Marxist Criticism

Marxist Criticism

Whom Does it Benefit?

Based on the theories of Karl Marx (and so influenced by philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel), this school concerns itself with class differences, economic and otherwise, as well as the implications and complications of the capitalist system: "Marxism attempts to reveal the ways in which our socioeconomic system is the ultimate source of our experience" (Tyson 277).

Theorists working in the Marxist tradition, therefore, are interested in answering the overarching question, whom does it [the work, the effort, the policy, the road, etc.] benefit? The elite? The middle class? And Marxists critics are also interested in how the lower or working classes are oppressed - in everyday life and in literature.

The Material Dialectic

The Marxist school follows a process of thinking called the material dialectic. This belief system maintains that "...what drives historical change are the material realities of the economic base of society, rather than the ideological superstructure of politics, law, philosophy, religion, and art that is built upon that economic base" (Richter 1088).

Marx asserts that "...stable societies develop sites of resistance: contradictions build into the social system that ultimately lead to social revolution and the development of a new society upon the old" (1088). This cycle of contradiction, tension, and revolution must continue: there will always be conflict between the upper, middle, and lower (working) classes and this conflict will be reflected in literature and other forms of expression - art, music, movies, etc.

The Revolution

The continuing conflict between the classes will lead to upheaval and revolution by oppressed peoples and form the groundwork for a new order of society and economics where capitalism is abolished. According to Marx, the revolution will be led by the working class (others think peasants will lead the uprising) under the guidance of intellectuals. Once the elite and middle class are overthrown, the intellectuals will compose an equal society where everyone owns everything (socialism - not to be confused with Soviet or Maoist Communism).

Thumbelina by Hans Christian Andersen

Thumbelina by Hans Christian Andersen

Here was once a woman who wished very much to have a little child, but she could not obtain her wish. At last she went to a fairy, and said, "I should so very much like to have a little child; can you tell me where I can find one?"

"Oh, that can be easily managed," said the fairy. "Here is a barleycorn of a different kind to those which grow in the farmer’s fields, and which the chickens eat; put it into a flower-pot, and see what will happen."

"Thank you," said the woman, and she gave the fairy twelve shillings, which was the price of the barleycorn. Then she went home and planted it, and immediately there grew up a large handsome flower, something like a tulip in appearance, but with its leaves tightly closed as if it were still a bud. "It is a beautiful flower," said the woman, and she kissed the red and golden-colored leaves, and while she did so the flower opened, and she could see that it was a real tulip. Within the flower, upon the green velvet stamens, sat a very delicate and graceful little maiden. She was scarcely half as long as a thumb, and they gave her the name of "Thumbelina," or Tiny, because she was so small. A walnut-shell, elegantly polished, served her for a cradle; her bed was formed of blue violet-leaves, with a rose-leaf for a counterpane. Here she slept at night, but during the day she amused herself on a table, where the woman had placed a plateful of water. Round this plate were wreaths of flowers with their stems in the water, and upon it floated a large tulip-leaf, which served Tiny for a boat. Here the little maiden sat and rowed herself from side to side, with two oars made of white horse-hair. It really was a very pretty sight. Tiny could, also, sing so softly and sweetly that nothing like her singing had ever before been heard. One night, while she lay in her pretty bed, a large, ugly, wet toad crept through a broken pane of glass in the window, and leaped right upon the table where Tiny lay sleeping under her rose-leaf quilt. "What a pretty little wife this would make for my son," said the toad, and she took up the walnut-shell in which little Tiny lay asleep, and jumped through the window with it into the garden.

In the swampy margin of a broad stream in the garden lived the toad, with her son. He was uglier even than his mother, and when he saw the pretty little maiden in her elegant bed, he could only cry, "Croak, croak, croak."

"Don’t speak so loud, or she will wake," said the toad, "and then she might run away, for she is as light as swan’s down. We will place her on one of the water-lily leaves out in the stream; it will be like an island to her, she is so light and small, and then she cannot escape; and, while she is away, we will make haste and prepare the state-room under the marsh, in which you are to live when you are married."

Far out in the stream grew a number of water-lilies, with broad green leaves, which seemed to float on the top of the water. The largest of these leaves appeared farther off than the rest, and the old toad swam out to it with the walnut-shell, in which little Tiny lay still asleep. The tiny little creature woke very early in the morning, and began to cry bitterly when she found where she was, for she could see nothing but water on every side of the large green leaf, and no way of reaching the land. Meanwhile the old toad was very busy under the marsh, decking her room with rushes and wild yellow flowers, to make it look pretty for her new daughter-in-law. Then she swam out with her ugly son to the leaf on which she had placed poor little Tiny. She wanted to fetch the pretty bed, that she might put it in the bridal chamber to be ready for her. The old toad bowed low to her in the water, and said, "Here is my son, he will be your husband, and you will live happily in the marsh by the stream."

"Croak, croak, croak," was all her son could say for himself; so the toad took up the elegant little bed, and swam away with it, leaving Tiny all alone on the green leaf, where she sat and wept. She could not bear to think of living with the old toad, and having her ugly son for a husband. The little fishes, who swam about in the water beneath, had seen the toad, and heard what she said, so they lifted their heads above the water to look at the little maiden. As soon as they caught sight of her, they saw she was very pretty, and it made them very sorry to think that she must go and live with the ugly toads. "No, it must never be!" so they assembled together in the water, round the green stalk which held the leaf on which the little maiden stood, and gnawed it away at the root with their teeth. Then the leaf floated down the stream, carrying Tiny far away out of reach of land.

Tiny sailed past many towns, and the little birds in the bushes saw her, and sang, "What a lovely little creature;" so the leaf swam away with her farther and farther, till it brought her to other lands. A graceful little white butterfly constantly fluttered round her, and at last alighted on the leaf. Tiny pleased him, and she was glad of it, for now the toad could not possibly reach her, and the country through which she sailed was beautiful, and the sun shone upon the water, till it glittered like liquid gold. She took off her girdle and tied one end of it round the butterfly, and the other end of the ribbon she fastened to the leaf, which now glided on much faster than ever, taking little Tiny with it as she stood. Presently a large cockchafer flew by; the moment he caught sight of her, he seized her round her delicate waist with his claws, and flew with her into a tree. The green leaf floated away on the brook, and the butterfly flew with it, for he was fastened to it, and could not get away.

Oh, how frightened little Tiny felt when the cockchafer flew with her to the tree! But especially was she sorry for the beautiful white butterfly which she had fastened to the leaf, for if he could not free himself he would die of hunger. But the cockchafer did not trouble himself at all about the matter. He seated himself by her side on a large green leaf, gave her some honey from the flowers to eat, and told her she was very pretty, though not in the least like a cockchafer. After a time, all the cockchafers turned up their feelers, and said, "She has only two legs! how ugly that looks." "She has no feelers," said another. "Her waist is quite slim. Pooh! she is like a human being."

"Oh! she is ugly," said all the lady cockchafers, although Tiny was very pretty. Then the cockchafer who had run away with her, believed all the others when they said she was ugly, and would have nothing more to say to her, and told her she might go where she liked. Then he flew down with her from the tree, and placed her on a daisy, and she wept at the thought that she was so ugly that even the cockchafers would have nothing to say to her. And all the while she was really the loveliest creature that one could imagine, and as tender and delicate as a beautiful rose-leaf. During the whole summer poor little Tiny lived quite alone in the wide forest. She wove herself a bed with blades of grass, and hung it up under a broad leaf, to protect herself from the rain. She sucked the honey from the flowers for food, and drank the dew from their leaves every morning. So passed away the summer and the autumn, and then came the winter, the long, cold winter. All the birds who had sung to her so sweetly were flown away, and the trees and the flowers had withered. The large clover leaf under the shelter of which she had lived, was now rolled together and shrivelled up, nothing remained but a yellow withered stalk. She felt dreadfully cold, for her clothes were torn, and she was herself so frail and delicate, that poor little Tiny was nearly frozen to death. It began to snow too; and the snow-flakes, as they fell upon her, were like a whole shovelful falling upon one of us, for we are tall, but she was only an inch high. Then she wrapped herself up in a dry leaf, but it cracked in the middle and could not keep her warm, and she shivered with cold. Near the wood in which she had been living lay a corn-field, but the corn had been cut a long time; nothing remained but the bare dry stubble standing up out of the frozen ground. It was to her like struggling through a large wood. Oh! how she shivered with the cold. She came at last to the door of a field-mouse, who had a little den under the corn-stubble. There dwelt the field-mouse in warmth and comfort, with a whole roomful of corn, a kitchen, and a beautiful dining room. Poor little Tiny stood before the door just like a little beggar-girl, and begged for a small piece of barley-corn, for she had been without a morsel to eat for two days.

