The Blackness in The Bluest Eye

Novels, of any time, carry certain stories related to reality. The earlier forms of the Novel, Allegory and Romance, contained religious, philosophical facts. These literary genres took the shape of Novels, which continue to carry moral, philosophical and historical truths. George Meredith, a Victorian novelist, defined Novel as the ‘summary of actual life’. According to William Henry Hudson, an English writer, Novel is an effective medium of the portrayal of human thoughts and actions. The English word, Novel derived from the Italian term, Novelle, which means ‘a fresh story’. It was in 1350 that the Italian writer, Giovanny Boccassio, wrote his world famous collection of love stories in prose, named Decameron. Such stories in prose were called ‘novelle’ and a story in verse was known as ‘romance’. It meant a story of the legendary past. Malory’s Morte d’Arthur is an example. Some experts gave various definitions for a ‘Novel’. According to an American novelist, F. Marion Crawford, a Novel is a pocket theatre; a novel contained all accessories of a drama without requiring to be staged before an audience. George Meredith, an English novelist, called it a ‘summary of actual life’ including both ‘the within and the without’. According to W.H Hudson, Novel is an effective medium of the portrayal of human thought and action, ‘combining in itself the creations of poetry, the details of history and generalised experience of philosophy’.

Dostoevsky in English Literature

There is the task of studying the degree of influence of the famous works of F.M. Dostoevsky on English-language literature and culture in general. Statements are given and the opinion of the great English-speaking literary classics about the works of Dostoevsky and the Russian-language novel is described. The author considers the main critical articles, essays and theses related to the Dostoevsky and his works, written by famous English-speaking novelists and literary critics of that era and the next one. Among them: Matthew Arnold, George Gissing, George Meredith, Oscar Wilde and others. The article describes the interpretation of their opinions about the great Russian writer’s works and on the degree of his influence on the literary trends of his contemporaries. The author gives a comparison between the images of the characters of the Dostoevsky novels and other English-speaking authors, which is sometimes amazing. In addition, the article presents a list of special courses that are currently being studied at universities and colleges in the USA and Great Britain dedicated to Dostoevsky.

Class conflict in Victorian fiction with especial Reference to Hardy’s novels

The Victorian novel is dominated by class conflict. This research paper is an attempt to define the different classes of the society and the attitude of the Victorian novelists, especially, that of Hardy’s, towards class distinction. The present study includes the nineteenth century novelists, namely, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Charles Kingsley, George Meredith and Thomas Hardy who in their works focus upon class conflict. The paper, while highlighting the attitude of the Victorian writers towards class conflict, mainly explores the major novels of Hardy who, being highly conscious about his humble origin, presents such characters who are inclined to social improvement. In Victorian fiction the elite class is marked with meanness and moral degradation. The research study would provide relevant information about the conflict between haves and have not especially with reference to Hardy’s fiction.

La percepción de la identidad colectiva a partir de lo cómico

[Castellano] Este ensayo compara lo dicho en diferentes contextos por George Meredith, Ramón Gómez de la Serna y Henri Bergson sobre el humor de un territorio a partir de varios referentes literarios. Se discute, entonces, sobre la posibilidad y los factores que atribuirían a la idea de que un territorio tenga un humor particular. Los países a los que estos tres autores hacen referencia son España, Francia, Italia y, sobretodo, Inglaterra.[English] This essay discusses the ideas of George Meredith, Ramón Gómez de la Serna and Henri Bergson regarding the attributes of a national identity that has a recognizable humour. All of these authors, in different contexts and lengths, wrote about how a territory had certain humoristic traits. Behind this is the idea of a single referent taking over the narrative that later becomes a national identity. These authors referred to Spain, France and Italy– but, most often, England.

Introduction: Italian Unity and International Alliances

Although many historical narratives of the Risorgimento and early Italian constitutional monarchy view Italy as a nation-state unable to consolidate itself against political division and regional diversity, Italian political culture’s cultivation of a sense of internal fragmentation and powerlessness also constituted part of the Risorgimento’s ideological content and Italy’s national identity. Risorgimento culture’s oppositionalism also infiltrated British reaction to Italian politics. Theodosia Garrow Trollope’s eyewitness Athenaeum correspondence, collected as Social Aspects of the Italian Revolution (1861), develops politicised familial metaphors for unification and international alliance that empower and transform Italy through political solidarity. By contrast, texts by D. G. Rossetti, George Meredith, Anthony Trollope, Benjamin Disraeli, Henrietta Jenkin and Arthur Hugh Clough propose more sceptical familial and romantic metaphors for Risorgimento Italy, revealing disillusioned and hesitant attitudes toward Italy in relation to its neighbouring powers, including France, Austria and Great Britain.