Victorian epoque

Press:

• development of the press

• number of newspapers- more than 100 titles (most of society were illiterate; now when most of people are literate, small amount of titles exists)

• debates in the press (political, theory of evolution, etc)

• film/books reviews- were serious discussions, long (even 30-40 pages long)

• discussions about everything

• everyone could become a writer to the newspaper (they wanted people to express their opinion)

Thomas Babington Macavlay

• model Victorian man believes in industry, middle class, development, “power of England was always made by middle class”, government, queen should not interfere; optimistic, liberal

• writes a book as a polemic with Robert’s Southey book in which Southey claimed that Romantic England was better than the Victorian one

• clear, simple style of writing

Thomas Carlyle (opposite to T. B. Macavlay)

• orthodox, pessimistic, believes that what people want is sex& nothing more, if they are left alone they do not manage

• very critical of the Victorian England, ideas, “happiness makes people lazy and stupid”

• philosopher & historian (study of French revolution)

• very critical of democracy; if the masses are to rule, their decisions are wrong; people need special strong person to lead them (e.g. Olivier Cromwell)

• influenced by German- difficult to read

• some of his essays are purely rhetorical

• “Sartor Resartus”- one of his essays, metaphor of the state of England (all need reclothing, replacing)

younger generation:

John Ruskin

• Historian, Oxford professor, study of Renaissance

• “Modern Painters”

• works on gothic cathedral

• extremely critical of Victorian era

• mechanical repeating of the same architecture motifs cause ugliness (& people do this for money)

• writes about society, organization of society- is very critical

William Morris

• student of John Ruskin

• student of the history of art, painter, influenced by Ruskin

• novel “News from Nowhere”, ‘nowhere’- a marker of utopia, communist utopia (England- village without industrial revolution)

• interested in design: furniture, wallpapers, cutlery, book cover design, etc

Matthew Arnold

• poet, literary critic

• by profession school inspector

• didn’t believe in God; read the Bible as piece of literature (liked it)

• poetry can change the world (the Bible is an example)

• reading literature gives basics for educations; literature offers you a lot of things, kind of knowledge that changes people

• critical of Victorian times

WYKŁAD 9

Victorian novel

• great time for the novel- dominating genre

• preference for fiction & novel social explanation:

• 19^th century – century of middle class (more rights, privileges)

novel- a mirror of middle class

• connecting novel with the trends in philosophy (John Locke- a philosopher, pragmatism)

• realistic novel (no fantastic!)

• women’s writing becomes treated more seriously

Requirements of the Victorian novel:

• moralistic

• entertaining

• reflective of the image of a given class

• realism

• novels were for everybody as each person could understand it

- explosion of all kinds of writing

- at the end of Victorian Age, novel is almost dead

- different types of novel appears:

* report (Robinson Crusoe)

* epistolary

bildungsroman novel

social novel:

• “the condition of England’ novel

• “slice of life” novel (representative of the sample of life- small group of characters and you observe them for a month, a year, etc; type of novel of manners)

adventure stories

• Robert L. Stevenson “Kidnapped”, “Treasure Island”

horror stories

• Bram Stoker “Dracula”

~~ gradual evolution of novel in many senses~~

1. the form- 1^st Victorian novel are episodic, title- sketches from life, one is hardly connected

to another; late Victorian- tight, precisely- organized novels, unity, organic,

everything makes sense

2. construction of novel- early novels: plot + dialogues, very simple

late period: more descriptions; rhetorical figures, need

interpretation, not black & white situations, requires a more

demanding reader ready to think, work on that

EARLY PERIOD: LATE PERIOD:

Dickens G.Elliot(allegory, symbolic scenes, essays)

Thackeray Th. Hardy (allegory, symbolic scenes)

* openly says who is good, * ambivalent characters, no black & white situations

who is not in a story

3. the role of the reader

early: late:

novels for everyone novel which requires more demanding,

prepared reader, more ambitious and

discriminating

for emotions, ask to sympathize, requires more intellectual work;

like or dislike elevation of the status

(some part of the audience is lost)

WYKŁAD 10