Victorian; Little Words, Big Ideas

It is largely characterized by the struggle of working people and the triumph of

right over wrong.

- Serialization. It can be daunting to pick up a Victorian novel. ...

- Industrialization. Okay, so "industrialization" might sound more like
economic development than literary history.
- Class.
- Science vs. Religion.
- Progress.
- Nostalgia.
- The Woman Question.
- Utilitarianism.

The Angel in the house:

- idealization of women, prudish, unrealistic view of women,
- she should match the victorian values: pure, gentle, obedient,
submissive, feminine
- women have no sexual desire, they just want to have a baby,
- wife couldn’t refuse sex to her husband, as all her possessions -
including her body, were given to her husband while marrying him,
- mothers with illegitimate children were treated as an outcast,
condemned by society. many of them committed suicide. (found
drowned)

Elegy is a form of literature that can be defined as a poem or song in the

form of elegiac couplets, written in honor of someone deceased. It typically
laments or mourns the death of the individual. Elegy is derived from the
Greek work elegus, which means a song of bereavement sung along with
a flute.

Realism: Broadly defined as "the faithful representation of reality" or

"verisimilitude," realism is a literary technique practiced by many schools
of writing. Although strictly speaking, realism is a technique, it also
denotes a particular kind of subject matter, especially the representation
of middle-class life

Naturalism is a literary genre that started as a movement in late

nineteenth century in literature, film, theater, and art. It is a type of
extreme realism. This movement suggested the roles of family, social
conditions, and environment in shaping human character. Thus,
naturalistic writers write stories based on the idea that environment
determines and governs human character. Realism depicts things as they
appear, while naturalism portrays a deterministic view of a character’s
 actions and life. Naturalism concludes that natural forces predetermine a
character’s decisions, making him/her act in a particular way. Realism
poses that a decision of a character comes from his response to a certain
situation.

dramatic monologue: a poem in the form of a speech or narrative by an

imagined person, in which the speaker inadvertently reveals aspects of
their character while describing a situation or series of events.

Higher (biblical) criticism: Biblical criticism was divided into higher

criticism and lower criticism during this century. Higher criticism focuses
on the Bible's composition and history, while lower criticism is concerned
with interpreting its meaning for its readers.

Decadence (fin de siècle): It’s specific to the late 19th century, it means
end of century. It’s characteristic for its prevalent feelings of pessimism,
despair, boredom, frustration, melancholy, etc. It is produces by the
gradual disillusionment with Victorian values. Loss of certainty in
knowledge, science, religion and loss of energy, enthusiasm, vitality or will.
“Ennui” a feeling of listlessness and dissatisfaction arising from a lack of
occupation or excitement. New attitude in life and art, a delight in the
perverse and artificial.

- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

Shows a pessimistic pint of view about life in his philosophy.

- Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867)

A ”poete maudit” a poet who through his life and work challenges
the moral norms of society. One of the first to write about the
nightmare of living in a modern city. Artist over nature. Interest in
vice, evil, decadence and complexities of human psycho.

Aestheticism (the aesthetic movement): The aesthetic movement was a late 19th
century movement that championed pure beauty and 'art for art's sake'
emphasising the visual and sensual qualities of art and design over practical,
moral or narrative considerations. The idea of art for art’s sake (l’art pour l’art).

Symbolism: A loosely organised artistic movement that originated with a group

of French poets in the late 19th century. Spread to painting and the theatre and
influenced the European and American literatures of the 20 th century. Art should
reflect an emotion or idea rather than represent the natural world objectively as
in Realism. Emphasis laid in emotions, feelings, ideas and subjectivity.
Combination of religious mysticism with the perverse, the erotic, and the
decadent. Interest in the occult, the dream world, melancholy and death. Nuance,
suggestion, evocative atmosphere instead of direct statement or moral message,
A belief that finding the right combination of words could open the door to other
worlds.

Allegory: - an allegory is a part of speech in which abstract ideas and principles

are described in terms of characters, figures and events. An allegory can be a
complete narrative that involves characters and events that stand for an abstract
idea or event (i.e. George Orwell’s “Animal Farm”)

Dandy: In the twenty-first century, the word dandy is a jocular, often sarcastic
adjective meaning "fine" or "great"; when used in the form of a noun, it refers to
a well-groomed and well-dressed man, but often to one who is also self-absorbed.

