London and its Writers

The City Then

and Now

London: origins

London has been a major settlement for over two millennia.

Londonium founded by the Romans around 100 A.D. on Thames river.

Attacked and pillaged by Celts and Vikings; Romans built walls around the ‘city of London.’

Abandoned by Romans in early 5th Century, (Rome Collapsed). Attacked by Vikings.

Important Anglo-Saxon trading center; became political center under Edward the Confessor when England was unified in the 11th Century.

London: origins

London became center for royalty and government when Edward the Confessor built Westminster Abbey.

Many famous landmarks built in 11th Century: The Tower of London, The City of Westminster.

City of London became financial center while the City of Westminster seated the royalty, and later, Parliament.

Middle Ages

London lost nearly a third of its population to the black death, (Bubonic Plague) in the 14th century.

Seat of the Monarchs who ruled England; The Tudors, Mary Queen of Scotts, Elizabeth, the Henrys.

Played a role in the Protestant Reformation, and in the spread of Protestant Christianity, (Early 1600’s).

Anglican Church created by King Henry VII, (he wanted a divorce and the Pope wouldn’t give it to him); broke apart from the Roman Papacy.

Shakespeare’s London

Playwright, actor and producer William Shakespeare created theater with the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, and later, The King’s Men, (1660’s).

Considered the greatest playwright in the history of theater. National dramatist and poet of England.

Wrote 37 plays; Shakespearian cannon has been performed all of the world for hundreds of years.

Tragedies, comedies, histories – many of his plays adapted from stories and history.

Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo & Juliet, King Lear, Julius Caesar, Othello, Henry V, A Midsumer Night’s Dream, As You Like It, Twelfth Night…

154 Sonnets. Supported the founding of the first prominent London

Theaters: The Globe, The Swan, The Rose.

Shakespeare’s London

His writing allowed him to invent thousands of words, phrases and idioms that are still used in the English language, (i.e. melancholy, oblivion)

His plays featured human characters from all reaches of society: soldiers, peasants, servants, slaves, royals and fairies, witches, wizards.

Endowed each of his characters (large or small) with distinct voices, emotions, yearnings, and thoughts. Found the humanity in every character.

The Victorian Period (1837 – 1901)

Years when England emerged as the world’s foremost economic, industrial and political power. The key event that preceded this time period was the industrialization.

Coincided with the reign of Queen Victoria. Time of unprecedented confidence in England as a nation as a

a cultural and imperial power throughout the world.

Contradictions in The Victorian Period

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,--Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities AREAS OF CONTRADICTION:- Prosperity alongside poverty, child labor and disease / urbanization, Irish Potato Famine.- Traditional / literal ideas of faith alongside hopes

that science, technology and progress will solve problems. - Sentimentality (treatment of children), and strict moral ideas, (decency, behavior and relationshipsalongside scientific ‘realism’ and radical new ideas.- Patriotism and conservatism alongside calls for radicalchanges to society (Karl Marx, Thomas Malthus).

‘The sun never sets on the British Empire’

England’s colonies stretched from Ireland and Canada to parts of Africa, the Middle East, Australia, India, New Guinea, Burma and parts of China.

One quarter of the world’s population lived under British Rule. Patriotic sentiment and national confidence reflected in the writings

of Rudyard Kipling, although many expressed unease or anxiety over Britain’s unquestioned rule.

What do these cartoons convey about British & American Imperialism? What attitudes?

LEFT – Uncle Sam ‘carrying a burden’ – portraying imperialism as a positive endeavor, but an uphill battle.

RIGHT – Criticizing the economic motives of imperialism – a capitalist / businessman pawing Africa for its ‘Gold Fields.’

What do these cartoons convey about British & American Imperialism? What attitudes?

The White Man’s Burden - Kipling

CONTEXT – The poem ‘The White Man’s

Burden’ was written in November 1989 at a

time when the U.S. had just fought a war

against Spain and acquired Cuba,

becoming an imperial power,

Remember our skills:

- Using details from the poem or text to analyze and explain the author’s attitude.

- Using details and our knowledge of historical context / the author’s beliefs to support our own response.

Victorian Society

An immensely upper class emerged, along with an immensely poor and destitute lower class.

Attitudes of time were confidence, patriotism, belief in Christianity and in England’s superiority.

