Victorian PoetryAn Introduction

Some Facts Literally the events in the age of the reign of Queen

Victoria 1837-1901

Commonly associated with repression and social conformity

Increased the use of the sonnet as a poetic form

Wordsworth was Poet Laureate until his death in 1850 when Tennyson took over; he was Queen Victoria’s favorite poet and only agreed to the position when Victoria asked him, personally

Influenced by the Romantic poetry movement either reacting against or embracing Romantic motifs but with Victorian idealistic modifications

Focus on Growing Middle Class

Industrial Revolution created a burgeoning middle class

This growing middle class created a larger market, an educated public, thus reading began to function as a form of popular entertainment

Middle class values- hard work, moral seriousness, social responsibility begin to appear as motifs and ideas in literature

British Dominance At the forefront of the Industrial Revolution,

Britain also led the European drive to colonize The idea of “civilizing” weaker cultures through

Western moral and Christian ideals became “accepted” as “The White Man’s Burden” (See Kipling poem)

“Progress,” Colonialism, Imperialism, Nationalism Concern for economics, materialism over

spiritualism Refocus on institutions: marriage, education,

religion

Elements of Victorian Poetry

Paradoxical body of poetry:

Reclaiming the past, especially classical and Medieval literature

Combination of Romantic ideals of self, emotion and imagination with Neoclassical onus on the responsibility of the artist and awareness of the public role of art

Emphasis on morals, ethics and values

Suppression of passion and emotions

More Characteristics of Victorian Poetry

Refocus on institutions: marriage, education, religion

Strong sense of moral responsibility

Glorification of scientific discovery created practical questions about the “value” of poetry

Paradoxically, the era is known for a renewal of Religious furor seen notably in poets like Christina Rossetti and Gerard Manley Hopkins

To increase the paradoxes, writers like Oscar Wilde and Algernon Swinebourne embraced hedonistic, sensual impulses as seen in their poems and plays

Some “…isms”

Naturalism,

Social Darwinism,

Psychological Realism

Pre-Raphaellite Brotherhood

The Woman Question

The woman question- an examination of traditional roles

Many lower class/working class women worked equally as hard as their male counterparts

Middle class women became “domestic goddesses”

Yet there was an obvious tension between the sensual and the spiritual..the suppression of passion reared its head in unusual places- see “Goblin Market”

The Rise of the Female Poet

The Victorian Period also saw coming to the forefront what became known as the “Woman Question.” What were women’s roles in this rapidly changing world?

Prior to the Victorian Period women writers seemed scarce even though we now know that many women wrote using male pseudonyms

Until the last few decades, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Christina Rossetti were considered “the” Victorian women poets.

The Bronte sisters wrote poetry in addition to the famous novels