Appunti e riassunti di Letterature Anglo-americane, prof. Kidder

THE GREAT GATZBY:

The narrator of the story is Nick Carraway, who moves to N.Y. from

Minesota.

He went to live in the west egg district of Long Island, near Gatsby’s house;

there he met important people of upper social class and then , gradually, he

knew Gatsby.

Gatsby is an irrepressible dreamer, with extravagant lifestyle, in fact he throw

incredible parties.

But this persona his completely his own invention. He actually grew up poor

and his real name is Jay Gats.

Years earlier, he felt in love with a beautiful young and rich girl “Daisy”,but

he couldn’t marry her because he didn’t have money.

The book is set in the summer of 1922.

Nick went to Daisy and Tom house, because Tom was his old friend of

college, but above all, because Daisy was his cousin. During the meeting, he

understand that Daisy was unhappy and, in the meantime he knew Jordan

Backer (a beautiful sportswoman) who tells him that Tom had a lover whose

name was Myrtle.

When Nick back home, sees Gatsby looking at a green light, in Daisy and

Tom’s house direction.

During a party at Gatsby’s house, where Nick goes with Jordan, Gatsby talked

with Jordan to convince Nick to carry with him his cousin, next time.

Nick organized the appointment at his own house,inviting his cousin for a

tea, and there Gatsby awaited the arrival of Daisy.

When they met, he had reproduce beautiful atmosphere and Nick left them

alone. Then, they, after first embarrassment , had an affair.

Tom started to have some suspect about this extramarital relation and so tells

to Daisy that Gatsby was a trickster, because he was rich only thanks to his

illegal activities, trying to accuse Gatsby. Daisy, deluded, decided that his

heart belonged to Tom and didn’t reveal his relation. This scene is set in a

room, where there were Nick,Jordan,the couple, and Gatsby.

The next scene is given by Daisy and Tom in a car, Daisy is very sad and was

driving Gatsby’s car, when invested a woman. This woman was Myrtle, but

she didn’t know it.

So, Tom, when Tom learns the news, he goes to George (Myrtle’s husband) to

say him that the killer was Gatsby.

For this reason George went to Gatsby’s house, and while Gatsby was near his

swimming-pool, he shot him.

Daisy escaped with Tom, while Nick, disappointed by the behavior of others,

after being the only one to attend the funeral of Gatsby, had decided to leave

forever that place without values, where people are motivated only by money.

THEMES :

This work reflects the disintegration of the “ American Dream” in an era of

prosperity and material effects.

EAST EGG: It represents the established aristocracy.

WEST EGG: It represents the self-made aristocracy.

It depicts the hollowness of the upper class.

Gatsby wears a pinks suite and drives a Roll-Royce.

GREEN LIGHT: It represents the hope, it represents :Daisy, the love, the

dream.

THE VALLEY OF AHSES: It represents the decay of the society . There,

there are the “eyes of doctor T.j. eckelburg” painted in an advertising on a

billboard. George Wilson compares the eyes with God.

LAST CHAPTER: It was written 2 years later the death of Gatsby, and there

Nick compared the Gatsby’s dream with the American dream. This dream was

corrupted by money and dishonesty, and the American dream’s disintegrated

into the pursuit of wealth.

!

GERTRUDE STEIN: (1874-1946)

She attended Radcliffe College and her teacher was the famous William

James, who influenced her first poetry in which there are several references to

the stream of consciousness.

With her brother Leo, she went to Paris and there she met many artists,

writers, and intellectuals of the time, such as Picasso, Matisse etc.. and her

home became a beautiful meeting place for them.

She felt in love with Alice B. Toklas and lived all her life with her.

She was considered the mother of modernism movement.

About his writing : she used a pushed language, strong and bold feminism.

In “Tender Buttons” she used a complex symbolism to talk about her own

lesbianl relation, and about gender discrimination.

The Making of Americans:

It’s a modern novel, full of autobiographical elements ( for example: David

could be compared with his borther Leo, the set with her town, the title

maybe underlines the act of making the novel..etc..), she describes the life

about two immigrant families : The Hersland and the Dehning, and the love-

story between David and the daughter of the other family) . She traces the

history about them and their psychological development . It’s full of her own

meditations, with a particular style full of repetitions metaphysical sentences,

and a large use of present participle (-ing form).

to the stream of consciousness.

With her brother Leo, she went to Paris and there she met many artists,

writers, and intellectuals of the time, such as Picasso, Matisse etc.. and her

home became a beautiful meeting place for them.

She felt in love with Alice B. Toklas and lived all her life with her.

She was considered the mother of modernism movement.

About his writing : she used a pushed language, strong and bold feminism.

