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WORKING-CLASS MOVEMENTS

WORKING-CLASS MOVEMENTS
THE TRADE UNIONS	Were legalized during the reign of George IV.
THE COMBINATION ACT	It is an act against combination and trade unions. More than three people talking were considered a group. The law was repealed in 1826. people were very cautious.
PETERLOO	Peterloo Massacre(1819) was an incident where eleven people were killed and 500 wounded. The name was given in analogy with the Battle of Waterloo. In this massacre a crowd of 60,000 who demonstred in support of parliamentary reform (the main aim was to demand the reform of parliament as a step towards socio-economic betterment: ordinary people wanted government by the people for the people ), were violently dispersed by the army from St.Peter's field in Manchester.
THE LUDDITE MOVEMENT	The Luddite Riots (1811-l2) were due to the Industrial Revolution. In fact, workers were very worried because the introduction of new machines was leading [=indurre] to heavy unemployment and so the Luddites start destroying machines in Nottingham. This movement spread throughout England but it was soon suppressed because people who destroyed machines were punished with death.

THE SOCIAL CLASSES BETWEEN 1770 AND 1832

In Britain, at the time, there were three social classes: the aristocracy, the middle class and the working class. The working class had no power and most of them were illiterate. In fact, there weren't many schools for them and the education was not compulsory. Instead, the aristocracy had the culture, they loved poetry and they also have the political power.

The middle class was in expansion, was a growing class which became stronger and stronger. It became the most important class in Great Britain because they had the financial power, even if they hadn't the culture.

On the other hand, the aristocracy (which was less rich than the middle class) had the political power up to 1832.

In 1832, with the First Reform Bill, (=legge), even the middle class became a member of the Parliament.

THE MIDDLE CLASS AND THE PARLIAMENT

The middle class was in expansion, was a growing class which became stronger and stronger. It became the most important class in Great Britain because they had the financial power.

On the other hand, the aristocracy (which was less rich than the middle class) had the political power up to 1832.

In 1832, with the First Reform Bill, (=legge), even the middle class became a member of the Parliament. Before it was made up only of aristocracy since it was the only class which could afford it: they weren't paid! Aristocracy could be part of the British Parliament by:

heritage (Peers) house of lords where there also can be Sirs (=baronetti) who have brought fame in the world (this title cannot be inherited) e.g. the Beatles;

election house of commons which was made up of 2 parties (=partiti):

the Tories (right) (who still exist): more conservative, more attached to the king;

the Whigs (left) who have developed into Labours party since 19^th century; it's Blair's party): more modern, supported the rich and powerful middle class, their ideas.

In 1832 the British Parliament passed a law which allowed the middle class to become members of the Parliament.

Summing up:

Aristocracy	Political power	Patrons of poetry
Middle class	Financial power	No cultural roots (=radici)
Working class	No power	Most of them were illiterate

At that time there were very few schools: education was not compulsory.

When the novel appeared, the middle class thought it could be their means of expressing themselves. They liked the independence of this genre: the novelists did not have any patrons, were free of any influences which could come from patrons. The novelists were not economically supported by patrons: they lived on their job.

The middle class welcomed the novel: the characters who appeared in the novel were people belonging to the middle class or low aristocracy. The middle class could find in the novel people like themselves, with their ambitions, their ideas, their ideals. In a certain sense, they could read about themselves. new reading public: women

middle class: money to buy books

The novel was very successful and the reading public increased, although the working class was excluded from this business. Servants, maids of upper families learned how to write / read together with the children they were looking after. Among the working class, servants were the most educated, even for other factors:

they had books in the house (books were quite expensive!)

they didn't have to bother of candles

In a certain sense, servants were a sort of privileged among the working class.

In few years, the novel developed a lot: DIFFERENCES appeared inside this genre.

DEFOE - THE REALIST NOVEL and "ROBINSON CRUSOE" p.262

Since Defoe published his first novel, all his books have had:

either male or female protagonists;

just one protagonist (who corresponds to the title of the book);

characters are considered simply for what they do: there is no psychological analysis;

the first person narrator (in the form of a diary or autobiography);

setting in London (for most of them);

very realistic stories (Defoe puts a lot of details);

unlucky protagonists (Robinson is shipwrecked.), but with their wit, abilities they manage to change their bad conditions. There's a great revaluation of the possibilities of man himself: men can reach their wishes if they have the right mentality (which enables them to take them from nothing to an important position. That's the concept of the self-made man. He is successful as he is:

rational

strong

Qualities the middle class recognised and pretended to have

stubborn (=testone)

courageous

self-confident

prudent to valuate situations

moral

a person who works hard

practical-minded

methodical

Marx in his "Capital" criticized Robinson; he might have invented a completely new world or created a new style of life. On the contrary he reproduced little by little the society he came from. He invented the surplus (an important economic concept) with seeds (=semi).

-the religious allegory men must save themselves from sin, to regain paradise. Crusoe: desert island, with his work he makes it to become a sport of paradise in which he is the master.

-the economic allegory Crusoe civilizes the island, trying to make it similar to the society from which he comes

-the imperialist allegory Christian superiority (Robinson) over the savage (Friday).

