ORIENTALISM

 prof.Abdelhamid Fouda 

====================================

Orientalism by Edward Said is a canonical text of cultural studies in which he has challenged the concept of orientalism or the difference between east and west, as he puts it. He says that with the start of European colonization the Europeans came in contact with the lesser developed countries of the east. They found their civilization and culture very exotic, and established the science of orientalism, which was the study of the orientals or the people from these exotic civilization.

Edward Said argues that the Europeans divided the world into two parts; the east and the west or the occident and the orient or the civilized and the uncivilized. This was totally an artificial boundary; and it was laid on the basis of the concept of them and us or theirs and ours. The Europeans used orientalism to define themselves. Some particular attributes were associated with the orientals, and whatever the orientals weren’t the occidents were. The Europeans defined themselves as the superior race compared to the orientals; and they justified their colonization by this concept. They said that it was their duty towards the world to civilize the uncivilized world. The main problem, however, arose when the Europeans started generalizing the attributes they associated with orientals, and started portraying these artificial characteristics associated with orientals in their western world through their scientific reports, literary work, and other media sources. What happened was that it created a certain image about the orientals in the European mind and in doing that infused a bias in the European attitude towards the orientals. This prejudice was also found in the orientalists (scientist studying the orientals); and all their scientific research and reports were under the influence of this. The generalized attributes associated with the orientals can be seen even today, for example, the Arabs are defined as uncivilized people; and Islam is seen as religion of the terrorist.

Here is a brief summary of the book:  

Chapter 1:  The Scope of Orientalism

In this chapter, Edward Said explains how the science of orientalism developed and how the orientals started considering the orientals as non-human beings. The orientals divided the world in to two parts by using the concept of ours and theirs. An imaginary geographical line was drawn between what was ours and what was theirs. The orients were regarded as uncivilized people; and the westerns said that since they were the refined race it was their duty to civilize these people and in order to achieve their goal, they had to colonize and rule the orients. They said that the orients themselves were incapable of running their own government. The Europeans also thought that they had the right to represent the orientals in the west all by themselves. In doing so, they shaped the orientals the way they perceived them or in other words they were orientalizing the orients. Various teams have been sent to the east where the orientalits silently observed the orientals by living with them; and every thing the orientals said and did was recorded irrespective of its context, and projected to the civilized world of the west. This resulted in the generalization. Whatever was seen by the orientals was associated with the oriental culture, no matter if it is the irrational action of an individual.

The most important use of orientalism to the Europeans was that they defined themselves by defining the orientals. For example, qualities such as lazy, irrational, uncivilized, crudeness were related to the orientals, and automatically the Europeans became active, rational, civilized, sophisticated. Thus, in order to achieve this goal, it was very necessary for the orientalists to generalize the culture of the orients.

Another feature of orientalism was that the culture of the orientals was explained to the European audience by linking them to the western culture, for example, Islam was made into Mohammadism because Mohammad was the founder of this religion and since religion of Christ was called Christianity; thus Islam should be called Mohammadism. The point to be noted here is that no Muslim was aware of this terminology and this was a completely western created term, and to which the Muslims had no say at all.

Chapter 2: Orientalist Structures and Restructures

In this chapter, Edward Said points the slight change in the attitude of the Europeans towards the orientals. The orientals were really publicized in the European world especially through their literary work. Oriental land and behaviour was highly romanticized by the European poets and writers and then presented to the western world. The orientalists had made a stage strictly for the European viewers, and the orients were presented to them with the colour of the orientalist or other writers perception. In fact, the orient lands were so highly romanticized that western literary writers found it necessary to offer pilgrimage to these exotic lands of pure sun light and clean oceans in order to experience peace of mind, and inspiration for their writing. The east was now perceived by the orientalist as a place of pure human culture with no necessary evil in the society. Actually it was this purity of the orientals that made them inferior to the clever, witty, diplomatic, far-sighted European; thus it was their right to rule and study such an innocent race. The Europeans said that these people were too naive to deal with the cruel world, and that they needed the European fatherly role to assist them.

Another justification the Europeans gave to their colonization was that they were meant to rule the orientals since they have developed sooner than the orientals as a nation, which shows that they were biologically superior, and secondly it were the Europeans who discovered the orients not the orients who discovered the Europeans. Darwin’s theories were put forward to justify their superiority, biologically by the Europeans.

In this chapter, Edward Said also explains how the two most renowned orientalists of the 19th century, namely Silvestre de Sacy and Ernest Renan worked and gave orienatlism a new dimension. In fact, Edward Said compliments the contribution made by Sacy in the field. He says that Sacy organized the whole thing by arranging the information in such a way that it was also useful for the future orientalist. And secondly, the prejudice that was inherited by every orientalist was considerably low in him. On the other hand, Renan who took advantage of Sacy’s work was as biased as any previous orientalist. He believed that the science of orientalism and the science of philology have a very important relation; and after Renan this idea was given a lot attention and many future orientalists worked of in its line.

Chapter 3 : Orientalism Now

This chapter starts off by telling us that how the geography of the world was shaped by the colonization of the Europeans. There was a quest for geographical knowledge which formed the bases of orientalism.

