19th Century

In Great Britain, the Victorian Era lasted from 1837 to 1901. In the USA, the Civil War lasted from 1861 to 1865.
 

Industrial revolution

The Industrial Revolution was started by the invention of the steam machine (coal, railways, factories). All this happened in the cities: the increase of the population led to misery and social problems such as alcoholism, tuberculosis, prostitution... There was a shift from a belief in progress to an increasing pessimism.

Scientific revolution

Some inventions/discoveries: radioactivity, the gramophone, the light bulb and the electric chair. The world was changing extremely fast.

Realism is the fact of being faithful to reality. Authors now started writing about the life of ordinary people in ordinary situations.

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The Civil War

The Civil War in the United States began in 1861, after decades of simmering tensions between northern and southern states over slavery, states’ rights and westward expansion. 
 

Jane Austen (1775-1817)

An English Realist who lived during romanticism but she was not romantic at all. She described middle classes in the countryside (how to get married). A famous novel she wrote is Pride and Prejudice.

Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

The British author Charles Dickens defined realism with a strong social dimension : he portrayed the working class and the poor, and dealt with poverty and revolt against injustice. Dickens' characters are defenseless orphans in a cruel world and his novels were used for social reforms. One of the most famous works of Dickens is Great Expectations: a coming-of-age novel in which a young poor boy aspires for more in his life and works hard to climb the social ladder.

 

Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

The American Walt Whitman sees the link between the individual and democracy. Presenting himself as a model democrat who spoke as and for rather than apart from the people, Whitman’s [pet was a breaker of bounds. He wrote poems from the perspective of many different people (prostitutes, factory workers, farmers, slaves, etc. You may have already heard the poem we’re going to analyse in the movie The Dead Poets Society. It alludes to President Abraham Lincoln’s death in 1865.
 

O Captain! My Captain!

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,

The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;

                         But O heart! heart! heart!

                            O the bleeding drops of red,

                               Where on the deck my Captain lies,

                                  Fallen cold and dead.

 

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;

Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills,

For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding,

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

                         Here Captain! dear father!

                            This arm beneath your head!

                               It is some dream that on the deck,

                                 You’ve fallen cold and dead.

 

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,

My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,

The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,

From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;

                         Exult O shores, and ring O bells!

                            But I with mournful tread,

                               Walk the deck my Captain lies,

                                  Fallen cold and dead.

 

Questions

1. Whitman uses anaphora in this particular poem. Look up the definition of anaphora and explain the effect of its usage.

2. O Captain! My Captain! Consists of _____ stanzas.

3. Read this analysis of the poem and summarize the poem in your own words.

4. In what form was this poem written?

5. How would you describe the tone of the first lines of the first two stanzas? Why? 

6. What is meant with the fearful trip?[ls6] 

 

Edward Lear

Lear was an English artist, illustrator, author, and poet, renowned today primarily for his literary nonsense, in poetry and prose, and especially his limericks, a form that he popularized.

There was an Old Man with a beard,
Who said, 'It is just as I feared!
Two Owls and a Hen,
Four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard!'


1. This type of poetry can be called ___________

2. Summarize the poem in your own words.

3. What rhyme scheme was used?