LICEO MUSICALE
IDONEITÀ AL V ANNO
INGLESE
- Will vs. Going To
- Simple Present
- Present Continuous
- The Passive Form
- William Blake
- The Ecological Impact of the Industrial Revolution
- Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
- Romanticism
- Elizabethan Era
- Oscar Wilde
- Slavery in America
WILL VS. GOING TO
A very confusing concept is when to use WILL and when to use BE GOING TO when we refer the future.
Both refer to the future and there is a slight difference between the two though in most cases they can be used interchangeably with no difference in meaning. Even if you misuse them, a native speaker is going to understand you without any problems. Quick Summary Chart
When to use GOING TO
The structure BE GOING TO is normally used to indicate the future but with some type of connection to the present. We use it in the following situations:
1. When we have already decided or we INTEND to do something in the future. (Prior Plan)
The decision has been made before the moment of speaking.
• They're going to retire to the beach - in fact they have already bought a little
beach house.
• I'm going to accept the job offer.
2. When there are definite signs that something is going to happen. (Evidence)
Something is likely to happen based on the evidence or experience you have.
• I think it is going to rain - I just felt a drop.
• I don't feel well. I think I'm going to throw up. (throw up = vomit)
3. When something is about to happen:
• Get back! The bomb is going to explode.
When to use WILL
In other cases, where there is no implicit or explicit connection to the present, use WILL:
1. For things that we decide to do now. (Rapid Decisions)
This is when you make a decision at that moment, in a spontaneous way.
• I'll buy one for you too.
• I think I'll try one of those. (I just decided this right now)
2. When we think or believe something about the future. (Prediction)
• My team will not win the league this season.
Note: You can use both Will and Going to for making future predictions.
3. To make an offer, a promise or a threat.
• I'll give you a discount if you buy it right now. • I promise I will behave next time.
• I'll take you to the movies if you'd like.
4. You use WON'T when someone refuses to do something.
• I told him to take out the trash but he won't do it. • My kids won't listen to anything I say.
• My car won't start.
Future Predictions
As you can see, both Will and Going to can be used for making future predictions without having a real difference in meaning.
• The weather report says it will rain tomorrow. (Correct)
• The weather report says it is going to rain tomorrow. (Correct)
Compare Will vs. Going To
If someone asks: "Are you busy this evening?"
If I respond: "Yes, I'm going to the movies." I use going to because it is a plan I made earlier (before I was asked the question). - In this case we cannot use Will. If I haven't made plans, then you can say either: "I will probably watch TV." OR "I'm probably going to watch TV."
Both will and going to are possible in this situation because we are predicting what will happen (since we haven't made any plans).
SIMPLE PRESENT
The simple present tense in English is used to describe an action that is regular, true or normal.
We use the present tense:
1. For repeated or regular actions in the present time period.
• I take the train to the office.
• The train to Berlin leaves every hour.
• John sleeps eight hours every night during the week. 2. For facts.
• The President of The USA lives in The White House. • A dog has four legs.
• We come from Switzerland. 3. For habits.
• I get up early every day.
• Carol brushes her teeth twice a day.
• They travel to their country house every weekend. 4. For things that are always / generally true.
• It rains a lot in winter.
• The Queen of England lives in Buckingham Palace. • They speak English at work.
Verb Conjugation & Spelling
We form the present tense using the base form of the infinitive (without the TO). In general, in the third person we add 'S' in the third person.
Subject Verb The Rest of the sentence
I / you / we / they speak / learn English at home he / she / it speaks / learns English at home
The spelling for the verb in the third person differs depending on the ending of that verb:
1. For verbs that end in -O, -CH, -SH, -SS, -X, or -Z we add -ES in the third person.
• go – goes • catch – catches • wash – washes • kiss – kisses • fix – fixes • buzz – buzzes
2. For verbs that end in a consonant + Y, we remove the Y and add -IES.
• marry – marries • study – studies • carry – carries • worry – worries
NOTE: For verbs that end in a vowel + Y, we just add -S.
• play – plays • enjoy – enjoys • say – says
Negative Sentences in the Simple Present Tense
To make a negative sentence in English we normally use Don't or Doesn't with all verbs EXCEPT To Be and Modal verbs (can, might, should etc.).
• Affirmative: You speak French.
Negative: You don't speak French.
You will see that we add don't between the subject and the verb. We use Don't when the subject is I, you, we or they.
• Affirmative: He speaks German.
Negative: He doesn't speak German.
When the subject is he, she or it, we add doesn't between the subject and the verb to make a negative sentence. Notice that the letter S at the end of the verb in the
affirmative sentence (because it is in third person) disappears in the negative sentence. We will see the reason why below.
Negative Contractions
Don't = Do not Doesn't = Does not
I don't like meat = I do not like meat.
There is no difference in meaning though we normally use contractions in spoken English.
Word Order of Negative Sentences
The following is the word order to construct a basic negative sentence in English in the Present Tense using Don't or Doesn't.
Subject don't/doesn't Verb* The Rest of the sentence
I / you / we / they don't have / buy
eat / like etc. cereal for breakfast he / she / it doesn't
* Verb: The verb that goes here is the base form of the infinitive = The infinitive without TO before the verb. Instead of the infinitive To have it is just the have part.
Remember that the infinitive is the verb before it is conjugated (changed) and it begins with TO. For example: to have, to eat, to go, to live, to speak etc.
Examples of Negative Sentences with Don't and Doesn't:
• You don't speak Arabic. • John doesn't speak Italian. • We don't have time for a rest. • It doesn't move.
• They don't want to go to the party. • She doesn't like fish.
Questions in the Simple Present Tense
To make a question in English we normally use Do or Does. It has no translation in Spanish though it is essential to show we are making a question. It is normally put at the beginning of the question.
• Affirmative: You speak English.
Question: Do you speak English?
You will see that we add DO at the beginning of the affirmative sentence to make it a question. We use Do when the subject is I, you, we or they.
• Affirmative: He speaks French.
Question: Does he speak French?
When the subject is he, she or it, we add DOES at the beginning to make the affirmative sentence a question. Notice that the letter S at the end of the verb in the affirmative sentence (because it is in third person) disappears in the question. We will see the reason why below.
We DON'T use Do or Does in questions that have the verb To Be or Modal Verbs (can, must, might, should etc.)
Word Order of Questions with Do and Does
The following is the word order to construct a basic question in English using Do or Does.