"You poor little creature," said the field-mouse, who was really a good old field-mouse, "come into my warm room and dine with me." She was very pleased with Tiny, so she said, "You are quite welcome to stay with me all the winter, if you like; but you must keep my rooms clean and neat, and tell me stories, for I shall like to hear them very much." And Tiny did all the field-mouse asked her, and found herself very comfortable.

"We shall have a visitor soon," said the field-mouse one day; "my neighbor pays me a visit once a week. He is better off than I am; he has large rooms, and wears a beautiful black velvet coat. If you could only have him for a husband, you would be well provided for indeed. But he is blind, so you must tell him some of your prettiest stories."

But Tiny did not feel at all interested about this neighbor, for he was a mole. However, he came and paid his visit dressed in his black velvet coat.

"He is very rich and learned, and his house is twenty times larger than mine," said the field-mouse.

He was rich and learned, no doubt, but he always spoke slightingly of the sun and the pretty flowers, because he had never seen them. Tiny was obliged to sing to him, "Lady-bird, lady-bird, fly away home," and many other pretty songs. And the mole fell in love with her because she had such a sweet voice; but he said nothing yet, for he was very cautious. A short time before, the mole had dug a long passage under the earth, which led from the dwelling of the field-mouse to his own, and here she had permission to walk with Tiny whenever she liked. But he warned them not to be alarmed at the sight of a dead bird which lay in the passage. It was a perfect bird, with a beak and feathers, and could not have been dead long, and was lying just where the mole had made his passage. The mole took a piece of phosphorescent wood in his mouth, and it glittered like fire in the dark; then he went before them to light them through the long, dark passage. When they came to the spot where lay the dead bird, the mole pushed his broad nose through the ceiling, the earth gave way, so that there was a large hole, and the daylight shone into the passage. In the middle of the floor lay a dead swallow, his beautiful wings pulled close to his sides, his feet and his head drawn up under his feathers; the poor bird had evidently died of the cold. It made little Tiny very sad to see it, she did so love the little birds; all the summer they had sung and twittered for her so beautifully. But the mole pushed it aside with his crooked legs, and said, "He will sing no more now. How miserable it must be to be born a little bird! I am thankful that none of my children will ever be birds, for they can do nothing but cry, ‘Tweet, tweet,’ and always die of hunger in the winter."

"Yes, you may well say that, as a clever man!" exclaimed the field-mouse, "What is the use of his twittering, for when winter comes he must either starve or be frozen to death. Still birds are very high bred."

Tiny said nothing; but when the two others had turned their backs on the bird, she stooped down and stroked aside the soft feathers which covered the head, and kissed the closed eyelids. "Perhaps this was the one who sang to me so sweetly in the summer," she said; "and how much pleasure it gave me, you dear, pretty bird."

The mole now stopped up the hole through which the daylight shone, and then accompanied the lady home. But during the night Tiny could not sleep; so she got out of bed and wove a large, beautiful carpet of hay; then she carried it to the dead bird, and spread it over him; with some down from the flowers which she had found in the field-mouse’s room. It was as soft as wool, and she spread some of it on each side of the bird, so that he might lie warmly in the cold earth. "Farewell, you pretty little bird," said she, "farewell; thank you for your delightful singing during the summer, when all the trees were green, and the warm sun shone upon us." Then she laid her head on the bird’s breast, but she was alarmed immediately, for it seemed as if something inside the bird went "thump, thump." It was the bird’s heart; he was not really dead, only benumbed with the cold, and the warmth had restored him to life. In autumn, all the swallows fly away into warm countries, but if one happens to linger, the cold seizes it, it becomes frozen, and falls down as if dead; it remains where it fell, and the cold snow covers it. Tiny trembled very much; she was quite frightened, for the bird was large, a great deal larger than herself, she was only an inch high. But she took courage, laid the wool more thickly over the poor swallow, and then took a leaf which she had used for her own counterpane, and laid it over the head of the poor bird. The next morning she again stole out to see him. He was alive but very weak; he could only open his eyes for a moment to look at Tiny, who stood by holding a piece of decayed wood in her hand, for she had no other lantern. "Thank you, pretty little maiden," said the sick swallow; "I have been so nicely warmed, that I shall soon regain my strength, and be able to fly about again in the warm sunshine."

"Oh," said she, "it is cold out of doors now; it snows and freezes. Stay in your warm bed; I will take care of you."

Then she brought the swallow some water in a flower-leaf, and after he had drank, he told her that he had wounded one of his wings in a thorn-bush, and could not fly as fast as the others, who were soon far away on their journey to warm countries. Then at last he had fallen to the earth, and could remember no more, nor how he came to be where she had found him. The whole winter the swallow remained underground, and Tiny nursed him with care and love. Neither the mole nor the field-mouse knew anything about it, for they did not like swallows. Very soon the spring time came, and the sun warmed the earth. Then the swallow bade farewell to Tiny, and she opened the hole in the ceiling which the mole had made. The sun shone in upon them so beautifully, that the swallow asked her if she would go with him; she could sit on his back, he said, and he would fly away with her into the green woods. But Tiny knew it would make the field-mouse very grieved if she left her in that manner, so she said, "No, I cannot."

"Farewell, then, farewell, you good, pretty little maiden," said the swallow; and he flew out into the sunshine.

Tiny looked after him, and the tears rose in her eyes. She was very fond of the poor swallow.

"Tweet, tweet," sang the bird, as he flew out into the green woods, and Tiny felt very sad. She was not allowed to go out into the warm sunshine. The corn which had been sown in the field over the house of the field-mouse had grown up high into the air, and formed a thick wood to Tiny, who was only an inch in height.

"You are going to be married, Tiny," said the field-mouse. "My neighbor has asked for you. What good fortune for a poor child like you. Now we will prepare your wedding clothes. They must be both woollen and linen. Nothing must be wanting when you are the mole’s wife."

Tiny had to turn the spindle, and the field-mouse hired four spiders, who were to weave day and night. Every evening the mole visited her, and was continually speaking of the time when the summer would be over. Then he would keep his wedding-day with Tiny; but now the heat of the sun was so great that it burned the earth, and made it quite hard, like a stone. As soon, as the summer was over, the wedding should take place. But Tiny was not at all pleased; for she did not like the tiresome mole. Every morning when the sun rose, and every evening when it went down, she would creep out at the door, and as the wind blew aside the ears of corn, so that she could see the blue sky, she thought how beautiful and bright it seemed out there, and wished so much to see her dear swallow again. But he never returned; for by this time he had flown far away into the lovely green forest.

When autumn arrived, Tiny had her outfit quite ready; and the field-mouse said to her, "In four weeks the wedding must take place."

Then Tiny wept, and said she would not marry the disagreeable mole.

"Nonsense," replied the field-mouse. "Now don’t be obstinate, or I shall bite you with my white teeth. He is a very handsome mole; the queen herself does not wear more beautiful velvets and furs. His kitchen and cellars are quite full. You ought to be very thankful for such good fortune."

So the wedding-day was fixed, on which the mole was to fetch Tiny away to live with him, deep under the earth, and never again to see the warm sun, because he did not like it. The poor child was very unhappy at the thought of saying farewell to the beautiful sun, and as the field-mouse had given her permission to stand at the door, she went to look at it once more.

"Farewell bright sun," she cried, stretching out her arm towards it; and then she walked a short distance from the house; for the corn had been cut, and only the dry stubble remained in the fields. "Farewell, farewell," she repeated, twining her arm round a little red flower that grew just by her side. "Greet the little swallow from me, if you should see him again."

"Tweet, tweet," sounded over her head suddenly. She looked up, and there was the swallow himself flying close by. As soon as he spied Tiny, he was delighted; and then she told him how unwilling she felt to marry the ugly mole, and to live always beneath the earth, and never to see the bright sun any more. And as she told him she wept.

"Cold winter is coming," said the swallow, "and I am going to fly away into warmer countries. Will you go with me? You can sit on my back, and fasten yourself on with your sash. Then we can fly away from the ugly mole and his gloomy rooms, far away, over the mountains, into warmer countries, where the sun shines more brightly than here; where it is always summer, and the flowers bloom in greater beauty. Fly now with me, dear little Tiny; you saved my life when I lay frozen in that dark passage."

"Yes, I will go with you," said Tiny; and she seated herself on the bird’s back, with her feet on his outstretched wings, and tied her girdle to one of his strongest feathers.

Then the swallow rose in the air, and flew over forest and over sea, high above the highest mountains, covered with eternal snow. Tiny would have been frozen in the cold air, but she crept under the bird’s warm feathers, keeping her little head uncovered, so that she might admire the beautiful lands over which they passed. At length they reached the warm countries, where the sun shines brightly, and the sky seems so much higher above the earth. Here, on the hedges, and by the wayside, grew purple, green, and white grapes; lemons and oranges hung from trees in the woods; and the air was fragrant with myrtles and orange blossoms. Beautiful children ran along the country lanes, playing with large gay butterflies; and as the swallow flew farther and farther, every place appeared still more lovely.

