zkouška - otázky

British Literature in 18th-20th centuries

1) Historical and Cultural Background of Neo-Classicism, Non-Fiction, Poetry and Drama in the 18th century
Neo-Classicism – 1765 - 1830 , ( ancient Greek, classic, no novelty
-18th cent. – Age of Reason – in philosophy – Enlightment (osvícenství), Neoclassicism
Classics . Greek, Roman poets → rules: poe produced following ceratain rules is good
X Baroque, Romaticism
→ Romanticism – based on emotion, imagination X Neoclassicism
- before – only non-fiction
Alexander Pope (1688-1744) - cruel life (in the age of 12 he became paralysed) - wanted to write epos, satires
- poetry full of contrasts, inspiration in ancient (Horatius), use of heroic couplet
The Rape of the Lock (1712)- quarrel between 2 noble catholic families
The Dunciad- Paradise of idiots
sentimentalism – neoclas. → preromant. – transition
Thomas Gray – the Churchyard School of Poets
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (= cemetery) – reflecting dead peo in cemetery
- emotionality, intrested in past cultures, feelings – short lines, easy to read
comedy of manners – hard, pitty, heartless
Oliver Goldsmith – 1730-1774 - wrote big works in all genres
She Stoops to Conquer – Irish drama
The Deserted Village – sentim., nostalgic, pict. of old-fashioned village – long poem – well known
The Vicar of Wakefiels – novel
Richard B. Sheridan – 1751-1816 – playwright
A School for Scandal (Škola pomluv) – witty, funny dialogues, comedy
The Rivals

2) Beginnings of Novel: From Defoe to Austen
Novel
- 1st novelist – Daniel Defoe
- roots of the novel – prosecuriting, partly fiction and non-fiction:
1) biography – James Boswell – The Life of Johnson
2) journalism – Steele, Addison: The Spectator, The Tatler (tatle = chat)
3) diaries – Samuel Pepeys (London citizen, describes 2 y. in 1660’s of London life)
4) picaresque novel – picaro = darebák (rascal)- the only type of fiction in Eng. before novel
( Amis -Lucky Jim – picaresq. tradition in the 20th cent.
the main character: outside respectable siciety, dubious person (pochybný) – rascal, prostitute, thief
the plot: only a series of epizodes
- novel – causality = causal development of the plot X picar. novel
Daniel Defoe – 1660-1731 = father of the English novel
- more picar. novels → more dubious person, no causality
Robinson Crusoe (1719)- 1st publ. - based on real epizode – Sc. sailor A. Selkirk – for 4y. - authentic
Captain Singleton (1720) – pirate, real person, but fictional story
Moll Flanders – typ. picaresq. – series of epiz., dubious character- prostitute, 0 causality
Roxana – prostitute
Jonathan Swift – 1667-1745 – lived in Ireland (extreme poverty)
- clargymen – Dean of St. Patrick’s Cath. – Church of England
- mental hereditally illness→ extremely sensitive person – writing devoted to social problems → pamphlets = piece of writing, essay devoted to problem, satirical – publ. anonymously:
A Modest Proposal (1729) – how to prevent the children of poor Irish to be burden (břemeno) for their parents and kingdom – emotionaly involved
Draphier’s Letters (pláteník) – series of pamphlets – economical analist
A Tale of a Tub (necky) – critic of Church crisis
Gulliver’s Travels (1726) - travel book, close to diary, allegory, fantasy → clasical fantasy travel book - satire of Eng.
life in 18th cent. – very pesimistic – especially ab. country of wise horses – reasonable system of governm., respect.
- Yahoo = creatures, ugly, living with wise horses – similar to humans then G. hates people, prefer staying with horses
Samuel Richardson – 1689-1761 - epistolary novels = in letters
Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1740) – very long, complete, very popular
- 1st novel: a) psychological deep description of main char.
b) causality of the plot
- firm Pamela, employer wants her → marry her = happy
Clarissa (1747) – y. woman is raped → commits suicide – tragic
( 50y. later: Chodulos de Laclos: Les Liaisons Dangereuses (nebezp. známosti) – in letters
Henry Fielding - 1707 -1754 – very long, satirist, the biggest of his time – the best of 18th cent. novels
Shamela – parody to Pamela – tries to suduce her employer
Joseph Andrews (1742) – big novel – parodies Pamela – her brother – y., handsom, is haunted by immoral proposal of his lady employer – large picture of then England – all places, classes of Eng. – realistic setting, ironical
The history of Tom Jones, a Foundling – grown up in a rich family as their own son → army, woman
( picar. novel – not literary, a bit irresponsible – likable, happy ending
Lawrence Sterne - 1713-1768 – experimental, non-readable – exception, boring
Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy, Gentleman (1760) – experim. ( 20th cent. – no plot, lyrical
- interrupts the text by black spaces – deny trad. techniques ( deconstruction
Romantic Prose
Walter Scott – 1771-1832 – his †is the end of romant. – Scotsman * in Edinburgh – lawyer
- setting – Scot. history
( gothic novel - owned castle near Edinburgh – Abbotsford ( ghotic hounted castle – now: museum of him
- rom. plots, characters X setting, athmosphere, details of clothes, furniture – very realistic
1) collected scot. folk poe – Highland – patriotic
2) rom. epic poems – Sc. nat. hero - The Lady of the Lake
3) historical novels ( Cooper – The Last of Mohycans (younger contemporary of him- ambition to be as goog as him)
Waverly or Tis Sixty Years Since (1814) - shorter – Sc. rebelion 1745-46 – battle of Culloden – defeated, strong opression – Wawerly is a honest y. man , tries to behave with his conscience
Rob Roy (1817) – Sc. 18th cent. – real. hist. character – Robert MacGregor
Ivanhoe – 13th cent. ( Robin Hood – main char., John Lackland, Ivanhoe = y. brave man
- dialogue – Swineherd (take care of pigs) – ab. Eng. vocabulary– Anglo-Saxon peo + words – pig, ox, swine
X of French origin – Norman names of meat – pork, beef
Jane Austen – 1775-1817 – contemporary of rom., real. – between the end of 18th cent. and Victorian lit.
- expectional – 1st woman in lit. – real. novel in time of romant. - bridge between Defoe, Fielding and Dickens
- deep, good, convincinf psychology of char., real. setting
- humorous, irony, witty look on her class
- as good novelist as Dickens but she only describes very limited setting – only upper middle class which she was a member of X Dickens – described all classes
- 7 novels, still popular in Eng.
Emma (1815) – humorous study of her class, movie versions – rom. plot, real. description of upper middle clas life – hum, ironic attitude ( Dickens
Pride and Prejudice (1813) – best of her novels – y. Elizabeth (→ prejudice) + y. Darcy (→ pride) – tension
- indempendent y. woman, uses her intelect to do the right thing ( Jane Eyre
Sense and Sensibility – 2 sisters represents reason X emotions, feelings
Northanger Abbey (1797) – gothic novel – heroin thinks she lives in gothic novel – bit ironic

