english 6175 - victorian literature @ east carolina u.

Mini-lecture 03: "Victoria's Early Reign 1837 - 1861"

Mini-lecture 03: "Victoria's Early Reign 1837 - 1861"

Scope: Victoria came to the throne in 1837 at the age of eighteen. Her predecessors, George III. George IV, and William IV, had been unimpressive and had impaired the reputation of the monarchy. By her authority and example, she restored its reputation and dignity. embodying the era’s mood of moral improvement. Along with her husband, Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, whom she married in 1840, Victoria made the most of what limited political power and influence the monarchy still retained, communicating regularly with her prime ministers. She bore nine children and enjoyed many of the material advantages of the industrial age. Her husband’s death in 1861 was, to her, a shattering catastrophe.

Click here for a printable, PDF version of the following outline

.

(39 minutes)

Download mini_lecture_03_victorias_early_reign.mp3

Outline

Victoria became queen at the age of eighteen, succeeding her uncle, William IV.

A. Born in 1819, Victoria did not seem likely, at first, to be heir to the throne. She was the daughter of George IV’s younger brother, the Duke of Kent.

1. Her father died when she was less than a year old.

2. Her mother, a minor German princess, was left with only a tiny allowance.

3. When William IV’s legitimate children all died in infancy, the government realized that Victoria was the probable heir and gave her and her mother a much larger income.

4. Victoria was fluent in German and French, written and spoken; understood Italian; was a regular diarist; and was familiar with many of England’s stately and aristocratic houses.

5. Most of her childhood was lonely. She was close to her governess, Louise Lehzen, but had no friends of her own age.

6. She resented her mother’s scheming with Sir John Conroy to make him regent in the event of her becoming queen when too young to rule.

B. Victoria was notified of her accession early in the morning of June 20, 1837, in her dressing gown, by the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Coyningham, the Lord Chancellor.

C. She relied on the advice of Whig Prime Minister Lord Melbourne in her first years as queen.

1. He was a fifty-eight-year-old widower whose wife had been mentally unstable—she had been one of Lord Byron’s lovers.

2. Victoria regarded him as a father figure (she had never known her own father) and they got on extremely well. He trained her to run affairs, and they talked or wrote letters to each other every day.

3. Her superiority over her three predecessors, whom Sir Sidney Lee described as “an imbecile, a profligate, and a buffoon,” soon made her popular among politicians and populace.

D. Victoria was upset when Melbourne resigned in 1839 and furious when Sir Robert Peel, the Tory leader, asked to change her Ladies of the Bedchamher, removing Whigs and adding Tories.

1. Throughout her reign, Victoria resented prime ministers at first but later came to value them—-by 1846 she was a great admirer of Peel.

2. The exception was the great Liberal leader Gladstone, whom she always disliked.

E. Victoria found it difficult to accept that she was now only a constitutional monarch.

1. In the late 1840s, she bitterly disliked Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston because of his opposition to some European monarchs, her relatives.

2. In 1850, she tried to demand that the prime minister, Lord John Russell, dismiss Palmerston or subordinate him to her will, but was unable to prevail.

F. She followed the progress of the Crimean War in 1854—1855 and created the Victoria Cross for gallantry, personally awarding it to common soldiers, as well as officers.

II. Victoria married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, her cousin, in 1840, but showed her determination to be monarch as well as housewife.

A. Albert was earnest and well educated, at the University of Bonn.

B. Victoria’s uncle. King Leopold of the Belgians, had trained Albert for the role of Victoria’s husband.

C. Victoria disliked the idea of marrying Albert but thawed when he came to visit in 1839, because he was handsome, serious, and charming.

D. British dislike of foreigners meant that he was given no official title until 1857 (when he was named Prince-Consort) and was not allowed to have German friends and advisors in his household.

1. At first, Victoria froze Albert out of her political affairs altogether.

2. Albert showed his abilities, however, by rationalizing the chaotic conduct of the royal household.

3. When Victoria was about to give birth for the first time, Albert was admitted to the Privy Council and named regent in the event of her death.

4. British politicians of both parties came to respect Albert, his hard work. active conscience, and high moral tone.

A. They bought and rebuilt two houses, Osborne House, on the Isle of Wight, and Balmoral, in the Scottish highlands, filling both with the most modern heating devices and using modern iron-frame technology.

1. At Balmoral, Victoria sketched, painted, rode, and learned Scottish dances, while Albert tried to learn Gaelic and stalked deer.

2. Victoria later published a book about Balmoral, "Leaves from a Journal of Our Life in the Highlands."

B. Victoria traveled by train in 1842 from London to Windsor—on Brunel’s Great Western Railway.

1. Later, she had a luxurious train built for her frequent travels to southern England and Scotland.

2. Her royal yacht, Victoria and Albert (1842), used brand-new propeller technology instead of paddles.

C. Victoria accepted chloroform to help her in childbirth of Prince Leopold in 1853, the eighth of her nine children.

D. She suffered acute postpartum depression and often flew into rages against Albert, feeling penitent later.

E. She and Prince Albert opened the Great Exhibition, the first world’s fair, in 1851.

IV. Prince Albert’s death in 1861 sent Victoria into a profound depression and withdrawal from society.

A. She continued to have his shaving gear brought to their rooms every morning and his side of their work desk prepared each day.

B. She refused to attend public functions throughout the 1860s and made her prime minister, Lord Palnierston, fear that republicanism would gain ground.

C. She wore mourning for the rest of her life.

D. The Albert Hall, the Albert Memorial, and many other structures still visible today, were built and named in his memory in the 1860s and 1870s.

Essential Reading:
Christopher Hibbert, Queen Victoria: A Personal History.
Stanley Weintraub. Albert, Uncrowned King.

Supplementary Reading:
Lytton Strachey, Queen Victoria.
Juliet Gardiner, Queen Victoria.

Questions for Consideration:

1. What qualities enabled Victoria to revive the popularity of the monarchy?

2. What were the benefits and drawbacks to Britain of maintaining a queen?

Direct Quotatations from Mini-lecture 03

Journal comments after being notified of her accession:

“Since it has pleased providence to place me in this station. I shall do my utmost to fulfill my duty towards my country: I am very young and perhaps in many, though not in all things, inexperienced, but I am sure that very few have more real good will and more real desire to do what is right than I have.”

