Vanity fair

— Yes, this is Vanity Fair; not a moral place certainly; not a merry one, though very noisy... There is a great quantity of eating and drinking, making love and jilting, laughing and contrary, smoking, cheating, fighting, dancing, and fiddling. (Before the Curtain)

The title "Vanity Fair" was an allusion, describing" London of those times as a big Vanity Fair. All is Vanity! "It is all Vanity to be sure".

"Vanity Fair! Vanity Fair! Here was a man, who could not spell, — and did not care to read — who had the habits and the cunning of a boor; whose aim in life was pettifogging; who never had a taste, or emotion, or enjoyment, but was sordid and foul - and yet he had rank, and honours, and power, somehow; and was a dignitary of the land, and a pillar of the state. He was high sheriff, and rode in a golden coach. Great ministers and statesmen courted him; and in Vanity Fair he had a higher place than the most brilliant genius of spotless virtue."

The novel describes the fates of two middle-class girls, Amelia Sedley and Rebecca Sharp. Amelia is a daughter of a wealthy merchant. But Old Sedley is ruined during the Napoleonic Wars as a result of the treason of "some of his oldest friends ... from whom he never could have expected it". Thus Amelia has to begin her own career.

"Miss Sharp's father was an artist ... when he was drunk, he used to beat his wife and daughter". Rebecca's mother dies and her father, descending "to the grave", writes to Miss Pinkerton's Academy for Young Ladies, "recommending the orphan child to her protection". Rebecca is a clever adventuress, charming, but hard-hearted and ill-humoured. Amelia, on contrary, is humble and gentle, tender-hearted and good-natured.

Both leave Miss Pinkerton's Academy. But Amelia is alone in the midst of friends, home and kind parents. Rebecca has no "kind parents". Therefore, she has to arrange matters for herself. The ups and downs of her life and career prove the fact that Becky Sharp can win many victories encouraged by the society, before she has to accept her defeat. Firstly having been introduced to the grand world she was treated with such cruelty that "even Lady Steyne herself pitied her and went up to speak to the friendless little woman". Then "some of the very greatest and tallest doors in the metropolis were speedily opened to her...". As for Amelia, she is too sensitive and sweet and can't withstand the hardships and troubles of life.

The author reveals all the wrongs of the society, pointing out moral here and there. "The world is a looking-glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his face". The writer appeals to the readers. He is not only a moralist, but he is a thinker and philosopher as well.

Thackeray sympathizes with Rebecca and feels little respect to Amelia for her sentimentality. Only by the end of the book Amelia is restored to a certain level in the society.

William Makepeace Thackeray used the weapon of sharp irony to depict the hypocritical greed of the upper classes where fortunes are made and lost.

Thackeray wrote several novels about money-grabbers. In "The Newcomes" and "The Book of Snobs" he classified the snobs of England according to their profession and rank. The writer made it clear that at court, church and universities snobs were the same, because all of them were very proud of their own social position and kept away from people of a lower class. Only the degree of their rank and wealth is taken into consideration.

William Makepeace Thackeray was influenced by the 18th century masters, such as Henry Fielding, Laurence Sterne and others. Among his later works the most important were "The Four Georges" and "The Adventure of Philip” which are little remembered.

Lecture 7

LatE 19^th Century – EARLY 20^th Century

At the end of the 19th century Great Britain became the leading colonial power of the world. By the end of the century Britain controlled much of the territory of the world. Most British strongly believed in their right to an Empire, but at the same time they understood that every new area conquered provoked new troubles and fears which involved all sorts of contradiction, and the colonies began to demand their freedom. At the end of the 19th century the struggle between the realistic and antirealistic trends in art and literature came to its peak

The desire to liberate art & literature from the contents of the Victorian society. Thus, criticism is the dominant mood in the beginning of the XX c. Criticism took different forms. Some of them – modernists, others – spiritual exploiters. Artist’s duty was to reflect truly thoughts of people.

Some writers continued the traditions of the brilliant school of novelists. They were Thomas Hardy, Bernard Shaw, Herbert Wells, John Galsworthy. Their criticism of the social wrongs reached its highest degree in their works.

On the other hand, the growth of those writers who didn't want to give the realistic description of the society but tried to escape from reality, indulging in the world of their imagination, was observed. They created the theory the main motto of which was "Art for Art's Sake". They rejected any kind of struggle. They just hated the bourgeois system. These writers called themselves symbolists, or aesthetes.

