Victorian Age

Victorian period

1837-1901; named after Queen Victoria

The Golden Age: key events

first urban industrial society, British Empire (India, Canada, Austraia), rising middle class & socio-political reforms, develoment of new media & new reading public

The Age of Doubt: key events

crisis of faith, social & environmental problems (child labour, famine), pollution, Britain losing its victorian glory

Victorian prudery & hypocrisy

sexuality & profanity unaccepted => censorship & intolerance

Victorian major authors

Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickiens, Alfred Lord Tennyson

Victorian literature: features

fiction = dominant form; attention to details, large social world, focus on protagonist who seeks his place in a society

Charles Dickiens: biography

1812-1870; prolific writer

Charles Dickiens: works

Pickwick Papers (1836), Oliver Twist (1837), A Christmas Carol (1843), Great Expectations (1860-61), Dombey and Son (1846), Hard Times (1854)

Victorian Poetry

most respected genre, rise of dramatic monologue, narrative verse

Dramatic monologue

monologue addressed to reader in which speaker reveals his/her views and feelings

Narrative verse

storytelling in verse

Alfred Lord Tennyson: biography

1809-1892; spokesman of that age

What poem was written in response to newspaper article on Battle of Balaclava (1854)?

“The Charge of the Light Brigade” (1854) by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Battle of Balaclava

25 Oct 1854; key battle in Crimean War, British army vs Russia

Victorian drama: intrio

frivolous plays; only in late Victorian era

Victorian drama: works

Pygmalion (1916) by George Bernard Shaw; Gilbert and Sullivan

Alfred Lord Tennyson: works

Lady of Shalott (1833;1842), Idylls of the King (1888)

William Makepeace Thackeray

1811-1863; Vanity Fair (1847-1848)

Brontë sisters

Anne, Charlotte, Emily; Jane Eyre (1847) by Charlotte

George Eliot

(Mary Ann Evans) 1819-1880; Middlemarch (1871-72)

Aestheticism

1880s-1890s; art for art’s sake, art has no moral content; The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)

fantasy writing (author and work)

Lewis Carroll (1832-1898); Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865)

Novels of Escapism (author and work)

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894); Treasure Island (1883)

Novels of Sensation (author and work)

Wilkie Collins (1824-1889); The Woman in White (1860)