Named for Queen Victoria, this period of literature spans over sixty years during the nineteenth century. Some characteristics that are commonly found in literature from this era are as follows:
- Industrialization: Railways and manufacturing centers were flourishing during these years, and this was reshaping societies. The struggles of these developments as well as the opportunities they afforded are often addressed in Victorian literature.
- The role of women: British women of this period didn't have many choices or options on the table. Most needed to get married in order to find financial stability and few were employed. Those who wanted to work looked primarily to factories or house work. As women sought more opportunities, debates followed regarding what the role of women in society should be. This question is often reflected in literature of this era.
- Class distinctions: British society was highly stratified during the Victorian period, and many rules governed...
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- the social interactions and possibilities between the elite upper classes (who often carried titles), the poor working class, and the growing middle class. In fact, it became possible for the middle class, who held no titles of nobility, to acquire more wealth during this era than some who held titles and therefore "outranked" the middle class socially. This social landscape and the conflicts between classes became a common element in Victorian literature.
- Length: Lots of literature during this era is long. Originally, many of these now single publications (take Middlemarch, for example) were published in installments or volumes. It was cheaper for people to purchase a novel broken into segments than it was to purchase the entire work, so this made literature more affordable and readily available for an increasingly literate society. This also affected the construction of the work. If authors wanted people to keep coming back for the next volume, they had to be careful to hook them with a cliffhanger or ongoing conflict that pulled readers back for more—not just once but in each place where the work might divide into a different volume.