Victorian Poetry and Fiction

The years 1837-1901 in which Queen Victoria reigned were highly influential in the development of modern literature; the period absorbed the early-nineteenth century works of the Romantics and the satirical novels of Jane Austen, and, in the legacy left behind by the Victorian novelists, paved the way for the creation of twentieth-century Modernist texts. The era saw great change and upheaval in numerous momentous events such as the scientific publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859) and the steady expansion of the British Empire. These influential factors worked their way into the writing of the period, and it is possible to view Victorian literature as a textual catalogue of imaginative responses that answer the shattering, disruptive polemics that raged across the period. The novel became the leading form of literature and realism the predominant literary genre, evident in the immensely popular works of Charles Dickens, George Eliot, and Thomas Hardy. Read more