# data[].attributes.headline
I Big Data e gli algoritmi. Non staremo esagerando?

# data[].attributes.subject
I Big Data e gli algoritmi. Non staremo esagerando?

# data[].attributes.body
E' giusto che le macchine decidano per noi?  In cosa o in chi dovremmo credere?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The question of how much power algorithms have over our lives has a topical edge. Already there are lines of code that tell us what to watch, whom to date, and even whom to send to jail. In Hello World: Being Human in the Age of Algorithms British mathematician Hannah Fry takes us inside that world and asks: Are we in danger of losing our humanity?

When National Geographic caught up with Fry in New York City during her book tour, the author explained why Gary Kasparov's defeat by IBM's Deep Blue was such a defining moment, how algorithms used in the justice system can have racial bias, and why the 2016 election should be a wake-up call for our democracy.

You begin the book with the victory of IBM's Deep Blue over chess-master Gary Kasparov in 1997. Why was that such an important moment?

What happened with Gary Kasparov was a watershed moment in this history. He was at that point in time the greatest chess player the world had ever seen. I spoke to a lot of chess grand masters and they described him as a tornado; he'd walk into the room and everyone would be pinned to the sides because his aura was so intimidating. The man was a chess god.

IBM had built a machine that could play chess, something people had long wanted to do but had always thought was beyond the abilities of a computer. There were two sets of matches. The important one in 1997 when the computer beat Kasparov was this moment when everyone sat up and had to reevaluate what they thought computers were capable of, as well as our unique capabilities as humans.

But the real reason why Kasparov was beaten by the machine wasn't really that the machine was better at chess. Most people accept that at that time Kasparov was still better than the machine. It was because he allowed himself to be intimidated by the machine. He started second-guessing how much the machine knew and allowed that to psyche him out. That was what ultimately led to his downfall.

There's a moral in that story that applies today just as much as it did back in 1997. With all of the new technology that is exploding at the moment, especially artificial intelligence and machine learning, there is this question about how much we're trusting those machines and how much power we are giving over to them, and how much our human flaws around trust and power will come into play in the future.

Two tech companies hit the news this year: Cambridge Analytica and Facebook. A new book by American academic Kathleen Hall Jamieson suggests that they, and the Russians, helped sway the election for Donald Trump. Do you agree?

For quite a while now companies have known that harvesting our data can be extremely profitable. If you understand who your customers are you can predict what they will do, and use that prediction to subtly manipulate their behavior, usually to make us buy more stuff. Supermarkets have been doing this for a long time. But what Facebook has been able to do, because they have access to really personal information, is not just about what's in our shopping baskets; it's who we are and what we like, how we speak to each other. If you have access to that information, that's an incredibly powerful thing.

What Cambridge Analytica was doing went one step further, by trying to work out our personality types and serve us up adverts as a way of manipulating our greatest hopes and fears. One example was a pro-gun lobby message targeting single mothers who were neurotic in nature. They would then serve them up adverts about someone breaking into their homes in the middle of the night and the need for protection.

As to whether any of that made a difference in the outcome of the election, it's really hard to tell because so much of this stuff went on under the surface. But given how tight the election was, where in some states Trump won by a few thousand votes, I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibility. That is a worrying thing. We need to be concerned about how much power these algorithms now have, that they can potentially change the rules of democracy.

Driverless cars are in the news. One of the biggest challenges is creating cars that don't just see their surroundings-but perceive them like we do and even make "compassionate" decisions. Will that ever be possible?

Technically, yes. Whether that's what we want to happen is another question altogether because you're referencing something called the trolley problem. The idea is that a driverless car is heading down the road and a truck in front of it sheds its load, and this car has to make decisions. Swerve one way and drive into oncoming traffic and kill the driver in the car, or swerve the other way and save everyone in the car but take out some pedestrians.

When this moral dilemma was initially posed the point was to say that there are some questions where you can't just apply straightforward logic to find one right answer. There are some questions that just don't have a right answer. So, I'm not convinced that we're ever going to find ourselves in a situation where driverless cars are in amongst all of the other vehicles, noise, and chaos you find on the road.

It will come as a surprise to some of our readers, as it did to me, that algorithms are used extensively in the justice system. Can biases be corrected with the help of machine learning?

Algorithms have been used in courtrooms for a long time, dating back to the 1930s. The idea is, you're trying to make a prediction as to whether or not an individual is going to go on to commit a crime in the future. Whether you like it or not, the judge has to decide whether the person who stands in front of him or her will commit another crime when they are released onto the street. And there are these algorithms that can make more accurate predictions than humans are able to.

There was a big news story by investigative journalists at Propublica.com in 2017, where they took one of these algorithms and demonstrated that the way the algorithm makes mistakes isn't necessarily the same for every individual. They showed that, if you are a black defendant, the algorithm is more likely to incorrectly say you are at high risk of committing another crime than if you are white.

Algorithms are also increasingly used in medicine. Talk us through some of the applications, and the ethical issues that arise.

One of the positive stories about how algorithms are being used in medicine is in the case of cancer diagnosis. This is an example of where people are not putting too much power in the algorithm's hands. It's mainly based on image recognition, where an algorithm looks at a biopsy slide and detects whether or not there are tiny tumors hiding amongst the cells.

There are other examples where these algorithms are being used in diagnosis. There is an app that has gained a lot of press in the UK called Babylon Health, which is being used by the National Health Service to help simplify the diagnosis process. You log on and talk to this chat box, which will give you information and advice about your condition and then filter your inquiry to a relevant healthcare worker.

This sounds like a dream, if you can make healthcare more affordable and easy to access, not just for people in the Western world but in developing countries, too. But there's a slight problem, which is that I don't think these technologies are quite as good as they claim to be. They still make a lot of mistakes. An interesting example about Babylon was when someone went on to the diagnosis chat box and said that they had a hurt elbow and the chat box eventually diagnosed that they had redness around the genitals. [laughs] So there were all these jokes online about how the bot didn't know its ass from its elbow. [laughs]

The fact is, there's nothing more private and personal than your medical data, particularly when it comes to your DNA. All these algorithms require huge amounts of data to be able to work. The question is, who owns your data and are you complicit in giving up your right to that data? I don't think we're at the point yet where we know how to navigate these issues, protecting people's privacy while shooting for a more positive future.

As well as positive applications, your book is packed with stories of the harm that algorithms can do. Describe those for us.