At last they came to a blue lake, and by the side of it, shaded by trees of the deepest green, stood a palace of dazzling white marble, built in the olden times. Vines clustered round its lofty pillars, and at the top were many swallows’ nests, and one of these was the home of the swallow who carried Tiny.

"This is my house," said the swallow; "but it would not do for you to live there you would not be comfortable. You must choose for yourself one of those lovely flowers, and I will put you down upon it, and then you shall have everything that you can wish to make you happy."

"That will be delightful," she said, and clapped her little hands for joy.

A large marble pillar lay on the ground, which, in falling, had been broken into three pieces. Between these pieces grew the most beautiful large white flowers; so the swallow flew down with Tiny, and placed her on one of the broad leaves. But how surprised she was to see in the middle of the flower, a tiny little man, as white and transparent as if he had been made of crystal! He had a gold crown on his head, and delicate wings at his shoulders, and was not much larger than Tiny herself. He was the angel of the flower; for a tiny man and a tiny woman dwell in every flower; and this was the king of them all.

"Oh, how beautiful he is!" whispered Tiny to the swallow.

The little prince was at first quite frightened at the bird, who was like a giant, compared to such a delicate little creature as himself; but when he saw Tiny, he was delighted, and thought her the prettiest little maiden he had ever seen. He took the gold crown from his head, and placed it on hers, and asked her name, and if she would be his wife, and queen over all the flowers.

This certainly was a very different sort of husband to the son of a toad, or the mole, with my black velvet and fur; so she said, "Yes," to the handsome prince. Then all the flowers opened, and out of each came a little lady or a tiny lord, all so pretty it was quite a pleasure to look at them. Each of them brought Tiny a present; but the best gift was a pair of beautiful wings, which had belonged to a large white fly and they fastened them to Tiny’s shoulders, so that she might fly from flower to flower. Then there was much rejoicing, and the little swallow who sat above them, in his nest, was asked to sing a wedding song, which he did as well as he could; but in his heart he felt sad for he was very fond of Tiny, and would have liked never to part from her again.

"You must not be called Tiny any more," said the spirit of the flowers to her. "It is an ugly name, and you are so very pretty. We will call you Maia."

"Farewell, farewell," said the swallow, with a heavy heart as he left the warm countries to fly back into Denmark. There he had a nest over the window of a house in which dwelt the writer of fairy tales. The swallow sang, "Tweet, tweet," and from his song came the whole story.

The Rise of the English Novel

The Rise of the English Novel

Wilbur L. Cross

The Elizabethans

… Elizabethan England inherited much that was best in English mediæval fiction: the Arthurian romances, the moralized stories of Gower, and the highly finished tales of Chaucer. From Italy came the pastoral romance in its most dreamy and attenuated form, the gorgeous poetic romances of Tasso and Ariosto, and many collections of novelle. Some of these novelle had as subject the interesting events of everyday life; others were of fierce incident and color, and furnished Elizabethan tragedy with tremendous scenes. From Germany came jest-books and tales of necromancy; from France, the Greek story of adventure with its shipwrecks and pirates; from Spain came 'Amadis,' the 'Diana' of Montemayor, and the picaresque novel. And what the noble printers of the Renaissance gave her, England worked over into fictions of her own.

The most characteristic of her adaptations, the one that most fully expressed her restless spirit of adventure and æsthetic restoration of the age of chivalry, was a romance midway between the knightly quest and the pastoral. Of this species, a conspicuous example is Sir Philip Sidney's 'Arcadia' (1590). This romance has in places as background to its pretty wooing adventures the loveliness of the summer scenery about Wilton House, where it was planned,—violets and roses, meadows and wide-sweeping downs 'garnished with stately trees,'—and into it was infused the noble courtesy, the high sense of honor, and the delicate feeling of the first gentleman of the age. Though touching at points the real in its reflection of English scenes and the princely virtues of Sidney and his friends, the 'Arcadia' is mainly an ideal creation. The country it describes is the land of dream and enchantment, of brave exploit, unblemished chastity, constant love, and undying friendship. Villany and profane passion darken these imaginary realms, but they, too, like the virtues, are all ideal. In structure the 'Arcadia' is epic, having attached to the main narrative numerous episodes, one of which—the story of Argalus and Parthenia, faithful unto death—is among the most lovely situations romance has ever conceived and elaborated.

In direct antithesis to its Arcadias, Elizabethan England made hasty studies of robbers and highwaymen; out of which, under the artistic impulse of 'Lazarillo de Tormes' (translated into English in 1576), were developed several rogue stories of considerable pretension, such as 'Jack Wilton,' by Thomas Nash, and 'Piers Plain,' by Henry Chettle. To the same class of writings belong Greene's autobiographies, his 'Repentance,' and 'Groat's Worth of Wit,' in which the point of view is shifted from the comic to the tragic. Occasionally the Elizabethan romancers drew their subjects from the bourgeoisie. An amusing instance of this is 'Thomas of Reading,' by Thomas Deloney, which contains from the picaresque point of view a graphic picture of the family life of the clothiers of the West, and of their mad pranks in London. Its scene is laid in the time of Henry the First, and it thus becomes historically interesting as one of the earliest attempts of the modern story-teller to invade the province of history.

The most immediately popular Elizabethan fiction, whether romantic or realistic, was John Lyly's 'Euphues' (1579-80). In this romance of high life there are no enchantments and exciting incidents such as had furnished the stock in trade of Montalvo and his followers. Lyly sought to interest by his style: alliteration, play upon words, antithesis, and a revival of the pseudo-natural history of mediæval fable books. His characters are Elizabethan fops and fine ladies, who sit all night at Lady Flavia's supper-table, discussing in pretty phrases such questions as, why women love men, whether constancy or secrecy is most commendable in a mistress, whether love in the first instance proceeds from the man or from the woman—a dainty warfare in which are gained no victories. Lyly moralizes like a Gower on the profane passion; he steps into the pulpit and preaches, telling mothers to suckle their children, and husbands to treat their wives mildly, for 'instruments sound sweetest when they be touched softest;' and for young men he constructs a moral code in minute detail, such as Shakespeare parodies in Polonius' advice to Laertes. Weak, puerile, and affected as he was, Lyly wrote with the best intentions; he was a Puritan educated in the casuistry of Rome.

Lyly was the founder of a school of romancers, who, from their following the affectations of 'Euphues,' are known as Euphuists. With them all, language was first and matter secondary: 'A golden sentence is worth a world of treasure' was one of their sayings. Of these Euphuists, Robert Greene and Thomas Lodge excelled their master in the poetic qualities of their work; witness 'Menaphon' (1589) by the former, and 'Rosalind' (1590) by the latter. In fact 'Rosalind,' a pastoral composed in the ornate language of 'Euphues,' is the flower of Elizabethan romance. It satisfies some of the usual terms in the modern definition of the novel. For it is of reasonable length; it possesses a kind of structure, and closes with an elaborate moral.

The Historical Allegory and the French Influence

From Elizabeth to the Restoration, romancing and story-telling gradually became a lost art in England. An imitation of Sidney's 'Arcadia' now and then appeared, a sketch of a highwayman, and a few straggling imitations of contemporary French romance. That was about all. There was for a time a steady demand for Elizabethan favorites: 'Euphues,' 'Rosalind,' and especially the 'Groat's Worth of Wit,' and the 'Arcadia.' With the excitement that sounded the note of the oncoming civil war—the trial of Hampden and the uprising of the Scots—the English suddenly stopped reading fiction as well as writing it….

The Restoration

After the battle of Worcester, the English began once more to read fiction. Lyly, Greene, and Sidney all survived the literary wreckage of the civil wars. From now on the French romances were translated as fast as they were published in France. And for reading them and discussing love, friendship, and statecraft, little coteries were formed, the members of which addressed one another as 'the matchless Orinda,' 'the adored Valeria,' and 'the noble Antenor.' Best known in their own time were the groups of platonic lovers, professing an immaculate chastity, who hovered about Katherine Philips and Margaret Duchess of Newcastle. The literary efforts of these romantic ladies and gentlemen were directed to poetry and letter-writing rather than to fiction. There proceeded from them only one romance, 'Parthenissa' (1664, 1665, 1677), by Roger Boyle, an admirer of Katherine Philips. The most noticeable thing about this inexpressibly dull imitation of Scudéri, is its mixing up in much confusion several great Roman wars. For this, particularly for bringing on the scene together Hannibal and Spartacus, Boyle defended himself in his preface by an appeal to Vergil, who neglected two centuries in his story of Æneas and Dido. For making the same character stand now for one person and now for another in his historical allegory, he gracefully apologized, but he might have cited Barclay as his precedent. Other similar romances were: 'Bentivolio and Urania' (1660), by Nathaniel Ingelo; 'Aretina' (1661), by George Mackenzie; and 'Pandion and Amphigenia' (1665), by John Crowne. The first is a religious fiction; the second, made up of adventures, moral essays, and disquisitions on English and Scotch politics, was an attempt to revive the conceits of Lyly; the third is an appropriation of Sidney's 'Arcadia.' Like Crowne, the Restoration romancers were generally satisfied to remodel and dress up old material. And what is true of them, is also true of the realists. An odd and wretchedly written production of this period is 'The English Rogue' (1665-71), by Richard Head, and in part by Francis Kirkman. For tricks and intrigues they pillaged Spanish and French rogue stories, Elizabethan sketches of vagabonds, and German and English jest-books; and seasoned their medley with what probably then passed for humor. On the other hand, they wrote much from observation. In their graphic pictures of the haunts of apprentices, pickpockets, and highwaymen, they discovered the London slums. Furthermore, unlike their brother picaresque writers, they sent their hero on a voyage to the East, and thus began the transformation of the rogue story into the story of adventure as it was soon to appear in Defoe.

