The new ideas of freedom for the individual gave rise to the philosophy of economic liberalism. In the 18th century, economic liberalism took a new meaning: it meant free trade and unrestrained economic activity summed up in the expression “let do”. This concept was illustrated by Adam Smith in his work The wealth of nations . He said the basis of a nation’s wealth is the work of its population, which must be left free to act as it wishes. The Industrial Revolution took place in England from 1760 to 1840. It was a process of change from an handicraft economy to an industrial and manufacturing economy. In fact, the agricultural revolution was an essential prerequisite of the Industrial Revolution: with a remarkable increase in agricultural productivity and a growing availability of primary products, the labour force moved from agriculture to industry. Fundamental to the Industrial Revolution were some technical innovations: the use of new materials like iron and steel as a result of the...

Introduction The Rime of the Ancient Mariner , written by Samuel T. Coleridge , is a ballad typically Romantic in that it has analogues with other tales in folklore and ballads. It may be defined as a mixture of Gothic romance, travel literature which supplies the exotic, and traditional ballad. This poem is full of important themes that are still contemporary like the love for nature, the respect of the environment. For its modernity, the British heavy metal band Iron Maiden pays homage to Coleridge by writing Rime of Ancient Mariner , a song contained in the album Powerslave inspired by the poet's poem. The poem is divided into seven parts and the plot is summed up in following lines. The story An old Mariner meets three guests going to a wedding. He stops them and, through his “glittering eye”, obliges them to listen to his tale. The Mariner tells them how the ship he sailed in, once it had crossed the Equator, was driven by storms towards the South Pole. Suddenly, an albatross...

Daniel Defoe was born in the London Borough of Stoke Newington in 1660 into a Puritan family. His father, James Foe, was a member of the butcher society, but a candle merchant; Daniel changed his surname from "Foe" to the more aristocratic "Defoe" around 1703, going so far as to claim on a few occasions to be a descendant of the De Beau Faux family. He received a practical education in accordance with Puritan values in Newton Green Academy. In 1692 Defoe went bankrupt, paying for the economic disaster even with prison. He managed to revive his financial condition with disparate activities: a brick factory, a consulting service for the government, and some publications as an essayist. Defoe's essays, of a political and economic nature, contained cutting-edge recommendations: they suggested, among other things, the creation of a central bank (which became a reality in 1694), a pension system, insurance companies, and new bankruptcy laws. After the death of William...

Nell’Europa del Seicento la rivoluzione scientifica consentì un grande sviluppo delle conoscenze umane che nel Settecento determinò, successivamente, la nascita di un movimento di idee: l’Illuminismo. L’illuminismo e la rivoluzione scientifica determinarono, poi, la base del moderno progresso civile, economico e sociale. Questo processo iniziò con il padre del Razionalismo Galileo Galilei, il quale elaborò il metodo scientifico basato sulla verifica sperimentale delle ipotesi fatte dallo scienziato. Galileo rappresenta lo studioso che riconduce i fenomeni naturali a una serie di dati quantificabili, al fine di elaborare le leggi che li regolano. La mentalità razionale nata dalla rivoluzione scientifica ha avuto riflessi importantissimi anche sugli studi relativi al comportamento dell’uomo ed alle sue idee. Questo nuovo aspetto ha condotto l’uomo ad accrescere la sua fiducia nel potere della ragione, elemento che caratterizzerà l’Illuminismo. Questa corrente letteraria si impegnò partic...

The 18th century novels reflect objects, language, values and situations of the 18 century. This genre has as main characteristics the need for realism, abundance of realistic details, chronological sequence of events, the novelty of the stories in order to answer the demand by the middle class, relating ordinary experiences. In some novels, the characters were recognizable as people belonging to the middle class. For example, Robinson, the main character of Robinson Crusoe  written by Daniel Defoe , is a middle class hero full of enterprise and commercial wisdom. Moreover, we can see in novels a lot of ideals of bourgeoisie such as the faith in God’s favour, temperance, economy, sobriety and modesty. The novel’s realism is shown in two elements: time and place. For example, in Robinson Crusoe  Daniel Defoe records his hero’s experiences from year to year, day to day, and the author concerns space as a geographical entity with the names of real seas, ships and harbours. In 18t...

The first half of the 18th century is referred to as the Augustan Age . The British ruling class looked upon themselves as the true heirs of the Roman empire as an empire that was comparable with the Roman Empire (see British Empire ). For this reason, classical outlook and imperial pretensions of ancient Rome under the Emperor Augustus were resumed. Neoclassicism spread in all cultural sectors and became a way of life. The Augustan artists shared a belief in reason as capable of imposing some order on an otherwise chaotic world. In philosophy, David Hume is the leader of Scepticism: this rational tendency is also apparent in the analysis of religion conducted by the Deists, a group of thinkers who rejected the revealed religion  in favour of natural religion . Upper-class women came to achieve a central role. In their literary salons, women took part in the political, social and literary debates. The middle class had been important after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 at the po...