The author then talks about the changing circumstances of the world politics and changing approach to orientalism in the 20th century. The main difference was that where the earlier orientalists were more of silent observers the new orientalists took a part in the every day life of the orients. The earlier orientalists did not interact a lot with the orients, whereas the new orients lived with them as if they were one of them. This wasn’t out of appreciation of their lifestyle but was to know more about the orients in order to rule them properly. Lawrence of Arabia was one of such orienatlists.

Then Edward Said goes on to talk about two other scholars Massignon and Gibb. Though Massignon was a bit liberal with orientalists and often tried to protect their rights, there was still inherited biased found in him for the orientals, which can be seen in his work. With the changing world situation especially after World War 1, orientalism took a more liberal stance towards most of its subjects; but Islamic orientalism did not enjoy this status. There were constant attacks to show Islam as a weak religion, and a mixture of many religions and thoughts. Gibb was the most famous Islamic orientalist of this time.

After World War 1 the centre of orientalism moved from Europe to USA. One important transformation that took place during this time was instances of relating it to philology and it was related to social science now. All the orientalists studied the orientals to assist their government to come up with policies for dealing with the orient countries. With the end of World War 2, all the Europeans colonies were lost; and it was believed that there were no more orientals and occidents, but this was surely not the case. Western prejudice towards eastern countries was still very explicit, and often they managed to generalize most of the eastern countries because of it. For example Arabs were often represented as cruel and violent people. Japanese were always associated with karate where as the Muslims were always considered to be terrorists. Thus, this goes on to show that even with increasing globalization and awareness, such bias was found in the people of the developed countries.

Edward Said concludes his book by saying that he is not saying that the orientalists should not make generalization, or they should include the orient perspective too, but creating a boundary at the first place is something which should not be done.

Wise words of unforgettable poet

 

prof.Abdelhamid Fouda 

====================================

He said describing Man ;

“The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed.”

The poet of many attractive poems;

He is ;

- Ernest Hemingway

Colonialism

 prof.Abdelhamid Fouda 

===================================

Colonialism:

 It started with rise of renaissance period when there was national approach of European Governments to ex to expand their influence in the other lands of the world. When trade was allowed to the other parts of the world and Europeans established their rules in those regions which were backward or low in power. There was a race of colonization among European giants to exert their power in maximum part of the world.

In western world, the structure power changed and new national states emerged in 1648 through Westphalia Treaty and a wave of national and a wave of nationalism was predominant in Europe. People demanded more liberties from their rulers and monarchy weakened in Europe. This led to the Glorious revolution in England in 1688 which curtailed the powers of king in England. Almost after 100 years in France there was French Revolution in France which toppled the rule Louis family. Russians were among those powers and Tzar Family didn’t work for colonization. There was another for not moving ahead that there were serious internal challenges to the Tzar Rule. Tzar rule slowly melted there was serious resistance in Russian particularly under the leadership of Lenin for the rise of (Labourers) Rule. It started in 1904 and finally it was completed in 1917. This established Russia as a Socialist Soviet Republic (USSR) and they call themselves republicans (democrats). 

During Russian revolution, there was WW-I 1914-18 (Germany, Austria & Turkey) (UK, France Italy & Russia i.e. USSR). Then there was rise of Nationalism in Germany led by Hitler (Nazism/Nationalism) whereas in Italy there was Fascism led by Mussolini. Both the leaders created dictatorship in their states and followed the policy of territorialization because both the states considered that they were treated badly during WW-I by other European powers.

Gradually, the stage for WW-II was set. At initial level, there was Spanish Civil War and the two forces within Spain fought with each other, i.e. Fascists (Supported by Germany and Italy) Republicans (Supported by USSR). At   the end Hitler’s associates won the Civil war and Hitler further occupied Poland, the integral part of USSR. This was the point of origin of WW-II. There were two groups (UK, France, USSR & USA) (Germany, Italy & Japan). First block finally was finally victorious and Germany was divided in four zones.

At the end of WW-I & WW-II, there were many states got freedom from colonialism particularly at the end of WW-II in 1945 the colonization ended in many parts of Asia and Africa. More or less there was rise of nationalism and people were demanding freedom from colonialism.

