Literature- theory

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 4

18th - 19th ct literature

- theory: context and characteristics

- books: choice of 10 --- > see Classroom

Testweek: essay

argue for or against a statement relating to your book using your knowledge of the literary period. 

- essay structure - language - literary analysis 

Link naar document met excerpts: 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yDRTBCNIrg3MYWsWuyQd2TDXuJ3r3SenqwKgdlLZAk8/edit?usp=sharing

Lessons

1. culture and historical background 18th and 19th ct

2. literature 18th ct: the Romantic Period

            2x

3. literature 19th ct: the Victorian Period

            2x

4. comparison of both periods

            1x

Find six important/interesting things that happened on your birthday in the 18th and 19th century (1700-1900)

Lesson 1: History

1. culture and historical background 18th and 19th ct

2. literature 18th ct: the Romantic Period

3. literature 19th ct: the Victorian Period

4. comparison of both periods

            Royalty

Hanoverian Dynasty

George I-IV 
Mad King George 1760- 1820 and George IV 1820-1830

Prime minister/cabinet power

William III (of Orange)
Glorious Revolution 1688

After a period of unrest (civil war, Henry VIII, Charles beheaded and restoration, Cromwell) William III promised legitimacy and peace. 

Hanoverians took over, legitimate and a tad boring... but cabinet took more power: non-noble people/middle class started to rule.

Queen Victoria

1837 -1901

Last Hanoverian

Empire

Stability and peace

decency 

Inventions

Thomas Newcomen steam engine 1712

John Campbell sextant 1731

James Hargreaves spinning jenny 1765

telegraph 1840's

industry and navigation

                 Inventions

19th ct- communication and transportation- the world was bigger

Current battery - Alessandro Volta in 1800- voltaic pile

1876- Alexander Graham Bell- telephone (on this photo augurating the 1,520-km (944-mile) telephone link between New York City and Chicago on October 18, 1892.)

1830- first railroad between Manchester and Liverpool- first passenger locomotive George Stephenson (1825 first voyage)

1803 steam locomotive- Richard Trevithick

Society

Parliament

no absolute power

lords

Parliament gained more and more power and kings did not have the absolute power they had before. 

The lords, landed elite and new elite, decided on many things

Society

marriage

status

towns and cities

middle class

Marriage was a way to gain or maintain status. The goal was to marry up: either a wealthy heiress or a man with titles. 

Landed elite in towns, old status, glory, but often poor because expensive. In cities trade and growing middle class, also new elite. More money, less status. Landed elite looked down on city people. Cities were also sinful. 

Homework

Write a short essay (half a page max) on how one of these things is represented in your book

submit in Classroom

Essay structure

introduction: what book, what period, topic of essay

body: argumentation

conclusion: repeat your topic and answer it. The trick is not to repeat yourself literally

Lesson 2: Romanticism

1. culture and historical background 18th and 19th ct

2. literature 18th ct: the Romantic Period

Monk, Otranto and Udolpho: nature and emotion and mystery

3. Romantic Period

Gulliver and Robinson: travellers

4. literature 19th ct: the Victorian Period

5. comparison of both periods

What do you remember about historical context?

Look at the images, what do you see? Think of atmosphere and theme. 

Romantic period: nature, small humans, overwhelming, emotions, the Sublime

Castle of Otranto

1764

First romantic novel 

- for those who have this book: what is it about? 

- extract in handout: which elements do you recognize? Highlight them. 

Handout: which elements do you recognize?

Those who read it: what is it about?

The romantics are based in passion, not in reason (response to Enlightenment). They look at the world with optimism. Nature is good, mankind is good in spirit

The romantic hero: different, emotional, wandering, spiritual

Having listened to the poem, what do you feel?

Love of nature: source of the sublime

see handout: Udolpho

Fascination with history (gothic/medieval) and the supernatural

(but it isn't always supernatural: age of reason)

Romantic Poetry

Two generations of Romantic poets:

1. criticised social conventions and society is evil. supported ideals of freedom and equality of French Revolution.  simple language, wanted to combine supernatural, mysterious and fantastical images and tones with everyday themes

leading poets: Wordsworth, Coleridge (Rime of the Ancient Mariner), Southy

2. true incarnation of Romantic revolt. Total rebellion without truce, affirmation of the individual, truth and beauty. More complex versifications

leading poets: Keats, Percy Shelley, Lord Byron 

(all lived short lives by ‘living on the edge’)

Een gedichtenactiviteit doen

Read 'the tables turned'
what is it about? Which ideas are expressed?