More original work than this was done by Mrs. Aphra Behn, who wrote besides many comedies several short tales, the most noteworthy of which is 'Oroonoko' (1688). In this story, which is a realistic account of a royal slave kidnapped in Africa and barbarously put to death at Surinam, she contrasts the state of nature with that of civilization, severely reprimanding the latter. 'Oroonoko' is the first humanitarian novel in English. Though its spirit cannot for a moment be compared, in moral earnestness, with 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' yet its purpose was to awaken Christendom to the horrors of slavery. The time being not yet ripe for it, the romance was for the public merely an interesting story to be dramatized. The novels of Mrs. Behn that bore fruit were her short tales of intrigue—versions in part of her own tender experiences. One of her successors was Mrs. Mary Manley, who wrote 'The Secret History of Queen Zarah and the Zarazians' (1705), 'The New Atlantis' (1709), and 'The Power of Love, in Seven Novels' (1720). Mrs. Manley was in turn followed by Mrs. Eliza Haywood, the author of 'Memoirs of a Certain Island Adjacent to Utopia' (1725), and 'The Secret Intrigues of the Count of Caramania' (1727). These productions taken together purport to relate the inside history of the court from the restoration of Charles the Second to the death of George the First. To their contemporaries, they were piquantly immoral; to later times, they are not so amusing. Nevertheless, in the development of the novel, they have a place. They represent a conscious effort to attain to the real, in reaction from French romance. They are specimens, too, of precisely what was meant in England by the novel in distinction from the romance, just before Richardson: a short story of from one hundred to two hundred pages, assumed to be founded on fact, and published in a duodecimo volume.

To John Bunyan the English novel owes a very great debt. What fiction needed, if it was ever to come near a portrayal of real life, was first of all to rid itself of the extravagances of the romancer and the cynicism of the picaresque story-teller. Though Bunyan was despised by his contemporary men of letters, it surely could be but a little time before the precision of his imagination and the force and charm of his simple and idiomatic English would be felt and then imitated. As no writer preceding him, Bunyan knew the artistic effect of minute detail in giving reasonableness to an impossible story. In the 'Pilgrim's Progress' (1678-84) he so mingled with those imaginative scenes of his own the familiar Scripture imagery and the still more familiar incidents of English village life, that the illusion of reality must have been to the readers for whom he wrote well-nigh perfect. The allegories of Barclay and Scudéri could not be understood without keys; Bunyan's 'Palace Beautiful' needed none.

Literary Forms that contributed to the Novel

Outside the sphere proper of fiction, there was slowly collecting in the seventeenth century material for the future novelist. It was quite the fashion for public and literary men—witness Pepys and Evelyn—to keep diaries and journals of family occurrences and of interesting social and political events. These diaries and journals suggested the novel of family life, and indicated a form of narrative that would lend to fiction the appearance of fact. In 'Robinson Crusoe' and 'Pamela' and hundreds of other novels down to the present, the journal has played a not inconsiderable part. At this time, too, men were becoming sufficiently interested in their friends and some of the great men of the past to write their biographies. In 1640 Izaak Walton published the first of his charming 'Lives.' A quick offshoot of the biography was the autobiography, which, as a man in giving a sympathetic account of himself is likely to run into poetry, came very close to being a novel. Margaret Duchess of Newcastle's 'Autobiography,' published in 1656 in a volume of tales, is a famous account of a family in which 'all the brothers were brave, and all the sisters virtuous.' Bunyan's 'Grace Abounding' is a story of the fierce struggles between the spirit and the flesh, and of the final triumph of the spirit. This autobiographic method of dealing with events, partly or wholly fictitious, has been a favorite with all our novelists, except with the very greatest; and it is employed more to-day than ever before.

It also occurred to several writers after the Restoration that London life might be depicted by a series of imaginary letters to a friend. A most amusing bundle of two hundred and eleven such letters was published in 1664 by Margaret Duchess of Newcastle. Her object was to transfer to letters, scenes and incidents that had hitherto been the material of the comedy of humor. In 1678 a new direction to this letter-writing was given by a translation from the French of the 'Portuguese Letters.' These letters of a Portuguese nun to a French cavalier revealed to our writers how a correspondence might be managed for unfolding a simple story, and for studying the heart of a betrayed and deserted woman. Edition after edition of the 'Portuguese Letters' followed, and fictitious replies and counter-replies. In the wake of these continuations, were translated into English the letters of Eloisa and Abelard, containing a similar but more pathetic tale of man's selfishness and woman's devotion. They, too, went through many editions and were imitated, mutilated, and trivialized. As a result of this fashion for letter-writing, there existed early in the eighteenth century a considerable body of short stories in letter form. Hardly any of them are readable; but one of them is of considerable historical interest, 'The Letters of Lindamira, a Lady of Quality, written to her Friend in the Country' (second edition, 1713). The author, who may have been Tom Brown 'of facetious memory,' states that, unlike his predecessors, his aim is 'to expose vice, disappoint vanity, to reward virtue, and crown constancy with success.' He accomplishes this 'by carrying Lindamira through a sea of misfortunes, and at last marrying her up to her wishes.' It was in this weak school of fiction, aiming at something it hardly knew what, that Richardson must in some degree have learned how to manage a correspondence.

Moreover, the character-sketch, which was the most prolific literary form in England and France during the seventeenth century, has a direct bearing on the novel. As conceived by Ben Jonson and Thomas Overbury, who had before them a contemporary translation of Theophrastus, it was the sketch of some person, real or imaginary, who embodied a virtue or a vice, or some idiosyncrasy obnoxious to ridicule. One character was set over against another; and the sentences descriptive of each were placed in the antithesis which the style of Lyly had made fashionable. Surely from this species of literature, the novelist took a lesson in the fine art of contrast. The type of sketch set by Jonson and Overbury was a good deal modified by the fifty and more character-writers who succeeded them. Not infrequently as a frame to the portrait was added a little piece of biography or adventure; and there are a few examples of massing sketches in a loose fiction, as in the continuations of 'The English Rogue,' and in the second part of the 'Roman Bourgeois.' The treatment of the character-sketch by Steele and Addison in the 'Spectator' (1711-12) was highly original. They drew portraits of representative Englishmen, and brought them together in conversation in a London club. They conducted Sir Roger de Coverley through Westminster Abbey, to the playhouse, to Vauxhall, into the country to Coverley church and the assizes; they incidentally took a retrospective view of his life, and finally told the story of his death. When they had done this, they had not only created one of the best defined characters in our prose literature, but they had almost transformed the character-sketch into a novel of London and provincial life. From the 'Spectator' the character-sketch, with its types and minute observation and urbane ridicule, passed into the novel, and became a part of it.

