Changes in History and the Beginning of Gothic Fiction

       Nowadays, everything changes in a blink of an eye withtout even having time of assimilating it. With this, anything is included in the "it", from music to art, from literature to the movy industry. However, this is not something that is particular of today, this has been a characteristic of any period in our history. Everything changes for a reason, and the change takes place with the course of time. Sometimes is fast and others it takes longer, but it always ends up happening. From classical movements to the extreme opposite and when it was belived that nothing new could be done, some innovating arised. Normally this is based on something thas has already occured but with some changes that ajust to the society of the epoch. The same thing happens with the Gothic Genre. It is believed that out of boredom, Horace Walpole created a whole new type of fiction for the audience that was bored of Sentimental novels. However, this genre stemed from various aspects, such as Shakesperan tragedy, and characteristics of his style, with Walpole´s own touch of darkness, obscurity, and love for the unknown. Moreover, from the influence of the medieval and the gloom of the dark ages, which was considered to be a very mysterious period of time, unexplored and yet even scary. Furthermore, the concept of the sublime that leaves a great mark in this literature and that is going to characterize it. Last but not least, this genre has been conserved in literature since its beginning, and has also been included in other fields like drama, story telling, televission, radio and movies, and with all these, the genre has changed in different ways throught its lifetime.
  Therefore, we can say that Gothic Fiction originates in the societies boredom, and as a result is a product of a commercial society. In addition, the raising of the reading public promoted the creation of new novels in a different style form what was already known.

The Unsayable is Said

The position of women through history has been very varied. In ancient times they practically had the same position as men in the society. We have the example of the famous philosopher and teacher Hipatia, who had a great curiosity about the world and was not afraid to show it. However, this took her to a heartrending outcome. Another example of an outstanding woman in history is Eleanor of Aquitaine, very well educated woman, of strong will, and who ended up lonely and strongly criticized. It seems that throughout history, whenever a woman dared to go further she would be punished for doing so. During the mid and last part of the eighteenth century, English literature started to focus on the role of women in their society. What limited them, and what characterized a woman. It is thanks to Mary Astell, for example, and her essays, or Daniel Defoe and his Roxana that the women´s situation started to be denounced. A woman was described by being virtuous, a tool of entertainment for men, the house mistress, and served her husband and their children. Moreover, the situation of the marital contracts, that is marriages that took place with economic purposes and not for love, were in their zenith. In both Astell´s text and Defoe´s there is a clear representation of the social scene of the time was being depicted as if it was a picture, because of its exactness and preciseness. From my point of view, it is shameful that this situation ever took place, although it is in most occasions, the consequence of a series of factors that provoke this, and it is truly unpredictable until it is too late. The advantage of the fact that this was transmitted through literature is for the society of the time to be more aware of it and for us as readers, centuries later, can get to know and understand the type of society. In my opinion, the manifestation of women was a way to deprive the society of its hypocrisy, and women of their burden. 
 

The Importance of Being "Gulliver"

Jonathan Swift´s masterpiece, Gulliver´s Travels was published in 1726. It had such an immense impact on the society of the time because it was, written in a unique form, so to speak. Up until then, only vague prose forms had been used that were not very “standardized” as in the case of Oronooko; or the Royal Slave, by Aphra Behn. However, Gulliver´s Travels was not the final form of the novel, but it is right in between the embryo and the final form, the one we know nowadays.

