Critical realism in English literature Ch. Dickens Oliver Twist

The period of Critical Realism is also called the Victorian Age and this stream of the literature appears in the 19th century. The novels of the period of realism show life from a quite different viewpoint. Critical Realism describes actual life and’s problems.

Among the best realistic authors belong two sisters – Emily Bronte, the author of very popular novel called Wuthering Heights, and Charlotte Bronte, who wrote Jane Eyre, also very famous novel. The both sisters dealt with moral and psychological problems.
William Makepeace Thackeray also represents the Critical Realism. He wrote novels especially against snobbery and hypocrisy. In his best novels Vanity Fair and The Book of Snobs he shows very different characters.

The list of authors writing in the realistic period wouldn’t be complete without Charles Dickens, a master of showing the life of the lower classes. He described truly the life of poor people in England in the 19th century. He himself suffered in his childhood and his bitter experience can be found in his masterpieces like David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, Little Dorrit, The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club or Great Expectations.

Oliver Twist, or The Parish Boy's Progress, is the second novel by Charles Dickens, and was first published as a serial 1837–9. The story is of the orphan Oliver Twist, who starts his life in a workhouse and is then sold into an apprenticeship with an undertaker. He escapes from there and travels to London where he meets the Artful Dodger, a member of a gang of juvenile pickpockets, which is led by the elderly criminal Fagin.

Oliver Twist is notable for Dickens's unromantic portrayal of criminals and their sordid (disgusting) lives, as well as exposing the cruel treatment of the many orphans in London in the mid–nineteenth century.^[1] The alternate title, The Parish Boy's Progress, alludes to Bunyan'sThe Pilgrim's Progress, as well as the 18th-century caricature series by William Hogarth, A Rake's Progress and A Harlot's Progress.^[2]

An early example of the social novel, Dickens satirizes the hypocrisies (falseness, лицемерие) of his time, including child labour, the recruitment of children as criminals, and the presence of street children. The novel may have been inspired by the story of Robert Blincoe, an orphan whose account of working as a child labourer in a cotton mill was widely read in the 1830s. It is likely that Dickens's own youthful experiences contributed as well.

American Romanticism W. Irving. Rip Van Winkle. E.A. Poe. The fall of the house of usher.

In America Romanticism emerged 30 years later than it did in England or France due to the peculiarities of American history. Like European Romanticists the American ones sought the ideal elsewhere in the past or some other countries, some of them turned for inspiration to the folklore. The American leading romanticists were: Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, Edgar Allan Рое, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville.

Washington Irving introduced the genre of a short story. Most of his stories have humorous character. He was also a publicist.

"Rip Van Winkle"

The protagonist, Rip van Winkle, a resident of the village, near new York, slept through 20 years in Katschinski the mountains and got down from there, when all his friends died. This character became a symbol of a person completely separated from time and missed one’s life.

Edgar AllanРое- was born in Boston in the family of actors. His romantic aesthetics was very peculiar (specific). It lacks Irving's humour& optimism; it hardly ever draws any vast epic pictures like Cooper's works do. His works are filled with mystery, fantasy & exotics.

His literary canon (list of works) includes 64 short stories, 2 long stories (novellas), about 50 poems. He is the pioneer of the intellectual detective story. 

He worked out his own aesthetics of story writing: stories should have a dynamic & entertaining plot that would keep the reader in suspense to the very end. Yet they should be short enough to be read at one sitting (егоисториидлинные).

«The Fall of the House of Usher» Annotation:

Roderick Usher, the last scion (потомок) of an ancient family, invites his friend of youth to visit him and to stay in the family castle on the shore of the dark lake. The lady Madeline was the sister of Roderick seriously and hopelessly ill, her days are numbered and even the arrival of his friend is unable to dissipate the sadness of usher. After the death of Madeline was a place of temporary burial of the selected one of the dungeons of the castle. For several days Roderick was still confused, until the night a storm raged and didn't come out the monstrous fact that the lady Madeline was buried alive! Having risen from the grave, she came to brother with the last reproach, and the two souls (they) forever left this mortal world. The castle is not long survived their owners, after a few moments he was buried at the bottom of the lake.

The presence of a capacious, disintegrating (вместительный, распадающийся) house symbolizing the destruction of the human body is a characteristic element in Poe's later work.

The story is very creepy and atmospheric.

Аннотация на русском:

РодерикАшер, последний отпрыск древнего рода, приглашает друга юности навестить его и погостить в фамильном замке на берегу мрачного озера. Леди Мэдилейн, сестра Родерика тяжело и безнадежно больна, дни её сочтены и даже приезд друга не в состоянии рассеять печаль Ашера.После смерти Мэдилейн местом её временного погребения выбирается одно из подземелий замка. В течение нескольких дней Родерик пребывал в смятении, пока ночью не разразилась буря и не выяснилось чудовищное обстоятельство — леди Мэдилейн была похоронена заживо!Восстав из гроба, она пришла к брату с последним укором, и две души навсегда оставили этот бренный мир.Замок не надолго пережил своих хозяев, через несколько мгновений