Do/Does Subject Verb* The Rest of the sentence
Do I / you / we / they have / need
want etc. a new bike? Does he / she / it
*Verb: The verb that goes here is the base form of the infinitive = The infinitive without TO before the verb. Instead of the infinitive To have it is just the have part. Remember that the infinitive is the verb before it is conjugated (changed) and it begins with TO. For example: to have, to eat, to go, to live, to speak etc.
Examples of Questions with Do and Does:
• Do you need a dictionary? • Does Mary need a dictionary? • Do we have a meeting now? • Does it rain a lot in winter? • Do they want to go to the party? • Does he like pizza?
Short Answers with Do and Does
In questions that use do/does it is possible to give short answers to direct questions as follows:
Sample Questions Short Answer (Affirmative) Short Answer (Negative)
Do you like chocolate? Yes, I do. No, I don't. Do I need a pencil? Yes, you do. No, you don't. Do you both like chocolate? Yes, we do. No, we don't. Do they like chocolate? Yes, they do. No, they don't. Does he like chocolate? Yes, he does. No, he doesn't. Does she like chocolate? Yes, she does. No, she doesn't. Does it have four wheels? Yes, it does. No, it doesn't.
However, if a question word such as who, when, where, why, which or how is used in the question, you can not use the short answers above to respond to the question.
PRESENT CONTINUOUS
The present continuous (also called present progressive) is a verb tense which is used to show that an ongoing action is happening now, either at the moment of speech or now in a larger sense. The present continuous can also be used to show that an action is going to take place in the near future. Read on for detailed descriptions, examples, and present continuous exercises.
Present Continuous Forms
The present continuous is formed using am/is/are + present participle. Questions are indicated by inverting the subject and am/is/are. Negatives are made with not.
• Statement: You are watching TV. • Question: Are you watching TV? • Negative: You are not watching TV.
Present Continuous Uses
1 Now
Use the present continuous with normal verbs to express the idea that something is happening now, at this very moment. It can also be used to show that something is not happening now.
Examples:
• You are learning English now. • You are not swimming now. • Are you sleeping?
• I am sitting.
• I am not standing.
• Is he sitting or standing? • They are reading their books. • They are not watching television. • What are you doing?
2 Longer Actions in Progress Now
In English, "now" can mean: this second, today, this month, this year, this century, and so on. Sometimes, we use the present continuous to say that we are in the process of doing a longer action which is in progress; however, we might not be doing it at this exact second.
Examples: (All of these sentences can be said while eating dinner in a restaurant.)
• I am studying to become a doctor. • I am not studying to become a dentist. • I am reading the book Tom Sawyer. • I am not reading any books right now.
• Are you working on any special projects at work? • Aren't you teaching at the university now?
3 Near Future
Sometimes, speakers use the present continuous to indicate that something will or will not happen in the near future.
Examples:
• I am meeting some friends after work. • I am not going to the party tonight. • Is he visiting his parents next weekend? • Isn't he coming with us tonight?
4 Repetition and Irritation with "Always"
The present continuous with words such as "always" or "constantly" expresses the idea that something irritating or shocking often happens. Notice that the meaning is like simple present, but with negative emotion. Remember to put the words "always" or "constantly" between "be" and "verb+ing."
Examples:
• She is always coming to class late.
• He is constantly talking. I wish he would shut up. • I don't like them because they are always complaining
Present Continuous Tips
Remember non-continuous verbs / mixed verbs
It is important to remember that non-continuous verbs cannot be used in any continuous tenses. Also, certain non-continuous meanings for mixed verbs cannot be used in continuous tenses. Instead of using present continuous with these verbs, you must use simple present.
Examples:
• She is loving this chocolate ice cream. Not Correct • She loves this chocolate ice cream. Correct
Adverb placement
The examples below show the placement for grammar adverbs such as: always, only, never, ever, still, just, etc.
Examples:
• You are still watching TV. • Are you still watching TV?
Active / passive
Examples:
• Right now, Tom is writing the letter. Active
THE PASSIVE FORM
Sentences can be active or passive. Therefore, tenses also have "active forms" and "passive forms." You must learn to recognize the difference to successfully speak English.
Active Form
In active sentences, the thing doing the action is the subject of the sentence and the thing receiving the action is the object. Most sentences are active.
[Thing doing action] + [verb] + [thing receiving action] Examples:
Passive Form
In passive sentences, the thing receiving the action is the subject of the sentence and the thing doing the action is optionally included near the end of the sentence. You can use the passive form if you think that the thing receiving the action is more important or should be emphasized. You can also use the passive form if you do not know who is doing the action or if you do not want to mention who is doing the action.
[Thing receiving action] + [be] + [past participle of verb] + [by] + [thing doing action]
Active and Passive Overview
Tense Active Passive
Simple Present
Once a week, Tom cleans the house.
Once a week, the house is cleaned by Tom.
Present Continuous
Right now, Sarah is writing the letter.
Right now, the letter is being written by Sarah.
Simple Past
Sam repaired the car. The car was repaired by Sam.
Past
Continuous
The salesman was helping the customer when the thief came into the store.
The customer was being helped by the salesman when the thief came into the store.
Present Perfect
Many tourists have visited that castle.
That castle has been visited by many tourists.
Present Perfect Continuous
Recently, John has been doing the work.
Recently, the work has been being done by John.
Past Perfect
George had repaired many cars before he received his mechanic's license.
Many cars had been repaired by George before he received his mechanic's license.
Past Perfect Continuous
Chef Jones had been preparing the restaurant's fantastic dinners for two years before he moved to Paris.
The restaurant's fantastic dinners had been being
prepared by Chef Jones for two years before he moved to Paris. Simple
Future will
Someone will finish the work by 5:00 PM.
The work will be finished by 5:00 PM.
Simple Future be going to
Sally is going to make a beautiful dinner tonight.
A beautiful dinner is going to be made by Sally tonight.
Future Continuous will
At 8:00 PM tonight, John will be washing the dishes.
At 8:00 PM tonight, the dishes will be being washed by John.
Continuous be going to
going to be washing the dishes. going to be being washed by John.
Future Perfect will
They will have completed the project before the deadline.
The project will have been completed before the deadline.
Future Perfect be going to
They are going to have
completed the project before the deadline.
The project is going to have been completed before the deadline.
Future Perfect Continuous will
The famous artist will have been painting the mural for over six months by the time it is finished.
The mural will have been being painted by the famous artist for over six months by the time it is finished.
Future Perfect Continuous be going to
The famous artist is going to have been painting the mural for over six months by the time it is finished.
The mural is going to have been being painted by the famous artist for over six months by the time it is finished.
