Literature Survey 2

18th century England = elegant but also raw, materialist, beginning

capitalist system
most people lived in rural areas, London was only big town.
Act of Union united crowns of England and Scotland, but Ireland treated
like a colony, Catholics expropriated and discriminated
colonies: brought in wealth, plantations worked by slaves
social sturcutre = hierarchical: peers = high aristocracy, squires, midle
class, lower class, underworld
law = very harsh, protected property, many crimes punishable by death
or transportation, first to America, then to Australia
debtors prison for those who could not pay back loans.
High child mortality, blood sports, public executions, lack of hygiene
religion= latidunarean, against religious zeal (because of memory of civil
war), Deism: belief that God is immanent in Nautre, which shows His
magnificence and bounty.
vicars shared life style of squires, hired poor curates to do religious work
Dissenters: hard working, moralistic
education: rich people learned Latin and Greek in public schools, went on
grand tours to continent
only Anglicans admitted to universities (Oxford and Cambridge),
Dissenters had their own schools,Sunday schools for the poor
more people could read and write
women: encouraged to marry (as much as 20 children!)little education:
female accomplishments (in the Romantic period Mary Wollstonecraft
prostested against this bad education)no job opportunities besides
governess, milliner, servant, so unless women were married they had to
rely on the charity of their brothers
divorce only by act of parliament, possible only for a few very rich people
women had to be chaste: otherwise found no marriage partner, or lost
right to see their children.
double sexual morality, men had extramarital affairs
Women wore wigs and hooped skirts

supposedly endowed with sensibility, had to be protected

progress in medicine led to belief that women were different from men by
nature (womb supposedly prevented them from thinking clearly) led to 2
separate spheres: domestic = female, public = male sphere in 19th
century.

Historical Dates (18th Century):

1688: Glorious Revolution; William III of Orange/Mary ascend throne, later Anne
1702-14: War of the Spanish Succession (Duke of Marlborough ally of Prince
Eugene)
1707: Act of Union: united England and Scotland
1711: Pope: Essay on Criticism
from 1715: Hannovarian Dynasty (George I): Protestant Succession ensured.
Stuart rebellion fails.
1722: Defoe: Moll Flanders
1737: Licensing Act (censorship in theatre)
1745/46: Jacobite Rebellion ( Bonnie Prince Charlie ) fails.
1742: Fielding: Joseph Andrews
1748: Richardson: Clarissa
1756-63 Seven Years' War: England +Prussia against France +Austria+Russia.
1759: Gen. Wolfe captures Quebec and expels the French from Canada
1769: James Watt patents the steam engine
1769-70: Captain Cook's first voyage to Pacific
1773: 'Boston Tea Party': American colonists protest at East India Company's
monopoly over tea exports to the colonies
1775: American War of Independence begins
4th July 1776: Declaration of Independence
1787: First Fleet with convicts sails for Australia
1789: Outbreak of the French Revolution

Augustan Period:

Literature became a trade more people could read, circulating libraries founded
literature must please and delight, is didactic instrument, wanted to to enliven
morality with wit, and to temper wit with morality
most of the publicataions were still, sermons, religious tracts, diaries, conduct
books, ballads about famous criminals, etc.

Characteristic features of 18th century art and literature

follow nature = divine rules God had given to the universe
valued order and harmony, the general and permanent, universal truths, not the
unusual and peculiar
this involved generalisation, idealisation, ordinary activities
types rather than individuals, man as social being with fixed place in hierarchy
landscape described in connection with man, peaceful, fertile
not originality was valued, but general truths elegantly expressed
wit must be tempered by morality
emphasis on rationality
Literature of classical antiquity = great model
no split between science and art
clear, precise, ordered style, but poetry used poetic diction (feathered choir)
satire used to defend these standards against stupidity and unreason

Alexander Pope: greatest poet of age, celebrates order, writes with precision
and elegance, in heroic couplets
Essay on Criticism: expresses commonsensical truths, sets down rules of writing
and criticism, literature should express the order of nature and imitate the
classics; attack on bad writing and bad criticism
Rape of the Lock: mock heroic (or mock epic) poem, uses exalted style of great
epics (Homer, Virgil) for a trivial subject of a quarrel among aristocrats; satire on
triviality and hypocrisy of contemporary upper class society.
Dunciad: satirizes Popes enemies as fools in the Court of the Goddess of Dullness
Essay on Man: sums up contemporary moral philosophy, paints world picture of
the time

other poets:
James Thomson: The Seasons = nature poem combined with didactic
meditation
Thomas Gray: Elegy written in a Country Churchyard: memento mori poem,
foreshadows features of the Romantic period, but does not question social
hierarchy. All men are made equal in death.

