19th century 2

realism

(uncapitalised) A degree of reality in the form of representation present in all art forms (versimilitude) = the readers ability to recognise (parts of ) a story world.

Realism

Art historical movement in the 2nd half of the 19th century. It carries a renewed interest in the plight of common people.

George eliot

Penname for Mary Ann Evans. She is an important realist author because she responds to the intellectual circuits of her time, particularly developments in science, philosophy, and historical criticism, by exploring the ethical complexities of ordinary lives and emphasising moral growth, human interconnectedness and the consequences of individual choices within evolving social structures.

Westminster review

important British journal from 1824-19; known for its philosophical radicals. George Eliot was an editor of this journal for 1851-4 in which she stated publishing stories and published ‘Natural history of German life’ and ‘Silly novels by Lady Novelists’, in 1856.

the Natural History of German Lives - George Eliot

a review on the works of W.H. Riehl, in which she praises Riehl’s representation of common people, which is not necessarily the aimed at reading audience, but the people the reading audience should know about. This also shows Eliot’s literary program.

George Eliot’s literary program

As expressed in the review ‘the Natural History of German Lives’, … says that art is the proof that we know nothing of the working class/common people, because art bases itself on other art, instead of on real life. She further expresses that writers have a moral obligation to pay attention to the people who are not like them, simply to know what society is like, and to make men moral. You can compare her theory to Percy Shelley who said that poetry makes us bigger than we are, but she turns this theory into an aesthetic principle for art in general. She says that moral sensitivity is already embedded in the activity, that you already contain moral sympathy, but it just needs to be activated. This makes you bigger than you actually are; it teaches you to sympathise with people who are not like you but are a part of real life and therefore extends your sympathies beyond the bounds of your own life.

silly novels by lady novelists - George Eliot

an essay in which she critiques the work’s of women; or the sentimental fiction of women, images like a man holding a woman, or a women’s sole interest in millinery (fashion). She juxtaposes the mind-and-millinery species. She states that it is not her intent to indict the writers, but to express the means of a better education for women. You cannot expect a women to make good/better literature than men when they are presented with lesser education. She further state that cultured women do not write books to confound philosophers, but she understands you without wanting to make you aware that you can’t understand her. Literature, therefore is not simply just writing down everything you know, but it is to empathise and transform for the reading audience.

Adam Bede - George Eliot

story about a love rectangle. The main character is a carpenter/woodworker whose moral mindset projects on the scandalous things happening.

a single drop of ink for the mirror

a line from Adam Bede (Eliot) that presents the ink on the page as a mirror for what is out there/the world.

chapter 17 Adam Bede

the story pauses a little. The reader is directly addressed. It serves as a defence by the author on representing the characters as they are. The reader should be wondering whether we have to look at this boring character and come to the conclusion, that yes, we have to show people as they are. The world is complex and entangled, people don’t always want to be the best versions of themselves, they just exist. It is a plea for the acceptance of people as people.

Middlemarch - George Eliot

a novel about life in a small English town. It follows several characters—especially Dorothea Brooke, an idealistic young woman who makes a bad marriage, and Tertius Lydgate, a doctor with big dreams that get crushed by money problems and a troubled marriage. The story explores love, ambition, society, and how people's choices shape their lives.

Prelude to Middlemarch

starts of with saying that any person especially passionate ones; have imagined themselves in the shoes of Saint Theresa; wanting to take on the world, or relating to the feeling of wanting to do something great or important. It goes further to say that even though we are all in essence the same, we are still unique with a variety within ‘sameness’ (Darwinistic idea). We are all the same, yet live very different lives => the particular v s the general.

Chapter 15 middlemarch

expresses the act of holding up a mirror, which may be defected (infected with interpretation), but still trying to do it to the best of her abilities. It further connects it to a ‘particular web’; which means us all living in a connected web, everyone has effect on everyone.

particular web

we live in a web, everyone has effect on everyone.

