Victorian Age V6

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 6

A Survey of English Literature

Victorian Age & Poetry

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"

Young Victoria

Elderly Victoria

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")

The Victorian Age (3)

• Scientific discovery and progress

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

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)

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)

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 

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)

Victorian Era

Position of women in Victorian Times

*Poor women had to work

*Bad living conditions

* no rights to vote, husband was the boss

Difference between the classes:

*Rich women were supposed to be "the Angel of the House"

*Well-furnished houses & enough food, servants

* no rights to vote, husband decided on everything

rich children

raised by a nanny & spoiled 

hardly any contact with their parents

not allowed to eat at the same table

educated

needed to marry a person from the same class

Lower classes 

- Bad living conditions lower classes/poor 

- Reform bills to improve situation labourers (child labour)

Max. 48 hours if 9 years old

Bit of education...

Bad health circumstances

Sufragettes: women's & votes

1918 :allowed to vote if 30 years old

1928: 21 years old

Right to vote for women & lower classes

Female writers in the 19th century 

The Brontë sisters:

Charlotte, Emily and Anne

A quick guide to the Brontë sisters 

What type of girls were these Brontë sisters:

little contact/shy

Emily sharp characters

Did not opt for marriage, governesses

wrote under a pseudonym
s

Special for Dickens' novels (I)

serialised stories in journals (= installments)

cliffhangers

literature available for a wider audience 

(cheap + information for people from middle/higher classes )

ironical/satirical

absurd characters and absurd names