I Международный конкурс научно-исследовательских и творческих работ учащихся
Старт в науке
ЛИТЕРАТУРНЫЙ ПЕРСОНАЖ – РЕКА ТЕМЗА
Автор работы награжден дипломом победителя II степени
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Introduction 3
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“Thames: Sacred River” by Peter Ackroyd 4
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Oscar Wilde and the Thames 7
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The literature of Charles Dickens 9
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J.K. Jerome “Three Men in a Boat” 11
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Conclusion 12
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Bibliography 14
Introduction
Reading plays a very important role in the life of people. Reading books you can find yourself in different lands, countries, islands, seas, oceans.
Books give us a chance to look at our life through the author’s eyes, to analyze and agree or disagree with his point of view. Books awaken the reader's imagination. We can travel all over the whole world with the main characters. We follow the life of the main characters. Very often they can be people or animals. But I thought if a river can be a main character in literature and I looked through some novels and poems. So today I would like to tell you some words about the river Thames.
Rivers are a great treasure! For centuries they have been main roads all over Great Britain. Rivers have become an important part of people’s life. Our ancestors settled along the banks of rivers both big and small. It was rivers that gave them all the necessary things for living: water, food, trade, and communication with others. Little by little people and rivers become so close, that people treated them as living creatures. They addressed them kindly and lovingly. We can find a lot of descriptions of rivers in literature, poems, songs, and art. So today I would like to observe the items where the river Thames is given as a literary character in English literature.
“Thames: Sacred River” by Peter Ackroyd
“There are two things scarce matched in the Universe - the sun in heaven and the Thames on earth! “
Sir Walter Raleigh at the court of Queen Elizabeth I
"Of all the rivers in the world, with a glorious history, this is very short, but none has attracted as much attention as the Thames". This despite the fact that its own length is only 215 miles. If you take in numeric terms, it is unlikely that any other river described in many literary and artistic works. Such words were written by Peter Ackroyd in his novel “Thames: Sacred River”.
Documentary novel of British author P. Ackroyd "Thames: Sacred river" directly inherits his previous novel, dedicated to London. Indeed, it is very logical after "London" to write about the Thames, for what could be London without the Thames, and what's on the Thames without London? The book “the Thames” looks very predictable, overly academic work. In the new book of Ackroyd (with all its informative value and versatility) is missing such an important element of unpredictability. Yes, the great river Thames embodies features of the English national character. Akroyd shows the Thames from its source to its mouth, does not miss any more or less important details, events that are somehow connected with the river. The "Thames" does not showy dry objectivity: the river of Ackroyd is not just a river but a River with a capital letter. It is both a Summer and Styx, the sacred river, river mystery, carrying its waters through Space and Time. The author gives in his book a lot of information: geographical, historical, funny, anecdotal, ethnographic, and God knows what. The vast majority of the above Ackroyd facts are completely unknown to Russian readers. But sometimes, when reading, there is a sense that you're reading magnificent, excellent written syllable... guide. And the information is interesting, and optional.
But when Ackroyd finally gets to the topic of "Thames and literature, everything comes into place. Charles Dickens (with his special relationship to Thames), Lewis Carroll, Jerome K. Jerome, Kenneth Graham and many others - this "literary-water flow takes you, rip your head. And already slightly bored academic tone of Ackroyd suddenly dissipated like morning mist over the river Thames...
William Turner (in fact, you can’t imagine his art works without the Thames), William Morris, Kenneth Graham, Alfred Tennyson, Charles Dickens, Gustave doré - the list of who gave the river due almost endless. Thames embodies itself English character, is a symbol of the country through which it runs, "She is humble and confident, calm and confident; strong, but without the violence. There is nothing glaring. It is big but not huge. It is useful in all respects. This is a practical river". Peter Ackroyd sees the Thames as a cultural landscape, full of metaphors and allows you to feel part of something larger.
Thames water stream, which the British fondly referred to as "father" - originates in the upper reaches of the picturesque Cotswold hills, in the South Central part of England. This is a meandering river, with a length of 350 km and flows East and merging with other rivers and then flows into the North sea, forming a mouth width of about 30 kilometers. Thames has played an important role in English history, and deserves special attention.
1835: The Thames by James Bird
OLD THAMES! thou babbler! noisy tyrant! proud Thou art, and mighty in thy devious course!Methinks thou need'st not be so rudely loud — Look to the tiny dribbling of thy source!But thou art like the wild and noisy crowd,Vain and tumultuous—rushing on with force,Regardless of the mud from which, forlorn,A puny thing thy Rivership was born!
Oscar Wilde and the Thames
Oscar Wilde - the son of an Irish surgeon, awarded for outstanding achievements in medicine the title of baronet was a poet. Wilde marked its entry into the literature by the publication of "Poems" (1881), in which a pronounced stylistic features of impressionism. The surrounding world (garden, sea, morning landscape, the river, the view of the raging elements) was for the poet's source of instantly generated excitement with carefully chosen range of "blue-Golden landscape", "gray" Thames, "yellow and thick" fog, "flowing down from the mountains." This combination of colors is very typical of French impressionist who wrote English landscapes, such as Pissarro. The poem "Impression du Marin" (the impression of the morning) could well be the motto for him.
The Thames nocturne of blue and gold
Changed to a Harmony in grey:
A barge with ochre-coloured hay
Dropt from the wharf: and chill and cold.