Chapter 27 Middlemarch

this chapter expresses the act of placing a candle against the mirror (your own mirror), and the light creating your own constellations, which allows you to order your scratched mirror. The mirror, before the light, was scratched in all directions, but now with the light those scratches seem to form an order.

candle

egoism of every person absent (self-centred thinking)

scratches

the events you are reading about, the candle against it is egoism/subjectivity of any person trying to make sense of it.

general particular effected by variety

the use of one man’s story (Lydgate) to reflect a general human truth.

objective/subjective effect by interpretation

Lydgate objectively helps many patients and is successful in society’s eyes. But subjectively he feels like a failure (mirror & scratches, does not make insight that every person lives different life).

Coketown

fictional town in which Hard Times is set. Dickens often sets his stories in fictional towns/places, as does George Eliot.

Charles Dickens

Realist author, who is often considered to be the first literary celebrity. He is known for his novel ‘Hard Times’, and portrayed himself as an author for the people. the newspapers at his time f.i. described him as a housefather. He had ambition to change things in society through political and social reform.

sentimental realism

a style that combines the emotional appeal of sentimentalism with the objective depiction of reality characteristic of realism.

Dickens realist literature

• highlights social injustices and economic inequalities of Victorian England.

• use of vivid characterisation and sentimental realism

• moral critique to advocate for compassion, reform and the dignity of the poor and the disenfranchised.

Eliot’s realist literature

• exploration of ethical complexities of ordinary lives

• emphasising moral growth, human interconnectedness & the consequences of individual choices within evolving social structures.

cardboard characters

“flat” characters, no psychological; depth. Term used be E.M. Forster to describe Charles Dickens’ literature.

late 19th/early 20th century conceptions of Charles Dickens

Dickens work was described by authors like Virgina Woolf & E.M. Forster (modernists) to have cardboard characters; characters with no psychological depth or “flat” characters. they were also described to not be real representations of reality but caricatures. These characters, to them, were not real, as the reader is unable to identify with them.

conception on Dickens by authors after the modernists, 1940s

authors like George Orwell and Edmund Wilson praised Dickens for his social and political awareness and claimed that his work was very much engaged in the formation of ‘the British Canon’. His work was also described as ‘the Western tradition’.

general/particular and subjective/objective nuance

a nuance which can be found in George Eliot’s work:

• a particular story that says something about all of us/the general

• there is always an idea of subjectivity creeping in (lamp & mirror)

• the only way of finding some kind of positivity is by being as sincere as possible, with as much nuance as you can

• people are wonderful in they flawed mediocrity

Social panorama

detailed view of different layers of society. It shows how various social classes, professions, genders, and communities interact and influence each other. This can be seen in the novels by George Eliot, which aim to present a broad representation of human interconnectedness & the consequences of individual choices within evolving social societies.

social satire - irony

use of humor and exaggeration to expose social injustices and hypocrisy, especially in areas like poverty, class, law and institutions. This can be seen in novels by Charles Dickens who aims to highlight social injustices and economic inequalities in Victorian England. He does this by vivid Characterisation.

Bildung

‘education’ or ‘self-education’, refers to a characters personal growth, the characters lose a number of illusions and essentially ‘grow up’. This can be seen in George Eliot’s work.

Melodrama

storytelling style that focusses on strong emotions, moral extremes and sensational events - often the opposite of the more subtle evolution of Bildung (Eliot). This can be seen in the works by Charles Dickens that coaxes feelings out of you, manipulates you into having certain feelings, but is essentially positive.

facts vs. fancy

theme present in Hard Times from chapter 1 on. It opposes everything that is real to everything that isn’t or the imagination, which thus should be rooted out. This creates a level of irony; because you are reading a novel, which is a product of the imagination.

murdering the innocents

chapter 2 of the first book of Hard Times, the name refers to the little children. The murder of their imagination (fancy) as stated by Thomas Gradgrind. Other characters that represent the ‘fact’ are Bounderby, Bitzer and Mrs. Sparsit.

Thomas Gradgrind

“A man of realities. A man of fact and calculations.”, description of major character in Hard Times. This character is a rigid utilitarian, who only values facts.

