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The Victorian Era & Victorian Poetry

The Victorian Era & Victorian Poetry. Brit Lit II Mr. Marcel. The Victorian Era: Historical/Cultural Overview. Queen Victoria – ascended the throne in 1837 and ruled for 64 years. 1837-1901. She worked hard for her people, delegated leadership well.

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The Victorian Era & Victorian Poetry

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  1. The Victorian Era & Victorian Poetry Brit Lit II Mr. Marcel

  2. The Victorian Era: Historical/Cultural Overview • Queen Victoria – ascended the throne in 1837 and ruled for 64 years. 1837-1901. She worked hard for her people, delegated leadership well. • England reached the height of its economic and political power. • London swelled in population. • While there were plenty of problems (poverty, disease, etc.), the nation’s ills were being ratified.

  3. The Victorian Era: Historical/Cultural Overview • The Reform Bill of 1832 • The number of voters quadrupled. • Other legislation of the time further extended political democracy: • factory acts (1816-1833; controlling child labor); • law abolishing slavery (1834); • Poor Law (1834-providingsystem of public relief); • 10-hour day (1847); • Voting by ballot (1872).

  4. The Victorian Era: Historical/Cultural Overview • England had expanded from a tiny island into an empire. • sense of nationalism and self-satisfaction. • England became more insular, complacent and wealthy. New conventionality and conservatism from growing middle class • The middle class: becoming more serious, and materialistic. Puritanism again became popular, and moral bond tightened.

  5. The Victorian Era: Literature • Victorian lit. becomes more somber and factual, more realistic and classical. It reflects new scientific advances, the concern over social conditions. • Victorian Literature is really an amalgam of neo-classical and romantic

  6. The Victorian Era: Traits • New issue: writing for popular demand (the rise of novel - which analyzed the problems of the middle class) • In drama, the Victorians wanted light comedy and farce. • Victorian poetry is very diverse: designed for 2 widely different levels: 1) the exotic, pagan, colorful, emotional 2) humanitarian, intellectual, didactic.

  7. The Divisions of the Victorian Period A. EARLY VICTORIAN (1832-1860):including writers who continue deep currents of romanticism as well as those opposed to excesses of Romanticism. • Novelists: Dickens, William Thackeray (Vanity Fair), Charlotte Bronte (Jane Eyre) & Emily Bronte (Wuthering Heights) • Poets: Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning

  8. The Divisions of the Victorian Period B. MID-VICTORIAN (1860-1880):period most characteristically Victorian; transition between the previous more aristocratic touch and the yet to come democratic/socialistic trends of later. • Poets: pre-Raphaelite group rejects artificial elements, what is natural is best; tendency to symbolism, heightening natural elements to create sensuous effects, great attention to minute detail. A growing opposition to the Victorian ethic • Matthew Arnold • Essayists: Charles Darwin, Thomas Huxley • Novelists: Lewis Carroll

  9. The Divisions of the Victorian Period • LATE VICTORIANS AND “THE NEW REALITY” (1880-1901): there are still writers continuing to argue for the complacent and prosperous middle class; AND, those who openly challenge the cherished ideals, the decorous restraint, and smugness. • In actuality, England moved toward greater real democracy--more freedom for women, more defense of individual rights in court system. • In politics, the problem of the Victorian Age was to seek compromise--in Literature, it was the same--compromise between flagrant romanticism and staid classicism. • Novelists: Thomas Hardy, Samuel Butler, Oscar Wilde (novel/drama)

  10. The Divisions of the Victorian Period Poets: • Impressionists--revolt against realistic detail, sought to reproduce impressions--hence, highly personal--escape the expression of commonplace details and express, instead, mood: William Butler Yeats • Symbolists--avoids direct expression, seeking by means of imagery and fancy to endow poetic materials with some hidden spiritual or intellectual significance. Many are Catholic writers, seeking aesthetic escape in a religious mysticism: Hopkins, Thompson

  11. Impressionism Impression: soleil levant

  12. Victorian Poetry • Lord Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shallot,” “Ulysses,” “The Charge of the Light Brigade” • Robert Browning's “My Last Duchess" • Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach"  • Gerard Manley Hopkins “The Windover,” “Pied Beauty,” “Spring”

  13. John William Waterhouse’s The Lady of Shallot

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