Impatto tecnologico e informatico nelle società moderne, tesina

Journalism, since they properly started “The Review” (1704) and “The Examiner” (1709),

which two remarkable periodicals mainly interested in political and economic issues.

[ pag. 27 ]

Besides, they are also the fathers of novels, as Defoe published “Robinson Crusoe” (1719)

and Swift wrote “Gulliver’s Travel” (1726), and, although these novels were published

gradually on 1 single page once or twice a week, they turned out to be the real revolution in

the literary background of the european history. If we analyze these two literary genres, we

are able to understand that, more than novels, newspapers obtained an important role at

that time from the social viewpoint. In facts, they were instruments and vehicles of

information, education and entertainment, especially as reported in “The Spectator” and

“The Tatler” in which there were several articles regarding fashion-show, gossip and culture.

As a consequence, most of them were read by women, still considered inferior and also

uneducated in the XVIII century, thus leading to the women’s emancipation.

On the other hand, novels started to be more and more popular as reading became a habit

and there was the flourishing of libraries. The novel’s story, although invented, was realistic

and also the descriptions regarding the characters, the place and the time were almost

detailed, so as to give the reader the idea of the passing of time, by using, for instance, the

diary form.

In short, the Enlightenment brought several important changes in different disciplines and

especially in literature, in which we have a new way to express reality and to create an

identity from the social viewpoint. [ pag. 28 ]

3.2 From the Industrial Revolution to Victorianism

An assembly line from the Ford Motor Company

Source: history.com

Afterwards, at the end of the XVIII century, the effects of the enlightenment showed one

meaningful event, that is to say the industrial revolution.

With the industrial revolution, England, France and the entire Europe started to think

different and to introduce people to a new mechanized world.

In facts, we know that, starting from the invention of the Steam Engine made by James Watt

in 1776, there’s the born of a railway net, as well as ship and textile industry, and the standard

of life assumed a totally new perspective, as the recent scientific discoveries led man to

invent new machines used to simplify his work and to create a new industry.

The development of towns was the first step, as the phenomenon of urbanization made

people move from the countryside to cities. For this reason, many people find themselves

doing different roles in factories and so the local handcrafts began to disappear. This has

enormously affected the population from the social viewpoint since, although the industrial

revolution brought lots of positive aspects, it has brought dramatic underestimated

[ pag. 29 ]

consequences, as the facts of the uncontrolled growth of towns that increased crime in

certain quarters (called slums), pollution and exploitation of children.

The poet at that time initiated a new way to face reality, that is imagination, in order to go

beyond physical reality and understand the very essence of life. The realism was not so

beautiful as before and that’s why many writers started refuse reality and to take refuge in

nature.

In spite of a world where reality exposes his real nature, the poet embrace nature in a phase

based on subjectivity, individualism and egotism, which is mainly known as romanticism.

Novelist and poet gradually focused on the inner eye of men in order to innovate their works

and to attach a dose of satire and irony of their modern times. But the real innovation comes

in the second half of the XIX century with the Victorian Age.

By analyzing this period of time from several perspectives, the Victorian Age was a long age

based on contraries and contrasts, since, from one side, England was a great empire that

brought social reforms, strong scientific discoveries and a political stability, but, on the other

side, England was unable to control domestic discrepancies concerning social problems as

poverty, social injustice and social unrest, as well as problems of the industrial revolution,

still unsolved.

Consequently, the Victorian novel is based on reality summed with psychological

introspection containing a didactic purpose as they wanted to highlight the wrongs of the

Victorian Age and to rebel against Victorianism.

The Victorian novel were complex, especially the ones written by Charles Dickens, and they

underline the Victorian compromise, which is an attitude and a rigid moral code, based on

hypocrisy, conformity, false respectability of English society.

In the same way as the novel, the reality was almost wrong in different spheres. Life was very

difficult, due to an overcrowded urban environment full of pollution and disease, with high

mortality rate and terrible working condition. Some social reforms have been applied in

order to resolve these conditions and as a result some services as water, gas, lighting, roads

and places of entertainment have been introduced. [ pag. 30 ]

3.3 The interior monologue, a new way to understand man from a different

perspective The river of thoughts

Source: paulineasaurus.com

If the XVIII century was a great epoch characterized by a huge optimism in the scientific

world, with a strong conviction of the progress’ power, the XX century was the age in which

the climax of the scientific power has been revealed. People and writers shifted from

celebrating reason and science into finding a spot to cover themselves from the mighty

tempest of wars.

