Flashcards on English Literature: Anglo-Saxon to 18th Century
English Literature: Anglo-Saxon to 18th Century Guide
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Romanticism & Victorian: Victorian Literature & Novelists
98 cards
Card 1
Question: When did the Victorian era officially begin and end, and how else can its span be described historically?
Answer: Officially 1837–1901 (Queen Victoria's reign). It can be stretched roughly from the Napoleonic Wars to the outbreak of World War I in 1914.
Card 2
Question: What major social transformation characterized 19th-century England during the Victorian era?
Answer: A shift from a rural, agricultural country to an urban, industrialised one, causing massive social dislocation.
Card 3
Question: List key technological and industrial innovations of the Industrial Revolution mentioned.
Answer: Mass production, steam engines, railways, sewing machines, gas and electric light, and the telegraph.
Card 4
Question: What were major social costs of the Industrial Revolution in Britain?
Answer: Dehumanisation of work, child labour, pollution, and growth of cities with poverty, filth, and disease; rural poverty and long hours for farm workers
Card 5
Question: How did the UK population change between 1801 and 1871, and what migration patterns occurred?
Answer: The population doubled; many Britons emigrated to North America or colonies, the Irish migrated after the potato famine (also to England/Scotland), ru
Card 6
Question: How did the franchise (voting rights) change during and after the Victorian era?
Answer: The franchise was gradually extended to the working classes, leading to universal male suffrage by 1918; the campaign for women's suffrage continued a
Card 7
Question: What characterized Britain's global position and imperial expansion during the Victorian era?
Answer: Britain steadily accumulated territorial possessions, displayed industrial and imperial power (e.g., Great Exhibition of 1851), dominated trade and na
Card 8
Question: How was Victorian poetry related to Romanticism, and what new direction did it take?
Answer: Victorian poetry was heavily influenced by the Romantics but developed its own directions, notably an undercurrent of social comment.
Card 9
Question: Name three major early Victorian poets listed.
Answer: Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892), Robert Browning (1812–1889), Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861).
Card 10
Question: What is Alfred Tennyson's Idylls of the Kings, and how was it read in Victorian terms?
Answer: A cycle of 12 narrative poems (1856–85) retelling the Arthurian legend; read as a Victorian version of The Faerie Queene that provides a mythic founda