Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. Queen Victoria’s Reign
2. Prose
3. Poetry
4. Drama
5. Non-Fiction
6. Examination
7. Assessment Objectives, Exemplar & Contextual Linking

Queen Victoria’s Reign 1837-1901

‘It is impossible, in our condition of society, not to be sometimes a snob.’ William Makepeace Thackeray 1811-1863

‘Each class of society has its own requirements; but it may be said that every class teaches the one immediately below it; and if the highest class be ignorant, uneducated, loving display,...

• Aspens.ppt

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. A Guide to Victorian Literature
2. London Labour and the London Poor
3. The Life of Charlotte Bronte
4. Mrs Beeton
5. Victorian Working Women

Advice

• How does the writer express his thoughts and feelings in this extract? Look closely and comment upon language, form and structure.
• Think of your wider reading. What could you use from your wider reading in connection with this passage?

Arthur Munby 1828-1910

Extract from Victorian Working Women

In the fork of the two railways, in a road just...

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. A Guide to Victorian Literature
2. London Labour and the London Poor
3. The Life of Charlotte Bronte
4. Mrs Beeton
5. Victorian Working Women

Advice

• How does the writer express her thoughts and feelings in this extract? Look closely and comment upon language, form and structure.
• Think of your wider reading. What could you use from your wider reading in connection with this passage?

Mrs. Beeton 1836-1865

Extract

I must frankly own, that if I had known beforehand, that this book would have...

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. A Guide to Victorian Literature
2. London Labour and the London Poor
3. The Life of Charlotte Bronte
4. Mrs Beeton
5. Victorian Working Women

Advice

• How does the writer express her thoughts and feelings in this extract? Look closely and comment upon language, form and structure.
• Think of your wider reading. What could you use from your wider reading in connection with this passage?

The Life of Charlotte Bronte

Elizabeth Gaskell

Extract from Chapter 8

On the 29th July, 1835, Charlotte,...

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. A Guide to Victorian Literature
2. London Labour and the London Poor
3. The Life of Charlotte Bronte
4. Mrs Beeton
5. Victorian Working Women

Advice

• How does the writer express his thoughts and feelings in this extract? Look closely and comment upon language, form and structure.
• Think of your wider reading. What could you use from your wider reading in connection with this passage?

London Labour and the London Poor

Henry Mayhew, 1852

Extract from Scavengers and Cleaners - Of The...

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. A Guide to Victorian Literature
2. A Doll’s House
3. The Importance of Being Earnest

The Importance of Being Earnest

Oscar Wilde, 1895 (1854-1900)

Extract from Act 1

‘It is exquisitely trivial; a delicate bubble of fancy and it has its philosophy… that we should treat all the delicate things of life seriously, and all the serious things of life with sincere and studied triviality.’

Wilde’s own comment on his masterpiece The Importance of being Earnest.

...

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. A Guide to Victorian Literature
2. A Doll’s House
3. The Importance of Being Earnest

A Doll’s House

Henrik Ibsen, 1879 (1828-1906)

Extract

Nora.  Sit down here Torvald. You and I have much to say to one another.

Hel. Nora- what is this? – this cold, set face?

Nora. Sit down. It will take some time; I have a lot to talk over with you.

Hel. You alarm me Nora! And I don’t understand you.

Nora. No, that is just it. You don’t understand me and I have never understood you either –...

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. A Guide to Victorian Literature
2. Christina Rossetti
3. Thomas Hardy
4. Alfred Lord Tennyson
5. Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The Cry of the Children

Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers,
Ere the sorrow comes with years?
They are leaning their young heads against their mothers,-
And that cannot stop their tears.
The young lambs are bleating in the meadows;
The young birds are chirping in the nest;
The young fawns are playing with the shadows;
The young...

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. A Guide to Victorian Literature
2. Christina Rossetti
3. Thomas Hardy
4. Alfred Lord Tennyson
5. Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Extract from Songs

‘Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font:
The fire-fly wakens: waken thou with me.

Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a ghost,
And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.

Now lies the earth all Danae to the stars,
And all thy heart...

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. A Guide to Victorian Literature
2. Christina Rossetti
3. Thomas Hardy
4. Alfred Lord Tennyson
5. Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Thomas Hardy 1840-1928

The Darkling Thrush 31 December, 1990

I leant upon a coppice gate
When frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires

The land’s sharp features seemed to be
The...