Very much the question where science takes us, emphasis on morality in human nature

Romantic Period (1798-1837)

Started with publication of Lyrical Ballads (by Wordsworth and Coleridge) and ended with ascension of Queen Victoria. 

product of socio-economic setting:

steam engine > 2 industrial revolutions (from agricultural to industrial and rural to urban)

French revolution: new ideas and attitudes (shout for freedom and rejection of authority)

in other words: this movement reacted against the Age of Reason!

Great period for poetry, but also some prose

novels mainly about earlier times (18th century)

Assignment for today: classroom

Annotate 1 of the extracts from Monk   +     the poem

characteristics

words/ phrases

themes

topic

descriptions

Link naar document: 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IzP3i4iDeAhrAuP-8BgCTsA0HP4AcHnmmeru0u2ckis/edit?usp=sharing

Lesson 3: Romanticism

1. culture and historical background 18th and 19th ct

2. literature 18th ct: the Romantic Period

Monk, Otranto and Udolpho: nature and emotion and mystery

3. Romantic Period II and Age of Reason

Gulliver and Robinson: travellers

4. literature 19th ct: the Victorian Period

5. comparison of both periods

what do you remember? - historical background/romanticism

Romantic Poetry

Two generations of Romantic poets:

1. criticised social conventions and society is evil. supported ideals of freedom and equality of French Revolution.  simple language, wanted to combine supernatural, mysterious and fantastical images and tones with everyday themes

leading poets: Wordsworth, Coleridge (Rime of the Ancient Mariner), Southy

2. true incarnation of Romantic revolt. Total rebellion without truce, affirmation of the individual, truth and beauty. More complex versifications

leading poets: Keats, Percy Shelley, Lord Byron 

(all lived short lives by ‘living on the edge’)

Een gedichtenactiviteit doen

Read 'the tables turned'
what is it about? Which ideas are expressed?

Very much the question where science takes us, emphasis on morality in human nature

Read 'she walks in beauty'
what is it about? compare with 'Tables Turned' from last lesson

Very much the question where science takes us, emphasis on morality in human nature

Romantic Poetry

Two generations of Romantic poets:

1. criticised social conventions and society is evil. supported ideals of freedom and equality of French Revolution.  simple language, wanted to combine supernatural, mysterious and fantastical images and tones with everyday themes

leading poets: Wordsworth, Coleridge (Rime of the Ancient Mariner), Southy

2. true incarnation of Romantic revolt. Total rebellion without truce, affirmation of the individual, truth and beauty. More complex versifications

leading poets: Keats, Percy Shelley, Lord Byron 

(all lived short lives by ‘living on the edge’)

Een gedichtenactiviteit doen

George Gordon, Lord Byron 1788-1824

•  The most flamboyant and notorious of the major English Romantic poets
• Born in London with a clubbed right foot
  
• He was probably bisexual
  
• He lived extravagantly and he got in debt.
  
• He often writes about relationships and friendships, satire and eroticism
  
• Politics: He got into the House of Lords in 1809 -> Lord Byron
• He died in the Greek War of Independence from Turkey in 1824.
  

Romantic Period (1798-1837)

Started with publication of Lyrical Ballads (by Wordsworth and Coleridge) and ended with ascension of Queen Victoria. 

product of socio-economic setting:

steam engine > 2 industrial revolutions (from agricultural to industrial and rural to urban)

French revolution: new ideas and attitudes (shout for freedom and rejection of authority)

in other words: this movement reacted against the Age of Reason!

Great period for poetry, but also some prose

novels mainly about earlier times (18th century)

Age of Reason/

neo-classicism (1685-1815)

Englightenment

society, individual, religion

lone hero finding meaning in society

rise of middle class/ordinary man

Romantic Period (1798-1837)

Nature

Emotions

Individualism

lone hero finding own true soul, developing self

• Because of the discrepancy between the idealistic world (everything ruled by reason) and the real world (human emotions and lusts are often dominant) satire, both in prose and poetry, became the most popular genre of the Neoclassical period.

