6V Literature - Victorian Age & Poetry

A Survey of English Literature
Victorian Age & Poetry
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This lesson contains 15 slides, with text slides and 1 video.

time-iconLesson duration is: 50 min

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A Survey of English Literature
Victorian Age & Poetry

Slide 1 - Slide

Slide 2 - Video

Today's lesson
Introduction to the Victorian Age

Two Victorian poems:
- Ulysses by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
- My Last Duchess by Robert Browning

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The Victorian Age (1)
  • Started around 1830 ended in early 20th century
  • Named after Queen Victoria (1837 - 1901)
  • Britain: great economic and political power
  • "The workshop of the world"
  • "The empire on which the sun never set"

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Young Victoria
Elderly Victoria

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The Victorian Age (2)
  • Empire building: Britain's national destiny
  • Sense of moral superiority (white man's burden)
  • From  1830s: Laws aimed at reform (Reform Bills, Poor Laws, educational laws)
  • Yet: period of great social inequality
  • rich vs poor ("the two nations")
  • men vs women ("Victorian double standard")

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The Victorian Age (3)
  • Scientific discovery and progress

  • Growing uncertainty and intellectual doubt"
  • Religious beliefs vs scientific evidence
  • Discovery of fossils
  • Theory of evolution 

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Victorian literature - Poetry
  • A continuation of the Romantic period
  • Themes: nature  / the past / the human spirit

  • Important poets:
  1. Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809 - 1892)
  2. Robert Browning (1812 - 1889)

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Victorian literature - the novel
  • The age of the novel
  • Growing audience for "true stories"
  • Greater wealth (rise of the middle classes)
  • Better education (rise in literacy)
  • Instalment system (novels published in serial form)

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Important authors
  • Charles Dickens
  • The Brontë Sisters
  • George Eliot
  • Thomas Hardy
  1. poet + novelist / main theme: tragic lives of ordinary people
  2.  The Mayor of Casterbridge / Tess of the d'Urbervilles
  • Jane Austen 

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Important authors - 2
  • Henry James (The Portrait of a Lady)
  • Joseph Conrad (Heart of Darkness)
  • Sir Arthur Canon Doyle (Sherlock Holmes)
  • HG Wells (The Time Machine / The Invisible Man / The War of the Worlds)

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Ulysses
Read the poem (p. 45-47)
Do Assignment 21
timer
15:00

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My Last Duchess
Read the poem again (p. 48-49)
Do Assignment 7 (p. 50)
timer
15:00

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