Confidence in progress, technology and in human capability. Society was stratified – or separated into rich and poor. Social problems grew along with the number of the wealthy –

child labor, sickness, slums, poverty and prostitution.

Dickens’ London

Charles Dickens lived in London as an established author, and wrote extensively about the city and its characters.

Dickens lived from 1812 – 1870 Considered the Victorian Period, alluding to

the reign of Queen Victoria. Enjoyed wide popularity as a novelist. Created some of the most iconic, popular

characters in English literature. Characters such as Ebeneezer Scrooge,

Nicholas Nickelby, David Copperfield and Oliver Twist.

Dickens’ London

Like Shakespeare, his novels featured characters from every realm of society. He parodied the manners of upper classes while portraying who were struggling or in poverty.

Many of his heroes come from lower reaches of society and struggle to overcome their origins: orphans, peasants, the poor, the abused, (like The Cratchit Family).

Portrayed characters with a vivid, imaginative realism. Wrote with warmth, humor, empathy and often,criticism.

Wrote his novels and stories in installments or as serials; ended his stories ‘on a cliff’ in order to keep readers hooked on the series.

Dickens & London

Wrote extensively about life in London, its neighborhoods, interactions, characters, cultures and social conditions.

Described real and fictional locations as settings: (for example: the Cratchit family lives in Camden Town, in North London.)

His fiction features nearly every neighborhood of London, from the inns on the outskirts of the city, to the workhouses and debtor’s prisons below the Thames River.

A Tale of Two Cities describes London and Paris during the French Revolutionary War.

Victorian London

The Industrial revolution

Dickens lived in the wake of great advancements in textiles, farming, transportation, machinery, and production of goods known as the industrial revolution.

Inventions included the spinning jenny, coal smelting, steel production, steam powered engines, and interchangeable parts.

The Industrial revolution

While the industrial revolution brought innovations and provided work for thousands of people, it helped perpetuate the stratification of society, (divisions between the immensely wealthy and the destitute).

Immense gap between the wealthy classes and those who lived in the slums or toiled in factories or workhouses. Dickens explored these issues in literature, and worked for social reform through his writing, activism and public lectures.

Child Labor & Education

Child labor was common in Industrial England, with children as young as 6 often working 12 hour days in mines, miles or factories. Wages were minimal and working such hours resulted in stunted growth, work-related accidents and early deaths.

‘Workhouses’ consisted of orphanages where parentless children were forced to work for their room and board. Portrayed in the opening chapters of ‘Oliver Twist.’

The Second Reform Bill of 1867 began regulation against child labor, and the Elementary Education Act of 1870 sought to provide education for all children aged rive to twelve.

Social reform

Social commentary runs through novels such as Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickelby, Hard Times, and A Christmas Carol.

Oliver Twist shocked people with its realistic depictions of child labor (workhouses).

Known for memorable characters (and character names!) Depicted the humanity in underclass characters such as the Artful Dodger, a pickpocket, and Nancy, a generous, heroic prostitute.

By featuring these characters in his novels, Dickens encouraged society to face the societal inequalities that resulted poverty, in child labor, or prostitution.

Social reform – Hard Times

The tenth novel by Charles Dickens, published in 1854. Written, like all of his novels as a serial for the publication Household Worlds.

Written to call attention to the social and economic pressures facing a small, industrial, working class community: the fictional Coketown.

Opening scene introduces key characters: Thomas Gadgrind, a dictatorial teacher who believes in facts and nothing else, and Sissy Jupe, a young student who gets in trouble for showing her creativity.

Social reform – Hard Times

Dickens’ exaggeration and imaginative writing criticizes education and industrialization. His description of Coketown is famous for pointing out the monotonous and polluted landscape of an industrial town:

“It was a town of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents of smoke trailed themselves for ever and ever, and never got uncoiled. It had a black canal in it, and a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye, and vast piles of building full of windows where there was a rattling and a trembling all day long, and where the piston of the steam-engine worked monotonously up and down, like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness.”

Utilitarianism – Hard Times

In particular, Dickens took aim at

Utilitarianism, a philosophy which took an

extremely rational, reductionist view of

society and social problems. Philosophers James Mill and Jeremy

Bantham believed that a rational, analytical

approach to education, social planning and

every aspect of life would promote the general

welfare: “The greatest good for the greatest

number of people.”