"The Rape of the Lock" as a mock epic ☺️👌🌹👇 Mock epic is a narrative poem which aims at mockery and laughter by using almost all the characteristic features of an epic but for a trivial subject. Alexander Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock” is a famous mock-epic. In it, there are invocation to Muses, proposition of subject, battles, supernatural machinery, journey on water, underworld journey, long speeches, feasts (coffee house), Homeric similes and grand style but all for a simple family dispute instead of a national struggle. The grand treatment of a low subject produces hilarious laughter and makes the story more ridiculous. Firstly, “Paradise Lost” a long epic poem by John Milton begins with the proposition of justification of God’s way to man with nice invocation to the Muses. And another epic poem titled “The Faerie Queene” by Edmund Spenser follows the same manner. The subject matters in both of the epic poems are grand. Like the epic poems, the poem “The Rape of the Lock” opens with the proposition of the subject matter and Pope’s invocation to the Muses to help him compose the literary art. Such a grand treatment of a trivial subject matter like the clipping of the lock of Belinda provokes laughter when the poet says: “I sing – this verse to Caryll, Muse! Is due: This, ev’n Belinda may vouchsafe to view:” Secondly, in “The Iliad”’, Homer describes in considerable detail the armour and weaponry of the great Achilles, as well as the battlefield trappings of other heroes. In the poem “The Rape of the Lock” Pope describes Belinda preparing herself with combs and pins – with "Puffs, Powders, Patches" – nothing that "Now awful Beauty puts on all its Arms." This is nothing but funny. Thirdly, the ritual sacrifices the Baron performs in the pre-dawn hours are another mock-heroic element of the poem, mimicking the epic tradition of sacrificing to the gods before an important battle or journey, and drapes his project with an absurdly grand import that actually only exposes its triviality. The fact that he discards all his other love tokens in these preparations reveals his capriciousness as a lover. Earnest prayer, in this parody scene, is replaced by the self-indulgent sighs of the lover. “Then prostrate falls and begs with ardent eyes Soon to obtain and long possess the prize:” Fourthly, an epic poem must contain episodes also. In keeping with this practice Pope has introduced the episodes of the game of Omber which suggests the mighty battle and the cards imply the soldiers described in great detail. Then there is the battle between the lords and ladies just like the battles in epic poetry. But in true mock-heroic style this battle is fought with fans and snuff instead of with swords and spears. There are single combats also between Belinda and the Baron and between Clarissa and Sir Plume. This symbolises nothing but a battle of sexual perversion near Hampton Court just the opposite to the mighty battles that we find in “The Aneid” and in “The Faerie Queene” Red Cross Knight’s battle with the monster Error. Fifthly, another vital element of an epic poem is the active participation of supernatural machinery just as Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty, who rescues Aeneas in “The Iliad” when he is attacked by Diomedes. In “The Rape of the lock”, there are the sylphs and gnomes. These aerial spirits are small and insignificant things, and are, therefore, exactly in keeping with the triviality of the theme. They guard the person of the heroine and when there is fight between the followers of Belinda and those of the Baron, they take part in fight, like gods and goddesses in the Trojan War. Pope has described the protecting sylphs under Ariel. In that the sylphs are the parodies of epic deities. Sixthly, a long perilous journey on water is a must in an epic. But here in the poem Belinda takes a comfortable journey on water without any tension and peril. She travels up the Thames in a boat to join Hampton Court to play the game of Omber adorning her attractively. Seventhly, it is another important event of epic to take an underworld journey. It is generally done in order to take some effective pieces of advice from the lower world, Hades. Like supernatural beings in classical epics, a gnome named Umbriel descends to the Underworld on Belinda’s behalf and obtains a bag of sighs and a vial of tears from the Queen of Spleen. With these magical gifts, he means to comfort poor Belinda. First, he empties the bag on her in stead. The reversal of the epic quality is nothing but mocking in tone. “Repair’d to search the gloomy cave of Spleen. Swift on his sooty pinions flits the gnome,” Eighthly, the mock-heroic character of the poem is perceived in the very title. Rape is a serious moral offence which means the violation of a woman’s chastity by force. It also refers to the seizure of a lady by some ruffians in grossly inhuman manner. In any case, rape is a grave crime, affecting the social decency of a human being. Pope has used this term in an amusing manner. The possession of the hair of Belinda by the Baron is described by him in a mock vein. The title evokes nothing but the mock heroic sensation and well indicates the mock-heroic character of Pope’s work. Ninthly, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and Virgil's Aneid all end happily for their respective heroes, though perhaps at the expense of their enemies. Pope, wisely following his own advice, likewise concludes the poem with a mocking consolation to Belinda that: "This lock, the Muse shall consecrate to fame, And mid'st the stars inscribe Belinda's name!" Pope's ending is just one example of how he mocks society through epic form, as well as mocks earlier literary works. A lock of hair is a ridiculous object to eternally memorialize. From above discussion, it becomes clear that Pope follows the epic conventions of Homer, Dante and Virgil very minutely but for trivial a matter and he has heightened the title, exalted the insignificant, in order to make the little and the insignificant look more ridiculous. He employs the mock-heroic form, not to mock the epic form, but to show the triviality of mean things by contrasting them with great things. This is the true mock-heroic style. So it can be undoubtedly said that the poem “The Rape of the Lock” is a successful mock-epic.

 

prof.Abdelhamid Fouda 

==================================

"The Rape of the Lock" as a mock epic 

Mock epic is a narrative poem which aims at mockery and laughter by using almost all the characteristic features of an epic but for a trivial subject. Alexander Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock” is a famous mock-epic. In it, there are invocation to Muses, proposition of subject, battles, supernatural machinery, journey on water, underworld journey, long speeches, feasts (coffee house), Homeric similes and grand style but all for a simple family dispute instead of a national struggle. The grand treatment of a low subject produces hilarious laughter and makes the story more ridiculous.

