The Victorian Age

Victorian Age is regarded as the growth of the Industrial Revolution and this period was more successful period in the British history. The Quenn Victoria has been the most loveable crowned head in Britain and also her reign was the longest.

As always, the literature was affected by the age. England was the most powerful country in the world even it is said that ‘’The sun never sets on England.’’ Because England spread out every continent incuding Australia, Hong Kong, India etc. this power affected the literature and novels gained great importance. Some of the successful  poets of this period were Tennyson and Browning.

Although this period was the most powerful period, it had some negative aspects. Streets smelled so dirty that people used the description ‘’Great Stink.’’ Also, children continued working in factories for long hours. People were poor. Children had to satisfy the needs of their parents. Diseases were rised because of the pollution.

To sum up, we need to be aware of both positive and negative aspects of a period. I think that if the quenn Victoria solved the problem of pollution and working of  children, she would be more successful quenn in my sight. 

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

We have met with the amazing story ‘’The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’’. It belongs to the romantics period and it has lots of supernatural elements. I had lots of fun while listening this story and I really liked it.

The most interesting thing that I found while I was searching for it is that this story is a symbolic representation of Adam.  It represents the elements of Adam and Eve and crucifixion of Christ because Mariner killed the Albatross and Adan and Eve ate the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. These two events are related to each other.

Then, I mostly liked the part of Mariner tells his own story to everyone who encounter with him in order to help them take a lesson from his story. I liked that part because he wants everyone not to make the mistakes that he did event though he is forced to do this. 

Rationalism vs. Romanticism

In 18th century in English Literature, we have seen two movements so far. The first one is Rationalism and the second one is Romanticism which has reaction against the former.

Rationalism was born against the increasing vice and immorality of humans in 18th century. People, I think,  acted so impulsively without thinking any moral or feeling any shyness in those years that people needed to tend to different areas. They did not care about individual feelings and they disregarded any kind of emotions. They thought that these feelings cannot not be tested. On the other hand, everything that we would talk about must share common senses. Puperstitions and prejudices only causes suffering. Only humans can discover and think. Why don’t we use our special gift from God? But as every society has met, of course there were people who were against that movement.

The other movement was Romanticism. Their ideas were that people have emotions and we cannot ignore this truth. We, as humans, cannot switch off our feelings. They were opposed to overpowering seeking of Rationalists. They wanted to change the idea of reason into the idea of feelings, imaginations, senses.  According to them, feelings are more important than reason. They reflect feelings of people against even casual facts on their works. They give great importance to the human rights, freedom and individualism.

Actually, I am in favor of Romanticism. Of course the reason very important for humans but that works do not adress to all human in a society. Only very few people who interest in can understand but the others cannot. Hovewer, when we talk about individual feelings and imaginations, there is always an open door for people to interpret. As everyone has feelings, everyone can like those kind of literature works.

A Quotation from Robinson Crusoe

For this week, I want to talk about a quotation of Robinson Crusoe that was given to us to explain in the lesson. This quotation is interesting for me. I will share it.

“O drug!” said I aloud, “what art thou good for? Thou art not worth to me, no, not the taking off of the ground; one of those knives is worth all this heap; I have no manner of use for thee; e’en remain where thou art and go to the bottom as a creature whose life is not worth saving.” However, upon second thoughts, I took it away. . . .

Actually, Robinson identifies money as ‘drug’. I could not understand that at first. Then it had a sense. Robinson finds money while searching for guns. As he is alone on the island, he doesn’t care them. On the contrary, as far as I can understand from the novel, he is keen on the money before he goes to the island. Being alone on the island changes him. He tends to God and religion.

After he finds money, he realizes that they are worthless for him. The only thing that are useful for him is tools that can save him from evil because he just lives on the island for surviving. What’s the point of money on the island? The interesting part is that he still save them for future. I think, he considers that somebody will come to rescue him and he can give him the money in return. 

Robinson Crusoe

Today, I watched the movie of Robinson Crusoe then I read its book. I had no idea about Robinson Crusoe before I watched it, now I have. Besides, I have to say that there are a lot of differences between the film and the book.

Firstly, I want to talk about differences. In the film, as far as I can understand, Robinson had to sail because of a fight. He killed a man because of a girl he loved and he had to run, but he didn’t want it actually. Then while having travel in the ship, there was a destructive storm. Noone had rescued but Robinson and he had to live on the island. On the other hand, according to the book, Robinson was a son of a wealthy family and he always wanted to travel around the world. He wanted to see every corner of the world. His father objected to this idea but he never listened to his father. He sailed and there was storm and he had to leave on the island. This is the biggest difference I’ve observed.

Secondly, I’ll talk about characteristics of the book. Robinson is a leader person. He never wants someone to say him what to do. He always orders. He makes use of the environment for himself. He is the only person that leads. He feeds even animals to help himself. After he saved the cannibal’s life, first thing he did is to want cannibal to say himself ‘Master’. He is the only leader that sees the rest as slave. The most interesting thing in the book is after he become alone on the island, Robinson had faith of God. At first he think that all he lives through are punishment for his objecting to his father. In time, he understand that his loneliness is a signal to understand God.

To sum up, there are huge differences between the novel and the book but the main idea is no matter what happens, never ever lose your hope and keep surviving. 

A Modest Proposal from my perspective

This week was very very interesting for me. We talked about social life of England in 18th century that was very scary especially for children and analyzed Jonathan Swifts’s A Modest Proposal. I can say I begin to like 'satire'.

Firstly, 18th century was a century that many machineries were developed and England gained importance. On the other hand, with the increasing of population, many children had to work even they were under 12 years. A few born could live because they had lack of food and many diseases were rising. And this caused the need of critisizing the society. If you want to know how terrible that times, you should read A Modest Proposal.

A Modest Proposal written by Jonathan Swift argues the idea of preventing the children of poor families from dying and making them beneficial. It seems quite reasonable at first, but actually this idea is disgusting. Of course, this was written to make a satire of the government and I think, this was very successful work in terms of enlightening the society. What disgusting is to consider all that were written are real. It’s quite normal that when you read this, at first you might imagine these as real. All people who lived at those times didn’t understand the irony, as well. Swift explaines his ideas so effective by using numbers and calculations that we can say this work reflects the features of the terms exactly.

To sum up, social events change the literature. Works are written according to the needs. If we want to make a conclude, then we have to take into account characteristics of the period.

Satirical poets

This week, Mac Flecknoe was our topic. I am not much interested in this topic but I really find this poem important.

Satire is a way of poets usually use. One of them is Mac Flecknoe that is a mock-heroic satire written by John Dryden in 1678. In every country, there are poets who critisize the society, kings, beliefs, cultures etc. because the best way of expressing your angry is to write a poem. John Dryden did this by resembling Shadwell to Flecknoe as his son. Dryden found Shadwell ridiculus and wanted to critisize him. He considered him as a bad poet. The most interesting part of this poem that impress me is Dryden used ‘Sh…’ abbreviation in the poem. ‘Sh…’ stands for Shadwell, and Shadwell himself never proved this. We can say that Dryden used this abbreviation to say ‘shit’ and this make it special.

Consequently, satirical poets affects me. I thought that making a mockery of someone is not just simple. It also requires ability.