Sissy Jupe

character in the novel Hard Times that gets referred to as ‘girl number twenty’ in the second chapter of the first book. This character is of importance because she is presented as the image of ‘fancy’ or the imagination. When the class was asked whether they would use a carpet with a representation of flowers on it to carpet a room, This character is the only one who wanders ‘yes’. When asked for her reasoning behind this she says ‘I fancy…’, which immediately gets interrupted by Thomas Gradgrind (representation of facts), that one should nopt fancy. Other representations of the fanciful are Mr. Sleary’s circus & Stephen Blackpool.

the hands

the factory workers in Hard times metaphorically referenced through '…’.

Mr M’Choakumchild

character in hard times, that is a clear representation of FACT. This character stands for erudite, knowledge and study. When the narrator talks about this character he is clearly judging him/making fun of him.

Stephen Blackpool

character in hard times whom is representative for the factory workers, or the “hands”. He stands for the FANCY, because feelings/imagination/empathy/the life of the mind,… cannot be calculated and are opposed to the material calculated machinery with which the hands work.

The Gradgrinds: Louisa, Tom, Mrs. Gradgrind

characters in Hard times that are the family of mr. Gradgrind. They were caught using their fancy/imagination when looking at the circus.

sleary’s circus

group of people in Hard Times who represent the complete opposite of the factual people. These people have empathy and help each other.

pantomime

term stemming from theatre, referring to popular tales, folktales, comedies without trying to be high art.

verisimilitude

the appearance of truth, referencing how realistic or real a story feels, plausibility within the real world (even if it is a fictional story)

ideology

system of beliefs or values, the underlying ideas a text promotes; the underlying values or messages within a text.

Mrs. Grundy

a pantomime character, stereotypical for Victorian Propriety, desire to do what is morally right and the hypocrisy related to this propiety. Thus stands of propriety and hypocrisy.

How successful is Hard Times? - David Lodge

study that looks into what makes Hard Times realistic to us. It starts of by stating that Hard Times its reality effect owes to genre conventions. It is an exaggerated version of the real world, works with stereotypes. Through combining the pantomime genre and melodrama Dickens creates an exaggerated portrayal of figures that actually exist. This theatricality creates a tension between objectivity/subjectivity and general/particular. Because even though the novel attempts to present itself as objective, the exaggeration causes subjectivity to creep in. Thus tension between ideology and verisimillitude is created, it is a representation of reality, but whose reality? The author further notes that it is important to note that everyone experiences reality differently, and illustrates this by the mention of Mrs. Grundy in the novel.

didactic value of poetry

Victorian poetry was marked by essays and criticism, about what we could learn from them, no longer the romantic idea of the geniusy of the poet.

the cry of the children - Elizabeth B. Barren

realist/victorian poem in response to child labor and the commercial abuse of children. the poem juxtaposes natural imagery with the unnatural reality of children having to work in coal mines. It addresses the reader directly, and is filled with repetition, the poem is trying to get us emotionally involved and tries to coax emotions out of us. But these emotions are justified, because these are things that are really happening. It further expresses a crisis of faith, mens new religion is the industrialisation, God doesn’t hear the children’s cries.

Elizabeth B. Barren

important realist poet who wrote ‘the cry of the children’ about child labor and the commercial abuse of children.

House of charity

shelter for ‘fallen’ women, including prostitutes, women who left their husbands and victims of domestic abuse. Christina Rosetti worked/lived in this shelter and it was suggested that “goblin market” was inspired by the women there.

Christina Rosetti

realist poet, who was speculated to be a lesbian. She worked/lived in the House of Charity, and it is suggested that her famous poem ‘Goblin Market’ was inspired by the women in this shelter.

goblin market - Christina Rosetti

poem that follows the story of 2 sisters, who get tempted by Goblins to buy their forbidden fruit. One of the sisters, Laura, gets tempted and eats the fruit after giving a lock of her hair for it, she gives her innocence to the goblins. After that, she wants more, but she can’t see or hear the goblins anymore, she starts decaying. Her sister, Lizzie can still see them because her innocence remains, so she goes to them, and lets them force themselves upon her, but she doesn’t eat. When returning with smeared fruit all over her, she tells Laura to suck it off her, but Laura chooses life out of death; de love for her sister eventually revives her and they both get married with children. The ending of the poem expresses both of their modernly heart being fearful for their past mistakes.