Used to Jerry used to pay the bills. The bills used to be paid by Jerry. Would
Always
My mother would always make the pies.
The pies would always be made by my mother.
Future in the Past Would
I knew John would finish the work by 5:00 PM.
I knew the work would be finished by 5:00 PM.
Future in the Past Was Going to
I thought Sally was going to make a beautiful dinner tonight.
I thought a beautiful dinner was going to be made by Sally tonight.
WILLIAM BLAKE
The industrialization changed radically the landscape of Great Britain. In the first half of the XIX century the Midlands had already gained the name of “nack country”. It was an area of gloomy buildings, small towns full of smoke, streets that created a sense of confusion and dismay and canals to which the railway was added.
Casella di testo: The Industrial Revolution caused an uncontrolled growth of the city. Small towns called “mushroom towns” were constructed to house the workers. They were called in this way because they sprang up suddenly and multiplied rapidly around factories near sources of water power.
For workers living in the city meant long working hours and appalling living conditions. Industrial cities lacked elementary public services (water supply, sanitation, street-cleaning, open spaces). The air and the water were polluted by smoke and filth, the houses, built in endless rows, were over crowded.
A text written in this period describes a “village composed by endless rows of houses with two or more floors, not arranged in a continued way along the roads but interrupted by furnaces, piles of coal which burnt in the process of transformation in coke and chimneys of machinery; the countryside was cut by canals and lands were occupied by grass, cereals mixed with rejects of mines and slags of blast furnaces”. In the city the air was heavy for human’s breath, the harmful steams carried by the smoke from the factories blackened the surrounding landscape and made the trees die. Also London had a lot of problems, in the XIX century the filthy waters were poured in the Thames, making the environmental condition worse. The journalists described the river “as a sewer with a river inside”. The situation was so serious that, during the “Great Stink”, a sitting of the Parliament had been interrupted because of the stench.
This situation made a lot of poets think about the transformation of the landscape.
William Blake
London
I wandered through each chartered street Near where the chartered Thames does flow,
A mark in every face I meet, Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
In every cry of every man, In every infant's cry of fear, In every voice, in every ban, The mind-forged manacles I hear:
How the chimney-sweeper's cry Every blackening church appals, And the hapless soldier's sigh Runs in blood down palace-walls. But most, through midnight streets I hear
How the youthful harlot's curse Blasts the new-born infant's tear,
And blights with plagues the marriage-hearse.
Analysis
“London” in one of the most powerful descriptions of an industrialized town that can be found in literature.
In this poem, from “Songs of Experience”, Blake illustrates his view of London. He focused his attention on the evil consequences of the Industrial Revolution: the injustices caused by a materialistic attitude and the commercial exploitation of human beings. In his poems he sympathized with the victims of industrial society such as children and prostitutes, as well as with the victims of institutional oppression such as orphans and soldiers.
Reading the first stanza we can already understand that there is a first person narrator because the first word of the poem is the “I” pronoun. The poet uses words related to business to describe the city, moreover he underlines the suffering of people slaves of their working hours.
In the second stanza, in line 8, the poet introduces the image of manacles, this metaphor with a deep meaning: according to the poet, political and social institution had imprisoned people morally, they had forged men’s mind so that they do what government wants them to do. In this poem Blake condemns three institutions: Church, Monarchy (represented by the Palace) and Marriage.
Blake attacks “black’ning Church” because it doesn’t make anything to avoid children’s exploitation and forgets the truth and original religious spirit. The word “black’ning” indicates both the immorality of the Church and the fact that in Blake’s time churches were black for the smoke and the pollution caused by urbanisation and industrialisation.
Then Blake condemns Monarchy because it puts at risk soldiers’ life who stand guard outside the royal palaces.
Finally he criticises Marriage that brings to prostitution because it reduces men’s freedom. At that time there weren’t love-marriages but people got married only for interest. For this reason and because of the unemployment, women who belongs to low social classes became prostitutes; this phenomenon brings to moral degradation of the society, determined the birth of illegitimate children and the spread of many diseases (for example the syphilis) and caused the destruction of the families. So the poet links marriage to death with the image of the “hearse”. In the last stanza, Blake says that “the youthful Harlot blasts the new born Infant’s tear”: this means that there are no feelings, so it is useless to show pain or any other feelings because of the poverty of London industrial society.
The tone is initially emotional, grave and sombre, then it becomes indignant combining compassion for the oppressed with bitter scorn for the oppressor.
William Wordsworth
Composed upon Westminster Bridge
Earth has not anything to show more fair: Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty: This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill; 10
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river glideth at his own sweet will: Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
Analysis
Wordsworth wrote that he composed this poem on the roof of a coach on his way to France. He had been stuck by the beautiful sight of London as he was crossing Westminster Bridge. It is an interesting example of the poet’s ability to give
emotional power to what he describes. This poem is written a few years after Blake’s “London”, it gives a different vision of the city, The sonnet expresses a deep emotion at the sight of the city asleep in the early morning sun. The City now does, like a garment, wear the beauty of the morning, everything is sleeping and this sigh of the town arouse him a strong emotion. The occasion of the poem seems surprising for a poet who expressed in so many poems his love for nature and his distaste for the noisy and gloomy industrial cities.
Describing London the poet said that “Earth has not anything to show more fair”, the city is represented with images which give it a sense of solemnity a sight so touching in its majesty and it is personified: the word City is written with the capital letter and the poet used terms normally linked to people, the “city wears” “like a garment” “that heart”.
To give the sense of calm he used the adjectives silent, smokeless to underline that it is early in the morning and London is beautiful because the factories are sleeping, there is not pollution and the city is not dirty. We can find an indirectly accuse of industrialisation. Only when the factories are closed, ships, towers and theatre are bare and when the town in silent, it is also beautiful because it is not spoilt by industrialisation and pollution. The explanation is to be fond in the particular moment of the day which seems to bathe London in the same clear and “smokeless” air as the natural landscape, and which creates a continuity between the city and the countryside around.
It is then possible for the poet to associate it towers, ships, domes with valley, rock and hill and to see them as a part of to natural world.
THE ECOLOGICAL IMPACT OF THE INDUSTRIAL
REVOLUTION
The Industrial Revolution marked a major turning point in Earth’s ecology and humans’ relationship with their environment. The Industrial Revolution dramatically changed every aspect of human life and lifestyles. The impact on the world’s psyche would not begin to register until the early 1960s, some 200 years after its beginnings. From human development, health and life longevity, to social improvements and the impact on natural resources, public health, energy usage and sanitation, the effects were profound.
