Engels literature Flashcards
(24 cards)
What are some characteristics of the age of rationalism?
- development of rational scientific thinking, reason was the main guide to knowledge, understanding and belief
- art and literature were based on common sense and intellect
- ‘I believe what I can understand’
Which authors were important satirists?
- Alexander Pope; translated Homer’s ‘Illiad and Odyssey’ and wrote essays and poetry in the style of classical writers
- Jonathan Swift; the social, political and religious changes in the English society were the sources for his satire. He wrote ‘a tale of the tub’ in which he attacked catholics, ‘gulliver’s travels’ in which he criticises politica and religious matters in England, book 4 is a satire on the whole human race
Who was Daniel Defoe?
Daniel Defoe wrote ‘Robinson Crusoe’ for the middle class. The novel, as which this genre was called, was not taken seriously as a proper literary form, but was very popular with the middle-class leadership. As it was a period of shipping and trade voyages to unknown continents many readers could easily identify with Robinson, the poor sailor who was shipwrecked on the shore of an uninhabited island.
What are the characteristics of a novel?
- The story is in prose
- The story is fictitious
- There is character development
- The story contains a plot
- The story creates an impression of reality
What was the victorian age?
The 19th century saw England at the heights of its powers. Never before had its economic and military strength been so impressive, and never before had the country played such a prominent role in the world affairs. London was ruled over by a woman who was to give her name to one of the greatest periods in British history; the Victorian Age. During her reign the Industrial Revolution continued to change Britain; it brought wealth to a few factory owners but poverty to many of the working class.
What are the characteristics of the industrial revolution?
- Made Britain the first industrialized country in the world (the ‘workshop’ of the world)
- New inventions (steam engine and railway) increased productivity
- Brought about drastic changes in the structure of English society and increased the difference between rich and poor
- Created a huge industrial working class which lived in the slums under miserable conditions
- Social problems led to social reform, dealing with child labour, reduction of working hours, basic education and the right to vote
What are the characteristics of victorian society?
- Growth of democracy at home and the development and consolidation of the British Empire abroad
- Growth and expansion led to a spirit of optimism and confidence in what man could achieve
- Ideal society was one in which human relations would be characterized by goodwill and benevolence
- Great importance placed on morals and ethics
- Family life was important
What was the age of the novel and why?
The 19th century is the age of the novel. Audiences were larger than ever before, partly due to improved education, and literature was available for the middle class.
Who is Elizabeth Barret Browning?
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) wrote a series of 44 sonnets, about the intense love she felt for her husband-to-be, Robert Browning. She called this series ‘Sonnets from the Portugese’.
Who is Tennyson?
an author - ‘The charge of the light brigade’ is one of the best-known poems of Tennyson. The poem is one of the rare instances of a Poet Laureate (an official poet appointed by the king or queen) producing a good poem while in office. It was inspired by a thing that happened on October 25, 1854 – the British Light Cavalry Brigade, comprising some 670 men, charged disastrously against some 25.000 Russian soldiers.
Who was Charles Dickens?
one of the great novelists of the Victorian Age. He spent his youth in poverty, which affected his writing throughout his life. Het started writing when he was a reporter regarding life in London, his first great success as a novelist came with the Pickwick Papers. It was published in cheap monthly parts, a method that brought him a large audience among all social classes. Oliver Twist – second novel he wrote, first of his attacks on social wrongs in early Victorian England. The book established his reputation as a social reformer and made him the most popular novelist in his days. Several famous novels include David Copperfield (an autobiographical novel), Great expectations and a Christmas carol.
Who is William Makepeace Thackeray?
Got a good upbringing and was characterized by ‘a gentlemen writing for gentlemen’. ‘the book of snobs’ is a satire against the social foibles of his time. ‘vanity fair’ made him famous; it was a picture of the corruption of the fashionable London society in the years around the battle of waterloo.
Who are the Bronte sisters?
Charlotte and Emily Bronte – the most widely read of English novelists. Charlotte’s Jane Eyre and Emily’s Wuthering Heights both published in 1847, have found a place among the classics of the novel. Jane Eyre reflects the period in which she lived.
Who is Thomas Hardy?
his characters are simple peasants as in Tess of the d’Urbevilles, The return of the native and the mayor of Casterbridge.
George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans): bookdescription
Deals with character analysis and social analysis. Silas Marner is a novel about a weaver. The mill on the floss is partly autobiographical.
bookdescription middlemarch?
Middlemarch is a study of provincial life and deals with significant themes such as the status of women, the nature of marriage, idealism, self-interest, religion, hypocrisy, political reform and education.
What was literature like in the modern period?
Influenced by worldwide industrialization and the first World War, literary modernism was an emotional and experimental style of prose and poetry. Literary modernism allowed writers to express themselves in more experimental ways than in the past. Modernist works often contain non-linear narratives and free-flowing interior monologues that emphasize the experiences and emotions of the individual.
What are a few characteristics of modernist literature?
- Experimentation: employed a number of different experimental writing techniques that broke the conventional rules of storytelling. Some of those include blended imagery and themes, absurdism, nonlinear narratives, and stream of consciousness – which is a free-flowing inner monologue.