symbolism in goblin market

• goblins; seduction

• forbidden fruit

• twighlight is not good for maidens => women should not go out late

• golden lock payment => innocence

• decay

• incest suggestion

• biblical imagery

• giving life out of death => not sucking from her sister; love and worry for her sister, revives her

Gerald Manley Hopkins

poet who served as an inspiration for Christina Rosetti; because he was also a LGBTQ writer. Yet, he later conversed to the church and started writing poems celebrating God’s creation. TheWindhover to Christ our Lord is one of those poems. He wrote very experimental poetry; making it more modernist than Victorian. He experimented with meter and diction, unconventional syntax, syllogisms, ellipsis, alliteration, repetition and sound.

sprung rythm

random alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables. Can be seen in Windhover to Christ our Lord along with enjambment use.

Windhover to christ our Lord - Gerald Manley Hopkins

one of his poems celebrating God’s creation. It is experimental in its rhythm use because it mixes enjambment and sprung rhythm. It is a clear early version of modernist poetry because it is not about the message, but about the feeling it’s trying to evoke. It is about the author spotting a powerful bird looking for prey, and the author is trying to captivate that feeling.

I wake and feel dark, not day - Gerald Manley Hopkins

poem in the form of a sonnet expressing depression & existential terror. It speaks about the speaker being unable to reach God, he is left alone. He cries out to him, het prays to him but his prayers remain unanswered, his cries remain unheard. The only person he is hearing, is himself.

Rudyard Kipling

Victorian poet whom grew up in colonial times and is also the youngest author to ever win the nobel prize. He is the author of ‘the white mans burden’.

the white man’s burden - Rudyard Kipling

poem set in the British colonies, talking about its colonial subjects. The poem calls the subjects ‘captives’ or ‘peoples’; being half-devil half-child and needing to be civilised. The White man’s burden therefore is their task to civilise these uncivil countries and people. It further expresses the idea that they are leading these darker countries/people to the light (to civilisation).

Victorian Poetry

period of literary poetry that came after romanticism and before modernism. It contains authors like Elizabeth B. Barren with ‘the Cry of the Children’, Christina Rosetti with ‘Goblin Market’, Gerald Manley Hopkins with ‘Windhoven to Christ our Lord’ and ‘I wake and feel the dark, not the day’, and Rudyard Kipling with ‘the white man’s burden’.

Culture and imperialism - Edward Said

pioneer in colonial literature studies. Focussed on the 19th century in relation to the colonies that were never heard about => power of narrative.

chowbock

character in Erewhon who is bribed with alcohol by the narrator to give him permission to cross the range the narrator is seeking to visit. This character, described as a native and a drunk, gets projected by the narrator as sheepish and abject after the bribery; showing the narrators view on having gained authority over him by bribery. The character, does show some agency by leaving the narrator behind though.

Higgs plan for Chowbock

= the white man’s burden; he wants to baptise Chowbock, to make him a good christian. He does this for himself though because he presents the idea that when you convert a sinner, you make up for a multitude of sinners. Chowbock is then presented as hard to teach and therefore having a stupid nature. By deriving him from the religion of his own tribe, Showbock becomes the first of a native population to be ‘civilised’.

Lost tribes of Israel

the narrator of Erewhon at first thinks the Erewhonions to be the 10 lost tribes. More and more Victorians were interested in them during the time of Erewhon especially after George Eliot’s translation of the Old Testament. The 19th century critically read the bible. The narrator of Erewhon imagines bringing these tribes back, making it all about him.

frame narrative

used in Erewhon; a story within a story - the narrator is telling the story from back in England, his reason being to collect fundings for his project to to civilise Erewhon in order to achieve an ‘immortal crown’. But he doesn’t tell everything, because he doesn’t want anyone else to take his crown. His plan on how he’ll civilise the erewhonians is almost a description of literal slavery; presents the Erewhonians as recources and uses Christianity to cover up for exploitation and kidnapping (colonialism!!). By ‘saving souls’ he is simultaneously filling his own pockets (colonialism! satire!!).