It wasn’t that the Industrial Revolution became a stalwart juggernaut overnight. It started in the mid-1700s in Great Britain when machinery began to replace manual labor. Fossil fuels replaced wind, water and wood, used primarily for the manufacture of textiles and the development of iron making processes. The full impact of the Industrial Revolution would not begin to be realized until about 100 years later in the 1800s, when the use of machines to replace human labor spread throughout Europe and North America. This transformation is referred to as the industrialization of the world. These processes gave rise to sweeping increases in production capacity and would affect all basic human needs, including food production, medicine, housing, and clothing. Not only did society develop the ability to have more things faster, it would be able to develop better things. These industrialization processes continue today.
The Industrial Revolution and Population Growth
The most prolific evidence of the Industrial Revolution’s impact on the modern world is seen in the worldwide human population growth. Humans have been around for about 2.2 million years. By the dawn of the first millennium AD, estimates place the total world (modern) human population at between 150 – 200 million, and 300 million in the year 1,000. The population of the United States population is currently 312,000,000 (August 2011). The world human population growth rate would be about .1 percent (.001) per year for the next seven to eight centuries.
At the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in the mid 1700s, the world’s human population grew by about 57 percent to 700 million. It would reach one billion in 1800. (Note: The Black Plague reduced the world population by about 75 million people in the late 1300s.) The birth of the Industrial Revolution altered medicine and living standards, resulting in the population explosion that would commence at that
point and steamroll into the 20thand 21st centuries. In only 100 years after the onset of the Industrial Revolution, the world population would grow 100 percent to two billion people in 1927 (about 1.6 billion by 1900).
During the 20th century, the world population would take on exponential proportions, growing to six billion people just before the start of the 21stcentury. That’s a 400 percent population increase in a single century. Since the 250 years from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution to today, the world human population has increased by six billion people!
Human population growth is indelibly tied together with increased use of natural and man-made resources, energy, land for growing food and for living, and waste by-products that are disposed of, to decompose, pollute or be recycled. This exponential population growth led to the exponential requirements for resources, energy, food, housing and land, as well as the exponential increase in waste by-products.
Awakening to the Implications of Unsustainable Growth and Dependence on Limited Resources
There were many indicators that the Industrial Revolution propelled the world human population into an era of living and production at the ultimate expense of the human condition. It also impacted the resources that had been taken for granted for the entire prior history of humankind. There had always been more resources than the demand for them.
It would take just one person in the 1960s to make the general public aware of the cause and effect of human outgrowth from the Industrial Revolution. Rachel Carson took on the powerful and robust chemical industry in her globally acclaimed 1962 book, Silent Spring. In it she raised important questions about humans’ impact on nature. For the first time, the public and industry would begin to grasp the concept of sustainable production and development.
It was the fossil fuel coal that fueled the Industrial Revolution, forever changing the way people would live and utilize energy. While this propelled human progress to extraordinary levels, it came at extraordinary costs to our environment, and ultimately to the health of all living things. While coal and other fossil fuels were taken for granted as being inexhaustible, it was American geophysicist M. King Hubbert who predicted in 1949 that the fossil fuel era would be very short-lived and that other energy sources would need to be relied upon.
Hubbert predicted that fossil fuel production, in particular oil, would reach it s peak starting in 1970 and would go into steady decline against the rising energy demands of the population. The decline in production started in the United States in 1971 and
has spread to other oil producing nations as well. This peak production is known as “Hubbert’s Peak.” By the time the world began to heed Hubbert’s prediction, the use of fossil fuels so heavily relied upon to fuel the Industrial Revolution had become so firmly interwoven into human progress and economy, that changing this energy system would drastically alter the very way we have lived our lives. It will happen, but it will take time, continued ingenuity and vast economic incentives to transform dependence on this fuel that fostered the growth and prosperity launched by the Industrial Revolution.
The Era of Sustainability: The Next Revolution
Looking back at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, it is difficult to realize how what took place then is having such complicated and vast effects today. This is the principle of environmental unity – a change in one system will cause changes in others. Certainly, the seeds of progress – and the ramifications of that progress – were planted then. And with the very same mechanisms and effects that brought about both the progress and the indelibly connected results of that progress to our ecology – the good, the bad and the ugly – over the last 250 years, we are entering a new era of sustainability. That is the next revolution.
FRANKENSTEIN - MARY SHELLEY
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein tells the story of the scientist Victor Frankenstein, who, driven by an obsession with the secret of life, animates a monstrous body. The results are disastrous, bringing woe to the monster and to Frankenstein and his loved ones. Frankenstein summary key points:
• While searching for a passage through the Arctic, explorer Robert Walton encounters a man adrift on an ice floe, whom he invites onboard. The man reveals himself to be Victor Frankenstein, a scientist who tells the story of his search for his own terrible creation.
• As a university student, Victor becomes obsessed with discovering the secret of life. In his experimentation, he gathers and assembles body parts in an effort to recreate human life. When he succeeds in bringing the ghastly Creature to life, Victor flees in terror.
• The Creature roams the world, hiding from humans who reject him out of fear and disgust. By learning to read, he comes to realize the horror of his existence, of which Victor was the cause.
• The Creature begins to hunt down and kill Victor’s loved ones, including his friend Henry and his wife, Elizabeth. The Creature pursues Victor to the Arctic, where Victor dies on Walton’s ship. The Creature wanders into the Arctic alone after Victor's death, and plans to end his life there.
Volume One
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein begins with a series of letters from English explorer Robert Walton to his sister, Margaret Saville. Walton has traveled to Russia to fulfill his lifelong dream of embarking on a voyage to the Arctic, where he hopes to make important scientific discoveries. After sailing steadily north for a while, Walton and his crew find themselves surrounded by ice and witness a strange sight: a huge man in a dogsled speeding across the frozen sea. The next day they rescue a different, emaciated man who is stranded on a sheet of ice with the remnants of a dogsled beside him. This man is later revealed to be Victor Frankenstein. Victor is near death and remains unable to speak for several days. Walton nurses him back to health in his cabin, and as the two men become acquainted, Walton grows to love and admire his mysterious, melancholy guest. Victor is clearly suffering from some terrible loss, and he reveals that he came to the Arctic to pursue the huge man Walton saw previously. After Walton tells him that he is willing to sacrifice anything to achieve his scientific
ambitions, Victor decides to tell the captain the story of his life, which Walton records.
