Victorian Age (19th Century) - Reign of Queen Victoria 1837–1901; rapid urban, industrial, and imperial expansion - "Victorian compromise": public optimism vs. exploitation of workers & colonies - Reform Bill 1832 expands vote (still excludes working class); universal suffrage reached 1918/1928 - Great Exhibition 1851 symbolizes peak confidence; Crimean War & Darwin’s 1859 "On the Origin of Species" trigger doubt ## Charles Dickens - Early comic success: "Sketches by Boz", "The Pickwick Papers" - Social criticism: "Oliver Twist" 1837–38 (child poverty); "David Copperfield" 1849–50 (optimistic bildungsroman) - Darker vision: "Bleak House" 1852–53, "Great Expectations" 1860–61, "Little Dorrit"/"Our Mutual Friend" expose legal, industrial, class corruption ## Brontë Sisters - Pseudonymous publication expands female agency & psychology - Charlotte: "Jane Eyre" 1847 – plain but passionate heroine, moral self-examination - Emily: "Wuthering Heights" 1847 – cyclical tragedy, intense passion - Anne: "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" 1848 – unhappy marriage, female quest for freedom ## George Eliot - Realist Midlands settings; moral complexity beyond simple right/wrong - Early novels explore outsiders & social duty; "Daniel Deronda" 1876 adds wider artistic & Zionist vision ## Oscar Wilde & Aestheticism - "Art for art’s sake"; public dandy persona vs. private scandal - "The Picture of Dorian Gray" 1890 critiques hedonism, superficiality, irresponsible society ## Thomas Hardy - Tragic rural Wessex; cosmic indifference - "Tess of the d’Urbervilles" 1891, "The Mayor of Casterbridge" 1886 attack class rigidity; mechanization disrupts communities - Self-described “meliorist” yet poetry/novels reveal pessimism ## Henry James - American outsider embracing Europe; international themes & female psychology - Experiments with limited viewpoint foreshadow modernist interiority ## Victorian Poetry ### Alfred Tennyson - Technical mastery; medieval/Arthurian nostalgia; "In Memoriam A.H.H." 1850 wrestles with grief, faith, science ### Robert Browning - Dramatic monologue, multiple perspectives; "Men and Women" 1855, "The Ring and the Book" 1868–69 ### Elizabeth Barrett Browning - "Sonnets from the Portuguese" (love); "Aurora Leigh" champions female creativity ### Matthew Arnold - Poetry of spiritual doubt: "Dover Beach" depicts retreat of "Sea of Faith"; later cultural critic ("Culture and Anarchy" 1869) ## Modernism (Early 20^{th} Century) - Reaction against Victorian form; fragmentation, international outlook, imagism (“hard, clear image”) ### W.B. Yeats - Early Celtic romanticism; later confronts modern turmoil - "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" 1890 pastoral escape; "When You Are Old" 1893 meditates on time & love ### T.S. Eliot - "Prufrock" 1915 shows fractured consciousness; "The Waste Land" 1922 maps moral/spiritual barrenness - Later religious turn: "Ash Wednesday" 1930, "Four Quartets" 1943 ## Narrative Transition - H.G. Wells: speculative fiction criticises class & technology - Arnold Bennett: Midlands realism; John Galsworthy: "Forsyte Saga" critiques then sentimentalises bourgeois life ### Joseph Conrad - Sea & colonial experience; "Heart of Darkness" 1899 exposes imperial hypocrisy & inner savagery ### Ford Madox Ford - "The Good Soldier" 1915 – unreliable narration; "Parade’s End" tetralogy 1924–28 on WWI trauma ### D.H. Lawrence - Class, sexuality, instinct vs. industrial repression: "Sons and Lovers" 1913, "