THE VICTORIAN

PERIOD(1837 - 1901)GLADYS T. AMBUYAT

BSED II

The Victorian era is generally agreed to stretch through the reign of Queen Victoria. It was a tremendously exciting period when many artistic styles, literary schools, as well as, social, political and religious movements flourished. It was a time of prosperity, broad imperial expansion, and great political reform. It was also a time, which today we associate with "prudishness" and "repression". Without a doubt, it was an extraordinarily complex age, that has sometimes been called the Second English Renaissance. It is, however, also the beginning of Modern Times.

The Period is often divided into two parts:the Early Victorian Period (ending around

1870)the Late Victorian

Period

the early period Writers are:

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) Robert Browning (1812-1889) Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) Emily Bronte (1818-1848) Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) Christina Rossetti (1830-1894) George Eliot (1819-1880) Anthony Trollope (1815-1882) Charles Dickens(1812-1870).

the late period Writers are: George Meredith (1828-1909)Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

Oscar Wilde (1856-1900)Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)Ruryard Kipling (1865-1936)A.E. Housman (1859-1936) Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894).

While Tennyson and Browning represented pillars in Victorian poetry, Dickens and Eliot contributed to the development of the English novel. Perhaps the most quintessentially Victorian poetic works of the period is: Tennyson's "In Memorium" (1850), which mourns the loss of his friend. Henry James describes Eliot's "Middlemarch" (1872) as "organized, moulded, balanced composition, gratifying the reader with the sense of design and construction."It was a time of change, a time of great upheaval, but also a time of GREAT literature!

Quotes from the Times…

• “Youth is a blunder; manhood a struggle; old age a regret” Benjamin Disraeli, Coningsby

• “’Tis better to have loved and lost/ Than never to have loved at all” Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “In Memoriam, A.H.H.”

• A man’s reach should exceed his grasp,/ Or what’s a heaven for?” Robert Browning, “Andrea del Santo”

Tennyson

Browning

QUEEN VICTORIA(Alexandrina Victoria)(24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901)

the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India. the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, the fourth son of King George III. Both the Duke of Kent and King George III died in 1820, and Victoria was raised under close supervision by her German-born mother Princess Victoria of Saxe – Coburg – Saafeld.

Privately, Victoria attempted to influence government policy and ministerial appointments. Publicly, she became a national icon, and was identified with strict standards of personal morality.

She inherited the throne at the age of 18, after her father's three elder brothers had all died leaving no legitimate, surviving children. The United Kingdom was already an established constitutional monarchy, in which the Sovereign held relatively little direct political power.

Victoria married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in 1840. Their nine children married into royal and noble families across the continent, tying them together and earning her the nickname "the grandmother of Europe". Albert and Victoria felt mutual affection and the Queen proposed to him on 15 October 1839, just five days after he had arrived at Windsor. They were married on 10 February 1840, in the Chapel Royal of St. James’s Palace, London. Victoria was besotted. She spent the evening after their wedding lying down with a headache, but wrote ecstatically in her diary:

“I NEVER, NEVER spent such an evening!!!

MY DEAREST DEAREST DEAR Albert ... his excessive love & affection gave me feelings of heavenly love & happiness I never could have hoped to have felt before! He clasped me in his arms, & we kissed each other again & again! His beauty, his sweetness & gentleness – really how can I ever be thankful enough to have such a Husband! ... to be called by names of tenderness, I have never yet heard used to me before – was bliss beyond belief! Oh! This was the happiest day of my life!”

Albert was diagnosed with typhoid fever by William Jenner, and died on 14 December 1861. Victoria was devastated. Victoria plunged into deep mourning and avoided public appearances. As a result of her seclusion, republicanism temporarily gained strength, but in the latter half of her reign, her popularity recovered. Her Golden and Diamond Jubilees were times of public celebration.

Her reign of 63 years and seven months, which is longer than that of any other British monarch and the longest of any female monarch in history, is known as the Victorian era. It was a period of industrial, cultural, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom, and was marked by a great expansion of the British empire . She was the last British monarch of the House of Hanover. Her son and successor, Edward VII, belonged to the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the line of his father.

Victorian Literature

Four types of writing were popular during the Victorian Era:• Realist• Naturalist• The Novel• Poetry

Realism

• The attempt to produce in art and literature an accurate portrayal of reality

• Realistic, detailed descriptions of everyday life, and of its darker aspects, appealed to many readers disillusioned by the “progress” going on around them.

