13. Literary realism most often refers to the trend, beginning with certain works of nineteenth-century French literature and extending to late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century authors in various countries, towards depictions of contemporary life and society "as they were." In the spirit of general "realism," Realist authors opted for depictions of everyday and banal activities and experiences, instead of a romanticized or similarly stylized presentation. In literature, Romanticism found recurrent themes in the evocation or criticism of the past, the cult of "sensibility" with its emphasis on women and children, the heroic isolation of the artist or narrator, and respect for a new, wilder, untrammeled and "pure" nature. Charlotte Brontë - an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters whose novels are English literature standards. She wrote Jane Eyre under the pen name Currer Bell. Charlotte was sent with three of her sisters, Emily, Maria, and Elizabeth, to the Clergy Daughters' School (which she would describe as Lowood School in Jane Eyre). Its poor conditions, Charlotte maintained, permanently affected her health and physical development and hastened the deaths of her two elder sisters, Maria (born 1814) and Elizabeth (born 1815), who died of tuberculosis in June 1825 soon after their father removed them from the school on 1 June. Perhaps, she wasn’t very beautiful, and this makes think of parallels with Jane Eyre, She held high moral principles, and, despite her shyness in company, she was always prepared to argue her beliefs. Else with the survived children in her childhood she wrote about the lives and struggles of the inhabitants of their imaginary kingdoms. Due to the enormous success of Jane Eyre, she was persuaded by her publisher to visit London occasionally, where she become friends with William Makepeace Thackeray. Her book had sparked a movement in regards to feminism in literature. The main character, Jane Eyre, in her novel Jane Eyre, was a parallel to herself, a woman who was strong. Jane Eyre is a love story. It tells about a young woman called Jane Eyre who was an orphan and goes to teach a girl named Adele Varens in a far-away house. The master of the house is Mr. Rochester. Jane and Mr. Rochester fall in love, but Jane is horrified when she finds out Mr. Rochester is already married to a crazy woman. She leaves the house, believing that marrying him would now be the same as adultery and that she would be his mistress, not his wife. When she goes away, she becomes sick and almost dies. Three people, Diana, Mary, and St. John Rivers, find her and let her live with them. There, she becomes a teacher and finds out that they are her cousins. She is very happy until St. John wants her to marry him and be a missionary with him. She knows that he does not really love her and thinks she is simply useful, so she says no. However, he continues to ask her, and she is finally almost persuaded that it is her duty to marry him when she hears Mr. Rochester crying, "Jane! Jane!" She feels that something has happened to him, and quickly goes back to see him. His crazy wife had put his house on fire and died in it. Mr. Rochester, because of the fire, had become blind and wounded. Jane, now that his wife is dead, is happy to marry him, and they get married and have a son. Emily Brontë - English author and poet. Her most famous book is Wuthering Heights. It is the only novel by Emily Brontë. It was first published in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell, and a posthumous second edition was edited by her sister Charlotte. The name of the novel comes from the Yorkshire manor on the moors on which the story. The narrative tells the tale of the all-encompassing and passionate, yet thwarted, love between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw, and how this unresolved passion eventually destroys them and many around them. It’s considered to be more original than Jane Eyre.
