Victorian Prose
orian prose
Victorian Prose
The Victorian period was in the late 19th century spanning the years of 1830 to 1901, the years that Queen Victoria ruled over England. This was the time when industrial cities thrived and the basis of life shifted from land ownership to an urban economy of manufacturing. A mixing of social classes resulted through factory owner/worker relationships and social standing became more malleable than it was in previous periods. Monetarily the country thrived but socially problems arose. The conditions of factories were horrendous and workers, including children, were forced to work up to 20 hour shifts. Women struggled to find a place in Victorian society outside of the role of wife and mother. “The Woman Question,” as it was called, engaged Victorians of both sexes, and led later to women’s acceptability in scholarly and literary institutions. A conscious effort to improve education in children resulted in greater literacy, which in turn spread a wide array of ideas to the masses. The term “Victorian” has become an adjective that the Norton Anthology defines as referring to qualities of “earnestness, moral responsibility, [and] domestic propriety” (1044).
The literature of the Victorian can be split into two categories; the novel and other non-fiction writings.
The novel is represented by works written by Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, George Elliot, and Charlotte Bronte. The books are usually very long with intense physical descriptions of characters and places. A typical sentence of description is long and filled with both semicolons and commas. In The Woman in White, a mystery thriller of the time, Wilkie Collins describes the main character, Hartright’s first encounter with his pupil Marian:
Her figure was tall, yet not too tall; comely and well-developed, yet not fat; her head set on her shoulders with an easy, pliant firmness; her waist, perfection in the eyes of a man, for it
Victorian Prose
The Victorian period was in the late 19th century spanning the years of 1830 to 1901, the years that Queen Victoria ruled over England. This was the time when industrial cities thrived and the basis of life shifted from land ownership to an urban economy of manufacturing. A mixing of social classes resulted through factory owner/worker relationships and social standing became more malleable than it was in previous periods. Monetarily the country thrived but socially problems arose. The conditions of factories were horrendous and workers, including children, were forced to work up to 20 hour shifts. Women struggled to find a place in Victorian society outside of the role of wife and mother. “The Woman Question,” as it was called, engaged Victorians of both sexes, and led later to women’s acceptability in scholarly and literary institutions. A conscious effort to improve education in children resulted in greater literacy, which in turn spread a wide array of ideas to the masses. The term “Victorian” has become an adjective that the Norton Anthology defines as referring to qualities of “earnestness, moral responsibility, [and] domestic propriety” (1044).
The literature of the Victorian can be split into two categories; the novel and other non-fiction writings.
The novel is represented by works written by Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, George Elliot, and Charlotte Bronte. The books are usually very long with intense physical descriptions of characters and places. A typical sentence of description is long and filled with both semicolons and commas. In The Woman in White, a mystery thriller of the time, Wilkie Collins describes the main character, Hartright’s first encounter with his pupil Marian:
Her figure was tall, yet not too tall; comely and well-developed, yet not fat; her head set on her shoulders with an easy, pliant firmness; her waist, perfection in the eyes of a man, for it