1. Victorian Literature and Globalization
Georgetown University / English Department
Fall 2015
N. Hensley /
Marielle Hampe /
NH Office Hours: 316 New North, T, 1:30-3, Th, 3-4 , and by appt.
MH Office Hours: W 2-4 Midnight Mug

2. What is “Victorian Literature”?
Boom of print culture
“Rise of the novel”
“Modernization”
Legacy of the Romantics ( )

3. What is “globalization”?

4. George Cruikshank,
The British Beehive, 1867, etching

5. Free Trade / World Markets
“Free-trade … will act on the moral world as the principle of gravitation on the universe, drawing men together, thrusting aside antagonism of race, and creed, and language, and uniting us in the bonds of eternal peace.” --Richard Cobden, British MP, Speeches (1846)
“It is the business of government to open and to secure the roads for the merchant” --Lord Palmerston to Aukland 22 January 1841

6. Karl Marx, The Grundrisse (1857-8)
“Thus while capital must on the one side strive to tear down every spatial barrier to intercourse, i.e. to exchange, it strives on the other side to annihilate this space with time, i.e. to reduce to a minimum the time spent in motion from one place to another. The more developed the capital, therefore, the more extensive the market over which it circulates, which forms the spatial orbit of its circulation, the more does it strive for…. an even greater extension of the market and for greater annihilation of space by time.” (539).

7. The Nemesis destroying Chinese war junks during the Second Battle of Chuenpee, 7 January 1841,
First Opium War ( )

8. By 1900: ¼ of globe’s surface ruled formally by England (“informal
empire” was larger).
400 million people formally subject to British sovereignty; more under “influence”

9. William Booth, In Darkest England, and the Way Out. (1890)

10. Political / Economic / Experiential, yes, but also… New Forms and Genres

11. 1886

12. Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)
Poet Laureate

14. Crimean War,
Russia vs. France, Britain, Ottoman Empire, & Kingdom of Sardinia

16. Roger Fenton, Valley of the Shadow of Death, 1855

17. “The Charge of the Light Brigade”
Meter: Dactylic: / U U
Story circulated by telegraph, newspaper
Drafts of poem circulated by telegraph & penny post
Published, after being typeset and reformatted, in The Examiner newspaper

20. What is a dactyl? (“finger”)

21. Changes.
Notice three sets of handwriting: the main body is in Emily Tennyson’s hand, Alfred’s wife; the title, alterations and note is in Alfred Tennyson’s hand and the note to the left of the title is in his publisher’s hand. This is the second version. P60 The Charge of the Light Brigade, cm. MS Single sheet folded. Copy in Emily, Lady Tennyson’s hand, with corrections and alterations in AT’s hand.

22. More changes.

23. Yet more changes.

24. “Charge of the Light Brigade,” as read by Tennyson and recorded on wax cylinder, c. 1890