drama: more middle class spectators valued morally earnest plays

recommending goodness of heart, poetic justice, not wit and unscrupulousness
sentimental comedy: didactic purpose, moves audience to tears, the good are
rewarded, the bad reform.
neo-classical drama follows the unities of time, place, action (the latter never
really accepted in England). Action set in 1 place within 24 hours.
few good plays, but some: Gay: Beggars Opera (model for Brechts
Threepenny Opera). thieves and fences represent English politicians of the time
1937 Licensing Act: introduced censorship
2nd half of the 18th century: revival of the comedy of manners by Goldsmith (She
Stoops to Conquer) and Richard B Sheridan (The School for Scandal)

prose: a lot of new journals (e.g. The Spectator) supposed to teach taste,
manners and morals, addressed to educated (male) readers.
Example: Addison and Steele: Women and Wives: women = by nature trivial,
interested only in outward appearance. Celebrate values of domesticity. Use
quotes from classical writers to prove their point.
Samuel Johnson: best-known critic of century; wrote dictionary of the English
language, edited Shakespeares works. In the preface he calls Shakespeare the
poet of nature; he withstood the test of time because his characters represent
general human nature, not the peculiarities of just one age. He is comparable to
the writers of antiquity. The intention of literature is to please and instruct.
Novel:
developed in 18th century, bourgeois genre, presented private lives (middle class
readers barred from political life), always set in contemporary period, presents
picture of society at the time, ordinary activities. Characters = individualized, but
also representative of humanity. No fantastic literature but realistic description of
life as readers knew it.

Influence of various genres: diaries, (auto)biographies, travel literature, ballads

about criminals, romances, etc.
fiction of autenticity: writers pretended to be editors of true life stories and that
the characters had really existed.
Jonathan Swift: satirist, his writing is full of ambiguity, irony, uses a persona
whom the reader should not identify with.
A Modest Proposal: ironic pamphlet suggesting that people should eat Irish
children and work their skin into gloves, etc. in reality attack at the English
exploitation of Ireland which made children starve.
Gullivers Travels. A gull= a fool. In his travels to 4 islands Gulliver proudly
describes English institutions, the law, politics etc but in fact reveals how
atrocious the situation in England is and how brutal and cruel human beings are.
Daniel Defoe: father of the English novel
Robinson Crusoe = travel report, spiritual autobiography, realistic description of
life. Pretends nbot to be a fictitious story but the diary of a real-life shipwrecked
sailor. Crusoe = representative of teh merchant class, a capitalist entrepreneur, a
typical colonist and empire-builder, but also a universal representative: subdues
the earth, worships God, survives on a lonely island by his ingenuity.
Moll Flanders: divergence between moralising (on the part of the narrating I of
the old Moll) and the adventures of the experiencing I (the young Moll going
through all her adventures) the latter = more interesting.
The novel shows that women can only survive and rise socially when they barter
their bodies. She enters into various marriages and sexual relationships for
material gain, but also to survive, because the law disadvantages women: no job
opportunities, no divorce, difficulties with inheritance. Social satire: Moll reforms
only when she has gained a position in the middle class. Men can engage in
capitalist enterprise, women only by using their sexual charms and wits. Also
points out the harshness of 18th century laws.
Female picaresque novel = rogue story, episodic structure, heroine travels from
place to place and has a number of adventures
characters often flat, realistic portrait of society, but comparatively little insight
into emotions, psychology.
Like Robinson Crusoe, pretends to be an authentic memoir.
Roxana: also the story of a sexually transgressive woman disgracefully treated by
men.

Samuel Richardson: epistolary novels (written in letters): no distance between

experiencing and narrating I, good insight into the characters psychology.

Pamela = extremely popular: servant girl holds out against seduction attempts of
an aristocrat, in the end he marries her but contemporaries also attacked it as
unrealistic, full of prurient concern with chastity, and regarded Pamela as
calculating and a hypocrite.
Clarissa: also epistolary novel. Clarissa runs away from an enforced marriage, but
the man who helps her abuses her, locks her up and rapes her. Although she is
attracted to him, she refuses to forgive him for his abuse and dies a saintly
death. She is regarded as the first great bourgeois heroine. She is opposed to
Lovelace, who is an aristocratic rake.

