66. Romantic poetry. George Byron.

George Gordon Byron (Lord Byron) was an English poet, peer, and politician who is considered one of the historical leading figures of the Romantic movement of his era. He is regarded as one of the greatest English poets and remains widely read and influential.

Among his best-known works are the lengthy narrative poems Don Juan (it is a variation on the epic form, Byron himself called it an "Epic Satire") and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage; tragedies with political content Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice; many of his shorter lyrics in Hebrew Melodies also became popular.

Byronic hero:

high level of intelligence; talent

ability to easily adapt to new situations

sophisticated in his style

passion, charm and attractiveness

melancholy - in a wider sense, it is an expression of the melancholy and disillusionment felt by a generation weary of the wars of the post-Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras.

has a disrespect for certain figures of authority

the protagonist is torn between noble aspirations and sin, unable to solve the dualism.

67. British politics of the XVIII century. The New World

The country was prosperous, cohesive and a leading European power

It had acquired new colonies in Gibraltar, Minorca, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Hudson Bay

Agriculture was still the bedrock of the economy, but trade was increasing

More men and women were employed in industry in Britain than in any other European nation

1700 – 1740 – population is stable at about 7 mln people

Agricultural production increased

Celtic fringe (Wales, Ireland and Scotland) had been barely assimilated

They still retained its traditional educational, religious, legal, and cultural practices and spoke languages other than English

When Georg Ludwig, elector of Hanover, became king of Great Britain on August 1, 1714, the country was in some respects bitterly divided. Fundamentally, however, it was prosperous, cohesive, and already a leading European and imperial power. Abroad, Britain’s involvement in the War of the Spanish Succession had been brought to a satisfactory conclusion by the Treaty of Utrecht (1713). It had acquired new colonies in Gibraltar, Minorca, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and Hudson’s Bay, as well as trading concessions in the Spanish New World. By contrast, Britain’s rivals, France, Spain, and the Dutch Republic, were left weakened or war-weary by the conflict. It took France a decade to recover, and Spain and Holland were unable to reverse their military and economic decline. As a result Britain was able to remain aloof from war on the Continent for a quarter of a century after the Hanoverian succession, and this protracted peace was to be crucial to the new dynasty’s survival and success.

War had also strengthened the British state at home. The need to raise men and money had increased the size and scope of the executive as well as the power and prestige of the House of Commons. Taxation had accounted for 70 percent of Britain’s wartime expenditure (£93,644,560 between 1702 and 1713), so the Commons’ control over taxation became a powerful guarantee of its continuing importance.

Britain’s ability to pay for war on this scale demonstrated the extent of its wealth. Agriculture was still the bedrock of the economy, but trade was increasing, and more men and women were employed in industry in Britain than in any other European nation. Wealth, however, was unequally distributed, with almost a third of the national income belonging to only 5 percent of the population. But British society was not polarized simply between the rich and the poor; according to writer Daniel Defoe there were seven different and more subtle categories:

Defo’s social stratification

7 different and more subtle categories:

1. The great, who live profusely.

2. The rich, who live plentifully.

3. The middle sort, who live well.

4. The working trades, who labour hard, but feel no want.

5. The country people, farmers etc., who fare indifferently.

6. The poor, who fare hard.

7. The miserable, that really pinch and suffer want.

Britain's “long” eighteenth century, which began with one aristocratic revolution in 1688 and ended with another in 1832, was a pageant of success. The nation's art and architecture reached their elegant and original best. Its capital became the center of print culture, finance, fashion, and commercial creativity, the largest and most vibrant city in the Western world. The British constitution became a topic for eulogy, as much by the unenlightened and illiterate at home as by the Enlightenment literati abroad. The armed forces, fiscal system, and bureaucracy of the British state grew in efficacy and range, bringing victory in all but one of a succession of major wars. Legitimized by achievement and buttressed by massive economic and political power, Britain's landed elite kept at bay every domestic revolution except the industrial one, which only enriched it more. The American Revolution, of course, was not averted; but while this crisis embarrassed the British Empire, it did not destroy it. Even before 1776, the conquest of Canada had reduced the thirteen colonies' strategic significance, just as their profitability to the mother country had been outstripped by its Indian possessions; their final loss was made up, and more than made up, with relentless and almost contemptuous speed. Between 1780 and 1820 some 150 million men and women in India, Africa, the West Indies, Java, and the China coast succumbed to British naval power and trading imperatives.

Economic policies

Slave trade – Britain was the leading slave trader, controlling at least half of the transatlantic slave trade by the end of the 18th century

Slave trade came under vigorous and unrelenting attack by religious and humanitarian leaders and organizations

Industrial and Social revolutions

the years between 1750 and 1839 there was an Agricultural and Industrial Revolution in Britain.

The population grew 260 per cent in the years between 1750 and 1900.

In 1750, about 15 per cent of the population lived in towns, but by 1900 it was 85 per cent. By 1900, London had 4.5 million people, and Glasgow had 760,000.

