history of english literature

Victorian Era & Pre-Raphaelites

by : Group 9
Linda Sugianti
Axel Mustafa A
 biography
• Full name: Alexandrina Victoria.
• Born on May 24, 1819 at Kensinton Palace, London,
England.
• Grandparents: King George III and Queen Charlotte.
•Parents:
Father: Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn,
Mother: Princess Victoria, Duchess of Kent.
Husband: Prince Albert, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and
Gotha
History of the Social Background of Victorian Period English Society

The Victorian era in British history was the period of

Queen Victoria's reign from June 20, 1837, until her
death on January 22, 1901. This era was marked by a
long period of peace, prosperity, Britain's
international dominance, and a strong national
confidence among its citizens. Some experts believe
that Britain's political success during the Victorian
era began after the passing of the Reform Act of
1832. This era was preceded by the George era and
followed by the Edward era.
The Crimean War (1854) Boer War (1899)
Social Class

The social classes of this era included the Upper

class, Middle class, and lower class. This class was
divided into three subcategories: Royal, those who
came from a royal family, Middle Upper, important
officers and lords, and Lower Upper, wealthy men
and business owners (Victorian England Social
Hierarchy).
Crime & Child Labor

The working class were often desperate for

money and food which saw them resort to
opportunistic crimes like theft. London was
becoming greatly overcrowded which gave
thieves ample targets. Most thieves were young
males
Children took on hard-working jobs as coal
miners, chimney sweepers, farm workers and
domestic servants. Some children were even
forced to take on the role of a railroad worker
due to the invention of The Railway brought by
the Industrial Revolution.
Education

Education in Victorian England remained mostly for children

from upper-class backgrounds. Most children did not attend
school and went out to work and earn money for their families.
Literature

The unprecedented growth

was due in part to the
spread of education, the
rise of the middle class,
and the proliferation of
more affordable reading
Reading-room of the British Museum materials.
the elementary
education act of
1870
 PENNY BLOOD
Originally used in reference to a specific type of
literature circulating in mid-Victorian Britain
 Beginning in the mid-19th century, the
invention of the rotary printing machine
made printing possible on an industrial
scale. The sheer volume and diversity of
printed materials is revolutionary,
reaching a wider audience than ever
before.

Rotary Printing Press. 19th Century

Prose
The Victorian age is known as the age of prose because it was a
time when prose literature flourished. During the Victorian era,
there was a significant increase in the production and
consumption of prose fiction, non-fiction, and journalism. This
period saw the rise of the novel as a popular form of literature,
with authors such as Charles Dickens, the Brontë sisters, and
George Eliot producing works that are still widely read and
studied today. Additionally, the Victorian age was a time of
great social change and literary innovation, and prose was a key
medium through which writers explored and commented on
the issues of the time.
Important Authors and Literature
Charles Dickens

using his writings as a means to defend the vulnerable people

of the Victorian Era and criticize the societal structure of the
time, he was also a huge contributor to several important
social reforms.
The social conscious he developed in his adult years led to
some of the most influential pieces of literature the Victorian
Era had seen, such as Great Expectations, The Pickwick
Papers, Oliver Twist, and many more.
Important Authors and Literature
Thomas Hardy

One of the first “realist” novelists of the Victorian Era. His

use of powerful emotions and pessimistic views was highly
criticized because no one had ever read something like it
before. Most novelists up to Hardy’s point were laid-back,
accepting-natured optimists.
His novels: The Return of The Native, Far from the Madding
Crowd, and Tess of the d’Urbervilles.
Hardy considered a social critic of sorts, identifying the low
standards of living that the poor endured in the industrial
cities.
Important Authors and Literature
George Elliot

George Elliot was a third author who used literature not

simply just to entertain, but also to inform people of the
conditions of people in the society around her. George
used her stories to study how environments, especially
social environments, affect people and their character.
The book, The Mill on the Floss was taken and modeled
from her real life experience of being rejected by her
friends and family for her common-law marriage.
Charles Dickens Karl Marx Lewis Carrol Charles Darwin Oscar Wilde
Poetry

Prior to the Victorian Era, poetry had been the dominant

form of literature. However, changes in class structure
saw the novel rise in popularity. As the middle class
expanded and more people became literate, the
popularity of the novel exploded. These works also
became more accessible as a result of the Industrial
Revolution and the expansion of newspapers and the
periodical press.
Main features of Victorian poetry
1. Romanticism and Realism
2. Social and Political Commentary
3. Moral and Ethical Concerns
4. Religion and Spirituality
5. Nature and the Sublime
6. The Sonnet
7. Use of Symbolism and Allegory
8. Personal Expression and Confessional Poetry
9. Long Narrative Poems
10. Love and Sentiment
11. Experimentation with Form
Notable poets during this period include:

