The pleasure of reading

jueves, 8 de noviembre de 2012

This is the work of some students from past years


Oral presentation:

Gladstone
and
Disraeli

Language and Culture III


                                                        Andreolli, Adriana
                                                        Betti, Cristian
                                                        Ranchilio, Laura

























William Ewart Gladstone ( 1809-1898)
Prime Minister     1868-1874
                                1880-1885
                                1886- Febr
1868-1874
 
                                1892-1894

By the time of Gladstone´s first administration, rebellion had broken out in Ireland in a violent attempt to express bitterness over the English rule. After the Great Famine ( 1845-1852), there were acts of violence and the Irish did not want the British domination any more. When he became Prime Minister for the first time, he declared that his mission was to pacify Ireland. He also began and ambitious program of reform in Great Britain.
ó     First, he disestablished the Anglican Church of Ireland ( 1869). He introduced a bill which stated that Catholic farmers no longer had to pay taxes to the Church.
ó     He also pushed through the first Irish land Act that awarded tenants compensation for their improvements to the land if they were evicted ( forced to leave.)For the first time, the rights of the tenants were recognized by law.
ó     The Educational Act of 1870 was the first step in the construction of a national educational system. He established a system of public education, since only one half of the children of elementary school were in attendance. So, elementary school was made compulsory and all the fees were abolished. He also ended the monopoly of the Church of England in higher education by abolishing all religious tests at Universities.
ó     The Ballot Act was to establish the secret ballot to protect the votes from intimidation at the polls. Especially in Ireland, the landlord or shop owner lost his political influence over his workers. The law was a step further to prevent corrupt political practices.
Foreign Policy
1880-1885
 
                Gladstone was disinterested in the extension of the empire, preferring for England to have a moral prestige to an imperial prestige. England remained neutral in the Franco-Prussian war during which Prussia became the most powerful state in Europe. In dealing with the United States, Gladstone submitted the issue of the Alabama Claims to an international tribunal of arbitration and awarded 15 million dollars in gold for direct damages. ( claims for damages by the US government against Great Britain during the American Civil War when Britain sold warships to the Confederacy). Popular opinion felt that Gladstone was not asserting Britain´s position as a great power. Actually, he promoted peace.
                                    
               The  Irish question dominated the political scene.  Gladstone became convinced that Irish Home Rule was the only solution and fought for it, but he was unable to carry his entire party with him.
                A conscious expansion of empire took place among European nations, brought on by a new emotional and militant form of nationalism, and by the ramifications of the Industrial revolution. Imperialism took the form of expansion over seas looking for colonies as a source of raw materials. Britain began to be threatened by the industrial and military rivalry of continental powers. Although Gladstone was “ anti imperialist”, he was drawn into imperial commitments more than Disraeli. He hesitated to use force on a lesser power and he usually used force too late and even more fully.

Reform Legislation
                Gladstone was mainly interested in political liberalism and in the pacification of Ireland. There was  a second Irish land Act (1881) in which he guaranteed the “3 Fs”: Fair rent, fixity of tenure (tenants could not be evicted provided they had paid the rent) and free sale on the tenants rights. However, nothing but the Home Rule would satisfy the Irish nationalists.
                Parliamentary reform (1884): This bill gave household suffrage to the Agricultural laborers in the counties. With this act, four out of five adult males could vote. The members of the House of Commons increased.

 Feb 1886- Aug 1886
 
 

                                                              
             Gladstone began his third administration with the promise to provide Home Rule for Ireland. He defended the first Home Rule Bill for 16 days but it was defeated in Parliament.
                The Whig section had already deserted Gladstone on the issue of the Home Rule. In the election of 1886 the Radicals refused to back Home Rule and campaigned as a separate Liberal Unionist Party. The coalition of Conservatives and Liberal Unionists easily won over Gladstone´s Liberals and Irish Nationalists.