The harm occurs when algorithms are given too much power. Returning to the example of algorithms being used in courtrooms, there are all these issues of bias. But there's also the fact that these algorithms end up making mistakes. One example is a young man called Christopher Drew Brooks. He was a 19-year-old man from Virginia convicted of the statutory rape of a 14-year-old girl. They had been having a consensual relationship, but nonetheless she was under age, so he was convicted of a crime. During his trial an algorithm assessed his likelihood of re-offending. Being that he was only 19 years old, and was already committing sexual offenses, it concluded that there was a high chance he was going to return to a life of crime and it recommended he be given something like 18 months in jail.

That demonstrates how these algorithms can be illogical. This particular algorithm placed a lot of weight on age. But if Christopher Drew Brooks had been 36 years old, rather than 19, making him 22 years older than his victim, which by any metric makes the crime much worse, the algorithm would have considered him a low risk of re-offending, thus escaping jail entirely. You would hope in that kind of situation a judge would see the flaws of the algorithm and know to overrule it. But in that particular case, and in many others like it, we're not seeing people standing up and trusting their own instincts over that of the algorithms. In this case, Christopher Drew Brooks's sentence was increased on the say-so of the algorithm. That's where the problems come in. Algorithms make mistakes and they can make calamitous mistakes. If we're giving them power without a human thinking about the context and nuance of the situation, I think we are asking for trouble.

You write at the end of the book, "In the age of the algorithm, humans have never been more important." Explain that idea for us, and the issues we may face going forward.

Ultimately, this isn't a book about algorithms; this is a book about humans. It's about how we fit into our own future, about how technology is changing the rules of how we are speaking to each other, democracy, medicine, policing, and justice. Everything is changing and it's about how we need to take more control over our own future and decide how much power we want to give up. It's also about how we're not at that stage where humans are taken out of the picture. I don't think the discussion should be about humans versus machines. The discussion should be about partnership of humans and machines together, about shaking hands with this new technology and embracing its flaws as well as acknowledging that we have flaws ourselves, and working out that partnership, a shared journey of possibilities for the future that exploits each other's strengths as much as possible.
This interview was edited for length and clarity. Simon Worrall curates Book Talk. Follow him on Twitter or at simonworrallauthor.com.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Big data gone wild: How algorithms hurt and help humans

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The question of how much power algorithms have over our lives has a topical edge. Already there are lines of code that tell us what to watch, whom to date, and even whom to send to jail.

# data[].attributes.body
In un mondo invaso da informazioni irrilevanti, la lucidità è potere. La censura non opera bloccando il flusso di informazioni, ma inondando le persone di disinformazione e distrazioni. «21 lezioni per il XXI secolo» si fa largo in queste acque torbide e affronta alcune delle questioni più urgenti dell'agenda globale contemporanea. Perché la democrazia liberale è in crisi? Dio è tornato? Si prospetta una nuova guerra mondiale? Che cosa significa l'ascesa di Donald Trump? Che cosa si può fare per contrastare l'epidemia di notizie false? Quale civiltà domina il mondo: l'Occidente, la Cina o l'islam? L'Europa deve tenere le porte aperte ai migranti? I nazionalismi possono risolvere i problemi legati all'ineguaglianza e ai cambiamenti climatici? Che fare per arginare il terrorismo? Che cosa dobbiamo insegnare ai nostri figli? Miliardi di persone possono a stento permettersi il lusso di approfondire simili questioni, perché pressate da ben altre urgenze: andare al lavoro, prendersi cura dei figli o dei genitori anziani. Purtroppo la storia non fa sconti. Se il futuro dell'umanità viene deciso in vostra assenza, perché siete troppo occupati a dar da mangiare e a vestire i vostri bambini, voi e loro ne subirete comunque le conseguenze. Certo è molto ingiusto; ma chi ha mai detto che la storia sia giusta? Un libro non dà alle persone cibo o vestiti, però può offrire un po' di chiarezza, contribuendo ad appianare le differenze a livello globale.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
21 lezioni per il XXI secolo - Yuval Noah Harari - Libro - Bompiani - Saggi Bompiani | IBS

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
21 lezioni per il XXI secolo è un libro di Yuval Noah Harari pubblicato da Bompiani nella collana Saggi Bompiani: acquista su IBS a 24.00€!

# data[].attributes.headline
Come gli algoritmi e i media influenzano le nostre opinioni: 

# data[].attributes.subject
Come gli algoritmi e i media influenzano le nostre opinioni: 

# data[].attributes.body
Ecco alcune letture consigliate a tal proposito:

Lungi dall'essere modelli matematici oggettivi e trasparenti, gli algoritmi che ormai dominano la nostra quotidianità iperconnessa sono spesso vere e proprie "armi di distruzione matematica": non tengono conto di variabili fondamentali, incorporano pregiudizi e se sbagliano non offrono possibilità di appello. Queste armi pericolose giudicano insegnanti e studenti, vagliano curricula, stabiliscono se concedere o negare prestiti, valutano l'operato dei lavoratori, influenzano gli elettori, monitorano la nostra salute. Basandosi su case studies nei campi più disparati ma che appartengono alla vita di ognuno di noi, O'Neil espone i rischi della discriminazione algoritmica a favore di modelli matematici più equi ed etici. Perché rivestire i pregiudizi di un'apparenza statistica non li rende meno pregiudizi.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Armi di distruzione matematica. Come i big data aumentano la disuguaglianza e minacciano la democrazia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Lungi dall'essere modelli matematici oggettivi e trasparenti, gli algoritmi che ormai dominano la nostra quotidianità iperconnessa sono spesso vere e proprie "armi di distruzione matematica": non tengono conto di variabili fondamentali, incorporano pregiudizi e se sbagliano non offrono possibilità di appello.

# data[].attributes.headline
Perchè credere? E' più razionale chi crede o chi si professa ateo?  

# data[].attributes.subject
Perchè credere? E' più razionale chi crede o chi si professa ateo?  

# data[].attributes.body
La fede vista da chi ne ha fatto il perno della propria vita

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
God vs. Atheism: Which is More Rational?

