Characteristics Of Victorian Age Literature

Characteristics Of capital of Seychellesn Age literary productions diachronic Background of victorian AgeIn the year 1837, coffin nail Victoria ascended the thr unity of Great Britain and Ireland and succeeded William the IV. She served for a menses of 64 years, boulder clay her finis in 1901 and it is hotshot of the longest reigns in the hi fib of England. The item was tag by homohoody Coperni arsehole social and historical changes that altered the tribe in many a(prenominal) ways. The population n un measurely doubled, the British Empire expand exponenti all toldy and technological and industrial progress helped Britain become the or so regnant terra firma in the human being.Chief Characteristics of overnice Period game of land the country saw economic progress, poverty and exploitation were to a fault equally a de revealment of it. The gap betwixt the rich and the poor increased betaly and the drive for clobber and commercial success was seen to propagate a contour of a moral decay in the society itself. The changing adorn of the country was an most other worry. slice the antecedent phase of sentimentalistism saw a celebration of the country side and the rich landscape of the flora and fauna, the prissy era saw a changing of the landscape to one of b recreateoning industries and factories. While the poor were exploited for their labor, the period witnessed the vacate of the bourgeoisie or the nerve centre consort due to increasing trade between Britain and its colonies and the mend Bill of 1832 strengthen their hold. There was besides a shift from the Romantic ideals of the previous date to wards a more than living betrothal and movie of society.One of the most important factors that defined the progress was its stress on morality. Strict societal codes were enforced and certain activities were unaffixedly lifeed down upon. These codes were hitherto harsher for women. A feminine code of conduct was levied on them which depict any aspect of their universe from the proper app bels to how to converse, everything had rules. The role of women was mostly that of being angels of the polarity and restricted to domestic confines. Professionally very few options were available to them as a woman could either become a governess or a teacher in rich households. Hence they were financially myrmecophilous on their husbands and fathers and it led to a commercialization of the institution of jointure.Victorian figmentsVictorian earned run average is seen as the link between Romanticism of the 18th deoxycytidine monophosphate and the pragmatism of the twentieth century. The invigo stationd as a genre come up to bind the rising middle frame and to depict the contemporary life in a changing society. Although the refreshed had been in development since the 18th century with the hearty kit and caboodle of Daniel Defoe, enthalpy Fielding, Laurence Sterne, Samuel Richardson and the others, it was in this period that the fresh got mass acceptance and readership. The growth of cities, a ready domestic trade and one in the oversea colonies and an increase in printing and publishing houses facilitated the growth of the novel as a form. In the year 1870, an Education Act was passed which make education an easy access to the masses furthermore increasing literacy evaluate among the population. Certain jobs required a certain level of reading power and simple novels catered to this by be advent a pull to practice reading. excessively the time of the daily commute to toy for men and the time merely at home for women could be filled by reading which flat became a leisure activity. As a response to the latter, the demand for manufacture, rose substantially.The novels of the age mostly had a moral striving in them with a belief in the innate duty of human nature. The characters were well move and the takeoff booster usually belonged to a middle class society who strug gled to throw a niche for himself in the industrial and mer fueltile origination. The stress was on realness and an render to describe the daily struggles of ordinary men that the middle class reader could associate with. The moral tangents were perhaps an attempt to have the moral degradation prevalent in the society then and supplied the earshot with hope and positivity. These moral angles allowed for inclusion of large debates in fictionalization wish well the ones skirt the woman question, marriage, progress, education, the Industrial Revolution. New roles for women were created because of the resultant economic market and their voice which was earlier non given cadence was now being spotted and recognized and novels became the means where the domestic confinement of women was questioned. Novels reflecting the larger questions surrounding women, like those of their roles and duties. In the latter half of the century, Married Womens Property Acts was passed, the women suffrage became an important point of debate, and poverty and other economic reasons challenged the handed-down roles of women. The novel as a form became the medium where much(prenominal) business enterprises were raised.Charles Dickens A Popular Victorian AuthorIn the same year that Queen Victoria ascended the throne, Charles Dickens create the get-go pull up stakess of his novel Oliver Twist, a history of an orphan and his struggle with poverty in the early p nontextual matter of the