1892-1894
 
 


Gladstone, at the age of 82, was both the oldest ever person to be appointed Prime Minister and when he resigned in 1894 aged 84 he was the oldest person ever to occupy the Premiership . In 1893 he introduced the Second Home Rule Bill. It was passed in the Commons at second reading . However , the House of Lords voted against it. In December 1893 an Opposition motion called for an expansion of the Royal Navy. Gladstone opposed increasing public expenditure on the naval estimates, in the tradition of free trade liberalism of his earlier political career as Chancellor. Almost all his colleagues, however, believed in some expansion of the Royal Navy.  He resigned the Premiership on 2 March.




Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)
Prime Minister     1866-1868
                                1874-1880
                               
         Though he had been in Parliament since many years before, it was not until 1841 that Disraeli became a member of parliament (MP). That year he attached himself to “Young England”, a group of young aristocrats who expressed a desire to return to the “Golden Age” of agricultural society where paternalism and deference ensured that society worked for the benefit of all and the aristocracy ruled the land in justice and peace. Disraeli and members of his group argued that the middle class now had too much political power and advocated an alliance between the aristocracy and the working class. Disraeli suggested that the aristocracy should use their power to help protect the poor. This political philosophy was expressed in Disraeli's novels Coningsby (1844), Sybil (1845) and Tancred (1847). In these books the leading characters show concern about poverty and the injustice of the parliamentary system. Disraeli favoured a policy of protectionism and strongly opposed Peel's decision to repeal the Corn Laws.
                In 1852 Lord John Russell, the leader of the Whig government, resigned. Lord Derby, the new Prime Minister, appointed Disraeli as his Chancellor of the Exchequer. This period of power only lasted a few months and Derby was soon replaced by the Earl of Aberdeen.

                In February 1858 Derby formed his second ministry and Disraeli again took the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer but the ministry lasted only for eighteen months; during that time, the government introduced a Reform Bill that was defeated by the Liberals: Disraeli proposed the equalization of the town and county franchise. This would have resulted in some men in towns losing the vote and was opposed by the Liberals.
                In 1859 Lord Palmerston, became Prime Minister, and Disraeli once more lost his position in the government. For the next seven years the Liberals were in power and it was not until 1866 that Disraeli returned to the cabinet. Once again, Lord Derby appointed Disraeli as his Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader of the House of Commons.
                In the House of Commons, Disraeli's proposals were supported by Gladstone and his followers and the measure was passed. The 1867 Reform Act gave the vote to every male adult householder living in a borough constituency. Male lodgers paying £10 for unfurnished rooms were also granted the vote. This gave the vote to about 1,500,000 men.
                In 1868 Lord Derby resigned and Benjamin Disraeli became the new Prime Minister. However, in the 1868 General Election that followed, William Gladstone and the Liberals were returned to power with a majority of 170.
                After six years in opposition, Disraeli and the Conservative Party won the 1874 General Election. It was the first time since 1841 that the Tories in the House of Commons had a clear majority. Disraeli now had the opportunity to the develop the ideas that he had expressed when he was leader of the Young England group in the 1840s. Social reforms passed by the Disraeli government included: the Artisans Dwellings Act (1875), the Public Health Act (1875), the Pure Food and Drugs Act (1875), the Climbing Boys Act (1875), the Education Act (1876).
                After six years in opposition, Disraeli and the Conservative Party won the 1874 General Election. It was the first time since 1841 that the Tories in the House of Commons had a clear majority. Disraeli now had the opportunity to the develop the ideas that he had expressed when he was leader of the Young England group in the 1840s. Social reforms passed by the Disraeli government included: the Artisans Dwellings Act (1875), the Public Health Act (1875), the Pure Food and Drugs Act (1875), the Climbing Boys Act (1875), the Education Act (1876).

                Disraeli also introduced measures to protect workers such as the
1874 Factory Act and the Climbing Boys Act (1875). Disraeli also kept his promise to improve the legal position of trade unions. The Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act (1875) allowed peaceful picketing and the Employers and Workmen Act (1878) enabled workers to sue employers in the civil courts if they broke legally agreed contracts.

                Unlike
William Gladstone, Disraeli got on very well with Queen Victoria. She approved of Disraeli's imperialist views and his desire to make Britain the most powerful nation in the world. In 1876 Victoria agreed to his suggestion that she should accept the title of Empress of India.
                In August 1876 Queen Victoria granted Disraeli the title Lord Beaconsfield. Disraeli now left the House of Commons but continued as Prime Minister and now used the House of Lords to explain his government's policies. At the Congress of Berlin in 1878 Disraeli gained great acclaim for his success in limiting Russia's power in the Balkans.