Henry Fielding: started out writing theatre, after Licensing Act turned to the
novel
Tom Jones and Joseph Andrews: comic epics in prose; many characters,
intertextual references, give comic survey of 18th century life
Used omniscient, intrusive narrator who comments wittily and ironically on 18 th
century life.
The tone is urbane, addresses the reader, does not preach. Attacks corruption,
hypocrisy, egoism, dishonesty and values charity and benevolence (often shown
by characters who are low down on the social scale and do not conform to the
moral norms of the establishment).
Joseph Andrews = picaresque novel; started out as a parody of Pamela but turned
into a satirical picture of 18th century life

Laurence Sterne: unlike all his predecessors; style reminiscent of 20 th century

postmodern writing: not linear but digressive, follows the thoughts and
associations of the male characters, self-reflexive comic comments on the
structure and form of the novel, blank pages, etc.
Sterne values emotion, sensibility slowly new tastes developed.

Romantic period
Beginning of the Industrial revolution ruined cottage industry, led to social unrest
French Revolution: at first progressive Britons felt sympathy, but after the terror
conservative backlash, fear of a revolution at home
women: still few job opportunities (though lower class women started to work in
factories), no serious education, taught accomplishments, were expected to
marry

Mary Wollstonecraft: attacked the bad education of women which she

regarded as responsible for their trivial interests; regarded mercenary marriages
as legal prostitution; women who are completely dependent on men and not
given intellectual challenge do not command respect. A better education would
make them true friends and companions of men and better mothers.
religious revival, eg. Evangelicals, new piety; humanitarian activities (also open
to women), abolishion of slavery, reclaiming of prostitutes etc.
Romantic art valued individualism not the general and universal, originality
important = inspiration of the heart, not rationality
wild nature = seen as source of inspiration, seen in opposition to (corrupt)
civilization
split between science and art
art should arouse sublime emotions, wild nature can best inspire sublime
emotions = combination of awe and terror
interest in children and simple or rustic people = nearer to nature, nearer to God,
uncorrupted
interest in folk art
interest in Middle Ages (cf. Strawberry Gothic)
simpler language, rejection of poetic diction and Augustan rhetoric
artists were believed to have a special sensitivity, to be the prophets of the
world

poetry = most typical form of Romantic literature, but there was also (Gothic)
fiction
hardly any drama

William Blake: an early Romantic poet; revolutionary in political attitude

(this is the time of the French Revolution!); in London attacks social
injustice and the exploitation of the lower classes. Language: less elevated
than Augustan poetry, but full of complex and ambiguous imagery.
Also wrote Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, contrasting an
innocent view of the world with a disillusioned, darker vision (e.g., The
Tyger)
William Wordsworth and S. T. Coleridge: Lake poets lived in Lake
District. Wrote poetry but also literary theory.

In Prelude Wordsworth describes his development from a spontaneous

and close relationship to nature as a young boy, to his alienation from
nature through immersion into urban life, and his return to harmony with
nature as a poet who contemplates wild nature and is inspired by it.
His Preface to the Lyrical Ballads (=poems imitating folk ballads) sums up
the romantic credo.

Wordsworth: lived in Lake District. Prelude: describes his changing relation to

nature from harmony with nature in boyhood, to alienation through civilization,
and a return to nature as a source of inspiration as a poet.
Preface to the Lyrical ballads: sums up Romantic credo. Wants to write about
common, rustic life nearer to nature. Wants to write in a simple style imitating
simple people, but purified, wants to excite feelings. True source of inspiration
= wild nature and its appeal to the heart, sensibility, feelings. Nature does not
mean the divine order of the universe but the passions of the heart. Defines
poetry as the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings, of a person of
extraordinary sensibility, but must be recollected in tranquillity.
This principle is illustrated in Daffodils.

S. T. Coleridge: cooperated with Wordsworth

Kubla Khan: Oriental vision under the influence of opium
Rime of the Ancient Mariner: imitates folk ballads in rhyme scheme and style.
Uses supernatural events: breach of relationship with nature (in the form of the
albatross) is punished, only when he regains the harmony with nature can he be
saved.

Percy B Shelley: revolutionary; admirer of French Revolution; advocated that

the old order be swept away in Ode to the West Wind.
Also wrote theory: A Defence of Poetry sees the poet, or artist, as the founder
of civic society, teacher, prophet of the world, who has a special sensitivity and
can see into the future. A poem is derived from inspiration and is true because it
is a work of this inspiration, not because it follows any universal rules.

