1. The theme of the DOUBLE: Wilde and Stevenson
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND:
AGE OF REFORMS: the Chartist movement
PROGRESS: the Great Exhibition, new social services, transports, medicine; new buildings in London (Gothic and Classical revival).
COLONIAL EXPANSION: the British Empire, idea of superiority of the white man (see photograph of Queen Victoria)
SOCIAL PROBLEMS: poverty, overcrowded towns, terrible living conditons (workhouses).
AGE OF CONTRADICTIONS: the Victorian compromise, a strict moral code that concealed social injustices.
Woman as the angel of the house, idea of patriarchal family
The theme of the DOUBLE: Wilde and Stevenson
THE VICTORIAN NOVEL, main features:
Read by the middle classes (circulating libraries)
Often published in instalments
Set in the city
With a moral aim
The Victorian Age
(1837 – 1901)
THE AESTHETIC MOVEMENT:
Main principle: art for art’s sake: importance of beauty and pleasure, reaction to the strict Victorian moral code.
Life as a work of art
No moral aim, isolation of the artist from contemporary society
European movement (Huysman, D’Annunzio, Wilde)
CHARLES DICKENS. Some features of his novels: set in London, his characters are stereotypes, interest in the working class and in children, moral message.
OLIVER TWIST: he analysed 3 different social levels: the workhouse, the criminal world, the middle class. Contrast between children and adults (comparison with Rosso Malpelo by Verga).
ART: the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
Oscar Wilde

2. OSCAR WILDE ( Dublin 1854 – 1900)
During his lifetime he was especially famous for his theatre production (witty comedies that satirized the Victorian upper classes and its hypocrisy). He also wrote short stories and one novel:
THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY:
Theme of the double
Cult of beauty and pleasure; life as a work of art
Hypocrisy of the Victorian middle-class
Moral aim (in spite of the Aesthetic principle that art shouldn’t have any moral aim).
Similarities Wilde – D’ Annunzio: art for art’s sake, use of words appealing to the senses, the artist isolates himself in an ideal world of beauty.

3. Robert Louis Stevenson ( Edinburgh 1850 – 94)
The Strange Case of Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hyde (1886):
Theme of the double (reflecting the duality and hypocrisy of Victorian society) social criticism
Different motifs related to the theme of the double: moral and physical change of Jekyll, the house with two entrances, double aspect of London streets…
It doesn’t belong to a definite literary genre but has elements in common with:
- the Gothic novel (labyrinthine setting, mystery, horror)
- the Detective story (Mr Utterson follows the rational logic of the detective; title)
- Decadentism (solitary protagonist with perverse interests; no moral judgment of the author)
Other meanings: Jekyll as an overreacher (he desires forbidden knowledge); the conflict of human nature (good/ evil, spiritual/physical); the human mind as multi-layered (anticipating Freud’s studies); satire on contemporary morality
Narrative structure: 3 different narrators with different points of view; mixture of realism and symbolism.

4. THE PRERAPHAELITE BROTHERHOOD
Founded by English painters who had as a model the Italian art of the 13th and 14th centuries (before Raphael)
They admired its purity and simplicity in contrast to the ugliness of contemporary industrial society.
D.G. ROSSETTI: La Ghirlandata:
It combines the vision of the angelic woman with sensuality.
WILLIAM MORRIS and the Arts and Crafts Movement:
Revival of handicraft for interior design;
idea of pleasure both for the creator of the work and for the viewer (in contrast to the alienation of the assembly line and the ugly products of mass production)
Patterns inspired by nature