• Gap between 1) Neoclassical prose and poetry read by the higher circles of society (upper class) and 2) literature for the middle class: religious works and books with recognisable (middle class) characters and a clear moral at the end. Daniel Dafoe’s Robinson Crusoe (no work of art). The outlook of the middle class was moral, practical and down-to-earth
  

• The rise of the novel: 
• e.g. Defoe, Swift, Austen

 Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep

Clos'd o'er the head of your lov'd Lycidas?

For neither were ye playing on the steep

Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie,

Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high,

Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream.

Ay me! I fondly dream

Had ye bin there'—for what could that have done?

What could the Muse herself that Orpheus bore,

The Muse herself, for her enchanting son,

Whom universal nature did lament,

When by the rout that made the hideous roar

His gory visage down the stream was sent,

Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore?

(1630's- John Milton Lycidas)

Just to show you what upper class poetry was like: 

- complicated

- you had to have an education

- references all over the place

Read excerpt I of R. Crusoe

- what do we know of Robinson?

- what do we learn of his world?

are people good? Is society good? --- > see also Gulliver's Travels

normal man- relation between nature and civilization (a natural progress, also meeting God there) 

travel

exotic things

From wikipedia: Published seven years after Daniel Defoe's successful Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels may be read as a systematic rebuttal of Defoe's optimistic account of human capability. In The Unthinkable Swift: The Spontaneous Philosophy of a Church of England Man, Warren Montag argues that Swift was concerned to refute the notion that the individual precedes society, as Defoe's work seems to suggest. Swift regarded such thought as a dangerous endorsement of Thomas Hobbes' radical political philosophy and for this reason Gulliver repeatedly encounters established societies rather than desolate islands. The captain who invites Gulliver to serve as a surgeon aboard his ship on the disastrous third voyage is named Robinson.

Scholar Allan Bloom asserts that Swift's lampooning of the experiments of Laputa is the first questioning by a modern liberal democrat of the effects and cost on a society which embraces and celebrates policies pursuing scientific progress.

Robinson Crusoe

Published in 1718

Author: Daniel Defoe

Journalist

Spy

Author

Politician

18th century- literacy

cities centre of intellectual life: ideas spread more widely and quickly

new technologies: printing cheaper and faster and quicker transport: ideas spread easier

pamphlets and journals (with news, essays, stories, satire, poetry) to large parts of society

new form of literature: the novel

reflect day to day life in contrast to before (heroes and monarchs)

describing lives of ordinary people with ordinary problems, recognisable to many!

travel accounts, but also less exotic topics.

truthful, realistic and yet exciting, preferably with moral (sometimes even satire)

examples: Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver’s Travels, Tom Jones, Pamela

Read the second Crusoe excerpt

Twenty-first century readers often criticise this work. Can you imagine why? 

Europeans colonised. The first thing Robinson does is setting up camp, using all resources. Survival, yes, but also taking everything. 

Then he meets the natives, they are Savages and cannibals. He gives Friday his name and imposes Western habits on him without questioning. 

At that time it was okay, now we look back and feel different about colonisation. 

Gulliver's Travels

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

Classic example of satire (Scriblerus Club)

Allegory about current social situation in England

Criticises ethics and politics

Why would a travel story be so good for satire? (see also morals in Robinson Crusoe)

Gulliver meets societies, his response to them. 

Very much concerned with how individuals behave in relation to society. 

Criticism on science and politics

Gulliver himself turns from optimist to pessimist (books ends with him as a recluse looking down on society)

From Wikipedia:One of the most commonly noted parallels is that the wars between Lilliput and Blefuscu resemble those between England and France.[19] The enmity between the low heels and the high heels is often interpreted as a parody of the Whigs and Tories, and the character referred to as Flimnap is often interpreted as an allusion to Sir Robert Walpole, a British statesman and Whig politician who Swift had a personally turbulent relationship with.

