Victorian essay

Victorian Literature Victorian literature covered a wide range of themes and writings styles. It was most popular during the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901) and is known as the Victorian era. Victorian literature was formed from three main styles, Romanticism, Realism, and Naturalism. Each of the styles contained writers, poets, and novelists. In the early part of the Victorian era, most of the literature was romantic. The themes of Romanticism were optimistic: worth, love, and the beauty of nature. The writers mostly wrote about the way things should be rather than the way things were. One of the most respected poets in the Victorian era was Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Her stories included a wide range of issues and ideas. Barrett Browning most famous work was Sonnets from the Portuguese, a collection of love sonnets. “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach, when feeling out of sight for the ends of being and ideal Grace…” are the lines from the sonnet, “How do I love thee.” In this sonnet, Barrett was trying to show how much she loves and cares about her lover. We can see that she was trying to show what kind of love we should have in return. Later, especially after 1870, a different kind of literature became popular Realism. It was concerned with life as it really was. The authors in Realism were showing the “real” life around us, unlike the romantic authors. Charles Dickens was one of these authors of the time. One of his famous novels was The Old Curiosity Shop, which was a chase story. “You think they’re going to win, you think they’re going to win, they lose”, are lines from the novel that shows a good example of Realism. Charles was showing the reality by saying these words. Life is not all about winning but loosing too. By the end of the century, a new movement called Naturalism replaced Realism. Naturalism works exposed the dark harshness of life, including poverty,