken for granted

The experience of the Afghan war for Watson is negative. it leaves him in very low spirit
when he goes back to London and tries to rent an apartment
This ideology is ingrained in them, British people. They do not think of the harm they are
doing in the country they are invading
war is business by getting money, or being captain and returning to Britain as a hero

VIDEO: First anglo-afghan war 1839-1842; second anglo-afghan war 1878-1880; these wars
were to conquer the land because it was the corridor between the Russian empire and India.
Despite many loses, the second war was successful

THE PROBLEM OF POVERTY: LONDON POOR

● In Victorian times, the problem of poverty seemed insuperable

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 ● Poverty and inhuman conditions in workhouses stirred the national conscience, but
also generated fear
● Holmes employs a number of street children as intelligence agents. He is an
intermediary between the poor and the reading public. he can have access to he
underworld

Watson is scandalized by the presence of the children in his home. These children are
deserving poor (they need the people's attention, who have to help them). They are called
‘street Arabs’. The author don't want the reader to be disgusted by the presence, he wants
us to know that they are deserving poors and need our attention

Why does he act as he does? He is not a hero, he does not solve crimes because of the
victim or to restart justice. It is an intellectual challenge. If he cared about the victims, he
would be the archetype of the hero and that is boring

Victorian women poets

● Victorian poetry: love poems
● Importance of the poetry in the Victorian era
● Women poets
● Elizabeth Barrett Browning
● Christina Rossetti
To be a poet was more intellectually challenging than to be a novelist. Some characteristics
of the romantic poets remained but the Victorians were Puritans so they changed things.
they were very innovative, they tried to blend two forms of poetry. The most famous type was
the lyric poetry and the elegy (a lament for a lost friend/love, someone who has died). For
women poets, poetry was one of the few outlets in which they could express their feelings

How can you write about love without being ‘ñoño’? avoid clichés, being authentic, love is
imperfect

The philosophy of the separate spheres

It was thought that women were best equipped for the private and domestic realm (the angel
of the house); men were naturally suited to the active, aggressive and intellectual domains of
public life

Caricature of the spinster

Women who did not conform to rules were criticised and ridiculed, ad in the case of the
spinster (a derogatory term for a woman who does not marry). to become a fallen woman
was the worst for them

Elizabeth Barret Browning (1806-1861)

● one of the most important women writers of the Victorian era
● In her teens she damaged her spine and was an invalid for a long time. For this she
was overly protected
● More famous than her husband
● Poems (1844)
● Aurora Leigh (1856)

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Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)
● Elizabeth Barret married Robert Browning in 1846
● They settled down in Italy, where they lived until her death
● In her Sonnets from the Portuguese she expressed her love for her husband
● These 44 sonnets were not meant to be published, but her husband insisted on
making them known to a wider audience

Sonnet 21
This sonnet is made of the combination of two quatrains (abba abba) and two tercets (CDC
dcd)

Repetition of sounds (and even words) is important to recreate the tolling of bells. Repetition
is a key issue in this poem, but repeated sounds must not seem tiring, they should be
smooth and fluent. How is this effect achieved?

Is this a conventional love poem? Girl says to boy ‘I love you honey, you are wonderful, you
make me feel so good…’, is that it? This is not a submissive woman, she is active, this is the
kind of active love. The woman is the boss as she is the one ordering him to love her forever
The philosophy of the separate spheres?

CHRISTINA ROSSETTI (1830-1894)

She belonged to an emigré italian family, lived since an early age in a highly cultural
atmosphere.
She was devout Anglican, destined to be a governess but retired through ill health
She lives in a highly literate environment

HER POEMS
● Most of her love lyrics are records of frustration and parting
● Technical virtuosity
● compact, cryptic lyrics by which she explores te issues of the day
● Goblin Market (1862)
● The Prince’s Progress (1866)
● Sing Song: A Nursery Rhyme Book (1872)
● Very clever poet, unconventional
● her brother a famous painter: Dante Gabriel Rossetti

THE PRE.RAPHAELITE BROTHERHOOD

Through her brother, painter and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, she became associated with
the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, an artistic movement that opposed traditional notions of
beauty and artistic decorum. They hated the sentimentality of Victorian paintings. They told
stories about the bible, they wanted to represent the simplicity of painters before Raphael.
They used pure colours that Victorian art had over elaborated

THE PRE-RAPHAELITES
A movement founded by painters:
● Dante Gabriel Rossetti
● William Holman hunt

