Summary:
Alessandra Giulia Chiara
 The reign of
Edward VII
 The
Suffragettes
 World war I
 Imagism and
Symbolism
 The Irish
question and
the Easter
Rising
 The
transformatio
ns of British
society
beetween the
wars
 Committed
poetry and
new romantic
poetry
 The jazz age
 The New




Deal
World war
II
The Welfare
State
Elizabeth II
Interior
monologue
and the
theatre of
Absurd
Leone
 A deep
cultural crisis
 Freud’s
influence
 Rhe theory of
relativity
 External time
vs internal
time
 Great
exspectations
 The swinging
1950’s
Edward VII
(1901 – 1910)
Industrial
unrest,
violence ,
strikes
Suffragettes
Edward VII
• 9 November 1841 the eldest son of Queen
Victoria.
• Victoria did not approve of Edward
• Liberal government: Social legislation
(it was the focus of Parliament )
1902 Education Act provided subsidized
secondary education; 1908 old age pensions
were estabilished
CRISIS:
•David Lloyd-George proposed major
tax increases on wealthy landowners
and was defeated in Parliament.
•Prime Minister Asquith appealed to
Edward to create several new peerages
to swing the vote
•Edward steadfastly refused and died
amidst crisis
Suffragettes
 1903 Women Social and
Political Union by Mrs
Emmeline Pankurst
 RIGHTS FOR WOMEN
1918: granting
of women ‘s
rights
1928: All
women
could vote
World war I
Germany,
Austria –
Hungary,
Italy
Triple
entente:
Britain,
British
Empire,
France,
Russia and
allies
1914
The War
1919
14 points
broke
out
proposed
1914 Britain
by Wilson
to prevent
Future war
vs Germany
World
war I
1918
Revolution in
Russia
prepared the
War ended
rise of
Mussolini
1917 American
partecipation
and Hitler
Imagism
Heard,
clear,
precise
images
Aimed at
precision,
discipline, dry
hardness, no
moral comment
Imagism
Short poems
in response to
a common
scene or object
Free
verse
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
petals on a wet, black, bough.
L'apparizione di questi volti tra la folla;
petali su un ramo nero bagnato.
Ezra Pound,
In a Station of the Metro
Symbolism and
free verse
The Irish question
1916 on easter Monday
volunteers proclamed a
Irish Republic
•the Irish
parlament in
Dublin was born
•Civil war was
prepared
1949
Proclamation
of the Republic
of Ireland
The transformations of British society
between the wars
•Families became smaller and women were more
independent
•People lived in the town centres
•The rise of newspapers (The times, Daily news, Daily
telegraph, Daily Express, Daily Herald)
•1920 the first car appeared
The lyric “I”
is not
always
present
Powerful
imagery,
use of
contrasts
Colloquial
tone
Sceptical
view of
contemporar
y society
Committed
poetry
Various
forms and
tecniques
Interest in
human
psychology,
politics and
war
Openness to
new ideas
and
experiences
New
Romantic
Poetry
Emotional subject matter
Pantheistic approach to Nature
Use of violent imagery
Sexual and Christian symbolism
Interest in Love and Death
Rhytmical verse
THE
1920’S
(JAZZ
AGE)
The 1920 (Jazz age)
High national
income
“consumers’ goods”
The government
wants to encourage
the welfare of private
business
Some areas of
America are poor
Real scare (fear of
Socialism)
execution of 2
Italian anarchists
1929 Wall
Street Crash
Great
Depression
Segregation of
minoritios
Harlem
The New Deal with Franklin
Roosevelt
 “relief, recovery,
reform”
 The Unemployed
are employed on
public works
World war
II
1939:
Germany
invaded
Poland
1945:
Germany
surrendered
World
war II
1941:
American
intervention
vs
Japan(Pearl
Harbour
Hawaii)
1940: Germany
invaded
Denmark and
Norway
Great
Britain vs
Japan
atomic bomb
(nuclear era)
The 1950’s:
1952: Elizabeth II
was the queen of
England: Britain
was dependent on
the USA, and lost
its empire
Lack of
formal order
Disregard for
the rules of
punctuation
Verbal
expression of a
psychic
phenomenon
Lack of
chronological
order
Direct speech,
without
introductory
expressions
2 levels of
narration: one
external to the
character’s mind,
the other internal
The Theatre of the
Absurd
Dialogue
made up
by
incoherent
babbling
Vagueness
about
time,
place and
characters
Absence of
a real plot
Theatre
of Absurd
Extensive
use of
pauses and
silences
Use of
miming
and
farcical
situation
Sense of
anguish
and
rootlessness
Use of a realistic setting
Logical easy to follow plot
Outspoken language
A thoughtful working class hero, the
rebel Jimmy Porter
Open criticism to establishment values
1950’s
• Sexual ethics and
family changed
drastically
•1957: homosexuals are
not persecuted by law;
birth of rock’n roll
•1958: commitee for
Nuclear Disarmament
marched from nuclear
research establishment
at Aldermaston
• Bertrand Russell sat
down in Trafalgue
Square, model for protest
in the 60s
Sigmund Freud
 1856 – 1939
 His new ideas have a big
influence
 Studies the development of
human psyche and
subconscious
 Models of relationschip
were readjusted
Freud’s
Movement for
women’s suffrage
Relativity
•
•
•
Albert Einstain:
time and space
subjective
dimensions
Ludwing
Wittgenstain:
Quartum
Mechanics
Rebellion against
perspective and
phenomenal
representation in
art, or revolution of
tone, rhytm and
harmony
External time vs internal time
William
James
and
Henry
Bergson
The Mind records
everything as
continuous flow in
the “already” in
the “not yet”
•Emotional relativity
•Historical time is
external, linear
•Psychological time is
internal and subjective
Swinging in 60’s
…60’s
•
•
•
•
Mood of ribellion
Self expression and
liberation (drugs,
discotheques,
permissiveness in films,
plays and magazines and
in general behavior
Time togheter with no
marriage, one parent
families helped by the
governement
Women could abort,
homosexual couples
Beatles
The Rolling
Stones
The Who
Moderator: Giulia Venturini
Observator: Chiara Saraca Volpini
Responsable: Alessandra Norgini
Language Reviser: Leone Palmeri