British Literary Eras: Romanticism and Victorian Masterpieces

Posted on Sep 13, 2025 in English Language and Literature

Romanticism (c. 1780s-1830s)

Romantic poets often exhibited narcissistic tendencies, emphasizing the landscape as a reflection of themselves. They focused on the individual, imagination (often related to the evasion to a perfect world), and the presence of children, particularly in relation to innocence. Romanticism is deeply connected to the poetry of consciousness, national identity, the self, and nature.

There are distinct generations of Romantic poets:

  • Early Romantic Poets: William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
  • Later Romantic Poets: Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats.

(Note: The ‘B’ in the original text likely referred to Lyrical Ballads, a foundational work by Wordsworth and Coleridge.)

William Blake

The Chimney Sweeper

Child labor was a widely discussed topic in Blake’s time. In 1788, an Act was passed for the better regulation of Chimney Sweepers, a topic Blake reflects in this poem.

  • Rhyme Scheme: AABB, except in irregular lines; often features imperfect rhymes.
  • Structure: Divided into two parts: the first three stanzas and the last three stanzas.
  • Stanza 3: A vision marks the division between the first and second parts.
  • Symbolism: Tom cries when his head is shaved, symbolizing the loss of his innocence. His hair was curled “like the wool of a Lamb.”
  • Critique of Religion: Blake criticizes the role of the church, which he sees as abusing children by promising restoration only after death.
  • Hope vs. Despair: While there is still hope in this poem (from Songs of Innocence), in Songs of Experience, there is often no redemption or salvation.

William Wordsworth

Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey

Wordsworth explores the idea that first experiences can only be truly felt once. When recalling happy moments, the feeling is not the same as the initial experience. Similarly, when writing poetry about a memory, one is not reliving the original ‘first experience’ feelings.

  • Length: 159 lines.
  • Form: Blank verse, primarily iambic pentameter.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Coleridge employs archaism (highly rhetorical language), favoring musical effect over the plainness of common speech, a style distinct from Wordsworth’s. The poem emphasizes imagination and the rural world, but also incorporates exotic elements, a gothic landscape, and the sublime (finding pleasure in what is not classically beautiful).

  • Structure: Divided into 7 parts/sections.
  • Form: Structured as a ballad.
  • Rhyme Scheme: ABCCB (quinces) and ABCB (quatrains).
  • Choice of Form: A ballad was chosen over blank verse because it tells a story related to the past, when stories were often told orally.
  • Musicality: Coleridge uses punctuation to enhance the poem’s musicality.
  • The Mariner: A strange, gothic figure, resembling a ghost due to his physical description.
  • Symbolism: The Albatross represents salvation.

Lord Byron

Don Juan

Byron challenges societal norms and breaks boundaries, often mocking the traditional figure of Don Juan, who appears here as a weak character. In this mock-epic poem, Don Juan is seduced by women, rather than being the seducer.

  • Structure: Mock-epic, featuring an unconventional hero.
  • Stanza Form: Ottava Rima (8 lines rhyming ABABABCC).
  • Bathos: The final couplet (‘CC’) is often used for bathos, summarizing ideas or shifting tone.
  • Meter: Iambic pentameter.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Ozymandias

This sonnet deviates from both Petrarchan and Shakespearean traditions. It features an octet and a sestet, rhyming ABABACDC + EDEF EF.

  • Theme: Represents the passing of time (like sand in an hourglass).
  • Classical Allusions:
    • Ubi Sunt: A meditation on mortality, questioning “where are those who were?”
    • Memento Mori: A reminder that “you must die.”
    • Vanitas Vanitatis: Reflects the “vanity of vanities” – the ephemeral nature of political power and human existence.
  • Art’s Endurance: Art, in general, is depicted as bound to last forever.

Ode to the West Wind

Shelley employs a distinct stanzaic structure in this poem, utilizing Terza Rima. The poem consists of five main parts, each with five stanzas composed of four triplets plus one couplet.

  • Rhyme Scheme: ABA BCB CDC DED EE.
  • Meter: Iambic pentameter.

John Keats

La Belle Dame Sans Merci

This poem comprises 12 stanzas, each a quatrain, alternating iambic tetrameters and dimeters. In some stanzas, Keats was influenced by Coleridge, employing a very rhetorical language.

  • Narrative: The lady, a femme fatale, seduces the knight into her cave and then abandons him. She rides the horse, taking him to her cave.
  • Themes: Images of unrequited love and the poet’s own sadness.
  • Negative Capability: Keats demonstrates “negative capability,” the poet’s ability to distance himself from the poem and describe personal feelings through another character, in this case, the knight.

Victorian Poetry

Victorian poetry was not only a means of expression but also a common exercise, with poets writing extensively and experimenting with many genres. Key figures include Alfred Lord Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, and the Pre-Raphaelites.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

The Lady of Shalott

This ballad uses a rhyme scheme of AAAABCCCB and is written in the present tense.

