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The Victorian Age(a Second Wave of Romanticism)
and Fin de siecle
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Historical Background
New material developments Advancement in commercegrowth
of markets, new mechanical devices
Great Exhibition1851, era ofprosperity
Evils of Industrial Revolnslums,exploitation of labour (esp. children)
Painful fight of the enlightened few for
social reform
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Historical Background
Intellectual developments
Impatience with new ideas on the one
hand; numerous intellectual activities
on the other Science & religionDarwin (Origin
of Species 1859) Socio-pol. theoryHerbert Spencer,
JS Mill (utilitarianismBentham, grtst
happiness of the grtst number, poetry is misreprnsn)
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Literary Features
Morality, proprietyrevolt against thegrossness of the earlier age, deferenceto convention (Tennyson and Dickens
best examples) Revolt against convention (Carlyle,
Arnold, Thackeray, Browning).Strengthened with age: Pre-Raphaelites(no morality except the authors regard
for his art)
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Literary Features
New ideas in science, religion,politics scepticism inIn
Memoriam, Arnolds meditative
poetry & Carlyle
New religious and ethical thought
Oxford Movement (Newman) marked widespread discontent withChurch of England
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Literary Features
Educationcompulsory, enormousreading public, cheap printing and
paperdemand for the novel
International influencesAmerican-
British writers interaction, German
influence (Carlyle, Arnold), Italian(Browning, Swinburne, Morris,
Meredith)
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Alfred Tennyson Early poemsTimbuctoo
The Lady of Shalott, The Lotos-Eaters
Morte dArthur, Ulysses, Locksley Hall
The Princesstheme of the newwoman (ladies academy & a mutinouslyintellectual princess at the head)
In Memoriam (1850)long series ofmeditations on life & death
Maud
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Alfred TennysonIdylls of the Kingtales of King Arthurand the Round Table
Enoch Ardenseaman, supposedly
drowned, returns to find wife married,regretfully retires without making himselfknown
Drama in later years (e.g. Becket)Later poemssharper tone; discontent with
the artifices of his time
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Tennysons Style Subjectearlier, lyric and legendary
narrative; later ethical interest. No deepthinker; content to mirror the feelings /
aspirations of the time
CraftGreat care and skill. Mix of sound
and sense (great musical quality)
Keatsian descriptive power. Ornatedescription, pictorial effect, sumptuous
imagery (created a lovely image by carefully
amassing detail)
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Robert Browning
Pauline introspective poem,influence of Shelley
Paracelsus heros unquenchable
thirst for that breadth of knowledgewhich is beyond the grasp of one man
Brownings predominant ideas: lifewithout love a failure; Gods will, more
than human conjecture, is behind
everything
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Robert Browning Straffordplay
Sordelloobscurerelationship between artand life (hero a Mantuan troubadour)
Bells & Pomegranates poems & playsincludg Pippa Passes (play)
Group of dramatic poems where he perfectedthe dramatic monologue
Men & Women, Dramatis Personae
Fra Lippo Lippi, Andrea del Sarto, Caliban UponSetebos, Rabbi Ben Ezra, Abt Vogler
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Robert Browning The Ring & the Bookdiscursive story of the
murder of a young wife Pompilia by her worthless
husband, told by nine different people
Asolando last work
One who never turned his back but marched breast forward,
Never doubted clouds would break,
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would
triumph,
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,
Sleep to wake.
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Brownings Style
Obscurity; sometimes rugged, angularstyle
At its best, noble dignity & verbal
music Variety of metrical forms
Cleverly manipulated rhythmic effects
Didnt care for beauty of description forits own sake; beauty of expression oftencaptured in a single image
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Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Woman of acute sensibilities
Fervent supporter of noble causes (like Italian
independence)Prometheus Bound
The Seraphim & Other Poems
Sonnets from the PortugueseAurora Leigh
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Matthew Arnold
Son of the famous headmaster of Rugby School,
Thomas Arnold (poem Rugby Chapel)
Poems not numerous, not of high quality
Classical themes in meditative & even melancholy
cast (this is a modernist strain)
Alienation, stoicism, despair, spiritual emptiness
Apostle of sanity & culture
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Arnold: Poetry
Lyrics
Marguerite poems, The Forsaken Merman, Dover
Beach, Scholar Gipsy
Poetic dramas
Empedocles on Etna, Merope
Narrative poems
Tristram & Iseult, Sohrab & Rustum Elegies
Thyrsis, Scholar Gipsy
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Matthew Arnold: Prose
Prosecritical essaysare of greater value Essays in Criticism best prose (includes The
Function of Criticism at the Present Time)
Advocates a broad, cosmopolitan view ofEuropean literature as a basis for comparative
judgements
Attacks provincialism & lack of real knowledge Develops idea of criticism as a disinterested &
flexible mode of thought that has application
outside literature
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Matthew Arnold: Prose
Wrote freely on theological & political themesCulture & Anarchy (consideration of the dilemmas of
English society. Culture as pursuit of perfection,
getting to know . . . the best which has been thought
and said in the world)
Literature & Dogma
Wandering between two worlds,
One dead, the other powerless to be born.
