Course- M.A. Sem- 2
Roll no. 21
Paper no.0 6 (((Victorian Age)
Batch- 2015-17
Topic:-Salient features of Victorian
age and its poets too
Submitted to- Department of English
Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar
University
The
Victorian Age
The Victorian age is believed to be
from 1850-1900 when Victoria became Queen in 1837; English literature seemed to
have entered upon a period of lean years, in marked contrast with the poetic fruitfulness
of the romantic age. Victorian age is regarded as a very important period of
English Literature. In this age all forms of literature developed like poetry,
novel, essay etc. Many writers gave their unique contribution in making this
age important. In this age, the long struggle of
the Anglo- Saxons for personal liberty was settled and democracy was
established.
Salient
Features
1) An era of peace (the oxford
movement)
2) Conflict between science and
religion
3) Material Development
4) Intellectual Development
5) Morality
6) The Revolt
7) The new Education
8) International Influences
9) The Achievement of the age
The
Victorian age is especially marked because of its rapid progress in all the
arts and sciences and in mechanical inventions like spinning looms to
steamboats and from matches to electric lights. All these material things as
well as the growth of education have their influence upon the life of a people,
and it is inevitable that they should react upon its prose and poetry; though
as yet we are too much absorbed in our sciences and mechanics to determine
accurately their influence upon literature. This age can be called as the Age
of Compromise. In other words, we can say, there was death of
agriculture. When everyone went to city, it became overpopulated. As people
were working in industries, they got money and food but getting shelter was
their main problem. There was dark and gloomy atmosphere everywhere. Majority
of people were poor. The dominant people were money minded and so humans were
used as machines. Workhouses were getting full as people were in search of job
to earn money.
Workhouses
looked like prisons. They were given a fixed amount of meal. Women were kept
away from men and their husbands too. Children too were kept away from adults. The people in the workhouses had to work
for twelve hours whether it is a child or an adult. They had the permission to
bath once in a week. Ill people were kept in sick wards. A number orphanages
and prostitutes increased as woman many a times didn’t get work anywhere. She had to involve in prostitution and then
chances of getting pregnant increased.
If this
happened, the lady had to deliver the child and then left that child to
orphanages. There was severe socio-economic depression people were threatened
by the name of God. People had to work in harsh conditions as there was not
enough. Electricity each job was hard and everyone hard to suffer a
lot.
Achievements
The Oxford movement
This
movement took place in the nineteenth century. It was an outcome of a
long controversy and ideological conflicts amongst different Christian sects
and Churches and therefore it may be called a religious movement. Its name was
Oxford movement as it was cantered at the University of Oxford that sought a
renewal of Catholic or Roman Catholic, thought and practice within the Church
of England in opposition to the Protestant tendencies of the church. This
movement is also called Tractarianism Movement as it was carried throughout the
tracts and pamphlets. The origin of the Oxford movement can be traced to the
opposition of the scientific discoveries against age old religious beliefs and
faiths. The aim of the movement was to rehabilitate the dignity of the church,
to defend the church against the interference of the state, to fight against
rationalism.
MAJOR WRITERS OF THE AGE
Alfred Tennyson (1809-92)
Throughout
the entire Victorian period Tennyson stood at the summit of poetry in England.
Tennyson’s life is a remarkable one in this respect, that from beginning to end
he seems to have been dominated by a single impulse, the impulse of poetry.
His
work
The
princess,
Dora,
The
Memoriam,
Crossing the bar
Plays
Queen
Mary (1875)
Harold
(1876)
The
falcon (1879) is a comedy based on a story from Boccaccio.
The cup (1881) is based on a story from
Plutarch.
The
foresters (1892), dealing with the familiar Robin Hood them was produced in
America
Robert Browning (07 May 1812-12 December
1889)
He was
an English poet and playwright whose mastery of dramatic verse, especially
dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets. Of all the
poets in our literature, no other is so completely, so consciously, so
magnificently a teacher of men. He feels his mission of faith and courage in a
world of doubt and timidity. He is better known today for his
shorter poems such as The Pied Piper of Hamelin and How They Brought the Good News
from Ghent to Aix. By Twelve, Browning had written a book of poetry
which he later destroyed when no publisher could be found. He was a great
admirer of the Romantic poets, especially Shelley.
