19th century literature
Exam
▪ Erewhon: all possible questions are on the pdf from seminar
▪ Some sample questions of each type of questions
▪ 5 questions, 20 points
− 2 situate and explain: Quote from Essay / story or about author
− 1 author specific
− 1 comparative
− 1 essay question
▪ Sample questions on Blackboard
▪ test your ability to move between different dimensions and scales of 19th-C Literature in English
▪ relations between passages / works / authors / generations / cultural history / history
▪ ONLY about material discussed during lectures and seminars
▪ always mention the name of the author and the title of the work you are discussing
Nineteenth Century Literature – 1850 to 1900
Philosophers
4 horses of modernism, we don’t really know anything about the world as it is
Charles Darwin: the way we think we are the way we actually are
Karl Marx: factory workers are alienated from which they produce
Nietzsche: Things are not what they’re supposed to be, because there is no such thing, there is no god
Sigmund Freud: the mind works subconsciously in ways that we are not aware of
Authors
all very socialist conscious writers, rethink their position in nature
George Eliot: responds to intellectual currents of her time—particularly developments in science, philosophy,
and historical criticism—by exploring the ethical complexities of ordinary lives and emphasizing moral
growth, human interconnectedness, and the consequences of individual choices within evolving social
structures.
Charles Dickens: highlight the social injustices and economic inequalities of Victorian England, using vivid
characterization, sentimental realism, and moral critique to advocate for compassion, reform, and the dignity
of the poor and disenfranchised.
Samuel Butler: critically engage with Victorian values, religion, and evolutionary theory, using irony and
satire to question authority, expose social and intellectual conformity, and explore the tensions between
individual freedom and inherited belief systems.
Mark Twain: critically explore the moral contradictions and social hypocrisies of American life—particularly
issues of race, class, and identity—using satire, regional realism, and the perspective of marginalized voices
to challenge romanticized notions of progress and civilization.
Overview, week by week
1. Introduction: Realism
▪ An age of transition, science, and reason
▪ Jules Champfleury’s “Realism”
2. The Realist Novel (1): George Eliot
▪ General/particular, objective/subjective → nuance, sympathy
▪ Eliot’s essays, excerpts from Adam Bede and Middlemarch
3. The Realist Novel (2): Charles Dickens
▪ Realism and worldview – ideology
▪ Hard times
4. Hard Times Seminar
▪ Dicken’s realism – satire, stereotype, melodrama
▪ Sympathy – but no nuance?
,5. Victorian Poetry
▪ Belated Romanticism – early modernism?
▪ Browning, Rossetti, Hopkins, Kipling
6. Victorian Satire: Samuel Butler
▪ Erewhon and Empire
▪ Erewhon vs Realism – no identification, but alienation
7. Erewhon Seminar and “The Book of the Machines”
▪ Erewhon and On the Origin of Species
▪ Erewhon’s satire
8. The American Civil war
▪ A “House Divided” over slavery – North vs South
▪ Lincoln, Whitman, Dickinson
9. The Literature of Slavery: Huckleberry Finn
▪ Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
▪ Critical but controversial – cf. Realism and ideology
10. Huckleberry Finn seminar
▪ Realism and worldview – the implied author
▪ Huck’s coming of age and the representation of Jim
11. American Realism (1)
▪ Chopin and Chesnutt (and Toni Morisson on Huck Finn)
▪ “local color” Realism
12. American Realism (2)
▪ Bierce and Crane
▪ Observations, no evaluations: from Realism to Modernism
, Realism
1. General introduction (not on exam)
Painting
Romantic art originated in music, realist art originated in painting.
▪ Painting by Courbel and is the first realist painting
− >< impressionist, sublime, overpowering landscapes
in romanticism, more about the experience than the
seeing)
▪ Striking: we cannot see their faces, they are not posing.
− They are everymen – they could have everyone’s
faces.
▪ Tragic dimension: left person is a child, but not meant to
emote, just about everyday activities.
