GRE Literature in English (REA) (5 page)

The literature of the Victorian Era is reflective of the profound changes that were taking place in England in the nineteenth century. Some of these changes include the industrial revolution and its effects, rapid urbanization, growing class tensions, and movements for wide-scale political reform.

 

 

JANE AUSTEN

 

Austen is one of the most important novelists of the nineteenth century. Her insights into the concerns and outlook of the upper classes and the petty gentry in peril of losing their fortunes revolve in particular around the social position of women and the complexities of marriage in the period.
Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion
, and
Sense and Sensibility
are her best-known works, and a thorough acquaintance with one of them should be sufficient for the Subject Test. Pay attention to her interest in financial arrangements and social status, as well as her dry humor and witty prose style.

 

 

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

 

Tennyson is probably the dominant poet of the Victorian period, possibly sharing this distinction with Robert Browning (see next page). Tennyson's interest in history and legend is evident in his epic
Idylls of the King
, and in the very important and influential poem “The Lady of Shallot.” You should read the latter carefully, paying attention to its versification, and also look through his expansive poem
In Memoriam A.H.H.
, which contains the famous lines “It is better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all.” You should also read his “The Charge of the Light Brigade” and “Mariana” to become familiar with his shorter works.

 

 

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning is best known for her
Sonnets from the Portuguese
, especially sonnet 43 (“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways”). Read over a few and note their formal qualities.

 

 

ROBERT BROWNING

 

Browning is an important stylist whose vivid language and innovative use of the dramatic monologue in his poetry mark him as a strong and distinctive voice in English literature. His poems are complex and even the shorter ones often contain surprisingly pithy narratives. It is worth spending time working through a few Browning poems. In particular, you should read “My Last Duchess,” “Porphyria's Lover,” “Love Among the Ruins,” and “The Last Ride Together.”

 

 

JOHN RUSKIN

 

Ruskin is famous for his books and essays on art and architecture, and was considered one of the preeminent critics and lecturers of his time. He developed a strong, anti-modern philosophy that he promulgated in his writing and speaking, and which created a great deal of controversy. It would be difficult and unnecessary to do a comprehensive survey of Ruskin's work, but we would suggest looking through some excerpts from his
Modern Painters
, a multi-volume work that includes in Volume III, Part IV a celebrated discussion of the “pathetic fallacy,” a literary term Ruskin coined to describe the poetic device wherein natural objects are given human emotions and capabilities, as in
Paradise Lost
when the earth groans from the transgression of Eve.

 

 

THE BRONTË SISTERS

 

Charlotte and Emily Brontë are responsible for two of the most celebrated novels of the nineteenth century:
Jane Eyre
and
Wuthering Heights
, respectively. Both books are very well-known and have exerted an enormous influence on subsequent novels in English. We recommend that you read one or both thoroughly.

Jane Eyre
is the story of a young woman who survives a gloomy and abusive childhood to become a governess at the house of the mysterious Mr. Rochester, with whom she eventually falls in love. On the day of their proposed marriage, it is revealed that Mr. Rochester already is married to a mad woman, Bertha, who lives in the attic of his estate. Jane leaves Rochester and is taken in by the Rev. St. John Rivers and his sisters, who turn out to be Jane's cousins. St. John nearly convinces Jane to marry him and aid him in his missionary work in India before she returns to Mr. Rochester to find that he has been blinded and maimed in an attempt to rescue his wife from a fire in which she perishes. Jane marries him and as the novel ends, they have a child and Rochester's sight is partially restored.

Wuthering Heights
is an emotionally charged novel told in a complicated series of time shifts and flashback narrations. The story revolves around the painful and passionate love between Catherine and the wild, violent Heathcliffe. Catherine cannot marry Heathcliffe, largely because of his uncertain origins, and instead marries the banal Linton as Heathcliffe flees. Heathcliffe returns three years later and embarks on a dark and at times sadistic path of revenge against everyone he feels has wronged him. By the novel's end, Catherine and her husband are dead and Heathcliffe longs to die to be reunited with his one true love. The story is at times morbid and bleak, but the ending suggests that the union of new generations of the families involved in the story will renew and heal the destructiveness of the previous ones.

