Victorian Literature

Began with the death of Sir Walter Scott

Ended with the death of Queen Victoria
Englands longest-reigning monarch
Object of Victorian literature: truthfulness in reflecting the practical problems
and issues of a daily life
Age of prose
Great nonfiction prose writers
Macaulay
Newman
Ruskin
Greatest of all the English novels were those written by:
Dickens
Thackeray
Eliot
Victorian poetry had a message as well as a song
Three great poets:
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Browning
Arnold
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Also called Voice of Victorian England
One of the greatest craftsmen of English language
Most popular poet of the Victorian Era
Break, Break, Break
Tennysons great powers of picturing nature
First published elegy for his friend Arthur Hallam
It has several idylls: short works describing pleasant scenes of country or
domestic life
Ulysses
Ulysses is an old man who desires to turn his kingdom over to his son Telemachus
so he can go back out into the world and seek another adventure
It is a dramatic monologue: a lyrics poem which reveals a soul in action through
the conversation of one character in a dramatic situation
Probably Tennysons greatest poem