Riassunto esame Letteratura inglese, Prof. Albertazzi Silvia, libro consigliato Letteratura inglese contemporanea, Bertinetti Roberto

PLOT STRUCTURE

Rejects the plot-driven narrative associated with the conventional realist novel in favour of an episodic form that allows the teenage narrator to reveal different aspects of the subcultural world he inhabits.

At the beginning of the novel there are two important episodes/problems:

In the first chapter: teenagers and political parties (slide 18); teenagers and the bomb (slide 19); teenagers vs Angry Young Men (slide 20-21-23), because there was no generation before which could be identified with teenagers, they were not considered.

Teenagers and the Queen (slide 22), at that time the Queen was very young, also the Queen doesn't mean anything for them.

This novel is a bit ingenuous in the sense is going to put the situation in extreme.

Teenagers problems:

Music >> different position. As far as Americanization was concerned, before that period there was no such a thing in music for young people. New audience of teenagers in which they could be identified. Rita

Pavone and Morandi they started very young as teenagers. They were very typical at that time among generations. What happened in Great Britain was mostly the same, Beatles for example were very popular. British invasion of the American market, a lot of bands they started to be famous in the American market. Strange phenomenon: American style influenced these bands and then they gave back to America the same kind of music. Reinterpreted and give back to America. First, we had the invasion of the Americanization in Great Britain and then they were giving back it with a reinterpretation.

1964: they gave back the same kind of music but with differences. Very important song "The house of the raising son" in America.

26/10/2020 Sexual revolution in the '60s

The situation changed in London. It is central in life of Great Britain. Also, in literature and so on. London was the swinging city = la città che non dorme mai, written in an American magazine. Then, this changed in a couple

of the year. This revolution was strictly connected with teenagers' revolution. Open debate on the '60, if the change was for good or for bad.

"Annus Mirabilis" by Philip Larkin, first published in 1974. The sense of disappointment. Attitude about sex changed in England "a shame that started at sixteen and spread to everything". Until the 1960s there had been a suppression of all things sexual. I think it was a hangover from the Victorian era and this country suffered from terrible inhibitions...we aren't very good at being erotic...the British are characterised, at home and abroad, as sexually inept...but we are also characterised as rather reserved, if not straightforwardly puritanical".

> Clarissa Smith in "British sexual cultures". This was the concept about British people by the rest of the world. Generalization and stereotype.

The innocence of Lady Chatterley>> the penguin house in 1960 published

The complete version of it. Not a pornographic novel/ "not obscene" >> declared by the jury at the Old Bailey. It was first published with cut-off pages; then, in 1960 was considered shocking by the British at that time for the fact that the sexual scene was described in detail. https://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item105907.html

One another thing in the '60s>> the oral contraceptive pill on the Time cover in 1967. Started from the '50s. important because was the first contraceptive for women and not form men. For the first time in the human society women could decide for the birth. Women started to have less children and think for their life by their own, because it was very common after the marriage that they started to have children and needed to leave their job, becoming housewives. It is a sexual revolution. All signs of gender changes >> as well as having long hair or short hair cut was considered revolutionary for the time.

Popular press: in Great

In Britain, there is a clear distinction between popular press (tabloid) and higher-quality journalism. The term tabloid journalism refers to an emphasis on such topics as sensational crime stories, astrology, celebrity or royal gossip; for example, "The Sun". Also, the "News of the World" was a weekly national tabloid, less famous now than The Sun.

In the '60s, all this was significant also in the changes of traditional newspapers like The Times >> changed their attitude, adding supplement on Saturdays or Sundays.

The explosion of tabloids meant also a kind of interest in having news every day, the need for something sensational. So, if you don't have news, you need to invent it >> this was the rule and still is. False news started to circulate like the one published in the Daily Mirror "Portrait of a Mod (similar to Teddy boys but in USA) in action at Brighton yesterday", this kind of thing happened especially during bank-holidays.

fact that this place was considered a resort place for British people. All things were changing (political, culture, subculture, interesting, etc.). Mods culture (see online) take something of a different culture and transform it. Royal Air Force symbol, taken from the Mods as their symbol.

27/10/2020 Film: the choice of the young protagonist Smith, he doesn't react to the establishment, he is against job, he doesn't want to do the same job of his father. The scene of the fish pub between Smith and his girlfriend (not in the short story) they talk about jobs. To win and to lose at the same moment, creative solution, they want to find their own rules, their own attitude, different from the one of the previous generations.