In Part III, the grand Academy of Lagado in Balnibarbi resembles and satirizes the Royal Society. Part IV of The Travels and the Yahoo-Houyhnhnm relationship as an allusion to that of the Irish and the British:

18th and 19th ct literature

- role of reason

- role of emotion/passion

- role of Nature/tame Nature and wild Nature/Savages

- reaction to Enlightenment

- individualism

- exploration

- empire (see also To the Queen in the excerpts)

Lesson 3: Romanticism

1. culture and historical background 18th and 19th ct

2. literature 18th ct: the Romantic Period

Monk, Otranto and Udolpho: nature and emotion and mystery

3. Romantic Period

Gulliver and Robinson: travellers

4. literature 19th ct: the Victorian Period

5. comparison of both periods

Link naar document met excerpts: 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yDRTBCNIrg3MYWsWuyQd2TDXuJ3r3SenqwKgdlLZAk8/edit?usp=sharing

Today

- leftover from last time: Gulliver's Travels

- characteristics checklist

- start on themes Society and Science

Gulliver's Travels

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

Classic example of satire (Scriblerus Club)

Allegory about current social situation in England

Criticises ethics and politics

Why would a travel story be so good for satire? (see also morals in Robinson Crusoe)

Gulliver meets societies, his response to them. 

Very much concerned with how individuals behave in relation to society. 

Criticism on science and politics

Gulliver himself turns from optimist to pessimist (books ends with him as a recluse looking down on society)

From Wikipedia:One of the most commonly noted parallels is that the wars between Lilliput and Blefuscu resemble those between England and France.[19] The enmity between the low heels and the high heels is often interpreted as a parody of the Whigs and Tories, and the character referred to as Flimnap is often interpreted as an allusion to Sir Robert Walpole, a British statesman and Whig politician who Swift had a personally turbulent relationship with.

In Part III, the grand Academy of Lagado in Balnibarbi resembles and satirizes the Royal Society. Part IV of The Travels and the Yahoo-Houyhnhnm relationship as an allusion to that of the Irish and the British:

18th and 19th ct literature

- role of reason

- role of emotion/passion

- role of Nature/tame Nature and wild Nature/Savages

- reaction to Enlightenment

- individualism

- exploration

- empire (see also To the Queen in the excerpts)

Make a checklist

- theme

- setting

- story elements

- characters

explain these using the historical background (key words)

Not all works tick all boxes, that is fine. But it helps to have this.

Characteristics of R.L

focus on power and grandeur of nature

emotion over intellect

imagination over logic > as countermovement for Age of Reason  (also the mysterious and frightening!)

originality (or inspiration/intuition) was prized!

interest in history (mostly mediaeval), celebrating times before industrialisation

fascination with exotic and unfamiliar

anti-authoritarian and anti-establishment

individualistic

common people could be noble if close to nature

much poetry about children  (uncorrupted by knowledge, innocent, close to nature) 

Read the excerpt "Jane Eyre"

- which bits of romanticism do you find?

- what is new?

ROmantiek- wilde natuur, mysterie

Nieuw: redelijk individu

Niet in dit fragment: Jane is een wees en gouvernante. (Lage) middenklasse, de gewone mens.

Bonusfragment: Jane's overwegingen wat ze in het leven zoekt. Wat is de positie van een vrouw?

Victorian Literature

emotions made way for more rational style, innovative works

novel became most popular form, made available for large parts of society in serial form: cheap and accessible

novel intended for middle class > picked up and approved by Victorian bourgeoisie

no tradition yet, so could be adapted to Victorian age

allow to escape reality, perfect for chaotic society

relatable for people: real life situations

proposed solutions to complex issues

Read the excerpt

Chapter 19: Jane Bennet

Chapter 22: Charlotte Lucas

What are both approaches to marriage?

Who would cause most trouble?

Pride and Prejudice was written before Victorian age, it is a halfway book like Jane Eyre. We use it as Victorian example today

18th century: history

scientific discoveries and philosophers: started in Age of Reason, still continued.  Anything was possible through reason resulted in confidence in individual, which peaks in Romanticism with the lone wandering hero. 

