Victorian Literature

What is Victorian Literature?

• Victorian literature refers to the literary works written during the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901).

• It was the transition between the Romantic period and 20th century literature.

It can be divided into two periods:

• High Victorian Literature (1830-1870)

• Late Victorian Literature (1870-1901)

Common Themes

• Critique of industrialization

• Critique of the deterioration of the rural lifestyle

• Celebration of the past (including chivalry)

• Conflicts between classes

• Women´s rights

Morality

• Most works were written to teach moral lessons to readers.

• Hard work and strong virtue are always romanticized and rewarded, and poor behavior is punished at the end.

• Literary works are full of passion and characters are often tempted by evil, but they show restraint against wild emotions (as opposed as during the Romantic Period).

Genres

• Poetry

• Novel

• Theater

• Nonfiction

• Gothic and supernatural literature

• Children‘s literature

• New genres: - detective novels- science fiction

Novels

• Novel was the dominant genre during the Victorian period.

• High Victorian novels tended to be edifying moral stories that portraited difficult lives, and where hard work, love and perseverance were always rewarded.

• Late Victorian novels were more complex, as they reflected an inner struggle to conquer the flaws of human nature through effort and virtue.

Major Novelists

• Charles Dickens is probably the most widely read author from this time.

• His novels achieved immense popularity during his lifetime and there were even spin-offs and merchandise made of them.

• Most novels criticized society and represented its poorest, but in line with the literature of the era, there was a very strong moral element to the tales.

• Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë• The sisters published their works under the male pseudonyms

Currer, Ellis and Ashton Bell, as it was common practice for female writers that wanted to be taken more seriously.

• Their novels include some unconventional themes for this era, such as violence, a deep desire for freedom, a wilderness of spirit, feminism and even the supernatural.

• Their work was considered controversial but they eventually achieved the success they deserved.

• Some of their works:• Charlotte: Jane Eyre• Emily: Wuthering Heights• Anne: The Tennant of Wildfell Hall

Major Novelists

• William Makepeace Thackeray• He began as a parodist and satirist but later

started to write novels with a very strong satiric component.

• He enjoyed great success during his lifetime but today his best known work is Vanity Fair.

• In it, he satirizes British society of the 19th century, although it is set during the Napoleonic Wars.

• There have been several film adaptations of this novel and it is still one of the best loved by the British public.

Major Novelists

Poetry

• The most famous poet of the Victorian period was Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

• His poetry mostly retells classical myths, but it also covers religious dilemmas and scientific discoveries.

• Although he experimented with metric, he mostly followed a strict pattern, a reflection of the formality of the era.

• Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning• Husband and wife, they enjoyed great

popularity because of their love poems to each other.• Elizabeth Barrett was already a successful

author before she met her husband, and was also an involved activist in social issues.• Her prolific work made her a rival to

Tennyson as a candidate for poet laureate in 1850 after the death of Wordsworth.

Poetry

• It was also a group of writers and artists, of which Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his sister Christina were part.

• Their aim was to replace the academic approach to art with the more natural approach taken before the Italian Renaissance.

• Several writers joined this movement, echoing a simpler, less formal approach to literature. The Rossettis are the greatest poets of this movement.

The Pre-Raphaelites

Theater

• Theater became an extremely popular form of entertainment for all social classes during this era and Queen Victoria promoted it.• Plays usually had a strong comedic element, both

high and low, and the plots were full of mistaken identities, coincidences and mistiming.• Oscar Wilde was the leading dramatist of the

late Victorian period and his comic masterpiece The Importance of Being Earnest is a satiric reflection of the time.

Nonfiction

• The Victorian era was a period of great scientific discovery and the Victorians tried to describe and classify the world they lived in.

• Among others, Charles Darwin with On the Origin of Species, Friedrich Engels with his Condition of the Working Classes in England and John Stuart Mill with his philosophical works, changed the way the Victorians thought about themselves and about the world.

Supernatural and Gothic Literature

• Gothic literature combines romance and horror in attempt to thrill and terrify the reader. • Possible features in a gothic novel are

monsters, ghosts, curses, hidden rooms, mad women in the attic and witchcraft.• The plot usually takes place in

monasteries, castles and cemeteries.• They were hugely popular but panned

by critics.

Children‘s Literature• The Victorian period was the first one in history

where children were targeted as readers.• This was a consequence of the evolution of

social attitudes towards childhood.• Literature became a popular way to teach

children lessons and morals. They were only rarely enjoyable works.

• Later, when reading for pleasure became socially accepted, folk and fairy-tale compilations became very popular

• There were different types of publications written for boys and girls. Girls stories were domestic and focused on family life, whereas boys stories were about adventures.

New Genres: Detective Stories• Edgar Allen Poe’s The Murders in the

Rue Morgue is generally considered to be the first detective story. The protagonist is Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin.• English novelist Wilkie Collins published

a detective novel, The Moonstone, in 1868.• The greatest fictional detective, Sherlock

Holmes, first appeared in 1887, in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel A Study in Scarlet,

New Genres: Science Fiction

• Early examples: Johannes Kepler’s Somnium (1620-1630). Cyrano de Bergerac’s Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon (1657) and States and Empires of the Sun (1662). Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726). Voltaire’s Micromégas.

• With the dawn of new technologies such as electricity, the telegraph, and new forms of powered transportation, writers including H.G. Wells and Jules Verne created a body of work that became popular across broad cross-sections of society. Wells‘ The War of the Worlds (1898) describes an invasion of late Victorian England by Martians using tripod fighting machines equipped with advanced weaponry. It is a seminal depiction of an alien invasion of Earth.

Victorian Literature Today

• Many view it with skepticism because of the stereotypes of the era: current readers may see it as prudish, rigid and excessively formal.

• However, many contemporary authors criticized these same trends, and there were many brilliant works that were considered unconventional even then.

• Those works have passed the test of time and are today considered masterpieces of classic literature.