In the first part of his tale, Victor spends an idyllic childhood in Geneva, Switzerland, with his loving upper-class family. He enjoys particularly close relationships with his adopted sister, Elizabeth, and his best friend, Henry Clerval. At an early age he develops a passion for natural philosophy, and he spends his adolescence devouring the works of the medieval alchemists, dreaming of discovering the elixir of life. When he realizes how outdated the alchemists’ theories are in comparison to modern theories, however, he becomes disillusioned and gives up his study of the sciences entirely.
When he is seventeen, Victor’s parents decide to send him to school at the University of Ingolstadt. But just before he is scheduled to leave, his mother, Caroline, dies of scarlet fever. After spending time mourning with his family, Victor travels to Ingolstadt as planned. There he meets professor of biology M. Krempe and professor of chemistry M. Waldman, who inspires him to resume his study of the sciences. For the next four years, Victor applies himself to his studies with a passion, driven by an ambition to reveal the mysteries of nature, life, and death, and winning acclaim for his achievements. He is particularly fascinated by the idea of discovering how to create life. Just as he is about to return home to Geneva, his experiments finally succeed. Victor spends the next two years assembling an eight-foot-tall man out of parts taken from cadavers. When he succeeds in bringing his creation to life, however, Victor is so horrified by the creature’s hideous appearance that he runs away. After wandering the streets of Ingolstadt all night, Victor runs into Henry Clerval, who has arrived to begin his own course of study at the university. When the friends return to Victor’s apartment, Victor is relieved to find the creature gone, but he remains so agitated that he falls into a months-long state of fever and delirium. Clerval nurses him back to health.
Just as Victor is beginning to feel like his old self again, he receives word that his youngest brother, William, has been murdered. He returns to Geneva for the first time in six years. While walking through Plainpalais, where William was killed, Victor sees the creature he brought to life scaling a steep mountain. He becomes convinced that his creature is responsible for the murder. When he arrives home, however, Victor’s family tells him their beloved servant, Justine Moritz, has been accused of the crime. Victor expresses his disbelief but chooses to keep quiet about the creature, fearing he would be thought mad if he were to tell his story and believing that Justine will be acquitted. But Justine is found guilty, largely because a valuable necklace that Elizabeth lent to William to wear on the night of the murder—and that was missing from William’s corpse—was found in Justine’s clothes. Justine is hanged, and Victor is racked with guilt.
After Justine’s execution, Victor attempts to relieve his inner turmoil by riding alone through the Alps to the valley of Chamounix. On a nearby glacier, he is approached by the creature, who asks Victor to listen to his story. Though initially filled with rage and hatred for his creation, Victor agrees to accompany the creature to his hut and hear his tale.
The creature tells Victor that on the night he was brought to life, he made his way into the forest near Ingolstadt, where he lived on roots and berries. After being chased out of a village he had wandered into in search of food and shelter, he hid in a hovel attached to a small cottage in the woods. The cottage was inhabited by a loving family consisting of two siblings, Felix and Agatha; their blind father, whom the creature calls by his and his children’s last name, De Lacey; and, later, Felix’s fiancee, Safie. For nearly two years, the creature secretly observed and did favors for the cottagers, whom he grew to deeply admire. He learned that the De Laceys had once been respected members of the Parisian upper class but were exiled after Felix helped a wrongfully convicted Turkish merchant escape from prison. Felix and the merchant’s daughter, Safie, had fallen in love, and instead of returning to Constantinople with her father, Safie had run away in order to reunite with Felix. The creature was moved by this story, as well as by the stories of virtuous Greeks and Romans he heard Felix read aloud to Safie. He learned to speak, read, and write French, enabling him to read books he found in the forest (including John Milton’s Paradise Lost) and Victor’s journal, which he found in the pocket of a coat he had taken from Victor’s apartment. When he read the journal, the creature was horrified to learn about his origins and his abandonment by his creator. Tormented by loneliness and longing above all to be accepted into the cottagers’ family in spite of his frightening appearance, the creature eventually introduced himself to De Lacey, who showed him compassion. But when Felix, Agatha, and Safie saw them together, Felix attacked the creature, and the cottagers moved away the next day. The anguished creature burned the empty cottage before setting out to find Victor, whom he holds responsible for his suffering.
In the woods on the way to Geneva, the creature saved a child from drowning in a river and was shot in the arm by the child’s guardian. This incident filled him with feelings of hatred and vengeance toward humanity. Then, in Plainpalais, he encountered William and seized him with the intention of making him his companion. When the creature learned that the boy was a member of the Frankenstein family, he strangled him to death in order to make Victor suffer. He then took the necklace William was wearing, attracted by the beautiful miniature of Caroline Frankenstein. When he saw Justine Moritz asleep in a nearby barn, the creature planted the necklace on her so that she would be forced to pay for his crime. After telling his story, the creature has one request for Victor: he wants Victor to create him a female companion who, being as ugly as himself, will not reject him. If
Victor consents, the creature and his mate will live a peaceful life far away from humanity in South America. If Victor refuses, however, the creature will continue to destroy Victor’s life and murder his loved ones. Victor reluctantly agrees to the creature’s terms and returns to Geneva.
Volume Three
At home in Geneva, Victor puts off his promise to the creature. His father, Alphonse—who, along with Victor’s mother, always hoped Victor and Elizabeth would one day marry—suggests Victor marry Elizabeth now in order to raise everyone’s spirits. Victor loves Elizabeth but realizes he needs to fulfill his promise to the creature before marrying her. He decides to travel to England to speak to scientists who have made new discoveries he believes will help him with his task. He also plans to find a remote place where he can assemble the female creature. Accompanied by Clerval, Victor sails to London, where he reluctantly begins to gather information and materials. Clerval, meanwhile, enthusiastically sets about securing a career in England’s trade with India.
When the two are invited to Scotland by a mutual acquaintance, Victor accompanies Clerval on the journey north and leaves him with their acquaintance in Perth. He then travels to the Orkney Islands, where he rents a hut in an isolated corner of the archipelago and begins to assemble a female creature.
One night when the new creature is near completion, Victor begins to ponder the possible consequences of his current work: the two creatures might wreak havoc together or even begin a new race of monsters that would threaten humankind. When he suddenly sees the creature’s face at the window, Victor destroys the creature’s unfinished mate. Devastated and enraged, the creature confronts Victor and swears revenge.
Ominously, he tells Victor to remember that he will be with him on his wedding night. The next day, Victor receives a letter from Clerval asking him to travel to Perth so the two can return to London together, and Victor prepares to leave. Late that night he rows out to sea and throws the remains of the female creature overboard, then falls asleep in the boat.