Journal, 20 June 1837, cited in "Queen Victoria in Her Letters and Journals," Christopher Hibbert, ed., (New York: Viking, 1985), p. 23.

Letter to her uncle, King Leopold of Belgium, regarding Lord Melbourne:

“Let me pause to tell you how fortunate I am to have at the head of the Government a man like Lord Melbourne. I have seen him now every day, with the exception of Friday, and the more I see him, the more confidence I have in him: he is not only a clever statesman and an honest man, but a good and kind hearted man, whose aim is to do his duty for his country and not for a party. He is of the greatest use to me both politically and privately . .. It is to me the greatest pleasure to do my ditty for my country and my people, and no fatigue. however great, will be burdensome to me if it is for the welfare of the nation.”

25 June 1837, ibid., p. 24.

Journal comments regarding her proposal of marriage to Prince Albert:

“I said to him . . .that it would make me too happy if lie would consent to what I wished . . . we embraced each other over and over again, and he was so kind, so affectionate. Oh! To feel I was, and am, loved by such an Angel as Albert was too great delight to describe. He is perfection; perfection in every way. in beauty, in everything. . . . I felt it was the happiest moment in my life.”

15 October 1839, ibid., p. 57.

Journal comments, a few days later:

“I signed some papers and warrants, etc. and he was so kind as to dry them with blotting paper for me. We talked a good deal together and lie clasped me so tenderly in his arms and kissed me again and again.”

“An ugly baby is a very nasty object, and the prettiest is frightful when undressed, till about four months; in short, as long as they have their big body and little limbs and that terrible frog-like action.”

From a letter to her daughter, Princess Frederick William of Prussia (i.e., Princess Victoria who had married the German Prince), 2 May 1859, ibid., p. 112.

Letter to her uncle King Leopold regarding the Great Exhibition of 1851:

“I wish you could have witnessed the 1st May 1851, the greatest day in our history, the most beautiful and imposing and touching spectacle ever seen, and the triumph of my beloved Albert. Truly it was astonishing, a fair scene. Many cried, and all felt touched and impressed with devotional feelings. It was the happiest, proudest day of my life and I can think of nothing else. Albert’s dear name is immortalized with the great conception, his own, and my own dear country showed she was worthy of it.”

c. May 1851, From J. B. Priestley, Victoria’s Heyday (New York: Harper and Row, 1972), p. 78.

Journal comments on Albert’s death:

“I took his dear left hand which was already cold . . .and knelt down by him All, all was over . . . I stood up and kissed his dear heavenly forehead and called out in a bitter and agonizing cry ‘Oh my dear darling’ and then dropped on my knees in mute distracted despair, unable to utter a word or shed a tear . . . Then I laid down on the sofa in the red room and all the gentlemen came in and knelt down and kissed my hand, and I said a word to each.”

Journal. 14 December 1861, Letters and Journals, p. 156.

Mini-lecture 01: "Introducing the Mini-Lecture Series and Victorian Britain"

Mini-lecture 01: "Introducing the Mini-Lecture Series and Victorian Britain" (15 min., 50 sec.)

Download mini_lecture_01_victorian_paradox.mp3 

Victorian Britain was a paradoxical society and one of extreme contrasts. On the one hand, it witnessed an unprecedented outpouring of inventions, scientific advances, and humanitarian reforms, backed by an array of outstanding literary and political figures. On the other hand, it practiced a harsh form of laissez—faire capitalism at home, which resulted in chronic poverty for most of the population, and harsh imperial policies abroad, which subordinated many of the peoples of Africa and Asia to British control. The on-line lectures in this course will aim to explain how the Victorians lived with these contradictions and how Britain changed between the 1830s and 1900, perhaps more rapidly than any society in world history up to that time.

Queen Victoria reigned for sixty four years, longer than any other British monarch, and she stamped her vivid personality on the whole era, but she no longer enjoyed the sort of power that had been wielded by her ancestors. Instead, Britain moved cautiously toward a democratic political system. The oligarchy of 1830, in which only a small minority of men, and no women, enjoyed the vote and the right to sit in Parliament, was modified by Parliamentary Reform Acts of 1832, 1867, and 1884 so that by century’s end, most men at least were entitled to vote. Simultaneously, religious restrictions on political participation were lifted, enabling Methodists, Quakers, Catholics, and Jews, as well as members of diverse social classes, to take seats in Parliament. Despite these changes, however, the traditional land-based aristocracy retained immense political power and social influence: successful manufacturers often devoted their fortunes to buying their way into these ranks.

Rapid social change was facilitated by the Industrial Revolution, which had been gathering force in the decades before Victoria’s accession. The harnessing first of water power, then steam power, to the manufacture of cotton textiles in factories initiated the revolution. Developments in coal mining, iron and steel making, ceramics, and transportation accelerated it. First canals, then railways, which began to crisscross the land in the 1830s, speeded up the pace of economic life and increased its scale. The railway builders, particularly the father-and-son team George and Robert Stephenson, along with Isambard Kingdom Brunel, featured largely in this transformation; Brunel’s visionary genius was further shown in his construction of the world’s first oceangoing steamships.

Along with industrialization came urbanization. Such industrial cities as Manchester, Liverpool, and Sheffield grew so fast that infrastructure development could not keep pace. In consequence, tens of thousands of industrial workers and their families found themselves living in squalid, hastily built houses, severely overcrowded, and without access to safe drinking water supplies or proper sanitation. These factors, along with overwork, poor nutrition, a smoke-filled environment, and dangerous working conditions, contributed to regular epidemics and a low life expectancy for most working-class communities. Death at any age was common and child mortality, high. Many occupations, moreover, had characteristic illnesses of their own. such as the lung diseases suffered by Britain’s hundreds of thousands of coal miners. A few impoverished areas in every city, such as London’s squalid ‘rookeries,’ became breeding grounds of violent crime. Middle- and upper-class people moved away from these dangerous areas whenever they could, furthering the class gulf between Britain’s haves and have-nots.

