Victorian age writers

 

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)

•    He is an important poet and playwright on Victorian period.

• ·  His father has 12 children and Tennyson is the eldest of all.

• ·  He is pessimistic and gloomy writer. Pessimism shows in his writings because of his depression. However he did not directly talk about the problem of age.

• ·  He is known for his metrical poetry-descriptive power &picturesque description.

• ·  He is also criticised for not reflecting his age very much.

• ·  When he was a student of Trinity College, Cambridge his father asks him to write poetry and publish. When he was 15 years old, he wrote a poem entitled Armageddon

• ·  When he was 19 years old he published a poem Timbuktu and got Chancellor’s gold medal in Cambridge. This poem is about Africa, a legendry City. It is his optimistic poem.

• ·  Between the year 1832 and 1833, he brought out a collection called Poems. But it was attacked as he was called the part of cockney school. He was very much depressed by the critical reviews and refused to publish it until 1842.

• ·  Chiefly lyrical is a collection of poem published in 1842. It includes his finest and best-loved poems such as Mariana, The Lady of Shallot, The Palace of art, The Lotos Eater, Ulysses, Locksley hall, Break, Break, Break.

• ·  Along with his Best friend Arthur Henry Hallam, he went Pyrenees (Spain) to earn more money instead he gained more experience. There are many poems including Enone, The Lotos Eater were published during this time about the experience in Pyrenees. Enone is a poem published in 1829. It describes the Greek mythological character Oenone. This poem was inspired by his trip to Spain, where he visited the Pyrenees Mountain. It is a dramatic Mountain. The Lotos Eater is a poem about Trojan War settings.

• ·  His friend Arthur Henry Hallam was died because of Brain disorder. Therefore. Tennyson started writing the elegies. In Memoriam is a collection of 132 elegies, written over a period of 17 years and published in 1850. It is a requiem for his beloved friend Arthur Henry Hallam. It reflects not only grief but also shows his reflection and philosophy of life. The original title was “The Way of the Soul”.

• ·  Queen Victoria called him “The perfect poet of love and loss”

• ·  Idylls of the king, is a group of 12 Arthurian narrative poems published between 1859 and 1885 which retells the legend of King Arthur, his knights and the rise and fall of Arthur‘s kingdom.

• ·  His last poems show the deeper concerns about the Victorian age.

• ·  After him, Pre-Raphaelites imitates his picturesque style.

• ·  Robert Browning was born in the same year as Charles Dickens in 1812.

• ·  He is an optimistic writer. He is a son of Scholarly father

• ·  He started writing in 1832. His first published poem was Pauline: A fragment of a confession (1833). It was published anonymously. The poem is the confession of an unnamed poet to his lover, the eponymous woman.

• ·    His best known volumes are Dramatic Lyrics (1842), Dramatic Romances and Lyrics (1845), Men and Women (1855, Dramatic Personae(1864)

• ·   All his poems may divide into three classes- Pure Drama, dramatic narratives and dramatic lyrics.

• ·   Pure dramas- Strafford, A Blot in the Scutcheon

• ·   Dramatic narratives- Pippa Passes- It is dramatic in form

• ·  Dramatic Lyrics- The Last Ride Together- They are short poems expressing some strong personal emotion or describing some dramatic episode in human life, in which the hero himself tells the story.

• ·  His works were classified into three periods.

• ·  In first period of work- Pauline(1833), Paracelsus(1835), Sordello (1840) Strafford (1837)

• ·  Paracelsus- is a poem that resembles a drama, divided into 5 acts.

• ·  Sordello- is a narrative poem and largely written between 1836 and 1840

• ·  Strafford (play)-is a historical tragedy written for an actor Macready. It portrays the downfall and execution of Lord Strafford, the advisor to Charles I shortly after the English Civil war. During this time he met Elizabeth Barrett 

• ·  In second period of work- Bells and Pomegranates (1841-1846) contains a number of wonderful series such as Pippa Passes, A Blot in the Scutcheon

• ·  Two noteworthy dramas- Colombe’s Birthday (1844), In a Balcony (1855)

• ·  In third period of work- he was nearly sixty years, he wrote even more industriously than before and published volumes such as Fifine at the fair, Red cotton NightCap Country.  

