Concetti Chiave
- During the Victorian Age, novels became the most popular literary form, with authors feeling a moral and social responsibility to reflect ongoing social changes.
- Themes in Victorian literature focused on societal issues, aiming to raise awareness of social injustices without advocating radical change.
- Women played a significant role in writing Victorian novels, with notable contributions across different periods, highlighting themes from social issues to Romantic and Gothic traditions.
- Key authors included Charles Dickens for early-Victorian novels, the Bronte sisters and Robert L. Stevenson for mid-Victorian, and Thomas Hardy and Oscar Wilde for late-Victorian works.
- Common language features in Victorian novels included an omniscient narrator, complex plots, character development, and themes of retribution and punishment.
Indice
How the Victorian novels were born
During the Victorian Age there was for the first time a communion between writes and their readers. In this period the novel became the most popular form of literature. The novelists felt they had a moral and social responsibility to fulfil, they aimed at reflecting the social changes that had been in progress for a long time.This depicted society as they saw it, they denounced the evils of society but their criticism was not radical, it just aimed at making readers aware of social injustices.
Victorian literature: a chronology
A great number of novels published were written by gentlemen but also women had the possibility to express themselves through literature.As a matter of fact, we can think about female authors like Jane Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell, Sarah Grand, Emily and Charlotte Bronte, Mary Shelley, Ann Radcliffe, George Eliot (aka Mary Anne Evans).
On the other hand, the most known male authors are Antony Trollope, Charles Dickens, R. L. Stevenson, Thomas Hardy, Oscar Wilde, William Makepeace Thackeray, Alfred Tennyson, Robert Browning, Wilkie Collins, Henry Fielding, Bram Stoker, Edgar Allan Poe, Sir A. C. Doyle.
It is possible to divide Victorian novels:
1) Early-Victorian novel: dealt with social and humanitarian themes and expressed the ideas of the age. The main representative was Charles Dickens;
2)Mid-Victorian novel: linked to the persistence of the Romanic and Gothic tradition. The main representative were the Bronte sisters and Robert L. Stevenson;
3) Late-Victorian novel: nearer to the European development of naturalism. The main representative were Thomas Hardy and Oscar Wilde.
Common features of the Victorian novels
The most common features are:
- omniscient narrator;
- the setting is the city because it is the main symbol of the industrial civilization;
- the plot is long and often complicated by sub-plots;
- Victorian writers concentrated on the creation of characters and achieved deeper analysis of the characters’ inner life;
- retribution and punishment were to be found in the final chapter.
The Victorian age (1837 – 1901)
The Victorian age is named in this way because it is characterized by the reign of Queen Victoria I.She ascended the throne when she was 17 and, at first, she was guided by courtiers and advisors but she was soon very solid and stubborn in imposing her government style.
In 1840 she happily married her cousin Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha who died because of typhus in 1861. As a result, Queen Victoria withdrew from politics and government for a while.
Queen Victoria established a solid bond with the Parliament that was considered the centre of the decision making power. Moreover, at the beginning of her reign, the Queen supported more the whings than the tories but at the end she was more likely to side with the latter.
She also promoted the moralization of costumes as well as the expansionism. Under her reign, the English crown reached the pinnacle of its colonialism.
She was also active in social causes: in 1832 the First Reform Act was promulgated, in 1833 the Factory Act and in 1834 the Poor Law Amendement Act with which workhouses were founded.
In 1871 the Trade Unions were officially acknowledged.
Technological, industrial, scientific and social progress was also encouraged but, if this could led to benefits, it was, as well, a factor that intensified intolerance for poorer groups. Everyone had the means to enrich themselves if only they would have worked hard and had a strong will.
Accedi a tutti gli appunti
Tutor AI: studia meglio e in meno tempo