• Themes in Realist writing included families, religion, and social reform

Naturalism

• Based on the philosophical theory that actions and events are the results not of human intentions, but of largely uncontrollable external forces

• Authors chose subjects and themes common to the lower and middle classes

• Attentive to details, striving for accuracy and authenticity in their descriptions

The Novel• Emily Bronte: Wuthering

Heights• Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre• Charles Dickens: Many of his

novels were published in serial form. His comic and sentimental descriptions of the lives of people in diverse occupations and social classes made Dickens the most popular Victorian novelist. A Christmas Carol, Great Expectations, David Copperfield

Emily Bronte

Charlotte Bronte

Charles Dickens

Poetry• Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-

1892): Most popular Victorian poet. He wrote narrative poems

• Robert Browning (1812-1889): raised the dramatic monologue to new heights—making it a vehicle for deep psychological probing and character study

• Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861): with Robert, one of literature’s greatest love affairs. Wrote love sonnets valued for their lyric beauty

THE GREAT WRITERS :

THE VICTORIAN

PERIOD

*ALFRED LORD TENNYSON*– CROSING THE BAR

*ROBERT BROWNING* – MY LAST DUCHESS

*ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING*

– SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE

*MATTHEW ARNOLD* – DOVER BEACH

*GERALD MANLEY HOPKINS* – FELIX RANDAL

ALFRED LORD TENNYSON (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892)

Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland  during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular British poets.

Tennyson excelled at penning short lyrics, such as "Break, Break, Break", "The Charge of the Light Brigade", "Tears, Idle Tears" and "Crossing the Bar". Much of his verse was based on classical mythological themes, such as Ulysses, although In Memoriam A.H.H. was written to commemorate his best friend Arthur Hallam, a fellow poet and fellow student at Trinity College, Cambridge, who was engaged to Tennyson's sister, but died from a brain hemorrhage before they could marry. Tennyson also wrote some notable blank verse including Idylls of the King, "Ulysses," and "Tithonus." During his career, Tennyson attempted drama, but his plays enjoyed little success.

A number of phrases from Tennyson's work have become commonplaces of the English language, including "Nature, red in tooth and claw", "'Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all", "Theirs not to reason why, / Theirs but to do and die", "My strength is as the strength of ten, / Because my heart is pure", "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield", "Knowledge comes, but Wisdom lingers", and "The old order changeth, yielding place to new". He is the ninth most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.

CROSSING THE BAR "Crossing the Bar" is an 1889 poem

 by Alfred, Lord Tennyson that is traditionally the last poem in collections of his work. It is thought that Tennyson wrote it as his own elegy, as the poem has a tone of finality about it. The narrator uses an extended metaphor to compare death to crossing the "sandbar" between the tide or river of life, with its outgoing "flood," and the ocean that lies beyond death, the "boundless deep," to which we return.

Tennyson wrote the poem after a serious illness while at sea, crossing the Solent from Aldworth to Farringford on the Isle of Wight. It has also been suggested he wrote it while on a yacht anchored in Salcombe. The words, he said, "came in a moment" Shortly before he died, Tennyson told his son Hallam to "put 'Crossing the Bar' at the end of all editions of my poems

The poem contains four stanzas that generally alternate between long and short lines. Tennyson employs a traditional ABAB rhyme scheme. Scholars have noted that the form of the poem follows the content: the wavelike quality of the long-then-short lines parallels the narrative thread of the poem.

The extended metaphor of "crossing of bar" represents traveling serenely and securely from life through death. The Pilot is a metaphor for God, whom the speaker hopes to meet face to face. Tennyson explained, "The Pilot has been on board all the while, but in the dark I have not seen him…[He is] that Divine and Unseen Who is always guiding us."

ALFRED LORD TENNYSON

ROBERT BROWNING (7 May 1812 – 12 December 1889) an English poet and playwright whose

mastery of dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets.

In 1845, Browning met the poet Elizabeth Barrett, six years his elder, who lived as a semi-invalid in her father's house in Wimpole Street, London. They began regularly corresponding and gradually a romance developed between them, leading to their marriage and journey to Italy (for Elizabeth's health) on 12 September 1846.

The marriage was initially secret because Elizabeth's domineering father disapproved of marriage for any of his children. Mr. Barrett disinherited Elizabeth, as he did for each of his children who married.

My Last Duchess This poem is loosely based on

historical events involving Alfonso, the Duke of Ferrara, who lived in the 16th century. The Duke is the speaker of the poem, and tells us he is entertaining an emissary who has come to negotiate the Duke’s marriage (he has recently been widowed) to the daughter of another powerful family. As he shows the visitor through his palace, he stops before a portrait of the late Duchess, apparently a young and lovely girl.

The Duke begins reminiscing about the portrait sessions, then about the Duchess herself. His musings give way to a diatribe on her disgraceful behavior: he claims she flirted with everyone and did not appreciate his “gift of a nine-hundred-years- old name.” As his monologue continues, the reader realizes with ever-more chilling certainty that the Duke in fact caused the Duchess’s early demise: when her behavior escalated, “[he] gave commands; / Then all smiles stopped together.”

Having made this disclosure, the Duke returns to the business at hand: arranging for another marriage, with another young girl. As the Duke and the emissary walk leave the painting behind, the Duke points out other notable artworks in his collection.

ROBERT BROWNING

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

(6 March 1806 – 29 June 1861)

one of the most prominent poets of the Victorian era. Her poetry was widely popular in both England and the United States during her lifetime. A collection of her last poems was published by her husband, Robert Browning, shortly after her death.

