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Victorian literature context Flashcards

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Proverbs and Idioms flashcards
1
Q

What is realism?

A

portraying a realistic, detailed depiction of modern life, often with the purpose of critiquing aspects of modern society. Influenced by authors such as Emile Zola

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2
Q

What were the Married Women’s Property Acts and when were they introduced?

A

1870 - women allowed to control and retain their income
1882 - women gain the right to be able to control and own property

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3
Q

When was the term ‘New Woman’ coined and who by

A

1894 by public speaker and author Sarah Grand

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4
Q

What did Dr Andrzej Diniejko describe the New Woman to be?

A

‘She was intelligent, educated, emancipated, independent and self supporting’

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5
Q

what did Dr William Acton suggest about women’s sexual desires?

A

‘The majority of women (happily for them) are not very much troubled with sexual feeling of any kind’.

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6
Q

What was a Blue Stocking?

A

‘women who were considered unmarriagable as they tried to usurp men’s intellectual superiority’ according to Kathryn Hughes.

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7
Q

When was a Doll’s House published?

A

1879

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8
Q

When did Rossetti publish poetry?

A

1862-1882

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9
Q

What is romanticism?

A

•the celebration of the powers of nature, nostalgic for Rural England before Industrial Revolution
•the glorification of individuality and emotion
•the rebellion against tradition and rationality
• infusion of spiritual and supernatural elements.

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10
Q

What did middle class women wear in the Victorian period?

A

crinoline skirts that were large and rigid, preventing her from taking part in housework

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11
Q

How was social hierarchy maintained?

A

•etiquette, distinguishing the upper class from new upper middle class
• manuals made to deal with this such as How to Behave

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12
Q

What female author opposed women gaining the vote and wanted more respect for women’s traditional role?

A

• Mary Augusta Ward, wrote under her married name
• female politician and writer, founded Anti Suffrage group in 1908

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13
Q

When was Why are Women Redundant? by W.R Greg released and what statistic did it highlight

A

•1862
• In England and Wales 1851, 1 248 000 out of 3 000 000 women between 20-40 were unmarried (42%)

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14
Q

When did Rossetti break her engagement and why?

A

1850 to James Collinson as he moved to the Catholic church

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15
Q

Which actress demanded that Ibsen should change the ending of a Doll’s House?

A

Hedwig Niemann-Raabe

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16
Q

Opinions expressed by critic Eliza Ekstein Frank about A dolls house

A

females are ‘stuck inside the social prisons of wifehood or motherhood’
Ibsen felt more able to make Nora leave at the end of a Doll’s House because of ‘social and legislative change towards the fin of the Norwegian siécle’

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17
Q

What did Anne-Marie Beller say about infantilisation in the Victorian period?

A

‘The image of the innocent childlike woman continued to exert a potent hold over the Victorian cultural imagination’

‘in legal terms the mid nineteenth century woman’s position was synonymous with that of a child’

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18
Q

Where did Rossetti volunteer to help fallen women?

A

the Highgate Penitentiary for Fallen Women for several years

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19
Q

How does ‘hug me, kiss me, suck my juices’ link to the Holy Communion?

A

‘eat me, drink me, love me’ - lines more loving in this sisterly context

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20
Q

What animal is Aphrodite associated with?

A

doves - goddess of sexual love

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21
Q

What sexual metaphor was often used in literature?

A

women giving their bodies via a lock of hair

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22
Q

Who introduces naturalism into literary discourse and when?

A

• Emilé Zola, who regarded characters/people as products of their heredity and environment (central theme of A Doll’s House)
• 1867

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23
Q

What other of Ibsens plays explore controversial topics?

A

• Ghost 1881 - topics of STIs, incest, euthanasia
• The League of Youth 1869 - foreshadows Nora, Stella the protagonist similarly labels herself as a ‘doll’
• Hedda Gabler 1890 - depicted a pregnant woman’s suicide

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24
Q

When was the first stage presentation of A Doll’s House and who refused to act it out?