# data[].attributes.headline
XXI° SECOLO: Riflessioni su Dio e sull'ateismo.

# data[].attributes.subject
XXI° SECOLO: Riflessioni su Dio e sull'ateismo.

# data[].attributes.body
<<You're always born into the right God>>.

# data[].attributes.headline
Dio esiste? Se si come si conosce: Attraverso la fede o la ragione?

# data[].attributes.subject
Dio esiste? Se si come si conosce: Attraverso la fede o la ragione?

# data[].attributes.body
Explained by Pearson

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Daniel Defoe (; born Daniel Foe; c. 1660 - 24 April 1731) was an English writer, trader, journalist, pamphleteer and spy. He is most famous for his novel Robinson Crusoe, published in 1719, which is claimed to be second only to the Bible in its number of translations. He has been seen as one of the earliest proponents of the English novel, and helped to popularise the form in Britain with others such as Aphra Behn and Samuel Richardson. Defoe wrote many political tracts, was often in trouble with the authorities, and spent a period in prison. Intellectuals and political leaders paid attention to his fresh ideas and sometimes consulted him.

Defoe was a prolific and versatile writer, producing more than three hundred works-books, pamphlets, and journals - on diverse topics, including politics, crime, religion, marriage, psychology, and the supernatural. He was also a pioneer of business journalism and economic journalism.

Daniel Foe (his original name) was probably born in Fore Street in the parish of St Giles Cripplegate, London. Defoe later added the aristocratic-sounding "De" to his name, and on occasion made the false claim of descent from a family named De Beau Faux. "De" is also a common prefix in Flemish surnames. His birthdate and birthplace are uncertain, and sources offer dates from 1659 to 1662, with the summer or early autumn of 1660 considered the most likely. His father, James Foe, was a prosperous tallow chandler of Flemish descent, and a member of the Worshipful Company of Butchers. In Defoe's early childhood, he experienced some of the most unusual occurrences in English history: in 1665, 70,000 were killed by the Great Plague of London, and the next year, the Great Fire of London left only Defoe's and two other houses standing in his neighbourhood. In 1667, when he was probably about seven, a Dutch fleet sailed up the Medway via the River Thames and attacked the town of Chatham in the raid on the Medway. His mother, Alice, had died by the time he was about ten.

Defoe was educated at the Rev. James Fisher's boarding school in Pixham Lane in Dorking, Surrey. His parents were Presbyterian dissenters, and around the age of 14, he was sent to Charles Morton's dissenting academy at Newington Green, then a village just north of London, where he is believed to have attended the Dissenting church there. He lived on Church Street, Stoke Newington, at what is now nos. 95-103. During this period, the English government persecuted those who chose to worship outside the Church of England.

Defoe entered the world of business as a general merchant, dealing at different times in hosiery, general woollen goods, and wine. His ambitions were great and he was able to buy a country estate and a ship (as well as civets to make perfume), though he was rarely out of debt. On 1 January 1684, Defoe married Mary Tuffley at St Botolph's Aldgate. She was the daughter of a London merchant, and brought with her a dowry of £3,700-a huge amount by the standards of the day. Given his debts and political difficulties, the marriage may have been troubled, but it lasted 47 years and produced eight children.

In 1685, Defoe joined the ill-fated Monmouth Rebellion but gained a pardon, by which he escaped the Bloody Assizes of Judge George Jeffreys. Queen Mary and her husband William III were jointly crowned in 1689, and Defoe became one of William's close allies and a secret agent. Some of the new policies led to conflict with France, thus damaging prosperous trade relationships for Defoe. In 1692, he was arrested for debts of £700 and, in the face of total debts that may have amounted to £17,000, was forced to declare bankruptcy. He died with little wealth and evidently embroiled in lawsuits with the royal treasury.

Following his release from debtors' prison, he probably travelled in Europe and Scotland, and it may have been at this time that he traded wine to Cadiz, Porto and Lisbon. By 1695, he was back in England, now formally using the name "Defoe" and serving as a "commissioner of the glass duty", responsible for collecting taxes on bottles. In 1696, he ran a tile and brick factory in what is now Tilbury in Essex and lived in the parish of Chadwell St Mary.

As many as 545 titles have been attributed to Defoe, including satirical poems, political and religious pamphlets, and volumes.

Defoe's first notable publication was An Essay Upon Projects, a series of proposals for social and economic improvement, published in 1697. From 1697 to 1698, he defended the right of King William III to a standing army during disarmament, after the Treaty of Ryswick (1697) had ended the Nine Years' War (1688-1697). His most successful poem, The True-Born Englishman (1701), defended William against xenophobic attacks from his political enemies in England, and English anti-immigration sentiments more generally. In 1701, Defoe presented the Legion's Memorial to Robert Harley, then Speaker of the House of Commons -and his subsequent employer-while flanked by a guard of sixteen gentlemen of quality. It demanded the release of the Kentish petitioners, who had asked Parliament to support the king in an imminent war against France.

The death of William III in 1702 once again created a political upheaval, as the king was replaced by Queen Anne who immediately began her offensive against Nonconformists. Defoe was a natural target, and his pamphleteering and political activities resulted in his arrest and placement in a pillory on 31 July 1703, principally on account of his December 1702 pamphlet entitled The Shortest-Way with the Dissenters; Or, Proposals for the Establishment of the Church, purporting to argue for their extermination. In it, he ruthlessly satirised both the high church Tories and those Dissenters who hypocritically practised so-called "occasional conformity", such as his Stoke Newington neighbour Sir Thomas Abney. It was published anonymously, but the true authorship was quickly discovered and Defoe was arrested. He was charged with seditious libel and found guilty in a trial at the Old Bailey in front of the notoriously sadistic judge Salathiel Lovell. Lovell sentenced him to a punitive fine of 200 marks (£336 then, £60,544 in 2023), to public humiliation in a pillory, and to an indeterminate length of imprisonment which would only end upon the discharge of the punitive fine. According to legend, the publication of his poem Hymn to the Pillory caused his audience at the pillory to throw flowers instead of the customary harmful and noxious objects and to drink to his health. The truth of this story is questioned by most scholars, although John Robert Moore later said that "no man in England but Defoe ever stood in the pillory and later rose to eminence among his fellow men".

"Wherever God erects a house of prayer
the Devil always builds a chapel there;
And 't will be found, upon examination,
the latter has the largest congregation."

- Defoe's The True-Born Englishman, 1701

After his three days in the pillory, Defoe went into Newgate Prison. Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer, brokered his release in exchange for Defoe's cooperation as an intelligence agent for the Tories. In exchange for such cooperation with the rival political side, Harley paid some of Defoe's outstanding debts, improving his financial situation considerably.

Within a week of his release from prison, Defoe witnessed the Great Storm of 1703, which raged through the night of 26/27 November. It caused severe damage to London and Bristol, uprooted millions of trees, and killed more than 8,000 people, mostly at sea. The event became the subject of Defoe's (1704), which includes a collection of witness accounts of the tempest. Many regard it as one of the world's first examples of modern journalism.