14. Poetry in a sense settled down from the upheavals of the romantic era and much of the work of the time is seen as a bridge between this earlier era and the modernist poetry of the next century. Comic verse abounded in the Victorian era. Magazines teemed with humorous invention and were aimed at a well-educated readership. The most famous collection of Victorian comic verse is the Bab Ballads. The husband and wife poetry team of the Brownings conducted their love affair through verse and produced many tender and passionate poems. Some poets drew inspiration from verse forms of Old English poetry such as Beowulf. The reclaiming of the past was a major part of Victorian literature with an interest in both classical literature but also the medieval literature of England. The Victorians loved the heroic, chivalrous stories of knights of old and they hoped to regain some of that noble, courtly behaviour and impress it upon the people both at home and in the wider empire. In drama, farces, musical burlesques, extravaganzas and comic operas competed with Shakespeare productions and serious drama. After W. S. Gilbert, Oscar Wilde became the leading poet and dramatist of the late Victorian period. Wilde's plays, in particular, stand apart from the many now forgotten plays of Victorian times and have a much closer relationship to those of the Edwardian dramatists such as George Bernard Shaw, many of whose most important works were written in the 20th century. Wilde's 1895 comic masterpiece, The Importance of Being Earnest, was the greatest of the plays in which he held an ironic mirror to the aristocracy while displaying virtuosic mastery of wit and paradoxical wisdom. It has remained extremely popular. The Victorians are sometimes credited with 'inventing childhood', partly via their efforts to stop child labour and the introduction of compulsory education. As children began to be able to read, literature for young people became a growth industry, with not only established writers producing works for children (such as Dickens' A Child's History of England) but also a new group of dedicated children's authors. Writers like Lewis Carroll wrote mainly for children, although they had an adult following. Other genres include nonsense verse, poetry which required a child-like interest (e.g. Edward Lyr). School stories flourished: Kipling's Stalky & Co, Mawgly. Lewis Carroll was the pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, British writer, logician (maths expert), Anglican clergyman, and photographer. He is most famous for his story Alice's Adventures in Wonderland which he told to a young friend, Alice Liddel, when he took the girl and two of her sisters on a boat trip. Alice enjoyed the story and asked Dodgson to write it down. Carroll then wrote a second story about Alice called Through the Looking Glass. Both stories are still popular with people all over the world. Dodgson's friendships with young girls and psychological readings of his work – especially his photographs of nude or semi-nude girls – have all led to speculation that he was a paedophile. This possibility has underpinned numerous modern interpretations of his life and work. Cohen and other biographers argue that Dodgson may have wanted to marry the 11-year-old Alice Liddell, and that this was the cause of the unexplained "break" with the family in June 1863. But there has never been significant evidence to support the idea, and the 1996 discovery of the "cut pages in diary document" (see above) seems to make it highly probable that the 1863 "break" had nothing to do with Alice, but was perhaps connected with rumours involving her older sister Lorina, or possibly their governess. Edward Lear - was an English artist, illustrator, author, and poet, renowned today primarily for his literary nonsense, in poetry and prose, and especially his limericks, a form that he popularised. Lear suffered from health problems. From the age of six he suffered frequent grand mal epileptic seizures, and bronchitis, asthma, and in later life, partial blindness. Lear experienced his first seizure at a fair near Highgate with his father. The event scared and embarrassed him. Lear felt lifelong guilt and shame for his epileptic condition. Lear published A Book of Nonsense, a volume of limericks that went through three editions and helped popularize the form. In The History of the Seven Families of the Lake Pipple-Popple was published, and in his most famous piece of nonsense, The Owl and the Pussycat, which he wrote for the children of his patron Edward Stanley, 13th Earl of Derby. Many other works followed. Lear's nonsense books were quite popular during his lifetime, but a rumour circulated that "Edward Lear" was merely a pseudonym, and the books' true author was the man to whom Lear had dedicated the works, his patron the Earl of Derby. Supporters of this rumour offered as evidence the facts that both men were named Edward, and that "Lear" is an anagram of "Earl". Lear's nonsense works are distinguished by a facility of verbal invention and a poet's delight in the sounds of words, both real and imaginary. A stuffed rhinoceros becomes a "diaphanous doorscraper". A "blue Boss-Woss" plunges into "a perpendicular, spicular, orbicular, quadrangular, circular depth of soft mud". His heroes are Quangle-Wangles, Pobbles, and Jumblies. Though famous for his neologisms, Lear employed a number of other devices in his works in order to defy reader expectations. For example, "Cold Are The Crabs", adheres to the sonnet tradition until the dramatically foreshortened last line. Limericks are invariably typeset as four plus one lines today, but Lear's limericks were published in a variety of formats. It appears that Lear wrote them in manuscript in as many lines as there was room for beneath the picture. In the first three editions most are typeset as, respectively, two, five, and three lines.
