Major Victorian Authors, Genres, and Themes

1. Major Victorian Authors, Genres, and Themes Brendan King Michael Shaffer Stu Morton

2. Allegory • Comes from Greek word for "other reading“. • It's a form of narrative with a hidden moral meaning behind it. • Forms of hidden meanings include: religious, moral, political, personal, and satiric. • Dante's Divine Comedy, Spenser's Faerie Queene and Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.

3. Fantasy • Deals with the exploration of the mythical and magical. • Victorian examples commonly set during the dark ages. • Most included magic, monsters, wizards, knights, and other mythical entities. • Alfred Tennyson's Idylls of the King. • Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. • George MacDonald's Phantastes.

4. The Grotesque • Summed up best as: THE GROTESQUE IS THE ESTRANGED WORLD. • It is not so much weird things, rather feelings, premonition, fear, and strife. • Such writing explores the things most people don’t wish to encounter or feel every day. • Frankenstein, Mary Shelley. • A mad scientist makes a man out of cadavers. • Deals with humans playing the role of God.

5. Gothic • Combines elements of both horror and romance. • Many British examples were found in serial stories called Penny Dreadfuls. • G.W.M. Reynolds: Faust (1846), Wagner the Wehr-wolf (1847) and The Necromancer (1857). • Varney the Vampire by James Malcolm Rymer was a very popular gothic work. • These were mostly popular in the middle social class. • Read for entertainment, and typically had elements of fantasy, the grotesque, or melodrama in them.

6. Melodrama • A type of literature where the plot and characters are meant to evoke reader's emotions. • These works were very popular because they were effective in creating emotions. • Dickens was one of the leaders in this style, especially with Great Expectations. • "Christmas Books" and plays were also popular melodrama. • Douglas Jerrold was a leader in this with Black-Ey'd Susan, or, All in the Downs (1829) and The Rent Day (1832). • Aspects include well developed characters, well developed settings, and s realistic set of actions/plot.

7. Realism • Emphasizes the importance of the ordinary, rejects the heroic and focuses on the majority or middle class. • Shift from Romanticism which dealt with finding virtue in nature and expressing emotions. • Works were simply about every day life of people • Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey. • Oliver Twist and Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. • George Eliot's Daniel Deronda.

8. Detective Fiction • Two types: Whodunit? And the Thriller. • Whodunit has two parts: the story of the crime and the investigation. • Crime told by investigator, and investigation told by friend of investigator. • Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle. • Thrillers were created by Americans after WWII. • These were meant to entertain and give people a look at things they typically didn't get to. • The Moonstone by Willkie Collins. • On Murder by Thomas de Quincey.

9. Victorian Era Themes • Throughout numerous works of literature in Victorian Era, there are several themes that consistently appear. • These themes are found in best sellers and less acknowledged books alike. • The themes of the Victorian Era range from social issues encountered during this time period to concepts like fate and revenge.

10. Social Concern Themes • The Victorian Era of literature was marked change, causing the topics covered in literature to change as well. • Changes like technological advancements, disparities in the wealth gap, and the new issue of women gaining their own identities heavily inspired literary works during the Victorian Period.

11. Social Concerns Themes • Mill on the Floss, The Lifted Veil, and The Moonstone are a fraction of books whose themes talked about social injustices towards women. • The Sherlock Holmes book series responds to the new advancements in technology, as well as in the fields of science and psychology. • Disparities in the wealth gap and trying to become rich is a the main theme in works Like Two on a Tower, Great Expectations, and Adam Bede.

12. Other Themes • Several other themes that are heavily covered in Victorian literature are • Revenge • Isolation and alienation • Intellectual, spiritual, and emotional doubt

13. Thomas Hardy • Started to write poetry as he worked as an architect. • The short story, “How I Built Myself a House”, was his first published work. • Far From the Madding Crowd and Under the Greenwood Tree. • Gave him the opportunity to work solely as a writer.

14. Thomas Hardy • Tess of the d'Urbervilles • Was a melodrama. Although she was a truly good woman, she was despised by society after she lost her virginity. • Jude the Obscure • This novel was heavily criticized because of the portrayals of women and sex. Issue involving class, education, and marriage. • The book was publically burned by the Bishop of Wakefield. • Some called it “Jude the Obscene”.

