Victorian Age 3

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OUTLINE

3. Types of Literature

3.1 - Drama 3.2 - Novel 3.3 - Poetry3.4 – Non-

fictional Prose

2. Main Characteristics

1. History





Overview

Queen Victoria’ s reign (1837-1901),the most powerful time

Industry Revolution: tremendous

scientific progress and ideas Britain: the most powerful nation,

taken over ¼ of the Earth’s surface





Children

Only rich children could go to school,mostly boys

Poor ones had to work up to 16

hours/day, 6 days a week Be purchased to work in mines &

factories

Most died early: poor working & livingcondition

Seen as replaceable parts of machines

Given no care



The Woman Questions

Rich women◦ Taught how to draw, paint, sing, dance

◦ Be purity, not show any skin, no cosmetics or jewelry

◦ After getting married, stayed at home, lookedafter the chores, be dutiful

Poor women◦

Worked at mills & factories, garmentindustries

◦ Some worked up to 12 hours/day, 7 days aweek

◦ No choice but to accept whatever placed infront of them





• Closer view to daily life: reflectpractical & social problems &interests

• Moral purpose: derive from “art

for the art’s sake”

• Idealism: an age of doubt &pessimism

• Practical & materialistic age





3.1 - Drama 1830-1870: innumerable plays of every kind

Plays = melodramas (music-dramas or playswith music)

Early 19th century: violence, sadism,attempted seduction, low humor, murder,sensationalism, conventional moralising

3 elements: realism, fantasy & wit



W.S. Gilbert (1836-1911)

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)



“The importance of

being earnest”

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)



1830-1870: innumerable plays of every kind

Plays = melodramas (music-dramas or plays withmusic)

Early 19th century: violence, sadism, attempted

seduction, low humor, murder, sensationalism,conventional moralising

3 elements: realism, fantasy & wit

Excellent introduction to the social background of

the theatre(Theatre: working community of actors, managers,technicians)

Length of runs – Longer duration of plays

3.1 - Drama



“Our Boys” (1875) – 500 performances



“Charley’s aunt” (1892) – 1362

performances



“Dorothy” – 931 performances



• George Bernard Shaw:

- an Irishman, born in a

middle-class family- made a revolution in the

English theatre

• Drama for Shaw:

- a tool to help people interms of solving moral issues

- issues: marriage, equalright for men and women,prostitution and its reasons,relationships and many others







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3.2. Novel

The most popular & dominant form ofliterature

Novelists: Moral and social responsibility

Realism and Criticism

Making the readers realizesocial unjustices



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3.2. Novel

WOMEN WRITERS A great number of novels were written by women

Not easy to publish their works

Use male pseudonyms in order to see their novels inprint



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Mary Ann Evans, under the name of George Eliot.

Of the novelists of the period, she was the most



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3.2 - Novel

MAIN FEATURES Obtrusive and omniscient narrators Didactic aim Linearity Long complicated plots and sub-plots Precise creation of characters and deep

analysis of characters’ inner lives(psychology)

The setting of the city Most popular genre = Bildulgsroman

(novel of formation)



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Bildulgsroman Coin in literary criticism

Focus on moral and psychologicalgrowth of main characters

Often feature a main conflict betweenthe main character and society



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MAIN FEATURES Obtrusive and omniscient narrators Didactic aim Linearity

Long complicated plots and sub-plots Precise creation of characters and deep

analysis of characters’ inner lives(psychology)

The setting of the city Most popular genre = Bildulgsroman (novel of

formation) Main themes: money, wealth, realistic portrait

of society denouncing its injustices and

iniquities



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3.2. Novel

Early-Victorian Novel

Mid-Victorian Novel

Late- Victorian Novel

Early Victorian Novel



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Early-Victorian Novel(social-problem novel)

Dealing with social and humanitarian themes

Realism and criticism of social evils

Faith in progress, general optimism

The main representative: Charles Dickens

Early-Victorian Novel



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Early-Victorian Novel(social-problem novel)

Social problems: Poverty, crime. A child of the parish “ had contrived to

exist upon the smallest possibleportion of the weakest possible food….”

(Twist p.5)

Dickens' Criticism of the 1834 PoorLaw.

Self-sacrifice, benevolence and charity.



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Mid-Victorian Novel(novel of purpose)

Romantic and Gothic elements Psychological interest

The main representative: Bronte

Sisters (Charlotte, Emily and Anne)



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Gothic

Began with Horace Walpole’s TheCastle of Otrato (1765)

Create feelings of gloom, mystery,suspend

dramatic and sensational

Cross the boundary

Daylight and the dark

Life and death Consciousness and unconsciousness

Found in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane

Eyre and Emily Bronte’sWuthering Heights

Mid Victorian Novel



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Love crossing the boundarybetween life and death.

