Victorian Literature

One supernatural element that features prominently in the fictional works of Catherine Crowe is the dream.  In The Night Side of Nature Crowe describes dreams as "prophetic," having divine o...

http://victoriancircle.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-function-of-dreams-in-fictional.html

I have spent the past year studying for a Masters in English Literature in London, England.  Though the program in which I was enrolled did not focus specifically on Victorian literature, I ...

http://victoriancircle.blogspot.com/2013/09/catherine-crowe.html

The opening scene in Gradgrind's school demonstrates his education philosophy, teaching only facts and projecting a detached worldview.  According to David Craig's introduction to the Pengui...

http://victoriancircle.blogspot.com/2012/08/murdering-innocents-in-hard-times.html

Hard Times was written against a backdrop of a changing economic environment in England.  Gone was the cottage industry of Georgian England in which families labored together in the home.&nb...

http://victoriancircle.blogspot.com/2012/07/background-on-hard-times.html

In The Old Wives' Tale, Arnold Bennett portrays the divergent yet parallel lives of two English sisters.  One sister Constance remains in a provincial English town her entire life while Soph...

http://victoriancircle.blogspot.com/2012/05/old-wives-tale-and-wesleyan-methodism.html

Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) by Jerome K. Jerome is a book that details the week-long journey of the title characters down the River Thames from London to Oxford and back. ...

http://victoriancircle.blogspot.com/2012/05/review-of-three-men-in-boat.html

Deerbrook (1839), the first of only two novels by Harriet Martineau, is a work that combines Romantic elements with those of the realist movement.  It describes the arrival of the Ibbotson s...

http://victoriancircle.blogspot.com/2012/04/deerbrook-1839-first-of-only-two-novels.html

The Gleaners (1857) by Jean-Francois Millet "That depends," said Caleb, turning his head on one side and lowering his voice, with the air of a man who felt himself to be saying something deeply r...

http://victoriancircle.blogspot.com/2012/04/caleb-garths-philosophy-of-work.html

A Country Cottage by Frederick Watts (1800-1870) One theme in Middlemarch is the resistance of provincial folks to change.   For this reason, Lydgate faces a lot of opposition in his pu...

http://victoriancircle.blogspot.com/2012/04/no-incentive-to-change.html

The website Culture Critic asked me to do a write up on my favorite Victorian novels.  You can find my piece here.  I would like to thank Culture Critic for giving me the opportunity to...

http://victoriancircle.blogspot.com/2012/04/special-thanks-to-culture-critic.html

The Ruins (1885) by James Tissot  The doubt hinted by Mr. Vincy whether it were only the general election or the end of the world that was coming on, now that George the Fourth was dead, Par...

http://victoriancircle.blogspot.com/2012/04/age-of-transition.html

In the case of the marriage of Dorothea Brooke and Casaubon, neither entered matrimony with the correct idea.  Whereas Dorothea was misguided in her approach, Casaubon too was misguided in h...

http://victoriancircle.blogspot.com/2012/02/casaubons-fight-for-significance.html

 "Language gives a fuller image, which is all the better for beings vague. After all, the true seeing is within; and painting stares at you with an insistent imperfection. I feel that especi...

http://victoriancircle.blogspot.com/2012/02/language-as-art.html

In Middlemarch, the heroine Dorothea Brooke is an orphan who lives with her uncle and sister at Tipton Grange.  Despite the attention of the young and wealthy Sir James Chettam, who shares h...

http://victoriancircle.blogspot.com/2012/02/misguided-affair.html

Earlier this month, I was notified on Twitter that this blog had been nominated and named one of the "Top Victorian Blogs of 2011."  After overcoming the shock, I was greatly gratified by th...

http://victoriancircle.blogspot.com/2011/11/top-victorian-blogs-winner.html

George Eliot was as well-read as any other female during the Victorian period.  In addition to the works of Shakespeare and Scott, as well as the poetry of Byron, Coleridge, and Wordsworth, ...

http://victoriancircle.blogspot.com/2011/10/eliots-influences.html

"George Eliot" by Virginia Woolf* To read George Eliot attentively is to become aware how little one knows about her. It is also to become aware of the credulity, not very creditable to one's ins...

http://victoriancircle.blogspot.com/2011/09/virginia-woolf-on-george-eliot.html

My dear Mr Clennam,' returned Ferdinand, laughing, 'have you really such a verdant hope? The next man who has as large a capacity and as genuine a taste for swindling, will succeed as well. Pardo...

http://victoriancircle.blogspot.com/2011/09/there-will-always-be-merdles.html

It was from this position that all she saw appeared unreal; the more surprising the scenes, the more they resembled the unreality of her own inner life as she went through its vacant places all d...

http://victoriancircle.blogspot.com/2011/09/amys-dream-world.html

Henry Gowan is the fiancé of Pet Meagles, whom Arthur realizes he loves after her engagement (Arthur is quite flexible in love).  The Meagles do not like Gowan personally, though they embra...

http://victoriancircle.blogspot.com/2011/08/henry-gowan.html

Dickens originally planned to name the novel Nobody's Fault, and though he changed the title, the theme of nobody remains a part of the work.  Many characters struggle with their identity th...

http://victoriancircle.blogspot.com/2011/08/book-of-nobodies.html

Tattycoram feels she is imprisoned as a part of the Meagles household, only to learn true subjugation when she runs away to live with Miss Wade.  Adopted by the Meagles to serve as a maid to...

http://victoriancircle.blogspot.com/2011/08/imprisonment-in-little-dorrit-part-two.html

A recurring theme in Little Dorrit is imprisonment.  Obviously, the Marshalsea has an dominating presence in Part One of the novel.  Mr. Dorrit is imprisoned there over 20 years and see...

http://victoriancircle.blogspot.com/2011/08/imprisonment-in-little-dorrit-part-one.html

In contrast to Eliot's assertion (quoted in the previous post) that Dickens rarely gives an internal examination of his characters to the extent that he illustrates external traits, Alan Palmer, ...

http://victoriancircle.blogspot.com/2011/08/rebuttal-to-george-eliot.html

 "Some readers may honestly prefer other works by the same author to this work:  we ourselves have our own preferences: but we know of no other author in our time who could have produce...

http://victoriancircle.blogspot.com/2011/08/contemporary-quotes-about-little-dorrit.html