In the same year, he set up his periodical A Review of the Affairs of France, which supported the Harley Ministry, chronicling the events of the War of the Spanish Succession (1702-1714). The Review ran three times a week without interruption until 1713. Defoe was amazed that a man as gifted as Harley left vital state papers lying in the open, and warned that he was almost inviting an unscrupulous clerk to commit treason; his warnings were fully justified by the William Gregg affair.

When Harley was ousted from the ministry in 1708, Defoe continued writing the Review to support Godolphin, then again to support Harley and the Tories in the Tory ministry of 1710-1714. The Tories fell from power with the death of Queen Anne, but Defoe continued doing intelligence work for the Whig government, writing "Tory" pamphlets that undermined the Tory point of view.

Not all of Defoe's pamphlet writing was political. One pamphlet was originally published anonymously, entitled A True Relation of the Apparition of One Mrs. Veal the Next Day after her Death to One Mrs. Bargrave at Canterbury the 8th of September, 1705. It deals with the interaction between the spiritual realm and the physical realm and was most likely written in support of Charles Drelincourt's The Christian Defence against the Fears of Death (1651). It describes Mrs. Bargrave's encounter with her old friend Mrs. Veal after she had died. It is clear from this piece and other writings that the political portion of Defoe's life was by no means his only focus.

In despair during his imprisonment for the seditious libel case, Defoe wrote to William Paterson, the London Scot and founder of the Bank of England and part instigator of the Darien scheme, who was in the confidence of Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer, leading minister and spymaster in the English government. Harley accepted Defoe's services and released him in 1703. He immediately published The Review, which appeared weekly, then three times a week, written mostly by himself. This was the main mouthpiece of the English Government promoting the Act of Union 1707.

Defoe began his campaign in The Review and other pamphlets aimed at English opinion, claiming that it would end the threat from the north, gaining for the Treasury an "inexhaustible treasury of men", a valuable new market increasing the power of England. By September 1706, Harley ordered Defoe to Edinburgh as a secret agent to do everything possible to help secure acquiescence in the Treaty of Union. He was conscious of the risk to himself. Thanks to books such as The Letters of Daniel Defoe (edited by G. H. Healey, Oxford 1955), far more is known about his activities than is usual with such agents.

His first reports included vivid descriptions of violent demonstrations against the Union. "A Scots rabble is the worst of its kind", he reported. Years later John Clerk of Penicuik, a leading Unionist, wrote in his memoirs that it was not known at the time that Defoe had been sent by Godolphin :

... to give a faithful account to him from time to time how everything past here. He was therefor a spy among us, but not known to be such, otherways the Mob of Edin. had pull him to pieces.

Defoe was a Presbyterian who had suffered in England for his convictions, and as such he was accepted as an adviser to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and committees of the Parliament of Scotland. He told Harley that he was "privy to all their folly" but "Perfectly unsuspected as with corresponding with anybody in England". He was then able to influence the proposals that were put to Parliament and reported,

Having had the honour to be always sent for the committee to whom these amendments were referrèd,
I have had the good fortune to break their measures in two particulars via the bounty on Corn and
proportion of the Excise.

For Scotland, he used different arguments, even the opposite of those which he used in England, usually ignoring the English doctrine of the Sovereignty of Parliament, for example, telling the Scots that they could have complete confidence in the guarantees in the Treaty. Some of his pamphlets were purported to be written by Scots, misleading even reputable historians into quoting them as evidence of Scottish opinion of the time. The same is true of a massive history of the Union which Defoe published in 1709 and which some historians still treat as a valuable contemporary source for their own works. Defoe took pains to give his history an air of objectivity by giving some space to arguments against the Union but always having the last word for himself.

He disposed of the main Union opponent, Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, by ignoring him. Nor does he account for the deviousness of the Duke of Hamilton, the official leader of the various factions opposed to the Union, who seemingly betrayed his former colleagues when he switched to the Unionist/Government side in the decisive final stages of the debate.

In 1709, Defoe authored a rather lengthy book entitled The History of the Union of Great Britain, an Edinburgh publication printed by the Heirs of Anderson. The book cites Defoe twice as being its author and gives details leading up to the Acts of Union 1707 by means of presenting information that dates all the way back to 6 December 1604 when King James I was presented with a proposal for unification. And so, such so-called "first draft" for unification took place just a little over 100 years before the signing of the 1707 accord, which respectively preceded the commencement of Robinson Crusoe by another ten years.

Defoe made no attempt to explain why the same Parliament of Scotland which was so vehement for its independence from 1703 to 1705 became so supine in 1706. He received very little reward from his paymasters and of course no recognition for his services by the government. He made use of his Scottish experience to write his Tour thro' the whole Island of Great Britain, published in 1726, where he admitted that the increase of trade and population in Scotland which he had predicted as a consequence of the Union was "not the case, but rather the contrary".

Defoe's description of Glasgow (Glaschu) as a "Dear Green Place" has often been misquoted as a Gaelic translation for the town's name. The Gaelic Glas could mean grey or green, while chu means dog or hollow. Glaschu probably means "Green Hollow". The "Dear Green Place", like much of Scotland, was a hotbed of unrest against the Union. The local Tron minister urged his congregation "to up and anent for the City of God".

The "Dear Green Place" and "City of God" required government troops to put down the rioters tearing up copies of the Treaty at almost every mercat cross in Scotland. When Defoe visited in the mid-1720s, he claimed that the hostility towards his party was "because they were English and because of the Union, which they were almost universally exclaimed against".[citation needed ]

The extent and particulars are widely contested concerning Defoe's writing in the period from the Tory fall in 1714 to the publication of Robinson Crusoe in 1719. Defoe comments on the tendency to attribute tracts of uncertain authorship to him in his apologia Appeal to Honour and Justice (1715), a defence of his part in Harley's Tory ministry (1710-1714). Other works that anticipate his novelistic career include The Family Instructor (1715), a conduct manual on religious duty; Minutes of the Negotiations of Monsr. Mesnager (1717), in which he impersonates Nicolas Mesnager, the French plenipotentiary who negotiated the Treaty of Utrecht (1713); and A Continuation of the Letters Writ by a Turkish Spy (1718), a satire of European politics and religion, ostensibly written by a Muslim in Paris.

