authors

Thomas Carlyle

outspoken satirist and social critic who coined the term “condition of England,” Author of the eccentric spiritual biography Sartor Resartus, Past and Present, and an influential historical monograph, The French Revolution Strong influence on Ruskin.

John Ruskin

critic of art, society, and architecture, often combining political and aesthetic values, and importance influence on the Victorian Gothic revival, a resurgence of interest in medieval Gothic architecture, superseding the prevailing neoclassical styles Began his career of art criticism with landmark study of the English landscape painter J.M.W. Turner, Outspoken critic of the stultifying effects of modern industrialism and the mechanization of labour 

Walter Pater

Late Victorian essayist and author of influential writings on Renaissance art. Key figure in the “Decadent” movement and art-for-art’s sake.

John Stuart Mill

political philosopher associated with utilitarianism, Cool, rational style. Author of On Liberty and The Subjection of Women

Thomas Henry Huxley

popularizer of Darwinian science (“Darwin’s bulldog”) and great supporter of education for women, Prominent anticlerical intellectual.

Thomas Babington Macaulay

Whiggish historian and champion of industrialization and Victorian prosperity, Thrived on controversy, celebrated prose stylist. 

Matthew Arnold

earnest author of social and literary criticism, urgently concerned with “philistinism” and the dullness of middle-class life in a modern industrial society, In Culture and Anarchy and “The Study of Poetry”, developed a heightened secular definition of art and poetry as a counter to his pessimism

Charles Dickens

Most commercially successful author of his age, across a huge range of genres, Painful experience as a child labourer working in a shoe-blacking factory, Fervent social critic and satirist, often critiquing the stultifying effects of mass culture, industrialization, rote education, and utilitarian principles on the human imagination “Dickensian”: adjective for archetypal Victorian cityscape, Fiction often toes the line between satire/humour and melodrama/sentimentality, Special concern for the plight of poor children, Theatricality and “staginess” of Dickens’s style: performed his works aloud during reading tours to adoring audiences

charlotte bronte

Bildungsroman or “Novel of Formation”, Jane Eyre

Elizabeth Gaskell

Social Problem Novel, aka “Condition of England” Novel, North and South, Mary Barton;

George Eliot

high realism, Middlemarch 

Thomas Hardy

Naturalism, more “scientific” kind of realism, much influenced by Darwinism, and often fatalistic/pessimistic about the fates of human beings in an indifferent universe, Tess of D’Urbervilles, Jude the Obscure 

William Makepeace Thackeray

Satirical novel, Vanity Fair

elizabeth barret browning

most prominent female poet of the age. Prolific author of social protest poetry, love sonnets, and Aurora Leigh, a long verse novel about the growth of a woman poet

alfred lord Tennyson

poet laureate, prolific and virtuosic author in the tradition of Keats and Spenser. Author of the elegiac In Memoriam 

robert browning

Great experimenter, best known for developing the dramatic monologue. Delighted in colloquialism and clunky rhythms.

christina Rossetti

fervent Pre-Raphaelite poet. Author of Goblin Market (1862) and other poems of sensual renunciation

Gerard Manley Hopkins

poet and Jesuit priest, innovative author of late-Romantic lyrics. Most famous for his development of sprung rhythm.