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If there were any corresponding features in literature to the Pre-Raphaelite movement, these
would be the Spence of archaic diction, courtly love allusion, vaguely religious symbolism
and sensuous descriptive detail

Dante Gabriel Rossetti “in all thou doest, work from thine own heart, simply”
The aesthetic movement
● It was intensely self-conscious about style, mannerism, fragile sensation, veiled
symbols and sexual ambiguity
Oscar Wilde, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Walter Pater

THE TURN OF THE CENTURY

● For many the late Victorian period was an extension, at least on the surface, of the
influence of the preceding years
● But there were sights that solid building of Victorianism was not so stable:
● New competitors in the international scene
● The Boer war
● Unrest in Ireland
● Working class movements
● Suffragettes
● Women started to protest: universal suffrage. New Woman, New morality

THE EIGHTEEN NINETIES

In literature, new currents were expanding, and the novel was form which seemed able to
include all kinds of sensibilities:
● The scientific romance- of H.G Wells
● The narratives of empire of Rudy add Kipling (The Jungle book)
● The gothic novels of Bram Stoker.
● Pre-modernist example of the dissolution of Victorian values was the movement
known aestheticism.
● The War of the World (1987). It was a new mentality above the Victorian period

AESTHETICISM
● The anesthesia celebrated sesudos beauty and disdained orthodox moral, social and
political ideas
● Art for art's sake- was their motto. They were accused of being self-indulgent,
perverse, devoid of social purpose.
● They celebrated the body and pleasure. It is contrary to masculine man of Victorian
style

FROM THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY BY OSCAR WILDE

● The artist is the creator of beautiful things
● Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt whithout being
charming. This is a fault
● Those who find beautiful meaning in beautiful things are cultivated. For these there is
hope
● We can forgive a man for making a useful a long as th does not admire it. The only
excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely
● All art is quite useless

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CHARLES BAUDELAIRE (1821-67)
● The most representative figure of symbolism
● He luxuriated in decadence. In fleurs du mal (1857). He dealt with sex, death,
profane, love, lost innocence.
● The body as an object of pleasure

OSCAR WILDE
● Poet, novelist, short story writer, playwright and literary critic
● His flamboyant aestheticism attracted attention, much of it hostile.
● He was a great conversationalist; dozens of witty sentences are attributed to him. He
became the center of attention. He married a woman of upper class. He began to
have homosexual thoughts. He likes la mandanga and he loves it.

MAIN WORKS:
● Poems (1881)
● The Happy Prince and other Tales (1888)
● The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)
● The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)
● The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1989)
● De Profundis (1905)

SALOMÉ (1893), BY OSCAR WILDE

● A stylized chronicle of horror, overripe sexuality, cruelty, perversion, and lust.
● Salome, a Judaea princess, seeks impure, forbidden, morbid pleasures.
● It possesses a strange musical quality and trance-like progress.

It was published in 1893 in French and in 1894 in English because French people are more
liberal and the play contains desire and sexual content.

it is an extreme example of aestheticism

Herod is a king and is married with Herodias, his sister-in-law, so it is considered as

incestuous

Salomé is the daughter of Herodias and Phillip, Herod’s step-daughter. She demands the
head of the Prophet/Jokanaan (who is constantly denouncing the marriage of the king as he
considers it a sin). Herod desires her. Because of the crime of Jokanaan, Herod orders to kill
her. Salomé desires Jokanaan, a holy man, and it is not proper. She manages to kiss him

this is a decadent play because its desires are the motive force of the play. The whole play is
a circle of unnatural desire

In this context, the only force is desire, but it is not positive. All kinds of moral values are
disminished by sexual desires

Is Salomé an immoral play?