15. Victorian Era is the age of thousand literature streams. In the Victorian or modern age the divine right of kings is as obsolete as a suit of armor; the privileges of royalty and nobility are either curbed or abolished, and ordinary men by their representatives in the House of Commons are the real rulers of England. With a change in government comes a corresponding change in literature. In former ages literature was almost as exclusive as politics in the hands of the few and supported by princely patrons, reflecting the taste of the upper classes. Now the masses of men begin to be educated, begin to think for themselves, and a host of periodicals appear in answer to their demand for reading matter. Poets, novelists, essayists, historians,--all serious writers feel the inspiration of a great audience, and their works have a thousand readers where formerly they had but one. In a word, English government, society and literature have all become more democratic. This is the most significant feature of modern history.The second tendency may be summed up in the word "scientific." At the basis of this tendency is man’s desire to know the truth, if possible the whole truth of life; and it sets no limits to the exploring spirit. Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859), which laid the foundation for a general theory of evolution, is one of the most famous books of the age, and of the world. Associated with Darwin were Wallace, Lyell, Huxley, Tyndall and many others, whose essays are, in their own way, quite as significant as the poems of Tennyson or the novels of Dickens. It would be quite as erroneous to allege that modern science began with these men as to assume that it began with the Chinese or with Roger Bacon; the most that can be said truthfully is, that the scientific spirit which they reflected began to dominate our thought, to influence even our poetry and fiction, even as the voyages of Drake and Magellan furnished a mighty and mysterious background for the play of human life on the Elizabethan stage. A third tendency of the Victorian age in England is expressed by the word "imperialism." In earlier ages the work of planting English colonies had been well done; in the Victorian age the scattered colonies increased mightily in wealth and power, and were closely federated into a world-wide Empire of people speaking the same noble speech, following the same high ideals of justice and liberty. Thomas Hardy was an English novelist and poet. While his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural. He’sknown for his novels, such as Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Far from the Madding Crowd, which earned him a reputation as a great novelist. The bulk of his fictional works, initially published as serials in magazines, were set in the semi-fictional land of Wessex and explored tragic characters struggling against their passions and social circumstances. Hardy’s idea of fate in life gave way to his philosophical struggle with God. Although Hardy’s faith remained intact, the irony and struggles of life led him to question the traditional Christian view of God. Hardy's first novel, The Poor Man and the Lady, finished by 1867, failed to find a publisher and Hardy destroyed the manuscript so only parts of the novel remain. A Pair of Blue Eyes, a novel drawing on Hardy's courtship of his first wife, was published under his own name. The term "cliffhanger" is considered to have originated with the serialized version of this story in which Henry Knight, one of the protagonists, is left literally hanging off a cliff. Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891) attracted criticism for its sympathetic portrayal of a "fallen woman" and was initially refused publication. Its subtitle, A Pure Woman: Faithfully Presented, was intended to raise the eyebrows of the Victorian middle-classes. Jude the Obscure, published in 1895, met with even stronger negative outcries from the Victorian public for its frank treatment of sex, and was often referred to as "Jude the Obscene". Hardy critiques certain social constraints that hindered the lives of those living in the 19th century. Considered a Victorian Realist writer, Hardy examines the social constraints that are part of the Victorian status quo, suggesting these rules hinder the lives of all involved and ultimately lead to unhappiness. Hardy’s stories take into consideration the events of life and their effects. Fate plays a significant role as the thematic basis for many of his novels. Characters are constantly encountering crossroads, which are symbolic of a point of opportunity and transition. Once things have been put into motion, they will play out. Hardy's characters are in the grips of an overwhelming fate. Hardy divided his novels and collected short stories into three classes:1)Novels of Character and Environment2) Romances and Fantasies3) Novels of Ingenuity.
