Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Hail University.
Faculty of Arts.
Department of English

Slides Prepared by
Dr. Mujahid Al-Waqaa
An Assistant Professor of English Literature.
 It is called Victorian poetry (Age) because of the reign of
Queen Victoria.

 It extends the period from1837 to1901.

 1. The Victorian Age is called the age of novel.
 _____The novel of this era fills the place of drama held in the days of
Elizabethan Age.
 2. The Victorian Age was the age of realism rather than romance.
 3. The literature of this age shows moral values, the truth of human life,
doubt and hope.
 4. The Victorian Age was a period of peace and prosperity.
 5. The Victorian period was a period of imperial expansion. It was a time of
economic prosperity marked by a strong sense of self-help.
 6. Hard work was regarded as the key to success.
 7. There was an intense feeling of rational unity and optimism.
 8. The Victorian Age was also rather moralistic and the Queen’s soberly
cladded figure only stressed the propriety and decorum that marked 19th. C.
English society.


 What are the influencing factors that
affected the Victorian Age and literature?
➢1. Diversity.
➢2. Medievalism (nostalgia for the past.)
➢3. Industrial Revolution.
➢4. Darwinian Theory of Evolution.
➢5. The Expanding British Empire.
 Background of the Victorian Age.

➢ It is difficult to characterize any age in two or a few sentences

because each period is a complex of various historical,
political, economic, social and cultural factors.

➢ Militarily speaking,17th. C. England witnessed numerous civil

wars and revolutions.
➢ 18th. C. England witnessed recurrent wars against France.
➢ During the 19th.c. the only wars were Crimean war (1853-4)
against Imperial Russia and Boar War (1899-1902) in South
Africa which only served to enhance Britain’s power and
prestige which reached its zenith in the mid-19th. C.
❑ The familiar image of Queen Victoria with her
husband Prince Albert and their children, only
served to emphasize the importance of ‘family as a
key social unit.’
❑ Darwin’s The Origin of Species, a theory of
evolution, shook the foundations of religious faith.
 Victorian England saw a great expansion of wealth, power,
and culture. It witnessed many achievements such as the
railway-building, steam-ships and political reforms.

 Despite this greatness, the Victorian age was a period of much

doubt, much poverty, much injustice and much ugliness.

 The Victorian age was many-sided and complex.

 Background of the Victorian Literature.
❖The Victorian Age is often referred to as “an age of
literary giants.”
❖The writers of the period were confident and
extremely prolific.
❖ The Elizabethan Age can be seen as the age of
drama, the romantic age as the age of poetry, while
the Victorian age can boast of the best English
novels ever written.
❖ The novels of Charles Dickens, Charlotte, Emily
Bronte, George Eliot, GM Thackeray, George Meredith
and Thomas Hardy are widely read even today.
 CharlesDickens’ Pickwick Papers (1836),
 William Thackeray's Vanity Fair (1848)
 and George Eliot’s Middle March (1872) are
some famous Victorian novels.
❑ The poetry of the Victorian Age is a continuation of the Romantic
Tradition, yet it is an expression of the spirit of its age.
❑ Romantic Poetry emerged as a product of the poet’s individual mind
and experiences, Victorian poetry seems to evolve out of a more
general spirit of the age.
❑ Romantic poetry comes straight from the heart, while Victorian
poetry gives the impression that a poet is always aware of his own
exalted status and role to rectify society, and this dictates the
tone and the manner in which he addresses the reader.
❑ Victorians also expressed their emotions. Some of the Victorian
lyrics are intensely personal.