INTRODUCTION TO THE VICTORIAN AGE - POWER POINT PRESENTATION

Queen Victoria's family in 1846 by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

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 POWER POINT PRESENTATION,   THE VICTORIAN AGE
  (HISTORICAL/SOCIAL/CULTURAL BACKGROUND )
from the Flash_ Widget Box on the right sidebar (The Victorian Age 2011)

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE - PART II

In Pride and Prejudice Part I we stopped at the the unexpected turning point that is Mr Darcy's marriage proposal to Elizabeth Bennet. 

1. What happened? 

2. How did Elizabeth react? Why?

3. Did Mr Darcy expect her refusal? 

JANE AUSTEN & THE NOVEL OF MANNERS: PRIDE AND PREJUDICE - PART I

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife”.

This is the widely popular sentence opening the widely popular story of the five Bennet sisters  written by Jane Austen between October 1796 and August 1797. Its original title was FIRST IMPRESSIONS but it was published only in 1813 with the title, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE.

The opening scene is set in Hertfordshire, a county that nowadays has practically become part of Greater London, as suburban development stretches even further northwards. In the late 18th century, however, it was still well-wooded countryside.

The story opens early in September, when Jane Austen takes us straight into Longbourn House to listen to the Bennets’ conversation after dinner. Mrs Bennet is making plans for husband –hunting on her daughters’ behalf. Five daughters and an estate worth £2,000 a year were not an easy situation to cope with, especially if your husband (Mr Bennet) is not very good at saving. The urgent need for husbands is also due to the fact that the estate of Longbourn is “entailed” – a legal arrangement whereby the property could descend only to a male heir.

DEFOE AND SWIFT - A COMPARISON AND OTHER NOTES

 LEMUEL GULLIVER - Although Gulliver is a bold adventurer who visits a multitude of strange lands, it is difficult to regard him as truly heroic. Even well before his slide into misanthropy at the end of the book, he simply does not show the stuff of which grand heroes are made. He is not cowardly—on the contrary, he undergoes the unnerving experiences of nearly being devoured by a giant rat, taken captive by pirates, shipwrecked on faraway shores, sexually assaulted by an eleven-year-old girl, and shot in the face with poison arrows. Additionally, the isolation from humanity that he endures for sixteen years must be hard to bear, though Gulliver rarely talks about such matters. Yet despite the courage Gulliver shows throughout his voyages, his character lacks basic greatness. This impression could be due to the fact that he rarely shows his feelings, reveals his soul, or experiences great passions of any sort. But other literary adventurers, like Odysseus in Homer's Odyssey, seem heroic without being particularly open about their emotions. (...)

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OSCAR WILDE & THE END OF AN AGE - THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY

"Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you. Be always searching for new

sensations. Be afraid of nothing(...)"

O. Wilde from THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY