This document discusses the link between George Vizyenos' narrative style and Victorian literary realism. It provides historical context about the social changes resulting from the French Revolution and industrialization. Realistic Victorian literature emerged in this era, portraying everyday lives and characters from a range of social classes. The document analyzes how Vizyenos adopted conventions of realistic narrative, like suspense, complex characterization, and psychological insight, rather than romanticizing nature. He focused on revealing emotional truths behind real-life events and developing characters that change based on new understandings.

1. «Ο δεσμός της αφήγησης του Γεωργίου
Βιζυηνού με τον αφηγηματικό ρεαλισμό
της Βικτωριανής λογοτεχνίας»
"The link between George Vizyenos'
narrative and Victorian realism in
literature"
Διδακτική εφαρμογή του CLIL της Δημητρίας Δερτιλή ΠΕ06
σε συνεργασία με τη φιλόλογο Σταματίνα Τσιμπούκου
Καλλιτεχνικό Γυμνάσιο Αθήνας
2021-2022
Μάθημα Λογοτεχνίας/Αγγλικής Γλώσσας
Τμήματα: Γ1, Γ2
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2. Γαλλική Επανάσταση/Διαφωτισμός και Λογοτεχνία
French Revolution/Enlightenment and Literature
• realism began in the 1850s, a few decades after
the end of the French Revolution and was seen
as a shift from romanticism with its insistence on
beauty, love, nature, the subjective, the
irrational, the imaginative, the spontaneous, the
emotional, the visionary, and the transcendental
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3. The French Revolution
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4. Κοινωνικές Αλλαγές/Social Change
• changes in the structure of rural life and community.
Problems of industrialization and urbanization
• slavery was abolished
• population growth was followed by migration from rural
to urban areas
• the industrial revolution led to massive urbanization
• European imperialism: much of Asia and Africa under
colonial rule
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5. Κοινωνικές Αλλαγές/Social Change
• Science was dominant not religion
• the western European world was largely secular
• life became more comfortable for ordinary
people
• Britain became the world’s first urban society. By
mid 19th century more than half the population of
Britain lived in towns
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6. Victorian Realistic Literature
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7. Βικτωριανή ρεαλιστική λογοτεχνία
Victorian realistic literature
Η ρεαλιστική λογοτεχνία και η διαμόρφωσή της
The Realistic Novel and its Formation
1820-1914
• earlier literature: poetry based on aspects of
romanticism such as idealism, heroism,
aristocracy and beauty.
• the realistic narrative uses journalistic
techniques that portray real and valid events
• literature is closer to real life: facts and types of
human nature.
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8. Βικτωριανός Ρεαλισμός
Victorian Realism
• changes in class structure: the middle class expands
and people become literate
• The subject matter (themes) of realistic Victorian
literature illustrates the lives of working class people,
bringing to the forefront characters that the new rising
middle class could identify with
• printed literature becomes more accessible because of
the Industrial Revolution and the publishing of
newspapers
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9. Χαρακτηριστικά της βικτοριανής ρεαλιστικής λογοτεχνίας
Characteristics of the Realistic Victorian Literature
• highlights the presence
• reflects common action, was bold, presents details and valid
consequences
• simple direct language that presents issues of conduct
• the presentation of many social types
• portraying reality as something beyond human thought or speech
and the anxiety, frustration and desires that arise from trying to
verifiably understand it and present it
• separating the human mind from nature in its attempt to interpret
nature accurately
• plot was no longer central to the focus of the author, but rather
creating interesting and complex characters
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10. Η αγωνία/το σασπένς της αφήγησης
The narrative suspense
• narratives were an extremely popular style of writing
because of the suspense experienced by the readers
who had the urge to read further due to the tension and
anxiety the reading provoked
• the reader comes to the point of rejecting any previous
beliefs or assumptions experienced while reading as the
events of the plot overturn them
• The emotion of suspense recedes only after the truth is
untangled
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12. Vizyenos’ narrative technique
• Vizyenos abandons ethnography, the idyllic portrayal of
nature in order to focus on the complexity of characters
and the truth behind their real life events
• he introduces suspense by gradually releasing
information regarding the turn of events
• he employs the classical scheme: memory in terms of
flashbacks, initial events that culminate and are
overturned by the unraveling of the truth and finally the
emergence of a new situation through resolution
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13. • he employs the first-person narrative that enforces the
awareness of emotions and desires
• he creates suspense by providing parts of information via his
memory, only to do away with the delusions he has created
by revealing a secret towards the end
• his characters are like molds that change according to their
understanding of events. He has already understood the
plasticity of their brains and therefore the turning points of
their character. One explanation in connection with this is the
fact that he studied psychology in Germany. This justifies the
fact that he goes deeper into their psyche in order to retrieve
feelings, desires and the impulse behind their actions
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14. • Vizyenos' descriptions are not extensive nor do
they focus on nature, they regard characters as
the most important subject
• his short story ‘Το μόνον της ζωής του ταξείδιον’
recreates fragments of Vizyenos’ early years
and could be seen as a fragmentary
‘autobiographical’ novel
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15. Webography
• https://sites.udel.edu/britlitwiki/the-realistic-
novel-in-the-victorian-era/
• https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/features/how-
did-the-french-revolution-affect-england
• https://www.historyhit.com/enlightenment-ideas-
that-changed-the-world/
• https://www.greek-
language.gr/digitalResources/literature/education/l
iterature_history/search.html?details=24
• https://free.openeclass.org/modules/document/ind
ex.php?course=HUM119&download=/5275645dzxi1
/52756564hie4.doc
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