George Gordon Byron: Don Juan: mock heroic poem about the famous
womanizer (harkens back to 18th century mock-epics)

Manfred, or The Giaour: create the Byronic hero = an outsider with a dark
secret, who rejects the bourgeois rules of behaviour and morality, charismatic
and sexually attractive

John Keats: Ode to a Grecian Urn: linked truth and beauty: if a thing is true, it
also has beauty, and vice versa

Romantic fiction:
Gothic novel: formulaic; set in old Medieval Castles with dark corridors and
torture chambers, in remote places, often in Italy, in sublime landscapes. Action
takes place at night, during bad weather. There are (or seem to be) ghosts and
supernatural events. Creates horror but also fascination in the reading. Heroine is
usually an innocent young girl pursued by a dark villain: threat of rape and
murder, aims at maximum suspense.
1st Gothic novel: Walpole: Castle of Otranto
Radcliffe: Mysteries of Udolpho: contains all the typical paraphernalia but
seemingly supernatural events all have a natural explanation.
Mary Shelley (ran away with Percy Shelley and later became his wife):
Frankenstein Gothic castle is replaced by scientists laboratory
Gothic fiction again popular at the end of the 19 th century, and also in
contemporary literature
Historical novel: Sir Walter Scott, eg. Waverley novels
Detailed picture of living conditions of past period, but main characters are
fictional, historic persons only in the background

not all writers in Romantic period were Romantics. Jane Austen in Northanger
Abbey made fun of the Gothic genre.
Warned against excessive emotions, recommended rationality in Sense and
Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Emma
set her novels in the rural South of England
more linked to 18th century (Fielding) than to Romantics, wrote comedies of
manners in prose, used irony.

Victorian period:

age of industrialization, terrible working and housing conditions, no social

security (though first trade unions were formed), no hygiene
social mobility: factory owners grew very rich, but manual labour was considered
degrading. Debate on who could be a gentleman: a) only by birth, and land
owners, doctors, lawyers, clergymen, irrespective of whether they were rich or
poor, or b) someone who behaved in a morally upright manner.
Various reforms
Factory laws: limited work hours, forbade child labour
1829 Catholic emancipation gave Catholics access to political posts
3 Reform Bills to enlarge the franchise: 1832: vote to well-to-do middle class
men, 1867 vote given to urban labourers, 1883/84: vote given to rural workers.
Women only gained vote in 1920s.
Science religion conflict
19th century improvements in natural sciences; findings of fossils seemed to
disprove the bible, which was taken literally. Darwins Origin of the Species:
evolution not special creation, survival of the fittest, fight for survival among
various species but also within species seemed to question progress and belief
in a benevolent God led to widespread religious doubt.

Historical dates (19th Century):

1789: Outbreak of the French Revolution
1791: Thomas Paine publishes The Rights of Man
1792: M. Wollstonecraft publishes Vindication of the Rights of Women
1798: Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge
1800: Act of Union with Ireland (unites Parliaments of England and Ireland),
1803 - 1815: Napoleonic wars
1815: Defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo. Peace in Europe. Corn Laws passed by
Parliament to protect British agriculture from cheap imports (Corn laws)
1832: 1st Reform Bill extends vote to a further 500,000 people and redistributes
Parliamentary seats (from rural to urban areas)
1833: Abolition of Slavery throughout British Empire. Parliament passes Factory
Act, prohibiting children aged less than nine from working in factories, and
reducing the working hours of women. Start of the Oxford (ritualist) Movement in
the Anglican Church.
1837: Dickens publishes Oliver Twist, drawing attention to Britain's poor.

1844-45: Railways mania explodes across Britain. Massive investment and

speculation leads to the laying of 5,000 miles of track
1845-49: Irish Potato Famine kills more than a million people (Corn Laws make
food expensive!)
1846: Corn Laws repealed (victory for laissez-faire)
1847: Ch. Bronte publishes Jane Eyre
1854: Dickens publishes Hard Times (=social novel)
1854-56: Crimean War (Britain + France against Russian expansion; Florence
Nightingale)
1859: Darwin publishes Origin of the Species
1867: 2nd Reform Bill: franchise for urban labourers. Canada becomes dominion.
1869: Suez Canal is opened
In the following decades: scramble for Africa
1870: Primary education compulsory. Women's Property Act extends rights of
married women
1871/2: Eliot publishes Middlemarch
1872: Secret ballot
1876: Queen Victoria made Empress of India
1884: 3rd Reform Act: franchise for rural labourers
1891: Hardy publishes Tess of the d'Urbervilles
1899-1902: Boer War in South Africa
1901: queen Victoria dies, succeeded by Edward VII

