Victorian age

Victorian Age Novels

Made by Made by Rahila KhanRahila KhanLecturer Engish Lecturer Engish GGDC Sibi GGDC Sibi

The novel

• There was a communion of interests and opinions between the writers and their readers.

• The Victorians were avid consumers of literature. They borrowed books from circulating libraries and read various periodicals.

The Victorian Age

• Novels made their first appearance in instalments on the pages of periodicals.

• The voice of the omniscient narrator provided a comment on the plot and

erected a rigid barrier between «right» and «wrong», light and darkness.

The Victorian Age

The novel was the best way to convey a picture of life lived in a given society and to question it.

• The setting chosen by most Victorian novelists was the town.

• It was realistic

• Victorian writers concentrated on the creation of characters and achieved a deeper analysis of their inner life.

The Victorian Age

Victorian Novel• Novels of manners • Humanitarian novels• Social problem novel• Nonsense • Adventure novels• Bildungsroman• Exotic Novels • Crime Novel

Victorian Literature is often divided into 3

stages:• Early -Victorians

• Mid-Victorians 1860- 1880Mid-Victorians 1860- 1880

• Late-Victorians : last 20 years of Victorian Age and Edwardian Age

Early Victorian writers

• The Novelists identify themselves with their age

• They felt to have a moral and social responsibility

• They analysed their society paying attention not to offend the moral code of the period

• Their purpose was didacticdidactic : they saw in the novel a way to correct the vices and weakness of the age.

Novels’ main characteristics:

• Published in instalmentsin instalments they were cheaper and also read by the lower classes• episodic structureepisodic structure• excessive length• obliged to maintain the interestinterest so the reader went on buying the periodicals• too manytoo many details, coincidence and incidents as the writer could modify the story according to the necessity and success • the development of SENSATIONALSENSATIONAL to catch the attention, to create suspense and expectation

Mid-Victorian• The Bronte sisters• George Eliot (Mary Ann

Evans )• Elisabeth Gaskel

Late-Victorian or Anti-Victorian

Reaction • the sense of dissatisfaction and rebelliondissatisfaction and rebellion

prevailed • a new sort of realism realism which rejected any

sentimental and romantic attitude; it focused on the clash between man and environment, his dreams and their fulfilment, illusion and reality• the writers were critical and attacked the attacked the

superficial optimism and self confidencesuperficial optimism and self confidence of the age , a more pessimistic view

THE CHARACTERS

• The Individuals are increasingly portrayed as alienated alienated from the world in which they live and powerlesspowerless to alter their destiny

• The characters’ interior world, their dreams, illusions and despair, becomes more important than the alienating and mechanical external reality

Anti-Victorian Reaction literary

movements • Realism:Realism: reproduction of the reality without

idealizing it ( as the Romantics did)• Naturalism:Naturalism: total objectivity and scientific

approach to Literature• Aestheticism:Aestheticism: Art for Art’s sake• Decadentism:Decadentism: Art is superior to nature, the

finest beauty is that of dying and decaying things

Realistic Novel• Different from the mild realismmild realism of the first

phase. • In France Honore de Balzac, Stendhal Honore de Balzac, Stendhal who

analysed the human beings in their psychological and moral complexity

Naturalistic novels

• It started from POSITIVISM , in France, with its faith in reason and science

• Zolà describes the Urban setting in a scientific way

Naturalism:Thomas Hardy George Eliot

Mary Anne Evans

• Theories of DarwinDarwin• Man conditioned by heredity,environment,

circumstances• Deprived of his free will• At the mercy of an indifferent fate• No longer responsible for his actions because these

were conditioned by forces beyond his control• To be realistic they focused on the worst aspects of

life• The writer had to be objective as a scientist

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