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Other Poets
Edward Fitzgerald best-known for
translation of the Rubaiyats of Persian poet
Omar Khayyam
Arthur Hugh Clough poems charged with
the deep-seated despair & despondency of
Arnolds works
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Am.) wrote
too much over wide variety of topics, general
standard low
Whitman
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Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood 1848painter poets like D. G. Rossetti, W. H.
Hunt & John Millais formed PRB
To return to the truthfulness, simplicity & spirit of
devotion of Italian painting before Raphael &
Italian Renaissance
Others Ch. Rossetti, William Morris, Swinburne
DG Rossettis poem The Blessed Damozel
Medievalism
Pictorial realism & Symbolic overtones
Union of flesh & spirit
Sensuousness & religiousness
Robert Buchanan: Fleshly School of Poetry
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Charles Dickens
early reading
interest in theatre
familys poor financial conditions
Sketches by Boz series about London life First novel The Pickwick Papers serialized (1836)
(illustrator: Seymour, then Hablot K. Browne Phiz)
Boz-Phiz tie up; explains Dickenss caricaturesEnormous popularity
Oliver Twist (1837, serialized in Bentleys Magazine)
Nicholas Nickleby (1838)
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Charles Dickens
Master Humphreys Clock
The Old Curiosity Shop
Barnaby Rudge (historical)
American Notes & Martin Chuzzlewit(unpopular in US)
Christmas Carol
Dombey & Son (Autobiography of a Steam Engine)
David Copperfield (after this, decline in his art)
Bleak House, Hard Times, Little Dorrit, A Tale of Two
Cities, Great Expectations, Our Mutual Friend, The
Mystery of Edwin Drood
Di k F f N l
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Dickens : Features of Novels Popularity
large number of novels, hasty & ill-considered work
staginess of plot, unreality of characters, loose style
yet rich & enduring tales
Social Reform
no systematic social or political theory
aroused public interest in contemporary evils
Boarding schoolsNicholas N; WorkhousesOliver T
New manufacturing systemHard Times Court of ChanceryBleak House
Spread of benevolence rather than politicl upheaval
Contrived poetic justice
Exa erated characters like the Grad rinds
I i ti
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Imagination
Multiplicity of characters & situations
Lower & middle classes esp. in & around London
Humour & pathosBroad, humane, creative humour
Not subtle humour; Sometimes boisterous
Satire sometimes develops into burlesque
Pathos often cheap & third-rate Depended on devices such as elaborate descriptions of the death
of children
Described the horrible as in the death of Bill Sykes
Painfully melodramatic as in Madame Defarge
Mannerisms
Flat characters representing one mood or one phrase
Uriah Heep (umble) Barkis willin
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William Makepeace Thackeray Born in Calcutta
Contributions to Punch & Frazers Magazine
Vanity Fair(satire, adventures of Becky Sharp)
The Yellowplush Correspondence
The Book of Snobs (Snobs Thackerays pet abhorrence) Fitzboodle Papers(biting observations of human weakness)
The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon(picaresque novel)
Pendennis(partly autobiographical, satire, moralizing) Henry Esmond (historical), The Newcomes, The
Virginians (sequel to Henry Esmond)
Poetry
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William Makepeace Thackeray
Debt to Fielding
Early neglect; genius blossomed slowly, as Fielding
Reacting against popular novel of the day, esp. against
romanticizing of rogues
Adopted Fieldings methodTo view his characters steadily & fearlessly
To record their failures as well as merits
Characters rounded but no flattery (clever people are
rogues; virtuous are fools)
Humour & Pathos
Sneering cynicism; satire potent method of revealing truth
Quiet & effective pathos, seldom sentimental
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Brontes Charlotte, Emily, Anne (Currer, Ellis, Acton Bell)
Charlotte Bronte 1st novel: The Professor
Jane Eyre
Love story of the plain, vital heroine told with franknessWeak, improbable plot
Main characters conceived deeply
Shirley, Villette
Plots largely restricted to authors own experiences
High seriousness, no humour
The wonder & beauty of the romantic world
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Emily Bronte
Wuthering Heights (1847)The very spirit of the wild, desolate moors
Chief characters conceived in gigantic proportions
Passions have an elemental, poetic force
Series of climaxes, sustained intensity of the novel carried to
unbelievable peaks of passionStark, unflinching realism
PoemsNo Coward Soul is Mine
Cold in the earth, and the deep snow piled above thee
Anne Bronte
Agnes Grey
The Tenant of Windfell Hall
B Th i I
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Brontes: Their Importance
The romantic movement in poetry felt in the
novel as against the detached observation of Jane
Austen
Brontes painted sufferings of the individual New conception of the heroine as a woman ofvital strength & passionate feelings
Emotion, imagination, intellect
Poetic language, lyrical tone
Concern with human soul (later followed by G. Eliot& Meredith)
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George Eliot
Mary Ann Evans
Serious moralist
duty is the supreme law of life
humble life is interesting and exalted
daily choices have moral significance
there is no escape from reward / punishment due to
ones action)
Association with Herbert Spencer, J. S. Mill andother liberals
Life-partnership with George Henry Lewes (so
morally defensive??)