▪ The style: it is quite truthful to reality, it could have been a photograph, those also already existed.
− There are no smudged etc.
− There is an enormous attention to detail: shadow & light, …
− => but: representation of people breaking stones as if it is real => there is always mediation present
George Henry Lewes: The Principles of Success in Literature
I wish to call special attention to the psychological fact, that fairies and demons, remote as
they are from experience, are not created by a more vigorous effort of imagination than
milk maids and poachers. The intensity of vision in the artist and of vividness in his creations
are the sole tests of his imaginative power.
G. H. Lewes, “The Principles of S uccess in Literature (1865)
▪ It takes as much imagination to write about maids and poachers as about fairies and demons
▪ It takes much more from us to imagine the lives of milk maids and poachers
▪ Stratified societies: he did not write for these people, but for a reading audience
▪ The intensity of vividness are the test of his imaginative power
This semester !!!
▪ Realism – or realisms
▪ Victorian Realism – social panoramas and satires
− (1837-1901, we start from 1850)
− Charles Dickens Hard Times
− Erewhon: how artificial intelligence can exist (1860s) => can we still call it realism?
▪ American Realism – realism and the gilded age
− Something very distinct: American realism is already a form of modernism
− Came to US quite late: because of the civil war
− Gilded Age coined by Mark Twain, named after a novel
− Compare to what is happening in US today: great historical reference and relevance
Subjectivity will also creep in when speaking about representation + people are interpreting things for you
=> perspective came into play as soon as realism came into play => modernism: how people interpret reality
=> no more realism at start of 20th century => different degrees of realism in arts through time
, 1.1 Realism in context
Start of realism
Realism in Britain started in 1851 with the Crystal Palace in Hyde for Grand International Exhibition of
1851. Building is made only for exhibition.
▪ A grand exhibition of all modern inventions => reflection of what
society is going to look like => Britain showing off how advanced
it was
▪ Britain was already really advanced during these times. This is
where today’s society comes from
▪ Second part of 19th century is radically different from the first part
of 19th century. Extremely radical progression. And the time of
EMPIRES
1.2 The Victorian era and its discontents (1837-1901)
An age of transition : Age where urbanization started and never stopped
Unprecedented growth – “progress”: moving forward and forward with the
belief that things will get better and better when believing in science.
▪ Shift from land ownership to manufacturing economy
− Rotten borough: no one lives there but still represented in parliament,
because of railroads people could visit these boroughs => realized there
is a faulty representation, the people need to be represented better =>
realization that means of power = means of production
▪ Urbanization, continued industrialization (London, Manchester, Liverpool)
− Means of productions (Karl Marx) are in the hands of the industrialists => have all the power –
people who actually produce are alienated from their products
▪ Population boom: from 14 million (1831) to 32.5 million (1901)
▪ Accelerated rate of change
= sociological term that expresses how different our lives are from the generation that came before.