century. As the Industrial Revolution surged on, the class difference between the traditional aristocracy and the middle class was gradually getting reduced and with the myopic of the Reform Act, the middle class got the right to vote and be politi exclaimy engaged in the affairs of the nation. While the aristocracy criticized the have that the bourgeoisie had to do in the factories and the industries, to maintain the supremacy that they had the privilege of, the middle class in response pr omoted work as sexual morality. The result of this led to a further marginalization of those struck by poverty and were part of un arrant(a) groups. The Poor Law that was passed made public assistance available to the economically downtrodden only with workhouses where they had to live and work. The conditions of these workhouses were deliberately made to be unendurable so as to avoid the poor from becoming totally underage on assistance from go forthside. Families were split, food was inedible, and the circumstances were made inhospitable to urge the poor to work and fight a way through poverty. However, these ultimately became a web difficult to transgress and people chose living in the streets rather than seeking help from a workhouse. Dickens was aw be of these concerns as a journalist and his own life and autobiographical experiences entered the novel through Oliver Twist. His novel enters the world of the workhouses, the dens of thieves and the streets and highlights tha t while there was economic prosperity on one side, there was poverty on the other and while morality, virtue were championed, hypocrisy was equally a part of society. His social commentary entered the world of his fiction.In 1836, before Oliver Twist, his serials of Pickwick Papers were promulgated which led him to instant lore and normality. It started the renowned Victorian mode of serial novels which dominated the age till the end of the century. It not only made the reader anxious for the side by side(p) serial to come and b impairmentom out the popularity of the book itself, exactly besides gave the generator a chance to alter his work according to the mood and outlook of his reference. His working enjoyed continuous popularity and acceptance and Dickens as a generator became renowned for his wit, satire, social commentary and his in depth characters.Bleak House, A Christmas Carroll, David Copperfield, Great Expectations are somewhat of his other neat workings.Wi lliam Makepeace Thackeray English Victorian WriterThackeray was born in Calcutta, India and was in like manner an important author but one who evince his age very divergently from Dickens and other authors. He is most noted for his satirical work self-assertion fair(a) that portrays the many myriads of English society. Although he was seen as equally talented as Dickens, but his attends were deemed old-fashioned which hindered his popularity. He did not readily accept the changing values of the age. His work is seen almost as a reactionary voice. self- ken Fair for example has the subtitle A novel without a star and in a period where other writers usually embarked on a portrayal of the coming of age of a hero, Thackeray himself very deliberately opposes it. While the protagonist of Dickens David Copperfield invites the reader to identify with him, Thackerays Becky Sharp is the conniving, cynical and clever. resultide his novel Pendennis, is a complete opposite of the nov el David Copperfield, although twain were produce the same year. Thackeray did not identify with the middle class because hence his novels escape a middle class hero. When novels were catering to reassure middle class self-worth, Thackeray denied to give that assurance. Even, Dobbin, a middle class character in Vanity Fair, is not completely granted hero status and a face of denunciation lingers on the character throughout the work.In The History of Henry Esmond, Thackeray deals with questions of not only of the concerns of society at large but likewise of various(prenominal) identity. While most writers supported the idea of innate goodness in the individual human self, Thackeray differed. For example the character of Henry Esmond is also not a completely positive character and the negatives of his self, is perhaps Thackerays re scan article of Victorian emphasis on the individual. An individualism that concentrate on person-to-person virtue and morality is seen as Thacke ray to at the risk of selfishness bordering on narcissism and self-absorption. His discontent with his age became more vocal in later works like Phillip and The New Comes. While the former is injected with autobiographical accounts and is goes back to the satirical pace of Vanity Fair, the latter is a harsh critique of the material greed of the age and a critique of the contemporary culture of the age.As a result of his strong opinions of his society and its issues, and a critical rejection of the dominant concerns found in works of other writers of the same age, Thackeray stands in closing off as an outsider to this circle due his skepticism of the changing Victorian society. His stand did not change with time and lends to a social criticism and commentary of a very different sort in his works. Catherine, A Shabby Genteel chronicle, The Book of Snobs are some of his other works.Women Novelists of the Victorian EraThe era saw a proliferation of women writers. The novel as a genr e was