Victorian+Era+(and+Sonnet+43)

Victorian Era 1837-1901
 * Queen Victoria's reign in England
 * Expansion of British imperial power
 * Due to high infant mortality, they would take family pictures with dead babies...so creepy...I guess some way to memoralize the deceased?



Queen Victoria (1837-1901)
 * Strict laws would prohibit people from moving class
 * Strict laws regarding social class (limited class mobility)
 * Very conservative time
 * standard gender roles
 * long period of peace and prosperity
 * certainty -> social upheaval
 * alienation of modern era
 * Imperialism
 * Increase in universal education and increasing middle class
 * Novel flourishes
 * Four Main characteristics:
 * 1) Reflects everyday life's struggles and practical interests
 * 2) Asserts art has a moral purpose; not "art for art's sake"; moral message to instruct the world
 * 3) Idealism: the age is seen as an age of doubt and pessimism (mainly because of science - the relationship between man, the universe, and evolution)
 * 4) Though the age is practical and realistic, the writers portray a perfectly ideal life (truth, justice, love, and brotherhood are emphasized by poets and novelists)

Popular Authors:
 * Arnold, Matthew (1822-1888)
 * Brontë, Anne (1820-1849)
 * Brontë, Charlotte (1816-1855)
 * Brontë, Emily (1818-1848)
 * Browning, Elizabeth Barrett (1806-1861)
 * Browning, Robert (1812-1889)
 * Butler, Samuel (1835-1902)
 * Carroll, Lewis (1832-1898)
 * Carlyle, Thomas (1795-1881)
 * Collins, Wilkie (1824-89)
 * Clough, Arthur Hugh (1819-1861)
 * Dickens, Charles (1812-1870)
 * Doyle, Arthur Conan (1859-1930)
 * Eliot, George (1819-1880)
 * Gaskell, Elizabeth (1810-1865)
 * Gissing, George (1857-1903)
 * Hardy, Thomas (1840-1928)
 * Hopkins, Gerard Manley (1844-1889)
 * Housman, A. E. (1859-1936)
 * Kingston, William Henry Giles (1814-1880)
 * Kipling, Rudyard (1865-1936)
 * Landon, Letitia Elizabeth (1802-1838)
 * Macaulay, Thomas Babington (1800-59)
 * Moore, George (1852-1933)
 * Morris, William (1834-96)
 * Meredith, George (1828-1909)
 * Mill, John Stuart (1806-73)
 * Pater, Walter (1839-94)
 * Patmore, Coventry (1823-96)
 * Rossetti, Christina (1830-1894)
 * Rossetti, Dante Gabriel (1828-1882)
 * Ruskin, John (1819-1900)
 * Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950)
 * Stevenson, Robert Louis (1850-1894)
 * Stoker, Bram (1847-1912)
 * Swinburne, Algernon Charles (1837-1909)
 * Tennyson, Alfred (Lord) (1809-1892)
 * Trollope, Anthony (1815–82)
 * Thackeray, William Makepeace (1811-1863)
 * Wells, H.G. (1866-1946)
 * Wilde, Oscar (1854-1900)
 * Yeats, William Butler (1865-1939)

By Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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. I love thee to the level of everyday's Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints!---I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life!---and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.

Browning exhibits a very touching sonnet which closely resembles a modern day (though far less lyrical and magical) Taylor Swift song (before the breakup) or a much adored One Direction song (examples attached below). Browning concludes this poem in a striking manner by understating death, claiming that it allows her to love better. She employs repetition freely, stating ceaselessly that “I love thee.” Browning encompasses essentially every aspect of not only human existence but also human thought, taking things to a metaphysical level: the “depth and breadth and height my //soul// can reach.” She then brings love to a simpler level, with “childhood’s faith.” Her heavenly diction woos the reader with a delightful lust: “ends of Being,” “ideal Grace,” “Right,” “Praise,” “Passion,” “faith,” “saints,” and lastly, “God” himself. Very dull title for such an elegant poem however. This poem is essentially love; can one put a number on love? One off from 42 (the answer to the universe), does this suggest some distopian universe that we call love? I vote yes, love is crazy (girls are crazy [don't kill me]), but I'm definitely over thinking this. Though it is a very humorous, ironic coincidence.

You Belong with Me – T. Swizzle [] Gracing us with the men’s perspective, One Direction’s Kiss You []

This picture seems to reflect this poem