Literary and Theatrical Developments in 19th Century England

Posted on Mar 18, 2025 in English Studies

The Rise of the Press

The Stamp Act (1712) increased the prices of newspapers, limiting education for the working and middle classes and restricting it to the upper class. This manipulation fueled lower-class fears of rebellion.

The Six Acts

These acts tightened the legal classification of newspapers, restricting the rights of the working and middle classes. This led to the rise of illegal, unstamped newspapers, created to avoid the newspaper tax.

Mass Fiction and Reading Spaces (1840)

The 1840s saw an explosion of mass fiction, printing technology, and railway expansion. However, reading spaces were often restricted. Women reading alone were frowned upon, and libraries were typically only open to men.

New Mass Circulation Newspapers

These newspapers targeted the middle class, introducing middle-class men and women as protagonists. Topics included pornography, London city guides, crude sensationalism, and serialized romances.

Social Effects

The increased number of readers and access to knowledge posed a threat to established patriarchal values.

The Woman Question

Education

Women gained access to knowledge and could publish in journals. However, publishers were less likely to invest in women’s publications compared to men’s.

Social Structures

Marriage significantly impacted women’s legal status. They were not considered citizens, as they were legally covered by their husbands. The Married Women’s Property Act of 1870 addressed this, allowing married women to enter into contracts for work.

Legal Framework: Coverture

Public Sphere

Access to the public sphere was arbitrary for women, subject to legal intervention. The public sphere encompassed activities outside the private sphere, including work, education, and participation in government, primarily accessible to men.

Private Sphere

The private sphere, where institutions could not interfere, was primarily the domain of women. Their roles included entertaining, receiving guests, and socializing. They were expected to be proficient in music and languages for conversation.

Mary Wollstonecraft

Wollstonecraft wrote “The Rights of Men” in response to Edmund Burke’s reflections on the French Revolution. Realizing that half the population was excluded, she wrote “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman” as a response to Burke’s article.

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (AVRW)

• Advocated for no class distinction in education.
• Promoted marriage on equal terms at a young age.
• Called for investment in women’s education.
• Recognized women as social slaves with significant power due to coverture laws.

New Genre: Women’s Utopias

These literary works presented a chance for women to explore roles and possibilities unavailable to them in reality.

Florence Nightingale

Nightingale was the first woman to introduce job nurseries. After the war, she visited soldiers with a candle. Born wealthy and conservative, she initially embodied the “Angel of the House” ideal. Later in life, she resisted marriage and desired a life beyond the upper class. She served in the war before writing “Cassandra,” published in 1923, where she identified with the Greek mythological figure. Her writings addressed the limitations placed on women’s intellectual growth and the pressure to conform to the “Angel of the House” role. She criticized the expectation that women should educate themselves only to amuse guests and the societal view that having a career was selfish.

John Stuart Mill

The Subjection of Women

Mill signed a petition for women’s suffrage. His vocabulary, related to slavery, described husbands as masters. He argued that women’s minds were enslaved due to a lack of education, forced to prioritize being good wives.

Types of Women

• The Angel of the House: Her pleasure is to please her man, even if she suffers alone. Submission is her defining trait.
• Strong-Minded: Regarded as masculine, she opposes societal restrictions and foreshadows the New Woman, sometimes depicted with masculine features.

• New Woman: Socially and politically engaged, with masculine attitudes, committed to independence.
• Fallen Woman: Having lost her chastity, she faces societal ostracism or forced marriage, failing to meet the standards of the Angel. Often a victim of abuse or rape, bearing a child out of wedlock, and considered a prostitute.
• Femme Fatale: Related to the Fallen Woman, a seductress likely to cause harm, exemplified by Salome.

William Blake

The Tyger/Lamb, Chimney Sweeper

Blake was deeply religious and inspired by spiritualism. He blurred the lines between text and image, influenced by Emanuel Swedenborg’s concept of a world divided into heaven and hell. He saw innocence as childhood and experience as the Industrial Revolution. Hell represented a corrupted state of the human soul, reflecting society’s corruption by industrialization.