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 ● Amoral: having or showing no concern about whether behaviours is morally right or
wrong
● Immoral: conflicting with generally or traditionally held moral principles
● The play is amoral as Salomé does not feels that she is breaking the rules. She is
above morals, desire for her is so strong that she does not care about the morality of
the society
● An unfulfilled circle of forbidden desire

THE EDWARDIAN ERA 1901-1ST WORLD WAR

Edwardian society:

● Liberal government of 1906, Social reforms that improved the conditions of the
working class
● Period of great innovations
● Improvement in the social condition of women. It was the last time women wore
corsets because of the practice of sports; universal suffrage
● With the National Insurance Act in 1911, the lawyers and different types of
employees payed taxes to when they retired or needed medical help
● Middle-class and working class had more time to practice sports

Edward VII:

● He had a brief reign (1901-1910), but the term ‘Edwardian’ normally is used to the
period until WWI. It means ‘a relaxation of the morals’
● the period was both of great social change and consolidation of power of the ruling
elite

David Herbert Lawrence (1885-1930)

An artist who aimed to harmonized the intellectual and emotional forces in human nature.
Among the disruption of society, he withdrew into the stronghold of his own personality. He
believed that modern society and mechanization was making the human being loose their
integrity and abilities

He came from humble origins, being the son of a miner and a school-teacher. He obtained a
scholarship to study at Nottingham University and became a teacher. He had a poor health
and abandoned teaching to become a full-time writer in 1912. After 1919, he left England
and travelled all around the world: Italy, Australia, ceylon, USA. He died from tuberculosis at
the age of 45.

He is famous because of his explicit description of sex, at that time it was considered
inmoral. He fell in love with the wife of one of his teachers and they were together until his
death.

He searched for the soul of human beings in a time of industrialization and mechanization in
all spheres of life.

His main works are: Sons and Lovers (1913), The Rainbow (1915), Women in Love (1920),
Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928)

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Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928):

The book was banned in England for its allegedly pornographic content. In a famous trial in
1960, Penguin Publishing House was prosecuted for printing the full text.

WOMEN IN LOVE

Rupert is Ursula’s school inspector.

The novel deals with the complex…

Lawrence depicts in a frank and straightforward manner the sexual attraction between the
characters. Ursula is a school teacher and her sister Gudrun is a painter who has just
returned home from art school in London. Ursula falls in love with Rupert, a school inspector
and Gudrun feels attraction for Gerald, a rich industrialist. The scene takes place during the
Edwardian era in the Midlands, England.

Lawrence sometimes writes informal and in a colloquial way

Ursula has a clear mind and knows what she wants, although she is conventional. At the
beginning, her idea of marriage is negative, she thinks it’s the end of experience, but then
she changes her mind. She wants a full adult relationship with her partner. She's moderate
but expects something from her lover. She goes alone to meet with Rupert, so she is
determined, has her own personality. She is able to convince herself and reason with herself
to go alone

Gudrun is not as affectionate as her sister. Emancipated, rebel, vindictive. She is attracted to
Gerald but at the same time she resents his masculinist attitude. She has a toxic relationship
with Gerald. Her relationship with Ursula. She does not want to limit herself to one man

Rupert is in a relationship with Hermione but falls in love with Ursula. He's more intellectual
and philosophical

AGAINST VICTORIAN MORALITY

“The old way of love seemed a dreadful bondage, a sort of conscription. What it was in him
he did not know, but he thought of love, marriage, and children, and a life lived together, in
the horrible privacy of domestic connubial satisfaction, was repulsive” (Chapter 16, talking
about Gerald? idk)

Rupert Birkin is the most similar to the author. He's intellectual, he hates people but loves
Ursula. He wants Ursula to be there and he wants to be with her but not in a conventional
relationship. He's physically weak, an unconventional intellectual. He believes that there is
an individual core/essence that only the individual can reach. He expresses clearly what he
wants with Gerald, who is confused. Rupert is more open minded. He wants to preserve his
individuality

Gerald . The idea that he feels something too is not good for him, he does not want to accept
it. He's a rich middle class. He's arrogant, selfish. He forces a horse to suffer, imposing his
masculinity. What happens to him at the end is a result of his conflict

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SEXUALITY IN WOMEN IN LOVE

Lawrence considered that sex was part of the inner selves of the characters, his scenes of
sex always have a cosmic illusion, described with mystical terms, organic and polistic. He
was a champion of sexual liberation, it was part of human nature and Victorians rejected it.
Meaningful sex. His attend to imagine the erotic sensations of women is a way of
approaching to each other

ISSUES OF CLASS

Lawrence belonged to the working class but he ascended to middle class because of his
works and connections. In the book, he represented all social classes. His father was a
gold-minner (minero) and his mother wanted her children to have education and not be like
his father. She used to be a teacher but left it. Some critics say that when he . A way of
connecting with other men is a way of connecting with him? The working class people in the
book are not presented in a good way

Style: free indirect speech. Sometimes the narrator gets inside the minds of the characters