From 1719 to 1724, Defoe published the novels for which he is famous (see below). In the final decade of his life, he also wrote conduct manuals, including Religious Courtship (1722), The Complete English Tradesman (1726) and The New Family Instructor (1727). He published a number of books decrying the breakdown of the social order, such as The Great Law of Subordination Considered (1724) and Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business (1725) and works on the supernatural, like The Political History of the Devil (1726), A System of Magick (1727) and An Essay on the History and Reality of Apparitions (1727). His works on foreign travel and trade include A General History of Discoveries and Improvements (1727) and Atlas Maritimus and Commercialis (1728). Perhaps his most significant work, apart from the novels, is A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain (1724-1727), which provided a panoramic survey of British trade on the eve of the Industrial Revolution.

Published in 1726, The Complete English Tradesman is an example of Defoe's political works. In the work, Defoe discussed the role of the tradesman in England in comparison to tradesmen internationally, arguing that the British system of trade is far superior. Defoe also implied that trade was the backbone of the British economy: "estate's a pond, but trade's a spring." In the work, Defoe praised the practicality of trade not only within the economy but the social stratification as well. Defoe argued that most of the British gentry was at one time or another inextricably linked with the institution of trade, either through personal experience, marriage or genealogy. Oftentimes younger members of noble families entered into trade, and marriages to a tradesman's daughter by a nobleman was also common. Overall, Defoe demonstrated a high respect for tradesmen, being one himself.

Not only did Defoe elevate individual British tradesmen to the level of gentleman, but he praised the entirety of British trade as a superior system to other systems of trade. Trade, Defoe argues, is a much better catalyst for social and economic change than war. Defoe also argued that through the expansion of the British Empire and British mercantile influence, Britain would be able to "increase commerce at home" through job creations and increased consumption. He wrote in the work that increased consumption, by laws of supply and demand, increases production and in turn raises wages for the poor therefore lifting part of British society further out of poverty.

Published when Defoe was in his late fifties, Robinson Crusoe relates the story of a man's shipwreck on a desert island for twenty-eight years and his subsequent adventures. Throughout its episodic narrative, Crusoe's struggles with faith are apparent as he bargains with God in times of life-threatening crises, but time and again he turns his back after his deliverances. He is finally content with his lot in life, separated from society, following a more genuine conversion experience.

In the opening pages of The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, the author describes how Crusoe settled in Bedfordshire, married and produced a family, and that when his wife died, he went off on these further adventures. Bedford is also the place where the brother of "H. F." in A Journal of the Plague Year retired to avoid the danger of the plague, so that by implication, if these works were not fiction, Defoe's family met Crusoe in Bedford, from whence the information in these books was gathered. Defoe went to school Newington Green with a friend named Caruso.

The novel has been assumed to be based in part on the story of the Scottish castaway Alexander Selkirk, who spent four years stranded in the Juan Fernández Islands, but his experience is inconsistent with the details of the narrative. The island Selkirk lived on, Más a Tierra (Closer to Land) was renamed Robinson Crusoe Island in 1966. It has been supposed that Defoe may have also been inspired by a translation of a book by the Andalusian-Arab Muslim polymath Ibn Tufail, who was known as "Abubacer" in Europe. The Latin edition was entitled Philosophus Autodidactus; Simon Ockley published an English translation in 1708, entitled The improvement of human reason, exhibited in the life of Hai ebn Yokdhan.

Defoe's next novel was Captain Singleton (1720), an adventure story whose first half covers a traversal of Africa which anticipated subsequent discoveries by David Livingstone and whose second half taps into the contemporary fascination with piracy. The novel has been commended for its sensitive depiction of the close relationship between the hero and his religious mentor, Quaker William Walters. Its description of the geography of Africa and some of its fauna does not use the language or knowledge of a fiction writer and suggests an eyewitness experience.

Memoirs of a Cavalier (1720) is set during the Thirty Years' War and the English Civil War.

A Journal of the Plague Year, published in 1722, can be read both as novel and as nonfiction. It is an account of the Great Plague of London in 1665, which is undersigned by the initials "H. F.", suggesting the author's uncle Henry Foe as its primary source. It is a historical account of the events based on extensive research and written as if by an eyewitness, even though Defoe was only about five years old when it occurred.

Colonel Jack (1722) follows an orphaned boy from a life of poverty and crime to prosperity in the colonies, military and marital imbroglios, and religious conversion, driven by a problematic notion of becoming a "gentleman."

Also in 1722, Defoe wrote Moll Flanders, another first-person picaresque novel of the fall and eventual redemption, both material and spiritual, of a lone woman in 17th-century England. The titular heroine appears as a whore, bigamist, and thief, lives in The Mint, commits adultery and incest, and yet manages to retain the reader's sympathy. Her savvy manipulation of both men and wealth earns her a life of trials but ultimately an ending in reward. Although Moll struggles with the morality of some of her actions and decisions, religion seems to be far from her concerns throughout most of her story. However, like Robinson Crusoe, she finally repents. Moll Flanders is an important work in the development of the novel, as it challenged the common perception of femininity and gender roles in 18th-century British society. More recently it has come to be misunderstood as an example of erotica.

Defoe's final novel, Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress (1724), which narrates the moral and spiritual decline of a high society courtesan, differs from other Defoe works because the main character does not exhibit a conversion experience, even though she claims to be a penitent later in her life, at the time that she is relating her story.[citation needed ]

In Defoe's writings, especially in his fiction, are traits that can be seen across his works. Defoe was well known for his didacticism, with most of his works aiming to convey a message of some kind to the readers (typically a moral one, stemming from his religious background). Connected to Defoe's didacticism is his use of the genre of spiritual autobiography, particularly in Robinson Crusoe. Another common feature of Defoe's fictional works is that he claimed them to be the true stories of their subjects.

Defoe is known to have used at least 198 pen names. It was a very common practice in eighteenth-century novel publishing to initially publish works under a pen name, with most other authors at the time publishing their works anonymously. As a result of the anonymous ways in which most of his works were published, it has been a challenge for scholars over the years to properly credit Defoe for all of the works that he wrote in his lifetime. If counting only works that Defoe published under his own name, or his known pen name "the author of the True-Born Englishman," there would be about 75 works that could be attributed to him.[citation needed ]

Beyond these 75 works, scholars have used a variety of strategies to determine what other works should be attributed to Defoe. Writer George Chalmers was the first to begin the work of attributing anonymously published works to Defoe. In History of the Union, he created an expanded list with over a hundred titles that he attributed to Defoe, alongside twenty additional works that he designated as "Books which are supposed to be De Foe's." Chalmers included works in his canon of Defoe that were particularly in line with his style and way of thinking, and ultimately attributed 174 works to Defoe.[citation needed ]

Biographer P. N. Furbank and W. R. Owens built upon this canon, also relying on what they believed could be Defoe's work, without a means to be absolutely certain. In the Cambridge History of English Literature, the section on Defoe by author William P. Trent attributes 370 works to Defoe. J.R. Moore generated the largest list of Defoe's work, with approximately five hundred and fifty works that he attributed to Defoe.

