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Events that marked his life:

·        at the age of 12 he worked in a boot-blacking factory after his father was imprisoned for debts

·        became a clerk in a solicitor’s office

·        started to write court reports

·        became a journalist

·        gave public readings of his works

Works:

| Pickwick Papers   | Barnaby Rudge   | Little Dorrit
| Sketches by Boz   | American Chronicles   | Hard Times
| Oliver Twist   | Martin Chuzzlewit   | Bleak House
| Nickolas Nickleby   | Dombey and Son   | Great Expectations
| Old Curiosity Shop   | David Copperfield   | A Tale of two Cities   Our Mutual Friend

Distinctive features of his work:

·        serialized novels to gain the audience attention

·        heroes and heroines as well as minor characters, sometimes caricatured > psychological gallery of human beings

·        London, unknown and unexplored, becomes a character

·        social commitment: his novels, characters and situations offer  social comment/criticism

·        he denounces and attacks the hypocrisy of institutions WITHOUT offering a solution

·        his characters are depicted as good or evil ones = middle class frame of mind

·        there is no evolution/development of characters: their situation/fate is determined by their social status

·        early novels: complicated plots developing into a happy ending thanks to the intervention of a character (deus ex machina) that solves the situation

·        after 1850: disillusionment > grim view of life > ambiguous endings

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A NEW GOTHIC MODE

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AUTHORS SEEM NOW MORE CONCERNED WITH DARWIN'S THEORY THAT IS ALSO REFLECTED IN THEIR NOVELS' PLOTS

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AUTHORS SEEM NOW MORE CONCERNED WITH DARWIN'S THEORY THAT IS ALSO REFLECTED IN THEIR NOVELS' PLOTS

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SUFFRAGETTES MOVEMENT

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CHARLOTTE BRONTE AND THE WOMAN QUESTION

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OLIVER TWIST 1837

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PROVINCIAL LIFE
RELIGIOUS BELIEF
CITY SQUALOR
MAKING/LOSING MONEY
CLEAR MORAL MESSAGE AND DEPICTION OF GOOD/EVIL
SOCIAL PROBLEM NOVEL

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CIRCULATING LIBRARIES

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1859

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OVERCROWDED SLUMS

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SOCIAL REFORM
CULTURAL CHANGE
CONTRADICTIONS

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1870 - 1901
DECLINE
THE DOWNSIDE OF FREE TRADE
THE US ECONOMIC EXPANSION
ISOLATION OF BRITAIN
GERMAN GROWTH
CRIMEA WAR 1853-1856
IRISH QUESTION 1880s
"WOMAN QUESTION"

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1848 - 1870
PROSPERITY
RISING LIVING STANDARDS
MIDDLE CLASS VALUES

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1832 - 1848
INDUSTRIALISATION
ECONOMIC DEPRESSION
SOCIAL CONFLICTS AND REFORMS

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1837 - 1901

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1.     What elements characterized the early Victorian period?

2.     What were the downsides of industrialization?

3.     What were workhouses?

4.     What did the Great Exhibition of 1851 symbolize?

5.     What elements determined the power of Britain?

6.     Has the composition of the social classes changed?

7.     Why can the late Victorian period be considered as ‘declining’? What new themes are now emerging?

8.     Themes and style of the rising fiction:.........