British Literature 2015

INTRODUCTION TO THE VICTORIAN PERIOD (1832-1901)

Period Titled for Queen Victoria, who reigned from 1837-1901● Period marked by prosperity and peace for England● Sense of optimism and self-assurance for the privileged ● Saw need for improvements and tried to make them● Believed England was the best nation in the best era in

history● Growth of:

○ Middle and industrial classes○ manufacturing (world leader)○ More shops, banks etc

THE VICTORIAN PERIOD IN BRITAIN 1832-1901

THE VICTORIAN PERIOD IN BRITAIN 1832-1901

Three primary literary concerns:1. Woman Question

a. Separate spheresb. Work for women

i. Governess 2. Industrial Revolution:

a. railways i. industry expansion ii. colonization

b. Industrial printing press i. Increased literacy for ALLii. The periodical and serializationiii. Democratizing knowledge

c. Booming industry i. more textile, exports, and goodsii. the gap between the rich and poor is growing

3. Moral Puritya. What’s appropriate (again!)? Literature is didactic (moralizing)b. Questioning religion grows in popularity

•Father is boss

•Women and children subject to father’s authority

•Women who did not marry (surplus of women after mid-century)–Governesses

–Teachers

–Lived with parents or brother’s or sister’s family

Victorian Men and Women

AUGUSTUS LEOPOLD EGG“PAST AND PRESENT” (1858)

A TRYPTIC PT 1 “MISFORTUNE”

AUGUSTUS LEOPOLD EGG“PAST AND PRESENT” (1858)

A TRYPTIC PT 2“PRAYER”

AUGUSTUS LEOPOLD EGG“PAST AND PRESENT” (1858)

A TRYPTIC PT “DESPAIR”

John Ruskin (contemporary of Augustus Leopold Egg) describes the narrative:

In the central piece the husband discovers his wife's infidelity; he dies five years afterwards. The two lateral pictures represent the same moment of night a fortnight after his death. The same little cloud is under the moon. The two children see it from the chamber in which they are praying for their lost mother, and their mother, from behind a boat under a vault on the river shore.

PAST AND PRESENT:WHAT HAPPENED?

“THE LADY OF SHALOTT”

WATERHOUSE (1888)

“THE LADY OF SHALOTT”WILLIAM HOLMAN

HUNT 1889

Part I

On either side the river lieLong fields of barely and of rye,That clothe the wold and meet the sky;And thro’ the field the road runs by

To many-tower’d Camelot;The yellow-leaved waterlily The green-sheathed daffoldillyTremble in the water chilly

Round about Shalott.

“THE LADY OF SHALOTT”BY

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON (1832)

● 1828-1882● Father was exiled from Italy, to

England● Brother of Christina Rossetti

(“Goblin Market”)● Poet and painter

○ valued beauty, texture, and color ● Influenced by Keats● Anticipated aesthetic movement

(Oscar Wilde) ● In 1848 founded the Pre-Raphaelite

Brotherhood ○ a movement of artists who embraced

the ordinary while rejecting the conventionality of the Old Masters.

“The Blessed Damozel” by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Poem: 1847-50 / Painting: 1875-78