ENGL 203 final terms

Victorian Era

1830s-1910s: the reign of Queen Victoria

Victorian ‘sage’

Style of creative non-fiction prose which confronted societal problems

Arnold “The Function of Criticism at the Present Time”

Arnold’s belief that the ultimate function of mankind is to exercise its creative powers

Function of Criticism

“a critical effort…. to see the object as in itself really is” “…to create a current of true and fresh ideas”

Arnold on Culture

“the best that has been known and thought in the world”

Arnold on Criticism

Criticism displays disinterestedness by keeping aloof from what is called the ‘practical viewing of things’

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

A group of Victorian artists in the 1840s creating art together with emphasis on mood, medieval subjects, introspection, female beauty, sexual yearning, and altered states of consciousness.

Ascetic

the exercise of extremely rigorous self-discipline; severely abstinent, austere

Virginia Woolf on Christina Rossetti

“No sooner have you feasted on beauty with your eyes than your mind tells you that beauty is vain and beauty passes”

Goblin Market- Christina Rosetti

The story of sisters Laura and Lizzie who are tempted by fruit from the goblins, themes of temptation and dangers

Hard Times- Charles Dickens

The story of people living in the industrialized Coketown exploring the horrors of the English Industrial Revolution

John Ruskin on Hard Times

“I wish that Dickens could think it right to limit his brilliant exaggeration to works written only for public amusement…”

Utilitarianism

The view that the morally right action is the action that produces the most good

The Decay of Lying- Oscar Wilde

Essay outlining Wilde’s four main philosophies

Philosophy 1

Art never expresses anything but itself

Philosophy 2

All bad art comes from returning to Life and Nature and elevating them into ideals

Philosophy 3

Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life

Philosophy 4

Lying, or the telling of untrue beautiful things is the proper aim of art

Wilde on Nature

“If nature had been comfortable, mankind never would’ve created architecture…nothing is more evident than that Nature hates Mind”

The Dandy

Stereotype of a wealthy, single man of higher class who is very concerned with himself and his appearance

Fin de Siecle

referring to the end of the 19th century and the closing of an era

Aspects of the Fin de Siecle

Critique of realism, celebration of imagination and art, value of the individual

The New Woman

Sexual, political, and educated, advocate for women’s rights during the turn of the century

Studies in the History of the Renaissance- Walter Pater

Essays redefining art by promoting aestheticism, subjectivism, and impressionism

The Harlot’s House- Oscar Wilde

Portrayal of prostitution in an aesthetic and decadent way

La Gioconda- Micheal Field

Poem written for Mona Lisa, ekphrastic

Imagism

Poetry that featured vibrant imagery and clear sharp language, free verse, brevity, sensory experiences

Nightfall in the City of Hyderabad- Sarojini Naidu

Stylistic poem describing Hyderabad at dusk using rich imagery and exoticism

Modernism

1890-1950, break from traditional form emphasizing free verse, imagery, and fragmentation

Mrs Dalloway- Virginia Woolf

1925 novel following the life of an upper-class woman in post world war London

The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock- T.S. Eliot

Modernist poem following Alfred, a sexually frustrated man who wants to do things but is afraid, and ultimately does not

Ezra Pound on T.S. Eliot

Crucial mentor of Eliot, helped him to modernize and expand

The Dead- James Joyce

1914 short story in ‘Dubliners’ exploring the identity and social awkwardness of Gabriel Conroy

Professions for Women- Virginia Woolf

Argues that women must overcome internal and external barriers to succeed in the professional world

Modern Fiction- Virginia Woolf

1921 essay on how and what writers should write

A Writers Diary- Virginia Woolf

1953 autobiography and guide to the artistry of Virginia Woolf

“I want to give life and death, sanity and insanity; I want to criticize the social system, and to show it at work, at its most intense”

A Writers Diary- Woolf

The Lonely Londoners- Sam Selvon

Novel turned play written after WWII about Central American immigrants moving to London for work

Tradition and the Individual Talent- T.S. Eliot

1919 book by T.S. Eliot in which he states that an artist must surrender himself to something more valuable, explicitly the literary tradition

“I learned as much about them as I learned about the English, whose ignorance of black people shocked me”

Selvon on arriving in England in 1950