The Passing of the Old Romance

At the dawn of the Renaissance, verse was usually an embellishment of fiction, and the perfect workman was Chaucer, whose 'Troilus and Cressida' and 'Canterbury Tales' are differentiated from the modern novel mainly by the accident of rhyme. Of the later romances in prose, the two that have gained among all classes a world-wide fame are 'Don Quixote' and the 'Pilgrim's Progress'; and second to them is the 'Princess of Clèves.' Nearly everything else that has been mentioned is to the modern as if it had never been written. That such a fate should have overcome the old romances must be lamented by every one acquainted with their lovely imagery and inspiring ideals of conduct. But it was inevitable, for they almost invariably failed in their art. The great novelists since Fielding have taught the public that a novel must have a beginning and an end. A reader of contemporary fiction, after turning a few pages of Sidney's 'Arcadia,' becomes aware that he is not at the beginning of the story at all, but is having described to him an event midway in the plot. From this point on, the narrative, instead of moving forward untrammelled, except for the pause of an easy retrospect, becomes more and more perplexed by episodes, which are introduced, suspended, resumed, and twisted within one another, according to a plan not easily understood. The picaresque writers, the first of them, adopted the straightforward manner of autobiography; but under the influence of romance, they, too, soon began to indulge in episodes. If at their best the picaresque stories had a beginning, they had no end. They were published in parts; each part was brought to a close with the recurring paragraph that a continuation will be written if the reader desires; and so adventure follows adventure, to be terminated only by the death of the author. It is thus obvious that the romancers and story-tellers had no clearly defined conception of what a novel should be as an independent literary species. They took as their model the epic, not the well-ordered epic of Homer or Vergil, but the prose epic as perverted by the rhetoricians in the decadent period of Greek art.1

Moreover, it has come to be demanded not only that a novel must possess an orderly structure, but that it shall be a careful study of some phase of real life, or of conduct in a situation which, however impossible in itself, the imagination is willing to accept for the time being as possible. Accordingly, those who wish to shun the word 'romance' are accustomed to speak of the novel of character and the novel of incident. In the novel of character the interest is directed to the portrayal of men and women, and the fable is a subordinate consideration; in the novel of incident the interest is directed to what happens, and the characters come more by the way. To the former class no one would hesitate to assign 'The Mill on the Floss.' To the same class might very properly be assigned 'The House of the Seven Gables,' which, though Hawthorne called it a romance, is, as he intended it, 'true to the human heart.' To the latter class belong the Waverley novels, and to mention an extreme example, 'The Prisoner of Zenda.' Before Defoe, writers of fiction did in some degree fulfil the conditions necessary to a novel in the modern view; but to concoct fantastic adventures in high or low life, in accord neither with the truth of fact, nor with the laws of a sane imagination, nor with the permanent motives that sway our acts—that was the main business of the romancer and the story-teller. From them to Defoe and Richardson the transition is analogous to that from the first Elizabethan plays to Shakespeare and his contemporaries; it is the passing from a struggling and misdirected literary form to a well-defined species. Nevertheless, a study of European fiction before Defoe has intellectual, if not æsthetic, compensations, and to the student it is imperative. It gives one a large historical perspective. From Arthurian romance and the fabliau downward, in the eternal swing between idealism and realism, there is a continuous growth—an accumulation of incidents, situations, characters, and experiments in structure, much of which was a legacy to the eighteenth century.

Daniel Defoe

'Robinson Crusoe' (1719) is the earliest English novel of incident. It was at once recognized in England and throughout literary Europe as something different from the picaresque story to which it is akin. In what does this difference consist? The situations and jests of Head and Chettle were in some cases as old as Latin comedy; 'Robinson Crusoe' was an elaboration of a contemporary incident2 that made a fascinating appeal to the imagination. The writer of the rogue story did not expect to be believed. The aim of Defoe was to invest his narrative with a sense of reality; to this end he made use of every device at his command to deceive the reader. He took as a model for his narrative the form that best produces the illusion of truth—that of current memoirs with the accompaniment of a diary. He adroitly remarks in his preface that he is only the editor of a private man's adventures, and adds confidentially that he believes 'the thing to be a just history of fact,' at least, that 'there is no appearance of fiction in it.' He begins his story very modestly by briefly sketching the boyhood of a rogue who runs away to sea—one of thousands—and thus gradually prepares the reader for those experiences which are to culminate in the shipwreck on the Island of Despair. When he gets his Crusoe there, he does not send him on a quest for exciting adventures, but surprises us by a matter-of-fact account of Crusoe's expedients for feeding and clothing himself and making himself comfortable. He brings the story home to the Englishmen of the middle-class, for whom he principally writes, by telling them that their condition in life is most conducive to happiness, and by giving expression to their peculiar tenets: their trust in dreams, their recognition of Providence in the fortuitous concurrence of events, and their dogmas of conviction of sin, of repentance, and of conversion. And finally, 'Robinson Crusoe' has its message. Undoubtedly its message is too apparent for the highest art, but it is a worthy one: Be patient, be industrious, be honest, and you will at last be rewarded for your labor. 'Robinson Crusoe' must have seemed to the thousands of hard-laboring Englishmen a symbol of their own lives, their struggles, their failures, and their final rest in a faith that there will sometime be a settling of things justly in the presence of Him 'who will allow no shuffling.' To put it briefly, Defoe humanized adventure.

'Robinson Crusoe' was the most immediately popular fiction that had yet been written. At once it became a part of the world's literature, and it remains such to this day. Defoe took advantage of its vogue to write many other adventures on land and sea. Captain Singleton's tour across Africa is as good reading as Stanley; and to the uninitiated, it seems quite as true to fact. In 'Moll Flanders' is gathered together a mass of material concerning the dregs of London—thieves and courtesans—that remains unequalled even among the modern naturalists. The 'Memoirs of a Cavalier,' once regarded as an actual autobiography, so realistic is the treatment, is the relation of the adventures of a cavalier in the army of Gustavus Adolphus, and later at Marston Moor and Naseby. It is a masterly piece of historical semblance, and it is thus significant. The 'Journal of the Plague Year' is so documentary in appearance that public libraries still class it as a history, though it is fictitious throughout. This verisimilitude which was attained through detail and the unadorned language of everyday life is Defoe's great distinction. Bunyan was in a measure his forerunner, and his immediate successor was Swift, who, under the guise of his delightful voyages among the Lilliputians and Brobdingnagians (1726), ridiculed in savage irony his king, 'his own dear country,' and 'the animal called man.' These three writers who usher in a new era for the novel are the source to which romance has returned again and again for instruction, from Scott to Stevenson

Feminist literature

Feminist literature

Feminist literature, as the name suggests, is based on the principles of feminism, and refers to any literary work that centers on the struggle of a woman for equality and to be accepted as a human being before being cast into a gender stereotype. Not all these works follow a direct approach towards this goal of equality. It is only through such media that women believed a change was possible in the way they were perceived in society. Not all feminist literature has been written by women, but also by men who understood women beyond the roles they were expected to fit into, and delved into their psyche to understand their needs and desires. Some works may be fictional, while others may be non fictional. Here, we take a look into the characteristics of feminist literature, and give you a list of some of the many works of this genre that make for a good read if you truly desire to learn extensively about this form of writing and what it stood for.CharacteristicsFeminist literature is identified by the characteristics of the feminist movement. Authors of feminist literature are known to understand and explain the difference between sex and gender. They believe that though a person's sex is predetermined and natural, it is the gender that has been created by society, along with a particular perception about gender roles. Gender roles, they believe, can be altered over time. The predominance of one gender over the other is a common concept across almost all societies, and the fact that it is not in favor of women is an underlying yet blatant characteristic of feminist or women's literature. Here, it is argued that any society that does not provide channels of learning and knowledge to both genders equally is not a complete and impartial society.Critics argue that there wasn't much difference between male and female authors, and that there was no need to identify a separate class of literature termed as feminist or look for traces of feminism in literature. However, if you read any such work, you will realize how such writers criticized society's androcentric (male-centered) approach and tried to understand the beliefs and needs of the opposite sex with a subjective, and not an objective, approach. Take for example Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. The protagonist, Elizabeth Bennett was a woman of her mind. Despite the societal pressure (put on her by her mother) to choose a partner and to lead a life that was decided for all women, she decided to choose her own path towards what she wanted. And none of this was blatantly approached. She did not put an outward fight in order to choose her life course. The entire piece of work is subtle, and the only clear characteristic of the protagonist you will notice is her assertiveness. And that is one clear characteristic of the feminist approach toward literature.Women in literature of the feminist nature are always featured as the protagonist, who, more often than not, do not readily accept the traditional role of women as decided by society. They are ready to make their own decisions, to express this choice of personal decision-making, and are ready to deal with the consequences of these choices, actions, and decisions. Though a daughter, a mother, a sister, or a wife, any piece of feminist literature first deals with a woman as a woman. It is not these relationships, roles, or stereotypes that give these female characters in literature their identity. Their identity is defined by their choices and their beliefs, which are then associated with these roles. It is important to note that not all works of feminist literature have happy endings, both for the character and for the author of the work. Women have been ostracized by society for openly demanding equality, and have had to face several negative consequences of their decision to go against the waves.Women have been treated as important subjects even in many literary works by men. For instance, Henrik Ibsen, a Norwegian author and playwright, often focused on women, women's issues, their troubles faced by society, and the decisions they made based on their personal values and beliefs. If you take a look at the play called A Doll's House by this very same author, you will clearly notice the strength and character of the protagonist.Not all, but some pieces of feminist literature (particularly non-fiction) showcase and stress on women's suffrage and a demand for equality in society, for political, social, and economic rights. In modern feminist literature, the attack on a male-dominated society became more forthright and straightforward, where women demanded a closer look into the patriarchal and capitalistic approach towards feminism.Reading ListWith some clarity on the nature of feminist literature, you can understand any piece of work of this nature in a better and clearer manner. Here is a list of famous works of this genre, after reading which, you will be able to identify with the aforementioned characteristics of this type of writing. Before we take a look at some good books and novels that showcase feminist literature, let's take a look at the writers who strove to make this movement felt through their works. They wrote fictional works that had an underlying feminist principle.

