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OUTLINE
3. Types of Literature
3.1 - Drama 3.2 - Novel 3.3 - Poetry3.4 – Non-
fictional Prose
2. Main Characteristics
1. History
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Overview
Queen Victoria’ s reign (1837-1901),the most powerful time
Industry Revolution: tremendous
scientific progress and ideas Britain: the most powerful nation,
taken over ¼ of the Earth’s surface
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Children
Only rich children could go to school,mostly boys
Poor ones had to work up to 16
hours/day, 6 days a week Be purchased to work in mines &
factories
Most died early: poor working & livingcondition
Seen as replaceable parts of machines
Given no care
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The Woman Questions
Rich women◦ Taught how to draw, paint, sing, dance
◦ Be purity, not show any skin, no cosmetics or jewelry
◦ After getting married, stayed at home, lookedafter the chores, be dutiful
Poor women◦
Worked at mills & factories, garmentindustries
◦ Some worked up to 12 hours/day, 7 days aweek
◦ No choice but to accept whatever placed infront of them
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• Closer view to daily life: reflectpractical & social problems &interests
• Moral purpose: derive from “art
for the art’s sake”
• Idealism: an age of doubt &pessimism
• Practical & materialistic age
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3.1 - Drama 1830-1870: innumerable plays of every kind
Plays = melodramas (music-dramas or playswith music)
Early 19th century: violence, sadism,attempted seduction, low humor, murder,sensationalism, conventional moralising
3 elements: realism, fantasy & wit
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W.S. Gilbert (1836-1911)
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
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“The importance of
being earnest”
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
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1830-1870: innumerable plays of every kind
Plays = melodramas (music-dramas or plays withmusic)
Early 19th century: violence, sadism, attempted
seduction, low humor, murder, sensationalism,conventional moralising
3 elements: realism, fantasy & wit
Excellent introduction to the social background of
the theatre(Theatre: working community of actors, managers,technicians)
Length of runs – Longer duration of plays
3.1 - Drama
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“Our Boys” (1875) – 500 performances
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“Charley’s aunt” (1892) – 1362
performances
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“Dorothy” – 931 performances
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• George Bernard Shaw:
- an Irishman, born in a
middle-class family- made a revolution in the
English theatre
• Drama for Shaw:
- a tool to help people interms of solving moral issues
- issues: marriage, equalright for men and women,prostitution and its reasons,relationships and many others
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3.2. Novel
The most popular & dominant form ofliterature
Novelists: Moral and social responsibility
Realism and Criticism
Making the readers realizesocial unjustices
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3.2. Novel
WOMEN WRITERS A great number of novels were written by women
Not easy to publish their works
Use male pseudonyms in order to see their novels inprint
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Mary Ann Evans, under the name of George Eliot.
Of the novelists of the period, she was the most
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3.2 - Novel
MAIN FEATURES Obtrusive and omniscient narrators Didactic aim Linearity Long complicated plots and sub-plots Precise creation of characters and deep
analysis of characters’ inner lives(psychology)
The setting of the city Most popular genre = Bildulgsroman
(novel of formation)
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Bildulgsroman Coin in literary criticism
Focus on moral and psychologicalgrowth of main characters
Often feature a main conflict betweenthe main character and society
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MAIN FEATURES Obtrusive and omniscient narrators Didactic aim Linearity
Long complicated plots and sub-plots Precise creation of characters and deep
analysis of characters’ inner lives(psychology)
The setting of the city Most popular genre = Bildulgsroman (novel of
formation) Main themes: money, wealth, realistic portrait
of society denouncing its injustices and
iniquities
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3.2. Novel
Early-Victorian Novel
Mid-Victorian Novel
Late- Victorian Novel
Early Victorian Novel
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Early-Victorian Novel(social-problem novel)
Dealing with social and humanitarian themes
Realism and criticism of social evils
Faith in progress, general optimism
The main representative: Charles Dickens
Early-Victorian Novel
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Early-Victorian Novel(social-problem novel)
Social problems: Poverty, crime. A child of the parish “ had contrived to
exist upon the smallest possibleportion of the weakest possible food….”
(Twist p.5)
Dickens' Criticism of the 1834 PoorLaw.
Self-sacrifice, benevolence and charity.
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Mid-Victorian Novel(novel of purpose)
Romantic and Gothic elements Psychological interest
The main representative: Bronte
Sisters (Charlotte, Emily and Anne)
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Mid-Victorian Novel(novel of purpose)
Gothic
Began with Horace Walpole’s TheCastle of Otrato (1765)
Create feelings of gloom, mystery,suspend
dramatic and sensational
Cross the boundary
Daylight and the dark
Life and death Consciousness and unconsciousness
Found in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane
Eyre and Emily Bronte’sWuthering Heights
Mid Victorian Novel
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Mid-Victorian Novel(novel of purpose)
Love crossing the boundarybetween life and death.