15. Thomas Hardy • Hardy examines the social constraints that are part of the Victorian norm. He suggested that these “rules” hinder life and ultimately lead to unhappiness. • He bridged the gap between romanticism and realism through his portrayal of sexual behavior. • In his poetry he showed themes of disappointment in love and in life. Also he had a strong opposition for animal cruelty. • “The Blinded Bird”. • The term “cliffhanger” originated from the serialized version of A Pair of Blue Eyes. The protagonist was left literally hanging off a cliff.

16. Thomas Hardy • Implicit theme in Hardy’s works: • The criticism of social constraints that hindered people’s living in the 19th century and ultimately led to unhappiness • Display of Hardy’s theme • In Two on a Tower (1882), Hardy stands against the constraints set by the status quo. • Hardy also has a theme about female’s identity and encourages them to not have a secondary role in The Return of the Native (1878) and The Mayor of Casterbridge(1886)

17. George Elliot • Birth name was Mary Anne Evans. • Used the pseudonym because she wanted her work to be taken seriously and avoid the stereotype of romance by woman writers. • Realism • She used memories and character from her past to write her early novels: Adam Bede, Mill on the Flossand Silas Marner.

18. George Elliot • Psychological Writer. • Elliot attempted to represent the inner struggle of the soul and reveal the motives that control the way humans act. – Middlemarch. • Daniel Deronda was a work in which she revealed and analyzed the motives and actions of Daniel Deronda and Gwendolen Harleth. • She also wrote about morals and living a righteous life. She is nicknamed the “Moses” of Victorian literature, leading her readers in to the “Promise Land”.

19. George ELliot • Implicit theme in Eliot’s works: • The issue of female identity and promoting strong women in a period of male domination. • Display of Eliot’s theme • Theme of female identity first emerges in The Lifted Veil (1859), following success of Adam Bede (1859). • Theme is also found in The Mill on the Floss (1860).

20. Robert Louis Stevenson • Stevenson was a novelist and travel writer. • Travelled to Europe, U.S., and the Pacific Islands. Lived in Samoa. • “The Bottle Imp”.

21. Robert Louis Stevenson • Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. • Jekyll and Hyde represented the inner conflict of humanity’s sense of good and evil. • He also showed the social hypocrisy of the time.

22. Robert Louis Stevenson • Implicit theme in Stevenson’s works: • The impossibility of identifying and separating good and evil. • Display of Stevenson’s theme • Stevenson’s main theme is displayed in two of his better-known literary works; Treasure Island (1883) and The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde (1886).

23. Arthur Conan Doyle • Sherlock Holmes. • Detective and crime fiction. • Doyle pointed out the vigilante justice in Victorian England. Holmes was a private detective so he did not have to abide by the “rules”. • Holmes also did not care about the social class of his clients. He shows the equality of classes.

24. Arthur Conan Doyle • Implicit theme in Doyle’s works: • Recognizes the social movements of science, psychology, logic, and cunning. • Display of Doyle’s theme • Doyle displays the new ideas of science and other social advancements in his canon of Sherlock Holmes (1892-1927) and focuses on cunning and cleverness.

25. William Thackeray • Vanity Fair. • Thackeray analyzed the snobbery and the shortcoming of humans in society. He examined the subjects of hypocrisy, secret emotions, the sorrows of love, the past, and the vanity of life. • Used satire to make the British society look ridiculous.

26. William Thackeray • Implicit theme in Thackeray’s works: • A world where people are almost entirely defined by socioeconomic status and try to attain prosperity through whatever means. • Display of Thackeray’s theme • . Thackeray’s theme of prosperity and chasing after it is best displayed in his work Vanity Fair (1847) and The Luck of Barry Lyndon (1844).

27. Willkie Collins • The Woman in White, Armadaleand No Name were his major works. • Detective and suspense fiction. • The Moonstone. • He opposed the plight of women and the social and domestic issue of his time. • Hide and Seek – had a deaf character.

28. Willkie Collins • Implicit theme in Collins’ works: • Focuses on the issue of women’s role in society and depicts them as they really were, not what society assumed. • Display of Collins’ theme • Collin’s theme is displayed in nearly all of his prominent works, especially in The Woman in White (1859)and The Moonstone(1868) .