Virginia Woolf
Margaret Atwood
Jane Austen
Audre Lorde
Phyllis Reynolds
NaylorJeannette Winterson
Octavia Butler
Ursula Le Guin
Angela Carter
Grace Paley
Aimee Bender
Edwidge Danticat
Suzan Lori-Parks
Wendy Wasserstein

Some famous works of feminist literature, that include both non-fiction and fiction writing have been enlisted here.

Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics - Bell Hooks
A Room of One's Own - Virginia Woolf
The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
The Feminine Mystique - Betty Friedan
Women Without Superstition:
No Gods, No Masters - Annie Laurie Gaylor
Feminist Fairy Tales - Barbara G. Walker

Though a lot has changed in today's time, there is still an underlying wave of feminism, the presence of which one can sense all over the world. While in the urban setting, women have almost been given their dues, in the rural setting, women are still expected to live by the stereotypes cast by society. Even in the urban setting, though women have achieved a lot more than society has given them credit for, they are still expected to fulfill certain roles and stereotypes that have been the norm for centuries. Feminist literature of different periods will depict different desires and different wants under the purview of feminism. The roles of daughters, wives, and mothers in literature will keep changing, and so will their requirements and beliefs. The concept of gender equality that focuses primarily on women's rights has come a long way, and feminist literature has been a great medium to bring about any visible changes in the attitude towards women. Yet, it is a long battle that is being fought, and it will be a while before gender equality and the role of women in society will be clear in the ideal sense.

Charlotte Brontë:- A Brief Biography

Charlotte Brontë: A Brief Biography

Charlotte Brontë was born in 1816, the third daughter of the Rev. Patrick Brontë and his wife Maria. Her brother Patrick Branwell was born in 1817, and her sisters Emily and Anne in 1818 and 1820. In 1820, too, the Brontë family moved to Haworth, Mrs. Brontë dying the following year.

In 1824 the four eldest Brontë daughters were enrolled as pupils at the Clergy Daughter's School at Cowan Bridge. The following year Maria and Elizabeth, the two eldest daughters, became ill, left the school and died: Charlotte and Emily, understandably, were brought home.

In 1826 Mr. Brontë brought home a box of wooden soldiers for Branwell to play with. Charlotte, Emily, Branwell, and Ann, playing with the soldiers, conceived of and began to write in great detail about an imaginary world which they called Angria.

In 1831 Charlotte became a pupil at the school at Roe Head, but she left school the following year to teach her sisters at home. She returned returns to Roe Head School in 1835 as a governess: for a time her sister Emily attended the same school as a pupil, but became homesick and returned to Haworth. Ann took her place from 1836 to 1837.

In 1838, Charlotte left Roe Head School. In 1839 she accepted a position as governess in the Sidgewick family, but left after three months and returned to Haworth. In 1841 she became governess in the White family, but left, once again, after nine months.

Upon her return to Haworth the three sisters, led by Charlotte, decided to open their own school after the necessary preparations had been completed. In 1842 Charlotte and Emily went to Brussels to complete their studies. After a trip home to Haworth, Charlotte returned alone to Brussels, where she remained until 1844.

Upon her return home the sisters embarked upon their project for founding a school, which proved to be an abject failure: their advertisements did not elicit a single response from the public. The following year Charlotte discovered Emily's poems, and decided to publish a selection of the poems of all three sisters: 1846 brought the publication of their Poems, written under the pseudonyms of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. Charlotte also completed The Professor, which was rejected for publication. The following year, however, Charlotte's Jane Eyre, Emily's Wuthering Heights, and Ann's Agnes Grey were all published, still under the Bell pseudonyms.

In 1848 Charlotte and Ann visited their publishers in London, and revealed the true identities of the "Bells." In the same year Branwell Brontë, by now an alcoholic and a drug addict, died, and Emily died shortly thereafter. Ann died the following year.

In 1849 Charlotte, visiting London, began to move in literary circles, making the acquaintance, for example, of Thackeray. In 1850 Charlotte edited her sister's various works, and met Mrs. Gaskell. In 1851she visited the Great Exhibition in London, and attended a series of lectures given by Thackeray.

The Rev. A. B. Nicholls, curate of Haworth since 1845, proposed marriage to Charlotte in 1852. The Rev. Mr. Brontë objected violently, and Charlotte, who, though she may have pitied him, was in any case not in love with him, refused him. Nicholls left Haworth in the following year, the same in which Charlotte's Villette was published. By 1854, however, Mr. Brontë's opposition to the proposed marriage had weakened, and Charlotte and Nicholls became engaged. Nicholls returned as curate at Haworth, and they were married, though it seems clear that Charlotte, though she admired him, still did not love him.

In 1854 Charlotte, expecting a child, caught pneumonia. It was an illness which could have been cured, but she seems to have seized upon it (consciously or unconsciously) as an opportunity of ending her life, and after a lengthy and painful illness, she died, probably of dehydration.

1857 saw the postumous publication of The Professor, which had been written in 1845-46, and in that same year Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë was published.

John Ruskin

John Ruskin

John Ruskin , English author and art critic, born in London. Son of a wealthy wine merchant, he was brought up in a cultured and religious family, but his mother's over protectiveness undoubtedly contributed to his later psychological troubles. On his frequent trips in Europe, he took an artists's and poet's delight both in landscape and works of art, especially medieval and Renaissance. His first great work, Modern Painters (5 volumes, 1843-60), began as a passionate defence of Turner's pictures, but became a study of the principles of Art. In The Seven Lamps Of Architecture (1849) and The Stones Of Venice (1851) he similarly treated the fundamentals of architecture. These principles enabled him, incidentally, to appreciate and defend the Pre-Raphaelites, then the target of violence and abuse. To Ruskin the relationship between art, morality and social justice was of paramount importance and he increasingly became preoccupied with social reform. His concern inspired, among others, William Morris and Arnold Toynbee, whilst in the practical field he founded the Working Men' s college (1854) and backed with money the experiments of Octavia Hill in the management of house property. He advocated social reforms which later were adopted by all political parties old age pensions, universal free education, better housing. Gothic was for Ruskin the expression of an integrated and spiritual civilisation; classicism represented paganism and corruption; the use of cast iron, and the increasing importance of function in architecture and engineering seemed to him a lamentable trend. He was Slade Professor of art at Oxford (1870-79) and (1883-84). His later works, eg. Sesame and Lillies(1865), The Crown Of Wild Olives (1866) and Fors Clavigera (1871 -74), contain the programme of social reform in which he was so interested. Ruskin married (1848) Euphemia (Effie) Gray (the child of whom he had written The King Of the Golden River) but in 1854 the marriage was annulled and Effie later married Millais. Ruskin did not marry again, although on occasions he fell in love with girls much younger than himself and his last disappointment over Rose la Touche contributed to his mental breakdown which caused him to spend his last years in seclusion at Brantwood on Lake Coniston, where he wrote Praeterita, an unfinished account of his early life. Much of his wealth he devoted to the 'Guild of St. George', which he founded, and other schemes of social welfare

Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde was born in 1854 in Dublin, Ireland, to prominent intellectuals William Wilde and Lady Jane Francesca Wilde. Though they were not aristocrats, the Wildes were well-off, and provided Oscar with a fine education. Oscar was especially influenced by his mother, a brilliantly witty raconteur, and as a child he was frequently invited to socialize with her intellectual circle of friends.

Wilde entered Trinity College in 1871 and focused his academic studies on the classics and theories of aestheticism. In 1874, he transferred to Oxford and studied under the divergent tutorials of John Ruskin (a social theorist and Renaissance man) and Walter Pater (a proponent of the new school of aestheticism). Wilde negotiated their conflicting philosophies as his personal life developed. He also experimented with cutting-edge fashion and experimented with homosexuality.

Upon graduating from Oxford, Wilde had a brief flirtation with Catholicism, but his independent orientation toward the world prevented an exclusive attachment to religion. In 1881, he published his first volume of verse (Poems), and he became famous enough to be satirized in a Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera. He moved to Chelsea, an avant-garde neighborhood in London, but his father's death and the family's snowballing debts forced him to embark on a lecture tour of the United States in 1882. Upon arriving at customs, Wilde made his now-famous statement: "I have nothing to declare except my genius." On tour, he dressed in a characteristically flamboyant style. He advocated for the philosophy of the Aesthetic: art should exist solely for art's sake, or, as he wrote elsewhere, it should be "useless." While on tour in New York, Wilde also produced his first, unsuccessful play, Vera.