Britain’s technological superiority enabled its industries to dominate world markets for the first two-thirds of the nineteenth century, especially when the industrialists’ growing political influence had established a free-trade regime. British imperial development accelerated at the same time, British merchants forced opium, grown in India, onto a reluctant China in a series of "Opium Wars” that seem particularly disgraceful in retrospect. After the Indian Mutiny of 1857, the British government took over direct control of this most important colony from the Honorable East India Company, which had run it privately for the last century. In suppressing the mutiny, in which atrocities had been committed against some of their civilians, the British demonstrated a ruthless ferocity. In the same years, hardy explorers, such as Richard Burton and David Livingstone, were charting the still—unknown interior of Africa, soon to be followed by trade, missionaries, and the Union Jack. In the last years of the nineteenth century, Britain’s European rivals joined her in an undignified "scramble for Africa" and its potential sources of wealth.

Historians and literary scholars often treat the Great Exhibition of 1851 as a symbol of mid-Victorian prosperity and self-confidence. The exhibition was held in the Crystal Palace, a prefabricated structure of iron and glass that was quickly erected in Hyde Park. The structure was elegant, sturdy, and light and delighted visitors from all over Britain and abroad. Built by Joseph Paxton, its ultra-modern style, echoed in the glass arches of Paddington and St. Pancras railway stations, stands in strong juxtaposition to the other great public building style of Victorian Britain, Gothic Revival. Gothic’s champions included Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin, the architects of the new Houses of Parliament (which are now probably the most well known buildings in Britain), and George Gilbert Scott. Britain’s wealth created a growing market for innovative architects, just as the growing middle class created a market for paintings and literature. The Pre-Raphaelite movement in art and the dramatic, serialized literature of Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope and George Eliot remain as yardsticks of the Victorians’ creativity and inventiveness.

The later portions of the course will show how Britain began to lose its supremacy. The death of Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s husband, in 1861, cast a shadow of grief over the monarch herself from which she never fully emerged. Meanwhile Union victory in the American Civil War and the unification of Germany in 1870 gave notice that two great industrial rivals were about to challenge Britain’s supremacy. Despite the advantages of her early lead, Britain was unable to keep pace with German and American industrial innovations and graduallv retreated to a policy of trading in the protected area of its world-wide empire. This strategy, successful in the short term, enabled Britain to postpone the day of reckoning. Paradoxically, however, it turned the appearance of immense world—striding strength into a growing liability, which would ensure the rapid decline of British power in the twentieth century. The inner vulnerability of the empire could have been glimpsed earlier, not only with the Indian Mutiny but also in the catastrophic Irish famine of 1846-1850.

Despite ominous signs, however, Britain still seemed to be master of the world in the last decades of the nineteenth century, when it enjoyed the leadership of such brilliant prime ministers as Benjamin Disraeli (the man who adapted British Conservatism to a more democratic era) and the sternly moralistic Liberal William Gladstone. Queen Victoria celebrated her Diamond jubilee (sixty years on the throne) in 1897 with a triumphant parade, including soldiers from every corner of the empire. The mood of the time was captured by the poet Rudyard Kipling when he urged Britons (and Anglo-Saxon Americans) to "take up the white man’s burden" and bring the blessings of their Christian civilization to what he thought of as the less fortunate races of the world.

The growing strength of trade unions, and political recognition that they would become a permanent part of society, led to the rise, as the century turned, of the Labour Party, which was destined within twenty years to become and to remain one of the nation’s two major political forces. When Queen Victoria died in 1901 she left the nation in a world full of potential enemies, no longer so amenable to British direction as it had been in the years of her early reign. Twentieth-century Britain was indelibly marked by the Victorian legacy, for good and ill, and the course ends with a glimpse at some of these lasting effects.

Mini-lecture 02: "The Victorian Paradox"

Mini-lecture 02: "The Victorian Paradox"

Scope: This lecture outlines the main themes of the course: Victorian Britain was a paradoxical society and one of extreme contrasts between wealth and poverty, morality and cynicism, creativity and constriction, imperial grandeur and domestic squalor, and collectivity and individualism. It was a society committed to the ideals of material and moral progress, industrial and commercial expansion, and worldwide free trade. However, its vulnerability to fluctuations of the business cycle and to foreign competition entailed hardships for its majority, the poor and working classes, and severely unequal distribution of its benefits, It is a society still close enough to us to evoke our admiration in many ways, but also close enough to provoke our censure in many others. It is difficult not to admire many of its most brilliant characters but equally difficult not to condemn the moral narrowness and hard-heartedness they sometimes displayed.

Click here for a printable, PDF version of the following outline


(36 minutes)

Download mini_lecture_02_the_victorian_paradox.mp3

Outline

I. Victorian Britain (l837—1901) was a paradoxical society and one of extreme contrasts.

A. Very wealthy and very poor people lived side by side.

B. The society was immensely creative but burdened with a stifling social-class system.

C. Britain took pride in its worldwide empire but was unable to control its oldest and closest colony, Ireland.

D. It believed in its racial, religious, and civilizational superiority but could be brutally destructive and cynical, even going to war in 1839 to force opium on the reluctant Chinese.

E. Many of Britain’s most brilliant intellectuals were Victorians, but they lived in an under-educated and still largely illiterate society.

II. The Victorians believed, perhaps more strongly than any other British generation, in progress, in making the world better from year to year, both materially and morally. In many ways. they succeeded.

A. They built up Britain’s worldwide empire.

1. They ruled India with a small army and a talented group of administrators, first through the East India Company then, after 1857, directly.

2. They turned Australia from a prison colony into a thriving colony of farmers and settlers.

3. They provided a steady flow of settlers to Canada, New Zealand. and South Africa and invented creative ways for these colonies to be self-governing while still connected to Britain.

4. They dominated strategically important places around the world, including Gibraltar, Suez, and Aden, which safeguarded their imperial routeways.

B. The Victorians made Britain the world’s most powerful trading nation. building up the world’s largest merchant navy and protecting it with the largest military navy.

