context_shaping the english character

8/18/2019 Context_shaping the English Character

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Performer - Culture & LiteratureMarina Spiazzi, Marina Tavella,

Margaret Layton © 2012

Shaping the Englishcharacter

Bartholomew

Dandridge,

A Lady reading

Belinda beside

a fountain, 174!

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Shaping the English character

) Queen Anne(1702–1714) had succeeded her brother-in-law, William III, and her sister Mary.

) After her death, her cousin, the Dukeof Hanover, became KingGeorge I.

During his reign:

1.the powers of the monarchydiminished;

2.Ministers met without the King in the

cabinet led by the Prime Minister;

3.the actual power was held by SirRobert Walpole, Britain’s first primeminister.

1. The first Hanoverian king

Performer - Culture&Literature

*eorge +, ! 1714


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2. The House of Hanover


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The majority of Scots accepted their new role in akingdomunited under the title Great Britain.

Arenewal of Scottish nationalismmust awaitthe 20thcentury.

3. 1707: The Act of Union

It abolished theScottish Parliament

It gave the Scots a proportion ofthe seats at Westminster

The Act of Union

became official during Queen Anne’s reign


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4. The Whigs and the Tories

The Whigs

Descendants ParliamentariansSupported by the wealthy andcommercial classesFought for commercial development a vigorous foreign policy religious toleration

The Tories

Descendants Royalists

Supported by the Church ofEngland the landownersFought for the divine right ofthe king

The firstpoliticalparties in Britain


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The 18th-century key concepts were:

) political stability;

) individualism;

) liberal thought and free will;

) optimism;

) reason and common sense;

) desire for balance, symmetry, refinement.

5. A golden age


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6. The reading public

The increase of the reading publicin the Augustan Age was due to

The growing

importance of themiddle class

The individual’s

trust in his ownabilities

The practice

of reason andself-analysis

Most readers

weremiddle-classwomen

They used to

borrow booksfrom circulatinglibraries

Coffee-houses

allowed thecirculation ofnews, opinions


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Coffee-houses

1.were attended by fashionable and artistic people;

2.became gathering points where people

exchanged ideas and gossip;3.let public opinion and journalism evolve;

4.were exclusively attended by men.


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where the belief in the power ofreason and the individual’s trustin his own abilities found

expression

‘The Tatler’and‘TheSpectator’the first Englishnewspapers

Their style simple, livelyTheir aim didactic

The interest of middle-class people in literature gave rise to

journalism the novel


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9. The characters

The heroA bourgeois, self-made,

self-reliant man

The reader is expected to

sympathise with him

The mouthpiece of the

author

They struggle

for survival orsocialsuccess

have contemporary

names and surnames RobinsonCrusoe

All thecharacters


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10. The setting

) Chronological sequence of events.

) References to particular times of the year or of the day.

‘I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York’

Robinson Crusoe

) Specific references to names of countries, towns and

streets.) Detailed descriptions of interiors to make thenarrative more realistic.


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11. The narrative technique

1ST-PERSON

NARRATOR

3RD-PERSON

NARRATOR

PATTERN

Daniel DefoeFictional

autobiographies

Samuel

Richardson

Letters

exchanged

between the main

characters

Henry Fielding The mock-epicstyle


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12. Themes

1. Real life.

1. Everything that could alter a social status.

1. The sense of reward and punishment

linked to the Puritan ethics of the middle class.

context_shaping the english character

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