When he wakes up the next day, he realizes he is lost at sea and can do nothing but let the wind carry him. Eventually he reaches a harbor, where he is told that he has arrived in Ireland and must report to the local magistrate, Mr. Kirwin, on suspicion of murder. When he does so, several witnesses describe having found a young man’s dead body on the beach and having seen a man nearby in Victor’s boat. When he is shown the dead body, Victor realizes it belongs to Clerval, and he cries out in horror that he has destroyed his friend.
Victor is then thrown in jail, where he lies delirious with fever. Two months later, he begins to recover, and his father, summoned by the sympathetic Mr. Kirwin, arrives from Geneva.
Victor is found innocent based on his presence on the Orkneys at the time of the murder, but he remains overwhelmed by guilt, depressed to the verge of suicide, and dependent on the laudanum he was administered while ill in prison. He and Alphonse return to Geneva, where Elizabeth is the only person able to somewhat lessen Victor’s misery.
Though he still believes the creature intends to murder him on his wedding night, Victor agrees to marry Elizabeth as planned and looks forward to the marriage with a mixture of hope and fear. After their wedding, the couple travel to the town of Evian, where they stay at an inn.
That night, seized by anxiety, Victor tells Elizabeth to wait for him in a separate room, then paces around the inn keeping watch for the creature. He hears a scream and runs into Elizabeth’s room to find her dead and the creature at the window. Search parties set out to track down the creature but are unsuccessful, and Victor returns to Geneva to ensure the safety of his remaining family members. He finds his father and his younger brother, Ernest, safe, but Alphonse falls ill when he learns of Elizabeth’s death and dies a few days later. Victor then suffers a mental breakdown and is confined to an asylum for several months.
After his release, Victor brings his case before a magistrate, demanding the creature be tracked down and brought to justice. When the magistrate appears skeptical of his story, however, Victor decides to leave Geneva and seek vengeance on his own. He pays a visit to his family tomb on the night of his departure, where the creature taunts him before disappearing into the darkness.
Victor follows, beginning a pursuit that leads him into the wilderness of Russia and what was then known as Tartary. The creature leaves him food and clues, including notes written on tree bark and rocks in which the creature taunts Victor and commands him to follow him into the Arctic. Eventually Victor arrives at the Arctic Ocean, where he pursues the creature across the frozen sea in a dogsled. Just as he is beginning to gain on the creature, the ice breaks, separating them, and Victor is cast adrift on a floating sheet of ice. After several hours, he is rescued by Walton and his crew.
Finished with his tale, he asks Walton to complete his revenge if he should die. Walton, resuming his role as narrator, relates that he continues to admire Victor and that he wishes he could convince his ailing guest to continue living. Victor, while grateful to Walton, is resigned to his fate; he wants only to fulfill his task of destroying the creature and to be reunited with his loved ones in death. When the ship becomes immured in ice, Victor delivers a rousing speech in which he exhorts both captain and crew to continue their voyage north, but Walton eventually agrees to the sailors’ demand that they turn the ship around at the first opportunity rather than risk further danger.
The ice breaks several days later, and Walton and his crew set a course for England. Victor, whose health has been rapidly declining, tells Walton that all feelings of hatred and vengeance have left him, but he still believes the creature should be destroyed. He dies later that same day.
That night, Walton finds the creature standing over Victor’s body. In spite of the terrible injustice he feels he has been shown by human beings, the creature laments having destroyed Victor’s life and says he is tormented by remorse and self-loathing. He tells Walton he plans to travel as far north as possible, where he will build himself a funeral pyre and finally die. Then the creature leaps out the window and onto a sheet of ice, eventually disappearing into the night.
ROMANTICISM
Romanticism, attitude or intellectual orientation that characterized many works of literature, painting, music, architecture, criticism, and historiography in Western civilization over a period from the late 18th to the mid-19th century. Romanticism can be seen as a rejection of the precepts of order, calm, harmony, balance, idealization, and rationality that typified Classicism in general and late 18th-century Neoclassicism in particular. It was also to some extent a reaction against the Enlightenment and against 18th-century rationalism and physical materialism in general. Romanticism emphasized the individual, the subjective, the irrational, the imaginative, the personal, the spontaneous, the emotional, the visionary, and the transcendental.
Among the characteristic attitudes of Romanticism were the following: a deepened appreciation of the beauties of nature; a general exaltation of emotion over reason and of the senses over intellect; a turning in upon the self and a heightened examination of human personality and its moods and mental potentialities; a preoccupation with the genius, the hero, and the exceptional figure in general, and a focus on his passions and inner struggles; a new view of the artist as a supremely individual creator, whose creative spirit is more important than strict adherence to formal rules and traditional procedures; an emphasis upon imagination as a gateway to transcendent experience and spiritual truth; an obsessive interest in folk culture, national and ethnic cultural origins, and the medieval era; and a predilection for the exotic, the remote, the mysterious, the weird, the occult, the monstrous, the diseased, and even the satanic.
Literature
Romanticism proper was preceded by several related developments from the mid-18th century on that can be termed Pre-Romanticism. Among such trends was a new appreciation of the medieval romance, from which the Romantic movement derives its name. The romance was a tale or ballad of chivalric adventure whose emphasis on individual heroism and on the exotic and the mysterious was in clear contrast to the elegant formality and artificiality of prevailing Classical forms of literature, such as the French Neoclassical tragedy or the English heroic couplet in poetry. This new interest in relatively unsophisticated but overtly emotional literary expressions of the past was to be a dominant note in Romanticism.
Romanticism in English literature began in the 1790s with the publication of the Lyrical Ballads of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Wordsworth’s
“Preface” to the second edition (1800) of Lyrical Ballads, in which he described poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings,” became the manifesto of the English Romantic movement in poetry. William Blake was the third principal poet of the movement’s early phase in England. The first phase of the Romantic movement in Germany was marked by innovations in both content and literary style and by a preoccupation with the mystical, the subconscious, and the supernatural. A wealth of talents, including Friedrich Hölderlin, the early Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Jean Paul, Novalis, Ludwig Tieck, A.W. and Friedrich Schlegel, Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder, and Friedrich Schelling, belong to this first phase. In Revolutionary France, the vicomte de Chateaubriand and Mme de Staël were the chief initiators of Romanticism, by virtue of their influential historical and theoretical writings.