C. Britain made immense strides in industrialization, immediately before and during Victoria’s reign.

1. It was the first industrial capitalist nation, beginning with the mass production of cotton textiles, later industrializing mining, metallurgy, and other manufactures.

2. It was the first country in the world to build a railway network, which speeded up the pace of economic life and made it possible for ordinary citizens to travel long distances for the first time.

3. It pioneered in banking. insurance, and free-trade legislation.

D. Victorian Britain moved toward a democratic political system but did not suffer the revolutionary upheavals that afflicted most of continental Europe in the same era.

1. A series of Reform Acts, in 1832. 1867, and 1884, extended the vote to growing numbers of men (though not to women) in a variety of class positions.

2. Victoria herself~ and her husband, Prince Albert. restored the prestige of the monarchy, which had been damaged by her disreputable predecessors.

3. Victorian politicians—including Peel, Palmerston, Gladstone, and Disraeli—were brilliant speakers and rank among the outstanding figures in the whole of British political history.

III. Along with its achievements, however, Victorian Britain had shortcomings and unsolvable problems.

A. Many Britons were very poor, and as growing numbers went to work in industry, they became vulnerable to periodic slumps. unemployment, and acute privation. Charity was insufficient to deal with the scale of British poverty. The alternative, the "workhouse.” was bitterly hated and resented.

B. A sharply defined class system closed off avenues of opportunity to most talented members of the lower classes. Snobbery and class distinction were sources of friction and discontent.

1. Class antagonism fueled the growth of the trade union movement. which in turn, gave birth to the Labour Party in the 1890s.

2. Members of the upper classes sought work in government, the army, the navy, and the church: “trade,” the basis of Britain’s power. was regarded as beneath their dignity.

C. British industrialists did not maintain their lead over their rivals, notably in America and Germany.

1. They failed to modernize equipment.

2. They trained their sons to be gentlemen rather than businessmen.

3. They relied on the colonies as a protected market that permitted them to remain inefficient.

D. While taking pride in its far-flung empire, Britain was unable to deal satisfactorily with its closest colony, Ireland. The result was that the “Irish Question” hamstrung the work of British politicians, especially in the later Victorian era.

1. Ireland was virtually an agricultural monoculture, the potato being its almost exclusive crop.

2. Reliance on one crop led to disaster, when the potato blight struck Ireland in 1846, causing nationwide famine.

3. Many Irish laborers fled to England and the United States.

4. Catholicism was also a stumbling block to Home Rule: Irish Protestants opposed Home Rule, fearing they would suffer under Catholic domination.

5. Legislation for Irish Home Rule passed through the House of Commons in 1893 but failed in the House of Lords.

IV. Many colorful, larger-than-life figures lived and worked in Victorian Britain, and their work has resonance down to the present. Several of them will feature in this course.

A. Queen Victoria herself, a strong-willed, imperious figure, knew how to make the most of the monarch’s remaining prerogatives.

B. Florence Nightingale, an even more determined and skillful worker behind the scenes, transformed nursing and public health in British life.

C. Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the genius-engineer, built Britain’s most luxurious railway and the first steam-powered transatlantic ship.

D. Charles Darwin, the biologist, produced the great work On the Origin of Species, which revolutionized human understanding of the natural world.

E. Benjamin Disraeli was a Jewish outsider who became a Conservative Party prime minister, empowered the queen as empress of India, and learned to adapt conservatism to a mass electorate.

F. John Henry Newman, the brilliant Anglican churchman, shocked the nation by becoming a Roman Catholic in 1845 and went on to scandalize many of his new co-religionists by his intellectually adventurous ideas.

G. Charles Dickens, the novelist, serialized stories that enthralled readers in England, America, and later around the world and pointed out many of the worst injustices and follies of British life.

V. The Victorians’ reputation declined sharply in the early twentieth century but has subsequently revived, in part.

A. Lytton Strachey’s Eminent Victorians (1918) lampooned Victorian high-mindedness.

B. Post-World War I Modernist art and architecture reacted against Victorian decorative complexity in favor of austere simplicity.

C. Scattered champions of Victoriana, such as John Betjernan and L. S. Lowry, were the exception.

D. British political changes after 1980 contributed to a recovery of the Victorians’ better aspects.

VI. The course will follow a generally chronological pattern.

A. We first glance back to earlier developments, particularly the Industrial Revolution.

B. Lectures on such issues as the lives of women and servants, music, art, and architecture will be less rigorously chronological.

Questions to Consider:

1. Does Victorian Britain continue to fascinate the world because of its achievements or because of its strange internal contradictions?

2. What were the characteristics of "Victorianism"?

Assignment 01: Note Card Introduction E-mail (5 pts)

Due 31 Wed. Aug.

Take the note card you completed in class today and transform it into a three paragraph introductory profile. This profile will appear with your picture on the class web site.

Submissions should be sent to my e-mail: hecimovichg@mail.ecu.edu by midnight 31 Wed. Aug.

If you missed our first session, these are the questions I asked students to answer:

Name:

Hometown:

Year:

Major:

Favorite Food:

Hobbies:

What four things are you most passionate and intrigued by?

1.

2.

3.

4.

Favorite Book or Author:

Favorite Movie:

Favorite Musical Artist or Artists:

Describe a most embarrassing moment?

Picture the most charming moment you can recall (with others? where? what qualities make this moment charming?)

Draw a picture of your charming moment and be prepared to share with the class:

What is a must do event, place, or location for you in eastern North Carolina? What do you recommend to a new person, just arrived to Greenville?

Assignment 02: Schedule/Sign-up Times for Illuminated Context Reports (5 pts)

Due. Wed. 31 Aug.

Please review the possible dates and subjects for the "Illuminated Context Report Assignment" (35 pts). Bring a print out copy of this post to class with your top three (3) choices marked in pencil (noting your 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choices). This assignment is worth 5 pts.

Week 03
(05 - 09 Sep.)

Due: Wed. 07 01 Illuminated Context Report - "The Condition of England" (35 pts)

_________________________

_________________________

Week 04
(12 - 16 Sep.)

