SAJID SALEEM BS. English 1st

Roll#05NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

OF MODERN LANGUAGES

MULTAN

LATE VICTORIAN LITERATURE (1880-

1900)

Outline

Introduction Thomas Hardy Henry James

Aestheticism Walter Pater

A Revival of DramaOscar WildeGeorge Bernard Shaw

The Late Victorian Period (1880-1900)Decay of Victorian values British imperialism Boer War Irish question Bismarck's Germany became a rival

power United States became a rival power Economic depression led to mass

immigration Socialism

Thomas Hardy(1840-1912)

BiographyWas born on June 2, 1840 in Dorset,

England and died on January 11, 1928Hardy's mother, provided for his education.Hardy was apprenticed to an architect. He worked in an office, which specialized

in restoration of churches. In 1874 Hardy married Emma Lavinia

Gifford. Who then died in 1912In 1914 he married his secretary, Florence

Emily Dugdale.

OccupationThomas Hardy was an English novelist,

short story writer, and poet.He was a Victorian PoetHe used his writings to elaborate his own

pessimistic view of lifeHis poetry marks the transition from the

Victorian Age to the modernist movement of the 20th century

Achievements First success was Far From the Madding

Crowd, published in 1874.Many of his stories have been filmed. He has been regarded as a regional

novelist

Novels Under the Greenwood Tree (1872) A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873) Far From the Madding Crowd (1874) The Return of the Native (1878) The Trumpet-Major (1880) Two on a Tower (1882) The Mayor of Caster Bridge (1886) The Woodlanders (1887) Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891) Jude the Obscure (1895) The Well-Beloved (1897)

Short StoriesBarbara of the House of Grebe (1890) The Vampirine Fair (1909) Absent-mindedness in a Parish Choir The Duke's Reappearance The Return of the Native (excerpt) Squire Petrick's Lady Tony Kytes, the Arch-Deceiver The Withered Arm

Henry James (1843-1916)

Henry James

American-born writer, gifted with talents in literature, psychology, and philosophy. James wrote 20 novels, 112 stories, 12 plays and a number of works of literary criticism.

His Major Achievement and Specific Feature of His Works

James first achieved recognition as a writer of the “international novel” (international theme)---a story which brings together persons of various nationalities who represent certain characteristics of their countries.

The American’s, however, usually have a morality and innocence which the Europeans lack.

James seemed to value both the sophistication of Europe and the idealism of America.

Notable works by JamesNovels Novellas and tales Travel writings Literary criticism Memoirs and Autobiography Plays Biographies

NovelsWatch and Ward (1871) ) The American (1877) The Europeans (1878) Confidence (1879) Washington Square (1880) The Portrait of a Lady (1881) The Bostonians (1886) The Tragic Muse (1890) The Other House (1896) The Awkward Age (1899 The Sacred Fount (1901) The Wings of the Dove (1902) The Ambassadors (1903) The Golden Bowl (1904) The Outcry (1911)

Travel writingsA Little Tour in France (1884) English Hours (1905) The American Scene (1907) Italian Hours (1909)

Plays

Theatricals (1894) Theatricals: Second Series

(1895) Guy Dom Ville (1895)

James' Literary Criticism

Henry James' literary criticism is an indispensable part of his contribution to literature.

He worked out his influential principles of fiction in The Art of Fiction (1884). 

Themes The Importance of PlaceThe Lived vs. Unlived LifeThe American Abroad

Aestheticism

Aestheticism• Ruskin had emphasized the importance of Art and

Beauty as a means of moral progress. • The Pre-Raphaelites had also worshipped beauty

above everything.• The Oxford university professor Walter Pater, in his

essays published in 1867–68, stated that life had to be lived intensely, following an ideal of beauty.

• Therefore it was quite easy for the painter James McNeill Whistler to introduce the French doctrine of “Art for Art’s sake” into England.

• This doctrine placed the artist’s activity outside and above morals and led to the beginning of English literary Aestheticism, which can be defined as....

• a reaction against any utilitarian or moral conception of Art .

Aestheticism

Art for Art’s sake” meant: art for the pleasure and sensations that it could produce, without any regard to standards of morality or utility. The fundamental principles of this movement were

the following: The cult of beauty. The choice for a life beyond common morality. The solution of the dichotomy between senses

and spirit through the theory of the spiritualization of the senses.

The reversal of the principle of art imitating life into that of life imitating art.

Walter Pater(1839-1894)

Walter PaterBorn in Stepney in London's East End Dr Pater died while Walter was an infant

and the family moved to Enfield, London.• Pater was the defender of hedonism, a

doctrine according to which ...• Pleasure is the chief good to be pursued

by man, i.e. the end of all human actions.

• In his opinion , life should be treated in the spirit of art, i.e. life as a work of art.

Literary Works

• In his “Studies in the history of Renaissance”(1873) he stated that:1. “the secret of happiness lies in the enjoyment of

beauty”;2. “the finest sensations are to be found in art”; 3. “the deepest and noblest emotions can be

experienced in a life meant as a work of art.” • Through our senses we can enjoy any form of artistic

beauty and thus live a deep spiritual experience. • This is particularly true if we live our life as if it were a

work of art.• These ideas made him a sort of ascetic hedonist.

A Revival of Drama

Oscar Wilde(1854-1900)

Oscar WildeBorn on October 16 1855 He was one of the most successful

playwrights of late Victorian London and one of the greatest celebrities of his days.

He suffered a dramatic downfall and was imprisoned after been convicted of “gross indecency” for homosexual acts.

He died in Paris in 1900.

Oscar Wilde’s Aestheticism

• Oscar Wilde adopted the aesthetical ideal: he affirmed “my life is like a work of art”.

• His aestheticism clashed with the didacticism of Victorian novels.

• The artist = the creator of beautiful things.

Literary WorksPoetry; Poems 1891 The Ballad of Reading

Gaol, 1898 Fairy tales: The Happy Prince and other

Tales, 1888 The House of Pomegranates, 1891 Novel: The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891 Plays: Lady Windermere’s Fan, 1892 A

Woman of no Importance, 1893 The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895 Salomé, 1893 Only Connect

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW(1856-1950)

GEORGE BERNARD SHAWHe was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1856. In 1876, Shaw, moved to London. With his background in economics and politics,

Shaw's socialist viewpoint gave his writing a sense of hope for human improvement.

After the turn of the century, Shaw's plays gradually began to achieve production and, eventually, acceptance in England Shaw received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1925

In 1950, Shaw fell off a ladder while trimming a tree on his property outside of London, and died a few days later of complications from the injury, at the age of 94.

SHAW INFLUENCES Shaw first worked as an art critic, then music

critic, and finally, from 1895 to 1898, as Theatre Critic for the Saturday Review .

Founded the Fabian Society, a socialist political organization dedicated to transforming Britain into a socialist state through education.

The Fabian society would later be instrumental in founding the London School of Economics and the Labor Party.

SHAW INFLUENCES The outbreak of war in 1914 changed Shaw's

life. For Shaw, the war represented the bankruptcy

of the capitalist system and a tragic waste of young lives, all under the guise of patriotism.

He expressed his opinions in a series of newspaper articles which proved to be a disaster for Shaw's public stature: he was treated as an outcast, and there was even talk of his being tried for treason.