Firstly, “Paradise Lost” a long epic poem by John Milton begins with the proposition of justification of God’s way to man with nice invocation to the Muses. And another epic poem titled “The Faerie Queene” by Edmund Spenser follows the same manner. The subject matters in both of the epic poems are grand. Like the epic poems, the poem “The Rape of the Lock” opens with the proposition of the subject matter and Pope’s invocation to the Muses to help him compose the literary art. Such a grand treatment of a trivial subject matter like the clipping of the lock of Belinda provokes laughter when the poet says:

“I sing – this verse to Caryll, Muse! Is due:

This, ev’n Belinda may vouchsafe to view:”

Secondly, in “The Iliad”’, Homer describes in considerable detail the armour and weaponry of the great Achilles, as well as the battlefield trappings of other heroes. In the poem “The Rape of the Lock” Pope describes Belinda preparing herself with combs and pins – with "Puffs, Powders, Patches" – nothing that "Now awful Beauty puts on all its Arms." This is nothing but funny.

Thirdly, the ritual sacrifices the Baron performs in the pre-dawn hours are another mock-heroic element of the poem, mimicking the epic tradition of sacrificing to the gods before an important battle or journey, and drapes his project with an absurdly grand import that actually only exposes its triviality. The fact that he discards all his other love tokens in these preparations reveals his capriciousness as a lover. Earnest prayer, in this parody scene, is replaced by the self-indulgent sighs of the lover.

“Then prostrate falls and begs with ardent eyes

Soon to obtain and long possess the prize:”

Fourthly, an epic poem must contain episodes also. In keeping with this practice Pope has introduced the episodes of the game of Omber which suggests the mighty battle and the cards imply the soldiers described in great detail. Then there is the battle between the lords and ladies just like the battles in epic poetry. But in true mock-heroic style this battle is fought with fans and snuff instead of with swords and spears. There are single combats also between Belinda and the Baron and between Clarissa and Sir Plume. This symbolises nothing but a battle of sexual perversion near Hampton Court just the opposite to the mighty battles that we find in “The Aneid” and in “The Faerie Queene” Red Cross Knight’s battle with the monster Error.

Fifthly, another vital element of an epic poem is the active participation of supernatural machinery just as Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty, who rescues Aeneas in “The Iliad” when he is attacked by Diomedes. In “The Rape of the lock”, there are the sylphs and gnomes. These aerial spirits are small and insignificant things, and are, therefore, exactly in keeping with the triviality of the theme. They guard the person of the heroine and when there is fight between the followers of Belinda and those of the Baron, they take part in fight, like gods and goddesses in the Trojan War. Pope has described the protecting sylphs under Ariel. In that the sylphs are the parodies of epic deities. 

Sixthly, a long perilous journey on water is a must in an epic. But here in the poem Belinda takes a comfortable journey on water without any tension and peril. She travels up the Thames in a boat to join Hampton Court to play the game of Omber adorning her attractively.  

Seventhly, it is another important event of epic to take an underworld journey. It is generally done in order to take some effective pieces of advice from the lower world, Hades.  Like supernatural beings in classical epics, a gnome named Umbriel descends to the Underworld on Belinda’s behalf and obtains a bag of sighs and a vial of tears from the Queen of Spleen. With these magical gifts, he means to comfort poor Belinda. First, he empties the bag on her in stead. The reversal of the epic quality is nothing but mocking in tone.

“Repair’d to search the gloomy cave of Spleen.

Swift on his sooty pinions flits the gnome,”

Eighthly, the mock-heroic character of the poem is perceived in the very title. Rape is a serious moral offence which means the violation of a woman’s chastity by force. It also refers to the seizure of a lady by some ruffians in grossly inhuman manner. In any case, rape is a grave crime, affecting the social decency of a human being. Pope has used this term in an amusing manner. The possession of the hair of Belinda by the Baron is described by him in a mock vein. The title evokes nothing but the mock heroic sensation and well indicates the mock-heroic character of Pope’s work.

Ninthly, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and Virgil's Aneid all end happily for their respective heroes, though perhaps at the expense of their enemies. Pope, wisely following his own advice, likewise concludes the poem with a mocking consolation to Belinda that:

"This lock, the Muse shall consecrate to fame,

And mid'st the stars inscribe Belinda's name!"

Pope's ending is just one example of how he mocks society through epic form, as well as mocks earlier literary works. A lock of hair is a ridiculous object to eternally memorialize.

From above discussion, it becomes clear that Pope follows the epic conventions of Homer, Dante and Virgil very minutely but for trivial a matter and he has heightened the title, exalted the insignificant, in order to make the little and the insignificant look more ridiculous. He employs the mock-heroic form, not to mock the epic form, but to show the triviality of mean things by contrasting them with great things. This is the true mock-heroic style. So it can be undoubtedly said that the poem “The Rape of the Lock” is a successful mock-epic.

Romantic Essayists

 

prof.Abdelhamid Fouda 

=====================================

Charles Lamb as a Romantic Essayist

Charles Lamb

Charles Lamb, an English writer is best known for his essays.  Although he wrote poems and books, he is mainly known as an essayist. E.V.Lucas, his principal biographer, has called him the most loved figure in English Literature.