 

 

CHARLES DICKENS

 

Dickens, in many respects, stands at the center of the Victorian period. In some critical assessments, he is as towering a figure for the nineteenth century as Shakespeare is for his period. Identifying Dickens' prose is not difficult if any characters are mentioned—he is famous for such unusual names as Murdstone, Magwitch, Pip, Uriah Heep, and Micawber, to name just a few. His major works include
Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, David Copperfield
, and
Bleak House
. Dickens is known for his prolixity:
David Copperfield
and
Bleak House
are both very long books. You should try to read some of his work so that you are familiar with his distinctive style. We suggest
Great Expectations
. In addition, it is a good idea to look over the opening lines of a few of his novels—they are generally famous (in particular,
A Tale of Two Cities
) and ETS has been known to use them in identification questions. In general, Dickens favors themes about the hardships of working-class families and societal outcasts, evincing a strong interest in debtors prisons, workhouses, and dirty factories, while evincing a strong interest in the law. He is known for his surprise plot twists, often involving the introduction of long-lost or newly revealed relatives and unexpected inheritances.

 

 

MATTHEW ARNOLD

 

Arnold was both a poet and a critic. ETS is more interested in his poetry, in particular his famous lyric “Dover Beach,” which you should be sure to read. You should also remember Arnold as the person who first coined the phrase “sweetness and light” to describe the civilizing effect of aesthetic pleasure.

 

 

CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

 

Rossetti is a distinctive voice in Victorian poetics. Her most famous work is probably the long allegorical poem “Goblin Market,” which explores issues of temptation, sin, and redemption in gothic language that is highly charged with sexual overtones. “A Birthday” is perhaps her next best-known work, and is short enough for thorough familiarization.

 

 

WALTER PATER

 

Pater's
Studies in the History of the Renaissance
, or simply
The Renaissance
, is one of the most important and influential books of the period. It is comprised of a series of essays on figures such as Leonardo da Vinci and Botticelli, and it played a pivotal role in the aesthetic movement of the later nineteenth century. Skim over the essay on Leonardo da Vinci, paying particular attention to his descriptions and analyses of the
Mona Lisa
.

 

 

CHARLES DARWIN

 

The Victorian Age as a period is highly tinctured by the influence of Darwin's theories of evolution as promulgated in his
The Descent of Man
. You should know the basics of Darwinism and the ways it was interpreted in the period as a useful context in which to think about Victorian literature.

 

OSCAR WILDE

 

Wilde is as well-known for his personality as he is for his literary accomplishments. His legion of witty aphorisms have survived into the present, and he is closely associated with the aesthetic movement that was popular in England at the close of the nineteenth century. His most famous works are probably the stage comedy
The Importance of Being Earnest
and the novel
The Picture of Dorian Gray
, a melodramatic allegory of sin, guilt, and obsession with beauty and youth.

Drill Questions

She cried “Laura,” up the garden,
“Did you miss me?
Come and kiss me.
Never mind my bruises,
Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices
Squeezed from goblin fruits for you,
Goblin pulp and goblin dew.
Eat me, drink me, love me;
Laura, make much of me:
For your sake I have braved the glen
And had to do with goblin merchant men.”

1. This stanza is from a poem by the same author as
   
   1. “Dover Beach.”
      
   2. “The Lady of Shallot.”
      
   3. “A Birthday.”
      
   4. Sonnets from the Portuguese.
      
   5. “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church.”
      