Il 26 gennaio 2011 il drammaturgo e scrittore Marco Paolini rappresentò nell’ex ospedale psichiatrico Paolo Pini di Milano il suo spettacolo Ausmerzen . “Ausmerzen” è una parola di origine contadina e significa “sopprimere”; infatti a marzo, prima della transumanza, i contadini sopprimono gli animali più deboli, quelli che rimangono sempre indietro rispetto al resto del gruppo. Ispirandosi a questa usanza, la Germania nazista decise di sopprimere 8 milioni di persone perché erano ritenute “deboli” e che “pesavano sulle casse dello Stato”. In questo racconto teatrale, Paolini non si è soffermato su quanto accaduto nei campi di concentramento, ma su quanto li ha preceduti: Aktion T4 . Questo è il nome del programma nazista che dal 1933 al 1946 autorizzò prima la sterilizzazione e poi l’eutanasia di persone affette da disabilità fisiche o intellettive, al fine di preservare la sanità e l’integrità del buon sangue tedesco e la razza ariana; infatti, questo programma si basava sugli studi d...

Georges Braque (Argenteuil, 13 maggio 1882 – Parigi, 31 agosto 1963) è stato un pittore e scultore francese, che assieme a Pablo Picasso è stato l'iniziatore del cubismo. Dopo aver trascorso l’infanzia e la giovinezza a Le Havre, Braque si trasferì a Parigi, dove fu apprendista presso un maestro decoratore ed ottenne l'abilitazione nel 1901. Dopo essersi formato all'École des Beaux-Arts di Parigi e subendo l'influenza dell'opera di Henri Matisse, cominciò a dipingere alla maniera dei Fauves, ricorrendo all'uso di colori brillanti e sfruttando la libertà della composizione: fanno parte di questo periodo opere quali Paysage à l'Estaque (1906). Il 1907 fu un anno determinante nella formazione dell'artista che visitò la retrospettiva su Paul Cézanne presentata in occasione del “Salon d'automne”, venne in contatto con Picasso, il quale era impegnato nella realizzazione di Les demoiselles d'Avignon e cominciò a nutrire un considerevole interesse per l...

   In 1886 Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) wrote The Strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde , one of the most important psychological realism and crime novels in English literature. This novel talks about Henry Jekyll, a highly- reputed scientist who is obsessed with the idea that man’s evil tendencies can be separated by man’s good side, giving birth to two human beings: one wholly good and one wholly bad. Discovering a drag that causes this division, he takes it and finds that it turns him into a new person, Mr Edward Hyde, who is physically deformed and has an evil nature. With time, Hyde’s evil nature grows to the point that he commits murder and is ready to do more. Jekyll is frightened by this and tries to rid himself of Hyde forever, but finds that he has lost control over him. So, seeing he has no way out of this situation, Jekyll kills himself, leaving a long letter in which he explains his case. The Strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde  treats one of the gre...

Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth in 1812. When he was ten the family moved to London where attended regular schooling until 1824. When his father was sent to a debtor’s prison, Dickens was forced to work in a factory at the age of 12. Prison, the poor quarters of London, the life in the city streets and the other boys working at the factory remained in his mind and influenced his novels. At the age of fourteen he worked as a clerk in a legal office and he also began to write for the comic newspapers and entered serious journalism. He adopted the pen name “Boz” and in 1836 two series of Sketches by Boz , short articles describing London people and scenes, were published. He wrote his first novel The Pickwick Papers  relating the adventures of a group of eccentric people travelling on the English roads, where the comic and picaresque elements are mixed. Between 1836 and 1837 he achieved great success in Britain and in the US thanks to the publication of The Pickwick papers . Th...

Giovanni Fattori (Livorno, 6 settembre 1825 – Firenze, 30 agosto 1908) è considerato il maggior esponente dei  Macchiaioli . Egli partecipò alle battaglie risorgimentali e tra il 1859 e il 1862 realizzò il suo primo quadro di soggetto risorgimentale  Il campo italiano dopo la battaglia di Magenta . Fattori, entrando in contatto con i Macchiaioli, semplificò la sua pittura per giungere a quell'effetto di macchia che caratterizza il suddetto gruppo di artisti. I suoi primi quadri presentano soggetti storici nella più pura tradizione romantica. Essi sono trattati senza nessuna concessione eroica o aulica, presentando in maniera impietosa la realtà cruda di uno scontro militare: quello dei tanti uomini che restano feriti e che vengono raccolti da un carro guidato da monache. Nei suoi dipinti ricorrono i soggetti militari (battaglie o soldati) e il paesaggio, in particolare la maremma toscana. Uno dei quadri più importanti della sua produzione pittorica è In vedett...

William Wordsworth was born in 1770 in the Lake District, an area of supreme natural beauty. After Grammar school, Willian went to St John's College, and left England for a walking tour of France and the Alps. The Parisian environment led him to accept the anarchist and libertarian ideals of many rebellious and anti-monarchist thinkers of the time (for example William Godwin, Mary Shelley ’s father). Inspired by the same ideas, he repudiated not only the Christian faith but also the institution of the family and marriage, weaving relationships with different women, and in particular with Annette Vallon. He fell in love with Annette, who bore him a daughter, Caroline, in 1792. In 1793 Wordsworth openly expressed his political convictions in  A Letter to the Bishop of Llandaff , in which he advocated atheism and the revolutionary cause, advocating the execution of Louis XVI of France. However, the affirmation of Robespierre's regime of Terror and, then, the Napoleonic imperialis...