Alferd Lord Tennyson Robert Browning Christina Rossetti William Morris

Blank Verse Paulin Goblin Market Devence of Guinevere
PRE - RAPHAELITES
 PRE - RAPHAELITES

Pre-Raphaelites was a group founded in 1848 of young British

painters, led by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt, and
John Everett Millais, who banded together in 1848 in reaction
against what they considered the unimaginative and artificial
historical painting of the 18th and early 19th centuries, seeking to
Dante Gabriel Rossetti William Holman Hunt express a new moral seriousness and sincerity in their works. Their
name, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, honoured the simple
depiction of nature in Italian art before Raphael; the symbolism,
imagery, and mannered style of their paintings often suggest a faux-
medieval world. Later members included Edward Burne-Jones and
George Frederic Watts (1817–1904). The group also functioned as a
school of writers who often used medieval settings, sometimes with
shocking effect, as in William Morris’s The Defence of Guenevere
(1858), which deals with issues of love and sex. Though active less
than 10 years, the group had a profound influence on the arts.

John Everett Millais

History
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded in
John Millais's parents' house on Gower Street,
London in 1848. At the first meeting, the painters
John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and
William Holman Hunt were present. Hunt and Millais
were students at the Royal Academy of Arts and had
met in another loose association, the Cyclographic
Club, a sketching society.

As an aspiring poet, Rossetti wished to develop the

links between Romantic poetry and art. By autumn,
four more members, painters James Collinson and
Frederic George Stephens, Rossetti's brother, poet
and critic William Michael Rossetti, and sculptor
Illustration by Holman Hunt of Thomas Woolner's
Thomas Woolner, had joined to form a seven-
poem "My Beautiful Lady", published in The Germ,
member-strong brotherhood.
1850
 pre raphaelites charcteristic
The values of the Brotherhood are expressed well in the
principles set forth by its founding members. The tenets put
forward by William Michael Rossetti as the principles of the
Brotherhood were:
• have genuine ideas
• pay attention to nature attentively
• focus on what is direct and serious in art from the past
• avoid what is conventional, inauthentic, and repetitive
• create good art

The Brotherhood believed that the artist should be free to

form their own conventions and ways of representation. A
remarkable feature of Pre-Raphaelite paintings and literature
was their ability to combine mysticism, elements from
nature, and intertextual symbols inspired by art and Rossetti's eighth and final version of Proserpine,
literature from the past. Like Pre-Raphaelite art, Pre- now in the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
Raphaelite poetry is known for its symbolism, rhymes, and (1882)
themes that bordered on the grotesque.
 Pre-Raphaelite poetry
The Pre-Raphaelite poets include Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Christina Rosetti, and William
Morris. The poetry of Dante Gabriel Rosetti continues to be the subject of scholarly
investigation. Like their art, Pre-Raphaelite poetry was also criticised for its
unconventionality, spirit of decadence, and evocative language. True to its name, Pre-
Raphaelite poetry bore similarities to medieval sonnets and ballads, combined with
sensuousness and decadence espoused by the movement.
Other examples of Pre-Raphaelite poetry:
• "My Sister's Sleep,” “The Blessed Damozel,” “Jenny,” “Dante at Verona,”
“A Last Confession", “On Mary's Portrait,” “Ave,” “The Bride's Prelude,” by
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, published between 1847 and 1848
• "The Earthly Paradise" (1868-70) and "The Defence of Guenevere" (1858)
by William Morris
• Poems and Ballads (1866) by Algernon Charles Swinburne include
sensational poems like "Hymn to Proserpine" and "The Triumph of Time".
 7 Pre-Raphaelites & Their
Famous Artworks
1) John Everett Millais, 1829-1896 John Everett Millais was an English painter and illustrator who was
one of the founders and leading members of the Pre-Raphaelites.
He was born into a comfortable, middle-class military family. At
the age of eleven, he attended the Royal Academy of London. In
1848, Millais founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood along with
his fellow students William Holman Hunt and Dante Gabriel
Rossetti. Later, in 1896, Millais was elected president of the Royal
Academy, where he excelled as a student.
His masterpiece Ophelia was meant to become one of the most
famous paintings in British art that transformed the landscape
genre. It is based on Shakespeare’s play ‘Hamlet’ and features the
scene of Ophelia’s death. It shows the moment after Hamlet
murdered Ophelia’s father, and she let herself fall into the river.
Ophelia by John Everett Millais, 1851, via Tate Millais was the first artist to depict Ophelia in the process of
Museum, London drowning. His model was the 19-year-old Elizabeth Siddal, who
later became Rossetti’s wife. The painter sought to bring
naturalism and realistic detail back to painting while portraying the
tragic heroine floating in the water with her palms upturned.
2) Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1828 – 1882
Named after the Italian poet Dante Alighieri, Dante Gabriel
Rossetti was born in London. Rossetti was of Italian descent,
the son of a political refugee from Italy. Throughout his life,
he was divided between poetry and arts, his two passions.
Rossetti dropped out of the Royal Academy school,
choosing instead to study with working painters. Thus, in
1848, he became the third founding member of the Pre-
Raphaelites. He and the rest of the brotherhood were against
industrialization and mechanization while leaning towards
idealism.
The theme of the painting is derived from Dante Alighieri’s
poem La Vita Nuova (The New Life). In the poem, Dante
Alighieri dreams of being led by the personified figure of
Dante’s Dream on the Day of the Death of Beatrice Love to his lover, Beatrice Portinari. The model for the
by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1880, via National woman on the right was Marie Spartali Stillman, a great
Museums Liverpool female artist who was also inspired by the Pre-Raphaelites.
3) William Holman Hunt, 1827–1910