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

Oscar Wilde was born in Ireland, in Dublin, into the family of a prominent Irish surgeon. His mother influenced him greatly. She was a remarkable woman. The home atmosphere of love and happiness was favourable for the development of poetic abilities of the boy.

Oscar Wilde was a bright student, and he studied brilliantly. He listened to the lectures of a well-known art critic JohnRuskin about the aesthetic criticism of capitalism. In studying art Ruskin realized that its mission was to make life more beautiful. The artist must not only create beauty but also make people feel that beauty.

Having graduated from Oxford, Wilde settled in London. By this time aesthetism had become fashionable. Oscar Wilde became the leader of this trend in literature. Moreover, he became the symbol of Beauty. Wilde had to earn money by journalism but he disliked this sort of activity, and he never signed his articles.

In 1882 Oscar Wilde published his first volume of poems, written under the influence of decadents.

Madonna Mia A lily-girl, not made for this world's pain, With brown, soft hair close braided by her ears, And longing eyes half veiled by slumberous tears Like bluest water seen through mists of rain: Pale cheeks whereon no love hath left its stain, Red underlip drawn in for fear of love, And white throat, whiter than the silvered dove, Through whose wan marble creeps one purple vein. Yet, though my lips shall praise her without cease, Even to kiss her feet I am not bold, Being o'ershadowed by the wings of awe, Like Dante, when he stood with Beatrice Beneath the flaming Lion's breast, and saw The seventh Crystal, and the Stair of Gold.

Моя Мадонна Лилея, чуждая страданиям мирским, Владелица прямых и мягких кос, С вуалью чистых и спокойных слез В очах, что бьют источником живым; Щекам сиим неведом жар любви Застыли губы в страхе пред порывом, И шея цвета серебристых крыльев, Как мрамор с жилкой пурпурной крови. Я до лобзанья ног не возвеличен, Но беспрерывно ей творю молитвы слепо, Благоговеньем бесконечным озарен, Как Данте перед ликом Беатриче, Под сердцем Льва, был светом ослеплен Ступеней золотых к вратам седьмого неба.

Fiction by Wilde includes The Canterville Ghost (1887), The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888), A House of Pomegranates (1891), Lord Arthur Savile's Crime (1891) Преступление лорда Артура Сэвила

His plays include Vera, or the Nihilists (1880), The Duchess of Padua (1883), Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), A Florentine Tragedy (La Sainte Courtisane 1893), A Woman of No Importance (1893), Salomé (1894), An Ideal Husband (1895), and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895).

Вера, или Нигилисты (1880)

Герцогиня Падуанская (1883)

Саломея (1891, исполнена впервые в 1896 в Париже)

Веер леди Уиндермир (1892)

Женщина, не стоящая внимания (1893)

Идеальный муж (1895)

Как важно быть серьёзным (ок. 1895)

Флорентийская трагедия (фрагменты, опубл. в 1908)

His masterpiece "The Picture of Dorian Gray" was written in 1891. In this work Oscar Wilde tries to prove his main principle: art doesn't reflect reality, but reality reflects art.

In 1891 Wilde met English poet Lord Alfred Douglas "Bosie" (1870-1945), son of John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry (1844-1900). It was the beginning of relationship that would cause many problems for Oscar and eventually lead to his downfall. Wilde was charged with "gross indecency" for homosexual acts. The outcome of the sensational trial was a sentence of two years hard labour which Wilde served most of at the Reading Gaol outside of London. Now prisoner, Wilde turned to his pen and wrote many essays, poems, and letters including one to Alfred, "De Profundis". After his release from prison in May of 1897, Wilde wrote "Ballad of Reading Gaol" (1898) about the injustice of the death penalty.

THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY

Dorian Gray, a beautiful young man, dreams of preserving his youth and beauty for ever. His portrait is painted by a talented artist, Basil by name. "When he (Dorian Gray) saw it (his portrait) he drew back, and his cheeks flushed for a moment with pleasure. A look of joy came into his eyes, as if he had recog­nized himself for the first time.... the sense of his own beauty came on him like a revelation. He had never felt it before". "How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this partic­ular day of June... If it were only the other way! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that — for that — I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul for that!". Dorian's wish is fulfilled. The portrait possesses an unusual quality: it reflects all the changes in the appearance of Dorian Gray. But Dorian himself remains untouched by the course of time. He is still as young and beautiful as he was when the portrait was painted.

