The Industrial Revolution and Literature

Paper Summary:

This paper looks at how poets and other writers of the Romantic and Victorian era were affected by the Industrial Revolution in England just as was the rest of the population. In particular, it discusses how in the Victorian era, Charles Dickens analyzed many aspects of the Industrial Revolution in books like "Hard Times" and how aspects of the era were addressed by poets such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Matthew Arnold.

From the Paper:

"The anonymous poet who wrote "Poverty Knock" captured much of the angst of the era as faced by workers who could barely afford to keep their jobs let alone lose them. Work for this new class of worker was a "dreary old drive" (line 8). Many of the writings of note from the era were produced not by writers as such but by the workers themselves, as in the letters of Ada Nield Chew asking for a living wage for the girls working in the factory (Greenblatt 1579). "

Sample of Sources Used:

• Greenblatt, Stephen (ed.), The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume 2. 8th Edition. New York: W.W. Norton, 2005.

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