The world they lived in

Nineteenth century English novels

Are you studying Hard Times, Great Expectations or Tess of the d’Urbervilles this year? It is likely that a lot of current A Level Eng Lit students are examining texts like these, which demonstrate the rapid changes in social organisation that took place during the nineteenth century.

Such novels depict the huge shift of the population from rural to city living. They chart the dislocation experienced when intimate communities and familiar landscapes are left behind for faceless streets. In cities it is easier to sink into oblivion without the watchful care of those who have known someone from birth.

The opportunity to develop

Yet cities also offer the chance for change, for re-definition. There are opportunities for a ‘nobody’ to become a ‘somebody’, to escape the social position of their family. New friendships established in new locations mean that people learn to judge others according to their material markers, rather than who their parents were.

Today’s obsession with ‘location, location, location’ is a direct descendant of the nineteenth century’s urban expansion, with its stress on living in a ‘respectable neighbourhood’. If you are studying the era for History, you will have a good grasp of this process and its impact.

No time?

However, for those who don’t have the time to research it for themselves, there are two new articles from Crossref-it.info. Part of an entire section about the world of the Victorians, these give you a useful overview of the situation in Britain that created the backdrop for your set texts. Go to

• World of Victorian writers > Town and country life
• World of Victorian writers > Urbanisation and the Suburbs

Remember, examiners give you marks when you can demonstrate understanding of the significance and influence of the contexts in which literary texts were written and received (AO4).

The World of the Victorians

You may just have brain ache by 9pm on a Sunday night, but if you can catch it, Jeremy Paxman’s BBC 1 series on looking at Victorian society through the pictures they painted is a great way of providing contextual information on any of the 19thC texts you are studying.

• If you have a note book handy, you could jot down the names of any memorable pictures that relate to a theme in your novel / poetry and potentially reap some real benefits in terms of exam results.
• Another idea is to go to the World of Victorian writers section on Crossref-it.info for handy articles about the impact of industrialisation, transport, education etc. on society
• Paxman’s series shows how Victorian society was heavily shaped and motivated by commonly held beliefs which were widely promoted, be it conventional Christian morality, free will or whatever. Some of these ideas are explained in more detail here.

Remember that 25% of the new A Level English Lit course depends on relating texts to the world in which they were created, so information like this can have a huge impact on your chances of success!