Due: Wed. 14 02 Illuminated Context Report - "The Rise of the Novel" (35 pts)

__________________________

__________________________

__________________________

Week 05
(19 - 23 Sep.)

Due: Wed. 21 03 Illuminated Context Report - "Victorian Women, Sexuality, and Gender Report" (35 pts)

_________________________

_________________________

_________________________

Week 06
(26 - 30 Sep.)

Due: Wed. 28 04 Illuminated Context Report - "Victorian Religion and Evangelicalism" (35 pts)

_________________________

_________________________

05 Illuminated Context Report - "The Oxford Movement" (35 pts)

__________________________

__________________________

Week 07
(03 - 07 Oct.)

Due: Wed. 05 06 Illuminated Context Report - "Society and Political Economy" (35 pts)

__________________________

__________________________

Week 08
(10 - 14 Oct.)

Due: Wed. 12 07 Illuminated Context Report - "Victorian Serial Publishing" (35 pts)

__________________________

__________________________

Week 10
(24 - 28 Oct.)

Due: Wed. 26 08 Illuminated Context Report - "19th-Century Education and Literacy Reports" (35 pts)

Group # 1 (elementary education, secondary education, and literacy)

_________________________________

_________________________________

Group # 2 (mechanics institutes, book trade, and circulating libraries)

_________________________________

_________________________________

Week 13
(14 - 18 Nov.)

Due: Wed. 16 09 Illuminated Context Report - "Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Abolition in Britain" (35 pts)

______________________________________

______________________________________

Syllabus for English 6175 - Victorian Literature

Fall 2005 | English 6175-01 | Victorian Literature
Professor - Dr. Gregg A. Hecimovich
Email | 252.328.4822
Office Hrs M, W - 11 AM - Noon; Erwin 221
Class Meets - MWF Noon - 12:50 PM, Bate 2024

Website - http://literature.typepad.com/english_6175
Podcast - search "victorian literature" at iTunes Music Store
username: student
password student

syllabus

course description
Why the fascination today with Victorian culture? From Merchant/Ivory and Douglas McGrath films to BBC mini-series recreations, from Jane Austen as one of Hollywood's hottest property to "Great Expectations" dating services, from big budget adaptatations (Polanski's Oliver Twist, September 2005) to underwear from Victoria's Secret-- nostalgic trips back to the nineteenth century are a major growth industry in the new century.

In this course we will read Victorian literature against the backdrop of today's revival of "Victoriana."  Popular appropriations and misappropriations of the past have much to teach us about the real nature of the Victorians and about ourselves.

The course follows, in part, a course designed by my mentor, Jay Clayton at Vanderbilt University. It provides students an opportunity to explore how commerce produces culture-- from two perspectives, the nineteenth century and the twentieth. Students will study textual production and consumption and the silent control market forces hold over epistemology and ideology. The presence of the past will be explored as we contemplate the popular mediums of the serial novel and the circulating libraries both in the nineteenth century and in our own (movies and circulating libraries like Blockbuster Video). If the novel is a bourgeois invention designed to affirm the construction of the modern self, how do the great novels of the nineteenth century further that work in their latest incarnation in film and television? By focusing on sequences of works and juxtaposed works, this course examines how literature interrogates and revises received traditions. The course also provides, by using a comparative model, an understanding how literature, over time, reflects and records intellectual, perceptual, and aesthetic changes.

required texts.
• Trollope. The Warden. Oxford World Classics.
• Bronte. Jane Eyre. Penguin Classics.
• Dickens. David Copperfield. Penguin Classics.
• Thackeray. Vanity Fair. Penguin Classics.
• Altick. Victorian People and Ideas. Norton.

optional texts.
• Damrosch. The Longman Anthology of British Literature. Volume 2B.
• The Barchester Chronicles DVD-Giles (1983/2005).
• Jane Eyre DVD-Amyes (1983/2005).
• David Copperfield DVD-Curtis (2000/2005).
• Vanity Fair DVD-Munden (1999/2003).

course goals.
The course has three primary goals. The first goal is to read critically and widely from representative Victorian Literature. Proceeding from this first goal, the second aim is to work toward some definition of the term "Victorian" in a modern context. How is the term useful? how is it misleading? what are its central tenets or competing ideas? how has the term influenced our own time?

Three ways of reading will inform our aims:

1. Text: we will study each work intrinsically as text, as a verbal unit of motifs and signs that interrelate and collectively shape the meaning the reader eventually understands. This is always the first level of understanding any work of literature.

2. The Text in Context: We will study each author's situation in its historical and social context, for no author writes in a vacuum. The author may be aware of how politics, society and history shape him or her, but more often than not the context is that vast pool of influences that acts as formatively on the creative imagination as does the subconscious. We may even argue that the latter is largely shaped by the former.

3. The Intertextuality of Texts: Texts are written because of other texts, even seemingly radical new ways of writing are transformations or reaction formations to previous texts. The key terms in intertextuality are therefore: allusion, influence, convention, genre, and archetype. The critical readings assigned at the outset of the course will prepare both our contextual and intertextual discussions.

By realizing the difficulty of our aims (as well as the need to attempt them), you should leave the class better prepared—and encouraged—to read those many writers not on our list but still important in shaping the literary history of the period.
By the end of the semester, you will have a strong base knowledge of nineteenth-century literature .

outcomes.
1) Critical Thinking Goals: By learning the skills of research, analysis, and reasoning, students prepare to become active participants in an ongoing dialog of ideas. Instruction in critical thinking helps students assess the ideas of others, discover their own creative/critical voice, and hone the skills needed for developing, supporting, and articulating their ideas. Critical thinking is thus an active component of reading, writing, speaking, and listening.

2) Reading Goals: Though silent, reading is nevertheless a dialogue between author and reader. Competence in this interactive enterprise demands of the reader skills of interrogation, clarification, evaluation, and adaptation to the text. Reading skills both depend upon and foster competence in critical thinking and writing.