Samuel Butler

author of erewhon and described as a “mid-Victorian modern”. He rejected Christianity and became a journalist, essayist, satirist, novelist, critic and painter. Because of his unconventionality his often considered to be an early modernist, yet he was very influential.

steampunk

new term for people writing fiction about the Victorian era, because it was a time of rapid change.

erewhon title

backwards: nowhere; same done with names in the novel cf. Yram Senoj Nosnibon => Mary, Robinson Jones => almost like England, yet not the same

Utopia - Thomas More

served as the inspiration for erewhon. Has 2 meaning in Greek: (1) the good place, (2) the place from nowhere. SO: combination of the good place and the place from nowhere. Later interpreted as the ideal society.

Utopian fictions

genre that is anticipated by Erewhon; the problem with the (non-satirical version) of this genre is that it is all about creating an ideal society/citizen which is sometimes based on a misreading of Darwin.

eugenics

idea which interested authors at the time of Utopian fictions. It is the idea that the human population can be improved by selective breeding, that we can breed out bad traits.

severe fit of immortality

what is used to describe what we would call crime such as teeth, etc. by the Erewhonians. This is opposed by Disease (an imperfection in the body) which is seen as punishable/a crime. This refers to Erewhonian society being a lot like British society with just a slight difference. This is a symbol for what societies are actually like; we say one thing, do another - cf. Victorian Propriety & Mrs. Grundy hypocrisy.

the trial - Franz Kafka

used in comparison to the description of illness & crime in erewhon. The more you’re innocent, the more you’re guilty of having been accused wrongly. authors like Butler, Brecht and … are not attempting other make you empathise with this, but they are attempting to create alienation.

alienation

presenting the Erewhonian society as very alike Britain with just slight differences, which makes you see what society is actually like; saying one thing, yet doing another - victorian propriety. Cf. Eliot; familiarise the unfamiliar.

teh narrators reaction to Erewhonian society

the narrator sees no unfairness in punishment for misfortunes or rewarding for sheer good luck, because isn’t this how our (Utilatarian) society works anyways? Cf. Bounderby - Hard Times; people should make their own fortune.

Utilitarian idea of Dickens

the best for the greatest amount of people; “what consideration for the individual is tolerable unless society be the gainer thereby?”

the origin of species - Charles Darwin

the idea of beauty of evolution, we all stem from a single-cell organism, yet have difference within our sameness.

American realism

came late to the Us because of the civil war, it distinguishes itself from Victorian realism because its more focussed on the eye of the beholder => perspective; it is the transition between realism and modernism.

1776 declaration of independence

the 13 colonies in the US become the 13 states. the states had economical connections, but considered themselves to be separate settlements. Considered themselves a union ‘United States’ but it was very hard to organise - took 11 years.

Abraham lincoln

16th president of the United States; self-made and a great oralist and prose-stylist. In 1862 he declares the emancipation proclamation.

A house Divided - Abraham Lincoln

speech given at Illinois state Capitol, the basis on which he gets nominated as state senator republican, an election he later lost. Uses a Bible reference ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand’; which Jesus uses when talking to his Apostles to join him. He uses it in this speech as an image for a divided country. All states should either be free, or all should be slave states. He further suggests that we are tending towards slavery which causes further division. Vote for me, I can stop this! If we stand undivided, we will not fail.

the Gettysburg address - Abraham Lincoln

speech given at the inauguration of a memorial cemetery for Union soldiers following the Gettysburg battle. Although the speech is only 3 paragraphs long, it is one of the most famous speeches in American history. It says that the country was based on the idea that all men are equal, but look at us now 87 years later.

Second inaugural Adress - Abraham Lincoln

speech in which he states that there is less occasion for an extended adress because of the ongoing war. This speech expresses his plotting for the great mediatorship. He stays neutral on the opposing parties of the civil war yet references the issue of slavery directly. He says that he cannot understand how people use religion to justify slavery; but he doesn’t meddle with the religion though because god has his own intentions.

