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British Literature through Time
Click one of the links below
to go directly to literary time period information.
Years:
1832-1900
Content:
*
conflict between those in power and the common masses of laborers and the poor
*shocking life of
sweatshops and urban poor is highlighted in literature to insist on reform
* country versus city life
* sexual
discretion (or lack of it)
* strained coincidences
* romantic
triangles
* heroines in
physical danger
* aristocratic
villains
* misdirected
letters
* bigamous
marriages
Genres/Styles:
*novel
becomes
popular for first time; mass produced for the first time
*bildungsroman: “coming of age”
* political novels
* detective
novels: (Sherlock Holmes)
*
serialized novels
* elegies
* poetry: easier to understand
*dramatic monologues
* drama:
comedies of manners
* magazines
offer stories to the masses
Effect:
*
literature begins to reach the masses
Historical Context:
*
paper becomes cheap; magazines and novels cheap to mass produce
*
unprecedented growth of industry and business in Britain
* unparalleled
dominance of nations, economies and
trade abroad
Key Literature/Authors:
*
Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy , Rudyard Kipling, Robert Louis Stevenson,
George Eliot, Oscar Wilde,
Alfred Lord Tennyson, Darwin, Charlotte Bronte, Robert Browning
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