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. A Guide to Victorian Literature
2. Christina Rossetti
3. Thomas Hardy
4. Alfred Lord Tennyson
5. Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Christina Rossetti 1830-1894

A Christmas Carol

In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When He comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable-place...

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. A Guide to Victorian Literature
2. The Diary of a Nobody
3. Mary Barton
4. Wuthering Heights
5. David Copperfield
6. Great Expectations
7. Jane Eyre
8. Nicholas Nickleby

Nicholas Nickleby

Charles Dickens, 1838 (1812-1870)

Extract from Chapter 8

But the pupils – the young noblemen! How the last faint traces of hope, the remotest glimmering of any good to be derived from his efforts in this den, faded from the mind of Nicholas as he looked in dismay around! Pale and haggard faces,...

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. A Guide to Victorian Literature
2. The Diary of a Nobody
3. Mary Barton
4. Wuthering Heights
5. David Copperfield
6. Great Expectations
7. Jane Eyre
8. Nicholas Nickleby

Jane Eyre

Charlotte Bronte, 1847 (1816-1855)

Extract from Chapter 12

Anybody may blame me who likes, when I add further that, now and then, when I took a walk by myself in the grounds; when I went down to the gates and looked through them along the road; or when, while Adele played with her nurse, and Mrs. Fairfax...

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. A Guide to Victorian Literature
2. The Diary of a Nobody
3. Mary Barton
4. Wuthering Heights
5. David Copperfield
6. Great Expectations
7. Jane Eyre
8. Nicholas Nickleby

Great Expectations

Charles Dickens, 1860/61 (1812-1870)

Extract from Chapter 8

‘You‘re to wait here, you boy,’ said Estella; and disappeared and closed the door.

I took the opportunity of being alone in the court-yard, to look at my coarse hands and my common boots. My opinion of those accessories was not...

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. A Guide to Victorian Literature
2. The Diary of a Nobody
3. Mary Barton
4. Wuthering Heights
5. David Copperfield
6. Great Expectations
7. Jane Eyre
8. Nicholas Nickleby

David Copperfield

Charles Dickens. 1850 (1812-1870)

Extract from Chapter 4

One morning when I went into the parlour with my books, I found my mother looking anxious, Miss Murdstone looking firm and Mr. Murdstone binding something round the bottom of a cane – a lithe and limber cane, which he left off binding when I...

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. A Guide to Victorian Literature
2. The Diary of a Nobody
3. Mary Barton
4. Wuthering Heights
5. David Copperfield
6. Great Expectations
7. Jane Eyre
8. Nicholas Nickleby

Wuthering Heights

Emily Bronte, 1847 (1818-1948)

Extract from Chapter 3

‘See here, wife; I was never so beaten with anything in my life; but you must e’en take it as a gift of God; though it’s as dark almost as if it came from the devil.’

We crowded round, and, over Miss Cathy’s head I had a peep at a...

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. A Guide to Victorian Literature
2. The Diary of a Nobody
3. Mary Barton
4. Wuthering Heights
5. David Copperfield
6. Great Expectations
7. Jane Eyre
8. Nicholas Nickleby

Mary Barton

Elizabeth Gaskell, 1848

Extract

The two men, rough tender nurses as they were, lighted the fire, which puffed into the room as if it did not know the way up the damp, unused chimney. The very smoke seemed purifying and healthy in the thick, clammy air. The children clamoured again for bread; but this time...

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. A Guide to Victorian Literature
2. The Diary of a Nobody
3. Mary Barton
4. Wuthering Heights
5. David Copperfield
6. Great Expectations
7. Jane Eyre
8. Nicholas Nickleby

The Diary of a Nobody

George and Weedon Grossmith, 1892

Extract from Chapter 12

A serious discussion concerning the use and value of my diary. Lupin’s opinion of ’Xmas. Lupin’s unfortunate engagement is on again.

December 17. As I open my scribbling diary I find the words ‘Oxford Michaelmas term ends’. Why...

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. Queen Victoria’s Reign
2. Prose
3. Poetry
4. Drama
5. Non-Fiction
6. Examination
7. Assessment Objectives, Exemplar & Contextual Linking

Assessment Objectives for Question One - Victorian Literature AS English Literature

It is essential that you bear these assessment objectives in mind when planning and writing your answer.