Rupert wants to be with Ursula but beyond love. He wants her o meet him in an upper
dimension. What he really wants is not to suffer

Idea: Willie zur Macht by Friedrich Nietzsche “The Will to power”. This is a driving force in
human that makes us overcome difficulties, a principle. Birkin sees this in the cat although
Ursula does not. At the end, common sense and love prevail.

style of writing beginning of Mino: free indirect speech, he mines narration with the thoughts
of the character

Willie zur Macht

Willie zur Macht or Will to Power is a concept taken form the philosophy of Friedrich
Nietzsche by which he meant the driving force of humans. to achieve personal growth,
independence and perfection this principle assumes an indomitable personality in
individuals. For some, it simply implies imposing one’s power on others.

THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: MODERNISM

Countries like
for the first time killing had industrial scale. Countries like Germany or Italy put all their
industry in building weapons. Chemical weapons were used, cities were bombs. A million
people died in the British empire. In WWI, more than 6 million.

The inter-war period 1919-1939

● The First World War (1914-1918) created a deep impact on people’s minds: the world
was no longer a safe place
● A high degree of unemployment in the industrialized areas of Britain
● Creation of the Irish Free State (1922)
● Women obtained the right to vote (1928), first country was New Zealand
● Severe economic crisis: the 1929 Wall Street Crash
● The 1930s in Europe: the isle of fascism

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 ● New forms of popular entertainment: radio and cinema
● A powerful working movement everywhere: communism; there was a lot of
unemployment
● Governments had to implement cuts in education and others to survive the post-war
● period where politics was very important and democracy faced many threats

International politics in the 1930s: Fascism and Communism

Communism hid a very oppressive society, there was no freedom. For many, the solution to
this was fascism. Totalitarian regimes. a kind of order was imposed. Writers wrote with
political intentions.

New forms of entertainment

Radio and cinema. They were cheap entertainment. Cinema palace. Education was
improved because women could attend universities and new universities were created. In
1935 a new publishing house was created: Penguin. The paperback was created with
Penguin in 1935. With this method, printed book became cheap, before they were hardback
(tapa dura).

Better conditions of living: social houses

In the suburbs of British cities new developments of houses spread out along roads and
fields. many of them with a little garden and a backyard

Alienation of the artist

● Capitalism
● General crisis
● Mechanization
● Dehumanization
● Instability
● Mass entertainment
● Popular culture

A new style of writing was imposing itself due to three external factors
1. The general background of belief which formerly united the writer with his/her public
had disappeared
2. A new notion of the nature of consciousness (Sigmund Freud )
3. The speed of modern living (industrialization, urbanization, secularization) led to a
sense of insecurity and fragmentation

The innovative attitude of the age made artists rethink their ideas on form, trying to express
themselves in new ways

Modernism
As a literary movement, it flourished in Europe and America in the 1920s and 1930s.
Modernist writers experimented with forms, devices and styles. They were influenced by the
psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud. Their work reflected a sense of loss,
disillusionment and despair. They saw a fragmented world but hoped it could be countered
by their works.

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T.S. ELIOT: master of poets
● He is the great figure of modernist poetry. His highly intellectual and allusive poems,
most notably The Waste Land (1922) established him as the voice of a disillusioned
generation. Nature trying to foster a new beginning but does not want to (April is the
cruelest month)

Literary experimentation
● Modernist writers took traditional forms and warped them to make new creations.
One of their themes was “Make it new”
● These writers also rejected the traditional story-telling structures. Instead. They
experimented with stream of consciousness and non-linear progressions. The
essential loneliness was the key: people/characters locked in themselves

Features of modernist literature

● Experimentation with narrative technique
● Self-conscious manipulation of form: to create a perfect world that has its own unique
structure
● Concentration on the psychology of the free human individual
● A new relationship between truth and fiction: truth is not really interesting, it is
associated with what has happened in the world. everyone's going to represent its
subjective truth
● Interest in reflecting the complexity of modern urban life

JAMES JOYCE (1882-1941)