Defoe died on 24 April 1731, probably while in hiding from his creditors. He was often in debtors' prison. The cause of his death was labelled as lethargy, but he probably experienced a stroke. He was interred in Bunhill Fields (today Bunhill Fields Burial and Gardens), just outside the medieval boundaries of the City of London, in what is now the Borough of Islington, where a monument was erected to his memory in 1870.

An Essay Upon Projects (1697) - subsections of the text include: "The History of Projects," "Of Projectors," "Of Banks," "Of the Highways," "Of Assurances," "Of Friendly Societies," "The Proposal is for a Pension Office," "Of Wagering," "Of Fools," "A Charity-Lottery," "Of Bankrupts," "Of Academies" (including a section proposing an academy for women), "Of a Court Merchant," and "Of Seamen."

The Storm (1704) - describes the worst storm ever to hit Britain in recorded times. Includes eyewitness accounts.

Atlantis Major (1711)

The Family Instructor (1715)

Memoirs of the Church of Scotland (1717)

The History of the Remarkable Life of John Sheppard (1724) - describing Sheppard's life of crime and concluding with the miraculous escapes from prison for which he had become a public sensation.

A Narrative of All The Robberies, Escapes, &c. of John Sheppard (1724) - written by or taken from Sheppard himself in the condemned cell before he was hanged for theft, apparently by way of conclusion to the Defoe work. According to the Introduction to Volume 16 of the works of Defoe published by J M Dent in 1895, Sheppard handed the manuscript to the publisher Applebee from the prisoners' cart as he was taken away to be hanged. It included a correction of a factual detail and an explanation of how his escapes from prison were achieved.

A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain, divided into circuits or journies (1724-1727)

A New Voyage Round the World (1724)

The Political History of the Devil (1726)

The Complete English Tradesman (1726)

A treatise concerning the use and abuse of the marriage bed... (1727)

A Plan of the English Commerce (1728) - describes how the English woolen textile industrial base was developed by protectionist policies by Tudor monarchs, especially by Henry VII of England and Elizabeth I, including such policies as high tariffs on the importation of finished woolen goods, high taxes on raw wool leaving England, bringing in artisans skilled in wool textile manufacturing from the Low Countries, selective government-granted monopoly rights, and government-sponsored industrial espionage.

Backscheider, Paula R. Daniel Defoe: His Life (1989).

Backscheider, Paula R. Daniel Defoe: Ambition and Innovation (UP of Kentucky, 2015).

Baines, Paul. Daniel Defoe-Robinson Crusoe/Moll Flanders (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).

Di Renzo, Anthony (October 1998). "The Complete English Tradesman: Daniel Defoe and the Emergence of Business Writing". Journal of Technical Writing and Communication. 28 (4): 325-334. doi:10.2190/TE72-JBN7-GNUT-BNUW. S2CID 219975268.

Furbank, P. N.; Owens, W. R. (2015). A Political Biography of Daniel Defoe. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-31567-4.

Gollapudi, Aparna (2015). "Personhood, Property Rights, and the Child in John Locke's Two Treatises of Government and Daniel Defoe's Fiction". Eighteenth-Century Fiction. 28 (1): 25-58. doi:10.3138/ecf.28.1.25. S2CID 145261485. Project MUSE 595356.

Gregg, Stephen H. Defoe's Writings and Manliness: Contrary Men (Routledge, 2016).

Guilhamet, Leon. Defoe and the Whig Novel: A Reading of the Major Fiction (U of Delaware Press, 2010).

Hammond, John R. ed. A Defoe companion (Macmillan, 1993).

Marshall, Ashley (2012). "Fabricating Defoes: From Anonymous Hack to Master of Fictions". Eighteenth-Century Life. 36 (2): 1-35. doi:10.1215/00982601-1548018. S2CID 144469998. Project MUSE 472272.

Novak, Maximillian E. Daniel Defoe: Master of Fictions: His Life and Ideas (2001) ISBN 978-0-19-812686-7

O'Brien, John (1996). "The Character of Credit: Defoe's "Lady Credit," The Fortunate Mistress, and the Resources of Inconsistency in Early Eighteenth-Century Britain". ELH. 63 (3): 603-631. doi:10.1353/elh.1996.0030. S2CID 162892432. Project MUSE 11339.

Novak, Maximillian E. Realism, myth, and history in Defoe's fiction (U of Nebraska Press, 1983).

Richetti, John. The Life of Daniel Defoe: A Critical Biography (2015).

Rogers, Pat (1971). "Defoe in the Fleet Prison". The Review of English Studies. 22 (88): 451-455. doi:10.1093/res/XXII.88.451. JSTOR 513276.

Sutherland, J.R. Defoe (Taylor & Francis, 1950)

Curtis, Laura Ann, ed. The Versatile Defoe: An Anthology of Uncollected Writings by Daniel Defoe (Rowman and Littlefield, 1979).

Defoe, Daniel. The Best of Defoe's Review: An Anthology (Columbia University Press, 1951).

W. R. Owens, and Philip Nicholas Furbank, eds. The True-Born Englishman and Other Writings (Penguin Books, 1997).

W. R. Owens, and Philip Nicholas Furbank, eds. Political and Economic Writings of Daniel Defoe (Pickering & Chatto, 2000).

W. R. Owens, and Philip Nicholas Furbank, eds. Writings on Travel, Discovery, and History (Pickering & Chatto, 2001-2002).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Daniel Defoe (; born Daniel Foe; c. 1660 - 24 April 1731) was an English writer, trader, journalist, pamphleteer and spy. He is most famous for his novel Robinson Crusoe , published in 1719, which is claimed to be second only to the Bible in its number of translations.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Definition

Neoclassical literature was written between 1660 and 1798. This time period is broken down into three parts: the Restoration period, the Augustan period, and the Age of Johnson.

Writers of the Neoclassical period tried to imitate the style of the Romans and Greeks. Thus the combination of the terms 'neo,' which means 'new,' and 'classical,' as in the day of the Roman and Greek classics. This was also the era of The Enlightenment, which emphasized logic and reason. It was preceded by The Renaissance and followed by the Romantic era. In fact, the Neoclassical period ended in 1798 when Wordsworth published the Romantic 'Lyrical Ballads'.

