The Victorian Age

1
The Victorian Age

• 1837-1901

2
Historical Background

• The Victorian Period was an age of transition
• Prosperity in wealth
• Class disparity
• Social conflicts
• Disillusionment of religion

3
Images of the Victorian Period
4
The Victorian Novel

• The novel was the dominant form in Victorian
  literature.
• Victorian novels are realistic.

5
Major Novelists of the Period

• George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans)
• Silas Marner
• Middlemarch

• Charles Dickens
• Oliver Twist
• Great Expectations
• Emily Bronte
• Wuthering Heights
• Charlotte Bronte
• Jane Eyre
• Thomas Hardy
• Tess of the DUbervilles

6
Victorian Poetry

• Always seems inferior when compared to
  Romanticism
• Develop new ways to tell storiese.g. dramatic
  monologue
• Do not share Romantics confidence in the
  imagination
• Emphasis on visual imagery and sound

7
Victorian Poetry

• Dramatic monologue the idea of creating a lyric
  poem in the voice of a speaker ironically
  distinct from the poet is the great achievement
  of Victorian poetry.

8
Major Poets of the Period

• Lord Alfred Tennyson
• Robert Browning dramatic monologue
• Elizabeth Barret Browning
• Thomas Hardy

9
Victorian Drama

• The theater was a flourishing and popular
  institution during the Victorian period.
• The popularity of theater influenced other
  genres.
• Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde transformed British
  theater with their comic masterpieces.

10
Other Writers of the Period

• Charles Darwin
• The Origin of the Species
• Natural selection
• Survival of the fittest

• Bernard Shaw
• Pygmalion
• Mrs. Warrens Profession
• Major Barbara

11
Charles Darwin(???)