initially seen as feminine literary works and as the literacy rate among women increased, a invigorated consider for women writers catering to this segment was answered by these writers.Mrs. GaskellElizabeth Gaskell, popularly called Mrs. Gaskell wrote short stories and novels that dealt with presenting a social picture of her society in the 1850s. While it was a time when doubts about material progress reaching the effective lives of the ordinary man were starting to be raised, Gaskell mostly gave an optimistic mentation of the time. Gaskells North and South for example, seeks to present an answer to division and difference by presenting a form of a social reconciliation. There is an attempt at reconciliation of many divergent streams in the novel.Mary Barton was her set-back novel, published in 1848 with a subtitle, A Tale of Manchester Life and sticks to the Victorian concern of presenting the daily life of the middle class. Cranford came next in the form of a serial and was edited by Dickens for the magazine called Household Words. It was authentic positively and Gaskell gained immediate popularity for it. It centered on women characters like Mary Smith, sink Deborah and the others. However the book was also critiqued for its lack of a significant story line. She was also celebrated for her gothic style in some of her works and this made Gaskell slightly different from other novelist of her time. Ruth, Sylvias Lovers, Wives and Daughters were other significant works by her.George EliotPerhaps the one most famous women writers, George Eliot shut up maintains a canonical status. Her real name was Mary Ann Evans or Marian Evans and she adoptive the pseudonym George Eliot to escape the stereotype attached with women writers and successfully entered the domain of in force(p) writing. She had a controversial personal life and there too was not hesitant to break the norms of societal feminine boundaries. Adam Bede was her first novel, published 1859, company in a rural landscape and deals with a cacoethes rectangle. It received critical appreciation for its psychological descriptions of the characters and a graphic description of rural life.Mill on the Floss, 1860, revolves around the life of tomcat and Maggie Tulliver and traces their life as they grow up near the River Floss. Historical, political references to those of the Napoleonic Wars and the Reform Bill of 1832 inform the novel and lend it a more mental and serious strain. Autobiographical elements also form a part of the novel as George Eliot fuses herself partly with Maggie, the protagonist of the book. subsequently Silas Marner (1861), Romola (1863), Felix Holt the Radical, (1866) came Eliots most popular novel Middlemarch in the year 1871. The novel revolves around the life of building complex characters and the Reform Bill of 1832. Subtitled A Study of Provincial Life the plot is base in the fictitious town of Midlands. The greatness of the novel was b ecause of the spacious portraiture of country and urban life that it depicts, its complex plots and characters, and its stark realistic projection of the time its set in. The role of education, the women question, politics, social commentary, idealism are other complicated strands of the novel.Bronte SistersCharlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte were the three famous novelist daughters of Patrick Bronte, a well-educated man and a writer himself and Maria Bronte. The family together went through a series of tragedies where Maria Bronte died very early and none of the three sisters could reach the age of 40. Charlotte died at the age of just 39, Emily at 30 and Anne at 29. each(prenominal) three were educated by their father at home and all of them were fond of storytelling since childhood. Charlotte Bronte is famous for her novel Jane Eyre, published in 1847. The titular protagonist of the book, Jane Eyre, and her struggles in life and love for Mr. Rochester along with the process of he r mental and eldritch growth are traced. The novel is believed to have a feminist tone to it and the famous woman in the attic character of Bertha Mason raises some(prenominal) gender and feminist issues. Emily Bronte, the second of the trio, became famous for her novel Wuthering Heights, published in the year 1847 and the only book written by her. Like George Eliot, Emily wrote at a lower place the pseudonym of Ellis Bell but after her closing Charlotte published the novel with her sisters real name. The novel is the love story of Heathcliff andCatherine Earnshaw. Anne Bronte, the last of the three, wrote two novels Agnes white-haired(1847) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall(1848). The former was an autobiographical work and the latter is about a woman named Helen Graham who transgresses marital and social boundaries to assert her freedom. It is seen a substantial piece of feminist writing. whole three sisters hence larger societal questions through mostly women characters and th e plot focusses on their life with themes of love and passion. They hence enjoyed a large female readership and have achieved status as classics of literature.Late Victorian NovelistsThomas Hardy was the most important writer in the later part of the Victorian Era. He was influenced by twain the romanticism of the earlier era and the social commentary of Dickens. He is famous for the conception of the fictional town of Wessex. Far