The teenager couldn't access to pubs till the age of 21 and they needed to find other places. Drugs were very common between teenagers, especially amphetamine which let them stay awake all night, easy to find.

There is another aspect really important in the

'60s: politics and sexuality The story of Profumo scandal. The second world war, England lost her identity. The situation of the nation that went out from the war was not like the one of a winner. The loss of the empire, Suez channel (turning point). The beginning of the '60: cold war, Cuba crisis, the International tension between Russia and America. Fear of bombs, many marches against bombs. Against nuclear power. A war with no armies but with spies. The fear of British of communist infiltrated everywhere. There was a sort of fear of the so-called inner enemy. It is sure that many of the intellectuals were connected with the group of the apostles, worked for the Russian secret service. Anthony Blunt worked with the Royal family. Kim Philby was a Russian spy that reached the highest place of the secret service in Great Britain. Inner spy: paranoia of British people. Berlin Wall, 1961 German was divided into two parts. The wall was a symbol of the division of this cold war (theAmericans and the Russians). Political situation. In Great Britain we have a pessimistic view after the second world war, Orwell for example. This is strange, because in general after a war there is a positive attitude but this didn't happen in Britain, moreover we have the most pessimistic literary works in this period.

CHRISTINE KEELER and the Profumo Scandal

She became a prostitute. Chair in the photos: iconic.

John Profumo, Minister of War. The third protagonist of the scandal: Eugene Ivanov, he was a clerk worked in the Russian Embassy, probably a spy. Stephen Ward was an osteopath.

Profumo scandal

John Profumo and Christine became lovers.

She came out from this scandal as an icon of the '60s. The popular press about the situation wrote a lot.

The Profumo affair in popular culture >> Richard Farmer "was a political, media and cultural event". New democratic attitude, people were accusing politician of lying.satirical magazines were born in the '60s: started to make fun, joke about the Establishment. Stafford Sommerfield, editor of the News of the World, said "the scandal had everything, sex and espionage, obviously, but also race, violence, drugs, politics and class". There is also a film in 1989 by Michael Caton-Jones. The press described her as a prostitute but for the rest of the public she became an icon, a symbol of the new sexual freedom of the age. (source) All this is important in literature... why? IAN FLEMING - Goldfinger (1959) James Bond was introduced as the perfect spy, the perfect gentleman, the perfect English man. He is always perfect: this is a way to demonstrate that England lost the Empire, the power but English are not inferior than Americans. Contradictory elements, James Bond's enemies were from the East and had perverse attitude. The antagonist of James Bond. The erotic.

novel.02/11/2020

Two blocks, the American block and the Russian one. Cold war or spy way: secret services of the Countries. There were apparently a lot of Russian spies in the British service. The number of literary products and also tv series and films about spies had a boom in this period. The most important representation of spy who became an icon was James Bond. The first and probably the most important interpretation was the one of Sean Connery. An icon of the western world. Video: film of James Bond with the Queen and the start of the Olympic games. List of the films and series about spies.

Adam Dimet >> wrote 4 novels. Was a psychedelic agent. The idea of a spy was very different and wide, on one hand we have the image of James Bond who defends the values against the bad things, and on the other hand there is a spy like Adam Dimet, a very controversial figure, also accused to smoke marijuana and so on. Video: The disappearance of the author Adam

Dimethttp://www.nickelinthemachine.com/2009/08/the-disappearance-of-the-author-adam-diment/comment-page-1/The spy who came in from the coldJohn Le Carré >>A revolutionary espionage novel by showing that the intelligence services of bothEastern and Western nations practiced the same expedient amorality in the name ofnational security. Until then, the Western public imagined their secret services aspromoters of democracy and democratic values; a view principally espoused in thepopular James Bond thriller novels – romantic high adventures about what a SecretService should be. John Le Carré shocked readers with chilling realism and detail,portraying the spy as a morally burnt-out case.Goldfinger: what he is trying to do is destroy the virility of James Bond. The scene ofthe laser.03/11/2020The importance of the spy narratives during the ‘60s.James Bond is an English agent. Comparing, the American agents were a bit ridiculous.The Americans don’t have

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