Some critics divide up the Romantic period by generation: the "first generation Romantics" (Wordsworth and Coleridge) vs. the "second generation Romantics" (Keats and Shelley). Are Victorians just third-generation Romantics? Or is their lit doing something so different that they need their own category?
19 Comments
Kelsey Iven
3/29/2017 05:57:57 pm
I believe that the Victorians aren't a third generation Romantic, I think that they are doing something in a different category. While some of the readings may talk about the same things, the Victorians are taking it a different way. During the Romanticism they glorified what they were talking about, however during the Victorian Age, it says in our notes that they did things realistically, they tried to make an accurate description of their everyday life, they didn't try to glorify anything. That's why I believe they should be in a category of their own.
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Michala Clark
3/30/2017 11:42:03 am
I agree with Kelsey that the Victorians are their own generation and have unique writing styles all their own. Romanticism focused on the beauty of nature while the Victorians are shaped by factories and lost their dreamy, optimistic views. Victorian writers are more to the point and write shorter stories than compared to their long-winded counterparts. Victorians see the world for how it really is and do not sugar coat life. Because of this, Victorians writing is also darker compared to Romanticism. I believe the two eras are separate and can not be called the same era.
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Timmy James
3/30/2017 07:40:27 am
I have personally found several similarities between the Victorian era and the Romanticism era. In the poem "Dover Beach", a famous Victorian era poem, I found a lot of descriptive imagery of nature. Romanticism values nature very highly as does this poem. I think the biggest difference in the literature is probably the effect of the different leaders of the time period. George III was a crazy leader that starved the poor people. Most pieces of literature referred to this ever growing problem in some way but they had to hide it. Victoria was a grieve-stricken woman that was very strict on respect. All of the literature that was written towards reform was focused on a hopeful future or the future in general. Victorian writers could not openly express their resent out of fear so poems such as "Evidence of Progress" procured, telling of a hopeful new future for England. I think that the similarities outweigh the differences, so I would consider the Victorian era a third generation Romantic era.
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Emily Shanks
4/3/2017 03:19:48 pm
I agree with Timmy, in the sense that a lot of Victorian era writers use a lot of nature in their writings, but I believe their are some major differences as well. Victorian writing has a different style than the Romantic writings. Victorian writers used more modern language and have different verse style than the writer who came before them. Victorian writers tended to look at the realistic side of things while Romantic writers glorified the good and tried to hide the bad and not talk about it. Romantic writers wanted to evoke emotion, while Victorian writers used their work to bring about change and show the failings of government. This is why I think Victorian writers should have their own category and not be lumped together with the other Romantic period writers.
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Teegan Helton
4/2/2017 10:55:39 am
I believe that Victorians should be in a different category than Romantics. They use very different language. Victorians use more modern speech and get to the point. Romantics go on about ideas using flowery metaphors and imagery. Romantics also use different feelings. There is a more complicated feel in Victorian literature. In a way, Romantics act out of emotion while Victorians take their time to act. Also, Victorians saw nature as more realistic and scientific while Romantics saw it is angelic and beautiful. The two eras are different in their own ways.
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Brock Feeler
4/2/2017 03:56:02 pm
I think the Victorian era should be its own literature time period. This is because there is always going to be some type of transition period where a few other periods blend together to make one. I can see where that would combine the first two generations, but if there are more generations when will the transition ever be made to the modern period. There has to a period in between romanticism and modern so the Victorian should be that transition period.
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Jenna Obenauer
4/3/2017 06:01:45 am
I believe that the Victorians deserve their own literary time period. There are some similarities between Victorian writing and Romanticism writing, but the two also had their own differences. As stated in prior comments, Romanticism focused on the beauty of nature. In the Victorian era, the focus turned to the reality of what was going on. The Victorians liked to base their poems off factories and terrible conditions that a lot of the people in that time had to deal with. On top of that, Victoria was very strict and demanded respects, so the poems showed that as well. All in all, the Victorian era was basically a darker time for writing, whereas Romanticism was happier and focused on beauty.
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Austin Terry James
4/3/2017 07:39:37 am
The generations of the Romantics and Victorians are very similar. Pieces produced in both periods were found to have similarities such as descriptions of nature and even the effects of the gowning industry on the way of life. Even though these two periods pieces had some similarities, the periods in a whole had different meanings behind them. The Romantic periods pieces tried to talk about nature and bring life back to a more natural meaning of life because of the huge growing of the industrial factory production. The Victorian periods pieces were more set toward the growing harsh poverty and the harsh conditions that the poor had to handle while working in the factories and even trying to find work. The Romantic writers were very emotional and ideally based their writing on the nature saving them from the industrial growth. Then the Victorian writers were very restraint with their emotions and were definitely more realistic about the growing poverty and how harsh it was for the poor. With these two periods having very similar writing styles and how the writers talked about similar ideas, the Victorian period should still be set apart from the Romantic period because the pieces of each time were wrote to depict different scenes and inform the public of different themes going on during their time.
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Cassidy Hill
4/3/2017 07:49:45 am
I believe that the Romantic period and Victorian period are so similar that the Victorian era should be considered a third segment of Romantic ideas. Both of these time periods talk about nature and the dangers of industrialization. The Romantic writers focus on imagination and the Victorians focus on realism, this is the main difference between these two time periods. The writers in these eras have extremely similar writing styles, and they use the same vocabulary, so they seem the same to a reader. I believe that these styles of writing are so similar that there is no point in separating them, they are the same thing.