In “Tender Buttons” she used a complex symbolism to talk about her own

lesbianl relation, and about gender discrimination.

The Making of Americans:

It’s a modern novel, full of autobiographical elements ( for example: David

could be compared with his borther Leo, the set with her town, the title

maybe underlines the act of making the novel..etc..), she describes the life

about two immigrant families : The Hersland and the Dehning, and the love-

story between David and the daughter of the other family) . She traces the

history about them and their psychological development . It’s full of her own

meditations, with a particular style full of repetitions metaphysical sentences,

and a large use of present participle (-ing form).

!

HERNEST HEMINGWAY: (1899-1961)

He was born in Illinois, he lived in Paris where he lived french cultural

atmosphere .

He was an important author of XX century, in fact he won Pulitzer Prize and

the Nobel for literature in 1954.

He had a strong attraction to adrenaline and to the death , to which escaped

several times after many accidents.

He travelled a lot, and never stopped to write.

He decided to kill himself with a shotgun, after electroshock that gave him

many aphasia.

He was antinazi, during the II World war, and supported working class

people.

THE SNOWS OF KILIMANJARO:

It is based on Hemingay’s own experience in Africa.

The protagonist is Harry, who is a writer. He during a safari in Africa, with

his wife, he was stung by a thorn.

!

LANGSTON HUGES:

His parents was separated and he had a bad tie with his father.He attended

Columbia University.

Like Z.N.Hurston, he captured oral black culture in written form. He took

part at Harlem Renaissance and wrote many poems about “Negro Tradition”.

“THE WEARY BLUES” is a volume of poem, in which we find “The negro

speaks of rivers”, and it was published in 1926.

He died in 1967.

After he understood that is leg was rotten and he started to think about his

life, about his past and started to dream. Then, he saw a plane that was

arriving to help him, but at the end his wife found him dead, and we

understand that he was dreaming when he died.

!

MATTHEW ARNOLD: (1822-1888)

Literary critic and professor of poetry at Oxford University. He promoted a

Common European Culture, criticizing provincial and isolated English in

“Essay and Criticism”.

In “Culture and anarchy” promote the rupture of social stratification, and the

fusion of morality and classical culture.

DOVER BEACH:

It was his most important work, published 1867. It’s a short lyric poem that

he wrote during his honeymoon. The name is given from a small English

town. It was the port to France and Britain.

The first stanza is characterized by auditory imagery, the second one by

reference to Sophocles about humanity, while Aegean about faith; here the

tide’s retreat is the loss of the faith. In the last line of the last stanza there is a

reference about ancient battle that occurred by night (Athenians vs Sicily).

!

!

Modern:

this term is used to underline the end of Medieval era. But its refers to make a

distinction between old and ancient era.

Modernity:

It’s an historical discipline, with historical concept.

Modernism:

It’s movement that had his explosion between 1910-1930 ( until and during

the I W.W.) and promote a rupture with the past, reflects the ideology and

use the parody and the revision to use the past.

It was born from the indifference through romantic ideas,putting in

discussion the romantic hero and the Victorian novel,. It was born between

two century, for this reason it promotes the destruction of the old, and the

exaltation of the technologic & industrial progress; in fact very important

become science and psychology as disciplines.

In this period we can find also:

Vorticism: all is chaos, even there is a static center like in a vortex.

Imagism (vedi Ezra Pound pensiero) : the phenomenological presentation of

an object and not the description of it. The main element is the fragment,

needing an expressive, strong and incisive language.

All three share: correlative objective, impersonality and myth at the center of

their though.

!

ROBERT FROST (1874-1963):

He was born in New England, but in 1912 went to England, with his family,

where he found a publisher for his first book “A boy’s will” and he had a great

success.

The clarity of his diction and the simplicity, the colloquial speech and his

interest about rural life make him more close to TRASCENDENTALISM.

The most popular are the nature lyrics in which emerges a comparison

between outer scene and human psyche.

It’s important remember that he won the Pulitzer Prize.

About the POETRY OF ROBERT FROST, published posthumously in

1969, we find :

Mending Wall:

A stone separated the property between the speaker and his neighbor . the

neighbor wants to build the fence, and it emerges from the line ( good fences

makes good neighbors..) but the narrator it isn’t convinced because there are

only pine trees and no animals.

Home burial:

It’s a dramatic lyric. A couple have lost a child, full of desesperation, the

author depicts the end of the relation and the end of the life.

Mowing:

It’a a poem about mowing, but also a meditation about art and about the life.

Using the element of work, and of labour. Anything more than the TRUTH

is debilitating to art.

The road not taken:

The speaker is in front of a crossway, in the wood. After a meditation he

decides to take a way, promising to himself to take the other one if it was