The Victorian novel

Question 1

what happened in the Victorian Age between writers and readers?

Answer 1

during the Victorian Age for the first time there was a communion between writers and their readers

Question 2

What was the reason for the close relationship between writers and readers?

Answer 2

the enormous growth of the middle classes

Question 3

What did the members of the middle classes do?

Answer 3

they borrowed books from circulating libraries and read abundant variety of periodicals

Question 4

What class did the writers belong to?

Answer 4

to the middle class

Question 5

How was first published a great deal of Victorian literature?

Answer 5

in a serial form

Question 6

How did essays, verse and novels made their first appearance?

Answer 6

They made their first appearance in installments in the pages of periodicals
this allowed the writer to feel he was in constant contact with his public, he could always alter the story, according to its success or failure

Question 7

Who had a strong influence on the reception of literary works?

Answer 7

Reviewers had a strong influence on the reception of literary works and on the shaping of public opinion

Question 8

What did the Victorian’s show interest in?

Answer 8

they showed a marked interest in prose

Question 9

What was the literary achievement of the age?

Answer 9

the greatest literary achievement of the age is to be found in the novel

Question 10

What made the novel realistic and analytical?

Answer 10

the spread of scientific knowledge made the novel realistic and analytical, the spread of democracy made it social and humanitarian, while the spirit of moral unrest made it inquisitive and critical

Question 11

How did the early Victorian novelists felt?

Answer 11

they felt they had a moral and social responsibility to fulfill

Question 12

What did the novelists want to reflect?

Answer 12

they wanted to reflect the social changes that had been in progress for a long time, such as the Industrial Revolution, the struggle for democracy and the growth of towns and cities

Question 13

How did the novelist describe the society?

Answer 13

they described society as they saw it, with the exception of those sentiments which offended current morals, particularly regarding sex, nothing escaped their scrutiny

Question 14

What were the writers aware of?

Answer 14

they were aware of the evils of their society such as the terrible conditions of manual workers and the exploitation of children

Question 15

what was one of the main features of Victorian novels?

Answer 15

Didacticism, because novelists also conceived literature as a vehicle to correct the vices and weaknesses of the age

Question 16

What were the narrative techniques?

Answer 16

the voice of the omniscient narrator provided a comment on the plot and erected a rigid barrier between right and wrong behaviors, light and darkness

Question 17

What could be found in the final chapter of the novel?

Answer 17

Retribution and punishment were to be found in the final chapter of the novel, where the whole texture of events, adventures and incidents had to be explained and justified

Question 18

How was the setting?

Answer 18

the setting chosen by most Victorian novelists was the city which was the main symbol of industrial civilization as well as the expression of anonymous lives and lost identities

Question 19

How were the characters?

Answer 19

realistic characters the public could easily identify with, in terms of comedy or dramatic passion

Question 20

What were the types of novels?

Answer 20

the novel of manners
the humanitarian novel
the novel of formation
literary nonsense

Question 21

What was the novel of manners?

Answer 21

it kept close to the original 19th century models
it dealt with economic and social problems and described a particular class or situation

Question 22

What was the humanitarian novel?

Answer 22

Charles Dickens’s novels are mostly admired for their tone,combining humor with sentimental request for reform for the less fortunate
they constitute the bulk of what was generally called the humanitarian novel or the novel of purpose

Question 23

What was the novel of formation?

Answer 23

The Bildungsroman became very popular

these novels dealt with one character’s development from early youth to some sort of maturity

Question 24

What was Literary nonsense?

Answer 24

A particular aspect of Victorian literature is what is called “nonsense” created by Edward Lear and Lewis Carrol with his famous novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Question 25

Were there any women writers and readers?

Answer 25

a great number of novels published during the mid Victorian period were written by women
the majority of novel buyers and readers were women, cause middle class women had more time to spend at home than men and could devote prt of the day to reading

Question 26

Was it easy for women writers to get published?

Answer 26

No, it wasn’t therefore some women used a male pseudonym in order to see their work in print

Question 27

What mirrored the late Victorian novel?

Answer 27

mirrored a society linked to a growing crisis in the moral and religious fields

Question 28

What influenced the realistic novel?

Answer 28

Darwin’s evolution theory influenced the structure and organization of the realistic novel which started to follow an evolutionist pattern

Question 29

What was used to solve the intricacies of the plot?

Answer 29

Coincidences were fully exploited to solve the intricacies of the plot and chance played a Darwinian role

Question 30

Who were the best representatives of the realistic novel?

Answer 30

Thomas Hardy and George Eliot

Hardy’s protagonists are also defined by their native regions and painfully alienated by them

Question 31

who described the double nature of Victorian society?

Answer 31

Stevenson’s The strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde tried to capture the monstrous, illogical aspects of life and described the double nature of Victorian society

Question 32

What was Stevenson concerned about?

Answer 32

He was concerned about both the duality present in every individual but also in Victorian society as a whole, where aristocracy was only superficially kind and refined but hid dark secrets

Question 33

What have names Jekyll and Hyde become synonymous of?

Answer 33

they have become synonymous with multiple personality disorder