AO1 6%

Articulate creative, informed and relevant responses to literary texts using appropriate terminology and concepts, and coherent, accurate written...

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. Queen Victoria’s Reign
2. Prose
3. Poetry
4. Drama
5. Non-Fiction
6. Examination
7. Assessment Objectives, Exemplar & Contextual Linking

What To Expect In The Contextual Linking Question

On opening up your examination paper you will see a short extract related to Victorian Literature which will be NON-FICTION.

It could be any one of the following;

• A letter
• A work of criticism
• A diary extract
• A biographical extract
• An autobiographical extract
• A piece of cultural commentary
• A history...

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. Queen Victoria’s Reign
2. Prose
3. Poetry
4. Drama
5. Non-Fiction
6. Examination
7. Assessment Objectives, Exemplar & Contextual Linking

Extracts from Victorian Literature

Each extract in the list below is accompanied by a commentary.

• A Doll’s House [1879], Henrik Ibsen 1828-1906
• The Importance of Being Earnest [1895], Oscar Wilde 1854-1900

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. Queen Victoria’s Reign
2. Prose
3. Poetry
4. Drama
5. Non-Fiction
6. Examination
7. Assessment Objectives, Exemplar & Contextual Linking

Examples from Victorian Literature

Each example in the list below is accompanied by a commentary.

• Christina Rossetti 1830-1894
  • A Christmas Carol
  • Song
  • Remember

• Thomas Hardy 1840-1928
  • The Darkling Thrush 21 December 1890

• Alfred Lord Tennyson
  • Songs

• Elizabeth Barrett Browning
  • The Cry of the Children

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. Queen Victoria’s Reign
2. Prose
3. Poetry
4. Drama
5. Non-Fiction
6. Examination
7. Assessment Objectives, Exemplar & Contextual Linking

Extracts from Victorian Literature

Each extract in the list below is accompanied by a commentary.

• The Diary of a Nobody [1892], George and Weedon Grossmith
• Mary Barton [1848], Elizabeth Gaskell
• Wuthering Heights [1847], Emily Bronte 1818-1948
• David Copperfield [1850], Charles Dickens 1812-1870
• Great Expectations [1860/61], Charles Dickens 1812-1870
• ...

Edward Thomas and His Poetry

Edward Thomas is one of our most highly regarded war poets and yet in the popular imagination is perhaps less well-known; his work has attracted the highest critical acclaim.

Here are some comments:

Because all of his poetry was written after the outbreak of war, it is all, in an important sense, war poetry. Behind every line, whether mentioned or not, lies imminent danger and disruption. Andrew Motion

And from the foreword to the Collected Poems of Edward Thomas (1920)

His face was fair, long and rather...

• March.ppt
• Old Man.ppt
• Tears.ppt
• The Glory.ppt
• Words.ppt
• As The Teams Head Brass.ppt
• But These Things Also.ppt
• Gone, Gone Again.ppt
• Lights Out.ppt
• Melancholy.ppt
• The Sun Used To Shine.ppt

Associated Resources

• Part 1 - AWONI Teaching Guide.doc
• Part 2 - AWONI Annotated Guide.doc
• Part 3 - AWONI Teaching Guide.doc

Why you might like to teach this text!

A Woman of No Importance is a wonderful text to teach and your students will enjoy studying it.

It is short, it has an absorbing and convincing plot and its themes are easily recognised, interestingly explored and persuasively presented.

On top of this, Wilde is a fine and witty dramatist who uses his chosen form in fascinating ways not only, at the level of plot, to entertain but...

Although analysing a text at the level of narrative is a direct requirement of some English Literature courses, such as AQA’s LITB1, it is an analytical technique that can be quite generally applied across many texts – even non-fictional and media texts.

Associated Resources

A Guide to Teaching Othello

Click on the link below to download this resource.

Othello Guide Part 2 EnglishEdu.doc

Othello Guide Part 2 EnglishEdu.docx

Associated Resources

How to improve grades when writing for Othello

This EnglishEdu guide on Shakespeare’s popular A Level play, Othello, aims to supplement rather than replace other readily available Internet and printed material for the teaching of the play.