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George Eliot Early novels fresh
1st Adam BedeScenes of Clerical Life
Later turned to scientific and conscious art
Romola (historical)Felix Holt (social revolt)
Daniel Deronda (Hebrew race)
Later successesMill on the Floss
Silas Marner
Characters not individual, but typical; under the
same universal moral law
Th H d
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Thomas Hardy
Trained as architect
Problematic religiosity (agnostic and belief in absence ofGod?)
Novels set in partly real, partly dream county of Wessex
The epoch just before the railways and industrial revolution Pessimistic and bitterly ironic tone
Eye for poignant detail; real newspaper events used as detail
Himself called his finest novels, Novels of Character andEnvironment
Emphasis on impersonal & negative power of Fate over
working class people
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Desperate Remedies; Under the Greenwood
Tree (Wessex); A Pair of Blue Eyes
1st
success: Far From the Madding Crowd(Wessex; title from Grays Elegy; not tragic;
Bathsheba Everdene tries to manage farm
herself, marries wrong person, finally marries
Gabriel Oak)
The Return of the Native (Clym Yeobright
returns from Paris to Egdon Heath; marries
Eustacia Vye; tragedies)
modernist elements: nature/society battle (Eustacia
wants to leave the Heath, defy Fate, and drowns),
social commentary, failure and ambition themes
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The Mayor of Casterbridge (tragedy; Wessex;The Life and Death of a Man of Character;
drunkard Michael Henchard auctions off hiswife and daughter; 18 yrs later he is Mayor;reunited with wife and daughter who falls inlove with Donald Farfrae; decline in fortunes)
The Woodlanders
Tess of the dUrbervilles (controversial for itchallenged the sexual mores of the day)
Jude the Obscure (Jude a lower-class youngman dreams of becoming a scholar. Themes --class, scholarship, religion, marriage, and themodernization of thought and society)
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Tess of the dUrbervilles
The title character is a beautiful country girl, Teresa "Tess" Durbeyfield, the daughter of uneducated (and rather shiftless) peasants.During a chance encounter with an amateur genealogist (the local parson), Tess's father, John Durbeyfield, learns that he isdescended from a medieval noble family, the d'Urbervilles. The elder Durbeyfields, looking for a way to wring an advantage fromtheir illustrious ancestry, decide to send a very reluctant Tess to "claim kin" with the local nouveau-riche d'Urberville family (whoin fact have no connection to the original d'Urbervilles, having appended the ancient name to their real surname of "Stoke" tocreate the illusion of "old" connections).
Tess begins working at the d'Urberville house, and attracts the unwanted attentions of the playboy son of the household, Alecd'Urberville. In a rape or seduction (the scene is open to interpretation), Tess becomes pregnant. She returns home shortlyafterward, against Alec's wishes, and bears a child whom she names "Sorrow." The baby, however, soon dies, freeing Tess to makea new start. In hopes of leaving her disgrace behind, she takes a job at a dairy forty miles away.
While employed as a milkmaid, Tess meets Angel Clare, the virtuous younger son of a minister. Although the two are fromdifferent social classes, they fall in love, and Angel repeatedly urges Tess to marry him. Tess knows he perceives her as aninnocent country maiden but, afraid of losing his love and admiration, finds it extraordinarily difficult to tell him her secret. Atlength, she agrees to the marriage.