The second phase of Romanticism, comprising the period from about 1805 to the 1830s, was marked by a quickening of cultural nationalism and a new attention to national origins, as attested by the collection and imitation of native folklore, folk ballads and poetry, folk dance and music, and even previously ignored medieval and Renaissance works. The revived historical appreciation was translated into imaginative writing by Sir Walter Scott, who is often considered to have invented the historical novel. At about this same time English Romantic poetry had reached its zenith in the works of John Keats, Lord Byron, and Percy Bysshe Shelley.
A notable by-product of the Romantic interest in the emotional were works dealing with the supernatural, the weird, and the horrible, as in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and works by C.R. Maturin, the Marquis de Sade, and E.T.A. Hoffmann. The second phase of Romanticism in Germany was dominated by Achim von Arnim, Clemens Brentano, J.J. von Görres, and Joseph von Eichendorff.
By the 1820s Romanticism had broadened to embrace the literatures of almost all of Europe. In this later, second, phase, the movement was less universal in approach and concentrated more on exploring each nation’s historical and cultural inheritance and on examining the passions and struggles of exceptional individuals. A brief survey of Romantic or Romantic-influenced writers would have to include Thomas De Quincey, William Hazlitt, and the Brontë sisters in England; Victor Hugo, Alfred de Vigny, Alphonse de Lamartine, Alfred de Musset, Stendhal, Prosper Mérimée, Alexandre Dumas (Dumas Père), and Théophile Gautier in France; Alessandro Manzoni and Giacomo Leopardi in Italy; Aleksandr Pushkin and Mikhail Lermontov in Russia; José de Espronceda and Ángel de Saavedra in Spain; Adam Mickiewicz in Poland; and almost all of the important writers in pre-Civil War America.
Visual Arts
In the 1760s and ’70s a number of British artists at home and in Rome, including James Barry, Henry Fuseli, John Hamilton Mortimer, and John Flaxman, began to paint subjects that were at odds with the strict decorum and classical historical and mythological subject matter of conventional figurative art. These artists favoured themes that were bizarre, pathetic, or extravagantly heroic, and they defined their images with tensely linear drawing and bold contrasts of light and shade. William Blake, the other principal early Romantic painter in England, evolved his own powerful and unique visionary images.
In the next generation the great genre of English Romantic landscape painting emerged in the works of J.M.W. Turner and John Constable. These artists emphasized transient and dramatic effects of light, atmosphere, and colour to portray a dynamic natural world capable of evoking awe and grandeur.
In France the chief early Romantic painters were Baron Antoine Gros, who painted dramatic tableaus of contemporary incidents of the Napoleonic Wars, and Théodore Géricault, whose depictions of individual heroism and suffering in The Raft of the Medusa and in his portraits of the insane truly inaugurated the movement around 1820. The greatest French Romantic painter was Eugène Delacroix, who is notable for his free and expressive brushwork, his rich and sensuous use of colour, his dynamic compositions, and his exotic and adventurous subject matter, ranging from North African Arab life to revolutionary politics at home. Paul Delaroche, Théodore Chassériau, and, occasionally, J.-A.-D. Ingres represent the last, more academic phase of Romantic painting in France. In Germany Romantic painting took on symbolic and allegorical overtones, as in the works of P.O. Runge. Caspar David Friedrich, the greatest German Romantic artist, painted eerily silent and stark landscapes that can induce in the beholder a sense of mystery and religious awe. Romanticism expressed itself in architecture primarily through imitations of older architectural styles and through eccentric buildings known as “follies.” Medieval Gothic architecture appealed to the Romantic imagination in England and Germany, and this renewed interest led to the Gothic Revival.
ELIZABETHAN ERA
The events depicted in The Lost Colony took place during the Elizabethan era in England. The term, “Elizabethan Era” refers to the English history of Queen Elizabeth I’s reign (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history and it’s been widely romanticized in books, movies, plays, and TV series. The Elizabethan age is considered to be a time of English renaissance that inspired national pride through classical ideals, international expansion, and naval triumph.
This English Renaissance saw the flowering of poetry, music and literature. The era is most famous for theatre, as William Shakespeare and many others composed plays that we still read and watch today. It was also an age of exploration and expansion abroad to establish colonies under English rule across the globe, including in The New World, to further England’s empire.
Elizabethan Societal Classes
The events depicted in The Lost Colony took place during the Elizabethan era in England. The term, “Elizabethan Era” refers to the English history of Queen Elizabeth I’s reign (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history and it’s been widely romanticized in books, movies, plays, and TV series. The Elizabethan age is considered to be a time of English renaissance that inspired national pride through classical ideals, international expansion, and naval triumph.
This English Renaissance saw the flowering of poetry, music and literature. The era is most famous for theatre, as William Shakespeare and many others composed plays that we still read and watch today. It was also an age of exploration and expansion abroad to establish colonies under English rule across the globe, including in The New World, to further England’s empire.
The Monarch
The era called the Elizabethan England was a time of many changes and developments and was also considered as the Golden Age in English history. This era was led by Queen Elizabeth I, the sixth and last ruler of Tudor. Queen Elizabeth I was considered by many to be England’s best monarch. She was wise and a just Queen and chose the right advisers and was not dominated by them. She ruled the
Elizabethan era for 45 years and during this time was the height of the English Renaissance and the time of the development of English poetry and literature.
Nobility
The Lost Colony Western Europe Map Society began to form along new lines during the Tudor years and it was an age of individuality. Nobility and knights were still at the top of the social ladder. These men were rich and powerful, and they have large households. The real growth in society was in the merchant class. Within the nobility class there was a distinction between old families and new. Most of the old families were Catholic, and the new families were Protestant. During Shakespeare’s time there were only about 55 noble families in England. At the head of each noble family is a duke, a baron or an earl. This class is the lords and ladies of the land. A person becomes a member of nobility by birth, or by a grant from the queen or king. Noble titles were hereditary, passing from father to oldest son. It took a crime such as treason for a nobleman to lose his title. Many nobles died during the War of the Roses, a series of civil wars fought during the 15th century.
The Tudor monarchy, Elizabeth, her father Henry VIII, and her grandfather Henry VII rarely appointed new nobles to replace those who died. They viewed the nobility class as a threat to their power and preferred to keep the number of them small. Being a member of the nobility class often brought debt rather than profit. The expectations of the class and the non-paying honorific offices could bring terrible financial burdens. They maintained huge households, and conspicuous consumption and lavish entertainment was expected. Visiting nobles to England were the responsibility of the English nobility to house and entertain at their own expense. Appointment to a post as a foreign ambassador required the ambassador to maintain a household of as many 100 attendants. Most of Queen Elizabeth’s council, chief officers in the counties came from the noble families. They were expected to serve in an office, such as being an ambassador to a foreign country, at their own expense of course.