                The
Liberals defeated the Conservatives in the 1880 General Election and after William Gladstone became Prime Minister, Disraeli decided to retire from politics. Disraeli hoped to spend his retirement writing novels but soon after the publication of Endymion (1880) he became very ill. Benjamin Disraeli died on 19th April, 1881.


Benjamin Disraeli´s quotations

·         One of the hardest things in this world is to admit you are wrong. And nothing is more helpful in resolving a situation than its frank admission.

William E. Gladstone´s quotations

·         “Justice delayed is justice denied.”
·         “Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear.”
·         “Selfishness is the greatest curse of the human race”
·         “If you are cold, tea will warm you; if you are too heated, it will cool you; if you are depressed, it will cheer you; if you are excited, it will calm you.”
·         “No man ever became great or good except through many and great mistakes”
·         “All the world over, I will back the masses against the classes.”
·         “He is the purest figure in history. [About George Washington]”
·         “Be happy with what you have and are, be generous with both, and you won't have to hunt for happiness.”
·         “[The Turks] one and all, bag and baggage, shall, I hope, clear out from the province they have desolated and profaned.”
·         “Mediocrity is now, as formerly, dangerous, commonly fatal, to the poet; but among even the successful writers of prose, those who rise sensibly above it are the very rarest exceptions”
·         “Here is my first principle of foreign policy: good government at home.”
·         “Remember the rights of the savage, as we call him. Remember that the happiness of his humble home, remember that the sanctity of life in the hill villages of Afghanistan, among the winter snows, is as inviolable in the eye of Almighty God, as can be your own.”
·         “The disease of an evil conscience is beyond the practice of all the physicians of all the countries in the would”
·         “Never forget that the purpose for which a man lives is the improvement of the man himself, so that he may go out of this world having, in his great sphere or his small one, done some little good for his fellow creatures and labored a little to diminish the sin and sorrow that are in the world.”
·         We look forward to the time when the Power of Love will replace the Love of Power. Then will our world know the blessings of Peace.”
·         “It is the duty of government to make it difficult for people to do wrong, easy to do right.”
·         There should be a sympathy with freedom, a desire to give it scope, founded not upon visionary ideas, but upon the long experience of many generations within the shores of this happy isle, that in freedom you lay the firmest foundations both of loyalty and order.


http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42761000/jpg/_42761657_disraeli416x300.jpg


William E. Gladstone (1810-1889)
Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)
Extraordinary ability / Highly intelligent / Dominant figures
Loyal/ Devoted to thier country, Queen and monarchy
Patriotic men / Concerned about cultural traditions and identity
Leaders of their parties
Great rivalry/Mutual loathing/ Bitter antipathy/Detested each other/Eternal enemies
Heavy weight fighters