3) Preromanticism and Early Romaticism, Gothic Novel
gothic novel – gothic = of terror, only in Eng. - takes place in gothic times, Italy Spain
Southern Gothic – group of novel writers
Horace Walpole – The Castle of Otranto (1765) – set in Italy, 13th cent.
- haunted castles – 1st used the term; ghosts, mysterious rooms, secret corridors, unexplained phenomenons
- villain – evil person, vice – beautiful y. heroin
Ann Radcliff – The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) – set in Italy – castle, reanis (16th cent.)
( E.A.Poe, prokl. básníci, Walter Scott, ( Bronte – Jane Eyre, Jane Austen – parody
Mary Shelley – Frankenstein (1818) – sci-fi foreshadowing
- dr. Frankenstein creates the Monster – a bit awkward ( = clumsy, těžkopádné)- longish
preromanticism
neoclasicismX romanticism
the rational X the emotional - imagination
the normal – man, society Xthe strange – exception
the universal – common X the individual – 1 unique person
- folk poe: collections, immitations
Thomas Percy – highlandish Scottish poe – only collections
- border ballads – Scot./Eng. – set in Yourkshire, S of Scotl. - tragic stories ab. war, love
Two Ravens
James Macpherson -1739-1796– Scotsman – collected, imitated – pretended he found very old manuscript
Poems of Ossian (1763) –several poems – literary fraud → Ossian – from Irish mythology – a bard and a warrior – supposed to live in 3rd cent. AD
Thomas Chatterton 1752-1770- Bristol – sexton (kostelník) family in an old church
- commited suicide not yet 18y. old – wasn’t successful, wrote beautiful poe - a bodyment of romanticism
Rowley – pretended it was written in 16th cent. – wrote it in 17y.
Robert Burns – 1759-1796 – greatest pre-rom poet – Scot. – national poet of Scotland – poems put on music - simple, beautiful poems suitable for children - drunk himself to death (bohemian life)
Auld Lang Syne – sang on new Year’s Eve in Eng. – farm in Sc. highland, 1 of 7 children
Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (1786) – a collection of poe –very populat
Scots wha Hae = You Who Are Scots – national anthem
( Salinger – Catcher in the Rye – quotation by Burns – ab. teenager different from other peo – sensible, problem
( Steinbeck – Of Mice and Men - quotation by Burns
To a Mouse – longer poem (translated by Sládek – Polní myšce) – sorry for destroying her house
… the best laid schemes of mice and men are fatally destroyed …
My Hearts in the Highlands –typ. – Sc. landscape
William Blake – 1757-1827 – outstanding, remarkable – not typ. prerom., the greatest of the period
- publish. very little when living → after his † by Rosetti (1870s) - unique poems, unusual, even painter- 1st poet who engraves the poe in decorated letter and made pictures and printed it himself, used watercolour
- engraving = rytina, paintings – exhibited in Tate Gallery
- short, simple, readable, visionary
Songs of Innocence (1789) – The Lamb
Songs of Experinece (1794) – The Tiger – more sceptical, disillusion, show life as wonderful, astonishment ab. miracle of life, glories, small sins
- creates mythology that praphrases the biblical one:
The Book of Urizen (1794)– Urizon = deviser of moral codes, Orc rebels X moral
The Songs of Loss (1795) - mystical, religious
( Milton – Paradise Lost – biblical
Fearful Symmetry
( Northrop Frye – Fearful Symmetry – ab. Blake