− Generally: people lived generally the same lives as their parents => changed radically through
industrialization and inventions
▪ BUT: unregulated – unevenly distributed
− Gap between rich and poor was bigger than before
▪ Consequence of the unregulated change: slums, child labor, street urchins (crime, prostitution,…)
− Child as a sociological phenomenon (child as a tool) = new idea
− before people just had children, thus see street urchins = child that lives on the street
Expansion – and colonialism
▪ e.g. 1858: India – 1880s: the scramble for Africa
▪ British Empire – by 1890: 1/4th of the world
▪ 25% of the world’s population was British subject
▪ Center of global influence shifted to London: financial and intellectual influence
− British philosophy was the world’s philosophy, dominant form of philosophy was utilitarianism
− Utilitarianism = everything has a purpose + everything needs to serve the greatest good for the
greatest amount of people => things are evaluated through use value
− But: what if you do not belong to that great amount of people
− Victorian propriety = how things should be organized and how people should behave => strong
sense of what is wrong and what does not belong
▪ Britain becomes the world’s “banker”
Exam
▪ Erewhon: all possible questions are on the pdf from seminar
▪ Some sample questions of each type of questions
▪ 5 questions, 20 points
− 2 situate and explain: Quote from Essay / story or about author
− 1 author specific
− 1 comparative
− 1 essay question
▪ Sample questions on Blackboard
▪ test your ability to move between different dimensions and scales of 19th-C Literature in English
▪ relations between passages / works / authors / generations / cultural history / history
▪ ONLY about material discussed during lectures and seminars
▪ always mention the name of the author and the title of the work you are discussing
Nineteenth Century Literature – 1850 to 1900
Philosophers
4 horses of modernism, we don’t really know anything about the world as it is
Charles Darwin: the way we think we are the way we actually are
Karl Marx: factory workers are alienated from which they produce
Nietzsche: Things are not what they’re supposed to be, because there is no such thing, there is no god
Sigmund Freud: the mind works subconsciously in ways that we are not aware of
Authors
all very socialist conscious writers, rethink their position in nature
George Eliot: responds to intellectual currents of her time—particularly developments in science, philosophy,
and historical criticism—by exploring the ethical complexities of ordinary lives and emphasizing moral
growth, human interconnectedness, and the consequences of individual choices within evolving social
structures.
Charles Dickens: highlight the social injustices and economic inequalities of Victorian England, using vivid
characterization, sentimental realism, and moral critique to advocate for compassion, reform, and the dignity
of the poor and disenfranchised.
Samuel Butler: critically engage with Victorian values, religion, and evolutionary theory, using irony and
satire to question authority, expose social and intellectual conformity, and explore the tensions between
individual freedom and inherited belief systems.
Mark Twain: critically explore the moral contradictions and social hypocrisies of American life—particularly
issues of race, class, and identity—using satire, regional realism, and the perspective of marginalized voices
to challenge romanticized notions of progress and civilization.
Overview, week by week
1. Introduction: Realism
▪ An age of transition, science, and reason
▪ Jules Champfleury’s “Realism”
2. The Realist Novel (1): George Eliot
▪ General/particular, objective/subjective → nuance, sympathy
▪ Eliot’s essays, excerpts from Adam Bede and Middlemarch
3. The Realist Novel (2): Charles Dickens
▪ Realism and worldview – ideology
▪ Hard times
4. Hard Times Seminar
▪ Dicken’s realism – satire, stereotype, melodrama
▪ Sympathy – but no nuance?
,5. Victorian Poetry
▪ Belated Romanticism – early modernism?
▪ Browning, Rossetti, Hopkins, Kipling
6. Victorian Satire: Samuel Butler
▪ Erewhon and Empire
▪ Erewhon vs Realism – no identification, but alienation
7. Erewhon Seminar and “The Book of the Machines”
▪ Erewhon and On the Origin of Species
▪ Erewhon’s satire
8. The American Civil war
▪ A “House Divided” over slavery – North vs South
▪ Lincoln, Whitman, Dickinson
9. The Literature of Slavery: Huckleberry Finn
▪ Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
▪ Critical but controversial – cf. Realism and ideology
10. Huckleberry Finn seminar
▪ Realism and worldview – the implied author
▪ Huck’s coming of age and the representation of Jim
11. American Realism (1)
▪ Chopin and Chesnutt (and Toni Morisson on Huck Finn)
▪ “local color” Realism
12. American Realism (2)
▪ Bierce and Crane
▪ Observations, no evaluations: from Realism to Modernism
, Realism
1. General introduction (not on exam)
Painting
Romantic art originated in music, realist art originated in painting.
▪ Painting by Courbel and is the first realist painting
− >< impressionist, sublime, overpowering landscapes
in romanticism, more about the experience than the
seeing)
▪ Striking: we cannot see their faces, they are not posing.
− They are everymen – they could have everyone’s
faces.
▪ Tragic dimension: left person is a child, but not meant to
emote, just about everyday activities.