In 1884, Wilde married a shy and wealthy Irishwoman named Constance Lloyd, and the two moved into a posh house in London. Wilde briefly edited Woman's World magazine while writing a collection of fairy tales and a number of essays (collected later as Intentions, 1891,) which elaborated his unique approach to Aestheticism, a movement with which he was rather reluctant to associate himself. While Wilde had been socially and professionally linked to confirmed aesthetes such as Max Beerbohm, Arthur Symons, and Aubrey Beardsley, he was an open critic of the kind of reductive aesthetic philosophy expressed in the famous journal The Yellow Book. Preferring to explore his own thoughts about art and politics through idiosyncratic readings of Plato, Shakespeare, and contemporary painting, Wilde's social circle featured a diverse cast of characters, among them poets, painters, theater personalities, intellectuals, and London "rent boys" (male prostitutes). His closest friend, however, remained the Canadian critic and artist Robert Ross, who at times handled Wilde's publicity and acted as Wilde's confidant in his professional and personal affairs.

Throughout the 1890s, Wilde became a household name with the publication of his masterpiece novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, a Faustian tale about beauty and youth, as well as a string of highly successful plays, including Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), the Symbolist melodrama Salome (1892), A Woman of No Importance (1893), and An Ideal Husband (1895). His last play, The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), among his greatest, is considered the original modern comedy of manners. By this time, Wilde's extravagant appearance, refined wit, and melodious speaking voice had made him one of London's most sought-after dinner party guests.

In 1891, Wilde became infatuated with the beautiful young poet Lord Alfred Douglas (known as "Bosie"). The dynamic between Bosie and Wilde was unstable at the best of times, and the pair often split for months before agreeing to reunite. Still, the relationship consumed Wilde's personal life, to the extent that the sexual nature of their friendship had become a matter of public knowledge. In 1895, Douglas's father, the Marquess of Queensbury, accused Wilde of sodomy. Wilde replied by charging Queensbury with libel. Queensbury located several of Wilde's letters to Bosie, as well as other incriminating evidence. In a second trial often referred to as "the trial of the century," the writer was found guilty of "indecent acts" and was sentenced to two years of hard labor in England's Reading Gaol.

In 1897, while in prison, Wilde wrote De Profundis, an examination of his newfound spirituality. After his release, he moved to France under an assumed name. He wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol in 1898 and published two letters on the poor conditions of prison. One of the letters helped reform a law to keep children from imprisonment. His new life in France, however, was lonely, impoverished, and humiliating.

Wilde died in 1900 in a Paris hotel room. He retained his epigrammatic wit until his last breath. He is rumored to have said of the drab establishment that between the awful wallpaper and himself, "One of us has to go." Critical and popular attention to Wilde has recently experienced a resurgence; various directors have produced films based on his plays and life, and his writings remain a wellspring of witticisms and reflections on aestheticism, morality, and society

"The Picture of Dorian Gray" By OSCAR WILDE

"The Picture of Dorian Gray" By OSCAR WILDE

In London, the well-known artist Basil Hallward meets Dorian Gray. Dorian is a wealthy, beautiful young man who captures Basil’s artistic imagination. Dorian sits for several portraits, and Basil depicts him on the canvas. Basil completes the first portrait of Dorian. Lord Henry is a friend of Basil claims that the portrait is Basil’s masterpiece. Dorian arrives at the studio, and Basil introduces him to Lord Henry. Lord Henry upsets Dorian with a speech about the nature of beauty and youth. Worried that these, his beauty is fading day by day, Dorian curses his portrait, which he believes will one day remind him of the beauty he will have lost. Lord Henry owns the portrait; however, Basil insists the portrait belongs to Dorian.
Over the next few weeks, Lord Henry’s influence over Dorian grows stronger. Dorian proposes to live a life dedicated to the pursuit of pleasure. He falls in love with Sibyl Vane, a young actress who performs in a theater in London’s slums. He adores her acting; she, in turn, refers to him as “Prince Charming” and refuses to listen the warnings of her brother, James Vane, that Dorian is not good for her. Sibyl decides that she can no longer act, wondering how she can pretend to love on the stage now that she has experienced the real thing. Dorian, who loves Sibyl because of her ability to act, cruelly breaks his engagement with her. After doing so, he returns home to notice that his face in Basil’s portrait of him has changed: it now sneers or frowns. Frightened that his sins will be recorded on the canvas, he resolves to make amends with Sibyl the next day. The following afternoon, however, Lord Henry brings news that Sibyl has killed herself. At Lord Henry’s urging, Dorian decides to consider her death a sort of tragedy and put the matter behind him. Meanwhile, Dorian hides his portrait in a remote room of his house, where no one other than he can watch its changes.
Lord Henry gives Dorian a book that describes the wicked exploits of a nineteenth-century Frenchman; it becomes Dorian’s bible as he sinks ever deeper into a life of sin and corruption.
Eighteen years pass. Dorian’s reputation suffers in circles of polite London society, where rumors spread regarding his scandalous exploits. The figure in the painting, however, grows increasingly hideous. On a dark, foggy night, Basil arrives at Dorian’s home to confront him about the rumors that destroy his reputation. The two argue, and Dorian eventually offers Basil a look at his (Dorian’s) soul. He shows Basil the now-hideous portrait, and Basil begs him to repent. Dorian claims it is too late for repentance and kills Basil in anger.
In order to dispose of the body, Dorian takes the help of a friend, a doctor, whom he blackmails. The night after the murder, Dorian makes his way to an opium den, where he meets James Vane, who attempts to avenge Sibyl’s death. Dorian escapes to his country estate. While entertaining guests, he notices James Vane looking in through a window, and he becomes fearful and guilty. When a hunting party accidentally shoots and kills Vane, Dorian feels safe again. He resolves to amend his life but cannot have the courage to confess his crimes, and the painting now reveals his supposed desire to repent for what it is—hypocrisy. In an anger, Dorian picks up the knife he used to stab Basil and attempts to destroy the painting. There is a crash sound, and his servants enter to find the portrait, unharmed, showing Dorian Gray as a beautiful young man. On the floor lies the body of their master—an old man, horribly wrinkled and disfigured, with a knife plunged into his heart.
Probably the picture would have remain the same from day one but Dorian's sins would have started to be shown onto the portrait

Types of Prose Fiction

Types of Prose Fiction

The following definitions are based on Barnet/Berman/Burto 1964, Cuddon 1998, Hawthorn 1986, Fowler 1987.

Source: Anglistik

The novel can be defined as an extended work of prose fiction. It derives from the Italian novella (“little new thing”), which was a short piece of prose. The novel has become an increasingly popular form of fiction since the early eighteenth century, though prose narratives were written long before then. The term denotes a prose narrative about characters and their actions in what is recognisably everyday life. This differentiates it from its immediate predecessor, the romance, which describes unrealistic adventures of supernatural heroes. The novel has developed various sub-genres:

In the epistolary novel the narrative is conveyed entirely by an exchange of letters. (e.g. Samuel Richardson, Pamela.)

A picaresque novel is an early form of the novel, some call it a precursor of the novel. It presents the adventures of a lighthearted rascal (pícaro=rogue). It is usually episodic in structure, the episodes often arranged as a journey. The narrative focuses on one character who has to deal with tyrannical masters and unlucky fates but who usually manages to escape these miserable situations by using her/his wit. The form of the picaresque narrative emerged in sixteenth-century Spain. Examples are: Cervantes, Don Quixote; and in the English tradition: Thomas Nash, The Unfortunate Traveler; Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders.

The historical novel takes its setting and some of the (chief) characters and events from history. It develops these elements with attention to the known facts and makes the historical events and issues important to the central narrative. (e.g. Walter Scott, Ivanhoe; Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities)

The bildungsroman (novel of education) is a type of novel originating in Germany which presents the development of a character mostly from childhood to maturity. This process typically contains conflicts and struggles, which are ideally overcome in the end so that the protagonist can become a valid and valuable member of society. Examples are J.W. Goethe, Wilhelm Meister; Henry Fielding, Tom Jones; Charles Dickens, David Copperfield; James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

The gothic novel became very popular from the second half of the eighteenth century onwards. With the aim to evoke chilling terror by exploiting mystery and a variety of horrors, the gothic novel is usually set in desolate landscapes, ruined abbeys, or medieval castles with dungeons, winding staircases and sliding panels. Heroes and heroines find themselves in gloomy atmospheres where they are confronted with supernatural forces, demonic powers and wicked tyrants. Examples are Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto; Ann Radcliffe, Mysteries of Udolpho; William Faulkner, Absalom! Absalom!

The social novel, also called industrial novel or Condition of England novel, became particularly popular between 1830 and 1850 and is associated with the development of nineteenth-century realism. As its name indicates, the social novel gives a portrait of society, especially of lower parts of society, dealing with and criticising the living conditions created by industrial development or by a particular legal situation (the poor laws for instance). Well-known examples are: Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Barton; Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist; Benjamin Disraeli, Sybil and Charles Kingsley, Alton Locke.

