By: Ashley Ruckman Victorian Era

 The time when Queen Victoria reigned over the United Kingdom.  June 1837 to her death on January 22 nd, 1901.

Styles and Genres  Time when the novel became the leading form of British Literature.  As the Victorian Age started the style was one that dealt with the portrait of hard lives. Also where good triumphed over evil.  Many had moral lessons.  As the century progresses the content became more complex.

 By the 1880’s and 1890’s books were more realistic and at times grimmer. After Charles Dickens death.  Realistic of the time and portrayed urban life for all classes.  Thickly plotted, crowded with characters, and long.

 Children’s literature also became popular.  Due to efforts to stop child labor and the start of compulsory education.  Many wrote for adults at the time are now classified as children lit. and some poetry had a childlike interest.  Another genre that Victorians loved was classical literature and medieval literature. “reclaiming of the past.”  Heroic, chivalrous stories of knights.  Poetry of the time was seen as a bridge between the romantic era and modernist poetry of the next.

What Effect Did Literature Have? Offered solutions to social and political problems. British writers influenced works of writers in the United States. Great influence on modern literature and media. Writers such as Dickens and the Brontë sisters still sell on most book resellers' lists and are frequently adapted into films and television productions.

The theory of evolution changed many of the ideas the Victorians had about themselves and their place in the world. On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin  Ideas of socialism delved into political thought at the time.  Due to Friedrich Engels and William Morris  Oxford English Dictionary began.  Eventually become the most important historical dictionary of the English language.

Key Literature Vanity Fair Wuthering Heights Jane Eyre Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland Through the Looking Glass The Pickwick Papers On the Origin of Species Condition of the Working Classes of England

Vanity Fair  A Novel Without A Hero

Wuthering Heights  Written by Emily Bronte  Gothic novel  Published in 1847

 The name of the novel comes from the Yorkshire manor on the moors on which the story focuses around. Wuthering meaning turbulent weather.  The story is about a passionate, yet thwarted love between the two main characters: Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw and how unresolved passion comes to destroy them and the ones around them.

Jane Eyre  By Charlotte Bronte  Published in London, England 1847.

 A first person narrative about Jane Eyre.  Goes through her 5 stages in life: troubled childhood at her aunts, her education, her role as a governess and where she falls in love, at the Rivers family, and her reunion with her first love.

 Criticizes society of the time.  Senses of right and wrong.  Christian values.  2 nd edition dedicated to William Makepeace Thackery (writer of Vanity Fair).

Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland  By Lewis Carroll.  Written in  Fantasy genre.

 Lewis Carroll is a pen name for Charles Lutwidge Dodgson.  The story was written and completed 3 years after Dodgson rowed a boat up the river of Thames with Reverend Robinson Duckworth and 3 young girls.  Lorina Liddell, Alice Liddell, and Edith Liddell daughters of the Vice Chancellor of Oxford University and Dean of Christ Church.

 On the way up the river Dodgson told the girls of a story of a little girl “Alice” looking for an adventure.  Adventures throughout the story were influenced by people and places at Oxford and Christ Church.  Example: the rabbit hole symbolized the stairs in the back of the main hall at Christ Church.

 Translated to 125 different languages.  Widely popular as Alice In Wonderland.

Through The Looking Glass  Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There.  By Lewis Carroll.  Sequel to Alice in Wonderland.  Written in 1871.

 No reference to events in the previous book.  Mirrored settings and themes: time running backwards, and opposites.  Instead of the setting being outside on a warm day the story takes place on a wintry night 6 months later indoors.

 Imagery of chess.  The looking-glass world is divided into sections by brooks, with the crossing of each brook usually signifying a notable change in the scene and action of the story: the brooks represent the divisions between squares on the chessboard, and Alice's crossing of them signifies advancing of her piece one square. 

The Pickwick Papers  The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club  By Charles Dickens (his first novel).  Published in 19 issues over 20 months. March 1836-October 1837

 Sequence of loosely related adventures.  Mr. Samuel Pickwick (main character) old and wealthy, president and founder of the Pickwick Club.  To extend his researches into the quaint and curious phenomena of life, he suggests that he and three other "Pickwickians" (Mr Nathaniel Winkle, Mr Augustus Snodgrass, and Mr Tracy Tupman) should make journeys to remote places from London and report on their findings to the members of the club. 

On the Origin of Species  By Charles Darwin.  Published  Scientific literature.

 Introduced the theory that populations evolve over the course of generations through a process of natural selection.  Presented evidence of evolution.  Beagle Expedition in the 1830’s.  Controversal due to the Church of England.  Conflicted with the beliefs that species were unchanging parts of a designed hierarchy and that humans were unique, and unrelated to animals.

 Written for non-specialist readers but was widespread when published.  Created Darwinism.  a set of movements and concepts related to ideas of transmutation of species or evolution.  The concept of natural selection became central to modern evolutionary theory, now the unifying concept of life sciences.

Condition of the Working Classes of England  One of the best known works by Friedrich Engels.  Originally written in German.  Published: German 1845, English 1887

 Study of the working class in Victorian England.  Written during Engels stay in Manchester  Manchester- heart of the Industrial Revolution.  Studies compiled of observations and reports,  States that the revolution made workers worse off then before it.

 Death from disease were higher on workers from the city then the countryside.  Smallpox, measles, whooping cough, and scarlet fever.  Originally addressed to a German audience.  Engels was a radical journalist as a teen and when he was sent to England it prompted him to be even more radical.  Karl Marx.

Some Happenings of the Time  Victoria becomes Queen on June 20, 1837  Economic depression  First trains in London.  Regular steamship service between London and USA.  Agricultural depression starts in 1873 and finally ends at the end of the century.