Spirit of romanticism in “ the figures

of Hereton Earnshaw, of CatherineLinton, and of Healthcliff-tearing

open Catherine’s grave, removingone side of her coffin,…”.

The love of nature is not presentedin just in its tranquil and smiling

aspects but also appears in its wild,stormy moods.



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Late-Victorian novel(nature novel near to European Naturalism)

European Naturalism Taking place from 1880s-1940s Outgrowth of literary realism Characteristics:

Pessimism Detachment from the story

Scientific look at human life, objectivity of

observation, dissatisfaction with Victorianvalues

The main representative: Thomas Hardy

L t Vi t i l



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Late-Victorian novel(nature novel near to European Naturalism)

An early piece of feministliterature

The fates favor the lead characterResilience,intelligenceand goodluck toovercomeher folly

Bathsheba’s

serious errorsof judgments

3 3 Poetry



3.3 - Poetry General features

Continuation of Romantic Poetry & a bridge between this

earlier era & the modernist poetry Experience with new styles & new ways of expression

Reflection of the period's crying social contradictions• Faith >< Doubt

• Love >< Rejection

•Countryside >< City• Freedom >< Self-sacrifice

Early in the period: high moral seriousness was inseparablefrom traditional ideals of poetic beauty

• Subjective experience, individual’s feelings & sensations

• Hidden emotions or earning desires

• Genres• Lyric poetry

• Dramatic verse

• Narrative poetry

• Long poetry



Alfred Lord Tennyson

“Poet of the people”

The doubt & the faith, the grief& the joy of English people inan age of fast social changes

In Memoriam (1850)

Idylls of the King (1859-1885)

(1809 -1892)



In Memoriam

• Tennyson's masterpiece

• Queen Victoria’s favorite poem :"Next to the Bible, In Memoriamis my comfort.“

• In memory of Arthur Henry

Hallam• Philosophical & Religious

thoughts:

• doubts about the meaning of life

• existence of soul & afterlife

• faith in the power of love & thesoul’s instinct & immortality

(1850)

Arthur Henry Hallam

(1811-1833)



In Memoriam

• In Canto 27 :

Dark house , by which once more I stand

Here in the long unlovely street ,Doors, where my heart was used to beat

So quickly, waiting for a hand,

A hand that can be clasped no more

Behold me, for I cannot sleep,And like a guilty thing I creep,

At earliest morning to the door.

(1850)

He is not here; but far away

The noise of life begins again,

And ghastly thro' the drizzling rain

On the bald street breaks the blank day .

I hold it true, whate'er befall;

I feel it when I sorrow most;

'Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all.

The loss of a loved one



3.4 - Non-fictional ProseGeneral features

A wide range of subjects: politics, religion,history, personal biography, but chieflyconcerned with social problems

Writers (Sagers) as latter-day prophets &interpreters offering inspired wisdom &advice

An instrument of persuasion (beliefs & point

of views)



Thomas Carlyle

• Carlyle's work appealing to manyVictorians struggling withscientific and political changesthat threatened the traditionalsocial order

• Inventing new words & changingthe natural word order

• Sartore Resartus (1834)

The French Revolution (1837)

On heroes and Hero Worship(1841)

(1795 - 1881 )



On heroes and Hero Worship

• Carlyle’s best known book • Favorite view of history:

• History of the world is at the bottomthe history of great men

• Decisive factor is the individual

leadership of genius • The world was filled with

contradictions the hero had todeal.

• All heroes will be flawed.

• Their heroism lay in their creativeenergy in the face of these difficulties,not in their moral perfection

• People ranging from the field ofreligion through to literature andpolitics

(1841)




• Lecture 1. The Hero as Divinity. Odin.

Paganism: Scandinavian Mythology

• Lecture 2. The Hero as Prophet. Muhammad:

Islam

• Lecture 3. The Hero as Poet. Dante;

Shakespeare

• Lecture 4: The Hero as Priest. Luther;

Reformation: Knox; Puritanism

• Lecture 5. The Hero as Man of Letters.

Johnson, Rousseau, Burns

• Lecture 6. The Hero as King. Cromwell.

Napoleon: Modern Revolutionism

(1841)

Content




• "All that mankind has done, thought, gained or been: it is lyingas in magic preservation in the pages of books."

• "In books lies the soul of the whole Past Time; the articulate audiblevoice of the Past, when the body and material substance of it has

altogether vanished like a dream."• "A man lives by believing something; not by debating and arguing

about many things."

• "What we become depends on what we read after all of theprofessors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is acollection of books."

• "The suffering man ought really to consume his own smoke; there isno good in emitting smoke till you have made it into fire."

• "Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man; but for one man who canstand prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand adversity."

• "Not what I have, but what I do, is my kingdom."

(1841)

The Hero as Man of Letters (Quotes)





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Victorian Age 3