4) Romantic Poetry
Lake Poets – older
Younger Generation – revolutionary
1798 – beg. of romantic period – Lyrical Ballads publ. – by Lake Poets – manifest. of romanticism
1832 – end of romant. - † Walter Scott
Lake Poets
- lived in Lake District - conservative – beauties of nature
William Wordsworth – 1770-1850 – close friend of Coleridge – main contributor of Lyrical Ballads
- well-off – for many years was a Poet Laureate – respectable poet – official poet of the royal family
Daffodies (narcis) – ab. nature –still popular
Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1772-1834 – opium adict – created poe under the influence of drugs
- bohemian, supported by WW, controversial
Rhime of the Ancient Mariner = A Song About an Old Sailor - chief poem of Lyricall Ballads – immitation of folk ballad – tragic ending – motif of shooting an albatros (= bad luck) – ship with dead sailors ( Flying Dutchman legend
Kubla Kham – written under the influence of drugs
Biographia Literaria – info of rom. lit. life in Britain – prose, memoars
Younger Generation
George Gordon Byron - 1788 - 1824- † in Greece – nat. liber. movement – the most glamorous (║Wilde), very romant.
- aristocrat – Lord – heredity; slightly handicapped
- lived in Italy (after divorce) – Pisa – together with Shelley and then Keats, Switzerland
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage – diary in verse for 6 y. (1812-1818) – travels- around Europe – Byron autobio
- beaut. lyrical - complaints the nature is being spoilt ( Puškin
- Childe = hered. title
Don Juan, Cain – dramas in verses
Hebrew melodies – inspired in Bible
Percy Bysshe Shelley – 1793-1822 – revolut. ideas ab. establishment, controversial youth, expelled from Cambridge, † drown
- married Harriet (16y.) – not allowed by her parents, escaped to Switzerland – kidnapping → Italy
- Marry Godwin-Shelley – 2nd wife – lived together with Shelley and Harriet in Italy, Harriet commited suicide after giving birth to their baby
The Necessity of Atheism – pamphlet – fared from Cambridge
Prometheus Unbound (1820) – drama in verse – not for playing
- rom. version of Prometheus Bound (( Greek myth.) by Aischilos
- symbol of rebelion
- reconciliation(= smíření) with Zeus in the next tragedy by Aischilos (Prometheus Bound is a part of trilogy)
Odes – celebrates sth. – To a Skylark (Skřivánkovi)
John Keats – 1795-1821 – the most talented, the youngest, 0 collection, † of TBC (║Wolker)
- lived togehther in Italy – wrotes odes and sonnets
On First Looking into Chapman‘s Homer (= new translation of Illiad and Oddysea) – fascinated of Homer’s poe
To a Grecian Urn (= amfora) – ode on Gr. art
Hickory, Dickory, Dock ( Agatha Christie → Keats / Byron
5) The Development of the Novel in High Victorian Period
1837-1901 – queen Victoria
- strict, prudery, narrow-mindness (úzkoprsost), hypocrisy – only for upper, middle class
- great changes - social life, science X low classes – very poor
- physical need of human should by denied, shouldn!t be mentioned X individuals - ↓hypocritical
- Golden Age of English Literature
Darwin – The Origin of Species (1859) – no restrictioon to scientific activities
1) High Victorian Period – 1837-1870s- Br. empire – Br. believed they are chosen to be the best (navy..) → selfconfidence
2) Late Victorian Period – 1870s – 1901
fin de siecle – end of 19th century – decadent (( Fr.)
High Victorian Period
Charles Dickens – 1812-1870 - romat., real features in his work
- shows negative aspects of Br. empire – the reverse side of life – tragic aspects – disturbing
- paradoxes – humorist (the greatest) X critic – low classes - happy endings, improbable conicidences
- lower-middle class family – great financial problems all the family placed into prison for debtas, only Charles, (12y.) worked in a factory
- peculiar figures – strange, funny – Mr. Micawber (D.C), Uriah Heep (hypocritical)
Pickwick Club – 1st novel – old middle class bachelor Mr. Pickwick and his servant live in London, travel, in prison – picaresq. reflection, eng. verbal humour – interesting for Victorians, not readable now
- parody on Don Quijote and his servant
Oliver Twist (1837) – all the features of other 3 novels
- entwiklungs roman = development of a person –all life descripton
- orphan house – run by peo who steal charity money that should be used for orphans → hunger, starving → 10y. – new family – bullied by older brother → escapes among young thieves - Faggin – better life –among prostitutes, murders - improbable happy ending – finds original family – upper-middle class
David Copperfield (1850) – hard life to reach happiness, lovestory
- boyhood – victimizing – stepfather – terrible scenes, terrized him
Great Expectations (1861) – prisoner – as a boy he was given money – lovestory
Bleak House (1853) – legal system – metaphore of judical systém – hard to r