•     In 1835- she gained a literary reputation by the publication of The Seraphim and other poems (1838)

•     The cry of the Children is a poem which voices the protest of humanity against child labour.

•     The romance of their love is reflected in Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850). This is a noble and inspiring book of love poems. It is a collection of 44 sonnets.
•      The Brownings were loved each other and get married. They moved to Casa Guidi in Florence where she wrote Casa Guidi Windows (1851)is a combination of poetry and politics.

•     In 1856- published a novel Aurora Leigh, a novel in verse.

•    Her last 2 volumes Poems before congress published in 1860, Last Poems published after her death.

•     She died in 1861 and buried in Florence.

THE BROWNINGS

ROBERT BROWNING (1812-1889)

·         Robert Browning was born in the same year as Charles Dickens in 1812.

·         He is an optimistic writer. He is a son of Scholarly father

·         He started writing in 1832. His first published poem was Pauline: A fragment of a confession (1833). It was published anonymously. The poem is the confession of an unnamed poet to his lover, the eponymous woman.

·         His best known volumes are Dramatic Lyrics (1842), Dramatic Romances and Lyrics (1845), Men and Women (1855, Dramatic Personae(1864)

·         All his poems may divide into three classes- Pure Drama, dramatic narratives and dramatic lyrics.

·         Pure dramas- Strafford, A Blot in the Scutcheon

·         Dramatic narratives- Pippa Passes- It is dramatic in form

·         Dramatic Lyrics- The Last Ride Together- They are short poems expressing some strong personal emotion or describing some dramatic episode in human life, in which the hero himself tells the story.

·         His works were classified into three periods.

·         In first period of work- Pauline(1833), Paracelsus(1835), Sordello (1840) Strafford (1837)

·         Paracelsus- is a poem that resembles a drama, divided into 5 acts.

·         Sordello- is a narrative poem and largely written between 1836 and 1840

·         Strafford (play)-is a historical tragedy written for an actor Macready. It portrays the downfall and execution of Lord Strafford, the advisor to Charles I shortly after the English Civil war. During this time he met Elizabeth Barrett 

·          In second period of work- Bells and Pomegranates (1841-1846) contains a number of wonderful series such as Pippa Passes, A Blot in the Scutcheon

·         Two noteworthy dramas- Colombe’s Birthday (1844), In a Balcony (1855)

·         In third period of work- he was nearly sixty years, he wrote even more industriously than before and published volumes such as Fifine at the fair, Red cotton NightCap Country.  

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING (1806-1861)

·         IN 1835- she gained a literary reputation by the publication of The Seraphim and other poems (1838)

·         The cry of the Children is a poem which voices the protest of humanity against child labour.

·         The romance of their love is reflected in Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850). This is a noble and inspiring book of love poems. It is a collection of 44 sonnets.

·         The Brownings were loved each other and get married. They moved to Casa Guidi in Florence where she wrote Casa Guidi Windows (1851)is a combination of poetry and politics.

·         In 1856- published a novel Aurora Leigh, a novel in verse.

·         Her last 2 volumes Poems before congress published in 1860, Last Poems published after her death.

·         She died in 1861 and buried in Florence.

    CHARLES DICKENS (1812- 1870)

·         He was born in a poor family. His father was irresponsible with financial affairs. He had an unsettled childhood.

·         He was in Warren’s blacking factory. It was a traumatic incident in his life. John forster, his biographer has written about this in his book The Life of Charles Dickens. He was an editor of The Examiner (1847-55).

