VOCABULARY

1. The discourse between or the need <to make it new>: Literature in an

ever-changing world
- Victorianism: The three decades in which Britain was great and people had confidence in the
greatness and the power of the nation.
- Gladstone and Disraeli: Two very dissimilar politicians who dominated late Victorian politics.
- Unionists: Also named Tories, it was a party who governed from 1886 to 1906.
- Old Whigs: The aristocracy, landlords and members of the house of Lords.
- Utilitarianism: Put forward by Jeremy Bentham, who advocated that morals and legislation
should aim at achieving the greatest good for the greatest number.
- Parliamentary reform: The Ballot Act of 1872 made voting a private affair for the first time.
- Dickens, Tennyson and Trollope: Widely read and discussed writers during a period in which
reading aloud was the most common form of entertainment.
- Irish Question: Whether or not the Irish should be allowed to rule themselves.
- W.B. Yeats, Lady Augusta Gregory and J.M. Synge: A group of Anglo-Irish writers who led the
cultural reinaissance that took place in Ireland. Their writings were based on an awareness of
Irish nationalism, myth and legend.
- The Abbey Theatre: Set up in 1904. Plays such as On Bailes Strand by Yeats, Spreading the
News by Lady Gregory and Riders to the sea by Synge, were performed there.


2.<The white mans burden>: Different approaches to imperialism in
literature

3. Literature and war: <Disillusion as never told in the old days>

4. <Life is a luminous halo>: The novel in the twentieth century, Sons
and lovers

5. Tales of the city: Virginia Woolfs modernist geographies of the mind