the press eighteenth-century famous publication the spectator, the tatler (addison and steele) the...
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THE PRESS
Eighteenth-century famous publicationThe Spectator, The Tatler (Addison and Steele)The Rambler, The Idler (Samuel Johnson)The Gentleman’s Magazine
Nineteenth century=Explosion of the Press
Since the beginning of the century:The TimesThe (Manchester) GuardianSunday PapersRadical Pamphlets
Mid-century → New Journalism
1880s → London capital of the press
SERIALIZATION
The Pickwick Papers (1836)
Pickwick merchandising included: breeches and waistcoats, chintzes, jugs and mugs, pastries.“Pickwick mania seized first Britain, then abroad. [It] was spontaneous, [...] not invented by successful publishers to cash in on the popularity of a character in a book” (Wilson, p.19).
Punch Magazine
Yesterday we mentioned
ALFRED TENNYSON
ROBERT BROWNING
the two most famous Victorian poets
The Pickwick Papers
Household Words
All the Year Round
The Cornhill Magazine
Punch
Fraser’s Magazine
Serialization
Novels and poems appeared in
INSTALLMENTS(usually twenty, monthly or weekly)
EFFECTS:
- on the writer- on the reader- on the novel
NARRATOLOGY
WHAT IS FICTION?
NARRATIVE FICTIONthe narration of a succession of
fictional events
STORYthe eventsthe characterswhen (time)where (setting)
(NARRATIVE)DISCOURSEvoicefocalizationorder
Real Author
Real Reader
Implied authorNarratorNarrateeImplied Reader
NARRATOR
THIRD PERSON-omniscient / non-omniscient-obtrusive / unobtrusive
FIRST PERSON- protagonist- another character
The most common narrator in Victorian novels is an omniscient and intrusive third-person narrator but there are exceptions.
(see Bertinetti, p. 189)
Some notable exceptions:
→ First-person narrators in Dickens, Charlotte Bronte, etc.
→ Wuthering Heights (1847) by Emily Bronte
→ Dracula (1897) by Abraham Stoker
PROSE FICTION
NovelRomance
Short Storytalefairy tale (vs fable)novella
The novel has been considered the major literary genre of the Victorian age.
However, recognition of the novel as literature starts in the second half of the century (George Eliot, Henry James) and inclusion in the literary canon only in the twentieth.
F.R. LEAVIS (a university professor and scholar)
The Great Tradition (1948)
Jane AustenGeorge EliotHenry JamesJoseph Conrad(later he included Hard Times by Dickens)
DOUBLE and CONTRADICTORY nature of the Victorian Novel
Moralism, endorsment of Victorian values
Subversive power, irony, social satire and denunciation