● Born in Dublin, he was educated by the Jesuits
● He lived outside Ireland most of his life, but he wrote about nothing except Ireland
● His short stories and novels were published after great delays and difficulties. His
books were greeted with enthusiasm by other modernist writers
● Eldest of nine children
● He was sent to a Catholic? boarding school
● Became a non-believer, although at his time everyone was a catholic, even his family
● His family was from rich middle class
● He went on exile, because in that oppressing society he could not live nor write want
he wanted
● He spent his life in continental Europe, in places like Switzerland and Italy
● His first attempt towards writing a novel was Stephen Hero, but he had to leave it to
return to Dublin because his mother was ill
● He didn't marry until late with Nora Barnacle. Their first date was 16th June 1904,
now a festivity: Blooms Day (the day Ulysses takes place).
● They settled in Italy. He worked there as a translator and an English teacher. They
had two children: Giorgio and Chia. The family was very poor
● He suffered from eye trouble, and was operated 9 times. At the end of his life, he was
almost blind
● Samuel Beckett was one of his assistant
● He had a lot of problems with publishers because the kind of writing he wanted to do
(critical, issues dealing with health, sex) was considered dangerous, even
pornographic, although it is not focused on sex particularly
● His work revolutionized the form and structure of the novel

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 ● Dubliners (1914), excellent collection of short stories of characters in Dublin, very
sad. It established him as a modernist writer, in Ireland it was banned
● A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916). He took his old novel Stephen Hero
and rewrote it (5 years for SH and 7 for APOTAAAYM)
● Ulysses (1922), published in Paris because it was considered pornographic, the first
time it was published in England was in 1936. He wrote to friends and family about
locations. Stephen is also a character here, he has failed as an artist and is
depressed. Leopold and Stephen met. It finds a parallel with the Odyssey. Joyce
wanted to include everything, all kinds of writings, knowledge. Everything that
happens in Homer's epic poem finds a parallel in the life of a normal man (Leopold)
● Finnegan's wake (1939). Nothing realistic, cosmic dream. Took 17 years to write,
every single word has double meaning, coinage of words, no narrator
● He lived with the help of benefactors, usually American, because writing did not give
him much earnings
● Because of the problem of his eyes, he used to wear white so that the light would
reflect on his clothes and see better
● He lived all his adult live outside Ireland but he only wrote about the country
● He liked drinking although he was devoted to his family and his writings

A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN

● A Künstlerroman, it describes in a semi-autobiographical way the development from
his early childhood to student days of Stephen Dedalus, acquiring gradually a sense
of his own destiny as an artist
● Gradually we will see Stephen separating from everything (family, religion…) until he
is free at the end. Process of becoming an artist
● From the POV of Dedalus, how he experienced that. In Stephen Hero it was the
author telling everything but he changed it (era innovador). Do not believe everything
Stephen does and says, sometimes he is selfish, conceited, stupid, unfair
● The novel has a clear structure and in at the end there are some moments of
explosion as he gets too emotional
● The author has gone into the mind of the protagonist and the reader have to interpret
it
● The novel is written in episodes, no transition. It is a reflection of how we grow up,
making mistakes and bumping into things. When you remember your childhood there
are no transitions, suddenly the episode appears, flashes of memory. There is a lot of
ellipsis between episodes, the reader has to fill in the gaps
● References to politics and religion, very important
● In the first chapter, the boy finds out about politics, and it makes people mad,
something very emotional. At the time of writing the novel, Ireland was a colony. The
author rejects this, he wants independence. There was a movement for something
called Home Rule, in which a political party defended it. Irish people wanted to
govern themselves, the leader of this political party is going to be present in the book,
Charles Stewart Parnell (1846-1891)
○ An Irish Nationalist politician, defender of the Home Rule for Ireland in the
English Parliament
○ Because of a scandal involving an adulterous love affair in 1890, the catholic
church withdrew its support and he fell in disgrace
○ In Ireland, not to have the support of the church became him an outcast

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 ○ He was the uncrowned king of Ireland
○ Irish Nationalist Party was divided in Parnellist and Non-parnelist?
POLITICS AND RELIGION
● When the book begins, Ireland is a colony
● Irish Parliamentary Party
● Politics is a battle for emotions
● Mr Dedalus and Mr Casey (an activist and has been in prison) are secularists and
want politics and religion to be separate. Pro Parnell
● Dante is an orthodox nationalist, religion should interfere in politics because priests
care about the people what they say must be followed. Against Parnell
● In the middle, Stephen, who is confused and does not understand what is happening
around him; Mrs Dedalus; Uncle Charles. They are caught in the middle between the
two sides
● The Christmas dinner takes place soon after Parnell's death
● Chapter 5:
○ “Try to be one of us, repeated Davin…”
○ “My ancestors threw off their language and took another… they allowed a
handful of foreigners to subject them. Do you fancy I am going to pay in my
own life and person debts they made? … No honorable and sincere man has
given up to you his life and his youth and his affections…but you sold him to
the enemy or failed him in need of reviled him and left him for another. and
you invite me to be one of you. I'd see you damned first”