Neoclassical Era

Understanding the Neoclassical era helps us better understand its literature. This was a time of comfortableness in England. People would meet at coffee houses to chat about politics, among other topics, and sometimes drink a new, warm beverage made of chocolate! It was also the beginning of the British tradition of drinking afternoon tea. And it was the starting point of the middle class, and because of that, more people were literate.

People were very interested in appearances, but not necessarily in being genuine. Men and women commonly wore wigs, and being clever and witty was in vogue. Having good manners and doing the right thing, particularly in public, was essential. It was a time, too, of British political upheaval as eight monarchs took the throne.

Characteristics of Neoclassical Literature

Neoclassical literature is characterized by order, accuracy, and structure. In direct opposition to Renaissance attitudes, where man was seen as basically good, the Neoclassical writers portrayed man as inherently flawed. They emphasized restraint, self-control, and common sense. This was a time when conservatism flourished in both politics and literature.

Some popular types of literature included:

Three Stages

As I noted at the beginning, the Neoclassical period of literature can be divided into three distinct stages: the Restoration Period, the Augustan Period, and the Age of Johnson. We will take a look at some of the prominent writers in each of these stages.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
characteristics & movement - video & lesson transcript | study.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Neoclassical Literature: Definition, Characteristics & Movement - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Neoclassical literature was written between 1660 and 1798. This time period is broken down into three parts: the Restoration period, the Augustan period, and the Age of Johnson. Writers of the Neoclassical period tried to imitate the style of the Romans and Greeks.

# data[].attributes.body
Definition, Characteristics & Movement

# data[].attributes.body
Un breve video per capire a fondo ciò di cui stiamo parlando.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Greenhouse Effect Explained - Sixty Symbols

# data[].attributes.body
La professionalizzazione dell'intellettuale

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
La salubrità dell'aria: comprensione complessiva, analisi del testo e approfondimento del componimento di Giuseppe Parini (3 pagine formato doc)

LA SALUBRITA' DELL'ARIA: COMPRENSIONE

Analisi del Testo La salubrità dell'aria di Giuseppe Parini. Comprensione complessiva. Questo componimento fa parte del primo gruppo di Odi scritte da Giuseppe Parini.

La tematica principale di questo testo è la differenza di condizioni igienico-sanitarie e generalmente ambientali tra Bosisio e la Brianza con Milano. Il componimento si apre con la descrizione dei luoghi d'origine dell'autore, cioè Bosisio e dintorni.

Lì l'aria è pura e giova ai polmoni inquinati indeboliti dall'aria di città. Non arriva né lo Scirocco né la Tramontana perché le montagne che circondando il paese non lo permetteno. Non ci sono paludi di acqua stagnante che costituiscono la presenza di insetti portatori di malattie. L'unica acqua che c'è all'infuori dei laghi è quella della rugiada che viene asciugata la mattina con il Sole. A questo punto comincia la condanna dell'autore verso colui che ha provocato l'inquinamento di Milano, dimostrando egoismo non tenendo conto della comunità. Egli,secondo la legge del contrappasso, sarà punito a stare nei fanghi del fiume Stige, con il viso sommerso dalla melma e disperandosi per ciò che fece in passato per lucro. I coltivatori di riso nei dintorni di Milano sono definiti malati e l'autore si rivolge al cittadino chiedendogli di riflettere su questi problemi. Ora l'autore esprime il suo desiderio di passare le giornate dove il clima è piacevole, e dove, anche se lavorano, i contadini sono robusti e sani. Descrive la gente di campagna come gioiosa e felici della loro vita, che si accontentato di semplici cose. Ma anche Milano un tempo era così, cioè senza problemi di inquinamento, ma nessuno dei contadini, che pensavano solo ad arricchirsi hanno pensato di preservare questi doni. Oltre alle putride risaie, hanno deviato anche il corso dei torrenti per allagare i propri campi. In seguito descrive le strade della città di Milano: le definisce come fogne a cielo aperto, perché le persone gettano i contenuti dei vasi da notte per strada; carogne di animali che portano malattie e cattivi odori. Anche se dopo il tramonto, i netturbini puliscono tutti, l'indomani tutto ritorna come prima perché i cittadini non hanno rispetto delle leggi e non si rendono conto che se recano un danno alla comunità la recano a loro stessi. Infine l'autore si rivolge a se stesso domandandosi perché va così lontano da quella campagna pulita e salutare e si rivolge alla fantasia, identificandola come qualcosa di utile, cioè la denuncia dell'inquinamento.

LA SALUBRITA' DELL'ARIA: ANALISI METRICA PRIMA STROFA

Analisi ed interpretazione del testo. Il componimento è formato da 132 versi, divisi in 22 strofe di 6 versi ciascuna, o sestine. il metro usato è il settenario piano e le rime sono alternate nei primi 4 versi e baciate negli ultimi 2. Quindi lo schema delle rime è: ABABCC. A livello lessicale abbiamo la presenza di molte parole chiavi che richiamano il campo semantico della campagna e quello della città. Esse sono: terreno, monti, paese, paludi, cittade, cultori, villan, città ecc.... Poi abbiamo una serie di aggettivi opposti di significato che richiamano la differenza ambientale tra la città e la campagna come bel, orribil, fango, acque, etere vivace, putridi, fimo alto ecc.... Oltre a ciò l'autore usa molti termini aulici come austro, lucro, rubicondo, purgata, palagi, sublimi ecc.... Alcuni latinismi presenti nel testo sono: Eupili, egri, aere,onde, bieco, quivi, lari plebei, die ecc.... Una particolarità del testo è data dal fatto che l'autore, pur di non usare termini di stile basso, utilizza termini di quello alto che li richiamano indirettamente. Eccone alcuni esempi: spregiate crete per vaso da notte, pane per grano, languenti cultori per coltivatori malati, capi ignudi per persone indifese, Milano per i suoi cittadini, lari plebei per abitazione, schiena per catena Sono presenti due reminiscenze letterarie: l'espressione oh fortunate genti, che riprende Virgilio, e il termine atomi, che è un richiamo al De rerum natura di Lucrezio.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
La Salubrità Dell'aria Di Parini: Comprensione E Analisi Del Testo - Appunti di Italiano gratis Studenti.it

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
La salubrità dell'aria: comprensione complessiva, analisi del testo e approfondimento del componimento di Giuseppe Parini (3 pagine formato doc) Analisi del Testo La salubrità dell'aria di Giuseppe Parini. Comprensione complessiva. Questo componimento fa parte del primo gruppo di Odi scritte da Giuseppe Parini.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Giuseppe Parini (il cui cognome originario è Parino) nasce il 23 maggio 1729 nel paese di Bosisio (attualmente in provincia di Lecco) in una famiglia della piccola borghesia brianzola dedita al commercio della seta. Le difficili condizioni economiche imporrebbero a Giuseppe l'interruzione degli studi dopo le classi elementari, frequentate dal parroco di paese, ma una zia agiata offre il proprio aiuto, a condizione che il ragazzo prosegua gli studi religiosi, fino all' ordinazione a sacerdote, che arriverà nel 1754.