RICHARDSON - THE SENTIMENTAL NOVEL

R. wrote the first epistolary novel: he even had been asked to write model letters for almost illiterate people. R. wrote "Pamela": it's a story of a simple maid who writes to her parents. She manages to get married with her lord because she is honest and virtuous. She actually becomes a lady of the Middle Class. In Pamela, Richardson began writing letter and then added them a plot: so, this novel is born.

"Clarissa" is more articulated than "Pamela" and so it's considered R's masterpiece.

Novelties of Richardson's works:

domestic settings (≠ swift and Defoe)

subject is love, passions, feelings: R. was quite a rebel (he lives still in the Enlightment time!) very appreciated by women

psychology: the characters are investigated from a psychological point of view

characters are ordinary middle class people (in Pamela the working class is the protagonist!)

KIND OF NOVEL FEATURES	REALISTIC	SATIRIC OR FANTASTIC	SENTIMENTAL	MOCK-HEROIC OR COMIC	EXPERIMENTAL
NARRATOR	1^st person	1^st person	1^st person	3^rd person: omniscient and intrusive	Multiplicity of narrators (min.2)
POINT OF VIEW	Narrator's	Narrator's Gulliver points of view	Narrator's multiple points of view (the person who writes the letter)	Narrator's	Narrators'
SETTING	Real world (nature, island)	Fantastic, surrealistic.	Domestic (house or a small village)	Social -everywhere -at the beginning are domestic, than on the road	Domestic - different settings: for example is domestic when uncle tells Tristam the story (he moves in the house)
NOVELTIES (IN TECHNIQUE)	- 1^st novel; - characters: they must struggle to do what they want to do -form of diary -the title is the protagonist of the novel -character is a middle class man -single protagonist (has to overcome misfortunes)	-utopian novel (because in his journey there is a sort of comparison between G. and the people he meets) -satire, critical -he uses fancy more than the others	- epistolary novel; - domestic setting; -psychological analysis; -subject is love (1^st time) -ordinary characters -description of daily life (Clarissa) -language: informal and spoken quality (Clarissa)	-Tom is a founding -the protagonist is an ordinary person, sometimes bad characters (more real than Richardson -Fielding moves in all social classes -multiplicity of characters -extremely complex plot)	- manipulation of time (no longer chronological. It's the time of the mind) - unusual layout -interest in thoughts (flow of thoughts)
STRUCTURE	-Fragmentary (autobiography, diary). -no real plot: chronological series of episodes -lots of details (more realistic)	Fragmentary (it's made up of 4 voyages)	Fragmentary (epistolary novel with isolated letters)	-Linear, coherent. -Unitary structure.	Non-linear, quite fragmentary (he jumps from one character to the other)
NOVELISTS	Defoe	Swift. He is the precursor of the science-fiction genre	Richardson	Fielding	Sterne
NOVELS	Robinson Crusoe	Gulliver's travel (1726), in which he criticizes everything (king, political, church)	Pamela Clarissa	Tom Jones	Tristan Shandy

URBAN SOCIETY

AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY

Rousseau is very clear in defining the social environment and the natural one. He says that men are corrupted by society and, in fact, for example the creature of Frankenstein was good at the beginning and then he becomes selfish.. This kind of society selfish and corrupted is more typical of towns because they have lost the true values In town there is much more isolation than in countryside, human relationships are fewer and quicker. In towns there is the detachment from the natural world, houses' conditions were appalling, terrible and there are lots of problems. We have the beginning of the desegregation of the families because the members of the family work in different places, for many hours ( 16h a day) and only after years a law protect children and women, who have to work for 12 hours.

The main consequence is that the social environment is negative for men.

Moreover, Rousseau elaborate the theory of the good savage: everyone is born good but, when he gets in contact with the society, he is contaminated (It's true for Frankenstein's creature).

According to Rousseau the countryside has to be preferred from towns because people aren't in contact with progress. The country life is more simple than town life. Countryside is based on a small community where there is a big help between people and human relationships.

ROMANTICISM ( 324, 325)

ORIGIN OF THE NAME.

The word "Romantic" appeared for the first time in England (17^th century) to describe the fantastic and unrealistic style of chivalric romances. It was adopted in France to express the almost inexpressible feeling people had when they saw certain landscapes. In Germany this word was used in a more extended way, to denote a spiritual and aesthetic attitude (Novalis. Romantic=poetic).

MAIN FEATURES

The Romantic is a strong reaction to Enlightenment and it expressed an affirmation of individual subjective experience. His main features are intensity and imagination but it's also characterized by tensions between: innocence/experience, youth/age, country/city, man/nature, language/expression.

Moreover the romantics recognized:

-importance of feelings and intuition

-free play of imagination

-a big consideration to the poet's inner life

-common language

THE SUBLIME p.326

It gives the watcher a sort of melancholic feelings, sorrow. At the same time it is so attractive that it can turn into pain: men are overwhelmed (=schiacciati) from something which is beautiful and also painful.