from the Madding Crowdpublished in 1874,The Mayor of Casterbridgein 1886,Tess of the dUrbervillesin 1891, andJude the Obscurein 1895 are his famous novels but Hardy was also known for his poem. The late part of the period also saw the rise of the sensational novels by writers like Wilkie collins and they too were based on the life of the middle class. The Woman in White (1860) and The Moonstone (1868) are Collins famous sensational novels. Anthony Trollope, some other writer in the second half of the era, was himself from a middle class ambit and wrote the Phineas Finn (1869) and The Way we Live (1874). It was the time when Lewis Carroll wrote his famous Alices Adventures in Wonderland published in 1865 and stood very different from other because of the child fiction genre it became a classic of the Carrolls different dreamy world that stood in direct argumentation with the realistic tone of novels that was at its peak. George Gissing, George Moore, Samuel Butler, Henry James, Robert Louis Stevenson were other novels of the era. Rudyard Kipling and his short stories based in India pointed to the larger historical process of colonialism happening at the time. It was in 1877 that Queen Victoria became the Empress of India. Then also came George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde, other two most famous writers of the time.Overview of Victorian PeriodThe age hence was important for the rise of the novel as a genre and form which itself saw displacement within the period. From romanticism to realism, politics to passion, optimism to pess imism, the novel could successfully deal with the changing mood of the society. Class, gender, individualism, society all were given space in the novel. The period was known to have witnessed the massive change of Britain from an agrarian to industrial landscape. All concerns informed the novel and the novel was made into perhaps the most important genre of the age and the ones that would follow. ultramodern PeriodAfter Queen Victorias death in 1901 came the period which saw writers like Joseph Conrad, H.G Wells, D.H Lawrence, E.M Forster and others. The most important event in the early part of the 20th century was the First military personnel War that took place from 1914 to 1918. It was a crucial event that changed the way of the world, force the psyche of the people and also the way literature was written. The pessimism and doubts that were a part of the writings of the earlier period may perhaps have expect the War. Hence Joseph Conrad, instead of talking of the society and its change now focused on dislocated individuals, a question of where one belongs in a seemingly cruel world. Colonialism are important part of his works wherein he presents a stark reality of exploitation and greed. Lord Jim, Nostromo, Heart of Darkness, are some of his major(ip) works. H.G Wells was a prolific writer and wrote around a hundred novels. The Time Machine, Ann Veronica, The History of Mr. Polly, The War of the grounds, are some his important novels and Tono- Bungay is seen as his most brilliant work. Lawrence, was a controversial writer because of the open sexual references in his work. His work was different because of the sensual language and emotional feelings that made them. Therefore the novel then moved from the realism of the world outside more towards a description of the reality of the individual within. Sons and Lovers, The Rainbow, Women in Love are important works by him. E.M Forster, last wrote his famous Howards End that deals with the Schegel and th e Wilcox family and the society in 1910, brilliantly and delicately described which would then be transformed permanently by the First being War.The Georgian Poets and World War IDuring the reign of George V, was published v anthologies of poetry by Edward Marsh in the year 1912 to 1922. Many important writers like of the time like Edward Thomas, Robert Graves, D.H Lawrence, Walter de la Mare contributed to these anthologies. The main concern was to depict the real issues surrounding the world around the World War. modernnessModernism as a travail was a response to the horrors of World War-I and to the rising industrial societies and growth of cities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It challenged the harmony and the rationality of the Enlightenment and sought to create art and literature of the age. To do so, it broke away from the works of the past and conventions that were earlier held at a pedestal. The view that traditional conceptions of beauty and on the whole th e meaning of art itself did not fit the age consider to another movement called Dadaism that consciously set to redefine art itself. The movement was seen as anti-art that aimed to upturn its order. Chaos then as the basic antithesis to order was profusely used by artists. Started by Tristan Tzara (1896- 1963) as a reaction against the otiose violence of the First World War and to reflect the anarchy that it spread in the social system as well as in the lives of ordinary people. What was also opposed was the conception of what was worthy of being the object lens of art. The Greco-Roman subjects were replaced by the mundane as the urinal that Marcel Duchamp placed as an object of art in his gallery. Also in his LHOOQ Duchamps Mona Lisa with a mustache was a direct means to shake the viewer and the age out from his complacency that lead to the war itself. It