Charles Lamb in his Essays of Elia, uses the pseudonym of Elia. Dream Children: A Reverie, is an essay from this collection which was published in the form of a book, this was later followed by the second volume titled Last Essays of Elia. Lamb’s writing style by nature is very romantic.

The Essays are very personal, as they are somewhat fictionalized stories of himself. It tells us of what his life would have been had he made different decisions in his life. In his essays, he mentions his family members often with different names. In Dream Children: A Reverie, he fantasizes his life, had he married his beloved Ann Simmons, who he calls Alice W. in the Elia essays.

Lamb is chiefly remembered for his “Elia” essays, which are celebrated for their witty and ironic treatment of everyday subjects. The “Elia” essays are characterized by Lamb’s personal tone, narrative ease, and wealth of literary allusions. Never didactic, the essays treat ordinary subjects in a nostalgic, fanciful way by combining humour, pathos, and a sophisticated irony ranging from gentle to scathing.

Lamb conjures up humour and pathos in his ‘Elian’ essays. Although Dream Children begins on a merry note, the dark side of life soon forces itself upon Lamb’s attention and the comic attitude gives way to melancholy at the end of the essay. Throughout the essay Lamb presents his children in such a way that we never guess that they are merely fragments of his imagination – their movements, their reactions, and their expressions are all realistic. It is only at the end of the essay that we realize that the entire episode with his children is a merely a daydream. We are awakened by a painful realization of the facts.

Babes in the Woods

The essay, Dreams Children in itself is quite melancholy as most romantic essays are. In it, Lamb reminisces his childhood by telling his children stories of when he was younger. The subject of death is mentioned very often. The fictionalized Charles Lamb, the father, tells his children stories of their deceased great- grand mother Field. He mentions that they recently had heard of the horrifying ballad of the Babes in the Wood. He also tells them stories of his deceased older brother John L. and how he misses him.

His essays are allusive, which is peculiar to romantic essays. Lamb, rambles throughout the narratives with ease and is able to return to the point. He often does it in his writings. This allusive quality is seen in Dream Children when he begins talking about his grandmother Field, he then rambles to talk of the house she worked in, and later to talk about the mantel piece carving of the Babes in the Wood. He also makes use of parentheses, which gives us an insight to the characters stream of consciousness. The parentheses in, Dream Children, mostly show us the observations of the father, which tell us more about the children’s expressions for dramatic emphasis.

Lambs essays are highly evocative, and the reader feels empathy towards the characters. This is a characteristic quality of the Romantic Essayists.  In Dream Children, the narrator comments on how similar the daughter’s face is to the mother and he can’t tell which of the two is in front of him, but only in the end do we realize that the entire story was just a fragment of his imagination.

“the most loved writer in English literature”

– E.V.Lucas on Lamb in his biography

His essays have a reflective quality; he talks about his schooling days in Christ’s Hospital in the essay, Christ’s Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago wherein he speaks of himself in the third person as “L”. Rosamund Gray is another essay in which he reflects upon his feelings for Ann Simmons as the titular character and how their relationship doesn’t go too far due to Miss Gray passing away.

To conclude we can see that Lambs essays are very personal. They possess humour and pathos like most romantic works of literature. Lamb is also praised for his allusive quality which is noted by many literary critics. And above all he is highly evocative, a quality possessed by all Romantic writers.

Realism versus Naturalism in Literature

 prof.Abdelhamid Fouda 

===============================

What Is the Difference Between Realism and Naturalism in Literature?

Realism and naturalism are two literary movements with their differences, although they very close. At first glance, difference between these two major currents of literature of the 19th century are differentiated in the fact that realism wants to depict real life, and naturalism has a more scientific approach to the way society is depicted. In this article we'll study the characteristics of both, and give the names of the most famous authors and the most representative works of these schools before we see what distinguishes them.

Characteristics of Realism

This literary movement appears in the 19th century and privileges a faithful representation (without idealization or artifices) of nature, men and the society which they live in. This movement is in reaction to the romanticism movement that had become popular Europe.

New themes emerged, such as the work of the employees, the conjugal relations and the struggles between the social strata. Many French historians place realism between 1850 and 1885, between romanticism and symbolism.

The main representatives of realism in literature are:

Honoré de Balzac (1799 - 1850), author of La Comédie Humaine, an immense fresco novella

Stendhal (1783 - 1842), author of Le Rouge et le Noir, which depicts the efforts of a provincial young man to escalate in society.

Flaubert (1821 - 1880), author of Madame Bovary, which is precisely a novel on the consequences of the romanticism trend.

Charles Dickens: Author of Great expectations, which narrates, in first person, the story of an orphan who ends up becoming a gentleman in London's society.

León Tolstoi : Author of War and Peace, a portrait of Russia's society during the amazing time of fifty years.

What Is the Difference Between Realism and Naturalism in Literature - Characteristics of Realism

Characteristics of naturalism

This school inherits the achievements of realism and aims to portray reality in all its aspects, including the most common and mundane, and this through detached objectivity. The leader of naturalism in literature is Émile Zola, author of a literary fresco, Les Rougon-Macquart (cycle of 20 novels).