3) Writing Goals: Far more than mechanics, writing is the very formulation and articulation of ideas. Competent writers need to be able to craft correct, coherent, and effective messages in a variety of genres for a variety of audiences. Effective writing depends on critical thinking and reading skills and on an understanding of the composing processes used by expert writers.

4) Speaking Goals: Effective oral presentations require the essential skills of critical thinking and writing as well as the agility to adapt message content and delivery to fit an immediate audience, establishing contact and credibility with that audience during the presentation. In addition to public speaking skills, competent speakers must be able to contribute to group discussions, advocating for their own ideas while fostering collaborative group interaction.

5) Listening Goals: Listening is not the same as hearing. Listening is an active skill, requiring understanding and technique as well as effort. Competent listeners do more than hear; they delay their responses while achieving understanding, use clarifying techniques to assess comprehension, and develop techniques to record and interpret what others say.

requirements.

Documented Paper - 45% / DSIR's, Reading Quizzes, Class participation - 15% / Context Report 10% / Examination 30%

exam.

There will be one major exam covering all our work up to Wed. Nov. 02 (the date of the exam).

There are three sections included in this examination:

1. multiple choice - this section is factual and based on the biographical and critical backgrounds to our readings; review your class lecture notes and notes from the course website;

2. identification - the second section is comprised of 10 quotations from our reading; you are responsible for identifying the work, the author, the speaker, and the significance of the passages you choose to identify;

3. essay - the final section holds one wide-ranging essay question; you are invited to choose one out of two that you wish to address.

The exam comprises %30 of your grade.

reading quizzes.

I will ask you to take periodic reading quizzes in this course. The times and dates for these quizzes appear on the course schedule. All reading quizzes will be conducted outside of class, on-line through blackboard. On days where I have asked you to complete a reading quiz, I will end class 10 minutes early to acknowledge the time spent out-of-class for these assignments.

papers and context report.

A. The Documented Paper (45%): Our course will include a documented research paper, that is, a graduate-level research paper. You will be expected to contextualize and intertextualize your interpretation of one or more of our readings. A simplistic comparison/contrast study that is exclusively based on your insights will not be acceptable. You should make use of materials placed online, as well as the Context Reports prepared by other class participants. A set of "Instigator Questions" will be provided before Thanksgiving break to and will help direct you to possible approaches for The Documented Paper.

Click here - Documented Paper Guidelines

B. The Context Report (10%): This is an exercise in research and summary; appropriate sources of information should be reviewed. Consultation in advance with the instructor is highly recommended.
For class presentation: Three to five students will be working on each report subject. Collaboration is expected when you share in a report. For the presentation to the class, presenters should work in concert to instruct, entertain, and delight the class. Note: direct your presentation to the class, not to the teacher. No more than a 10-15 minute group presentation is allowed (delinquents will be interrupted).

Click here - "Romanticism and language" (example)

Your presentation should be given from notes and should be creative. Costumes, play-acting, food, games, and other 'Illuminating' devices are expected. The group presentation should be designed to give classmates useful information on a subject that they might otherwise have had to research themselves-- and to do so in an entertaining and engaging fashion. Be clear, brief, and inventive!

Click here - Context Report Groups
Click here - Context Report Guidelines

grade reports.

When I complete grading an assignment, I will e-mail you a memo noting your score. The assignment will be returned the next class period. Periodically, I will also be sending you a comprehensive grade report informing you what grade you are currently earning in the class.

I want my grading to be open and transparent so you can best gauge where you stand.

course participation.

This is not a lecture course. The format of the course and its overall success depend upon your active and informed contributions. The response papers (or DSIR's) and reading quizzes (noted above) will allow you a couple of "formal" ways to guide and participate in class discussion. Note that 15% of your final grade will be determined by your participation including your work on DSIR's and Reading Quizzes (see Requirements). That means a significant portion of your grade will be up to you and how much you want to participate in the course’s various conversations.

Note: your participation grade also includes the quality and/or frequency of contributions; your supportiveness and quality of input during the paper conference also helps determine your seminar participation grade.

double-sided illuminated readings, or dsir's.

You will be required to submit a close reading (or brief analysis) for select class meetings. The close reading will be a critical analysis of some aspect of that day's assignment. The DSIR's will be a half-page typed or hand-written summary and critical analysis of that day's reading assignment.

Illustrations, mathematical equations, doodles are welcomed. These close readings should cite a passage from the reading, and then analyze and interpret the passage. You should consider these open, free, and informal. This is the place to muse freely. If you would like to see some examples please click the following: example 1, example 2, example 3, and example 4.

DSIR's cannot be made up or turned in after class. If you know you will not be in class to turn yours in, make arrangements to have someone else turn it in for you.

attendance policy.

You need to be in class all the time. I allow up to five absences, whether excused or unexcused. Each absence after that will lower your final grade 20 points. Ten or more absences will result in a failing grade.

accommodation for special needs.

East Carolina University seeks to fully comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Students requesting accommodation based on a covered disability must go to the Department for Disability Services, located in Brewster A-114, to verify the disability before any accommodations can occur. The telephone number is 252-328-6799.

plagarism.

The ECU student handbook defines plagiarism as “Copying the language, structure, ideas and/or thoughts of another and adopting some as one’s own original work.” Be aware that the writing you do for this course must be your work and, primarily, your words. It is proper to incorporate the words of other from articles, essays, and interviews as evidence in support of your ideas, but when you do so, you should be sure to cite the source appropriately. We will talk about citation during the course. Penalties for plagiarism are severe—they can include failing the course, suspension, or even expulsion from the university, so be sure to see me about any doubts you may have before you turn in an assignment.

Schedule for English 6175 - Victorian Literature

Fall 2005 | English 6175-01 | Victorian Literature
Professor - Dr. Gregg A. Hecimovich

schedule

Week 01
(24 - 26 Aug.)

Wed. 24 • Introduction to the Course; Syllabus; Schedule; Note Card Introductions

Fri. 26 • No Class Meeting; class meets electronically

• Mini-lecture 01: "Introducing the Mini-Lecture Series and Victorian Britain"
• Mini-lecture 02: "The Victorian Paradox"

Week 02
(29 - 02 Sep.)