Characteristics of Blake’s Poetry

• Musicality
• Quatrains
• Heroic Stanza (abab)
• Iambic Pentameter
• Rhyming Scheme (ababa, abcb)
• First-person Lyric (Piper)

The Chimney Sweeper (CHS)

The rhyme scheme is aabb. The third stanza marks a division between parts, criticizing the role of religion and church abuse of children. It addresses child labor, where children forced to work as chimney sweeps lose their childhood, symbolized by their shaved heads resembling lambs.

William Wordsworth

Prelude, Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey

For Wordsworth, walking, listening, and writing became interconnected. His poems evoke the sound of footsteps. He attended university and had a broad background. His sister Dorothy was a significant influence, though she did not receive the same education. In 1795, he met Coleridge, and they collaborated on “Lyrical Ballads.” Inspired by the French Revolution, Wordsworth believed in first impressions and reactions, emphasizing nature as safe, calm, relaxing, and restful.

Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey (LWFMAT)

First experiences can only happen once. He emphasized remembering happy moments.

Prelude

An epic poem without heroic events, where the poet is the hero. It lacks stanzas and features “spots of time,” moments of epiphany that offer a different perception of the world. The poet sets the time and scene, leaving the crowd. It relates to experiences in the poet’s past and was published by his wife.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Coleridge received an education but was not a successful student, rebelling and quitting university. He struggled with addiction to alcohol and opium.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (TRAM)

In the second edition, he modernized the language. His style featured archaisms (highly rhetorical language), favoring musical effect over common speech. He emphasized the rural world and imagination, incorporating exotic elements and gothic landscapes, creating the sublime (finding pleasure in what isn’t beautiful). The poem is divided into seven parts, using ballad structures like ABCCB (quinces) and ABCB (quatrains). The ballad form tells a story. The Mariner is a gothic figure, similar to a ghost. When he kills the albatross, nature and the crew turn against him. Life-in-Death appears as a ghostly character, the crew dies, and the Mariner is haunted. The bird symbolizes salvation, and killing it represents corruption, resembling the killing of Jesus. Other critics interpret the bird as simply representing salvation.

Kubla Khan: Or a Vision in a Dream

Written under the influence of opium, the poem features commonplaces.

Romantic Poets

Lord Byron: Don Juan

Byron, unlike other Romantics, focused on the individual (himself) rather than nature. He married Anabella Milbank and had a daughter. Adventurous and well-traveled, he considered earlier Romantics archaic.

Don Juan

Challenging the world and breaking boundaries, Byron mocks the figure of Don Juan, portraying him as weak. The structure is a mock epic with no ordinary hero. Don Juan is seduced by women (a reversal). The stanzas are called Ottava Rima, with eight lines (ab-ab-ab-cc), and the last couplet is called Bathos, used to summarize ideas. The first edition had 16 cantos, addressed to the upper classes. The form and tone are not typical of a heroic epic but rather a new production.

The main idea is that he travels and tells a story. He finds a statue in pieces, representing the passing of time (sand clock). Topics include:

• Ubi Sunt: Where do we go when we die?
• Memento Mori: Remember we must die.
• Vanitas Vanitatum: Art, in general, is bound to last forever.

Ode to the West Wind

This poem praises the wind. The form uses Terza Rima, with five stanzas, each with four triplets and one couplet. The rhyme scheme is aba-bcb-cdc-ded-ee (iambic pentameter). There is no story, just the wind blowing and its effects. The poet invokes the wind, which transports leaves from season to season until spring comes. The wind is both destroyer and preserver (life and death). The poet wants to merge with the wind.

John Keats

La Belle Dame Sans Merci

Keats had a sad life, losing his parents and brother at a young age. He was a sensitive poet influenced by Coleridge and initially wanted to be a doctor.

La Belle Dame Sans Merci (LBDSM)

Based on a poem of the same name by Chartier, it consists of 12 stanzas with quatrains alternating iambic tetrameter and dimeter. It tells the story of a lady relating her past. The lady seduces him and takes him into a cave on horseback. The poem reflects Keats’s unrequited love and sadness.