The collection of novels Les Soirées de Médan is considered the manifesto of naturalism. It brings together 6 novels, signed by the following authors:

Émile Zola (1840 -1902): L'Attaque du Moulin

Guy of Maupassant (1850 - 1893): Boule of Suif

J.-K Huymans (1848 - 1907): Sac au dos

Henry Céard (1851 - 1924): La Saignée

Léon Hennique (1850 - 1935): L'Affaire du Grand 7

Paul Alexis (1847 - 1901): Après la bataille

Apart from this collection, other important authors include:

Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928): author of Jude the Obscure, a controversial novel about a working-class young man who falls in love with his cousin.

Stephen Crane (1871 - 1900): author of the Open Boat, a novel that depicts the isolation of a man from society.

What Is the Difference Between Realism and Naturalism in Literature - Characteristics of naturalism

Realism and naturalism: what is the difference?

For many historians and literary critics, Naturalism is only a variant of Realism. Zola and the Medan group would then be the second realistic generation. The truth is, that both Realists and naturalists strive to describe reality as it is, want to separate man from god and talk about society in a subjective manner, free of unnecessary figures of speech, far from the idealistic views of romanticism.

But we can distinguish the two movements by saying that Naturalism makes reality its only obsession: everything must be painted with precision and objectivity, while the realists allow themselves some distance, especially when showing their views or taking the risk of issuing a subjective opinion on the subject they are writing about.

Moreover, naturalism, as it has a more scientific approach, works with the idea that men are conditioned by the environment they were born in (genetic, environmental and social factors will determine the fate of a character in a naturalist novel), and usually chooses characters of lower classes, whereas realism generally prefers middle-class characters.

Flaubert wrote to Turgenev in 1877: "Reality, in my opinion, must be a springboard. Our friends are convinced that this alone constitutes the whole State!" This materialism makes me indignant, and almost every Monday , I have a fit of irritation reading the soap operas of this brave Zola "

The historical context also enlightens us: realism comes in reaction to Romanticism, while Naturalism applies to mimic the methods of science: observation on the ground and objectivity in the analysis.

If you want to read similar articles to What Is the Difference Between Realism and Naturalism in Literature, we recommend you visit our University degrees category

ROMANTICISM

 

prof.Abdelhamid Fouda 

====================================

 What do we mean by ROMANTICISM?

Romanticism was a broad movement in the history of European and American consciousness which rebelled against the triumph or the European Enlightenment; it is also a comprehensive term for the larger number of tendencies towards change observable in European literature in the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. As an ageless phenomenon Romanticism cannot be defined.

The Romantic Movement is traditionally seen as starting roughly around 1780. However, the term Roman-tic period more exactly denotes the span between the year 1798, the year in which William Wordsworth and S.T. Coleridge published the collection of poems entitled Lyrical Ballads, and 1832, the year in which the novelist Sir Walter Scott died, and the other main writers of the earlier century were either dead or no longer productive, and the first Reform Bill passed in Parliament. As a historical phase of literature, English Romanticism extends from Blake's earliest poems up to the beginning of the 1830's, though these dates are arbitrary. According to other critics Romanticism as a literary period in England, from the American Rebellion through the First Reform Bill of 1832, has to be defined as a High Romantic Age. Romanticism manifested at some-what varied times in Britain, America, France, Germany and Italy.

Romanticism affected arts and culture in general. Its main feature was a reaction against the eighteenth century and the Age of Reason. In fact, "Romanticism", or the "Romantic Movement", was a reaction against the rationalism of the eighteenth century, the view of the physical world increasingly dominated by science, and the mental world by the theories of Locke, and the neoclassicism of the Enlightenment. During the Romantic period changes in various fields took place: in philosophy, politics, religion, literature, painting and music. All these changes were represented, articulated and symbolized by the English Romantic poets.

In literature reason was attacked because it was non longer considered wholly satisfying by the Romantic poets, and, before them, even by the Augustan satirists themselves.

The Romantic period coincided with the French Revolution, which was to some extent seen as a political enactment of the ideas of Romanticism, which, at the beginning, involved breaking out of the restrictive patterns and models of the past.

This period saw the end of the dominance of the Renaissance tradition and the fragmentation of conscious-ness away from the cultural authority of classical Rome. Local cultures were rediscovered in Europe, and a flowering of vernacular literatures took place. In Britain Thomas Gray had explored Celtic and norse literature, other than the classical, which had influenced English. The classical inheritance had had little influence in bal-lads, folk-songs, and folk literature.

The term "Romantic"

The term "Romantic" derives from old French "romans" which denoted a vernacular language derived from Latin, and that gives us the expression "the Romance languages", but it came to mean more than a language. It meant an imaginative story and a "courtly romance", but also the quality and preoccupations of literature writ-ten in "the Romance languages", especially romances and stories. However, it came to mean so many things. By the seventeenth century in English and French the word "romantic" had come to mean anything from imaginative or fictitious, to fabulous or extravagant, fanciful, bizarre, exaggerated, chimerical. The "adjective "roman-tic" was also used with the connotation of disapproval. In the eighteenth century it was increasingly used with connotations of approval, especially in the descriptions of pleasing qualities in landscape. To describe the poetry of the Romantic period (about 1780-1830) the term "romantic" has all these and other meanings and connotations behind, which reflect the complexity and multiplicity of European Romanticism.