This book, that is divided in if four parts, was not only a hallmark for its form, but also for its content. In most occasions, any written form has an echo of the time it was written, or also of the personality of the authors, the point of view, and their own experiences. These reflect on their writing; an example of this is Gulliver´s Travels. In the book we can read between the lines, and extract a lot of inter-textual information that the author included in the text. References to politics, to both the Tories and the Whigs, or important political people like Robert Walpole. Also, like Diana said today, some information about the author´s own experience with the feral child Peter, and how it could have been (and probably is) his inspiration when writing about the yahoos in the fourth book. We can infer by this last book the love the author had for animals. Probably horses were one of his favorite’s ones, because he assigned them attributes that are very close to perfection. The only flaw that I can see in them, that is inhuman is their coldness. We as readers have to also take into account the fact that Swift is Irish. Like Carol Fabricant says in her article “Swift the Irishman”, beyond doubt he was a man that was attached to his homeland, not only for his family, traditions or childhood, but because it was part of him. It made him view the world from a different perspective. In a way, this is understandable because he is not from the powerful and glorious country, England, which is colonizing many parts of the world at that time; he is from a nation that is controlled in many ways by this power unit.  Therefore he belongs to the less privileged part of society, and this affected his way of thinking. Obviously, this was present in his writings in a very clear way. I understand that in the first and second books of Gulliver´s Travels the theme of colonialism is very clear in a very subtle way. When these two books are read by the first time, what catches our eye is the size metaphor. In connection with it I got to the conclusion that this metaphor is also a powerful – powerless relation. To my understanding, the Lilliputs size not only implies lack of morality and intelligence, but also lack of power. While Gulliver is in Lilliput, he is the biggest person and therefore the most powerful one. Here he represents the colonizers, he can do what he wants and doesn´t have to depend on anyone. In book two it is the other way around, he has to suffer the feeling of depending on everyone. In this last book he is representing the feeling of the colonized, the powerless, and the dependable.

To sum up, in my opinion this book is so diverse with all the inter-textual information that contains, that is a very complete work. It is not difficult to tackle the important topics of the book as you go along, but it is very important, in this occasion to bear in mind some autobiographical aspects, because they deeply influence the piece.

Travel Literature

Many people have connected Gulliver´s Travels with the Travel Literature of the time. It makes all the sense in the world, because in each book the main character, Gulliver, travels from one place to another. This method to present the story might have been influenced by the amount of travel literature that was written during the century.
It is said, that Jonathan Swift read a lot of travel literature; a proof of it is in a letter written by him to his friend Vanessa where he says “I know not how many diverting Books of History and Travels.” A place where he would read travel literature books was Moor Park. He owned several books many travel books by Francois Bernier, Peter Martyr, Thomas Herbert, Joseph Andrews and the great collections of Hakluyt and Purchas.
The beginning of travel literature can be considered to be at the end of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth century, with the travelogues of Ibn Jubayr and Ibn Batutta. Travel literature is present from a very early stage in the medieval Arabic literature. Also, Marco Polo´s travels in the thirteenth century in the Western World.
    However, the most important distinction is factional or fictional travel literature. Some fictional works are based on real journeys, like Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, or Homer´s Odyssey. Others are more fictional narratives with real aspects, like Divine Comedy, by Dante, or our satirical piece Gulliver´s Travels.
    In a nutshell, we can see how this great writer not only influenced the literature of his time with this satirical work, but how he was also influenced by many other writers of the past, and others more recent to his time. 



Sources: 
http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/4211/1/WRAP_THESIS_Jones_1987.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travel_literature

Music in The Beggar´s Opera

This play was first performed in 1728. It was written by John Gay, who was a member of the Scriblerus club, and a friend of Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift among other important writers of the time.
    The play is considered to be the starting point of a new type of representation. To start with, it was completely different from the Italian Opera that was so popular in the seventeenth and first half of the eighteenth century. The author wanted to make a point by making it drastically different. Thanks to this play, he was also able to mock the political thinking of the time, and the politics of Robert Walpole, the first prime minister.  These changes were partly the reason that made the play so important; the most outstanding change is the incorporation of musical pieces called arias. These were an accompanied song or melody in usually strophic form. They are typical of the Elizabethan and the Jacobean period. In this play there are 68 airs. They are very different, because some were popular tunes of the time; others were songs with political content. As an example we can take aria number 67, which is an adaptation of the famous tune “Green sleeves”; thanks to it Gay mocks the sentimental love songs of the past and the ignored corruption that had been taking place in Newgate Prison for son long:

                Air 67 Green sleeves (p. 2654)
"Since laws were made for every degree,
To curb vice in others, as well as me,
I wonder we han´t better company,
Upon Tyburn Tree!
But gold from law can take out the sting;
And if rich men like us were to swing,
'Twould thin the land, such numbers to string
Upon Tyburn Tree!"