Science fiction is a type of prose narrative of varying length, from short-story to novel. Its topics include quests for other worlds, the influence of alien beings on Earth or alternate realities; they can be utopian, dystopian or set in the past. Common to all types of science fiction is the interest in scientific change and development and concern for social, climatic, geological or ecological change (e.g. Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; H.G. Wells, The Time Machine; Aldous Huxley, Brave New World; George Orwell, 1984; Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange).

Metafiction is a term given to fictional writing which self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artefact in order to pose questions about the relationship between fiction and reality. It concentrates on the phenomenological characteristics of fiction, and investigates into the quintessential nature of literary art by reflecting the process of narrating. (e.g. Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinons of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman; John Fowles, The French Lieutenant’s Woman; Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook)

A romance is a fictional narrative in prose or verse that represents a chivalric theme or relates improbable adventures of idealised characters in some remote or enchanted setting. It typically deploys monodimensional or static characters who are sharply discriminated as heroes or villains, masters or victims. The protagonist is often solitary and isolated from a social context, the plot emphasises adventure, and is often cast in the form of a quest for an ideal or the pursuit of an enemy. Examples: Anonymous, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; Sir Philip Sidney, Arcadia; Percy B. Shelley, Queen Mab; Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables.

A short-story is a piece of prose fiction marked by relative shortness and density, organised into a plot and with some kind of dénouement at the end. The plot may be comic, tragic, romantic, or satiric. It may be written in the mode of fantasy, realism or naturalism.

Biography of Homer

Biography of Homer

Beyond a few fragments of information, historians and classicists can only speculate about the life of the man who composed The Iliad and The Odyssey. The details are few. We do not even know the century in which he lived, and it is difficult to say with absolute certainty that the same poet composed both works. The Greeks attributed both of the epics to the same man, and we have little hard evidence that would make us doubt the ancient authorities, but uncertainty is a constant feature of scholarly work dealing with Homer's era of Greek history.

The Greeks hailed him as their greatest poet, as well as their first. Although the Greeks recognized other poets who composed in Greek before Homer, no texts from these earlier poets survived. Perhaps they were lost, or perhaps they were never written down; Homer himself was probably on the cusp between the tradition of oral poetry and the new invention of written language. Texts of The Iliad and The Odyssey existed from at least the sixth century BC, and probably for a considerable span of time before that. These two great epic poems also had a life in performance: through the centuries, professional artists made their living by reciting Homer, performing the great epics for audiences that often know great parts of the poem by heart.

It is impossible to pin down with any certainty when Homer lived. Eratosthenes gives the traditional date of 1184 BC for the end of the Trojan War, the semi-mythical event that forms the basis for the Iliad. The great Greek historian Herodotus put the date at 1250 BC. These dates were arrived at in a very approximate manner; Greek historians usually used genealogy and estimation when trying to find the dates for events in the distant past. But Greek historians were far less certain about the dates for Homer's life. Some said he was a contemporary of the events of The Iliad, while others placed him sixty or a hundred or several hundred years afterward. Herodotus estimated that Homer lived and wrote in the ninth century BC. He almost certainly lived in one of the Greek city-states in Asia Minor. All of the traditional sources say that he was blind.

Over the course of millennia of scholarly speculation, prevailing theories about Homer and his relationship to his work have had time to change and change again. At various times over the centuries, scholars have suggested that he was only a transmitter, or that he never existed, and the epics attributed to him were the patchwork effort of generations of bards. Modern scholars, however, tend to accept that The Iliad and The Odyssey are more than amalgams handed down from antiquity, and that there was in fact a great poet who had a hand in creating these epics in the forms we know today. Current scholarship holds that Homer was a great bard who lived between the eighth and seventh centuries BC. Although there is little doubt that Homer inherited a massive amount of material from generations of bards before him, most scholars believe now that Homer was an innovator and an original artist as well as a transmitter. Writing probably played a role in the composition of his great poems. Current theories depict Homer as a master of oral poetry who used the new invention of writing to aid him in composing epics on a grander scale than had ever been done before. There are signs in The Iliad that might suggest unfinished revision; these massive projects may have been reworked again and again over the course of the poet's whole life. A performer as well as a poet, Homer may have composed the poems through a mixture of utilizing old material, writing and revising, and oral improvisation.

Little can be known with certainty. But even though the details of Homer's life remain -- and probably will always remain -- an enigma, his great epics come down to us intact. His works have formed a foundation for all the Western literature that has followed, and his characters and stories have had an impact on three thousand years' worth of readers. Facts about the poet's life can do little to add to that legacy. Legend says that as a child, Alexander the Great slept with a copy of The Iliad under his pillow; the fact that Alexander was neither the first nor the last boy to do so says more about Homer's genius than any biography could, no matter how detailed or complete.

The Odyssey by Homer

The Odyssey by Homer

The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer.

Summary:

Ten years have passed since the fall of Troy, and the Greek hero Odysseus still has not returned to his kingdom in Ithaca. A large and rowdy mob of suitors who have overrun Odysseus’s palace and pillaged his land continue to court his wife, Penelope. She has remained faithful to Odysseus. Prince Telemachus, Odysseus’s son, wants desperately to throw them out but does not have the confidence or experience to fight them. One of the suitors, Antinous, plans to assassinate the young prince, eliminating the only opposition to their dominion over the palace.

Unknown to the suitors, Odysseus is still alive. The beautiful nymph Calypso, possessed by love for him, has imprisoned him on her island, Ogygia. He longs to return to his wife and son, but he has no ship or crew to help him escape. While the gods and goddesses of Mount Olympus debate Odysseus’s future, Athena, Odysseus’s strongest supporter among the gods, resolves to help Telemachus. Disguised as a friend of the prince’s grandfather, Laertes, she convinces the prince to call a meeting of the assembly at which he reproaches the suitors. Athena also prepares him for a great journey to Pylos and Sparta, where the kings Nestor and Menelaus, Odysseus’s companions during the war, inform him that Odysseus is alive and trapped on Calypso’s island. Telemachus makes plans to return home, while, back in Ithaca, Antinous and the other suitors prepare an ambush to kill him when he reaches port.

On Mount Olympus, Zeus sends Hermes to rescue Odysseus from Calypso. Hermes persuades Calypso to let Odysseus build a ship and leave. The homesick hero sets sail, but when Poseidon, god of the sea, finds him sailing home, he sends a storm to wreck Odysseus’s ship. Poseidon has harbored a bitter grudge against Odysseus since the hero blinded his son, the Cyclops Polyphemus, earlier in his travels. Athena intervenes to save Odysseus from Poseidon’s wrath, and the beleaguered king lands at Scheria, home of the Phaeacians. Nausicaa, the Phaeacian princess, shows him to the royal palace, and Odysseus receives a warm welcome from the king and queen. When he identifies himself as Odysseus, his hosts, who have heard of his exploits at Troy, are stunned. They promise to give him safe passage to Ithaca, but first they beg to hear the story of his adventures.

Odysseus spends the night describing the fantastic chain of events leading up to his arrival on Calypso’s island. He recounts his trip to the Land of the Lotus Eaters, his battle with Polyphemus the Cyclops, his love affair with the witch-goddess Circe, his temptation by the deadly Sirens, his journey into Hades to consult the prophet Tiresias, and his fight with the sea monster Scylla. When he finishes his story, the Phaeacians return Odysseus to Ithaca, where he seeks out the hut of his faithful swineherd, Eumaeus. Though Athena has disguised Odysseus as a beggar, Eumaeus warmly receives and nourishes him in the hut. He soon encounters Telemachus, who has returned from Pylos and Sparta despite the suitors’ ambush, and reveals to him his true identity. Odysseus and Telemachus devise a plan to massacre the suitors and regain control of Ithaca.

When Odysseus arrives at the palace the next day, still disguised as a beggar, he endures abuse and insults from the suitors. The only person who recognizes him is his old nurse, Eurycleia, but she swears not to disclose his secret. Penelope takes an interest in this strange beggar, suspecting that he might be her long-lost husband. Quite crafty herself, Penelope organizes an archery contest the following day and promises to marry any man who can string Odysseus’s great bow and fire an arrow through a row of twelve axes—a feat that only Odysseus has ever been able to accomplish. At the contest, each suitor tries to string the bow and fails. Odysseus steps up to the bow and, with little effort, fires an arrow through all twelve axes. He then turns the bow on the suitors. He and Telemachus, assisted by a few faithful servants, kill every last suitor.

Odysseus reveals himself to the entire palace and reunites with his loving Penelope. He travels to the outskirts of Ithaca to see his aging father, Laertes. They come under attack from the vengeful family members of the dead suitors, but Laertes, reinvigorated by his son’s return, successfully kills Antinous’s father and puts a stop to the attack. Zeus dispatches Athena to restore peace. With his power secure and his family reunited, Odysseus’s long ordeal comes to an end.