STRUCTURE OF THE NOVEL

● Modernist text
● It is build in the form of building up towards an epiphany in the end of each chapter
● Epiphany: a revelation of an inner experience in an enlightening way, almost like a
mystic experience, by which the individual understands a five station form a new
perspective
● That epiphany is broke down/dismantled and described in prosaic terms at the
beginning of the following chapter
● the epiphany of the first chapter is that he thinks he is a hero because he talked to
the rector. At the beginning of the next chapter, his father told the story of when he
went to talk to father deulan? And the rector and they laughed at Stephen for what he
had done
● the epiphany in chapter 3 is that he has a vision of a sea with a woman
● The structure of the book resembles the way human beings grow up. It encapsulates
the life of human beings

SEXUALITY IN A PORTRAIT
● Sexuality in the novel is represented as an aspect fraught with guilt and fear
● Stephen veers between indulgence and pertinence as regards sexual matters
● At this time sexuality was surveilled by the society, Joyce was enraged at this
negative pressure put on young men and women in their development as adults. He
had a liberal view. He was enraged that all the people in the country were repressed.
Anyone who transgresses the norms will be punished and abandoned by the people,
criticized by the church. The lack of education in sexual affairs, Stephen has a
romantic idea of sex

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 ● He idolizes women and sees them as objects

STEPHEN’S STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLES

I will not serve that in which I no longer believe whether it call itself my home, ,my fatherland
or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as a I can
and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use, silence,
exile and cunning (Chapter 5)

Non serviam: his final achievement, his motto, he will not serve to his country/religion/family.
The phrase is supposedly what Lucifer told God. To be an artist he needs to be independent

The traditional representation of Ireland is an abandoned woman. Joyce says that instead of
this image, tries to change the image of nature: a generous woman, offering her house, food,
body…,the fact that she is pregnant is a hopeful future and that she is half naked means
outside the victorian corset

STEPHEN’S AESTHETIC THEORY

“I mean that the tragic emotion is static.or ather the dramatic emotion is. The feelings excited
by improper art are kinetic, desire or loathing. Desire urges us to possess, to go to
something; loathing urges us to abandon, to go from something. These are kinetic emotions.
The arts which excite them, pornographical or didactic, are therefore improper arts. The
esthetic emotion… is therefore static.” (Chapter 5)

Qualities of universal beauty (aquinas): wholeness, harmony, radiance

THE SECOND HALF OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

German thinker Theodor Adorno: “To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric”

George Orwell’s 1984 (1949)

A dystopia in which the omniscient leader of the party, known as Big Brother, controls
everything, even the people’s history and language. By the implementation of an invented
language called Newspeak, political rebellion is eliminated, because all words related to
protest are forbidden. Even thinking rebellious thoughts is illegal. Such thought crime is, in
fact, the worst of all crimes…

It is a denunciation of individual control, the intrusion of private life.

Philosophical response, contemplate the state, try to understand ourselves

The theatre of the Absurd

A literary current that took place after WWII, in which a pessimistic vision of humanity is
portrayed. The drama of this period reflects the vain attempts of the characters to find a
meaning in life. These characters are hopeless, bewildered, and they engage in purposeless
activities.
Authors: Fernando Arrabal, Samuel Beckett

SAMUEL BECKETT’S WAITING FOR GODOT (1953)

Two tramps, Vladimir and Estragón, are trapped in an endless waiting for the arrival of a
mysterious personage named Godot, who never comes. ‘Tod’ in German means death, they

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can also be waiting for God. The drama captures a mood. The most important part is the
idea of waiting, not the idea of who are they waiting

Endgame (1957)
Some kind of cataclysm/natural disaster has happened. Apparently, these are the only
survivors of mankind, the future. They are running out of food and nothing happens.

