littérature étrangère

Pride and prejudice

Summary :

Pride and prejudice was written two hundred years ago by Jane Austen and it describes a year in the life of a small group of young people who live in the country near London in a period of change ( XVIII and XIX century).

In the middle of this society we are able to find some special and funny people: The Bennet, who live with their five daughters: Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Catherine and Lydia. Mr Bennet is nice and intelligent and he dislikes the frivolity of his wife and his three young daughters but he has a good relation with Jane and Elizabeth besides he is very close to them.

Mrs Bennet is not as clever or educated as her husband. Her only aim in life is to find husbands for her daughters and her pleasures are visiting, talking and clothes.

However, their situation was worse than it seemed because of a lawyer's agreement, since Mr. Bennet had no son the property, when he died, would pass to a distant cousin, Mr. Collins. His daughters would not have nothing unless they married.

One day, a man who is called Charles Bringley leases the Netherfield estate and plans to settle with his two sisters and his brother-in-law. The arrival of this wealthy and handsome man in the neighbourhood excites Mrs Bennet who has four unmarried daughters.

A few weeks after they arrival, Charles Bringley, his family and his best friend, Dorcey, attend a public ball in the village of Merynton , where Mr Bringley shows himself to be amiable and good-natured when he dances with many young ladies and shows his admiration for Jane Bennet, the eldest of the five Bennet sisters. However, Mr. Darcey, makes poor impression on strangers, such as the people of Merynton who think he is proud, judgemental and concerned with social status, so he makes himself really unpopular despite his annual huge income.

On the other hand, Elizabeth Bennet listens to him and refuses her to dance “ because she is not handsome enough for him” so she immediately thinks, as all the other people, that he is incredibly proud despite his fine figure.

Following the ball, Jane is invited for an evening at Netherfield, but catches a bad cold and is forced to rest for some days. Her sister Elizabeth goes to Netherfield to nurse her.

Meanwhile, Mr Collins, a young cousin of Mr Bennet and the entailed heir of Longbourn arrives for a visit. He has recently obtained a clerical living on the estate of Lady Catherine De Bourgh in kent and he is traying to look for a wife among his cousin's daughters. Finding that Jane appears destined for Bringley, he asks Elizabeth to get married with him but she refuses Mr Collins despite the threats of her mother. In the end he is accepted by Elizabeth's best friend, Chalotte Lucas, who is still unmarried at the age of twenty-seven.

Later, Elizabeth is introduced to a handsome young officer, Mr. Wickham, who is the son of Darcy's father's steward. This charming man makes a good impression in Merynton society, and his reports that Darcy has cheated him out of a rightful inheritance serve to further damage Darcy's reputation. This reinforces Elizabeth growing dislike of Darcy and she is relieved when he leaves, with Mr.Bringley and their family, the neighbourhood. This act causes Jane's sadness because she is in love with Charles Bringley.

However, Elizabeth encounters Darcy again on a visit to Lady Catherine ( his aunt) at Rossings Park and suddenly he reveals to her his true feelings: he loves her “in spite of her objectionable family”. After this he proposes to her but she refuses him absolutely because of what he has said and also because she thinks that Darcy persuaded Mr. Bringley to sever ties with Jane although she also mentions what Mr. Wickham said.

The next day, Mr. Darcy hands Elizabeth a letter in which he justifies his actions- he believed that Jane didn't love his friend and he didn'd want him to suffer for this girl. Darcy also reveals the true nature of Mr.Wickham, who is financially irresponsible and morally bankrupt. He also tried to get his sister to leave home and to go with him.

After reading this, the young lady is quite upset with herself but she is not totally convinced.

Later Elizabeth and her family discovers that Lydia has gone out with Mr.Wickham to another village but after Darcy's inter vention they come back home and finally they get married.

Elizabeth feelings change and after some time she receives a visiting from Lady Catherine who has discovered Mr. Darcey's feelings for Elizabeth and she tries to intimidate her into refusing his nephew.

The book ends when Jane gets married with Mr. Bringley and her younger sister, Elizabeth, gets married to Mr. Dorcey after he prososes to her again.

Laure-Hélène de Charette, TL

Richard Brinsley Sheridan

                                             (1751-1816)                                                   

He was born in 1751 on the 30^th of October, in Dublin. He is the third son of Thomas and Frances Sheridan. He was a very popular child at school and he left Harrow school at the age of seventeen. He was placed under the care of a tutor. He was given in his childhood lessons of elocution, fencing and riding.

With a friend he met in Harrow, he had litterary plans. They published a translation of Aristaenetus and wrote a farce entitled Jupiter which was refused for publication. Sheridan wrote a lot by himself but nothing of importance.