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Ryleigh James
4/3/2017 08:29:16 am
I think that the Victorian era and the Romantic period are very similar, but the Victorian era should not be considered a third generation of the Romantic period. During the romantic period, there were more poems and short stories which focused on the beauty of nature and mystical things that could live in the world around you. The Victorian era did produce stories that had aspects of nature in them, but these stories were mainly novels and stories like Wuthering Heights they tended to show more of the dark side to love and life. They are very similar to each other, but the Victorian era deserves to be shown as its own period because the differences deal with the genre and focus of literature that was produced during that time.
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Joseph Schulte
4/3/2017 11:20:01 am
I believe that Romanticism and the Victorian eras are different literature periods. The Romantic age was a revolt against the beliefs of the Neoclassic period. The Neoclassics had a denial of the fantastical. Then the Romantics came along and embraced the fantastic. The Victorian age was more of an evolution of the Romantic age. The Victorians like the Romantics embraced nature and did not like industry, but the Victorians had more perspective on the developments in technology. Granted, the Victorians had an overall cynical and realistic attitude while the Romantics had a more positive outlook.
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Brandi Simmons
4/3/2017 02:04:56 pm
I believe that the Victorian era should be separate from the Romantic era. Though there are same similarities between the two, the Victorians show a more modern type of writing style. The romantics focused on nature, imagery, and emotion and wrote in poems and short stories. The Victorians focused on writing about the struggles and triumphs of the working class and wrote in novels. They also wrote about the dark side of life in stories like Wuthering Heights and Tess of the d'Urbavilles. There are some similarities betweeen the two such as Dover Beach that talks about the nature and beauty of the beach, but for the most part they are different and should be separated into two literature periods.
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Brooke Feeler
4/3/2017 07:27:51 pm
I think the Victorian Era should not be classified as third generation romantics. I believe that they should be classified in their own category. They involve different ideas, although they are similar in some ways. Romanticism focused more on nature and emotion and did not express more than that. The first generation romantics focused more on intellect and emotion. The second generation romantics focused more on passion and emotion. While Romantic wrote more about emotion and nature, Victorians told more of a story and what the outcome could be. One story the Victorians wrote was Tess of the d'Urbervilles, where they talk about Tess' struggles with guys and all that comes about when she is with them. Therefore I believe that Victorians should be classified in their own category.
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Marie
4/3/2017 07:41:43 pm
There are very many similarities and differences between Romantic and Victorian literature, for example Romantic literature is mainly based on a very emotional view on nature while Victorian literature turns more towards social concerns and uses a more demure language than the emotionally packed language of the romantic era. While a similarity would be that both of these literature movements were a result of cultural changes. Despite the similarities and differences of both of these literal movements I would have to put them into separate categories due to the major differences that they have that out weigh their similarities.
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Gina Wieberg
4/3/2017 08:03:13 pm
In my opinion, the Romantic and Victorian periods have very few similarities and should be separated into their own categories. During the Romantic period, writers valued imagination, freedom, and nature, whereas Victorian writers focused on everyday life and darker aspects. Romanticists were creative and put emotion into their writing. They encouraged people to show their true identity, rebel against tyranny, and question traditions. Rather than showing industrial scenes, they fixated on the beauty of nature. However, writers during the Victorian period chose subjects and themes that pertained to lower and middle class people. They wrote about everyday life and darker aspects such as civilization and industry. Instead of creating fairy tales, they were attentive to detail, strove for accuracy, and wrote about reality. I believe these two periods are very different and should remain in two separate categories.
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Emma Schulte
4/3/2017 08:04:14 pm
Romanticism was a revolt against the Industrial Revolution. The Romantics wanted to attempt to take back the natural world, and did so with their writing. The Victorian era, on the other hand, had a much harsher approach. They focused on the horrors of poverty and urbanization, and wouldn't believe that somehow nature could reclaim their new industrialized cities. Romanticism painted a picture perfect world of beauty, while Victorianism cut down to expose the hard truth. So, no, I don't believe that they should be combined into one.
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Mason Smith
4/3/2017 08:50:00 pm
It is very hard to determine whether the Victorian Era is the third segment of the Romantic period or not. Though the Romantic Period and Victorian Era have a couple of striking similarities they are two very separate writing periods. The Victorian Era does firmly stand out from the themes of the Romantic Period due to the prominent use of industry in the books of the time. Some books from the time however like Tess of the D'Urbavilles have lots of imagery of nature. Other books from this time like North and South are the drastic opposite of the Romantic period and books like this distinctly separate the Romantic and Victorian Eras. I believe one of the biggest factors that diverges these two periods was the tone of the Victorian era is very bleak and dark nature of the time. I believe that the Victorian Era is a separate literary time period from the Romantic Period with only small similarities between the two.
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Derek Kleffner
4/4/2017 08:33:49 am
I think that the Victorian Era and the Romantic Era are two different eras and the the Victorian Era should not be considered a "third generation Romantics." The Romantic Era focused on imagination while the Victorian Era focused more on realism. The Romantic Era proved their point about the problem of growing industries by writing through nature and imagination. The Victoria Era realized the problem of growing industry and the problem of the poor working in rough condition factories. The Romantic period describes the problems of growing industry by writing in detail and showing emotion through nature, while the Victorian Era used a more realistic approach. The Victorian Era looked at the problems in a more cynical way when the Romantic Era used a more positive outlook and emotion.
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Taylor Alexander
4/4/2017 11:26:27 am
I believe that the Victorian's should be their own category because there are very prominent differences between the two. Romanticism wanted to, more or less, reclaim how life used to be. Victorian's, on the other hand, wanted to focus on poverty and what it really is. The Victorian's wanted to show the truth about the world and how disturbed it really can be. The Romantic Era wanted to show only the beauty of the world.
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AuthorMrs. Starkey is an English I, III, and IV teacher at Salem High School with 17 years teaching experience. Archives
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