THE WAR POETS - RUPERT BROOKE, SIGFRIED SASSOON & WILFRED OWEN

One of the greatest tragedies the world has ever experienced was the First World War. With absolute determination, nations dedicated every ounce of human talent, energy and resources to the destruction of human life. Millions were killed; millions were disabled by hideous wounds, mental breakdown, bereavement. Life was worsened throughout Europe and the effects were long-lasting.  The so-called Age of Anxiety started, which still goes on. The age of wars.

STUDYING & WATCHING NORTH AND SOUTH BY ELIZABETH GASKELL (1855)

 THE STORY

When Margaret Hale arrives in Milton - in the industrial northern district of England - she is so disappointed by the bleak, smoky, noisy, grey atmosphere of the place. Her father has left the Church and decided to uproot his family from Helstone , in the beautiful countryside of the South of England. Margaret is greatly prejudiced against the people from the North and their rather direct, almost wild manners. So she starts idealizing the South

Mr Bell, one of Mr Hale’s former university mates, suggested them to settle in Milton where he owns a cotton mill run by his tenant, Mr John Thornton. Mr Thornton helps the Hales to find accomodation and becomes Mr Hale’s friend and pupil. He is handsome and smart, self-confident and successful in his job, greatly appreciated in Milton both as an entepreneur and a magistrate.

DICKENS AND THE INDUSTRIAL NOVEL: HARD TIMES (1854)

THE PLOT

BBC Hard Times - 1994

Thomas Gradgrind is an educator and a riter on political questions. He has founded a school where his education theories are put into practice: children are taught nothing but facts, and he educates his own children, Louisa and Tom, in the same way, neglecting their imagination and their affections. He also adopts Sissy Jupe, whose father worked  in a circus.

Mr Gradgrind suggests his daughter should marry Josiah Bounderby, a  rich factory owner and banker of the city some thirty years older than she is. Louisa, desiring to help her brother Tom in his career, consents to the marriage, which naturally proves to be very unhappy.

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT, JANE AUSTEN AND PROTOFEMINISM

Protofeminism is a concept that anticipates modern feminism in eras when the feminist concept as such was still unknown. So we can correctly say that Mary Wollstonecraft and Jane Austen were protofeminist writers.