Victorian Age&

20th Century

What happened in the VictorianAge?

1830-1900

Ø 1837 Start of Queen Victoria’s reign

Ø‘the sun never sets on England’

ØHuge growth of cities

ØHuge growth of social problems

This resulted in:

ØBig difference between rich and poor

Ø 1.5 million unemployed people on poor

relief

ØGradual political reform

Child Labour

Schools were bad too

DARWINØ1859 Darwin “Origin of

Species”

ØDiscoveries in geology

Literature

Ø Literacy rose from40 % to 90%

Ø Problems in society

Ø Instalment system

REALISM

Themes in novels

Ø Morality

Ø The treatment of children

Ø Romance

Ø‘growing disillusionment with traditionalmoral values’

.The novel

Didactic rather than a formof personal expression

Social rather thanindividual

PoetryØ Uncertainty and spiritual doubt

Ø Struggle of humans against indifferentnatural forces

Ø Dramatic monologue

What happened in the 20 th

century?Ø 1914-1918 WW1

Ø 1929 Wall Street Crash

Ø 1940-1945 WW2

Ø By 1950 welfare state

Ø 1960s centre of culture

Ø 1970s economic crisis

Ø 1979 Thatcher (until 1990)

Ø 1982 Falklands war

Literature

After WW 1: disillus ionment

After WW 2 ‘little Englandism’

70s &80s : Pos tmodernism

Literature in English

Literary Genres

Ø Theatre of theabsurd

Ø Stream-of-consciousness

Ø Dystopian novels