▪ The style: it is quite truthful to reality, it could have been a photograph, those also already existed.
− There are no smudged etc.
− There is an enormous attention to detail: shadow & light, …
− => but: representation of people breaking stones as if it is real => there is always mediation present
George Henry Lewes: The Principles of Success in Literature
I wish to call special attention to the psychological fact, that fairies and demons, remote as
they are from experience, are not created by a more vigorous effort of imagination than
milk maids and poachers. The intensity of vision in the artist and of vividness in his creations
are the sole tests of his imaginative power.
G. H. Lewes, “The Principles of S uccess in Literature (1865)
▪ It takes as much imagination to write about maids and poachers as about fairies and demons
▪ It takes much more from us to imagine the lives of milk maids and poachers
▪ Stratified societies: he did not write for these people, but for a reading audience
▪ The intensity of vividness are the test of his imaginative power
This semester !!!
▪ Realism – or realisms
▪ Victorian Realism – social panoramas and satires
− (1837-1901, we start from 1850)
− Charles Dickens Hard Times
− Erewhon: how artificial intelligence can exist (1860s) => can we still call it realism?
▪ American Realism – realism and the gilded age
− Something very distinct: American realism is already a form of modernism
− Came to US quite late: because of the civil war
− Gilded Age coined by Mark Twain, named after a novel
− Compare to what is happening in US today: great historical reference and relevance
Subjectivity will also creep in when speaking about representation + people are interpreting things for you
=> perspective came into play as soon as realism came into play => modernism: how people interpret reality
=> no more realism at start of 20th century => different degrees of realism in arts through time
, 1.1 Realism in context
Start of realism
Realism in Britain started in 1851 with the Crystal Palace in Hyde for Grand International Exhibition of
1851. Building is made only for exhibition.
▪ A grand exhibition of all modern inventions => reflection of what
society is going to look like => Britain showing off how advanced
it was
▪ Britain was already really advanced during these times. This is
where today’s society comes from
▪ Second part of 19th century is radically different from the first part
of 19th century. Extremely radical progression. And the time of
EMPIRES
1.2 The Victorian era and its discontents (1837-1901)
An age of transition : Age where urbanization started and never stopped
Unprecedented growth – “progress”: moving forward and forward with the
belief that things will get better and better when believing in science.
▪ Shift from land ownership to manufacturing economy
− Rotten borough: no one lives there but still represented in parliament,
because of railroads people could visit these boroughs => realized there
is a faulty representation, the people need to be represented better =>
realization that means of power = means of production
▪ Urbanization, continued industrialization (London, Manchester, Liverpool)
− Means of productions (Karl Marx) are in the hands of the industrialists => have all the power –
people who actually produce are alienated from their products
▪ Population boom: from 14 million (1831) to 32.5 million (1901)
▪ Accelerated rate of change
= sociological term that expresses how different our lives are from the generation that came before.
− Generally: people lived generally the same lives as their parents => changed radically through
industrialization and inventions
▪ BUT: unregulated – unevenly distributed
− Gap between rich and poor was bigger than before
▪ Consequence of the unregulated change: slums, child labor, street urchins (crime, prostitution,…)
− Child as a sociological phenomenon (child as a tool) = new idea
− before people just had children, thus see street urchins = child that lives on the street
Expansion – and colonialism
▪ e.g. 1858: India – 1880s: the scramble for Africa
▪ British Empire – by 1890: 1/4th of the world
▪ 25% of the world’s population was British subject
▪ Center of global influence shifted to London: financial and intellectual influence
− British philosophy was the world’s philosophy, dominant form of philosophy was utilitarianism
− Utilitarianism = everything has a purpose + everything needs to serve the greatest good for the
greatest amount of people => things are evaluated through use value
− But: what if you do not belong to that great amount of people
− Victorian propriety = how things should be organized and how people should behave => strong
sense of what is wrong and what does not belong
▪ Britain becomes the world’s “banker”
