Frankenstein

17 Goals to Transform Our World

I "Sustainable Development Goals" sono una collezione di 17 obiettivi globali con lo scopo di raggiungere un futuro più sostenibile per tutte le nazioni. Il seguente articolo si sofferma sul terzo goal "Good health and well-being for people" che si impegna a ridurre di un terzo le morti premature dovute a malattie entro il 2030. Nonostante siano stati fatti grandi progressi per quanto riguarda l'aumento dell'aspettativa di vita e la riduzione di alcune delle cause di morte più comuni legate alla mortalità infantile e materna, sono ancora necessari molti altri sforzi, soprattutto durante questa situazione di emergenza che il mondo sta vivendo a causa del COVID-19.

Move through literature

Move through literature

Compare and contrast the way nature is treated in Coleridge, Wordsworth and Shelley’s poetry

Gli alunni  Luca Dello Russo e Dorotea Serrelli hanno svolto individualmente  questo compito con spirito critico, ma con il loro  stile personale ed originale,  analizzando il tema della natura nella poesia  di Coleridge, Wordsworth e Shelley  ed evidenziando le somiglianze e le  differenze  che emergono nella loro poetica.  

Nature in Wordsworth, Coleridge and Shelley

by Luca Dello Russo

Romanticism was an artistic, literary and cultural movement born in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. Various dates have been proposed as time limits of the Romantic period of English literature, but the most accepted ones put the beginning of the period to the publication of the “Lyrical Ballads” by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1798 and its conclusion with the crowning of Queen Victoria in 1837, although Wordsworth lived until 1850 while authors considered romantic or pre-Romantic such as Robert Burns and William Blake published some of their works before 1798. Wordsworth’s “Preface” to the second edition (1800) of Lyrical Ballads became the manifesto of the English Romantic movement in poetry. 

The focus was on feeling, passion, imagination, spontaneity which were also exalted from an artistic point of view. The adjective romantic appeared in the English language at the beginning of the 17th century to indicate something unusual related to human emotions and feelings. This new cultural movement contrasted the Enlightenment because it placed man and his feelings at the centre. Because of the Industrial Revolution, men were subjected to degrading conditions and forced labour in factories, so the poets of the 18th century felt a certain sensitivity towards man and nature. The first phase of the Romantic Movement in Germany was marked by innovations in both content and literary style and by a concern with the mystical, the subconscious, and the supernatural. The second phase of Romanticism, comprising the period from about 1805 to the 1830s, was marked by a new attention to national origins. English Romantic poetry had reached its peak in the works of John Keats, Lord Byron, and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Critics normally divide the Romantic poets into two generations; the first generation includes Wordsworth and Coleridge, while the second generation includes Byron, Shelley and Keats.  

In the famous Preface to the second edition (1800) of the Lyrical ballads Wordsworth gave his definition of poetry: poetry is above all the expression of a state of mind.

“[…] poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity: the emotion is contemplated till […] the tranquility gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which was before the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced”

Poetry does not depend on the correct use of images and literary tradition, but on the flow of emotions, filtered through memory: poetry does not arise directly from an emotion, but when that emotion itself is relived in memory or "recollected in tranquillity", to use his words. The poet is a man endowed with a great sensitivity and knowledge of human nature and possesses talents superior in quality and intensity to those of the common man; he therefore has the task of showing the intimate truth of things to other men to teach them how to improve their own feelings and ethics. An essential component of his poetry is nature, no longer the mechanistic nature described by the Enlightenment, but the life of German natural philosophy, in a vision that establishes a profound continuity between nature and humanity and, through it, between man and God. The first Wordsworth seems not to be very far from a pantheistic vision of reality: the individual and humanity as a whole are unique and the poet has the task of expressing this affinity. This turning to nature, to landscape, to its primordial myths refers to another typically romantic element, the reason for the return to childhood, that is to say to that period of man's life when sensory experiences are more immediate and healthy, therefore more alive and precious for the poet because he is able to intuit the mysteries of the world, an attitude that man loses with the passing of time. Nature is contemplated in its great drawing, but also in the more minute aspects, an interest for the detail that extends to human figures: his characters are often humble people, whose simplicity is emblematic of a life conducted in harmony with nature, and it is precisely their closeness to nature that makes them the best representatives of true humanity. Nature becomes the subject and object of poetry and it is the poet's task to reveal its beauty. 