Travel meant a boom in Britain’s economy:  international trade and colonisation made Britain rich! First to enter industrialisation: trade and industry overtook agriculture and people moved to cities nobility not only ones in power anymore!  You could prosper by investing and trading > middle class (bourgeoisie) through marriages rise to nobility

new social class became influential: hard work and virtuous living new ideals importance of upbringing and role of mother. new role women: domestic, still important to marry rich

still many underpaid uneducated workers > contrast! 

Lesson 5: Science

1. culture and historical background 18th and 19th ct

2. the Romantic Period: Monk, Otranto and Udolpho; nature and emotion and mystery

3. Romantic Period: Gulliver and Robinson; travellers

4. literature 19th ct: reason and emotions, the individual

5. Age of Reason, Romanticism, Victorian: reason and madness 

6. recap

Age of Reason  (1715-1815)

1. Reason (thinking rationally)
   
2. Objectivity / Analytic view
   
3. Clarity
   
4. Science (art is didactical, teaches)
   
5. Replica (of classical themes)
   
6. Materialistic
   
7. Quantity
   
8. Human being is separate from nature (nature = resources)
   
9. Security & optimism (science = progress)
10. Hero = universal, static (general description)

Romantic period (1790-1850)

(a philosophical response to reason/technology/science)

1. Feeling (indivual feelings, individual differences)
   
2. Subjectivity / Holistic view
   
3. Ambiguity & irony (= means the opposite of what you say)
   
4. Art to inspire (art for the sake of art)
   
5. Creativity
   
6. Spiritualistic
   
7. Quality (human life)
   
8. Human being is part of nature
   

  9. Insecurity & doubt (revolution, war)

10. Hero = complex, exceptional individual

(focus on internal struggle, mood / examination of mentality)

Hero thinks more about existence, death, eternity

Romantic themes in art/literature

• individual, personal
• feeling / Imagination
• common life
• spontaneity
• ordinary language
• pleasure
• nature as background and inspiration

• liberty
• nature
• the exotic
• the supernatural
• creative process / imagination 

Different themes I want to talk about with you

- 

- science in Victiorian times

- madness and the supernatural

We start with science

Who is Frankenstein

1. The creator
2. The monster
3. The author
4. The sailor

Frankenstein historical/social context

It reflects a shift in social and political thought - from humans as creatures who use science and reason to shape and control their destiny (Enlightenment) to humans as creatures who rely on their emotions to determine what is right (Romanticism).  ! So it doesn't fit in one box !

Other influences:

• Darwin and his religious views
• The Industrial Revolution

Historical/social context

It is set in the latter part of the 18th century, at the end of the Enlightenment and the beginning of the Romantic period.

It critizes the excesses of the Enlightenment and introduces the beliefs of the Romantics.

Romanticism: political and social revolt, attraction to the supernatural, the morbid, and the cruel.

Often still placed as a book on Science and scientific thought

7. What was the other title of the book Frankenstein?

1. The Modern Calcaneus
2. The Modern Prometheus
3. The Modern Vesuvius
4. The Modern Theseus

What does that mean for what science can bring mankind according to M.S?

The Life of Mary Shelley

• Born 30 August 1797 as Mary Godwin
  
• Father was a political philosopher
  
• Mother was philosopher and feminist and died ten days after her birth
• Brought up by her father
  
• Encouraged in political views; homeschooled
• Married Percy Shelley, a poet
  
• Carried his heart in a box for 30 years after his death
• lost 4 children (three in infancy, one miscarriage)

Text

Text

Text

Let's talk a bit about faces

What do you think of these?

Cesare Lombrosa researched thousands of heads and faces of criminals to find out how you can tell that someone is a criminal. This was an accepted bit of science, which was practiced even in WWII

More info

HERE

read in the excerpt file: faces

- how do the authors in both books talk about faces? 

Tip: no matter which book you have, go to the online edition (link in the file with the books) and do a search on "face". See how your author describes people's appearances. Relate these to their character. 

You'll find lots of judgement. See also: Prince Charming

Jekyll and Hyde

- Duality of man--- > we'll watch a scene on the next slide.

- Good vs Evil (remember the faces thing?)

