Literature In London

London is one of the most famous cities in the world. There are some aspects of London that are really worthy of comment, for instance, its population, which is about eight million people, makes it the biggest city in Europe, its politicis, which can be very confusing for some foreigners and of course, its literature, which is world known for its important authors together with unforgettable periods. London has been the perfect scenery for many literature works. Two of these sceneries and centres of literatue are Hampstead, famous for its intellectual, artistic, musical and literary associations, and Bloomsbury, the home to the British Museum, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, the British Medical Association, the University of London's Senate House Library and several of its colleges. Films and novels are the two things that best represent London’s literature nowadays and in the past, and two famous writers who are closely associated with the city are Samuel Pepys, noted for his eyewitness account of the Great Fire, and Charles Dickens, whose representation of a foggy, snowy, grimy London of street sweepers and pickpockets has been a major influence on people's vision of early Victorian London. Charles John Huffam Dickens was born on 7 February 1812, in Landport, Portsmouth, in Hampshire. In 1822, when he was ten, the family relocated to 16 Bayham Street, Camden Town, in London. His novels were practically about problems of injustice created by the new industrial society. He was a critic of the poverty and social stratification of Victorian society. For Dickens, the solutions to society’s problems is for everyone to act decently, for instance, he used to help people by givng money to charities with no financial or material reward. One of Dicken’s most famous novel is Hard Times. In Hard Times, Dickens paints a portrayt of how the City – the ideal human community – has been distorted by industrialism into an inhuman monster. The story is set in the fictitious Victorian industrialist Coketown, a generic Northern English mill-town partially based upon 19th-century Preston. Coketown is a city in which its inhabitants exist only for the benefits of its smoky factories. While the workers are imprisoned by their poverty, Boundreby and Gradgrind – the upper-middle class – are imprisoned by their narrow, materialistic mids which cannot see beyond the facts. One aspect of the Gradgrind that calls attention is their “statistic proof” that the poor have more than enough for their needs and have to be satisfied with their lot. Dickens’ objective is to make Coketown a state of mind as well as a place, where people are oppressed by prejudice as much as by poverty. As a result, Hard Times is one of the most powerful indictiments of social injustice presented in English literature. Critics have had a diverse range of opinions on the novel. Renowned critic John Ruskin declared Hard Times to be his favourite Dickens work due to its exploration of important social questions. However, Thomas Macaulay branded it "sullen socialism", on the grounds that Dickens did not fully comprehend the politics of the time. This point was also made by George Bernard Shaw, who decreed Hard Times to be a novel of "passionate revolt against the whole industrial order of the modern world." In the following passage Dickens presents Coketown ironically, as seen through the eyes of Bounderby and Gradgrind:

“Coketown, to which Messrs. Bounderby and Gradgrind now walked, was a triumph of fact; it had no greater taint of fancy in it than Mrs. Gradgrind herself. Let us strike the keynote, Coketown, before pursuing our tune. It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes has allowed it; but, as matters stood, it was a town of unnatural red and black, like the painted face of a sevage. It was a town of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents of smoke trailed themselves for ever and ever, and never got uncoiled. It had a black canal in it, and a river that ran purple with illsmelling dyi, and vast piles of buildind full of windows where there eas ratting and a trembling all day long, and where the piston of the steam-engine workied monotonously up and down, like the head of an elephant in a stage of melancholy madness.” Samuel Pepys was born in 23 of February of 1633. He was best known for his diary. In this diary, we could see details about his personal life and important things that he had seen during his life, such as the Great Plague of London, the Second Dutch War and the Great Fire of London. Pepys suffered from a condition which his mother and brother John also later suffered. He was almost never without pain, as well as other symptoms, including blood in the urine. By the time of his marriage, the condition was very severe and probably had a serious effect on his ability to engage in sexual intercourse. In the passage below, Pepys talks about a sweet christimas day with his family: December 25th Christmas Day Lay pretty long in bed. And then rise, leaving my wife desirous to sleep, having sat up till 4 this morning seeing her maids make mine-pies. I to church, where our parson Mills made a good sermon. Then home, and dined well on some good ribbs of beef roasted and mince pies; only my wife, brother, and Barker, and plenty of good wine of my own; and my heart full of true joy and thanks to God Almighty for the goodness of my condition at this day. After dinner I begun to teach my wife and Barker my song, It Is Decreed - which pleases me mightily, as now I have Mr Hinxton's bass. Then out, and walked alone on foot to Temple, it being a fine frost, thinking to have seen a play all alone; but there missing of any Bills [Posters advertising performances] concluded there was none; and so back home, and there with my brother, reducing the names of all my books to an Alphabet .... Samuel Pepys died in Clapham on May 26th 1703 and is buried at St Olave's.