Besides Basil, Dorian is greatly influenced by Lord Henry, who has found the way to Dorian's soul. Thus Dorian lives a life according to the principles of immoral aesthetics, he commits a number of crimes. The picture, hidden away and kept locked, nevertheless, reflects the degradation of a man who can't stop doing wrong things and can't do without pleasure. In the end Dorian realizes the horror of the situation and attacks his portrait with a knife. When people enter the room they see the portrait of a beautiful young man on the wall and a dead body of an ugly, wrinkled old man on the floor.

The author wants to show his attitude to life and art. He discloses the idea that Art is superior to Life, because a work of Art is always beautiful, and Life is ugly and wrinkled.

The story is full of paradoxes. Even the preface to "Dorian Gray" is written in a paradoxical style:

The artist is the creator of beautiful things.

To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim...

They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty.

There is no such thing as moral or immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

All art is quite useless.

Oscar Wilde, Prince Paradox, was a gifted and talented writer. It was his manner of protest against the flatness and narrowness of official ways of thinking. The main paradox of his own life was in the contradiction between theory and practice. Having proclaimed that perfect art was associated with perfect immorality, he himself was a moralist.

Lewis Carroll (1832-1898)

Close to the name of Oscar Wilde stands the name of Lewis Carroll, whose book "Alice in Wonderland" became no less popular in England than Oscar Wilde's "Tales". Unlike Wilde's "Tales", the book about Alice and her adventures in Wonderland is nonsense, but so delightful and strangely reasonable.

Lewis Carroll is a pen-name of Charles Lutwidg Dodgson, who was born in the family of a clergyman in Cheshire. Charles was well educated at Rugby School and then at Oxford where he stayed to work, as a teacher of Mathematics. It was then that he wrote his first humorous poems for a popular magazine. He signed his poems as Lewis Carroll. In 1865 his "Alice in Wonderland" was published. The book brought him fame. The story was written for Alice, the second daughter of the dean of the University.

ALICE IN WONDERLAND

The plot centres round a pretty girl Alice who becomes the heroine of the adventures. Lewis Carroll could bring the grown-up world to the world of childhood. "He could recreate it, so that we too became children again" (Virginia Woolf. "Essays"). In order to make us children Lewis Carroll first makes us fall asleep. He creates the world of sleep, the world of dreams.

Alice falls down a rabbit hole and arrives in a Wonderland where she meets many unusual and strange animals and people, "skipping and leaping across the mind’, and has many wonderful adventures based on the mixture of reason and imagination. It's a combination of amusing plays, nursery-rhymes, allegory, colourful metaphors, parodies and play on words (pun).

For example, in the "Pig and Pepper" Lewis Carroll makes a parody on a well-known lullaby. The sentimental lullaby sounds like that:

Speak gently to the little child.

Its love be sure to gain;

Teach it in accents soft and mild;

It may not long remain.

But Carroll's Duchess sings a severe lullaby:

Speak roughly to your little boy,

And beat him when he sneezes;

He only does it to annoy,

Because he knows it teases.

Wow! Wow! Wow!

Lewis Carroll wants to amuse the reader; he copies the style of well-known songs and poems. In those time "Twinkle, twinkle, little star" (by Jane Taylor) was popular:

Twinkle, twinkle, little star,

How I wonder what you are

Up above the world so high

Like a diamond in the sky.

Carroll alters this verse into:

Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!

How I wonder what you're at?

Up above the world you fly,

Like a tea-tray in the sky.

Рыжик, рыжик, где ты был?

На полянке дождик пил?

Выпил каплю, выпил две,

Стало сыро в голове!

(Перевод В.Набокова)

Крокодильчики мои,

Цветики речные!

Что глядите на меня

Прямо как родные?

(Перевод Б.Заходера)

Nonsense rules over the Wonderland. Nonsense has become a special literary device. It produces a comic effect. But it hides the serious things.

The author reveals the spirit of his time. More than that, he depicts all aspects of life: fashion, thoughts, behaviour. Nonsense, stupidity form the basis of the comic effect, produced by many episodes. "The judge, by the way, was king, because of his great wig," the jurors "were putting down their names for fear they should forget them before the end of the trial." A pack of cards resembles the Royal Court.

Speaking about adventures either in Wonderland or fairyland, the name of Kenneth Grahame is worth mentioning. His name is not as popular as the names f Oscar Wilde and Lewis Carroll. But the readers who are interested in the genre of tale must get acquainted with the book "The Wind in the Willows", written by Kenneth Grahame in Victorian Age.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)

Robert Louis Stevenson was born in Edinburgh. He was the only child of Thomas Stevenson, an engineer, who designed lighthouse. Robert's childhood was a lonely one. In 1852 Alison Cunningham became his nurse. Her influence was great. He wrote "A Child's Garden of Verses” published in March 1885 and dedicated to his old nurse.