19th century background

industrial revolution and all its attendant problems
various reforms: extension of franchise, Catholic emancipation, factory reforms
Ireland part of UK since 1800/1801, various bills for Home Rule defeated in 19 th
century led to Easter Rising 1916.
Whigs and Tories became Liberals and Conservatives; Labour party founded
1890s

science-religion conflict: finding of fossils, Darwins theory of evolution seemed to

contradict the Bible, survival of the fittest instead of a benevolent God. Social
Darwinism: theory of fitter (more civilized, more advanced) races.
Economics: Corn laws protected English agrticulture, because of Irish famine they
were abolished. From then on: Manchester liberalism (laissez faire): belief in
market forces
Education: sowewhat modernised, new subjects
Girls still taught accomplishments, few job opportunities, had to marry,money
of married women belonged to the husband; from mid-century on: divorce
possible, but much more difficult for women than for men. Situation for married
women slowly improved at end of 19th century, but no vote. Foundation of
colleges for women opened higher education for them
lower classes merely given rudimentary education. From 1870s: primary
education = compulsory
Foreign politics:
Crimean war
age of imperialism: British empire spanned the globe; Victoria was made empress
of India

Poetry:
Alfred Tennyson: at first melodious verse: Lady of Shalott: woman in death-like
state
In Memoriam written upon the death of his friend. Contrasts the Christian world
view of a life after death and a benevolent God with Darwins notion of cruel
nature (Nature here means Darwinian evolution, fight for survival). The
speaker is wracked by doubts and can only hope and try to believe.
Elizabeth Barrett-Browning: married to Robert Browning. Adressed passionate
Sonnets from the Portuguese to him.
Robert Browning: wrote dramatic monologues = poems in which a speaker
addresses a silent addressee and unwittingly reveals his own character when
talking of a significant moment of his life. Attempts a psychological portrait, e.g.
My Last Duchess. The Duke of Ferrara had his young wife murdered because he
was jealous of her indiscriminate and naive joy he wanted to be treated as
something special. Now she has become one of his art objects.
Pre-Raphaelites: poets and painters; went back to a painting style before
Raffael. Write about medieval subjects, Shakespeare, biblical stories, etc. Dante
Gabriel Rossetti (The blessed damozel) and his sister Christina Rossetti.
Goblin Market (about a girl who yields to (sexual) temptation and eats the
goblins fruit but is saved by her sister)

19th century = great age of the novel: more people could read, cheaper
production of books, lending libraries
reality effect: things described which have little influence on the action but
simulate the way we perceive reality: clothes, milieu, furniture etc. = outside
realism
psychological realism: portrayal of characters that seems psychologically
convincing, motivation and emotions seem believable.

Realist novel: outside realism (milieu, living conditions etc.) and psychological
realism
Victorian novels published in instalments in journals: cliff-hanger chapter endings,
repetition, many characters and subplots. Afterwards published in 3 volumes as
threee-deckers: expensive, but lending libraries developed, but they only
carried family reading sex = taboo.
Typical genres of the Victorian novel were, e.g., the social (industrial, condition of
England) novel about the industrial revolution and the apprentice novel
(Bildungsroman). Social novels tried to alert the middle class to the sufferering of
the workers; but writers all came from the middle class, they did not recommend
revolution but slow evolution; as solutions they recommended altruism and
mutual understanding.
Dickens: appealed to all social classes; wrote social novels and apprentice
novels, attacked social callousness and institutions, could influence legislation.
Excells at outside realism, but also influenced by melodrama, often created
eccentric characters. Acknowledged that people may be forced to steal because
of poverty, but was not a behaviourist. His characters are generally good or bad
by nature. First writer who took a special interest in depicting children
convincingly. Describes urban society, especially London.
Oliver Twist = social novel, paints a fascinating picture of the London underworld,
but the middle class characters are too good to be true.
David Cooperfield: Bildungsroman; fictional autobiography showing the
development of the protagonist from childhood to maturity, when he becomes a
writer.
Hard Times: social novel; links capitalist exploitation with a school system that
only teaches facts and leaves no room for the imagination.
Great Expectations: Bildungsroman; discusses what it means to be a gentleman.
W.M. Thackeray: Dickens rival; but appealed mainly to the intellectual readers;
used irony, anti-climax, rejected sentimentality. Wrote social satires which paint
picture of Victorian society and their mores.
Vanity Fair: novel without a hero. Contrasts a social climber with an angel in the
house both are problematic, but the bad girl is much more interesting. The
narrator acts as a puppet master of his characters.
Elizabeth Gaskell: wrote condition of England novels, lived in Manchester, good