His family moved to Bath in 1771 which led to the meeting with the composer Thomas Linley's daughters. The eldest one, Elizabeth Ann, was so beautiful that Sheridan was one of her suitors. Another was a man named Major Mathews. To protect her from him, Sheridan escorted her to a nunnery in March 1772 and then fought two duels with Mathews. This event was sensationnal at that time. As Elizabeth Ann's father didn't consider Sheridan as an eligible suitor, he was kept away from her. But what the father didn't know is that the two of them had secretly married. Sheridan was sent to Essex to continue his mathematics studies. In April 1773, he finally was openly married to Elizabeth Ann.

Even if he had no income apart from his wife's, he settled in a luxurious house and lived in a fashionable manner. His first comedy The Rivals  was produced on the 17^th of January in 1775. Its first perfomance was deceiving but starting from the second one it was a success. He then wrote another farce St. Patrick's Day, or the Scheming Lieutenant. The same year, helped by his father-in-law, he produced The Duenna, played 75 times at Covert Garden during the season. He bought his own theater between 1776 and 1778. He produced a version of Vanbrugh's Relapse  but with little changes. The School for Scandal was produced on the 8^th of May in 1777.Two years latter he produced a new farce The Critic . His only dramatic production was in 1799 entitled Pizzaro.

He entered parliament for Stafford in 1780 but it was dur to a financial help. He did a lot of things in politic in the following years.

His end of life consisted in debts and disappointment. After the death of his wife in 1792, he married again three years later with Esther Jane, the daughter of the dean of Winchester. He only had one son from his first marriage. He became a poet. Sheridan died in 1816 and was solemnly burried in Westminster Abbey.

Léane Leclercq – 1L

George Orwell (real name Eric Blair) was born on the 25th of  June 1903 in India in a Anglo-Indian family, his father was a civil servant.

In 1922, he joined the imperial Indian police but he resigned in 1927. At this time, he went to Europe and there he started to write. In his books (like Down and out in London and Paris) he describes the misery in London and Paris from his own experience in thoses capitals. He also participated in the civil Spanish war in 1936. During that period, he wrote Homage to Catalonia where he describes the communist actions and the big opposition between the different political camps in Spain. After that, he came back to England where he found a job as a speaker for the BBC. In 1943, he became director of the newspaper “The tribune”, then special envoy of The Observer in Germany and France in 1945 where he was responsible for observing politics. Suffering from tuberculosis, he continued to write and he published Animal farm, a Stalinist political satire, depicting animals taking power from the hands of humans. His major work is the book 1984, written in 1949 where he denounces political and social systems with no liberty. The novel will be translated into more than 60 languages, and his description of a totalitarist world is now considered as a timeless classic of British literature with the famous "BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU. "

George Orwell died of tuberculosis in a London clinic in 1950.

Hélène Chappot - TL

William Blake was born at 28 Broad Street, Golden Square, Soho, where his father had a hosiery business. In 1767 he began to study at Henry Pars’ Drawing Class in the Strand, and in 1771 was apprenticed to James Basire of Great Queen Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, who was engraver to the Society of Antiquaries of London. In 1779 he was admitted to the Royal Academy Schools as a student.

In 1782, he married Catherine Boucher, and. After marrying Catherine Boucher, the illiterate daughter of a market gardener , on 18th August 1782, that they moved to Green Street, near Leicester Square where Blake became a freelance engraver. He returned to Broad Street, when his father died in 1784 to set up in business as a print seller with James Parker, a friend and former fellow apprentice. The partnership ended in 1787 and Blake moved to nearby Poland Street. In the same year Blake’s brother Robert died. Blake claimed that the spirit of Robert came to him in a vision in the night, and revealed the technique of combining text and pictures on one engraved plate. He produced the Songs of Innocence using this new method in 1789 with the help of his wife. They moved to Lambeth in 1791 and it was in this period that he produced many of his ‘prophetic’ books: The Visions of the Daughters of Albion, America a Prophecy, The Songs of Experience and The First Book of Urizen. In September 1800 he left London for Felpham, Sussex (about 50 miles south west of London on the south coast), to live near William Hayley, an eccentric gentleman poet who had written biographies of Milton and Cowper, and through whom he hoped to get commissions for engraving. But by the beginning of 1803 he had tired of the trivial nature of these commissions. He had come to believe that only in London could he carry on his visionary studies, and he moved back to the capital.

In May 1809 , an exhibition of Blake's work at the Royal Academy failed to attract any significant interest and he sank into obscurity. Blake continued to produce poetry, paintings and engravings but he rarely found customers for his work.

It is after 1818 that his work found admirers amongst watercolorists of the next generation, particularly John Linnell and John Varley, who encouraged him and commissioned works.

He died in 1827 and was buried in an unmarked grave in the dissenter’s graveyard in Bunhill Fields.

Claire Veillon - TL

Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights,the book of Emily Brontë is her only published novel printed in 1847,under the pseudonym Ellis Bell.

Summary:

Mr Earnshow,the owner of the manor Wuthering Heights,has two children:Hindley and Catherine.

One day,coming back from a journey,he brings back an orphan:Heathcliff.