The guide explores the issues, themes and characters in the play that are particularly relevant to the current (2010) A Level Literature specifications. To add to the usefulness, and with an eye to the central AO requirement of close textual analysis of form, structure and...

Introduction

The tenth in the EnglishEdu series on ‘frameworks’ for A Level English Literature.

This guide explores how to analyse narrative viewpoint in novels, short stories or prose extracts in order to allow students access to the highest grades.

Narrative viewpoint: Atonement by Ian McEwan

The most straightforward way of demonstrating how to analyse a text closely in terms of narrative viewpoint is to exemplify it. The extract below is followed by a series of bullet points which demonstrate how to analyse closely using carefully...

Introduction

The fifteenth in the EnglishEdu series on ‘frameworks’ for A Level English Literature.

This guide explores how to analyse the genre of novels, short stories or prose extracts in order to allow students access to the highest grades.

Genre: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (gothic); Hamlet by William Shakespeare (tragedy); As You Like It by William Shakespeare (pastoral)

NB Whilst the EnglishEdu Literature Frameworks generally analyse novels, short stories or prose extracts, the specific nature of the tragic and pastoral genres...

Introduction

The fourteenth in the EnglishEdu series on ‘frameworks’ for A Level English Literature.

This guide explores how to help students analyse the context of novels, short stories or prose extracts in order to allow them access to the highest grades.

Context: On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

The most straightforward way of demonstrating how to analyse a text closely in terms of context is to exemplify it. The extract below is followed by a series of bullet points which demonstrate how to analyse closely using carefully chosen...

Introduction

The thirteenth in the EnglishEdu series on ‘frameworks’ for A Level English Literature.

This guide explores how to analyse the symbolism in novels, short stories or prose extracts in order to allow students access to the highest grades.

Symbolism: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

The most straightforward way of demonstrating how to closely analyse a text in terms of the theme above is to exemplify it. The extract below is followed by a series of bullet points which demonstrate how to analyse closely using carefully chosen...

Introduction

This is the twelfth in the EnglishEdu series on ‘frameworks’ for A Level English Literature.

This guide explores how to analyse the narrative presentation of time in novels, short stories or prose extracts in order to allow students access to the highest grades.

Time: The Time Machine by H G Wells

The most straightforward way of demonstrating how to closely analyse a text in terms of the theme above is to exemplify it. The extract below is followed by a series of bullet points which demonstrate how to analyse closely using...

Introduction

The eleventh in the EnglishEdu series on ‘frameworks’ for A Level English Literature.

This guide explores how to analyse how authors create a convincing sense of realism or ‘verisimilitude’ in novels, short stories or prose extracts.

An analysis at a level like this is capable of revealing the kind of subtle insights that allow students access to the highest grades.

Verisimilitude: Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

The most straightforward way of demonstrating how to analyse a text closely in terms of verisimilitude is...

Introduction to the Literary ‘Frameworks’ Guides

At EnglishEdu our wish is always to try to help you, the often stressed and overworked English teacher, with something that you will feel is both very useful and – where possible – very different from what might be found elsewhere, either on the Internet or in print.

All of the guides, schemes of work and classroom materials on EnglishEdu have been written and produced by experienced and well-respected English teachers.

The guides are based on their best experience of teaching...

Introduction

The ninth in the Englishedu series on ‘frameworks’ for A Level English Literature, this guide explores and exemplifies an important requirement of many A-level English Literature teaching units, that students show how their own interpretation of a literary text is informed by their understanding that other possible interpretations exist, i.e. ‘alternative interpretations’.

‘Alternative Interpretations’: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

The most straightforward way of demonstrating how to closely analyse a text in...

Introduction

The eighth in the Englishedu series on ‘frameworks’ for A Level English Literature, this guide looks at ways of analysing an author’s use of irony in novels, short stories or prose extracts in order to allow students access to the highest grades.

Irony: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

The most straightforward way of demonstrating how to closely analyse a text in terms of the theme above is to exemplify it. The extract below is followed by a series of bullet points which demonstrate how to analyse closely using...

Introduction

The seventh in the Englishedu series on ‘frameworks’ for A Level English Literature, this guide explores how to analyse an author’s use of description, imagery and figurative language in novels, short stories or prose extracts in order to allow students access to the highest grades.

Description, imagery, figurative language: Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

The most straightforward way of demonstrating how to closely analyse a text in terms of the theme above is to exemplify it. The extract below is followed...