Gli studi tra Milano e Lodi non risolvono le ristrettezze familiari, tanto che - secondo quella che sarà quasi una costante dell'esistenza del poeta - Parini si vede costretto ad impegnarsi in altri lavori, soprattutto come insegnante, per guadagnarsi da vivere. Parallela è la carriera letteraria: nel 1752 sono pubblicate Alcune poesie di Ripano Eupilino, novantaquattro testi di argomento eterogeneo che si ispirano al giusto dell' Arcadia (come emerge dallo pseudonimo) e alla poesia cinquecentesca. Nel 1753, Parini viene ammesso all' Accademia dei Trasformati di Milano, istituzione patrocinata dalla famiglia nobile degli Imbonati che riunisce aristocratici ed ecclesiastici e che si propone di collegare i modelli poetici della tradizione con i problemi contemporanei della città lombarda: ne fanno parte, tra gli altri, Pietro Verri (1728-1797), Giuseppe Baretti (1719-1789) e Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794). In questi stessi anni, dal 1754 al 1762, Parini è precettore presso i duchi Serbelloni.

Qui Parini ha modo sia di venire in contatto con la cultura dell'Illuminismo francese (da Voltaire a Rousseau e Montesquieu fino all'Encyclopédie) sia di osservare da vicino usi e costumi della nobiltà, che poi costituiranno gran parte del materiale del suo poema più celebre, Il Giorno. In questa fase, Parini compone le prime odi ( La vita rustica, rimasta a lungo inedita è del 1757; La salubrità dell'aria del 1759), si dedica a opere satiriche ( Il dialogo sopra la nobiltà, sempre del 1757) o di polemica linguistica. Nel 1762 in seguito ad un contrasto con la famiglia Serbelloni, Parini viene licenziato e l'anno successivo pubblica Il Mattino, prima parte del Giorno. Diventa poi precettore di Carlo Imbonati (1753-1805), cui Parini dedica l'ode L'educazione nel 1764. L'anno successivo viene pubblicato Il Mezzogiorno.

Se il consenso critico attorno ai primi due poemetti pariniani è quasi unanime, il periodo successivo è quasi interamente dedicata alle professioni intellettuali: Parini è prima nominato direttore dell'importante "Gazzetta di Milano" (1768-1769) poi è docente di Belle Lettere (cioè, di letteratura italiana) prima alla Scuole Palatine di Milano poi al Ginnasio di Brera. Inserito nell'Accademia dell'Arcadia di Roma nel 1777 (Parini sceglie lo pseudonimo di Darisbo Elidonio), Parini lavora alle sezioni rimaste incompiute de Il Giorno, cioè Il Vespro e La Notte, ma si dedica soprattutto alla stesura delle Odi (tra cui ), la cui prima edizione è del 1791 (l'edizione completa delle Opere sarà pubblicata tra 1801 e 1804). Parini si spegne a Milano nell'agosto del 1799, pochi mesi dopo la fine del triennio giacobino e il ritorno delle truppe austriache in città.
Poetica e stile
Se le prime esperienze poetiche di Parini risentono del clima dell'Arcadia (e quindi di una poesia di gusto assai formale, e lontana da un diretto contatto con la realtà), la produzione della maturità, a partire dal Mattino, si caratterizza per la vicinanza alle idee e ai principi dell' Illuminismo lombardo, con i cui esponenti il poeta entra in contatto già all'Accademia dei Trasformati e da cui recupera l'idea della funzione pedagogica della letteratura e dell'arte, come si può vedere già nel Dialogo sopra la nobiltà, un'operetta comica che mette in scena due morti, un poeta plebeo e un nobile, sottolineando i pregiudizi del secondo ma, al tempo stesso, la possibilità di un suo cambiamento.

Il progetto di Parini, che si realizza nelle parti completate de Il Giorno così come nelle Odi, è allora quello di una poesia civile, che "si impegni" attivamente nel sottolineare o nel denunciare difetti e corruzioni della società, con un occhio di riguardo per i comportamenti della classe dirigente (aristocratica o alto borghese), che ha le maggiori responsabilità in merito alla vita di tutta la cittadinanza (come si vede nelle odi La salubrità dell'aria o L'innesto del vaiuolo). Il tono della poesia di Parini va così dai toni più letterari delle Poesie di Ripano Eupilino, in cui figurano temi amorosi, pastorali o anche giocosi, fino a quelli ironico-satirici del Giorno (si pensi all'episodio della " vergine cuccia "), dove le speranza di modificare la situazione sembra affievolirsi.

Dal punto di vista stilistico, Parini aderisce ai principi del Neoclassicismo (come si vede soprattutto nell'ode Per l'Inclita Nice), intendendo la forma dei suoi testi come lo strumento principale per proporre un ideale di ordine e misura, in linea con il contenuto morale di equilibrio e dignità della sua poesia. In questo senso, Parini rimarrà per buona parte degli autori ottocenteschi - da Alessandro Manzoni ad Ugo Foscolo, che gli dedica un celebre capitolo delle Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis - un modello etico e stilistico di riferimento.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Giuseppe Parini: vita, opere e poetica - WeSchool

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Giuseppe Parini (il cui cognome originario è Parino) nasce il 23 maggio 1729 nel paese di Bosisio (attualmente in provincia di Lecco) in una famiglia della piccola borghesia brianzola dedita al commercio della seta.

# data[].attributes.body
Ciò che ci viene raccontato dai media sarà del tutto vero?

# data[].attributes.headline
Inquinamento atmosferico: E' solo colpa dell'uomo? 

# data[].attributes.subject
Inquinamento atmosferico: E' solo colpa dell'uomo? 

# data[].attributes.body
In particolare: Aumento temperatura nel corso dei secoli.

# data[].attributes.body
In particolare: "La salubrità dell'aria".