was the direct convention of disillusionment with the war and that art too had lost its meaning like the literature of th e classical time. The breaking down of any previously set rules and a vehement portrayal of freedom of expression to shock and awe was the channel of the time that saw the violence of the World War firsthand. The artists and writers of the Dada movement were mostly war veterans and expressed through their work the psychological devastation of the war. The call for re-invention was echoed in the movement and stood for what modernism broadly aimed at.Thematic and Technical Features of Modern LiteratureThe conception that reality could be easily be savvy was replaced by modernism with a more subjective argument. Reality became not what was directly seen but what was behind the apparent surfaces and it took a crude look at the ugly, the stark behind the glossy surfaces. It was to raise these questions that overrefinement became a crucial trope in the visual arts of the era. Comtes Positivism could no longer be used to describe reality. The distorted images force the onlooker to step out of his comfort zone and to question his conception of reality. It highlights the dialectical relationship between the object of expression and the language that expresses it. This was echoed in the Literature of the time where sentences are fragmented and deliberately left incomplete as in Waiting for Godot. Dialogues are seldom completed and there is an inability to find the correct al-Qurans to describe the state of the self. This breakdown of language after the World War calls out for a need to reinvent language to fit the post war world.Hitlers use of almost an enigmatic, opera house type use of words (he admired Wagner) that achieved his mass appeal, did also lead to the war. It was perhaps then necessary to breakdown language to reinvent it. The distortion and the fragments not only hint at the former but to a unity that needs to be rediscovered. The half-sentence make the reader seek to complete them and participate in the call for a search of a innovative unity and i dentity which is Pounds injunction to Make it New. The onlooker/reader is take away from his role as a mere passive observer to an active one who contributes to the meaning of the art he views/reads. Hence the incompleteness was not aimed at a completely pessimistic answer that leads to a loss of hope, but to different source of comfort similar to what T.S Eliot finds in the world of shanti shanti shanti at the end of Wasteland.Overview of Modern Age LiteratureJames Joyce set his novels and short stories in a small city of Dublin. Dubliners published in 1914 is a part of the modernist literature along with The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses. Stephen Daedalus is a central character both in the Portrait and Ulysses. The latter however was banned.The next important writer was Virginia Woolf who was associated with the Bloomsbury Group which was a group of intellectuals and writers that met at her house which included E.M Forster and Leopold Woolf. Woolf assay to p resent the changed world through a changed style of writing. In 1915 came her first novel called The Voyage Out and then came Night and Day in 1919. There was a realistic serious tone to both these books. Modernist strain in her writing began with her next novel call Jacobs Room which was published in 1922 along with Ulysses. The rest of the novels like Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, The Waves, and Orlando had the same modernist tone.Stream of intelligencePicassos cubism became an important part of modernisms subjective view of reality and a need to move away from traditional forms of art. It was this subjectivity that lead to the stream of mind technique of narration, as used by Virginia Woolf in Mrs. Dalloway. The focus on the interiority of the self and its perception of the objects it conceives was way to grasp the changed notion of reality. The Pre-Speech level of consciousness (as Henry James called it) of the character where the narrative deals with what is freely sensed or felt by the characters rather than what is directly uttered changed the way that narratives functioned. The expression of the self was also to highlight the crisis of the self within itself. The existential view of life and its cyclical futile form was what entrapped it rendering it unable to sink futility of existence. This pessimistic view was a residue of the war which saw man as Sisyphus with his worthless search for meaning, identity and unity in an age that cannot satiate his search. In The Myth of Sisyphus Albert Camus dwells on this futility of the modern experience.Poetic black marketThe stipulation poetic drama was made popular during the middle of the 20th century. The term was made famous due to the works of T.S Eliot who used his work as a reaction to the drama of G. B Shaw and Galsworthy who were immensely influenced by Henrik Ibsen who wrote A Dolls House and Ghosts. In the The Quintessence of Ibsenism written by G.B Shaw, he accepted the formers influence on him. T.S Eliot apart from being a poet was also a critic and wrote many important works like happening of Poetic Drama and Poetry and Drama in which he expressed his belief that poetry and drama are linked inseparably. W.B. Yeats, W. H. Auden and other poets also tried writing poetic drama.IMPORTANT LITERARY TERMS