CHARACTERISTICS OF BECKETT’S THEATRE

● Precision
● Aesthetic simplicity and austerity
● Repetition
● Influence from music hall and circus
● There is no message to transmit

SAMUEL BECKETT (1906-1989)

● Born into a well-off Protestant family in Dublin
● Studied at Portora Royal School and later at Trinity COllege Dublin (1923-27)
● Lecteur d’Anglais at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris (1928-30)
● Met James Joyce and became a close friend. He became one of his assistants.
Joyce's daughter fell in love with him and then Beckett was forbidden in the house.
With the passage of time they became friends again and Joyce became his master.
Some of Beckett’s works resemble Joyce’s writing
● During the Second World War he was a member of the resistance and went into
hiding
● His play En attendant Godot (1953) made him world famous. He wrote in french
because he wanted to write without style, author’s personality is not transmitted in
their words
● Recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature 1969
● Died in Paris

CHARACTERISTICS OF BECKETT'S THEATRE

● Precision
● Aesthetic simplicity and austerity
● Repetition. The characters keep on with their routines
● Influence from music hall and circus
● There is no message to transmit

THE BECKETTIAN HERO: an exploration of failure

Beckett's heroes are normally invalids, decrepit individuals, set apart from society, unable to
communicate with the rest of mankind, in the last stages of life.

His characters are tramps and outcasts who have abandoned worldly pursuits and long to
dissolve into nothingness.

Human life is depicted as senseless, absurd, confusing, and we only have language to
interpret it, which is an imperfect and misleading instrument, nor reliable, that’s why he
explores other means of communication

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MAIN TOPICS IN ENDGAME
● End of time. It gives the tone, the general environment of the play
● Relationship master-servant. a power relationship, they are always engaged in a sort
of verbal competition to see who has the last word but nobody wins
● Recreation as a curse
● Passing the time
● The need of an audience in our lives

POSTMODERNISM
A wide-ranging term that is applied to the state of the art and culture in the last decades of
the 20th century, and is characterized by skepticism, relativism and subjectivism. There is a
general suspicion of reason and individuals shape their own reality through their perception.

Great distrust towards the grand narratives, the great ideals of mankind (like the power of
reason…)
Art at this time has this characteristics: moral relativism, there is not a fix set of morals;
pluralism; irreverence
There is an international scene characterized by threats of terrorism, nuclear, school
shootings, war conflicts (Ukraine, Palestine), and destruction of the environment. It is a world
of chaos

A DEHUMANIZED WORLD
Advertising projects the wealth and affluence of a privileged class as if it were the norm for
most of the population. The imposition of consumerist capitalism is the main feature of our
time, an economic system in which either you buy or you are out.

Over abundance of news, disasters, terrible event and we react with closing our eyes. We
live in a time of virtuality, we only want the headlines/summary and news can be
manipulated

We are also exposed to a massive love of advertising in which we are sold a false promise
of happiness

Consumerist capitalism

The artists adopt the virtuality of the world, they let incoherence into their art. They
participate in this fragmentation. There is little in terms of morals

POSTMODERNISM is the response in art to a collective sense of insecurity. Art participates

in the feelings of shock and dislocation of modern living. Postmodern texts often revel in
uncertainty, they make use of multiple narratives to reinforce the sense of subjectivity. The
new frame of reference is popular culture, and it is frequent the blending of several genres in
a single text and a playful experimentalism with language. There is a strong metafiction
component too (Literature does not let you forget that it is a work of fiction). Literature
reflecting the unease of contemporary society.

CHARACTERISTICS OF POSTMODERN FICTION

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 ● There is not a single, unifying current: mixture of styles, form, trends. Frequent
parodic imitation of styles from the past
● The idea of “the end” is a frequent topic: social disintegration
● Playful experimentalism: postmodern text celebrate their provisionality by playing
with words and breaking the idea of an omniscient author
● Metafiction: the postmodern text has a special interest in showing its own artifice

MARTIN AMIS (1949-2023)

● British author
● “In my writing I am fascinated by what I deplore, or I deplore what fascinates me”
● “I have strong moral views, and they are much directed at things like money and
acquisition, but I don't offer alternatives to what I deplore”

A WRITER IMMERSED IN THE ANXIETY OF HIS TIME

“I was born on August 45, 1949: four days later, the Russians successfully tested their first
atom bomb, and deterrence was in place. So I had those four carefree days, which is more
than my juniors ever had”

HIS MAIN WORKS

● The Rachel Papers (1973)
● Dead Babies (1975)
● Success (1978)
● Other People (1981)
● Money (1984)
● Einstein’s Monsters (1987): a collection of short stories about the world turned into a
barren landscape because of nuclear bombs
● London FIelds (1989)
● Time’s Arrow (1991): a novel written backwards
● The information (1995)

MONEY (1984)
● Economic liberalism imposed itself
● The world was dominated by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher
● The protagonist is John Self: he is a protocapitalist, his life is defined by what he
consumes, he does not like culture. “My way is coming up in the world. I’m pleased”

The rise of the yuppie

A culture of money-making fostered the appearance of the young urban professional
(yuppie), a symbol of a greedy age.