Liberal (Whig)
Conservative (Tory)
Social background / origin: Scotish descendant –Rich ,wealthy upper-class- Born in Liverpool- 4 siblings
Social background / origin:Italian Jewish descendant- lack of wealth- 4 siblings
Father: Merchant- Owner of a slave plantation in the West Indies
Father: Man of letters, critic, historian
Religion: Anglican / priest / devouted-pious- deeply religious
Religion: Although of Jewish origin, he was baptized defying the Synagogue /  adolescence .converted to Anglicanism / no religious principles / remained outside the Church
Education: upper-class education at Eton / Christ Church / very studious / learned
Education: at a small obscure school at Blackheath / further studies at Higlam Hall / no university / law career : abandoned
Nickname: GOM : Grand Old Man , according to his friends and supporters / God´s Only Mistake, according to Disraeli and AV : Arch Villain / Unprincipled maniac, mixture of envy, hypocrisy and supertition
Nickname. “The grand corrupter”, according to Gladstone / Marvelous talent, brilliant buoyancy .
Youth:respectable
Youth: irrespectable
Money:  Good administrator
Money: speculated in the stock exchange in some South American mining companies : in debt / ruined after an attempt to bring out a newspaper
Women: he married Catherine Glynne in 1839 / Rescued prostitutes from the street to help them rehabilitate
Women. He married Marie Anne Lewis in 1839 (rich widow- financial interest ) / during his youth :  a dandy / involved in a romance with a married woman
Politics / Views:democratic sensibility- ethical foreing policy / dominant and controversial- terrible on rebounds / good administrator :finances / He entered the House as a Tory , later he became Liberal after a trip to Italy in which he witnessed extreme poverty / religiuous imprint
Politics:Master of sarcasm an debate / agressive foreing policy / helped the aristocracy and the working class/ against the increasing power of the merchants / concerned with social reforms / Creator of the Modern Conservative Party / former Radical
Personality /Style:Torrential, eloquent, evangelical vehement, intense, with moral fervour, superior intellect , vigorous and magnificent oratory, peculiar temperament, great exitement /industrious to expound his views / strong sense of duty, phenomenal capacity of hard work / devoid of humor
Personality / Style:Flamboyant style and dress/ extravagant / affected manners / acute, urbane, witty, worldly, cynical / sneaky tactics at debates , cunning, great ability, talent, outstanding performances / gift for flattery ( with the Queen) 7 interested in social legislation
Parliament : 1832: as a Tory
                     1859: joined the Liberal Party
Parliament: 1837: as a Tory ( although Radical at the begining of his political career )
                    1876: Earl of Beaconsfield, left the House of Commons

martes, 6 de noviembre de 2012

Dear all,
              I am sorry but I will not make it to the class today. If you have no inconvenience we can make up for this class on Thursday or next Tuesday, as you wish.

Regards,
Constanza

martes, 30 de octubre de 2012

miércoles, 5 de septiembre de 2012

Essay on Hard Times


Essay on Hard Times by Charles Dickens

Choose one topic and write an essay (2 pages). Quote from the novel to support your point.

Submission date: October 11th

  • What social and economic roles do women play in Hard Times? What does Dickens see as "appropriate" and "inappropriate" roles for women? Why are certain women in the story punished and others rewarded? Why, for example, does Sissy have children but Louisa doesn't?

  • Although marriage is not central to this novel's theme, Dickens offers no less than three examples of "failed" or "failing" marriages: the Gradgrinds', the Bounderbys', and the Blackpools'. Compare the dysfunctional nature of these relationships, identifying the causes of marital breakdown in each case. What, implies Dickens, is the "formula" or secret to a happy marriage? Which character in the book best knows this "secret"? Explain.


  • What about its effects makes Dickens hostile to industrial capitalism in Hard Times? How does he reveal his indignation? In what ways does Bounderby, for example, exemplify the worst aspects of the factory-owning class? What cure does Dickens propose for the ills of industrial society as depicted in the novel?

  • George Bernard Shaw argues that Dickens deliberately wrote Hard Times to make his middle class readers feel "uncomfortable." Locate the sources of this discomfort, and explain how it serves Dickens's thematic intentions in the novel.

martes, 4 de septiembre de 2012

Thursday 13th:     Read the essay “On the Sublime” by E. Burke, which is part of the material of this blog. How is the sublime manifested in this novel?

Conventions of the Gothic Genre:

There are a number of techniques, devices and conventions common to a great deal of Gothic literature:


  • WEATHER: used in a number of ways and forms, some of these being: Mist - This convention in Gothic Literature is often used to obscure objects (this can be related to the sublime) by reducing visibility or to prelude the insertion of a terrifying person or thing; Storms - These frequently accompany important events. Flashes of lightening accompany revelation; thunder and downpours prefigure the appearance of a character or the beginning of a significant event; Sunlight - represents goodness and pleasure; it also has the power to bestow these upon characters.

     
  • THE SUBLIME: The definition of this key term has long been a contested term, but the idea of the sublime is essential to an understanding of Gothic poetics and, especially, the attempt to defend or justify the literature of terror.
    Put basically (and this really is basic - a fuller understanding of the Sublime would be useful to students of Wordsworth or any Gothic Literature), the Sublime is an overpowering sense of the greatness and power of nature, which can be uplifting, awe-inspiring and terrifying, caused by experience of beauty, vastness or grandeur. Sublime moments lead us to consider the place of humanity in the universe, and the power exhibited in the world.
    We see an example of Gothic usurpation of a Romantically sublime space in the monster's interruption of Victor's Alpine reveries in Frankenstein.