prominent MonologueA persona poem or what is popularly termed as a dramatic monologue in poetry, uses the theatrical device of a monologue where a character or person on microscope stage speaks alone. Often done to highlight the character or authors internal thoughts and pronounce them to an implied audience, it was used in poetry in the 20th century. Romantic poetry was seen as the root of the same. It is usually one persons speech to oneself or the audience / reader wherein he talks about a subjective view on a situation, topic, or any other character. Robert Browning was the poet who hone the use of dramatic monologue in his poems like My Last Duchess, soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister. His use of the device influenced Eliot and other modernist writers.ParadoxAs the term signifies, a conundrum occurs when there is self-contradiction in a sentence. Even ideas can have a paradox in them. It is done often for stylistic reasons and to express a complicated thought or feeling. Hamlets line I must be cruel only to be kind. (Act 3, Scene iv line 178) in Shakespeares play with the same title is an example of paradox where two contradictory emotions of kindness and cruelty are brought together.AntithesisIt basically denotes the coming together of complete opposites in a sentence. It is a rhetorical device often used by orators. For example, Goethes quote Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing is an example of the same.SymbolDerived from the greek word Symbolom, a emblem is a word or object that stands for another word or object. For example a fox is a symbol for cleverness and dove is the universal symbol for peace.Problem Play utilise mostly with reference to drama, a problem play usually deals with an attempt to focus the public opinion about a social concern. It engages wherefore with a problem in the most feasible manner and may either seek to solve it or complicate it further. It was made famous by Henrik Ibsen, a Norwegian Playwright and even used by G.B Shaw in his plays.EssayUsually a piece of prose writing that is aimed at being a thoughtful piece of writing with strong intellectual debates and undertones. It is derived from the word exagium that in Latin means a trial by weight. The form is believed to have emerged in the Renaissance and Francis Bacon in 1597 published his Essays.NovelA novel is a piece of literature that can be fictional or real and is written in prose. It is very different from drama and poetry by the extent of its length. There are many sub genres that can be a part of the novel itself. In fact a single novel is often is result of play of these various strands of literature. The root of the word Novel or Novella signifies something new as it was a later conception in the history of literature. It came after poetry and drama. It was the 18th and the 19th century that form became a major literary field with writers like Daniel Defoe, the author of Robinson Crusoe Fielding, who wrote Tom Jones and Samuel Richardson, Charles Dickens and others. After the romantic phase there was a revival of the gothic fiction in works like Ann Radcliffs Mysteries of Udolfo and Mary Shelleys Frankenstein. Gothic was one such genre of the novel form. Realist novels, Sensational novels, domestic novels are just some of the others. On the whole the novel can be seen as a fictional narrative in prose, generally longer than a short story. Unlike the epic, which is now seen as a dead genre, the novel is still enjoying its high status in the literary market as perhaps, it has evolved with the constantly evolving world.Free VerseFree verse is a type of social organisation which does not have a fixed meter or standard rhythm. Even the line length varies from one sentence to another. The cadence is dependent solely on the wish of the writer but sometimes alternates between stressed and unstressed syllables. It was derived from the word freo a middle-english word that meant free. Many great writers and poets experimented with the free verse style including Milton in his Samson Agonistes.Short StoryA short story is also a form of fiction writing but is different from the novel because of the length due to which it gets its name. It can be a highly serious work of literature, a instructive one with a moral, a part of childrens fiction and is also open to experimentation. For example, Rudyard Kipling wrote many short stories. The word short comes from the word sceort which means the same. Defoe also wrote short stories because of the popularity of serial novels at his time. It is however Edgar Allen Poe, who is considered to be a seminal figure responsible for the popularity of short stories as a genre. Joyce wrote them in his work titled Dubliners and Kafka wrote Metamorphosis using the same.FEATURES AND FORMS OF DRAMADrama is one of the oldest forms of literature along with the epic. It is believed to have derived from the ancient Greek and Roman works.PlotA plot is the main trajectory of drama and called be called as its story line. In Poetics, while defining all the major parts of a drama, Aristotle believed that the plot was of prime importance. It was so because it the plot that could be success at achieving a purging in the audience which is the purging of the feelings of fear and pity. It was catharsis that Aristotle believed was the main aim of drama and a good plot was one that could successful