Literature and the Victorian Age

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Literature and the Victorian Age
Authors of Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, and The
Tenant of Wildfell Hall

• English IV Honors LA.D.1.4.1

Anne, Emily, and Charlotte Brontë
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Giving shapeto poetry
Social consciousness of the Victorians
Human sensibilities
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Terms to Understand
The Victorian era of British history was the
period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June
1837 until her death on 22 January
1901.(Sarcasm) When author actual means
something else than what is expressed or
stated.Accidental events occurring in a
situation or time period that seem oddly
appropriate.A narrative in which the reader
knows something about present or future
circumstances that a character in the story does
not know. Lyric poems have specific rhyming
schemes and are often, but not always, set to
music or a beat.A monologue in which a person
who IS NOT the poet utters the speech that makes
up the whole poem. This monologue is usually
directed towards a non-existent audience and
describes the characters emotions, feelings, or
motives. In example, Cain by Lord Byron. A
group of sonnets thematically unified to create a
long work, although generally, unlike the stanza,
each sonnet so connected can also be read as a
meaningful separate unit. Montage is a technique
of presenting a series of disconnected scenes in
a novel or picture.
VictorianVerbal IronySituational
IronyDramatic IronyLyric PoetryDramatic
MonologueSonnet SequenceMontage
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Understanding The Victorian Era and Victorian
Sensibility
The Victorian Era was a long period of peace,
prosperity, refined sensibilities and national
self-confidence for Britain. Victorian Britain,
like the periods before it, was interested in
literature (see Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan
Doyle and William Makepeace Thackeray), theatre
and the arts, and music, drama, and opera were
widely attended. The drive for social advancement
frequently appears in literature. This drive may
take many forms. It may be primarily financial,
as in Charles Dickenss Great Expectations. It
may involve marrying above ones station, as in
Charlotte Brontes Jane Eyre. It may also be
intellectual or education-based. Typically, any
such attempt to improve ones social standing
must be accompanied by proper behavior (thus
helping to provide the period with its
stereotype). The period saw the rise of a highly
idealized notion of what is English. This
notion is obviously tied very closely to the
periods models for proper behavior, and is also
tied very closely to Englands imperial
enterprises. Many colonists and politicians saw
it as their political (and sometimes religious)
duty to help or civilize native populations
in colonized regions. It was thus important to
have a model which provides a set of standards
and codes of conduct, and the idealized notion of
what is English often provided this model.
Later Victorian writing saw the seeds of
rebellion against such idealized notions and
stereotypical codes of conduct. These proper
behaviors often served as subjects of satire
Oscar Wildes plays are an excellent example.
The later years of the Victorian period also saw
the rise of aestheticism, the art for arts
sake movement, which directly contradicted the
social and political goals of much earlier
Victorian literature. Overwhelmingly, the
Victorian period was liberal, and progressive.
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Victorian Literature Style
Victorian novels tend to be idealized portraits
of difficult lives in which hard work,
perseverance, love and luck win out in the end
virtue would be rewarded and wrongdoers are
suitably punished. They tended to be of an
improving nature with a central moral lesson at
heart. While this formula was the basis for much
of earlier Victorian fiction, the situation
became more complex as the century progressed.
Emily Brontë Charles
Darwin Charles
DickensWuthering Heights
The Origin of
Species
A Christmas Carol,


Oliver Twist
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Victorian Poetry
Victorian poetry is self-defining poetry written
during the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901).
But the dates of Victoria's reign also seem to
mark out a consistent sensibility in poetry.
Victorian poets were heirs to the Romantics, and
many of the generalizations about Romantic poetry
still apply distrust of organized religion,
skepticism, interest in the occult and the
mysterious. Yet where Romantic poets made a leap
of faith to assert that the received image of God
did not exist, Victorian poets were more likely
to have a scientific conviction of God's
absence.I remember, I rememberThe fir-trees
dark and highI used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky It was a childish
ignorance, But now tis little joy To know I'm
farther off from HeavenThan when I was a
boy.excerpt from I Remember, I Remember by
Thomas Hood
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Great works of the Victorian Era
Middlemarch, George Eliot Bleak House, Charles
Dickens Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Thomas
Hardy Vanity Fair, William Makepeace
Thackeray Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte Wuthering
Heights, Emily Bronte Heart of Darkness, Joseph
Conrad Daniel Deronda, George Eliot The Way We
Live Now, Anthony Trollope North and South,
Elizabeth Gaskell The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,
Anne Bronte Our Mutual Friend, Charles
Dickens Wives and Daughters, Elizabeth
Gaskell Far From the Madding Crowd, Thomas
Hardy Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis
CarrollThrough the Looking-Glass, Lewis
Carroll
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Assignment 1 Human Sensibilities
Students will identify impressions relative to
their life experience and display the images
visually. Images may be supported by music or
other appropriate media. LA.1112.2.1.4
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Works Cited

• Curriculum Maps http//moodle.polk-fl.net/course/
  view.php?id157Sunshine State
  Standards http//www.fldoe.org/bii/curriculum/sss
  /Common Core Standards http//www.corestandards
  .org/ELA-LiteracyVictorian Literature
  Victorian Era http//www.victorianweb.org/vn/lito
  v.html