insight into working class culture, but also suggests Christian charity and
foregiveness as solutions
Mary Barton: about political murder; portrays the horrible living conditions and
poverty of the lower classes; ends with foregiveness on the murderers deathbed.
Mary herself = angel in the house
North and South: contrasts industrialized North with idyllic rural South, but
protagonist learns to appreciate the dynamic industrial towns and mediates
between the industrialists and the workers.
Benjamin Disraeli: Sybil, or the two nations: middle class and workers are like
two separate nations, they know little about each other.
Bronte Sisters: Charlotte, Emily, Anne: published under male pseudonyms.
Grew up in the Yorkshire moors. Influenced by Romantic literature (e.g. Byronic
hero), their works are not typically Victorian but combine realist with romantic
elements.
Charlotte Bronte: worked her only life experiences into her works: two sisters
died at school, she was a governess, fell in love with a married teacher, etc.
Jane Eyre: narrator addresses the reader, makes them her confidantes. Janes
rebelliousness and lack of submission as a child was considered scandalous, as
was her restlessness and dissatisfaction with merely a domestic role, and her
claim to equality. Jane= religious but not pietistic, rejects self-sacrifice in favour of
self-realization. She is a (proto) feminist, but in the end she marries albeit a
man who has been disabled and will have to depend on her. Also wealth-wise she
is his equal. Many female characters act as her foils: the 2 pairs of cousins,
Helen, Blanche Ingram, Bertha. The madwoman is presented as a monster, is not
given a voice. We learn about her past from Rochester. Rochester is a Byronic
hero, but he acknowledges Jane as his equal and loves her. St John is pious, but
he only sees his duty and does not feel love for Jane. Jane needs to realize her
potential without Rochester and to stand on her own feet before she returns to
him. There are many Gothic elements in the novel, but also fairy-tale elements.
The structure follows Jane through various locations from childhood to maturity.
Villette: reworks Charlotte Brontes love for her teacher. The heroine goes to
study in Brussels and is unhappy, until she falls in love with a teacher who in the
end marries her. But he needs to go to the West Indies on business and is
shipwrecked, possibly drowned (this is left open). But the heroine still leads a
fulfilled life because she becomes headmistress of her own school and finds
happiness in her profession.
Emily Bronte: Wuthering Heights: story of violent passions in the setting of the
Yorkshire moors (love beyond the grave, cruel revenge, violent anger, etc.). The
narrative technique is very unusual: it is told by 2 unreliable narrators (a stupid
city man who does not understand)
George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans): high point of realism. She lost belief in religion,
but retained belief in Christian ethics (altruism, self-sacrifice, etc.): religion of
humanity. Believed that every action had inexorable consequences for oneself

and society. Characters are given a choice to act responsibly or selfishly there is
free will and hence responsibility. Did not support feminism, but often portrays
women who suffer from the narrow sphere afforded to them. Tried to arouse
empathy with ordinary people in her writing. Compared her writing with Dutch
painting (not with Italian madonnas). Used omniscient intrusive narrators.
Adam Bede: a girl seduced by a squire, kills her baby and is transported to
Australia where she dies. The squire cannot undo the evil deed, although he
repents when he hears about her fate and tries to help her. The eponymous hero
is the girls fianc, an honest craftsman.
The Mill on the Floss: a gifted girl is denied an outlet for her intellect. Girls are
expected to conform to narrow social standards. She gives up her own happiness
because she does not want to hurt others.
Middlemarch: paints picture of a small town as a social web. One heroine chafes
at the narrow sphere of women, hopes to do good and marries an old scholar,
whose work is really no good. He does not treat her kindly, but she stays with him
because she has taken over a responsibility which she cannot now deny. After his
death she marries a man she loves, but still is confined to the domestic sphere
while he becomes an M.P. The worlds progress depends on such selfless acts as
the heroines. The second protagonist is a progressive doctor whose plans of
reforming the profession fail because he marries an uncongenial, selfish wife
whom he takes for an angel in the house.
Daniel Deronda: Jewish protagonist, in centre is a woman who has to learn charity
and selflessness.

Lewis Caroll: Alice in Wonderland: different from conventional didactic childrens

books; upsets order and stability to create a world of anarchy and warped logic in
which Alice must find her way. Twisted logic of childhood recaptured and Victorian
norms turned upside down.

Senation novels: 1860s

sensational material: crimes, bigamy, sexual irregularity; influenced by reports
about divorce cases. Critics attacked them as trivial and geared to the low tastes
of the working class which might gain influence on British culture.
Wilkie Collins: The Woman in White: a woman is incarcerated in a lunatic
asylum and substituted by her double, so that the man can inherit all her money.
Mary Braddon: Lady Audleys Secret: a woman looking like an angel in the
house turns out to be a bigamist and a murderer, but the audience can still
sympathize with her to a certain extent. Her crimes are in the end explained
away as madness.

