Victorian Poetry

The Victorian Age

(1837-1901)

!Facts to remember!:

Ø ‘Victorian Age’ (Era) – it corresponded with the reign of one of the country’s best-loved queens, Victoria, who became a symbol of all that was good and glorious;

Ø Britain became the Empire with a number of colonies ‘on which the sun never sets’ and reached heights of wealth, power and prestige that were unmatched at any other time in its history;

Ø The industrial revolution created a new urbanized society;

Ø The construction of a system of parliamentary democracy;

Ø Reforms in everyday life:

a. The working day was limited to 10 hours a day;

b. 1867 – the Second Reform Bill doubled the number of people who could vote,

c. 1840 – a cheap postal system was introduced;

d. 1870s – popular newspapers began to appear.

Scientific and philosophical theories

ü conflict between religion and science:

Charles Darwin On the Origin of the Species shook Victorian belief in the existence of God;

ü the rise of Atheism:

Walter Pater – the founder and leading theorist,

Oscar Wilde – the most outstanding figure.

The Victorian Novel

The Victorian age is identified with the novel.

Characteristic features of the Victorian novel:

§ The contemporary world was not idealized;

§ Characters belonged to all social classes;

§ Explored areas of life ignored by the arts.

Important figures:

ü Charles Dickens – the most representative writer of the period;

ü The Bronte sisters: Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte;

ü George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) The Mill on the Floss, paints a complete picture of provincial society.

ü William Makepeace Thackeray Vanity Fair – a vast satirical panorama of a soulless materialist society.

ü Thomas Hardy Tess of the d’Urbervilles, showed outsiders in their own society who fall victim to forces of economic and social change.

ü Elizabeth Gaskell Mary Barton – dreamed reality of life in new industrial towns.

ü Antony Trollope – was the first to use the same characters over a sequence of novels.

ü Robert Luis Stevenson – wrote historical novels.

ü William Wilkie Collins – the father of the detective novel.

Victorian Poetry

§ maintained the rich seriousness and imagination of the Romantic school;

§ tended to be more popular, addressed the great social and intellectual problems of the day;

Important figures:

ü AАlfred Tennyson Mort d’Arthur, series of poems, collections of poems; is remembered today for the melancholic beauty of his private lyrical verse.

ü RRobert Browning produced poems of amazing variety and innovation, his psychological insight into man’s motives and passions influenced modern writers.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-21