·         Dickens began to work as a reporter before he was a writer of fiction. He ventured into journalism. He started reporting for some local newspapers like The true sun, parliamentary reporter from 1831-1834 and as a reporter for the Morning and Evening Chronicles from 1834-1836. During this time, he studying London life and the lives of the local people.

·         All these sketches that he wrote for the magazines were collected and published as Sketches by Bos published in 1836. It’s subtitled Illustrative of everyday life and everyday people. It belongs to the genre called urban sketch. George Cruikshank as an Illustrator of this book.  

·         In 1836, his first novel was serially published entitled The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick papers. It belongs to the Victorian Picaresque genre. It is full of stories of good people who cannot escape from poverty or debtors’ prison.

·         In 1837, Oliver Twist was serialized in Bentley’s Miscellany. It’s subtitled The Parish boy’s Progress. This novel was written against the new poor law of 1834. It was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed by the Whig government of Earl Grey.

·         In 1838, the novel Nicholas Nickleby was published. It expresses the drawbacks of Yorkshire school.

·          Master Humphrey’s Clock was a weekly periodical and written entirely by Dickens and published from April 1840 to December 1841. 

·         The old curiosity shop, the novel tells the story of Nell Trent, is published along with short stories in his weekly serial Master Humphrey’s Clock.

·         Barnaby Rudge: A tale of the Riots of Eight is a historical novel was published in his short-lived weekly serial Master Humphreys’ Clock. It is largely set during the Gordon Riots of 1780. It was his fifth novel.

·         In 1843, Christmas Carol is a novella first published in London by Chapman & Hall and illustrated by John Leech.

·         In 1848, the novel Dombey and Son was published. The full title is Dealing with the Firm of Dombey and son: Wholesale, Retail and for exportation. This year Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was formed &The Communist Manifesto, book by Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx was published.

·         In 1849, David Copperfield was published. It’s a Bildungsroman novel. The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield, is narrated by the eponymous David Copperfield. It is also an autobiographical novel.

·         Bleak House is a novel, first published as a 20- episode serial between 1852 and 1853. It has many characters and several sub-plots, and is told partly by the novel’s heroine, Esther summerson, and partly by an Omniscient narrator.

·         Hard Times: For these Times is the tenth novel by Dickens, first published in 1854. The novel follows a classical tripartite structure. Book 1 is entitled “Sowing”, Book II is entitled “Reaping” and the third is “Garnering”.

·         Little Dorrit is a novel published in serial form between 1855 and 1857. This novel attacks the injustice of institution of debtor’s prison.

·         A tale of two cities is an 1859 historical novel, set in London and Paris before and during the French revolution.

·         Great expectation, his thirteenth novel. It was published in 1861. It depicts the education of an orphan nicknamed Pip. Its genre is Bildungsroman. It is his second novel after David Copperfield, to be fully narrated in the first person. It was first published as a serial in dickens’s weekly periodical All the year Round.

·         It was followed by Our Mutual Friend published in 1865. It is his last completed novel. It centres on the words of critic J. Hillis Miller, quoting from the character Bella Wilfer in the book, “money, money, money, and what money can make can make of life.”

·         The mystery of Edwin Drood is the final novel published in 1870. Upon the death of Dickens on 1870, the novel was left unfinished.            

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI (1828- 1882)

·         Born in 1828 in London. He is the major founder of Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (1848 formed), leader of Aesthetic Movement.

·         His works include Sir Hugh the Heron: A legendary tale in Four Parts (1843), Poems (1869), Ballads and Sonnets (1882).

·         He published the best known poem “The Blessed Damozel”(1850) in the pre-Raphaelite journal The Germ. This poem was partially inspired by Edgar Allen Poe’s poem “The Raven” with its depiction of a lover grieving on Earth over the death of his loved one. He chose to represent the situation in reverse. “The Blessed Damozel” is about a woman who has died and yearns to be reunited with her lover, who is still on earth.

·         “The Woodspurge” is a poem written in the spring 1856 when Rossetti was experiencing emotional turmoil regarding relationship with women.   

