Victorian Evangelicals and Romantic Poetry Analysis

Victorian Evangelicals in Literature

Evangelicals were the most satirized religious group during the Victorian period. These characters were pious, as they showed reverence for God and wished to fulfill their religious obligations. It was not easy to criticize them because they were intelligent and cultivated people. However, they were often considered emotionally inadequate, hypocritical, and smug because they viewed themselves as purer and better than others—a trait exemplified by the figure of Brocklehurst in Jane Eyre.

Moreover, they are usually presented as negative characters who attempt to destroy all positive aspects of life. Evangelical characters are often depicted as oppressors of children and appear in novels such as David Copperfield, Bleak House, and Jane Eyre.

Wordsworth's The Prelude

Spots of Time

The term "spots of time" refers to episodes that recreate the poet's experiences. These are significant moments and are sometimes the best-known passages in the poem. Some of these "spots of time" take place during Wordsworth's childhood.

Style and Structure

The Prelude shares many characteristics with Coleridge's conversational poems:

• It uses blank verse (no rhyme).
• It sounds like a monologue or soliloquy.
• It contemplates the existence of an addressee (Coleridge).

Themes and Narrative

It is a poem of friendship that narrates a personal crisis. Like most conversational poems, The Prelude is concerned with nature, the self, memory, imagination, and poetic creation. It is a narrative poem because it tells the story of the growth of a poet's mind, but it is also a lyrical poem, as its most important passages deal with the feelings and emotions of an individual consciousness at a given moment.

The Prelude is also an epic poem, as it deals with significant events such as the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror. However, the hero of the poem, Wordsworth himself, does not perform traditional "heroic" actions; for instance, he crosses the Alps by mistake. Furthermore, it is an autobiographical poem, though it ignores important events in the poet's life, such as his love affair with Annette Vallon.

The Literary Works of Walter Scott

Historical Themes

Themes in Scott's work are derived from English and European medieval history. Two tendencies characterize his writing:

1. A love for Scottish traditions and nostalgia for the past.
2. A reluctant appreciation of belonging to the modern world of commercial progress and English ascendancy.

Poetry and Novels

Scott's works reflect an interest in folklore and are often tales of adventure and love set in a medieval context. They echo a heroic past through the use of vigorous, moving verse. Scott presents Scotland's past by adopting an elegiac lament. His awareness of the need to submit to the dictates of modern times is a permanent preoccupation in his novels, highlighting the impossibility of reconciling the Scottish heroic past as an independent nation with its current reality.