1. Nineteenth Century Literature Steam, Scribes & Sex

2. “Nineteenth Century”  The chronology: 1801-1900 –Mathematically correct, culturally and artistically unhelpful.  The character and characteristic) of the period:  “The Victorian Age”  1837-1901, the years of the reign of Queen Victoria. –(1801-1836: “The Romantic Period”)

3. The Romantics (to 1836)  “the poets”  “O wind! O Time! Thou are fair and full of my delight! How I love Thee!”  Lord Byron  (“Mad, bad & dangerous to know”)

4. Queen Victoria: 1837 and 1897

5. Victoria the Matriarch  The Queen gave her force of character to the Age; and the Age looked to its Matriarch for its character.  Longman Anthology, p. xxvii and p.1099- 1102. –“Victoria stood not only for England and Empire, but also for Duty, Family and Propriety.”

6. Queen Victoria in Canada  Canada is the Victorian colony. –1867 is the year of our Confederation –Victoria’s father – the unlikeable Duke of Kent – was in Canada from 1791 to 1802 as Commander in Chief. Lived for twenty years with a French-Canadian mistress. –Victoria is still in Canada: Victoria, Alberta, New Westminster, Prince Albert

7. Literature of the Age  Universal readership: Mass press and mass literacy.  Major writers— such as Charles Dickens, Alfred Tennyson, Rudyard Kipling—were in effect read by every man, woman and child in Britain.  No difference between genres of reading: –Novels, poetry, and prose essays were read indiscriminately for pleasure, instruction and argument. (Longman, p.xxiii)

8. Age of Variety and Change  An almost impossible variety of literary styles and violence of change. –“The novel” is, if not invented, defined in the Victorian years.  Age of Darwin and Marx; of Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper.  Age of the ‘blood’ - Penny Dreadfuls –1 st comics & graphic novels  Industrial Revolution  Urbanisation  Faith and Disbelief  social upheaval of the Reform Bills (up to 80% increase in eligible voters) leading to universal franchise by 1920.  Age of steam and gas.  Suffragism (Longman p.1198)

9. Victorian cultural cool  I’ve lived to see Victorianism become cool: –Steampunk –‘Sweeny Todd’ –From Hell –League of Extraordinary Gentlemen –‘Steamboy’ –Sherlock Holmes

10. Pop-culture fallacies of Victorians  Misconceptions about Victorian attitudes to Sex. –A reflection of our Age’s own neuroses  Victoria did not say about sexual intercourse to her daughter, “shut your eyes and think of England.”  Victorian ladies did not put little covers over the legs of their pianos.  Victorian ladies did not have to say “limb” instead of “leg.”  The Victorians did have the opposite erotic sensibility to our Ages.  We find (apparently) eroticism in openness, offer and display.  They found eroticism in hiddenness, promise, the mock-forbidden.  This is not hypocrisy; it is a shared social and cultural understanding.