    Gay uses both dialogue and music to further the action of the story. Forty-one of the sixty-nine airs were broadside ballads of the time. The other tunes were borrowed from contemporary composers. To these tunes he wrote lyrics to fit the play.
Moreover, Gay and George Handel were very close friends; he was a very well know musician and composer of the time. Because of the social impact and popularity that this play had, Handel got very mad, because several of the plays he wrote music for didn´t succeed, and this one did for a very long time.
    Its impact was of such magnitude that it is even considered to be the first musical. It was performed internationally in Dublin, Glasgow, Jamaica and New York. Only twenty-two years later, The Beggar´s Opera was performed in America as one of the first musical comedies. It included a lot of musical pieces that no other play had during the 18th century, and for this it is considered to be the origin of the musicals, like Aphra Behn´s Oroonoko; or Royal Slave and Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe are considered to be the starting point of the novel as we know it today.















http://www.contemplator.com/history/johngay.html
http://www.umich.edu/~ece/student_projects/beggars_opera/music.html

The New Opera

The Beggar´s Opera is a satirical ballad. It was first performed in 1728, and written by John Gay. At first, he wanted the play to be performed in the popular playhouse Drury Lane. However, the owners were not willing, and, at the end it was performed in the Lincoln´s Inn Fields Theatre, thanks to John Rich, who was interested in the play. This play became so popular, that after the first few months John Gay had become very rich, and as a joke, it is said that John Rich, the manager of the theatre, became gay.

In a way, this play had such an impact in the society of the time because it was a total change from what had been preformed until then. To start with, it was the Italian opera that was in fashion then. Therefore, the language used in these was Italian. This fact affected the understanding of what was being said, and it began to be very uncomfortable for the audience, that could barely understand the actors. Moreover, the way in which the actors talked was as if they were reciting, that is, the actors would talk by singing throughout the whole play. This could be a little too heavy and slow for the audience, because it would make the action of the play go slower. The characters in these plays belonged to the high Italian class, to noble families. Therefore, it was difficult for the audience to identify themselves with them, because they did not belong to the high English classes or noble families.  The Beggar´s Opera contrasted enormously with this. Mainly, because it was meant to make fun of the Italian opera.

To begin with, in The Beggar´s Opera, the language barrier does not exist anymore, because it is represented in English. Not only that, the language used is very vulgar and typical of people that belong to the low class. Moreover, this language matched with the characters of the play, because now, instead of noble families being the main characters, it was more normal people that carry the action of the story. Normal people, and people that represent the corruption of the London streets at this time, criminals and prostitutes.  Another difference was the mixture between normal spoken discourse and little recitatives, or airs that was present in this play, and that contrasted with the continuous singing of the Italian operas. This made it much easier too, to keep up with the plot of the story. These airs were popular songs of the time that everyone knew, so this would also involucrate the audience and made them feel closer to what was happening in the play.

This play was not only a criticism against the Italian opera, but it was a way to make the Londoners realize the big problem that they had in their city. To start with, the amount of criminals that would threat their wellbeing, and the prostitutes, which were always surrounded by money problems, or others of the sort. It was also a clear criticism against Robert Walpole´s corruption policy. He was the first Prime Minister, and was criticized by many in his time. He was even compared to a very famous criminal called John Wild, like it can be seen in this play. Moreover, this man was also very important because he was the one who persuaded the Parliament to pass the Licensing Act in the year 1737. As a result, London´s theatres had to make sure that the plays that were going to be presented were going to be appropriate from his point of view. The writers that disapproved of this were among others Swift, Pope, and Fielding.    

Christmas Banned

To my surprise, I have learned that Christmas was banned in England while the Puritans were in power. Some historians say, that in 1647 it was Oliver Cromwell who decided to ban Christmas. He banned it because he thought it was immoral to feast and celebrate on such a holy day. However, others say that the Parliament decided to make the English people not celebrated it. Who is responsible for this, is not clear. However, what we do know is that people still celebrated it in their houses, although they had to be very careful not to get caught, because if they did they would get arrested. This prohibition kept on until the Restoration of the king Charles II, in 1660. This festivity, among others that were also banned during the Republic, was restored very fast. This can give us a hint of how popular it was at the time. In the United States, Christmas was banned too, because of the Puritans. In Boston, celebrating Christmas was banned form 1659 to 1681. That year, the ban was revoked, although celebrating Christimas in Boston did not become popular until the 19th century.