Wordsworth and Coleridge's decision to publish the “Lyrical ballads”, dealing respectively with the "natural" and the "supernatural", shows the existence of the two tendencies present among romantic poets, one towards the real world, the other towards the transcendent element. While Wordsworth decided to deal with nature, Coleridge's effort was directed towards supernatural. The supernatural became a metaphor for profound human experiences, which cannot be represented by the material world but can be expressed through the language of images: thus Coleridge's preference for the use of symbolic images and myth.

In Coleridge's ballad, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” there is a religious interpretation linked to the killing of the albatross as an offense against nature and therefore God, from the literary point of view, however, the albatross is considered a metaphor for art. In this ballad, Coleridge transports the reader into the mystical world of the supernatural, wisely calibrated with the world of reality; the entire ballad is based on this and other oppositions, such as those between rationality and irrationality, and between reason and imagination. In the text, in fact, we find a sense of mystery because the events narrated by the old sailor are immersed in an atmosphere of nightmare. The events are pervaded by an arcane sense of mystery full of symbolic meanings, the symbol evokes a profound reality in an allusive and ambiguous way that opens to a plurality of meanings and a multiplicity of readings. The central theme is man's relationship with the supernatural, with the mysterious dimension of an invisible world around him. Therefore, to enter the universe of poetry, a voluntary suspension of disbelief is necessary. It can also be observed that knowledge of the arcane is linked to a mysterious guilt (the killing of the albatross), from which the sailor derives a curse that isolates him from sociality and condemns him to the eternal repetition of his wandering and his story. The sailor's condition is of "Life-in-Death", perpetually on the border between the two worlds of the real and the unknown.

“God save thee, ancient Mariner!

From the fiends, that plague thee thus!

Why look'st thou so?'—With my cross-bow

I shot the Albatross.”

— The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, lines 79-82

Among the authors of the second generation there are Byron, Keats and Shelley. In Shelley’s prose work “A Defence of Poetry”, written in 1821 and published in 1840, his beliefs about the nature and function of poetry find a place: he defends poetry as a means of expressing the imagination. Poets are the beings endowed with the highest degree of imagination, with which they can achieve artistic representation. If poets are the unrecognised legislators of the world for the link between beauty and truth, they are endowed with the ability to see beyond the immediate reality and also become prophets of a possible reform. Only the poet can establish a true contact with reality through language and transmit its authentic meaning. Shelley was the only true radical poet among English romantics, capable of the highest visionary idealization of reality. He keenly felt the inadequacy of man's condition in relation to his ideas and his reaction was not Byron's satirical scepticism, but a constant struggle for the moral regeneration of humanity. 

Among Shelley's works, the best known is “Ode to the West Wind” where we find a nature seen as an impassive force that shows its superiority, the images of the ode all revolve around death and rebirth: death is seen in relation to the revolution that can destroy tyranny and can lead to freedom but it is also a way for the poet to escape from his own reality to be reborn into a new existence.

“The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”

— Ode to the West Wind, lines 69-70

Shelley's literary production, which ranges from opera to theatre, presents typical inspiring romantic motifs such as freedom, love and nature. Shelley does not deny the role of nature that leads man to happiness and joy, but if for Wordsworth, nature animates the world, according to him, nature does not hide any message: it only leads to pleasure. Unlike Byron, Keats and Shelley, Coleridge and Wordsworth spend their lives anchored in traditional English landscapes from which they draw their inspiration to offer a more realistic view of nature, while second-generation poets cultivate ideals more linked to classicism and antiquity.

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Nature is one of the most important Romantic themes.

According to Romantics, nature doesn’t mean only a realistic description of it, but it is the main viewer of the turbulent feelings of the human soul; poets  

endow it with life, passion and feelings and talk about nature in terms once used for God, or a lover or a dear friend.