Robert Louis Stevenson's poetry for children is highly imaginative, he tries to identify himself with the children, with their vision.

Good Play

We built a ship upon the stairs

All made of the back-bedroom chairs

And filled it full of sofa pillows

To go a-sailing on the billows.

We took a saw and several nails,

And water in the nursery pails;

And Tom said, "Let us also take

An apple and a slice of cake;" —

Which was enough for Tom and me

To go a-sailing on, till tea.

In 1881 his first masterpiece, "Treasure Island" appeared in the "Young Folk" magazine. This story was composed by Stevenson to entertain his stepson Lloyd Osbourne.

The greatest fame came to the writer after the publication of his thrilling story in book form in 1883. "Treasure Island" was followed by the Scottish 18th century romance "Kidnapped" (1886). "The Master of Ballantrae" (1889) and the historical 15th century tale of "The Black Arrow" (1888) appeared in America, where Stevenson moved after his father's death in 1887.

His novels are still popular today, they have become classic children's books. Stevenson's novel asserts the value of moral and physical courage, of truth and honour.

The beginning of the crisis of Victorianism is reflected in the pessimistic novels by Thomas Hardy.

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

Thomas Hardy was born and brought up in Dorsetshire. In 1863 he won the Prize of the Architectural Association for design. Meanwhile, he read a lot and was self-educated. He decided to try his hand at writing, and in 1865 his first story was published.

He won fame with the publication of the novel "Far from the Madding Crowd" (Вдали от обезумевшей толпы) only in 1874. It's a melodramatic love story of Gabriel Oak, a shepherd, and Bathsheba Everdence. They have to suffer a lot until they get married.

In "The Return of the Natives" (Возвращение на родину) (1878) Thomas Hardy depicts the narrow village world, its farms, fields and low hills. According to the author, nature plays an important part in revealing a severe struggle for existence among the common villagers, poor wood-cutters and poor farmers.

In 1886 Thomas Hardy wrote "The Mayor of Casterbridge". It's about Michael Henchard who sells his wife and children. He does it while he is drunk, and afterwards, having realized everything he has done Michael resolves never to drink again. He works hard, becomes rich, and in the end he is made the Mayor of Casterbridge. His wife returns to him, but the hardships cut the ground from under his feet, and Michael is ruined and becomes a hard drinker again.

Thomas Hardy writes all his novels about different people, but in all his novels the idea of struggle for existence goes hand in hand with pessimism and hopelessness. Fate rules blindly the destiny of men and women and often takes the form of tragic irony. Fate and Chance are at odds with Destiny.

In spite of the vagueness, sometimes dimness, of Thomas Hardy's literary manner, his poetry has a more modern ring than his novels.

Two Lips I kissed them in fancy as I came Away in the morning glow: I kissed them through the glass of her picture-frame: She did not know. I kissed them in love, in troth, in laughter, When she knew all; long so That I should kiss them in a shroud thereafter She did not know.

Губы Я их целовал при утреннем свете В воображенье своем. Я их целовал на ее портрете, Но она не знала о том. Эти губы прекрасные были мне любы, Когда знала она обо всем... Но не знала она, что и мертвые губы Я поцелую потом.

Thomas Hardy is often .thought of as the last of the Victorians and the first of the Moderns. Like many Victorian writers, he suffered from a loss of religious faith.

The English novels of the 19th century were written at a time of great confidence in Britain. Different novelists of different levels of society disclosed all the aspects of social life and explored different themes, but the sense of confidence passed through the basic struc­ture of their work.

The writers of the 20th century could not share this confidence; the changes in beliefs and political ideas were influenced by the events across the world that led to the collapse of the British Empire. Britain found that France, Germany and the USA were increasingly competing with her, the international trade was growing and, as a result, the sense of political uncertainty also increased. Britain was no longer able to persuade other countries how to behave. Instead, Great Britain had to reach agreement with them. But it failed.

The South African War (1899-1902) was the first step towards World War I and showed the antidemocratic character of English policy to all the world. The social contradictions home and abroad were greatly sharpened. Furthermore, almost a whole generation of young men was destroyed. The returning soldiers spread the truth about the horrors of the war. The First World War brought much suffering to people. The destruction had been terrible, there was a great sorrow for the dead.

