EMBED. Come visit Novelonlinefull.com sometime to read the latest chapter of Eminent Victorians. Gordon repeatedly refused to take the opportunities he had to escape. The sketch of Dr. Thomas Arnold is the shortest of the four. Well, not much, according to the life histories detailed within the book. (Strachey had little patience with either Christianity or Christian institutions, a point of view that colors his attitude toward all his subjects in Eminent Victorians.) He served in the Royal Engineers during the Crimean War and was sent in 1860 to China, where he remained for four years as part of a British occupying force. Stanford Libraries' official online search tool for books, media, journals, databases, government documents and more. ©2020 eNotes.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved. One important asset was his ability to make friends in the right places, especially in the Vatican. Manning was soon elected to a Fellowship at Merton College, Oxford, conditional on his taking orders in the Church of England. At his funeral in January, 1892, there was grief in the streets; he had managed to touch the hearts of working people. Strachey picked an ecclesiastic, a woman of action, an educational authority, and a man of adventure to illustrate the multifaceted era in which they lived and worked. Strachey's Arnold, the headmaster of Rugby School, is little more than a pompous, pedantic fool. Gordon returned to England in 1880. Eminent Victorians is a groundbreaking work of biography that raised the genre to the level of high art. Gordon, in his fifties, was chosen by the English government for a delicate African mission. Manning won because he befriended Monsignor Talbot, the private secretary of the pope. General Gordon Eminent Victorians is a book by Lytton Strachey, consisting of biographies of four leading figures from the Victorian era. London was eventually forced to send an expeditionary force to relieve the city, but it arrived too late. When the news reached England, there was an outpouring of grief and indignation. Advanced embedding details, examples, and help! Last Updated on May 5, 2015, by eNotes Editorial. Hope you enjoy it. The Victorians made a memorable contribution to the ongoing debate over the character and origins of democracy through their examination of a host of issues, including the role of the Founding Fathers, ... Show Summary Details. At the time of writing Eminent Victorians, the country was more than usually certain that God was on its side. For ignorance is the first requisite of the historian--ignorance, which simplifies and clarifies, which selects and omits, with a placid perfection unattainable by the In Eminent Victorians (1918), Lytton Strachey examined the lives of four famous English individuals from the Victorian Era and found that they were not quite what previous biographies and popular legend had made them out to be. Strachey, in ‘Eminent Victorians’ reflects on the character of infamous historical heroine Florence Nightingale to cast the past lives of ordinary citizens, primarily women, as unsatisfactory and unfulfilling, and through this negative depiction of Victorian England, the author is able to uphold perceptions of the 20th century, through contrast, as a period of female liberation. The intelligent reader is more likely to be diverted than deceived by the author’s prejudices and dislikes, for they are hardly disguised. He was put in command of a Chinese army from Shanghai that won back huge amounts of land from a rebel force. Dr. Thomas Arnold, the father of the poet and critic Matthew Arnold, is generally considered to have been the founder of the British public school system. The appointment followed an internal struggle involving. It ushered in the modern biography and raised the genre to the level of high literary art. The result, in Eminent Victorians, is a series of radical reinterpretations. Word Count: 1292. Although they have been considered controversial, the biographical writings of Lytton Strachey are never dull. The pope appointed him provost of the Chapter of Westminster. Strachey determined that these large and tedious volumes, full of what he called "ill-digested masses of material," did a disservice to the art of biography. Nightingale remained a potent force at the War Office for ten years, also working on a host of other reform projects. EMINENT VICTORIANS by Lytton Strachey Preface THE history of the Victorian Age will never be written; we know too much about it. His determination to rise above mere facts sometimes carried him too far—to outright and even outrageous caricature—but the writing remained brilliant and stimulating. everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of Eminent Victorians. subscribe or … Religious and moral principle, and gentlemanly conduct, were valued more highly than intellectual ability. The general’s personality is unveiled as a mass of contradictions that no biographer could ever hope completely to unravel. The saintly, self-sacrificing woman, the delicate maiden of high degree who threw aside the pleasures of a life of ease to succour the afflicted, the Lady with the Lamp, gliding through the horrors of the hospital at Scutari, and consecrating with the radiance of her goodness the dying soldier’s couch—the vision is … What is Strachey's concept of biography as seen in the light of his preface to Eminent Victorians? But Gordon was also a man of action who was ambitious for fame and influence. They also brought, after consciousness had dulled almost into insensibility, the Order of Merit. Cardinal ManningEminent Victorians begins with an account of the life of Cardinal Manning (1807–1892), a convert from the Church of England who became Archbishop of Westminster and the leader of England’s Catholic community. In the process he lost a friend—a rather important one—named William Gladstone. Eventually he attained to an almost magical prestige. With relentless precision, Strachey explores the lives of four exemplars of the Victorian age: Cardinal Manning, Florence Nightingale, Thomas Arnold and General Gordon, irreverently bringing to light the flaws, strengths, ambitions and hypocrisies of these treasured legends. Very early in his life, Manning had fixed his hopes on a position of power and influence in the world. I read most of the book at an emergency clinic, where I was stuck for almost twelve hours without food or drink. Four such individuals are his subjects in Eminent Victorians. In 1860, with the opening of the Nightingale Training School for Nurses at St. Thomas’s Hospital, she became the founder of modern nursing. The first is her dramatic contribution to the welfare of the British wounded during the course of the Crimean campaign; the second deals with her unflagging efforts after the war to transform the Army Medical Department, revolutionize hospital services, and work much-needed reform in the War Office itself. It replaced reverence with skepticism and Strachey's wit, iconoclasm, and narrative skill liberated the biographical enterprise. Pushed on by Nightingale, Herbert died of overwork, and Aunt Mai left her to return to her own family. Each story is set against a specific background. The early Victorian years witnessed the emergence of a cluster of values and beliefs that represented the central ideas of Victorianism. He ruled his diocese with efficient zeal, lecturing, organizing charities, delivering sermons, and writing many devotional books. Cardinal Manning * Florence Nightingale * Thomas Arnold * General Gordon Lytton Strachey's biographical essays on four 'eminent Victorians' dropped a depth-charge on Victorian England when the book was published in 1918. She expected her friends to work as hard as she did, and if they did not, she questioned their commitment. Nightingale left the Crimea in July 1856, her reputation enormous. The four in question were Cardinal Manning, the leader of England's Roman Catholic community; Florence Nightingale, the nurse; Thomas Arnold, the educational reformer; and General Charles George Gordon, a soldier and adventurer. Published in 1918, Eminent Victorians is a collection of four biographies of prominent heroes at the time of the author, Lytton Strachey. Gordon’s ingenuity and military skill played a large part in the victory, and he returned to England with an enviable reputation. Nightingale was born into an upper middle class family but showed no interest in the usual pastimes of a young lady of her station. Each of the lives is very different from the others, although there are common threads—for example the recurrent appearance of William Ewart Gladstone and Arthur Hugh Clough. Eminent Victorians (1918) is a collection of four short biographies by Lytton Strachey. Strachey casts the next stage of Manning’s life in contrast to and opposition with that of Newman, who had also converted to Catholicism. In her old age, her character softened and she became less acerbic. For example, Cardinal Manning 's story summarizes how the Oxford Movement came to take place. This one-page guide includes a plot summary and brief analysis of Eminent Victorians by Lytton Strachey. Eminent Victorians, collection of short biographical sketches by Lytton Strachey, published in 1918.. 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