'the Factory Age' that traditionally started with Richard Arkwright's cotton mill at Cromford in 1771

in the century 1815‒1914 textile production increased 15-fold, coal production increased 20-fold, and iron production increased 30-fold

the provincial landscape often became urban and industrialized following advances in agriculture, industry and shipping

During the 18th century, after a long period of enclosures, new farming systems created an agricultural revolution that produced larger quantities of crops to feed the increasing population.

New tools, fertilizers and harvesting techniques were introduced

Mass production was achieved by replacing water and animal power with steam power, and by the invention of new machinery and technology.

68. Great Britain and colonization of America

European exploration of North America began after Christopher Columbus's 1492-expedition

In 1584, Sir Walter Raleigh established the first English colony in North America, but the colonists were poorly prepared for life in the New World, and by 1590, the colonists had disappeared. A separate colonization attempt in Newfoundland also failed. The first permanent English colony was established in Jamestown in 1607, which grew into the Colony of VirginiaIn 1620, a second permanent colony at Plymouth was founded in 1630 by the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

With the help of France and Spain, many of the North American colonies reached independence from Britain through victory in the American Revolutionary War, in 1783. Britain continued to colonize parts of the Americas in the 19th century.

In the mid-19th century, Britain began the process of granting self-government to its colonies in North America. Most of these colonies joined the Confederation of Canada in the 1860s or 1870s. Canada gained full autonomy in 1931. After the Cold War most of the remaining British colonies in the Americas gained independence between 1962 and 1983

While the vast majority of colonies have achieved independence, a few remain as British Overseas Territories.

69. Loss of colonies. New relations in the Commonwealth

British presence in North America widened after the Seven Year’s war

It required some new policies and taxes: raising (for the first time) revenue from the colonies; tightening mercantile restrictions, imposing firm measures against smuggling (an important source of income for colonial merchants), and putting obstacles in the way of New England’s substantial trade with the West Indies.

American War of Independence (1775–83)

support for the American Revolutionary forces from the French and Spanish

Ireland also experienced a revolutionary upsurge

The American colonists wanted to be treated as full citizens.

However – no representation in Parliament. The British saw the colonies mainly as a source of revenue and imposed one tax after another

70. Literature of the industrialism. Charles Dickens

The social and political situation in the country influenced a number of novelists who realized that it was necessary to deal with actual facts and realities, to set their books in present and to pose topical problems in them.

These authors were often called Victorian writers - they developed the traditions of English realist literature begun by the Enlighteners and further enriched by Walter Scott. In their works they exposed and criticized the vices and drawbacks of their time — social unjustice and inequality, poverty, lust for money, hypocrisy, etc. They drew their characters from all social levels; among them are reprentatives of the aristocracy and the middle class, as well as servants, clerks, workers, thieves, etc. The main subject of their novels was, however, the life of lower classes, and their sympathies always lay with common people who, as a rule, possessed higher qualities than the rich did. The negative characters embodied all the vices of the society that was a slave to gold.

The most prominent of the critical realists were Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray.

CHARLES DICKENS

biography

Charles Dickens was born in Landsport, a small town near the sea, in a middle-class family. In 1814 the family moved to London. His father was a clerk in a office; he got a small salary there and usually spent more than he earned. As a result of this he was thrown into the debtors' prison when Charles was only ten. At that age the boy went to work at a factory which was like a dark, damp cellar. There he stuck labels on bottles of shoeblacking all day long, for a few pennies. Later he went to school which he attended for only three years and at the age of 15 he started his work in a lawyer's office. He continued to educate himself, mainly by reading books. At 18 he became a reporter in Parliament. There he got acquainted with politics and never had a high opinion of his country's policy afterwards. In 1833 he began to write his first short stories about London life. In 1836 those stories were published as a book, under the title of Sketches by Boz; Boz was the penname with which he signed his first work. In 1837 Dickens became well-known to the English readers. His first big work appeared, written in instalments for a magazine at first, and later published in book form. It was The Posthumous Papers of the Pick\vick Club. From then on Dickens was one of the best known and loved writers of his day.

literature

Dickens literary heritage is of world importance. He developed the English social novel, writing about the most burning social problems of his time. He created a wide gallery of pictures of bourgeois society and its representative types which still exist in England; he wrote of the workhouses of England and the tragic of the children who lived in them, the recruitment of children as criminals, and the presence of street children (Oliver Twist) ; he wrote about the problem of education and showed how it handicapped children (Nicholas Nickleby).

A part of this work had an American setting. He criticized American customs and democracy very severely.

Later he wrote about money and its terrible, destructive power over men (Dombey and Son).

Notable works

The Pickwick Papers

Oliver Twist

Nicholas Nickleby

A Christmas Carol

David Copperfield

Bleak House

Little Dorrit

A Tale of Two Cities

Great Expectations