Romantic and Victorian Literature and History

A comprehensive set of vocabulary flashcards covering the literary movements, key figures, and historical periods from the Romantic Age through the early 20th century, including the Victorian Age and Modernism.

Romantic Age

A movement at the end of the eighteenth century that reacted against the Enlightenment, valuing emotions, imagination, and individual feelings over logic and rationality.

The Sublime

A Romantic concept distinguished from beauty, associated with powerful emotions such as fear, wonder, and astonishment, often inspired by grand natural phenomena.

Edmund Burke

The philosopher who wrote A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful ($1757$), arguing that terror is the strongest human emotion.

Gothic Novel

A literary genre characterized by dark settings, mysterious events, and supernatural elements, exploring the irrational side of human nature.

The Castle of Otranto

The first Gothic novel, written by Horace Walpole in $1764$.

Frankenstein

A novel by Mary Shelley published in $1818$, often considered the first science-fiction novel, combining Gothic elements with themes of scientific ambition and responsibility.

Lyrical Ballads

A collection published in $1798$ by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, considered the manifesto of Romantic poetry.

Wordsworth's Definition of Poetry

The spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings recollected in tranquillity.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Samuel Taylor Coleridge's most famous work, telling the story of a sailor who kills an albatross and is punished by supernatural forces.

Ode to the West Wind

A poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley where the wind symbolizes both destruction and regeneration, ending with the hopeful line: 'If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?'

Novel of Manners

The genre perfected by Jane Austen, focusing on upper- and middle-class society, marriage, and the relationship between social behavior and character.

Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen's $1813$ novel featuring Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy, showing that marriage should be based on love and respect rather than economic status.

The Victorian Age

The period from $1837$ to $1901$ named after Queen Victoria, marked by political stability, economic growth, and industrial development.

The Great Exhibition

An event in $1851$ held at the Crystal Palace in London that symbolized Britain’s industrial, technological, and economic superiority.

Victorian Compromise

The coexistence of economic progress and imperial expansion with poverty, exploitation, and social inequality.

Utilitarianism

A philosophy developed by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill stating that actions are good if they produce 'the greatest happiness for the greatest number'.

Theory of Natural Selection

Charles Darwin’s theory explaining how species survive by adapting to the environment, which influenced Victorian cultural and social thought.

Serial Form

A method of publishing Victorian novels in installments inside magazines or newspapers to create suspense and maintain reader interest.

Charles Dickens

The most important Victorian novelist, whose works focused on the poor, children, and social injustice, drawing from his own difficult childhood.

Aestheticism

A movement reacting against materialism and strict moral rules, following the idea of 'Art for Art’s Sake' where art only needs to express beauty.

The Dandy

A refined and elegant man who transforms his life into a work of art, a role symbolized by Oscar Wilde.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Oscar Wilde's novel about a man who remains young while his portrait becomes old and ugly, reflecting his moral corruption.

Sigmund Freud

The founder of psychoanalysis who divided the human psyche into the Id, Ego, and Superego.

Modernism

An early $20^{th}$-century cultural movement that focused on introspection, fragmentation, and subjective reality in response to the crisis of modern society.

Interior Monologue

A narrative technique used to represent a character’s thoughts before they are organized into speech; can be direct or indirect.

Epiphany

A James Joyce concept describing a sudden moment of revelation where a trivial event leads a character to a deep understanding of reality.

Dubliners

James Joyce’s collection of fifteen short stories set in Dublin focused on the themes of paralysis and escape.

Animal Farm

George Orwell's $1945$ dystopian fable that serves as a political allegory and satire of the Russian Revolution and totalitarianism.

Nineteen Eighty-Four

Orwell’s $1949$ novel set in the totalitarian state of Oceania, introducing concepts like Big Brother, Newspeak, and Doublethink.

Newspeak

The official language of Oceania in Nineteen Eighty-Four, designed to eliminate undesirable words and make independent thought impossible.