Walt Whitman

important author within American Realism. This author had already established himself as a political democratic writer before the civil war. He served as a civil war nurse and thus became a civil war poet as well.

ecstatic poem

type of poem that aims to express a certain energy, Beat! Beat! Drums! by Walt Whitman is an example of this type of poetry.

Beat! Beat! Drums! - Walt Whitman

poem written at the beginning of the war, it had barely even started. It is an ecstatic poem that uses a lot of symbolism. It starts by riling up the war energy with its rhythm, resembling drums ‘war rhythm’. War touches upon everything, now is not the time to be quiet, now is the time to act! Even funerals will have to wait.

burst like a ruthless force!

line from beat, beat, drums! which means that war touches everything, it even invades our homes and churches.

leave not the bridegroom quiet

line from beat, beat, drums! expresses that now is not the time to be quiet, now is the time to act!

nor the peaceful farmer any peace

line from beat, beat, drums! expresses the urgency to act, there is no time to stand still or be quiet.

The wound Dresser - Walt Whitman

poem in which the first speaker is a universal caretaker for the people who listened to the drums (war). The narrators serves as a caretaker for all, showing empathy for all. He refers to the beat beat drums when he still thought he could beat this. But it is not resolved as soon as we thought so we have to care for each other. The poem goes on to catalogue wounds/wounded in the hospital doors, use of repetitiveness sand rhythm to stress the ongoing suffering. It is the same behind the doors of all hospitals during the war. The war has now ended, I can’t take you there, banymore, but I want to show you what it was like.

Walt Whitman’s civil war poetry

use of free verse and expansive style (everything and everyone should break the war effort, no rhyme or breaks), vivid realism (time to see what the war has done), Democratic voice (taking care of everyone, not missing anyone), personal and intimate

Emily Dickinson

author who wasn’t popular during her life, but gained popularity after her death. Together with Whitman she is considered to be one of the civil war poets.

fourteener

aviation of the ballad form, containing fourteen lines in total; with 8 syllables in the first stanza, and 6 in the second, alternation between stressed and unstressed.

At least - to pray - Emily Dickinson

poem written one year into the civil war, when the union seemed to be losing. There is nothing left tot do but pray. she’s praying yet it seems like Jesus cannot hear her, her prayers remain unanswered. If you cannot give me comfort, at leats give me a weapon so I can help fight. The poem is in the fourteener form.

Stop lightly on this narrow spot - Emily dickinson

poem written in commemoration of Abraham Lincoln’s first grave; in the form of a fourteener.

My portion is defeat today - Emily dickinson

poem written after the battle of Vicksburg, no attempt to recover the rhythm of the fourteeners, only defeat and dejection. There is somewhat of a rhythm in the beginning, but it fully dies down towards the end. Some people lose, some win; but contender in dead than having to feel the defeat of those who would have died to win.

it feels a shame to be alive - Emily dickinson

poem written after the battle of Gettysburg, the ties seemed to turn to the victory of the union, but this didn’t last long, there was still no victory or reason for celebration. Questioning if it is all worth the sacrifice? There is no reason for optimism, everyone is suffering and paying, ashamed to be alive. the men who die are the true divine.

Emily Dickinson’s civil war poetry

complex rhyme scheme and compact style (variation of fourteener/ballad and playing around with rhyme scheme + playing with the reader’s expectations), abstract and metaphorical - suggestive and indirect, questioning and ironic, introspective - philosophical rather than personal.

gilded age

period after the civil war, in which the US was less dependant on export than other economies. In this period, people were becoming richer than ever before. The term is not golden because it only looked golden. The term stems from a novel by mark twain.

Mark Twain

described to be the great americain novelist. He was a humorist. The author of Huckleberry Finn. He critically explores the moral contradictions and social hypocrisies of American life - particularly issues of race, class, and identity, using satire, regional realism and the perspective of marginalised voices to challenge romantisised notions of progress and civilisation.