- Stage version: Jack the Ripper 

- From Age of Reason to Victorian Age: science but also mystery. The confidence in science of Enlightenment was lost, but unrelenting emotions of Romanticism had shifted too

If you want to watch creepy things: BBC documentary of Victorian Asylums 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oswUssXzFlY&t=88s

these themes of good and evil run through everything! Not just this book, but all books hold a certain "yes this is ok behaviour" and "no, that is horrible" standard. The standard may shift, and how this standard plays a role changes for each book, but it is always there.

Transformation: Duality

Reasonable and modest, scientific, but also fascinated with the occult and the darkness in people

duality

though a few books on the list explicitly deal with good and bad (either within a person or in society), all books do lean on concepts of what was allowed/the right thing to do/ the way society runs. 

Some investigate these concepts, some kick against them, some question them. 

I hope these lessons have given you some information and tools to talk about your book in the context of their times, their meaning for literature, and the way they explore different topics

Some extra things you might like

Battersea Poltergeist

A supercreepy podcastseries about the Battersea Poltergeist, not really Victorian but defo like it in style when it comes to ghosthunting. I listened to it when I had a fever and that was a big mistake ;)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0940193/episodes/downloads

Victorian spiritualism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-MDxC2YDCU&t=128s 

Website

http://victorian-era.org/victorian-spiritualism-spiritualists.html 

Age of Reason:

all about rational and knowledge

often satirical or moralistic

start of novel with still stock characters and logical plots

truthful, hardly fantasy

already more about normal people

Victorian age:

questioning religion (Darwin)

social turmoil

feminism and realism

individualistic change and character development

serial novels, mainly about middle class

Next Friday: individual work

- write mock essay

- read your book

- do research

I will start class by reiterating the essay structure, and I will show you some handy websites and research tricks

links and tips will appear here

(still need to do that, but it is also Spring Break and I want to play Tomb Raider)

Lesson 6: Summary

1. culture and historical background 18th and 19th ct

2. the Romantic Period: Monk, Otranto and Udolpho; nature and emotion and mystery

3. Romantic Period: Gulliver and Robinson; travellers

4. literature 19th ct: reason and emotions, the individual

5. Age of Reason, Romanticism, Victorian: reason and madness 

6. comparison of both periods

names of periods and dates?

 1785-1832

1685-1815

1832-1901

Romanticism

Age of Reason

Victorian

Age of Reason (long 18th century)

Romanticism (1785-1832)

Victorian age (1832-1901)

Romantic                                          Victorian 

Reason-Romantic-Victorian

- science

- nature

- class society

- individualism

- spirituality/ soul/ ethics/ mankind

The focus of these themes and the way in which they are expressed changes over time

Timeline

- make a timeline of all the books based on publishing date

- add the literary period and characteristics 

- check the books for characteristics based on what we talked about in class.

can you see a development?

any books that follow the rule?

any books that don't?

18th century

The Monk: A Romance, Matthew Lewis, 1796.

The mysteries of Udolpho, Ann Radcliffe, 1794

The Castle of Otranto, Horace Walpole, 1764

Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe, 1719

 

Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift, 1726

19th century

Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë, 1847

Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë, 1847

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen, 1813

Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde, 1893

Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, 1818/ 1831

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson, 1886

Age of reason: characteristics and books

Romanticism: characteristics and books

Victorian age: characteristics and books

Age of Reason:

all about rational and knowledge

often satirical or moralistic

start of novel with still stock characters and logical plots

truthful, hardly fantasy

already more about normal people

Victorian age:

questioning religion (Darwin)

social turmoil

feminism and realism

individualistic change and character development

serial novels, mainly about middle class

How to prepare for the test?

- Characteristics of each period

- Make sure you can point them out in a text (poem and prose)

- place your own book in the literary period

- book: plot, theme, motifs, deeper message

- book: how do the characters develop? What do they represent? How do they behave? What do they want and how do they get it? 

Some extra things

Do check this interactive timeline from the British Library out:

Nineteenth century

Nineteenth century

Eighteenth century

Eighteenth century

Next term: Hamlet. Any tips or tops for the new literature lessons?

Lesson: revision

- go through characteristics and time

- place three poems in correct order

- highlight elements 

Time left? Mock essay on Classroom

Three poems

- place in correct order (without google!)