On the wedding night, after Angel asks forgiveness for a past sexual indiscretion of his own, she finally finds the courage to makeher confession, thinking her "offense" to be exactly the same as his. To her horror, Angel is so deeply mortified that his attitude
toward her changes completely. When she protests "I thought you loved me, my very self!" he declares "The woman I have beenloving is not you" but "another woman in your shape." At this stage, certain he has been deceived by an artful hussy, Angel iscompletely unable to reconcile his love for Tess with his changed perception of her. The two separate a few days later; Angel tellsTess he will come to her if he decides he can endure living with her.
Tess briefly returns to her family, but, finding this unbearable, she goes to work again as a day laborer on other farms. During thesemonths, Alec d'Urberville re-enters her life, claiming to be a reformed sinner and begging her to marry him. Tess rebuffs him withloathing and continues her difficult, lonely existence, performing backbreaking field work all winter and waiting for Angel torelent.
In the spring, John Durbeyfield dies. The family then loses the lease on their cottage and is made homeless, forced to travel thecountryside with all their possessions searching for lodgings and employment. At this point, Alec d'Urberville re-appears and adesperate Tess finally agrees to become his mistress so that she can support her family.
Angel Clare, meanwhile, has been in Brazil, where a disease nearly kills him. After much thought, he returns to England to findTess and renew their love. He discovers her living in a seaside hotel with Alec d'Urberville, beautifully dressed but miserable.Tess, in despair, sends Angel away, and goes back to her room, weeping. When Alec scoffs at her misery and insults her husband,she stabs him to death, then forms the wild hope that the murder will somehow purify her in Angel's eyes. She goes after him andthey flee together, finally consummating their marriage while hiding in a guest house. Spied by the cleaning woman, they areforced to move on, eventually reaching Stonehenge. Here, Tess asks Angel to take care of her younger sister, 'Liza-'Lu, who is "aspiritualized image of Tess." Soon after, the police arrive to make their arrest. In the last scene, as Angel and 'Liza-'Lu watchoutside the walls of a prison, a black flag ascends a flagpole, signalling the completion of Tess's execution.
In Tess of the d'Urbervilles, through the central themes of sex, class perceptions, material longing and family betrayal, Hardymanages to suggest the ambiguities of time and change and divine power versus human reason.
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Wessex Poems
Poems about Emma (guilt at his neglect of his
wife)
War poems (second Boer War 1899-1902, and
First World War); diversity of attitude; no clear-
cut opinion of war; related specific historicalconflicts to a wider historical scheme, esp. in
The Dynasts (epic closet drama of the
Napoleonic Wars)The Going of the Battery; Drummer Hodge; The
Man He Killed
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Hardy: Modernism
Class-inflected, skeptical, self-implicating tendencies Highly ambiguous language
Resistance to conventional attitudes
Insistence on the possibility of achieving a defiant
freedom to choose and refuse
Doubt, pessimism, intellectual crisis
Denial of resolution, closure
Unusual distortion and simplification characteristic of
expressionism
Tendency to mix sharply contrsting artistic modes in a
single work
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Prose Writers
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Macaulay
Writing for recreation
Balladic poems
French and English history
History of England No accuracy of fact
Immensely pleasurable style
Essays on Bunyan, Addison, Bacon, Johnson,
Goldsmith, Byron
One-sided criticism
Brilliant style and wealth of allusion
Carlyle
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Carlyle Scottish; German influence
Connections in the US; friendship with Emerson
Time of industrial revolution; but transcendental, not
materialistic view of the world
Heroes and Hero Worship
Leaders in religion, poetry, war and politicsDivinity (Odin),Prophet (Mahomet), Poet (Dante, Shakespeare), Priest (Luther,
Knox), Man of Letters (Johnson, Rousseau, Burns), King
(Cromwell, Napoleon)
development of human intellect History as the biography of a few heroes; heroism as a matter of
power, not of physical or moral courage
The French Revolution
Not historical in the modern sense; pictorial and dramatic
S R
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Sartor Resartustailor repatched
commentary on the thought and life of a Germanphilosopher Teufelsdrckh, author of Clothes: theirOrigin and Influence.
Simultaneously factual and fictional, serious and
satirical, speculative and historical. Ironicallymetafictional.
Where can one find truth? The imaginary"Philosophy of Clothes" -- meaning is to be
derived from phenomena, continually shiftingover history, as cultures reconstruct themselvesin changing fashions, power-structures, and
faith-systems.
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Ruskin
Social reformer; but not very successful at that
Sensitiveness and sincerity
Art criticismsSeven Lamps of Architecture
Modern Painters (Ruskins admiration of Turner)Stones of Venice
Political economy
Unto This Last (political economy is merely commercial;detailed plan to make a nation wealthy by increasing thehealth and happiness of human beings)
Sesame and Lilies (on books & womanly character)
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