     
  • DREAMS: Perhaps the most famous Gothic example occurs in Shelley's Frankenstein after Frankenstein 'awakes' his creature: he falls into a dream state that begins with his kissing of Elizabeth, his love. However, this kiss changes her in the most drastic way as she transforms into the rotting corpse of Caroline, Victor's dead mother. Upon awakening from this horrifying dream, Victor finds himself staring into the face of the monster he has created. Interpretations of this dream lead to explorations of Frankenstein's psyche, relational ability and sexuality.

     
  • SENSE OF MYSTERY AND DREAD: These serve to captivate the reader and encourage further reading. They may also be seen acting upon the protagonists in texts, influencing them by exciting their curiosity or fear. Frankenstein himself is occupied with penetrating the mystery that surrounds life, but this leads for him to months of dread. The reader (and Walton) are intrigued by the mystery of Frankenstein's methods.

     
  • THE SUPERNATURAL: This is generally in the form of some kind of supernatural being or object, such as a vampire or ghost, which is frightening due to its refusal to adhere to the laws of nature, God or man. In Frankenstein, it could be argued that there is no element of the supernatural, or alternatively that the creature is supernatural by virtue of its being a composition of dead parts then re-animated by 'ungodly' means.

     
  • DARKNESS AS INTRINSIC TO HUMANITY: Generally speaking, gothic literature delves into the macabre nature of humanity in its quest to satiate mankind's intrinsic desire to plumb the depths of terror.

     
  • AMBIGUITY AND AMBIVALENCE: These are found in characters, their motivations and lives. Duality and antithesis are also found.

     
  • JUSTICE: The Gothic often shows that that "the sins of the fathers are visited on their children to the third and forth [sic] generation". What this form of resolution implies, guaranteeing as it does that justice will be done despite the degree to which the original crime has been obscured and forgotten, is that the power of social stability is stronger than any individual's attempt to transgress it.

     
  • REVENGE: Revenge is characterized as the act of repaying someone for a harm that the person has caused; the idea also points back generically to one of the key influences upon Gothic literature: the revenge tragedies of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. Revenge may be enacted upon a loved one, a family member, a friend, an object or even an area. Within Gothic Literature, revenge is notably prominent and can be enacted by or upon mortals as well as spirits. Revenge can take many forms, such as harm to body, harm to loved ones, and harm to family. The most Gothic version of revenge in Gothic Literature is the idea that it can be a guiding force in the revenance of the dead.

     
  • UNRELIABLE NARRATOR: A narrator tells a story and determines the story's point of view. An unreliable narrator, however, does not understand the importance of a particular situation or makes an incorrect conclusion or assumption about an event that he/she witnesses.

     
  • VILLAIN-HERO (Satanic, Promethean, Byronic Hero): The villain of a story who either 1) poses as a hero at the beginning of the story or 2) simply possesses enough heroic characteristics (charisma, sympathetic past, etc) so that either the reader or the other characters see the villain-hero as more than a simple charlatan or bad guy. Three closely related types exist:
    Satanic Hero: a Villain-Hero whose nefarious deeds and justifications of them make him a more interesting character than the rather bland good hero. Example: The origin of this prototype comes from Romantic misreadings of Milton's Paradise Lost, whose Satan poets like Blake and Shelley regarded as a far more compelling figure than the moralistic God of Book III of the epic. Gothic examples: ?Frankenstein's creature?; just about any vampire.
    Promethean Hero: a Villain-Hero who has done good but only by performing an overreaching or rebellious act. Prometheus from ancient Greek mythology saved mankind but only after stealing fire and ignoring Zeus' order that mankind should be kept in a state of subjugation. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is tellingly subtitled the "Modern Prometheus", suggesting that Frankenstein is this kind of hero.
    Byronic Hero: a later variation of the "antithetically mixed" Villain-Hero. Aristocratic, suave, moody, handsome, solitary, secretive, brilliant, cynical, sexually intriguing, and nursing a secret wound, he is renowned because of his fatal attraction for female characters and readers and continues to occasion debate about gender issues. This darkly attractive and very conflicted male figure surfaces everywhere in the 19th and 20th century gothic. (NB - Byron was described as "mad, bad and dangerous to know")

