Children's literature did not come out of the blue during the Victorian age. There had been a long way of its development in the preceding centuries. But there is no doubt that Victorian authors did contribute a lot to the treasure house of children's books. The authors to remember are Edward Lear, Charles Kingsley, and Lewis Carroll.
Edward Lear (1812-1888) was English painter and humorist, born in London. The excellence of his early drawings of birds brought him to the attention of the London Zoological Society, for which he illustrated scientific books. These illustrations are considered among the most precise and vivid of all ornithological drawings. He traveled throughout Europe and the Near East. Yet Lear's observant travel books have been overshadowed by the popularity of his light verse, such as the famous poem “The Owl and the Pussycat.”
The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five-pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
"O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!"
Pussy said to the Owl, "You elegant fowl!
How charmingly sweet you sing!
O let us be married! too long we have tarried:
But what shall we do for a ring?"
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
To the land where the Bong-tree grows
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
With a ring at the end of his nose,
His nose,
His nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.
"Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring?" Said the Piggy, "I will."
So they took it away, and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.
Considered among the masters of the limerick, to which he gave the modern formula and metrical cadence, he wrote A Book of Nonsense, and a couple of other books.
English novelist and clergyman Charles Kingsley (1819-1875) was also an important novelist who wrote for the young. In his forties, he taught modern history at Cambridge. Liberal in his views, Kingsley was a leader in Christian socialism and Chartism. Kingsley's novels display his sympathy with the economically and politically oppressed classes of the England of his day. He was sympathetic to the idea of evolution, which was a hot issue of the day, and was one of the first to praise Darwin's On the Origin of Species.
Kingsley's concern for social reform is illustrated in his great classic, The Water-Babies (1863). The protagonist is Tom, a young chimney sweep, who falls into a river after encountering an upper-class girl named Ellie and being chased out of her house. There he dies and is transformed into a "water baby", and begins his moral education. Kingsley also uses the book to argue that England treats its poor badly, and to question child labor, among other themes. Grimes, his old – and bad – master drowns as well, and in his final adventure, Tom travels to the end of the world to attempt to help the man where he is being punished for his proving his willingness to do things he does not like, if they are the right things to do, Tom earns himself a return to human form, and becomes "a great man of science" who "can plan railways, and steam-engines, and electric telegraphs, and rifled guns, and so forth".
The best known of all Victorian books for children is, of course the immortal fantasy Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (1832-98).
Carroll was born Charles Lutwidge Dodgson and was educated at Rugby and at Christ Church College, University of Oxford. For 25 years, he was a member of the faculty of mathematics at Oxford. He was the author of several mathematical treatises. In 1865 he published under his pseudonym Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, appeared six years later. These were followed by The Hunting of the Snark, and a novel, Sylvie and Bruno.
Always a friend of children, particularly little girls, Carroll wrote thousands of letters to them, delightful flights of fantasy, many illustrated with little sketches. Carroll gained an additional measure of fame as an amateur photographer. Most of his camera portraits were of children in various costumes and poses, including nude studies; he also did portraits of adults, including the actress Ellen Terry and the poets Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Christina Rossetti.
"Some people", said Humpty Dumpty, looking away from her as usual, "have no more sense than a baby!"
Alice didn't know what to say to this: it wasn't at all like conversation, she thought, as he never said anything to her; in fact, his last remark was evidently addressed to a tree – so she stood and softly repeated to herself:
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall:
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King's horses and all the King's men
Couldn't put Humpty Dumpty in his place again.
"That last line is much too long for the poetry," she added, almost out loud, forgetting that Humpty Dumpty would hear her.
"Don't stand chattering to yourself like that," Humpty Dumpty said, looking at her for the first time, "but tell me your name and your business".
"My name is Alice, but – "
"It's a stupid name enough!" Humpty Dumpty interrupted impatiently. "What does it mean?"
"Must a name mean something?" Alice asked doubtfully.
"Of course it must," Humpty Dumpty said with a short laugh: "my name means the shape I am – and a good handsome shape it is, too. With a name like yours, you might be any shape, almost."
The Alice stories, which have made the invented name – Lewis Carroll – famous throughout the world, and have been translated into many languages, were originally written for Alice Liddell, a daughter of Dean of Christ Church College. On publication, the works became immediately popular as books for children.
Their subsequent appeal to adults is based upon the ingenious mixture of fantasy and realism, gentle satire, absurdity, and logic. The names and sayings of the characters, such as the March Hare, the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat, and the White Knight, have become part of everyday speech.
Контрольные задания
ANSWER OR DISCUSS
1. Speak on the Victorian Age as a literary phenomenon. Point out the main reasons for the emergence of realism? Prove that it was the Age of Novel.
2. Comment on the title of the novel Great Expectations.
3. The subtitle of the novel Vanity Fair is “a novel without a hero”. Comment on it.
4. Charlotte Bronte made Jane Eyre very much like herself in many ways and used her personal experience in some parts of the book. Prove it. Which events in the novel are likely to be the product of romantic stories Charlotte Bronte had read? In what way Jane Eyre be considered a feminist novel? What points does the novel make about the position and treatment of women in Victorian society?
5. Which of the ideas are most important in the novel ‘Wuthering Heights’: illness, family, marriage, truth, revenge, love, ghosts, nature, evil, violence, education?
TEST
I. Choose the correct fact (score 20 = 10 x 2.0)
1. The 19th century is known …
a) the age of novel
b) the age of journalism
c) the age of drama
d) the age of poetry
2. The growth of the British Empire accompanied by rapid social change and fierce intellectual controversy is connected with the name(s) of …
a) Queen Elizabeth II
b) the Decadents
c) Queen Elizabeth I
d) Queen Victoria
3. The pseudonym of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson is …
a) Edward Lear
b) Oliver Twist
c) Lewis Carroll
d) James Greenwood
4. The author of A Book of Nonsense is …
a) Charles Lutwidge Dodgson
b) James Greenwood
c) Lewis Carroll
d) Edward Lear
5. Lewis Carroll wrote his famous fantasies for…
a) his niece
b) his daughter
c) Alice Liddell
d) Sylvie and Bruno
6. The father of critical realism is …
a) Edward Lear
b) William Thackeray
c) George Elliot
d) Charles Dickens
7. The famous Lowood School is described in …
a) Agnes Grey
b) Vanity Fair
c) Jane Eyre
d) Great Expectations
8. A novel without hero is …
a) Jane Eyre
b) Vanity Fair
c) Great Expectations
d) Dombey and Son
9. The March Hare, the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat are the heroes of …
a) Alice’s books
b) The Water-Babies
c) A Book of Nonsense
d) Goblin Market and Other Poems
10. A famous mathematician and logician who is known his the contribution to literature is …
a) Alfred Tennyson
b) William Thackeray
c) Edward Lear
d) Lewis Carroll
II. Select the term/name/place name that seems odd (score 14 = 7 x 2.0)
11. Tennyson – Dickens – Thackeray – Hardy
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Jane Eyre – Vanity Fair – Amelia Sedley
13. Oscar Wilde – Charlotte Bronte – Elizabeth Gaskell – Charles Dickens
14. Vanity Fair - Great Expectations - Oliver Twist - The Pickwick Papers
15. Elizabeth Bronte - Anne Bronte - Emily Bronte - Charlotte Bronte
16. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland – Through the Looking-Glass – The Letters of Lewis Carroll – the White Knight
17. Narrative and symbolic complexity – Dickens – social relevance – romantic tradition
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