Moreover, they want to express through the poetry the complex interaction between man and nature and the emotions, the sensations that arise from this relationship.

So, nature becomes a source of poetic inspiration, which stimulates the imagination of the poet.

This particular relationship is described with mastery by William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Wordsworth offers a detailed account of the complex interaction between man and nature, of the influences, the emotions and the sensations that arise from this contact, rather than objective and scientific description of the natural world.

He considers that man and nature are inseparable, in particular the child, in his innocence and simplicity, is closer than the adult to the original state of harmony with nature.

So, he believes in the pre-existence of the soul and the soul, after birth, gradually loses its memory of a perfect union with the universe.

This concept, expressed in “Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood ”, is integrated with other meanings in “Lyrical Ballads”.

Nature is considered as the countryside which is opposed to the noise and confusion of the town.

Moreover, according to a pantheistic conception, nature is animated by a divine spirit.

Then, it is considered a source of feelings, joy and pleasure that comforts man in sorrow and teaches him to love and to act in a moral way.

Nature is the major source of poetic inspiration. Wordsworth considers it as “the nurse, the guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul of all my moral being”.

Unlike Wordsworth, Coleridge doesn’t see nature as a source of consolation and joy or as a moral guide.

His contemplation of nature is accompanied by consciousness of the presence of the ideal in the real.

Because of his strong Christian faith, Coleridge considers nature as the only way the “One life” (the divine power) manifests itself to man; so, all creatures must be respected, being the “personification of God” (The Rime of the Ancient Mariner ).

The natural elements and the landscape are endowed with a deep symbolic meaning.

He doesn’t identify the nature with the divine according to a pantheistic conception adopted by Wordsworth, but he sees nature and the material world in a sort of neoplatonic interpretation as projection of the real world of “Ideas” (Iperuranio) on the flux of time.

So, Coleridge believes natural images carry abstract meanings and uses them in his most poems like “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner ”.

Unlike Coleridge, Shelley considers nature as a source of joy and a life force, expression of the “Spirit of Universe”, which continually creates new life and governs natural phenomena.

So, all creatures aspire to return to the “Whole”, the “One”.

However, nature takes another meaning to Shelley: it is a shelter from injustices of life and the disappointment of the ordinary world.

In his lyrics, we can locate the poet’s own rebel spirit in communion with the natural scenery and the natural forces.

Like Wordsworth, Shelley considers nature as a source of poetic inspiration.

He, inspired by the natural phenomena and forces like the West wind in “Ode to the West Wind ”, writes his lyrics and announces it to the world of men.

So, nature is endowed of social ideals; it becomes a source of prophetic political and social revolutions.

Through it, Shelley becomes a prophet who notices all men about these great revolutions.

In “Ode to the West Wind ”, in fact, just as the wind has no voice without nature, so Shelley asks the wind to give him the liberating force of poetic inspiration, to transmit a natural force to the world of men.

By Dorotea Serrelli

An imaginary conversation between Coleridge and Wordsworth

Be an independent learner

Rearrange the information about Coleridge’s life into a profile for a social network.

Write a brief, imaginary conversation between Coleridge  and Wordsworth  

Gli alunni Ernesto Iiriti, Angelo Giordano, Claudio Gaudino e Sabatino Vietri  della classe 4ASA hanno svolto questo compito in maniera creativa, immaginando una conversazione tra i due poeti romantici inglesi: Wordsworth e Coleridge, attualizzando il passato perché, quando i grandi poeti escono dai libri di scuola, la loro poetica si fa vita, si scopre la modernità del loro vissuto, della loro sensibilità  e del loro messaggio universale. La simpatica ed originale  conversazione dei poeti comincia   con  uno  scambio di opinioni sulla questione ambientale, poiché la natura è il tema centrale della poetica di   Wordsworth  e poi, in maniera più leggera, termina con l’invito di Coleridge ad un concerto degli “Iron Maiden”. Questo gruppo   musicale "heavy metal" britannico ha utlizzato la ballata “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner“ di Coleridge  come testo per l’omonima canzone contenuta nel disco “Powerslave”, riscuotendo molto successo durante i loro concerti dal vivo.