Introduction

The sixth in the Englishedu series on ‘frameworks’ for A Level English Literature, this guide explores how to analyse the dialogue in novels, short stories or prose extracts in order to allow students access to the highest grades.

Dialogue: Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

The most straightforward way of demonstrating how to closely analyse a text in terms of the theme above is to exemplify it. The extract below is followed by a series of bullet points which demonstrate how to analyse closely using carefully chosen...

Introduction

The fifth in the Englishedu series on ‘frameworks’ for A Level English Literature, this guide explores and exemplifies ways of analysing aspects and uses of atmosphere, mood, tone and foreshadowing in novels, short stories or prose extracts in order to allow students access to the highest grades.

Atmosphere, mood, tone and foreshadowing: Lord of the Flies by William Golding

The most straightforward way of demonstrating how to closely analyse a text in terms of the theme above is to exemplify it. The extract below is...

Introduction

The fourth in the Englishedu series on ‘frameworks’ for A Level English Literature, this guide explores how to analyse authors’ uses of setting in novels, short stories or prose extracts in order to allow students access to the highest grades.

Setting, places and scenes: Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

The most straightforward way of demonstrating how to closely analyse a text in terms of the theme above is to exemplify it. The extract below is followed by a series of bullet points which demonstrate how to analyse...

Introduction

The third in the Englishedu ‘literary frameworks’ series for A Level English Literature, this guide explores and exemplifies ways of analysing an author’s creation and presentation of characters in novels, short stories or prose extracts in order to allow students access to the highest grades.

Characters and characterisation: Lord of the Flies by William Golding

The most straightforward way of demonstrating how to closely analyse a text in terms of the theme above is to exemplify it. The extract below is followed by a...

Introduction

This is the second in the Englishedu series on ‘analytical frameworks’ aimed, primarily, at A Level English Literature teachers.

The guides are loosely based on the English Language A level idea of ‘analytical frameworks’ – a way that allows students a more methodical way of viewing texts at various analytical levels to help them create subtler and thus better commentaries and discussions on any text under study.

Each ‘framework’ is covered in detail and its use is exemplified using textual examples chosen...

Introduction

At EnglishEdu our aim is to help the overworked English teacher (including this writer!) with something that you will feel is both very useful and – where possible – very different from what might be found elsewhere, either on the Internet or in print.

All of the guides, schemes of work and classroom materials on Englishedu have been produced by experienced and well-respected English teachers. The guides are based on their best experience of teaching particular units of work.

This new guide is something a little unusual....

Click here to download this response as PDF file.

January 2010

Annie Besant makes her thoughts entirely clear from the first sentence she writes: a ‘Bitter memory’ about an issue extremely close to many Victorian women’s hearts, gender inequality. The ‘woman question’ was present in many literary pieces of the ‘golden age’. Hardy, a poet, was known for his idealisation of women, especially in the ‘Emma poems’, however few writers tackled head on the persecution women faced.  Besant also talks of gender discrimination in the...

Click here to download this response as PDF file.

June 2009

Cultural commentator John Ruskin comments on the ‘separate characters’ of men and women. Strict Victorian values dictated that the male’s role was in the outside world and the woman’s in domestic settings. There is no room for individuality, love or an upset order-like cogs in the machine men and women could function together if they kept their separate roles. In the article he describes this as an agreeable working relationship for men and women alike but Victorian...

Click here to download this response as a PDF file.

June 2009

During the Victorian Era, women were expected by society’s standards to be the carers for their home and their families. ‘The Gilded Age’ showed women how they were to be and how they were to act, highlighting the corruption of society with no free speech or lifetime ambitions fulfilled. John Ruskin makes it clear to the audience that men were ‘the creator, the discoverer, the defender’ whereas women were to stay at home and attend to the man’s needs, rather than their...

Click here to download this response as a PDF file.

June 2009

The ‘Golden Age’ of the Victorian Era was a time when women were looked upon in the toughest of lights. Society watched closely with a judging eye at any female breaking the conventions that other women such as Mrs Beeton had set. John Ruskin, being a cultural commentator, would have been all too aware of ‘the Angel of the house’. He sees the domestic expectation forced upon Victorian women while their husbands ‘create’, ‘discover’ and ‘defend’.

Ruskin seems...