Blok 2 - Literary History: Romanticism + Victorian age

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 6

1798 - 1840

OBJECTIVES

• You can situate the Romantic period in time and space.
• You can sum up characteristics of the Romantic period.
• You can compare the Romantic period and its previous literary period.
• You can briefly explain the Victorian period.  

CHARACTERISTICS OF ROMANTICISM

Look at the slides;

Watch the video

Answer the questions

02:37

Would you rather have lived during the Enlightenment or during the Romantic Era?

during the Enlightenment

during the Romantic Era

03:20

www.merriam-webster.com

Enlightenment or Romantic Era?

(Also look at the attributes!)

Enlightenment

Romanic Era

Dream, heaven, angels

Which characteristics of the Romantic Era does this painting evoke?

countryside - nature

Which characteristics of the Romantic Era does this painting evoke?

Evaluation

Romanticism emerged as a reaction against ...

1. The nuclear arms race
2. The Cold War and Cuban Missile Crisis
3. The spread of the Black Plague
4. The Age of Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution

After what big event in 1789 did Romanticism emerge?

1. World war I
2. The French revolution
3. Industrial Revolution
4. The Boston tea party

What is NOT an important key feature of Romanticism?

1. Politics
2. Nature
3. Passion for love
4. Supernatural

Which characteristic doesn't belong to the Romantic Period

1. nature
2. innocence
3. supernatural
4. war

When did the Romantic period take place?

1. 1750-1850
2. 1789-1832
3. 1830-1900
4. 1066 - 1502

• EXTENSION

• The Victorian Era

The Victorian Age 

1830-1900

The Victorian Age

• Started around 1830 ended in early 20th century
• Named after Queen Victoria (1837 - 1901)
• Britain: great economic and political power: "The empire on which the sun never set" - the white men'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")

Queen Victoria (1819-1901)  Reign: 1837-1901

• Longest reign in British history after Queen Elizabeth II.
  
• Queen at the age of 18.
• She restored people’s faith in the monarchy after a series of horrible leaders.
• Victoria married a German prince, Albert, who became Prince-consort.
• After he died in 1861, she sank into a deep depression and wore black every day for the rest of her life.

The British Empire

Where the sun never sets

• Greatest nation on Earth
  
• Cf. image
• Very large navy and merchant fleet 
• The English felt it was their duty to bring English values, laws, customs, and religion to the “savage” races around the world

Social inequality

• Population increase 
• Search for employment
  
• Child Labour & Child crime
• Housing shortage
  
• Slum housing
  
• Poor sanitary conditions
  
• Destitution
  
• Homeless children
  
• Workhouses
  

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)

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)

Important authors

• Charles Dickens
• The Brontë Sisters
• George Eliot
• Thomas Hardy
• Oscar Wilde