S3: The Victorian Age Flashcards
What were themes of the Victorian Novel? (3)
- progress vs. Crisis
- nostalgia: historical novel and national tale
- industrialisation
What are characteristics of the Victorian Novel? (4)
- serialisation (mass product)
- three-volume novels (extra income for lending libraries)
- instalments in magazines: readers buy new issue every week
- cliffhangers
What was George Eliot’s name before?
Mary Anne Evans
What are 3 of George Eliot’s main works?
- Adam Bede (1859)
- Mill on the Floss (1860)
- Silas Marner (1861)
What are Sir Walter Scott’s main works?
- Waverley (1814)
- Bride of Lammermoor (1819)
- Ivanhoe (1819)
What is a characteristic of Sir Walter Scott’s work?
He is “inventing” a national character of Scotland by retelling the past
What does the industrial novel question?
Englands condition
What are examples of Industrial novels? (3)
- Benjamin Disraeli, Sybil (1845)
- Charlotte Brontë, Shirley (1849)
- Charles Dickens, Hard Times (1854)
Was Charles Dickens poor or rich in his childhood?
Poor
What are 3 of Charles Dickens major works?
- Oliver Twist (1837-1839)
- Christmas Carol (1843)
- Hard Times (1854)
What are themes in “hard times”?
- bleakness/ugliness
- numbers/statistics/facts
- mathematics vs. Empathy
- statistics vs. Human nature
What were social concerns during the industrialisation?
- poverty
- child-labour
- child-abuse
- penitentery reforms
What did the new Poor Laws (1834) implement?
- forced labour
- prison-like institution
- no outdoor-relief
Who was Thomas Hardy?
Poet and novelist
Realism
Wessex novels
What are 2 of Thomas Hardy’s major works?
- The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886)
- Jude the obscure (1895)
What are themes in Thomas Hardy’s works?
- female sexuality: sensuality vs. Fragility
- sex vs. Pure love
What are characteristics of Victorian poetry? (2)
- interest in the medieval period, legends, fairy tales, etc
- struggle between science and religion
Who was Matthew Arnold?
- poet and cultural critic
- professorship at Oxford
- also worked as a school inspector
What are 2 of Matthew Arnold’s major works?
- New Poems (1867)
- Culture and Anarchy (1869)
What are motifs of Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold?
- oscillating between description of beach and metaphorical use
- nature = shift from Romantic tradition to a more unsettling view
- individual: shift from security to isolation and confusion
- the poet: connected through the ages, but not able to conjure up a more optimistic worldview
- loss of possibilities of salvation
Who was Alfred, Lord Tennyson?
- poet laureate (1850)
- peerage in 1883
- seat in House of Lords
- admired by queen Victoria
What are motifs of “in memoriam A.H.H.” (1849)?
- friendship
- mourning
- loss of trust
- insecurity, change
- science/nature vs religion
What’s the metre of “In memoriam A.H.H”?
133 cantos; four line stanzas (abba) in iambic tetrameter = in memoriam stanza
By whom is “The lady of Shallot”?
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
What is the source of “The Lady of Shallot”?
14th century novellöa la Damigella di Scalot
What are the 4 parts of “The Lady of Shallot”?
- Description of setting
- Description of the lady
- Appearance of Lancelot
- Death of the Lady
What is the metre of “The Lady of Shallot”?
19 stanzas
Rhyme scheme aaaa b ccc b (b always Lancelot/Shallot = refrain)
What are motifs and themes of “The Lady of Shallot”?
- gender (awakening of female desire, female gaze, curse)
- art (isolation, imitation)
What are characteristics of “The Lady of Shallot”?
- song-like quality
- sensory descriptions
- repetition = fairy tale, nursery rhyme
By whom was the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood founded?
William Holman-Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and John Everett Millais in 1848
Against what was the pre-raphaelite Brotherhood?
- royal academy’s championing of renaissance painter Raphael
- against genre paintings
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was a precursor of…
Symbolism
Who was Christina Rosetti’s brother?
Dante G. Rosetti
What is Christina Rosetti’s major work?
Goblin Market (1862)
What are themes of Goblin Market? (4)
- sensuality
- temptation
- transgression
- female resistance and solidarity
What kind of poem is “goblin market”?
Narrative poem, no set rhyme scheme/metrical pattern
Who was Robert Browning?
Poet and playwritght
Wife: Elizabeth Barrett Browning
What are 2 of Robert Brownings major works?
- My Last Duchess
- The Pied Piper of Hamelin
What is a dramatic monologue?
- spoken by a specific character who is not the poet or an unspecified first person speaker
- presence of an addressee, how the addressee responds to the speaker is not directly represented but might be constructed
- speaker’s characters and the whole story are revealed through the monologue; not explicitly told
Where was Rudyard Kipling born/educated?
Who was he?
Born in Bombay/British India
Educated in India and England
What are 2 of Rudyard Kipling’s major works?
- the jungle book (1894)
- Kim (1901)
By whom is “The White Man’s Burden”?
Rudyard Kipling
What was the white man’s burden written for?
When was it published?
Written for Victoria’s Jubilee in 1897
Published on 4 February in The Times and one day later in the New York Times
What is the historical backdrop of “The White Man’s Burden”?
Spanish-American War 1898
Philippine-American War 1899-1902
How is “The White Man’s Burden” understood?
- imperative to enforce colonial rule
- white race is morally destined to colonialism other, non-white and taken to be inferior, peoples
- mission of civilisation
What did “The White Man’s Burden” spark?
Critique: satiric responses that address the white supremacist perspective (“The Black Man’s Burden”)
List 3 interests, motifs or themes in the poetry of the Victorian era.
- medievalism, legends and folktales
- struggle between science and religion
- transgressions
In what ways are the novels of Charles Dickens considered characteristic of the Victorian (industrial) novel?
- focus on working class life and characters
- set in urban environments, usually London
- concerned with the English Question (key issues in Victorian society)
What are characteristics of the Victorian Age?
- interest in the medieval period, legends, fairy tales, etc.
- struggle between science and religion transgressions