- Individualism: modernist literature typically focuses on the individual. Stories follow characters as they adapt to a changing world, often dealing with difficult circumstances and challenges.
- Multiple perspectives: many writers wrote in the first person perspective with multiple characters to emphasize the subjectivity of each character, and add depth to the story by representing a variety of viewpoints.
- Free verse: many modernist poets rejected the traditional structure of poetry and opted for free verse, which lacks a consistent rhyme scheme, metrical pattern, or musical form.
- Literary devices: writers rely on literary devices like symbolism and imagery to help the reader understand the writing, and to create a stronger connection between the text and the reader.
What was the switch in view on war like in the early years of ww1?
In the early years of World War 1, the war was typically viewed as a romantic, patriotic endeavour. During the later years, popular opinion shifted to view the war as wasteful and horrible, and literary works changed to match. An example is the poem ‘In Flanders Fields’, which outwardly aligns with other romantic war poetry of 1915, though it also hints at some of the concerns and perhaps even the anti-war sentiments of these later works. John Owen’s ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ is a strong rejection of the idea that killing and dying in the name of patriotism could ever be honourable.
Description of the poem; in flanders fields?
‘In Flanders fields’ is a poem written by the Canadian poet, soldier, and physician John McCrae. He wrote the poem in 1915 as a memorial to those who died in a WWI battle fought in a region of Belgium known as the Ypres Salient. McCrae was particularly moved by the death of a close friend. The poem describes the tragedy of the soldiers’ deaths, as well as the ongoing natural beauty that surround their graves. Is also addresses the question of the next generation’s responsibility to carry on the soldiers’ battle. It is popularizing the poppy as a symbol of remembrance. McCrae’s poem inspired an American professor to wear a red silk poppy as a way of remembering those who had died. The movement spread internationally and became eventually became widely recognized as a symbol of remembrance for fallen soldiers. They are still commonly worn on Remembrance Day (11th of November) in many countries (Great Britain, South Africa and Canada)
Who is James Joyce?
James Joyce is considered one of the most important English Modernists. Born in Dublin in 1882, travelled a lot in France, Italy and Switzerland, where he died in 1941. His work can be divided in two periods. First period – characterized by a realistic technique and the use of everyday language. Second period – language changes and there is a rejection of logical sequences and conventional syntax. He focuses his attention on the mental processes of human mind and he uses both the speech level, which can be communicated orally or in writing and the pre-speech level, that has no communicative basis and is not rationally controlled or logically ordered. You can see that in his ‘Ulysses’ published in 1922. It is a complex work inspired by the Odyssey of Homer. He destroys the traditional co-ordination of time and space and introduces stylistic complexity. Joyce narrates the events of one day in order to be able to follow the innermost thoughts of his characters, with all detail. The narrative technique was the stream of consciousness which enabled him to trace the inner monologue. He wants to five instanced of how a single event contains all the events of its kind, how all history is recapitulated in the happening of one day. The language he uses is rich in punt, connotation, contrasts, paradoxes and symbols. He makes use of conventional sentences that refer to reality of world and not conventional sentences that refer to the inner world and to the mind of a character.
Who is Adeline Virginia Woolf?
Adeline Virginia Woolf (25 january 1882 – 28 march 1941) was an English writer – considered one of the most important modernist 20th century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. In Mrs. Dalloway (1925) she discovered a new literary form capable of expressing the new realities of postwar England. The novel depicts the subjective experiences and memories of its characters over a single day in post-World War I London. Divided into parts, the novel’s structure highlights the finely interwoven texture of the character’s thoughts. The novel did gain a measure of commercial and critical success. This book, which focuses on commonplace tasks (shopping, throwing a party, eating dinner) showed that no act was too small or too ordinary for a writer’s attention. Ultimately, Mrs. Dalloway transformed the novel as an art form.
Who is Clive Staples Lewis?
Clive Staples Lewis (born in Belfast, Ireland 1898). Taught at Oxford University and became a renowned Christian apologist writer, using logic and philosophy to support the tenets of his faith. (the chronicles of Narnia). He was raised in a religious family that attended the church of Ireland. He became an atheist at age 15, he later described himself as ‘very angry with God for not existing’. His early separation from Christianity began when he started to view his religion as a chore and a duty. He eventually returned to Christianity, having been influenced by Tolkien. He would go on to become renowned for his rich apologist texts, in which he explained his spiritual beliefs via platforms of logic and philosophy.
In a much-cited passage form Mere Christianity, Lewis challenged that Jesus was a great moral teacher but not God. He argued that Jesus made several implicit claims to divinity, which would logically exclude that claim. One of the main theses in Lewis’ apologia is that there is a common morality known throughout humanity, which he calls ‘natural law’. In the first five chapters of mere Christianity, Lewis discusses the idea that people have a standard of behaviour to which they expect people to adhere. He claims that people all over the earth know what this law is and when they break it. He goes on to claim that there must be someone or something behind such a universal set of principles. Lewis also portrays Universal Morality to his works of fiction. In the Chronicles of Narnia he describes as the ‘deep magic’ which everyone knew.