16. Oscar Wilde was an Irish writer, poet, and prominent aesthete who, after writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. Today he is remembered for his epigrams, plays and the tragedy of his imprisonment, followed by his early death. Wilde's parents were successful Dublin intellectuals and from an early age he was tutored at home, where he showed his intelligence, becoming fluent in French and German. he was deeply interested in the rising philosophy of aestheticism (led by two of his tutors, Walter Pater and John Ruskin) though he also profoundly explored Roman Catholicism and finally converted on his deathbed. As a spokesman for aestheticism, he tried his hand at various literary activities; he published a book of poems, lectured America and Canada on the new "English Renaissance in Art" and then returned to London to work prolifically as a journalist for four years. Known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress, and glittering conversation, Wilde was one of the best known personalities of his day. Wilde's two plays during the 1880s, Vera; or, The Nihilists and The Duchess of Padua, had not met with much success. He had continued his interest in the theatre and now, after finding his voice in prose, his thoughts turned again to the dramatic form as the biblical iconography of Salome filled his head. it tells the story of Salome, the stepdaughter of the tetrarch Herod Antipas, who, to her stepfather's dismay but mother's delight, requests the head of Jokanaan (John the Baptist) on a silver platter as a reward for dancing the Dance of the Seven Veils. Wilde, who had first set out to irritate Victorian society with his dress and talking points finally found a way to critique society on its own terms. Lady Windermere's Fan was first performed on 20 February 1892 at St James Theatre, packed with the cream of society. The play was enormously popular, touring the country for months, but largely thrashed by conservative critics. He wrote The Picture of Dorian Gray, and the plays Salomé, The Importance of Being Earnest, An Ideal Husband, and Lady Windermere's Fan. Wilde was bisexual. He was married, and had two children. Wilde's lover was the son of the Marquess of Queensbury, who was known for his outspoken atheism, brutish manner and creation of the modern rules of boxing. Queensberry, who feuded regularly with his son, confronted Wilde and Lord Alfred as to the nature of their relationship. He said: "If I catch you and my son again in any public restaurant I will thrash you" His downfall At the height of his fame and success Wilde sued his lover's father for libel. After a series of trials, Wilde was convicted of gross indecency with other men and sentenced to two years of hard labour in Reading Goal (jail). In prison he wrote De Profundis, a long letter which discusses his spiritual journey through his trials, forming a dark counterpoint to his earlier philosophy of pleasure. Upon his release he left immediately for France, never to return to the British Isles. There he wrote his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol, a long poem commemorating prison life. Living in a Paris hotel, he was destitute, with little money and few friends. His last memorable words were: "My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One of us has got to go". He died of cerebral meningitis at the age of forty-six. The Picture of Dorian Gray is the only published book written by Oscar Wilde. It was first published in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine. The Picture of Dorian Gray is about a young man named Dorian Gray who has a portrait painted of himself. The artist, Basil Hallward, thinks that Dorian Gray is very beautiful, and becomes obsessed with him. One day in Basil's garden, Dorian Gray meets a man named Lord Henry Wotton. Lord Henry Wotton makes Dorian Gray believe that the only thing important in life is beauty. However, he realizes that as he grows older, he will become less beautiful. He wishes that the portrait Basil painted would become old in his place. Dorian then sells his soul so that he can be beautiful forever. Dorian's wish comes true. However, every time he does something bad, mean, or selfish, his picture ages. For 18 years, Dorian does not age. He does many bad things, and his portrait becomes more and more aged. However, one day he decides to stop doing bad things. He hopes that this will make his portrait become beautiful again, but it only makes it worse. Dorian thinks that only a full confession will make the portrait become beautiful again. However, he does not feel guilty for anything he has done. So Dorian picks up a knife and stabs the portrait.When his servants hear a scream come from Dorian's room, they call the police. The police find Dorian's body on the floor with a stab wound in his heart. His body has become very aged. However, the portrait has returned to the way it was when it was first painted.