OUTLINE OF LITERATURE

HISTORY
OUTLINE LITERATURE OF VICTORIA ERA & ROMANTICISM
 WHY IT CALLED VICTORIA ERA LITERATURE IN OUTLINE
HISTORY OF LITERATURE

As is quite evident from the title the kind of

literature that evolved during the reign of Queen
Victoria is famously known as the Victorian era
literature.
The literature of the Victorian age (1837-1901) entered a new period after the romantic revival.
The literature of this era was preceded by romanticism and was followed by modernism or
realism. Hence, it can also be called a fusion of romantic and realist style of writing. Though the
Victorian Age produced two great poets Alfred Lord Tennyson and Robert Browning, the age is
also remarkable for the excellence of its prose.
 QUEEN VICTORIA
Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was
Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20
June 1837 until her death. On 1 May 1876, she adopted the
additional title of Empress of India.

Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_era
HISTORY

The Victoria Era Timeskip

A timeline of Victoria era Outline

[1837] [1839] [1850] [1859] [1876]

[1901]
Queen Victoria The Photograph Tennyson Becomes The Origin of Invention of the
Edwardian Era
Takes the Throne Poet Laureate Species(Darwin theory) Telephone

Source : https://www.shmoop.com/victorian-literature/timeline.html
LITERATURE TYPES IN
VICTORIA ERA
• POETRY
• NATURE WRITING
• THE OLD GOTHIC STORIES
• NOVEL
POETRY
Victorian Poetry was also indifferent from the
already stated style. Much of the work of the
time is seen as a bridge between the romantic era
and the modernist poetry of the next century.
Alfred Lord Tennyson held the poet laureateship
for over forty years. The husband and wife poetry
team of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert
Browning conducted their love affair through
verse and produced many tender and passionate
poems.
NATURE WRITING
The Illustrated London News which began in
1842 was the world’s first weekly newspaper and
it frequently published articles and examples
regarding nature. The second half of the 19th
century saw a rising popularity in the demand for
books and articles which dealt with nature.
OLD GOTHIC STORIES
These were based on fantastic fiction. It was
during this time that characters like Sherlock
Holmes, Barry Lee, Sexton Blake, Phileas Fogg
and others were originated. Also, fictional
characters like Dracula, Edward Hyde, The
Invisible Man and others became popular.
NOVEL
tend to be idealized portraits of difficult lives in
which hard work, perseverance, love and luck win
out in the end. They were usually inclined
towards being of improving nature with a central
moral lesson at heart. While this formula was the
basis for much of earlier Victorian fiction, the
situation became more complex as the century
progressed.
 FAMOUS VICTORIAN
NOVELIST & POETS
Matthew Arnold, the Bronte sisters, Christina Rossetti,
Joseph Conrad, Robert Browning, Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Edward Bulwer-
Lytton, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, Benjamin
Disraeli, George Eliot, George Meredith, Elizabeth
Gaskell, George Gissing, Richard Jefferies, Thomas
Hardy, A. E. Housman, Rudyard Kipling, Robert Louis
Stevenson, Bram Stoker, Algernon Charles Swinburne,
Philip Meadows Taylor, Alfred Lord Tennyson
biography, William Thackeray, Anthony Trollope,
George MacDonald, G.M. Hopkins, Oscar Wilde, Lewis
Carroll.
 THE ALFRED TENNYSON:
THE FAMOUS POET EVENT

Occupation : Poet Laureate (1850–1892)

His Masterpieces :
From Poems, Chiefly Lyrical (1830):
"Nothing Will Die"
"All Things Will Die"
"The Dying Swan"
"The Kraken"
"Mariana“

Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred,_Lord_Tennyson
 ROBERT BROWNING:
THE FAMOUS POET EVENT

Occupation : Poet Laureate (1812–1889)

His Masterpieces :
Pauline: A Fragment of a Confession (1833)
Paracelsus (1835)
Strafford (play)
Sordello (1840)
Bells and Pomegranates No. I: Pippa Passes (play) (1841)
The Year's at the Spring

Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Browning
 ROMANTICISM
Scholars believed that the commencement of the
Romantic period was in 1798 after the publication
of Lyrical Ballad by William Wordsworth and
Samuel Coleridge had two entirely different
approaches towards romance.
While Coleridge took recourse to supernatural
ways of discovering romance making unlikely
plots believable while Wordsworth adopted real,
down to earth characters which were taken from
the real life like in The Idiot Boy.
“ Romanticism was a movement in the arts and literature
which originated in the late 18th century, emphasizing
inspiration, subjectivity, and the primacy of the individual.

SCHOLARS
”
Romanticism, as a concept, became more widespread in origin as well as in influence as
compared to the Enlightenment movement which initially started on a smaller level
later resulting into a massive movement. There hasn’t been any intellectual movement
which had such a reach surviving till the end of the Middle Ages.
ROMANTICISM FACTORS
The Folklore and Popular Art of Germany
• in the mid 18th century during which scholars like
Johann Gottfried von Herder studied folk songs
while in England Joseph Addison and Richard
Steele treated old ballads like poems.
Nationalism
• also contributed to this movement. French
paintings which depicted the political struggle
were later used as inspiration from national folk
music. Thirdly, the rise and popularity of William
Shakespeare also fuelled this whole movement.
Romantics considered him as the essence of folk
poetry.
LIST OF SAMPLE OF LITERATURE IN VICTORIAN ERA AND
ROMANTICISM
INFLUENCE & CONCLUSION
• As we explained that the Victoria era had many • In Romatiscism we knew that a lot of literature
of famous novelist & poets & authors which has that created based on romance like Gothic
great Masterpieces like novels, Poet, and etc Romance, Novel Romance etc.
“ Question and feedback