Victorian Gothic: fashion for the Gothic revived at end of 19th century: Stoker:
Dracula, Wilde: Picture of Dorian Gray, Stevenson: The Strange Case of Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Thomas Hardy. writer of social novels like George Eliot; action set in the rural
South of England; also uses omniscient intrusive narrators. But the lives of his
characters are ruled by a cruel fate, almost as if malicious Gods were torturing
them; no Christian belief, he paints a Darwinian Universe in which nature is cruel;
survival of the fittest; his works resemble Greek tragedies
Tess of the dUrbervilles: a girl is seduced or raped (not clear) by a villain, but
refuses to marry him because she does not love him. She is ostracized because
she has an illegitimate baby, which dies. Later, she meets a man she loves and
marries, but he cannot forgive her past even though he also had pre-marital sex.
He leaves her, and Tess becomes the villains mistress to support her destitute
family. But when her husband returns to her, she kills the villain and is executed.
Hardy regards her as a victim of social conventions and as a pure woman.
Jude the Obscure: a poor workman dreams of studying, but is denied entrance
into University. He is tricked into marriage by an unscrupulous woman, and
cannot get a divorce because of his poverty. He has a relationship to a married
new woman who finally does not have the courage to go against social
conventions. Jude dies in despair. Hardy attacks the marriage laws.

Naturalism:
More, Gissing were influenced by French writing
believed in social determinism, no free will; concentrated on a low social milieu
and the ugly side of life: drunkenness, violence, prostitution; Darwinian view of
life

fictions of empire:
imperial romances: colonies as a playground for white heroes.
Kipling: sometimes accused of imperialist propaganda (The White Mans
Burden) but gives an unusual and close insight into Indian society in Kim.
Joseph Conrad: already an early modernist; paints a negative picture of
imperialism: white colonists are corrupted, imperialism = exploitation and
robbery of natural resources. His narratives are usually set in the colonies and
involve white men betraying their ideals: Heart of Darkness set in the Congo,
Nostromo in South America, Lord Jim in South-East Asia.

E. M. Forster: A Passage to India: sceptical picture of colonialism; he is a

modernist.

Drama at end of 19th century:

Oscar Wilde wrote comedies of manners (influenced by Restoration comedy)
with witty repartee and epigrammatic humour; rejects didactic function of art and
its social responsibility: art for arts sake. The Importance of Being Earnest
G.B. Shaw wrote dramas of ideas influenced by Ibsen, used plays for socialist
debate; regarded theatre as a didactic medium. E.g. Mrs Warrens Profession.

Modernism: 1st half of 20th century

progress questioned, social and political conflicts (e.g. Ireland), shock of the 1 st
world war, later of the economic crisis and of fascism.
Freuds theory of the unconscious stressed the influence of instincts
Einsteins theory of relativity and also Freud questioned the existence of a
definable, objective reality which can be ficed once and for all > literature of the
time describes truth as subjective
Art: impressionism: paints truth of the moment; expressionism (no longer
naturalistic), cubism (fragmentation), abstract painting all reacted against
Victorian styles
Many writers were afraid of the masses and were consciously elitist, despised
popular culture, and appealed to educated, intellectual readers

Modernist literature: experimental, against Victorian norms

content: taboo subjects (eg horrors of war, sexuality). culture critique,
apocalyptic end-time feeling, nostalgia for a time when thre was still meaning
and order, no universal truths truth is subjective; epiphany.
Form: un-chronological, non-linear, works by associations, structured by motifs,
symbols, open-ended (no closure), fragmented in structure, limited third person
narration and stream of consciousness writing, internal focalization, free verse
(rhythmical, but no regular metre or rhyme), irregular rhythms, use of
intertextuality, ambiguity, polysemy, consciously elitist, non-conventional syntax.
distrust of language as an instrument of communicating authentic experience,
formal experiment
writers were searching for meaning admid the chaos: eg religion, socialism,
fascism etc.