Negative Capability

Keats was in love with a girl, but his love was not reciprocated. Negative Capability is the distance between the poet and the poem, describing personal feelings through another character.

Victorian Poetry

Alfred Lord Tennyson: Lady of Shalott

Tennyson grew up in a wealthy family but experienced poverty. He attended the same college as Byron.

Lady of Shalott

The ballad is divided into four parts. The first two introduce the lady, while the last two show how she sees the world. One interpretation is that ladies should not enter the public sphere, or they will die. Other critics believe it deals with the concealment of women in the private sphere. Another interpretation is that she is an artist, and when she reveals her art, she is ignored.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning

Aurora Leigh, Battle of Marathon

Elizabeth Barrett Browning was one of the biggest poets of the 19th century, included in English high school curricula. She was a complete author across genres, receiving her education at home. She eloped to Florence and married Robert Browning.

Aurora Leigh (AL)

This epic poem is about an ordinary girl, written as a novel/poem in blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter). The protagonist is an orphan living in Italy who faces the rules of Victorian society. It criticizes prostitution, emphasizing the fallen woman, and the protagonist wants to be a writer.

Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

Dante Gabriel Rossetti: The Blessed Damozel

Rossetti was a main figure of the movement, born in London and interested in Dante and Vita Nova. Ekphrasis in Double Works refers to works that reference poetry or lyric descriptions of visual works. In “The Blessed Damozel,” a woman is in paradise with seven stars in heaven and angels. The two lovers cannot unite. The archaic atmosphere is evident in the title, “Damozel.” The lovers are separated by a frame, reminiscent of retablos. The poem is inspired by Dante’s Vita Nuova and is a ballad telling a story seen in previous poems.

Christina Rossetti

Goblin Market

Rossetti was educated at home. After her father died, her mother had to provide for the family. Christina experimented with forms and imitated poets, inspired by Elizabeth Browning. “Goblin Market” is influenced by gothic literature, fantasy, and biblical tradition. Illustrated by her brother Dante in painting, it explores themes of temptation, sacrifice, and salvation, related to religious poetry. It tells the story of two sisters, Laura and Lizzie, who are tempted by goblins in a market. The goblins sell food but also tempt with it. Laura wants fruit but has no money, so the goblins tell her to pay with her golden locks instead. She gives a lock of hair (purity) for fruit (temptation), inspiring “Alice in Wonderland.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Ozymandias, Ode to the West Wind

Shelley received an education but was expelled from university for writing “The Necessity of Atheism.” Most of his work was published posthumously by Mary Shelley.

Ozymandias

It was not a popular poem when published. It is believed to be a contest with another poet (Horace Smith), with the last few verses being the same as Smith’s poem. The structure is a sonnet, not the same as the Petrarchan tradition but similar to the Shakespearean one, with an octet and a sextet rhyming ABABACDC+EDEFEF.

Novels

Gothic Literature

Jane Austen: Northanger Abbey, Penny Dreadful

Austen was surrounded by romanticism but developed a new movement. Educated by her wealthy father, she wrote from an early age, influenced by theatre and drama art.

Private Theatricals

Middle- to upper-class families, whose ladies did not work, went to private theatres because it was rude to go to public ones.

Northanger Abbey (NA) (1818)

It features an omniscient narrator and metafictional reflection of the author. It satirizes the world around her, gothic novels, and suspicion around gothic elements. It also satirizes the gentry of her own class. Her world is secure but above the preoccupations of life. Society is reflected as rank. Catherine has several suitors, but John Thoren appears as another suitable one. She uses the love plot to satirize society.

Penny Dreadful (PD) (1830)

Highly illustrated to attract reader attention, the plot involves women being murdered, abducted, and assaulted, reminiscent of gothic themes.

