Performer Heritage

Marina Spiazzi, Marina Tavella,

Margaret Layton © 2017

Victorian literature

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1. Early Victorian poetry

Performer Heritage

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During Victoria’s reign, poetry became more concerned with social reality and was expected to express the intellectual and moral debate of the age. Two kinds of poetry developed:

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Victorian literature

1. Early Victorian poetry

Performer Heritage

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The poet was seen as a ‘prophet’ and a ‘philosopher’. He was expected to reconcile faith and progress.

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The most popular poetic form was

the dramatic monologue.

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A narrative poem.

The speaker is different from the poet himself.

The tone is

argumentative.

There is a silent listener.

The character is caught in a moment of crisis.

Deep interest in human psychology.

Different points of view.

Victorian literature

1. Early Victorian poetry

Performer Heritage

Outstanding poets

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• Alfred Tennyson: the most popular Victorian poet. He wrote dramatic monologues.

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• Robert Browning: he raised the dramatic monologue to new heights making it a vehicle for deep psychological study.

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• Elizabeth Barrett Browning: she wrote love sonnets valued for their lyrical beauty.

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Alfred Lord Tennyson.

Victorian literature

2. The Victorian novel

Performer Heritage

• There was a communion of interests and opinions between the writers and their readers.
• The Victorians were avid consumers of literature. They borrowed books from circulating libraries and read various periodicals.

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Victorian literature

2. The Victorian novel

Performer Heritage

• The Victorian reading public established the novel as

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• the dominant literary form of the age;
• the most distinctive and lasting literary achievement of Victorian literature.

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Publication of a novel in monthly instalments on the pages of periodicals

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even the poor could purchase them.

Victorian literature

2. The Victorian novel

Performer Heritage

Victorian novelists

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• described society as they saw it;

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• expressed different kinds of emotion, love, humour, fear, except those sentiments which could offend current morals;

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• were aware of the evils of their society, such as the terrible conditions of manual workers and the exploitation of children. Their criticism, however, was much less radical than that of contemporary European writers;

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• didacticism was one of the main features of Victorian novels, because novelists also conceived of literature as a vehicle to correct the vices and weaknesses of the age.

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Victorian literature

2. The Victorian novel

Performer Heritage

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Victorian novelists

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• concentrated on the creation of characters and achieved deeper analysis of the characters’ inner lives;

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• presented retribution and punishment in the final chapter, where the whole texture of events, adventures, incidents had to be explained and justified.

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Victorian literature

2. The Victorian novel

Performer Heritage

• The voice of the omniscient narrator provided a comment on the plot and erected a rigid barrier between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, light and darkness.

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• The setting chosen by most Victorian novelists was the town, which was the main symbol of industrial civilisation as well as the expression of anonymous lives and lost identities.

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Victorian literature

2. The Victorian novel

Performer Heritage

The most important themes developed were

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• differences and the dramatic contrast between the lower and middle classes, between the rich and the poor Utilitarian philosophy and damage caused by the factory system;

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• children and their exploitation orphans working in a workhouse, cruelty in boarding schools;

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• education;

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• women and their exploitation;

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• middle-class family life.

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Victorian literature

3. Types of novels

Performer Heritage

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Victorian literature