Notice that the question asks you to discuss three authors: A Romantic, a Victor

Question

Notice that the question asks you to discuss three authors: A Romantic, a Victorian, and a Twentieth Century writer. When I grade your exam, I’ll give equal weight to these four things:

1. Your discussion of the Romantic author

2. Your discussion of the Victorian author

3. Your discussion of the Twentieth Century author

4. The extent to which those three discussions reflected knowledge of the appropriate background material

You can choose to write about any authors on the syllabus; however I would offer three bits of advice: First, make sure each author gives you an opportunity to discuss beliefs and values that were typical of his or her cultural period. Second, make sure that you offer detailed evidence from the literature (The Norton Anthology) to support your description of the author about whom you are writing. Finally, make sure that each author you choose provides you with a substantial amount of evidence; it’s a bad idea to rely too heavily on a single passage in a long work or a single short poem.  

Question:

Nature: At the start of the semester we saw why the Romantic Period is often considered the great age of artistic response to nature. Later, we considered how the Victorian heirs of the Romantics struggled to either revise or retain the Romantic regard for nature in the face of dramatic changes in the understanding of humanity’s place in, and relation to, the natural world. Finally, we glimpsed the way that Twentieth Century literature continued to produce a variety of meditations on nature. Write an essay that explores these varied aesthetic and philosophical encounters with nature. You should try to move beyond an account of how our writers responded to the mere physical beauty of nature and instead explain what and how nature taught them about their own being or the being of the universe around them. You should consider one writer from each of the three periods we have discussed: Romantic, Victorian, and Twentieth Century. You should be absolutely certain that your essay includes a detailed and sophisticated account of at least one (and, if appropriate, more than one) work by each of your three authors.

Explanation / Answer

Romantic author: The romantic period lasted from end of eighteenth century to beginning of nineteenth century. In this era, the authors includes unreal and fanciful elements. It expresses the feelings, emotions, expression and individual unique experience of artists . The artists gave more importance to the nature and its beauty which was in contrast to the rapid industrialisation taking place in the nineteenth century. Some of the famous authors of this era were Jane Austen, Robert Brown, John Keats etc.

Jane Austen: She was a famous author of the romantic period. Here most notable works include Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, Persuasion and Northanger Abbey. All these novels revolve around a common topic of the marriages of the young women and the realities of their life. In her novels, the social class structure of England was also a prominent theme. She also expresses the feelings of feminism in her novels and the support of feminism were included in all of his novels. The females in the novels were independent who share their ideals in the male dominated society. The choice of marriage and logical female thoughts were reflected in her novels. She also puts the women in her novels as a target of satire.

Victorian authors: During this era, novel become the leading form of literature. The victorian era novels were a portray of struggles of life in which hard work, love and luck wins eventually. In these novels the morality were a prominent theme in which the wrong doers were punished and the virtues were rewarded in the end. Since during this era industries were rapidly evolving. Some of the literary works focus on the harsh reality of the landless working class and their declining conditions Some of the famous authors of this era were Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Browning, Alfred Lord Tennyson etc.

Charles Dickens was the most popular author of this era. He used humour and satire to portray the actual condition of the society during that time. His first novel Pickwick Papers was very popular during that time. In this novel he worked to make the novel entertaining for the public and also make commentary about the social challenges in the society during that era. This novel tells about the condition of the poor and oppressed people. The trend of the era was moving from fiction towards darker themes during much of the era.

Twentieth century author: The literature produced during the period between 1901-2000. Due to the technological advance during the 20th century there is production of cheaper books which results in popular as well as trivial literature. These literature consists of various genres. After the end of the twentieth century, the electronic literature development with development of world wide web. Some of the popular names of the twentieth century author include Wilfred Owen, Sylvia Path, Ted Hughes, George Orwell etc. The best selling literary works of the 20th century are the 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher Stone', 'Lord of the Rings' and 'And Then There were none'.

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