The Victorian EraEnglish Literature from 1830-1900

The Victorian Optimism

Compromise and Faith

The Early Victorian

Serialized Dramatic

Novel Monologue

Evolution of the Novelo Father of Modern English Novelo Best example of serialized format in

English.o Loose plots, strong characters.o Most novels were optimistic: the wicked

are punished and the righteous rewarded.o Authentic experience: Dickens worked in

factory as a child, experience marked him for life.

CHARLES DICKENS

Tale of Two CitiesWhich elements are represented from Gothic and Victorian?

• Lucy- the central thread of the novel: will she be torn apart by the conflict?

• Cruncher- what is his job and what significance does it have?

• The Defarges- do they represent something positive or negative?

The Family Bronteo 3 Sisters: Anne, Charlotte and

Emily.o Used pseudonyms, one novel

each, shared similar style.o Focused on intense relationships,

deeply flawed characters. o Combined Gothic elements with

Victorian conventions.

Major Works: Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre

Gothic to VictorianTransition

SupernaturalIntense EmotionsNature as fearful, impressive“Byronic” figures

Vulnerable Child Moralizing toneNarrative ComplexityDuality

The London Times

UtilitarianismJeremy Bentham“Moral Economics”

English PositivismJohn Stuart MillProgressiveOn Liberty

German IdealismJ.G. FichteSelf-consciousness

Heroic IdealismThomas CarlyleConservativeSartor Resartus

TRANSCENDENTALISM

Origin:

Reaction To:

Elements Of:

Main Focus:

New England, in the 1830’s

Harvard Intellectualism Protestant Church.

Romanticism German Idealism Eastern mysticism

Self-reliance Goodness of nature and the individual Corruptive influence of society and institutions

Ralph Waldo Emerson(1803-1882)

Born to prominent Boston family. Studied at Harvard, then entered divinity school.

Worked as a minister briefly, but was unable to accept traditional doctrine.

In 1832, Emerson traveled in Europe, meeting many prominent intellectuals.

In Paris, at the public Jardines, he was moved by the variation of species and had an epiphany about the interconnectedness of all life.

Henry David Thoreau(1817-1862)

Born to middle class family in Concord, MA. Attended Harvard, although he did not seek a professional career.

Met Emerson as a young man, and the older man became his mentor.

Thoreau was the perfect disciple: a quick and practical mind, and a clear, precise style of prose.

Throughout his life, Thoreau was a man of uncompromising principles, something of a hermit saint for American intellectualism.

1845: Anno MirabilisBegan project at Walden

Pond

o Rented a small cabin and surrounding land

o Lived for two years off only what he could produce

o Intended as an experiment in self-sufficiency and simple living

o Resulting novel became an American classic and philosophical masterpiece

Arrested and jailed in Concordo While visiting town during

Walden project, he is accosted by tax collector

o Told he owes six years back taxes, refuses to pay for political reasons

o Jailed overnight, his mother pays the owed taxes and he is released

o The experience is influential, leads to his essay “On Civil Disobedience”

“Walden has become such a totem of the back-to-nature, preservationist, anti-business, civil-disobedience mindset… that the book risks being as revered and unread as the Bible.” - John Updike

Major American Authors of the Period

Walt Whitman,

Leaves of Grass

Nathaniel Hawthorne,

The Scarlet Letter

Herman Melville,

Moby Dick

Edgar Allan Poe,

“The Tell-Tale Heart”

Dramatic Monologue Form

1. A single person speaks, who is decidedly NOT the poet

2. The speaker addresses and interacts with others, whose presence is noted only by the speaker’s clues

3. The poet’s aim is to reveal what lies beneath the speaker’s words…“… as if one were listening to

someone nearby talking on a cell-phone…” -what is the poet

attempting to infer?-what points of view are implied?

Two Men and a Persona

TennysonStructural and metrical virtuoso, sought perfection.

Poet of the people- represented his age.

Always had edge of melancholy and doubt.

BrowningAlways experimented, sometimes sacrificed eloquence for effect.

Unknown for most of life- poetry was esoteric.

Hugely influential in 20th century poetry.

Tennyson Browning

MONOLOGUES

Uses figures from classic or medieval mythology.

Speaker functions as a mask for

Tennyson’s own feelings.

Uses figures from history or that

embody rare conditions.

Speaker functions as independent being, rather than extension.

In Memoriam A.H.H.

(1850)

The Ring and the Book

(1868)

In Memoria

mThe Way of the Soul:Faith and Doubt

Took 17 years to write. When published, Tennyson was named LaureateMade up of 131 cantos, plus prologue and epilogue, stanza numbers vary in each cantoStanzas are ABBA rhymes, in iambic tetrameterPrologue was one of the last parts written, summarizes journey from doubt to faithReferences to Christmas throughout mark the passage of the years

The Late Victorian

Revival of Theatre

Aestheticism/ Decadentism

Colonialism and Empire

Rejection of Positivism

Late VictorianDecadentis

m/Aestheticism

• Deepening dissatisfaction with accepted hypocrisy of Victorian Era (such as “Victorian Compromise)

• Focus of interest in the forbidden and the idea of perversion…

Breakdown of the Victorian Period

Early VictorianPoetry and Monologue

Development of Novel

Optimism and Pessimism

Faith and Doubt

Duality and the “Victorian Compromise”

Late VictorianColonialism and Empire

The Revival of Theatre

Aesthetes and Decadents

The Anti-Victorians