In France a distinction was made between "romanesque" (with implications of disapproval), and "romantique", which meant "tender", "gentle", "sentimental", and "sad". In this latter form it was used in English in the eighteenth century.

In Germany the word "romantisch" was used in the seventeenth century in the French sense of "romanesque", and then, increasingly from the middle of the eighteenth century in the English sense of "gentle", "melancholy". Friedrich Schlegel first established the term "romantisch" in literary context; he characterized Roman-tic writings as medieval, Christian and transcendental as opposed to classical, pagan and worldly. This German po-lemic was taken up by Madame de Staël who was responsible for popularizing the term "romantique" in literary contexts in France in her work De L'Allemagne, published in England in 1813. She made a distinction between the literature of the north and the south. The northern literature was medieval, Christian and romantic; the southern was classical and pagan.

According to many others it was in Britain that the Romantic movement really started. At any rate, as we have pointed out in this work, quite early in the eighteenth century it is possible to discern a definite shift in sensibility and feeling, particularly in relation to the natural order and Nature. Many of the Romantic poets' sentiments and responses had been foreshadowed by what has been described as a "pre-romantic sensibility". How-ever, it should be pointed out that, "the use of the term was used by German critics at the very end of the eighteenth century to describe features which they found in their own literature, it was not at the time used in Britain in that way. The term "Romantic", to describe the poets' writings roughly between 1780 and 1830, did not come into currency until the second half of the nineteenth century. It nay be a useful term, so long as it does not imply more in common among the writers than there is, or more with literary trends on the Continent." No writer thought of himself as a "Romantic" in Wordsworth's and Coleridge's time; they were dealt with as independent writers, or grouped into a number of separate schools. The English Romantic poets Blake, Words-worth, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley and Byron were not, themselves, self-consciously "romantic", and differed sharply in their theory and practice.

Romanticism developed an alternative aesthetic of freedom from the formal rules of neoclassicism. The main aspects of Romanticism in the eighteenth century were:

Nature

- an increasing interest in Nature, and in the natural, primitive and uncivilized way of life;

- a growing interest in scenery, especially its more untamed and disorderly manifestations;

- an association of human moods with the "moods" of Nature, and so a subjective feeling for it and interpretation of it;

- Romantic Nature poems are meditative poems on whose scenes the poet raises an emotional problem or personal crisis;

Spontaneity and Natural Genius

- emphasis on the need for spontaneity in thought and action and in the expression of thought;

- increasing importance attached to natural genius and the power of the imagination;

- a tendency to exalt the individual and his needs and emphasis on the need for a freer and more personal expression;

The Poet-Prophet

- the poet emerged as a person endowed with a special kind of faculty which set him apart from his fellow men;

- the Romantic poet assumes the mantle of a prophet, seer and legislator;

- poets present themselves as "chosen" sons or "bards"; they assume the persona and voice of a poet-prophet, modelled on Milton and the prophets in the Bible, and put themselves forward as spokesmen for traditional Western civilization at a time of deep crisis;

- the new bards, or visionary poets, wanted to reconstruct the grounds of hope announcing the coming of a time when a renewed humanity will inhabit a renewed earth;

- unusual modes of experience were tried, and visionary states of consciousness were explored;

Imagination

- the imagination in the Romantic period was raised from being simply the faculty for creating fictions, pleasing perhaps, but not necessarily true, to a method of apprehending and communicating truth.

- the imagination became the peculiar gift of the poet and man's most important endeavour;

- the poet became an artist and a prophet;

Emotions

- instincts, emotions and the heart, rather than reason, intellect and head

are trusted;

- the Romantics expose their own souls, directing the light of analysis and

comment internally; they present their own crisis, their self, in a radical metaphor of an interior journey in quest of their true identity;

The Individual, the Outcast and the Romantic Hero.

- the Romantic believed only in themselves;

- human beings refused to submit to limitations and persist in setting infinite and inaccessible goals; the proper human aim was ceaseless activity, a striving for the infinite, according to Goethe's Faust, a "Streben nach dem Unendlichen";

- the invasion of the inner recesses of the personality was continued in the analysis of dreams and the irrational, in drug-taking and interest in the occult;

- some Romantics deliberately isolated themselves from society in order to give scope to their individual vision;

- there was a fascination for the private lives of individuals which reflected autobiographical works;

Romantic Hero

- the figure of the Romantic hero, a compound of guilt and superhuman greatness, who could not be defeated by death, and like a Satanic hero successfully defied the demons was variously dealt with in poems and literary works;

- the Romantic hero was either a solitary dreamer-hero, or an egocentric plagued with guilt and remorse, separated from society because he has rejected it, or because it has rejected him;

- it was also introduced the theme of exile, of the disinherited mind that could not find a spiritual home in its native land and society or anywhere in the modern world;

Children

- children were seen as holier and purer objects than adult people because they were unspoilt by civilisation and uncorrupted;

- children had a state to be envied, cultivated, enhanced, and admired.

