The Norton Victorian Period Introduction Abridged

The Vernacular by tdomf_b6e97 — May 1, 2009 at 1:09 am | 0 comments | | Print

Victoria the Queen was so moral
Her writers wrote rhymes quite unfloral
No longer reflective
But rather socially attentive
Their successors found their inflated discourse preventive

The Manchester slums were a-twitter
The markets were stuck in the shitter
The writers complained
The chimneysweeps strained
And the middle-class people were bitter

The economy grew quite much
Technology and markets helped and such
England – she was concerned beyond the borders
Religious debates were worth mere quarters
And Kingsley worried the youth had fallen out of touch

England was frivolous and gay
Then fought a bloody war the next day
As the English empire crumbled
Colonies revolted, British troops fumbled
And new ideals paved the way

The importance of being earnest
Was lost after Albert the Sternest
Then Dickens and Wilde
Looked upon us and smiled
While Victorian ideals they burnest

Ere the Victorian novel
Women were wanted to grovel
Some debate then arose
Through the elegant prose
Over whether women should grovel
An expansion in things to read
Education fueled this need
Tracts became the norm
Books sold in short form
Both written and printed with speed

Within novels these poems developed
And new subjects these poems enveloped
Art for arts sake
From the new and old age
Through pictures emotions do show up

The growth of the press periodical
A vehicle to illustrate societal
The clumsy and nonexact nonfictional
Scientific and materialistic, a claim for literature cultural
With monetary reward for intellectual

The Victorians mad for the stage
Saw burlesques, hamlets, and “problem plays”
They watched Boucicault, Wilde,
Gilbert, Sullivan, Shaw
And dissected issues of their days

A century of both colonial loss and gain
And the development of the middle-class brain
A time when the novel became prominent
And British literature was dominant—
Hooray for Queen Victoria’s reign!