The yellow fog came creeping down
The bridges, till the houses’ walls
Seemed changed to shadows and St Paul’s
Loomed like a bubble o’er the town.
Then suddenly arose the clang
Of waking life; the streets were stirred
With country waggons: and a bird
Flew to the glistening roofs and sang.
But one pale woman all alone,
The daylight kissing her wan hair,
Loitered beneath the gas lamps’ flare,
With lips of flame and heart of stone.
The literature of Charles Dickens
Special attention to the symbolic meaning of the river was given in the novels of Charles Dickens. The readers were offered a bit of social and historical context of the river Thames in the lives of the 19th century Londoners in general, and in particular the importance of the river in the life and work.
The river Thames has been imagined in many ways by a number of writers. William Wordsworth saw the Thames as “proudly bridged” (Wordsworth 1970), whereas Edmund Spenser wrote of the shore of silver-steaming Thames which he also famously called “sweet Thames” in his Prothalamion (Spenser 1989). Whatever the perception of the Thames was, the river with its numerous bridges easily stood out as an important element of the city.
The Thames , with its 134 bridges, runs through the borders of nine English counties, both rural and urban regions (Ackroyd 2009). For this reason, as Peter Ackroyd believes, some parts of the river evoke calm and forgetfulness, whereas others may provoke anxiety and despair: “it is the river of dreams and the river of suicide”. The Thames seems to be a magnet for the suicidal.
The great novelist, journalist and social commentator Charles Dickens managed to write about most things during his long career. London's river, port and seafaring connections appear often in his works.
Special attention to the symbolic meaning of the river was given in the novels of Charles Dickens. The readers were offered a bit of social and historical context of the river Thames in the lives of the 19th century Londoners in general, and in particular the importance of the river in the life and work.
The river as the element of nature was frequently present in his novels, both as an important symbol, or a place of location. Dickens himself was fascinated with the riverside world. As a child, he crossed London Bridge every day going to Warren Blacking factory to work. The Tames and its bridges play an important role in much of Dickens’s fiction.
The author has used the Thames and the fog that covers it to illustrate his anxieties of sense of sadness about London life. The river Thames seen in his novels is “dreadful” indeed. The areas near the riverbank and the bridges were secluded and dangerous. But nevertheless for main characters of the novels going to the riverbank means a turning point in their lives. The river then was a border between both worlds, between their poverty and free life.
J.K. Jerome Three Men in a Boat and
Kenneth Graham “The wind in the willows“
The Thames has inspired poetry, historic narratives and features in many novels. The most famous is the enduring classic Three Men in a Boat, by Jerome K. Jerome. Published in 1889, it chronicles the adventures of the three “martyrs to hypochondria and general seediness” who row between Kingston and Oxford along with a dog “who did not care for the water, did Montmorency”. We will have lunch one day on the tour in the pub where Jerome wrote this funny account.
In the novel "Three men in a boat..." it's about the journey round the country, and the Thames, as stated, serves as a link not only between different communities, but also between past and future. The Thames here is a communication tool that brings people together, not only geographically but also temporally and spiritually.
Another famous story that is appealled to both kids and adults- "the wind in the willows". In 1908, Kenneth Graham from Pangbourne - city on the banks of the Thames, completed his writing. In this invented story you can see the life of animals living on or near the Thames. The novel is notable for its mixture of mysticism, adventure, morality, and camaraderie and celebrated for its evocation of the nature of the Thames valley.
Conclusion
The river Thames has a colorful history. It was a river highway long before railways and roads were built. It has brought flood, disease and death to thousands of Londoners. Today it contains over 80 islands, 200 bridges, 20 tunnels, 45 locks, six public ferries and one ford. Yet it still reminds us of its history with an average of one body a week being found in its waters.
As I understand every man in Great Britain love and is proud of his river as Ronal Carton in 1932 saying: “We have no imposing deltas, no thunderous cataracts, no perilous rapids. But if they are no giants, our rivers have personality and character. They are very much a part of our lives, almost of ourselves.”
The Thames Valley means green and rolling country, low hills closely wooded, broad pastures where the cropping sheep tinkle an idle bell, cool lawns that slope greenly to the unhurrying stream.
I suggest you enjoy the landscapes of Valleyes of the river in ‘The Genius of the Thames’ by Thomas Love Peacock
Sweet is thy course, and clear, and still,By Ewan's old neglected mill:Green shores thy narrow stream confine,Where blooms the modest eglantine,And hawthorn-boughs o'ershadowing spread,To canopy thy infant bed.Now peaceful hamlets wandering through,And fields in beauty ever new,
And to finish I would like to say as Paul Gedge in “Thames Journey” in 1949:
“The first time you go by boat from London to Lechlade it is an Odyssey.The second time it is an adventure.The third time, and thereafter it is Green Content”
Bibliography
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Питер Акройд «Темза. Священная река». Винтаж книга, 2008
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Ed Glinet, Literary London, Penguin Books, 2007
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Jonathan Schneer, The Thames, Abacus, 2005
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Джером К. Джером «Трое в лодке, не считая собаки. Как мы писали роман.» Рассказы. Москва, 1994
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. http://www.englandforever.org/
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. http://thames.me.uk/
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http://www.portcities.org.uk/london/server/show/ConNarrative.150/Printing-the-Thames-in-the-19th-century.html
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http://www.gramota.net/materials/2/2013/12-1/62.html