Society

- the cult of the Noble Savage ( a specific romantic concept):

- for the Romantics society had become an evil force cruelly moulding and dwarfing its citizens;

- the Romantic poets on the whole fled from the city and turned to Nature. For them it was Nature, rather than society, that's was man's proper setting. Man needed the help of nature to fulfil himself;

- the belief that society and civilisation corrupt humanity's natural innocence and instinct for good;

- poetry sees man in communion with the natural world, rather than with other

men;

Religion

- there was a shift in religious ideas. Many writers failed to find Christianity satisfying. There was a search for a spiritual reality, which orthodox Christianity did not appear to supply. In this search, the more visionary writers of the romantic period drew on Platonism and Neoplatonism and various forms of dissenting Christianity. Many of their poems were built around this search;

- a considerable emphasis on natural religion was given;

History

- personal experience was emphasized and accompanied by a deepening sense of history, which found expression in the historical novels;

The Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution

- industrialisation was perceived as a threat and an evil against people and society;

- the French Revolution (1789) affected the older Romantic generation of poets with its ideas of democracy and its action of breaking with the past; in fact, humble life was seriously presented in a language really spoken by rustic people.

The new Romantic Period and the Classical Age

The contrast and distinction between the new Romantic Period and the Classical Age can be stressed with some examples to be juxtaposed with the above Romantic features. As regards children to classicist like A. Pope, they were only important in as much as they would be adult; a savage would be merely sad and negative. In the Augustan Age they believed in reason and that the passion should be controlled. Basic instincts had to be conquered. In this way mankind could reach perfection. Classicists considered the Industrial Revolution from a positive point of view, as an event creating wealth and modernization. It was also believed that civilization, as accomplished in Greek and Roman times, was also within the grasp of their Neoclassical Age.

CONTINENTAL INFLUENCES: JEAN-JAQUES ROUSSEAU

As regards the main Romantic features the major figure in the eighteenth century whose influence was immense and pervasive in the so called pre-romantic period was Jean-Jaques Rousseau, especially through the following works:

- Discours sur l'origine the l'inégalitè parmi les hommes (1755);

- Rêveries du promeneur solitaire (1778);

- Les Confessions (published after his death in 1781 and 1788);

- La Nouvelle Héloïse (1761).

In his Discours Rousseau advocated a virtuous simplicity in place of a civilization of art and science. He ridiculed the idea of scientific progress and speculative philosophy and appealed to the human heart and voice of conscience. The essay on the origin of the inequality among men described man in a state of nature, like a noble animal, free of disease, naked, and without all superfluities. According to Rousseau's view man was unaggressive, indeed compassionate. He set the idea of savage man with "natural compassion" which was the pure emotion of nature, prior to all kinds of reflection, against Hobbes's view of man as naturally wicked. It was the development of human society that led to inequality and slavery. In The Social Contract (1762) Rousseau took up the argument again with teh celebrated sentence: "Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains." He recognized that there had to be some form of government, but it had to represent the interests of society, and of the individual within that society. In La Nouvelle Héloïse the virtues the author advocated were a dislike of ostentation, a fair treatment of workers and domestic staff, charity towards the poor, and liberal ideas on education, which recognized that a child should be allowed to develop at its own pace and not be forced as an adult (Émile). Rousseau's idea and belief in the original goodness of man and the corruption of modern society was carried over to an idea of the child as naturally able to use freedom to good effect. The method of introspection, enquiry into the whole nature of human behaviour, and the way in which Rousseau could express emotion (Les Confessions and Rêveries du promeneur solitaire) influenced the Romantics, particularly G. G., Lord Byron and P. B. Shelley.

Other important works on the continent were:

The French novelist Abbé Antoine-François Prevost's Manon Lescaut (1731);

In Germany the movement of the 1770's Sturm un Drang, which included the early writings of Herder, Schiller, and the great novelist and poet Johan Wolfgang von Goethe, especially the novel Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (1774), was an important precursor.

I. POETRY

1. THE FIRST AND SECOND ROMANTIC GENERATION OF ROMANTIC POETS:

1) BLAKE, WORDSWORTH, COLERIDGE;

William Wordsworth

2) BYRON, SHELLEY, KEATS.

At the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries we distinguish two generations of Romantic poets. In the first group we include the poets of the older generation: William Blake (1757-1827), William Wordsworth (1770-1850), Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), who, in 1789, the year of the French Revolution, were young and affected by the influence of the French revolutionary ideals of democracy. The period of the French terror and the rise of Napoleon definitely disappointed them, and therefore retreated into reaction.

The second group, or younger generation of Romantic poets includes George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824), Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), John Keats (1795-1821), who were less lucky than the older poets. Their society was dominated by the repression of the Tory governments at home, apprehensive that every request for freedom might become a cause of revolution. The eighteenth century society, regarded as a great work of man, ideally holding all social classes together in mutually supporting harmony, became a repressive, dark organized body, limiting and crushing human souls.