2. Jean Rhys's novel
   Wide Sargasso Sea
   takes as its subject a character from another novel, the madwoman Bertha, from
   
   1. Charles Dickens'
      Bleak House.
      
   2. Charles Dickens'
      Great Expectations.
      
   3. Matthew Arnold's “Dover Beach.”
      
   4. Emily Brontë's
      Wuthering Heights.
      
   5. Charlotte Brontë's
      Jane Eyre
      .
      

American literature is still considered a kind of younger sibling to English literature, and this bias is reflected on the Subject Test. This does not mean, however, that you can skip studying American authors altogether. You do need to have a sense of who the major figures are and be familiar with their works and periods.

 

 

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

 

Hawthorne is best known for his novels
The House of the Seven Gables
and
The Scarlet Letter
. Questions on the Subject Test will most likely address the latter. You should read this book and be familiar with the major characters and its setting in a Puritan community in colonial America: Hester Prynne, a woman who is ostracized for having a child out of wedlock and refusing to reveal the name of the father; her baby girl, Pearl; Roger Chillingsworth, her estranged husband who returns after she has had her baby and covertly seeks to discover and take revenge on the man who dishonored him; and Dimmesdale, the young and seemingly upright minister who is later revealed to be the father.

 

 

WALT WHITMAN

 

Whitman is one of the most important figures in all of American literature. His style is distinctive and his subject matter can generally be reduced to a few themes that make it easier to identify him: democracy, self, sensuality (including, at times, explicit homoeroticism) and transcendental philosophy. His major work is
Leaves of Grass
, a collection of poems that he continued to expand and revise throughout his entire career. In particular, you should read and become familiar with “Song of Myself.”

 

 

EMILY DICKINSON

 

Dickinson is recognizable by her blunt, clipped versification and frequent use of the dash. Her poems are short and once you've read a few you will have little trouble recognizing her work on identification questions. In particular, look at “Because I could not stop for Death,” “Bee! I'm Expecting You,” and “Hope is the Thing With Feathers.”

 

 

HERMAN MELVILLE

 

Melville's massive novel
Moby Dick
is considered one of the great achievements of American literature. If you have not already read it, you probably will not have time to in preparation for the Subject Test. We suggest you do take time to read through some parts of the book, however. It is a generically unstable work that alternates between a first-person narrative, drama (complete with stage directions), and chapters on whaling. The central figure is the fanatical Captain Ahab who destroys his ship,
The Pequod
, and all but one of his crew in his furious pursuit of the whale Moby Dick who has chewed off Ahab's leg. The sometime narrator and sole survivor is Ishmael, who famously begins the book by announcing his name: “Call me Ishmael.” Other important characters include Starbuck, Father Marple, who delivers a stirring sermon to the crew, and the harpooner, Queequeg.

 

 

MARK TWAIN

 

Mark Twain is the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens. The famous American humorist and writer is most celebrated for his novels
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
and
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
, which describe Mississippi frontier life.
The Innocents Abroad
is about American tourists,
The Prince and the Pauper
is about a democratic switch in places between the two title characters, and
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
is a satirical look at history and Twain's contemporary society. Puddn'head Wilson concerns itself with questions of race.

Drill Questions

Her breast is fit for pearls,
But I was not a “Diver”—
Her brow is fit for thrones
But I have not a crest.
Her heart is fit for home—
I—Sparrow—build there
Sweet of twigs and twine
My perennial nest.

• 1. The author of the above poem also wrote
  
  1. “Song of Myself.”
     
  2. “Because I could not stop for Death.”
     
  3. “The Imaginary Iceberg.”
     
  4. “The Emperor of Ice-Cream.”
     
  5. “Song for a Red Nightgown.”
     

  I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
  

  Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
  

  The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
  

  The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
  

• 2. The author of the above excerpt also wrote
  
  1. “Song of Myself.”
     
  2. “Because I could not stop for Death.”
     
  3. “The Imaginary Iceberg.”
     
  4. “The Emperor of Ice-Cream.”
     
  5. “Song for a Red Nightgown.”