Hunt painted a very radical painting in the 19th century, called The
Awakening Conscience. The painting features a young girl sitting on
the lap of her lover. She seems to have just woken up. She looks like
a woman at a moment of redemption. A bird behind her trying to fly
out of the window symbolizes her will to escape too.

In the years of the Victorian Era in London, sex workers appeared as

marginal figures in novels and illustrations. Especially amongst the
middle classes, prostitution represented a fiercely debated issue.
The Awakening Conscience mirrored the relationships that the Pre-
Raphaelites were developing with working-class women as both
models and mistresses.

The Awakening Conscience by William Holman

Hunt, 1853, via Tate Museum, London
 4) Ford Madox Brown, 1821 – 1893

Ford Madox Brown was one of the pioneering Pre-

Raphaelites artists of the 19th century. He wasn’t a fully-
fledged member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood but
rather a close associate and supportive older brother.

The most extraordinary Pre-Raphaelite painting of a

landscape is his work An English Autumn Afternoon. He
completed it within three years, looking out of the back
window of his lodgings in Hampstead. Every single detail
that was visible out of that rear window can be seen on this
canvas. That immediacy of vision, almost a kind of
photographic process, is what makes this painting so
An English Autumn Afternoon by Ford Madox
striking.
Brown, 1852-1853, via Birmingham Museum
 5) Edward Burne-Jones, 1833 – 1898
Born in 1833 during the Industrial Revolution, Jones was the
last of the Pre-Raphaelites. He didn’t finish his studies at
Oxford University, choosing instead to study art with
Rossetti. That was the closest he ever got to formal art
training. He was fascinated by medieval literature, history,
legends, and fairytales of the past. Also, he was less
interested in the naturalism that had marked earlier years of
the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

He got the inspiration for his painting, Love Among the

Ruins from a poem by Robert Browning. This painting by the
late Pre-Raphaelite artist features two lovers seated among
the decaying ruins of a building.
Love among the Ruins by Edward Burne-Jones, 1870–
3, via Tate Museum, London
6) John William Waterhouse, 1849 – 1917 Born in Rome, John William Waterhouse’s two British
parents were both painters, William and Isabella
Waterhouse. Waterhouse was an English painter, who was
influenced by the work of the Pre-Raphaelites. Although he
worked several years after the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood,
he borrowed stylistic influences that he later incorporated
into his own paintings.

Waterhouse’s interpretation of Alfred Tennyson’s poem

about the Arthurian legend is an iconic example of this. In
his most famous painting, The Lady of Shalott, he portrays
the story of a woman who suffers from a curse. The painting
itself serves as a defense of the Pre-Raphaelite movement.
Based on a poem by Alfred Tennyson, set in the times of the
legendary King Arthur and the medieval city of Camelot. In
The Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse, the Victorian Era in Britain, this subject of tragic love was
1888, via Tate Museum, London very common among the artists, especially in the poem of
Tennyson.
7) Frederic George Stephens, 1827 – 1907

Born in the area of Cornhill, in London, Frederic was taught

partly in university and partly by a private tutor. He become an
original member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, one that
worked both as an artist and a published writer.

Stephens also found inspiration in many medieval myths and

tales. The only fully finished original painting by Stephens that
has survived is The Proposal. He was influenced by the
Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer, particularly The Clerk’s
Tale. Stephens started painting the work during a trip with
William Holman Hunt and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

The Proposal (The Marquis and Griselda) by Frederic

George Stephens, 1850, via TateMuseumm, London
QUIZ TIME !!
Sources:
www.bl.uk
www.rct.uk
www.history.com
www.britannica.com
https://loc.getarchive.net
https://writersinspire.org
www.english-heritage.org.uk
https://wellcomecollection.org
www.oxfordbibliographies.com