Spirit of romanticism in “ the figures
of Hereton Earnshaw, of CatherineLinton, and of Healthcliff-tearing
open Catherine’s grave, removingone side of her coffin,…”.
The love of nature is not presentedin just in its tranquil and smiling
aspects but also appears in its wild,stormy moods.
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Late-Victorian novel(nature novel near to European Naturalism)
European Naturalism Taking place from 1880s-1940s Outgrowth of literary realism Characteristics:
Pessimism Detachment from the story
Scientific look at human life, objectivity of
observation, dissatisfaction with Victorianvalues
The main representative: Thomas Hardy
L t Vi t i l
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Late-Victorian novel(nature novel near to European Naturalism)
An early piece of feministliterature
The fates favor the lead characterResilience,intelligenceand goodluck toovercomeher folly
Bathsheba’s
serious errorsof judgments
3 3 Poetry
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3.3 - Poetry General features
Continuation of Romantic Poetry & a bridge between this
earlier era & the modernist poetry Experience with new styles & new ways of expression
Reflection of the period's crying social contradictions• Faith >< Doubt
• Love >< Rejection
•Countryside >< City• Freedom >< Self-sacrifice
Early in the period: high moral seriousness was inseparablefrom traditional ideals of poetic beauty
• Subjective experience, individual’s feelings & sensations
• Hidden emotions or earning desires
• Genres• Lyric poetry
• Dramatic verse
• Narrative poetry
• Long poetry
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Alfred Lord Tennyson
“Poet of the people”
The doubt & the faith, the grief& the joy of English people inan age of fast social changes
In Memoriam (1850)
Idylls of the King (1859-1885)
(1809 -1892)
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In Memoriam
• Tennyson's masterpiece
• Queen Victoria’s favorite poem :"Next to the Bible, In Memoriamis my comfort.“
• In memory of Arthur Henry
Hallam• Philosophical & Religious
thoughts:
• doubts about the meaning of life
• existence of soul & afterlife
• faith in the power of love & thesoul’s instinct & immortality
(1850)
Arthur Henry Hallam
(1811-1833)
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In Memoriam
• In Canto 27 :
Dark house , by which once more I stand
Here in the long unlovely street ,Doors, where my heart was used to beat
So quickly, waiting for a hand,
A hand that can be clasped no more
Behold me, for I cannot sleep,And like a guilty thing I creep,
At earliest morning to the door.
(1850)
He is not here; but far away
The noise of life begins again,
And ghastly thro' the drizzling rain
On the bald street breaks the blank day .
I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
The loss of a loved one
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3.4 - Non-fictional ProseGeneral features
A wide range of subjects: politics, religion,history, personal biography, but chieflyconcerned with social problems
Writers (Sagers) as latter-day prophets &interpreters offering inspired wisdom &advice
An instrument of persuasion (beliefs & point
of views)
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Thomas Carlyle
• Carlyle's work appealing to manyVictorians struggling withscientific and political changesthat threatened the traditionalsocial order
• Inventing new words & changingthe natural word order
• Sartore Resartus (1834)
The French Revolution (1837)
On heroes and Hero Worship(1841)
(1795 - 1881 )
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On heroes and Hero Worship
• Carlyle’s best known book • Favorite view of history:
• History of the world is at the bottomthe history of great men
• Decisive factor is the individual
leadership of genius • The world was filled with
contradictions the hero had todeal.
• All heroes will be flawed.
• Their heroism lay in their creativeenergy in the face of these difficulties,not in their moral perfection
• People ranging from the field ofreligion through to literature andpolitics
(1841)
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On heroes and Hero Worship
• Lecture 1. The Hero as Divinity. Odin.
Paganism: Scandinavian Mythology
• Lecture 2. The Hero as Prophet. Muhammad:
Islam
• Lecture 3. The Hero as Poet. Dante;
Shakespeare
• Lecture 4: The Hero as Priest. Luther;
Reformation: Knox; Puritanism
• Lecture 5. The Hero as Man of Letters.
Johnson, Rousseau, Burns
• Lecture 6. The Hero as King. Cromwell.
Napoleon: Modern Revolutionism
(1841)
Content
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On heroes and Hero Worship
• "All that mankind has done, thought, gained or been: it is lyingas in magic preservation in the pages of books."
• "In books lies the soul of the whole Past Time; the articulate audiblevoice of the Past, when the body and material substance of it has
altogether vanished like a dream."• "A man lives by believing something; not by debating and arguing
about many things."
• "What we become depends on what we read after all of theprofessors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is acollection of books."
• "The suffering man ought really to consume his own smoke; there isno good in emitting smoke till you have made it into fire."
• "Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man; but for one man who canstand prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand adversity."
• "Not what I have, but what I do, is my kingdom."
(1841)
The Hero as Man of Letters (Quotes)
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