The first world war and the second world war brought several millions of casualties, both

civil and military. The economic collapse that characterized this period of time, known as

the Age of anxiety, and the world’s wars were such a terrible mistake made by mankind.

In facts, some soldiers were poets, but just young men at the front and died in a terrible

condition, by describing the crucial reality they were fighting for. At the very start of the war,

they assumed an abstract view of it, based on glory heroism and a great sense of patriotism,

because the war was supposed to be brief. But afterwards it turned out to be eternal and the

poets changed their mind into a sharp shocking realism. The heroes were replaced by old

men, beggars, and the great sense of patriotism was just a lie. [ pag. 31 ]

During this period of time, reality is confused, man has to fight against a dehumanized world

and numerous issues of identity, communication and isolation turns out in a huge sense of

insecurity.

Therefore, writers tried to experiment something new concerning literature and their

interest shifted from the outer crucial world to the inner pure world, that is the human mind.

For the first time, thanks to the psychological theory of the Stream of Conscious, made by

William James, the authors started to analyze the ideas in the human mind, the river of

thoughts, and they tried to experiment something new in literature: by using a new literary

technique, called stream of consciousness technique, many authors like James Joyce, had

the possibility to go beyond communication and gives all the thoughts of the characters in

their stories, like an interior monologue. James Joyce, in facts, was the greatest in using this

literary technique and with him we have the continuous progression of a new kind of

communication.

The interior monologue, also used by Virginia Woolf, can be splitted in two categories:

● Indirect interior monologue, containing a preparatory sentence in order to help

to reader into a gradual passage (as a wake-like effect) from the outer world (crest) to

the inner world (inner side / conscious).

● Direct interior monologue, mainly used by Joyce, which is an unprepared violet

shift from the outer narrator to the inner narrator, without preparatory sentences.

The climax of Joyce’s works is surely “Ulysses”, which contains, at the end, an entire part

made of 3000 words with no syntax and no punctuation, symbolizing the master use of the

stream of consciousness technique.

At the end, we are able to understand how mankind reacted in front of a completely new

world characterized by reason and scientific discoveries that lead men from a great reliance

in reason to an eternal battle against reality and a fresh journey into the new modern inner

world of the mind.

With this pretext the world we know would not be existed. [ pag. 32 ]

3.4 Tim Berners Lee, the father of modern ages

Tim Berners Lee, the father of Internet

Source: worldwebforum.ch

The XX century, with the age of anxiety, even if it was a complex period of time characterized

by several deaths, world’s wars and economic issues, it was also the age that recreated the

entire world with a new mentality. In two centuries, several writers introduced different

techniques to explain reality according to various interpretation and, at the end, they took

refuge in the inner world of the human mind, by using the river of thoughts. Moreover, we

can consider it a sort of safe in order to find a better place and to change the contents and

the points of view of their stories. This place, in facts, is not visible and is not unique. There

are tons of different minds with a diverse vision of the world. It means that man is searching

a virtual reality where he’s able to live without any issues, as reported in reality.

That’s the reason why the born of Internet and the World Wide Web is one of the greatest

revolution in the social and psychological aspects of mankind.

It all started with Tim Berners-Lee, a British computer scientist born in London who became

the software engineer at CERN, after graduating from Oxford University. During his stay in

[ pag. 33 ]

the physics laboratory of Geneva, he has to control all the informations on the different

computers of the workroom, containing diverse programs for each machines.

He thought about something to connect each computer to the others in order to simplify the

management of the information, by using the same program to share information through a

net (called Internet).

Although the initial proposal was refused by his boss (Mike Sendall), he obtain some time in

order to make it possible, by using one of the first commercial computer in 1990 (from the

NeXT, a company founded by Steve Jobs, after leaving Apple).

His project was just a simple idea that innovate technologies at that time and in facts he

invented 3 important things:

● HTML, HyperText Markup Language, in order to format the text in a common way.

● URI (URL), Uniform Resource Identifier, which is an unique address used to

associate a precise content on the Web.

● HTTP, Hypertext Transfer Protocol, thanks to you can retrieve the URL and navigate

through the Web.

So, with the born of the Internet and the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) in 1994,

people were able to connect one to each other wit