Mon. 29 • Trollope, Barchester Towers (Chapter 1-7, pp 1.01-1.60)

Due: Assigment 01 - Note Card Introduction E-Mail (5 pts); Assignment 02 - Sign-up for Context Reports (1 pt)

Wed. 31 • Trollope, Barchester Towers (Chapter 8-14, pp 1.61-1.133); "Chapter 1: The Longest Reign" (vpi 01-16); (optional) "The Victorian Age" (la 1009-31);

• Mini-lecture 03: "Victoria's Early Reign 1837 - 1861"

Fri. 02 • Trollope, Barchester Towers (Chapter 15-21, pp 1.133-1.210)

Due: Assignment 03: Trollope DSIR (5 pts)

Week 03
(05 - 09 Sep.)

Mon. 05 • Trollope, Barchester Towers (Chapter 22-28, pp 1.210-2.16)

• Mini-lecture 04: "The Industrial Revolution - 1750-1830"

Wed. 07 • Trollope, Barchester Towers (Chapter 29-35, pp 2.16-2.93); "Chaper 2: The Victorians - Actor and Audience" (vpi 17-72); "Chapter 3: The Spirit of the Age - Time, Place, and Change" (vpi 73-113); (optional) "Perspectives: The Industrial Landscape" (la 1047-49) and "The Steam Loom Weaver," Kemble, Macaulay; "Parliamentary Papers," Disraeli, Engles, and Mayhew (la 1049-54; 1059-1073)

• Mini-lecture 05: "Railways and Steamships"
• Mini-lecture 06: "Parliamentary Reform and Chartism"

Due: 01 Illuminated Context Report - "The Condition of England" (35 pts)

Fri. 09 • Trollope, Barchester Towers (Chapter 36-42, pp 2.93-2.173)

Due: Assignment 04 - Reading Quiz on Barchester Towers

Week 04
(12 - 16 Sep.)

Mon. 12 • Trollope, Barchester Towers (Chapter 43-53, pp 2.173-2.271)

Wed. 14 • Bronte, Jane Eyre (Chapter 1-8, pp 13-87); (optional) "Perspectives: Victorian Ladies and Gentleman" (la 1600-1602) and Cobbe, Ellis, Bronte, Bronte, Newman, Norton, Hughes, Martineau, Beeton, Queen Victoria, Kingsley, Newbolt (la 1602-29).

• Mini-lecture 07: "The Upper- and Middle-Class Woman"

Due: 02 Illuminated Context Report - "The Rise of the Novel" (35 pts)

Fri. 16 • Bronte, Jane Eyre (Chapter 9-17, pp 88-205)

Week 05
(19 - 23 Sep.)

Mon. 19 • Bronte, Jane Eyre (Chapter 18-23, pp 206-277)

Due: Assignment 05 - Bronte DSIR (5 pts)

Wed. 21 • Bronte, Jane Eyre (Chapter 24-28, pp 278-378); "Chapter 4: The Utilitarian Spirit" (vpi 114-164)

• Mini-lecture 08: "The Working-Class Woman"
• Mini-lecture 09: "Domestic Servants"

Due: 03 Illuminated Context Report - "Victorian Women, Sexuality, and Gender Report" (35 pts); Assignment 06 - Reading Quiz on Jane Eyre (30 pts)

Fri. 23 • Bronte, Jane Eyre (Chapter 29-34, pp 379-456)

Week 06
(26 - 30 Sep.)

Mon. 26 • Bronte, Jane Eyre (Chapter 35-38, pp 457-502)

Wed. 28 • Bronte, Jane Eyre; "Chapter 5: The Evangelical Temper" (vpi 165-202); (optional) "Perspectives: Religion and Science" (la 1273-74) and Macauly, Dickens, Strauss, and Bronte (la 1274-1283)

• Mini-lecture 10: "The State Church and Evangelical Revival"
• Mini-lecture 11: "The Oxford Movement"

Due: 04 Illuminated Context Report - "Victorian Religion and Evangelicalism" (35 pts); 05 Illuminated Context Report - "The Oxford Movement" (35 pts)

Fri. 30 • Dickens, David Copperfield (Chapter 1-7, pp 13-117)

Week 07
(03 - 07 Oct.)

Mon. 03 • Dickens, David Copperfield (Chapter 8-14, pp 118-225)

Wed. 05 • Dickens, David Copperfield (Chapter 15-20, pp 226-306);

• Mini-lecture 12: "Work and Working-Class Life"
• Mini-lecture 13: "Poverty and the "Hungry Forties"
• Mini-lecture 14: "Ireland, Famine, and Robert Peel"

Due: 06 Illuminated Context Report - "Society and Political Economy" (35 pts)

Fri. 07 • Dickens, David Copperfield (Chapter 21-26, pp 307-407)

Due: Assignment 07 - Reading Quiz on David Copperfield (30 pts)

Week 08
(10 - 14 Oct.)

Mon. 10 • Dickens, David Copperfield (Chapter 27-32, pp 408-479)

Wed. 12 • Dickens, David Copperfield (Chapter 33-38, pp 480-567)

• Mini-lecture 15: "Progress and Optimism"
• Mini-lecture 16: "Victorian Literature I"

Due: 07 Illuminated Context Report - "Victorian Serial Publishing" (35 pts)

Fri. 14 • Dickens, David Copperfield (Chapter 39-44, pp 568-655)

Due: Assignment 08 - DSIR Dickens (5 pts)

Week 09
(17 - 21 Oct.)

Mon. 17 • NO CLASS MEETING, SEE ACADEMIC CALENDAR

Wed. 19 • Dickens, David Copperfield (Chapter 45-50, pp 656-727)

Fri. 21 • Dickens, David Copperfield (Chapter 51-56, pp 728-807)

Week 10
(24 - 28 Oct.)

