Victorian Literature

Front 1

What did Sir Henry Holland call the Victorian era?

Back 1

"an age of transition"

Front 2

Talairach-Vielmas' view of female characters in Victorian lit?

Back 2

"Female characters are more often than not buried alive when they threaten the Victorian status quo, even if only symbolically"

Front 3

What are "two sides of the same thing" according to Spencer?

Back 3

"wealth and respectability are two sides of the same thing"

Front 4

What do Hughes and Lund say of serial stories?

Back 4

"Readers repeatedly were forced to set aside a continuing story and resume everyday life"

Front 5

Arnold's definition of culture?

Back 5

"[Culture is] the best which has been thought and said"

Front 6

Stuart Mille's analysis of the era?

Back 6

"mankind have outgrown old institutions and old doctrines, and have not acquired new ones"

Front 7

Macaulay said: "As civilisation advances...

Back 7

"...poetry almost necessarily declines"

Front 8

Pykett's opinion of the readers of Wilkie Collins

Back 8

"feminised domain of popular culture"

Front 9

Spencer arguing for 'The Social Organism' over the 'Great Man' theory

Back 9

"...such social changes as are immediately traceable to individuals of unusual power, are still remotely traceable to the social causes which produced these individuals"

Front 10

Eliot on power of social changes

Back 10

"For there is no creature whose inward being is so strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies outside it" (MIDDLEMARCH)

Front 11

Fichte's view of power of language

Back 11

"Men are formed by language far more than language is formed by men"

Front 12

Gissing on 'the London poor'

Back 12

"The London poor, least original and least articulate beings within the confines of civilisation"

Front 13

Wells on the fear of degenerating language

Back 13

"Imagine language, once clear-cut and exact... losing shape and import, becoming mere lumps of sound again" (THE ISLAND OF DR MOREAU)

Front 14

Stepan's analysis of Victorian view of race

Back 14

"[For many Victorians] fixed and distinct racial types provided the key to human history and destiny"

Front 15

Kingsley's nationalistic declaration in 'ALTON LOCKE'

Back 15

"...for I, too, was a man, and an Englishman"

Front 16

H.R.Haggard's book that legitimises the subjugation of Zulu culture

Back 16

NADA THE LILY

Front 17

What happens to Allen's 'THE REVEREND JOHN CREEDY'

Back 17

"Instinct had gained the day over civilisation; the savage in John Creedy had broken out"

Front 18

Trilling's memorable phrase on the impact of whispers in the air etc.

Back 18

"huge unrecorded hum of implication"

Front 19

Simpson's view of Dickens' characters

Back 19

"characters who evidence an abdication or enforced loss of the essential or inward self in favour of outward attributes"

Front 20

Thackeray's description of the age?

Back 20

"age of steam"

Front 21

Literary Exahustion - how important is literature to us?

Back 21

"the novels we eat are becoming as important to us as the water we drink or the food we eat"

Front 22

Gosse's views on the extinction of certain animals

Back 22

"...the sentence if gone forth against them; that their sands are running to the last grains, and that no effort of ours can materially prolong their existence"

Front 23

Bordin on New Women

Back 23

"The term New Woman always referred to women who exercised control over their own lives be it personal, social or economic"

Front 24

Adams: what has "Victorian" become a byword for?

Back 24

"'Victorian' has become a byword for a religious moralism centred on sexual repression"

Front 25

From Smiles' 'Self Help' book

Back 25

"Every human being has a great mission to perform"

Front 26

Jones re. Wilde's fairy tales

Back 26

"paradoxical dynamic between physical beauty and moral repugnance"

Front 27

Murray on the cost of art and beauty

Back 27

"The cost of art and beauty torments the Victorian poets; they are aware that their private vision is built on the poverty and suffering of others"

Front 28

Mill on humans and social flexibility

Back 28

"that human beings are no longer born to their place in life..."

Front 29

Houghton on the rising levels of work

Back 29

"To live in this dynamic, free-wheeling society was to feel the enormous pressure of work"

Front 30

Houghton on social flexibility

Back 30

"When class lines broke down and it became possible as never before to rise in the world by one's own strenuous efforts"

Front 31

Which struggles complemented each other?

Back 31

"the struggle for success was complemented by the struggle for rank" (Houghton again)

Front 32

What two tempos massively increased?

Back 32

"tempo of work" and "tempo of living"

Front 33

What did Greg say of the pace of life in his article 'Life at High Pressure' in 1875?

Back 33

"a life filled so full... that we have no time to reflect"

Front 34

Eliot's view of idleness in Adam Bede

Back 34

"even idleness is eager now"

Front 35

What Arnold (thomas) call the age?

Back 35

"an age of disquietude and doubt"

Front 36

Houghton's description of the many different religions and theories at the time

Back 36

"a hubbub of contending theories"

Front 37

Houghton's description of the Victorian optimism

Back 37

"it never occurred to them to doubt their capacity to arrive at the truth"

Front 38

Mill on people's opinions

Back 38

"The men of the present day rather incline to an opinion than embrace it"

Front 39

Houghton's description of the dichotomy of the Victorian state of mind

Back 39

"hope and dismay, optimism and anxiety"

Front 40

Osborne's opinion of social class in Thackeray's Vanity Fair

Back 40

"good society can never go wrong"

Front 41

The Reluctant Rocket's arrogant statement

Back 41

"It may be so with you... but with me it is different"

Front 42

The Swallow's misogyny

Back 42

"...I love travelling, and my wife, consequently should love travelling also"

Front 43

The Student's view of pragmatism

Back 43

"in this age to be practical is everything"

Front 44

Wilde's view of altruism in 'The Soul of Many Under Socialism'

Back 44

"unhealthy and exaggerated altruism"

Front 45

The description of the consumptive in 'The Time Machine'

Back 45

"His flushed face reminded me of the more beautiful kind of consumptive - that hectic beauty of which we used to hear so much"

Front 46

Depressing idea of the lack of afterlife in 'In Memoriam'

Back 46

"rubbish to the void" (LIV)

Front 47

Despairing powerlessness in 'In Memoriam'

Back 47

"My words are only words"

Front 48

Despairing question in 'In Memoriam'

Back 48

"What hope of answer or redress?" (LVI)

Front 49

The Woman in White's view of what women can't resist

Back 49

"They cannot resist a man's tongue when he knows how to talk to them"

Front 50

The Woman in White's gross view of Marian's lack of corset

Back 50

"visibly and delightfully undeformed by stays"

Front 51

'Peace' passage from 'In Memoriam'

Back 51

Peace; come away: the song of woe

Is after all an earthly song:

Peace; come away: we do him wrong

To sing so wildly: let us go.

(LVIII)