A

• 1880
• Hedwig Neimann-Raabe refused to act the final scene as she would ‘never leave her children’
• Ibsen had to change the ending to Helmet forcing Nora to sink before the nursery floor

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25
Q

What was Coventry Patmore’s influential idea of ‘Angel in the House’

A

• derived from his Victorian narrative poem portraying the ideal woman of the time as a paragon of domesticity and virtue

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26
Q

How does the ‘sisterhood’ Rossetti creates in Goblin Market mirror the restrictions of Victorian women’s lives?

A

Lizzie and Laura, as upper/ middle class women, cannot go out after dark as ‘twilight is not good for maidens’
- restricted compared to artistic freedom of Pre-Raphaelite movement, paintings were often explicit

27
Q

Laura in Goblin Market bored with domestic life

A

Described to be ‘like the restless brook’
When offered freedom was ‘like a vessel at launch when its last restraint is gone’ - liberty but threat of danger

28
Q

Laura in Goblin Market experimenting with sexuality

A

• fascination with the Goblins and their ‘fruit globes, fair or red’
• Loss of virginity - She pays the Goblins with a ‘precious golden lock’

29
Q

Laura in Goblin Market exploring her identity as an artist

A

She ‘loiters in the glen of imagination’

30
Q

Goblins representing the perceived danger of women neglecting her responsibilities

A

• Once Laura tastes the fruits she ‘no more swept the house/ Tended the fowls or cows’
• Laura is unsatisfied with domestic life after tasting freedom - ‘sat up in passionate yearning’ ‘She pined and pined away’ She ‘gnashed her teeth for baulked desire, and wept as if her heart would break’

31
Q

Punishment of desire and freedom on women in Goblin Market

A

• Lizzie when sacrificing herself is ‘writhing as one possessed’
• Laura ‘sucked until her lips were sore’
• Laura - ‘her hair grew thin and grey: she dwindled’

32
Q

Exploitative nature of men Goblin Market, juxtaposes sisterhood

A

• symbolised by the Goblins
• ‘Leering at each other’
• ‘brother with sly brother’
• ‘Grunting and snarling’

33
Q

Men discussing fallen women in Victorian literature

A

Poet laureate Lord Afred Tennyson discussed fallen women in poems like ‘Mariana’ - however Rossetti revolutionary in actually giving fallen women a voice

34
Q

What did the Contagious Disease Act do to condemn sexually promiscuous women?

A

• 1865
• Introduced lock houses for women with STDs, not for the men who acted as the vector of these diseases and spread them to their wives

35
Q

What did Suzanne Collins say about women’s lack of control in the Victorian period

A

• Women could only control something as ‘ephemeral as a secret’
(Why Nora and Winter: My Secret are so defensive of their knowledge)

36
Q

What comparison did Richard Redwood draw between Ibsen and Rossetti about the ideal woman in the Victorian period

A

•They both ‘questioned prevalent Victorian ideas about the ideal woman, as mother, wife and preserver of the values of feminine morality and respectability
• 2020

37
Q

What comparison did Richard Redwood draw between Ibsen and Rossetti?

A

• ‘Both authors had significant impact on feminist thinking of the time, yet they produce very different portrayals of marriage’

38
Q

What do some critics say about Nora that make them not take her as seriously?

A

• she is too ‘irrational and ‘unladylike’

39
Q

Why did the Social Demokraten applaud A doll’s Houses presentation of marriage

A

Claimed that there were ‘thousands of doll-homes’, agreeing that the institution of marriage needed to change’

40
Q

How does Richard Redwood explain the division between Nora and Torvald?

A

• ‘Like many typical Victorian marriages, Torvald and Nora exist in different spheres’
• illustrates the 2012 Carrie Cracknell directed interpretation - Stage rotates, Torvald often seperate in his office doing work, whilst Nora occupies the living room (centre of family life)

41
Q

Similarity between Ibsen and Rossetti highlighted by Richard Redwood

A

• 2020
• Both authors gave birth to female voices that were independent and educated, although presenting differing views of marriage

42
Q

Difference between A Doll’s house and Rossetti’s poetry messages/ ending highlighted by Richard Redwood

A

• 2020
• Ibsen’s play has a strong ending and single outcome regarding marriage, whereas Rossetti’s works provide countervailing ideas

43
Q

Why did Rossetti not take her feminist critiques further in her poetry?