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Man and Nature

In questo momento di emergenza, di grande difficoltà per il nostro Paese e per il mondo intero, in cui le attività scolastiche sono state sospese ed è entrata in vigore la didattica a distanza, gli alunni delle varie classi hanno mostrato senso di responsabilità ed impegno nello studio e soprattutto hanno continuato, con motivazione e creatività, a realizzare lavori multimediali in inglese. Hanno partecipato con interesse alla competizione “2020 Vision Contest” organizzata dalla “Oxford University Press”, realizzando dei brevi video su alcuni dei 17 obiettivi di sviluppo sostenibile, concordati dall’Organizzazione delle Nazioni Unite. Inoltre hanno trattato e sviluppato in maniera critica e personale alcuni argomenti proposti dal programma curricolare e hanno presentato dei libri del progetto ”Read On“.

Gli alunni della 4A s.a. hanno affrontato lo studio delle tematiche del Romanticismo inglese, in particolare di alcuni poeti e scrittori di questo movimento letterario, e si sono impegnati nella realizzazione di alcuni lavori digitali. Uno di questi riguarda un percorso pluridisciplinare sulla natura in cui sono state analizzati i diversi aspetti della tematica nelle varie discipline.

La natura è un grandioso libro in stesura o meglio, in continua riedizione di stampa! Sin dalla sua comparsa sulla Terra l’uomo si è trovato di fronte questa compagna di viaggio, che lo sovrastava o addirittura lo sgomentava ed ha cercato di rapportarsi con lei in modo contraddittorio, sforzandosi di decifrare le sue leggi nascoste, a volte illudendosi di sottometterla all’ingegno umano, uscendo inevitabilmente sconfitto da questa impari lotta, altre volte, amandola, temendola, venerandola o persino divinizzandola. Ogni essere umano ha tentato di scrivere il fantastico libro della natura con la sua penna personale. Lo scienziato ha intinto il suo strumento di scrittura nell’inchiostro della rigida razionalità della sperimentazione, della formulazione di leggi universali in grado di sviscerare i più intimi segreti del mondo naturale. Lo scrittore vi ha scritto con la penna della sensibilità e della suggestione, mettendo su carta i messaggi che la natura inviava al suo mondo interiore. Il filosofo ha riempito le pagine di questo libro infinito con la mano tormentata di chi cerca di placare la sua ansia di ricerca di una verità universale, giungendo talora ad individuare nella natura “l'arché” ossia il principio fondamentale che spiega l’origine di ogni cosa. A volte, la natura, è stata considerata componente essenziale di un tutt’uno, di cui l’uomo è l’elemento di interazione. Il teologo, infine, l’ha considerata alla stregua di un libro straordinario scritto direttamente da Dio. A tal proposito è illuminante l’opinione di Galileo Galilei, sommo scienziato e fervente cattolico, che considerava la natura un libro, che lo scienziato deve leggere con la lente della ragione umana e il teologo con la lente di Dio.

L’alunno Dello Russo Luca ha dato il suo contributo alla stesura di questo libro infinito cimentandosi in un percorso multidisciplinare avente ad oggetto la natura nelle sue molteplici interpretazioni e nel suo controverso rapporto con l’uomo. In particolare modo, è stata sottolineata la centralità della natura nella concezione romantica europea della prima metà dell’Ottocento, ben evidenziata nella letteratura italiana e inglese; madre o matrigna che sia, dea benefica o nemica. La natura è un paesaggio silenzioso, ma di prima mano nella narrazione, una protagonista sottilmente antropomorfizzata, che fa da sfondo attivo e partecipe delle vicende umane. L’alunno Dello Russo Luca ha aggiunto nuove pagine a questo libro infinito chiamato “natura”, scritto con la penna dell’entusiasmo e della sete di conoscenza degli apprendimenti scolastici e personali, con lo spirito di chi vuole portare al di fuori delle aule scolastiche quanto è stato appreso in questo anno di studio consapevole di affacciarsi alla vita vera.

Prof.ssa Patrizia Martone