1. Shaping the English character
Bartholomew Dandridge, A Lady reading Belinda beside a fountain, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Shaping the English character
Performer - Culture & Literature
Marina Spiazzi, Marina Tavella,
Margaret Layton © 2012

2. 1. The first Hanoverian king
Queen Anne (1702–1714) had succeeded her brother-in-law, William III, and her sister Mary.
After her death, her cousin, the Duke of Hanover, became King George I.
During his reign:
the powers of the monarchy diminished;
Ministers met without the King in the cabinet led by the Prime Minister;
the actual power was held by Sir Robert Walpole, Britain’s first prime minister.
George I, c. 1714
Performer - Culture&Literature

3. 2. The House of Hanover
Performer - Culture&Literature

4. : The Act of Union
It abolished the Scottish Parliament
It gave the Scots a proportion of the seats at Westminster
The Act of Union
became official during Queen Anne’s reign
The majority of Scots accepted their new role in a kingdom united under the title Great Britain.
A renewal of Scottish nationalism must await the 20th century.
Performer - Culture&Literature

5. 4. The Whigs and the Tories
Descendants Parliamentarians
Supported by the wealthy and commercial classes
Fought for  commercial development
 a vigorous foreign policy
 religious toleration
The Whigs
The first political parties in Britain
Descendants Royalists
Supported by the Church of England the landowners
Fought for the divine right of the king
The Tories
Performer - Culture&Literature

6. 5. A golden age The 18th-century key concepts were:
political stability;
individualism;
liberal thought and free will;
optimism;
reason and common sense;
desire for balance, symmetry, refinement.
Performer - Culture&Literature

7. 6. The reading public
The increase of the reading public in the Augustan Age was due to
The growing importance of the middle class
The individual’s trust in his own abilities
The practice of reason and self-analysis
Most readers were
middle-class women
They used to borrow books
from circulating libraries
Coffee-houses allowed the circulation of news, opinions
Performer - Culture&Literature

8. 6. The reading public Coffee-houses
were attended by fashionable and artistic people;
became gathering points where people exchanged ideas and gossip;
let public opinion and journalism evolve;
were exclusively attended by men.
Performer - Culture&Literature

9. The interest of middle-class people in literature gave rise to
6. The reading public
The interest of middle-class people in literature gave rise to
journalism
the novel
‘The Tatler’and‘The Spectator’the first English newspapers
Their style  simple, lively
Their aim  didactic
where the belief in the power of reason and the individual’s trust in his own abilities found expression
Le frecce dovrebbero partire entrambe dal box azzurro: ristrutturare la slide Assolutamente sì!
Performer - Culture&Literature

10. 7. The novelist The spokesman of the middle class.
The fathers of the English novel:
Daniel Defoe the realistic novel
Samuel Richardson the sentimental novel
Henry Fielding the mock-epic novel
Jonathan Swift the satirical novel
Performer - Culture&Literature

11. 8. The novelist’s aim
To be understood widely He wrote in a simple way.
Realism not only linked to the life presented, but to the way it was shown.
Speed and copiousness His most important economic virtues since it was the bookseller and not the patron who rewarded him.
Performer - Culture&Literature

12. 9. The characters A bourgeois, self-made, self-reliant man The hero
The mouthpiece of the author
The reader is expected to sympathise with him
have contemporary names and surnames
Robinson
Crusoe
They struggle for survival or social success
All the characters
Performer - Culture&Literature

13. ‘I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York’
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 the narrative more realistic.
Performer - Culture&Literature

14. 11. The narrative technique
1ST-PERSON NARRATOR
3RD-PERSON NARRATOR
PATTERN
Daniel Defoe
Fictional autobiographies
Samuel Richardson
Letters exchanged between the main characters
Henry Fielding
The mock-epic style
Performer - Culture&Literature

15. 12. Themes Real life. Everything that could alter a social status.
The sense of reward and punishment
linked to the Puritan ethics of the middle class.
Performer - Culture&Literature