A

Her Tractarian beliefs: She believed that the Bible had an ‘unalterable distinction between men and women, their positions, duties and privileges’

44
Q

How did Rossetti refuse to support women’s rights?

A

• signed a women’s anti-suffrage petition in 1889

45
Q

How did Rossetti aim to end child prostitution?

A

• She campaigned vigorously for the Protection of Minors Bill, which sought to raise the age of consent from 13 to 16

46
Q

Why did Rossetti provide very conflicted views in her poems? (Historical context)

A

• She was writing in a very turbulent time: her life encompasses the First and Second Reform Act, 1848 Year of Revolutions in Europe, Crimean War, campaign for 1870 Married Woman’s Property Act, Society for the Employment of Women

47
Q

What biographical context about Rossetti relates to the themes of death within her work?

A

• diagnosed with Grave’s disease in 1872 (malfunction of the immune system)
• lost her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Frances Rossetti, and old friend Charles Cayley within a short space of time

48
Q

Women in gothic victorian literature

A

• Mina in Dracula - intelligent, yet also a devoted wife, valued for her virtue until violated by Dracula
• Elizabeth Lorenza in Frankenstein - ideal woman
• Jane Eyre - more negotiated concept of marriage (marries for love rather than material yet similarly valued for her virtue)

49
Q

How religious was Victorian society?

A

Census of 1851 showed that of the population of 18 million, more than half attended a place of Christian worship on a regular basis - a figure worryingly small at the time but also huge compared to average church attendances of 980,000 during 2014

50
Q

How does Rossetti criticise Evangelism as a Tractarian?

A

In Good Friday, she criticises Evangelical emotionalism, endorsing the stoic speaker’s restraint
(George Norton)
• criticising religion as a Christian herself, links to Nora’s rejection of religion/ identifies as agnostic

51
Q

Which religious story does George Norton view Shut Out as?

A

• the Eden story told from Eve’s POV
(She is excluded from her ‘delightful land’ and ‘shout out’ by a ‘male shadowless spirit’

52
Q

How does Norton highlight Rossetti’s commitment to her faith in poetry?

A

‘Even when Rossetti’s speakers seem on the verge of despair, they have confidence that ultimately Christ will intervene’
(Juxtaposes Nora)
E.g in the catechistic structure of Up Hill, Twice

53
Q

George Norton on Twice

A

•Rossetti privileges commitment to the divine over the vicissitudes of human relationships
• Twice inscribes the paradox at the heart of Christian belief: one becomes free only by submitting to God

54
Q

How does William Rossetti describe his sister’s faith

A

Her attitude of mind was ‘I believe because I am told to believe’

55
Q

Biographer Frances Thomas on Rossetti’s faith

A

‘For all her constant talk of religion, Christina seldom spoke of its joys’

56
Q

How was Ghosts scandalous?

A

• 1881
• Scandinavian theatre rejected the play and booksellers returned copies to the publisher

57
Q

Where did Ibsen’s influence come from in terms of his damnation of bourgeois respectability and the tension between reality and semblance?

A

• 1835 - Ibsen’s father experienced financial ruin
• Therefore Ibsens had to maintain their public appearance although less wealthy
• Which was eventually exposed and shamed
Torvald (‘The matter must be hushed up at any cost’)

58
Q

What was A Doll’s House based on?

A

• the story of Ibsen’s friends the Kielers
• The family never forgave Ibsen for his expository text, reflects themes of revelation?

59
Q

Political climate of Europe

A

• A series of revolutions broke out across Europe 1848 based on the need for freedom of expression and liberalism amongst the bourgeoisie

60
Q

Impact of 1848 European revolutions on Ibsen’s ideology

A

• He grew to regard personal liberty as vital
• ‘There is nothing else and nothing better for us all to do in spirit and in truth to realise ourselves’
• Therefore Nora becomes a symbol of nineteenth century liberalism

61
Q

How influential was a dolls house

A

• over 4000 productions made of it
• controversial but not ignored

62
Q

Popularity of a dolls house

A

Sold 10k copies in Denmark

63
Q

I’m our time context

A

• Norwegian society more progressive than British society
• Ibsen’s plays are a constant cycle, Ghosts succeeds A Dolls house and continues discussion of STIs, heredity of tradition and disease

english lit (14 decks)

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