Sensation Novel

Mary Elizabeth Braddon: Lady Audley’s Secret

Sensation novels originate from a mix of Newgate and Gothic elements. Differences include the setting (middle-class Victorian home) and the heroine, who is an active/unexpected character with feminine ideals, moral ambiguity, and secrecy, more in the style of the femme fatale. Bigamy plots are common. They directly attack the morals of the middle class and tend to give realistic scenes.

Lady Audley’s Secret (LAS)

She adopted a different identity because she thought she had been left by her husband, finding a secret identity with a second marriage.

• Excerpt 1: A secret chamber in a Victorian manor (nursery) subtly attacks the morals of the high class, showing they have places to hide.
• Excerpt 3: Alicia is the first person to be suspected, with a description of a lady in a painting connected to gothic tradition, unveiling secrets. Paintings in gothic tradition are linked to the past, while in this excerpt, they are linked to the Pre-Raphaelites.
• Last Excerpt: Features climaxes, secrecy, and complicated plots. Characters from the high class attack the morality of higher classes.

Female Utopias

Characteristics

Worlds colonized by women, escapist worlds, criticizing present reality.

New Amazonia by Corbett E.

It speaks about her life in 2472. A female writer sitting in a room reading newspapers enters a dream. In the dream, she wakes up in New Amazonia in 2472. Ireland became independent from Britain, and women colonized the land, creating a new society.

• Paragraph 2: Women who sign articles become wealthy women.
• Paragraph 3: Replies to the article by men and women, but there are two names who represent the most active suffragettes.

Theatre

Victorian Theatre

Novels were far more important. Theatre was the leading genre in entertainment as there was no need to read. Problems in the 19th century included censorship and a lack of information on how to tell the story for a 19th-century play. All performances had to pass the censor.

1737: Licensing Act until 1837

Gave the right to perform spoken drama only, and spoken drama had no music allowed (Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde).

Burletta

Only allowed in minor theatres. Definition: any drama of at least five pieces of vocal music (sung songs, not incidental music accompanying the scene) in their acts. Nothing related to the church could be put on stage.

1866

Another selected committee controlled musicals. Censorship extended to musicals.

1892

Another committee aimed to control the activity of musicals.

Respectability

The middle class wanted to copy the upper classes, so they went to upper-class theatres to copy their behavior. Astley’s Amphitheatre was accepted by everyone, regardless of class. Some theatres (OLYMPIC, VICTORIA COVENT GARDEN, CITY OF LONDON…) were also popular.

Audiences

• West End: High, mid, and very rare low classes.
• East End: Local audience.

Actor-Manager

A system that emerged in the 19th century. Woman managers only appeared in the 1990s; the entertainment industry only saw women as prostitutes. An actor-manager financed everything out of their pockets and got no subsidy. They rarely owned the theatre, actually leased it, so they had to pay extra taxes. They ran the company, directed the play, chose the performances and cast, selected staff for the venue, and were responsible for salaries.

Pros

Earn money and recognition (big on the theatrical scene).

Cons

Work overload.

Madame Vestris

Actor-Manager, Manager of the Olympic

An example of an actor-manager, she did some breeches (mallas) roles, where a woman acts as a man or vice versa. This role had two understandings:

• The chance for men to see the body of a lady, which was scandalous and lacked respectability, objectifying the female body.
• The chance for women to break boundaries in terms of costumes, as they didn’t have to dress to society standards.

Vestris was very good at singing and had beautiful legs. She married a ballet dancer. As manager of the Olympic (1831-39), she made it more respectable, redecorating the theatre to look richer to appeal to the middle class.

The Errors of Managers

Criticism against the status of celebrities. Texts against actor-managers said their actions were tyrannical and that plays came out as artificial. Tyranny in camerinos = despotism.

Playbills

The (carteles) which promoted the performances. Typography drew people’s attention to what they would see on stage, introducing colors at the end of the century. They gave details that you wouldn’t see on stage.

Burlesque

Victorian Shakespearean Burlesque, Classical Burlesque, Medea

A minor theatre genre, modern burlesque also includes cabaret and nudity, but in the 19th century, it was for the middle class, so respectability was an issue.