Barrett Browning was initially hesitant to publish the poems, feeling that they were too personal. However, her husband insisted that they were the best sequence of English-language sonnets since Shakespeare's time and urged her to publish them. To offer the couple some privacy, she decided that she might publish them as translations of foreign sonnets. Therefore, the collection was first to be known as Sonnets from the Bosnian, until Robert suggested that she change their imaginary original language to Portuguese, probably after her admiration for Camões and his nickname for her: "my little Portuguese." The title is also a reference to Les Lettres portugaises.

At her husband's insistence, the second edition of Elizabeth’s Poems included her love sonnets. The book increased her popularity and high critical regard, cementing her position as an eminent Victorian poet. Upon William Wordsworth's death in 1850, she was a serious contender to become Poet Laureate, the position eventually going to Tennyson.

Sonnets from the Portuguese

written ca. 1845–1846 and first published in 1850, is a collection of 44 love sonnets written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The poems largely chronicle the period leading up to her 1846 marriage to Robert Browning. The collection was acclaimed and popular in the poet's lifetime and it remains so today.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

ELIZABETH AND ROBERT BROWNING

MATTHEW ARNOLD (24 December 1822 – 15

April 1888) a British poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator. Matthew Arnold has been characterized as a sage writer, a type of writer who chastises and instructs the reader on contemporary social issues.

Dover Beachis a short lyric poem by the English poet 

Matthew Arnold. It was first published in 1867 in the collection New Poems, but surviving notes indicate its composition may have begun as early as 1849. The most likely date is 1851.

The title, locale and subject of the poem's descriptive opening lines is the shore of the English ferry port of Dover, Kent, facing Calais, France, at the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part (21 miles) of the English Channel, where Arnold honeymooned in 1851.

MATTHEW ARNOLD

GERALD MANLEY HOPKINS

(28 July 1844 – 8 June 1889) an English poet, Roman

Catholic convert, and Jesuit priest, whose posthumous fame established him among the leading Victorian poets. His experimental explorations in prosody (especially sprung rhythm) and his use of imagery established him as a daring innovator in a period of largely traditional verse.

From his ordination as a priest in 1877 until 1879, Hopkins served not too successfully as preacher or assistant to the parish priest in Sheffield, Oxford, and London; during the next three years he found stimulating but exhausting work as parish priest in the slums of three manufacturing cities, Manchester, Liverpool, and Glasgow. Late in 1881 he began ten months of spiritual study in London, and then for three years taught Latin and Greek at Stonyhurst College, Lancashire. His appointment in 1884 as Professor of Greek and Latin at University College, Dublin, which might be expected to be his happiest work, instead found him in prolonged depression.

This resulted partly from the examination papers he had to read as Fellow in Classics for the Royal University of Ireland. The exams occured five or six times a year, might produce 500 papers, each one several pages of mostly uninspired student translations (in 1885 there were 631 failures to 1213 passes). More important, however, was his sense that his prayers no longer reached God; and this doubt produced the "terrible" sonnets. He refused to give way to his depression, however, and his last words as he lay dying of typhoid fever on June 8, 1889, were, "I am happy, so happy."

Apart from a few uncharacteristic poems scattered in periodicals, Hopkins was not published during his own lifetime. His good friend Robert Bridges (1844-1930), whom he met at Oxford and who became Poet Laureate in 1913, served as his literary caretaker: Hopkins sent him copies of his poems, and Bridges arranged for their publication in 1918.

Felix Randal This poem written by Hopkins, in 1880, is

a religious sonnet addressed to the dead Felix Randall, the farrier. It is a sonnet, meaning that it contains 14 lines, divided up into two quatrains and a sestet, which in turn is divided up in two tercets. This way of writing in fact keeps Randall from expressing himself completely because he is following a fixed rhyme scheme, but nonetheless he has written a powerful poem with an extensive use of vocabulary.

The story that is told in the sonnet is divided up into two different perspectives: the physical state, and the mental or spiritual state.

The fist quatrain is told in a physical point of view and is an introduction to Felix Randall who is horse farrier. This being mentioned immediately brings to mind that he must be a strong man, which in turn creates the physical perspective. After being introduced to Felix Randall, the reader is immediately thrown into the deep end by Hopkins and told that Randall is dead, that he had died from "four fatal disorders" and all Randall's harsh and hardy-handsomeness had been lost in his death by this sickness. The vocabulary, which Hopkins uses in this quatrain, brings out the harshness and the boisterousness of Felix Randall.

Obviously a person needs to be strong and big-boned in order to be able to put horseshoes on horses. Randall makes it very clear that Randall was one of these people in his second sentence. It says: "Who have watched his mould of man, big-boned and hardy-handsome". Now mould of man, implies that he had quite a lot of muscles and that he was a strong fellow. But this expression can be taken several different ways. First of all and the most probable one for this poem, a mould of man, or actually a man of mould usually has to do with someone being mortal.

That a person, no matter how strong or how bold he is, he can still die from disease. Second of all, a mould can also be a certain shape, which is used to pour in something and then get the same shape back but in a more solidified way. Hopkins could have used this to tell the reader that the world could be better place if every man was like Felix Randal.

GERALD MANLEY HOPKINS

THANK

YOU