6V Literature - Victorian Age & Poetry

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 6

A Survey of English Literature

Victorian Age & Poetry

Today's lesson

Introduction to the Victorian Age

Two Victorian poems:

- Ulysses by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

- My Last Duchess by Robert Browning

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)

Ulysses

Read the poem (p. 45-47)

Do Assignment 21

My Last Duchess

Read the poem (p. 48-49)

Do Assignment 7 (p. 50)