Gentry
The Gentry class included knights, squires, gentlemen, and gentlewomen who did not work with their hands for a living. Their numbers grew during Queen Elizabeth’s reign and became the most important social class in England. Wealth was the key to becoming a part of the gentry class. This class was made of people not born of noble birth who by acquiring large amounts of property became wealthy landowners. The rise of the gentry was the dominant feature of Elizabethan society. They essentially changed things, which launched out new paths whether at home or overseas, provided leadership and spirit of the age, who gave it character and did its work during this era. The gentry were the solid citizens of Elizabethan England. Francis Drake, the famous explorer and Sir Walter Raleigh, who led the way to the English colonization of
America were of the gentry class. Two of the queen’s chief ministers, Burgley and Walsingham were products of the gentry. Francis Bacon, the great essayer and philosopher also came from this class. The gentry were the backbone of Elizabethan England. They went to Parliament and served as justices of the Peace. They combined the wealth of the nobility with the energy of the sturdy peasants from whom they had sprung.
Merchant
The Tudor era saw the rise of modern commerce with cloth and weaving leading the way. The prosperous merchant class emerged from the ashes of the Wars of the Roses. The prosperity of the wool trade led to a surge in building and the importance cannot be overstated. Shipping products from England to various ports in Europe and to the New World also became a profitable business for the merchants. Prices for everyday food and household items that came from other countries increased as the merchants gained a monopoly on the sales of all goods under the pretence it would benefit the country where it really benefited the pocket of the merchants.
Yeomanry
This was the “middling” class who saved enough to live comfortably but who at any moment, through illness or bad luck be plunged into poverty. This class included the farmers, tradesmen and craft workers. They took their religion very seriously and could read and write. This class of people was prosperous and sometimes their wealth could exceed those of the gentry, but the difference was how they spent their wealth. The yeoman’s were content to live more simply, using their wealth to improve their land and expand it.
Laborers
The last class of Elizabethan England was the day laborers, poor husbandmen, and some retailers who did not own their own land. Artisans, shoemakers, carpenters, brick masons and all those who worked with their hands belonged to this class of society. In this class we can also put our great swarms of idle serving-men and beggars. Under Queen Elizabeth I, the government undertook the job of assisting the laborers class and the result was the famous Elizabethan Poor Laws which resulted in one of the world’s first government sponsored welfare programs. This era was generally peaceful as the battles between the Protestants and the Catholics and those between the Parliament and the Monarchy had subsided.
OSCAR WILDE
The future novelist, playwright, and poet of the last period of the Victorian epoch Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde spent his childhood in the capital of Ireland, in the town of Dublin. He was born on the 16th of October of 1854. His parents were known in the high society. His father William Wilde was engaged in medicine, he was working within the scope of ophthalmology.
In 1864 William Wilde got the knighthood. The mother of future writer Jane Francesca Wilde fought for the rights of Irish people and actively supported revolutionary movement. Both parents were fond of literature: the father wrote historical and archaeological works, and his mother wrote poetry. A couple of Wilde organized salons which were attended by the medical and cultural elite of the country.
Years of studies
The Oscar was a middle child in his family. His elder brother Willie was born two years earlier than Oscar, and his sister Isola was two years younger than he. The girl died at the age of ten because of brain inflammation. Children got fine homeschooling. Their governesses were of German and French origin. The Royal school Portora which was in the small town, near Dublin became the first educational institution for the brothers. Little Oscar differed in talent for reading and for witty statements. At the age of 17, Wilde finished the school with a distinction and got a gold medal and was sent to Trinity College.
Oscar's interest in the Ancient Greek culture which had arisen during his school studies developed in college. He was engaged in detailed studying of the ancient history, aesthetics, ancient languages. Little by little Wilde began to put all the knowledge he had got into practice. His manner of behavior, clothes, drive for Hellenism, skepticism, self-deprecating - all these traits were formed under the influence of the gained knowledge and made his famous during further years.
In three years the promising student Oscar Wilde was sent to Oxford where his style and image of a flawless dandy were finally formed. At that time fabulosity of his own personality became one of the points of success for Oscar Wilde. He never hurried to deny all the improbable gossips and rumors about himself. While studying at Oxford University the writer’s attitude to the beauty had been finally formed. At that time moral values were not the only criterion of beauty for Oscar Wilde. English writer
and theorist John Ruskin became Oscar's teacher and he affected Wilde's outlook. John Ruskin had a great impact on literary tendencies of the end of the 19th century. During the years of studies Oscar made a trip to Italy and Greece, the counties he adored, for the first time. Wilde was so inspired by new impressions that after his journey he wrote one of the first poems "Ravenna" for which he got an award of the university.
Creative career
At the age of 24 Wilde moves to the capital of Great Britain. He becomes a popular regular at secular salons of London due to his ironic and contradictory statements and a manner of dressing. Wilde’s tastes and habits dictated fashion for the intelligence and aristocracy. Soon there appeared many young people who tried to imitate their idol in everything. His admirers quoted the jokes of the young Irish man.
During the first years of his literary career Oscar Wilde was engaged only in poetry, and occasionally wrote essays devoted to esthetics problems. From 1882 till 1883 the young writer was abroad, in the USA where he traveled and gave lectures on art. The American public was crazy about the writer’s charm and intelligence, a big army of admirers and followers of Oscar Wilde appeared `overseas.
After Oscar Wilde had returned to Europe he at once went to France where he got acquainted with the color of the French literature.
Having returned home and created his own family, Oscar Wilde devoted himself to the writing of fairy tales for what he was inspired by his children. These are the collections of fairy tales "The Happy Prince", "A House of Pomegranates" which best-known tales are "The Star Child", "The devoted friend", "The Nightingale and the Rose", "The fisherman and his soul". By this time Wilde achieved the peak of his glory in England.
The journalistic articles of Oscar Wilde were published in the best editions of the country, Wilde accepted the position of the editor in the magazine of "The Woman’s World". The legendary playwright Bernard Shaw spoke favorably of Oscar Wilde in his interviews. The London dandy and the provocator caused contradictory feelings in public: from blind adoration to criticism which was expressed in attacks and the publication of caricatures of the writer. But biting words against Oscar even strengthened his authority and popularity in the society.
At the age of 33, Wilde wrote his first serious works. He started from writing the stories "Lord Arthur Savile's Crime", "The Canterville Ghost", "The Sphinx without a Secret" and later Wilde started the main work of his creative career - the novel "The