- highlight characteristics

- explain

In the literature excerpts file:

Ozymandias, Surgeons, Drury Lane

Drury Lane- importance of knowledge, freeing oneself from barbarous times through knowledge

Ozymandias- nature overpowers mankind

Surgeon- medical science, we see the echo of Frankenstein, also the duality: life as a culprit (rather than a good thing) and closeness of death and murder* 

*Dickinson is not strictly speaking a Victorian poet, but the poem itself seemed suitable

1747

1818

1891

Drury Lane

Ozymandias

Surgeons

VANAF HIER staan losse flodders van slides die ik niet heb gebruikt. Kan je best even lezen.

How does a Romantic poet write?

• Poet’s own feelings important (personal, subjective, individual) 
•  Poem is composed spontaneously cf. Wordsworth: poetry is “the spontaneous  overflow of powerful feelings, taking its origin  in emotion recollected in tranquility.” 
• Keywords: inspiration, imagination, originality 
  

Victorian period 1837-1901/1914

true change into industrialised society

large factories and automatisation 

lack of raw material in Britain > trade internationally in British Empire

economic growth meant both great fortune and poverty:

factory owners and entrepreneurs were wealthy: new aristocracy (bourgeoisie) and traditional upper class became less important

many people moved to cities: overcrowded and lack of housing with miserable working conditions. Depopulation of rural areas meant food shortages.

Peak was Great Exhibition in 1851

showing off with capabilities of human spirit and creative thinking

uprise of socialistic movement: power for the workers

start of Labour Party 1893

major discussion: Darwin’s evolution theory

conflict between science and religion

plaatjes laten zien

Ook stripjes over aotmatisation

Misschien film? Charlie Chapplin The Kid/ iets met die frabriek? Of Buster Keaton die in zo'n grote machine iets doet?

Victorian Novels

Characteristics of novels:

standard middle class behaviours and habits > relatable

popular topic: adaptation of individual to society

emphasis on character development, including climbing social ladder

principle character shows weakness, but still decent and reasonable Victorian

Victorian novels now can be big, but were not like that then due to serialisation

serialisation meant constant excitement and suspense

nostalgia (because present day was bad..)

Famous novelists:

Charles Dickens (Bleak House is first detective novel, Hard Times about factory life)

George Eliot (woman writer, Middlemarch)

Thomas Hardy (Jude the Obscure)

Oscar Wilde (dandy, shocking, The Picture of Dorian Gray)

18th - 19th ct literature

- theory: context and characteristics

- books: choice of 10 --- > see Classroom

Testweek: essay

argue for or against a statement relating to your book using your knowledge of the literary period. 

- essay structure - language - literary analysis 

Lessons

1. culture and historical background 18th and 19th ct

2. literature 18th ct: the Romantic Period

3. literature 19th ct: the Victorian Period

4. comparison of both periods

Romantic prose

Most important novelists: 

Mary Shelley (Frankenstein), 

Bronte sisters (after period, but in mood and style), 

Austen (books about Age of Reason), 

Sir Walter Scott (historical novels), 

Gothic novel is typically a Romantic form: 

famous example: Frankenstein

first already before Romantic period: Castle of Otranto, became more popular during Romantic Period

characteristics: sinister settings, extreme landscapes (nature, weather, etc) and their effects on your mood/circumstances, omens, supernatural elements, fear

In fragmenten uit de boeken laten highlighten wat de kenmerken zijn

victorians: bit weird

- frenology, search for science and social explanations

- but also obsession with supernatural (mediums!)

Age of reason

Renaissance- development of scientific method (1600-ish)

Development into Augustan Age (Alexander Pope) with lots of complex poetry that looks towards Greek-style epics and brags about learning

As exploration brings more knowledge of the world: fascination of strange lands and cultures

Don't  forget massive influence of French Revolution (1789): social (in)justice an and political unrest, but also turning around of idea of authority of nobility--- search for what a just society looks like

bouncing around

- reason, science, exploration

- romanticism and gothic

- back to controlled emotions

But they never forget the previous period! Romanticism takes science and inability to know for sure into account. Victorians take that to next level by looking for explanations and control of these insecurities in response to period of social/political turmoil

Gothic literature

Subset of Romantic literature

- darker

- more ghosts, castles, evil and darkness in us as a theme

- more folklore

!need to get this definition a bit sharper still!