Burke argued (=si chiese) what was the reaction of men in particular situations, connected with natural phenomena, especially extreme situations, something which is out of ordinary. Her investigated passions arisen from those scenes (e.g. in the middle of a storm in the sea.). He realized men had mixed feelings:

-they are attracted from them

-they are afraid of these manifestations

The sublime grow from the combination of these two aspects: you can't help watching it; it stops the attention only on it.

SUBLIME OBJECTS	BEAUTIFUL ONES
Vast in dimensions	atively small
Rugged (=rugoso), negligent (=casuale)	Smooth (=liscio) and polished (=pulito)
Right lines appreciated, with stronger, greater deviations	Follow the right line, little deviations
Dark and gloomy	Not obscure
Solid, massive	Light, delicate
It is founded on pain	Founded on pleasure

THE GOTHIC VOGUE

ORIGIN: The origin of the gothic novel is in oral traditions. It comes from stories told from people to people connected with unhappy love affairs, ghosts stories, horrific and macabre situations because oral tales never stopped dealing with feelings. (it was the written works which neglected feelings, passions..).

Intellectuals started to take into consideration men's reactions to love, hate, fears, sex. This new individual interest announces the Preromantism.

This change was very evident because a new literary genre was born: the gothic novel.

CHARACTERISTICS: By "gothic" we mean something fearful, extravagant, out of realism, out of ordinary. It's revolutionary since it gives lots of importance of those things which had been neglected in the Enlightment. As a consequence of that, reason looses importance and the irrational aspect becomes the theme of this new kind of novel.

Great importance is given to noises: any noise can be fearful. The new idea of sexuality remains unclosed in the unconscious of people. It didn't become a theme of all novels. In the wishes of the people there was these idea of sex. The gothic novel provides a way of speaking of sex.

INFLUENCE: The influence of Gothic novel was enormous in all Europe (horror, thriller have their roots in the gothic novel).

The gothic novel was influenced by the concept of sublime theorized by Burke.

SETTING: The settings of gothic novels are also terrifying (and contribute to build the gothic atmosphere). They include: haunted castles, ruins, isolated or secluded place; very often out of Britain and exotic places which added mystery to the story.

CHARACTERS: The protagonists could be anybody; usually young women who found themselves in a very oppressive and unhappy situation.

STRUCTURE: The structure is unitary (both 1^st and 3^rd person narrator)

NARRATOR: 3^rd person narrator

THEMES: visions, apparitions, ghosts, unhappy love affaires, unconscious wishes of the mind, persecutions of young girls, life in monasteries Generally themes which were quite unknown to people.

1^ST NOVELS: The castle of Otranto (Walpole ♂), The Monk (Lewis ♂), The Mysteries of Udolpho (Radcliffe ♀). Instead . . Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: structure of gothic novel but anticipation of elements belonging to the science-fiction narrative.

THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION (PAG 316)

CAUSES

The causes of the Industrial Revolution were complex.

- The Enclosure movement and the

- British Agricultural Revolution

they made food production more efficient, encouraging the surplus population who could no longer find employment in agriculture into cottage industry.

-The colonial expansion of the 17th century new goods

Technological innovation: use of new sources of power, steam engine

SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES

It completely transformed Britain's social structure and it transformed Britain from an agricultural to an industrial country. Transportation and communication in general improved greatly. Power and wealth began to move in cities, which expanded rapidly: the new urban masses live in condition of terrible poverty ( overcrowded, polluted atmosphere, bad working conditions->work of children, low salaries, 16h). In the countryside: transformation of agriculture, machines, enclosures-> pauperisation-> people moved in towns to find work.

THE AGRARIAN REVOLUTION

ENCLOSURES

In the XVIII century the Parliament passed a law: aristocracy limited the territories. They started to enclose their lands. Before there was Freeland: anybody could go and take a piece of land and use that land. But the aristocracy wants their land back (it could be used by everybody!).

SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES

The enclosures left thousands of peasants (=contadini), labourers (=braccianti) without a job.

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

SUPPORTERS

rising bourgeoisie, infected with the ideas of the Enlightenment

- popular movements of the new wage-earning classes

In Britain .

The French revolution has many supporters in intellectual circles (Romantic poets like Burke, at the beginning).

ADVERSARIES

- Aristocracy

- Absolute monarchy

In Britain .

The aristocracy feared that the working class (miserable conditions) and the middle class (no political power) could rebel against them.

NAPOLEONIC WARS

THE CORN LAW

It was a law on corn. During the Napoleonic wars, Napoleon conquered most of European countries which could trade with England. England bought corn (which was primary, basic food) abroad. England needed corn. To face the urgent problem, many land owners started to grow corn. In very few years England became a self-sufficient country: it didn't need to buy corn abroad any longer.

In 1815 Vienna congress redesigned the whole Europe. Consequently, markets were opened again and corn was available again. England continued to produce corn (and there it was very expensive) as well as Europe (which could sell it at cheaper price). If the British had started to buy corn abroad, aristocracy would be ruined. But producers of corn were mostly aristocratic ( and so part of the parliament!) people. They passed a law which forbade, prevented Britain from buying corn abroad. It lasted about 40 years.

SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES

If the British had started to buy corn abroad, aristocracy would be ruined.

This law forbade it and the British economy was safe.

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