·         Jenny (1870) is a long dramatic monologue about a woman as a prostitute. The speaker confronts his sympathy for a prostitute.

·         The House of life (1881) is collection of 100 sonnets, written over a longer period of time that describes the narrator’s relationship with two women. One is based on poet’s wife Elizabeth Siddal, and the other is based on poet’s mistress Jane Morris. The collection is divided into two sections, “youth and Change” (Sonnets 1 to 59), and “Change and Fate” (Sonnets 60 to 101). It was compiled and published over more than a decade. “Youth and Change” starts with the beginning of love and passion to the wife, as two bodies become one. However, the body fades and death soon takes the young wife away. The next sonnets in the collection are based around despair and pain. The second part contemplates aging, light and dark throughout the day, the changing of seasons.

A.C. SWINBURNE (1837-1909) Algernon Charles Swinburne

·         He was influenced by the Elizabethan poets and the playwright such as William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson.

·         Poems and Ballads is his first collection of poems published in 1866. This book was controversial. He wrote about many taboo topics, such as lesbianism, sado-masochism, and anti-theism.

·         “The Garden of Proserpine” is a poem, published in Poems and Ballads in 1866. Persephone, a goddess married to Hades, god of underworld.

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY (1811-1863)

·         He was born in Kolkata. His father was working in Indian government. After his father was died, he with his mother moved to England. He was sent to famous Charter House School, with that experience he has given as vivid picture in his novel “The Newcomes: Memoirs of a Most Respectable Family” published in 1854.

·         He began his literary career by writing satires on society for Fraser’s Magazine. This was the beginning of his success.

·         After he published “Vanity Fair” in 1848, he began to recognise as one of the greatest novelist.

·         He wrote three novels. They are “Pendennis” in 1850, Henry Esmond in 1852, The New comes in 1854.

·         He produced his works “The Paris Sketch-Book” in 1840 and “The Great Hoggarty Diamond” in 1841 under the pen name Michael Angelo Titmarsh.

·         “Vanity Fair” was published in serialised form in the magazine Punch. The story is told within a frame narrative of a puppet show at a play, highlighting the unreliable nature of the events of narrative. It follows the life of Becky sharp, a strong-willed, penniless young woman, and her friend Amelia Sedley, a good natured wealth young woman. Set against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars.

GEORGE ELIOT/ MARY ANN EVANS (1819- 1880)

·         She was known by her pen name George Eliot.

·         She wrote several liberal articles for the West Minster Review and become an editor for the articles of the Magazine.

·         Her literary career was divided into three periods.

·         Her first period includes early essays, translation of Strauss’s Leben Jesu in 1846.

·         Her second period includes “Scenes of Clerical life” her first published work of fiction, a collection of three short stories, published in a book form in 1857.

·         Adam Bede was her first novel published in three volumes in 1859.

·         Mill on the Floss published in three volumes in 1860 by William Blackwood.

·         Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe is her third novel, published in 1861. Silas is the title character, and the major plot of the book concerns his story.

·         All the four works were published between 1857 and 1861. All these about his own life and experience.

·         Third period is marked as a transition of Italian life. Romola is a historical novel set in the 15^th Century. The novel first appeared in 14 parts published in Cornhill Magazine from 1862 to 1863, and was published as a book in three volumes, in 1863.

·         Felix Holt, the Radical (1866) is a social novel about political disputes in a small English town at the time of First Reform Act of 1832. In 1868, Eliot penned an article entitled “Address to Working Men, by Felix Holt”.

·         Middle March, A study of provincial Life (1871) is a novel appeared in 8 instalments in 1871 and 1872. Set in Middlemarch, a fictional English Midland town, in 1829 to 1832.         

·         “The Spanish Gypsy” her longest poem published in 1878.

ANTHONY TROLLOPE (1815- 1882)

·         He is an English novelist and civil servant of the Victorian era.