  • Structure: The first two parts show how the world perceives the Lady, while the last two parts show how she perceives the world.
  • Themes:
    • A warning against women’s involvement in the public sphere; a woman who ventures outside her private domain may face death or social ostracization.
    • The concealment of women in the private sphere.
    • The artist’s struggle: when the Lady engages with society as an artist, she is ignored because of her gender.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Aurora Leigh

This novel-poem is an unconventional epic about an ordinary girl’s journey from childhood to adulthood (a bildungsroman).

  • Form: Blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameters).
  • Themes: Criticizes prostitution and empathizes with “fallen women” as victims of society, challenging and deconstructing the genre from a female perspective.

Robert Browning

My Last Duchess

This is a dramatic monologue, a form related to lyrical monologues and monodramas. It requires the reader to infer information from gaps in the speaker’s narrative, often implying an unseen “auditor.”

Female Utopias

This concept refers to:

  • Worlds colonized by women.
  • Escapist worlds.
  • Worlds that criticize present reality.

Charlotte Brontë

Jane Eyre

A Gothic Melodrama, Jane Eyre features the “double I” – Jane Eyre speaking both as a child and as the author. It includes metafictional digressions and explores racial undertones towards Bertha. Sensational scenes were particularly appreciated by contemporary audiences.

Neovictorianism: This term refers to works inspired by 19th-century novels, aiming to raise social concerns hidden in those earlier works, unveil hidden stories of secondary characters, or invent modern plots. The stereotype of the first wife being locked away while the second is “perfect” was not an isolated idea in 19th-century society.

  • Rochester: Portrayed as a Byronic Hero – a womanizer, not a conventional hero.
  • Alter Egos: Helen Burns and Bertha Mason can be seen as alter egos of Jane Eyre. Bertha is physically locked away, mirroring Jane’s own feelings of confinement indoors.

Charles Dickens

Hard Times

Dickens critiques Utilitarianism, the philosophy that people should seek happiness and pursue the greatest good for the greatest number. The novel questions what a person should do and what is right or wrong in society.

  • Louisa’s Marriage: Presented as benefiting the greatest number of people in the novel, aligning with utilitarian principles.
  • Education: The children’s education is based solely on facts, intended to raise individuals who would ensure the best society.
  • Fact vs. Fancy: The novel highlights the detrimental influence of factual education over imaginative education on character development.
  • Divorce Laws: Critiques unhappy marriages and the invalidity of the institution.
  • Coketown: Depicted as a dystopian place due to industrialism and utilitarianism.
  • Structure: A tripartite structure based on the biblical line: “For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” This structure serves as a criticism against utilitarianism.

Melodrama

Melodrama aims to be a theatrical response to a world where things go wrong, providing an emotional rather than an intellectual response. This is why it features incidental music and exaggerated acting styles. While it reflects reality, it is not a realistic genre, often filled with clear “goodies vs. baddies” and stock characters. Secondary characters often serve as humorous confidantes (e.g., servants, relatives).

Richard Peake

Presumption; or, The Fate of Frankenstein

This play is a prime example of gothic melodrama, reflecting the problems of 18th-century characters. Irony is used to release tension, and rhythm is very important. It was notable for being one of the first productions to feature two actors performing the two sides of Frankenstein. In the play, the character of Frankenstein does not have a name.

  • Galvanism: Explores the concept of galvanism (electricity and muscles).
  • Characters:
    • Elizabeth: Frankenstein’s sister.
    • Setting: Geneva and its vicinity.
    • Fritz: The nervous servant. He plays an important intermediary function, rarely participating directly in the plot but facilitating it through his quickness.
  • Adaptation Choices: The philosophical digressions of Frankenstein and the framing narrative are removed in the play. Characters speak for themselves, telling their own stories.
  • Character Depth: In Presumption, characters are often stock figures, contrasting with the more psychologically developed characters found in plays like Caste.

Thomas William Robertson

Caste

Robertson’s Caste is characterized by:

  • Elaborate descriptions of setting and costume.
  • Detailed stage directions, including gestures and positions on stage.
  • Emphasis on adequate rehearsal to stress performances.
  • A focus on presenting “slices of life” through indoor scenes, depicting the real lives of real people in detail on stage.
  • Stage directions that guide the reader.
  • A more naturalistic acting style.
  • A shift in focus to the plot of the play, rather than spectacularity.

Despite these elements, Caste cannot be fully labeled as a realistic play because audience interest had changed. The move away from “three-bill plays” allowed for longer, more naturalistic productions. To raise the respectability of the audience, ticket prices were increased, aiming to attract a more respectable, middle-class audience. The play features a love plot and realistic settings from the middle classes, with lapses of real time between acts and very long, detailed stage directions. Domesticity, such as drinking tea, is depicted. However, it is not a purely realistic play due to its sentimental ending.