Between 1919-1922 there appeared a series of verse under the title "Georgian Poetry" where the most powerful poems of the terrible experiences were published.

Isaac Rosenberg (1890-1918) and Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) both contributed to that book of powerful war poetry. They describe the feeling of horror during the war.

The years1890-1930 were the most fertile of the British novel. The novel in Britain established itself as leading literary genre. John Galsworthy, Bernard Shaw, Herbert Wells continued the traditions of Charles Dickens. The novelists at the beginning of the 20th century differed from the novelists of the 19th century who had to follow the perfect descriptive style. They started a new tradition of bringing the language of literature close to the spoken language, to the language of real life with much more expressive intonation and short, abrupt sentences. Humanity was now seen as part of the natural world and the actions of a person could be motivated from the psychological point of view, by the forces inside the human being. One of the famous writers of the first decades of t 20th century was Rudyard Kipling — the bard of imperialism.

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

Rudyard Kipling was born in India into an intellectual family of a designer and sculptor. When Rudyard was six years old he was sent to England, and lived there till seventeen. Kipling returned to India to take up journalism. He spent much of his adult life there, at a time when the power and influence of the British Empire were at their height. He was tremendously popular as a bard of the British Empire who firmly believed in the English rule in the conquered lands.

Kipling's famous poem “If...”:

If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; • If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don't deal in lies, 8 Or being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise... If you can dream — and not make dreams your master;! If you can think — and not make thoughts your aim If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it And — which is more — you'll be a Man, my son!

О, если ты спокоен, не растерян, Когда теряют головы вокруг, И если ты себе остался верен, Когда в тебя не верит лучший друг, И если ждать умеешь без волненья, Не станешь ложью отвечать на ложь, Не будешь злобен, став для всех мишенью, Но и святым себя не назовешь, - И если ты своей владеешь страстью, А не тобою властвует она, И будешь тверд в удаче и в несчастье, Которым в сущности цена одна… И если будешь мерить расстоянье Секундами, пускаясь в дальний бег,- Земля - твое, мой мальчик, достоянье. И более того, ты - человек! (Перевод С.Маршака)

Kipling's poetry is best represented in the "Seven Seas" (1896) and "The Five Nations" (1903). His short stories: "The Jungle Book" (1894), "The Second Jungle Book" (1895) and "Just So Stories" (1902) are still popular.

"The Jungle Book" (1894) describes how the boy Mowgli is brought up in the jungle by wild animals who have human personalities. Kipling knew how to talk to children. His novel "Kim" (1901) is the story of a boy who lives in India and grows up to do service to the British Empire by capturing some important secret papers.

In 1907 Kipling became the first writer to get the Nobel Prize. He became popular all over the world. It's important to realize that his novels and poems are closely connected with each other.

Herbert George Wells (1866-1946)

At an early age Wells came to the Utopian conclusion that only scientists could solve the contradictions of the society. Wells understood that the world had to be changed, but not through revolution. He though that only evolution and certain reforms could change the existing order of things.

Herbert George Wells was born in Bromley, England. The family was not rich. Thus Herbert had to earn money for his education when he was fourteen. After school he entered a scientific college in London where he managed to win a free place to study. He was a bright student. Afterwards he became a teacher of science. Meanwhile, Herbert Wells was writing a lot. It was his hobby. When he was thirty, he became popular and rich. During his life Herbert Wells wrote 40 books of fiction, several stories and books for children. Besides he wrote articles and reviews on political and social themes.

Among Wells's early scientific novels are:

"The Time Machine" (1895), about a machine that can travel through time instead of through space;

"The Invisible Man" (1897) — scientific progress can be dangerous in the wrong hands;

"The War of the Worlds" (1898) — a negative side of great technical achievements;

"The First Men in the Moon" (1901) — a travel by air to the Moon, about seventy years before this actu­ally happened.

John Galsworthy (1867-1933)

John Galsworthy was born in 1867 in London into a well-to-do bourgeois family of a lawyer. He was educated at Oxford, but soon gave up his practice and started to write. Galsworthy travelled a lot. He visited Canada, Russia and the islands of the Pacific Ocean.

He began to write in the last years of the 19th, century, but his first works were not popular. In 1904 he produced "The Island of Pharisees" and in 1906 "The Man of Property" was published. Those two novels made him famous. Publishing "The Man of Property" John Galsworthy-started his book "The Forsyte Saga". It consists of the following books:

The Man of Property (1906) Собственник