Mon. 24 • Dickens, David Copperfield (Chapter 57-64, pp 808-882)

Wed. 26 • Thackeray, Vanity Fair (Chapter 1-4, pp 5-46)

• Mini-lecture 17: "The Crimean War"
• Mini-lecture 18: "The British in Africa-1840-1880"
• Mini-lecture 19: "Medicine and Public Health"Dickens, Bleak House
• Mini-lecture 20: "Education"

Due: 08 Illuminated Context Report - "19th-Century Education and Literacy Reports" (35 pts)

Group # 1 (elementary education, secondary education, and literacy)
Group # 2 (mechanics institutes, book trade, and circulating libraries)

Fri. 28 • Thackeray, Vanity Fair (Chapter 5-9, pp 47-99)

Due: Fri. 29 Assignment 09: Reading Quiz on Vanity Fair (30 pts)

Week 11
(31 - 04 Nov.)

Mon. 31 • Thackeray, Vanity Fair (Chapter 10-14, pp 100-164)

Wed. 02 • Examination

Due: Assignment 10: Exam (120 pts)

Fri. 04 • Thackeray, Vanity Fair (Chapter 15-19, pp 165-219)

Week 12
(07 - 11 Nov.)

Mon. 07 • Thackeray, Vanity Fair (Chapter 20-24, pp 220-272)

Wed. 09 • Thackeray, Vanity Fair (Chapter 25-29, pp 273-333)

• Mini-lecture 21: "Later Victorian Literature"
• Mini-lecture 22: "Victoria After Albert-1861-1901"

Fri. 11 • Thackeray, Vanity Fair (Chapter 30-34, pp 334-405)

Week 13
(14 - 18 Nov.)

Mon. 14 • Thackeray, Vanity Fair (Chapter 35-39, pp 406-469)

Wed. 16 • Thackeray, Vanity Fair (Chapter 40-44, pp 470-523)

• Mini-lecture 23: "Victorian Britain and the American Civil War"

Due: 09 Illuminated Context Report - "Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Abolition in Britain" (35 pts)

Fri. 18 • Thackeray, Vanity Fair (Chapter 45-49, pp 524-574)

Week 14
(21 - 25 Nov.)

Mon. 21 • Thackeray, Vanity Fair (Chapter 50-54, pp 575-635)

Wed. 23 • Thanksgiving Break 24 - 28 - no class meeting

Fri. 25 • Thanksgiving Break 24 - 28 - no class meeting

Week 15
(28 - 02 Dec.)

Mon. 28 • Thackeray, Vanity Fair (Chapter 55-59, pp 636-699)

Wed. 30 • Thackeray, Vanity Fair (Chapter 60-64, pp 700-764)

Due: Assignment 11 - Thackeray DSIR (5 pts)

Fri. 02 • Thackeray, Vanity Fair (Chapter 65-67, pp 765-809)

Week 16
(05 - 09 Dec.)

Mon. 05 • Documented Paper Conference

Wed. 07 • Semester Review; Classes End

• Mini-lecture 24: "The Victorian Legacy"

Fri. 09 • Documented Paper Due

Due: Assignment 12: Documented Paper Due (150 pts) by 4:30 PM, Erwin 221

Guidelines for 'The Illuminated Context Report' -- An Overview (35 pts)

Guidelines for 'The Illuminated Context Report' (35 pts)

This is an exercise in research and summary; appropriate sources of information should be reviewed. Consultation in advance with the instructor is highly recommended.

For class presentation: Three to five students may be working on each report subject. In these cases, collaboration is expected. Presenters should work in concert to instruct, entertain, and delight the class. Note: direct your presentation to the class, not to the teacher. No more than a 10-15 minute group presentation is allowed (delinquents will be interrupted).

Your presentation should be given from notes and should be creative. Costumes, play-acting, food, games, and other 'Illuminating' devices are expected. The group presentation should be designed to give classmates useful information on a subject that they might otherwise have had to research themselves-- and to do so in an entertaining and engaging fashion. Be clear, brief, and inventive!

Directions to Dr. H.'s Office in Erwin 221

Dr. Hecimovich's office is located across from Mendhall Student Center in Erwin Building. Office Hours are MW 11AM - NOON and by appointment. Phone: 252.328.4822. I encourage students to drop by to visit and to discuss your progress in the course.

For a complete campus map with directions to my office click here.

Guidelines for 'The Documented Paper' Assignment (150 pts)

Length—14-20 pages, including MLA works cited page (shorter papers will be returned). A works cited page is required, and in proper form (see MLA Style Manual, 1985 or more recent). This critical exercise should be a well-researched literary analysis. The student should select a subject only after consultation with the professor and an appropriate amount of reading and research in the area of the chosen topic; a sampling of previous criticism may prevent the student from repeating critical commonplaces.

A set of Instigator Questions will be provided before the Thanksgiving break to help direct you on possible approaches to this assignment.

The paper is due on 15 December and should be submitted to me by noon of that day. The Documented Paper should be submitted in a folder that contains your rough drafts and notes.

TIPS for writing your Documented Paper:

Do not waste space by announcing what you are going to do, or by reminding us at the end what you have done. For instance, avoid unnecessary language like, "In this paper, I will attempt to demonstrate . . . ."

Do not waste space attempting a general account of the period or the authors; wherever relevant, you may refer to whatever you may know about them, but you are being asked to write about literature and its uses, not history or biography.

Write in the third person and the present tense when explicating a literary text. If recounting historical events use the past tense.

Do not retell the stories or summarize the plots; you may assume that your reader knows the books.

Passages quoted of more than five lines should be indented and single-spaced.

Do not indulge in vague generalizations or unsubstantiated pronouncements; always refer directly to the stories themselves to prove or illustrate a point.

Periods and commas always go inside the quotation marks.

Repeat nouns (such as names) rather than possibly ambiguous pronouns (he, she, it, etc.).

Avoid the use of adverbs.

Strive for clarity, and above all focus; lay out your line of argument carefully, and do not deviate from it by indulging in extraneous matters.

Avoid wordiness; two words are better than three, and one is better than two.

Do not use the same words over and over again.

Remember that there are things called paragraphs, and organize your essay appropriately.

Put a title on your paper, number your pages, leave reasonable margins on all four sides of the paper, and double space throughout.

Avoid "Index Words" ["this" and "these"].