Legitimate + Illegitimate Theatre

The main minor genre was Burlesque, and the main big genre was melodrama + comedy.

Hypotext

The text on which the burlesque parody is based is clearer in the 18th than in the 19th century. In the 19th century, a new type of burlesque was born, with new theatres and new audiences (working class) who did not have the same education as prior audiences, so they may have missed references and jokes. 19th-century burlesque relied on general culture rather than hypotext.

Victorian Shakespearean Burlesque: A Thin Slice of Ham Let

Parodies of Shakespeare that didn’t rely on hypotext but had references. They parodied not only theatre but also pop culture.

Classical Burlesque: Medea

Plays that referenced texts, traditions, and epics from Greek and Roman traditions, including mythology, tragedies, comedies, and epics. Until 1870, Medea, the granddaughter of Helios and daughter of Aetes, king of Alia, got married not following traditions. Medea was seen as a witch or sorceress in the 19th century, different from the Angel of the House character, and wasn’t liked by modern audiences as she represented an abandoned wife who killed her children. It was successful because audiences could see both the normal and burlesque plays because the theatres were close to each other. The Lyceum Theatre was for the high + upper class, while the Olympic was a traditional theatre, much smaller. Medea was parodied through a man with strong physique. The dialogue seems more from a husband and wife than from a king and a goddess. The Licensing Act was very important to theatre until 1843, dividing theatre houses into major and minor.

Melodrama

Douglas William Jerrold (Nautical Melodrama, Black Eyed Susan), Richard Peake (Presumption or Fate of Frankenstein)

Another leading genre of theatre, with exaggeration in the acting style.

Legitimate Drama

Tragedies, dramas, and comedies.

Illegitimate Drama

Melodramas (because of exaggeration and music), farces, burlettas, comic operas, burlesque, extravaganza.

Melodrama aims to be a theatrical response to a world where things are seen to go wrong, providing an emotional rather than an intellectual response, which is why there is incidental music and exaggerated acting. Melodrama reflects reality but isn’t a realistic genre. Music is used to appeal to emotions, and society is put on stage and criticized. Characters include goodies vs. baddies and stock characters. Secondary characters provide humorous confidence. Villains are supported by secondary characters as dubious as them, very similar to soap operas.

Douglas William Jerrold (DWJ)

Considered the father of melodrama, he served in the navy, from where he got his experience for nautical melodramas. His father was the manager of a theatre, the Surrey Theatre (minor). Black Eyed Susan (BES) is a play based on a ballad by John Grey, about two lovers, one of whom will leave on a ship. The bad villain, Doggrass, is in love with Susan and wants to separate the lovers.

So he sends William to war. At some point, he comes back after Susan thought he was dead and got with Captain Crosstree, so William punches the captain and is sentenced to death for injuring a superior.

Richard Peake: Presumption

A very prolific writer, he wrote lots for minor genres and worked in the offices of the License Theatre as a treasurer. This play was one of his biggest successes, staged at the English Opera House (minor). The play ran for 30 performances in the summer of 1823 and was so successful it was burlesqued. It received mixed reviews, some saying it was scary and others saying it was good. The music was incidental, but Frankenstein has no songs; rather, he is attracted by music, which means he is interested in the arts.

Comedy

Thomas William Robertson (Caste)

Due to the Licensing Act, comedy was the only genre that was performed illegitimately. Comedies coexisted with minor genres such as burlesque, pantomimes, and so on. Comedies had happy endings, usually concerning love plots and sentimentality. They featured stock roles, clichéd characters, and very slow action, usually set abroad and based on French tradition.

Thomas William Robertson (TWR)

His language was very different from that of Presumption, and Caste had stock characters, while in Presumption, we have more psychologically developed characters.

Caste

Characters include Eccles, the drunkard, and Esther, the virtuous heroine. In real life, there are not going to be marriages between different classes. It features a love plot and a realistic setting in the middle class. There are lapses of real time between acts, with very long stage directions with lots of details about the acting used to give verisimilitude. Even if it provides details, it is still not a realistic play because of the sentimental ending.