Flaneur, (NO ES SEGURA LA DEFINICIÓN): Flâneur is a French term meaning

'stroller' or 'loafer' used by nineteenth-century French poet Charles Baudelaire to
identify an observer of modern urban life.

Epiphany: A sudden revelation. You can suddenly understand or become conscious of

something. A character achieves realization, awareness, or a feeling of knowledge, after
which events are seen through the prism of this new light in the story used a lot by James
Joyce. E.g. Joyce’s Araby, Portait of the Artist as a Young Man.

Modernism: has its origins in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, mainly in
Europe and North America, and is characterized by a self-conscious break with
traditional ways of writing, in both poetry and prose fiction.
- Phycological instead of plot driven novels.
- Radical break with the past.
- Old notions of reality come under attack.
- Description of linear flow of narrative.
- Stream of consciousness.
- Metafiction.
- Frequent use of irony and mockery (also self-mockery).

Polyphony is a feature of narrative, which includes a diversity of simultaneous

points of view and voices. The concept was introduced by Mikhail Bakhtin, using
a metaphor based on the musical term polyphony.

Metafiction occurs in fictional stories when the story examines the elements of
fiction itself. For example, a story that explores how stories are made by
commenting on character types, how plots are formed, or other aspects of
storytelling is engaged in an example of metafiction

Intertextuality a complex interrelationship between a text and other texts taken

as a basis to the creation or interpretation of the text. Simply speaking, echoes of
one text in another one. Intertextual figures include allusion, quotation, calque,
plagiarism, translation, pastiche and parody. James Joyce - Ulysses- T.S. Eliot -
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Stream of consciousness: a method of narration that describes happenings in

the flow of thoughts in the mind of a character. interior monologue. Coined by
psychologist William James. Sudden rise of thoughts, no punctuation, lack of
organization, chaos, the thoughts change quickly, interpenetrate. Its purpose is
to resemble the real process of thinking. Examples: Ulysses by James Joyce
(Molly Bloom's Soliloquy), Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Ekphrasis: The word ekphrasis, or ecphrasis, comes from the Greek for the
description of a work of art produced as a rhetorical exercise, often used in the
adjectival form ekphrastic an ekphrastic poem is a vivid description of a scene or,
more commonly, a work of art.

Utopia: an illusionary place with a perfect society, citizens are bearers of an ideal
moral code (every violator of the moral code is harshly punished/is regarded as
strange individual). a utopian society is one where all social evils have been
cured. Purpose: to help the reader notice the problems, paradoxes, or faults in
such a society. An elaborate description of the geographic landscape, often given
by guides native to the region. The narrator or protagonist of the story is an
outsider to the utopian society( very sceptical of the society’s modern political,
social, economic, or ethical problems) Examples: Brave New World by Adolf
Huxley (negative utopia), the Garden of Eden (Bible), the Republic by Plato (first
utopian work) Utopia by Thomas Moore (the term 'utopia' appears for the first
time)

Dystopian literature is a genre of fictional writing used to explore social and

political structures in 'a dark, nightmare world. ' The term dystopia is defined as
a society characterized by poverty, squalor or oppression and the theme is most
commonly used in science fiction and speculative fiction genres.

Theatre of the absurd: Stems from existentialism: philosophy concerned with

finding the meaning of life through will; stressed importance of choice in life and
the commitment to your choice; no objective values or truths in the world; reaction
to the absurd cruelty of WWII (Camus, Sartre). Absurd: wildly unreasonable,
illogical, or inappropriate. It’s a non-organised movement, a radical and
provocative break with all conventions of drama. These plays often contain any
recognizable human beings and present completely unmotivated actions. The
dialogue seems to have degenerated into meaningless babble. Plot is often
reduced to minimum or is eliminated altogether. Confusing situations, no realistic
or logical development. Starting at an arbitrary point and seem to end arbitrary
Waiting for Godot: "nothing happens twice"; follows the three unities (time, place
and plot); allusions, puns, routines; variety of interpretations (existentialist,
marxists, Freudian, Christian). Other examples: No Exit by Sartre, The Bald
Soprano by Ionesco.

Postcolonialism: Postcolonial literature often addresses the problems and

consequences of the decolonization of a country, especially questions relating to
the political and cultural independence of formerly subjugated people, and
themes such as racialism and colonialism. Some of the themes of postcolonial
literature include re-asserting the identity of the indigenous culture, revisiting and
revising colonial history, and providing fuller descriptions of the people created
by colonialism and the way in which their lives reflect both cultures.