1. Victorians believed that reason and
courage could overcome the problems
that festered the 1840’s.
 2.Middle-class Victorian society was
characterized by its code of
respectability, decorum, and morality.
 3. Macaulay voiced middle-class
attitude toward government, history,
and order.

4. The first decade of Victoria’s reign was
known as the Hungry Forties.
 5. People lived 12 to a room and two
toilets for every 250 people.
 6. Universal adult suffrage in 1928
extended the right to vote to women at
the age of 21.
 7. Factory Acts limited the working day
to 10 hours, with a half-holiday on
Saturday.

8. In the 1840’s, 40% of couples getting
married could not write their names on
their marriage certificates. By 1900, 90%
of the population were literate.
 9. Prudery=Things that would make
people blush were abandoned.
 10. People were arrested for distributing
information about STD’s.

11. Victorian society regarded seduced
or adulterous women as “fallen” and
pushed them to the margins of society.
 12. Women who did not marry had few
jobs open to them. Working-class women
could become servants, governesses, or
teachers.
 13. (Look up in your textbook).

14. Victorian writers asked whether
material comfort satisfied human needs
and wishes. They questioned the cost of
exploiting earth and human begins to
achieve comfort.
 15. Charles Dickens was the most
popular figure in Victorian literature.

16. The highest purpose of a poet, or any
writer, was to make readers aware of the
connection between earth and Heaven,
body and soul, material and ideal (pg.
692).
 17. Late Victorian writers told stories of
lovers and friends betrayed by
unfaithfulness, war, and the other
troubles that humans add to the natural
trials of mortal life.

Victorian Era was characterized by
peace and prosperity.
 Industrial Revolution had an immediate
influence on the Victorian Era.
 Progress was measured by material
improvements.
 Social problems in Queen Victoria’s reign
lead to many different elections.
 Genteel best describes the ideal
behavior of literary Victorians.

Scientific/technological advances of the
era gave early Victorians a sense of
confidence.
 Many Victorian writers hoped their works
would raise doubts over materialism.
 Plague Wind=Smog.
 Finding it difficult to believe in an infinite
power, many writers became skeptical
by the end of the 19th century.

Late Victorian lit. focused on human
troubles in an indifferent world.
 Poetry contains a musical effect due to:
rhyme, meter, and alliteration.

Dramatic Monologue- Poem in which a
speaker, who is not the poet, addresses
a silent listener.
 Petrarchan/Italian Sonnet- Divided into
an octave and a seset.
 Assonance- Rep. of vowel sounds.
 Couplets- Two consecutive lines of
poetry that rhyme.
 Allegories- Can have a literal and
symbolic level.

Antonyms- Has the opposite, or nearly
opposite, meaning of another word.
 Internal Conflict- Conflict within a
character.
 External Conflict- Conflict between
character and a group, force of nature,
another character.
 Theme- Rarely stated directly, may differ
from reader’s interpretation, may relate
to time period the piece was written in.