     
  • THE PURSUED PROTAGONIST: Refers to the idea of a pursuing force that relentlessly acts in a severely negative manner on a character. This persecution often implies the notion of some sort of a curse or other form of terminal and utterly unavoidable damnation, a notion that usually suggests a return to ,or "hangover" of, traditional religious ideology to chastise the character for some real or imagined wrong against the moral order.

     
  • THE OUTSIDER: The one theme that cuts through virtually all Gothic is that of the "outsider," embodied in wanderers like Frankenstein's creature. The outsider, like Cain, moves along the edges of society, in caves, on lonely seacoasts, or in monasteries and convents. While the society at large always appears bourgeois in its culture and morality, the Gothic outsider is a counterforce driven by strange longings and destructive needs. While everyone else appears sane, he is insane; while everyone else appears bound by legalities, he is trying to snap the pitiless constrictions of the law; while everyone else seems to lack any peculiarities of taste or behaviour, he feels only estrangement, sick longings, terrible surges of power and devastation. He is truly countercultural, an alternate force, almost mythical in his embodiment of the burdens and sins of society.
    Gothic fiction, as we have observed, is concerned with the outsider, whether the stationary figure who represses his difference, or the wandering figure who seeks for some kind of salvation, or else the individual who for whatever reason- moves entirely outside the norm. In any event, he is beyond the moderating impulses in society, and he must be punished for his transgression.
    Frankenstein's monster obviously straddles these categories. He wanders through mountain areas of the far North, lurks in caves and caverns, in places no one else dare go. He seeks a mate, a complement to his own loneliness. He is gloomy and melancholy, full of self-pity and self-hatred. Like Cain, he is the perpetual outsider, marked by his appearance, doomed to wander the four corners of the earth, alone and reviled.
    It may be argued that Frankenstein himself becomes an outsider as he grows more and more like his creation.

     
  • THE DISTRESSED HEROINE: Although Frankenstein is a text without a heroine, it dies contain a number of important female characters, all of whom are in some way and at some time greatly distressed. They do not, however, as in other texts they could, overcome their distress with the help (or despite the hindrance) of the hero.

     
  • MARRIAGE AS RESOLUTION: The importance of marriage in this schema cannot be overstated. Not only does movement toward matrimony in the Gothic's present trigger the appearance of the buried past, but that buried past itself always contains information tied to the institutions of matrimony or family interest.

     
  • STRONG MORAL CLOSURE: If de Sade is to be believed, the Gothic genre arose as a response to the brutality and bloodiness of Romantic society, and it as part of this response that Gothic fiction usually contains a strong moral. In Frankenstein, there are a number of moral messages which can be drawn; some more explicit that others. This is, however, complicated by the fact that Frankenstein does not seem to learn a great deal from his experience and exhorts Walton to two conflicting courses of action near the end of the novel.

jueves, 30 de agosto de 2012

Frankenstein is a gothic novel. Gothic novels focus on the mysterious or supernatural. They take place in dark, often exotic, settings; and yield unease if not terror in their readers. The double is a frequent feature of the Gothic novel, and in a sense Frankenstein and his monster are doubles. 

Some literary historians also consider Frankenstein the first science fiction novel. Do you agree? Support your answer.

martes, 28 de agosto de 2012

Hello everybody! Today I won't be able to give my class because my child is ill. Sorry! See you on Thursday!

miércoles, 22 de agosto de 2012


Assignment (September/ October)
Individual oral presentations


v     Choose a poem and prepare an oral presentation in which you will analyse it.
September 18th :
·        “Ode on a Grecian Urn” by Keats.
·   “Summer and Winter” by Shelley.


October 2nd :

·        “Helpstone”, by John Clare.
·        “Singing in Winter” by John Clare.
·         “The Primrose” by John Clare.
·         “The Setting Sun” by John Clare.