Thatcher’s policies
● Control of public spending
● Privatisation of industries
● Reduction of the power of the trade unions
● Rule of the market
● Monetarism
● Cuts in social services

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Reading Martin Amis
Search for examples of:
● Things done to the language
● Bringing down high culture
● Scenes of social degradation
● Changes in the urban landscape
● Metafiction — destabilising the order of fiction
● End of time
● Ironic look at social hierarchies: the Royal Family
○ 'Premonitory crackle’: prince Charles laughs because he knows his superiority
○ 'Hi prince’/’this guy’: as if the prince was his friend, he does not consider him
as someone superior
○ 'A little darling called lady diana’: sexist perspective of lady diana’
○ 'She doesn't look as though she’ll give him any trouble— not like my Selina
gives me’: it seems that the monarchy has preselected the prince’s wife to be
docile. He establishes a comparison between Diana and Selina
○ 'The Chick’: he calls the queen in a disrespectful manner as well as sexist
○ 'Boy I wished…’ :
– He doesn’t really believe that the prince is being honest when talking about
how grateful he is for the self-discipline they taught him
- ‘The prince played Polo, climbed mountains…’: The whole TV programme is
consciously made to enhance the Royal Famiy’s image
– He says that if he had been taught self-discipline he wouldn’t have ‘had to
lift a finger’. It seems that he is insinuating that the monarchy does not really do
much
- At the end of the paragraph, he says that self-discipline is not really that fun
so he does not really want to learn it (the prince must be really bored, but he
isn’t thanks to his luxurious life)

The debasement of culture

New literature at the turn of the millennium

Not serious literature, but young literature
● Mainstream fiction
○ Substantial plot
○ Highly personal style
○ Psychological depth in the description of characters
○ Intertextuality: connection with tradition
● Alternative writing
○ Irreverent attitude, they just wanted to tell a story
○ Rejection of tradition
○ Spontaneity, freshness
○ Attraction to genre fiction: thrillers, sci.fi, action, pulp…

In the 1990s, house music dominated the pop charts and it had an effect on writing too
“It was perhaps inevitable that this culture would finally influence literature too. In the ifties
and sixties, jazz and psychedelia inspired writing from Jack Kerouac’s On the Road to Allen

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GInsburgh’s Howl. In the nineties, we have Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting, the book, the film
and the attitude” Sarah Champion

Writing for people who think they don’t like reading

“The venue is dark, a series of small rooms sporadically lit by coloured light-bulbs. The
scene is Bedlam. Happy crowds swing from Rafters and hug in circles. Girls roll around on
……”

American precursors of the new British fiction of the 1990s

● Douglas Copland's Generation X (1991)
● Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho (1991)

Young writers of the new millennium

● Focused on the present; young people’s lives
● Story-telling as the main function of literature
● Openness to other artistic expressions
● Interest in extreme experiences

Irvine Welsh (1957-)

● Scottish writer, world-famous for his novel Trainspotting (1993)
● He writes in a colloquial Scots dialect, with frequent use of expletives
● His characters belong to the working class and he has dealt with Scottish identity, the
club scene, football and drug abuse

EXAM
8 questions
Always a poem to be analyze but not in any way (no lo tengo, notion?, whos seaking, what
does this voice say, how is this topic structured in the poem, how does the poet handle the
words–rhetorical devices, sound pattern, rhyme, rhythm–, what other general comments
would you like to comment on this poem)
3 theory short questions, about the topics, ideology…: E.g. tell me about british society
during the victorian time, what is the condition of england noel, who was george eliot, the
connection between arthur conan doyle and darwinism, what was the pre-raphaelite
brotherhood and its connection to crhsitina Rossetti, what is the structure of women in love,
what are the main topics in endgame. Be brief and concise
4 questions about the texts, fragments: fragment of kubla khan, who is the supernatural
element…; middlemarch, stylistic features…;what is the pupose of including the boys in a
study in scarlet; hay que hacer referencias al texto (citas y eso)

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