His work
Poems
Paracelsus,
Pauline,
Men &women,
The ring
and the book,
The ring
and the book the poem is composed of twelve books and four volumes from
November 1868 through to February 1869.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (06 March 1806-29 June 1861)
Among
the minor poets of the past century Elizabeth Barrett occupies perhaps the
highest place in popular favour. She was one of the most prominent English
poets of the Victorian era. Her poetry was widely popular in both Britain and
the United States during her lifetime. Her first adult collection, The Seraphim and
Other Poems was published in 1838. She wrote prolifically between
1841-1844 producing poetry. Elizabeth’s volume Poems (1844) brought her great
success. During this time, she met and corresponded with the writer Robert
Browning, who admired her work. She is remembered for poems like How Do I Love Thee
(Sonnet 43, 1845) and Aurora Leigh (1856). She wrote her own Homeric Epic the Battle of
Marathon: A Poem. Her first collection of poems, An Essay on Mind, with
other poems, was published in 1826 and reflected her passion for Byron and
Greek politics.
Matthew Arnold (24 December 1822-15 April 1888)
In the
world of literature Arnold has occupied for many years an authoritative
position as critic and teacher, similar to that held by Ruskin in the world of
art. He was an English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of
schools. Arnold published his second volume of poems in 1852, Empedocles on
Etna, and other poems. In 1853, he published poems: A New Edition,
a selection from two earlier volumes famously excluding Empedocles on Etna, but
adding new poems, Sohrab and Rustum and The Scholar Gipsy. In 1854, Poems: Second
Series appeared; also a selection, it is included the new poem, Balder Dead. In 1867, Dover Beach depicted a nightmarish world from which the old
religious verities have receded. In his poetry, he derived not only the subject
matter of his narrative poems from various traditional or literary sources but
even much of the romantic melancholy of his earlier poems Senancour’s
Obermann. Arnold, as shown it his essay on the study of poetry regarded poetry
as “a criticism of life under the conditions fixed for such criticism by the
laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty”.
<Dante
Gabriel Rossetti (12 May 1828- 09 April 1882)
He was an English poet,
illustrator, painter and translator. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood
in 1848, with William Holman Hunt and john Everett Millais, and was later to be
the main inspiration for a second generation of artists an writers influenced
by the movement, most notably William Morris and Edward Burne- Jones. His early
poetry was influenced by John Keats. His later poetry was characterised by
the complex interlinking of thought and feeling, especially in his sonnet
sequence The
House of Life. He frequently wrote sonnets to accompany his pictures,
spanning from The Girlhood of Mary Virgin (1849) and Astarte Syriaca (1877), while
also creating art to illustrate poems such as Goblin Market by the celebrated
poet Christina Rossetti, his sister. He worked on English translations of
Italian poetry including Dante Alighieri’s La Vita Nuova.
Charles Dickens (1812-70)
Charles Dickens was the most influential novelist
of this age. More ever he was a social reformer. Dickens is one of our greatest
artists. A glance through even this unsatisfactory biography gives us certain
illuminating suggestions in regard to all of Dicken’s work. First he was child,
poor and lonely, longing for love and society, second he was clerk in a
lawyer’s office and in the court, third he was reporter and afterwards as
manager of various newspaper and fourth, he was actor, always an actor in
spirit.
His work
‘The pickwick papers’
‘Oliver Twist’
‘A tale of two cities’
‘David Copperfield’
His popularity was exploited in journalism for he
edited ‘the
Daily News’. In 1858 Dickens commenced his famous
series of ‘Public reading’. They were also given in America with the greatest
success.
conclusion
This age was also a period of great scientific discovers and progress. As a conclusion we can say that The Victorian
Age represents the precursor of the modern era. It was, indeed a period of
great achievements in all the domains, contributing essentially to the
development of the British society.
click here to evaluate my assignment
click here to evaluate my assignment
Wow you dont even have hidden name🤨🙄
ReplyDeleteExcellect effort
ReplyDelete🙌
ReplyDeletePlagiarized !
ReplyDelete