Utilitarianism – Hard Times

Many, like Dickens, felt that a society based solely on reason and facts would produce misery and chaos. He believed it was a selfish philosophy which squelched emotion, imagination and the human spirit, (factors, which he believed would help people face social issues).

Hard Times is a scathing critique of the consequences of Utilitarian philosophy.

The opening scene of Thomas Gadgrind’s horrific teaching sets this tone of social criticism through exaggeration and intriguing characters.

Social reform

SCROOGE: “If they’d rather die, then they’d better do it, and decrease the surplus population!”

A Christmas Carol emphasizes personal responsibility and charity as a response to the problem of poverty.

Part of a series of ‘Christmas Books,’ that encouraged a change of heart, or a change of attitude as a way to help the poor or destitute.

At the beginning of A Christmas Carol, Ebeneezer Scrooge is consumed with greed, and business affairs; he is detached from the suffering of others.

Scrooge represents a popular attitude of the Victorian era: the poor are responsible for their own suffering. They are burdens of society, standing in the way of progress.

Poverty & Malthus

SCROOGE: “If they [the poor] would rather die, then they’d better do it, and decrease the surplus population!”

- Scrooge’s rant echoes the theories of Thomas Malthus, a popular social scientist at the time.

- Malthus predicted that the population of a society would always grow faster than its resources, resulting in starvation, poverty and misery.

- The argument followed that the poor who toiled in the workhouses, or who died, actually helped society by making the popular smaller.

- The first of many abstract ideas that reduced humanity and suffering to math equations, (Marxism, Eugenics and Social Darwinism).

Dickens & Spirituality

A Christmas Carol is unique in its emphasis on spiritual inward renewal as a mean of social reform.

This spiritual renewal is centered on the character of Ebeneezer Scrooge.

Spiritual renewal connected to the source of Christmas: Christ and Christianity.

As Ebeneezer Scrooge is haunted by three spirits of Christmas (Past, Present, Yet to Come), he faces his own mortality, and the consequences of failing to help others.

Inward renewal combined with acts of charity was Dickens’ answer to the grim inhumanity of Malthusian thought.

Spirituality

Inward renewal leading to works of charity was a common theme of Dickens’ novels.

At the end of the novel Nicholas Nickelby, the hero, Nicholas, lifts a starving child in his arms off of the street and carries him to safety.

In A Christmas Carol, Tiny Tim and the Cratchits represent the poor.

Yet they share a warmth and camaraderie that is foreign to Scrooge at the beginning of the novel.

Themes of family, camaraderie and warmth accompany redemption.

Literary London

Like Dickens, scores of novelists, playwrights, journalists and writers have called London home.

Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited William Makepeace Thackery,

(Dickens’ contemporary), Vanity Fair Oscar Wilde, The Importance of

Being Earnest, An Ideal Husband, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Gilbert Keith Chesterton* Orthodoxy, the Father Brown Series

George Orwell, 1984, Animal Farm, Down and Out in Paris and London

London Today

Statue outside Buckingham Palace

Punk rockers at Piccadilly Circus

London Today

Lord Nelson’s statue at Trafalgar Square.

St. Paul’s Cathedral, seen across the Thames River.

London Today

The National Theatre.National Portrait Gallery.

London Today

- A leading global city, and one of the top four command centers of the world economy: (London)

- Population: 7.8 million people. Population of Greater London: 12 million people.

- Leading city for government, world commerce, business finance, entertainment, education, research and technology, the arts, media, transportation, fashion, culture and tourism.

- Leading city in the world for live theater and the performing arts.

- The most ethnically and linguistically diverse city in Europe.

Multicultural London

- Over 300 languages are spoken in the city.

- Significant populations from Europe and former colonies: Ireland, France, Italy Germany, Poland, Russia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Jamaica, Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, Sri Lanka, Turkey, New Zealand, Somalia, Kenya.

- Amazing city for multicultural dining: Indian food (see Brick Lane), Turkish food, curry, kebabs, European cuisine.

- Main religions represented: Judaism and traditional (Anglican) Christianity

- More increasingly, Islam and Buddhism.

London Today

Camden Town – Home of the Cratchit Family