Intro to literature 13

1. 1313thth
meeting – Other 19meeting – Other 19thth
Century PrOseCentury PrOse
Charles Lamb
• Essays of Elia (1823-33): essays on various light
subject written in an attractive style.
• Tales from Shakespeare (1807): written together
with his sister, Mary Lamb.
William Hazlitt
(a quarrelsome writer)
• Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays (1817-8),
Lectures on the English Poets (1818-9), English
Comic Writers (1819): literary criticisms.

2. • Confessions of an English Opium Eater(1822): a
prose where he describes how he got addicted by
opium and how he conquered it.
Thomas De Quincey
• History of French Revolution (1837): a picture of
passion and flame, where his style is suitable.
Thomas Carlyle
• Heroes and Hero-Worship (1837): shows that
Carlyle did not believe in equality among men, but in
the rule of the strong.

3. • History of England (1848,1855): popular but his
opinions are often narrow minded and he has been
accused often of reaching wrong conclusion.
Thomas Babington Macaulay
(a historian with amazing memories and metallic soul)
• A Naturalist’s Voyage Round the World (1839):
gives a description of his journey in the ship ‘Beagle’.
Charles Robert Darwin
(well known for his evolution theory)

4. Charles Robert Darwin
• The Origin of Species (1859): the result of 20 years of
study and enquiries among gardeners and farmers. (co-
operated with Alfred Russel Wallace)
• The Descent of Men (1871): applies the ideas of
Origin of Species to the human race. These two books
contain his famous theory of evolution.
• The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849): defends
Gothic architecture’s seven lamps: Sacrifice, Truth,
Power, Beauty, Life, Memory, and Obedience.
John Ruskin
(a student of art who aimed for a beautiful world)

5. Walter Pater
• Conclusion to Studies in the History of the
Renaissance (1873): an essay stating that art of all
kind should aim at beauty for no social nor moral
reason.
• Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865): written
for a girl, Alice, but popular for children and adults. It is
a story of a young girl going to a strange land full of
delightful nonsense but strangely reasonable.
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson
(write under the pen name Lewis Carroll)
• Through the Looking Glass (1872): the continuation
of Alice’s adventures.

6. Samuel Butler
• Erewhon (1872) and Erewhon Revisited (1901): a
satire on English customs, a story of a strange imaginary
country.
• The Way of All Flesh(1903): his autobiographical
study of parents and children, and the fortunes of the
Pontifex family.
• Life and Habit (1877): an argument against Darwin’s
theory where he says that habits and qualities are
handed down from father to son.

7. See You next week!