·         His best known work is a series of novels collectively known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire, which revolves around the imaginary country of Barsetshire.

·         Barchester Towers is a novel by Trollope published by Longmans in 1857. It is the second book in the Chronicles of Barsetshire series, preceded by The Warden and followed by Doctor Thorne.

CHARLOTTE BRONTE (1816- 1855)

·         She was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Bronte sisters.

·         She is best known for her work Jane Eyre (1847), the story of an independent young governess who overcomes hardships while remaining true to her principles. It blended moral realism with Gothic elements.

·         Her other novels included Shirley (1849) and Villette (1853).

·         Her sister Emily Bronte was best known for her work “Wuthering Heights” (1847).

THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY (1800 -1859), IST BARON MACAULAY

·         Former paymaster General of the united kingdom (1846-1848)

·         British historian and Whig politician who served as the Secretary at War between 1839 and 1841.

·         Macaulay system of education refers to the policy of introducing the English education system to British colonies.

·         He supported the replacement of Persian by English as the official language, the use of English as the medium of instruction in all schools, and the trainng of English- speaking Indians as teachers.

·         He is famous in literature for his essays.

·         His poetical work is found in the “Lays of Ancient Rome” (1842), a collection of Ballad.

·         His masterpiece is “The History of England from the Accession of James the Second” (1848) is the full title of the five-volume, generally known as The History of England.

THOMAS CARLYLE (1795-1881)

·         He was a Scottish essayist, historian, and cultural critic, known as the Sage of Chelsea, he became “the undoubted head of English letters” in 19^th Century.

·         His translation of Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister appeared in 1824, Life of Schiller in 1825, Specimens of German Romance in 1827.

JOHN RUSKIN (1819-1900)

·         His father was a prosperous wine merchant and gained fortune in trade.

·         He wrote more volumes of Modern Painters (1843- 1860). It is a five volume work, begun when he was 24 years old based on material collected in Switzerland in 1842. The first volume was published in 1843. The book was primarily written as a defense of the later works of J.M.W.Turner.    

·         Ethics of the dust is a series of lectures published in 1867.

·         “Sesame and Lilies” is most widely known work. Sesame means the treasures hidden in books and lilies are the symbols of purity and beauty. It consists of two lectures, “Of Kings’ Treasuries” and “Of Queens’ Gardens” delivered in 1864. “Of kings’ Treasuries”, in which he criticises Victorian manhood, “Of Queens’ Garden” he questions women’s place and education.

·         His theory is purpose of all education is to redeem human society.

·         “Unto This Last” contains 4 essays on principles of Political economy published in 1860.

 THOMAS HARDY (1840- 1928)

·         He is a fatalist. His novels show strong criticism of Victorian society. He was influenced by Dorset poet and peasantry called William Barnes.

·         His first novel which didn’t published in his lifetime was “The Poorman and the Lady”

·         “Desperate Remedies” (1871), his first published novel written under the suggestion of fellow novelist George Meredith. It shows the influence of sensation novels of Wilkie Collins.

·         “Under the Greenwood” (1872), his second novel. Its subtitle is “A Rural Painting of the Dutch School”.

·         His third novel is “A Pair of Blue Eyes” (1873), about his own life.

·         His first mature novel is “Far from Madding Crowd” (1874) first major literary success. Its title is taken from Thomas Grey’s “Elegy written in a country churchyard”

·         “The Return of the Native” is published in 1878 in a fashion magazine Belgravia.

·         His first Historical novel is “The Trumpet Major”(1880) novel set during Napoleonic wars.

·         “The Major of Casterbridge” (1886) is serialized in the magazine “The Graphic”. Its subtitle is “The life and the death of a man of character”

·         “The Woodlanders” (1887), set in small village called Hintok.

·         He has produced two controversial novels-“Tess of the d’Urbervilles”. Its subtitle is “A pure woman” serialized in “The Graphic” in 1891 and “Jude the Obscure” (1895).

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