writers often reject bourgois democracy; split between popular culture (for the
masses) and High culture (for the elite).
Rosenberg: Break of Day in the Trenches: free verse, use of images (druid
time human sacrifice), bowels of the earth (torn by shells) poppies (human
blood). In the absurd situation of war the rat has more chances of survival than
the soldiers and can move about while the soldiers are stuck in their trenches and
may be hit any time by shells (shrieking iron and flame). That his poppy is safe, is
an illusion (white with the dust = affected by war)
other important modernist writers:
W.B. Yeats: part of Irish renaissance; tried to forge a new Irish cultural identity;
combines realism and symbolism; culture pessimism: culture is comint to an end
Ezra Pound: Cantos: free association, intertextual references, full of ellipses
T.S. Eliot: Waste Land: paints apocalyptic picture, many intertextual references,
past order contrasted to present-day chaos
Love Song of Prufrock: irregular metre but not free verse (rhyme!); dramatic
monologue of a coward and weakling = mordern anti-hero. Written in stream of
consciousness: thinks about his life made up of trivial incidents). Intensely selfconscious: thinks that people are talking and laughing about him, does not dare
to ask the question (unclear what this is). Attracted to women but they take no
interest in him; they are semi-intellectual: Michaelangelo a subject for small talk.
For modern man myths no longer work (he would drown); intertextual references
(Shakespeare, Marvell, Dante etc.): Heroism no longer possible for modern antihero he is not Prince Hamlet (nostalgic view of a world when heroism, order etc
existed). Structured through association (eg events at the party, unasked
question, his age, the contrast between past and present), no conventional linear
structure we follow his thoughts and associations. Polysemic, sometimes
obscure; he addresses reader as a confidate.
Woolf: professions for Women: should be seen in relation to Ruskin. She
describes how she tried to write a critical review of a male author. The angel in
the house tried to remind her that women must be submissive and she
murdered the spectre to be free of it. She also claims that without financial
independence no woman can achieve a literary career.

Historical dates (20th century):

1900: Freud publishes Interpretation of Dreams
1901-10: Dominion Status for major colonies
1914-18: 1st World War
1916: Irish Easter Rising (Sinn Fein Party) ; Einstein's relativity theory ; Joyce
publishes Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

1921: Irish Free State (Northern Ireland: British)

after war: decline of Liberals, rise of Labour Party
Ghandi's campaign for Indian independence
1928: Suffrage for women
From 1929: Great Depression: world-wide economic crisis
1931: Commonwealth formed
From 1933: Rise of fascism in Europe; British policy of appeasement
1936-39: Spanish Civil War. Republicans supported by International Brigades,
Falange by Hitler.
1939 45: 2nd World War, Churchill British PM
after war: Britain loses status as a major power: debts, austerity policy, welfare
state
1947: Independence for India and Pakistan
1949: Republic of Eire
1940s, 50s: philosophy of existentialism (Sartre, Camus)
1952: Elizabeth II ascends throne
1953: Beckett's Waiting for Godot (absurd play) performed in Paris
1959: Pornography trial of Lawrences Lady Chatterley's Lover
1966: Rhys publishes The Wide Sargasso Sea
1968: Censorship ends in the theatre. Student revolt, Counter-Culture
1972: Britain joins EU
1970s: Second Wave Feminism; rise of postcolonial criticism
1970s - 1998: Civil War in Northern Ireland
1979-90: M. Thatcher PM: neo-liberal programme, cuts in subsidies for the arts
1982: Falklands War
1997: T. Blair PM ("New Labour")
1998 Good Friday peace agreement in Northern Ireland
1995 2000: Sarah Kane premiers her plays (in-yer-face theatre)
2000: D. Cameron PM
2003: Britain joins Americans in 3rd Gulf War

Postmodernism:
deconstructs master-narratives
gives voice to people who did not have a voice before, usually outsiders
plays with reader expectations
not nostalgic about the past, celebrates relativity and chaos, makes fun of old
order
combines various genres, styles, tones hybrid styles
not elitist, combines high and popular culture
fragmented characters
truth is subjective
suspicious of essentialisms
interested in act of presentation: metafictional comments to draw attention to
that the text is an artefact
feminism:
giving a voice to women, fight against patriarchal norms and roles, her-story
postcolonialism:
problems of the colonized: racism, rootlessness, hybridity, problems with the
English language
feminist and postcolonial texts are often also postmodern, but can also use a
realistic style because they have a political agenda and do not want to make
understanding difficult.

This Be the Verse

Combination of various styles and tones; serious and comic. Shocks
audience expectations

Eurydice:
feminist and postmodern; deconstructs myth; gives voice to woman who
did not have a voice before; views myth from her perspective;
deconstructs the traditional view of Orpheus. Combines various styles
(poetry and slang, etc.) and makes references to high and popular culture;
addresses female readers

4:48 Psychosis
postmodern or even post-dramatic drama; director can choose how many
actors he wants to use; combines various genres and registers (poetic,
slang, numbers, medical language); In-yer-face-theatre: aggressive,
emotionally disturbing; gives convincing picture of a psychotic person
(gender is not known!), should not be read as merely a suicide note of the

author, who did commit suicide soon after. 4:48 is supposedly the time
when most suicides happen.