Характеристика английского общества по произведению Голсуорси "Портрет"

The aim. The aim of my report is to tell you about the peculiarities of the English society in the end of the19th-beggining of the20th century using a novel «A portrait» by John Galsworthy, because the author has shown us some characteristics of Great Britain in the whole.
b) My tasks are to find out: a) the attitude of the English society toward the economics in the end of the19th-beggining of the20th century b) the attitude of the English society toward the Arts in the end of the19th-beggining of the20th century c) the attitude of the English society toward the appearance in the end of the19th-beggining of the20th century d) the attitude of the English society toward the friendship in the end of the19th-beggining of the20th centyry e) the attitude of the English society toward the religion in the end of the19th-beggining of the20thcentury
I think that the topic of my report is a very actual topic nowadays. We live in a difficult world, where all the time we are in danger. To understand how to keep them out we must analyze the past. The literature always helps us settle down the history and avoid aftereffects of disaster in the future. Books are historical sources of a particular era. «A portrait» was compiled from original sources. John Goldsworthy, one of the greatest English writers, a master of books about social life. Reading the book we can characterize the English society of the 19th -20th centuries.
Galsworthy became known for his portrayal of the British upper middle class and for his social satire.
Galsworthy was a representative of the literary tradition, which has regarded the novel as an instrument of social debate. He believed that it was the duty of an artist to examine a problem, but not to provide a solution.
Author’s opinion about economy. It was rather by the laws of gravity, therefore, whereby money judiciously employed attracts money, and the fact that he lived in that money-maker's Golden Age, the nineteenth century, that he had long been (at the age of eighty) a wealthy man. Money was to him the symbol of a well-spent, well-ordered life, provocative of warmth in his heart because he loved his children, and was careful of them to a fault. Author’s opinion about poor people But "the poor," in bulk, were always to him the concern of the Poor Law pure and simple, and in no sense of the individual citizen. It was the same with malefactors, he might pity as well as condemn them, but the idea that the society to which he and they belonged was in any way responsible for them, would never have occurred to him. Attitude to music He loved indeed almost all classical music, but (besides Mozart) especially Beethoven, Gluck, and Meyerbeer, whom he insisted (no less than Herbert Spencer) on considering a great composer. Painting in his life. He loved the Old Masters of painting, having for favourites amongst the Italians: Rafael, Correggio, Titian, Tintoretto; and amongst Englishmen Reynolds and Romney. On the other hand, he regarded Hogarth and Rubens as coarse, but Vandyke he very much admired, because of his beautiful painting of hands, the hall-mark, he would maintain, of an artist's quality. I cannot remember his feeling about Rembrandt, but Turner he certainly distrusted as extravagant. Botticelli and the earlier masters he had not as yet quite learned to relish; and Impressionism, including Whistler, never really made conquest of his taste, though he always resolutely kept his mind open to what was modern - feeling himself young at heart. Literature in his life Yet his literary tastes were catholic; Milton was his favourite poet, Byron he also admired;Browning he did not care for; his favourite novelist was George Eliot, and, curiously enough - in later life - Turgenev The works of Dickens and Thackeray he read with appreciation, on the whole, finding the first perhaps a little too grotesque, and the second a little too satiric. Scott, Trollope, Marryat,Blackmore, Hardy, and Mark Twain also pleased him; but Meredith he thought too "misty."
appearance his dress was less varied than that of any man I have ever seen; but always neat and well-cut, for he went habitually to the best shops, and without eccentricity of any kind. He carried a repeating gold watch and thin round gold chain which passed, smooth and sinuous as a little snake, through a small black seal with a bird on it; and he never abandoned very well made side-spring boots friendship But in his long life he made singularly few fast friendships with grown-up people, and, as far as I know, no enemies. His most real and lifelong friendship was for a certain very big man with a profound hatred of humbug and a streak of "the desperate character" in him. They held each other in the highest esteem, or, as they would probably have put it, swore by one another; the one grumbling at, but reverencing, the other's high and resolute equanimity
religious though he said his prayers and went to church, he could not fairly have been called a religious man; for at the time when he formed his religious habits, "religion" had as yet received no shocks, and reigned triumphant over an unconscious nation whose spirit was sleeping; and when "religion," disturbed to its foundations, began to die, and people all round him were just becoming religious enough to renounce the beliefs they no longer held, he was too old to change, Yes, he was the son of a time between two ages - the product of an era without real faith - an individualist to the core.
conclusion Based on the novels by John Galsworthy, you can easily identify the main features of the person in England in the late 19th-early 20th centuries 1) The desire for an active business in the economy; 2) Anxious attitude to art and beauty of life; 3) Carefully thought-out appearance; 4) A sincere love for a friend who does not flaunt; 5) A deep regard for religion, imbued with the pagan sense of love for everything beautiful.