Hindley finds himself robbed of his father's affection and becomes jealous of Heathcliff. However, Catherine grows very attached to him. Soon, the two children spend hours on the moor together.

Sent to college,Hindley marries a woman named Frances and returns three years later, after Mr. Earnshaw dies. He becomes master of Wuthering Heights, and forces Heathcliff to become a servant instead of a member of the family.

Three months after Hareton Earnshaw's birth,Frances dies,leaving Hindley,mad with grief, more embittered than ever.

Catherine finally marries a wealthy man:Edgar Linton,convinced that he would consider Heathcliff like a brother,and save him from Hindley's anger.

But Heathcliff doesn't understand,and runs away,offended by the announcement of their wedding.

A fiew years after Catherine wedding,Heathcliff comes back,enriched,meets Catherine,and confesses they have always loved one another.Soon after,Catherine dies after has given birth to Catherine,also called Cathy,Edgar's daughter.

Desperate,Heathcliff takes his revenge on Edgar and Hindley.

He ruins Hindley with games of money,becomes the owner of Wuthering Heights.He seduces Isabelle Linton,Edgar's sister,flees with her and marries her.They have a son together named Linton Heathcliff.

16 years later,Edgar dies,leaving Catherine Linton as only heiress.Heathcliff does his best to make her fall in love with his son and attracts her to Wuthering Heights.He forces her to marry his son under duress.Heathcliff appropriates Cathy's assets.Few months later Linton Heathcliff dies.

Cathy and Hindley's son,Hareton fall in love together.

Cathy and Hareton look so much like Catherine that Heathcliff is incapable to carry his revenge on.

He  acts more and more strangely,locks himself in his room,stops feeding himself,and finally dies.

In 1802,Cathy and Hareton are going to marry,when a young tramp comes,horrified,saying he saw Heathcliff and a woman walking on the moor...

Mégane KERAUDRAN 1L

Bram Stoker:

 Bram Stoker was born on 8 November 1847 in Dublin, Ireland.  His parents were Abraham Stoker, from Dublin, and Charlotte Mathilda Blake Thornley. Stoker was the third of seven children. Abraham and Charlotte were members of the Church of Ireland Parish of Clontarf and attended the parish church with their children, who were baptised there.
Stoker was bed-ridden until he started school at the age of seven, when he made a complete recovery.
After that time, he grew up without further major health issues, even excelling as an athlete (he was named University Athlete) at Trinity College, in Dublin. He graduated with honours in mathematics. He was auditor of the College Historical Society and president of the University Philosophical Society, where his first paper was on "Sensationalism in Fiction and Society".
Stoker became interested in the theatre while a student through a friend, Dr. Maunsell. He became the theatre critic for the Dublin Evening Mail.  Stoker also wrote stories, and in 1872 "The Crystal Cup" was published by the London Society, followed by "The Chain of Destiny. Furthermore, he possessed an interest in art, and was a founder of the Dublin Sketching Club in 1874.
In 1878 Stoker married Florence Balcombe, daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel James Balcombe of 1 Marino Crescent. She was a celebrated beauty whose former suitor was Oscar Wilde.  Stoker had known Wilde from his student days.
The Stokers moved to London, where Stoker became acting manager and then business manager of Irving's Lyceum Theatre, a post he held for 27 years. On 31 December 1879, Bram and Florence's only child was born, a son whom they christened Irving Noel Thornley Stoker. Working for Irving, the most famous actor of his time, and managing one of the most successful theatres in London made Stoker a notable if busy man. He was dedicated to Irving and his memoirs show he idolised him. In London Stoker also met Hall Caine who became one of his closest friends - he dedicated Dracula to him.
While manager for Irving, and secretary and director of London's Lyceum Theatre, he began writing novels beginning with The Snake's Pass in 1890 and Dracula in 1897. Before writing Dracula, Stoker spent several years researching European folklore and mythological stories of vampires.
According to the Encyclopedia of World Biography, Stoker's stories are today included within the categories of "horror fiction," "romanticized Gothic" stories, and "melodrama. They are classified alongside other "works of popular fiction" such as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
After suffering a number of strokes, Stoker died at No. 26 St George's Square in 1912. He was cremated, and his ashes placed in a display urn at Golders Green Crematorium.
                 

Claire Veillon 1L

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
 

• Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin on 1854. During his childhood, he was influenced by the literary talents of his mother, in particular, in poetry. Furthermore, he frequented the medical background due to the profession of his father. Between 1871 and 1874, in Trinity School, he discovered literature and law.
• Also, he integrated the Oxford 's Academy in Great-Britain. Then, he travelled in France and he met two French writers namely Gautier and Baudelaire. Moreover, he kept company with impressionist painters like Degas and Pissaro.
• Finally, in 1890, he published his masterpiece The Picture of Dorian Gray thanks to Robert Ross, his lover. He died in Paris on 1900.

Kevin Bardau 1L